Daniel Coats

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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 back here for the 44th edition of ``Waste of the Week.'' I am starting to enjoy this, and I hope someone else is, but what we don't enjoy is the fact that the government is wasting taxpayer money. We have been documenting this for 44 weeks now, and we have come up with a significant total that is approaching $200 billion of waste. People get up every morning, go to work--put in a hard-day's work if they have a job--try to save money so they can get the mortgage paid each month, get the insurance covered, get the gas tank filled up in the car, and hopefully save a little money for their kids' education. But every time they get a paycheck at the end of the week, they look at it and see deductions for this, that, and everything, such as State taxes, Federal taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, such as the tax at the pump, and on and on it goes. You can't go to a grocery store, clothing store, or any retail store without getting a tax slapped on everything you buy. That money comes to Washington as a Federal tax, and at the very least, the taxpayer is due careful use of their hard-earned tax dollars to fund the Federal Government. There are essential functions that the Federal Government and only the Federal Government can deal with--States participate with the payment of interstate highways, along with some Federal support-- and one of those functions is national defense. The minority leader was just talking about delays, delays, delays, and how we are not getting anything done. My colleagues and I have been standing around here all week waiting to move on to one of the essential functions of government that has to be done every year, and that is funding for our national security and national defense. Through the use of parliamentary maneuvers, the minority leader, who was just talking about not getting anything done, is the reason we are not getting it done. I can understand that there is an issue that the other side doesn't think should go forward and they want to use senatorial privileges and procedures to stop it from going forward. I mean, that happens on both sides of the aisle. But national defense is something for which we have bipartisan support. In the end, this bill will probably pass 98 to 2 or 100 to nothing. What the minority leader didn't say is that every Democrat on the defense committee, after spending hundreds of hours putting this together, supported it. The minority leader comes down here and says: We don't know what is in it. His own people wrote this legislation, along with Republicans, and in the end, the committee sanctioned it by voting for it. Every Democrat on the committee voted for this bill, and now the minority leader comes down to the floor and says: We don't know what is in it. Why don't you talk to your own people? Why not talk to the people you have assigned to this committee? I can understand why he doesn't want to read every word of this bill--I don't think he reads every word of any bill--but I don't understand why he is using that tactic to keep us from going forward with something the Federal Government must provide for--our defense--at a time when threats are as high as we have ever seen. The world is on fire, and we need a strong national defense. Both Democrats and Republicans understand that, and yet we have wasted an entire week because the minority leader has used procedural motions to keep us from even talking about the bill. This isn't passage of the bill; this is not amending the bill; this is about the ability to come here and start talking about the bill. I didn't come down here to discuss this particular issue; I came down here to talk about how money that is sent here by taxpayers is used and the waste and misuse of that money. But you can't sit here very long and listen to the minority leader without some response to his nonsensical approach on this issue. The only good news is that very few people were watching, so what difference does it make? I am here to talk about the waste of the week. I hope the pages enjoy this one. You can't make up some of this stuff. The Government Accountability Office has the accountability of what we do with taxpayer dollars, and they keep pouring stuff out of here through the inspectors general, whose job it is to make sure the taxpayer dollars are spent accordingly for what they need to be spent for, and they have a category called waste, fraud, and abuse. I have just been scratching the surface of the waste, fraud, and abuse of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Those dollars ought to go into the savings of our taxpayers and not sent here to Washington to be wasted. I have been down here 44 times talking about separate wastes of the week, and it is outrageous. If this body does anything, we should take the word of those in the government who have pointed at agencies that have incorporated waste, fraud, and abuse and deal with it. Here we go with ``Waste of the Week'' 44. It is called the solar field of death. It sounds like a movie--solar field of death. This week we are looking at a solar powerplant that puts taxpayers on the hook for $1.5 billion. Here is the history. In 2011 the Department of Energy provided a $1.5 billion loan guarantees for the development of a solar thermal field in California called Desert Sunlight. We all know there is a lot of sunlight in the desert. It is one of the largest solar fields in the world. But most of us understand--and we see these solar fields and solar panels on top of some houses and commercial buildings--that these solar panels absorb sunlight and turn it into energy, and that is an alternative energy to what we usually get from a powerplant burning coal, gas, or whatever. Environmentalists like this because it doesn't use coal. There has been a war on Coal and a war on fossil fuels, but what really surprises me is the war on natural gas, which has just a fraction of the carbon emissions that come out of fossil fuel. Nevertheless, alternative energy is something the government has been pursuing, but we would like them to pursue that in a way that is economically feasible and doesn't put the taxpayer at such great risk. Well, the Obama administration essentially, in its war on coal, has said: Look, go on out there, and we will put up loan guarantees. Do your thing. Experiment, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and if it fails, don't worry--the taxpayer will back it up because we have given a guarantee to some of these companies with ideas. Some of the ideas have worked, some have been cost-effective, but many fewer than people thought. This one was supposed to be the ultimate. They said: Let's go out in the desert. The Sun shines all the time, and we will not put solar panels out there, but instead we will put out mirrors. Here is a picture of it out in the desert. There are literally hundreds of thousands of mirrors out there all directed at this tower. This tower then reflects the heat bouncing off the mirrors all directed in here toward the tower, which then boils water and then it produces through a steam turbine that energy and send it out over the wires to light up homes, factories, and provide electricity for people in California. That sounds pretty straightforward. Maybe it is a good idea. It probably would have been good if they tested it out before they put the mirrors out there. If they had done that, maybe they would have learned some things. What was the first thing they learned? Nobody seemed to factor in that the Sun doesn't always shine in the desert because sometimes there are clouds. As it turns out, one-third of the power they thought they would get they don't get because it is cloudy. You would think somebody would have said before the government offered a $1.5 billion guarantee: What about the cloudy days? They projected how much energy can be gotten to light up and provide electricity for California when the Sun is shining, but they are operating on the basis that the Sun is always going to be shining. How about nighttime? How much light or heat are we going to get directed toward those mirrors from the Moon? Not very much, if anything. Clouds came to be a factor, and what we found out is that the plant is producing only about a quarter of the energy that was originally envisioned. I am not a scientist, and I am not somebody who has a specialty in alternative energy, but I think I would have had the gumption to say: How about clouds? Are these projections that you have made regarding the kind of energy that is going to be produced going to be cost effective so that the taxpayer is not on the hook? Apparently, somebody didn't figure that out because we are only getting a quarter of what we thought we were going to get out of it. What the company did is say: OK. We are not getting what we wanted, but we need an extension. We need extensions on payments to the Federal Government because the plant isn't generating the kind of energy needed and therefore not getting the kinds of profits from the users of electricity for us to pay back the loan. So the Obama administration said: Yes, we are for alternative energy. Go ahead. We will extend this. They did extend the payments. Earlier this year, the California Public Utilities Commission gave the plant a lifeline, giving it 1 more year to fix the problems. Another problem was that while production improved, the average price for a megawatt hour of electricity from the plant was $150. Compare that with the price for a megawatt, the same amount of energy, on natural gas, which is $35. The customers said: Wait a minute. I am paying a utility bill at the rate of $150 per megawatt hour of electricity, and if we were using natural gas, we would only pay $35. So what is the deal here? It turned out that alternative energy, while it is alternative, also is not cost effective. The assumption is that we are saving on carbon emissions. OK. Well, that didn't work either. For starters, it takes the boilers that they have to heat up because, of course, it is nighttime and the mirrors aren't reflecting any Sun that reflects heat that causes the water to boil and then to be used to turn the turbines to produce electricity. It takes 4.5 hours every day to get up to speed. Guess how they do that? They have to use natural gas to get it to the point where then the Sun can add more to it. Maybe somebody didn't figure that out, either. In 2014, the plant emitted 46,000 metric tons of carbon--nearly twice the amount of carbon that power plants can emit under California State law. So the State said: Here's the limit of what you can emit in carbon, but thank goodness we have this solar field because that doesn't issue any. Well, it issues twice as much as what they were getting out of natural gas. That apparently didn't get figured in. People say: Well, there is an environmental advantage here. This environmental advantage means we don't have to put carbon in the air, and it is going to be a much cleaner source of energy, and there will not be any adverse effects on the environment. They have to also factor in that there are birds that fly in the air--a lot more birds than you might think. The heat has killed over 3,500 birds each year. They fry to death because there is so much heat reflected from those mirrors, and it is a huge field. The