Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have one other comment I would like to make while I am here. It involves the Baha'i faith and the abuse of its leaders in Iran. I rise today to discuss an issue that some constituents of mine brought to my attention when I was in Nashville this summer. We met to discuss the plight of the Baha'i in Iran. The Baha'i faith was founded in Persia in 1844 and is one of the fastest growing religions in the world, with more than five million followers in more than 200 countries and territories. It is the largest non-Muslim religious community in Iran today. Baha'i followers have been persecuted for their faith by the Iranian Government since their religion was established, but the frequency and severity of the persecutions has increased under the Presidency of Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad. More than two years ago, a group of seven Baha'i leaders, often referred to as the ``Yaran'' or ``friends,'' were arrested. They were charged with pursuing propaganda activities against Islam and for spying on behalf of Israel. After more than two years of ``temporary'' confinement, the seven were tried in a closed court proceeding that did not meet even the minimum international standards for proper criminal procedure and protection of civil rights. The six men and one woman were each sentenced to 20 years in prison on August 8. This is yet another example of the Iranian Government striking out against its own people. We saw violent examples of this in June of last year, when Iranian citizens began protesting the unfair Presidential election. Those who dare differ with the government face baseless charges, closed court proceedings, extremely harsh sentences, and possibly even death. The international community has expressed its outrage about the sentencing of this group, and Secretary of State Clinton issued a statement on August 12 that reaffirms our country's commitment to protecting religious freedom around the world, including that of the Baha'i in Iran. This is more than a story from the other side of the world. There are more than 168,000 Baha'i in the United States. There are more than 2,000 in my home State of Tennessee. The men and women with whom I met in August have family members--fathers, mothers, sons, brothers, and in-laws--who have been arrested and imprisoned in Iran simply because of their faith. Their only request was that we, as Members of the United States Senate, continue to do all that we can to keep the spotlight on Iran and its persecution of peaceful citizens. That is why I wanted to bring this matter to the attention of the Senate today. The United States has already imposed sanctions on Iran by enacting the Iran Sanctions Act. I hope by shining a spotlight on this extreme and continued abuse of peaceful adherence of the Baha'i faith by the Iranian Government, we can, No. 1, reaffirm our commitment to religious freedom around the world; and No. 2, make a little more uncomfortable the regime in Iran which perpetrates these crimes against its own people. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Will the Chair please let me know when I have consumed 9 minutes.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, it is good to see the distinguished Presiding Officer. He must have been here all day. He was here yesterday, and I am glad to see him again. Are there limits on my speaking time at the moment?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I just returned from the Hudson Institute, a distinguished think tank downtown where I made an address called the New Promise of American Life--Less From Washington and More of Ourselves. It included a panel of the following people: Kate O'Beirne of the National Review; Christopher DeMuth, who was formerly the head of the American Enterprise Institute; Chester Finn, who runs the Fordham Foundation; Bill Kristol, the founder of the Weekly Standard; and William Schambra, who is a fellow at the Hudson Institute. They commented on what I had to say. It was one of my most enjoyable experiences because it was a reprise of something we did in 1995. In 1995, I was a fellow at the institute and I was also touring the country trying to persuade Americans that I was the next logical choice for President of the United States. That didn't work out exactly right. In fact, when I lost, my brother-in-law, who is a preacher, said I should think of that political loss as a reverse calling. I have always tried to think of it that way. Nevertheless, during that time, Chester Finn and I edited a book called ``The New Promise of American Life.'' We selected that title because Herbert Croly, in 1909, had written a book called ``The Promise of American Life'' which really was the progressive manifesto that launched the thinking of President Wilson and more recently President Obama. Our thought then, in 1995 and 1996--Mr. Kristol, Mr. Schambra, and Mr. Finn were all contributors to our volume--was that progressivism had gone too far and that we needed less of Washington and more of ourselves. That is what we said in 1995. Looking back over that volume, that was pretty good advice, but obviously nobody took it. So today the Hudson Institute sponsored another forum about the new promise of American life. I talked about it, and the people I just mentioned commented. It was interesting for me in a variety of ways. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the address I made at the institute today as well as excerpts from ``The New Promise of American Life'' published in 1995, namely, the introduction, the preface, and the first chapter.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the premise of my remarks was that we don't do comprehensive very well in the U.S. Congress. That was challenged by some of the conservatives on the panel today. That was my point. My suggestion was that those who were elected in the 2010 election not make the same mistakes as those elected before made, which, in my opinion, was not just to head in the wrong direction but to try to do it all at once. It is one thing to think comprehensively; it is another thing to act comprehensively. There have been multiple attempts to repeal the health care law from the day it passed. Our efforts at comprehensive immigration and comprehensive climate change fell of their own weight. I am tempted, as I am sure most people are, to make comprehensive changes. We talked about some examples with the panel. Take education. I suppose I have had about every position on education reform possible. I have been for abolishing the Department of Education. I have been the U.S. Department of Education Secretary. I have been both. I remember as a Governor in 1981, I went to see President Reagan and asked him to swap all of elementary and secondary education for Medicaid. In other words, the Federal Government would take all of Medicaid and the States would have all of elementary and secondary education. The Presiding Officer is from the State of Minnesota, where there is a high value placed on education. My own view is that the high value placed on education by the communities of Minnesota does much more to assure quality education than anything we could do here. I thought if we got rid of the idea that Washington could make our schools better, those in the communities of Tennessee would feel more responsibility. President Reagan liked that, but it didn't get anywhere. Most big comprehensive schemes don't. Our country is too big and complicated and too diverse. Our constitutional system separates power into too many places. And on top of that, we just are not smart enough to figure out a solution for all the many different things that are happening in this country. My advice in this address is that those who were elected in 2010 head in a different direction. We talked a lot about less government, less taxes. We talked about fewer Washington takeovers. We don't like all the czars and czarinas. There are more of them than the Romanovs ever imagined. But as we head in a different direction, I suggest that we go step by step to attempt to re-earn the trust of the American people. There used to be signs that said: Think globally, act locally. I think we might think comprehensively but act step by step. Because if we don't, there are two dangers. One is that we won't succeed. It will be a lot easier, for example, to fix No Child Left Behind, the education law, than it will be to comprehensively reauthorize it. It is a 1,000-page law filled with provisions backed by those with vested interests--Members of Congress, teachers unions, principals, people all over the country. Comprehensively reauthorizing it will be hard to do. But if we want to fix it, we can probably pick four or five or six things we need to fix and maybe, in a bipartisan way, go step by step to do that. If we want clean energy, comprehensive, economy-wide cap and trade proved too much to swallow here. But we could create an environment for 100 new nuclear plants. We should be able to encourage electric cars. We should be able to double energy research and development. Those are steps in the right direction. We took steps in the right direction with the America Competes Act. We did that in a bipartisan way. Our overwhelming priorities today are jobs, debt, and terror. We are not likely to solve any of those problems all at once. We might think comprehensively about how to do it, but