Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Please do.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I was recently at a Veterans Day parade in Leavenworth, KS, and I had a number of people coming up to me opposed to the health care bill. I had one come up to me and say they were in favor of it and all the rest were opposed. It starts on the basis that it is fiscally insane what we are considering doing with $12 billion in debt, and then we are going to add a multitrillion-dollar entitlement program on top of this. The Federal Government is hemorrhaging money. Why on Earth would we do that? Then they are scared about what else is in the bill, and then this feature comes up as well. Finally, Senator Johanns was putting in statements from various groups, and I ask unanimous consent that this statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops be included at the end of our colloquy.

Mr. BROWNBACK. The Catholic Bishops issued this yesterday and said this: The legislative proposal recently unveiled in the Senate does not meet these moral criteria. Specifically, it violates the longstanding Federal policy against the use of Federal funds for elective abortions and health plans that include such abortions--a policy upheld in all health programs covered by the Hyde Amendment, the Children's Health Insurance Program-- SCHIP, which Senator Hatch helped to get started-- the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program-- that Senator Johanns spoke about-- and now in the House-passed ``Affordable Health Care for America Act.'' We believe legislation that violates this moral principle is not true health care reform and must be amended to reflect it. If that fails, the current legislation should be opposed. This is the Catholic Bishops, generally in favor of health care reform, and they are saying this fails on this account and must not be in this legislation and can't be considered as part of health care reform.

Mr. BROWNBACK. It has been my pleasure to join Senators Hatch and Johanns on this effort. I have worked with both of them in many different capacities and jobs. This is as serious a pro-life vote as I have seen. If this gets passed, the Federal Government will be funding somewhere north of 300,000 abortions a year. If it was 300,000 back in the 1974-to-1976 timeframe, with the growth in U.S. population, you are probably looking at north of that number of Federal taxpayer dollars funding abortions. I cannot imagine many people in this country being satisfied about that kind of number taking place. I can't imagine that. But that is our past experience when the government funds abortion. Those are the numbers we are talking about. I note, too, the country has a longstanding ethic and moral code. We are a moral people, and we have been from the outset. Some people say this or that, but a big part of that has been that basic moral code, that basic thought within the Judeo-Christian ethic that we respect life. This goes back to when Moses talks to the people about going into the Promised Land. He is giving his last lecture to the Jewish people before going into the Promised Land. In that last lecture--Moses doesn't get to go in himself, but he gets the people together. They march for 40 years in the wilderness. He knows he is not going in, but they are, and he gives a lecture. Deuteronomy 30:19 says something that is applicable here: This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. This is in the fundamental ethic and background of our country. That is what we have to choose today. Do we choose life or death? Choose life, so that you and your children might live. As Senator Johanns notes, we just need one vote on the other side to change this, and this language gets pulled out and Stupak gets put in. Just one vote. If we cannot get to 60--and you have to get there--and that one person says: I am not going to do it, unless you put Stupak in this, it changes. We need just one to choose life, and it will change. It has been a pleasure to join with both Senators today. Exhibit 1 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC, November 20, 2009. U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Senator: On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), we strongly urge the Senate to incorporate essential changes to the Senate's health care reform bill to ensure that needed health care reform legislation truly protects the life, dignity, consciences and health of all. We especially urge the Senate to act as the House has in the following respects: Keep in place current federal law on abortion funding and conscience protections on abortion; Protect the access to health care that immigrants currently have and remove current barriers to access; and Include strong provisions for adequate affordability and coverage standards. The Catholic Bishops of the United States have long supported adequate and affordable health care for all. As pastors and teachers, we believe genuine health care reform must protect human life and dignity, not threaten them, especially for the most voiceless and vulnerable. We believe health care legislation must respect the consciences of providers, taxpayers, and others, not violate them. We believe universal coverage should be truly universal, not deny health care to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here. Providing affordable and accessible health care that clearly reflects these fundamental principles is a public good, moral imperative and urgent national priority. Sadly, the legislative proposal recently unveiled in the Senate does not meet these moral criteria. Specifically, it violates the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortions and health plans that include such abortions--a policy upheld in all health programs covered by the Hyde Amendment, the Children's Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program--and now in the House-passed ``Affordable Health Care for America Act.'' We believe legislation that violates this moral principle is not true health care reform and must be amended to reflect it. If that fails, the current legislation should be opposed. Protecting Human Life and Conscience Specifically, we urge you to include the House-passed provision that keeps in place the longstanding and widely supported federal policy against government funding of elective abortions or plans that include elective abortions. In the aftermath of the overwhelming and bipartisan House vote for the Stupak-Smith-Ellsworth-Kaptur-Dahlkemper-Pitts Amendment, there has been much misunderstanding of what it does and does not do. This amendment does not change the current situation in our country: Abortion is legal and available, but no federal dollars can be used to pay for elective abortions or plans that include elective abortions. This provision simply keeps in place existing policy and allows Congress to honor the President's commitment that ``no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.'' The amendment does not restrict abortion, or prevent people from buying insurance covering abortion with their own funds. It simply ensures that where federal funds are involved, people are not required to pay for other people's abortions. Thus far, the pending Senate bill does not live up to President Obama's commitment of barring the use of federal dollars for abortion and maintaining current conscience laws. The bill provides federal funding for plans that cover abortion, and creates an unprecedented mandatory ``abortion surcharge'' in such plans that will require pro-life purchasers to pay directly and explicitly for other people's abortions. Its version of a public health plan (the ``community health insurance plan'') allows the Secretary of HHS to mandate coverage of unlimited abortions nationwide, and also allows each state to mandate such abortion coverage for all state residents taking part in this federal program even if the Secretary does not do so. The bill seriously weakens the current nondiscrimination policy protecting providers who decline involvement in abortion, providing stronger protection for facilities that perform and promote abortion than for those which do not. The legislation requires each region of the insurance exchange to include at least one health plan with unlimited abortion, contrary to the policy of all other federal health programs. Finally, critically important conscience protections on issues beyond abortion have yet to be included in the bill. To take just one example, the bill fails to ensure that even religious institutions would retain the freedom to offer their own employees health insurance coverage that conforms to the institution's teaching. On these various issues the new Senate bill is an enormous disappointment, creating new and completely