Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I will not begin to use that amount of time. I think I can use 10 minutes or less, and I will leave some time for my colleagues. I can't count how many times I have been here speaking about the same subject, but this subject occupies all of us and it has done so for this entire session of the Congress. Three days are left until we reach that date on which the White House and the Treasury has said we will default. Right now, we are debating on a Saturday night over a bill that has already been defeated in the House of Representatives by a substantial vote, including with Democratic support. We are debating a bill tonight that we know will not pass here. The irony of being charged with filibustering the majority leader's bill, the Reid bill, is somewhat bizarre given the fact that Republicans are willing to give Senator Reid and the Democrats a vote on this bill as soon as they want it. It has been going on now for many hours. I think everything that can be said for or against this bill has probably been said. Nevertheless, the majority leader himself objected to our offer to stop talking on both sides and get to the vote. That is where we are. I have been talking for some time now about the fact that the current fiscal crisis the United States faces demands Congress to recognize seriously the enormity of the problem and come forward with a bold plan. We need a bold plan to begin to address, over a period of time, what is necessary to assure the financial markets and the American people that we understand the plight we are in; that we have taken not only rational steps but significant steps to address the problem we are in; and that we are willing to put comprehensive plans in place to get us on the path to fiscal health. Yet here we are, and after months of debate, we are now debating over just a small step forward, which, in my opinion, will not begin to satisfy the serious problems we have. A small step will not begin to satisfy all of those who are concerned about whether we truly grasp what is necessary to be done; whether we truly understand that we need to send a signal to the financial world, to the world itself, and to the American people, that we have taken the necessary steps to put our country on the right fiscal path. Now, it is clear, and it has been said so many times, that our spending addiction has become much worse in the last 2\1/2\ years. We have seen a 24-percent increase in non-defense discretionary spending under the Obama administration. We have seen a staggering increase in the debt from $10.6 trillion on Inauguration Day to $14.3 trillion today--a $3.7 trillion increase in just a 2\1/2\-year period of time. Clearly, these attempts by the President to address our economy have not succeeded. The President's stimulus plan cost an additional $862 billion, and we haven't seen an economic stimulus. The latest reports are staggering to all of us as we find out that our growth in the first quarter of this year was far under what had been projected and had been calculated initially, and unemployment is not going down. People are out of work. Clearly, we need to make significant strides forward. I will not go into all of the details of the flaws of the Reid plan. It has been talked about, and it was soundly rejected by the House. We know it will not achieve the necessary number of votes to go forward, but we are debating it. I want to talk about the larger question, which is, are we going to take significant steps to put us on the right track, or are we going to compromise to the point where the rating agencies, the financial world, and even the American people look at it and say: Is that it? Is that all you can do? What is interesting is that my colleagues on the other side have talked about a compromise. They say we should move to the middle. But it is like taking a scale of 10 and reducing it down to 4, and instead of a compromise being 5, they have lowered the top line to 4 and said we need to get down to 2 or 1\1/2\. And if we are not willing to go that far, then they say we are not willing to compromise. That is distorted logic. More important, it is logic, or illogic, that is driving us to an incomplete solution to a very real problem. It doesn't take much to understand how this is being viewed. Just in the last couple of days, the New York Times ran a headline basically saying ``Recovery Still Slow and New Data Show Little Growth Ahead.'' The Washington Post has a headline, ``A Stranglehold on our Domestic Policy,'' by Michael Gerson, who used to be one of my staff members. There is another one by Robert Samuelson, ``Why Are We in the Debt Fix? We Have to Address Healthcare Spending.'' The Wall Street Journal reports, ``U.S. GDP Grows just 1.3 percent.'' On and on it goes. My own view of this--which is not because I am a brilliant economist, I am not; and not because I am a financial analyst, I am not--but I have talked to dozens of people who don't have political skin in the game but simply have analyzed this in an objective way and indicated that, unless we come forward with something close to--actually something above a $4 trillion limit in spending reductions over a decade, combined with a path to entitlement programs restructuring and curbing excessive mandatory spending, combined with an overhaul of our complicated Tax Code to make American businesses more competitive and spur economic growth, we will not be addressing the problem. So the problem is that too many people are thinking that if we just end up with this compromise, if one side or the other will move just a little, we will be able to increase or avoid default on the debt limit, and we will have addressed the problem. For those who say this is just step 1, and we can address it in step 2--the balance we weren't able to do here--I don't think the American people have much confidence in that. I don't think the American people have much confidence when we say we will have a group of Senators and Congressmen, on a divided basis of Republicans and Democrats, sit down and then report something to us and that will solve the problem. The difficulty there is that those are the same people here who have not been able to solve it in 7 months of debate--sometimes with Democrats and Republicans engaging in those debates. I don't think it is going to be solved because we may arrive very much at the same stalemate that has arisen after these 7 months of debate, partly because there are two visions in place here. I think what this debate is all about is this: what is the proper role of the Federal Government, and what can the Federal Government afford to do and not afford to do? On the one hand, we have people who say government has grown too big. Republicans are saying we cannot afford big government anymore, and it is hurting the economy. That is a vision for the future that is very different from our colleagues across the aisle, who basically see government as much more engaged in the process and don't want to cut back on a number of programs and a number of initiatives and policies that have been put into place over the years. It is not quite that clearly divided by this aisle. There are people on both sides who have shades of one way or shades of the other way. But the reality is, if we look around the world and look at models as to what makes economies flourish and what makes governments financially stable, we see that an overgrowth of promises--overpromising Parliaments and Congresses--finally bridges us to the point where we no longer can afford what we have promised people. That is where we are now. Without putting those practices into place, I fear that whatever we do will not be sufficient. We will get the downgrade anyway, and we may get a precipitous action that puts us in a far more difficult situation than it would have been had we come forward with something significant now, at a level in which those who are analyzing this say we have it, the U.S. government is serious about it, they have locked it in and made sure it can't be overturned, and injected certainty into the future. Even though some of that certainty is painful, it will be rewarded, I believe, with support because it is sufficient to take the necessary first steps. Knowing we are 3 days away from default, I propose that if we can't come to agreement on something sufficient, we should provide an extension, short-term, whether it is 4 weeks, 6 weeks, or 8 weeks, guarantee that we will not default with the amount of money on the increase in the debt ceiling, in return for an equivalent amount of spending cuts. This would give us some time to come together and do what I have outlined--or something close to it--so that in the end we do not have an immediate default, and we do have a commitment to go forward and put something of substance in place and give it one last shot. Maybe I am a starry-eyed optimist. Maybe I am just hoping that whatever we do can be built upon and brought to the point where it will become effective, rather than fearing that what we do will be relegated as a step far too short to address the problem of our time. Madam President, I wish we had done more. I think we still can do more. But decisions have to be made in a very quick matter of time, whatever we do. Even if we end up passing something that is insufficient, I hope we will start work the very next day on addressing the real problems that we face and putting something into place that will restore confidence and ensure that America is not going to become a second-rate nation; that we are not going to see a devaluation of our dollar and a loss of confidence in the American people, investors, and the world. I hope we put something in place that ensures America will still be the place to do business, to live, to prosper, and to have a safe haven for funds. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Thank you, Mr. President. And I thank my colleague, also, for her patience. To send us here, after 7 months, and come up with something that is short of the minimum, that continues the uncertainty--are they going to be able to pull it together with this two-stage process and gathering Senators and Congressman together to put a plan together that we have not been able to do in the first 7 months but we will do it in the next 5 months? A lot of people have some real problems with that. I want to close by saying we cannot give up on the process of getting America back to fiscal health. We have to keep working. I have proposed a way here to try to do something better than what we are going to be faced with in doing in order to avoid this default. I am hoping we have the opportunity to do that. If not, I am hoping we have the commitment to go forward and do what we all know we need to do for the sake of the future of this country--the country we love and want to be prosperous for the sake of the future of American families and their children. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, are we under a time agreement?

