Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I join my good friend in suggesting we would like to see our colleagues come over here. These three appropriations bills are being handled on the floor and they are open to amendment. We haven't had appropriations bills on the floor of the Senate in this way in quite a while. We would like to get these bills done. Hopefully, we can get these bills done maybe even this week and send them on over to the House to talk about these bills and their bills--3 bills, 16 amendments, and those aren't all the amendments we expect to be offered. But we hope these amendments are offered today--a significant number--and as the Senator from Maryland said earlier, we expect votes on some of these amendments around 6 o'clock. Between now and then, we look forward to a vigorous debate on as many of these as the sponsors can come and debate. But the Agriculture bill that I am the ranking member of; the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill, which the Senator represents so well; and the Commerce-State-Justice bill are all bills that are moving forward in as close to a regular process as we have had in a while. We look forward to seeing these amendments debated this afternoon and some of them--as many of them as possible--voted on this afternoon and this evening.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I object on behalf of Senator Hatch and Senator Isakson.

Mr. BLUNT

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I wish to join Senator Kohl in saying how much I appreciate Senator Collins working on this amendment and the purpose of the amendment and I think it is a good addition to the bill. I also think we had a good exchange of ideas on the floor yesterday and would note we have received a number of amendments to the bill. I encourage my colleagues to offer amendments they feel would improve the bill that is in front of them. Senator Kohl and I believe this is a good product, but we also believe it will benefit from debate. So we are looking forward to an open amendment process and are glad to have the pending amendments to discuss, plus particularly the one Senator Collins has just discussed that we both believe is a good addition to the bill. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Kohl in supporting this bill, the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies. I am glad we are considering appropriations bills on the Senate floor in a manner that will allow us to fully debate amendments. In addition to funding the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, the bill we bring to the floor today also includes the fiscal year 2012 bills introduced by other committees, as Senator Kohl has already specified; by the Subcommittees on Commerce, Justice, Science and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. For now, I will limit my comments just to the agriculture provisions and, of course, defer to my colleagues, Senator Hutchison and Senator Collins, on the provisions that relate to the other two bills. Activities funded by the Agriculture bill touch the lives of every American every day. These activities include agricultural research, conservation activities, housing and business loan programs for rural communities, domestic and international nutrition programs, and food and drug safety. Funding for each of these deserves thorough and thoughtful consideration. Senator Kohl and I have made some difficult decisions in drafting this bill. Aside from disaster recovery efforts, the bill is $138 million below last year and represents a responsible approach to funding agricultural priorities as we tighten our belts and live more within our means. While most programs are reduced by 5 percent, we prioritized those programs that protect the public health and help maintain the strength of our Nation's agricultural economy. Agriculture is one of the few sectors of our economy that enjoys a trade surplus, and the overall state of the farm economy is currently strong. With the Nation's unemployment rate continuing to hover around 9 percent, expanding agricultural exports is even more vital, as every billion dollars in exports supports an estimated 8,000 American jobs. That is one reason I was pleased we were able to pass the free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia last week. Expanding access to these markets will create an estimated 20,000 agricultural- related jobs alone. However, expanding access to new markets is only one piece of the puzzle that maintains our agricultural economy. Our agricultural products are the best in the world. Our producers are the best in the world at producing products that are desirable in the global market. This is in part the result of smart investment in America's agricultural research infrastructure. That is why I am pleased this bill places significant emphasis on maintaining research programs and our land grant university system and funding competitive research programs such as the agriculture and food research initiative. These programs are critical to helping our farmers increase production and will expand our Nation's economic growth. Not only does every dollar spent on agricultural research result in a $20 return to the U.S. economy, research investments also result in a food supply that is safe, abundant, and affordable. I am also glad that the agriculture bill includes funding to help farmers in communities recover from natural disasters. Missouri has seen unprecedented devastation from both tornados and flooding this year. Funding included in this bill for the Emergency Watershed Protection Program and the Emergency Conservation Program is necessary to help those areas recover and resume their way of life. It is important that we support our farmers as they clear debris, regrade, and rehabilitate their land for the next growing season. I thank Senator Kohl for the bipartisan working relationship we have on the agriculture subcommittee. This is my first bill as the ranking member of the subcommittee, and the chairman has given me every opportunity to provide input into the bill. He has done a good job of balancing the priorities of the agriculture subcommittee this year. I hope my colleagues join me in supporting the bill that the chairman and I present together today.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I join with my good friend from South Dakota and the comments he made about the disadvantage we have created for ourselves in the last 3 years by not moving forward with these trade agreements long ago. But we are going to move forward today. Jump-starting America's economy is going to require bipartisanship. If we are going to compete in a global economy, it means we are all going to have to work together to help create economic opportunities for Americans who are looking for work, help to create those private sector jobs that are the difference in a prosperous economy and an economy that is struggling. Last night the motion to open debate on the President's so-called jobs bill was amended by his own party and was defeated then by a bipartisan vote in the Senate. That is not the kind of bipartisanship we need. We need bipartisanship moving forward not bipartisanship walking away. The bill was defeated because it does not make economic sense--as the President said in August of 2009--to raise taxes on job creators. In fact, the administration, by its own accounting, said roughly 80 percent of the people who would be impacted by the surtax imposed by the bill that was set aside last night would be defined as businesses, the very businesses that need to create jobs in an economy where that should be the No. 1 priority. The President's first $800 billion stimulus plan failed to stimulate. It did not create the private sector jobs we needed and, simply, my view of the $450 billion we were talking about yesterday was that it was more of the same. But today is not more of the same. Today is a bipartisan opportunity to move forward with a bipartisan bill to help jump-start our economy. If there is low-hanging fruit in job creation, it is exporting products to markets that want to buy them. This is not about labor conditions in Colombia or whatever might happen in Korea or Panama. This is about products that American workers make and whether they can get into those markets. I would also say that for well over a decade now Colombian products have come into our country without a tariff under something called the Andean Free Trade Agreement. Well, so this can't be about Colombian labor. It must be about American labor and what we can do for American workers. We can open markets for American products, and that is what we are going to do today, I hope, as we move to agree to these trade bills. These trade agreements would mean an additional $2.5 billion per year in agricultural exports. Every billion dollars' worth of agricultural exports means an estimated 8,000 new jobs in Missouri. In Missouri, the trade-related jobs grew more than three times faster than other employment from 2004 to 2008. I recently asked Missourians on Facebook and Twitter to share some of their personal stories