Michael Bennet

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Con. Res. 16, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wanted to take the floor for a few minutes to talk about where I was supposed to be today, which is Denver, CO, not on this floor, because we were hosting a townhall meeting in Denver, Mark Udall and I were, to discuss our long-term deficit and debt problems. We had invited Senator Simpson from Wyoming--my colleague from Wyoming just spoke--a great Republican Senator, the co-chair of the President's Deficit and Debt Commission, to Denver for this session. He agreed to come. The former head of the Office and Management and Budget got on a plane, flew to Denver, they agreed to come, and some others. More important than that, we put this out to the public, and it was almost immediately oversubscribed so many people wanted to get in, to have a real conversation, an authentic conversation, about what we were going to do finally to dig out from underneath this incredible deficit and debt we face. I inconvenienced a lot of people inviting them to Denver. But they are happy to do it anyway because they are so committed to this set of issues, and they think having a conversation in the center of our country, in our Rocky Mountain West about these issues may allow some common sense to prevail. But the inconvenience they suffered by traveling to Denver is nothing, nothing compared to the inconvenience, to say the least, that the American people are going to suffer if this government shuts down. It is not just 850,000 Federal employees. The fact that we have got troops deployed all across the globe, small businesses trying to get loans from the SBA, homeowners, or people who hope to become homeowners, trying to get a mortgage through the FHA, all of that will shut down if this government shuts down. Not to mention the fact we have been told that the shutdown will cost our economy at least $8 billion a week, if this government is shut down, and .2 percent of GDP growth for every week this government is shut down, just at a time when our economy is starting to show some sign of life. I have said on the floor over the last couple of days that no local government official in my State, none, zero, Republican or Democrat, would ever say, we are going to close the government. We have decided that we cannot get along, we cannot agree, we cannot figure it out, so the city and County of Denver is going to close, the city of Grand Junction will close, or the school district is going to close. No one in Colorado would think to say that to their constituents and we should not think about it either. But some people say, wow, there must be some incredibly significant disagreement that is keeping the House and the Senate from working together to get this done, Republicans and Democrats from working together, to get this done. Last night I brought a slide to show what that disagreement looks like. This was yesterday. I have heard some people say that there is agreement on the number of cuts we are going to make today and last night. But yesterday, the parties were several billion dollars apart. That is what was said. So I made a chart that showed the American people what that meant, and $7 billion is what I assigned to the difference. That is probably more than the difference was. It is certainly more than it is today. That is a lot of money, by the way. But we have a $3.5 trillion operating budget, and a $1.6 trillion deficit. I wanted to show what the dispute looked like compared to our deficit, and compared to our operating budget. And, sorry, but I could not fit it on one chart. It actually is on two charts. I could not get it enough charts or hold them together, because this is the operating budget over here. I would need two more of these posters on top of this to be able to show you the relationship between the so-called dispute and our operating budget. I have spent half my life in business and half my life working in local government. I can tell you that this is a meaningless dispute, utterly meaningless. Look at it. It has nothing to do with our long- term deficit and debt problem. It has nothing to do with what the good people in Colorado are talking about today at the forum that I am not going to be able to attend. So in view of that, it seems to me that taking the risk of closing our government down, charging our economy an $8 billion note every week, and concerning our troops, who should not be worried about whether they are going to get a paycheck, makes no sense at all. My hope is this--I see other colleagues on the floor--that the leadership of both parties in the Senate and the House and our President, in the next several hours, will seal a deal that makes sure our government stays open. But beyond that, to all of my colleagues in this body, looking forward to the negotiation we are going to have on the debt ceiling, looking forward to the negotiation we are going to have on our deficit and our debt, I hope we can come together and agree on a process and a structure that actually leads us to agreement rather than one that leads us in the direction we have been in over the last 2 or 3 weeks. Our country simply cannot afford for us not to get our job done and be distracted by disagreements that are meaningless to people in their daily lives. I know we can do better. I know we can do better as Democrats and Republicans. And once we get through this, I want to say, I will do absolutely everything I can to build bipartisan support for a solution to our fiscal problems. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET

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

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I came to the floor the other night to talk about what I had learned in 2 years of townhall meetings in Colorado regarding our deficit and regarding our debt. What I said the other night was that people in our State, whether in red parts of the State or blue parts of the State, have a commonsense way of approaching this, and they have a three-part test they want to apply. The first test is they want to make sure we actually come up with something that materially addresses the problem we face. They are tired of gimmicks. They are tired of tricks. They want us to sort this out. They know it will not be fixed overnight, but they want us to get started on it. The second test is that we are all in it together. They are tired of the us-against-them conversation that happens in Washington. They are tired of hearing that one person's ox is going to be gored or one group of people's ox is going to be gored and everyone else will be left alone. Everybody wants to contribute to solving this problem. The third test is they want it to be bipartisan. Because, frankly, they do not have confidence in either party on this issue and they want to see us working together. That is it. We should be working toward that as a Senate and as a House. We should be having a serious conversation about how not to leave our children stuck with a bill of $15 trillion in debt and a $1.5 trillion deficit. I feel that keenly, as the father of three little girls myself. But I think it is very important for the American people to understand the debate we are having right now. The threat that we are going to shut the government down has nothing to do with the broader conversation about our deficit and our debt. In fact, shutting the government down is going to make matters worse. I said the other night that there is not a superintendent of schools--I used to be one in Colorado--there is not a city council or a mayor in Colorado, from the largest city to the smallest town, who would dream--who would dream--of saying to their constituents: We can't work this out, so we are going to close the government next week. We can't work this out, so we are not going to plow your snow next week or pick up your trash next week or educate your kids next week, not one local official in our State. The Presiding Officer knows this. He was a mayor. He would never have gone to his constituents and said: Oh, by the way, we are closing next week because we have a disagreement. It makes no sense. Nowhere on the planet would that make any sense. To say nothing of the fact we find ourselves at a moment in the country's history when we are engaged in wars all across the globe, when we are now involved in a multilateral effort in Libya, when we have thousands of people--government employees--trying to help the