Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4491, as modified, and I ask unanimous consent to make it a first-degree amendment.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is a great case for the American people to see what is not operating right in many of the branches of our Government. There is a procurement contract that started out 8 years ago. The total cost was to be $200 million. The idea was to save money on purchasing travel vouchers for our military. That was the goal. The original cost was $246 million. We are now 8 years into this, and we are over $464 million. It is working at a 30-percent level. It was working at less than 10 percent last year. Even though we have the GAO saying they may have saved $13 million this year, the fact is that study didn't consider the fact that the vast majority of time when they buy an airplane ticket they do not get the best price. So that wasn't even considered. The purpose of this amendment is to cause us to focus again on what we are doing. There are no-bid contracts, contracts that change in terms of violation of the contracting laws, performance bonuses, pay for back costs, negotiating through the procurement procedure. There is no significant oversight in this Congress on procurement in the agencies of this Government. That has to change. Nobody in the private world would get away with this. Nobody in their personal life would be able to get away with this. Yet we have a system now where almost every ticket that is bought through this $464 million program still has to be checked by a travel agent, of which we pay anywhere from $5 to $11 an hour, even though we might have saved $20 on a payment system through the Pentagon. What is the problem? I have worked with the comptroller at the Pentagon. They were aware of this. The Secretary of Defense is aware of it. The chairman is aware of the problem. The ranking member and I have had multiple discussions. The problem is the Pentagon has hundreds of computers that won't talk to each other. Instead of fixing that problem, we contract to make a system that should be off the shelf for less than $59 million, and we pay $500 million for it so it will speak to all these different programs--and it is not doing it effectively. The purpose of this amendment is to quit sending good money after bad and say don't get rid of the program, but let us incentivize the program. If it is a good program, then let us pay the contractor every time it is used. If it is not used enough, and if it doesn't get used-- and it is not getting used now because it is too hard to use in the vast majority of the cases, most people go straight to a travel agent-- let us pay them on a per-transaction basis just like this contractor has on every other travel program that it has with the Federal Government. Why would we do it differently in the Pentagon? We are doing it differently because our procurement system is broken in terms of how we hold people accountable. I have nothing against the contractor. If you would let me continue to do a program and not perform and continue to give me money, I will take it. But what it is doing is breeding incompetency. It is wasting taxpayer dollars, and we ought to say there is a point in time. What do we know about travel systems in the Federal Government? What we know is in five other agencies they don't have any problems at all, two of which were developed by their same contractor. Why are we having problems here? One of them is because we have a cost-plus contract. What is the incentive to fix the problem? There is not any because it is going to continue to be renewed. This amendment says very simply change the incentive. If this is a good program--Oh, I know. This doesn't say throw the money out or throw the program out. It says, change the program to incentivize it to be operational. It is in less than 30 percent of our military bases now. It is still not used. The one place it has been used is one Air Force base where it was mandated by the commander: You will use this system. Do you know what the utilization rate is? Ninety percent. And the cost in terms of getting it done is about three times the benefit in terms of savings for paying for the bill. On that same Air Force base, over 50 percent of the time they never get the cheapest fare, so what we save in terms of paying--the actual accounting work within the Pentagon, which I agree is a worthy goal--we lose because the system does not find the best fare. As a matter of fact, most Pentagon employees would be better off to go to Travelocity or Orbitz, buy their own ticket on their own dime, get reimbursed, and the Pentagon can do it cheaper than with this. This is a very straightforward amendment. It says don't get rid of the defense travel system, keep it going, but fund it on a per- transaction basis that says if this is good for the Pentagon, then use it and we will pay for it. That incentivizes the contractor to make it easy, to make it useful, and to get our value for it. Isn't half a billion enough to pay for a travel system that you could have bought off the shelf for $50 million? It reflects on what we have as problems within the Pentagon. Let me touch on that. I am a supporter of the Pentagon. I am a supporter of our Defense Secretary. He has told me this is one of the areas where they have great problems. Last year, the Pentagon paid $6 billion in performance bonuses to contractors who did not meet their performance requirements. Think about that for a minute. That means if you are told where you work: If you meet a certain expectation you are going to get a bonus, except we will pay you even if you do not meet that expectation--what are you going to think next year? You are going to think: I don't have to meet the expectation because I am going to get paid. That is exactly what is happening within our contracting within the Pentagon and several other agencies within the Federal Government. I ask the chairman and the ranking member to consider this. I believe it is a way to straighten out a contract and also send a signal. At best, we are going to have a $350 billion deficit this year. Should we spend our kids' and grandkids' money in an inefficient way? This is a good message we ought to send so other contractors see it. You will not get a cost-plus contract if you do not perform, and you are not going to continue to have contracts renewed. There are a lot of other details, and I ask unanimous consent to have them printed in the Record.

