Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I would like to talk about an amendment to this bill that could be offered later. I am not offering it at this time. I am being joined in this amendment by my good friend from Florida, Senator Nelson. This amendment would be a suggestion about what we can do to be sure the things we build have a better chance of lasting, construction that meets real stress. In both of our States, in Missouri and Florida, we have some significant experience with weather conditions that are damaging to people and property. On May 22, 2 years ago, 2011, in Joplin, MO, right on the Arkansas and the Oklahoma border, we had an EF5 tornado hit that community. It killed 61 people. It destroyed 7,000 homes, 500 businesses, and damaged others. This was a huge impact on people and the homes they had, the businesses they had. As they rebuilt, the cities tried to focus on rebuilding in a way that would protect lives and save money if something like that happens again by creating structures that can withstand the most severe storms there and in other places in our State. We have had many stories over the years. There are people who literally got in the freezer in the garage or in the utility room or people who got in the bathtub and then pulled a mattress on top of themselves and tried to ride out the storm, and they would just as soon not do that. I think the term that is used that we are going to be talking about is ``resilient construction''--construction that has the potential to substantially reduce property damage and loss of life resulting from natural disasters, homes and businesses that can withstand disasters, that can protect people during storms. As more disaster resilient building is done, there is less to clean up, there is less property damage, and the insurance rates are impacted in not as big a way because not so much has to be rebuilt because not so much was destroyed. Those techniques, those resilient building techniques, can be as simple as just using longer nails or strapping down the roof so it has that one added level of security to the roof before the shingles go on. There are many simple and easy steps builders can take to ensure that a home or a business has the best chance to withstand these disasters. This amendment that we would hope would be offered at the appropriate time later would simply add resilient construction to the list of criteria the National Academy of Sciences and the Government Accountability Office are directed to study. This adds this one thing to it from a commonsense perspective. It is obvious why knowing what building techniques work and what building techniques do not work makes a difference--the ones that minimize damage, that prevent the loss of life, that reduce the government disaster aid that has to be expended in these disasters, that are too big for families and communities and States to handle on their own. While we are unable to predict when and why a storm might occur next, we do know there will be other problems that need to be dealt with. So studying the impact of construction techniques in storm situations is something I believe we should do. I think this would be an added benefit to this bill. At the appropriate time, I look forward to calling the actual amendment up or asking someone else to see that this amendment is called up so that my colleagues have a chance to vote on it. I know my cosponsor, Senator Nelson, is here on the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. As my good friend from Arkansas said and for the benefit of the Senator from Oregon, we haven't made a request yet for this amendment to be moved to the front of the line to be debated, but we are here to say that we would like to have this amendment on this bill. We are both supporters of the Marketplace Fairness Act for reasons that I hope we have well established, and I think people, including Members of the Senate, are beginning to understand that it is a fairness principle. But what this amendment does, recognizing the importance of online commerce, that it has grown dramatically since 1998 when this amendment first became part of the law, the Internet Tax Freedom Act--and in 1988, it said that you wouldn't tax the Internet itself for use of the Internet. Unless we act, this law will expire in 2014. This would be a 10-year extension that would simply say that we would continue to ensure that people's access to Internet services is tax free. To be clear, the underlying bill we are considering, the Marketplace Fairness Act, doesn't create a new tax. It doesn't tax consumers' use of the Internet, and Senator Pryor and I both would oppose taxing use of the Internet at this point. But this simply adds to the fair tax collection processes that will be available to States under the Marketplace Fairness Act by extending current law to ensure without any question that this is not about taxing the Internet. In fact, this amendment would extend for a decade the almost 15-year prohibition on taxing the Internet, the one that goes back to 1998. So I support the Marketplace Fairness Act. I believe this bill would be even better if it clarified for the next decade that we continue to maintain the view the Congress and the Federal Government has had on the Internet since the Internet first emerged as an avenue of commerce and would not allow for the taxing of the Internet and prevents those taxes from being collected. I yield for my friend from Arkansas.

Mr. BLUNT. Let me quickly yield to my friend from Oklahoma for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business as my remarks will not relate to the business at hand.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, first of all, I wish to talk about the bill that is on the floor. I agree with Senator Franken--this is a bill that enjoys bipartisan support. We saw in the budget debate just how broad and how bipartisan that support is. It is the right thing to do. It is the fair thing to do. It is a situation where government no longer decides that one business located in a community that provides the police protection, the sidewalk, and whatever else one might use as one goes into a local store and looks something over, is disadvantaged over a business that is located somewhere else. Also, there is a fundamental policy of the importance of having laws on the books that are actually enforced. In almost all the States--I think the number is somewhere near 37 or 38 States--this tax is currently due. This tax is supposed to be voluntarily paid, and winking and nodding on not paying this tax creates real concerns. I think in Missouri last year--a State where this tax is supposed to be paid as a use tax--300 people filed that they owed this tax and paid some of that use tax. Now, my absolute certain guess is that more than 300 Missourians received something in the mail at their house that didn't have taxes paid on it when they received it. So my view would be that we should do one of two things: We should either take all of those laws off the books or determine a way where the laws that States have are actually able to be enforced by those States. States have a right to decide, no, we don't want to be a part of this compact. We don't want to be a part of it. We don't want this sales tax revenue. We don't want to collect the money that is due on the same product in our State. But they also have the right to say, yes, that is our law, and we need to collect that tax, and we do not want to pick winners and losers. From the point of view of some of the most conservative leaders in the country, including those who are in government--Al Cardenas, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, says: When it comes to state sales taxes, it is time to address the area where federally mandated prejudice is most egregious--the policy toward Internet sales, the decades old inequity between online and in-person sales as outdated and unfair. Governor Mike Pence from Indiana says: I don't think Congress should be in the business of picking winners and losers. Inaction by Congress today results in a system today that does pick winners and losers. Another Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels, said: Sales taxes that states impose ought to be paid, and paid by everybody equally and collected by everybody in the retail