Japanese weather this unbelievable tragedy they are facing, when we have economic competitors all over the globe trying to seek an economic advantage against the United States in the 21st century. Yet we are saying: Well, we are going to take a time out because we can't agree. We are going to pause, take a rest, close the government. The American people must think, well, you guys must be very far apart. That is why I brought this chart. I don't know the exact details here. Nobody does. The reports on the news tonight were that several billion dollars separated the negotiators. I have heard it ranges from $5 billion to $10 billion, or somewhere in there, so I picked the number $7 billion, which is more than several. But that appears to be what divides the parties--$7 billion. Seven billion dollars. That is a lot of money. It is a lot of money. But look at it in the context of our deficit and our operating budget. Here is this line. You can't even see it. This line is the $7 billion, right here. This is our deficit, and this is our operating budget--$1.5 trillion, $3.6 trillion. I apologize, Mr. President, but I couldn't fit it on one chart so I had to have two made in order to show what the order of magnitude of difference is between what we are squabbling over here in Washington, and what our deficit looks like and what our operating budget looks like. That is it. That is it. That is it. Do you know, this difference, if this were the city of Alamosa--and the former mayor is the Presiding Officer--and my State--which has roughly a $14 million operating budget in the San Luis Valley--if they were saying we were going to shut down our government based on this difference, that would be like Alamosa saying, we can't figure it out because $27,000 is what we are apart. Mr. President, if you and I went to Applebee's tonight and we had their $20 dinner for two, and then we had a fight over the bill, we would be fighting over 4 cents. That is what would separate us--roughly .19 percent of our operating budget. I could even understand if the parties were saying we disagree, we disagree, let's keep negotiating. But I can't for the life of me understand how on those terms anyone could threaten a government shutdown, especially when we confront the dangers we confront today. And so the answer is, it is not about our budget. The time we have consumed here is taking time away from the conversations that the Presiding Officer and I have been part of, that people on the other side of the aisle have been part of, that the gang of six, a bipartisan group of Senators--three Democrats and three Republicans led by Mark Warner and Saxby Chambliss--have been working on. That is what we should be doing. We shouldn't be threatening to close the government. I don't think we should be threatening to close the government under any circumstances, but certainly not when the economics are as thin as that. I know there are people--and it is not all Republicans--there are some people in the House who feel the social issues they have attached to this piece of budget legislation are somehow more important than keeping government open or that litigating those issues in the context of trying to keep the government open is the right thing to do. I disagree. I think they should have a hearing. I think we ought to have a floor discussion about what we want to do with women's reproductive health or the other issues that are there. I am glad to have that debate. But don't threaten to shut the government down based on that. So I will say again, as I said the other night, I encourage the leaders of both parties in both Chambers, and our President, to find a way to settle this, to find a way to work it out, to find a way to keep this government open at this moment when we have troops deployed all over the globe, and to live up to the standard of every single local elected official in my State, whether they are Democrats or whether they are Republicans, who are making tough choices in this budget situation but managing to respond to their constituents' priorities. This week, in Colorado, they reached a budget agreement. The Governor is a Democrat, the Senate is a majority Democratic, the House is Republican. The Speaker of the House, who is a Republican, said this is the first budget I have been able to vote for in years because of the leadership of John Hickenlooper, our Governor, and the leadership of the Democratic and Republican Party there. That breeds confidence in people's work. I think if we can find a way to work together across the party lines in a bipartisan way and demonstrate that we can keep the government open, and much more important even than that, that we can create a path toward fiscal sanity in this country, I think the American people would cheer. Right now we have not given them very much to cheer about. I see the Senator from Texas is here, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 131, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I understand that H.R. 1255 has been received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. BENNET

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

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I had the chance to sit in the chair this evening, before you came, and listened to people on both sides of the aisle talk a little bit about our debt and our deficit situation, the pending shutdown of the Federal Government. I shudder to think we might actually do that. But it may happen. I thought I might keep my senior Senator a little bit of company--the hour is late and the floor is empty--to have the chance to talk a little bit about how we see this from Colorado. Like the Presiding Officer, I have had the chance to travel in one of the most beautiful States in the country over the last 2 years, 40,000 miles across the State of Colorado, having townhall meetings in red parts of the State and blue parts of the State and, believe it or not-- and I know the Presiding Officer would believe it because he is talking to the same people I am talking to and, maybe more important than that, listening to the same people I am listening to--I think a fairly substantial consensus emerged out of those meetings. By the way, in not a single one of those townhall meetings--not one in 2 years--no matter what part of the State I was in, would any self- respecting cable television producer want to put on cable TV at night. Because we do not scream at each other in Colorado. We have our differences. We have our disagreements. We have a lot of shared values, though, whether we are Democrats or Republicans, tea party members, Independents. We are about a third Republican, a third Democratic, a third Independent. That consensus that emerged from these meetings on our debt and our deficit is straightforward. It is a three-part test for people in Colorado. The first is, they want us to come up with a comprehensive solution that materially addresses the fiscal challenges this country faces. They do not want a bunch of gimmicks. They do not want a bunch of talking points. And they do not want people in this Chamber or the Chamber on the other side of the Capitol spending their time scoring political points at the expense of the American people. So the question they are going to ask, first, when the Presiding Officer and I go back there, I think, is, did you get to a comprehensive solution--not, by the way, did you fix it overnight? Because they know it cannot be fixed overnight. But can we be secure in the idea that we are not going to leave our kids and our grandkids what is today $15 trillion in debt and a $1.5 trillion budget deficit. Because all things being equal, we wish to allow our kids and our grandkids to not have their choices constrained by our inability to get anything done here in Washington. So that is the first test for people in Colorado. The second test is, they want to know that any solution we come up with is one where we are all in it together, that everybody in America has the chance to make a contribution to solving this fiscal nightmare we face. They are not interested in pitting one group of people against another group of people. In fact, that makes them feel suspicious about what we are doing. They want to know we are all in it together, which brings me to the third commonsense Colorado point of view on this issue, which is they would like this--in fact, they will insist--the solution be a bipartisan solution. Because they do not have confidence in one