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, for several months now, I have been on the floor speaking, urging both Republicans and Democrats to listen to Americans and take this unique opportunity we have before us to do what is right for our country's future. Mr. President, 2010 sent an unmistakable message. Americans do not want us to spend beyond our means, more than we take in. They do not want higher taxes. They do not want budget gimmicks, and more smoke and mirrors. They want real, serious solutions to address our real, serious problem. We have worked several months to try to do that. As I talk to Hoosiers all across the State of Indiana-- businesspeople, retired workers, young people, and others--I sense the fear, frustration, disappointment and even anger in a growing number of people that started in 2010 and is accumulating as we continue to careen toward a potential budget default without a sensible or serious plan in place to get us back on the right track toward fiscal health. American families are scared. They are scared, and they are frustrated, and I think rightfully so. They are worried about paying next month's bills. They are worried about getting a loan to buy a house or credit to help support a business. They are worried about being able to pay for their kids to go to school in the fall, just a few weeks away. Our seniors are scared. Throughout this debate, they have been used over and over again as a political football for scare tactics. My phones are ringing off the hook with seniors basically saying: We have been told you are going to take away all of our benefits, but that is absolutely not true. We are trying to save those benefits. We are trying to take the reasonable measures necessary so those benefits for Social Security and Medicare are there for seniors in the future. American businesses are frustrated. They are sick and tired of Washington's inability to act. The Washington Post reported this week that ``business leaders are growing exasperated with Washington. And they say dysfunction in the political system is holding them back from hiring and investing.'' The markets are jittery. We have seen a pretty good drop in the markets just this week. The dollar fell to a new low against the yen, and the yen is not doing that well. We continue to see stocks tumble. So many have asked: Why haven't we acted yet? What are we waiting for? Why haven't we passed a bill to avoid this default? Why are we in this period of uncertainty, taking it right up as the clock ticks toward August 2? While the President refused to even put forth a plan, House Republicans have been working to pass legislation. They passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. They brought it here to the Senate floor. We were not even allowed to debate or vote on it or have amendments. For those who do not like it, there would have been an opportunity to improve it, there would have been an opportunity at least to have a ``yes'' or ``no'' vote on whether this was the path to where we needed to go. But we did not have that opportunity. Now, even as I speak, we are moving toward another vote in the House--something similar coming forward tonight by Speaker Boehner and Republicans in the House. Unfortunately, it looks as if we are going to be blocked from debating that bill. There will be yet another motion to table, to deny the opportunity to move forward. We know there are things going on behind the scenes, but this does not provide any assurance to the American people that whatever is being debated and put together is going to solve the problem. We are days away from exhausting our financial options, and we do not even allow those bills that do come before us to be debated. Now, we have few options left in these few days remaining: We can, No. 1, default and watch our U.S. economy be downgraded, interest rates rise, and the confidence in the United States as a place to safely invest your money deteriorate all around the world. This would be the first default in American history, except for a technical glitch some many years back. The second option before us is we can pass legislation that is below where we need to be and where we ought to be, but we were not able to get there. Although it would avoid a default, it might not avoid a downgrade of our credit because it has not matched and met the minimal requirements of what most who have analyzed this situation have understood we need to undertake. The third option--which has not been talked about too much, but several of us have been discussing this possibility--is to pass a short-term extension that will avert a default and allow us to continue to work for a serious fix that gets to those minimal measures necessary to make progress toward fiscal health. That first option is not a viable option. Default has consequences we cannot begin to understand, and eventually those bills which the American people and their congressional representatives have put in place have to be paid because those promises were made. The second measure--it may be what we are faced with, perhaps the best of the worst; is passing subpar legislation that begins the process of addressing it but is woefully short of really what needs to be done. The third option, the short-term extension, is a way we can avoid the default and we can achieve cuts for the amount of necessary borrowing authority to get us through this period of time, whether it is 2 weeks or 4 weeks or 8 weeks. This short-term period of time would allow us to make yet one last-ditch chance to try to bring forward something that will avoid default but also put us on the road to fiscal health. So I am urging my colleagues, if we cannot come up with something better than what we have, to give that serious consideration. What are those minimum levels? A $4 trillion cut over 10 years has been told to us over and over and over by anyone who has analyzed this situation as the minimal amount necessary to go forward. Others suggest quite a bit more. The Gang of 6 was working on, I believe, at least $4 trillion cut over that period of time. Simpson-Bowles provided for $4 trillion or more. Senator Coburn has brought out a plan, and others have suggested we need to be in the $9 trillion to $10 trillion range. But everyone has said you need to at least be at $4 trillion, and we are short of that, considerably. We are also short of having serious commitment, plan and timetable to address the structural unraveling of our mandatory entitlement systems--Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. This has been the political football kicked around, scaring seniors and others by saying Congress is here to try to take away their benefits, when actually we are here trying to save those benefits. But without structural changes in those programs, it is driving this deficit to a point which will be unsustainable in terms of providing benefits for those who need them. We are going forward without a commitment to balance our budget, which I think is absolutely, ultimately the only thing that will keep us from doing binge spending here. The tendency is to want to say yes to everybody and no to nobody. We need something that will force us to be faithful to the Constitution of the United States, to have a balanced budget and not spend more than we take in. Also, we all know we need an overhaul of our complicated Tax Code to make American businesses more competitive and to spur economic growth. After all is said and done, what this is really about is getting our fiscal house in order, getting our economy moving again--there was a terrible number this morning about the virtually small, almost nothing, lack of growth in the first and second quarters of this year--but getting the economy growing again so we can get people back to work. That is what it is all about. We are not here to have Draconian cuts just for the fun of it. We are here to get our budget in balance so we can get our economy moving so people can have viable jobs for the future, so those kids coming out of college have a place to go, so the 55-year-old worker who is laid off and may never get back to work can get back to work, and so those who are seeking meaningful employment to pay their mortgage and raise a family and buy a home and send their kids to school will have the ability to do that. That is what it is all about. We are not doing this just for the fun of it. It is no fun to tell people we have to cut this and cut that and sacrifice here and sacrifice there. But we have put ourselves in the position where we have no other choice. To spend all of this time here, 7 months of diligent work by a lot of people----

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I would like this Chamber to know that today marks the 88th birthday of one of the great Members of this Senate body, a true American hero, former majority leader Bob Dole. As I reflected on the extraordinary life he has led--I had the privilege of serving under him as a Senator and working with him in the private sector, getting to know him and his wife--I could not help but note that the leadership he provided in comparison to the lack of leadership that is being provided in this body now stands in great contrast. There is an absence of leadership and seriousness of purpose that Bob Dole would never have allowed had he been majority leader. I say that because I come to the floor today greatly troubled by the remarks that were made here in this Senate yesterday and again this morning by the majority leader regarding the bill that is before us. The issue here takes two tracks, one of which is the content of the amendment and the bill that is before us that was voted on by the House of Representatives, passed by the House of Representatives, and sent over for us to debate and pass. We can disagree--and I think there has been some misrepresentation of what this bill actually does--we can disagree about the contents of it, but we have an obligation and a responsibility to debate those contents and to put every Member of this body in a position of saying ``yea'' or ``nay'' on amendments that might be offered to improve it or to change it or to modify it and, finally, whether to support it or not support it. The vote here this morning denies us that opportunity. This is a vote on a motion to table. You know, there are a couple of definitions of ``table''--more than a couple. One of those is getting to the table to negotiate something, just as the NFL players and owners are doing and, much more seriously and with many more consequences to the future of this country, what we ought to be doing--putting it on the table, debating it, addressing it, expressing your support or nonsupport, defending it, characterizing, mischaracterizing. That is what this body is about. It is the world's greatest deliberative body, and we are deciding not to deliberate this bill at all. The second definition of ``table'' is taking it off the table. So the majority leader has said: I am not going to allow you to debate it. I am not going to allow amendments. I am not going to allow up-or-down votes so the American people know where we are. This is a motion to table, so we don't even have the opportunity to debate it. It was the majority leader himself who said: We are going to be in session every day until we get this settled. Now he comes down here and says: I am not going to waste 1 more day on this. Yet there is nothing on the agenda. Senators who were told to be here every day, that there will be a vote on Saturday, are now told: We are having a vote this morning--on Friday at 10 o'clock--and then you can go home for the weekend. He hasn't even told us when we need to come back. What kind of a contradiction is that? What kind of leadership is that? We don't know whether we are supposed to be here or are not supposed to be here. Are we supposed to be debating what is happening with one of the most serious crisis we are facing, that the country has ever seen? Particularly in the financial area, it is the most serious, perhaps except for the Great Depression. And we are told we do not even have time to debate this, that this is a waste of time. I quote the unbelievable statement that has been made by the majority leader: This piece of legislation is about as weak and senseless as anything that has ever come on this Senate floor. Really? I can spend half an hour talking about senseless legislation, egregious legislation, discriminatory legislation that has come to this floor and been debated and not just tabled. To characterize the serious efforts of the Members of the House of Representatives and the Members of the Senate, including some Democratic Members, to try to fix this problem--to characterize that as ``senseless and wasteful''--``I am not going to spend one more day of time,'' he said, ``on this senseless legislation.'' I thought on reflection the majority leader would come here this morning and say: Perhaps I overstated the problem. Let me better explain where I think we are, where we need to go. But, no, he comes down and he doubles down this morning--doubles down--and says: ``It is a very, very bad piece of legislation.'' ``Without merit.'' ``It gets in the way.'' It gets in the way? We are talking about dealing with cutting spending that we know we cannot afford. We talk about putting some caps on it so we don't keep doing this in the future, so we have a path to fiscal responsibility. We are talking about a balanced budget so we live within our means. That is getting in the way? This body has failed its responsibility to be faithful to the Constitution and faithful to the people of America. As a consequence of that, we are sitting here saying we are not even going to debate something that was brought forward with hundreds, if not thousands of hours of effort. Maybe you don't like it, and maybe you don't agree with it. Well, stand up and say so and tell us what you want to do about it. The majority leader and his party have not brought one piece of legislation to this floor. The President of the United States has not offered one proposal in writing that we can work with. We have not had the opportunity to debate for 1 minute anything the other side has offered. So we bring something forward, and it is called a ``worthless piece of junk.'' Is that what the American people sent us here to do? I came here to find a result to the dire fiscal situation our people are in, and the majority leader comes down here and says we are not responding to the will of the people. Where has he been? What planet is he on? Responding to the will of the people? They are sick and tired of government spending more than it has. They are sick and tired of being told they are handing over debts to their children that are never going to be repaid. And we are told that we want to take this off the table so we can't even debate it. I woke up in the middle of the night so frustrated and so angry after spending last evening saying I am hopeful that we can come together and work something out, and the well gets poisoned last evening by the majority leader and gets poisoned again this morning. Those of us who have worked our tails off to try to get something done are told this is a piece of junk. That is not what I came here to do. That is not what we came here to do. I didn't come here to get mad this morning. But I am just tired of this stuff that goes on around here. When Democrats and Republicans-- and the majority leader knows it--are meeting in back rooms together, signing letters together to the President to ask him to step up--32 Democrats and 32 Republicans--the President ignores that and does nothing until the very end, and he comes here and says: Look at me. I took care of everything. America is worried to death about the future. To say we haven't done anything except put forward a worthless piece of legislation--it is so worthless we are not even going to allow you to talk about it or debate it, we are not allowing amendments to take place, we are not going to give it the respect it is due. So if you do not like it, come down here and tell us you do not like it, and let's have a vote on why you do not like it instead of just simply saying: Take it off the table. I guess we are all getting frustrated. There is a 100-and-some degree heat index outside. I can understand people getting worked up about all of this sort of thing. But the future of America is at stake. This majority leader is not allowing us to deal with it. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I come down here frustrated and hopeful. I want to see the glass half full even though we have been through a frustrating number of days and months dealing with our debt crisis, and here we are careening toward another crisis. Congress went through this earlier in the year. It seems as though the only way we ultimately get things done is to take it right up to the edge and then come through with an agreement. I don't think it is fair to the American people. It clearly isn't a formula for providing certainty in our economy for those who are running businesses and for households that are making tough decisions. If there is one word that characterizes where we have been this entire year, it is ``uncertainty''--uncertainty about what the future is going to look like. Are we going to default or not? Do we have enough money to pay the bills or not? What are the consequences of a potential default? When we had the continuing resolutions to provide funding for the rest of the year, we went from one extension to another extension to another. Everything is in limbo. How can you run an economy, how can a business man or woman make a decision if they don't know what is coming down the line in terms of taxes, in terms of regulations, in terms of the economic climate, in terms of whether people will be buying, selling, or just sitting on their money? Into the third year of a slowdown and recession, the economy is growing but not growing at a rate that is putting people back to work. We all want to get the economy moving again, and inserting certainty into the process will certainly be a positive step forward. I think there is virtually unanimous consent that this government has grown too big, it spends too much, it doesn't have the revenues to pay for what it does, and there needs to be real reform taking place soon. We are 12 days away from August 2, the date the Treasury Department has indicated we run out of money and don't have enough to pay our bills. Obligations that have been committed to and promised can't be paid because we won't have the funds to do so on August 2. We have known this day was coming for a long time. We were originally told we would run out of money in March, and then for some reason it was moved to May and then to August. I don't know how they are moving money around at the Treasury to extend this particular date, but it appears we are now at the end of the road, we are at the wall, and decisions have to be made. Are we going to take the necessary steps, make the tough decisions, and do what we need to do to control our spending, to put in place mechanisms that will ensure we don't continue to do what has been done over the past several years, and put policies in place that will stimulate our economy and get people back to work? After all, it is really all about jobs. It is all about an economy that is providing opportunities for young people coming out of college and high school, opportunities for people to buy homes and raise their families and save money and send their kids to school, to keep a good-paying job, to be able to pay the mortgage and all the bills that come to the household every month. That is really what it is all about. Unless we address these issues before us here fiscally, we are not going to get to the point where people have hope for the future. I said I am frustrated, and I guess I just expressed some of that frustration, but I am also hopeful. I am hopeful because in times of crisis, solutions can be found. We wish we could do it in a more systematic way. We wish we had done it in the past several months, but we didn't, so here we are. And now I think the focus is clearly on getting to a solution. We are debating a plan called cut, cap, and balance--cut because we are spending more money than we can afford to spend; cap because we want to put procedures in place not to spend more than we can afford in years to come; and balance, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution so that when Members come here and put their left hand on a Bible and their right hand in the air and swear to uphold and support and defend the Constitution of the United States-- and that Constitution says you can't spend more than you take in, you need to balance your budget just like households and businesses all across America, and virtually all of our States have these either in statute or in amendment form, the Federal Government excepted. I don't believe Congress has demonstrated the discipline necessary to run a fiscal house that is anywhere close to balanced. Despite all the wonderful speeches that we are going to cut this and do that and provide for this and provide for that, we have just seen an explosion of debt, an explosion of spending regardless of what the revenues coming in happen to total. A constitutional balanced budget amendment will give us the spine and backbone and the duty and responsibility to uphold the Constitution in that regard and achieve and make the tough choices, make the tough votes every year. This happens in our State every year. We somehow survive, and in fact we are doing pretty well because our legislators have to go before the people and say: That is a good idea; but we have to balance our budget. We could raise your taxes to pay for that if you want that extra program or we can cut another program and substitute the money saved from that for this program or, we just can't go there. We don't have the money. These are the choices we have to make, and this is the responsibility we have. I said I am hopeful. Why am I hopeful? I am a baseball fan, sports fan, basketball. I have seen so many sports situations where the announcers have said or the spectators have observed that it is hopeless, there is no way they can come back, there is no way they can pull this out, but then I have seen miraculous comebacks in the fourth quarter of basketball games, maybe the last 2 minutes, in the bottom of the ninth where you have just about written off any chance of victory at all, and all of a sudden they come from behind. Whether it is soccer, baseball, basketball, or any sport, we all have experienced situations that give us hope. Even though the clock is ticking down, as it is on this debt limit date, and even though some are saying we are never going to get there, I am hopeful we can come forward with a sensible plan. In my opinion and in the opinion of many, the cut, cap, and balance is a plan that can get us to where we need to go. Clearly, first we need--and cut does this--to address our spending issue, and then cap so that we don't keep running into this year after year, and then balance so that we are committed to it for the long term. In order to get there, this provision before us gives us the opportunity to do just that. The reforms that we need to address--not just cutting but addressing the out-of-control, deficit-driving entitlement programs that need to be reformed in order to save those benefits and save those programs for the future, not take them away and not watch them go into insolvency-- all those need to be addressed, and I hope they will be, and this is the plan that can get us there. We will be voting on this tomorrow morning, and I am urging my colleagues to look at this in a serious way. There has been a lot of criticism of various plans that Republicans have put forward. Yet the President hasn't put anything forward. My colleagues across the aisle, the Democrats, haven't put a budget forward or a plan. We get criticism because they don't like this part of our plan or they don't like that part of our plan. We aren't saying our plan is perfect, but where is yours? We have nothing to measure it against. Democrats are in the majority in the Senate, but nothing has been brought forward here for us to debate or vote on. There is no way we can stand here and say, here is our plan, what do you like about it, what don't you like about it, or for you to stand here and say, here is our plan. Let's work together to meld these two things together. Maybe we can find a compromise. Nothing has been provided by the other side. We are here with cut, cap, and balance, and people said: No, that is not the one. People have said: Gang of Six--no, that is not the one. People have said that of other provisions that have been brought forward: No, that is not the one. Well, OK, fine. You don't like that? What is the one? What is the one that gets us there? So as we approach the very end, we have to understand that the consequences of what we do are enormous. Doing what is right for the future of America and the future of the American people, the future of generations to follow, is what ought to be driving us at this point toward reaching a rational, sensible solution to put us on the path to fiscal responsibility and get our financial house in order. Just hours are left before we have this vote, and if this vote doesn't pass, as many are predicting it won't, and the President has said he will veto it if it does, I am still hopeful we can pull something out here in the bottom of the ninth. And if it doesn't pass, where do we go next? So we need leadership, and we need leadership from the leader of our country to guide us where we need to go if they are going to just simply reject everything we put forward. Let's be very careful how we evaluate our vote tomorrow and the implications it has for the future of this country and the fact that the clock is ticking louder as we careen toward a serious crisis on August 2. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Kirk for bringing this legislation to the floor and getting it through committee in a way that is indicative of where we need to go. We were sent here not to increase spending. We were sent here to try to find a sensible way of moving forward by reducing expenditures and still providing essential services that only the Federal Government can provide. His subcommittee and committee have done that with this bill before us. I commend him for bringing this in under budget. Savings actually have occurred. We are changing the culture of the Senate from one of increasing spending to one of oversight and looking carefully at how Washington spends taxpayer dollars. Every dollar is important. We have a lot of those dollars stacked up, in terms of debt, that have to be addressed. Looking at each appropriations bill and getting them through regular order is how the Senate needs to function. We know we cannot get there until we settle this debt limit situation with a sensible, rational plan that is credible with financial markets. I have looked at details of this legislation as a member of the Appropriations Committee, and I think the Senator from Illinois and his colleague, the chairman, Senator Johnson, have come forward with a very good product that addresses our military construction needs and our welfare benefits and does it in a way that shows we can achieve savings. What I wish to speak about is the balanced budget amendment we will be dealing with later this week. When I first came to Congress, I committed to the people of Indiana to support a balanced budget amendment. I have watched the process, and since I have left office and now come back, I have continued to watch the process, and we simply don't have that discipline that enables us to keep our fiscal house in balance. There are so many temptations as a Member of Congress to say yes to everybody. Everybody pleads their cause. They come in and make their case. Over the years, our country has accumulated gradually a substantial amount of debt that we no longer can afford. Washington needs something that locks us into a commitment to be careful with taxpayers' money and not spend more than we take in. Every family understands this. There is a point at which we simply have to say stop spending at this rate because we cannot afford it. Every business understands that. Most of our local governments and State governments are now realizing that. As we see across the country, very drastic steps need to be taken to get the fiscal house back in order. That hasn't happened yet at the Federal level. Thankfully, we have before us this week attempt to debate and address the issue of a constitutionally mandated balanced budget. I look forward to that debate. Let's just look back at a little history. When the balanced budget amendment came before the Senate in 1997, our Nation's debt stood at $5.36 trillion. Today, the debt has accelerated to $14.3 trillion and, as we know, it is accelerating even faster and climbing toward much higher numbers. We are borrowing more than 40 cents of every $1 we spend. That is unsustainable. Ultimately, it is having a negative impact on our economy, but it will continue to have an ever-increasing negative impact in the future if we do not get our fiscal house in order. We clearly need a commitment. When we put our hand on the Bible and raise our right hand and swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States, that includes a commitment to be careful with the taxpayers' dollars and particularly understand the impact that deficit spending has on our economy and on unemployment--a commitment to be open and fair and upfront with the taxpayers who are funding all this. Our State of Indiana has to go before the taxpayers each year and say this is a nice proposal, but this is how much it is going to cost. If we, the taxpayers, want to pay for such a proposal with increased taxes or we want to pay for it by reducing spending somewhere else, one of those processes will keep us in balance. Congress cannot end this session without achieving that balance. Our State has to go through that every year. That is true of the majority of the States in this country. That doesn't