unacceptable federal policy that endangers human life and rights of conscience. Immigrants and Health Care Coverage We support the inclusion of all immigrants, regardless of status, in the insurance exchange. The Senate legislation forbids undocumented immigrants from purchasing health-care coverage in the exchange. Undocumented immigrants should not be barred from purchasing a health insurance plan with their own money. Without such access, many immigrant families would be unable to receive primary care and be compelled to rely on emergency room care. This would harm not only immigrants and their families, but also the general public health. Moreover, the financial burden on the American public would be higher, as Americans would pay for uncompensated medical care through the federal budget or higher insurance rates. We also support the removal of the five-year ban on legal immigrants accessing federal health benefit programs, such as Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and Medicare. Legal immigrants, who work and pay taxes, should have access to such programs if needed. Removing the ban would help ensure that legal immigrants, who were widely praised in past immigration debates for their many contributions and for playing by the rules, will still have access to health care. Accessible and Affordable Health Care The Catholic bishops have advocated for decades for affordable and accessible health care for all, especially the poor and marginalized. The Senate bill makes great progress in covering people in our nation. However, the Senate bill would still leave over 24 million people in our nation without health insurance. This is not acceptable. The bishops support the expansion of Medicaid eligibility for people living at 133 percent or lower of the federal poverty level. The bill does not burden states with excessive Medicaid matching rates. The affordability credits will help lower-income families purchase insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Exchange. However, the Senate bill would still leave low-income families earning between 133 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level financially vulnerable to health care costs. Overall, the average subsidy provided for in the Senate bill is $1,300 less than the average subsidy in the House bill. Improvements to the bill should be made so that low-income families have reasonable out of pocket expense for health care. Immediate reforms are included in the bill that should be helpful in providing relief to the uninsured and underinsured. Additionally, reforms that will strengthen families and protect low-income and vulnerable people such as eliminating denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions including pregnancy; eliminating life time caps; offering long-term disability services; and extending dependent coverage to uninsured young adults--are significant steps toward genuine health care reform. We urge the Senate to maintain these provisions. These moral criteria and policy objectives are not marginal issues or special interest concerns. They are the questions at the heart of the health care debate: Whose lives and health are to be protected and whose are not? Will the federal government, for the first time in decades, require people to pay for other peoples' abortions? Will immigrants be worse off as a result of health care reform? At their core, these health care choices are not just political, technical, or economic, but also moral decisions. This legislation is about life and death, who can take their children to the doctor and who cannot, who can afford decent health care coverage and who are left to fend for themselves. Our appeal for health care legislation that truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all reflects the unique perspectives and experience of the Catholic community. Our hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities provide quality health care to millions. Our dioceses, institutions, and ministries purchase health care for many thousands of employees and their families. Our emergency rooms, shelters, clinics, and charities pick up the pieces of a failing health care system. Our Catholic moral tradition teaches that health care is a basic human right, essential to protecting human life and dignity. For many months, our Bishops' conference has been working with members of Congress, the Administration and others to fashion health care reform legislation that truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all. Our message has been clear and consistent throughout. We hope and pray that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine reform. Sincerely, Bishop William F. Murphy, Diocese of Rockville Centre, Chairman, Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston Chairman, Committee on Pro-life Activities. Bishop John Wester, Diocese of Salt Lake City, Chairman, Committee on Migration.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I don't think they are particularly confused. I think they smell a rat in this and they know if you are going to add this big of a program, somebody is going to tax me somewhere here. The interesting way this is actually scored in the bill is the government uses the old heavy hand of inflation. As we have heard, many economists have spoken in the past about how inflation is the most cruel tax of all, particularly for the people on a fixed income, because then the base dollars they have do not go as far as they used to. What is scored in this bill--and we have seen this time and time again--is what you have as an inflation factor that is not indexed. It is not indexed. I wish to show these charts here to prove it. At the end of how this is scored, we will end up having people who have subsidized insurance when they start out, but that in the outyears in the scoring will be taxed for having subsidized insurance. So we will be both taxing them at the same time as we are subsidizing their insurance. And we are also--and I will show a chart here in a minute--taxing their insurance plan that we are subsidizing at the same time, and that is built into the base score. So then that is how you get to a CBO score that, presto chango, the budget is balanced; we are even producing a surplus. It is this cruelty of inflation. People can remember back to the Jimmy Carter days with 10 percent inflation. They know what that did to them. Look at this. This is all in the CBO scoring. This is from the Joint Economic Committee staff who have been working through these calculations to see, How do you come up with adding a multitrillion-dollar entitlement program and come to a budget deficit-neutral facet to it? What we see here is surtax levels-- and this is kind of a busy chart--but this red line is 100 percent of poverty in 2009 and 100 percent of poverty built out over 100 years, which is also part of the scoring system, and then the median income of married households. What you see is families receiving subsidies beginning to pay the surtax in the scoring of this. That is all due to the cruelty of inflation.

Mr. BROWNBACK. That is absolutely correct, and it is the same technique. This is the alternative minimum tax on steroids in the insurance industry and in the insurance field. It is the same thing. We fix it every year. That is why this is such a fraud. Do you really think we are going to tax people for their health insurance at the same time we are subsidizing their purchase of health insurance? That isn't going to happen, so those dollars aren't going to arrive. So where are those dollars going to come from? It will be from deficit and debt, or you are going to have this cruelty of inflation taking place. The bill funds health care reform with increased Medicare taxes. We are going to see that taking place in this as well. Here is the chart I like that I will show. It demonstrates how we are going to have these Chevrolet plans--you have heard of these health insurance plans. Let me put this chart up. We are going to tax the Cadillac plans, all right? Well, it turns out under this bill, the Chevy becomes a Cadillac. So you are going to tax the Cadillac when it is still a Chevy. That is because of inflation. Most people know their health insurance premiums have been going up pretty consistently over time. Well, it turns out that the Chevy will metamorphose into a Cadillac and it gets taxed and that is in the CBO scoring of this bill, and that is how you come out with balancing the cost of the bill. None of this is going to happen. You will have some sort of AMT-type fix that will take place on an annual basis, and at the end of the day you get a big debt and deficit you are going to have with it or horribly cruel high levels of inflation or maybe both.

Mr. BROWNBACK. No, I haven't seen that take place.