business. Art Laffer, in a Wall Street Journal article just this week, said: The principle of levying the lowest possible tax rate on the broadest possible tax base is the way to improve the incentives to work, save and produce--which are necessary to reinvigorate the American economy and cope with the nation's fiscal problems. Properly addressing the problem of e- fairness on the state level is a small, but important step toward achieving this goal. Art Laffer--President Reagan's adviser on exactly that concept of having a tax that is fairly applied in the broadest possible way--is supportive of this, along with Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence and Al Cardenas and many other conservatives who have looked at this as both a fairness issue and an issue of simply providing a way that States are allowed to enforce their law. Regulating interstate commerce is one of the principal reasons to have a Constitution and a Federal Government. Essential Services Act Mr. President, the other thing I would like to talk about is what happened beginning on Sunday in the country as people tried to travel when approximately 47,000 Federal Aviation Administration employees were furloughed, and furloughed in a way that created needless airport delays nationwide. The announcement came on the heels of a report that the President has cut other public services, such as the self-guided tours at the White House. I cannot imagine how much the self-guided tours at the White House cost, but I do know it was cut when for almost every school student in America who comes to Washington, one of the things they would like to see is the White House. So I guess there is some immediate pain involved there, just like there has been pain involved at airports since Sunday. The airline industry was not even told until late last week that this was going to happen. This has been mismanagement, and intentional mismanagement. As late as September 28, the Office of Management and Budget sent out a notice to the entire executive branch of the government that said: Spend your money--this is for the spending year that begins October 1--spend your money like the law will not be obeyed. Suddenly, 6 months into the spending year, the spending caps, the budget caps, the amount of money that had been appropriated beyond that--it is twice as big a problem as it would have been October 1. Then you have to give notice to people that they are going to be furloughed, if that is the option you have taken, and it is a bigger problem than it needed to be. During his sworn testimony before Congress last week, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta admitted that the agency has the flexibility under current law to transfer up to 2 percent of funding from one activity to another without congressional action, and also they could ask to transfer up to 5 percent--setting priorities--by asking Congress. It would be 2 percent without even asking Congress and 5 percent by asking Congress that could be transferred. There was a serious discussion and an amendment offered early this year in the continuing resolution debate to give the agencies the authority they needed to set priorities between now and September 30. But the administration clearly said it did not want to be able to set those priorities. The idea that any reduction in Federal spending has to create the maximum amount of pain is offensive to me. I think it is offensive to most Americans. The FAA currently spends $2.7 billion annually on nonpersonnel costs. The day they started this, saving $600 million by furloughing employees, they announced $474 million of new grants for sustainable and livable communities. I am actually for sustainable and livable communities, but this is a new program. It is a program that I would bet a considerable amount of money that if the Department of Transportation would have come to Congress and said: Could we spend this $474 million on keeping the airlines and the airports working--the freight that goes all over the country, the people who go all over the country to do business and create jobs--I will bet you Congress would have said: Absolutely, take that $474 million. Do not announce those new grants that you have not told anybody they have yet and use it to solve this problem, while we work to see if there are better ways to solve this problem. Last week, I introduced the Essential Services Act as a standalone bill. I introduced that same act, in fact, during the continuing resolution debate. We were able to get a part of it into the continuing resolution for food safety inspectors. But what the Essential Services Act says is that people who are essential to public health and safety have to show up for work. The basis for that is President Clinton, in 1995, on August 22, issued a letter, an excerpt from which I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.

Mr. BLUNT. That letter from Alice Rivlin, the Director of OMB, says: Here are the people who have to show up for work if the government shuts down. The government did shut down, we all remember, in 1995, and these people did show up for work. On April 6, 2011, it appeared we might have another government shutdown, and the Obama administration put out a similar letter based on the same groups of people. These are not hard people to identify, as it turns out. On April 6, 2011, the examples they gave of essential employees who would have to work would be: FAA employees who would keep the air traffic control system open, FEMA disaster operations would continue, Social Security checks would be sent out to beneficiaries, the National Weather Service alerts and forecasts would be maintained, the U.S. Postal Service would continue to collect mail and deliver mail, the Customs and Border Protection activity would continue, and the food safety inspectors would show up. There is a list. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this notice from the Obama administration printed in the Record.

Mr. BLUNT. This is not very complicated. All the Essential Services Act says is that the people whom the government said had to show up if there is no money to run the government would also be the people who would be prioritized and would be allowed to show up if there is a 2.5- percent cut. Who can argue with that? People are told: The weather is really bad today. If you think you have some risk to your person to get to work, do not come in. But these people are told: If you can possibly get to work, get to work. If the food safety inspector does not get there, 500,000 Americans could not work that day if they did not show up at every food safety facility where that one Federal employee has to be there for everybody to work. If the air traffic controller does not get there, and the runways are cleared off and planes can land and planes can take off, that may not happen if the air traffic controller is not there. This says those people would not be subject to furlough under the new Budget Control Act. They would have the same priority on a day when there is a reduction in the funding for a Department that they had in the day when there was no funding for the Department. If people are told they have to show up when there is no money to run the government, surely those same people need to show up if there is a 2.5-percent reduction. The definitions set by President Clinton and President Obama in their administrations are fine with me for this purpose. Washington is living outside its means today. Federal spending has skyrocketed 19 percent since 2008. The Federal debt is approaching $17 trillion. Clearly, we have to do something about spending, and we can do that without interrupting people's lives. We can do that by prioritizing what the government should do. Last week, we had Mr. Huerta before the Commerce Committee that Senator Rockefeller chairs and Senator Thune is the ranking Republican. I think it was on Wednesday. There was no discussion that on Sunday we are going to start furloughs of air traffic controllers. In the legitimate oversight responsibility of our committee, we are to be told by the FAA Director: Our plans are drawn up. We are about to execute them. I am here to testify before the Congress. I think one of the things I should tell you is that all kinds of flights are going to be delayed on Sunday and Monday because of this plan. It was not mentioned. Plenty of questions, even questions about how you were going to furlough employees, but no answers. I encourage Americans to visit our Web site: bitly.com/cutwasteful spending. Let's find the things we can cut rather than finding things that you cut--from the White House tours, to vaccines for kids, to air traffic controllers, to border security guards. I hope we will do the right thing. I encourage Senator Reid to allow a vote on the Essential Services Act and prioritize the way we spend money. Back to the start of my remarks, I am a proud cosponsor of the Marketplace Fairness Act. Senator Pryor and I intend to offer an amendment on that to just clarify current law, that we are not taxing use of the Internet; we are just having a fair tax for products people buy over the Internet. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I would just say these entities would allow basic research to come together with product development. It brings the research elements, the universities, and others together with private capital, and even some government agencies, in ways that let things happen that wouldn't otherwise. I am pleased to join Senator Brown in offering this to the Senate.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk. I ask unanimous consent it be called up on behalf of Senator Thune and me.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I would have some hesitation anyway about opposing my good friend from Rhode Island, but to have to oppose the Pope is really ominous. I know the Pope also mentioned, more times than he mentioned carbon tax, helping the poor. This amendment says that if there is a carbon fee, we will use it to reduce the Federal deficit, to reduce Federal tax rates, to have other direct benefits. I would just say, when the poor family cannot pay their utility bill--the family who is the last family to get the new refrigerator, the family who is the last family to get the insulated windows, the family who is the last family to insulate their ceiling--I guess we tell them there are going to be some Federal tax rates that will be added for a family who cannot pay their utility bill. By the way, there are other direct benefits you might be able to use whenever you do not have heat or you do not have cooling. This is a tax that slows down our ability to compete. The most vulnerable among us are the most impacted by this, and I oppose it.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BLUNT. This amendment would protect consumers from energy price spikes and workers from significant job loss by providing a point of order against a carbon tax or a fee on carbon emissions. Energy-intensive jobs are the first to go when you utility prices get uncompetitive. Your ability to compete in the world marketplace, the price of American-made goods, what families pay at the pump, what they pay for heating and cooling, what they pay for every American product they make would be impacted by a carbon tax. I urge the support of this amendment.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I move to waive section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act for consideration of the pending amendment, No. 261, pursuant to 904(c)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I am glad to join Senator Thune in proposing these two important amendments and also to join him on the overall point on which we ought to be focused, which is economic opportunity and economic growth. How do we get people onto the pathway of more opportunity for them and their families? Private sector job creation should be the No. 1 domestic goal of America today. Frankly, it should be the No. 1 domestic goal of everything we do. When we are dealing with a budget or an appropriations bill that deals with any kind of domestic policy, we ought to be thinking about how this would impact private sector job creation. How does this impact economic growth? How does this impact opportunity? What do we do to change our society for the better and not the other way around? Clearly, I think we all appreciate the fact that Americans are more generous in giving to religious organizations and charities than anybody else in the world. My belief is that there is no country that comes anywhere close in charitable giving. It is not just the top earners in America who give money to charitable organizations, sometimes it is given by families who have to stretch the dollar to make the contribution they want to make to their church that Sunday or to make the contribution they want to make to the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts activities or the YMCA or YWCA in their community. Nobody does this the way we do it. I am proud to join Senator Thune as he works on these issues. We have worked together for a long time, and Senator Thune has always been a critical advocate for our charities as well as for families who work hard and create a small business or a family farm or ranch so they are able to pass it along to the next generation. Let me first talk a little bit more about charities. The ability to voluntarily come together and do things is provided in the first amendment. It is not just an amendment that protects speech and religion, but it protects association, it protects people who make things happen in their community that otherwise would not happen. Americans give like nobody else in the world. Every day our religious institutions, charities, hospitals, museums, and others come together to take private resources and meet a number of community needs which are met in the best possible way by people who are doing that through a charitable effort. They help to feed the hungry, care for the sick, serve the poor, and contribute to all kinds of educational institutions. Americans help by undertaking critical research and giving money that goes to either help operate or actually support museums and parks. This is a small example of what Americans do because they give to charity, which is often done better than government bureaucracies; it is cheaper, more effective, more reasonable, and we need to do everything we can to continue to do that. In 2011 Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charitable causes, and 75 percent of that giving was done by individuals. Of the 41 million American households who itemize on their taxes--where they can specifically see what they did--86 percent of those households take advantage of the charitable contribution as they calculate their taxes. The vast majority of people don't give to charities for tax breaks. I was the president of a southern baptist university for 4 years before I came to Congress. Every university president I know knows a little bit about raising money, and every one of them knows that not every contributor is motivated by the Tax Code, but the Tax Code has an impact on whether they meet their goals. However, some contributors are concerned, and the size of that contribution matters as it relates to how they can leverage, frankly, the Tax Code in a way that makes it easier for them to give more to help take care of the things they care about. We want to be sure we are doing what we can as we try to grow the economy, and an awful lot of our economy comes from the private sector. About 1 out of 10 jobs is in the charitable sector--1 out of 10 jobs is in the charitable sector. When we restrict that charitable sector, we restrict people from doing what they would do otherwise. Senator Thune mentioned $9 billion. Now, $9 billion of $300 billion, does that sound like a lot? It sounds like a lot to the kid who got the last scholarship. It sounds like a lot for the park that doesn't get the new playground equipment because the local Kiwanis club could not get to their goal so they could help their community. If we add up charitable contributions that anyone here gives to, in all likelihood, collectively it would amount to less than $9 billion. So of course it makes a difference, and it is a difference in whether or not they get there. The nonprofit sector employs 1 out of 10 U.S. workers and provides almost 14 million jobs and paid almost $600 billion in wages and benefits. It is about exactly the same in our State. This is a part of who we are that we don't want to discourage. There is a reason Americans give more generously to