happen here in Washington. We just borrow more and worry about it later. The end of that road is here. We have hit the wall. Later is no longer a viable option. More debt is no longer a viable option. Without a constructive plan in place to address this now, we are going to continue to, in my opinion, remain at a stalemate. There is a lot going on in the Senate. There have been hours upon hours of discussions. Both sides, together, are trying to figure out a plan that will put us on a path to fiscal responsibility, which can both pass the House and the Senate. The opportunity now is here to include in that plan a balanced budget amendment. We know it is going to take time to pass this. It requires a two-thirds vote of each House. If passed and agreed on, it has to be sent to the States, and three-quarters of the States have to ratify it. If the American people understood that behind whatever plan we put in place to deal with our fiscal problems we had a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in place, they would have assurance that we are on the right track. I think that signal to the financial markets and the world. It would show that the United States is aware of its problem, has taken action, and is getting its fiscal house in order. The dollar will stay the world's currency, and America will remain the safest haven in the world to invest. We are seeing debt crises all over the world, and we see our own dollar being challenged. The rating agencies are coming forward and announcing the possibility of a drop in our credit rating. The statistics show that a 1-percentage point increase in interest rates-- which investors will demand if we don't show them a credible plan-- produces, over a 10-year period, $1.3 trillion of extra money that we will have to spend to cover our debt. We simply cannot continue this process and ignore the problem. The time to do it is now. Is it difficult? Yes. We have been trying to debate this and work on it ever since January. We are not there yet, and the clock is ticking toward August 2. A balanced budget amendment will help enforce a debt- reduction plan and gain the confidence of the American people that this will not just be something overturned by the next Congress, and it will not just be a piece of paper that doesn't have a long-term effect. Backing up a plan with a balanced budget amendment will provide the assurance that going forward America will tend to its fiscal needs and stay strong as a nation financially, as well as every other aspect. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

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

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am in somewhat of a unique position as a returning Senator after being out of Congress for 12 years. I never contemplated running for the Senate again or being back on this floor in any capacity except as a former Senator, but I had a chance to do it over, I guess is the best phrase, and assess what is important and why I am here. I ran for only one reason. I am deeply concerned about the direction of our country and our plunge into debt. I want to try and avoid coming here and assessing blame, but rather set aside who is responsible. I want us to avoid the politics of all this and simply recognize this is the situation we face. Our fiscal situation has potentially dire consequences for the future of this country, not just for our children and grandchildren, but even for this generation. Our economy is not in good shape. We still have not recovered from one of the deepest recessions since the Great Depression. There are a lot of people out of work. The official unemployment number is 9.2 percent. The real number is a lot higher than that because many people have given up looking for work, or they extended their time in school because they know that if they graduate and get out into the job market they are not going to be able to find work in the area they are trained for, or perhaps in any area. A lot of people have tried and tried and simply cannot find work. It is clear and I think there is a consensus--if not total consensus at least pretty close to total consensus--that we simply have run out of money. As a government we have made promises that we can no longer afford to pay for and fulfill, without serious financial restructuring. We have enjoyed a lot of largess and a lot of prosperity in the past. As a result, commitments were made for spending in discretionary programs, building highways, and sewer systems, etc.--a lot of good things but things we simply no longer can afford. We see this happening across the world. There has been a 60-year spurt or commitment to credit and now the money has run out to pay for all that. Whether it is southern Europe, other parts of the world or the United States, this is a very difficult situation. For the last 6 or 7 months a lot of us have worked very hard to try to find a solution. We are now in the month of July, and we are approaching the date in which we reach our debt limit. We no longer can continue to borrow without raising that limit. About 40 percent of everything we spend now has to be borrowed. That is unsustainable. We are told that funding for the basic programs that help the senior citizens of our country enjoy the rest of their lives-- Medicare and Social Security--are drying up, and it will not be long before either benefits have to be cut or programs become insolvent. No one here wants to see that happen. What we do want to see happen, though, are necessary steps to preserve those programs for the future. This crisis is occurring all over the world. We are watching it take place as it creeps through different countries, and now we are facing that. Whether it is a liberal economist or conservative economist or someone in between, or someone with no political interest, there is consensus that we have to take action and we need to take it now. We cannot postpone it. We have been doing this for years. We all knew the baby boomers would retire and put tremendous pressure on our budget, and that is exactly what has happened. The quicker we take action, the less painful it will be. It is going to be painful because we have put fixing this problem off for so long. For 6 or 7 months there has been a sincere effort by a lot of people to solve this problem--Republicans and Democrats. These are people who genuinely have concern for the future of this country and believe we need to address these issues, as painful as they are. It goes against political instincts of preparing and positioning oneself for reelection, whether it is 2012 or beyond. But as I said from the beginning, we must find a way to transcend politics and the 2012 election. Unfortunately, the closer we get to the crisis, the more we see politicians positioning themselves so as not to be blamed. The reason we came here was not to position ourselves politically so we can succeed in the next election. The reason we came was to deal with the problem in front of us right now and that needs to be addressed right now. What is the rough consensus? The rough consensus is that if we don't have at least, over the next 10 years, $4 trillion to $6 trillion of cuts in discretionary spending and in some of the mandatory programs, we are not going to have a credible program the financial world will be able to look at and say: You can still trust in the value of the dollar and ability to continue viewing America as a safe haven to place investments. There is a consensus that unless we make structural changes--not just cuts and nicks and little slices here and there, but structural changes--in the entitlement programs, they will not be solvent in the years ahead. Then we will have to turn to those senior citizens and beneficiaries and low-income people and say: I am sorry. We simply cannot pay you what we had committed to pay you. Your benefits are going to have to be reduced, or we are going to have to raise taxes to pay for it. Without comprehensive tax reform, we are not going to have the kind of package we need to create a dynamic, growing economy that can solve some of our revenue problems. It is not just cutting, it is not just growth, but it is a combination of those items and structural reform that is necessary in a package, and that is what we have been debating: how to get there. What is disturbing to me lately is that we have shifted away from that central focus, and now we are focusing on who will take the blame when we default or don't default on August 2. There is a lot of political posturing around here. This is not about corporate jets. It is not about all these ads out there and mailings and so forth saying: Congress is going to take away your Social Security. Congress is going to slash your Medicare benefits. I guess I am asking that we acknowledge the reality of the situation we are in, that we do our very best to put this above the politics of 2012, and work to find some sensible solution to all of this. I believe comprehensive tax reform can potentially provide a way to address the need for revenue and the need for growth. As we know, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of special expenditures, exemptions, subsidies, credits in the Tax Code that were put in for the few and not for the many, that have complicated our Tax Code to the point where no one can understand it except for someone with an advanced degree in accounting or law. So I believe tax reform is essential as a part of whatever reform package we finally come up with to address the debt. Senator Wyden and I, on a bipartisan basis--a Democrat from Oregon, a Republican from Indiana--have put together a comprehensive tax reform package. We don't call it perfect. We are open to suggestions. But it eliminates those special exemptions and uses the revenues gained from cutting loopholes to lower tax rates for Americans. Our corporations pay the highest corporate tax rate of every one of our global competitors except one. There are 36 countries that compete and sell their products around the world, and we are 35 out of 36 when it comes to our tax rate. We want to level playing field with the rest of them because we think we can outcompete, and that will be a significant and positive impact on our economy. So using those revenues from eliminating loopholes as a way of lowering tax rates and addressing some of the needs we have is certainly something we ought to be exploring. Lastly, let me just say we need to focus on the reality of the situation in a personal way because we get caught up in numbers, and we get caught up in generalities. What are we trying to do? We are trying to get this economy moving again so people who have been searching for work for 2 and 3 years can get their jobs back; so young couples who wish to raise a family have the opportunity to buy a home; so parents who are saving and trying to get their children into good schools for postsecondary education have the ability to do that; so college graduates can come out of school with a degree and find a place to work and begin a career. We owe it to the people of our country who are suffering right now, and there are many. We owe it to this Nation that has provided so much opportunity and so much prosperity for so many people. No country in the world has come close to what America has achieved. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren who will inherit what we have done or not done. The reality is, we are going to transfer a debt load onto our children and future generations that they may not be able to overcome. I don't want to leave that legacy. I don't want to be part of a generation that does that. So I think it is time for us to stand up and do what is necessary to address this problem. Letters and emails from Indiana are running 100 to 1 in favor of cutting government, and running 100 to 1 against cutting anything in Social Security or Medicare. I have people coming into my office every day saying: We know we have to get our fiscal house in order, but let me tell you why our program needs to be exempted. As politicians, we want to say yes to people. As responsible, elected officials faced with a very difficult situation, we have to, with compassion, look at people and say: No, we are not able to do this. We are not able to afford this, but we are taking this action today so we can afford it in the future. We are taking action now so we can leave future generations with the same types of opportunities our generation has enjoyed and the benefits that come from living in America. That may cost some people their elections. There are a number of people here who are willing to sacrifice for that purpose. Do we want to leave and say: Well, I survived all these years unscathed politically, or do we want to leave here saying at the right time we did the right thing? At the time of crisis, at a time when our country desperately needed us to come together to address this very serious problem that could plunge our country into a deep recession, if not depression, at a time when financial institutions around the world are fragile, at a time when wars and conflicts are popping up all over the globe, did we do the right thing? What do we want our legacy to be regardless of the consequences? We are 2 or 3 weeks away from defaulting on our debt. There are a lot of excuses around here about that and some even think it will not have many consequences. It will. The idea of using that as leverage to gain what we need to do doesn't appear to have worked. I think if we keep our focus simply on default or not default, we still have a major problem. Just simply finding a way to get through this and raising the debt limit does not solve the underlying problem. That has to be addressed. I wish we had been able to do that because the situation is dire. We cannot wait until 2013. We need to do it now. So here I am. I don't have answers. I have some guidelines from people who know a lot more about this than I do, people who do not have a political stake in this in terms of what they think we need to do to put together a package. We need a plan that has credibility with the financial world, so that what has happened in Greece, Portugal and Ireland and maybe now in Italy or Spain, and other places in the world will not happen here because we have restored some confidence and faith in the American people and the investment see the United States as a safe haven for their money. We need credibility so others know we have seen the problem, we have recognized it, we have taken meaningful steps, and while it will be painful and take time--America has come through. To paraphrase Winston Churchill: America always will do the right thing after it has tried all the wrong things. Well, we spent a lot of years doing the wrong things and not recognizing that we were building up an unsustainable fiscal situation that would come back to haunt us. We have tried a lot of methods and postponements and deferments and everything else. What we have not done is stand up to the problem we have and do what is necessary, take this above politics, and do what is right for America.