birds are probably attracted to the light, and by the time they get into this field, it is like going into a deep fat fryer. In Indiana there is a saying that if you can fry it, you can eat it. I have seen pictures of these fried birds. Trust me, we don't want to eat them. But $1.5 billion in taxpayers' money has been spent for a solar field of death that kills thousands of birds each year, doesn't produce much energy, and then, finally, sets itself on fire. I am not making this up. They had the mirrors redirected the wrong way, so it hit the cables that were providing the source for the energy to go down, and the cables caught on fire. I had a picture with the tower on fire, but we didn't bring it down here. What a boondoggle. I mean, look, is this interesting? Yeah. Is this funny? Yeah, but this is taxpayer money. This is a waste of $1.5 billion of taxpayer-guaranteed money. This is money that people send to Washington after a hard week's work. So, while it is interesting to talk about fried birds and mirrors redirecting the energy to the tower that catches on fire, the clouds coming over, and so on and so forth, the serious issue here is it is yet another waste of taxpayer money. Think what this $1.5 billion could be used for if it could be left in the hands of the taxpayer for whatever use--to pay the mortgage, send the kids to school--or if it could be used for common defense, protecting the American people from terrorist attacks or essential functions or repairing bridges or paving some roads. It is like driving in a third world country here in Washington, DC. There are potholes one wouldn't believe--cracks in the roads. Bumping along, I see people's hubcaps flying off cars and people pulled over to the side because their tire is blown out. I blew out two tires a year ago for the same reason. No environmental activist, fiscal conservative, or rational person should continue to support solar field of death. So I am labeling this as a waste of the week. The Obama administration continues to refuse to admit any of these half-baked--in this case fully fried--ideas that don't succeed. They are continuing to advocate for the solar field of death rather than put taxpayer money to better use. So here we go, adding $1.5 billion to a waste of taxpayer money, putting us to $172 billion of accountable money spent through government agencies' waste, fraud, and abuse. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am on the floor with my colleague from Indiana Senator Donnelly to talk about something that is very special to the State of Indiana which happens to be coming up this weekend. On Sunday, May 29, the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, the greatest spectacle in racing, will take place in the town of Speedway, IN, a small town within the confines of the borders of Indianapolis. The Indianapolis 500-mile race is the largest single-day sporting event in the world. It is almost staggering to think about this small town of Speedway, IN, hosting 350,000 fans this year. It is a logistical challenge that the city and security people have met year after year. It is something to see. Since the first race in 1911, race fans from around the world have packed the grandstands and the speedway's expansive infield to enjoy the race and take in the experience of being at one of the world's most famous motor sports events. I can't begin to describe the dimension of a 2\1/2\-mile track and the infield. There is a golf course--and a significant part of it is in the infield--that only takes up part of that infield. The 2\1/2\-mile track, with 350,000 people, is a spectacle you will not see anywhere else. For those of us who are from Indiana, the Indy 500 is a celebration of our State, and along with basketball, is what it means to be a Hoosier. Timeless traditions, like the singing of ``Back Home Again in Indiana,'' are embedded into the fabric of Hoosier culture. When the announcer says the phrase ``Gentlemen, start your engines,'' as was said for many years, 33 cars' engines start to roar to the cheers of the crowd. Today that same phrase is now ``Gentlemen and ladies, start your engines'' because the race has brought women to the track to also race. Thirty-three cars start the pace laps, and off the third or fourth pace lap, as the pace car races down the straightaway and pulls aside, 33 cars come roaring around the fourth turn and hurtling down the home stretch at over 200 miles per hour to plunge into the first turn while 350,000 people stand there holding their breath, maybe saying a prayer, and saying: How in the world can those 33 cars at 200 miles an hour pile into that very small banked first turn without cataclysmic consequences? But they do it, and it is a testament to the agility of the drivers and the technology that has been incorporated into the cars. It is something to see. The roots of all of this date back to 1909, when a group of businessmen, led by Hoosier entrepreneur Carl Fisher, purchased the 320 acre Pressley Farm--that is not Elvis Presley, by the way--just outside Indianapolis and began construction of the gravel-and-tar racetrack. At that time, Indianapolis and Detroit were competing to be America's automotive capital, and Fisher believed that a large speedway, where reliability and speed could be tested, would give Indianapolis an upper hand. Fisher and other speedway founders hired a New York engineer and asked him to design a 2\1/2\-mile track with a banked corner, a unique design that still endures today. The first track surface proved to be somewhat problematic so Fisher and his partners needed a way to pave it. They settled on bricks, and covering the 2\1/2\-mile oval required an astonishing 3.2 million bricks at a cost of $400,000, which was no small change back then. That is why it is called the brickyard. As time wore on, bricks didn't become the ideal surface, and when the current surface was put in place, we retained 1 yard of bricks at the finish line. If you are watching the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday--and I know all of these pages will be tuning into that spectacle after Senator Donnelly and I are through convincing you that this is something you really want to see--that yard of bricks is there and symbolizes what that track has been. With the bricks laid, about 80,000 spectators gathered around the track on Memorial Day weekend in 1911 for the inaugural Indianapolis 500 race. They witnessed Ray Harroun win the race in his yellow No. 32 Marmon ``Wasp'' at an average speed of 74.6 miles an hour--about what Senator Donnelly and I try to drive when we are on the interstates in Indiana and going no faster than that so we don't get a speeding ticket, which wouldn't help our careers. Initially, the cars had two people. One was the driver and the other was a mechanic. This is early on in 1911. We were still developing cars, and of course the impacts the car had to absorb going around a tar-and-gravel track caused many stops, so the mechanic would jump out, make the fix, put on a new tire, and help with the fueling. Ray Harroun surprised everybody by showing up without a mechanic. He was the only person in the car. It was the first such instance that had happened. What they did see in the car was something they hadn't seen on any of the other cars--a rearview mirror being used in an automobile. That is the first instance that we know of that automobiles used a rearview mirror. Since that first race, the Indianapolis 500 has occurred on every Memorial Day since 1911, with the exception of 1917 and 1918 when the United States was involved in World War I, and there was an exception from 1942 to 1945 when the United States was involved in World War II. When the soldiers came home after the war was over, they looked at the track and it was in a state of despair. It simply was not ready to be used. It had been neglected, understandably, through the war years and was broken down. At that time, the talk was let's close it down, but Terre Haute, IN, native Tony Hulman purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and under his leadership the facility was restored and rebuilt. Beginning in 1946 until today, the Indianapolis 500 restarted with massive crowds and the event has only grown over time. In the decades since, the speedway has been owned by the Hulman-George family and all race fans are indebted to this family for their passion for Indy 500 and careful stewardship of the world's most famous racetrack. As the years passed, the technology used at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has progressed and so has the speed. In 2013, Tony Kanaan set the record for the fastest Indianapolis 500, winning the race in 2 hours 40 minutes, at an average speed of 187.4 miles per hour. Think about that. Think of driving for 2 hours 40 minutes, at 187 miles per hour, including yellow lights, when everybody has to slow down significantly because of an accident on the track, a loose tire or something that causes the race to have to slow down, and the pit stops where they have to change the tires and fuel the cars--230 miles per hour is an extraordinary speed, and you have to run at that top speed almost continuously while you are on the track in order to achieve that 187-miles-per-hour record. There is nothing like being there and seeing cars at that speed so deftly handled by drivers in very difficult situations. The Indianapolis 500 is a showcase of ingenuity, human achievement, and the continuous pursuit of racing immortality. Racing legends like A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Rick Mears, Al Unser, and Bobby Rahal have become synonymous with the Indianapolis 500. The race is a source of great pride for all citizens of our State, and we are all very excited about the 100th running on Sunday. I am pleased to be joined by my Indiana colleague Senator Donnelly in recognizing--through a Senate resolution, which we will offering after Senator Donnelly speaks--the tremendous occasion of the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. I am more than happy to yield to my colleague, Senator Donnelly.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, on behalf of my colleague and friend, Senator Donnelly, and myself, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 475, submitted earlier today.