charitable causes than anybody else in the world. Let's not walk away from that. This amendment will ensure that the limits on charitable giving that are in place in the budget of the majority don't go toward just more government spending. If we want to have a discussion about how we might cut tax rates and encourage the economy, that is one thing, but if the discussion is to discourage people from giving to charities so there will be more money for government to spend, I just say that is the wrong discussion to have. We should not increase government spending at the expense of America's churches and charities. And, of course, the death tax, small businesses, family farms, ranches have all paid taxes on everything they have. Lots of times they pay taxes on everything they have, such as the income tax and the annual property tax. Everybody can think of 1 example, if not 100, of the family who works side by side. Frankly, by the time parents leave this Earth, it is really hard to determine who created the wealth. Was it Mom and Dad or was it the son or daughter who was standing right there beside them in the grocery store every day or working with them on the family farm or ranch? In our State of Missouri, we have more than 100,000 individual farms. It is the second highest number of farms in America. We do not have the biggest farms and ranches in America, but we have more of them than any other State but for one. Those individuals and families have done what they could to try to create opportunity and a livelihood, and they would like to pass that along. What is wrong with that? Clearly, the point we are at right now with the tax at the time of death is better than it has been in a while--I suppose not better than the 1 year there was no death tax. For 1 year we had no death tax, and that is the ideal that government should try to achieve again. I am pleased to join Senator Thune in this effort. I hope we will do what we can to encourage families who have businesses that they can pass along without having death as a taxable event. There are plenty of taxable events in life without having death as a taxable event. I again thank Senator Thune for his long advocacy of eliminating this unfairness in our Tax Code. I have been glad to join him in debate after debate over the years on this issue. Let's not move toward thinking we are doing the right thing by doing the wrong thing as it relates to family farms and business. I also want to say as I conclude that I am going to be offering an amendment on the carbon tax as well. We should not have a carbon tax because the carbon tax that is anticipated in some of the language of this budget raises utility bills. Who is impacted most by a higher utility bill? It is the most vulnerable among us. It is the family who is the last family to get the new refrigerator, it is the family who is the last family to get the better insulated windows, it is the family who is the last family to get more insulation in their ceiling. All of the things we do that raise utility bills have a real impact on them just like whenever we are doing anything that raises costs, such as gasoline prices. The last person or family to get the fuel-efficient car is the one who can least afford to see what happens to their utility bill or their gasoline costs. I am opposed to this kind of tax being passed along to people who have a hard enough time paying their utility bill. So whether it is the carbon tax or the death tax or a tax on charitable giving, let's not do the wrong thing for the sake of more government spending. Let's do the right thing for jobs and American families. I ask through the Chair if Senator Thune has anything he wants to say in conclusion on these amendments.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I thank my colleagues for recognizing me to make a few comments. I agree with everything that has been said. I believe this is the fair thing to do. I think it is wrong for government to penalize some businesses over others. I think it is wrong, frankly, to have laws on the books that we know aren't being enforced. To have laws on the books that you know create law violators is the wrong thing to do. And frankly, in almost every State where--as Senator Durbin pointed out, in his State and my State, which is next door to his State, you are supposed to pay this tax. People just don't do it. I think last year in Missouri we had about 300 people pay this tax in the entire State. I would bet, more than the collective tax they paid, that more than 300 people bought something over the Internet in the State of Missouri last year. So this is a tax that is on the books, it needs to be collected, and we ought to see what we can do to make that happen. States that don't have a sales tax don't have to collect it. States that don't want to participate don't have to participate. But with all of the technology now available, with the $1 million exemption for businesses that want to sell a few things over the Internet--or maybe they want to sell everything over the Internet, they just don't sell very much--I think the objections that are reasonable to this have been more than met. I saw in a publication just last week on this topic three pretty well known conservatives, one talking about the Internet at its inception when William F. Buckley said: If the advantage of tax-free Internet commerce marginally closes out local industry, reforms are required. This was at a time when nobody was buying things over the Internet, when it was just getting started, when we didn't want to have a unique tax for the Internet. But in all of those discussions, I never heard a serious discussion that if you are on the Internet, you should avoid taxes that are required to be paid. And William F. Buckley at the time was saying that whenever this becomes a problem, something should be done about it, and that is what this bill would do. One of my former colleagues when I was in the House, now the Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, said: I don't think Congress should be in the business of picking winners and losers. Inaction by Congress today results in a system today that does pick winners and losers. He is talking about this system. Al Cardenas, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, said: There is no more glaring example of misguided government power that when taxes or regulations affect two similar businesses completely differently. Over time, the company that has to comply with a tax or a regulation will lose market share to its competitor who is carved out from this government interference. That is what this is about. I had a news conference on this in St. Louis a year or so ago, and as soon as the camera was turned off, the person interviewing me said: You know, one of my wife's friends has a wedding dress shop, and she sees people come in all the time who are clearly there to try on a wedding dress, get the number off the wedding dress, and order it on the Internet. And if the only difference in the cost of that wedding dress--I guess there are lots of variations but, say, 8 or 10 percent-- if the only difference is the sales tax, that is not a fair competition. And the person who went in the store to try on the wedding dress paid their local property taxes, they helped pay for the police protection, they helped pay for the sidewalk and the parking place, and then ordered the wedding dress from somebody who had contributed to none of that. So I join my colleagues in saying this is the right thing to do. I hope we can get it done. And frankly, if we don't get it done, the States that say this tax needs to be voluntarily paid and know that is not happening should just get that law off the books. Having a law on the books that you know people violate is not the right thing to do. Madam President, I would give back to Mr. Enzi or Mr. Alexander whatever time I haven't used, and I look forward to hearing others talk on this issue.