Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I rise to speak on an issue I feel I have spent a lot of time talking about in recent years but without much effect on either of the last two administrations. This is the issue of the Iran Sanctions Act. Congress has worked in a bipartisan way to strengthen and expand the Iran Sanctions Act, but in spite of our repeated efforts, the administration has not been willing to use the tools the Congress has given them. In my mind--and I am sure in the minds of a great many of my colleagues--nothing would be more destabilizing to the Mideast region and to Middle Eastern regional security or global security than Iran's development of a nuclear weapon. I will not spend a lot of time talking about why that is because I doubt there is any Member of this body who is not aware of how dangerous this situation is or could be, which is why it is even more frustrating that we have not been able to get the administration to push a more robust set of sanctions using the sanctions policy and the sanctions tools we have given them. During the 15 years between the time the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act was passed, in 1996, and last year, no meaningful application of these sanctions was ever adopted. From 1996 until last year, no meaningful application has ever been adopted. In 2006, I worked closely with the Bush administration to pass a bill known as the Iran Freedom Support Act, to improve the menu in the choices of sanctions available to that administration and future administrations. Under that bill, Congress codified some of the executive actions President Clinton and President Bush appropriately took and ensured that these tools became more permanent. Last year, alarmed again at the administration's disinterest in using the sanctions available to it, Congress again acted to tighten our sanctions policy. The Congress sunsetted the State Department's period of investigatory review to ensure that once an investigation is launched, it has to be concluded. It is now up to the Obama administration to pursue a vigorous sanctions policy that sends the message to Iran that: You are isolated in the world and the world will not tolerate this nuclear program. On March 26, 2009, I sent a letter to Secretary Clinton asking for clarification on why the administration had not fully implemented sanctions against Iran. I had sent a similar letter to Secretary Rice in 2007, suggesting--in fact, stating--that the Bush administration was similarly delinquent in its enforcement efforts. We have given them the tools, but, simply, these administrations, in both cases, have not used those tools. Fortunately, we now see the first indications that we are beginning to head in the right direction. Last fall, the State Department announced sanctions against Naftiran, a Swiss subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company. In an appearance before the Senate I was at with Secretary Clinton a few days ago, I was positive about my sense that this was a big step in the right direction but really only one step. Since the Iran Sanctions Act, this is the first time ever the act has been used. I am pleased it has been used, but, remember, it is the first time ever it has been used. This action--to make it even more important that it is being used and frustrating that it hasn't been used--by the State Department had an immediate effect, as I and many others have been suggesting it would since the passage of these tools to the administration. Within days of the State Department's actions against Naftiran, and according to news reports at the time, European firms such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Statoil, and Italy ENI announced they would pull operations out of Iran's energy sector--exactly the kind of impact the Congress had hoped this would have. On September 29, 2010, Deputy Secretary Steinberg announced the State Department's initiation of investigations into international firms that had not yet committed to exit Iran's petroleum sector. While the full list of these firms remains classified, publicly available reports suggest that list includes at least a dozen firms, many of which are Chinese, including the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company, Chinese National Petroleum Company, and Unipec. Other firms come from Germany, from Turkey, and from Venezuela. The list also includes the Industrial Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Agricultural Bank of China, and the Bank of China, which are reportedly providing financial services to Iranian interests in violation of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Act. Under the law that now governs our sanctions policy, the State Department has 6 months to complete these investigations before announcing whether these entities will face sanctions. These notifications are due by March 29 of this year. I am very hopeful the State Department report sends the right message on March 29. It has been a long time for those of us who have advocated that this kind of action would produce the right kind of results. U.S. sanctions policy should complement the international sanctions effort underway at the U.N. and other international venues. There is no reason we can't pursue a strategic sanctions policy that ensures companies operating in the United States or affiliated with U.S. entities don't invest in Iran's energy sector. It is time we demonstrated that we are serious about this before it is too late. We have now taken the first step in the right direction. It has produced exactly the results we had hoped those steps would take. I and others anxiously await the report that will come out between now and March 29 to see what the next steps are, and then we will be looking carefully to see what the reaction to those actions is. I hope we continue to show we are serious, that sanctions will only work if the nations involved--and particularly the United States--follow their own policies and use their own tools. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

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

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, next Wednesday marks the first anniversary of the day President Obama signed the bill into law that, in my opinion and in the opinion of most Americans, is the greatest involvement in our Nation's health care system in history. What we see, as that law is discussed, as it is challenged in court, is a bill that was signed into law that was full of problems when it was signed into law. It was a bill full of constitutional questions, and, in fact, while some courts have said it may be constitutional, others have said it is not. It was a bill where the courts say the Federal Government cannot make you buy a commercially available product, then the same people who were saying a year ago that this requirement is not a tax are saying: Maybe it is a tax. Maybe the Constitution allows us to define that particular purpose as a tax on the American people. But a year ago, they were saying: This is not a tax at all. This is definitely not a tax. There is no way this could ever be interpreted as a tax. But when courts say you cannot do this the way this bill does it, suddenly they try to reinvent what the law was designed to do. One of the reasons this bill has so many of these problems is there was a rush to get a bill into law, a bill with more government control of health care into law, a bill that could not have passed the Senate the day the President signed it into law. A bill that was full of concerns, a bill that the Senate voted on never believing that it actually would become law but would create a vehicle to become law, became the only option the House leaders thought was available to them, and they passed it. They passed it without the kind of process that would have produced a law that could stand a constitutional challenge, produced a law to which Americans would be more responsive. While I believe the law was misguided in its concept, more importantly, it was put together in what I think will be seen as the worst possible way--a rush to judgment, to get a law on the books. Now the people who voted for the law are saying things like: There may be a better way than an individual requirement that everybody buy a specified, defined insurance policy. Not all the people are saying that but some are. They are saying: Maybe we ought to look for that better way. The time to look for that better way was before the bill was signed into law, not after it was signed into law. Even the White House is saying: Certainly let's work together to change this. This is headed in fundamentally so much the wrong direction, changing it would not be the best option. Already in the Senate we have voted not to vote on a repeal of this law that would allow us to replace it with better things. Unless those votes change, that will not happen this year. But the view that Americans have of this law is not likely to change either. I certainly do not believe government has the authority in the Constitution to penalize people for not buying a commercially available product. Sometimes people say that the States require that under their constitution, to buy auto insurance if you drive a car. No. 1, that is a State decision, and No. 2, they do not require you to drive a car. You don't have to have that particular product if you do not make that decision. This gives you no options but to pay a penalty or to do what the government says you have to do. During the debate surrounding this bill and immediately following the enactment of the bill, the American people began to tell us that this was not the approach they wanted. In Missouri, where I am from, the first place that had an issue on the ballot where voters could speak about whether they wanted to be part of this new concept of more government control of health care, 71 percent of them said they did not want to be part of it. That was in a primary election. Hundreds of thousands of people voted and 71 percent of them said: We do not want to go in this direction. Missouri is a State that generally is pretty reflective of the country in our elections, in our economy, in how our population comes together. Madam President, 71 percent of them said: Let's not do this; let's do something besides this. They had a sense that this was a misguided plan that put government between them and their doctors, that had as one of its major tenets that the government would describe a certain regimen of care that would have to be followed for doctors and hospitals to be reimbursed. Missourians by and large believe this significantly changes--some would say implodes--our current health care system. To make it worse, this law cuts Medicare by $500 