Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Less than that.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for allowing me to speak as in morning business, and I ask unanimous consent to do that.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, this past Saturday my State of Indiana lost a humble giant whose soft-spoken yet very firm convictions influenced many Hoosiers for many years, including me. Former Indiana Governor Otis Ray Bowen, known affectionately to Hoosiers as ``Doc,'' passed away at the age of 95, the culmination of a life spent in service to others. Born in 1918, near Rochester, IN, Doc Bowen earned both a bachelor's degree and a medical degree from Indiana University, joining the Army Medical Corps, after completing his internship, in 1943. He served in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army during World War II and went ashore with the first wave of Allied troops during the invasion of Okinawa in 1945. After the end of the war, Doc Bowen started a family medical practice in Bremen, IN, which he continued for the next 25 years. He estimated that during his career this family doctor delivered more than 3,000 babies. He was first elected to political office in 1952 as Marshall County's coroner and then to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1956. Doc lost the reelection following that 2-year stint by only 4 votes in 1958 but then subsequently was elected to seven consecutive house terms, beginning in 1960. He became minority leader in 1965 and speaker in 1967. He served as speaker of the Indiana House through four legislative sessions. As the 44th Governor of Indiana, from 1973 to 1981, Dr. Bowen served Hoosiers with dignity and respect. His tenure included numerous accomplishments, including landmark tax restructuring, improvements to State park facilities, and the development of a Statewide emergency medical services system. One of the most significant accomplishments of Governor Bowen was a medical malpractice bill he signed into law. Aimed to reduce the cost of health insurance and the burden on doctors, Governor Bowen's medical malpractice law became a national model. Hoosiers will also remember the Governor's passionate love of Indiana basketball. When the TV cameras would scan the players' bench, there was Doc, encouraging the team and, at times, casting a critical eye on the referee who just missed an important call. Following his service as Governor, Dr. Bowen returned to medicine as a professor at the Indiana University Medical Center. But his time in public service did not end there. President Ronald Reagan called Dr. Bowen out of private life and back into public service in 1985 by naming him Secretary of Health and Human Services-- the first physician to serve in this position. In 1989, Dr. Bowen returned to his Bremen home and continued to serve others through various charities and commissions. I was privileged to be able to meet with him on some occasions-- quietly, nonpublicly, just sharing stories, talking about his career, and, more importantly, his love for Indiana, his love for his wife, his love for his country. This good doctor and good Governor will long be remembered as an example of political leadership and human decency. The imprint of his leadership and, most of all, the imprint of his character will live on in the minds and hearts of Hoosiers for generations to come. My wife Marsha and I join millions of Hoosiers as we extend our deepest condolences to his family and also our gratitude for his shining example of a life well lived. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I rise as a member of both the Senate Appropriations Committee on Transportation and as a member of the Senate Commerce Committee to discuss what I believe is a shocking display of mismanagement and incompetence by the leadership of the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration. The Federal Aviation Administration says the sequester will result in as many as 6,700 delays per day. To put this in context, on the worst weather day in 2012, we had 2,900 flight delays. So the FAA's projected 6,700 delays per day would more than double the worst day in 2012. To me, this is disturbing evidence of the lack of planning on the part of both the Department of Transportation and the FAA, leading up to what we all knew was going to take place--in fact, since the law was signed by the President. We have known for 1 year this may happen. The President signed it into law, and we are now many months down the line and suddenly the FAA came along just a few days ago and said: Oh, we just need to let you know, by the way, we are going to implement this part of the sequestration. This across-the-board furlough is especially surprising given the previous announcements their guiding principle when implementing sequestration would be to enact a plan that ``maintains safety and minimizes the impact to the highest number of travelers.'' Announcing 3 days or so before they implement this plan that potentially results in as many as 6,700 delays per day minimizes the impact of the highest number of travelers? This is disingenuous. It is mismanagement at its worst. It is incompetence at its worst. It is a failure to do what every agency has been required to do; that is, plan for this. Now that it has been in law for several months, there is no excuse for simply saying: Oh, we didn't have time to put this in place, so this is what we are going to do. I voted against sequestration because it treats every Federal program on an equal basis regardless of its necessity, its effectiveness, or whether it is an essential function of the Federal Government. Clearly, keeping our skies safe and getting our passengers from point A to point B is an essential function. We need those air traffic controllers. The plan that was put forth by the FAA flies in the face of their own judgment and their own statements in terms of what they needed to do. Instead of furloughing 47,000 employees and causing significant delays for travelers, they should have been seeking reductions elsewhere. We tried to give these essential agencies additional flexibility necessary to do so. Unfortunately, the President did not support that effort, and the majority party in the Senate did not support that effort. Therefore, they have no reason to point their fingers over here and say: Oh, sequestration is so terrible. We never should have been in this position in the first place. The FAA, for the record, could have considered cutting back on the $541 million it spends on consultants--in other words, those who have been hired to work at the FAA because the FAA can't do the job themselves, so they need to spend $541 million to hire outside consultants--and the $2.7 billion it spends on non-personnel costs. But instead of looking at how to better manage their own administration, they turned to furloughing up to 10 percent of the air traffic controllers, creating up to 6,700 delays per day on the traveling public. Then they say they haven't had time to work this out. Haven't had time? They have had months' worth of time since the law was signed. How about the time people now wasted standing at airports for 3 and 4 hours waiting to board their plane and the overall disruption this causes? And this is in good weather. That in itself is a lame excuse the FAA has put forward. I did not vote for the sequestration, as I said before. I thought it was an inadequate way to deal with the necessary need to cut spending here. But the Federal Government says: We would like to do that, but we can't afford to do that right now and still focus on the essential services and give them the opportunity to manage that. Clearly, the FAA and the Department of Transportation have not managed this well at all. This is incompetence. As I mentioned, Congress was only informed just days ahead of the time of these furloughs. This decision kicked in to the surprise of the airlines and to the surprise of Congress. But clearly what we have learned, despite 1 year of advance warning and refusals to analyze all possible alternatives to minimize impacts to the traveling public--and it is hard to come to any other conclusion--is this is a politically motivated decision to inflict as much pain on Americans as possible in an effort to make the case that sequestration never should have taken place in the first place; that a 4-percent across-the-board cut to the FAA budget is simply something they can't manage. In other words, we would have asked the FAA to do what they did in 2010 with the money that was allocated to them, but they can't do that now. This is 2012- 2013 and they need this extra money and they need these hundreds of billions of dollars to continue to hire consultants. They don't want to be asked to make the kinds of decisions every business in this country has had to make over the last 4 or 5 years during the malaise of economic growth following the recession that has taken place. We shouldn't ask them to do what every family has had to do? Their thinking is: We are the Federal Government. How dare you impose a 4-percent cut on what we do. We need to increase that every year because we need to keep hiring more and paying more consultants. We are not capable of managing. It is shocking. I hope the President understands if he wants effective, efficient government, he is going to have to hire effective, efficient management. He is going to have to give them the instructions to do what every business in America has had to do during this difficult economy and slow economic growth. I think we should take a very close look at the kinds of decisions that have been made at the Department of Transportation, the lack of competent management, and the mismanagement of taxpayer money. This administration needs to step up to the plate and be accountable. The President, as I said, created and signed into law the sequestration policy. His administration has known for more than 12 months this policy was imminent and they have done nothing to prepare for it effectively. Our country is a long way from getting our spending under control, so it is time the administration stops looking for excuses and starts managing its budget effectively. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I find myself echoing the words of the previous speaker, my good friend from Ohio. I could have given his speech and he probably could give mine because we are both on the same track. This is an important day. The President will release his budget for 2014. While it is late, it is welcome. We now have three budgets in place. The Senate has voted on a budget, the House has voted on a budget, and the President will be bringing his budget before us. We now have the outlines of the beginning of a discussion and a debate and action that must take place in the next several months. We have wide differences on of how we need to get to where we need to arrive, but at least now we have something from which to work. I urge my colleagues and the President to work together to achieve what is necessary to put this country on a path to fiscal health. It may be over a period of years. It may be measured out in terms of where we are now in the economy, what needs to be applied now versus what needs to be applied later. I have said over and over from this platform and others, if we do not incorporate discipline in our spending, we will have clearly out-of- control spending which will continue to grow year after year. This will also grow the deficit and lead to more borrowing each year, putting our country in an ever-more difficult position. If we do not include disciplined spending within this budget, we will not achieve what we need to achieve. Secondly, if we do not address our out-of-control mandatory spending, we will never achieve what we wish to achieve and we will continue to find ourselves in ever deeper holes. The previous speaker, Senator Portman of Ohio, spoke about the need to make structural reforms in mandatory spending programs. To those who say: You can't touch this. This has been promised to the American people and we cannot even begin to address this issue because these programs should be exempt--those individuals are immune to the reality of the current situation which stands before us. The situation is these programs are going broke. Spending on these programs is unsustainable. Those organizations--and I will not name them here, but I will at some point in time; we all know who they are--are flooding seniors with mailings saying: Don't let them touch your Social Security. Don't let them touch one dime of your Medicare. You deserve every penny. They are lying to those people. They are simply telling them they will be in a situation where their benefits are going to need to be reduced dramatically a few years down the line in order to keep the programs from going insolvent. If we really want to care for and look out for those who are depending on Social Security and Medicare for their later years, we need to stand up now, tell them the truth, and do what is necessary to protect those programs. Standing by and doing nothing, standing by and listening to outside interest groups who are trying to scare them to death means we are denying those people the future income benefits they are receiving under Social Security and Medicare. Let's have the courage to stand up and do what is right, and do what is right for the very people who are being told we are trying to take something away from them. Someone said on this budget coming forward--we don't have all the details. There is