we need to act step by step. For example, our goal would be to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs. That should be the first goal. Especially on this side of the aisle, we believe that raising taxes on anybody-- anybody--in the middle of an economic downturn makes no sense, because it makes it harder to create private sector jobs. But that is only one step. If I were to make my list, I would add to that list: reducing the corporate income tax so our corporations can be competitive in the world, and I would say defend the right to work and the secret ballot in union elections. I would also say build a first-class transportation system. I would also say increase funding for research and development at major universities because it is that brainpower that creates jobs for us. So there are many different steps we would take to create a pro-growth economy. Take the issue of debt. We have a debt commission report today which has attracted all of our attention. We have a horrendous problem with Federal debt. Mr. President, 42 cents out of every dollar we are spending is borrowed. If we try to fix it all at once, the country would collapse. But if we wait another day to begin to fix it, we should be ashamed. We can take steps. We can say caps on discretionary spending. That is a third of the budget. We can say no new entitlement automatic spending programs. Let's not dig the hole any deeper. We could say, let's have a 2-year budget so every other year we can devote the year to reviewing the regulations we have and laws we have and the rules we have, so we can get rid of some of them. We may need some new laws, but let's get rid of some of the old ones. I stood right here on the floor of the Senate a couple years ago and voted against the Higher Education Act. Now, here I am a former university president and Education Secretary and so-called education Governor, and education is my passion--I say to the Presiding Officer, if another Senator comes to the floor, I will be glad to yield the floor--but I voted against the Higher Education Act. Why did I do that? During the debate, I got permission to bring to the floor all of the regulations that now exist under the current Higher Education Act. You have to ask for unanimous consent to bring demonstrative evidence on the floor. I had to do that once with Minnie Pearl's hat. I had it here in the drawer, but I could not bring it out unless I asked unanimous consent, which I got. And I got it to bring all these regulations. And what I said was that I am voting against this act because reauthorization of the act would double the stack of regulations. So all of these things have to do with debt, limited government, and spreading prosperity and spreading freedom. So my argument is basically that those of us who are in the Republican Party, those of us who this year won more of the elections--we know what it is like to be on the other side. Two years ago, we hardly won anything. Two years before that, we got elected one Republican Senator. But those of us who are on the winning side this time I think would do well to head in a different direction. Yes, make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs, get to work on the debt, be strategic and tough about terror, be resolute about the direction we are going, but do it step by step. We are more likely to be able to persuade people to do it. When we are through, we may be more likely to persuade them to live under those rules and regulations. When you do it comprehensively, when you bite off more than you can chew, when you offer a 2,000-page solution to anything--whether it is a comprehensive liberal solution or progressive solution or whether it is a comprehensive conservative solution--you are likely to frighten-- well, you are likely to make angry the people on the other side and scare the independent voters half to death. As a result, you will not succeed. We as Republicans have a chance in the next 2 years to prove to the Nation we deserve to be the governing party. We are not today. There is a Democratic President and there is a Democratic Senate and there is a Republican House. So if we want to make progress, we have to work together when we can form a consensus. But if we want the privilege of being more than an ideological debating society and being actually a governing party, we have to re- earn the trust of the American people. We have to say: What are Republicans for? I am suggesting that when we say what we are for, we pick our goals--make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs, reduce spending closer to revenues, be tough and strategic on terror--and then we go step by step in that direction, and we take people with us and we gain their support. I have mentioned on this floor before the example of the civil rights laws. Slavery was the greatest injustice in our country's history. It plagued us from the day of our country's founding. Our Founders punted on the subject, and then we tore ourselves apart in a war, and then we waited a century to do much about it. By any intellectual standard, by any moral standard, we should have fixed that all at once. But Lyndon Johnson, who was the majority leader at the time, knew better than to try to do that. In fact, he knew he could not do that. So starting in 1958 and then in 1964 and then in 1968 and then in 1975 were the major civil rights laws in the country. We went step by step to realize the promise of American life: that all men and women are created equal. Now, it is easy to sit somewhere and say: Well, that went too slow, and a comprehensive approach toward civil rights would have been the right thing to do. It would have been the right thing to do, but it never would have happened. There is one other problem with it: it would not have been accepted by the country. The civil rights laws of 1964 and 1968, during a time of Democratic majorities and a Democratic President, were written-- where?--in the office of the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, Everett Dirksen. Now, why did President Johnson do that? Well, you can say he did not need the votes. He had huge majorities in the House and in the Senate. Well, it was a little more complicated than that because he had southern Democrats, and they were against it. So first he needed the votes to pass the bill. But the thing President Johnson understood so well was that he not only needed to pass the bill, he needed the country to accept it. And as controversial as the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was--the one written down the hall in the Republican leader's office by a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress--as controversial as it was, when it was over, Senator Russell of Georgia, for whom a building here is named, went to Georgia and said: I fought this for 30 years, but it is the law of the land, and we obey it. Lyndon Johnson knew that going step by step in the right direction was the right way to get where our country had to go. So we have some big challenges ahead of us, and some of them we will be able to do in a bipartisan way. I hope we can do that with No Child Left Behind. Let's fix it with four or five or six steps. Arne Duncan has some good ideas. They are very consistent with the ideas of a number of Democrats and a number of Republicans. That would be a start. The America Competes Act we should authorize at some point. That would be another step we could take. I think we have some steps on clean energy. There are some areas where we will disagree. We are going to have some Republican ideas about making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs that our friends on the other side will honestly disagree with. We are having one of those disagreements this weekend because we believe it makes no sense to raise taxes on anybody in the middle of an economic downturn if your goal is to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs, and they have a little different view. So we will have votes on that. So we will have our differences of opinion. But if we want to be successful, we as a country--and if we as a party, the Republican Party, want to be successful in earning the trust of the American people to prove we are eligible, qualified, worthy of being a governing party after 2012, then we better set our clear goal: make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs and go step by step toward that goal, explaining carefully what we are doing, attracting independent voters, keeping independent voters, so that when we pass a law, the country accepts it, and then we move on ahead. So that is what our discussion was about today, and it is an important discussion. It is not just some dusty, dry thing. Herbert Croly's book in 1909, ``The Promise of American Life,'' is the manifesto for the progressive movement that has ascended in this country right now. And our idea of less from Washington and more of ourselves is an intellectual context for the antidote to that. It is for the resurgent movement in America that began with President Jefferson's yeoman farmer, with his distrust in the Federal Government and his skepticism of great big policy schemes imposed from Washington. That is the grand debate of the last century, and it is the one we are in the midst of today. So I thank the Senate for giving me an opportunity to present my thoughts. I thank my colleagues who attended the Hudson Institute discussion today. And I especially urge my Republican colleagues to remember that if we want to re-earn the trust of the American people, we need to set the right goals and move in that direction, step by step. We will have to be a little patient to get there, but that is a good way to get where we want to go. I see the distinguished Senator from the University of Arkansas on the floor. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, there must be something about the interval between the Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas and the effect it has on our Democratic friends. Again, this year, as they did last year, they begin to disappear for hours at a time into a room together, without any Republicans or any other kind of person there to talk and they get excited about issues and they come together. They persuade each other that they are right, and then they rush to the Senate floor after several hours and offer a bill of the most urgent kind. In this case, it is about double-paned vinyl windows. Here we are. The Senator from Oregon, a good colleague, a distinguished friend--this may be a good bill, but he is asking by his request that we not debate, that we not amend, and that we just pass it. He is saying, at the same time, that this must be the most urgent thing before us. When he is finished with his other matters, I wish to say a little bit more. But let me reiterate what I have said over and over again. We have suggested to the majority leader that we focus on dealing with funding the government first, since we run out of money Friday, and deal with the tax issue next since taxes automatically go up the first of the year. After we have done those two things, we move to whatever the majority leader brings up. He may wish to bring up the new START treaty. He could bring up the new START treaty today. We said nothing about that in our letter. So all this talk I just heard has nothing to do with our letter, with what has been said on the floor. I will have more to say about that in a moment. But we should fund the government, keep tax rates where they are. Then I think what the American people said to us was: Go home, bring this new Congress back, and let's begin to deal with the debt. We have a report of the debt commission coming out. We should be making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs. The best way to do that is not to raise taxes on anybody in the middle of an economic downturn. That makes it harder to create jobs and makes no sense. We want to do that first. Therefore, I object.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if I could reflect for a few minutes on what we have heard. There is a lot of passion in the Senate. This is actually a place where there is supposed to be. We come here to debate the most important issues that are before us. Let me talk first about what Republicans have suggested. I have said this a few times during the debate, but I wish to say it again. We have suggested setting priorities in the Senate. We have a right to be heard. There are 42 of us now. There will be 47 after January. It is not our voices. It is the voices of the American people. They expect to be heard. Just a few weeks ago they said to us and to the entire country: We have had a government of too much taxes, too much debt, too much spending, and too many Washington takeovers. We would like Members of Congress to focus on making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs, No. 1; bring spending under control so we don't have such a debt, No. 2; and be smart about terror, No. 3. That is what we would like to do. This lameduck session is a period after an election where people usually listen to the voters. So our recommended view is we should keep the tax rates where they are, fund the government, consider the debt commission's report, which we hope to receive this week, and go home and bring the new Congress back, which was just elected, to begin to deal with jobs, debt, and terror. If the President feels it is sufficiently important for the new START treaty to be dealt with before Christmas, his majority leader can bring it up any day he wants to. He has a right to do that tonight, this afternoon. He can put it on the floor, and we can have several days of debate. But remember, the government runs out of money Friday. Tax forms are being filled out because taxes automatically go up in January for almost everybody, and we are saying: Why have we waited so late to deal with this? Let's do it. There is nothing wrong with priority in government. In fact, I respectfully suggest that for the last couple years the lack of priorities has been a big part of the problem. We have had a lot of very smart people in the government, but managers, leaders usually say: Here is the most important thing. Let's work on it until we fix it. We do not have to go far back in history to have General Eisenhower, running for President in 1952, saying: I shall go to Korea. He did not announce 23 different things he needed to do. He said: I shall go to Korea. In October he said that, and in November he was elected. By the beginning of December he was in Korea, and he said: I shall spend my time on this until I get it done, and the people of the world and of the United States believed in him because they knew that a President of the United States who throws himself into almost any subject, with as much as he has for as long as it takes, can get a pretty good result. We should be doing that with jobs. There is no magic formula on that. But virtually every economist who has testified--either those called by the Democrats or the Republicans--have said to us this simple fact that I bet most Americans would agree with: Raising taxes on anybody in the middle of an economic downturn makes it harder to create jobs. If our No. 1 priority is to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs, raising taxes makes no sense as a policy. That is our position. We would like for those tax rates to be permanent. The President's former Budget Director, Mr. Orszag, after he left the President's employ just a few months ago, said: Well, perhaps a 2-year extension of the current tax rates would be a good idea because it does make it harder to create jobs. He is aware, as all of us are aware, that for 16 out of the last 17 months unemployment has been at more than 9.5 percent. So it is all right to consider a bill to deal with double-paned windows, but when tax rates are going up on everybody in America, including the job creators, if we want to take a step toward making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs, not more government jobs, we need to keep the tax rates right where they are right now and send that signal to the American people. All we are saying to the Democratic majority is, let's do that first, let's fund the government, and then let's go to the other issues. The President, to his great credit, had a meeting yesterday which had a decidedly different tone to it. I had been mystified by the relationship of the President and the Republican leader over the last 2 years. I came up here 40 years ago in the Senate as a young aide. I remember Senator Howard Baker's story of when he first came here. I was his legislative assistant. He said he was sitting in there in the Republican leader's office, the phone rang, and it was President Johnson calling Senator Dirksen. He heard Senator Dirksen say: No, Mr. President, I can't come down and have a drink with you tonight. I did that last night and Louella is very mad at me. Then, about 30 minutes later, there was a big rustle outside and the noise came up and two beagles came through the door with the President behind them and the President said to the Republican leader: Everett, if you won't come have a drink with me, I will have one with you. David Gergen told me that President Johnson called the Republican leader at 5 o'clock almost every afternoon. That was the kind of relationship they had. Yet for the first 2 years, the current President and the Republican leader had only one one-on-one meeting because the whole attitude around here was: We won the election. We will write the bill. So you jammed the health care law through last Christmas, which nobody had a chance to read, feeling pretty good about it. So there have been immediate, multiple efforts to repeal it from the day it passed. Compare that with the relationship 40 years ago when the civil rights bill passed. It was written in the Republican leader's office, even though the Democratic majority was large and the President was a Democrat, because they not only wanted to pass it, they wanted it to be supported by the country. When it was passed, even though Senator Russell, for whom one of the buildings here is named, had opposed it for years--the Civil Rights Act of 1968--he went back to Georgia and said: It is the law of the land. We should enforce it, because he respected the process by which it had been done. So this attitude that we won the election, we will write the bill, we will jam it down your throat whether you like it or not--that was the last 2 years, but that is over. When 47 Republicans come in, it is going to be a balanced Senate. There is going to be a change toward more balance, and that is an important part of what the American people voted for just a few weeks ago. The President, to his credit, recognizes that. He had a meeting yesterday at the White House which had