billion, not to save Medicare or improve Medicare, but it cuts Medicare by $500 billion so we could start another health care program. This makes so little sense as we look at Medicare--one of our major challenges as the demographics of the population change. Medicare is one of the areas where we know that in a handful of years, Medicare will face a generation of great challenge. We look for savings in Medicare not to save Medicare but to start a new program. That would be totally unacceptable anywhere except Washington, DC. It makes as little sense to people as the idea that we could come up with a new $1 trillion program over a handful of years and say that is going to save money. Nobody believes that. When you look at the greater concept of what this law will do, if it is ever implemented, to change the relationship of people and their government, I can't think of anything, besides the government taking over the economy, that actually has greater potential to change that relationship than the government having more control of your health care. What more controlling element could the government look to than your health care and your family's health care to make sure that you never got on the wrong side of that government? It does change that relationship. It also creates real uncertainty in what should be the No. 1 goal in America today: private sector job creation. If a year ago the President would have signed bills into law that encouraged private sector job creation or created more certainty about our health care costs, about our utility bills, about our taxes, about regulation, rather than signing this bill into law, I believe we would be much further down the road toward seeing private sector jobs, jobs that create taxpayers that help government provide the services only government can provide. We would be much further down that road. The very clear message I and others heard all over the country in the last year was, we do not want to create these jobs with all of these issues out there not yet really decided and if they are decided, likely to be decided in a way that makes that job-creating decision less of a good situation than it would have been otherwise. Cap and trade, in the middle of the country, in Missouri, the sixth most dependent State on coal for its utilities--the estimate was that it would double the utility bills in a dozen years. What is the job- creation message there? We are exactly where we were 2 years ago on the tax question because just a few months ago the President signed a bill that extended current tax policies but only for 2 years. So we are no further down the road on that question than we were 2 years ago today. The President calls for regulations that make sense. I join him in that. But we see none of that coming from the regulating authorities right now. The clear message people had was, they would like the government to create more certainty in the areas the government controls so they can decide whether they want to take the certain risk you always have when you create a job. I was in northwest Missouri not too long after this bill was signed into law 1 year ago and very well remember a conversation I had with someone whose business was going well. In fact, he said: I have 47 employees. You will remember the bill creates a threshold of 50, that you have different kinds of obligations and regulations once you get to 50--over 50 employees--than you had before that. He said: I have 47 employees. I need to hire six more people right now. But I have looked at this health care law, my accountants have looked at this health care law, and we are not going to get 1 employee closer to 50 than we are right now. So there are six jobs that did not get created. His view of what to do about his current situation was, I am going to pay overtime until I can figure out what I am doing that is not making much money or, in fact, maybe even losing a little money, and I am going to quit doing that. I am going to be sure we get back to where we are truly a 47-employee business again, instead of what should be a 53-employee business. Many employers I talked to said: We are not going to hire full-time employees. We think we can get our job done with more part-time employees who do not force us into the environment under this law, where the government comes in and says: You have to pay a penalty or you have to offer an unknown insurance policy that will be created by some group created by the Congress that says what everybody's insurance policy has to look like. ``One size fits all'' almost never fits anybody, and it will not fit anybody in this insurance plan that this bill anticipates and mandates. What you need is more competition, more choice, real, sustainable understanding that the marketplace works. On the job creation front, private sector job creation will not occur until we do the things we need to do that create more certainty in the job-creating marketplace: letting families keep more of what they earn, economic incentives for small business, government that does not constantly talk about how it can raise all the costs that you have as the underlying costs of the business you create. While I would be voting--if we would have a chance to repeal this bill--I would also be working hard to replace it with better solutions. Maybe the only good thing about this health care bill is, it requires us to either go down a road most Americans now think is the wrong direction or to truly tackle these big questions involving health care, things such as small business health care plans--at one time they were called association health care plans--where you could find some bigger group to affiliate with if you are an individual or a business and get your insurance that way rather than trying to get it as an individual. Medical liability reform is a concept I have sponsored legislation on and others have, over and over again, to see it pass the House of Representatives and not get voted on seven times in the Senate. The medical liability bill last year, the estimate was it would save $56 billion for health care under current government programs and at least that much more in health care costs for Americans who pay for their own health care or have their own private insurance. That is over $100 billion in savings at a time when we need to be looking for every $100 billion in savings we can find. Unfortunately, in our current situation, it takes several of those $100 billion in savings--16 of them, in fact--to just get the budget back in balance. We cannot afford to not do things that would save $100 billion. Risk pools. Nobody wants people not to be able to get insurance because of preexisting conditions. But they are not moving in the direction this bill would allow them to move. In fact, the people who have signed up for the concept the bill put out there of how to open risk pools, I think, is about 6 percent of the anticipated number. When the target is 6 percent of what you thought the law would encourage people to do, obviously there is something wrong with the way that is put together. It is only 94 percent short of the estimate of people who would rally to risk pools that allowed for access if you have a preexisting condition. There are better ways to expand these risk pools that are better than telling people: No, you will get insurance the same way everybody else gets it, for the same thing they pay for it, anytime you need it, which is what the bill says. You will have to pay a penalty, in the interim, that is much less than it would have cost you to have insurance. People will figure that out and pretty quickly. On what may have been that same visit with the employer in Rockport, MO, I was talking to a hospital in that area right after this bill passed. They said: I guess, if this bill goes into law, we will put the insurance application forms in the ambulance. That way you can get your insurance on the way to the hospital. Because, after all, under the bill, you would pay 100 percent of what everybody else was paying. So why would you want to pay 100 percent until the day you knew you needed it? This is a badly thought-out concept. Expanding risk pools in other ways and helping fund and encourage those risk pools would have been the better way to do that. Being sure families still make family decisions about health care instead of being told: No, there is only one option your health care plan that is defined by the government will pay for; encouraging coverage available in other States, buying this product across State lines. There is no reason not to have a health care marketplace. It does not just have to be buying the product in the half dozen States that touch Missouri, the six or seven States that touch Missouri. There is no reason it cannot be bought in a marketplace that is the national marketplace. Competition produces better choices, and it also produces more choices so you can look at the health care plan that is right for your family or you as an individual, rather than the health care plan some newly created board and agency said had to be the health care plan for everyone to meet the new Federal Government standards. Tax equity. If you buy a health care plan on your own, you should do that with pretax dollars, just like the biggest corporations in America buy health care for their employees with pretax dollars. More transparency of how health care works. I would like to know, if I am on the way to get a health care procedure, I would like to know, before I leave to do that, what do people charge and what are their results. Most trips for health care are not to the emergency room, they are planned trips for health care. Once you are in the car, if it means driving another 20 minutes or 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to the place that does a better job for less money, I think most Americans would do that. We know this. These factors are generally known. I remember a study just 1 year or so ago that was checking to see the survival rates for inhospital heart attacks based on the response time. That information is all available. At this point, it is available anonymously. But if it is available anonymously, it would also be available specifically. More transparency in the system. How do you go to the place to get the best results or, if the results are the same, how do you go to the place that gets the best results for the better cost? When employers are telling us they are not hiring because of the uncertainty created by this law, when courts are ruling the law is unconstitutional or even when courts disagree on this topic--when some courts think it is unconstitutional and some think it is--when voters are overwhelmingly rejecting it every opportunity they have had at the polling place to vote on it, something is wrong with the direction we are headed. Americans deserve a plan where the people are still in the driver's seat, where the people are bigger than the government, where the people are making decisions for themselves and their families about lots of things but particularly about health care. I am working and will keep working to repeal this bill and replace it with policies that make more sense, policies that move us toward more competition, more transparency, and better health care. The anniversary of this signing next week would be better spent if we were all here next week trying to come up with policies that make health care sense, that make economic sense, that meet the constitutional standard, and still keep people in charge of these important life-sustaining, health- sustaining decisions. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I thank the Chair for allowing me the floor for a few minutes. First, I wish to say, Dr. Barrasso's second opinion is clearly the opinion of Missourians. I think when you ask Americans if they want to see changes in the health care system--but not these changes--they say: Yes, we want the health care system to be changed. We just don't want it changed this way. I remind the Chair, in Missouri in the primary election in August last year, 72 percent of the people who voted said they did not want to be part of this health care plan. This is going to be a big discussion and a big issue for the next couple of years, until we decide what direction we are going to take. Today I want to talk about spending. Two bills are coming to the floor today about spending and there will be lots of discussion about the cuts the House made, the $61 billion of cuts and how this cut could have been better, how this is a good thing for the government or for somebody to do. Of course, I suspect most all of that will be true. What is unfortunate is that we on the Senate floor today do not get to talk about what we might cut instead of these things, these things that will be discussed that people think are such a good idea for us to cut. The truth is, we have to make the decisions that get spending under control. This year we are going to spend about $3.8 trillion and we are going to collect about $2.2 trillion. Even though ``trillion dollars'' is too big a concept to wrap your mind around, everybody understands that 3.8 is a lot bigger than 2.2. If your business was spending $3.8 million and bringing in $2.2 million, you would understand your business was not going to be in business very much longer. If your family was spending $38,000 and bringing in the door $22,000, you would know that could not continue. This cannot continue either. The idea we cannot make $61 billion of reductions in spending in a $3.8 trillion budget, $1.6 trillion of which is deficit spending, doesn't make sense to me and it doesn't make sense to the American people. We are going to have to have a government that can make choices. Right now we have government trying to do the same thing over and over at all three levels. Some of those things government is trying to do at the Federal, the State, and the local level ought to be left to families, where they could be left to families. Other things are the legitimate job of government. But everything is not the legitimate job of the Federal Government and almost nothing is the legitimate job of all levels of government. We would be much better off if we tried to go through this process: OK, is this a problem that only government can solve? If the answer is yes, then the next question is: Can't we solve that problem closer to where people live and work, and where the problem is, where families are? Can't we solve that at the city level or the county level? Maybe the answer is no. Then the question should be: Can't we solve it at the State level? Then the question should be: If we are going to solve it at the Federal level, is there a constitutional definition that allows us to do that? There are some things that only the Federal Government can do. But there are not very many things that only the Federal Government can do. We are going to hear in this discussion today and in the coming weeks about lots of good that can be done in our society. We are going to hear about some things I have worked to authorize and tried to get us to make a priority and still hope to keep a priority. Some of those programs are actually cut in the House appropriations bill that I will vote for today, because my view is we have to cut spending. If we could cut the $61 billion this year from exactly what I wanted to be cut, that would be better for me. But I am committed to cut spending in any bill we can get enough people to support, to put a bill on the President's desk that will say let's head toward a balanced budget. Let's get a balanced budget amendment. Let's head toward a balanced budget. But let's ask the right questions. Before I came to the Congress, I was a university president for 4 years. It was a private university, Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO. We did not take any Federal money or any State money. We had to pay our bills. Because we had to pay our bills, as the president of the university I was constantly being asked to do good things but I had several different categories of ``no, this is why we cannot do that.'' There are two that maybe we ought to use the most often in Washington, DC, these days. The first is: No, that is a good idea but it is not what we do. I said that a lot as the university president. As a matter of fact, in the 4 years I was there I never had anybody come to me and ask me to do anything evil. I never had anybody come to me as president of the Southwest Baptist University and say here is something bad I think we should do as an institution. Every idea I got was a good idea, but it was not always something we could do. So one of my categories of no was ``no, that's a good idea but it's not what we do.'' We are going to hear lots about people with challenges that somebody should help. But the Federal Government is $1.6 trillion in debt this year--this year; not the $14 trillion accumulated debt, $1.6 this year--over $200 billion last month. Last month's deficit was within striking range of the annual deficit for the 10 years that ended in 2008. We are now spending more in deficit spending in a month than for a decade we spent in a year. If you average out that 10 years it is very close to February--and by the way, February is the shortest month. That is the only month where we have 28 days of spending, and we set a record on monthly deficit spending for the United States of America that was almost equal to the average annual deficit of the previous 10 years. Sometimes people came to me and they had a good idea that actually was something the university could do. Often, then, I would have to say: Yes, that is a good idea, we ought to think how we can do that, but you are going to have to help me figure out what we can stop doing so we can start doing this. This may in fact be a better thing than some of the things we are doing now, but we can't do everything. Families deal with this issue all the time. You cannot do everything, even if it would be good to see those things done. The Federal Government is doing the wrong thing when it heads down a road where you are spending so much more than you are collecting. One obvious answer is let's collect more. I suppose if you went to the Congressional Budget Office and said what would the collection amount be for the Federal Government if the tax rate were 100 percent--since they do not do any dynamic scoring over there, they score as if tax policy doesn't matter--I guess they could add up all the payrolls of America and whatever they added up to, that is how much money the Federal Government could bring in if the tax rate were 100 percent. But that would not happen. Frankly, the tax rate of collecting the $2.2 trillion is about all we ought to be collecting out of this economy. For the 65 years after World War II, the government spent an average of about $1 out of $5, the Federal Government, that the economy could create. Now we are spending $1 out of $4. There is a big difference in a country where the Federal Government alone spends 1 dollar out of 4 that the country can create in goods and services as opposed to 1 dollar out of 5. You are not going to get a lot more on the taxing side. So we have to make the reductions in spending. Then you are going to hear we are making these reductions out of 12 percent or 15 percent of the budget. Is that fair? First of all, that is the only part of the budget we can get to without significant legislative activity. That should be the next thing on our agenda. Let's talk about the 60 percent of the budget we normally do not even talk about where if you meet the definition of the program you get the money, and see if we can't figure out how to produce better results for fewer dollars. That is what everybody else in America has been thinking about for 20 years now. If you are still in business in America and you are competing in a global economy, you have been thinking how do we get a better result for less money, not how do we spend more money. We need to be sure the government is as good as the people it serves in that regard. It is 12 or 15 percent of the budget where we are talking reducing spending by $61 billion. That would not begin to be nearly enough, if you apportion it out. That is about one-seventh of the budget. If you multiply that by seven, you are still well over $1 trillion short of where you need to be. We need to start by taking at least this much money out of that part of the budget and figure out how we can also make the government work better in the other 85 percent of the budget. Today is what it is. Today is a discussion to prove, apparently, that we cannot do anything. We can't do what the majority of the Senate wants to do, we can't do what the majority in the House wants to do. Let me tell you what the majority in the House wants to do is a minimum entry level to solving this whole problem. I am going to vote for it today and I urge my colleagues to vote for it as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

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