the good, the bad, and the ugly. I would prefer to say there is the good, the not so good, and the why are we doing this in the first place. However we categorize this, first of all, let's give the President some credit for taking that first small step toward raising the issue of mandatory spending. My understanding is the President will suggest a modification of the Consumer Price Index, which is used to provide for increases each year in these various programs. Once again we get this doomsday warning: You can't touch this. This is an index which is not correctly applied. We are still simply trying to bring this in line with the actual cost of living for our seniors. Suggesting this gets the printing presses rolling and all of the interest groups saying to send us $10 to save Social Security and everything else. Even this correction which the President has proposed is being criticized, which is beyond description in terms of how people try to take advantage of our seniors and those on these programs. Let's give the President credit for putting this in play. It is a small step. It is not nearly as far as we need to go. There are other structural reforms we need to address. Let's at least acknowledge the President has come forward with something sustentative as a modest first step. Next is the not so good, the call for new spending, new stimulus. We have been through this. We have had nearly $1 trillion of stimulus, about nine-tenths of which is now documented as not stimulating. It is turning out to be a poor, government-selected, so-called investment in the future, which the market has basically said doesn't work. We have solar manufacturing plants closing all over the world. We see wind farms being raised through subsidies. Yet they cannot connect to the grid. It ignores the new discoveries in natural gas and fossil fuel reserves in America. The cost-to-benefit ratio is way out of balance. I now hear the word ``investment,'' not ``stimulus.'' ``Investment'' is another code word for ``stimulus.'' That means it is a code for we will decide where this money goes. The problem is the political animal puts its hands around it and the money goes to beneficiaries or supporters for political reasons. Anyway, government shouldn't be in this business. This is the not so good of the president's budget because it includes $1.5 trillion of additional net Federal spending. At a time when our spending is out of control, how can we come forward with a budget which adds more than $1.5 trillion of new spending and call it investment when it is really just stimulus? We have been there and done that. It doesn't work, so why are we going there again? Lastly, why are some of these proposals in this budget, such as the new taxes which were suggested by my colleague from Ohio? This budget contains well over $1 trillion of new taxes on the American people, after we went through this 3 months ago with one of the largest tax increases in history. Has anyone ever seen an increase in the economic growth through an increase in taxes? Leaving less money in people's paychecks, would this result in more consumer spending which helps our economy? Adding new taxes, a new tax burden to the American economy, when has that ever created a job? We have staggering numbers of people who are dropping out of the workforce and giving up the search to find jobs. Our unemployment rate, our so-called official rate, is phony, absolutely phony. People are withdrawing from the workforce because they have given up on ever finding a job. They are simply changing the numbers to make it look as if we are making progress, but as a result we are not making progress. I notice the majority leader has come to the floor. I wish to conclude by saying we are in a historic time. We are at a crossroads in terms of the future of this country. This is the time when we need to put aside partisan interests, political interests, special interest groups, and stand up to do what is right for the future. What is the future? As someone famously said: The future is now. The future is now for all of those people out of work. The future is now for all of those college kids graduating without a job to go to. The future is now for our senior citizens who have seen some of their savings eroded through this recession we experienced. The future is now for doing what is necessary to put this country on the right track to prosperity. Let's work together. I am willing. I informed the President and my colleagues that I am willing to work with them. I know we will have to make some compromises.

Mr. COATS. Let's seize this opportunity.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 514. It is a bipartisan amendment with Senator Manchin. It clarifies that a Presidential exemption exists for utilities that despite their good- faith efforts have been unable to complete the necessary measures to comply with the standards of the EPA regarding the mercury toxic elements issue. That deadline is 2016. This amendment does not repeal or weaken the existing standard, the MATS rule. It simply allows powerplants that qualify for a Presidential exemption additional time to finish their upgrades and provides much- needed stability and reliability to the electric grid. It is the President's decision, and if he sees that a utility is acting in good faith and needs a little more time to complete it to meet those standards, he can make that decision to provide that additional time. It is a bipartisan amendment supported by both sides, and I urge our colleagues to vote for this.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise today as the senior Senate Republican of the Joint Economic Committee to discuss one of the most fundamental issues this body confronts on a year-to-year basis, or at least should confront on a year-to-year basis, which is passing a budget through which we could operate the rest of the year and measure how we spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately, we haven't had one of these budgets for 4 years. I am pleased we finally have arrived at this particular point. I will speak about that in more detail. A few years back when I was serving as Ambassador to Germany, I made calls on the various ministers. They would be equivalent to cabinet secretaries in our country. I would always try to get a little background information on them before I went to see if we had anything in common, or an ice breaker to start the conversation. I was calling on one of the ministers and noticed, reading his background first, his birth date was the same as mine. It was a milestone birthday. We were both born in 1943. At the time, the date of my seeing him was just a couple of months after we both celebrated our 60th birthday. To break the ice, I said to him: Mr. Minister, we have something in common. He said: What is that? I said: We both were born on the same day. Therefore, we both reached a very important milestone in life. He looked at me seriously and said: And how are you doing with all of this? I said: Well, I am doing fine. I don't feel any different, and I don't think I think any different. It is almost as if the number is meaningless. He looked at me seriously and said: You are in serious major denial. This is a big deal. This is a major milestone. Well, ever since he said that, I have been wondering, gosh, is that little pain in the right shoulder the beginning of more problems and so forth? It reminded me of the situation we faced here when others have said the debt problem we have is not a major problem or that we don't have a spending problem. It reminded me of the minister who said: You have to be in major denial. Year after year, we are spending a lot more money than we take in, and there is no end in sight to that. Mandatory spending alone on programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is projected to double in a few years' time. It is estimated each new child born today will inherit $50,000 or more of debt, which they will need to pay off as they grow, go through their education years, and become part of our economy. They are going to be saddled with this ever-growing debt. My three latest grandchildren, Grace, Charlie, and Avery, all young, just a few years old, are inheriting a very significant amount of debt which will saddle and stifle their opportunities to participate in the American dream and enjoy many of the same opportunities many of my generation have had. Interest rates were held down by the Fed at historically low levels. We might also be facing our day of reckoning. I had the opportunity to speak with the Fed Chairman some time back. He indicated we are running out of tools here at the Fed to address these problems. The people up the street who handle the fiscal issues, not the monetary issues, need to stand up and address the problem. I think we all know we can only keep interest rates low for so long. It is important to understand a 1-percent point increase in interest rates would add over $1 trillion to the United States debt in a 10-year period of time. These historically low rates are not going to stay historically low forever. They are going to rise as investors lose confidence in America's ability to pay off their debts in the future if we keep plunging into the level of debt and deficit spending which has been taking place here over the last several years. Eventually, we are going to reach that tipping point, and when we reach that tipping point, investors and consumers lose confidence. When that happens, interest rates rise. When interest rates rise, it impacts our economy in a very significant, negative way. All we have to do is look across the Atlantic, in Europe, to see what is happening there to get a glimpse of the crisis that can come with not dealing with the ever- increasing debt and not taking the necessary steps over a period of some time to put our country on a fiscal path to health. I think most of us here know that we have to make some tough choices and that it will require political will in order for us to address this. We have been avoiding this for years, and we are going to face a debt-induced catastrophe if we don't address it and address it soon. So when you are faced with this kind of fiscal mess, what do you do? Well, what families and businesses all across America have had to do when they have faced these types of situations--sit down, create a budget, and put themselves back on a path to balance and prosperity in order to avoid the inevitable: a collapse of the family budget or the business budget. Our communities and our States have had to do this. We see this happening everywhere except in Washington. It is this body and this administration that have refused to step forward, No. 1, to pass a budget on which to guide our spending and, No. 2, to make the decisions necessary to turn this economy around and begin to put us on a better path toward a balanced budget. Why a budget? Well, it helps us identify priorities. Sitting on the Appropriations Committee, where agency heads and Secretaries come before us and present their requests for the future fiscal year in which we are making decisions, I ask each one of them: Do you have a plan B? They say: What do you mean by a plan B? I say: if we continue down this path that is going to ever shrink discretionary spending--whether it is for cancer or paving roads or education or any other worthy project, there is going to be less money if we don't address this spending problem, particularly if we don't address mandatory spending. I ask them: Have you looked at doing what every family has had to do and what every business has had to do during these 4 years of tepid growth, which just seems to linger and linger and linger? We still have 23 million people out of work. Have you looked at ways in which you can make your spending and the parts of the budget you oversee more efficient and more effective? Are there things you can cut? Are there programs you can eliminate that no longer are effective or perhaps shouldn't have been there in the first place? Are there things you would like to do but without the resources are not able to do at this time? You know, if a family is faced with lower revenue--dad's salary has been cut or mom has lost that second income or for whatever reason--and they are having a hard time making payments--education for the children, mortgage payments, and so forth--the family has to say: You know, we are going to have to look at how we spend money, and we are going to have to cut back. Maybe we won't be able to go to Disney World this year as we had planned. Maybe we will need to buy a tent and go to the State park or do something less expensive. And if they have kids with a credit card: We are going to have to put limits on that or you are going to have to scale back. These are decisions every family has had to make. These are decisions every business owner is faced with and has to deal with, and they are doing that. But this is a decision that hasn't been made here. Well, it has been 4 years--1,400-some days; I think 1,422 days and counting--since this body, the Senate, has passed a budget which would allow us to determine what our priorities are or at least give us a guidepost as to how we are going to spend money. Four years since this body has presented to the American people, who elected us to come here and represent them, a budget and give them the transparency of how we are spending their money. Finally, after 1,422 days, after 4 years, we have a budget before us. While I am pleased that is the case and I am pleased we are here debating that, it is