Mr. BROWNBACK. No, and I don't know that there would be 5 percent of the public in my State who would believe that, because their experience tells them differently. Their experience tells them: Look, I know you guys make these great promises and everything, but I also know the further out you make this promise, the less reliable your data, and I have seen that whenever the government gets into things, it always costs a lot more and it seems as though our debt and deficit always keeps growing and it is way too big. What is troubling is that this is built into the base of how we get to the numbers of getting this as a budget-neutral matter. This isn't going to happen. On top of all of that, you say we are going to save $400 billion in Medicare. We have now voted four times for the so- called doctor fix, which was a slight reduction in Medicare spending for providers, and I voted for it three times, to fix it, on an annual basis. Do you possibly think--possibly think--that the Congress is going to cut Medicare $400 billion, that people are going to come back here and say, You can't do that, you are going to be ruining Medicare and that Congress will fix it? I said this to Treasury Secretary Geithner yesterday: Our experience has never been to do something like that. So where does the money go? It goes right on the deficit and the debt and you are going to add to that $12 trillion estimate. We are hemorrhaging Federal money and, at the same time, the global community is saying, you have to get your fiscal house in order. We just had our President over in China, hat in hand, with our bankers saying, OK, we think human rights is pretty important, but we need that loan. What we are going to see take place, because this is a fiscally irresponsible package, I think we are going to see the international community saying words are one thing but action is what talks, and we are going to start pulling capital out of the U.S. marketplace. It is going to drive up interest rates, it is going to drive up inflation. So maybe this scenario happens, but it is cruelly done through inflation, and it is not fair to the American public.

Mr. BROWNBACK. In my State of Kansas, a huge budget debate is going on about where we are going to come up with the shortfall this year in the State budget. People can save in some places, but you have to do this on Medicaid. It ends up, in all probability, that a disproportionate share will come out of the schools for the schoolchildren. Is that what we at the Federal level want to see take place? No. That is one of the reasons I am voting against this bill. You are dictating a State budget. Initially the Feds are putting in the full amount, but I have seen this before too. You start with the Federal Government wiggling the carrot, saying: Take a bite. You can do it. Then once you get hooked, you say: OK, we are going to reel it in now, and you will pay more of it. It will be the Federal Government dictating the State budget, putting it into Medicaid and taking it away from schools. That is what will take place. That is what is happening in my State now. It is not fair to do that. It is not right for us to do that. Most of the people across Kansas think this whole issue is fiscal insanity-- literally fiscal insanity--what we are looking at doing with that level of debt, $12 trillion a year. With my State having the level of debt it has, making this requirement--a multi-trillion-dollar entitlement expansion when the Federal Government is hemorrhaging money, as well as State governments--is fiscal insanity. The world community is saying: Get your fiscal house in order. This makes no sense.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I certainly think it is. What I observe, too, is people coming up to me in large numbers and very passionately saying they are both mad and scared. They are mad about this taking place, and they are scared it is going to actually happen to them. They feel like, how can this happen to them in this country? They look at that huge debt and at our President over in China talking as if he is going to see the banker, and they don't like it. This isn't their country the way they want it to be. They want our country to be fiscally sound instead of going to beg hat-in-hand to the ``banker'' in a foreign country. Then you are going to add another big entitlement on top of that? They are saying: Don't ask me, the taxpayer, for more money because I don't have it. They are mad and scared about this. It is very disconcerting for people in the country.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes, our President got lectured by the Chinese regulator about our financial system. This is unbelievable. This exacerbates it, if we pass this bill.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I am glad to follow my colleague from Utah. I have great admiration and affection for him. He has done a lot of good, bipartisan legislation. I hope my colleagues will heed his word. He is good to his word, and he would be willing to do a bipartisan bill. On top of that, if the Democratic leadership would back up and do a bipartisan bill, the American people would cheer. They would think this was extraordinary, and we could get something substantive done and not this monster. I am ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, and we had Secretary Geithner in to testify today. I disagree with a number of things he has done. He is a bright and energetic man with a lot of experience. I noted to him--and he knows this is the case--that we are $12 trillion in the hole. We are hemorrhaging money at the Federal level. Why on Earth we would do the fiscally insane thing of adding a multitrillion dollar entitlement program, when we are $12 trillion in the hole and hemorrhaging Federal money, and you have the President just back from seeing the bankers in China, who have nearly a trillion dollars of our debt? As a Senator and as an American, I don't like that we are dependent upon the Chinese for that much money. I don't think the American people like that. Why on Earth would we do this? He said that people are mad out there. We talked ahead of time, and he said that people are upset across the country. I said, yes, they are, and it is because of this. They are mad and they are scared. Neither of those is a situation where you ought to try to force something through on people who are mad and scared about it. They are mad about things being rammed through, and they are scared about the level of debt and deficit, and they are adding this scale of entitlement on top of an already broken fiscal situation. The rest of the world is yelling at the United States to get your fiscal house in order, and we are going to add a multitrillion dollar entitlement program, when we all know we ought to get our fiscal house in order. Then the way it is paid for is to raise taxes $\1/2\ trillion in a weak economy. That is going to hurt the economic expansion and job creation we need. Then you are supposedly going to save $400 billion out of Medicare, which I noted to him. That song has been tried in the past. We had these fixes that we were going to reduce payments to providers, to the physician community. For 4 years now in a row we have changed and said we were going to do this provider cut--a minor provider cut--and then Congress said that is too much, we are not going to do that. We will fill that back up. For three or four of those, I have voted for that. Then there is the idea that we are going to cut $400 billion out of Medicare, which is already on a fiscally irresponsible track and going broke. We are going to take $400 billion out of that. That is not going to happen. If it did happen, it would wreck Medicare. This is a bad idea at a bad time. We should not do this. We should not do it this way. I want to focus more of my comments on a narrower piece of this, which has gotten a lot of focus in the House and should get focus in the Senate. It is the radical expansion of Federal funding of abortions that is in this bill. Let's put it on its bottom line. They should put the Stupak language in the Senate bill, and instead the Capps language is in the bill. The Capps language will expand Federal financing of abortion--Federal taxpayer funding of abortion. The Stupak language is something we have supported here for 30 years. It is the Hyde language--the language that 64 Democrats voted for in the House. Instead, in this bill you have Federal taxpayer funding of abortions, something we have not done for 30 years. They are going to build it into this bill. The President has said that he wants--he has said multiple times it is one of his goals to lower the incidence of abortion. This bill, if we pass it, will provide, for the first time in 30 years, taxpayer