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an amendment that has been filed by my friend Senator Moran that I am proud to support. This amendment would stop the Federal Aviation Administration from targeting air traffic control towers across the country, including the towers that are considered to be in the Contract Tower Program under sequestration. As I have said before on this floor and will continue to say, many of these problems will be resolved, I am convinced, if the Appropriations Committee does its work and that work is recognized and debated on the floor. And I hope we will not be having this same kind of discussion on October 1 when we begin the new spending year. But the impact of sequestration--cutting from this account--is real. Senator Moran's amendment is important. It is something that could impact the communities served by these towers. This amendment tries to ensure that these communities are not impacted. In our State, there are contract towers in Missouri--in Branson, in Joplin, in Colombia, in Jefferson City and Saint Joseph. All those could be affected, depending on how the FAA administers this cut in the contract tower line. A number of other airports in Missouri, including Springfield, downtown Kansas City, and downtown St. Louis, could lose their towers in the after-midnight service, and those planes that now land there after midnight would either not do that or would do that without the support of the tower they have now that assists in landing. This amendment of Senator Moran would protect those towers as well as the federally funded portion of 16 cost-share towers, which also could be closed at the end of this fiscal year. Specifically, this amendment takes $50 million from one place in the FAA--in fact, it is $50 million in research and capital funds--that is money that could easily be set aside for this short period of time so that these towers do not close-- and then Senator Moran would add $50 million in the Federal Aviation Administration operations account. The amendment makes it clear that the Contract Tower Program and contract tower cost-sharing programs are subject to the 5-percent sequestration cuts but, again, would transfer enough money within accounts that there should be money to keep these important towers open in Missouri, in Kansas, in Maryland, in Alaska. Many States--almost every State has something that would be impacted by this contract tower section. This $50 million would be more than 95 percent of the estimated money necessary to be sure that the contract tower program and the cost-share program would stay in place. If someone was using one of these airports and bought a ticket to travel out of one of these airports, or if someone is a general aviation customer at one of these airports, the tower is one of the ways they would expect their tax dollars to be spent. What Senator Moran is trying to do is find a way to do that which still allows sequestration to occur and still keeps the spending below the spending cap in the law. It is exactly in sync with the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law. This just tries to solve a problem. I wish to solve this problem in another way, by saying that Federal funds and employees who are involved in public safety have to be prioritized as people who show up, and we are going to move forward with that particular view legislatively if we cannot get it added to this spending bill which takes us from now until the end of the year. It is my hope we are not talking next year about how we get to the end of the year because we figured out how to get to the end of the year at the beginning of the year. That does not sound like an incredible goal for the Senate to have. But in a Senate that has not voted on a single appropriations bill for 16 months, updating the spending--5 of the 12 bills spend 70 percent of the money--in this continuing resolution is in the spirit of what our new chairman and our new ranking member want to do, and what the Senate should want to do, which is to deal with these things in the regular way. I would very much like to see Senator Moran's amendment included in what we are doing today. Just as importantly, I want to work with Senator Moran to see that as we look toward October 1, these kinds of issues don't have to become a regular part of our process, but the kind we look back on and say: Remember we failed to do our job the regular way and all the problems that created? Let's get back to regular order. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUNT. I need to repeat my request, Madam President, just in case. I ask unanimous consent that we set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 43.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I wish to talk about this amendment. I hope there is still a way I might be able to offer it. If I am not able to offer it as an amendment to this bill, I intend to offer it as a bill to become part of the ongoing laws that govern these kinds of activities. I would also say--and I have said to many people--I have great expectations for the chairman of our committee, Chairman Mikulski. I understand she is trying to work out how to make the work of the Senate happen, and I think she is going to be vigilant and determined in leading us back toward the normal appropriations process. I am proud to be a member of her committee, and I do believe she and Senator Shelby, the ranking Republican, are going to be insisting the Senate get back to the way it should do business. I look forward to working with her to solve the problems we are solving this week and the problems we need to solve before October 1, when the new fiscal year begins. Let me say a few words about this moment we find ourselves in, and that there is no question that government spending is out of control. We have increased spending 19 percent since 2008. The Federal debt has skyrocketed to almost $17 trillion now. In 1981, when Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President, as part of his inaugural address we were approaching the first $1 trillion in debt in the history of the country. The illustration he gave in that speech was: If you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills 4 inches high, you would be a millionaire, but the stack to have $1 trillion would have to be stacked--those dollar bills--67 miles high. Now we are 67 miles high with thousand-dollar bills, not of dollar bills, and if every 4 inches of that were $1 million, we are 67 miles high times almost 17. And that is unacceptable. The President's own budget office has made more than 200 recommendations of ways we could find savings through making government more efficient. More importantly, the Government Accountability Office has identified 51 areas where programs are inefficient, ineffective, and overlapping, leading to billions of dollars in wasted taxpayer money. There is simply no reason the government should stop providing essential services--which is what I want to talk about--because we are cutting 2\1/2\ percent of the budget through these line-by-line cuts that, by the way, wouldn't happen if we would budget at or below the number the law now says is the maximum dollar we can spend in any year--this year or for the next 9 years. This doesn't have to happen at all. But if it does happen, there is no reason we should have to be curtailing essential services. The Budget Control Act didn't fail to adequately plan for how to protect these essential services. On other days, when the government is not functioning at a full level, there have been many ways found to see those employees got to work. In fact, according to several letters from the Office of Management and Budget, Federal agencies have actually been instructed not to plan for sequestration. A few days ago, I was on the floor with a letter from the Office of Management and Budget from September 28 of last year, 2 days before the new spending year starts, and the letter said: Spend your money as though the law will not be obeyed. Spend your money as though the sequestration law will never go into effect. Spend your money as though the Budget Control Act will be changed. Of course, now we are halfway into the fiscal year and everybody has been spending as though the law isn't the law and suddenly we have these problems that are much bigger than they would have been if we had dealt with them over 12 months, but now we are trying to deal with them over a handful of months. Furlough notices are being made in a sweeping fashion. They are threatening day-to-day services that protect life and safety. Every service the Federal Government provides doesn't affect life and safety. I am not saying every Federal job is subject