disappointing when we learn what that budget offers. One would think, after 4 years--and particularly after the 4 years we have been through and the 23 million people unemployed or underemployed and the rate of growth of this economy half of what it normally is-- that the budget being presented to us would take some steps toward addressing our spending issues and would not incorporate $1 trillion or more of increased taxes, which will simply go to more spending. How could we possibly support a budget--being $16.7 trillion in debt--that plunges us further into debt--a staggering increase in debt--and also doesn't reduce spending? That is at least a step but nothing nearly appropriate to what we are facing. So this budget grows government. Let's not make any excuses. It grows government by increasing spending, and it grows government by a massive increase in taxes just after we have had one a few months ago, not counting the massive increase in taxes that is going to occur beginning in 2014 with the implementation of ObamaCare. When we add that up and look at the cost of that, we face a dire circumstance. So one would think a budget being offered to us would not increase debt by 42 percent but would address the real problem. I know there has been a dispute about how much of the budget revenue is increased taxes. Some say $1.5 trillion. Those who have presented the budget simply say: Oh, no, it is only $1 trillion. Well, whether it is $1.5 trillion or only--only--$1 trillion, it is $1 trillion in new taxes on the American people after they just got hit with more than $\1/2\ trillion 2 months ago and are going to get hit again with another $1 trillion when ObamaCare fully kicks in. I mean, it just defies credibility, and I think the investment community and consumers and taxpayers all across America look at this and say: What in the world are you doing? What are the consequences of this? Well, the Heritage Foundation indicates that the Senate Democrats' budget would cost over 8 million jobs nationwide and 225,000 jobs in my own State over the next 10 years. They estimate that the budget would reduce economic output by $1.4 trillion and reduce private domestic investment by $820 billion. We certainly see the trend here, and the trend is a negative consequence not a positive consequence. So I think these statistics emphasize the fact that the entire mindset behind this budget seems to be how we can find more revenue to fund more government spending rather than how do we grow the economy. Our goal ought to be to grow the economy, not grow an already bloated government with more taxes to pay for more government spending. This budget never balances the budget. We will never reach the point our States have had to reach in balancing their budgets. The majority of our States have had to pull themselves out of a hole, and they have done so because many are constitutionally mandated by their own State constitutions to balance that budget. Families have had to balance their budgets, and businesses have had to balance their budgets. Only the Federal Government doesn't seem to balance its budget and this plan doesn't even attempt to get us there. I have been coming to the Senate floor day after day after day this year basically talking about the need for Republicans and Democrats and the President to come together with a bold, credible, and enforceable long-term plan to reduce our debt and put our country back on a path toward growth and prosperity. We need to recognize that it will take more than a quick fix. It is going to take more than this soap opera drama of kicking the can down the road, extending the decisions we have to make for yet another few months behind this, behind that, or whatever. It is going to take the will to roll up our sleeves, stop wasting our time and instead get to work on a plan that will deliver real results for the American people. To solve this dire situation and reduce dangerously high debt, I believe we need a plan that includes three major things: We need to reform the way we spend. We need to go through each program at every agency and department and determine how we can do more with less. My colleague from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn, already has taken steps to triage our Federal Government's spending by identifying programs that are ineffective, unnecessary, and overly duplicative. We need comprehensive tax reform. The Joint Economic Committee has heard witnesses from the left, from the right, from the middle, nonpartisan, Republican, Democratic, Independents, and there is a consensus: If we don't have comprehensive tax reform together with a sensible, credible, long-term, enforceable deficit-reduction plan, we will not pull ourselves out of this mess we are in. The growth element of what we need comes through tax reform. Senator Wyden and I, in a bipartisan way, have worked for years--he worked years before that with former Senator Judd Gregg--on putting together a plan. We are not saying it is the be-all, end-all, but it forms the basis for a simplification of the Tax Code. It is revenue neutral, it addresses our lack of competitiveness around the world in terms of our corporate entities and businesses, it fixes rates at reasonable levels, and it ought to be the basis for at least the discussion and moving forward. If we don't combine our spending discipline with comprehensive tax reform, we are not going to have the element that will produce the growth and revenue that will bring us closer to balance. Finally--I talk about this all the time--let's have the courage to address what we know is driving us into more and more deficit and will prevent us, if we don't adjust it, from ever having a rational plan to get us out of this situation, and that is mandatory spending. Let me quote from the President's own bipartisan commission. They said: By 2025, revenue will be able to finance only interest payments, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Every other Federal Government activity--from national defense and homeland security to transportation and energy--will have to be paid for with borrowed money. That is because our revenues will only pay for these few programs, which are eating up all of our expenditures. So from cancer research to education, from paving roads to air traffic control to meat inspectors, national defense and homeland security, and everything the government does that is an essential function for the Federal Government--all will paid for with borrowed money. Let me go back to their statement. Debt held by the public will outstrip the entire American economy, growing to as much as 185 percent of GDP by 2035. Interest on the debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion by 2020. That is just 7 years away. Returning to the quote: These mandatory payments--which buy absolutely no goods or services--will squeeze out funding for all other priorities. So not only will the uncontrollable growth of mandatory spending squeeze out funding for all other programs or priorities in our country, but it will also jeopardize the safety net we have put in place for retirees who have worked hard and put money aside to become eligible when they retire for Social Security and Medicare and for those who find themselves in a situation where Medicaid is a necessary safety net. We have always taken pride in being a country that is compassionate. We have been a place where, if you work hard, you can earn a good living, you can raise a family, and in later phases of life you will be able to rely on the safety net of health and retirement programs you have invested in. But if we don't act on mandatory spending, if we don't act on Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, we will all but ensure the demise of these much needed programs for future generations. Failing to act and leaving our children and grandchildren with this enormous debt burden is immoral. We all know--or we ought to know by now--our current path is unsustainable. Academics, economists, and business leaders from all sides of the political spectrum repeat the same thing: Unless we make the tough choices we have been avoiding for years, we are going to face a debt-induced catastrophe and it is only a matter of time and the clock is running down. Congress and the President must summon the courage and the political will to do the right thing and take the tough medicine now that will heal this economy. What we have been doing for the last 2 years that I have been here is basically looking at a chronic illness and saying: Take two Advil; maybe you will feel better in the morning. That doesn't work. We need the bold, the credible, and the enforceable plan that will put us on the path to prosperity, and it must include spending discipline, comprehensive tax reform, and mandatory spending reform. I am going to be offering up to five amendments to this budget. I don't want to spend a great deal of time on this now. I will, for the record, mention the five I am going to offer. The first is a mandatory spending budget point of order. This would be a point of order against any legislation that increases the net level of mandatory spending at any time our gross Federal debt exceeds 100 percent of the economy or our GDP. Numerous studies have said that when we reach 90 percent, we are at a tipping point, and it becomes historically proven that it has a serious negative impact on our economy. I have raised this to 100 percent to allow a little room. This point of order will be in place and, if passed, can only be overridden with 67 votes. This should force Congress to think before we act. Secondly, I am offering an amendment that is called debt transparency legislation. One of my colleagues and a Member of the House of Representatives, Luke Messer, has passed similar legislation in the House with very significant bipartisan support. It simply requires the Congressional Budget Office to report annually an estimate of the cost per taxpayer of the deficit for any year that the President's budget is projected to be in deficit. The American people deserve to know this number, and this amendment would achieve that. I am also offering an amendment to repeal the 3.8-percent tax on investment income. If we want to stifle the economy more, if we want to prevent more growth and slow down this economy, throw in yet another tax on the very people who are providing the capital and the investment. We just talked about the medical device tax, which I have supported, working along with Democratic cosponsor Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota and many others who have joined us. It is an absolutely irresponsible tax, simply a way for the administration to pay for the costly health care law that taxes the very industry that is providing us revenues, high-paying jobs, and helping our trade balance exported quality products. This is crippling, and it is forcing some of these companies to look overseas because of this egregious surtax on top of all the other taxes they pay. So I support the amendment of Senator Hatch and Senator Klobuchar to repeal that medical device tax. I am also offering an amendment designed to fix our broken and convoluted Tax Code. I see Senator Wyden has come to the floor. Senator Wyden and Senator Gregg started a heroic project several years ago to put together a comprehensive tax reform package. The work and the hours spent in pulling this together is amazing. When Senator Gregg left the Senate, he called me and he said: This is something I think you ought to take a look at. Perhaps you can take my place and work with Senator Wyden so it can be a bipartisan effort going forward. We have discussed this with our colleagues. It should serve as the basis for tax reform. As I said earlier in my remarks, we cannot address this problem without spending discipline and comprehensive tax reform combined. All the witnesses who have come before us in the Joint Economic Committee have asserted this and enforced this; that it is the necessary element to provide the growth to accompany the spending discipline and, added to that, the mandatory entitlement reform. Finally, an EPA amendment--which working with my colleague Senator Manchin, a Democrat, again, a bipartisan effort--to deal particularly with an EPA rule. I will not go into the details of that. But these will be some of the amendments I will be offering in conjunction with my colleagues to hopefully make this budget a better piece of legislation. To conclude, it has been 4 years since the Senate has passed a budget. The plan before us, in my opinion, has not been worth the wait. It will not help generate more jobs for the more than 23 million Americans who are either unemployed or underemployed. It will not improve this slow economy. It will not save Medicare and Social Security from going broke. It will not produce a path to bipartisan comprehensive tax reform. It will not ever balance the budget. It will not help hard-working Americans get back to work and get ahead in this life. We can do better than this. After 4 years of inaction, the American people deserve better than this plan. The American people elected a divided government. It was not a mandate for either party. It is a challenge, a challenge all of us need to accept. So let us act now. Let us summon the courage to stand and work together on a truly balanced plan--not one that calls for ever more spending and ever higher taxes but one that puts in place real reforms. The first step is passing a credible budget. Sadly, in my opinion, this budget doesn't match the need. Hopefully, we can make the adjustments for this to put us on that path to prosperity. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I was puzzled earlier today when the Senate majority leader came to the floor to propose a unanimous consent request that we move forward with this continuing resolution. He is right, we should move forward with this. But I was puzzled by the fact that he said we have been standing around here looking at each other and we are not doing anything. We have not done anything on the Senate floor for the past 36 hours while we are trying to figure out who has the right to offer an amendment and whether that amendment will be agreed to in part of this unanimous consent request limiting the time. The problem here is that we came to the Senate believing each Senator had the right to offer an amendment. That is what we are here to do, debate that amendment, then take a vote on that amendment and pass the amendment. It is not a question of I will not offer my amendment unless it passes. Let's debate it, see how each of us votes, and then go forward. But the majority leader has essentially said he would decide how many amendments will be offered and which amendments will not be offered, denying Senators the opportunity to bring their amendment to the floor. There is an objection to the majority leader's request to move forward, because Senators have been denied that opportunity. That is not what the Senate is all about. That is not what people elected us to do. We have been in an empty Chamber talking to no one, or at best to each other, and not moving forward with funding this government for the next 6 months in this fiscal year. We are all ready to go forward, but we wish to have the right, particularly as the minority, to offer our amendments to this resolution which provides for this funding. I do not know how I am going to vote on all of these, because on some of them I am not sure what would be brought forward. But we are here to evaluate those, to make our best judgment, to vote our yeas or nays, to be able to explain to the people back home why we voted that way. Apparently the majority leader has problems with some of these proposed amendments. Maybe he does not want his Members to have to vote on them because it is a tough vote politically. Well, what are we here for? We are not here to find consensus on everything that goes forward. We have different points of view. We will not always have consent to pass everything that is brought forward. We ought to be debating that. There are different visions here about how we ought to go forward. The solution to the problem of moving forward and getting this spending bill in place, which we obviously have to do, is to simply give Members the opportunities to propose their amendments, debate, vote on them, and move on. Over these last 36 hours, how many of these amendments could we have been debating and voting on? We probably could have cleared out all of the amendments that were proposed by various Members in half that time or much less. And that is why we are here. We are a divided government, so there are going to be two sides to each issue. Standing around and having one person, the majority leader, decide whether he will subject his Members to a vote because he thinks that might put them in a difficult political situation. His side can offer their amendments, we can offer our amendments. Hopefully, we are offering amendments for the good of the country and not for some political gain or ``gotcha'' amendments. But nevertheless, that is the right of a Senator, to offer whatever amendment he or she deems best in his or her own estimation. We are sitting here facing a serious debt crisis. Some have said this debt crisis isn't here yet so we have more time to deal with it. I reject that. If $16.7 trillion in debt isn't a crisis, I don't know what is. And at the rate we are going here in Washington, we don't have more time to waste. But don't take my word for this. Just last week, we had a hearing in the Joint Economic Committee on the debt crisis. In the hearing, we found widespread agreement from witnesses across the ideological spectrum on a variety of issues, including the vital importance of dealing with our long-term debt in a timely fashion and reforming health and retirement security programs to rein in spending and preserve much-needed benefits. I am going to relate some of their testimony, because I think it's important to establish that there is some consensus here on how to move forward. Former Senator and former Senate chairman of the Budget Committee, Judd Gregg, who now serves as the co-chair of the Campaign to Fix the Debt, stated this: On our current path, this nation goes bankrupt. A similar statement to the one made by Judd Gregg, a Republican, was made by a Democrat, Erskine Bowles, who headed up the President's own fiscal commission, former Governor Bowles and former Chief of Staff to former President Clinton. He said about the looming debt crisis: This is the most predictable financial crisis in the history of the country. That was several years ago and nothing has gotten better since then. We just careen closer and closer to that tipping point. Senator Gregg says on our current path this Nation goes bankrupt. He also noted that mandatory spending is the primary driver of the debt when he said: Unfortunately, all of the measures put in place have ignored smart entitlement reforms to control spending over the long-term and comprehensive tax reforms to make the tax code more efficient. We have all heard that before from people all across the political spectrum. There is a growing consensus these elements must be addressed if we are to address our long-term debt problem. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, noted: The level and projected growth of federal debt is a drag on current U.S. economic growth and a threat to future prosperity. . . . the Nation, despite claims to the contrary, remains on a damaging debt pathway. Dr. Holtz-Eakin countered arguments that reducing the debt is not urgent because the crisis is a distant threat by pointing out the following: . . . the U.S. is already paying an economic price for the excessive federal debt. He was referring to terms of slow job creation and growth. He went on to say: The obvious conclusion is that additional deficit reduction is needed to avoid debt-driven economic stagnation. He called for the following action: . . . a strategy that shifts the focus of spending control to the needed entitlement reforms and shifts the debate on taxes away from harmful higher marginal tax rates in favor of pro- growth tax reform. Alice Rivlin, the first Director of the Congressional Budget Office and co-chair of the Debt Reduction Task Force for the Bipartisan Policy Center as well as a former resident of Indiana, insisted on the importance of a long-term budget plan that will halt the projected rise in debt. She said: The prospect of debt growing faster than the economy for the foreseeable future reduces consumer and investor confidence, raises a serious threat of high future interest rates and unmanageable Federal debt service, and reduces likely American prosperity and world influence. She stressed in her testimony the urgent need to act now to get the Federal debt under control before events overtake us. A sense of urgency was unmistakably present during this hearing. We read about it in the paper every day. We read about it from columnists and hear it on the radio and television: Why can't you get together and get this thing solved and resolved so we can move forward? You are holding down the growth of the economy. You are keeping people out of work. We are at stagnant growth--half our historic average coming out of a recession. We all know a significant percent of the money we spend here has to be borrowed from China, Saudi Arabia, from foreign entities. This is no way to sustain and maintain a healthy fiscal situation in this country. Our final witness at the hearing, Simon Johnson, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, called for significantly more long-term debt reduction than has been contemplated in many of the proposals thus far, suggesting that the U.S. should aim at a national debt in the range of 40 percent to 50 percent of GDP. Let me repeat that. Simon Johnson said that more long-term debt reduction than has been contemplated in many of the proposals so far needs to be looked at, suggesting the United States should aim at a national debt in the range of 40 to 50 percent of GDP rather than our current 90 to 100. When discussing how much time we have to act, Dr. Johnson said: We have no idea . . . We should start now. We absolutely should start now. We should be spending each day here working on a long-term debt reduction plan, because unlike the haphazard, rushed legislation we have seen over the past few years, a real, credible, long-term fiscal plan cannot happen overnight. It requires bold spending reforms. It must include a way to restructure programs like Medicare and Social Security so we can prevent them from going bankrupt and preserve benefits for current and future retirees. Let me state that again. Those of us who have stood up and taken a stand on dealing with these so-called political suicide issues-- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security--are saying we need to do something now to prevent these programs from becoming insolvent, to prevent benefits from having to be reduced or massive tax increases on the next generation to be imposed in order to keep them solvent. We want to deal with that now so we don't undermine these programs. Those who say we should not touch Medicare are not being truthful with current and future beneficiaries of that program. The same is true for Social Security. They are saying, we don't want to make the tough decision now to address some of these problems and make sensible reforms. We will be gone when this comes undone. What they are saying to people is that we are going to turn our heads to the plight of future beneficiaries, and even to current beneficiaries of these programs by not doing anything. It is time we worked together to find a solution to this. I think there is a consensus that comprehensive tax reform--an area that I believe both sides can find common ground. Comprehensive tax reform is absolutely essential, as our witnesses all stated, to providing the growth element so this country and this economy can begin to grow. Additional revenue will come in from a more prosperous nation and from a greater rate of growth, and that will help us reduce our deficit spending, it will help us move toward a balanced budget, and keep us from continuing the plunge into more debt and more deficit. Comprehensive tax reform is the best way to reduce the debt, grow the economy, and make America more competitive. Grow the economy--not more government. That is what makes us more competitive and puts more people back to work. That is what puts us on a path to American prosperity. These things will not be easy. It will require time and it will demand political will courage. So let's get moving. The Senate majority leader needs to stop wasting time, allow Members to offer and vote on amendments so we can get to regular business of the Senate done and focus on the larger priority--growing this economy. Your Members, our Members--ones we like, ones we don't like. We are sent here to make the tough choices, to make our yes or our no and represent people back home. That is what the Senate is all about. So instead of standing here speaking to an empty Chamber and letting the clock run down so these amendments can be closed out and never offered under this bill, we should be debating these issues. In doing so, we can get to the point where we will have our final vote and, hopefully, we will be funding the government going forward. It is called regular business and that ought to be our focus. Growing this economy and strengthening it for future generations is the challenge before us. It is the challenge of our time. We need political will and courage and boldness to go forward, but it is absolutely essential for the future of this country. I suggest that instead of standing around doing nothing, we begin to address these issues. Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. COATS

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