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, this is an amendment that deals with an issue going back to the beginning of the TSA screening program, almost 10 years ago now, at the end of 2001. We had significant discussion between the House and the Senate about how that program would run. In fact, the House, which I was a Member of at the time and the occupant of the chair was a Member of at the time, passed a bill which said the screening would continue to be competitive and private and determined by local airports. The Senate's view at the time was this was a new responsibility that would be taken over everywhere by the Federal Government and the TSA. The final determination was that, while the Federal Government would take this responsibility, there would be allowed to be pilot airports that would be determined and be monitored to determine whether a pilot project would verify that another alternative would be a competitive, private screening as one of the options available to airports. In fact, in 2004, the screening partnership program was created. The pilots had worked. The verification was that the private screeners were performing at a level that was equal to that of the government-paid screeners, that the cost was comparable, and that airports in the future would be able to apply to go from the government-run program to a competitive program, and about 16 airports have done that. I think the biggest one is probably the San Francisco airport. The Kansas City airport, which I use and that I represent, may be the second biggest of those. Rochester, NY, is also in this program, as are a number of smaller airports. In fact, as recently as a few months ago, the TSA was still telling airports and recommended to four airports in Montana--a State where seven of their airports are currently in this program--the TSA recommended to four more airports in Montana that they look at this program as a potential better alternative for them. Only in recent weeks did TSA determine in responses to the Springfield, MO airport, the four Montana airports, and perhaps as many as a handful of other airports that, no, we think that program is big enough. This is an option that is no longer available to local airport boards. This amendment would reach the conclusion that the local airport board is still an important determiner of which system works best in an airport. Essentially, this amendment would tell the TSA that if local airports apply, the TSA would allow them to become part of the screening partnership program and treat them as they are treating the 16 airports that have been in that program--some for as long as a decade now, since the beginning of screening as we see it in airports today. I hope we get to where we actually give authority back, or maintain authority at the local airport level to determine which system works better for them. A competitive system allows flexibility, and flexibility allows more adaptability, more innovation and, frankly, I think, encourages the government-run systems to be more competitive and responsive. That is why I am offering this amendment. I hope it becomes part of this bill, and I look forward to working with the committee on this amendment and over the next few days as we continue to debate FAA. This has a real impact on a number of the authorities that are under the Federal Aviation Administration. I think this is an important time to solve this problem. It is one that was created, in my view, totally by TSA deciding on their own something that the law never envisioned. I was part of that debate a decade ago. I know what the intention was, and it was not the intention of the pilot program, or of the determination we made at the end of 2001, that TSA would determine for local airport authorities what was best for their airport. This amendment would require the TSA to work with local airports and implement their desire to change from the system they have at the time--totally run by TSA--to a system under the screening partnership program. That is the essence of this amendment, and I urge its adoption and inclusion in this bill. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment so I can call up my amendment, No. 5, which is at the desk.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I wish to speak for a few minutes today about Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan inspired freedom and changed the world. Maybe nobody said that better than former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a prerecorded eulogy that was played at President Reagan's funeral at the National Cathedral. I would like to read just a little of that eulogy. It starts: We have lost a great president, a great American and a great man. And-- Mrs. Thatcher said-- I have lost a dear friend. In his lifetime, Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set for himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk. Mrs. Thatcher went on: Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause--what Arnold Bennett once called ``the great cause of cheering us all up.'' His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation--and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire. Yet his humor often had a purpose beyond humor. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure. And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Mrs. Thatcher said: Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery, ``Whatever time I've got left now belongs to the Big Fella Upstairs.'' And surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan's life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed. Others prophesied the decline of the West; he inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom. Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity. Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War--not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends. Mrs. Thatcher goes on to say: I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit-- Quoting President Reagan-- ``Let me tell you why it is we distrust you.'' Mrs. Thatcher said: Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust. Ronald Reagan's truly ``only in America'' life story began 100 years ago this weekend. During his lifetime, he was a Democrat and later a Republican, he was a liberal and then a conservative, he was a labor union president and then President of the United States. During his lifetime, he developed a philosophy of faith, life, and government that Americans understood. During his Presidency, the people of this country had an extraordinary understanding of what their President would think and how their President would react to events and circumstances. The strength of the certain trumpet, the strength of the clarion call is, I believe, impossible to overestimate. Knowing how your President, how your leader views the world and views the circumstances that may meet us in the world is an incredibly comforting feeling. In fact, there is an epic Greek fable, more often applied to President Lincoln, about the fox and the hedgehog. In the epic Greek fable of the fox and the hedgehog, the fox is wily, the fox is clever, the fox knows lots of little things, but the hedgehog knows one really big thing. In that fable and in reality, the fox can never defeat the hedgehog. Now, neither Lincoln--I am really not comfortable referring to either Lincoln or Reagan and characterizing them as a hedgehog, but I am comfortable characterizing them as men of big ideas, men who understood the big things, leaders who understood the big things. With President Lincoln, it was the Union. With President Reagan, it was a focus on the big things, with an understanding that you measured the circumstances and events that came up by your view of the big things that guide the country, that guide us individually, that guide lives and, in fact, guide the lives of a nation. President Reagan understood big things. He could quickly evaluate any issue or challenge through that prism and the prism of those core values. Ronald Reagan inspired freedom and changed the world. The centennial celebration of his birth that begins this week and officially begins this weekend gives us an opportunity to think about what it was that made this President great; what it was that puts this President on the cover of news magazines, in the decade before the centennial, in one recent cover arm in arm with the current President of the United States; and what it was that made this extraordinary man so extraordinary. I will just say again, Ronald Reagan inspired freedom and changed the world. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I have the opportunity to speak on the floor of the Senate for the first time as part of the work of the Senate. I am pleased to be here on a day when the Senate is addressing the topic of health care because clearly it was a major topic on the minds of Missourians and all Americans last year. I support the amendment the Senator from Kentucky has offered that would repeal the health care bill and make us start again looking at how we make the health care system work better. This is my first speech to the Senate, so let me say a couple things about that. As I look in the desk drawer, I understand the tradition of the Senate is that people who have used this desk, the desk I get to use on the Senate floor--and coming from the House where nobody had a desk, it is quite an accomplishment just to get a desk--but the desk I will use on the Senate floor has names carved in it by other Missourians who have used that desk before: Senator Truman, Senator Eagleton, Senator Danforth, and Senator Bond. I am honored and humbled to get to sit at the same desk those individuals used as they served our State, and they all served our State in a dedicated way. In fact, the collective service of those Senators, in various jobs working for Missourians, probably totals about two centuries of collective service, where they worked hard for Missourians and worked hard to advance the views they believed were so important. Senator Bond, whose place I am taking on the Senate floor this year, for 24 years in the Senate, I think, showed an unmatched understanding of our State and in recent years a real understanding of the national security issues we face and what is necessary to protect the country. He was a great competitor on the Senate floor and in all other ways a great friend of mine, and certainly my wife Abby and I value the friendship we have had with Senator Bond and his wife Linda. In fact, as I campaigned last year all over our State in 931 events, I never had a single person tell me they thought I would be a better Senator than Kit Bond and for good reason. I am here today thinking about those events all over our State last year. At first, I was surprised, having campaigned in Missouri before, at the level of engagement on the domestic issues the country was facing. I truthfully had never seen anything like it, where people were ready to talk about the specifics of the issues about which the country was talking. As I thought more and more about it, it occurred to me why wouldn't they be engaged. This is not like we are trying to decide what your family's position is going to be on the missile