a decidedly different tone it to. Everybody who was a part of it says that, both Democrats and Republicans. One thing they talked about was taxes. We have to deal with it. So they formed a little group, and they are busy trying to work that out. The other thing is fund the government. We run out of money Friday. We are busy trying to work that out. On the New START treaty, senators have very strong opinions: Senator Kyl, Senator Corker, Senator Lugar. We respect the President on matters of national security, and if he says something is important, it is important to us, even if he is a Democratic President and we are Republicans. So the majority leader may want to bring that up. But he is the majority leader. It is up to him to bring it up. We cannot do that until we have the majority, which we hope we do someday. So he can bring it up. So we have said: Let's set a couple of priorities around here: deal with taxes, fund the government, and then if there is time left, Mr. Majority Leader, bring up what you want. If you want to bring up a bill about double-paned windows, that is fine. If you want to bring up don't ask, don't tell, that will take a week of debate. If you want to bring up a bill about this, that or the other, that is fine. You set the priorities. There is one other thing I heard during this discussion: Why aren't we working? I will tell you why we are not working. It is because of the schedule of the Democratic leader. Forty times he has brought up legislation, and then he said there will be no amendment and no debate. That is like having the Grand Ole Opry open and saying: There will be no singing. That is what we do. We offer amendments. We debate on behalf of the American people. This is the only body in the world where you have unlimited debate and unlimited amendment. When you bring up any bill, whether it is the double-paned windows bill that was so urgently presented a moment ago, whether it is the New START treaty, which has to do with our nuclear modernization and our national security, we bring it up, hopefully, after it has had careful consideration by the committees, where the military experts and the foreign policy experts have weighed in, and then we have a debate and everyone gets to offer their amendments and everyone gets to say what they think about those amendments. If we have to stay Monday night, we should stay Monday night--and Tuesday night and Wednesday night and we can even stay Friday. We have not voted on one Friday this year. That is not because of the Republican schedule. We are not in charge of the schedule. So, why is there nobody here to debate? Because there is nothing to debate. The Democratic leader brings up a bill and then he says there will be no amendment and no debate. My hope is that as a result of this more evenly balanced Senate and the good will of the Democratic leader, whom I greatly respect, and the Republican leader--he and Senator Reid are very much veterans of the Senate. They respect this institution greatly. I would like to see us get back to the point at which we were not very long ago. I can remember the Senate in the days of the late Senator Byrd and Senator Baker, with whom I first came to the Senate as a staff member. They basically had an agreement that worked like this: Senator Baker was majority leader for 4 years, Senator Byrd majority leader for 4 years, but they led their parties for 8 years. When they did, Senator Baker would say to the committees: Don't bring a bill to the floor unless it has the chairman and the ranking minority committee member both agreeing to it. Then, when it came to the floor, they would say: All right, let everybody offer their amendments. There might be 300 amendments. Then, after a while, they would offer a motion to agree to have no more amendments, and usually they would get that. Then they would, by discussion, narrow that down to a number and then people would get their amendments. You might have to be here late one night. You might have to be here Friday. You might have to be here Saturday. Senators would say: Well, I wonder how important this amendment is. But the American people were heard on the floor of the Senate. So it is my great hope that in the new Congress, where there will be a relatively even number of Senators--Democrats will still be setting the agenda, they can bring up whatever they wish--I would hope what we agree to do is to go back to this body being what it was and can be and should be. We have 16 new Senators, 3 of them Democratic, 13 Republican. They ran for this office in very difficult races. It is not easy to do these days. They are here not just for their voices to be heard but for the voices of the people of their States to be heard--for the people of Kentucky, for the people of Wyoming, for the people of Pennsylvania, for the people of Delaware. They want to be heard here. If we bring up the New START treaty or the double-paned window bill or the tax bill or whatever it is, the Senator from Delaware, the Senator from Pennsylvania, the Senator from Tennessee ought to have a chance to amend it, ought to have a chance to be heard. Then, after we do that, we can decide: OK. That is enough of that. Let's have a vote. That is the way we do things. I think we can do that. I have seen it happen time and time again. We did it on the energy bill. We tried it on the immigration bill. Sometimes it works; sometimes it does not. It is a great way to legislate. So it would again be a joy to be a Member of the Senate. This period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is not a great time to do very much. We have been here for 2 years. We just had an election. We are waiting for the new Members to come. They have their marching orders. I said to some of my friends the other day: My friends on the Democratic side keep insisting on an encore for a concert that drew a lot of boos. I think what most Americans would like for us to do is keep the tax rates right where they are, fund the government before it runs out of money, consider the proposals for reducing the debt, and go home. If the President thinks it is important for us to deal with the New START treaty before Christmas, then he might say a word to the Democratic leader that after we deal with taxes and fund the government, that maybe that ought to be the next order of business instead of the double-paned window bill or any other variety of bills, all of which may be fine legislation. But you just do not walk in here 3 weeks before Christmas with some bill with nobody here and ask it be passed by unanimous consent. That is not the way the American people want us to do business, and that does not give this body the respect it deserves. So I greatly appreciate my friends on the other side and their passion for their point of view. I respect that passion. I think one of the cardinal rules of this body is never to question the motive of another Senator and always to respect the passion and point of view of another Senator. But I would like for us to get back to the point where you bring up something and we debate it--not you bring up something and you cut off amendments, you cut off debate, and then you do not do anything for a week. That is why nobody is here. I will conclude with these remarks, by just restating our position. We sent this letter at the beginning of the week saying that the 42 Republican Senators want to use our voices to say that first we should fund the government, since we run out of money by the end of the week, and, second, we should deal with taxes so we can prevent a tax increase on anybody in the middle of an economic downturn. Then we should go to any other legislative item the majority leader wishes. Of course, he is free to bring up something like the New START treaty any time he wants to. That seems, to me, to be a very reasonable approach, presented at the right time, in the right way, during a time when the President and the Republican and Democratic leaders are meeting together, when negotiations are going on about what the tax bill might be, when discussions are going on about how to fund the government, and when we are all in meetings right through this stretch about whether we are modernizing our nuclear weapons sufficiently so we can, in good conscience, vote to ratify the New START treaty. Those are the most important issues, and that is what we should be talking about this month. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I will be happy to yield for a question.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank the Senator from New York for mentioning me. There is a little problem with our negotiating. We weren't invited to the meeting. The Senator from New York and I were in the Capitol doing our work, tending to constituencies, while the President and the Democratic leaders and the Republican leaders were at the White House. They had a very constructive meeting, from what I understand, and they designated certain Democrats and certain Republicans to see if they could come up with a compromise. One of those who might have been at the meeting may have just walked onto the Senate floor and maybe he can inform us, but the negotiations are continuing where they should continue. I was delighted to see the President invite the leaders down to the White House for such a good meeting. I know they have had some joint meetings before, but we are never going to get anywhere in the Senate where we have a relatively equal number of Members--as we now do or are now about to--unless we swap ideas. So I assume they are down there swapping ideas. I assume they can read the calendar, and I assume they can remember that last year we were standing here in the worst snowstorm in decades in the middle of the night--1 a.m.