about how they thought these trade agreements would impact their lives. Glen Cope, a young full-time farmer from Aurora, MO, noted: Agriculture is not drawing young people to stay on the farm. . . . because it is difficult to make land payments based on what little we get for the products we produce-- Versus the inputs-- and this has been the case now for generations. Glen called on Congress to help farmers by creating ``more demand for our products if we are going to get young people to stay and take over the farm.'' Their parents and grandparents have produced food for our country and for much of the world for a long time. Glen Cope's generation can continue to do the same. Chris Chinn, who runs a family farm in Clarence, MO, in northeast Missouri, told me if these trade deals pass, her family ``could receive almost $11 more for every hog they sell.'' Now, she noted, while $11 may not sound like a lot, it sure seemed like a lot when they were losing $20 for every hog they sold from 2007 through 2010. That makes the difference in whether that family stays on the farm. Chris urged Congress to pass these agreements because ``this increased revenue will help us meet expenses and help us ensure our family farm will be there to pass on to my kids, who will be the sixth generation of farmers in our family.'' Barbara Wilson noted that ``agriculture fuels the economy in our small town of Mexico, Missouri.'' She told me that the passage of these free-trade agreements would lead to an ``increased demand for our corn and our soybeans,'' and she stressed that ``when the agricultural economy is good, the economy in our small town benefits.'' That means increased jobs in all sectors of that small-town economy. Brian Hammons, president of Hammons Products Company in Stockton, MO, told me that ``significant government-mandated trade barriers are hurting'' his attempts to compete and develop markets for American black walnuts, which are harvested by hand in Missouri and other Midwestern States. Brian noted, if these trade deals passed, ``our company can buy more black walnuts from thousands of people in Missouri and 11 other States, providing cash to those rural areas. And even more importantly, the increased production activity from processing those nuts would allow us to provide more employment for people in our rural Missouri community.'' These are just a few of the farmers and job creators in Missouri who are calling on Congress to pass these free-trade agreements. I look forward to voting for these agreements tonight. I hope a huge majority of my colleagues will join me in voting for the South Korea agreement, the Panama agreement, and the Colombia agreement. We will send a message to the world that we intend to compete in a world economy. If we are given the chance to compete, American workers can compete with anybody. These trade agreements provide an opportunity to do that.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, as we discuss what we should be talking about--how to get more people back to work--there are a lot of different approaches on how we get there. But I hope we can reach the decision that we need to do the things in government that allow private individuals to make the decisions they make to create jobs. Our Federal debt has reached, of course, a record high. It continues to grow every day. National unemployment is lingering around 9 percent. Home prices have plummeted in almost every community in America. Gas prices and health care costs have skyrocketed. On the energy issue my friend from Vermont was talking about, the shortest path to more American jobs is more American energy. I am not opposed to any of the green jobs he was talking about. I wish to see us have all of those jobs, if they can eventually be a competitive part of an energy environment. I think they can. But I think we should also focus on the jobs that power America today. Even if we knew what the country was going to look like energywise 30 years from now, it would take a long time to get there. I am for more American energy jobs of all kinds. For 50 years we have not met the marketplace need with what we could produce. But the marketplace need is always there. It is always there in a bad economy, it is always there in a good economy. Let's meet that need. Certainly that can mean more solar and more wind and more biofuels and more anything else we can think of. It also needs to mean more shale gas and more shale oil, more using the fossil fuel deposits such as coal that we have as we move toward a different energy future, and to do that in a way that allows us to continue to be competitive. If our utility bill doubles in the middle of the country where the Presiding Office of the Senate today and I are from, we are not as competitive, and I don't think we lose the jobs we lose to Massachusetts or to California. I think we lose those jobs to places that care a whole lot less about what comes out of the smokestack than we do. At the same time, jump-starting our economy will require bipartisanship. If we are going to compete in a global economy and help create economic opportunities, we have to be willing to work together. This week we saw a long-awaited but still a real example of that kind of bipartisanship when President Obama submitted the three pending trade agreements. They have been pending for 3 years and we have lost opportunities in those markets for 3 years. But in fairness to the President, for at least the first 2 of those 3 years, the House of Representatives would not have passed these agreements. But they would pass them now, and they will pass them now, and so will the Senate--I am hopeful as early as next week. That creates opportunities in Missouri, where I am from, and across the country. I have worked closely with our colleagues. Senator Portman and I put a letter together from Republicans who told the White House we are willing to work on the trade adjustment assistance as part of the package, if that is what it takes to get these trade agreements sent to the Capitol. And we did. Those trade adjustment agreements have now passed the Senate and are ready to move forward with the trade bills. These free-trade agreements would mean an additional $2\1/2\ to $3 billion in agricultural exports every year. Every billion dollars of agricultural exports is an estimated 8,000 new jobs. These are the places where we can get the jobs: trade, travel, tourism, energy. This is not that complicated a formula, but the government cannot continue to stand in the way of all of those things moving forward. In Missouri, exports accounted for 5.4 percent of our gross domestic product in 2008. Companies in our State sold products in nearly 200 foreign markets. Since 2002, exports have increased three times faster than the rest of our economy. That is one State in the middle of the country working to be competitive in the world. The passage of these trade agreements will increase trade for soybeans, for beef, for corn, for pork, for dairy products, for processed food, for fish, all of which we produce in our State, plus all kinds of manufactured products which in South Korea, in Colombia, and Panama, given the choice of two products on the shelf, the American product is still a product that consumers in those countries will choose even with some disadvantage. Imagine what will happen when we eliminate more of that disadvantage. This week the bill on the floor--I think this bill that concerns me about managing China currency, but only if the President does not disagree with what the Congress has passed--has much greater potential to start a trade war than it does to solve any given problem. I am not here to defend the Chinese or its leaders or its trade practices. In fact, one of those practices where you make a product in China and there is already a finding that that product is somehow unfairly being imported or exported in the WTO agreements, and so you put another a label on it that says it is from somewhere else, sometimes called transshipment, Senator Wyden and I have a bill, the ENFORCE Act, that would deal with that, and it deals with that specifically, directly, and actually will produce a result. I look forward to that bill being on the floor. I am proud to cosponsor Senator Hatch's alternative to the bill that is on the floor this week that, in fact, is multilateral. It involves other countries plus the WTO, plus the IMF, in a discussion that might actually produce a real result of what the various countries in the world, including China, are doing as they manage their currency in ways that may not be found to be fair in the foreign marketplace. But we need results. We do not need legislation purposes of using up time when we have so many important things we could be doing. I have cosponsored the Affordable Footwear Act with Senator Cantwell. That will ease the tax burden on American consumers who unknowingly pay up to 40 percent duties on retail costs that cover this import duty or the shoe tax on shoes made outside the United States. All of those bills represent ways we can level the playing field for American workers, for American job creators, and