party's ideas on this question. That is a lucky thing because we have a Republican-controlled House and we have a Democratic-controlled Senate, and the President is a Democrat. We cannot solve this problem in these times without it being a bipartisan solution. That is it. If I can go home and say, we materially addressed the problem, we are all in it together, and it was a bipartisan solution, I think people would say: You guys have finally done something. We feel patriotic, as if we have done something useful for our kids. As the Presiding Officer knows, there are people all over our State-- local government officials--who are Republicans and Democrats who are making tough decisions about their budgets. I have an incredible amount of sympathy for what they are dealing with. I had the great fortune, earlier in my career, to serve as the Chief of Staff for our now Governor, John Hickenlooper, when he was mayor of Denver. When John went into that office, and I went in as his Chief of Staff, we faced a huge budget deficit by Denver standards and we had to cut 11 percent of our expenditures. We met with people living all throughout the city and county of Denver. We sought their advice. We established a set of priorities. We passed it through a city council. And do you know what. Denver lived to fight another day. Our economy grew, and things were pretty good there for a while, until this current recession. When I became superintendent of the Denver Public Schools--as the Presiding Officer knows, a district that year after year after year, for almost a decade, maybe even longer than that, was the poster child for cutting every single year; every year, people at other school districts would say: Thank God we are not the Denver Public Schools-- every year, the Denver Public Schools would lose teachers to other districts that could afford to pay them more, and every year we cut and we cut and we cut as a district. When I became superintendent, one of the cases I made to the school board was: We have profound structural problems in our budget, and instead of approaching the budget in a way that diminishes the academic environment for kids, what we ought to be figuring out how to do is establish a set of priorities and build a public case to deal with the structural problems that exist in our budget. Because of the good work of the school board--I should say, the courageous work of the school board--we were able to get that done. We were able to close schools for the first time in a long time. That is hard work. Those meetings were harder than health care townhall meetings, I can tell you that. We were able to deal with the pension liability that our district had. And we were able, year after year, to invest more money, not less, in our schools and in our classrooms. And now, under the current leadership there--which I think is doing an exceptional job--the district no longer is the poster child for anything except fighting hard on behalf of the children in the Denver Public Schools. Here is the thing that drives me crazy about what is going on in the conversation we are having now about this shutdown. There is no way any superintendent of schools in Colorado or any school board in Colorado or any city council or any mayor--from the biggest city to the smallest town--would show up to work and say: We might close the government 2 weeks from now. It is an option for us that we will not pick up your trash 2 weeks from now or plow the streets--we still get snow in Colorado at this time of year--or plow the streets 2 weeks from now. We are going to close down. It would not occur to anybody working in a local government in our State to say they were going to do that. Do you know why? Because people would become unglued, unhinged. They would say: We hired you to do a job. Work it out. We are doing our jobs--or we are looking for jobs--we don't have time to solve these problems. You were hired to do this job. Work it out. Come to an agreement. Don't come home and tell us you are shutting the government down, you are not going to pick up the trash, you are not going to plow the snow, you are not going to educate our kids. The idea that as a superintendent--I got in trouble when I closed school for snow once--once. It turned out to be a great decision because it was one of the worst blizzards we ever had, but it could have gone the other way, because people rely on us to do the work we are supposed to do. They have plans. The idea that at a time when we are fighting wars all across this globe, at a time when there are governments and countries that are trying to seek an economic advantage over the United States of America in a global economy that has shrunk the way ours has shrunk, that we would say to ourselves: We are going to pause, we can't even keep the government open in this democracy, I think would reflect terribly not on the American people and not on our democracy, but on this institution of government. There is a reason why we are in the basement as an institution in terms of polling. Why should people have confidence in an institution that cannot actually even keep running in the short term? I think it is important, based on the conversation I heard tonight here on both sides of the aisle, for the American people to understand this debate about this government shutdown is not a debate about our deficit and our debt, not really. It has been about scoring political points. What I want to say is I hope and I would encourage the leadership on both sides of the aisle here, the leadership in the House, and our President to find a way to work it out and to make sure we keep this government open. I think closing it sends entirely the wrong message. I know there are people on both sides of the aisle here who believe that. I hope people do absolutely everything they can do between now and the end of this week to make sure we send a message that we are not as dysfunctional as we appear to be. Because I think this place ought to meet the standard that people at the local level of government are held to in our State. No business would say: I don't know, maybe we will close for 2 weeks or close for a month. They are figuring out how to invest and grow even in this challenging economy. We should be doing the same. Mr. President, you and I were in a meeting this morning. We started today at 8 o'clock in the morning, with 33 Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who came together to hear some very thoughtful observations about how important it is we come to a comprehensive solution to deal with our deficit and to deal with our debt. We heard an important presentation about how there is no silver bullet here. There is no easy way to solve any of this. But perhaps the least painful way to think about it is with the most comprehensive plan--which, by the way, is the intuition of people in Colorado, as I said earlier today. It gave me great confidence that there were a bunch of Republicans and a bunch of Democrats in a room listening to this message and willing to work together in a bipartisan way. I was very fortunate to draft a letter that Mike Johanns from Nebraska, a Republican, cosigned with me that called on the President to engage--after this period we are having a discussion about right now with closing the government or keeping it open or whatever it is we are going to do--asking the President to engage in a conversation that is comprehensive that says: You know what. We know this is going to involve cuts to discretionary spending, both domestic and military. We know this is going to involve reform of our entitlements. We know it is going to involve reform of our Tax Code as well. Senator Coats from Indiana was out here today with a lot of commonsense ideas around how our Tax Code doesn't drive innovation, competition and growth and he is right about that. There is a lot of work to be done, and I have every confidence it can happen. That letter we wrote turned out to have 64 signatures on it. Sixty-four people signed that letter. That is more than the 60 required to pass a piece of legislation. That is a majority of the Democrats in the Senate. It is a majority of the Republicans in the Senate. I know it is just a letter, but it reflects what I believe to be true about what people in this body believe, which is that we can solve this issue. We can solve this problem, but we are only going to be able to do it if we do it together. We are only going to be able to do it if we get to a place where