--voting on bills nobody had read. I don't think we want to do that kind of thing again. So we Republicans have said, very simply, let's deal with the tax issue because taxes go up automatically at the end of the month, let's fund the government because it runs out of money on Friday, and then, if we have any time left, let's do whatever the Democratic leader would like to do. If he wants to bring up the new START treaty, that would be fine. We would have time to debate it. If he wants to bring up a whole string of other things, that is up to him. What would the terms of the tax agreement be? I guess it will be whatever that group who discusses, our negotiators, come back with. If the President were to say, for example, he agrees with his former Budget Director, that raising taxes on anybody in the middle of an economic downturn makes it harder to create jobs--and in my words, therefore, makes no sense--he would probably get a welcome response on our side. So while the Senator from New York is one of the most skillful debaters and negotiators anywhere on the planet, and he would be very good in any sort of discussion on taxes--he is a member of the Finance Committee, and he is chairman of the Rules Committee--he wasn't in the meeting and neither was I and those in the meeting are having the discussion and they will make a recommendation. My hope is they make a recommendation that permits tax rates to stay right where they are because raising taxes on anybody in the middle of a recession is a bad idea because it makes it harder to create jobs.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Alabama here. I don't want to take time from him. Let me see if I can go back to the beginning. The government runs out of money Friday. Taxes go up at the end of the month. Republicans have written a letter to the majority leader that says: Let's focus on those two things. Let's fund the government and let's keep the tax rates where they are which would be the single best thing we could do in the middle of an economic downturn to help create jobs, and then we are ready to go home. We think we heard the results of the election. Our friends on the other side keep on insisting on an encore after a concert which attracted a lot of boos. What the American people were saying to us is, fund the government, keep the tax rates where they are, freeze spending, and go home. Bring the new Congress back in January, and let's begin to work on the priorities of the American people which are, No. 1, to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs; No. 2, bring spending closer to revenues; and No. 3, be smart and strategic in dealing with terror. So one, two, three--those should be our objectives. In the last 2 weeks in this so-called lameduck session, insisting on an encore after a concert that attracted a lot of boos shows a lot of tone deaf politicians. What we Republicans have asked is extraordinarily reasonable. The President--and I give him great credit for this--had a bipartisan leadership meeting. It was the best one he has had since he has been President. It was constructive. As a result, the Republican and Democratic leaders who met together said: We will designate a smaller group to see if we can work out the tax part of this. Then, in the discussion that came afterwards, we, on our side, made it clear to the President and to the Democratic leader that after you fund the government--remember, the money runs out Friday. We have to do this. Nobody wants the government to shut down. After we deal with taxes-- remember, they go up automatically at the first of the year--then we will go to wherever the majority leader of the Senate wants to go. He is the single person who can bring up something, and if he chooses to go to the DREAM Act, if he chooses to go to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, if he chooses to go to a whole laundry list of other issues, that is entirely his prerogative. We, under the traditions of the Senate, have the right to make the voices heard of the people we represent and amend and debate things. If the majority leader says: I have listened to the President. He thinks the New START treaty is the most important thing to go to next. He can bring that up if he wishes to. We can debate that. We would want ample time to do that. That is a part of the Senate tradition as well. There is nothing in the letter that 42 Republicans signed that says anything about national security or the New START treaty. It talks about legislative proposals. We recognize that until some fortuitous event should occur that we might have the majority, it is up to the Democratic leader what comes up. The Senator from Missouri was talking about the New START treaty. We are not talking about it. In fact, we are meeting on it. We are working with the administration to see if nuclear modernization can be properly done.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I will not. I will continue my remarks and the Senator may gain the floor later. We are working on making certain that if the New START treaty is approved, we are not left with a collection of wet matches. We want to make sure the nuclear warheads we have work. I am one Republican who is open to voting for the New START treaty. I see the advantages of the data and of the inspections that come from it. I know the tradition of disarmament and nuclear arms control. I am deeply concerned about the condition of the facilities that do our nuclear modernization. I am impressed with the progress the President is making in that area. Let's continue to make that progress. If the majority leader wants to move to that, he can. But instead this afternoon we get a long list of new proposals that have come in here that we haven't read, that haven't been through committee. It reminds me of Christmas Eve a year ago. Let's just bring a bunch of bills in here. Nobody has read them. It doesn't matter. The American people said in November they didn't like that. So they sent a bunch of new people here. With all respect, we understand what it is like to lose an election. We have lost a lot of them lately. We had very few Republicans elected in 2006. We had very few elected in 2008. We thought the people had something to say to us. We tried to learn from that. We hadn't been doing some things well. We are trying to work our way back. We are trying to re-earn the confidence of the American people going step by step. We think the steps that are appropriate today are to keep the tax rates where they are in the middle of an economic downturn. It makes no sense to tax job creators at a time when unemployment has been above 9.5 percent for 16 out of the last 17 months and when it has only been that high for 30 out of the last 862 months. What we are suggesting is the kind of thing that President Obama's former budget director has suggested, Mr. Orszag. He said: Let's extend it for 2 years because raising taxes in the middle of an economic downturn makes no sense because it doesn't create jobs. We would like for them to be permanent. That is a possible area of compromise. Keep the tax rates where they are, deal with funding the government, and then let's move to whatever subject the majority leader would like to move to, including the New START treaty, if he thinks that is the most important area. I wish to make sure the Republican position is well understood. I understand we have printed in the Record our letter to Senator Reid of yesterday which says very simply: Dear Mr. Majority Leader, we 42 Republicans believe that we should keep tax rates where they are because they go up at the end of the month, and we should fund the government because it runs out of money Friday. And after those two, we can move to whatever legislative item you would like to. Of course, we have no comment on whether you move to a treaty such as the New START treaty. That is our position. We believe that is a reasonable position. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Assuming the Senator from Alabama still has the floor, I agree with him, in answer to the question. The idea is that you don't raise taxes in the middle of an economic downturn because it makes it harder to create jobs. And that raising those taxes now makes no sense. That is simply the argument.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Yes, that is his point. He wrote that in the Wall Street Journal shortly after he left the administration. I believe, in fairness to Mr. Orszag, he said tax rates ought to be differentiated, and he expects that we would have a big argument about the levels of taxation, if we are doing something in a permanent way. But he did say very clearly that given the length and severity of the economic downturn, that the logical thing to do would be to keep the current rates exactly where they are for at least 2 years because not to do so would clearly cause job loss. If we are listening to the American people and we have our eyes open, making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs should be our main objective, and raising taxes on anybody in an economic downturn runs against that objective.