Mr. COATS. Madam President, when I go back to Indiana and meet with Hoosiers, they often ask why Washington seems to experience a crisis every few weeks. It is a debt limit battle. It is a threat of a government shutdown. It is the fiscal cliff on New Year's Eve. It is the sequester. And the list goes on and on, including the funding battle we are in now. Of course, the next round of the debt limit debate is scheduled for May, and on and on it goes. Hoosiers and I think most Americans--and I think most Members of this body--are getting awfully tired of this soap opera drama that occurs every few weeks here. I think we need to move to the point where we can address the major issues. One of the steps in doing that is to fund this government for the next 6 months. I do not know of anyone here who wants a government shutdown. We do have some urgent things we need to do. We do need to address our funding imbalance that is significantly creating a major problem for us, but in order to get there, we have to do some interim things here to keep the country functioning. We need to commit to go forward and do the big things. In the meantime a 6-month funding resolution has been brought forward here. There are things in this that none of us are going to like. Everybody is going to have problems with parts of this. Everybody is going to think it should have been fashioned just a little bit differently. The leaders of the Appropriations Committee have put a great effort into constructing a resolution that I think will adequately fund this government going forward, but they do so with the understanding that the commitment to address our spending issues and the commitment to do everything we can to put together a large plan in order to deal with outgoing issues is absolutely necessary. Hopefully, that will be accomplished in the next few months. To start that, you have to have a budget. I am pleased now that we are going to be taking up a budget debate in terms of the next fiscal year's funding, and we will be taking that up next week. So these two measures together, with the sequester that is already in place and actions that have already been taken, hopefully will be putting us on a path to fiscal health and solvency. Every family, every business, even local and state governments have to operate on a budget or they cannot maintain and establish the kind of fiscal discipline necessary to get to the point where they are not spending more money than they are taking in. We have seen a cataclysmic plunge into debt that has enormous impact on the future of this country, and we have to address that. Vice President Biden once said: Show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value. Well, for 4 years we have been waiting to see a Senate budget, so we do not know what is valued. Finally, we are getting to the point where we will address that. I think the responsibility to provide a budget on which to operate is not only lawful, as it is currently enshrined in our statutes, but it is a moral obligation we must fulfill as a body. Without casting blame on one side or the other, it is time that we go through the budget process and establish the direction in which this government will go in terms of spending for the next fiscal year. Given our soaring national debt and out-of-control spending, eventually we are going to have to make very tough choices that we have been avoiding for years. The more we prolong these challenges we face and the longer we wait to act, the harder it is going to be. We have the responsibility to wisely spend the taxpayers' dollars and not to ask more of them than is absolutely necessary to perform our essential functions. I am urging my colleagues to go forward in doing what is necessary to keep this government operating but do so with the commitment that we will address these tough questions, that we will address the necessary procedures and make the tough, necessary decisions to put our country on a fiscal path to health. Without that, we are jeopardizing our future, and we are condemning millions of Americans to unemployment or underemployment. We are growing at half the historic rate and have been for the last 4 years. If this stands the way it is, we will continue to see a country in decline, and, more importantly, we will continue to see people hurting. We will continue to see people without meaningful work. We will continue to see an inability to provide the kinds of opportunities, innovation, and creativity that have made this country so successful in the past. So with that, Madam President, there does not appear to be anyone ready to speak. I am happy to stop now, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

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

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE, initiated an unexplainable order to take action to reduce the population of detained illegal aliens, and they said it was for budgetary reasons. I quote a spokesman for ICE, who said the decision was made because ``fiscal uncertainty remains over the continuing resolution and possible sequestration . . . '' Well, we have had fiscal uncertainty for 4 years now, and the decision to release these detainees was made before the sequestration even took place. The procedures put in place under the continuing resolution and the resources for covering the costs of detaining these illegal immigrants until they could be brought to trial and sent back home were put in place by the funding we provided for the agency in September, running through the end of this month, or until March 27. So a lot of questions need to be answered about ICE's decision because there was a furor over why we are releasing illegal immigrants back on the streets of America. Why are we putting these people back out on the streets when the law didn't require it? The resources were there to keep there, and yet many were released before the sequestration even took place--before the across-the-board cuts even took place--and I want to get some answers. So I wrote Secretary Napolitano a letter asking her to provide answers to a series of questions, which I will state in a moment, and have the answer to me in my office by Friday, March 8. Well, I returned today to find the answer was not there. I could give the Secretary the benefit of the doubt and say it is in the mail. We know it doesn't always guarantee next-day delivery. Nevertheless, I think the American people need to know. Particularly those impacted, those communities impacted by these illegal immigrants--not knowing who they are, not knowing why they were released, not knowing whether we can bring them back to stand before a judge and plead their case or be processed for return. The law enforcement officials in these communities are up in arms because they don't know who these people are. They don't know whether they are criminals; they don't know whether they are ever going to be able to bring them back into the ICE system and be detained and readied for processing. So that is why I asked the Secretary to respond to my letter. Subsequent to that, officials at ICE have denied recent press reports regarding plans to release even more detained illegal immigrants. Last Tuesday, an internal ICE document obtained by the House Judiciary Committee revealed a plan of ICE to continue reducing detention center populations each week while the sequestration is in place. That document shows one scenario where the number of illegal immigrants in custody could be reduced by more than 1,000 a week between February 15 and March 31. The initial report said it was a couple hundred--I think 300 was the number given--only to find out it is more than 1,000, and now we find out it may be more than 1,000 each week for about a 6- or 7-week period of time. What we are trying to do is get the facts and get an explanation of what has happened, why it took place in the manner it did, and what is the administration's plan for going forward with this. I am doing this because as ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, I am getting all kinds of questions from people--not just my colleagues but others across the country--basically asking what is going on here. I wish to be able to respond to those questions with answers, or have the Department respond. As the head of the Department, Secretary Napolitano needs to provide information on who made this decision, why this decision was made, why was it made before sequestration even took effect, why was the number of released individuals said to be around 300 when it was well over 1,000? Releasing the detained individuals has the potential to put these communities at risk and sends a message to those who come here and break the law as illegal immigrants that our government is not serious. I am sure word is spreading through Mexico and other ports of entry to illegal immigrants: Don't worry, you may get picked up; you may get put in a detention center; they will provide a bed, food, and so on, but they are releasing 1,000 a week. I can just see the traffickers now pitching this to tens of hundreds or thousands of people, taking their money, getting them across the border, reaching the fence, or tunneling under the fence or climbing over the fence, or any of a number of other ways they are bringing illegals into this country. I spent 3 days down on the border. While we are making some strides, we have a long way to go to stop this illegal immigration. So we need clarification and we need an explanation of what has happened. Let me state some of the questions I have raised to the Secretary: Why did the Federal Government release detained illegal immigrants 1 week before the sequester took effect and blame it on budget cuts when those cuts had not even yet been put into place? Why didn't ICE take the proper steps necessary to manage its resources efficiently across the various programs? As I said earlier, the Congress itself provided them with adequate resources to maintain a level of 34,000 illegal detainees per year and not go below that. They do not need to go below that number because they had the resources to pay for it. They are required by Congress to do that. What triggered ICE to instruct field offices to reduce the detainee population a week before the sequestration hit? How many illegal immigrants were released during that time? Exactly how many of these individuals were released solely due to budget reasons? How many of the released individuals, if any, were designated as criminal? The law enforcement people obviously need to know that. Have instructions been given to field offices to reduce the intake and arrests of illegal aliens into detention? These are just some of the many questions I asked Secretary Napolitano because I think Congress and the American people deserve answers. As the head of the Department, Secretary Napolitano has the ultimate responsibility to oversee the decisions in the management of agency resources. She said this decision was made at a level below her. We hear a lot of that from administration officials: It is not my fault, it is somebody else's fault. That is why they rise to the position of Secretary, because they are the ones who ultimately oversee the program and need to take responsibility, or at least need to answer a question posed by a Member of the Senate as to why they did what they did and how we are going to fix this. Failing to respond to the Congress and to our requests and the failure to provide the American people with more information behind this decision is simply not something we should accept. I will keep pressing for these answers. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, last week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement--also known as ICE--initiated a precipitous action to reduce the population of the illegal immigrants detained by the U.S. Government for, they said, ``budgetary reasons.'' Let me quote ICE spokesperson Gillian Christensen, who stated, ``As fiscal uncertainty remains over the continuing resolution and the possible sequestration, ICE has reviewed its detained population to ensure detention levels stay within ICE's current budget.'' So the result was a release of a significant number of detained illegal immigrants and blaming it on the sequester's imminent budget cuts last week, when it appears ICE mismanaged its resources. That is unacceptable. This was an unnecessary action. It has the potential to put communities at risk. It is ineffective, inefficient, and irresponsible government. Let's be clear about something else that ICE points to as a reason for this action, ``fiscal uncertainty.'' Fiscal uncertainty is what has defined our economy over the past 4 years because this government cannot get its act together. This government has failed to define for the American people, whether it is business men or women or whether it is homeowners, or anyone else in this country who is looking to Washington to get its act together, what the future will look like. Then decisions can be made as to how to adapt to necessary changes or modifications given our dismal fiscal situation, plunging into debt at record rates, borrowing 40 cents of every dollar. It is unsustainable. But instead of providing a clear path forward on how we will address this, we continue to lurch from cliff to cliff, fiscal calamity to fiscal calamity. It is freezing everything in place. The economy is suffering for it, and more than the economy, Americans are suffering for it. The 23 million Americans who are either unemployed or underemployed are suffering greatly. Sadly, this uncertainty and the budget constraints we face should not catch any department or agency by surprise. This is not good government, but it is the Washington way under this administration and the current Democrat-led Senate. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have known since September 28, 2012 exactly what level of resources were available for ICE under the current continuing resolution. For those who do not understand the jargon that comes out of this place, ``continuing resolution'' means a stopgap measure that Congress put in place last September in order to fund this government at the current levels. That expires March 27. We likely will do it again for the second 6 months of the year, instead of putting a budget together, instead of putting together something that would give the American people certainty as to how much money we are going to spend, and what effect it would have on the economy. Anyway, ICE has known their spending level since September 28, as has every agency. So they had plenty of notice. Why then would ICE release detained illegal immigrants a week before the sequestration even took place? Why did they not take proper steps necessary during the 6 months time they had to evaluate this and manage their resources in a way that would not require that someone make the decision to release hundreds if not thousands of illegal immigrants? In an effort to sort out the facts, I have requested Secretary Napolitano provide in writing more information and answer several questions regarding the release of those individuals from detention. Question No. 1: What triggered the ICE instruction to the field to reduce the detainee population by this date? Secondly, what is the total number of detainees released between February 22, 2013, and February 25--a 3-day period of time? How many were released? These numbers have been all over the lot, from the low hundreds to well into the thousands. We need to know how many illegal immigrants were released in the United States and under what conditions that decision was made. We need to know how many of these detainees were released solely due to so-called ``budgetary'' reasons. How many of the released detainees were designated as criminals? If additional funding can be found first within ICE or DHS for custody operations, will these released individuals be returned to detention, and how will they be rounded up and how will they be found? We know that not all law enforcement authorities were notified of this in Arizona. It is unlikely to think that we know where all of those individuals are at this time. I do not think they are going to come back and voluntarily line up and say: Oh, I am back; I knew I should not have been released. Have instructions been given to field offices to reduce the intake and arrest of illegal aliens into detention? Furthermore, I want to know if the Secretary agrees with the decision to release these individuals. If not, what is being done to modify this action so it does not take place in the future? I am also concerned that the administration has not taken accountability for this action. Secretary Napolitano distanced herself from the press by saying, ``Detainee populations and how that is managed back and forth is really handled by career officials in the field.'' Well, that may be the case, but that is not an appropriate response. Is anyone in this current government willing to take responsibility and say, the buck stops here? I am assigned to this position and therefore I take responsibility for what happens underneath my position? This constantly, ``well, we didn't know about that,'' or ``that is somebody else's obligation,'' or ``really, do you expect us to be on top of that''--yes. That is why you are CEO for a company. That is why you get paid more than anybody else. That is why you were selected as Secretary of a department or the head of an agency, to take responsibility for what happens underneath you. I was also struck by the Secretary's comments at an event hosted by Politico yesterday where she talked about the challenges DHS faces because there is not the opportunity to shift money around. I agree with that. Republicans agree with that. On this floor, just last Thursday, Republicans put forward a proposal to allow agencies to do just that after weeks and months of moaning and groaning by this administration and by its various agency heads about how this sequestration has made the situation much worse. It is stupid. It is a terrible way to do things. I agree, by the way. However, we need to be able to have the flexibility to move the money from less efficient--or not needed at this time--to the essentials. We wouldn't need to put out statements such as: Arrive at the airport 4 hours early because we need to cut the TSA agents at the same level as the least function of this particular government. We put that proposal before us. The President, who has been begging for this, simply said: No, we are not going to do it. It was a quick change of mind. I think it destroyed his political narrative. This proposal was before this Senate body last week to give those agencies the flexibility to take from one pot that wasn't needed as much--or take from areas that are efficient--and put it toward traffic controllers, transportation security officials, FDA, Department of Agriculture meat inspectors, wherever the priorities lie. To complain about not having flexibility when your own President rejected the proposal given by Republicans to allow that to happen, it just boggles my mind. As I have said many times before over the past 2 years when the various department heads come before the Appropriations Committee: Do you have an alternative plan? Do you have a plan in the event the money doesn't continue to flow in from the taxpayer at a rate which allows you every year to increase, increase, increase, your spending? We are running out of money. Wouldn't it be wise to look at how you could run your department more effectively and efficiently as States have had to do, cities had to do, businesses had to do, families had to do? They need to make those decisions about separating the essential from the ``would like to do but can't afford to do it right now.'' We need to eliminate the items and programs that never should have been funded in the first place or the programs that used to work, but are not a high priority any longer. Manage your department in a way that you can become more effective, do more with less. To date, all the answers that have come back are, no, this is what the administration wants. This is what we are going to do. We are going to ask for an increase next year, and we are going to tell the American people we need to raise their taxes in order to pay for it or we are going to continue to borrow and go deeper and deeper into debt. It is a terrible way to run any organization, whether it is a Little League organization, a business or even the Federal Government of the United States. No agency can assert with any credibility that it cannot perform its stated mission if it is asked to join the rest of Americans in reducing its budget and making modest cuts. The irony is that the more Congress and the President delay action on a bold long-term fiscal plan with credible spending reforms, the more all other programs, agencies, and departments will need to cut back and do more with less. We are simply pushing the problem down the road for another day. Each time we push it down the road with short-term fixes or no fixes at all and don't address the real problems, we are making it ever harder and will be forced to do it in a more Draconian way. If the Cabinet Secretaries want more flexibility with their budgets, I urge them to encourage the President to lead and reform the main problem and to address the main drivers of our spending, which is the runaway mandatory spending that is eating everybody's lunch. Whether you are for paving more roads, fixing more bridges, funding more medical research or whether you want more money to go into education or any other function of government, if you can't address the big donkey or elephant in the room, which is the mandatory runaway spending, there is not going to be enough funds for any other priorities. We have all known that year after year after year. Without leadership from the top this cannot happen. It has been tried many times, sometimes with bipartisan efforts, all shot down because we don't have leadership from the White House and from the President of the United States. He is the chief CEO of this country and he needs to manage resources in a more effective way. Only when we do that will we be able to avoid these constant budget showdowns and short-term stopgap measures which don't solve the problem. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I am happy to do that.

Mr. COATS. Madam President, as I look at my watch, the clock is ticking toward midnight. Midnight becomes March 1, and that is the point at which the sequester kicks in, which is the across-the-board cuts--hardly massive when this year it will be about 1.2 percent of our total outlays this year. So, I am not sure how the word ``massive'' can be used with any credibility; but, nevertheless, this is going to happen. Republicans have proposed a way to address the President's concerns-- the very concerns that have been stated on this floor--including the concern that across-the-board cuts is no way to govern because it doesn't separate the essential from the nonessential. I think we as Republicans couldn't agree more. It is not the best way to govern, because it treats everything on an equal basis and basically says that every Federal program, no matter what its performance over the years, doesn't deserve a look at how to adjust it for its lack or strength of performance. It doesn't separate what the essential functions of the Federal Government are from the ``this is what we would like to do but can't afford to do right now.'' So, to say that this government and the out-of-control spending that has occurred over these last several years is totally functional and that every penny we have spent is wisely spent and has been done in the interests of the taxpayer and protecting their hard-earned dollars, and that the money we are extracting from them through ever-increasing taxes--some of which happened less than 2 months ago on every American; every American's paycheck was reduced. It is not just the millionaires and billionaires who took the hit, because $620 billion over 10 years of money comes out of Americans' paychecks. So, for someone to say that what we are doing is massive when this year it amounts to a 1.2-percent cut in total spending, when virtually every business in America, every family in America has had to tighten its belt, given the recession and the slow economic growth, when we continue to have 23 million unemployed or underemployed people in this country, and then to simply say we don't have a spending problem, as the President famously said, defies common sense. We don't need fancy explanations or fancy words such as ``sequester'' for the American people to understand what is happening here. They see their States having to tighten their belt. They see the companies they work for having to tighten their belt. And, as families, they see themselves having to cut back on some of their spending or some of their future plans because they no longer can afford to do it. The only entity they see in the United States not addressing a fiscal imbalance is the U.S. Government. In an attempt to deal with this a year and a half ago, Congress passed the so-called sequester. The sequester was a fallback in case we weren't able to come to grips with the problem we have and reach an accommodation, an agreement, on how to address it in the best way possible. This was the fail-safe. And all the attempts, starting with the President's own commission, which he rejected, and then the Gang of Six proposals, and then the supercommittee of 12, all of the efforts, many of them on a bipartisan basis, for whatever reason did not succeed. So, what was put in place to drive a solution, didn't drive a solution, and as a result, here we are with a sequester. But, to say the sequester cutting, this year, 1.2 percent from total spending, is going to make the sky fall and cause a total economic meltdown and keep people from getting on their planes and keep us from ordering meat because meat inspectors can't go to the meat processing plants to certify the quality of the meat, and all of the things the President is out campaigning for, for his own program--it was the President's idea. Maybe it was his staff, but he certainly had to agree to it. It was proposed by the President and now he is out campaigning against it. In fact, it wasn't that long ago when he said if it didn't go into effect, he would veto it. So there has been a real change here, and I won't go into the motivation for all of that. There is also talk about balance. Balance is a code word for new taxes and for more taxes. It has been said over the past couple of years, during the campaign and leading all the way up to the fiscal cliff vote, that Republicans would refuse to give in on any kind of tax increase, even if it was on millionaires and billionaires. In the end the President won that battle and Republicans supported it. Even though we did not believe that was the best way to go forward to get our economy to grow and to provide the kind of economic growth we are all looking for, we supported that. Now, we here we are just two months later with the same tired phrase that Republicans won't take 1 penny from the rich when they just took $620 billion from the rich; therefore, what we need are more taxes on the American people to achieve balance. It seems the White House has an obsession with solving this problem through increasing taxes and not wanting to make the hard decisions to cut even 1.2 percent of our total budget--2.4 in succeeding years. To say we cannot, through our oversight responsibility, find 2.4 percent, and this year 1.2 percent, of waste, of corruption, of misuse of programs that no longer are viable--maybe they were well-intended in the past but they certainly have not proven themselves worthy of asking taxpayers to keep sending their hard-earned money to Washington in order to cover that spending--when Senator Coburn, Senator Toomey, when many of us--I have been standing here every day in virtually every session basically saying, just through waste and ineffective programs we can easily come up with this amount of money. Everyone else in America has had to do it. Why can't we? The charge we have heard over and over is that this is such a terrible way to address it that we need the flexibility so these agencies can move