spur economic growth right here at home. Another topic we should be focused on is Federal regulation and regulation that simply does not make sense. I have met lots of job creators in Missouri even this year, and certainly in past years. But this year more than any other, they want to talk about the regulators. They want to talk about the air rules, the utility MACT rule, the cross-State air pollution rule, that could cause as much as 15 percent of our coal-producing energy plants to shut down. When they shut down, that means the price goes up. I know it is a philosophy of many in the current administration that our problem is that our energy is not expensive enough, but I do not find any Missouri families who are sitting down at the kitchen table looking at their utility bill and saying, the problem here is this bill is not high enough. What we need to do to solve our energy problem is raise this. Nobody is saying that--even though the cap-and-trade legislation that passed the House in 2009 would have doubled the utility bill in Missouri in about 12 years. A lot of things work at today's utility bill that do not work later. Under the new EPA regulations on cross-State air pollution, the Ameren Electric Company announced that they will be forced to close two of their coal-fired plants by the end of this year. Not modify, not redo, close. The only thing that makes sense is to close those plants. The people who get the utility bill will know those plants are closed because they are going to be paying a higher price. Electric rates could rise 20 percent in some areas in a very short time. Fugitive dust. There is actually a rule the EPA is talking about where farmers cannot let dust from their farm go to another farm. I was raised on farms and around farms. You cannot farm without dust. You cannot harvest a crop without dust. You cannot farm in the mud. You cannot contain the dust that is part of farming. It is the kind of rule that simply does not make sense. There is a rule on boilers that would impact universities and hospitals as well as sawmills and other facilities that generate their energy from industrial boilers. There is a cement regulation. We are not going to have the kind of recovery we want in this country without a recovery in housing. The House recently passed a bill that would require the administration to evaluate the economic toll of the new EPA rules on cement and other industries. The House also is set to take up a bill that would delay the cement rules for at least 5 years. You are not going to have a construction industry if you do not have access to products that make sense to build things out of. I have said for some time that we ought to have a moratorium on all of these regulations. In fact, I am cosponsoring Senator Collins' bill to call a timeout on new major regulations and give employers the certainty that they need to create new jobs in an environment that they understand what it is going to be like as those jobs have a chance to become permanent jobs. This is an easy solution to help job creators. But instead, we are talking about the jobs bill. Almost all of the President's speeches on the jobs bill are in politically competitive States. I am wondering if that is not a 2012 political strategy instead of a 2011 legislative strategy. There are 1.7 million fewer American jobs since the President signed the first stimulus bill into law. We do not need stimulus 2. We need to do the things that encourage private sector job creators to create private sector jobs. Let's vote on the bill. Instead of this debate we are having this week on China currency, let's vote on the President's bill. He said in, I think, Dallas last Tuesday, late morning in Dallas: Let the Senate at least vote on the bill. So the minority leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and said, let's vote on the bill. We are ready on our side. Let's vote on the bill. Let's get beyond the ``pass the bill,'' let's see if the votes are there to pass the bill so we can get to the things that will get the country going again. These regulations and this talk of higher utility bills and higher taxes put a big wet blanket on the entire economy. This discussion of who we are going to be puts a big wet blanket on the entire economy. Let's take that blanket off and do the things at the government level that allow private job creators to do what they can to create private sector jobs. I hope we can get on with the business the country needs to get done. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to Dr. C. Pat Taylor, who has served as president of Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO, for the last 15 years, making him the longest serving president in the 133-year history of the school. Dr. Taylor already had an impressive record in higher education before coming to SBU in 1996. In the last 15 years he has added to that record of accomplishment and earned respect for his leadership and dedication to the students and community at Southwest Baptist University. Southwest Baptist University is a very special place to me. I earned my undergraduate degree there and 20 years later served 4 years as its President. Dr. Taylor is my successor, and I have enjoyed watching the university grow and get even better under his leadership. During his remarkable tenure at SBU: Dr. Taylor has presented a record 11,881 degrees since 1996. SBU has Missouri's third largest nursing degree program on its Springfield campus. The number of student missionaries sent out in North American has doubled to more than 400 in the last decade, and Dr. Taylor hopes to see that continue to increase. Student enrollment peaked at more than 3700 in the fall of 2009 and remains at 3,576 this semester. The Partner in Excellence campaign between 1999 and 2005 raised a record $62 million to fund 13 major building projects for the arts, instructional technology and extended learning, sports and athletics, religious education, and campus parking. The SBU endowment more than doubled during the last decade to over $19 million. The school's first doctoral program was launched, and the number of physical therapy applications has grown each year. ``It's all God's blessing,'' Dr. Taylor has explained. ``We've worked hard, but God has blessed it. It's not what we've done, but it's what God has done through us. When I really look at our success, it's because God has ordained that we will be successful.'' I could not agree with Dr. Taylor more. I would add that Dr. Taylor is a blessing to Southwest Baptist University and the community. It is my hope that Southwest Baptist University continues to meet its mission as a ``Christ-centered, caring academic community preparing students to be servant leaders in a global society.'' It is a bold calling, and I am certain SBU has the leadership and dedication in Dr. Taylor to see it fulfilled.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor the bill with Senator Inhofe. Between he and I, we may have been to the scenes of more tornadoes than almost anybody else in America who is not a storm chaser. Because of where we live and what we have done, we have had a chance to see the aftermath of many tornadoes. Unlike the floods we have dealt with in our State this year and the hurricanes we have dealt with in other States recently, the tornado is there and you don't get much warning, and that storm shelter needs to be close if you want a chance to get into it. The bill he has drafted and I am proud to cosponsor with him provides an opportunity to get that storm shelter nearby.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I wish to speak for a few minutes today about the bill that is on the floor, the amendment, in fact, to the general system of trade preferences bill. That amendment is trade adjustment assistance. Frankly, it is not a bill I would have drafted on my own, but my guess is neither would have the two people who negotiated the bill. This is a compromise between Chairman Camp in the House and the Senator from Montana here. It is a compromise that reflects exactly that. It is not what either one of them may have come up with, and certainly not what I would have come up with. But, based on the President's determination, it is essential to move on to the three trade agreements that have been waiting to be voted on for 3 years now. I intend to vote for this. I am looking carefully at the amendments. I am supportive of the two amendments we will vote on today. But if they would disrupt the balance of this agreement that has been made, I am going to look very carefully at that as these votes are cast. Certainly, I wish for this President and all of his successors to have trade promotion authority. I think we have seen the difficulty of the President being able to negotiate a treaty as an agreement. A trade agreement that comes to the Senate and that could be amended by the Senate and which takes two-thirds of the Senate to approve--those days are over. Before trade promotion authority, we had essentially gotten out of the treaty agreement on trade because who wants to make that kind of agreement? Who wants to get into a room and