to this amendment or every Federal job is critical for everything that happens every day. I recently sent the Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary Vilsack, a letter urging him to use his authority to minimize the impact of sequestration as it relates to food safety and inspection services, the so-called FSIS. The letter came out right after the USDA said they would be laying off people for as many as 15 days in the last 4 months or so of the spending year--the 4 months that would end at the end of September. It is estimated these food inspector furloughs would lead to the closure of nearly 6,300 facilities across America for the day the food inspectors don't show up. If you happen to work somewhere for the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, supervisor, they can show up whenever they want to, and they do that periodically. They can do that as a surprise visit. They can do lots of things. But in the facilities that are supervised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that inspector has to be there every day and every minute of every day for those workers in Missouri or Wisconsin or Maryland or anywhere to work. I have been to a lot of these meat, poultry, and egg facilities, because we have 146 of them in our State. These are hard jobs. These people are not showing up to work every day because they like to have somewhere to go. The fact is hundreds of workers, in fact, thousands of workers, could not show up for work on a given day and because the USDA inspector doesn't show up, they don't get paid for that day, and their families will suffer needlessly because we couldn't figure out how to prioritize what was necessary for those people to go to work. That is unacceptable to me. As a result of these furloughs, the estimate is that nearly 500,000 workers will lose $400 million in wages over the course of this month. When that inspector doesn't show up, or the two inspectors don't show up at that plant that day, none of the many people who work there--and there might be a thousand people working at that plant that day--can work, none of them get paid, none of them produce the food that a few months later or a few weeks later or a few days later won't show up on the grocery store shelves in the country. And that is a problem too, but the problem I am concerned about is the working families who are affected here as well as the working families who later will see their meat, poultry, and egg prices go up because the supply is that much less than it otherwise would have been. In his response to my letter, Secretary Vilsack claimed that ``When Congress drafted the Budget Control Act of 2011 directing Federal agencies to reduce their spending at specified levels, it included no exemption for essential employees such as FSIS inspectors.'' So today I wish to introduce the amendment the chairman has objected to--and I will introduce in the next few days a piece of legislation exactly like the amendment--and will continue to look for ways to add this amendment to this legislation. What this amendment would do is give the administration the flexibility it claims it doesn't have. In doing so, this amendment will ensure essential Federal employees continue to provide vital services, such as meat inspectors, control tower operators, and border security guards. And here is how we would do it. In April of 2011, the Office of Personnel Management sent a detailed memo--this is President Obama's Office of Personnel Management--to each Federal agency outlining which Federal employees would be exempted from furlough during a potential government shutdown. It is my belief that the administration may still have this ability. But if they do not have it, I want to give it to them and I want to give it to them exactly as they themselves said it should be applied in April of 2011: Those employees are considered essential ``to ensure the safety of life and protection of property,'' based on language contained in this act. My amendment would apply identical language used during government shutdown scenarios to the sequester. It defines an essential employee as an employee that performs work involving the safety of human life and the protection of property as determined by the head of the agency. This is the same language not only used in April of 2011 but used in guidance from the Clinton administration in preparation for the 1995 government shutdown, the last time when the government really did shut down. These people showed up. These people were told to report to work. And if it was good enough for President Clinton to tell them to report to work, if it was good enough for President Obama in April of 2011 to tell them to report to work, it should be good enough now for the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of Homeland Security, and anyone else where these people are being furloughed to do so. This provision provides agencies with funding flexibility so that essential services are maintained, while nonessential employees are furloughed. I think we could do this--and with the chairman's help, we will do this--in the committee, I would hope, without having furloughs necessary in the future. But this amendment would solve the problem of essential employees that both President Clinton and President Obama thought was important to deal with the last two times a similar topic came up. I would also like to mention the second amendment, which I am not offering, so it doesn't need to be objected to. Senator Pryor and I have an amendment that may approach this in a different way--at least from the Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration Subcommittee. He is the chairman and I am the ranking member of that appropriations subcommittee, and I hope we can find a solution here. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The ACTING PRESIDING pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a disappointing milestone that we passed yesterday. Yesterday was the 1,400th day since the Senate passed a Federal budget--1,400 days. So I guess today is the first day moving toward 1,500 days, but yesterday was the 1,400th day. It has been said--and I know I have said it on this floor--that failing to plan is planning to fail. If you don't have any idea where you are going, you are not likely to get where you would like to be. When it comes to our budgetary future, the strategy of the majority has been just not to deal with it. Last summer Vice President Joe Biden challenged and said: Show me your budget and I will tell you what you value. Why the Vice President would have said that I really don't know. The President's budget that has arrived late and has been dead on arrival, apparently, every time it has arrived in the last 4 years and a Senate majority of the Vice President's party that has not passed a budget--why the Vice President would have said: Show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value, I don't know. I like the Vice President personally a lot. I often don't know exactly why he said what he said. But this comment really does raise a question about why we are not willing to talk about the things we want to achieve as a government. Nearly 4 years have passed since we had any kind of blueprint. I am told when we talk about a budget in Washington that apparently there were no political consequences because the majority was rewarded with the majority again even though if there was one comment made over and over again in that campaign, it is, it has been 3 years since there has been a budget, and now we are saying it has been 4 years since there has been a budget, and we have seen the government lurch from crisis to crisis. Frankly, most of these crises have been created by the people who say they are trying to deal with them. I could not imagine, in November and December, why we would want to start a new year with the issues before us that were before us then. This could have been handled at that time as easily as it could be handled now. Part of it is the failure to plan. Since the Senate, controlled for some time now by Democrats, passed a budget in April of 2009, lots of things have happened. Four years ago nobody in America had an iPad yet because iPads had not yet been invented. Nobody in America now doesn't know somebody who has an iPad if they don't have one