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am delighted to hear the eloquence of the Senator from New York. As I was listening to him I was reminded that most of the people whose taxes he is trying to raise live in New York. They are not in Tennessee. We are a relatively low-income State. So I admire him for his courage--it is almost a tax earmark to be so specific that we are going to raise taxes on just a small number of people, most of whom live on Wall Street and in New York. That makes a pretty good line. But what I agree with is what I repeatedly said, what the Republican leader said, and the former budget director said. Let me just say it again because it makes very good sense, and I think most Americans would instinctively agree with this. We are in the middle of a very severe economic recession. We have had more than 9.5 percent unemployment for 16 out of the last 17 months. We have only had 30 months in modern history where we have had unemployment that high. Almost half of those months have been lately. Making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs should be our main objective. Almost every economist--the President's former budget director, almost everyone who has looked at this--says raising taxes on anybody in the middle of an economic downturn makes it harder to create jobs. We may want to have a big argument when the economy recovers about whether people in New York should pay more and people of more modest means in Tennessee should pay less. We could have that argument at some point. But what we are saying is at the end of the year, taxes are going up, almost everyone except some on that side seem to agree that it makes it harder to create jobs if we raise taxes on anybody. We are saying let's not raise taxes on anybody. We want that permanently. But most of us are saying, if we would do what Mr. Orszag says, that would have wide support here. That is our position. We respect the position of the Senator from New York. Maybe someday we will have a debate about what the permanent tax rates ought to be. But right now the goal is to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs. The single best thing we can do is keep tax rates where they are before they automatically go up at the end of the month.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--and I wonder if I might be recognized to speak following the objection I intend to make--reserving the right to object, Republicans have said that we believe the single most important step we can take to create jobs is to keep the current tax rates, which will go up automatically on January 1; secondly, we need to fund the government--funding expires this Friday; and that after that, we can move to whatever else the Democratic leader would like to bring up. We should fund the government, keep the tax rates where they are, freeze spending, and go home. I object.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, 16 Senators will retire this year. There is also a pretty big turnover in this body, but that is a lot of Senators at once. We are losing an enormous amount of talent, but, of course, we are gaining a lot of talent with the new Senators. I wish to show my respect for those who have served, which I will do in a summary fashion because we are talking about 16 individuals with very complex and distinguished backgrounds. One might ask, what are the characteristics of a Senator? There are a lot of different answers to that, depending on your background and attitude toward politics and government, I suppose. I have always thought that one characteristic of almost every Member of the Senate is that he or she probably was a first grader sitting in the front row, hand in the air waiting to be recognized. This is an eager bunch or you would not have gotten here. Second, it is a group of risk-takers. Most people who end up in the Senate get here because a lot of other people who wanted to be Senators were standing around waiting for the right time to run. A lot of people who were elected to the Senate seemed to have no chance of winning at the time they decided to run, but the voters decided differently, and here they are. A third characteristic of Senators is that we are almost all professional and congenial. That is a big help. It is almost a requirement in an organization of 100 individuals who spend almost all their time with one another, who serve in a body that operates by unanimous consent, when just one Senator can bring the whole place to a halt, and whose job basically is to argue about some of the most difficult issues that face the American people. So it helps that almost every Member of the Senate is an especially congenial person. Back in Tennessee, people often say to me it must be rough being in that job. They are awfully mean up there. The truth is, I don't know of a more congenial group than the Members of the Senate. We begin the day in the gym. The next thing you know we are at a Prayer Breakfast, and then we are at a committee hearing. Then we are on the floor voting, and then we have lunch. It goes through the day until 7 or 8 o'clock, or sometimes later. We live together and we get along very well. We know and respect each other. Not long ago, the Presiding Officer and I were having dinner together with our wives. We were lamenting the loss of families who know one another, the way it happened when his father was serving in Congress and when I first came to the Senate to work for Senator Baker. And that's true. We've lost some of that. Still, there is an enormous amount of affection and goodwill here. You don't always get to be very close friends in this job, but you get to be very good acquaintances, and you learn to respect people for their strengths. Senator Domenici said, when he left, that we don't do a very good job of saying goodbye here. That is true. As one part of saying goodbye, I wish to say at least one good thing about each one of the 16 retiring Senators. Much more could be said about each, of course. Mostly, I am going in alphabetical order. First is Senator Bob Bennett of Utah. I have known him the longest. We served together in the Nixon administration. I was in the White House working with Bryce Harlow, and he was in the Department of Transportation. That was in 1969 and 1970. What I will remember about Bob Bennett--and most Senators will remember this about his legacy--are his careful expositions of economic issues. He has a background as an entrepreneur and businessman. He served with distinction on the Joint Economic Committee. His expertise in helping us better understand the economy has been valuable. Senator Evan Bayh is one of four Governors leaving the Senate. I am one who thinks the more Governors, the better. That is a somewhat parochial attitude on my part. But Governors have gotten results and are used to working across party lines. Governor Bayh served two terms as a Senator. Still young, he obviously has a long career ahead of him. Whatever direction he chooses to go in, what I will remember most about Evan Bayh is the civility and bipartisanship he has shown on numerous occasions--and his courtesy to me as an individual Senator. Senator Kit Bond, another Governor. He and I once served as law clerks on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for two judges who helped integrate the South, Judges Tuttle and Wisdom. Senator Bond has a great many things that could be said about him. But what most of us admire greatly about his time here is his devotion to our intelligence community and national security, as vice chairman of our Intelligence Committee, making sure our intelligence agencies have the tools they need to prevent terrorist attacks on America. Senator Sam Brownback is going the other way, from Senator to Governor of Kansas. During the health care debate, I often said that everybody who voted for the health care law ought to be sentenced to serve as Governor for two terms and try to implement it. Well, Senator Brownback voted against the health care law, but he's going home and will have the opportunity to ``enjoy'' all those unfunded mandates on Medicaid and see how Kansas deals with it. What we'll miss about Sam Brownback, in addition to his extraordinary kindness, is his devotion to human rights, including giving voice to the oppressed people in North Korea and being an outspoken critic of the genocide in Darfur. Senator Jim Bunning. Everybody knows about him and baseball. Nobody would want to be a batter when he is throwing pitches. We understand he is the only person to strike out Ted Williams three times in one game. But what not as many people know about him is that Jim Bunning has been a persistent leader in fighting for sick nuclear workers who served our country during the fifties and sixties and were sick because of their work in handling nuclear weapons. So Jim Bunning deserves the thanks of all the families of the sick nuclear workers in America for his service here. Senator Chris Dodd. Children and families are his hallmark and legacy. He has been here a long time--five terms. But I have felt privileged to work with him on the Subcommittee on Children and Families. One thing we've focused on together is premature births, but he's also worked on a whole variety of other legislation. We will miss his congeniality, his good humor, and his devotion to the Senate as an institution, making sure it stays unique as a place