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, we are all too familiar with the famous promises President Obama made to sell the American people on his ObamaCare proposal, and yes, I said, ``sell.'' We now know from White House revelations made by former Members who work for the President that the White House has been actively engaged in selling their program, selling their proposals to the American people through some admittedly sophisticated ways in using social media to achieve a goal. Just recently, White House National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes did an interview and discussed openly how the White House manipulated the media and the American people to sell the administration's Iranian nuclear agreement. With all the authority given to an American President, President Obama made this statement to sell ObamaCare to the American people--and I quote: ``No matter how we reform health care,'' the President said, ``We will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period.'' Why did the President add ``period'' to that statement? The statements are clear. If you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan. When you add ``period,'' it basically says: Take my word for it. Count on it. It is a done deal. I am telling you, the American people, I am making you a promise--period. You can take this one to the bank. I am not often a reader of the New York Times, but a recent headline in the paper caught my attention: ``Sorry, We Don't Take Obamacare.'' The article discusses the growing number of doctors and hospitals who are no longer accepting patients who are covered by ObamaCare insurance plans. So much for ``If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.'' So much for that promise. It is not just medical professionals who are saying no to ObamaCare. The largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, recently announced it will stop selling individual ObamaCare plans in Indiana next year because such plans simply are not profitable. It is pretty hard to run a business if you are not making a profit. If you are losing money, you can't pay the employees. You can't produce your product. UnitedHealthcare has said: We have lost so much money under this ObamaCare mandate that we are going to stop selling individual plans. According to the Indianapolis Business Journal: In April, UnitedHealth said it would drop out of all but a ``handful'' of state exchanges where it sells individual Obamacare plans. It had said the exchange market was smaller and riskier than it had expected. I think I heard a lot of the Republican Members on the floor basically saying what has been written and endorsed and imposed on the American people is something that simply doesn't make economic sense. There are going to be insurance companies that simply are not going to be able to not only survive on this basis but will not make any profit whatsoever. Obviously, with the case of UnitedHealthcare, they are dropping this because they simply cannot expose themselves to this kind of risk. It is said that they will lose $650 million on the plans this year alone, and UnitedHealthcare sold coverage in 34 States on the ObamaCare exchanges. The UnitedHealthcare situation is not unique. According to the Indiana Business Journal, ``Roughly half of the health insurers selling plans on the Obamacare exchange in Indiana lost money on the business last year.'' So much for the President's promise: ``If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period.'' So much for the President's promise. Decreased access to providers is just one of many problems with ObamaCare. Another major problem is the rising cost of coverage for those who are on this plan. Oh, yes, there were other promises made by the President here also. You may recall the President promised that the annual health care costs would be cut by $2,500 per family if ObamaCare were enacted. As recently as 2012, we were told by the President that the health insurance premiums paid by small businesses and individuals will go down because of ObamaCare--another promise to the American people: Don't worry, folks. . . . Your costs are going to go down, not up. Despite that promise that ObamaCare will cut costs and make coverage more affordable for families and small businesses, many Americans are experiencing higher premiums or paying outrageous deductibles when they purchase coverage through the ObamaCare exchanges. I have been on this floor documenting literally hundreds, if not thousands, of inputs to my office through phone calls, emails, and so forth, saying: Wait a minute. I just got a notice from my insurance company that my deductible is skyrocketing from $1,000 to $5,000 or to $7,500 or $9,000. I can't afford this kind of stuff. I thought we were promised this wouldn't happen. It is not just the deductibles, it is the copays. All of a sudden, I walk in and a doctor's office says: Wait a second. You have to put down the cash copay here. My copays have just gone through the roof. Premium increases have dramatically increased. The average premium for benchmark silver plans in the Federal exchange, the ObamaCare exchange, is rising by 7.5 percent this year. In Indiana, premiums for policies on the ObamaCare marketplace have gone up by an average of 14.4 percent per year since ObamaCare was implemented, a total increase. Get this. We have had a total increase in premiums under ObamaCare in Indiana totaling 71.5 percent. Tell the American people: You have my word, period. This isn't going to happen. It happens, and what do we hear? What is this rhetoric we hear coming out of the White House? This is one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened. In the campaign--I mean, those running for office from the President's party are simply saying: You have to elect us to preserve this wonderful ObamaCare health plan. Is it any wonder the American people are turning out in record numbers to vote against this kind of thing? These are just a few of the many broken promises and the many problems with the ObamaCare law. There are many other things I could get into, such as the failure of many State-run exchanges. Some States only have one exchange or no exchanges left. The rollout of the plan-- which cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of hard-earned tax dollars because this rollout was so botched nobody could get into the computers or even on the phone--the thing was rushed to meet a deadline, and they weren't prepared. It was hundreds of millions of dollars just to get it on board so people could begin to ask questions as to what they were mandated they had to do. So from increasing premiums and increased health care costs to failures to keep your doctor, to reduced access to doctors and hospitals, the bottom line is ObamaCare is not working for the American people. Rather than making health care more affordable and successful, ObamaCare has actually driven up health care costs and a decreased choice of doctors for too many Americans and too many American businesses. It is long past time for repeal of the President's disastrous health care law. We need to replace it with more effective and clearly patient-centered solutions. Despite numerous attempts by Republicans to repeal this fatally flawed legislation, all efforts have been rejected by the President and the White House, but we are approaching the time when the American people can express their response to these broken promises this administration has made in relation to ObamaCare. Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I was pleased to come over here early before I spoke and listen to my colleague from Ohio. We have the same issues in Indiana. I think probably the Presiding Officer's State and every State has serious opioid addiction issues, particularly with our young people. We cannot solve all of the problems here. We have passed a piece of legislation. Hopefully we can reconcile with the House shortly and put it on the President's desk. In a number of ways, that will provide the support for dealing with this problem. It is a national issue, it is a State issue, it is a city issue, it is a smalltown issue, and it is a rural America issue. It is all hands on deck here. We are losing precious lives through this scourge of addiction that is sweeping through our country. Wasteful Spending Mr. President, today I am back, as I have been every week for now 43 weeks for the waste of the week. The ``Waste of the Week'' is where I highlight waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government system that is using hard-earned taxpayer dollars that ought to be able to be used by the taxpayer to pay the mortgage, pay the bills at the end of the week, to put aside some money hopefully for the children's education as they grow, or for any number of needs out there. We have the responsibility and the duty to be carefully managing the tax money that is assessed to our public. ``Waste of the Week'' has pointed out some significant examples, yet drop-in-the-bucket of expenditures that have not been successful, have not been used for the purpose they are supposed to be used, part of the waste, fraud, and abuse category of now nearly--well, nearing $200 billion. That is not small change. This week, I am highlighting a Federal program that has a lousy track record and over $7 billion in leftover money--funds Congress has appropriated for this program. Let me explain the program. In 2008, shortly after the economic recession began, Congress created something called the Home Affordable Modification Program; in short, HAMP. This is a new emergency program established to help homeowners facing financial distress to avoid foreclosure by reducing their monthly mortgage payments. All this occurred at a time when our country truly was in distress--a serious recession. People were working less hours or no hours. Those who owned homes were finding it difficult if not impossible to pay the monthly mortgage payments. So the HAMP program, which is a voluntary program for homeowners and mortgage lenders--if the two of them get together and agree to restructure their home loan payments, they can stay in their home, and it doesn't have to go through foreclosure. It is a sensible program at a time of real need. Lenders work through the Treasury Department to reduce those monthly mortgage payments to no higher than about one- third of the homeowners' income. Historically, if you are telling your kids about buying a home or you are graduating from school and you want to buy a home, the solid advice has always been, don't commit yourself to more than 25 percent of the income you are earning to pay on your mortgage. You are going to need the rest of that money to pay the rest of your bills--all the utilities, food, transportation, buying a car, and so forth and so on. Well, this program said all the way up to a third. If you qualified on that, we would use 33 percent instead of 25 percent and restructure your mortgage so that you had a lower payment you had to make each month on that mortgage. The Department of Treasury put this program in place. It was scheduled to expire at the end of 2012. In 2013, after the program had technically expired, an inspector general found that the number of participants who ended up redefaulting on their new modified mortgage was ``increasing at an alarming rate.'' What is this word ``redefaulting''? Look, if you don't pay your mortgage payments, you are in default. If you are in default long enough, the bank or the mortgage company that is holding your mortgage says: We are going to foreclosure and take your house back because you are not making payments. This program was designed to help people avoid that catastrophe. Redefaulting is the process by which the person, having already agreed to--with the mortgage company and with the support of the Federal Government, the person agreed to a program to lower the payments so they could keep their house. They defaulted again, so the technical term is redefaulting, but it is two defaults. So if Joe Smith has problems and he gets with his lender, he gets a new program, but then down the line, he defaults again. According to the inspector general, this became something that needed to be addressed because we simply cannot continue to proceed with this program with the taxpayers' dollars if the participants aren't doing their share. Despite the poor performance, the administration unilaterally--and how many times have we seen this happen during the Obama administration?