Jim Bunning

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, we have had sanctions against Iran on our books since 1987. They, along with other multilateral efforts, have served to put a financial chokehold on Iran's rogue behavior. Now is the time to enforce these sanctions and deny Iran the financial capital it needs to fund its nuclear proliferation and support for international terrorism. This is why I have offered an amendment requiring the State Department to provide Congress with the report of potential violations of existing Iranian sanctions under the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996. Under the act, a company is found in violation of our sanctions if it invests more than $20 million in 1 year in Iran's energy sector. Since enactment, companies have invested more than $29 billion in Iran's energy sector. This does not include the $70 billion in pending transactions that are known about, most of which are long-term contracts to purchase Iranian gas and oil. As it stands, the State Department is not required to provide any type of report to Congress or publish in the Federal Registry a list of potential violations of our sanctions against Iran. Time and time again, I have asked the State Department for transparency on this issue, as well as imposing some sort of timeline on ruling on pending investigations of existing sanctions. The State Department has no enforceable guidelines on these sanctions and, thus, gives them little or no teeth. As it stands, pending investigations of companies in violation of our sanctions laws have gone on as long as 10 years. Furthermore, since enactment, there has only been one found violation of the Iran Sanctions Act by a French company. Through the use of a Presidential waiver, this violation was totally waived. My amendment is in no way seeking to change or remove this flexibility. It simply asks the State Department for a report on pending violations of our existing sanctions laws against Iran. I have long said that the danger of a nuclear Iran poses one of if not the greatest threat to our national security. As this rogue nation continues to ignore three U.N. Security Council resolutions, the time for Congress to act is now. I ask my colleagues to join me and support the Bunning amendment. Now more than ever, we need to tighten our economic chokehold on Iran. I ask for the yeas and nays in a timely fashion.

Mr. BUNNING. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, I would like to congratulate several outstanding young people from the Commonwealth of Kentucky who have been selected as recipients of the 14th annual Prudential Spirit of the Community Award. These young people were selected from over 20,000 nominees, and I would like to commend them on this wonderful achievement. The Prudential Spirit of the Community Award was created in 1995 by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals. The awards are meant to impress upon all youth the value of community service and to recognize contributions made in this area. This year I am very proud that Kentucky has two State honorees and four distinguished finalists. The four distinguished finalists this year are Don Combs, Emily Goldstein, Arooshi Kumar, and Elizabeth Moore. Don is from Pikeville, KY, and was nominated by Pikeville High School because he started a recycling program that now encompasses all schools in Pike County. Emily Goldstein is a senior at Atherton High School in Louisville, and she volunteered over 1,000 hours of her time to help protect the environment. She started recycling programs at 12 local companies and donated the proceeds to the Louisville Zoo. Arooshi Kumar is also from Louisville and is completing her senior year at Dupont Manual High School. For her service project Arooshi raised nearly $5,000 to help establish schools for impoverished children in India. In order to raise this impressive sum Arooshi made and sold jewelry, cashmere stoles, and Indian tunics. Elizabeth Moore of Catlettsburg created a Spanish section in the Hatcher Elementary School library. Elizabeth chose this school because it has the largest number of Spanish-speaking students in her school district. Elizabeth is a senior at Fairview High School in Ashland, KY. The two State honorees from Kentucky are Jordan Campbell and Meg Olash. Jordan is a senior at Montgomery County High School and resides in Jeffersonville, KY. For his project, Jordan organized a student-run nonprofit theater company to help engage elementary students in the arts. His efforts resulted in 85 children and 15 teen directors putting on shows for the community that sold over 1,200 tickets. Meg is an eighth grade student at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in Louisville. Meg helped refugees plant produce, which they in turn sold at a farmers market at her church. Meg, along with her fellow volunteers, also spent 3 days of the week playing with children at the local refugee community center. All of these young Kentuckians have my admiration, and I thank them for their service. They demonstrate that with hard work and perseverance all of us can make a difference in our communities and make them a better place to live.