where we have unlimited debate and unlimited amendments, so the voices of the American people can be heard. Senator Byron Dorgan. I once heard the Chaplain say there is no better storyteller in the Senate than Senator Dorgan. He didn't mean making up stories. He said he was good at taking what he figured was the truth and explaining it in ways the rest of us could understand. I have enjoyed working with him on legislation that would make it easier to introduce electric cars and trucks in our country and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Senator Russ Feingold will be remembered for his strong stands-- sometimes solitary stands--such as when he voted against the PATRIOT Act and went to work early on campaign finance. I thank him for our work together on the Africa subcommittee, on which he has served during his whole time here. There is no better Senator than Judd Gregg on either side of the aisle. One indication of that is that the last three leaders of Republicans in the Senate have asked him to sit in on leadership meetings to get his wisdom and advice. He doesn't say too much, but what he says we all pay attention to. He has been the voice of our party and we believe the voice of Americans who are concerned about fiscal responsibility, about spending, and too much debt. Senator Blanche Lincoln has been a pioneer throughout her career, as a staff member and a Congresswoman, and later as a Senator occupying Senator Hattie Caraway's desk, who was the first woman to be elected to the Senate. Blanche Lincoln was the youngest woman ever to be elected to the Senate and left her mark with the passage of the 2008 farm bill. Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania. The word to describe him is ``courage.'' The other word is ``survivor.'' And they both go together. Arlen has had a distinguished career from his youngest days. He was a member of the Warren Commission, investigating President Kennedy's assassination. In the Senate, his work has spanned the entire mark. One of the things I appreciate most about Senator and Mrs. Specter is their work on Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, which is such an example of living history. Senator George Voinovich has been a mayor and a Governor and a Senator, a strong voice in concerns of federalism. Federal workers have George to thank for years of attention to issues involving Federal employees that most of us were too busy to pay as much attention to. There have been four Members appointed to the Senate who are retiring, and that is quite a number. Senator Ted Kaufman of Delaware was a great teacher and a longtime Senate staffer before serving in the Senate himself. Senator George LeMieux of Florida made his focus balancing the budget and controlling the debt. We have not heard the last of George Lemieux, I am sure, in politics. Senator Roland Burris of Illinois was a State comptroller and attorney general. He is his own man, and capped off a long career in public service by serving here. Senator Carte Goodwin, the youngest Senator who replaced the oldest in Senator Byrd. He was here only a few months, but we've enjoyed having him. It has been my privilege to serve with these 16 Senators. We thank them for their service to our country. They have had a chance to serve in what we regard as the world's greatest deliberative body; it is a special institution. We will miss their leadership, and we hope they will stay in touch with us because they are not just retiring Senators, they are all our friends. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would like to speak about the issue of babies born prematurely, an area Senator Dodd and I have been working on together for many years. November is Prematurity Awareness Month and today, November 17, is Prematurity Awareness Day. This year, in the U.S., approximately 28,000 babies will die before their first birthday. In Tennessee, 236 babies are born preterm per week on average, and, in 2007, 12,256 babies or 14.2 percent of all live births were premature. According to the CDC, babies who died from preterm birth-related causes accounted for more than 36 percent of infant deaths in 2006. In addition to being the leading cause of newborn death, prematurity can cause those who do survive a lifetime of health challenges and intellectual disabilities. Even infants born just a few weeks early have higher rates of hospitalization and illness than full-term infants. The last few weeks of pregnancy are critical to a baby's health because many important organs, including the brain and lungs, are not completely developed until then. We are making incredible advances in how we treat these children, but we need to do a lot more. This is a critically important issue. It is the kind of issue that deserves more attention. I am pleased to be joined by Senator Dodd in introducing the PREEMIE Act, which reauthorizes and builds upon our legislation from 2006. It is supported by the March of Dimes, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, to name a few. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I am pleased to once again partner with my good friend and colleague Senator Dodd to introduce the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers who deliver Infants Early Act, or the PREEMIE Act. This bipartisan bill reauthorizes and expands upon the 2006 PREEMIE Act to enhance research into the causes and prevention of prematurity. The end result of this bill will hopefully be to find a solution to the serious problem of premature birth. Premature birth is the leading killer of newborns and a major cause of lasting disabilities, and finding answers to this problem is one of the most urgent challenges confronting medicine today. More than half a million babies are born prematurely in the United States each year, and in nearly half the cases the causes are unknown. In Tennessee 236 babies are born preterm per week on average, and in 2007, 12,256 babies or 14.2 percent of all live births were premature. The emotional toll a premature birth has on a family is significant. When an infant arrives prematurely before 37 weeks gestation, the family faces a stressful new world. Often, the parents see the baby only momentarily before he or she is whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit, NICU. Instead of taking home a healthy baby, parents spend hours in the hospital, talking to all kinds of specialists who use clinical terms that they don't always understand. The baby's medical equipment is frightening, and the busy, hectic atmosphere in the NICU is stressful. Often the mother, who may have suffered from her own serious medical complications, recovers and leaves the hospital before the baby does. Many preterm infants face life-threatening complications. Families with premature infants often refer to the NICU as a roller-coaster experience. One day the baby appears to be doing well; the next, hope seems to be lost. Day-to-day life is completely disrupted. Parents spend hours in the NICU, away from their other children and work. The average hospital stay in 2005 was nearly nine times as long for a preterm infant (13 days) compared to an infant born at term (1.5 days). Families face financial stress as they struggle to pay the high NICU costs, since the average first year medical costs were about 10 times greater for preterm, $32,325, than for term infants, $3,325, in 2005. Additionally, 4 out of the 10 most expensive hospital stays regardless of age are related to infant care: infant respiratory distress syndrome, prematurity/low birthweight, cardiac/circulatory birth defects, and lack of oxygen in infants. Advances in neonatology are saving even the smallest and most fragile newborns, but we need to prevent those births from happening too early in the first place. We now find ourselves facing enormous potential for progress, and technological innovation has made sequencing of the entire human genome possible, which will hasten the pace of discovery and application of new knowledge. Hopefully, research moves ahead to unravel the mysteries of premature birth and to find the answers that will save babies' lives. However, the private sector cannot accomplish this goal alone, which is why we need dedicated federal resources to support such efforts. If we invest the money now and conduct additional research investigating the root causes of prematurity, it will save the Government money over time, and parents will not have to fear for their new child's life from the moment of birth. I strongly urge my colleagues to join me and support the PREEMIE Act--an investment in infants' health.