funding of abortion and will expand abortions-- counter to what the President has said multiple times. Nobody who is pro-life should vote for this bill. This is a radical expansion of abortion funding. It is a radical expansion of abortion. I was and remain very disappointed that the Senate leadership and my Democratic colleagues have attempted to insert radical abortion policy through the Democratic health care bill. Abortion is not health care. Any Senator who votes on the motion to proceed to this health care bill is voting in favor of abortion and the expansion of abortion and against life. This is the biggest pro-life vote in the Senate in years. This will have more impact on abortions in the United States--an expansion of it--than anything we have seen in years. We have been on a downward trajectory on abortion because both sides have agreed; Democrats have said abortions should be safe, legal, and rare. Former President Clinton and others have said this will make taxpayer funding of abortion--this will expand it. And there is nothing rare about it. Relevant abortion language in the health care bill to which I am referring could be found on pages 116 to 124. The National Right to Life Committee described the language and said it is completely unacceptable. The Democratic health care bill would explicitly authorize abortion to be covered under the government option, and there must be abortion coverage in every insurance market in the country. The abortion language included in the bill is a radical departure from over 30 years of bipartisan Federal policy prohibiting Federal taxpayer dollars from paying for elective abortions. The language in the bill explicitly authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to include abortion in the public option and permits government subsidies in plans that pay for abortion. We have had a long dispute in Congress and in this body about abortion. We have not had a dispute to near that degree--some, but not near the level of dispute on the taxpayer funding of abortion, because most people are opposed to that--most people in America. They may say, OK, I am all right with abortion, but I don't support Federal taxpayer funding of it. That has been a broad, bipartisan support here for some time. It is explicitly in this bill. It is the Capps language. It is commonly referred to as that. It is in the Senate bill and contains a clever accounting gimmick that proponents say separates private and public funds for abortion coverage. However, it has been proven that the Capps measure would include both abortion coverage and funding in the government-run public option, as well as for those plans in the insurance exchange. The only acceptable abortion language is the Stupak-Pitts amendment that passed the House this fall with a quarter of the Democrat caucus voting for it--64 Democrats voted for the Stupak-Pitts compromise language. Representative Bart Stupak, the Democratic author, tailored the true compromise amendment on abortion with the principles set forth in the Hyde amendment, which has been the longstanding position of the Congress. The Hyde amendment simply says we will not use Federal funds for abortion, which is what a vast majority of Americans support. The Hyde amendment has always enjoyed bipartisan support since its inception in 1977, over three decades ago. What we should have in the health bill is language that applies the Hyde amendment as it already applies to all other federally funded health care programs, including SCHIP, Medicare, Medicaid, Indian health services, veterans health, military health care programs, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. That is what should be in this. Representative Stupak explained the issue very clearly in an op-ed. He wrote yesterday: The Capps amendment [which is the basis of the Senate language] departed from Hyde in several important and troubling ways: by mandating that at least one plan in the health insurance exchange provide abortion coverage, by requiring a minimum $1 monthly charge for all covered individuals that would go toward paying for abortions and by allowing individuals receiving federal affordability credits to purchase health insurance plans that cover abortion . . . Hyde currently prohibits direct federal funding of abortion . . . The Stupak amendment is a continuation of this policy--nothing more, nothing less. I commend Representative Stupak for his hard work and ability to reach across the aisle to engage his Democratic and Republican colleagues on this issue. A quarter of the Democrats found the Stupak- Pitts compromise worthy of support. But a majority of the American people support keeping the Hyde principles in the Senate health care bill. I hope we can convince our colleagues in the Senate to follow Mr. Stupak's lead and do the right thing and vote against the motion to proceed. Voting for the motion to proceed is to endorse the Capps language, which is an expansion of Federal taxpayer funding of abortion. The American people agree with the Stupak compromise, not the phony language in the Senate bill that would federally fund abortions. The American people agree it is wrong to smuggle radical abortion policy into this health care bill. The American people agree we should not allow funds to flow from a U.S. Treasury account to reimburse for abortion services. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll showed that more than 6 in 10 Americans favor the Stupak-Pitts prohibition on the use of Federal funds for abortion. A recent study conducted by International Communications Research found that more than two-thirds of Americans are opposed to using Federal dollars to fund abortion. The American people feel this way because they know that forcing taxpayers to fund abortions is fiscally irresponsible and morally indefensible. Beyond the funding issue, the Senate bill also does not include the codification of the Hyde-Weldon conscience provision. Instead, it replaces real conscience protections with language that violates the human dignity and religious freedom of organizations and religious institutions that have moral objections to participating in abortion. A provision on page 123 reads: No individual health care provider or health care facility may be discriminated against because of a willingness or unwillingness, if doing so is contrary to the religious or moral beliefs of the provider or facility, to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortion. One other objection for the pro-life community is that there is nothing in the bill that would prevent school-based health clinics from referring for abortion or helping minors make arrangements for abortions without parental knowledge. The administrators running the Medicaid Program from 1973 to 1976 funded as many as 300,000 abortions per year, until the Hyde amendment was enacted in 1976. In the past, in that period from 1973 to 1977, when there was Federal funding of abortions, the Federal government-- the taxpayers--funded as many as 300,000 abortions per year with taxpayer dollars. That was until the Hyde amendment was enacted in 1976, because the American people despise doing this. They disagree with that. Whether they are pro-choice or pro-life, they don't want taxpayer dollars to go for this. If they are pro-life, they are saying those are my taxpayer dollars and I am funding this, which I so disagree with doing. This is a beautiful, dignified human life, and my dollars are being used to kill it. When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts recently passed its State- mandated insurance, Commonwealth Care, without an explicit exclusion of abortion, abortions there were also funded immediately. In fact, according to the Commonwealth Care Web site, abortion is considered covered ``outpatient medical care.'' The Federal Government should not go down this road. As stated earlier, the President has stated on multiple occasions that it is his goal to lower the incidence of abortion. If that is what he wants to do, if we want to do more than pay lipservice to that reality, we should consider the fact that when Federal funding is not available, fewer abortions occur, or when Federal funding is available, as we have seen in the past, many thousands more occur. Only the Stupak amendment would lower the incidence of abortion. The current language of the Senate bill would accomplish the opposite and increase abortions. If you are a pro-life Senator, you cannot vote for this bill. This is an expansion. You cannot vote for the procedural vote to go to the bill for the expansion that this will do. In summary, I will make it clear that the Stupak language is what we need to fix the shell game that would allow public funds to pay for the destruction of innocent human life in the Senate health bill. Unfortunately, language currently within the health bill is a nonstarter and is wrong. It doesn't apply to the longstanding principles of the Hyde amendment. Let's maintain the status quo and not get into the business of publicly funding abortions in America. I urge my colleagues to think seriously about the precedent being lined out in the health bill if the Senate decides it is going to force the American public to pay for abortions, whether they agree or not. I urge my colleagues to vote against the motion to proceed to this health care bill. This is not just a procedural vote. It is an enormously important vote because it is the one opportunity for the Senate to stand for life and against taxpayer funding of abortions. Voting in favor of this motion to proceed is a vote against life. I remind my colleagues, this is the biggest vote on abortion in the Senate in years. Let's not change our current Federal policy to force the American public to pay for government-subsidized abortions, please. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 2009. My colleagues and I have sponsored this important piece of legislation in order to pave the way for the United States to correct a longstanding and--I believe--dangerous deficiency in our diplomatic relations and foreign policy. For too long, our embassy in Israel has been located in a different city than Jerusalem, which is the capital of Israel according to longstanding Israeli and American law and practice. The time has come to remove the barriers that have encouraged this state of affairs to continue, and that is precisely what this legislation will do, by repealing the waiver included in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 that has been abused by the Executive Branch for 14 years. Jerusalem is the spiritual center of the Jewish faith. First conquered by King David more than 3000 years ago, there has always been a Jewish presence there, a fact attested to by incalculable archaeological evidence. Although at various times the Jewish people lost sovereignty in the land of Israel--to the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, British--Jerusalem has never served as the capital of any other political or religious entity in history. In every year during the nearly two thousand year exile in 70 A.D., Jews around the world concluded their Passover seder with the phrase, ``Next Year in Jerusalem.'' Despite the depths of despair to which the Jewish people descended throughout their long exile, Jerusalem always remained at the center of Jewish religious life. Since 1950, just two years after the miraculous rebirth of the State of Israel, Jerusalem has served as Israel's capital. The seat of Parliament, Prime Minister's residence, and Supreme Court, all reside there, in addition to numerous ministries and government buildings. American officials conduct business with Israeli officials in Jerusalem, in de facto recognition of the status of the city. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, passed into law by an overwhelming vote of Congress, stated unequivocally as a matter of United States policy that ``Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel,'' and ``the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999. This is our policy, yet for some reason our embassy remains in Tel Aviv. This is despite the fact that the government of Israel many times has declared Jerusalem to be the eternal and undivided capital of Israel, a policy reflected in American law. Such a state of affairs constitutes an ongoing affront to the people of Israel who, under international law, have the sovereign right to choose the location of their capital. It also harms the interests of American citizens living in Israel, who face procedural and substantive harm as a result of the confusing diplomatic structure that has arisen in place of a Jerusalem embassy. The failure of the State Department to relocate the embassy is not only inconvenient and inefficient, but also is dangerous. The State Department's refusal to acknowledge clear U.S. law and policy radicalizes Israel's opponents by creating the false hope that the U.S. would support the division of Jerusalem. Were the embassy to be moved to Jerusalem, and Israel's capital respected in both American law and in practice, then Palestinians and Arab governments would have no choice but to accept the unchanging reality of Jerusalem, which is that Israel, regardless of the political party or government in power, will not move its capital away from this city. I and my fellow sponsors of this legislation recognize that the Executive Branch generally has discretion over diplomatic arrangements. However, when a waiver included for the limited purpose of national security becomes perfunctory and contradicts the clear will of the Congress, the time has come to reevaluate the wisdom of such a waiver. This bill simply restores the statutory effect of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, updating the timeline of fiscal years required for action, but without the waiver. I urge my colleagues to support this necessary and appropriate legislation.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 2009. My colleagues and I have sponsored this important piece of legislation in order to pave the way for the United States to correct a longstanding and--I believe--dangerous deficiency in our diplomatic relations and foreign policy. For too long, our embassy in Israel has been located in a different city than Jerusalem, which is the capital of Israel according to longstanding Israeli and American law and practice. The time has come to remove the barriers that have encouraged this state of affairs to continue, and that is precisely what this legislation will do, by repealing the waiver included in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 that has been abused by the Executive Branch for 14 years. Jerusalem is the spiritual center of the Jewish faith. First conquered by King David more than 3000 years ago, there has always been a Jewish presence there, a fact attested to by incalculable archaeological evidence. Although at various times the Jewish people lost sovereignty in the land of Israel--to the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, British--Jerusalem has never served as the capital of any other political or religious entity in history. In every year during the nearly two thousand year exile in 70 A.D., Jews around the world concluded their Passover seder with the phrase, ``Next Year in Jerusalem.'' Despite the depths of despair to which the Jewish people descended throughout their long exile, Jerusalem always remained at the center of Jewish religious life. Since 1950, just two years after the miraculous rebirth of the State of Israel, Jerusalem has served as Israel's capital. The seat of Parliament, Prime Minister's residence, and Supreme Court, all reside there, in addition to numerous ministries and government buildings. American officials conduct business with Israeli officials in Jerusalem, in de facto recognition of the status of the city. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, passed into law by an overwhelming vote of Congress, stated unequivocally as a matter of United States policy that ``Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel,'' and ``the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999. This is our policy, yet for some reason our embassy remains in Tel Aviv. This is despite the fact that the government of Israel many times has declared Jerusalem to be the eternal and undivided capital of Israel, a policy reflected in American law. Such a state of affairs constitutes an ongoing affront to the people of Israel who, under international law, have the sovereign right to choose the location of their capital. It also harms the interests of American citizens living in Israel, who face procedural and substantive harm as a result of the confusing diplomatic structure that has arisen in place of a Jerusalem embassy. The failure of the State Department to relocate the embassy is not only inconvenient and inefficient, but also is dangerous. The State Department's refusal to acknowledge clear U.S. law and policy radicalizes Israel's opponents by creating the false hope that the U.S. would support the division of Jerusalem. Were the embassy to be moved to Jerusalem, and Israel's capital respected in both American law and in practice, then Palestinians and Arab governments would have no choice but to accept the unchanging reality of Jerusalem, which is that Israel, regardless of the political party or government in power, will not move its capital away from this city. I and my fellow sponsors of this legislation recognize that the Executive Branch generally has discretion over diplomatic arrangements. However, when a waiver included for the limited purpose of national security becomes perfunctory and contradicts the clear will of the Congress, the time has come to reevaluate the wisdom of such a waiver. This bill simply restores the statutory effect of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, updating the timeline of fiscal years required for action, but without the waiver. I urge my colleagues to support this necessary and appropriate legislation.