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, today I congratulate the University of the Cumberlands. The Corporation for National and Community Service awarded the University of the Cumberlands with a place on the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest Federal recognition a school can achieve for dedication to community-based service projects. Honored institutions are chosen from a series of factors, including the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning and the percentage of student participation in service activities. The University of the Cumberlands encourages student involvement in nearby communities by asking that each student complete forty hours of community service by graduation. Students with two hundred hours of community service are eligible to be named Hutton Scholars at Commencement. The university's student run organization, the Mountain Outreach program, has built 125 homes for local families in need of assistance, in the last 25 years. Again, I congratulate the University of the Cumberlands for being named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. I hope that its leadership in community outreach serves as an inspiration to others in Kentucky and in the Nation.

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, today I pay tribute to the men and women in the 3rd Brigade, 98th Division, 108th Training Command in Lexington, KY, for receiving the 2008 Department of Defense Reserve Family Readiness Award. For those who are not familiar with this award, it recognizes National Guard and Reserve units who have displayed exceptional family readiness, while sustaining superior military readiness. This award was created in 2000 to recognize these outstanding military units. The men and women of the 108th Training Command in Lexington have shown that they value each and every family of their unit and remain committed to maintaining healthy relationships at home while they serve elsewhere. The U.S. military is the greatest fighting force in the world. I am proud that the best of the best hail from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I now ask my fellow colleagues to join me in congratulating the 108th Training Command for their distinguished accomplishment. They truly make Kentucky and the entire country proud of their service.

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, today I invite my colleagues to join me in congratulating four northern Kentucky firefighters for receiving awards from the Northern Kentucky Firefighters Association: Darlene Payette of Independence, Richard Messingschlager of Kenton County, Clayton James of Newport, and Larry Cappel of Covington. These brave firefighters have dedicated their lives to helping other people, and each is deserving of their prestigious award. Each award speaks of the character of these individuals. Darlene Payette received the Emergency Medical Service Award for her actions at Summit Medical in Nicholson during a full arrest in April 2008. During this situation, Ms. Payette's leadership and professionalism allowed her to resuscitate an individual under extreme circumstances. Richard Messingschlager was awarded the Chief Officer of the Year. His lifelong contributions to firefighting in Kenton County, northern Kentucky, and the Commonwealth serve as an inspiration to firefighters across the State. Clayton James received the Firefighter of the Year award for demonstrating leadership during the September wind storm and using the recent training he received to set up the National Incident Management System for Newport. His acts led to bringing fire, police, public works, and utility companies together under one command center. Larry Cappel was honored with the Fire Prevention/Education and Safety Award for his inventive approaches of teaching fire prevention and safety to residents of Covington. I am humbled and grateful that these citizens serve the people of the Commonwealth, and I know their coworkers are proud to work alongside of them. Madam President, I would like to thank these individuals for their contributions to the State of Kentucky, and I wish them well as they continue to protect our citizens.

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, for the last month the attention of the Senate has been focused on the Nation's economic troubles. However, while this is very important legislation, my attention has also been focused on the thousands of Kentuckians who were impacted by the ice storm in my State. This storm caused the greatest electrical outage in Kentucky history, with over 600,000 people losing power and forcing many to evacuate their homes. Of the 120 counties in Kentucky, 91 were forced to declare a state of emergency. In response, the Kentucky governor was forced to call up 4,600 National Guard troops to assist our first responders. This was the largest mobilization of the Guard in our State's history. This situation could have been much worse if not for the efforts of Kentucky's public safety officials and the Kentucky National Guard. These individuals worked around the clock to ensure that their neighbors had the help they needed during this crisis. There are many stories of people going beyond the call of duty to assist their fellow citizens. National Guard units went door to door to ensure that people had all the supplies they needed until power was restored. Volunteers kept open shelters and soup kitchens to make sure families had places to sleep and eat. All of these unsung heroes have my respect and admiration. In closing I am grateful for the efforts of all the first responders across my State including the many volunteers from the Salvation Army, Red Cross, and countless other volunteer organizations that helped to limit the devastation caused by this storm. While I wish that this disaster had never occurred, I am very proud of the way all Kentuckians banded together to support each other during this time of need.

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, today I would like to recognize the Ashland-Boyd County and Catlettsburg Police Athletic League. The League, a community youth center, strives to improve the lives of children through a variety of activities. The League's goal is to prevent young people from immersing themselves in drugs and other unruly behaviors, as well as giving them a safe place to go. The Ashland-Boyd County and Catlettsburg Police Athletic League was formed 6 months ago and invites young people from Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. The League introduces young people to many different activities, including exercise, sports and video games, and hopes to incorporate dance, martial arts, and the fine arts into its curriculum. Currently more than 50 teenagers have registered with the organization and more are interested in joining. The League also has plans of opening a second facility due to a growing interest. Again, I thank the Ashland-Boyd County and Catlettsburg Police Athletic League for giving young Kentuckians a safe place for mental and physical growth. I wish all the best in the future.