Mr. COATS. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Carlos Algara, an intern in the office of Senator Merkley, be granted privilege of the floor for the duration of the remainder of today's session.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, today Congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle is meeting with the President to try to break the current impasse on the debt talks. As the President said in a press conference earlier this week: ``Right now, we've got a unique opportunity to do something big.'' I completely agree with that statement. I am glad and pleased that, finally, after months of concern and months of urging, we are dealing with this impending debt crisis. Time is running out. The leadership is now meeting. We will be getting reports on what has come from this meeting. I was encouraged by initial reports today indicating the President has agreed to address the issue of entitlement spending as well as defining the amount of spending cuts that are necessary to put together a credible plan that move our country into a better financial position. I have been discussing the necessity of a comprehensive solution to our problem ever since day one of this session and my return to the Senate, and I've indicated that the current process of spending way beyond our means simply cannot be maintained and sustained and that we have to address it-- not after 2012 but we need to address it now. So I am encouraged by the talks that are now going on, and that are beginning to incorporate the elements of a growing consensus, if not almost total consensus, that exists and is necessary for this initiative to be successful, for it to be deemed credible, and for it to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences of defaulting on our debt and losing our credibility as the place to invest your money for the best safety you can get. I don't have to go through the math again, but I will just briefly. Spending $3.7 trillion a year when you are only taking in $2.2 trillion a year is unsustainable and is driving us toward the cliff of bankruptcy--an inability to pay our debts. A big driver of that and the biggest driver of that debt is clearly the mandatory spending that comes with entitlements. It is no secret that we have seen the baby boom generation move through the economy from birth now to retirement. The programs that were put in place and the promises that were made in terms of benefits to those beneficiaries are not going to be available if we don't address the pending bankruptcy of these programs. Those who have analyzed this have basically said: Look, you have to do something now to keep these programs from going broke in the future. So all of those who say, don't touch my Medicare, don't touch my Social Security, don't do anything, they are essentially saying we are willing to ride it out for 2 or 3 more years and then see the whole thing collapse. Then there are those of us who are saying, let's do something sensible and rational now--not taking away any benefits from current beneficiaries, by the way, but doing something to preserve these programs in the future is absolutely essential. We are trying to save Social Security, we are trying to save Medicare, and we are trying to do the kinds of things that are necessary with our mandatory spending to address the total imbalance in place that is driving these programs into insolvency. I would hope today that what we hear back from this meeting at the White House is a commitment to go forward with a comprehensive approach including necessary cuts, the elimination of duplications of programs, redundancies, fraud and abuse--things we simply cannot afford anymore-- combined with addressing mandatory spending and entitlements in a responsible way, and the mandatory spending, putting the right enforcement mechanisms in place so we don't renege on our commitments, and also incorporating comprehensive tax reform. For months, the focus has been on cutting spending and tax increases. I think another growing consensus is that without comprehensive tax reform, we are not going to be able to address and solve this problem. I believe the administration has also begun to recognize this and acknowledge that comprehensive tax reform is necessary. Yesterday, Senator Wyden and I sent a letter to President Obama and to the congressional leaders who are participating in today's debt ceiling talks urging them to include a timeline for comprehensive tax reform. The bill Senator Wyden and former Senator Gregg put together after 2 painstaking years of negotiations--which I have joined now in Senator Gregg's place after he retired from the Senate, after we made some modifications to the original bill--is a bipartisan effort to deal with comprehensive tax reform. We need to go after the 10,000 special breaks and interests and credits and exceptions that exist and take the savings from that to lower rates and make the private sector more competitive, which we know will bring about growth and ultimately jobs for the American people. The President's Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform found that resolving the Nation's debt crisis demands comprehensive, structural change, including, they said, tax reform. There is no better way to raise revenue and reduce the deficit than by growing the economy and putting Americans back to work. If done right, tax reform will create those good-paying jobs and provide businesses and families with the certainty they need to plan for the future. Any revenues raised by closing tax loopholes should be part of a comprehensive plan that reduces tax rates for American families and businesses and creates jobs. I want to repeat that. The whole purpose of this is to take those special interests and exemptions that have been incorporated into the Tax Code over a 15-, 20-year period of time, which now total 10,000 special exemptions, to take a selective portion of that and a significant portion of that and eliminate or reduce those to gain the revenues, allowing us to reduce tax rates on American families and on American businesses so that those businesses can be more competitive and those families will have more discretionary spending. Our businesses currently rank 35 out of 36 in terms of the highest corporate tax rates imposed--some of the highest in the world. We compete around the world with those countries that are producing the same products, yet their tax rates are significantly lower than ours, and that puts us at a competitive disadvantage. We can make the best products in the world and we can outsell anybody in the world if we put our companies and our businesses on a level playing field. The whole structure and purpose behind the Wyden-Coats tax reform bill is to do just that--to put us on a competitive basis with our competitors by lowering rates and gaining the revenue to pay for our debt. We know this won't be easy, and we know it requires Democrats and Republicans to work together to take on the special interests that currently benefit from the broken tax system. We know that right now that seems very difficult and very challenging, but it has been done before. We had tax reform in 1986 that stimulated the economy in ways no stimulus had ever done before. It brought in significant additional revenues to the Treasury and put Americans back to work. This is a bipartisan bill--a Democrat from Oregon and a Republican from Indiana--have joined forces on this. We want to signal that this is something that can be done aside from political gotchas, aside from political gain for the 2012 election, and something we can work together on that will make a commitment to a substantial portion of the necessary action that needs to be taking place to deal with this pending debt crisis and deficit crisis that has to be resolved by August 2 or close to that. Some say it can't be done in the time that is left. Well, we are in extraordinary times, and I think we have to set aside the conventional thinking and work toward what can and must be done. To the extent it can't be fully incorporated into the law, at the very least, I believe the package we are ultimately going to be voting on needs a rock-hard, firm commitment and instructions to the tax- writing committees that this must be done and presented to the Congress in this session so we can address it and so we eliminate the uncertainty on whether we are going to go forward. It needs an enforcement backup mechanism so that if Congress doesn't act in a timely manner, there will be an automatic process in place that presents this to us for a vote. We have a unique opportunity to do something big, to quote the President again. I commend him for saying that, and I commend him for coming forward and saying we will get off this cut-only, tax-only stalemate by beginning to address this on a comprehensive basis and put in place those elements we all know are necessary to achieve success. It will require the House and the Senate and the White House to cast aside political posturing in the 2012 elections, to transcend the politics, to do what is necessary for the future of America, for the future of Americans, to do what is necessary to get our finances and our economy moving again and to get people back to work. We need to transcend that and do what is right for the future of our country. I hope we have taken a positive step in that direction today. I look forward to participating, as I know all of us do, in that process and hopefully assuring the American people and assuring the world that America is not at a stalemate, that America can address a challenge--a big challenge--and we can come forward with a sensible solution that puts us on the path to prosperity and guarantees a better future for our children and grandchildren. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I don't anticipate taking 20 minutes of time. I hope to be back on the Senate floor this afternoon talking about a related subject, but I do want to take the opportunity essentially to bring us back to the central problem we are facing in this Chamber and in this country; that is, dealing with an out-of-control spending program in Washington, DC, that has occurred over many years. In fact, the accumulation of debt not only is at the federal level, but it has been at the State level. It has been at the local level. It has been at the personal and the private level. We have been in a cycle of debt accumulation that simply is coming to an end, and it is coming to an end because we can no longer afford to pay the interest and can no longer afford to fulfill the promises that have been made on a political basis to people over a whole series of years, both by Democrats and Republicans, and only accelerated in a dramatic fashion in the last 3 years where we have seen an explosion of spending at the Federal level. This simply cannot continue and be paid for under any system of taxation at all. So what we have seen is a nice deflection away from the central issue, a deflection into--well, the whole thing comes down to whether we tax millionaires and billionaires. The President's speech last week, which set the stage for all this discussion, is a nice deflection away from what we all know we need to do. And what we need to do is address this out-of-control deficit, out-of-control accumulation of debt that is simply unsustainable. Now, it is pure arithmetic and it is easy arithmetic. When we spend $3.7 trillion a year, and revenues coming in are only $2.2 trillion a year, we are racking up, on a year-by-year basis, a deficit of $1.5 trillion or greater a year. And that deficit has to be paid. How is it paid? Well, 40 cents of every dollar that is spent has to be borrowed in order to pay for the promises that have been made. So until we as a body put aside this ``gotcha'' stuff that may allow political positioning for the 2012 election but doesn't address the real problem, we are not going to solve this problem. There has been a lot of posturing going on, and I am not here to address that in specific detail at this particular point in time except to say that we need to refocus on the real task before us. The real task before us is understood by the American people. They understand that we cannot continue spending money at the rates that we are spending it. Our debt has skyrocketed 35 percent to a limit of $14.3 trillion in just the last 2 years. Our annual deficit, our yearly deficit, is now three times greater than the highest deficit of the previous administration. Today, as a result of a stagnant economy and as a result of uncertainty imposed on our economic system, we have 14 million Americans out of work, and that number is conservative because those are the ones who are looking for work. Those who have given up looking for work amount to a significant number, and those who may never have an opportunity to get back into the workforce ought to be of great concern to us. These facts, combined with the warnings that have been given to us by the financial markets, should make it clear to all of us, from the President to Members of Congress and both parties and to the American people, that this current plan we are operating under, the President's economic plan, is not working; that