we are no longer as concerned about winning political points as we are about actually addressing the problem. I have confidence we can do it. Someone said to me today: You seem to be a guy who feels as though the Senate is dysfunctional. You have a reputation for believing the Senate is dysfunctional. I will confess there are days when I wonder, and there are days when I feel as though it is dysfunctional. But on this set of issues, I think the Senate can shine. On this set of issues, I think this is the place where leadership can take hold and where we can create a bipartisan solution. The people of Colorado, and I think the American people, expect us to do everything we can to get this done. There are two conversations going on simultaneously, and I thought it was important to point out that one is about the very short-term issue--what we are going to do with this continuing budget. By the way, no one in Colorado would stand for the idea that you don't pass a budget in the year you are in, but that is another Washington cultural artifact we ought to get rid of. But that is distinct from the comprehensive discussion we need to have around here on our deficit and our debt. At the end of the 2-year discussion I was having, and the beginning of a new discussion now with Colorado, it became pretty straightforward what people want, not just on the debt and deficit but other things they are concerned about, that we ought to be turning our attention to, instead of having this back and forth about whether we are going to keep the government open. It ought to be assumed we are going to keep the government open. We just came off the first decade in the country's history when median family income fell. It was lower at the end of the decade than it was at the beginning of the decade. It has never been true before in the United States. For families in Colorado, that means they are actually earning less at the end of the decade than they were at the beginning. But their cost of higher education has gone up by more than 40 percent. Their cost of health care has gone up by more than 100 percent over that period of time. We have created no net new jobs in the United States or in Colorado since 1998. People would like to see that turned around. People would like to see us working together on a Tax Code that drives innovation to make sure we don't have regulations that unnecessarily stifle economic growth. They would like to see that. They would like us to break our reliance on foreign oil from the Persian Gulf. Even before what has happened in the Middle East and in Libya occurred in the last month or so--even before that--people were saying to me: Michael, we don't think it makes much sense for us to be buying oil from the Persian Gulf. We don't understand why we have an energy policy that requires us to ship billions of dollars a week to the Persian Gulf to buy oil when we could be investing that money developing our energy resources here in the United States. That is work we could be doing together in a bipartisan way. As the President knows, I have a passion for public education, as do the people who are living in Colorado, and they know we are not getting the job done there either. We have before us the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, but somehow we can't move that forward. Teachers and kids and principals and moms and dads all over our State are expecting us to get that work done. We have to find a way to educate our kids for the 21st century economy that hopefully we will build for them, and we are not getting the job done. As I said on the floor the other day, if we look at this question from the perspective of poor children living in our home State of Colorado or all across the United States of America, and if we think about this room we are in right now and the fact that there are 100 desks that don't belong to 100 Senators because they belong to the American people but where 100 Senators sit and work, if these desks reflected the odds of poor children living in our country succeeding educationally, things would look pretty grim in here. Forty-two out of the one hundred chairs in this place would be occupied by a child living in poverty--42. By the time our children in poverty got to the eighth grade, only 16 kids would be reading at grade level. That is four and four, four--that is about 16 desks. The rest of this Senate Chamber would be full of children who couldn't read at grade level in the eighth grade today in the 21st century in the United States of America. By the time our poor children would be graduating from college, only nine would be graduating from college--these two rows and that chair right there. The rest of this Chamber would have no college degree. In a global economy requiring that as a pathway to the middle class, to meaningful participation in the democracy, to meaningful participation in this global economy, 91 people in this place would be shut out because they were born into a ZIP Code that is poor. Those odds look pretty wrong to the kids who are living in those neighborhoods. I have spent a lot of time with our kids in those neighborhoods, not just in Colorado but all across the United States of America. They think we have already made a promise to them, that they live in a land of opportunity that is going to reward their hard work, and if they stick with it, they are going to end up with a college degree. That is what they believe. We may have made that promise, but we certainly haven't followed through on that commitment. Why should that matter to us? Some people look at that and say: Well, it is someone else's problem. I don't need to worry about it. McKinsey has done a study that shows us that the effect of those outcomes is to create a permanent recession in the United States. The effect of that dropout rate creates a permanent recession in the United States. That actually is about the same as the recession we just went through, which means if we are concerned with economic growth in the United States, we need to concern ourselves with the educational outcomes our kids in poverty are facing. If we are concerned with income inequality in the United States, we need to be concerned with the outcomes I just described. Last year, the top 1 percent of income earners in this country earned 23 percent of the income--almost one-quarter of the income. The last time that was true was 1928. That doesn't lead me to conclude that somehow we should redistribute it, but it does lead me to conclude that we ought to fix our education system so more people have the chance to put themselves and their families into the middle class. We can't afford in this country to repeat the decade we just went through. We can't afford to have an economy where median income is falling. We can't afford to have an economy that is not creating jobs. We can't afford to carry a debt and deficit burden that at some point the capital markets are going to look at and say: We are not financing you anymore. We can't afford to fail to educate children in this country just because they are poor. I also think we can't afford to have an energy policy that commits us to a dependence on oil in the Persian Gulf. I think the people of Colorado and across this country are expecting us to do our jobs, just as they are doing their jobs. I say again, I hope the leadership of both parties, working in good faith, can keep this government open, and I hope we can move on to a broader and more comprehensive conversation around debt, around deficit, around our economy, and around the education of our kids.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 130, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it recess until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 6; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business until 11 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time until 12:40 p.m. equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that at 10:40 a.m., Senator Ayotte be recognized to deliver her maiden speech to the Senate; and that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 493, the small business jobs bill, as provided for under the previous order.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, Senators should expect a series of up to seven rollcall votes to begin at approximately 4 p.m. in relation to amendments to the small business jobs bill.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it recess under the previous order.