themselves. Instagram, which our conference just added to one of these tools this week, didn't even exist 4 years ago. The Federal debt 4 years ago was less than $12 trillion. Now it is $16.6 trillion. LeBron James was still a Cleveland Cavalier the last time the Senate passed a budget. ObamaCare--and the President, in the Presidential campaign, said he now liked that term. I think he may not like it as well as he does now when people find out more about it--was not even the law yet. It was not the law. The ``Oprah'' show was still on the air. NASA had not announced yet that we were done with the space shuttle missions. Prince William and Kate Middleton were not engaged, and Brett Favre still played for the NFL. Lots of things have happened in the last 4 years, but one thing that has not happened is the Senate has not passed a budget. Republicans in the House have drawn up and voted for budgets. We figured out ways occasionally to have a budget vote. But the President's budget would get no vote. There was no Senate majority budget on which to vote. I look forward to seeing that budget on the floor. I was glad to vote just a few weeks ago on the bill that said that if we do not have a budget, we do not get paid, because if we do not have a budget, we do not have the fundamental tool it takes to have the other debates on the appropriations bills. People deserve a Senate that has a budget, is willing to put it out there, and that then is willing to have the debates on appropriations bills we need to have. It has been 15 months since we had an appropriations bill on the Senate floor. We have failed to do the work, and that leads us from one needless crisis to another. Now the crisis, of course, is the sequestration deadline. If you listen to the administration, you would assume that this is the last day it is safe to go outside; that starting tomorrow terrible things are going to happen. I just heard our leader, the Republican leader, talk about our willingness to give the President of the other party more ability to direct these cuts in specific ways--but not forever. We need to take that responsibility back ourselves and appropriate the money that is going to be spent October 1. But between now and September 30, we need to make these reductions in the best way rather than the worst way. The Appropriations Committee, on which I am the ranking Republican, has Agriculture in it. One thing I am going to ask the Department is, Which employees are supposed to show up on those days that are so dangerous that you say only the critical employees need to be here? And if they are supposed to be here in bad weather, why wouldn't they be here now? Why would you cut the Federal employee who has to show up at a food-processing facility for anybody else to work and have somebody in an office somewhere doing something that could be done the next day that is just dependent on them? If I were the President, I wouldn't want to be answering, why did you cut this and not cut that? Recently the President had a series of press conferences. He embarked on a 100-city tour to warn about the sequester. He showed up in Newport News in Virginia almost exactly 1 year after three of my colleagues went there--Senator Graham, Senator Ayotte, and Senator McCain--saying: In a year this is going to be a big problem. A year later the President shows up and says: This is going to be a big problem. The President proposed the sequester in 2011. He insisted that it become law. He even threatened to veto a bill. He said: I will veto any bill to replace the sequester--late last year. Suddenly, now he has changed his mind and all these terrible things are going to happen and it is unavoidable. It is only unavoidable if we refuse to cut things that can be cut. The Federal Government has grown 19 percent in its spending in the last 4 years. The sequester would cut 2.4 or 2.5 percent. Anybody in America whose budget has grown 19 percent in the last 2 years can go back, not to where they were the last 4 years--rather, not to where they were 3 years or 4 years ago but just to where they were a few months ago and get their spending level back to that. This is a budget which has grown in a tremendous way, but now it is suddenly uncuttable. We cannot begin to get by with the money we were spending 6 or 9 or 12 months ago? Nobody believes that. If we want to have this discussion, that is fine with me. These spending cuts need to happen. They should happen, and they should happen in the right way. This is not going to be solved by campaign appearances all over the country. It is going to be solved by good management to reach reasonable goals. The accounting office has identified 51 areas where programs are inefficient, ineffective, and overlapping--51 areas. Why don't we deal with that? That is the Executive's responsibility, to say: Here is how we are going to eliminate these programs the Government Accountability Office has said are inefficient, ineffective, and overlapping. Otherwise, I guess we are committed to keep the programs that are inefficient, ineffective, and overlapping and spend billions of dollars of the taxpayers' money. That would include things such as 180 economic development programs operating in five different Cabinet agencies. I am for economic development. I am for opportunity and jobs. But do we need 180 different programs in 5 different agencies? Divide 180 by 5--does each of those agencies need an average of that many programs? There are 173 programs across 13 agencies to promote science, technology, engineering, and math education. That is not a bad goal, but does it take 173 programs in 13 agencies to do it? Twenty agencies oversee more than 50 financial literacy programs. More than 50 programs across 4 departments are there to support entrepreneurs. Private sector job creation should be the No. 1 domestic goal of the country today, but do you need 50 programs in four departments to encourage entrepreneurial skills? Probably not. Why don't we hear about that instead of the air traffic controllers and the highway engineers and the meat plant inspectors and the Head Start teachers? Why don't we hear about these programs that we all know are ready to be made more efficient--or in some cases just simply the way to make them more effective is to eliminate those programs. There are 47 job training programs in 9 agencies that cost $18 billion in fiscal year 2009. I do not have a number newer than that. We actually don't have a budget much newer than that. But $18 billion for 47 programs in 9 agencies? I am sure we can do better. The Government Accountability Office found at least 37 duplicative investments in information technology--that was $1.2 billion over 5 years--and 14 programs to administer grants to reduce diesel emissions across 3 departments. This is not 14 programs to administer grants and loans, this is 14 programs to administer grants and loans to reduce diesel emissions. I am for reducing diesel emissions. I am even for the Federal Government paying some attention to whether that is being done. But do we need 14 programs in 3 different agencies to do it? Across-the-board cutting, which is what sequester really means--that means we couldn't get to the number because, by the way, we didn't have any budget, we didn't pass any budget, so of course we couldn't get to the number. We couldn't get to the number the law requires us not to exceed in our spending, so the cure for that is to cut every line item in the discretionary spending part of the budget--the part that defends the country, the part that builds highways, the part that administers most educational needs in which the Federal Government is involved? That is what sequester is. We can do better. The Department of Defense has spent more than $67 billion in the last 10 years on nondefense spending. Probably somebody better than the Department of Defense could do the nondefense work. The Department of Energy weatherization program, which has received $5 billion in stimulus funds, exhibited a failure rate of 80 percent. The stimulus program really worked out well. Here is an 80-percent failure rate in energy weatherization. The FAA--the Federal Aviation Administration, the one about which my friend the Secretary of Transportation, with whom I served in the House, said we would have to eliminate air traffic controllers--they