negotiate a trade agreement only to see the thing maybe they thought was the biggest thing they had given up or the biggest thing they had gotten taken out of the agreement before the Senate votes on it? So this up-or-down, yes-or-no, majority-in-the-Senate and majority- in-the-House trade promotion authority is very important. I wish we had an agreement that this President wanted right now, and that the next President--whoever that is and whenever that is--would have the ability to continue, because since we ran out of the trade promotion authority law, we have not had any agreements negotiated. In fact, the three we have negotiated now, I want to talk about for a minute, but they have been available for 3 years and I am eager for the President to send them up. The President says this TAA issue, this trade adjustment assistance issue, has to be understood to be completed and will be completed, or at least he has to be assured it will be completed, before we get those three agreements. It would be fine with me if we could adjust this some. I want to see the bill of my good friend from Oregon, who is on the floor, Mr. Wyden, considered, of which I have cosponsored, on transshipments, where many of us in this body have problems in our States--I have two major problems I could talk about for a long time, but I will not today-- where the proper authority has looked at what is happening, and they said: No, you have unfair trade practices. So there is a penalty on the country that is using those unfair practices to compete. But then what that country does is they start labeling the product as if it were from somewhere else, and they may ship the product through that other country and get it labeled there or they may short circuit that and put the label on it in their own country and say it was made somewhere else so when it comes in here, suddenly it does not have that penalty. Whether that is relabeling or I think, as my good friend from Oregon calls it, merchandise laundering, where you make the merchandise appear to be something it is not, so you no longer pay the penalty, I would love to see that on a bill here in the near future. The other Senator from Oregon and I have a bill on affordable footwear that has trade impact I would love to see on a bill. This is a bill that potentially might have jurisdiction to go on. But that is not the agreement that has been made between the House and the Senate. I am going to be supporting that agreement and not doing anything that makes it impossible for us to get these three trade agreements. I am absolutely banking on the commitment by the President of the United States that if this happens, the three trade agreements come to the Congress. When they come to the Congress, I believe they pass the House and Senate, and they create great opportunity for American workers to send their products to other countries. One of these agreements that has been there for a long time is the agreement with Colombia. Colombia already is able to ship its products in here without tariff under something that routinely passes the Congress called the Andean Preferences Act. So this is not about whatever labor conditions there are in Colombia. Their products already come here. This is about whether U.S. workers are going to have every possible advantage in Colombia. This is about whether Caterpillars made in the United States or John Deere tractors or moving equipment made in the United States has the same advantage in Colombia that the same piece of equipment made in Canada has. Right now, they do not have that advantage. We need to see that they do. As to Korea, the European Union negotiated a trade agreement long after we negotiated this agreement, but it went into effect the first of July, and the year-to-year comparison, July over July, is, I think, 38 percent bigger this July than it was last July. The only difference between this July and last July is the trade agreement. These are three countries where all of their trading history, all of their buying history--Panama being the third of the three--would be that given the choice of an American product to buy or a product from any other country but their own, they would give preference to the American product. But we are giving away that market advantage by not creating this opportunity for American workers and American companies, big and small. Agriculture is a huge beneficiary of these agreements. Lots of agriculture, lots of grain crop agriculture, lots of meat crop agriculture--whether it is chickens or poultry of all kinds or pork or beef--is very dependent on American family farmers who will see a great opportunity in each of these countries, given the opportunity to get their product under these agreements. I am hoping that enough of my colleagues and I are able to get this general system of preferences bill, as amended with the TAA, done so we can get on to the job-creating work of these three trade bills. These are opportunities to create more private sector American jobs. Over and over, almost every Member of the Senate says that should be our No. 1 priority. The President says that is his No. 1 priority. This work, combined as we get to the trade agreements, lets us do the easiest part of job creation and our No. 1 priority, which is to let American workers compete in places where the consumer wants to buy American products, eliminate those barriers, and move forward with these agreements and the bill on the floor today. Then, hopefully, we can get to the transshipment bill; hopefully, we can get to the Affordable Footwear Act, and, hopefully, we will eventually see TPA. The Senator from Utah has a bill that would synchronize trade adjustment assistance with any trade bill. And, of course, we should do that. But let's get this work done. I look forward to this being done, and the President sending the bills up so that before the next month passes, hopefully, we will be seeing American products have the advantage they have been waiting for now or at least eliminate the disadvantage they have had needlessly for the 3 years since these agreements were all negotiated. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I want to talk about the disaster funding debate that is going on this week.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate the Presiding Officer's recognition. Mr. President, this is a debate that has become the debate as part of the Burma Sanctions Act, which if we were debating the Burma Sanctions Act I would also be for Burma sanctions. But in the debate on disasters, Missouri has played an unfortunate leading role this year of all kinds. We have had floods along the Mississippi River. We have had floods along the Missouri River. Joplin, MO--one of the bigger cities in our State--was hit by a tornado. We have evacuated a place in southeast Missouri, a floodway called Birds Point, where, for the first time since 1937, the Corps of Engineers decided that 130,000 or so acres had to be used as a floodway. All the crops that were already planted and up were, obviously, destroyed as part of that. I was in that floodway for a couple of different days in August, and I will say, the resilience of Missouri farmers to get about 80 percent of that floodway back in soybeans means the economic loss, the crop loss, will not be what it was. But the recovery loss is substantial, as is the cost of rebuilding that levee back to the level it was before the Corps exercised the long plan that had not been used to take it down. Tornadoes struck St. Louis at the airport and around Lambert Field, in communities around Lambert Field. Tornadoes in Joplin were significant. I mentioned on the floor of the Senate before that I live close to Joplin. It was in my congressional district for 14 years. I had an office there. I am probably as familiar with Joplin as anybody who does not live there or has not lived there. As I went to the scene of this tornado, the devastation made a city that I was very familiar with--at least a half-mile path, 6 miles across that city--virtually unrecognizable by me or the local police officer who was driving me around. There were no street signs left. Every block looked like the block on either side of it--an incredible amount of devastation. There were 162 people killed either at the time of the tornado or who within a few days of the tornado died as a result of injuries; 900 people were injured. A hospital was destroyed that will cost about $500 million to replace. The high school was destroyed. The vo-tech school was destroyed, lots of elementary schools destroyed, 500 commercial properties, 8,000 apartments and homes, and I think ``destroyed'' in virtually all those cases would be the right word; some of them salvageable, most of them not. Homes, churches, elementary schools, the Catholic school--all destroyed by that tornado. While we make headway every day, finding housing for people in that community who were affected by the loss of those 8,000 homes, and while the schools were up and running by the day schools were scheduled to start 90 days later, in an incredible way, looking for whatever space was available and turning that into