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, Today I introduce an important piece of legislation that would provide a real boost to our economy at little, if any, expense to taxpayers. The bill I introduce would offer bonus depreciation on the purchase of noncommercial general aviation aircraft in 2010 or 2011. America is the world leader in general aviation manufacturing, a sector in which we truly have no peer. General aviation is an essential and critical part of our Nation's transportation infrastructure for many individuals and businesses, for whom time is of the absolute essence. Further, general aviation is a vital component of our economy, supporting over 1.2 million jobs and providing $150 billion in economic activity. It is one of the few remaining American manufacturing industries that still provide a significant trade surplus for the U.S., generating over $5.9 billion in exports of domestically manufactured planes in 2008 alone. However, this sector is particularly susceptible to economic downturns. Many individuals and companies will delay or even cancel the purchase of an aircraft in a bad economy even though they may have a present need for a new aircraft. We see this reflected in our general aviation sector where during the first half of 2009, we witnessed declines of 58 percent in piston engine aircraft sales; 37 percent in jet engine aircraft sales; and 13 percent in turboprop aircraft sales. At the same time, use of business jets has declined 12 percent over the past year, and the number of used aircraft on the global market stands at a historic high. Cumulatively, general aviation companies have had to lay off 19,000 American workers, and this includes 11,500 alone in Wichita, KS. Over the past year, total employment of general aviation companies has declined by almost 14 percent. This is even more alarming when you consider that the U.S. Department of Labor aerospace workforce multiplier is three. For every general aviation worker on an aircraft, there are three jobs outside the immediate company that are created, whether manufacturing, engineering, supply or support. So, for this many general aviation workers to have been laid-off has much further reaching consequences in terms of the number of people and families that are adversely impacted. The legislation that I propose today is a proven approach to spur general aviation aircraft orders with minimal affect on the Federal budget. My approach to this issue is an approach that has resulted in real jobs. During the 2003-2004 economic downturn, I worked to have general aviation bonus depreciation included in legislation that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee. That provision is credited with spurring over $2 billion in new general aviation aircraft sales, and it is credited with saving or sustaining thousands of jobs. Also, another consideration that makes this approach a real no-brainer is that, in the past, the Joint Tax Committee reported the provision to have a negligible impact on Federal tax revenues over the 10-year budget window. This is because, while tax revenue is reduced in the near-term, revenues rebound to higher levels in the second half of the 10-year window as no deprecation is being taken in the later years of the period. Acting on this proposal now is important. The Blue Chip Economic Indicators consensus forecast expect unemployment to rise above 10 percent and to remain above the 3rd quarter 2009 level of 9.6 percent at least though the end of 2010, so we are looking at uncertain economic growth and high unemployment for several more quarters. A proposal like the one that I am putting forward is likely to encourage individuals and businesses to go ahead and act now on placing orders rather than waiting. For the Congress to act on this bonus depreciation legislation now would have a positive effect on getting our economic engines moving again and can play a part in helping facilitate a broader economic recovery, as it would hopefully again help to save and sustain jobs as well as returning jobs to those who have lost them as a result of the recession.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, Today I introduce an important piece of legislation that would provide a real boost to our economy at little, if any, expense to taxpayers. The bill I introduce would offer bonus depreciation on the purchase of noncommercial general aviation aircraft in 2010 or 2011. America is the world leader in general aviation manufacturing, a sector in which we truly have no peer. General aviation is an essential and critical part of our Nation's transportation infrastructure for many individuals and businesses, for whom time is of the absolute essence. Further, general aviation is a vital component of our economy, supporting over 1.2 million jobs and providing $150 billion in economic activity. It is one of the few remaining American manufacturing industries that still provide a significant trade surplus for the U.S., generating over $5.9 billion in exports of domestically manufactured planes in 2008 alone. However, this sector is particularly susceptible to economic downturns. Many individuals and companies will delay or even cancel the purchase of an aircraft in a bad economy even though they may have a present need for a new aircraft. We see this reflected in our general aviation sector where during the first half of 2009, we witnessed declines of 58 percent in piston engine aircraft sales; 37 percent in jet engine aircraft sales; and 13 percent in turboprop aircraft sales. At the same time, use of business jets has declined 12 percent over the past year, and the number of used aircraft on the global market stands at a historic high. Cumulatively, general aviation companies have had to lay off 19,000 American workers, and this includes 11,500 alone in Wichita, KS. Over the past year, total employment of general aviation companies has declined by almost 14 percent. This is even more alarming when you consider that the U.S. Department of Labor aerospace workforce multiplier is three. For every general aviation worker on an aircraft, there are three jobs outside the immediate company that are created, whether manufacturing, engineering, supply or support. So, for this many general aviation workers to have been laid-off has much further reaching consequences in terms of the number of people and families that are adversely impacted. The legislation that I propose today is a proven approach to spur general aviation aircraft orders with minimal affect on the Federal budget. My approach to this issue is an approach that has resulted in real jobs. During the 2003-2004 economic downturn, I worked to have general aviation bonus depreciation included in legislation that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee. That provision is credited with spurring over $2 billion in new general aviation aircraft sales, and it is credited with saving or sustaining thousands of jobs. Also, another consideration that makes this approach a real no-brainer is that, in the past, the Joint Tax Committee reported the provision to have a negligible impact on Federal tax revenues over the 10-year budget window. This is because, while tax revenue is reduced in the near-term, revenues rebound to higher levels in the second half of the 10-year window as no deprecation is being taken in the later years of the period. Acting on this proposal now is important. The Blue Chip Economic Indicators consensus forecast expect unemployment to rise above 10 percent and to remain above the 3rd quarter 2009 level of 9.6 percent at least though the end of 2010, so we are looking at uncertain economic growth and high unemployment for several more quarters. A proposal like the one that I am putting forward is likely to encourage individuals and businesses to go ahead and act now on placing orders rather than waiting. For the Congress to act on this bonus depreciation legislation now would have a positive effect on getting our economic engines moving again and can play a part in helping facilitate a broader economic recovery, as it would hopefully again help to save and sustain jobs as well as returning jobs to those who have lost them as a result of the recession.