--bypassing Congress, they unilaterally extended the program beyond its December 2012 expiration date. Interestingly enough, even with this extension, the number of applicants steadily declined. People either couldn't meet the measures or they didn't need it. The economy was improving, and they didn't need to do this. According to the Treasury Department, the number of HAMP participants declined because there was a shrinking number of eligible mortgagees. Given that the outcomes of those receiving help were largely subpar and the number of applicants was declining, you would think we would come to the conclusion that the program needed to be terminated. It was already extended past the deadline, but on the basis of what was happening with the program, essentially we should terminate that. When HAMP was created, the goal was to help about 4 million homeowners. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the program ended with only 1.3 million homeowners making it through the trial phase and ultimately being accepted into the program. Of those people, about one- third ultimately redefaulted, costing taxpayers an additional $1.5 billion. We had a broken program. What was left in the fund with the Treasury was $7 billion. Some people call these slush funds. This is money that has been appropriated, put into a program--not expended in the program but sits there. How many times have we heard about government agencies with excess taxpayer money saying: Don't give it back. Now, of course, this is the Treasury. Sometimes we say: Give it back to the Treasury. This is the Treasury itself. Well, don't terminate this and give it back; we might want to use it for something else. That is a classic way of describing how Washington often works. Spend all the money that is appropriated to you, or they will reduce the money they give you next year. I previously sat on the Appropriations Committee, and this is not a one-off proposition. Every year, we have to scrub through these agencies' expenditures, and we find that there is excessive spending at the end of the fiscal year so that they don't get a reduced amount of funds sent to them for the next fiscal year. Think of the ways this money could be used if it was put back into the Treasury. No. 1, it could be used for essential Federal functions. Wouldn't NIH like to have $7 billion to be able to hopefully break through on a wonder drug that would address Alzheimer's or diabetes or something else? Wouldn't the Department of Defense want to have this money for the shortcomings they have had because of the drastic reduction in expenditures for our national defense and security? Wouldn't any number of Federal agencies that produce essential programs that have to be addressed financially want to use that money for the right purposes? Most important of all, wouldn't the taxpayer want to get that money back or not have it spent at all or use it? Wouldn't the Treasury want to use it to reduce our ever-deepening national defense? So there are a lot of uses for this money that is sloshing around in a trust fund--not a trust fund, but sloshing around in the fund held by the Treasury Department. This is a waste because it is sitting there. It is going to be spent on something that it was not intended to be spent on. For that reason, it becomes the waste of the week. As the waste of the week, we add $7 billion to our ever-growing total of waste, fraud, and abuse, taking our total overall to $170 billion. This is not small change. We have people struggling in America to make ends meet. They live paycheck to paycheck. They want their hard-earned dollars that are taken from their paycheck used for the right purposes. If the money is not used for the right purposes, they don't want to send it; they want it back. We have an accountability to the American people, the people we represent, to do the best we can to provide the most efficient, effective use of their tax dollars. If we can't provide that--this is just, as I said, a drop in the bucket. I could be standing here every day with a waste of the day. I could be standing here every hour with a waste of the hour. We have a responsibility to be accountable to the people whose money is taken by the Federal Government and used. They don't mind using it for the right things. Maybe a veterans program needs that $7 billion to treat more veterans better than the way they are treated now. In any event, we add this, and we have $170-plus billion in documented waste, fraud, and abuse. I will be back next week with the next version, and we will continue to expose funding that is unnecessary and is putting a real burden on our hard-earned tax dollars being paid to the Federal Government. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks my colleague from Ohio made about this opioid issue and the impact it is having on our citizens and particularly on our young people. I support his significant contributions and efforts in terms of dealing with this problem. It is affecting my State, his State, and all of our States. We are passing legislation to deal with it, but it is going to take more than legislation; it is going to take an all-out effort by everybody. To watch our kids, our children, our young people, and Americans become addicted and victims of this scourge that is taking place is disheartening, to say the least. We need to do all we can to address that. Our State is trying to do that and making some significant steps forward. We all have a long way to go.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, that is not why I am here today. I come down every week, as my colleagues know, to talk about the waste of the week. While I am dealing with documented evidence of the waste of taxpayers' money through waste, fraud, and abuse and while we have totaled up well over $150 billion of documented waste, it is only a pebble in the sea, a grain of sand compared to what we are doing by allowing deficit spending to plunge us ever more into debt. Without a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, this body has not had the discipline to match our spending with the revenues that come in or the political will to go to the American people and say: If you want this much government, this is how much it is going to cost. Instead, we say: We will give you what you want, and we will borrow the money to cover it because we don't have the tax revenue. And we don't have the will to say: We have to raise your taxes if this is what you want. It has put us in a dire situation from a financial standpoint. It is not talked about as much as it should be. But when I returned to the Senate, having been elected in 2010 to serve another term, our debt level was bad enough at that point at $10.7 trillion. But under this administration, in less than 8 years, it has almost doubled. It is now $19.2 trillion, I think is the latest, and the clock is ticking. Tune in to my Web site and you will see the debt clock. It is stunning to sit there and look at how fast those digits are turning of money that is being borrowed, which we have to pay interest on and which is slowing down our economy and crippling our future generations. I see the young pages sitting here on the steps. Many of them have listened to my ``Waste of the Week'' speeches. I want to tell you that my generation--I am not pointing fingers at one party or another--has failed to achieve some kind of fiscal discipline that will put you in a position where you can inherit from my generation something that my parents and our parents and our generation gave to us, and that is a prosperous, growing, dynamic economy that gave us the opportunity to get an education, gave us the opportunity to be engaged meaningfully in the workforce, become homeowners, raise a family, save for our kids' future. I stand here as a father with 3 children and 10 grandchildren. It is sickening to me to think about the challenges they are going to have because my generation didn't step up to the responsibility of running a fiscally sound economy through the decisions we make in the U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, and the White House. Yes, I have blamed this President for not treating this in a serious enough manner. We made every type of effort you could think of in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and we finally threw up our hands and gave up because of the six or seven things that were presented to the President over that period of time, he has rejected every one of them. I was part of one of those negotiations and was very involved with that negotiation. I directly dealt with the President and his top people. We gave him a lot of what he said he wanted, and in the end he turned it down. I wish I had the clock ticking behind me. We are getting ever deeper into debt, and that will have a significant impact on the country. I was speaking on the floor yesterday. The growth--if you can call it that--in the latest quarter is 0.5 percent. That is about as anemic as it gets, teetering on falling into a recession. That is what the statistic shows for growth during the first quarter of 2016. The number comes from the Department of Labor. It shows that there was a very low amount of new jobs. Those new jobs basically replaced those who were retiring. It is far below what we need to provide meaningful jobs for people in this country. After having failed over a period of years to put together a credible, long-term plan to deal with our debt crisis, balance our budget, and stop adding more to our debt, I have come down to show my colleagues documented evidence of the waste, fraud, and abuse that nonpartisan agencies have inspected and told us about. For over 40 weeks, I have been in this cycle of coming to the Senate floor to identify yet a new waste, fraud, or abuse, and the total is significantly trending toward $200 billion worth of waste. It is no wonder that Americans at home are furious with the dysfunction that is taking place in Washington and demanding change. We see this on both sides of the aisle. The people have said: We have had it. It is enough. We are done with you guys and gals. We need to shake this place up. A revolution is taking place across the country. The country is finally grasping onto the fact that we have simply not been functional. The one way we can be functional, or at least do something, is to have the government's own accountability office, which looks into the programs that are part of what we have enabled and provides the needed spending for certain areas--if they see there is fraud, waste, and abuse, can't we at least do something about that? That is the reason I am here today. I have been a strong supporter of the U.S. armed services. I am a veteran, and I served on the Armed Services Committee during my previous tenure in the Senate. I have a deep regard and respect for the need for adequate spending to provide for our common defense. That is the first obligation in the Constitution that we swear to when we are sworn into the U.S. Senate. There is no agency that is exempt or getting a pass if they are engaged in bad decisions that spend and waste money, especially if they don't correct those things that are pointed out by their own inspectors general or government agencies that look into all of this. Today I am talking about the Department of Defense. They are not immune from issues of waste, fraud, and abuse, and