Mr. BENNET

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

Mr. BENNET

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

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor today to talk a little about the state of public education in this country, especially when it comes to the condition of poor children in the United States, in part because I think it is urgent that we fix No Child Left Behind--a law that is not working well for kids and for teachers, and for moms and dads all across the United States, and certainly in my home State of Colorado. Sometimes people who aren't engaged in the work of teaching our kids--which I think is the hardest work anybody can do, short of going to war--don't realize how horrific the outcomes are for children in this great country of ours, especially children living in poverty. When I am on this floor, where there are 100 desks--there are 100 Senators-- I sometimes think a little about what the condition of the people here would be if they were not Senators, but if these 100 people were poor children living in the United States in the 21st century. First of all, it is important to recognize that of the 100 Senators-- or the 100 kids in this great country--42 of the 100 would be living in poverty. Forty-two out of the 100 would be poor. Of those Senators--now poor children living in this country--as this chart shows, by the age of 4 they would have heard only one-third of the words heard by their more affluent peers. They are living in poverty, and they have heard 13 million words. A child in a professional family has heard 45 million words. There isn't a kindergarten teacher in this country who wouldn't tell you that makes an enormous difference right out of the chute. Also by age 4, only 39 of the 100 children can recognize the letters of the alphabet--just 39 of 100 by age 4. In contrast, 85 percent of the children coming from middle-class families can recognize the letters of the alphabet. Again, there is not a kindergarten teacher or a high school teacher who wouldn't tell you that makes an enormous difference to kids when they come to school in terms of their readiness to learn. But what happens when they are actually in our schools? By the fourth grade, only 17 out of 100 children in poverty can read at grade level-- 17. That is fewer kids than there are desks in this section of the Senate floor. The entire rest of the floor would be kids who cannot read at grade level by the fourth grade. These kids are reading at grade level. Everyone else all across this beautiful Chamber would not be able to read at grade level in America in the 21st century. Only this section can read proficiently by the fourth grade. What happens as they stay in school? It gets worse. By the eighth grade, only 16 of our kids can read at grade level. I could wander around the entire rest of this Chamber looking for somebody who can read proficiently, and I would not be able to find them. I have been in classrooms all across my State, all across the great city of Denver, and all across this country. In my view, there is nothing more at war with who we are as Americans or who we are as Coloradoans than a fifth grade child reading at the first grade level. There is a lot of discussion on this floor about your moral right to this and your moral right to that. I cannot think of anything less American than a child in the fifth grade doing first grade math. Speaking of math, in a world where technology and engineering and invention are going to dominate the 21st century economy, how are we doing in math? Seventeen of our kids in the eighth grade are proficient mathematicians. When I took the job as superintendent of schools in Denver, a district of 75,000 children, one of the greatest cities in the greatest country in the world, on the 10th grade math test that the State administers, in that district of 75,000 children, there were 33 African-American students proficient on that test and 61 Latino students proficient on the test; fewer than four classrooms of kids proficient on a test which measures--if we are honest with ourselves, which we are not--a junior high school standard of mathematical proficiency in Europe. That is what we are doing to our kids. By the end of high school, if this Senate were a classroom of poor children in this country, only 57 of us would be around to graduate and only 25 are actually ready for college or ready for a career. That is one-quarter of this room; 75, we can just write them off, 75 of these desks. It gets even worse after that because, of our 100 children, only 9 will graduate from college. These two rows of desks represent children coming from ZIP Codes where they are living in poverty and who ultimately make it through to graduate from college. That is it--two rows in one section of the Senate. No one in these rows will graduate from college, and no one in any of these desks from here to the other side of this floor will graduate from college. That has been true for a generation. If we do not do things differently, it is going to be true for this generation of kindergartners, if we do not change what we do. Sometimes people think this is someone else's problem, that it is not a question of national interest. I cannot imagine why anybody would think that, but some people do. McKinsey, the consulting group, has done a study which shows the effect of this dropout rate we have creates a permanent recession in our economy as great as the one we have been through. In other words, if we were graduating these kids from college, our economic growth would be far greater than it is right now. We can see the effect in this recession we just came out of. For people with less than a high school diploma, the unemployment rate was 15.3 percent. We can see the numbers here. But if you had a bachelor's degree or higher, your unemployment rate was 4 percent; 15 percent versus 4 percent in this recession we just went through. But the point is also that it creates a chronic recession, a drag on our economy, not to mention the fact that if we go to the prisons of this country and we ask people did you graduate from high school, the answer is that somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 percent of the people in our prisons are high school dropouts. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how we might start solving that problem by actually graduating kids from high school and getting them ready for college. Again, this is not about we are kind of sort of doing OK. Nine kids from poverty, on average, are making it through to a college degree; 91 are not. It is not as though those odds are somehow fairly distributed across the population in the United States of America. There are huge international implications for all this as well. We can see, these are our students compared to our international peers on the eighth grade math test. We can see our Anglo kids are scoring up here--Korea, Singapore, Japan, Anglo kids in the United States of America. The U.S. average is here, so we have to go Hungary, England, Russian Federation, U.S. average. I don't know why we would not want to be first, but we are not first. But look at how our Latino kids are doing and our African Americans kids are doing. Armenia, Australia, Sweden, Malta, Scotland, Serbia, Italy--our Latino kids, way down here. Keep going, Malaysia, Norway, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Israel, Ukraine, Romania, our U.S. African-American students--right above Bosnia, two steps above