the plan of spending more and borrowing more is not getting our economy back to where it ought to be and not getting people back to work. Over the weekend, I was privileged to be able to give the Republican address following the President's weekly address to the Nation. In that address I suggested that instead of the current plan that we are following under, we ought to look at models that are functioning much better and working to see what we can learn. Representing the State of Indiana, I am proud to be able to say that the model that our State has used has taken us from a deficit position to a surplus position without raising taxes. By reducing spending and actually cutting taxes and balancing our budget, we have now seen a significant change in the financial fortune of the State of Indiana and Hoosiers who occupy that State. This administration has increased spending, increased borrowing, raised taxes, and expanded the growth of government. Now the credit agencies are looking at our Federal Government and warning of dire consequences and downgrading of our debt, at the same time the model used in Indiana, which cut taxes, cut spending, and balanced our budget, resulted in a AAA credit rating, the best rating you can get. Now, the President's plan during this time, the only one that we can work off of, is his $4 trillion budget, which would have increased deficit spending not decreased it. Interestingly enough, the only plan that we have in front of us--a comprehensive plan at this point in time from the President or his party--is the plan the President introduced. We have had some nice speeches, and we have had some nice rhetoric. We have heard about the dire consequences of not coming up with a sensible plan before we hit the debt limit ceiling now scheduled for August 2. But the only concrete plan proposed to us in this Chamber and in the House of Representatives from Democrats is a $4 trillion budget which was voted on in the Senate and was defeated by unanimous vote. Not one Democrat voted for the President's budget plan. Yet no alternate plan has been proposed. There may be one in the works. We would like to see it. We would like to work off of it. I don't understand how you can negotiate any kind of a final proposal if you don't have something to work with and the only thing we now have before us is simply a resolution on the matter of whether we ought to tax millionaires and billionaires. Even if we went forward and did that, even if we took 100 percent of all of the income earned by all of those who are in the millionaire and billionaire category, it would be a drop in the bucket compared to what we need to do. It would do nothing to adjust and reform spending programs and duplication of spending and bureaucratic overlap in Washington that has been accumulating year after year after year. So it is a nice diversion. It is a nice way of playing class warfare. It is a nice way to set yourself up for some good talking points back home, positioning yourself for some good rhetoric if you are running for reelection. But it doesn't address the problem we have. Here we are, having canceled our July 4 recess in order to discuss the budget and the plight we are in and try to come together and fashion a plan. We need a plan that we can assure the American people will put us on a much sounder fiscal path; calm the financial markets and the credit rating agencies; and reassure those from all over the world who invest their money in America that we finally have our hands around the problem, we are coming up with sensible solutions, America will continue to be a safe place to invest your money and the dollar will continue to be a sound currency in which the world can put their confidence. I was encouraged by the President's statement recently that we ought to move forward. I hope the President's remarks on the budget last week were perhaps to satisfy his base or to politically position himself for more serious negotiations. I hope that is the case. The President has indicated, I believe, that we must take bold steps and take them now in anticipation of what needs to be done by August 2; and therefore he has called for a summit tomorrow. It is time we put aside the political rhetoric and the gamesmanship. It is time we get down to some serious bargaining and negotiating and come up with what I think most of us believe is necessary in order to accomplish what we need to in addressing this very critical problem that has steep consequences. There is agreement, I trust, that we need serious spending reductions--some have estimated that in the $2 trillion range over a 10-year period of time. Others say to really get at the problem, it needs to be double that or more, in the $4 trillion to $5 trillion range. There also needs to be a commitment to restructure entitlement programs. We all understand and know the three major entitlement programs--Medicaid, Social Security, and especially Medicare--are running out of money, are not sustainable under the current program, and need to be restructured. Once again, this is something that is ripe for political positioning and posturing. The fact is that unless we address structural changes in the entitlement programs, those programs will have to be drastically reduced, if not eliminated, in the future because they simply are not sustainable, given the current number of recipients drawing benefits as opposed to the money that is going into most programs. Anyone who says we are doing this on the backs of senior citizens, on low-income people, is not realistically acknowledging the facts. These programs are going broke. There are those, on both sides of the aisle, who are standing and saying this has to be part of our solution to our spending and deficit problem. Those who are saying this is not part of the solution simply are telling seniors we are going to allow your program to go broke or there are going to be severe consequences. Those who are advocating this, to the contrary, are saying we are trying to save those programs. We are trying to ensure that the needed health care benefits under Medicare and needed benefits under Medicaid and needed income under Social Security that people are depending on will be preserved in the future. We are trying to save those programs and keep those programs solvent so that a few years from now, as the trustees have indicated in their latest report on Medicare--a few years from now we will not run into a much more serious problem, which will require much more drastic action. Also, what we need to do is ensure that we have enforcement programs in place so whatever program cuts and changes and reforms that are made are not overturned by a future Congress. We need enforcement programs to do what we are obligated to do on this floor but often do not seem to have the political will to address effectively, programs that will automatically kick in to ensure the goals we established are reached, whether or not we have the political will to go forward and do it ourselves. I support a balanced budget. If we had had that balanced budget passed in the mid-1990s, when we came close, but failed by one vote each time, we would not find ourselves in this position now. We would have done what States across America had to do; that is, be straight out with their constituents and simply say: Yes, you can have this new program; yes, we can expand spending, but constitutionally we are mandated to balance our budget so we have two options of getting there. We can either reduce spending in other areas, if this is more important and has a higher priority, and use that money to pay for it or we can raise your taxes. Let's decide which you want to do. Is this program of such necessity and does it have the majority support in the State or the locality and is the public willing to support it with increased taxes? That is not unlike the school referendums, where the school puts forward a plan to improve the facilities or hire new teachers and puts a referendum before the people of the school district and says: If you are willing to raise your property taxes, we add this program or do this with the education system. Sometimes they pass. Sometimes they fail. But it gives the public the opportunity to determine whether to pay for it. It leaves the ultimate financial position at a level of balance. We should address that. If there is a dispute or difference of opinion as to what the components of a balanced budget should be, we should have that debate. We should go forward on that and work toward some sensible solution. But the only way we are going to guarantee to the American people we are not going to return to our profligate ways is to establish and enact and give to the States the opportunity to enact a constitutional amendment to balance the budget for future spending. Finally, I wish to include the need for comprehensive tax reform. As many in this Chamber know, Senator Wyden and I, on a bipartisan basis, have introduced comprehensive tax reform. We are going to talk about that a little bit later this afternoon. We have essentially said that the Tax Code is dysfunctional. It does not promote growth and efficiency. It needs to be reformed. There is a general consensus on that. We have proposed a way to do it. We are open to suggestions of better ways if someone else has some better ideas. We do believe a lot of the subsidies and tax exclusions and expenditures in the Tax Code are unfair. They are put in for the benefit of a few and not the many. That part needs to be reformed. There is a very interesting editorial this morning in the Wall Street Journal, talking about the ability to broaden the tax base by eliminating many of these exclusions but, in return, lowering the rates--whether they be individual or corporate rates. That would give us the opportunity to promote growth, which is an essential part of our reaching fiscal balance and fiscal sanity. The time is now. The time is not after the 2012 election. The dire situation in which we find ourselves is being watched worldwide by financial markets, by all those who lend us money. They want to know what the financial future of the United States is going to be. They want to know whether we have the will and the commitment to address our very serious financial situation and the political situation that goes along with it. Are we willing to rise above the politics and do what is appropriate and necessary for this country? The President said: ``Right now, we've got a unique opportunity to do something big.'' I could not agree more with that statement. I am glad the President finally has come on board and said let's get engaged together and negotiate something big, something that will solve the problem. Now is the time for us and the unique opportunity for the President to lead. But, frankly, we need more than rhetoric. We need specifics. We need to put it on the table. We need more than some kind of a rant against those who fly on corporate jets, as if that subsidy--which is the depreciation issue in the Tax Code, is going to solve the problem or whether we are going to impose a higher tax on billionaires and millionaires, which didn't even pass a Democratic Congress in December. Even if those taxes on the wealthy went up to 100 percent, it is a drop in the bucket. This is not a responsible way to go forward and negotiate what we need to negotiate. The American people understand it. They voted at the polls in November of 2010 in a way that should send a signal that we understand what is going on and we want to send people to Washington who will address this very problem. As this thing has cascaded into 2011 and we have dithered and pushed off and rethought through what the schedule is, the American people are getting increasingly frustrated over our inability to come to terms with this current situation we face. Now is the time. Now is the time to put politics secondary to what is right for America and what is right for Americans. We have that opportunity, a unique opportunity. In one sense, it is good we are running up against this debt limit crisis because it is forcing us to stop pushing this problem down the road, to stop delaying and waiting until after the next election. It is forcing us to take action now. We have about 4 weeks to do what is right for the American people but, more important, what is right for the future of America, our children and grandchildren and generations to come. If we are going to be that generation which saddles them with debt they cannot climb out of and they are unable to live the simple American dream of raising a family, owning a home or a place to live, providing for the education of their children and participating in the wonderful experience this country has had through sacrifice and commitment and dedication over all these years--if we are turning that over to our children with that broken dream and broken promise, we have not done our job. We are here to do it now. The time is now. Let's have the political will to do it. Let's subordinate our political considerations for 2012, do what is right, and then we will have left a legacy--win, lose or draw politically--a legacy that is important for this country. I yield any time left, the remainder of that time.