Mr. BROWNBACK

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

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 7 minutes on the Republican time of the time allotted after 5:30 p.m.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I wish to draw the attention of the body today to a policy initiative that was put forward by the Obama administration last week. It is on a topic a lot of people have been involved in for a long period of time. It involves Sudan, Darfur, and the genocide taking place in Sudan. It now involves new policy steps the administration is proposing to take to build a relationship and overtures to the Sudanese Government. This is engagement to the extreme because President Bashir of Sudan is an indicted war criminal whose government is conducting a genocide, as declared by the Congress of the United States and the administration. For the first time in the history of America, we would be engaging an individual who is both an indicted war criminal, being pursued by the International Criminal Court, and also who has conducted a genocide in Darfur. We are talking about: OK. We need to start maybe engaging, and now there have been visas issued to top members of President Bashir's inner circle to come into the United States and discussion of a carrot-and-stick approach to Sudan, when he is running a genocide in Darfur and is an indicted war criminal. This is atrocious on its face. It is engagement to the extreme. It is wrong, and it would be harmful to long-term U.S. interests. What happens the next time an individual is involved in genocide? Do we say: If you start behaving a little less worse on your genocide, we will start to give you some carrots to help you out. What about the next indicted war criminal, do we say: If you are a little less bad, if you only kill 500 a day instead of 1,000, we are going to start offering you carrots instead of sticks in this approach. This undermines the moral authority of the United States. It is the wrong thing to do. I wish to give a couple historical examples. Toward the end of World War II, Heinrich Himmler, who was No. 2 in charge--but after Hitler committed suicide was No. 1 in charge--of Nazi Germany reached out to the Allied commander, General Eisenhower, and wanted to start negotiating with him: If he could be allowed to live, they might negotiate some sort of settlement. Eisenhower completely ignored it and treated him like the war criminal he was. Can you imagine if we would have started negotiating with Himmler at that time? Let me give some more recent examples. What about Serbian leader Karadzic, the so-called ``Butcher of Bosnia,'' accused of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people? The State Department did not say: If you are a little less bad and don't kill quite as many people, we will start negotiating with you. They didn't say that. They put a $5 million reward out to anybody who gave us information leading to his capture, and he currently resides in a prison in The Hague. What about Charles Taylor, the ``Butcher of Liberia,'' who ran on an election slogan--listen to this: ``He killed my pa, he killed my ma, but I will vote for him.'' That was his election slogan. Taylor was directly involved in coordinating and supporting unthinkable atrocities over many years and, after ceding power, was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Here is an indicted war criminal. Did we say to him: OK. Mr. Taylor, if you start not killing as many people, we will negotiate with you? Of course not. What the Congress did was offered and passed legislation giving a $2 million reward for Taylor's capture, and he now sits in a prison in The Hague. It would be unthinkable for us, in those circumstances, to say: OK. We will start negotiating with these indicted war criminals, butchers of their own people, and we are going to start working with you because you are going to act a little less bad. Yet that is what we are talking about with President Bashir, an indicted war criminal, conducting a genocide in Darfur that we have declared. We have had hundreds of thousands of people across America going to rallies to save Darfur, and now we are talking about a carrot-and-stick approach with him? I say no. I say we cannot do this, and if we do this in this circumstance, what about future genocidal regimes? What about future indicted war criminals? Is there any standard upon which the United States can or will stand at those points in time or could we, at that point in time, if we do this in this particular case? I am all for getting some form of movement on the north-south agreement so the south can vote next year and will probably vote to secede and form its own country in the south. I think that is prudent and wise, after many years of civil war and the negotiations that took place to get a north-south agreement. But I do not at all think you can trade that for us negotiating with this indicted war criminal. I urge my colleagues not to support this effort on behalf of the administration to engage a genocidal regime in Khartoum. I appreciate my colleagues' attention. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

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

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to speak on this bill, on a particular issue of interest to my State and I think to the country on a new National Bio-Agriculture facility to research new diseases and problems that can come in on animal health. In this particular bill, Senator Roberts and I have been working for some period of time to get funding for this facility to go forward. This was a national competition that took place for the location of the NBA facility. A number of States competed for it. It was determined that Kansas would be the primary location for this to occur. The initial funding of $32 million is in this conference report. I am delighted that the National Bio-Agriculture facility, to be located in Kansas, is getting its initial funding. As one of the responsible acts of this body, the fullest amount of the funding for this will not come until the Plum Island facility is sold. When that is sold, then that money is to go to build this facility that will research a number of different, difficult diseases in the animal health industry--foot-and-mouth disease and a number of other ones are to be researched. The facility has to be built safely so the containment facility, its initial design, is a metal structure on top of a concrete structure on top of another concrete structure in which the animals and the pathogens will be contained. To make sure this structure is safe, the facility design will be reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security and the DHS review will also be reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, so it is an additional review on top of a review process. That may seem like redundancy to a lot of people, but there has been a lot of concern about moving FMD research into the mainland from Plum Island off of New York. I think it is prudent for us to do this research. I think it is important for us to research cures in this area. I think it is also prudent for us to make sure that the facility is well built and one from which we can be certain these pathogens will not be released. The passage of this final bill is a huge step in locating this NBA facility in Kansas, providing additional funding for this. I believe there is no better place than in Kansas to do this research. I am not just saying that because it is my State--although that is a big part of it--but 30 percent of the animal health industry globally is located within 100 miles of Kansas City. It is a place where there is a lot of this research taking place. The scientists are already there, the companies are already developing these products to take care of animal health problems. They are there and we can build on that success at a national level. I am delighted to see this moving forward in a responsible fashion. This is the initial piece. The bigger piece comes after the sale of Plum Island, which is appropriate. I am hopeful my colleagues will see fit to doing that this next year. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Kohl, who chairs this committee. This is the first year for me to be ranking member. He has been a delight to work with. A number of issues are addressed in this bill. The centerpiece is the agriculture industry. It is of key importance. It is interesting to note, in this economic downturn we are in, that the agriculture industry has had a great deal of difficulty, although it has been one of the stronger industry sections we have had during this period. That is in no small part because of the strength of the industry, the willingness of people to work, to invest aggressively, to work hard, and to pay attention to details. For us to support the research entities underneath it--a lot of that is in this bill. So we are researching aggressively what we can do to produce things efficiently, effectively, that the marketplace wants. It is a great export industry. It is one that provides a lot of exports out of my State, out of the State of the chairman, and the States of other Senators. That research is important. That is what is in the bill, the research and development industry. That is the primary piece of it. It is not the total, but it is a key part. Looking into the future, I can see that places we need to go are in things that will require the research for us to be able to move forward, things such as cellulosic ethanol where people are excited about doing the grain-based ethanol. We need to have a stream from cellulosic ethanol so we can produce more of our energy needs domestically and renewably. That also goes into the energy field, but it is a key part of agriculture. It also grows jobs in rural areas where it is pretty hard at times to grow jobs. People go to more concentrated regions and places, but we need them in rural areas. If we can invest and if we can show ways people can invest and make money in rural areas, going into food and fiber and fuels and pharmaceutical products, these are things that can really work for us and for our people and around the world. I am pleased to work with Chairman Kohl on that. He has worked on this many years. This has been my first year as ranking member. In particular, I would like to note two areas we made key investments in that are important for the country and to save people's lives. One is in the food and drug piece of this bill. The FDA is also appropriated in this bill. One of those areas is rare and neglected diseases. There is language included in this bill that creates two groups within FDA to examine the agency's approach to rare and neglected diseases in the developing world and here. Unfortunately, a number of people in the United States get diseases that maybe only 100,000 people get. That sounds like a big number, and it is a big number, but to a drug company looking at making an investment and then being able to develop a cure, it is looking for a much larger marketplace. What we are asking in this bill is, are there ways within the FDA, for a rare disease or neglected disease, for us to cut down the cost process to develop a new drug? Otherwise, we are not getting any research into how we take care of diseases for somebody who is one of 50,000 who get it, and there is nothing going on research-wise to help them. I had a lady in my office this morning who had a disease in this category. She was basically told by her physician when she got diagnosed: You should get your affairs in order. That is not an acceptable answer, particularly as a policymaker. We have two groups in here looking at rare or neglected diseases and how do we cut the cost of developing that drug so that a pharmaceutical company or others could say: This doesn't affect a lot of people, but my entry cost is lower, so I will look at this, I will go into this field. Our hope is we can stimulate some research in this country. Then neglected diseases around the world that can affect huge numbers of people--the World Health Organization says that more than a billion people, nearly one in every six persons worldwide is affected by at least one of the neglected diseases. This isn't a small category, but they happen to be in countries that don't have high per capita income. So again a company looks at this and says: There are a lot of people affected, but there is no income level here, so I can't go into it. Well-known examples include malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera. They disproportionately affect low-income populations in developing countries. We are going at this issue too. I can't think of a better place for us to invest more policy-wise than helping to save people's lives. People tend to like you more when you help save their lives. This affects a broad cross-section of people around the world. And we have the marketplace, the technology to work on it, if we can cut the cost down. These two really track together, and they are very important for us to save lives. I always consider it a great day if we can save a person's life by some policy move we are making that may make things work better. These are a couple of them. Another area the chairman and I have been working on is the issue of food aid. Here, I have had a lot of disappointment in the fact that we put a lot of money in food aid and then not a lot of it hits the target. For every dollar we put in food aid, 60 percent is eaten up by transportation and administration. So 40 percent gets to the person who actually needs it. A lot of these are food aid situations where it costs a lot to get the food there. Going into the interior in Sudan, it just costs a lot to get there, there is no question. But still I have to think we can do this better. We are starting to look at that but also pilot projects to help develop new food aid products and to develop micronutrient- fortified foods for infant through schoolage children, pregnant or nursing mothers. We haven't developed a new food aid product in over 20 years. The last one was a corn-soybean blend which is a good product. But I know the chairman and I don't eat the way we did 20 years ago. You kind of understand the body moves a little differently. This area of micronutrients is the area that most researchers believe that if the world would invest in it, it is the highest yield category for us to save and positively affect the most lives, an investment in micronutrients. It may be a corn-and-soybean blend, but it also has vitamin additives put into it for that infant, that nursing mother, that person with AIDS or malaria. We have invested a lot to try to save the person with AIDS or malaria, but now they really can't get better because they don't have the nutrition in their body they need. We get that into the system. I am excited about these steps and pilot projects, what we might be able to find out in these categories and do to save lives. These are well-spent funds. It is tough economic times for us as a country. These are critical issues for us. I am always looking at ways we can hold the budget numbers down because I think we really have to get our budget under control. These are ones that have been good and wise investments. They are important places for us to work in. I am appreciative of being able to work on these particular projects. As we move forward, looking at next year, I hope we can sharpen the pencil even more in areas that may have been a high priority in the past but they should not be now, for us to look at ways we can control and get our budget down. And then you move that money either into paying down the deficit so the deficit is much lower or you say: If we are going to put things in higher investment areas, we move them from low-investment to high-investment regions, and that we would emphasize ourselves and work in the committee to see what areas are there that we should be taking money out of to put into higher need categories or to put back against the deficit that is just running way too high for us as a country. We all know that. This deficit is way too high. It is nonsustainable. We need to sharpen our pencil every bit we can in these committees to do our part. I hope we can really spend some time this next year, even as we line up for the appropriations process, holding hearings on what are low-priority areas, what we can cut out of this budget. We tend to mostly focus on new ideas, new programs, and those are good and important, but in these budgetary times, we have to spend some time asking: What is it we could do without? That would be important for us to do. It has been a pleasure to work with the chairman. I urge colleagues to vote for the conference report and to send it on to the President. I yield the floor. Congressionally Directed Spending

Mr. BROWNBACK. I agree with Chairman Kohl and appreciate him bringing these items to the Chamber's attention.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be equally charged to both sides.