Lebanon. Think of it through the eyes of one of our African-American students living in a neighborhood in poverty in Chicago or Denver or Los Angeles or Boston. What are the odds that they are actually going to be able to graduate, that they are going to be able to contribute to the democracy, contribute meaningfully to our economy, compete in this global economy? They are long. They are long and they know they are long. We cannot fix this problem from Washington. But we can call attention to the question. We can create policies and suggestions about how people ought to do the work differently. Having served as a superintendent in an urban school district for almost 4 years and having spent time with our kids, spent time with our teachers, I know we can succeed. The kids have the intellectual capacity to do the work. There is no doubt they do. But they are in a system that was designed deep in the last century. In fact, if we are honest about it, a lot of the way the system was designed was in colonial America. In my judgment, it is time for the burden to shift from the people who want to change the system to the people who want to keep it the same. There were nights sometimes in the school board meetings when people would come and they would say: Michael, how do you sleep at night doing this and doing that and trying to change this and worrying about that? I would say to them: The reason I can sleep at night is that I do not think we could do any worse than we are doing. We ought to think about stopping what we are doing and figure out how to change the way we think about recruiting, retaining, and inspiring teachers in the 21 century. We ought to elevate standards so we are not kidding ourselves across the country about whether we are competing with our international rivals and stop cheating our kids by telling them they are succeeding, when they are not, compared to the kids across the globe. We have to get out of the business of measuring things that do not make any sense to anybody right now who is working in the schools. Who cares how this year's fourth graders did compared to last year's fourth graders? What we need to know is how this group of fifth graders did compared to how they did as fourth graders, compared to how they did as third graders. That is common sense, but it is not the way the law works today. I see my colleague from Georgia, but I wish to say this first. We cannot keep No Child Left Behind the way it is. It is contributing to the problem that is out there. It is making the work harder to do, not easier to do, for our teachers, for our principals, and for our kids. Our moms and dads are right to point out it is measuring the wrong thing and thinking about data in the wrong way. We ought to take this opportunity in a bipartisan way to fix No Child Left Behind, to lift some of that burden from our kids and from our teachers and our principals. What we have to do as we are doing that is, we have to point to the places where it is actually working to demonstrate that the fact that you are born into a ZIP Code defined by poverty doesn't mean your life is going to be defined by poverty. We need to point to examples of people who have managed to struggle through, our schools that have managed to struggle through and beat the odds and are sending 95 and 98 percent of their poor children on to get a college degree. We need to be asking ourselves why we are not achieving that at scale. I am the proud father of three little girls. I can tell you that if anyone in this body faced the same odds for their children or for their grandchildren that poor children in America face, there is no way we would not be talking about this issue night and day. In fact, people might give up. I might give up and rush home and say: I am going to take my kids out of that place they are in and I am going to put them in a place with the finest teachers and I am going to give up this Senate floor to make sure, as a parent, that I am involved in their education. There is no way we would accept these odds for our own children. What I would argue is, the children I am talking about are our children. Remember, 42 out of 100 are living in poverty in this country. What is our answer for them? I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of this aisle to not make excuses, to not find a reason why we cannot lead, to not find a reason why we cannot fix No Child Left Behind but, instead, to create some hope for children all across our country living in urban and rural areas who are suffering this horrible plight. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the 100th anniversary of the city of Westminster that lies along Colorado's Front Range. The city of Westminster will observe this significant milestone on April 4, 2011. Westminster is the seventh most populous city in the State of Colorado. It has had a rich history since the first homesteaders arrived in 1870, shortly after the discovery of gold in the South Platte River Valley. The Land Act of 1862 encouraged many settlers to make Colorado their home instead of heading on to California. The population of the town gradually increased over several decades, and by 1910, public services such as water access were needed to support the community. The village of Harris, named after C.J. Harris, was incorporated as the town of Westminster, CO, on April 4, 1911, by a citizen vote of 29 in favor and 6 opposed. The town was named for Westminster University, which was built in the 1890s on Crown Point. The town of Westminster continued to grow and soon became the center for some of the largest apple and cherry orchards in the country. Northwest of Denver, Westminster remained a quiet rural town until the 1950s when the Colorado State Highway Department constructed the Denver-Boulder Turnpike, bisecting Westminster and contributing to the town's growth. A 21-member charter Westminster convention was elected to draft and review a new charter, which was approved by voters in January of 1958. Providing a safe and adequate water supply has been at the forefront of Westminster's growth since incorporation. The town took a proactive approach to dealing with the community's rapid growth by creating the Growth Management Plan in 1977 that called for allocating service commitments as a method to manage water and other key resources. Westminster has balanced growth with the establishment of an open space program. In 1986, the town sought to implement this approach and preserve and protect natural areas and beautiful vistas that contribute to the unique character of the city. Today, 32 percent of its land is open space and green space and the town has created more than 83 miles of multi-use trails. Westminster's first 100 years are rich in history with monumental milestones that have made it the community it is today. I want to congratulate the city of Westminster as it celebrates its centennial anniversary. I look forward to helping Westminster continue to thrive as it sets out to make history in the next 100 years.