Mr. COBURN. They have.

Mr. COBURN. The actual numbers on utilization of this system, if the Senator can bear with me for a minute, the utilization rate right now is 30 percent in the military. In other words, 3 out of 10 facilities that purchase travel are utilizing this. If that is what we wanted when we contracted it, great. But that is not what was in the contract. This same contractor, by the way, had a system developed through the Department of Transportation 6 months ago that is working just fine. I portend that proves the problem with the system is the contracting, not the contractor. We ought to send a signal. Say it is 90 percent, if that is the case, they will make more money doing it on a per- transaction basis than they would under a contract basis.

Mr. COBURN. I am not an expert, but I don't like waste. I think we have wasted money.

Mr. COBURN. Early in my statement I made this point: We are fixing the wrong problem. The problem is the computer system. The reason this is so expensive, the computer systems in the Pentagon do not talk to one another. We have designed a monstrous computer system to make it talk to all these systems that will not talk to one another rather than to fix the computer system in the Pentagon to make them talk to one another. If we do that on every project that we need to enhance and overfill for the Pentagon, we are going to get into the same problem. They make all their money by being able to pay the bill. But it is a travel system. If they make efficiency in terms of being able to pay the bill--which is the problem the Pentagon was having--we ought to also expect them to get the fares right and not have to pay another $6 to a travel agent for every ticket they write, to doublecheck to see if the system was right. That is what is happening. When you say 90 percent, that is 90 percent, plus we are having the travel agents check it. It is not an automated system. Have they made improvements? Yes, I do not deny that. But if they are where they need to be, and if their contract as originally specified and modified, if they are at 90 percent, they will make a ton more money on a per-transaction basis, and we will get what we need and they will get what they need. But they are not. That is why we have the resistance to a transaction basis. You cannot have it both ways. If they are at 90 percent, any prudent businessman would say: Sure, we want it on a transaction basis. If they are not at 90 percent, if they are at 30 percent, as I propose they are, and inefficiently at 30 percent, the reason they want a contract through next year is because they are going to make a lot more money than they would on the transaction basis.

Mr. COBURN. I will gladly do that, and I am happy to work with you. I make a final point. Supposedly, this contract is going to be out for bid at the end of this year. It was supposed to have been out for bid last year. They renewed the contract without putting it out for bid, so I don't have any hope it will go out, first. And, No. 2, nobody is going to bid on this. It is a mess. Nobody is going to bid on it. The only person you will have bid on it is the original contractor. Whether that is accurate or not, I am willing to work with the chairman to bring down the costs. The fact is, the real problem is the computer systems in the Pentagon. We all know that. The Senator is aware of it, the ranking member is aware of it. The comptroller is working hard to change that. That is a 4- to 7-year program that we have embarked on which everyone knows has to happen. Here is my worry: I will be back here next year doing the same thing because it is still not going to work. That is my worry. That is not fair to our grandkids.

Mr. COBURN. If I could ask the chairman a question, if, in fact, it is at 90 percent, as the contractor says it is, then by the contract they should have already converted over to a per- transaction plan. So why haven't they? They haven't because it is not at 90 percent because they would be making a whole lot more money if it was. I am happy to ask unanimous consent to set this amendment and discuss other amendments and work with the Senator and his staff prior to the voting or conclusion of this bill.