schools for this year, there is clearly a lot to be done. This exceeds the capacity of an individual community or even a State to do what needs to be done. I am in the process, and have been for some time now, of discussing with GAO the exact right request, to be sure we are not declaring disasters as national disasters that are not national in scope, that we have not gotten into a habit of saying: That is a disaster, the Governor ought to send a request to the President and the President ought to grant it. We do not want to be doing that when a State or a community could handle the problem. But we do always want to be sure we have the resources necessary when States and communities cannot possibly handle this kind of problem by themselves. The tornado I talked about was one; the flooding in the entire Mississippi Valley watershed, which is I think the fourth largest watershed in the world. And whether it was the Missouri River or the Ohio River or the Mississippi River itself, or the Arkansas River, all of this flooding that occurred this year has set a recovery number that does require national involvement. If we do not recover from these floods, the right kinds of things do not happen. I had a county commissioner tell me over August that the factory does not open until the highway opens. And the highway does not open until flood protection is guaranteed. And flood protection is not guaranteed until we appropriate the money. You know we should be and appropriately are focused on jobs as the No. 1 priority in the country today, private sector jobs. But there are a lot of private sector jobs in my State and others that have not been there for months now because the factory is closed or the business is closed. That factory is not going to open again until people can get to work. And people are not going to be on the highway to get to work until the levee is rebuilt. And the levee is not going to be rebuilt until the Corps of Engineers has the money to do the job they are supposed to do and meet their obligations. The Corps is responsible for taking care of some of our most pressing needs, whether it is restoring the levee at Bird's Point or levees in northwest Missouri in Holt County, which has 165,000 acres--more than half the county--underwater. A lot of that has been underwater now for 3 or 4 months. I talked to a farmer in my office yesterday who went to his own home for the first time in 3 months, by driving a tractor over some fairly high water areas but passable areas. His home had not been flooded, but everything around it was. So he had not been there for 3 months when we talked yesterday until he went this week. Whether it is water along the entire Missouri River, which has been in flood stage through the month of August, recovering from what has happened on the Mississippi River, we need to do our job. In our case, the Missouri River, this has not been a-1 week flood; this is a 3- and 4-month flood. I do not remember a time ever--in fact, I am not aware of a time ever--when the entire Missouri River from the Missouri border in the northwest corner of the State to St. Louis was in flood stage the entire month of August, and in some cases has been in flood stage now for what is 4 months. Community development block grants that help with disasters provide communities a short-term and long-term way to meet disaster recovery. Disaster community development block grant funds can pick up where FEMA leaves off. I hope that is part of our plan as we look for this disaster bill, which I am intending to support--or the final, or another disaster bill that we can agree to with the House--to be sure that we make it possible for these communities to do what they could not do on their own or could not even do with State assistance. In Joplin, it is things such as underground utilities and storm sewers and sanitary systems of all kinds, owner-occupancy programs to get people who owned a house but may never own one again because the house they owned, through frankly their own inability or their oversight or their decision not to have insurance--you know, if you own a house and you do not have a loan, there is no banker to tell you that you have to get insurance. We will have some people who are negatively affected by that. But that was a decision they made. However, getting them into a house that they do not own is something that there are government programs for that are designed to help. Community development block grants allow qualifying communities to meet local matches and local needs without a whole lot of redtape, less redtape than a lot of other things that the government does. And, of course, with the most recent hurricane, Hurricane Irene, suddenly FEMA says: Well, I know we made a lot of commitments to other communities that are already in progress, but we now have to turn to the new disaster. I appreciate turning to the new disaster. But you cannot forget that a community has problems they cannot deal with that we said we were going to help with, just because the TV satellite truck has gone somewhere else. I think it is important that FEMA meets its obligations. As I said before, I think it is important in an ongoing way we are sure that we have a standard for natural and national disasters that truly are national in scope. With thousands of acres of Missouri farmland still underwater, with communities trying to recover from tornados, with commitments that FEMA has told them to move forward on and now suddenly does not have the money that they had already committed, we need to be concerned about that. Programs such as watershed emergency protection and conservation emergency protection that are in this bill that were in the Agriculture appropriations bill that the committee voted out earlier this week will have a big impact on meeting these obligations. Despite the unprecedented year, my State and Americans everywhere are responding to these disasters, this is a time when the Federal Government needs to do what the Federal Government has said it is there to do. Hopefully we will do this with this bill or some other bill that comes quickly that allows these communities to meet their needs, these farm families to get back to work, these factory workers to see the factory doors open again. I am supportive of this effort. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I think what Senator Portman and I thought when the President said for these three trade agreements to be voted on, we had to have trade adjustment assistance. We looked at the negotiated package. It was not exactly what any of us who signed the letter would have negotiated. We said, look, these are the jobs that are the low- hanging fruit of job creation if we get these three trade bills. We are willing to look at the Baucus camp-negotiated TAA, and support it in a way the White House can sign it and send these agreements up. Senator Hoeven mentioned, as he and I and all of us were sitting in the House Chamber last Thursday night, listening to the President's remarks when he said we need to pass these three trade agreements, I was almost sure the next sentence would be: And so tomorrow, I am sending these trade agreements up. That next sentence did not occur. Just like the week in August where the President was on his bus tour and every single day on the bus tour he said Congress can do something right now that would create more American jobs if they will pass these three trade agreements. Every time he said that, even though I was hearing it on the TV, I could not help but talk back to the television or the radio and say: Well, we cannot pass them unless you send them up. You are absolutely right, this is one of the easiest things we could do to create jobs, Mr. President, but we have to have the agreements from you before we can vote on them. Don't tell the American people all we have to do is pass the bill when you know that you have to send the bill up before we can pass the bill. We need these three agreements. As Senator Portman has pointed out, we need more agreements, but that is not happening right now. We do need the President to have the authority that I, and I think all of us, would be more than willing to give him, but that is not part of this package, the trade promotion authority we wish to see extended into the future. Right now we have three agreements that have been negotiated for a long time, and whether it is the Missouri and North Dakota beef industry or the Missouri and Ohio pork industry or the grain industry that we all are impacted by, there is a real opportunity here and these markets are waiting for us. To look at our State, since 2002, exports have increased more than three times faster than the State domestic product has grown. So for those who say, well, exports cost American jobs or Missouri jobs, they clearly provide those jobs. U.S. farm exports reached an all-time high in 2010, amounting to more than $115 billion in sales. For every $1 billion worth of agricultural exports, there are an estimated 8,000 jobs. So these countries are waiting for agreements that will increase trade in soybeans and beef and corn and pork and dairy products