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I thank Senator Alexander for his leadership over so many years on education issues confronting this country and making sure every child in America has the opportunity to fulfill their full potential. I thank him also for his work on this bipartisan effort to do something very unusual for government and also for public education, which is actually to begin an inquiry about not what the next rule or regulation should be but whether there are rules and regulations that are now obsolete or whether our State regulations and Federal regulations are actually not accounting for each other in any way other than to overburden the people who are actually teaching our kids and our kids themselves. I used to spend a lot of time when I was superintendent of Denver public schools wondering why everybody in Washington was so mean to our teachers and to our kids. Now that I have been here for a couple years, I know the people here are not mean. But this Senate floor is a very long way from the classrooms of this country--the classrooms in Tennessee and the classrooms in Colorado. We have to remember what the effects of everything we do are on that moment when a teacher is in her classroom with 20, 30 kids and trying to do her best to make sure they move forward. This is an opportunity to not show up with the answers but to ask questions of our teachers and principals and moms and dads and see what we can take away. I have learned something since I have been here, which is that an awful lot of the burden we are placing on people in schools and classrooms and the way in which State and Federal regulations interact with each other--if we can reduce that burden while at the same time elevating our accountability system, improve our accountability system, make sure we are holding everybody accountable for delivering the outcomes from our kids, that not only will we get better results but we are going to find that there is a lot more time in the schoolday and the school year for kids to have well-rounded education all across America. I thank our former Education Secretary for his work, and I thank our current Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, for working with us on this initiative. I am so looking forward to having a conversation with people, where we are saying: What can we take away, rather than: What are we going to impose on you now?

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I will add one more example to this from my experience in Denver. We complied with No Child Left Behind in the Denver public schools. But there was something that didn't make sense to me and to our teachers and our families, which is that we thought we were asking and answering a completely irrelevant question when it came to accountability, which was: How did this year's fourth graders do compared to last year's fourth graders? The accountability system in the United States is based upon that. What our teachers told me is: Michael, it is irrelevant because they are not the same kids. They are right. So we moved to a system that asked the question: How did this group of fifth graders do compared to when they were fourth graders and third graders, compared to what every other child in Colorado with a statistically similar test history did as well. All of a sudden, we began to see places that were driving growth for kids but that were completely unrecognized by the Federal law. We saw other places where kids were achieving at high levels but were falling behind during the course of the year. There is a lot of wisdom in this country about how to move our kids forward. What we have to do is tear down some of the barriers that are in the way of those good ideas. It took me a long time to get that performance system signed off on both at the State and Federal levels. The State of Colorado has a growth model, and we are talking about growth models all over the country as a result of the work we did in Colorado and the good work that has been done in other States as well. Sometimes people ask: Why is it so hard to scale quality in public education? If we can, in some small way, tear down some of the unintended barriers to that scaling of quality education, I think our kids will be better for it. Again, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for signing up on this initiative. I look forward to learning what is working well and what is not working so well in our respective States and watching this spread across the United States. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the importance of a landmark piece of legislation, the Clean Air Act. Congress passed the Clean Air Act over 40 years ago with broad bipartisan support from both Chambers of Congress, and President Nixon wisely signed it into law. Since then, we have seen remarkable benefits to the health of our Nation. We have seen significant reductions in pollution from lead, mercury, sulfur dioxide, and a host of other contaminants. America reduced pollution and made remarkable strides in improving public health even while our economy adjusted and thrived. In fact, the Clean Air Act has a long track record of promoting job creation and economic growth while reducing pollution. The economic benefits of the Clean Air Act are significant. For every $1 spent on Clear Air Act protections, we get $30 of public health benefits in return. In the year 2010 alone, the Clean Air Act saved 160,000 lives and avoided millions of cases of pollution-related illness, including 1.7 million cases of asthma exacerbation, 130,000 heart attacks, 86,000 emergency room visits, 3.2 million lost school days, and 13 million lost work days. This is a profoundly important law. It protects every single American from the types of pollution that can cause asthma attacks, lost school days for young children, emergency room visits, heart attacks, strokes, and even premature deaths. The House of Representatives recently passed a continuing resolution for the remainder of the fiscal year that would make truly Draconian cuts to Clean Air Act funding and authority. These policy riders do not belong in the 7-month budget. And I am glad the Senate recently voted down that legislation. Upon passage of the House bill, the American Lung Association, which is the leading organization working to save American lives from the ravages of lung disease, said: The House of Representatives also adopted amendments that would block implementation of the Clean Air Act and its lifesaving protections . . . These provisions and others adopted by the House would result in millions of Americans--including children, seniors and people with chronic disease such as asthma--being forced to breathe air that is unhealthy. Breathing air pollution can cause asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, cancer and shortened lives. That is coming from one of the most respected public health organizations in the world telling us that this weakening of the Clean Air Act would have dire public health consequences, that more Americans will get sick from toxic pollution. We can and should be flexible and listen to the industries affected by the law, but we cannot undermine its purpose. Legitimate concerns about regulation should be addressed so we can prosper and grow jobs in the United States of America. It is important that the Clean Air Act be enforced in a commonsense manner that is workable for American businesses, but we cannot abandon its core charges--to preserve public health and ensure the cleanliness of the air we breathe. I know there is often tension between the EPA, the regulated community, and stakeholders seeking to navigate the Clean Air Act, and there probably always will be. Our economy functions best and in a way that is best for our citizens when we seek a robust Clean Air Act and are responsive to the needs of our economy. An example of this working well is recent praise that the administration received from the CEO of a leading energy company, who