defense system. This is not like we are trying to decide your family's position about foreign policy toward the Middle East. This was an election about jobs and health care and taxes and, in our State, whether your utility bill might double in 10 years. Why wouldn't people be engaged in ways that were extraordinary? They were. They said they want government to move over and allow them the chance to get the economy back on the right track. They understood that government jobs, while some of them are necessary--and I am glad to have one--do not pay the bill; government jobs are the bill. We need to be focused on private sector jobs and how to create those jobs. The questions were: Why is the Federal Government spending so much more money than it has ever spent before? Where are the private sector jobs? Frankly, I would have thought that would be the overriding topic of the first speech I had a chance to give on the Senate floor. But as I think about those two questions, I do not know that anything is a bigger issue in this health care discussion than the impact the health care bill has had on private sector job creation and on our estimates of future government spending. The biggest single deterrent to job creation is uncertainty. We have certainly done great things in the last few years to create a sense of uncertainty. If you do not know what your tax liability is going to look like, if you do not know what your utility bill will be, if you do not know what your health care expenses are going to be, you are less likely to take that risk that anybody takes when they create a private sector job than you would be if you had a greater sense of those questions. In health care, for every job they create or every job a job creator would think about continuing, this is a time they have to wonder: What is the obligation going to be? What is the cost going to be? I was with a group of small businesspeople in northwest Missouri one day last year, right after the health care bill passed, about 30 days after the health care bill passed. I was at Rock Port, MO. Somebody at that meeting said: I have 47 employees. I have looked at the health care bill and my accountants have looked at the health care bill. I need 4 or 5 more people right now, but I am not going to hire them because I am not going to get 1 employee closer to 50 than I am now because 50 creates new obligations that 49 or 48 or 47 does not. I am not going to hire those people. What am I going to do? I am going to pay overtime in the short term, but in the long term I am going to look at what I am doing that is not making much money, and I am going to quit doing that. There is somebody telling me a handful of jobs ready to be created that he believed he needed to create are not going to happen because he does not want to get any closer to this health care moment. He does not want to get any closer to where the government comes in and says: We are going to make you do things you do not have to do if you do not create these jobs. People I talked with in Columbia, MO, in the middle of the State, in the fast food industry, said: We are going to try to figure out how not to have full-time employees. What he said was the person who gives you your breakfast sandwich in the morning may be the same person who, across the street, gives you your fast food lunch because we are not going to have that person as a full-time employee if we can figure out how not to have that obligation. Real, sustainable private sector job creation does not happen in an environment of uncertainty. We need to be focused on jobs that are family supporting. We need to be focused on economic growth that includes letting American families keep more of what they earn, which includes economic incentives for small businesses and employers, and encourages the government to get out of the way so employers of all sizes can create self-sustaining, stable, private sector jobs. We need a government that meets the requirements of the Constitution. Rarely do we have a chance to revisit a misguided decision. In fact, this decision and this bill was the result of a set of circumstances that nobody would have anticipated. When this bill was passed by the Senate with the 60 votes the Senate required at that moment, nobody thought this bill would be the final product. Not a single person who voted for that bill thought that is the bill that will go to the President's desk. Everybody who voted for the bill thought this will be a bill that gets the Senate to conference with the other part of the Congress, and we will work out all the things in the conference that need to be worked out between the two. What happened was, suddenly the 60 votes that passed that bill were not there anymore. That became the only bill that could become law. The plan the Republican leader, the minority leader, advances lets us go back and revisit this discussion and do this the right way. Two Federal courts have already ruled that the law, one said, did not meet the constitutional standard and could not go forward. Why was that? That was because of the way the bill was put together, in a way that did not have the normal legislative language that would allow severability, that would allow if something is unconstitutional. Nobody thought this was going to be the bill, and the American people are the victims of having to rush forward with a bill that was not ready to become law. Another Federal judge said part of the law is unconstitutional, that which makes people buy a commercially available product. I, along with a lot of other people, have thought from day one that there is nothing in the Constitution that allows that to be a requirement. Voters in the State of Missouri, my State, on the primary election day--the second biggest election we have had; we had hundreds of thousands of people vote--were faced with a question the legislature put on the ballot that essentially said: Do you want to be part of this process? Do you want to be part of the mandatory obligation to buy insurance? Do you want to be part of the health care bill? Over 70 percent of the voters who voted that day said no. They were the first voters anywhere in the United States to go to the polling place and have a chance to say at the ballot box how they felt about this law that would go forward. They said they did not want to be part of it. Those voters understood that this was a misguided plan, that it put government between people and their doctors in ways Dr. Coburn talked about earlier today, in a meaningful way that he and other doctors who join us as Members of this body would understand. It puts government between people and their doctors. It implodes the current health care system. I believe the current health care system will not survive this bill, not that the current health care system is perfect. But it certainly produces great results for people who come here from all over the world. This is a bill that cuts Medicare to pay the bill. Missourians understood that. I heard it over and over at the ballot box. They said they did not want to be part of it. I thought, for three election opportunities--2004, 2006, and 2008--that health care would become the biggest domestic issue. It maybe is too complicated, maybe too difficult to deal with, maybe too personal and people did not want to engage and they did not engage. This law gives us the opportunity now to go back and get it right. We needed to deal with health care for a long time. When I worked in this Capitol on the other side of the building, we sent medical liability reform to the Senate seven times in 10 years. We sent plans half a dozen times where people could join together in what we were calling associated health plans and get their insurance that way and become part of however big a group they could figure out to associate with. It is not as if nobody was doing anything, but there was not enough pressure. This bill very likely creates the pressure we need to go back and look for better solutions. They are there, such as this idea of associated health plans, where you can join other individuals who are somehow similar to you or other small businesses similar to your small business. Medical liability reform saves the most money of anything that can be done for taxpayers, but it also saves money for taxpayers who are paying for their own health care because it takes a lot of expense out of the whole system. Certainly, we want people to have access to insurance coverage who have preexisting conditions. In fact, I proposed in the past and will propose again this year, along with other ways, to expand risk pools so people can have access to coverage but not coverage they wait for until they are in the ambulance and need it, coverage they get because they want it. We need to empower families. One of the reasons government-designed anything does not work very well is the one-size-fits-all concept does not fit very well. In fact, the so-called one size fits all almost never fits anybody. That is what I think this bill does for the health care that means so much to American families. Somebody told me one time that when everybody in your family is well, you have lots of problems, and when somebody in your family is sick, you have one problem. This discussion of health care focused Missourians and Americans on one problem: How do we have access to health care that is the best health care we can have and also is health care that is affordable? There is no real competition in this system, so I am for buying across State lines. You aren't going to see anybody on television tonight advertising health care insurance, but it is pretty hard to watch television for a couple hours in the evening and not see people competing for your business in every other area of insurance. There is no little green lizard for health care. There are all kinds of other people competing to get your other insurance business, but this hasn't really had a marketplace. It hasn't been transparent, it hasn't been competitive. We can achieve all those things, and we need to achieve all those things. Choice plus competition equals quality and price. And in health care, we haven't had enough choice or competition, so we haven't seen that reflected in quality and price. I don't believe the government has the authority to penalize citizens for refusing to buy private health insurance. I don't believe taxpayers will benefit from this bill that is built on too many false premises. The idea that we are going to cut compensation to doctors back to levels of a decade ago is not going to happen, and it is $\1/4\ trillion of the so-called pay-fors in this bill. It is not going to happen. It is almost equally unlikely that $500 billion of Medicare costs are not going to happen. And if we can find savings in Medicare, we should find them and use them to save Medicare. Only in Washington, DC, would you say: Look, we have one program that is about to get in really big trouble in a handful of years, so let's cut that program to start another program. I don't think those pay-fors are going to happen, either, Mr. President. When employers are telling us they are not hiring because of the uncertainty created by this new law, when courts are ruling the law unconstitutional, when voters are overwhelmingly rejecting it, we need to understand why. Americans deserve a country where the people are bigger than the government. This health care bill opens the door to a future where the government is bigger than the people, and I think we should reject the law, repeal it now, move forward with more competition, more transparency, and better health care. Better health care at a lower cost is achievable if we do the right things. I believe this bill does the wrong things, and the more the American people look at it, the more they are convinced that it leads us to a future that is not the health care future they want. So, Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to speak on the Senate floor, and I am pleased to be able to represent Missourians. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise again today because southwest Missourians keep telling me that they're expecting us to keep our eye on the ball. The most important thing they want us working on in the House is jobs--that's J-O-B-S, Madam Speaker. But most of the bills we've considered here on the House floor have exactly the opposite effect. Southwest Missourians know the difference between good policies that put people back to work and the tax-raising, job-killing agenda of the majority in Washington. Madam Speaker, there is and has been a bipartisan resistance to this extreme agenda, but the majority does whatever is necessary to pass these bills. With government control of health care and the House- passed national energy tax of cap-and-trade, costs go up and jobs go down. Despite promises that the $862 billion so-called stimulus bill would keep unemployment below 8 percent, here we are today, Madam Speaker, with an unemployment rate of over 9 percent per month. Our top priority must be job creation. The government can't create private sector jobs, but it sure can pursue smart policies that help create those jobs.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for the hard work he has done on this bill. Mr. Speaker, clearly the country would like to see the right things done for the economy. I think this bill fails to do many of the basic things it should have done and does the things that we shouldn't have done. It doesn't end too-big-to-fail, Mr. Speaker. In fact, it institutionalizes too-big-to-fail. Treasury will be able to front money to wind down these failing firms, but also Treasury can decide if they are at risk of failure. There is way too much involvement with the taxpayers in coming in and doing exactly what the American taxpayers are tired of seeing us doing. The government-sponsored entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that we have talked about and will talk about more on this floor today and have talked about for months as one of the prime causes for the economic problems we face, as far as I can tell, they are not mentioned, and if they are mentioned, Mr. Speaker, there is no reform. The root cause of the problem we have in the economy today was caused by these entities, and they are not addressed, and it was said they would not be addressed. More control, Mr. Speaker, by the Federal Reserve of more things and more regulation. There is a new agency under the Federal Reserve that will be in charge of setting new rules for the banking sector of the country in its entirety. Credit, Mr. Speaker, will not be more available. It will be less available. People who are in the job-creating business are already making announcements about what they will do as they respond to this. Why is that? Because this bill steps further into managing the economy. The government may be able to do lots of things, but making business decisions is not one of them. Utility companies, food processors, others who routinely try to protect themselves in a volatile marketplace will not be able to do this. Mr. Speaker, this bill will cost jobs at the very time we ought to be figuring out how to increase jobs. I hope our colleagues will turn it down and go back and do the right thing.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the Trinity Lutheran congregation of Springfield, Missouri, celebrating its 100th year of service to the community and God. Trinity Lutheran is honoring this milestone with a year of special services, events and history displays. Trinity Lutheran Church will welcome several preachers during this special year. Many who were integral to Trinity's 100-year history will honor and remember the congregation's growth, achievements and history of serving the Springfield area and bringing the word to worshipers. Former Pastor Manny Rodriguez, who left to develop Amigos de Cristo, a mission church in Sedalia, is joining current Trinity Lutheran Pastor Bill R. Marler and Pastor Eric Tessaro to celebrate this anniversary. The pastors are encouraging the congregation to honor their history and consider long range plans to keep the spirit, message and mission of Trinity Lutheran fresh. Like many churches 100 years ago struggling with finances, Trinity Lutheran began with a small group of households. Pastors from other congregations volunteered to minister in Springfield. Rev. A.F. Woker became the first pastor of Trinity in 1917. Soon, the congregation purchased property and constructed their first home. This building served them for three decades. Today's well-known location of Trinity Lutheran is the result of a need to expand beyond the restrictions of its first home. As if divinely inspired, Trinity Lutheran moved into the wilderness of Greene County. This decision proved to be a blessing, placing the church in a location that would easily accommodate phenomenal growth in the 1950s and 1960s. It is still the congregation's home today. Trinity's growth has also been guided by capable long-term pastors, each of whom were strong leaders and deeply rooted scriptural teachers. Such sound leadership and congregational support helped Trinity Lutheran create a number of new ministries, including campus ministry and a school. Trinity Lutheran is one of Springfield's strong moral pillars, committed to the work of God and compassion for those less fortunate in our community. My hope is that Trinity Lutheran continues its heritage of strong leadership in Springfield for many centuries to come.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and thank he and Congresswoman Fudge for bringing this bill to the floor. I'm honored to be here on the floor with my good friend, Mr. Hoyer. We first brought this concept of healthy athletes to the floor 6 years ago, when, for the first time, the Federal Government said we can add something to Special Olympics that doesn't change Special Olympics but just simply adds to it. It doesn't change the character of volunteers. It doesn't change the character of charitable contribution. It doesn't change the character of competition. It adds a component to Special Olympics that helps athletes who have many challenges discover some challenges in health that maybe no one has discovered yet. Today, this bill would simply authorize that program, which I will talk about in some detail, for another 5 years. I hope that we continue to see the kind of things that Mr. Hoyer and I have been able to watch as a result of this decision by the Congress 6 years ago. As has already been said, it also passes a bill again that this Congress has already passed--a bill that Mr. Hoyer and I sponsored last year, that would provide a new level of assistance to Best Buddies, a program where adults who work with other adults who have mental challenges become the friend, the mentor, the person who brings that person more deeply into society than they otherwise would be. It also authorizes a new competitive grant program called the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institutes for Sport and Social Impact to fund organizations that demonstrate commitment to the vision of special needs kids. Earlier this year, Leanna Krogmann, a Special Olympian from Missouri, came in to see me, and along with her family and other families, Leanna reminded me of the importance of Special Olympics and its Healthy Athletes program, which really focuses on Healthy Athletes in several disciplines: Opening Eyes, Special Smiles, Healthy Hearing, FUNFitness, Health Promotion, Fit Feet and MedFest, so that those medical things that might not otherwise get checked, get checked. Patrick Kennedy has come to the floor, as have others today, including Mr. Hoyer, and have talked about the significant contribution that Eunice Kennedy Shriver made to the world and to America in so many ways, and the Special Olympics and Best Buddies were two of them. She grew up, of course, in a family of competitors, but her older sister Rosemary was mentally challenged and couldn't keep up. I had the opportunity a few years ago to meet Rosemary and to learn that every Christmas and every August, no matter where Rosemary was, she came to be wherever Eunice Shriver was. And I was honored to meet her and honored to speak on the floor when her life was ended about the contribution that life had made because of what her sister and her family had decided to do. In 1962, Mrs. Shriver started the Special Olympics in her big backyard--it was a big backyard, but it was a backyard--a competition that now attracts 3 million athletes from 160 countries around the world. In August of last year, a card with this challenge was part of Eunice Kennedy Shriver's memorial service, talking about Best Buddies and talking about Special Olympians. This card read, ``The right to play on any playing field, you have earned it. The right to study in any school, you have earned it. The right to hold a job, you have earned it. The right to be anyone's neighbor, you have earned it.'' These programs make a difference in people's lives. In Missouri in just one of the last 5 years, 1,029 athletes went through the Healthy Athlete screening free of charge. Families with many challenges often miss one. And this was something that took me a while to figure out because these are families who go to doctors, who go to events, who do lots of things, but they're dealing with lots of challenges. And maybe the one challenge they don't know they're dealing with is that this individual also can't see as well as they also thought they could