we need to document those as well. One of the reasons we need to document those is they need every penny they have because their portion of the budget is continuing to shrink due to our dire fiscal situation. At the very least, we have to make sure they are not wasting money because it is needed to protect and provide security for Americans. This waste of the week involves expenditure in Afghanistan, where we have troops and commitments over there. They had a request for cargo planes. We need planes to transfer cargo between the bases and different parts of Afghanistan. So the decision was made to provide 20 cargo planes to fulfill that mission. The Department of Defense went to the country of Italy. Maybe they went to Italy because they are part of the coalition and felt obligated to buy some equipment from them, and so they bought 20 Italian cargo planes. The purpose of the purchase was to support the Afghan Air Force, and as I said to transport troops and equipment around the country. At the time the Afghans had old, out-of-date, Soviet-era Russian planes and the Department of Defense wanted to replace them, so again they went to Italy to purchase these planes. The purchase price for 20 of these cargo planes was $486 million. That is a lot of money, but I am not here to say they should have paid less or should have paid more. That is what the price was and that is what they negotiated. This was documented by two inspectors general who looked at this program and said: Wait a minute. We have a problem here, guys. The first problem was they didn't buy 20 cargo planes, they only bought 16 planes. The price was $486 million for 20 planes, and somehow only 16 arrived. I am not sure what happened to the other four planes, so there were problems from the beginning. It became abundantly clear early on that these planes were not made to fly in the type of conditions that exist in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has a lot of desert, sand, wind, and these planes apparently have all kinds of problems flying in that kind of atmosphere. You would have thought that since we were there, we would know this because our own planes fly in that atmosphere. I think somebody basically didn't do their homework and say: Before we pay out $486 million, maybe we ought to make sure the planes we are buying to replace the old Soviet planes, which we know don't work, can fly in the atmosphere here. Since we have had problems with some of our own planes, we need to make sure these planes are capable of holding up under these type of conditions. As it turned out, they flew the planes for only 9 months, and in those 9 months they accumulated 235 hours of flight time, and one of the reasons for that is because they were constantly in the maintenance shop having repairs made because of the conditions they were flying in. The planes were purchased on the basis that they could get 4,500 hours out of each plane and that would carry a lot of cargo. I can understand why they wanted them, but because the problems they had were so extensive, it turned out they needed a lot of spare parts. When they looked in terms of what it would cost to buy new spare parts for these planes, the total came up to another $200 million. So on top of the $486 million, another $200 million would have to be added to that. Since they didn't have the money to do that, they said: Let's take 6 of the remaining 16 planes off the airfield and tear them down for spare parts. So now we are down to 10 planes. We started with 20, somehow they only got 16, and now they decommissioned 6 planes and used them for spare parts for the other planes so they wouldn't have to spend the $200 million. Now we are down to 10 planes at a cost of $486 million, but even after that they continued to have problems and so they decided to scrap the whole thing. You would have thought somebody somewhere with different conditions would want to buy those planes. We are now down to 10 planes. Maybe they could have taken the spare parts off those planes and maybe salvage a few more, but, no, the decision was made to scrap those planes and decommission them. So they decided the next step was that since we can't use them, let's just tear them apart. This is a nice picture of what happened to the planes. Here we have a nice pile of scrap. They said we have to salvage something so they said: Let's sell the scrap. We spent $486 million for planes that were sold for scrap. We sold the scrap for 6 cents a pound and we retrieved $32,000. We spent $486 million, decommissioned 6 planes so we could get spare parts, which meant we only had 10 planes, and since that didn't work, they just took a bulldozer to that, scrapped it, and now this machine is picking up the scrap and probably putting it in the container and selling it for 6 cents a pound. I come down here every week, and these stories are just mind- boggling. The taxpayer hears about these stories and some might say: In this atmosphere, maybe we shouldn't be exposing all of this. No, we are exposing it so we can stop this and have an efficient and effectively run government doing the essential things the Federal Government needs to do and not getting itself into this constant week after week after week--look, there have been books written by Senators. My former colleague Tom Coburn wrote a book about waste, which basically documented hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse. He stepped down from office 2 years ago, and we miss him. I am just trying to carry on his legacy, probably in a less effective way than he did, by exposing what is happening with Americans' tax dollars. Every day people haul themselves out of bed, start their coffee, get in the car, go to work, come home, try to save money, look at their paycheck, and when they see the amount of money that is being deducted for taxes, they say: Ok. Well, maybe that is what we need to do to protect our country and provide for programs. And then when they learn about stuff like this, they say: What am I going to work for, just to turn this money over to Washington so they can spend it and make decisions like this. This is one of 40-some presentations I have given on the Senate floor, and I will keep doing this as long as I stay in the Senate because our people need to know and put pressure on their representatives. They need to think about this so the next person they elect to walk into the White House will hopefully have the courage to address our fiscal problems in a way that is not going to put our next generation in such dire situations. With that, I add to our ever-growing list of waste, fraud, and abuse another $486 million for a total of $162,764,055,817. Think how that money could be used for essential items like Zika, Ebola, research at the National Institutes of Health, education, paving roads, doing infrastructure repairs--any number of things that need to be done, which is how that money could be better used than selling used airplane scrap for 6 cents a pound. Think about the money that could be returned to the taxpayers that they wouldn't have to pay in taxes if we could simply run a much more efficient, effective government. Spending is a huge issue. It needs to be addressed in this election. The American people need to be aware of where we stand. Where we stand today is substantially worse than when I arrived to start my second term in the Senate 5\1/2\ years ago. Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alaska, Senator Sullivan, for what he just presented to us here. He hit the nail right on the head. Along with our colleague from South Dakota, I want to add my voice to what has been said here. As chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, we pay a lot of attention to the state of the economy. We are presented with numbers and facts about where we are as a nation. The refrain that is becoming all too familiar; that is, we really are in a stagnant position, not going anywhere. Of all the statistics that come to us, two stand out here just recently. One is the fact that the April jobs report was significantly lower than it needs to be in order to provide meaningful jobs for Americans who are searching for jobs, and for Americans trying to move from part-time jobs to full-time permanent jobs, to put some certainty into their lives. With just 160,000 jobs created in April, basically that covers those who are retiring--maybe fewer than that--but certainly not the number of new jobs that give an indication of growth in the economy. That was a disappointing number, and obviously Wall Street paid attention to it. Hopefully it won't be repeated, but it is a worrying signal that we are not creating the kind of dynamic growth in the economy that will put our out-of-work individuals across this country back to work, that will provide opportunities for our young people who are graduating from college and high school this month and next month. That is nowhere near the number of jobs we need to even reach an average growth rate over the years, as my colleague from Alaska said. I think we have had eleven major recessions from World War II to the present. The recovery rate out of each of those recessions has been at 4 percent. That rate of growth provided new hope for the people who lost their jobs and new hope for those coming out of educational institutions to secure a good job and begin the process of building a family, buying a home, and living the American dream. Yet this recovery--from a recession that began in late 2007 with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the bank failures has been long. It was a deep recession. And it has taken a considerable amount of time to get moving in the right direction. Clearly, after the last 7\1/2\ years of the Obama administration, we have not begun to achieve the kind of recovery that has been the average of all the recoveries since the end of World War II. We've been about half of that, and because the recoveries have been half of that, we have not been able to provide opportunity for the American people. I think what we have seen here can best be defined as a result of the failed policies by this administration. We have policies that have raised taxes significantly on the American people even though their incomes have not increased. We have had policies of overspending here in Washington to the point where our national debt--based on years of deficit spending--has almost doubled from $10.7 trillion when this administration began to over $19 trillion after their 7\1/2\ years of governing and putting policies in place that have clearly failed. You can come to no other conclusion, despite what the White House puts out. The American people know better because their situation is in contrast to the White House saying that things are going well and that we are on the march forward. When the American people compare that with their situation, there is no comparison to be made whatsoever. Deficit spending, plunging into debt, and overregulation are burdening innovators and burdening businesses from having the ability to expand their business. Overtaxing and clearly overspending. Those three policies determine economic growth. I have had the great privilege of representing a State that has done just the opposite. Under Republican leadership, our State has controlled spending, controlled regulations, and put innovative processes in place that have allowed our State to