said: When I look at what EPA has done so far . . . it's actually been pretty moderate. When the same CEO was asked whether Congress should delay the administrations's work to protect public health for 2 years, he said: That's just two more years of uncertainty where I think a lot of the investment will remain on the sideline in our industry instead of being invested in technology. We know how to build . . . I don't support delay for those reasons. I support continued implementation of the Clean Air Act and will oppose efforts to undermine this important law. For my part, the decision is very simple: We should let doctors and scientists dictate our public health policy instead of politicians. I hope my friends on both sides of the aisle will come to this same conclusion as well and vote against efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act. For more than 40 years, we have seen that protecting the air we breathe does not have to come at a cost to the Nation's economy. Both can improve, both must improve hand in hand. To close, I would like to reiterate that the Clean Air Act has been successful in reducing levels of dozens of dangerous air pollutants and protecting the health of millions of Americans, all while our economy grew. This is a landmark law that has had strong bipartisan support for decades. The Senate should not weaken it. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, it is with a heavy heart that I rise today to honor the life and heroic service of SPC Joshua R. Campbell. Specialist Campbell, assigned to the 546th Transportation Company, based in Fort Bragg, NC, died on January 29, 2011, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Specialist Campbell was serving in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He was 22 years old. A native of Bennett, CO, Specialist Campbell enlisted in the Army in 2008. He served a tour of duty in Afghanistan, during which his commanders recognized his extraordinary bravery and talent. Specialist Campbell's decorations include the Army Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the NATO Medal. During his 2 years of service, Specialist Campbell distinguished himself through his courage, dedication to duty, and absolute commitment to his fellow soldiers. Fellow soldiers remember him as a consummate professional with an unending commitment to excellence. They remember his generous character and positive disposition. Specialist Campbell's family remembers him as a dedicated son, husband, and father. They also remember him as someone always willing to reach out and help others. Mark Twain once said, ``The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.'' Specialist Campbell's service was in keeping with this sentiment--by selflessly putting country first, he lived life to the fullest. He lived with a sense of the highest honorable purpose. At substantial personal risk, he braved the chaos of combat zones throughout Afghanistan. And though his fate on the battlefield was uncertain, he pushed forward, protecting America's citizens, her safety, and the freedoms we hold dear. For his service and the lives he touched, Specialist Campbell will forever be remembered as one of our country's bravest. To Specialist Campbell's entire family--I cannot imagine the sorrow you must be feeling. I hope that, in time, the pain of your loss will be eased by your pride in Joshua's service and by your knowledge that his country will never forget him. We are humbled by his service and his sacrifice.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise today, March 8, to celebrate International Women's Day, on which we honor the economic, political, and social achievements of women in Colorado and across the world. It also happens to be the 100-year anniversary of International Women's Day. For 100 years, diverse nations have spoken as one to honor the achievements of women and look forward hopefully to a future with greater economic opportunities for all women, including my three daughters, Caroline, Halina, and Anne. I would like to celebrate today by discussing ways that we can build toward that future and create better economic opportunities for women in all countries--from Afghanistan to Zambia, two countries which, incidentally, celebrate International Women's Day as an official holiday. All too often, in many developing countries, women represent a disproportionate number of the poor. According to the United Nations Development Program, women represent 60 percent of the 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day. They also lack access to the same educational and health services as men. For example, two-thirds of the world's illiterate people are women. These disparities are stark, and their causes are the product of historical second-class citizenship for women. Such historical disadvantages are pervasive and systemic. Only with the determined effort of the international community can we begin to break down these barriers and foster true economic opportunities for women. Many women and girls are trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty because of their limited access to basic financial services. Women often manage the household and produce food for the entire family, but they are unable to save money, protect against calamity, or obtain a small loan--simple banking tools you and I take for granted. For example, 75 percent of the world's women cannot obtain formal bank loans, partly because they lack permanent employment, capital, and assets, such as land. In some countries, like Burkina Faso, laws do not specifically discriminate against women, but they do establish landowner criteria that effectively exclude women. One way to bridge this gap is to connect women with access to financial services and microfinance. Very small loans can help some women start and expand small businesses. Others need a safe place to store money as they save for school fees and health care services for their children. Some small businesswomen and female heads of households wish to purchase simple forms of insurance to protect against unexpected illnesses, which can often wipe a family out. By increasing women's access to such basic financial services, we can help countless women weather unexpected storms and gain agency over their economic well-being. Creating economic and financial opportunities for women worldwide is the right thing to do, and it is also the smart thing to do. In countries like Pakistan and Yemen, supporting women can lead to measurable progress in the economic success of families and the direction of tomorrow's youth. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, these efforts can help small-scale, subsistence farmers, most of whom are women, prevent future food crises and help stabilize struggling democracies. Mr. President and all other Members here today, please join me in celebrating International Women's Day by supporting efforts to expand economic opportunities for women around the world.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., on Wednesday, March 9; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, there be a period of morning business until 10:40 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that at 10:40 a.m., the Senate recess until 12 noon for a joint meeting with the Honorable Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia; that following the joint meeting, the Senate reconvene at 12 noon and proceed to the consideration of H.R. 1, as provided under the previous order.