or can't hear. And we find that out in these screenings. In fact, in Healthy Hearing, 18 percent of the Missourians in this year I'm talking about required follow-up care when they had their hearing test. Health Promotion, almost one in five were obese and got advice on healthy choices, on tobacco cessation, on sun safety. Opening Eyes, 230 athletes were screened in Missouri in 2007. Almost half, 45 percent, of the people screened needed prescription eyewear and didn't have it. Special Smiles, 23 percent of the 334 athletes screened were in urgent need of follow-up care. I was told by someone who runs the Missouri Special Olympics program that one young man was looking at the tree tops with his new glasses later on in the day after he had gotten them, and he said, I've always heard the birds, but I never saw the birds. One young woman said about her glasses that now her glasses meant that there was only one ball to catch instead of trying to figure out which of the two balls that had always been coming at her before was the real ball and which one she just saw. Let's extend these programs. Let's pass this bill. Let's encourage these athletes. And again, to all my friends who have come to the floor, who have worked to make this a program where the government makes some difference but still understands, as others have said, that anybody can volunteer, everybody is touched by being a part of this program. Watch a walk-on at your State's Special Olympics. Go to a local competition. See what it means when that card's handed out that says, ``You have earned it,'' as these Special Olympians and Best Buddies have. And I urge us to pass the bill.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to O&S Trucking of Springfield, Missouri, on being recognized as 2010 Innovator of the Year by Commercial Carrier Journal. In 1981, Jim O'Neal and partner Keith Stever teamed to form Ozarks Truck Brokerage with two customers and no equipment. Two years later the pioneering pair launched the company that would become O&S Trucking. Throughout the 1990s O&S Trucking grew quickly and by 2000 had executed an employee stock ownership program to completely overhaul the company as employee owned. This approach led to more ownership from drivers and workers to give O&S Trucking a steady platform for growth and success. Nearly twenty years later, O&S Trucking provides transportation services to customers throughout the United States and Canada, offering opportunities for owner operators, drivers, small fleet owners and outside carriers. O&S Trucking continually encourages their leaders to generate innovative and engaging opportunities for their company. For example, they created an interactive Trucker's Challenge board game to help over 350 truck owners learn the responsibility and business skills to become a better owner-operator. In 2007, O&S Trucking launched the MegaTruck program to take full advantage of capacity and create an environmentally sensitive truck to haul more freight while reducing their carbon footprint. The MegaTruck program was created to address fuel efficiency, driver availability and sustainability concerns for both refrigerated and dry van transportation. The MegaTruck is able to maximize product weight per truck without losing revenue and, in fact, the equipment operated under the MegaTruck program averages more miles per week than regular over-the-road trucks. This approach to business is the reason O&S Trucking is one of the few trucking companies to have grown since 2000 and this success should be seen as a bright vision as Missouri looks for new ways to improve our ever changing economy. Taken together, the Trucker's Challenge and the MegaTruck Program have made O&S Trucking the first company Commercial Carrier Journal has recognized as Innovator of the Year. In addition, Jim O'Neal, President of O&S Trucking, serves as Mayor of Missouri's third largest city, Springfield, Missouri. To Mayor and President Jim O'Neal, Chief Executive Officer David Corsaut, Chief Operating Officer Rick Johnson and the rest of the team at O&S Trucking, I offer my congratulations on being recognized as the 2010 Innovator of Year.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Dolores Brooks, who is retiring after twenty years of service to her community in Springfield, Missouri as a charter member of the Board of Trustees of the Ozarks Technical Community College. First elected in April 1990, Brooks helped shape the growth and direction of Ozarks Technical Community College, a school that serves students from 13 public school districts in Southwest Missouri and beyond. The growth of the school has been extraordinary, with this year's enrollment topping more than 12,000 students. OTC, as it is known to students and local residents, has expanded its operation to a second campus in Ozark, Missouri, with an eye to increasing accessibility to its growing student body. Mrs. Brooks holds degrees from Purdue University, University of Missouri, and Southwest Missouri State University, and has served as a public school teacher, counselor, principal, and adjunct university faculty member. She has also served on numerous professional and civic organizations in leadership capacities, including the Missouri Guidance Association, Southwest Missouri Association of Secondary School Principals, Springfield Education Association, Missouri State Teachers Association, and the Dogwood Trails Girl Scouts Council. Prior to her selection to the OTC Board of Trustees, she was a member of the OTC Steering Committee. She led OTC as its Trustee President 1990-1992 and 2002-2003. From its modest beginnings in central Springfield at the old vocational-technical school, OTC has blossomed into a modern campus offering students state-of-the-art classes with opportunities for advancement in a wide range of vocations, professions, and subject matter. I am proud of the hard work Mrs. Brooks and the College have done to provide quality education for students in Missouri. To Mrs. Brooks, I wish to extend a heartfelt ``thank you and well done'' for her tireless work over the last two decades. Her efforts have made the Springfield area a better place to live. The Ozarks Technical Community College is a beacon of educational excellence for the entire region.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding time. Madam Speaker, I thank the committee for reporting this resolution to the floor. I want to recognize, along with my other colleagues, the Silver Star Families of America. This bill does that. It designates the 1st of May as Silver Star Service Banner Day. Silver Star Families of America is not only reflective of all the families that have helped, but it is also a nonprofit organization that has been formed dedicated to supporting and assisting those whose families have earned the Silver Star, those who have been wounded, those who have become ill in a combat zone, recognizing those members of the Armed Forces and their families across all branches of the services, and Madam Speaker, for all wars. This group was founded in Missouri's Seventh Congressional District in 2004. The Silver Star Flag and the Silver Star Banner are symbols of remembrance and honor for those wounded during battle, those who incurred an illness during battle, and those who have honorably served in the Armed Forces during that moment of sacrifice, and a sacrifice that is almost always shared by their family and their loved ones. Thousands of cities and counties throughout the country have issued proclamations to set aside May 1 to honor our current troops, our veterans and their families, as well as Silver Star families and Gold Star families. Last April, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, recognized Silver Star families of America for their support of servicemembers and those who have earned the Silver Star. Madam Speaker, I thank the committee for bringing this to the floor. I ask my colleagues to join me in support of House Resolution 855 which, of course, is a resolution in support of those service people and their families who have earned this recognition, who show this banner, who understand the implications of the Silver Star flag and the Silver Star banner.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Silver Dollar City on its upcoming 50th anniversary. The Herschend family established Silver Dollar City on May 1, 1960, in Branson, Missouri, on top of Marvel Cave to preserve and celebrate the folk history, storytelling, music and craft traditions of 1880s America. The park originally featured two authentic log structures, a town square with a demonstrating blacksmith, a general store, and an ice cream parlor. A crew of 17 ``citizens'' entertained about 125,000 visitors in the first year. Fifty years later, Silver Dollar City now counts over 2 million visitors annually, employs more than 2,000 individuals, and contributes over $100 million a year to Missouri's economy. The award-winning theme park is the ``Home of American Craftsmanship,'' showcasing a colony of 100 resident craftsmen, in addition to its rides and attractions and world class festivals. The success of Silver Dollar City, in addition to the natural beauty of the Ozarks and the creation of Table Rock Lake, has helped launch Branson into a world-renowned tourism destination. In the years since Silver Dollar City opened, Herschend Family Entertainment has grown to become America's largest family-owned theme park company--owning and operating 24 properties spread across nine states, including iconic sites like Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Herschend properties attracted over 8.6 million visitors in 2009 and supports 6,600 jobs across the country. These parks celebrate our shared cultural heritage as Americans, our country's vast natural features and wildlife, and the community spirit that made America what it is today. In addition to operating its entertainment business, the Herschend family, along with Silver Dollar City and its many other properties, touch thousands of lives through charitable giving and volunteer time to hundreds of nonprofit groups every year. In my congressional district alone, the Silver Dollar City Foundation contributes over $100,000 per year in Stone and Taney counties through its Care for Kids Program. To Pete and Jack Herschend, and the team at Silver Dollar City, I offer my congratulations on their 50th anniversary.