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, we are in a period of morning business, up to 10 minutes?

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the conference report to the so-called stimulus bill. While we have not seen the actual bill, the outlines of the final agreement are available, and not much has changed from the bill since it passed the Senate earlier this week. The bill will still cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years after interest on the borrowed money necessary to finance the bill is added. This is $1 trillion added to our national debt and $1 trillion we have to take away from our American workers in the future to pay off that debt. That is why the bill also raises the limit on the national debt to over $12 trillion. That is almost a $2 trillion increase in the national debt. But $1 trillion of new debt is not the whole story. Many of the tax and spending provisions in this bill last only a few months or years. The President and many in Congress have promised to extend those provisions or even make them permanent. Obviously, that means the cost of the bill as written does not show the true cost of the changes it puts in place. In fact, in a letter sent yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office said that when you add in the cost of extending the programs the President has promised to extend, the total cost of the bill over the next 10 years is actually $2\1/2\ trillion. Add the interest on that $2\1/2\ trillion of new debt, and the bill will cost the taxpayer $3.3 trillion over the next 10 years. That is $3.3 trillion we will have to tax our children, my grandchildren and your grandchildren, and our neighbors. It is true the conference report is a bit smaller than the House- passed bill, so those numbers will have to be figured again when the final language is available, but they are close enough to understand the massive size of this debt spending bill. If all this new debt spending would actually fix the economy and create jobs, it might be worth it. But that is not what is going to happen. Even the Congressional Budget Office agrees with that. In another letter they sent yesterday, they said the bill will reduce--you heard me right--reduce GDP over the long term. They also estimated it will lower wages over the long term because Government spending now will take money away from productive use by the private sector later. We cannot spend our way out of this crisis. The solution to the crisis that was created by too much debt is not more debt, and America cannot afford to waste several trillion dollars. If we really want to stimulate the economy, we need to focus our attention on tax cuts for individuals, investments, and businesses. We need to enact legislation that will have a direct and immediate impact. We need a bill that will create more jobs through targeted tax relief, not a bill that will spend money on programs that offer no immediate or long-term return to the American taxpayer. We could have done that on this bill, but the majority refused to work with the minority to craft a truly bipartisan bill. In all of Congress, there were only 3 members of the minority who supported this flawed spending bill, and 3 out of 218 does not make this a bipartisan bill. I hope the actual bill is made available with time for Senators and the American public to examine it before we vote. I cannot support the conference report that has been described by the House and Senate leadership, and I hope we can do better the next time. I ask unanimous consent that the two letters from the Congressional Budget Office that I mentioned earlier be printed in the Record.

Mr. BUNNING. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BUNNING

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

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 531.

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

Mr. BUNNING. The Senator can give whatever time he chooses to the other side.

Mr. BUNNING. Thank you very much.

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I wish to submit a question to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. BUNNING. I ask Senator Grassley, is it accurate to say that my State of Kentucky will get an additional $92 million in Medicare funds if the Senator's amendment passes; if the amendment fails, that money would go to California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York?

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I would like 10 minutes.

Mr. BUNNING. Ten minutes for Senator Bunning.