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak to the Chamber for not to exceed 20 minutes.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I was not aware I had asked for 10 minutes.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I have had the opportunity to listen to my colleagues from across the aisle and while my purpose is to address another subject, I do want to respond to what we have just heard from three Democratic Senators and a number of Republicans regarding the need to address the serious issue of debt and deficit and how we are going to proceed before we run into a situation of national default with consequences we cannot begin to imagine, I think it is appropriate to say there is bipartisan support for serious debate and discussion. I was disappointed, obviously--in fact, I was more than disappointed. I was very frustrated yesterday with the President's press conference, the President essentially said the Congress is not doing its job and compared what was being done here to undisciplined children, who couldn't do their homework. He was targeting the opposition, which sounded like a lot of campaign rhetoric. This is very disappointing. At a time when we face a serious fiscal crisis, he shouldn't even be thinking about the election of 2012 and focusing on any campaign rhetoric--we ought to be thinking about and working to address the crisis before us that is going to have implications for every American now. If we don't come to an agreement on how to proceed before August 2, we are going to see how the financial markets react to what we have not been able to do. But to suggest we haven't been doing anything and that the Congress needs to take the lead, I think, goes even against the President's own thoughts when he was a Member of this body. I wish to quote from a statement he made when President Obama was Senator Obama. That quote is as follows: The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. . . . Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. Yes, Americans do deserve better. But, obviously, that famous sign that used to be on the desk of Harry Truman when he was President, ``The Buck Stops Here,'' has been taken off that Presidential desk and shifted over to the responsibility of the Congress. We do have a responsibility, but it is fair to say and accurate to say that without Presidential leadership, no matter what we do here will not become law. The President needs to be engaged in supporting what we do. Otherwise, it will not become law. I think most of the American public thinks, based on the inferences made yesterday by the President in his press conference, Republicans are on one side, the Democrats are on the other side, and they don't see the problem the same way. I think what we just heard--eloquent speeches and important speeches from both Republicans and just now Democrats-- indicates there are adults here, not just children. We have been working hard ever since day one of this session to try to address the train wreck we see coming. First, it was estimated to come on May 16, and now August 2. We bought a little bit of time, I guess. But the clock is ticking and we see a train wreck coming and we are trying to do something about it. There are serious people making serious efforts to have serious dialogue and debate as to how we best go forward in the interests of our country and not in the interests of the 2012 election; in the interests of our grandchildren and children, not in the interests of our political careers. I came back to the Senate for one reason and one reason only, and that is that I was not going to stand idly by and watch our country sink deeper into debt. I was not going to watch my generation be the first generation to hand our children a country in worse shape than the one we inherited and a hole they could never dig out of. They will not be able to enjoy all the benefits my generation has had of peace and prosperity. It is clear--and I am not here to go through all the statistics. I have made several speeches on this topic and we hear this on the floor every day. There are so many facts in support of the need to take serious action to address this serious problem. There is so much handwriting on the wall, and the wall is about to collapse. Economists from the conservative side to the liberal side and everybody in between--analysts, financial markets, and so forth--are taking action and saying we need to take action here. We see Democratic and Republican Governors across this country in various States taking action. I am proud of what we have done in the State of Indiana in the last 6 years under the leadership of Governor Daniels. We have balanced our budget. We have dug out of a deep deficit left by his predecessor. We have a AAA credit rating. We have made some tough choices. We have had to cut and slash government jobs. There was a lot of bloat and a lot of excess there. We made tough choices, and we paid a financial price for it, but we are in better shape today than we have been in a long time as a result of taking these actions. We see countries around the world having to belly up to the reality of the facts. They have overspent and have promised more than they can deliver. Yet the United States of America should be the leader of this effort in terms of getting its economy in shape. It is a place where the dollar was sound. It is the place to invest your money and know it was the safest place. All of that now has come into question. I have been a part of these talks across the aisle. The two Senators from Colorado who just spoke, the Senator from Delaware who just spoke, and others, are taking this seriously. They are not putting their political fortunes ahead of the necessity to deal with these issues. They are saying that what transcends politicians, what transcends reelection is the fact that we have a serious crisis that has to be dealt with now and tough choices have to be made. We are talking in earnest behind closed doors, working in open sessions and closed sessions, trying to fashion an appropriate response. But without the President's leadership, no matter what we do, no matter what package we put together, we cannot succeed. So it appears the President has decided to engage in the politics of the 2012 elections, and it is very disappointing. I hope that is not the case. I hope this shift we have seen from needing to get involved to ``what is wrong with you men and women?'' is just a temporary lapse. When we get frustrated, it is easy to say childish things, and that is why I waited overnight so I wouldn't come down here to be characterized as someone who says childish things. The problems we face are too serious for us not to take seriously. I too believe we can fashion a plan that is in the best interests of the American people and the future of America, but we can't do it by pointing fingers at each other. We can't do it without Presidential leadership. Right now, the one missing element is Presidential leadership. As has been said before, the President was invited to come and meet with us today and to talk to us about the seriousness of this issue. We are willing to demonstrate to him that our doors are open and we are willing to go there, but it takes a commitment on both sides in order to accomplish that. Instead, I guess a couple of fundraisers were scheduled--one in Philadelphia, one in Las Vegas--and, apparently, that takes precedence. So I think the President's words are pretty hollow. Iran I came here to talk about another issue, and I wish to do that now. Our necessary focus on the economic situation and what we need to do and the impending debt crisis we are facing should take precedence, but we can't overlook the fact we have serious issues on an international level that will have an impact on our country in the future. Those of us here have a responsibility to deal with not only domestic issues but with international security and foreign policy issues. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act that was passed by an overwhelming majority-- bipartisan majority--in the last Congress. In fact, the vote in the Senate was 99 to 0. This act expanded sanctions on the Iranian regime as it continues its quest for nuclear weapons capability. Clearly, more needs to be done. I am here to talk about it and the implications, but I needed to say something about what has happened in the previous 24 hours that has been so disconcerting to not only me but to the American people and both Republicans and Democrats who are trying to make a serious effort at solving the problems we face. Put on the back burner because of all these discussions is this question about Iran and where it is going and what the consequences of the future with a nuclear-armed Iran would be. This month my colleagues and I, because we believe these sanctions have not yet accomplished the goal we have intended and that we need even tougher sanctions against Iran, have introduced a bill entitled ``The Iran, North Korea, and Syria Sanctions Consolidations Act of 2011'' that further tightens the noose on the Iranian regime. We need strong support from this body and collective efforts to prevent a nuclear Iran. I will take a few minutes now to explain why I believe this work is of such dramatic and growing importance to our Nation. The enormous changes being wrought by the Arab spring and the potential consequences--both positive and negative--of that movement have captured our attention. Those of us who care passionately about the future of the Middle East and understand the consequences to our national security as a consequence of that, whether it is economic security because of energy resources we get from the Middle East or whether it is diplomatic security or just national security in terms of conflict that potentially draws us into that effort, all of this is at stake. We are hoping, of course, that the democratic instincts of the Arab spring will develop, but we look at this with a mixture of both hope and concern. The democratic impulse in the region has not yet brought meaningful change to the Iranian people who continue to suffer under an autocratic, savage, and ruthless regime. As that regime continues to crush every plea for greater democratic liberties, it also pursues its vision of nuclear weapons capability. Welcome signs of democratic progress elsewhere in the region must not deflect our attention from the growing danger in Iran. Three American Presidents, including this current President, have declared that a nuclear weapons-capable Iran is unacceptable. To give meaning to that repeated commitment to do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran from gaining that dangerous capability remains an urgent and highly significant matter facing the United States and international security. The consequences of a nuclear weapons-capable Iran are not tolerable, not acceptable, and must motivate the most powerful and effective efforts possible to prevent that from happening. A nuclear-armed Iran would threaten the entire region and its enormous energy resources. It would motivate broad nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East. It would further destabilize the region already in turmoil. It would encourage radicalism and terrorism, and it would threaten the destruction of the State of Israel. This last danger alone--the potential destruction, the declared destruction of the nation of Israel--that alone potentially raises the danger to which Israel is the last resort, but almost certainly we have to respond to it to ensure its survival. That alone compels us to be clear-eyed and determined to find a solution before we have to face that potential decision. I have been working in recent years with the Bipartisan Policy Center to press for a robust, comprehensive three-track effort to raise the stakes on the Iranian regime and to compel it to live up to its commitments and halt its weapons program. The first track we proposed was enhanced diplomatic efforts. People say, Why diplomatic efforts? That is just going nowhere. We felt we needed to enhance those efforts to at least give that a chance, so that those who would say sanctions should not be imposed until we have tried diplomatic efforts--we said: OK, let's continue to give that a shot, but let's do that in parallel with some of these other approaches. But this enhanced diplomatic effort, where we create and invigorate and motivate an international coalition devoted to the same objective to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, has been tried, and it has not succeeded. Now, this effort does not mean simply repeated outreaches to the Iranian regime to engage them in dialog. The Obama administration came into office promising such discussions, but this has gone nowhere. International talks in Geneva last year accomplished nothing. Talks in Turkey earlier this year broke down in the afternoon of the very first day. Clearly, lack of any flexibility and goodwill on behalf of the Iranian regime has dissuaded any further attempt to renew dialog efforts. Dialog with the Iranians is in a deep freeze.