Mr. COBURN. I am happy to let the Senator from South Carolina intervene for a short period of time.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that amendment No. 4370 be called up.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the Senate today accepted three amendments that I offered to S. 2766, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, intended to improve transparency and accountability of taxpayer funds provided to the Department of Defense. Amendment No. 4370 addresses the practice of the earmarking of Federal funds by members of Congress. ``Earmarks,'' more commonly known as ``pork projects,'' are provisions inserted into bills or directives contained within a joint explanatory statement or reports accompanying bills specifying the identity of an entity, program, project or service to receive assistance. Many Congressional earmarks inserted within Defense appropriations bills are not needed, or even wanted, by the Pentagon. Just this week, the Washington Post published an article titled, ``The Project That Wouldn't Die; Using earmarks, members of Congress kept money flowing to a local company that got $37 million for technology the military couldn't use.'' Earmarks contained within Defense appropriations bills have been linked to a number of recent Congressional corruption and ethics probes. Convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff openly boasted that earmarks were his political currency and he called the Appropriations Committee that doles them out a ``favor factory'' for lobbyists. The $80 billion emergency supplemental passed last year was riddled with add-ons. It included $10 million to expand wastewater facilities in Swiftwater, PA. The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center got $3 million. A wastewater treatment plant in Desoto County, MS, got $35 million, and $4 million went to the Fire Sciences Academy in Elk, NV. While these many have been local priorities for these communities, it is difficult to argue that they are needed for our national defense. In its report on its fiscal 2001 Defense appropriations bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote: ``The committee understands that medical studies indicate the potential benefits of cranberry juice and other cranberry products in maintaining health. The committee urges the Secretary of Defense to take steps to increase the department's use of cranberry products in the diet of on-base personnel and troops in the field. Such purchases should prioritize cranberry products with high cranberry content such as fresh cranberries, cranberry sauces and jellies and concentrate and juice with over 25 percent cranberry content.'' Most Americans do not support earmarking Federal funds, especially for such dubious purposes that serve parochial interests at the expense of our national defense. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, in fact, found that of all the issues facing our nation, curtailing earmarks was identified as ``the single most important thing for Congress to accomplish this year.'' The number of earmarks in Defense appropriations laws has grown from about 587 in fiscal year 1994 to about 2,847 in fiscal year 2006, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, CRS. The amount of money earmarked has increased over the same period, from about $4.2 billion to $9.4 billion. The amount earmarked as a percentage of the total in the Defense appropriations bill has correspondingly increased from about 1.8 percent in 1994 to approximately 2.4 percent in 2006. While we can determine the total number of earmarks and the actual pricetag of each, we have no way of calculating the hidden cost of earmarking, which includes staff time and administration expenses. Specifically the amendment accepted today requires the Department of Defense to report annually: The total annual cost of earmarking in Defense appropriations bills; the purpose and location of each earmark; an analysis of the usefulness of each earmark in advancing the goals of the Department of Defense. This will provide Members of Congress a more complete view of the cost effectiveness of each project and if such projects warranted continued funding. This annual report will provide Congress and the public a more complete understanding of the total cost of ``pork'' to the Department of Defense. The earmark grading system will, likewise, provide needed information to lawmakers and the public about projects inserted into bills that have not had proper oversight, debate or discussion. This added transparency will ensure that every Member of Congress can cast a truly informed vote and ensure greater accountability for how Federal funds are allocated and hopefully return some integrity to the appropriations process that has been undermined by recent investigations into earmarking. My second amendment, No. 4371, accepted by the Senate today seeks to end the practice of Defense contractors being rewarded for poor performance. The Department of Defense has been improperly paying awards and incentives to contractors that do not fulfill the terms and conditions of their contracts. These are intended to be paid only for outstanding performances on contracts but are routinely paid out without regard to performance. In a recent study conducted by the Government Accountability Office, GAO, DOD paid out at least $8 billion in fees over 4 years, the vast majority of which were not earned and were improperly awarded. This of course, was just a small fraction of the overall total of award fees given out to contractors every year. My amendment seeks to end this process and require performance as a prerequisite for award fee bonuses. My amendment specifically requires that a contractor cannot receive an award fee unless the contractor has met the basic requirements of the contract. This amendment has the potential to save the Federal Government billions of wasted tax dollars every year and improve contractor performance. The third amendment, No. 4491, as modified, will require DOD's Defense Travel System, DTS, to transform its ``cost plus'' contract to a fee-for-use-of-service system similar to the private sector travel reservation systems currently available in the marketplace. DTS was initiated in 1998 DTS and intended to make travel arrangements for the military service branches and defense agencies. It was supposed to be fully deployed by 2002. However, that date has been pushed back to September 2006--a delay of over 4 years--and has cost the American taxpayer $474 million--a staggering $200 million more than it was originally projected to cost. DTS has a long record of failure. In July 2002, the DOD inspector general released a report on DTS which highlighted numerous concerns with the program and stated that DTS was being ``substantially developed without the requisite requirements, cost, performance, and schedule documents and analyses needed as the foundation for assessing the effectiveness of the system and its return on investment.'' Following on that IG report, DOD's office for Program Assessment and Evaluation prepared a report recommending termination of the program. In January 2006, GAO reported that ``DTS's development and implementation have been problematic . . . thus it is not surprising that critical flaws have been identified, resulting in significant slippages between the planned and actual deployment dates of the system'' and that selected requirements for display of flights and airfares found that system testing was ``ineffective in ensuring that the promised capability was delivered as intended.'' This means that not only is DTS not performing, the current system is incapable of testing properly in order to determine what is required in order to meet DOD's plan. Further, DOD could not prove that DOD travelers even had access to the flights that were available for travel. There is no doubt such a flaw would have produced higher travel costs. Compounding this problem is the fact that some DOD agencies continue to use the existing legacy travel systems at locations where DTS is already deployed. This means that all of the proclaimed savings that DTS was supposed to reap are nowhere to be found--because DOD continues to use legacy systems to do the same thing. As originally envisioned, DTS was supposed to be a pay-for-use-of- service system in which the DTS was paid by the government based only on the extent to which the system was used--thereby creating an incentive for DTS to be a cost effective travel reservation system for the Department of Defense. This amendment requires the Department of Defense to honor the original intentions of the DTS contract. Within a year of enactment of this bill, DTS will be required to utilize a fee-for-use-of-service system. The funds raised through fees charged will be used by DTS to pay for its operational and maintenance costs as the system is slated to be fully developed and deployed by September 2006. DTS will be required to: (1) levy a one-time, fixed price service fee per DOD consumer using the system, and (2) charge an additional fixed fee for each transaction. Together these three amendments ensure greater transparency and accountability of Federal funds and ensure taxpayers and our men and women in service are guaranteed that the funds we are spending on the defense of our Nation are better spent. I would like to thank Chairman Warner and his staff and look forward to continuing to work with them on these issues as this bill goes to conference.