and processed food; in fact, in processed goods of all kinds. We cannot get to those markets until we pass these trade agreements. All of us are eager to work with the President to get that done. All of us are eager for him to send us those trade agreements. Since these agreements were negotiated, others have negotiated agreements and launched them--and it may have been mentioned already this morning, but if it has not, it is important to understand that on July 1, the European Union trade agreement with South Korea went into place and they had a 1-month, 38-percent increase year over year the first month of that trade agreement. The Canada-Colombia agreement went into place on August 15. Having been to Colombia and worked on this for some time, there is no question there is a preference for our goods, but once they start buying these other products, then you have to convince them you need to come back to the product you would rather have had to start with if that product had had an even shot at the marketplace. Panama is negotiating all kinds of work agreements and expansion agreements on the canal we are disadvantaged in because we have not passed that agreement. Let's get these three agreements done. Let's start creating the private sector jobs these agreements clearly will lead to. As we have talked to the White House and the President about that, my good friend from Georgia, Johnny Isakson, has been in the middle of all of those discussions. We know what can happen. For it to happen, we have to get these agreements sooner rather than later. Let's get them up here. Let's get them passed. Let's get them back in the hands of our new trading partners and see these jobs increase. I am pleased to recognize and encourage the ongoing efforts for this effort with my good friend, Mr. Isakson.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my colleague. Let me illustrate by showing the impact of the ambivalence of the statutory language on agricultural research which is a major industry not only in Midwestern States like Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, but in States ranging from California to Connecticut from Texas to Minnesota from North Carolina to Idaho. Virtually every State in this Union has an investment in agricultural research. The productivity of U.S. farmers provides a significant positive input to the U.S. balance of trade due in large part to the high technology adopted by U.S. farmers. That high technology is provided from multiple sources ranging from research at land grant universities, the USDA and private for-profit companies all of whom have internal technology that provides a competitive edge for maintaining agricultural competitive advantage for the U.S. economy. To specifically illustrate let us consider that U.S. researchers are leading the world in discovering genetic markers that are associated with important agronomic traits which serves as breeding production tools. Instead of teaching foreign competitors these production tools, a preferred alternative may be to rely on prior user rights for such innovative crop breeding technology which is used in the manufacture of new plant varieties although the use may only occur once a year after each growing season and for many years to selectively manufacture a perfected crop product that is sold. As another example let us consider an innovation in making potential new genetically modified products all of which need years of testing to verify their viability, repeatabilty and commercial value. Of the thousands of new potential prototype products made, only a few may survive initial screening to begin years of field trials. We should agree that a continuously used process qualifies as internal commercial use despite the fact that many prototypes will fail to have commercial merit. As my examples illustrate, for section 5 to have its intended benefit, internal commercial use must vest when an innovator reduces technology to practice and takes diligent steps to maintain continuous, regular commercial use of the technology in manufacturing operations of the enterprise.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my colleague. Section 5

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my colleague from Vermont. If he would permit me to clarify this matter further. Am I correct in understanding that, so long as that use begins more than 1 year prior to the effective filing date of a subsequent patent or publication by a later inventor, the initiation of continuous internal use by an original innovator in a manufacturing of a product should guarantee the defense of prior use regardless of whether the product is a prototype with a need for quality improvements?

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, a significant change contained in H.R. 1249 from S. 23, the version of the bill debated and overwhelmingly passed by the Senate earlier this year, is the inclusion of the defense of prior commercial use against infringement of a later granted patent. Specifically, section 5 of H.R. 1249 creates a prior user right for processes, or machines, or compositions of matter used in a manufacturing or other commercial process, that would otherwise infringe a claimed invention if: (1) the person commercially used the subject matter in the United States, either in connection with an internal commercial use or an actual arm's length sale or other arm's length commercial transfer of a useful end result of such commercial use; and (2) the commercial use occurred at least one year before the earlier of either the effective filing date of the claimed invention or the date on which the claimed invention was disclosed to the public in a manner that qualified as an exception from prior art. As the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary knows, such prior user rights, if properly crafted and understood, can be of great benefit to keeping high paying jobs in this country by giving U.S. companies a realistic option of keeping internally used technologies as trade secrets.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my good friend. A robust prior user right is not needed in today's first-to-invent regime. This is because, if a prior- user was sued for infringement, the patent could be invalidated under section 102(g)(2) because the prior-user was the first-to-invent. However, should H.R. 1249's first-to-file system become law, the prior invention bar to patentability under section 102(g)(2) will be eliminated. This switch to first-to-file then presents the question of whether a non-patent-filing manufacturer should be given some prior user rights that would continue to allow these non-patented internal uses. Section 5 of H.R. 1249 attempts to settle the question by granting prior user rights but only when the prior use is for certain ``commercial'' uses. The prior user rights provided under section 5 of H.R. 1249 will allow developers of innovative technologies to keep internally used technologies in-house without publication in a patent. This will help U.S. industry to keep jobs at home and provide a basis for restoring and maintaining a technology competitive edge for the U.S. economy. For these reasons, I believe the Senate should support this valuable addition to the America Invents Act and I applaud the leadership of my friend from Vermont.

Mr. BLUNT. However, as noted a moment ago, the utility of the prior user defense is linked to its clarity surrounding its scope and its limitations. Many innovative companies may be reticent to opt for the protection of prior user rights for fear that the defense may not stand against a charge of infringement by a later patent owner who sues for infringement. Many innovators may feel the need to rush to the patent office in order to assure their long term freedom to operate. I do not need to belabor my colleagues with the attendant benefit the publication of patents provides to global competitors who are not respectful of intellectual property rights. The reason for this detrimental reliance on patents for internal technology is that the utility and reliability of section 5 is dependent on the prior use being an ``internal commercial use''--a term for which there is no readily available judicial precedent. Should section 5 of H.R. 1249 become law, an innovator and his legal counsel need some reasonable assurance that an internal use will, in fact, be deemed to be a commercial use protectable under the law. These assurances are all the more important for U.S. companies in the biotechnology field with extraordinarily long lead times for commercialization of its products. Does my colleague from Vermont understand the concern I am raising?

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my colleague for his willingness to discuss this matter here on the floor of the Senate. It is my reading of the bill's language under section 5 that prior use rights shall vest when innovative technology is first put into continuous internal use in the business of the enterprise with the objective of developing commercializable products. Does the chairman of the Judiciary Committee share this understanding?