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I was able to chair our Health Care Solutions group on our side, and we had lots of ideas. In fact, many of those ideas were included in the 80 amendments that went to the Rules Committee yesterday, none of which were allowed. This could be a bill, Mr. Speaker, about medical liability reform, about small business health plans, buying across State lines, lots of things that aren't there. I don't think, Mr. Speaker, this bill improves what works and fixes what is broken, which should be our goal. But that is not the main reason, Mr. Speaker, we should not be proceeding today. The main reason is not that it is not the best bill or a bill that I approve of. The main reason is that it costs too much, Mr. Speaker. This is a bill where the proponents say we are going to collect $1 trillion in either new taxes or Medicare cuts. We are going to accumulate $1 trillion over 10 years, and we are going to spend it in 6 years. In fact, Mr. Speaker, by year 8, by year 9, by year 10, we are spending $200 billion a year. When I checked with the Congressional Budget Office, what about year 11? They said $200 billion as well. Mr. Speaker, this will cost jobs. It doesn't head the country in the right direction. I oppose the rule and will oppose the bill.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, The Washington Post today on the front page said: Pelosi may try to pass health bill without a vote. May try to pass health bill without a vote. I didn't even think that was possible, but apparently The Washington Post and the Speaker of the House think it's possible. It's no wonder, Madam Speaker, that the country is outraged not just by the bill, but by the process. This was like the Speaker's statement that said we would have to pass the bill so we could know what's in it. Madam Speaker, this bill does not reduce costs. It cuts Medicare and increases taxes for 10 years and spends the money in 6 years. Madam Speaker, this bill throws the health care system up in the air and just hopes that the greatest health care system in the world is still there when it lands a few years from now. Madam Speaker, I hope that we have a vote on this bill, a debate on this bill and we do not pass this bill with a vote.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I am continually inspired by the great philanthropy and giving nature of the American people. When humanity suffers, where calamity arises--floods in Indonesia, earthquakes in Haiti or Chile, war-torn landscapes around the world or in poverty stricken populations in the Sudan--Americans respond with their time, energy and sacrifice. This outpouring of generosity to foreign lands and different cultures is a uniquely American trait. The Peace Corps, created 49 years ago this week, embodies that trait. It was President John F. Kennedy who urged Americans to serve their country by working in developing countries and their local villages to enhance the quality of life for others. Approximately 7,600 Peace Corps Volunteers, including five from Southwest Missouri, are serving in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Islands. I am proud of the service of the five Southwest Missourians currently volunteering in the Peace Corps. Megan Abbott began her service in Belize four months ago. Austin Durr has been in Paraguay since 2007. Laura Pegram has served in Botswana since June 2008. Bruce Taylor has served for one year in Kenya and will serve another year. Scott Tuttle has been in Niger since 2008. Leaving behind the comforts and conveniences of home, Peace Corps volunteers like Abbot, Durr, Pegram, Taylor and Tuttle are symbols of our nation's commitment to progress, opportunity and development in the developing world. Their desire to make a difference, like that of 200,000 Americans who have served since 1961, has improved the lives of millions of people around the world. Peace Corps volunteers learn languages and receive extensive cross- cultural training, enabling them to function effectively at a professional level. Volunteers have made lasting contributions around the world in agriculture, business development, information technology, health, education, HIV/AIDS, youth and the environment. Recognizing the legions of Peace Corps volunteers, past and present, who work hard everyday to improve the lives of the people they assist affirms our nation's commitment to helping people help themselves in the pursuit of life, liberty and prosperity throughout the world. To Megan Abbott, Austin Durr, Laura Pegram, Bruce Taylor and Scott Tuttle, I want to express my sincere thanks for your service in the Peace Corps.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to America's great spectator sport, NASCAR; its most prestigious race, the Daytona 500; and the 2010 champion, Southwest Missouri native Jamie McMurray. On Sunday, McMurray rode to victory in a Bass Pro Shops sponsored car. His stunning win sparked excitement among all NASCAR fans, especially those in Southwest Missouri, where he learned his racing skills. McMurray started 2010 without a ride, having been released from another team at the end of the 2009 season. When Springfield, Missouri- based Bass Pro Shops owner Johnny Morris decided to return to NASCAR sponsorship with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, McMurray got the call to drive. McMurray won the Daytona 500 in the No. 1 Chevrolet Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats car, leading by only two laps, the least in the race's history. Jamie McMurray started stock car racing in the early 1990s on tracks in Bolivar, Missouri; Lebanon, Missouri; and at the I-70 Speedway in Odessa, Missouri. In 1992, at age 16, McMurray began driving NASCAR late models and raced in the NASCAR RE/MAX Challenge Series in 1998- 1999. By age 21 he had won the NASCAR late model division on the Lebanon track. In 1999 he began racing on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series circuit. McMurray's breakthrough came three years later, when he was offered a full-time Busch Series ride. He earned two victories on the Busch Circuit and finished sixth in series points. In 2003 as a NASCAR regular, he was Rookie of the Year. When NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Sterling Marlin was out with an injury, owner Chip Ganassi offered McMurray the seat to complete the 2002 season. It didn't take long for Jamie to make his mark on the sport. In his second race with Ganassi in Charlotte, North Carolina, McMurray won the UAW-GM Quality 500 at Lowes Motor Speedway. Now in his ninth season, McMurray is racing for the new Earnhardt Ganassi team. In his first race of the season, he scored a victory in the granddaddy of all stock car racing events: the Daytona 500. Every racing fan in Southwest Missouri was thrilled that McMurray won the race in a No. 1 Chevrolet Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats car from the Southwest Missouri-based company. McMurray endured years of hard work on local tracks to earn his way into the winner's circle of America's greatest stock car event. For NASCAR fans in Southwest Missouri, I want to offer my congratulations to Jamie McMurray, Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats, and to their families and supporters.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I submit the following: Priority Name: Thunder Radar Pod (TRP) Appropriated Amount: $1.6 million Account: Air Force--RDT&E Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Mid-American Precision Products Address of Requesting Entity: 1927 West 4th Street, Joplin, MO 64801 Description of Request: The use of taxpayer funds is justified because the Air National Guard (ANG) has an essential requirement to provide its F-16 fighter forces with all-weather, day & night strike and situational awareness capability that will complement its current EO/IR capability with the Advanced Targeting Pods. This capability can only be provided with an airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) that is capable of seeing through cloud cover, inclement weather, and smoke obscured targets or areas of interest. Lack of an all weather targeting capability will continue to limit the USAF's ability to effectively fulfill its Destruction of Enemy Air Defense (DEAD) tasking regardless of weather and allow the enemy to operate unfettered in poor metrological conditions. This all-weather DEAD capability will not be realized until approximately 2018 with the fielding of a like capability in the F-35, making the procurement of the TRP in the near- term time frame critical.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor an educator and coach who has helped mold, inspire and motivate young men and women for almost four decades in Southwest Missouri. I am proud to recognize Monett High School coach and educator, Alan Spencer, upon his retirement at the end of the 2010 school year. For 35 years, Alan has had a number of considerable coaching accomplishments. However, his higher calling is to teach and instill in young men and women the traits of a strong moral character. He has taught that success in any endeavor is marked by hard work, respect, and dedication in working as a team to accomplish a common goal. In his retirement letter, Alan demonstrated his philosophy of success as a coach and respected mentor. He wrote, ``Our coaches and student/ athletes have gained more than just skills and knowledge of the activities they compete and coach in. They have learned about loyalty, accountability, responsibility and trust. They understand that a team cannot be successful without pride in your performance, effort to make yourself and the team better, determination to overcome all obstacles, enthusiasm for the game and respect of your opponents and teammates.'' Alan has been head football coach, athletic director, women's track coach and teacher for the Monett Cubs sports program for nine years. During that period, the Cubs football teams have gone 58-36 and won or shared championships in the Big 8 Conference in 2004, 2007 and 2008. Under his nine years of leadership, the women's track team captured Big 8 Conference crowns five times. Alan's career began as a coach at Neosho High School in 1975. His first head coaching job was at Nevada, Missouri in 1980. From there Alan coached at Springfield Parkview High School, Springfield Central High School and at Rogers, Arkansas before going to Monett in 2002. Alan has been recognized many times for his hard work for students and teams. This year, he will be inducted into Missouri's Football Coaches Hall of Fame. He was named the 2008-2009 Missouri Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association's Athletic Director of the Year for the Southwest District. In 2004 and 2008, Alan was named Big 8 Coach of the Year. Alan plans to spend time in his retirement with his family and friends while enjoying fishing and hunting. I know Coach Spencer will continue to find ways to use his talents as a motivator to inspire other young people to the highest standards of service to their school, their community and their country.