the money around and take the money from the nonessential programs to keep the security at the airports with the FAA and the air traffic controllers and also keep the meat inspectors and the others who are essential. In order to keep them from having to take the hit, we came up with the idea--Senator Toomey and Senator Inhofe--that gives the executive branch the flexibility. That is what they have been asking for all these years. If we have to have the sequester, just do not do it across the board because it forces us to do things we do not want to do. But if we had the flexibility--if you could give us the flexibility--then we could move the money within the accounts and we would still reach the same amount of cuts--the 1.2 percent of this year's budget--but we would have the flexibility to not have to scare people or keep people waiting in lines at airports for 4 hours and do all the things, all the doomsday scenarios that have been proposed by the President and his Cabinet members. We bring that forward and then suddenly there is a 180-degree reversal on the other side, which basically says: No, no, no. We do not want flexibility. That is not the way to do it. Well, what do you want? Yesterday you wanted flexibility. Today we gave it to you, and today you are saying: No, we do not want that. It sounds like what they want is only a solution to this problem if there is a big increase in taxes. This word ``balance,'' which I say, is a code word for taxes. I just came from the Joint Economic Committee where a very respected economist, Michael Boskin, said: Balance is not 50-50 if you want economic growth because every dollar you raise in taxes is a hindrance to economic growth. He said: I am not saying there should not be increases in taxes. But the ratio should be ``5 or 6 to 1.'' If you want to position this country for growth, you need about five to six times the amount of spending cuts as taxes increased. So balance--50-50--according to a very respected economist and many others--I do not know of anybody who said raising taxes encourages growth because it takes money out of the private sector and gives it to the public sector. But rather than get into that argument today, what the President defines as balance is simply evermore taxes to solve our problem, when we know that after 4 years of effort here that has not worked, and it will not work.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am going to wrap up because my colleagues want to speak also. But, let me say this: I have been saying from this platform, and I have been saying from everywhere people will listen that we need to move to a solution to the problem. The solution to the problem involves, I believe, three or four essential elements, and I think there is widespread consensus on this among liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, economists, and others. Unless we address that which is growing out of control--which is our mandatory spending--no matter what we do on the spending level and no matter what else we do, we are not going to solve this problem and we are going to keep careening from short-term fix, short-term measure to the next one, from fiscal cliff to fiscal cliff. Already, we have another cliff which people have not paid much attention to at the end of this month, where we have to fund the government for the rest of the year. That will be another drama, soap opera, played out before the American people. In May, we hit the debt limit. None of this is necessary. None of this had to happen if we had taken the steps we knew we needed to take that were presented in the Simpson- Bowles presentation to the President years ago and, unfortunately, rejected that and basically said we are headed for catastrophe, we are headed for insolvency because this mandatory spending is growing out of control and the amount of discretionary spending we have which we can control is ever shrinking. Yes, we need to sort out the fat, the duplication. My colleagues and I have been laying out things that I do think any American who looks at it carefully would say: Of course we do not need that, of course that is not an essential function of the Federal Government. It has had a miserable performance as a program. Why do we keep throwing money at it, particularly at a time of austerity when so many people are out of work. Yes, we need to do that. But that needs to be coupled with what I think there is almost full agreement on: The need for comprehensive tax reform. That is where closing the loopholes, which Republicans are willing to do in order to lower the rates, to make us more competitive and make our Tax Code much simpler and much fairer--that needs to happen. Of course, it cannot happen if we take closing loophole money and use it for spending, which is what the President wants to do instead of using it to make our code simpler, fairer, and make us more competitive around the world and to promote growth. That is a proven process. Unless we put that together with some regulatory reform--but most important of all and most essential of all is to address the runaway mandatory spending, which if not addressed will undermine the sanctity and the solvency of entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. The trustees--do not trust a Republican conservative saying this--the trustees of the programs have said: ``You have to deal with this, and the longer you put it off, the tougher it is and the more painful it will be.'' This morning, again, Dr. Boskin and even Dr. Goolsbee--the President's former Economic Council head--said you have to do this, you have to take it on. You are taking it on to, one, save the programs, two, save the country from bankruptcy, and, three, give us the opportunity to have funds to pay for the essential functions of government. We are not against government. We want it to be leaner, more efficient, more effective. My State has taken measures that quintuple what is being talked about here. We ended up achieving a surplus. We have a AAA bond rating. We have made our State government the most efficient, effective government with taxpayer dollars of any State in the country. It can be done, and it can be done here. But what we have that is different from what our States have is the fact that mandatory spending--that spending which we have no control over--is eating our lunch. Until we step up and deal with it, we are not going to solve this problem; we are going to keep careening from crisis to crisis. The real issue is--at this point, with the sequester going in place-- can we step up and sensibly adjust it through flexibility in terms of how we reach that goal? Can we summon the will and the political courage to do what we all, I believe, know we need to do; that is, simply to do what is right for the future of America--America's interests not our own political interests? Finally, in my opinion, that cannot be done, despite all the time, all the efforts made, many on a bipartisan basis--Simpson-Bowles was bipartisan, the Gang of 6 was bipartisan, the Committee of 12 was bipartisan. It is not true we are at a standoff in terms of how to go forward. What we have not had is leadership from the White House. Something of this magnitude cannot be done without Presidential leadership, and the President has refused to do anything other than plead on a campaign basis for yet evermore taxes, which he calls balance. So that is our challenge. We need you, Mr. President, to lead the way. We will work together with you in putting together a package which achieves the right ratio. We will work together to do what is right for the future of America and not what is right for our political future this year or next. I guess we are pleading with the President. Similar to Presidents of the past--Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat, took on the toughest issues and together we worked for the benefit of our people and for the future of this country and we made enormous strides in that regard. But it would not have happened had the President not become engaged. At this point, the only engagement the President has made is to call for higher taxes and go out and campaign against those of us who are trying to sincerely address this problem. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, normally I would be talking about the sequester and the Nation's fiscal health, but we are about to vote on a critical nomination for a very critical position in this government. I wish to spend a few minutes defining why I came to the decision I have to oppose the confirmation of Senator Hagel to be Secretary of Defense. Chuck Hagel is a former colleague. He is someone I respect for his honorable service to this country, both in uniform and out of uniform. I respect him as a human being and as a person and, as I said, a colleague. I also recognize that elections have consequences, and in most situations the President has the right to choose his own advisers, but this is no ordinary Cabinet position. This is Secretary of Defense and one of the most critical positions in this government to protect the American people and to deal with national security issues. Based on a number of positions Senator Hagel has taken and a number of statements he has made throughout his career, I have serious concern that his nomination and confirmation will send the wrong signal and could have a very adverse effect on our national security. I will list those. First, and the primary reason, goes to the question of Iran and its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons capability. As a Senator, Chuck Hagel repeatedly voted against sanctions legislation. He even opposed sanctions aimed at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who were killing and maiming our troops in Iraq. As someone who, as ambassador to Germany, made many trips to Landstuhl, the first stop for those maimed by improvised explosive devices supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, I saw the tragic consequences of their action. I could not come to grips with how it is possible to vote against efforts to try to sanction and punish those who were injuring and maiming our soldiers. During his recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Hagel also proclaimed the legitimacy of the current regime in Tehran which has violently repressed its own citizens. We have seen that played out before our very eyes. They have rigged recent elections, provided material support for terrorism and denied the Holocaust. Regarding U.S. policy in Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, Senator Hagel displayed an embarrassing lack of knowledge and confusion regarding our official policy toward Iran--a well-understood policy. One of the most critical topics facing our Nation is Iran's threat to world stability by the possession of nuclear capability and weapons. Senator Hagel had to be handed a note by an aide, indicating he was not aware his answer was contrary to even the administration's position. And his attempt to correct his answer had to be further clarified by the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. This is central to our position, to our policy relative to how we deal with Iran. Yet our next Secretary of Defense stated a position exactly opposite from what that current policy is. The second issue of concern to me is that it is widely accepted, I think in a bipartisan way, that any sound strategy on Iran must be underpinned by the highly credible threat of U.S. military force if all other efforts fail; if diplomacy fails, if our ever-ratcheting sanctions fail as they have to this particular point. They may have had an impact on the Iranian public, but it has not had an impact on those leaders who are making the decisions about the pursuit of nuclear weapons. This has broad bipartisan support: Four U.S. Presidents, including President Obama, has declared that an Iranian nuclear arms capability is ``unacceptable.'' Use of military force as the last option, if all other options fail, is central to our ability to success in preventing Iran from achieving this capability. Senator Hagel's previous statements and record contradict all that. He has publicly stated that military action to stop Iran's weapons programs is--and I quote his statement: ``Not viable, feasible, or reasonable.'' Not reasonable? Is it not reasonable to have a policy the administration has adopted and four U.S. Presidents have endorsed? When asked about this at the hearing, he again failed to offer, in my opinion, a coherent response. Senator Hagel has long called for direct, unconditional talks with the Iranian regime, not to mention direct talks with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria as well. He has pressed that such talks should proceed without the backing gained from other more forceful, credible options. This approach is far too weak, in my opinion, to be effective and reveals a person less committed to results than this critical moment-- particularly regarding the Iranian intentions--demands. In fact, I fear a military option will have virtually zero credibility if Senator Hagel becomes Secretary of Defense because it sends a dangerous message to the regime in Tehran and undermines our efforts to prevent their intentions as it seeks to obtain the means necessary to harm both the United States and the country of Israel. Lastly, and the third reason I have problems with this nomination, is that it does not have bipartisan support. Over the last half century, no Secretary of Defense has been confirmed and taken office with more than three Senators voting against him. Further, in the history of this Nation, in this position, none has ever been confirmed with more than 11 opposing votes. The occupant of this critical office should be someone whose candidacy is neither controversial nor divisive. It would be unprecedented for a Secretary of Defense to take office without the broad base of bipartisan support and confidence needed to serve effectively in this critical position. At this critical time in our Nation's history, we need a Secretary of Defense who commands bipartisan support and is willing to take every action necessary to defend the United States if the need arises. Based on the years of public statements and actions taken during his career, I cannot say Chuck Hagel meets the criteria needed for this position that is so critical--the position of Secretary of Defense; therefore, I will oppose his nomination when the vote comes before us. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, earlier this week I outlined four main topics that I hoped to hear the President discuss in his State of the Union Address. Today, I would like to talk in more detail about one of those items and perhaps the most challenging--restructuring Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to preserve them for current and future generations. In Washington, these three programs fall into the category of mandatory spending, meaning they are not contingent on annual congressional review or funding. Instead, they are based on formulas that have already been written into law, and therefore this spending occurs automatically, as if it is on autopilot. So, anyone who becomes eligible for the program based on the requirements in the law automatically qualifies for the benefits. We do not have the ability on a year-to-year basis to review or change this. We can only make structural changes and reforms to the program as necessary. Today these items make up a majority of the government's annual budget. This is because when these programs were implemented they did not take into account the remarkable and wonderful increase in the lifespan of Americans, nor the impact of the post-World War II baby boom generation reaching the point of retirement age, which is now at the level of about 10,000 retirements each and every day of the year. That is putting an enormous strain on the overall budget and the amount in proportion to the budget that goes for funding these mandatory programs. After World War II and after a long decade of depression, Americans saw a bright new future. They came home from the war. They began to start families. Millions upon millions of children were born in the post-war period up until the earlier 1960s. This is the so-called baby boom generation. Initially, when they were born, certain industries came into play. If you were in the diaper business, suddenly you were in a boom business or cribs and strollers and then tricycles and bicycles. These children moved on to the age where they began to enter elementary school, and we built schools all over the country to accommodate this growth in our population working their way through the system. Then it was junior highs and then we needed to enlarge our high schools, and new colleges and universities sprung up across the land, too. Upon graduation, they found jobs, and it was time to start their own families--housing boomed. Throughout the whole lifespan of this baby boom generation, there have been enormous economic changes to adapt to this massive amount of people working their way through life and becoming such an integral part of the American dream and American history. We often talk now about this issue in cold hard facts because this generation is reaching retirement age, moving into retirement and qualification, for Social Security and Medicare coverage in massive numbers--10,000 or more a day. But when we are talking about it in just cold hard facts and numbers, we tend to ignore the impact of these programs in a much more personal way on our American public. Becoming eligible for the programs we are talking about means access to health care during a more difficult time of life. Perhaps you are no longer covered by your employer because you have made the decision to retire or reached retirement age. There are health care issues as we age that we wish did not happen, but they come on in ever-increasing intensity. It means grandparents having enough money to travel to see the kids and a new grandbaby. It means men and women who have worked hard all of their lives to provide for their families finally having the financial freedom to take some time off to retire. Hoosiers and Americans all across this land have paid into the system all through their working years. They rely on these health and retirement security programs and their benefits. These are honest, hard-working men and women who have been told that if they made contributions through their paychecks to these programs, they would become eligible at a certain age for a certain standard of coverage. They expect to receive that. So, the challenge before us today is to make sure these benefits continue to be available to both current and future recipients. But, as we examine our Nation's current fiscal state, we all need to come to terms with the fact that these programs will not be available in their current form if we do not make some necessary changes. The Heritage Foundation reports that mandatory spending has increased at almost six times faster than all other spending. In other words, spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is growing faster than all of our spending on defense, education, infrastructure, medical research, food and drug safety, homeland security, and I do not begin to have the time to list all of the various functions of spending that go toward reaching out and meeting the needs of this country. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported this month that spending on these programs and interest on the debt will consume 91 percent of all Federal revenues 10 years from now. Imagine our budget as being a big pie. It is cut in certain slices in terms of how much money is spent on defense, how much money is spent on mandatory programs, and the amount of money that is spent on all of the other functions in which the Federal Government is engaged. That part of the pie which provides for the automatically entitled mandatory spending benefits is growing at a rate that is unsustainable. It is ever shrinking the defense and nondiscretionary part-- everything else we spend money. We spend too much money on too many things so we are going to have to be very careful. I have talked about this many times of how we spend and allocate funds in the future. Unless we address this runaway mandatory spending issue, we are not going to be able to have the funds to do even essential constitutionally mandated things, such as providing for our national security and making funds available for paving roads, health care research, education, or whatever else we feel is appropriate for our Federal Government to engage. Furthermore, this mandatory spending has enormous impacts on our young people. In a recent New York Times column titled ``Carpe Diem Nation,'' David Brooks wrote about two ways spending on health and retirement programs not only threatens our economic growth but hurts young people. It squeezes government investment programs that boost future growth. Second, the young will have to pay the money back. To cover current obligations, according to the International Monetary Fund, young people will have to pay 35 percent more taxes and receive 35 percent fewer benefits. This is the plight that exists. These are the cold hard facts. We have to deal with this math. Understanding how we deal with this directly affects people's lives, directly affects the benefits they rely on for their retirement and for their health care. The challenge before us is to understand, if we don't do something, this 35-percent higher taxes and 35-percent fewer benefits on our young is not only unacceptable, I think it is, in my opinion, immoral. Immoral for our generation, for this Congress, and our executive branch to leave our children and grandchildren in such a position without doing something about it. The challenge before us and the goal this body should be striving for is finding common ground--not how to eliminate these programs but about how to save these programs while ensuring we have adequate resources to finance the essential and necessary functions of the Federal Government. This starts with our constitutional obligation to provide for the Nation's security, the security of the American public, as well as providing for the general welfare. Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals recognize we need to restructure Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security if we are serious about putting this country on a sounder fiscal footing and if we are going to be able to keep these programs from becoming insolvent. Hopefully, there are Members on both sides of the political spectrum who agree we need to make the changes now in order to avoid more painful changes later. We have been postponing this action and this needed legislative process for decades. It has always been too hot to handle. It is too politically damaging. It might put us in political jeopardy. The President, in his State of the Union Address, said it is time we put the interests of our Nation ahead of our own personal political interests. I couldn't agree more. That is what we should always be doing. We have not done that when it comes to this critical issue, which has such an enormous impact on everything we do. It has such an enormous impact on people who have saved all their lives for the benefits they were promised when they retire or became a certain age or the young people in this country who are coming out of school, starting a family, getting a job, hoping to also participate in the American dream, owning a home, and raising a family. We have the freedom our country provides us in ways no other country ever has or perhaps ever will. We are so blessed to have been born in this country, to live in this country, and to have the freedom and the possibility of achieving our dreams. All of those are in jeopardy if we don't address this situation. For decades now, we have known what is coming. We have seen a growth in our population of baby boomers moving through their entire lifecycle and are now reaching retirement age. We have postponed this over and over. We have come up with short-term solutions over and over and over and failed to come up with any long-term solutions over and over and over. The time is now. We are at the point where if we don't do something now, the prediction of David Brooks is going to take place. Our young people are going to be saddled with ever-higher taxes to hold up a system that is going to only be able to deliver ever-lower benefits. As we consider the right path to move forward, we need to acknowledge that any bipartisan congressional effort to reform and preserve these programs will be unsuccessful unless the President shows a willingness to get involved and engage fully in this effort. I believe he understands the magnitude of the issue because he has said: I refuse to leave our children with a debt they cannot repay. We all want a government that lives within its means. We need to get our fiscal house in order now. We cannot kick this can down the road. We are at the end of the road, said the President of the United States in comments made when he was a Senator, comments made when he was a candidate for President, comments made when he was President during his first 4 years, and comments made subsequent to that, in his inaugural address, and in his recent State of the Union Address. We need more than talk. We need engagement. We need an engagement of the President if we are going to make these difficult decisions to put our country on a better fiscal path and to save these programs for those who have put their hard-earned money and work into them and then not qualify for those benefits. I would like to take this opportunity to remind the President of his repeated commitment to reduce our debt and deficit. I want to remind him of the many times he has spoken about the need to fix Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Now, Mr. President, what I would like to say is this: We need more than your soaring rhetoric. We need more than the promises you made. We need your direct engagement if we are going to address this fiscal crisis and essentially do what I think all of us know we need to do. We basically have two options: we may continue with the status quo and wait until the moment that a crisis hits and we may no longer send out the checks; we must raise taxes once again to cover a program that should have received needed reforms or at the point where the programs become solvent. Or, the alternative is that we can come together and commit to the American people that we will act and no longer avoid or delay the challenging and necessary task of fixing these programs to save them for future generations. I stand ready. I trust my colleagues stand ready to address this issue now, and we are asking you to stand with us. Let's do what we all know we need to do to restore our Nation's fiscal health, to save these programs from insolvency, to grow our economy, and get Americans back to work. The time is now. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

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