thrive and grow. We came out of a deep deficit situation some years ago and have turned that around to the point where we now have a triple-A credit rating. We went from deficit spending, which caused borrowing, to a surplus well over $2 billion. We have become an attractive State to live and do business in. Let me state a couple of things that have been said about our State. Chief Executive Magazine recently named Indiana one of the top five States in the Nation for business. The magazine asked 513 chief executive officers to rank the States they were familiar with on tax and regulatory regime, workforce quality, and living environment. Let me state a couple of their quotes. Indiana . . . has its act together and is impressive. Indiana . . . has consistently ranked in the top 3 in offering not just competitive incentives for business, but also packages that improve the skill sets to hire a qualified, work-ready workforce. Don Brown, chief executive officer of Indianapolis-based Interactive Intelligence, Inc., recently said that the State's low costs and low taxes allow job creators to invest more resources into their businesses and their employees. He went on to say: Limited regulations make it easy to grow here, freeing up time, which is perhaps an entrepreneur's most coveted gift. . . . We have great universities turning out lots of talented graduates. . . . The public and private sectors work effectively together in an effort to improve conditions for everybody. How I wish that quote would reflect what is happening here in Washington. How I wish I could use that quote to say this is what is happening across the United States. I wish I could use that quote to be able to say that under the direction of this President and with the support of this Congress, we have reined in our overspending, tamped down our overregulation, put incentives in place to create jobs, and put policies in place that to create economic growth. Unfortunately, that is not the case, as has been made clear by my colleagues, and the case I am trying to make now. The contrast between a geographic entity called a State and the Federal Government and the policies which govern that State and govern our Federal Government in the three areas of taxation, regulation, and spending is dramatic. Why wouldn't we look at the States that have succeeded? Why wouldn't we look to the policies implemented by a State that has succeeded and demonstrated dynamic economic growth over the same timeframe as the Federal Government, who has done exactly the opposite relative to taxation, regulation, and spending, and draw the clear conclusion that the policies that have been implemented by this administration have failed? Let's stop pointing fingers at what the motives are. Let's just look at the results, and the results are very clear: We have a stagnant national economy, people not receiving opportunities to increase their income. If you go back to what the average earnings in America per family were at the start of this administration, it was $3,000 higher than it is today. Whatever releases come out of the White House or whatever the spokesman for the President says or the President himself says just simply doesn't match up to the facts. The facts are related to the policies that either have been put in place. It is clear that in the remaining months of this administration, those policies are not going to change. Simply there is denial of the fact that the country is not growing at a rate that provides opportunity and gives us hope for the future. But we do have a model, and my State is not the only model. We have models of States that have done exactly the opposite of that. Yes, they have regulations, but they are there for safety and health. They are beneficial and were not put in place to micromanage how businesses operate. States have been careful with the tax dollars and revenue that come in, and they balance their fiscal budget on an annual basis. They don't throw themselves ever deeper into debt. They recognized that is not the path to growth, and they spend the taxpayers' money wisely. Overtaxation, overregulation, and overspending clearly are not the path to economic growth. It is clear that the path is just the opposite of that. In the remaining months I have here, I will keep talking about this issue. I hope my colleagues will pay attention and make decisions on the basis of fact, not on the basis of ideology or what they have been told by the administration or the President. They need to look at the results, and the results are dramatic in terms of application of the basic principles that stimulate economic growth and provide hope for the American people. 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. COATS. Mr. President, today's announcement by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that our economy grew, once again, an anemic rate of 0.5 percent during the first quarter of the year is more than discouraging but not surprising. Whether it is burdensome regulations, whether it is a broken Tax Code, or whether it is a continued plunge into national debt, the Obama administration's policies have been and will continue to be a deadweight on our economy. The President continues to make big promises and insists his policies are effective, but the facts speak for themselves. Under President Obama, the median household income has decreased during his presidency and remains 6.5 percent below its prerecession level. If this were an average post-1960s recovery, individuals would have nearly $2,700 more in their wallets. Instead, they have received a decrease of $3,000 per year in their income. This is unacceptable. While the President continues to say the economy is improving, it is clearly not reaching its potential or anywhere close to its potential. At some point, you have to acknowledge the policies aren't working. Here we are 8 years from the beginning of the recession, and the president in the White House insists that his policies are working: Hang in there with us, folks. Things are going to get better. Then these statistics come out that things are not only not getting better, but are getting worse. We are not only not moving closer to the average level of recovery after a major recession, but we are moving further and further away from it. Our current annual growth rate in this recovery is less than 2 percent. In 2016, with this quarter's report, we are off to a very weak start. But if this were an average recovery, we would be seeing an annual growth rate of somewhere around 3\1/2\ to 4 percent. I served previously in Congress in the Reagan years, and the growth rate during the Reagan recovery was 4.5 percent, which is well more than double what it is today. I have seen firsthand how pro-growth policies turn a dismal economic situation around, but I haven't seen it here in Washington under President Obama. Where I have seen it is in my home State of Indiana. In 2005, under the policies of a Democratic administration, which clearly weren't working, Indiana faced a $200 million deficit, and our State had not balanced its budget for 7 years, even though the State constitution requires that we do that. Under the leadership of former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and current Governor Mike Pence, Indiana has reduced spending, cut taxes, and paid off its debt. As a result, instead of a $200 million deficit, we have a $2 billion surplus today. We enjoy a triple-A credit rating from all the credit rating agencies, and we have been listed in index after index as the State to go live thanks to our low taxes and because we are business friendly, family friendly, and tax friendly. The contrast between this body and the State that I represent is dramatic because of the differences in our policies. By the numbers and indexes, it is clear that this Federal economy under the policies of this administration is simply not making any progress. I think we see that playing out in the upcoming election for the next President. It has become a major campaign issue, and we hear both parties talking about it. Over the past 2 years, in Indiana, private employment has grown by nearly 130,000 jobs, reflecting the results and success of Indiana's pro-growth policy. Employers are taking notice of our healthy business climate and coming into the State to establish new businesses. I think the resurgence of growth is proof that sound economic policy works. I have seen how it works in Indiana, and I am simply not willing to accept the stagnant rate of growth here without trying to do something about it. I don't think anything is going to change since there is no indication from the White House or even from our colleagues across the aisle here that they are willing to at least debate this issue and put the policies that bring about economic growth into place. In order to boost economic growth, we need to reverse the failed policies of this administration by overhauling our Tax Code, strip away unnecessary government regulations, give employers the certainty they need in order to grow their businesses and create jobs, follow the lead of States like Indiana, Ohio, and others that have turned their economies around and bring the prosperity to the people of those States. Congress can take action to encourage our economy to grow, but we need a partner in the White House willing to cut the redtape, willing to enact pro-growth reforms and put in place a real plan to reduce the debt. I hope I don't have to come down here to discuss another quarter of anemic rate of growth. The American people simply pay the bills, pay the mortgage, send the kids to college, and put aside money for the future. That is not happening, and it needs to change. Hopefully, we can take a lesson from what we have learned on these quarterly reports--that the policies in place are simply not doing the job. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, at 11:30 a.m., in room SR- 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, at 10:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``U.S.-China Relations: Strategic Challenges and Opportunities.''

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, at 11 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Government Reform: Ending Duplication and Holding Washington Accountable.''

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, in room SD-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 2:15 p.m.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, in room SD-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 2:15 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``The GAO Report on Telecommunications: Additional Coordination and Performance Measurement Needed for High-Speed Internet Access Programs on Tribal Lands.''

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Counterfeits and Their Impact on Consumer Health and Safety.''

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, at 10 a.m.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, at 10 a.m., in room SR-428A of the Russell Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Drowning in Regulations: The Waters of the U.S. Rule and the Case for Reforming the RFA.''

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2016, at 3:30 p.m., in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Valeant Pharmaceuticals' Business Model: the Repercussions for Patients and the Health Care System.''