Mr. COBURN. I say to the Senator, I will be happy to.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is an amendment that is going to have some emotion with it. I want to talk about it first. There is no question when it comes to the wisdom of many of the Members of our body that directing the Pentagon to do certain things is valuable. We know that from anecdotal experience. But what we don't know is how many times we have told them to do something that has been a complete waste. What I am talking about are earmarks in the Defense authorization bill as well as in the Defense appropriations bill. There is a wonderful body of knowledge, plus an institutional knowledge, here that helps give wisdom to direct the Armed Services. I believe we ought to be in that position. What this amendment does is ask for a report. I want to explain, for a second--and I want the American public to see--what has happened in terms of earmarks. In 1994, there were $4.2 billion worth of earmarks in the Defense appropriations bill. Last year, there were $9.4 billion. The question we should be asking is not whether or not there should be earmarks, but what is the result of those earmarks? What is the consequence of the earmarks? Not only were the numbers up, the dollars up, but the numbers have skyrocketed. So the question which I think would be prudent for us to ask is, No. 1: Earmarks are consuming a larger percentage of defense dollars. They also, according to Pentagon reports and some Members of this body, are taking money away from other priorities that are deemed to be higher a lot of the time. They also account for some of the problems we are having in the emergency supplementals and adding to the rising cost of our debt. Many times they are not needed, but, in fact, they are associated with benefiting a region or an industry that is not necessarily in the highest priority. So this is not about eliminating earmarks. This is about looking at earmarks and saying: What are we getting for them? Where are they working great for us? Where are they not working? Are they beneficial to the defense of this country? Is it something that gives us a benefit? The other thing I would remind us of is, in the most recent history we have seen an ethical lapse in association with some earmarks, and we have actually seen some criminal behavior in association with earmarks. That ought to be a part of the report as well. So the whole idea is to add transparency and accountability to earmarks. Let's look at them. What are we getting for them? What are we losing? What are the opportunity costs that are lost because we have them there? The total annual cost of earmarks in Defense appropriations bills would be put in this report. We can determine the actual numbers of earmarks and the actual price tags. But we don't know the hidden costs of those earmarks, which include staff time and administration. And we don't know the opportunity cost of those earmarks: What did not happen for our soldiers, what did not happen in terms of procurement because we put in something else of maybe a lesser priority? The annual report will provide Congress and the public a more complete understanding of the total cost of the earmarks to the Department of Defense, the purpose and location of each earmark, and an analysis of the usefulness of each earmark in advancing the goals of the Department of Defense. This will provide Members of Congress a more complete view of the cost-effectiveness of each project and whether those projects warrant continued funding. The last amendment we were on started as an earmark. I remind the Members of this body, it started at $200 million, and now will have grown to over $500 million in initiatives and earmarks, but we did not have the benefit of a report such as this to see if we were getting value for this money. This is a simple amendment. It is not going after earmarks. It is not saying they are bad. It is not saying they are good. What it is saying is: Shouldn't this body know? Shouldn't we know the impact, positively and negatively? Shouldn't we know the lost opportunity cost? I hope both the ranking member and the chairman of this committee will give this amendment consideration. And I ask for their response.