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I am pleased to once again partner with my good friend and colleague Senator Dodd to introduce the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers who deliver Infants Early Act, or the PREEMIE Act. This bipartisan bill reauthorizes and expands upon the 2006 PREEMIE Act to enhance research into the causes and prevention of prematurity. The end result of this bill will hopefully be to find a solution to the serious problem of premature birth. Premature birth is the leading killer of newborns and a major cause of lasting disabilities, and finding answers to this problem is one of the most urgent challenges confronting medicine today. More than half a million babies are born prematurely in the United States each year, and in nearly half the cases the causes are unknown. In Tennessee 236 babies are born preterm per week on average, and in 2007, 12,256 babies or 14.2 percent of all live births were premature. The emotional toll a premature birth has on a family is significant. When an infant arrives prematurely before 37 weeks gestation, the family faces a stressful new world. Often, the parents see the baby only momentarily before he or she is whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit, NICU. Instead of taking home a healthy baby, parents spend hours in the hospital, talking to all kinds of specialists who use clinical terms that they don't always understand. The baby's medical equipment is frightening, and the busy, hectic atmosphere in the NICU is stressful. Often the mother, who may have suffered from her own serious medical complications, recovers and leaves the hospital before the baby does. Many preterm infants face life-threatening complications. Families with premature infants often refer to the NICU as a roller-coaster experience. One day the baby appears to be doing well; the next, hope seems to be lost. Day-to-day life is completely disrupted. Parents spend hours in the NICU, away from their other children and work. The average hospital stay in 2005 was nearly nine times as long for a preterm infant (13 days) compared to an infant born at term (1.5 days). Families face financial stress as they struggle to pay the high NICU costs, since the average first year medical costs were about 10 times greater for preterm, $32,325, than for term infants, $3,325, in 2005. Additionally, 4 out of the 10 most expensive hospital stays regardless of age are related to infant care: infant respiratory distress syndrome, prematurity/low birthweight, cardiac/circulatory birth defects, and lack of oxygen in infants. Advances in neonatology are saving even the smallest and most fragile newborns, but we need to prevent those births from happening too early in the first place. We now find ourselves facing enormous potential for progress, and technological innovation has made sequencing of the entire human genome possible, which will hasten the pace of discovery and application of new knowledge. Hopefully, research moves ahead to unravel the mysteries of premature birth and to find the answers that will save babies' lives. However, the private sector cannot accomplish this goal alone, which is why we need dedicated federal resources to support such efforts. If we invest the money now and conduct additional research investigating the root causes of prematurity, it will save the Government money over time, and parents will not have to fear for their new child's life from the moment of birth. I strongly urge my colleagues to join me and support the PREEMIE Act--an investment in infants' health.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on rollcall vote No. 243 I voted ``nay.'' It was my intention to vote ``yea.'' I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote which will not affect the outcome.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, Senator Collins is next in order, but she has kindly given me a few minutes to make my remarks, and I wish to thank her for that. Senator Ted Stevens will be remembered as a patriot who flew the first cargo plane into Peking, as it was then called, at the end of World War II, and helped create and then serve the 49th State for a half a century. I have often thought that some day I should write a book about Senators--not about their gossip or their secrets--but about the things others don't know about the people we work with: About Jim Inhofe's flight around the world; about Ben Nighthorse Campbell's jewelry; about Barack Obama's and Mel Martinez's boyhood; about Jim Bunning's pitches. All of these things have nothing to do with politics. I always wanted to start with Ted Stevens. Some day I think I will write this book, including about how he flew a cargo plane into Peking at the end of World War II. It says a lot about the kind of life he led afterwards. No one did more to create Alaska as a State. He worked at the Interior Department for several years, writing speeches, lobbying, doing all kinds of things to cause it to happen. Then he served that State for nearly a half century in the best manner of the greatest generation. He had a broad view. He and Senator Inouye led a trip, along with several of us, to China in 2006, a delegation of Senators. We were better received than if they had been the President and Vice President of the United States, because the Chinese revered Ted Stevens and honored Danny Inouye because of their service in World War II. We saw the No. 1 man in China, President Hu. We saw the No. 2 man, Mr. Wu. We saw in all parts of the country the respect they had for Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye. Senator Stevens carried that to the floor of the Senate. For example, he saw there in China what the Chinese are doing to remain competitive in the world by building up their universities, keeping their brain power advantage. He came back to this body and became a principal cosponsor of the America COMPETES Act, which helps our country do the same. Perhaps no two Senators had a closer relationship than Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens. They came from the same generation. They fought in the same war. They were both enormously brave. They treated one another as brothers. I was a young aide in the Senate when Ted Stevens was first appointed to the Senate in 1968. He was here when I came back 20 years later as the Education Secretary, and when I came back as a Senator 8 years ago, he was still here. He served longer than any other Republican Senator. He will be remembered as a great patriot and as the man who flew the cargo plane into Peking in 1944 and spent half a century creating and then serving our 49th State. I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator from Maine for her courtesy. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Kansas for his thoughtful remarks. He is exactly right. The voices of the people are to be heard here. They can only be heard and their liberties protected if their elected officials have the right to express those voices through unlimited amendment and unlimited debate. When the majority leader closes that debate off and closes off those amendments a record number of times, that is closing off the voices of the American people. As the Senator from Kansas said, the shoe can sometimes be on the other foot. Those who today are wanting to create a freight train running through the Senate as a freight train runs through the House may not be so eager to do that if the freight train turns out, after the election, to be the tea party express. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor. Exhibit 1 U.S. Senate, Washington, DC, September 21, 2010. Hon. Lamar Alexander, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Alexander: The U.S. Senate once was considered ``the world's greatest deliberative body.'' This no longer is the case as the Majority Leader commonly abuses Senate rules and traditions to prevent debate and obstruct other Senators from offering amendments to legislation. As you know, historically, the cloture process authorized by Senate Rule XXII has been used sparingly. According to Senate Procedure and Practice, ``Between 1917 and 1962, cloture was imposed only five times.'' Fast forward 50 years later, a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), reveals a clear trend by the majority of limiting debate by immediately filing cloture on nearly all legislative questions. Under Democrat control of the Senate, 219 cloture motions were filed in the 110th and 111th Congresses combined. Perhaps most troubling, 171 of these cloture motions were filed after the Senate had considered the legislative question for one day or less. In contrast, when the Republicans were in charge in the 108th and 109th Congresses, only 84 cloture motions were filed. Additionally, the Majority Leader has regularly abused a procedure known as ``filling the tree,'' to exclude the minority from offering amendments to bills. According to CRS, he has employed this tactic 39 times on major pieces of legislation since the start of the 110th Congress. The result of this practice was the passage of legislation spending hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars without members of the minority having the opportunity to raise issues of importance or to improve legislation. To put this number in perspective, this represents a drastic increase from the mere fifteen occasions former Majority Leader Frist ``filled the tree'' in 108th and 109th Congresses combined. Majority Leader Reid's use of ``filling the tree'' combined with filing cloture entirely preempts any input from the minority into legislation and destroys the two distinguishing characteristics of the Senate--the right to fully debate and amend legislation. Too many Americans are upset, even angry, that their voices are not being heard in Washington. The majority's abusive practice of suppressing debate undermines the Senate's debate traditions as well as the cherished American rights of free speech and dissent. As a caucus, we should commit ourselves to ensuring a more open and deliberative process that protects the rights of every Senator to express the views of the taxpayers they were elected to represent. Sincerely, Tom A. Coburn, M.D.