Mr. COATS. That is news to me. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. COATS. All right. Thank you, Mr. President. The second track for solutions are sanctions. We currently have the Sanctions Act in place. We want to impose an additional sanctions track. That is why I have sponsored and cosponsored this new act. The impact of this, I think, could potentially be significant. But, so far, we have not seen success as a result of sanctions. Since the international community first began to face this challenge--in the form of IAEA inspections and reports, various U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions, and protracted negotiations to construct an effective coalition strong enough to have meaning--none of these actions have seriously thwarted the Iranian regime's nuclear ambitions. That takes us to the third track of a comprehensive approach. Those of us in the Bipartisan Policy Center, working with experts on all sides of this issue, came to the conclusion that certain military options can be put in place that deserve serious and open discussion. Since diplomacy and sanctions have proven to be too weak, we need an extra kick to this process in order to achieve the desired result. I am suggesting discussion and debate and dialogue. No one should suppose that including a military option in this package means anything other than preparing the ground for the logical, necessary access to measures of last resort, should they be needed. Through the Bipartisan Policy Center, we participated in an exhaustive analysis of all the means and consequences of potential military action against Iran's nuclear weapons program. There were no war advocates in that room--none of us. Nevertheless, if it is true that a nuclear weapons-capable Iran is ``unacceptable,'' then our Nation and the international community as a whole must see with vivid clarity what measures remain, should the first two tracks fail. The Iranian regime must be especially clear-eyed and nondelusional about those potential consequences should it not change its behavior. Indeed, to give the diplomatic and sanctions tracks the essential credibility they require, the military option must be entirely believable. Military options themselves include a multipronged, comprehensive strategy, not all of which are ``kinetic'' or mean an actual attack with our Armed Forces. Such a strategy would include constructing the alliances needed to station U.S. forces in position to confront Iran and then a series of steps designed to demonstrate to Iran that the United States and its coalition partners are capable of decisive military action, if necessary, to stop its nuclear program. At the end of the day, we have to decide whether we will tolerate an Iran with nuclear weapons. If other States, including, importantly, China and Russia, become convinced of this core reality, they will make different calculations about their own self-interests in this matter. If they come to believe that we so desperately need them to accept modest sanctions on Iran, then they can compel us to take off the table the sanctions proposals with real teeth. We have become hostage to their views on this vital issue and also to their related economic interests. So if these and other States come to realize that when we say ``unacceptable,'' we mean it, they will come to different conclusions about how their own interests can be best served. In conclusion, a nuclear weapons-capable Iran that we believe can be contained is not one that we are therefore prepared to tolerate. If we think we can solve this problem through diplomatic efforts and sanctions, we have not been able to do so, and the likelihood of doing so diminishes as every day goes by. The nuclear clock keeps ticking in Iran. This is an illusion and one that makes our task much harder. If others, however--especially Iran, but also including our allies and other coalition partners--come to believe that we would consider tolerating a nuclear Iran because it can somehow be contained, then none of this will work. The result then will not be a contained and tolerated nuclear Iran; it will be the military action we all hope to avoid, whether it is ours or another's. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I will just try to see how I can wrap this up. I might ask, Mr. President, is there an order in place that I am not aware of?

Mr. COATS. All right. I apologize. I did not know that.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I cannot help but agree with my friend. It is a sad situation that we have in this country as our economy is kind of limping along, and so many young people graduating from school recently are unable to find meaningful jobs and work; so many middle- age Americans trying to raise a family and save money to send their children to school are out of work and cannot find employment, not only at the level they were previously used to but even at a lower level. It is a situation that requires Congress enacting policies that will do everything we can to stimulate this economy and get America back to work. As I said earlier, comprehensive tax reform has been described by about everyone who has looked at this situation as an essential component of the kind of reforms necessary to get us back to fiscal health. As the Senator from Oregon said, one of the components of the tax reform plan, the Wyden-Coats plan, is that we want to maintain revenue neutrality but at the same time we want to go after those tax exclusions and exemptions and subsidies that favor a few but do not have broad application. They have been added over the years, particularly since 1986 when we had our last comprehensive tax reform. Over these last 25 years, a number of special breaks, special subsidies, special exemptions have been added totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. What we are trying to do here is look at those in a comprehensive way, reduce or eliminate many of them, and then use the money saved from those eliminations to lower tax rates. Let's look at the corporate tax rate. Out of the 36 countries with which our country competes most directly for sales around the world, the United States ranks 35. We would be 36 except the Japanese deferred lowering their rate based on the tsunami and the aftereffects of that, but they already had in place plans to lower their rate. We literally are at the highest corporate rate of any major industrialized competitive country in the world. Senator Wyden and I in our bill agreed that we would take the money that was saved from eliminating a lot of those special breaks for special interests and lowering the corporate tax rate to make the United States more competitive, to bring that rate down to the mid- twenties or perhaps even lower. In doing so, it will stimulate our industries here, stimulate our exports, and put our companies in a much better position to expand and grow and compete across the world and ultimately that translates into jobs. If we look at small businesses alone, the real job creators, under our plan we allow those businesses, almost all small businesses, to expense their equipment and inventory costs in a single year. We also incorporate a provision for reciprocity, so those companies that do have overseas sales and entities producing and selling their products, we allow the earnings gained there to be brought back to the United States without being taxed twice, they can be brought back over a 1- year reciprocity period at a very low rate--again to encourage investment in plant, equipment, and employment here in America. At a time when consumer consumption is very weak--consumers do not have money to spend--we believe comprehensive tax reform and particularly some of the ideas outlined in our plan will help stimulate the economy, will help bring about growth and ultimately put people back to work. I would kick this ball back to my colleague, Senator Wyden from Oregon, for his further thoughts on that as we continue this colloquy.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Oregon for helping to organize this colloquy. We have worked together to try to fashion a comprehensive tax reform package that we think makes a lot of sense. Just about every analyst or economist or budget expert that I have talked to and listened to over the past several months has said we are not going to successfully address our current debt and deficit situation unless comprehensive tax reform is part of the package. Senator Wyden and I have had the opportunity to sit down and talk about this. We, obviously, have been encouraging the Congress for several months to go forward and address this. We realize that such an effort cannot successfully take place before we reach the point in August where we have to make a decision on raising the debt limit and whatever package is brought before us relative to what kind of changes we can make in our financial structure to put us in a better fiscal situation. Nevertheless, knowing the importance of comprehensive tax reform to create success for what we ultimately want to achieve, we would like to encourage all those negotiating these packages and all those Members and our colleagues to look carefully at the proposal, as my colleague said, to lock in to whatever package is before us a commitment--a hard commitment, an enforceable commitment--to take up comprehensive tax reform; not to wait until after the next election but take it up this fall as a one of the follow-ons to the package that we ultimately will have to address, debate, and vote on coming up in the next several weeks. I couldn't agree with my friend more that doing so now can be a very important component of addressing the serious fiscal situation which is facing our country and which is one of our biggest challenges.

Mr. COATS. As the Senator from Oregon has said, small business is hit particularly hard these days. Because many choose not to incorporate, there is a passthrough, a passthrough of taxation rates as if these small businesses were individuals. They are taxed at that rate. As my friend from Oregon knows, at the end of 2012 that tax rate is scheduled, under current law, to rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. Small businesses, which currently are having trouble getting credit and making ends meet, are facing a tax increase--within a relatively short period of time. That is a deterrent to making decisions relative to expanding the business and hiring new people, because they know the taxes they have to pay out of their earnings flow through directly to them so they are going to have to be paid at the highest rate. Again, the Coats-Wyden bill prevents that from happening. It keeps those rates at the current level. Also, as my friend from Oregon has said, simplification is a major underlying principle of the Wyden-Coats tax reform bill. It is a nightmare for individuals, as the Senator from Oregon said, to try to figure out how to do this. In fact, about $6 billion is spent each year to hire professionals to fill out tax forms because it is virtually impossible for many individuals to figure it out and work through this, as my friend said, bureaucratic water torture of a process. The thousands of hours, hundreds of thousands--millions of hours spent filling out tax returns based on the complexity of the current Tax Code is a detriment to small businessmen who do not have the privilege of having an accountant in the back room or hiring somebody who is an expert in taxes as big businesses can do. They either have to go outside and hire one or they have to spend a great deal of their own time complying with the Tax Code when they ought to be on the floor selling their product or running their business. So whether it is tax rates or whether it is simplification or whether it is incentives for small businesses which provide the bulk of the hiring in the United States-- in fact, from 1995 to 2005, between 60 and 80 percent of all new jobs were those created by small businesses--our comprehensive tax reform bill ensures that not only individuals but small business people will have a much simpler, easier way of reporting their taxes and complying with the Tax Code. They also will not be facing a tax increase under our bill because the current law is due to expire at the end of 2012. I will, once again, kick it back to my friend to wrap this up. I agree with him that together in 1986 Ronald Reagan and congressional Democrats, including Senator Bill Bradley, Congressman Dick Gephardt, and Congressman Jack Kemp, worked on a bipartisan basis to pass comprehensive tax reform. It did many good things and stimulated the economy and brought about a lot of new jobs. It has been 25 years since then. That code has now become evermore complex. I think we need to move ahead. As I said at the beginning of all of this, fundamental tax reform is one of the best tools in the economic tool shed, and it is time we use it. We know it will not be easy, but we know it has been done before and we can do it again. Working together, I believe we can take on the special interests that benefit from the Tax Code and create a much more business-friendly tax system. I conclude on that point. I would like my colleague to wrap up. I thank him for his inspiration and leadership on this effort. He started this more than 2\1/2\ years ago with Senator Gregg, in a bipartisan way. Senator Gregg retired at the end of the last Congress. I have the privilege of not only being a close friend of Senator Gregg's and an admirer of his understanding and depth of knowledge about financial issues, but I inherited all the hard work that he and Senator Wyden put together to bring this comprehensive tax bill to fruition. We have made some adjustments in debates and discussions between the two of us. We think it can be the primary vehicle for moving forward. Are we locked in stone? No. Are we open to suggestions to make it better? Yes. But, clearly, there is an agreement between the two of us that is unbreakable, which is that this is an essential part of dealing with our current fiscal crisis, and without this we will come up short. Just about everybody who has looked at this situation has come to this conclusion, and we are hoping we can in these next few weeks get a commitment from our colleagues and all those engaged in the process of trying to put together the package that can put us back on the right fiscal track and get our fiscal situation in order, that they will incorporate into this plan, incorporate it into what is brought before us, a commitment, locked in, to go forward with comprehensive tax reform. And we believe the Wyden-Coats plan is the place to start. I thank my colleague for his efforts, and I will turn it back to him to conclude this colloquy.