Mr. COATS

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

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, we haven't discussed foreign policy issues on the floor for a while. It is not because all is quiet on the eastern front. It is not. As we know, what is happening in the Middle East and in Europe--the migration issue, Syria, across Northern Africa--is that there are major issues that are ongoing and that affect the United States in a number of ways, not only economically but strategically, and leave us vulnerable to threats to ``take down America'' in one way or another. Obviously, we are in the middle of a heated campaign, which hopefully will be resolved in terms of our nominees in a short amount of time. But we do have to recognize the next President, whoever that President might be, is going to be facing some extraordinary challenges relative to foreign policy and national security issues. Making America great again--whatever it is that defines phrase--a new leader will have to deal with a number of very difficult challenges. This past Monday, President Obama delivered a speech in Germany in which he discussed the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. He said that NATO must be prepared to carry out its traditional missions while at the same time meeting the newly emerging threats to the alliance. That was revealing to me and, frankly, welcoming because we have not heard anything from the President along those lines in my memory, but his recognition and his statement in that regard defines where we are; that is, we need to be prepared to carry out traditional missions through NATO while at the same time meeting the newly emerging threats to the alliance. We see these newly emerging threats to the alliance we are in almost every day. The President also noted that Europe has been complacent about its own defense and called on our allies to do more. I welcome this renewed attention to NATO. It also gives us the opportunity to respond to those who believe NATO has outlived its usefulness, is too expensive, and should be done away with. Such a view needs a rebuttal. It is not necessary nor correct to claim that NATO has no problems or its role has not changed or its future is clear. NATO does face challenges and has--in defining its mission, securing its resources, and providing the leadership that the world requires. But to deny that alliance's obvious value is, in my opinion, a major mistake. Such a judgment surely cannot be based on any real understanding of what NATO is or what it has accomplished, much less of what it can become and, candidly, what it must become, given the level of crisis and conflict so present in Europe, the Middle East, and in Africa. I have been a strong supporter of the alliance and the transatlantic security relationship throughout my public life. NATO's proud past and enduring importance were a constant presence during my service as a U.S. Senator and as U.S. Ambassador to Germany for 4 years following 9/ 11. Since returning to the Senate, the alliance has remained a keen interest to me. Contrary to the notion that NATO has served its purpose and is no longer needed or is no longer a viable organization, NATO has survived and thrived for half a century because it has proven itself to be an adaptable, flexible, and effective organization. I think many of us know the alliance began all the way back in 1949 with the principle motive of protecting Western Europe from the threat of Soviet aggression. But many forget that the founding document, the Washington treaty of 1949, does not mention the Soviet Union. Instead, its founding treaty laid out the core values of the West, which values the alliance was designed to protect. I want to state that again. What was trying to be accomplished through this alliance of NATO, all the way back to 1949, was a values- based organization that enabled the alliance and gave the alliance those values which the alliance was designed to protect. It is exactly because the alliance was and remains values-based that it has been able to adapt to a changing strategic environment with newly defined missions and membership. The vital and permanent need to protect our shared values survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and the threat it represented and has enabled the alliance to define and confront the major threats and modern threats that we face today. As NATO adapted to the post-Soviet world, the clearest proof of its foundation as a community of values was the process of enlargement. At the beginning of that process, few in the administration or Congress saw NATO enlargement as having very much to do with actually enhancing the military capabilities of the alliance. When the first countries were proposed for membership via the Partnership for Peace program, it was not only because of the military contributions those newly democratic nations could bring; rather, the most explicit motivation for extending the prospect of membership to the countries of what we then called Eastern Europe was to persuade them to make the political and economic changes that would make them worthy and complimentary allies. We were trying to cement in the democratic revolutions that occurred in these former Soviet-controlled states and make those changes permanent. We were extending NATO's democratic values--along with its security umbrella--and we required prospective members to accept them and institutionalize those democratic values. That process continues today. NATO was and remains a political instrument of enormous persuasive power with historic consequences. But are shared values enough to maintain the vitality and the relevance of a military alliance? For those new member countries themselves, the appeal of alliance membership was the vast military capabilities of the club they were about to join. They sought actual enhanced security in a still dangerous world, not just a political partnership of values. Now, in the wake of renewed Russian aggression, most especially in Ukraine and its illegal annexation of Crimea, the objective military capabilities of the alliance have become even more relevant. This renewed threat resulted in NATO, in effect, hitting the pause button on redefining NATO's post-Soviet missions. For many alliance members on Russia's periphery, it was ``NATO--Back to the Future.'' Russian behavior has once again provoked profound anxiety among our allies on Russia's periphery, especially the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania. In response, NATO has taken on new missions intended to reassure our allies, discourage Putin's aggressive designs, and renew NATO's urgent relevance. All of this has a heritage for NATO's founding in the Soviet era, but it also is a new and, in many ways, more complicated response. While Russia is not the enemy it once was, it certainly is no friend to the NATO nations. It is perhaps a necessary partner in some places, but it is a dangerous obstacle in others. In restating and reinforcing NATO's role in opposing Russian aggression, NATO needs to be creative and firm, active and present. It cannot be done on the cheap. This renewed mission emphasizes again the persistent issue of lagging resources. It has long been a problem that the great majority of NATO membership countries do not meet the alliance standard of the 2 percent of their GDP, gross domestic product, for defense. Although it is true that robust defense of the transatlantic region does require a greater commitment of resources than most European countries have been willing to accept in the past, it is not true that U.S. taxpayers have simply been required to make up the difference. The Department of Defense says that the direct U.S. contribution to NATO is about $500 million a year, the largest share of NATO's budget, clearly, but not out of line with our comparative gross domestic product--compared to other European nations. It is true that NATO relies on the national assets of its members for operations, and in that regard, our portion is the largest. But our portion reflects our spending for the entire military, which has global responsibilities. In other words, if there were no NATO, those military expenditures presumably would be the same, if not larger, since our allies are contributors to our collective security as well. In any case, the growing anxiety about Russian behavior seems to be generating some real progress on this resources front. Secretary General Stoltenberg said this week that five NATO members now meet the 2-percent requirement, while it was only two countries just a few years ago. Further, defense spending has increased in real terms in 16 of the 28 countries since 2014. Clearly, it is a wake-up call for NATO. What has happened on their borders, the periphery of Russia, has awakened NATO to the belief that it needs to strengthen our military, strengthen NATO's resources, and for those countries to live up to their obligations in providing the necessary resources. Nevertheless, and having said this, we cannot be relaxed about meeting the resources gap. Despite the recent uptick, there has been a long and dramatic decline in European defense budgets for two decades before 2014, not to mention a significant absence of constituent support for defense expenditures in most NATO countries. It is a battle of these nations who are dealing with slow or no growth--GDP stagnant--to come to the decision to meet the 2 percent obligation that they have under the NATO treaty. They have other issues at home, migration simply being one of them, and a number of other domestic issues that have restrained them. But now the threat has become more real, and now the realization of how to address the threat has become more vital and necessary. In his June 2011 farewell speech on NATO's future, Defense Secretary Bob Gates famously said that our European allies were and had been ``apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.'' He declared that NATO faced ``the real possibility of a dim, if not dismal, future.'' But the response to this danger, now especially in the wake of Russian invasion and annexation of a neighbor--this is not the time to call for NATO's abandonment, but to press ahead in validating NATO's relevance, then finding the necessary resources. I believe that process is under way, as I have just described. Given the new threats to NATO's eastern border states, our allies are finding greater support for making larger commitments to their own security. Another pressing reason to solve the resources problem is the host of new requirements this modern alliance needs to face. Since the period of enlargement and the euphoria of democratic revolutions, NATO has made repeated attempts to define its new missions. The most recent strategic concept of January 2010 makes the alliance's newly global and political roles more explicit. It has identified numerous new transnational threats that a modern military and political alliance must confront. These include nuclear proliferation, cyber threats, terrorism, political instabilities, and missile capabilities. No one can argue that these global threats are not the core of modern security challenges. Similarly, no one can dispute that the most effective and powerful alliance in world history should and must organize itself to confront them. And most certainly, no responsible leader should look at these threats and conclude an alliance built to confront them should be abandoned. Let me restate that. No responsible leader, now or in the future, should look at these threats and conclude that an alliance built to confront these problems and challenges should be abolished. Modern NATO activities extend well beyond Europe. These include combating piracy off the Horn of Africa, operational and training support for the African Union in Ethiopia, air policing of Europe's borders against Russian incursions, growing cyber defense alliance capabilities, expanded special operations capabilities and activities, development of a NATO response force for rapid reaction operations on land and sea, expanded joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, and expanded joint exercises to improve the alliance and member-state readiness. That is a big challenge, but that challenge is one that needs to be addressed. In terms of more