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I rise in support of the bill. I would say for the second time in about a week I have come to the floor to speak after one of my friends on the other side who is talking about what we ought to be talking about, and both times they were right. They said we should be talking about private sector job creation. I say where are the bills to do that? We have been here the week of the Fourth of July. We were here and we had two votes that week. One was to compel the Senators who didn't show up to show up. The other one was on some motion to proceed to cloture on something that had nothing to do with job creation or any of the other issues we should be talking about. We could talk about what we ought to be talking about, and that would be one thing. Of course, what we are talking about today is the moment we have arrived at, the date that was set by the administration. Apparently they were right in speculating when we need to look at the borrowing limit again, and that is today. I rise in support of the bill. I said for months the only thing worse than not raising the debt limit would be raising the debt limit and not changing behavior. In fact, I think that is what all the rating agencies that everybody is talking about now, whether they are going to and how they are going to rate our bond rating in the future--they have all said--and they said long before they talked about the debt limit-- that we are spending more money than we can afford to spend as a Federal Government or as a society. We are spending $1 out of $4 that the society can produce, and that is about 25 percent more than we spent in 2008. It is 25 percent more than we spent on the average from the 40 years from 2008 going backward four decades, and that is important. I think this bill does begin the process of changing behavior. The way we approached the debt limit this time was everything but business as usual. This is a totally different discussion than we have had before about the debt limit, and the country has almost always had debt. I think there have been only a couple of times in our history where Andrew Jackson paid off the debt and there was one other time we paid off the debt--only a couple of times in our history when we didn't have some kind of debt. In the tradition of that debt, we have always said: Okay, let's borrow more money because we need more money. This time, for the first time, we said: Why do we need more money? Why is it that we are increasing debt? Why is it we are increasing debt so rapidly? We had a $10 trillion debt in January of 2009, and 30 months later we have a $15 trillion debt. Obviously that trajectory cannot continue and the framework for the decision that is made in this bill says it won't continue. Do we continue to add debt over the next decade? We wouldn't have to. There is a study out that says every time the debt ceiling comes up over the next 10 years, we make the same kind of determination that for every dollar we increase the debt ceiling, we are going to find a dollar in savings over the next decade. That study would indicate that in 10 years we balance the budget. Of course, that is what we should be doing, balancing the budget. This body, before I served here, before I served in the House, before I was in the Congress at all, in 1995 came within one vote of the balanced budget amendment, one vote of passing the amendment that had passed the House. In 1996 it came within two votes of passing that same amendment that had passed the House again. If that one vote would have changed in 1995 or the two votes would have changed in 1996, we would not be having this discussion today because we would have a balanced budget today and would be moving in the way that every State but one has to function and every family in America eventually has to come to grips with the fact that they cannot spend more than they have. The truth is, this agreement, while it is a 10-year agreement, is only enforceable for a couple of years. I believe we will do what this agreement says this year and next year. I am hopeful and optimistic the select committee will do its job and come back with another $1\1/2\ trillion or more of cuts to spending, and that is going to happen--that select committee is going to report this year. The budget cap is set for this year and next year. But elections matter, and who is elected in 2012 to the House and the Senate and the Presidency will finally and ultimately make a decision about whether this track we are on now gets better than it is now or, frankly, heads back in the other direction. I think the campaign pledges are important. While I support the bill, I am also fully appreciative of everyone who feels as though they can't. Frankly, if some campaign pledges hadn't been made in 2010, we probably wouldn't be at this moment. And if that is somehow extraordinary--that people run for office and say that is what they are going to do and then they come here and do that--that is what the process is all about and how it is supposed to work. Is this my sense of what would have been the best way to deal with these spending cuts? We would have more spending cuts if I were writing this bill. But the fact is, in Washington today no one party controls anything. My party, the Republican Party, controls one-third of what it takes to get a bill to become law, and the other party controls two- thirds. At the end of the day, by definition, nobody is going to be totally happy with this bill. But as Senator Pat Roberts said yesterday in a meeting I was in, using an old legislative saying: This is not the best possible bill, but it is the best bill possible. It is the best we can do right now. I think we take this victory and use it as a way to move forward to the future. Mr. President, I rise, again, in support of this bill.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the 50th anniversary of the University of Missouri's Delta Research Center. The Portageville, MO, facility was officially dedicated on August 8, 1961, and has since become a beacon for the agriculture industry. I am so proud of the Delta Center's many accomplishments. Over the course of five decades, the success of the Delta Center was made possible by a special team of experts from the University of Missouri, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, a dedicated field staff, talented scientists, and the wisdom of top-notch agricultural leaders serving on the Delta Research Center's Advisory Board. The University of Missouri's Delta Research Center has advised farmers about boosting harvests and battling pests, while overseeing research with global implications. This includes the development of numerous strands of cotton and most notably 16 new soybean varieties, some with cyst nematode resistance, which has impact far beyond the rich cropland of the Bootheel of Missouri. On September 2, 2011, the Delta Research Center will host the 50th Annual Field Day which showcases the world class studies they conduct, bringing together all sectors of the agriculture industry from those who plant the seed to those who market the product. It is always a day of learning and gives Missourians the tools needed to stay competitive in a global market. I look forward to joining hundreds of farmers, agri-businesses and others to learn the results of the special research that will be on display. For our Nation to remain a leader in the production of food and fiber for our citizens and the world, we must continue important agriculture research like that conducted at the University of Missouri's Delta Research Center. Jake Fisher, superintendent and a dedicated employee for 50 years, summed it up best when he said, ``Our team effort is not only about the results we bring about today; we must be focused on ten to fifteen years down the road, so we remain on the cutting-edge of agriculture production and technology.'' Jake Fisher and his talented team at the University of Missouri's Delta Research Center demonstrate every day that hard work, vision, and public-private partnerships can be successful in advancing our Nation's rich agricultural resources. I am very proud of the many accomplishments of the University of Missouri's Delta Research Center and ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the center on 50 years of service and monumental accomplishments in agriculture research.