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, our economy is ailing--everybody knows that--and the symptoms are a sharp drop in consumer spending and a large rise in unemployment. As many of my colleagues have already observed, this bill treats the symptoms only and it does it so ineffectively. There are some Democrats, even in the White House, who agree with this. Just the other day, one House Democrat said his leadership ``does not care'' what is in the bill; ``they just want to pass it and they want it to be unanimous.'' They don't care. That is just shameful. The unemployment statistics we are seeing are just staggering. Never in our history have we seen job cuts at the rate and severity we are seeing today: over 500,000 losses per month for the last 5 months. Over 600,000 in losses were reported just last Tuesday. This bill really does very little to help businesses keep people employed. It gives the poorest Americans $500 in cash and the prospect of a government job on a construction site, but it does not get to the heart of the problem in the private sector. It is our responsibility on behalf of every child who will pay for this massive amount of spending in this bill to get the solution right, and we can do better, much better. One of the best economists in this country--one who predicted this crisis in advance--said recently that he believes most U.S. banks are insolvent. Their equity has been wiped out due to the massive leveraged bets related to housing. Unfortunately, bank regulators, such as Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan, failed to properly assess the danger to the economy presented by these irresponsible bets. Many experts are now acknowledging what I have said for years: that currency manipulation by China and other countries fueled the credit bubble in the United States and Europe that drove up housing prices to unsustainable levels. As a direct result, many households are now insolvent as well. They are carrying mortgage debts that exceed the value of their homes, and even with the $500 from the make work pay credit, they will not go out and spend it until the problem is addressed. This amendment I am offering today will address a major injustice in the Tax Code that many taxpayers will encounter for the first time this year. This problem will drive the effective tax rates of many taxpayers to European confiscatory levels at the worst possible time. I am referring to the limit on capital losses. Since the peak of the markets in 2007, investors have lost $7.5 trillion in wealth. More than half of this amount is in taxable accounts. If we do not adjust the limits, taxpayers will be unable to deduct real economic losses from their income tax, and this will result in higher effective tax rates. Two respected economists have recommended my amendment as a way to stimulate the economy. In an article in the Wall Street Journal titled ``Let's Stimulate Private Risk Taking,'' economists from Harvard University and the University of Chicago wrote that my amendment would stimulate risk taking by rewarding the downside of new investments and increasing the upside. I ask unanimous consent to have this article printed in the Record.

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, since 2007, investors have lost $1.7 trillion in stock market values. Nearly half these losses are taxable accounts and their owners are subject to a $3,000 limit on capital losses. The way this limit works is that no matter how much money you lose in stocks or real estate, you are only allowed to deduct $3,000 per year against other income. The remaining loss is ignored. Given the state of the markets, millions of taxpayers have stock losses that far exceed $3,000. Nevertheless, the Tax Code will treat these people as though they earned much more during the year. For an example, a family that earns $100,000 and pays $30,000 in Federal and State taxes has a tax rate of 30 percent. If the family loses $40,000 in savings and it is only able to deduct $3,000, it will push the family's effective tax rate up to 48.5 percent. The $3,000 fixed limit on capital losses was last adjusted in 1976. Before the midseventies, the tax writers in Congress were not as knowledgeable about what inflation can do to savings as we are today. It was common for Congress to write dollar limits into the Tax Code without any thought of what inflation would do to its value in future years. Since 1977, inflation has eroded the value of the limit by more than 71 percent. My amendment would adjust the limit for inflation, increasing it to $15,000 for any losses incurred this year. When I offered this amendment in the Finance Committee, Chairman Baucus committed to addressing the problem on a permanent basis sometime this year. I welcome this opportunity to work with him on this long-term overdue problem. My amendment also reduces the cost of the bill by about $4.9 billion because I am also striking a remarkable provision that for the first time would allow corporations to use tax credits even if they have no income. This is nothing more than corporate welfare and Soviet-style industrial policy. Never before has this body endorsed a refundable tax credit for corporations. This one costs a staggering $10.9 billion. It is bad policy and the money should be spent on broad-based individual tax relief that will stimulate our economy. I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment to ensure that taxpayers do not experience an increase in tax rate in the depth of this recession we are now in. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUNNING

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

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, over 30 years ago, in 1976, Russell Long stood right here where we are today and voted for legislation that set the capital loss limit at $3,000. President Gerald Ford signed the bill into law. That was a long time ago, and Senator Long and President Ford are both gone. What is the legacy we will leave for future generations? The bill we are considering today will pile a staggering amount of debt on their shoulders--more than $1 trillion. But let's at least do some good here. At a time when the stock market is down 40 percent from its highs, when $7.5 trillion in paper wealth has been destroyed, there is a crying need to update the 30-year capital loss limit. We have a rare opportunity to fix a longstanding problem with the Tax Code at a time when economists say the change is also good policy. It will stimulate the economy by encouraging private risk taking. When investors take risks, the economy expands, and the fear we are experiencing will be dispelled. I urge you to vote for the amendment.

Mr. BUNNING

Mr. BUNNING. May we understand what the modification is?