traditional warfighting, NATO has taken on missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya, and continued challenges will need to be addressed. It is not yet clear to me whether ISAF, the Afghanistan mission, will go down as a success or not, but it is clearly in the balance and needs to be carefully monitored. It is clear that the Libya operation revealed numerous alliance shortcomings and was not a model of alliance coherence and cohesion. Rather, Libya was an example of failure at the political level to define the new NATO. The correct response to both, new challenges and admitted failure, is better leadership, better vision, and creative new thinking, along with the resources to carry out those goals. I have suggested that these could be best applied in response to the Syria disaster, especially with the humanitarian catastrophe and the migrant crisis. I proposed that NATO could have helped member-state Turkey get control of its Syrian border to stop the flow of jihadists into and out of Syria. It is clear to me that the uncontrolled flood of refugees from Syria could best be handled by creating safe areas in and near Syria so that the Syrian people can remain there under safe and humane conditions. Building on NATO's Bosnia experience, the Alliance could be critical to providing the security for such areas on the ground and in the air. This would not be fighting the war in Syria but protecting the populations of U.N. designated areas. Difficult? You bet, but it has been done before, and NATO is the only possible organization that is in a position to do it. Although I emphatically believe that NATO continues to have enormous value to U.S. interests and global stability, I do concede that it needs a new vision of its role. That is clearly a work in progress and will have some false starts and failures along the way. How it turns out will not only be a function of resources, as I have discussed, but also an issue of leadership. On that score, I have some concerns. Frankly, I am worried. The Obama administration seems to be guiding us toward a dangerous deference to others to address emerging global security challenges that are and will be threats to our own national security. The most alarming example is our acquiescence to Russia's vigorous engagement in Syria. Russia basically hijacked our paltry efforts to bring the Syrian disaster under control, inserted its military forces to change the dynamic on the ground, and guided the political process toward their ends. It has all been a sad display of American incompetence and impotence. The United States and its allies are paying the price for this failure of engagement. After reading President Obama's recent and lengthy interview on foreign policy that was published in the Atlantic Monthly, I can tell he has not drawn the correct conclusions from the foreign policy failures in recent years in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Russia, and elsewhere. For me, we have abdicated America's traditional leadership role. For the alliance, I fear this could be the beginning phase of our disengagement from Europe, which, if it continues, will be at our peril. Without firm U.S. leadership of NATO, we will begin to see the commitment of our allies weaken. They simply do not have the muscle or the financial capability to support a NATO coalition without U.S. leadership. Without the right kind of leadership, the importance of the transatlantic security relationship and the continued robust presence of U.S. forces in Europe will begin to lose advocates, as perhaps has already occurred among those who do not support our efforts. If Americans come to see NATO's value in financial terms--bang for the buck--we will lose sight of its real value in the proper terms of national security, American reliability, and the eternal appeal of our community of values--in other words, the values beyond price that must be preserved if we are to prevail against our adversaries. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I will not weigh in on this issue, but I might later. I am here for a different purpose. I did serve previously in the Senate several years ago, and this is my second time back. My experience with the amendment process was a pleasant one then. Any Senator at any time could offer an amendment to any bill, and it would be discussed and debated and voted on, and we accepted the fact that it was either a yea or a nay. It was part of a process that sometimes started here, sometimes started in the House, but it is a process that goes through many iterations. So to determine that something at one step in the process takes the bill down ignores the fact that this bill will go over to the House of Representatives; they will debate it, and they will add things and subtract things; and then we will go to a conference to resolve the differences even before it gets to the President's desk. Unfortunately, what has happened here is that on anything the President of the United States doesn't like, he simply says: I am going to veto it, so drop it. So I agree with the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, in saying that if that is the process and the way this Senate is going to operate, we might as well just close the place down. We can maybe show up just to show people that we showed up for work. But we are not going to accomplish anything on this floor if that is the case. The responsibility falls not just on us to do the job we were elected to do but also falls on the President to not try to torpedo a bill-- there are multiple dimensions--because one amendment gets passed with the will of the Senate, including bipartisan support, but the President doesn't like it and therefore shuts the whole thing down. Wasteful Spending Madam President, I am here for the 40th-something week to talk about the waste of the week, and I will do that now. The other issue is being very ably handled by Senator Alexander, who is a veteran here and knows how to work through these conundrums. With a Federal debt that is over $19 trillion and growing, it is fitting to take a long look at every penny the Federal Government appropriates to ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are not wasted. I have been down here week after week with examples of waste. Today, for my 41st edition of ``Waste of the Week,'' I would like to bring attention to an app the Transportation Security Administration paid IBM more than $47,000 to develop. ``App'' is a new word in our lexicon. We all carry around these new devices with which we can push a bunch of buttons and, by certain applications, access or do things that make life easier: monitor traffic on the road, getting the latest ballgame scores, checking on the weather. I have a whole bunch of apps on here. I heard about an app that had been developed for the Transportation Security Administration called a randomizer app, and it does just two things. Very simply, it points an arrow to the right or to the left. Now, we might say, why would anybody need an app--a device--that randomizes an arrow to the right or an arrow to the left? Well, let's take a look at this picture here. This is obviously a TSA agent. We have all been through this. This is a line at the airport. Those of us who go home every weekend--I go back to Indiana on Thursday night or Friday--are very familiar with these lines because we have to go through the security process. This is a TSA agent using this app. As we can see, it is a screen and it has a big arrow. When you walk through Reagan National Airport to go home every week-- as I know the Presiding Officer does to go back to Iowa--there are several lanes you can go down. Almost always there is a transportation security agent or someone associated with the process standing at the beginning of the lines and, with an arrow, saying ``Take this one'' or ``Take that one.'' Well, I don't know about the details, but for some reason, they didn't want that to be an individual decision, so they called up IBM and said: We need to develop an app that will allow us to have a screen that has an arrow pointing to the left or to the right. And it needs to be random; it can't be controlled by this person. For whatever reason, it needs to be random. OK. Maybe there is a rational reason TSA needs to do that for security purposes, and without divulging what that is or knowing what that is, I won't get into that, but obviously it doesn't take a lot of money to develop a screen that has an arrow to the left, an arrow to the right, and a little bit of software running in the background randomizing so that you can't figure out whether it is going to be left or right. It does it all by itself. I wondered, how much would this cost? So we did a little research. What we found is that this is such a simple application that it can be developed by a developer of apps within a 10-minute period of time. So taxpayers paid $47,000 to build an app that had an arrow pointing one way or the other. Now, $47,000 is minuscule compared to what we waste around here, and I have a chart here that shows well over $160 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse tallied up during my 40 visits to the Senate floor to talk about the various ways the government wastes taxpayer dollars. But this one baffles me because something which is so simple and which takes 10 minutes to produce costs $47,000--well above the average income for the average worker in Indiana and in many cases significantly more than the TSA agent who is holding it is paid annually for the work they do. So here we are once again. People might ask: Well, could we have done this in an easier way? Well, how about flipping a coin? That is random. Tails, go in this lane; heads, you are in this lane. How about drawing from a hat? The TSA person standing at the line can have a hat with a whole bunch of slips of paper in it that say ``left'' and ``right.'' Go ahead, put your hand in, and pull it out. What does it say? Left. That is over there. What does it say? Right. That is over here. Maybe we can do what I do with my grandkids. I put my fists behind my back, and I will have one or two fingers extended. They all get excited and so forth. The brother is elbowing his little sister so she won't win, and the third child is crying, maybe, because they are not letting her play. So I say: OK, Charlie, is it a one or a two? Two. Charlie: Yay, I won. His sister starts crying. No, no. You are going to get your chance. All right, Maggie, you pick a one or a two. Anyway, we may go through each. I have 10 grandkids, so this takes a long time when we have family reunions. Any one of those processes could be used, and I don't think it would cost $47,000. It wouldn't be $4.70. It is just something we could do. I used to serve as the lead Republican on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. I know how difficult it is for the Homeland Security Subcommittee to fund the critical elements they need to fund and the programs they need to fund in order to keep us secure. Every penny counts, and every dollar counts in this regard. This type of egregious waste has got to stop. Perhaps it is time for TSA to precheck--we are all familiar with precheck, another thing we have to go through--these programs before we fund them. As we continue to determine funding levels for various government programs and agencies, we must remember projects such as TSA's randomizer app. This is yet another example of why minimizing waste, fraud, and abuse will go a long way to restore trust in government decisions as to how our tax money is spent. I just realized I missed out on naming one of my grandchildren who I play this with, and that is Avery--the sister of Charlie--who wants to make sure that she is in the game also. I will not go through the other seven. I will save those for another time. Let me note that we add more money--ever more money and examples of taxpayer waste. We are up to $162,277,955,817. This is big money. It is nothing to laugh about. This is a small example. We have had examples in the billions of dollars. We owe it to the taxpayer. We owe it to the hard-earned tax dollars that are earned by hard-working taxpayers to be as efficient and effective with the spending of their money as we possibly can. Once again, this is the waste of the week. I yield the floor.