spend $500 million each year on consultants. It could be that it is more important that the air traffic controllers show up than that the consultants show up. I have a list here I am going to submit because the list literally goes on and on. The Internal Revenue Service stored 22,486 items of unused furniture in a warehouse, at an annual cost of $862,000. We will have this discussion of ``why cut that instead of this'' if we want to. But my side is willing to give the President authority between now and the end of this haphazardly put together appropriating year to target cuts so that those of us in the Senate can appropriate the money for next year's spending. We ought to be moving right now. We should not be having this debate at all today. We should be having a debate on the budget to have it done by April 15 so the Appropriations Committee can begin to do its work and we can find out what needs to happen here. This is a good time to ask the question, Is this a job for the government? If the answer is yes, the second question is, Is the Federal Government the best of all governments to solve this problem or is there some government closer to the people and closer to the problem that can solve it in a better way? There are two things I wish to submit and ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record as I close my remarks. One is a July 31, 2012, memo to agencies from the Office of Management and Budget that says, ``Agencies should continue normal spending and operations since there are more than 5 months that remain for Congress to act.'' On September 28 the same management organization, the Office of Management and Budget, under the Executive Office of the President, sent another memo out that says, ``Agencies should continue normal spending and operations, as instructed in the July 31 memo from the Office of Management and Budget to executive departments and agencies which addresses operational and other issues raised by the potential of January 2 sequestration.'' So the new spending year is about to begin in 2 days--2 days after this goes out--and the direction from the White House is business as usual, full-speed ahead, spend money just like you are. Don't bother with that law which says that beginning on January 1, we have to spend less money. Well, I am convinced we are going to spend less money. I am prepared to work with the President to see that we do that in the smartest possible way, but we have to get our spending under control, and I look forward to seeing the Senate do its job first with the budget and then with bills that debate our money and what we spend our money on.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield back whatever time I might have.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, for 40 years, there has been no greater advocate for Southwest Missouri seniors than Dorothy Knowles. As executive director of the Southwest Missouri Office on Aging, Dorothy's leadership and motivation have inspired a talented and spirited staff to help seniors understand issues and offer a variety of resources. When Medicare part D arrived, it was Dorothy who voluntarily began the effort to educate seniors on the options and advantages in the new program. Thanks to her actions, the Southwest Missouri Office on Aging became and continues to be the premiere source of information on that program and others for seniors. When Dorothy Knowles began work as a secretary and bookkeeper at the Southwest Missouri Office on Aging, it was brand new. A single mother in need of a job, Dorothy saw the new agency as an opportunity. She rose through the ranks and learned the agency's needs and programs as director of social services and as associate director. Her boss during those years was her mentor, Winston Bledsoe. Winston started with a $25,000 grant to open the first 9 senior centers in the region, creating a daily meeting place for 40,000 seniors. When Winston retired in 1999, his deputy Dorothy took charge, armed with 25 years of experience in providing senior services, advocacy, and a keen understanding of how to stretch a dollar. Dorothy has never missed an opportunity to expand services and outreach and provide seniors with opportunities to improve the quality of life for older Americans. During 2012, there were 38 senior centers serving more than 370,000 meals to seniors and 700,000 home-delivered meals in 17 counties. Today there are services to support caregivers, respite relief, transportation, housekeeping, legal outreach, and even services to help seniors file income taxes. In 2005, Medicare added prescription drug coverage, creating an on- line ordering process and regulations seniors had never experienced. Dorothy immediately saw the need to educate seniors so they could take advantage of this service to acquire vital medicines. Self taught and without additional funding, she led the staff at the Southwest Missouri Office on Aging to become the best resource for Medicare part D information anywhere. Working with my congressional office, Dorothy led her new experts on Part D into seminars and signup clinics in every county of Southwest Missouri. Every year since then, they have remained the premiere source of part D expertise. I have worked with Dorothy Knowles and know the commitment, dedication, and joy she takes in serving our senior population. I doubt her retirement will be the end of her enthusiastic advocacy for Southwest Missouri seniors. She will still weigh in on elder abuse laws and senior wellness funding and will still instill that unrelenting zeal she has to champion senior causes in her 150 member staff and colleagues. I wish her, and the agency she helped craft into a bastion of senior advocacy, the best in the decades ahead. Southwest Missouri is a better place for seniors to live thanks to Dorothy Knowles and her four decades of service at the Southwest Missouri Office on Aging.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, today I wish to honor Dr. Fred Hawthorne, who recently was named as a recipient of the National Medal of Science for his important research involving the use of the chemical element boron in the treatment of cancer, arthritis, and other diseases. On February 1, 2013, Dr. Hawthorne will be one of only 22 recipients from across the country receiving the award from President Obama in a ceremony at the White House. This recognition certainly is well-deserved. As the director of the International Institute of Nano and Molecular Medicine at the University of Missouri, as well as the Curators' Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Radiology, Dr. Hawthorne has pioneered the field of boron research throughout his impressive career. The National Medal of Science, the highest award the country can bestow upon our scientists, is a fitting recognition of his critically important and innovative work. Having grown up in Missouri and Kansas, Fred Hawthorne enrolled in 1944 as a chemical engineering student at the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, now the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Hawthorne later transferred to Pomona College in California, where he completed his degree in chemistry. In 1953, he earned his Ph.D. from UCLA for his work in organic chemistry. In the following years, Hawthorne's work took him across the country--from Iowa to Alabama, Pennsylvania to Massachusetts--before returning him to UCLA in 1969, where he continued his ground-breaking research for more than 37 years. Upon retiring from his academic career at UCLA in 2009, Hawthorne returned once again to Missouri to help build MU's International Institute of Nano and Molecular Medicine. Thanks to Hawthorne's direction, this research center is an international leader in the field of boron neutron capture therapy, the cell-selective radiation method he helped pioneer. His work has shown incredible promise in developing noninvasive treatments for cancer and other diseases. As a cancer survivor myself, I am especially grateful for the treatments Dr. Hawthorne is exploring to help the many people whom the disease affects. Fred Hawthorne's years of dedicated research certainly have made lasting contributions to the fields of science and medicine. I thank him again for his important work and congratulate him on this hard- earned recognition.