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, it is with great pride that I pay tribute to a dedicated public servant from my home State of Missouri. Jake Fisher has devoted his professional life to helping others through his work at the University of Missouri Delta Center. Shortly after graduation from high school, Jake was employed at the University of Missouri Delta Center as a farmworker I. From that position, he was promoted to technician, senior technician, and research specialist. In 1986 he became the assistant superintendent. Three years later, Jake was promoted to Superintendent of the Delta Center and continues to serve in that leadership role today. Next month, Jake will retire after 50 years of dedicated service to agriculture research in Missouri. Besides his work at the Delta Center, Jake serves on the board of directors for a number of organizations, including Progressive Farm Credit Services of Southeast Missouri, Pemiscot-Dunklin Electric Cooperative, M&A Electrical Cooperative, Associated Electrical Cooperative, and Pemiscot County Port Authority. He is a member of the executive committee of the Research Administrator's Society. Along with his service to these organizations, Jake is a 32nd degree Mason and Shriner. Due to his selfless efforts, Jake has received numerous awards, including the State Farm Management Award in 1981 by Production Credit Association of Eastern Missouri. He was named ``Man of the Year in Service to Agriculture'' by the Progressive Farmer Magazine in 1995 and in 1996 was granted honorary membership to the University of Missouri Ag Alumni Association. He was awarded a lifetime membership to the Cotton Producers of Missouri in 1997 and in 2000 received the outstanding staff award by the University of Missouri's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. In 2001, Jake was named ``Ag Leader of the Year'' by Missouri Ag Industries Council. He was honored with the A.C. Burrows Service Award in 2009 by the Association of Missouri Electrical Cooperatives. In 2011, Jake received the Agribusiness Service Award from the Sikeston, MO, Chamber of Commerce. He was awarded the Frank Stork Democracy Award in 2011 by the Missouri Association of Electrical Cooperatives. In 2006, the conventional soybean variety ``Jake'' was named for Jake Fisher. Jake is also a loving and devoted husband to his wife of almost 50 years, Shelly, and an outstanding role model for his daughter, Stacey Kersey, and for his grandsons, Gunnar Young and Kasen Kersey. Thomas E. ``Jake'' Fisher's career has been built on character, dedication, and service to his fellow Missourians. His accomplishments during his 50 years of loyal service will be felt for generations to come. I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating this great Missourian and extending our best wishes as he begins a new chapter in life.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the President for recognizing me, and I will speak and then look forward to hearing the remarks of my good friend from Iowa. I agree with the simple premise of what Mr. Wyden had to say. I think private sector job creation should be the No. 1 target for the country today. Frankly, anytime we are not talking about that or what we can do about spending, we are talking about the wrong two domestic issues. I would suggest, however, it is not like the option today was to bring that bill he described to the floor. I would love to see it on the floor. I would love to see a simpler, fairer, flatter more easily understood Tax Code because I do think certainty is one of the things that makes a difference in that decision to invest. But I absolutely agree the No. 1 priority for the country at this minute should be private sector job creation. And I look forward, as he does, to working on that. My only fault I find with the premise that is not the reason to talk about this is that is not what we were going to be talking about otherwise. In fact, the week we were going to spend here that was supposed to be the workweek during the Fourth of July, the bill the majority brought to the floor was the Libya resolution, which I haven't seen since. That was the week we were here to do something about spending, and that is why we didn't do the other things we had scheduled because we were going to talk about spending. The bill the majority was going to bring to the floor was the Libyan resolution, which was the most important thing in the world, apparently, that day, and we haven't seen it since that day. So while I agree job creation matters, I don't agree that it doesn't matter how much the Federal Government spends. In fact, I think there is a lot of difference in a country where the Federal Government is spending $1 out of $4 that the country can produce in goods and services, or $1 out of $5. Now we are spending $1 out of $4. For 40 years, before 2008, we spent $1 out of $5. In 2008 we didn't spend an average of 20.6 percent; we spent 19 percent. So we have gone from 19 percent of GDP spent by the Federal Government to 25 percent of GDP spent by the Federal Government, and it matters. That is why spending is the other issue. What we are talking about with cut, cap, and balance is, How do we get that spending under control? If there is a better plan, I would be glad to see it. But I don't see a plan on spending control coming from anywhere else. We all know we now have a record debt of almost $15 trillion, at $14.3 trillion and counting. We all know we have spent approximately $7.3 trillion and added almost $4 trillion to that debt since the Senate and President Obama passed the last budget the country had 813 days ago. We all know unemployment has increased by 18 percent since January of 2009. In the 29 months since then, despite the so-called stimulus package, unemployment has been over 8 percent every month for 29 months, and it was 9.2 percent in the month of June. We also all know that 40 cents out of every dollar the Federal Government spends is borrowed, and we just can't continue to do that. One option might be to raise taxes and think that 40 cents would come in. I am not for that because I don't think higher tax rates necessarily produce more tax revenue. Until 1981, for 50 years the highest tax rates had been 70, 80, or 90 percent, and people don't pay that tax rate. People definitely don't take a chance and invest in that tax rate. But the fact that we know maybe most of all is we can't keep doing what we are doing now. The status quo is both unacceptable and unsustainable, and we have to look at what it takes, as Senator Wyden said, to meet the No. 1 priority, which is, What do we do that creates private sector jobs? I think getting Federal spending under control is something that the moment, the moment of August 2, creates an opportunity for us to talk about and do. Now, why was I one of the first cosponsors of cut, cap, and balance? It is because I thought it had the potential, and I believe it has the potential, to do what needs to be done. What was ``cut''? Cut was to go back not to 1980 spending levels, but to go back with nondefense discretionary to 2006--just to go back to what we were spending on nondefense discretionary in 2006. Rearrange that as you may want to, rearrange that in a way that better meets 2011 goals, but go back to that amount of money and then set caps. By the way, in virtually all cases they were growing caps in various categories of government spending for the next 10 years and working within those caps, but knowing every year what they were going to spend. Then, the third element was, let's balance the budget. While I have always been for a balanced budget and a balanced budget amendment, I believe now more than I ever have that it is the tool that ensures, not just 5 years from now, but 55 years from now that we just have to simply get the resources of government and the spending of government in place. Forty-nine States, including my State of Missouri, have a balanced budget amendment. Every family at some point or another has to deal with the reality of a balanced budget amendment. These provisions take us in the right direction. President Obama has said he would veto this bill if it passed. It has already passed the House. If it would pass the Senate this week, I don't know that the President would veto it if he really was faced with those options, but he said he would. I guess we might have to test that. But we shouldn't not vote for this because the President said he is going to veto it. We should vote for this because it is the right thing to do to get the spending of the Federal Government under control. Missourians deserve better. Americans deserve better. Both parties no doubt have contributed to where we are right now in our current economic situation. Frankly, both parties have to find a way out. It takes three things to pass a bill in Washington: It takes the House of Representatives, it takes the Senate, and it takes the White House. My party, the Republican Party, controls one of those. Our friends on the other side control the other two. So how do any of us think we are going to get everything we want in this environment? But we have to work toward the right result. I think cut, cap, and balance would produce that result. I think we do have to get on with the work of being focused on what do we do to create private sector jobs, what do we do to get this spending under control. American families have to deal with this all the time. It is time their government dealt with it as well. I don't want to settle for business as usual. We have a unique opportunity here. Are we going to be like every other country, like Greece and Ireland and Portugal and Italy and so many countries in the world today? Or are we going to set out on a different path, a path that shows we are prepared to control and rein in Federal spending and do what is necessary to encourage private job sector growth? I hope we can join together and find a solution. This is the moment we need to do it. Madam President, I am looking forward to working with you and others. I know I am yielding the floor to my good friend, Senator Harkin from Iowa. We are working together on the Missouri River working group. We are sponsoring legislation together for Special Olympics. We can find solutions to these problems if we want to find solutions. That is what the people we work for deserve. Let's find a way forward. For me, the way forward would be cut, cap, and balance but I do know we all have to work together or we are not going to arrive at any conclusion. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

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