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

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want to congratulate Senator Byrd as well. What a wonderful gentleman. What a gentle spirit, but what a firm voice. We value your service and we appreciate what you can teach us and what you have taught us. I also want to thank Chairman Cochran for the hard work that he has done on this supplemental bill. He also has put up with a lot of grief from myself and others. The bill is important. I am going to spend a few minutes on things I think the American people ought to be asking about this bill. The fact that we have the largest supplemental appropriations bill ever to come before this body to me is a great problem. It tells me part of the system is broken. The fact that the administration would request such a large emergency appropriation, and the fact that we would pursue it and pass it tells us that the system of the true appropriations and authorizing process is broken. We are in the fourth year--the third-and-a-half year--of a war, and a large portion of what is in this bill has been known in advance that we were going to need it and it should go through the regular order. The fact that we take it outside of the budget caps, the fact that we take it outside of the regular order when we know we are going to spend $60 billion to $70 billion at least in executing and prosecuting the war and put it in an emergency supplemental I think says a lot about our process that we need to take very seriously and try to change. That is a criticism for the administration as well. A lot of the money in this is for the National Guard to refurbish and bring things up that we knew and in regular order we are going to be processing in the Defense appropriations bill that is going to be coming before this body in the next couple of months. So the excuse to say this is all emergency falls short, because it is not. It is not all emergency. We have known all of this money is going to be spent, it should have come through the regular process, and we really don't have a good excuse to tell the American people why we are not doing that. The second criticism I have of this bill is that the administration requested no rescissions whatsoever. There is nothing in the Federal Government that we could trim to help pay for this emergency bill. That is the assumption of the request by the administration. I want to tell you that is the wrong assumption. Employees who work for the Federal Government, the valuable employees, they know that is not true. People outside of Washington know that is not true. Constituents all across this land know that if we had to find money and if we could drive things to make them more efficient, we could do it. The fact that we are not doing it is another problem with our process. That is not a criticism of individual Members of this body; it is a criticism of the process that we find ourselves in and that we are blinded in the forest by the trees. We ought to be back to regular order, and if we truly have emergencies, we ought to look to say, How can we trim from somewhere else to pay for it? Because, in effect, this $94.5 billion, my grandchildren, your grandchildren, and the generation that follows are going to pay for. Nobody that is working today is going to pay for this. We are transmitting the cost to our children and grandchildren. We are saying that we can't make an effort, or the administration doesn't request us to make an effort, or we don't make an effort to find other areas that are less important, lower on the obligation level for us, that we will just print the money and sign the notes and sell them overseas and say, Children and grandchildren, you pay for this because we don't have the courage to do the hard work to pay for it. We ought to take that criticism and say, Is that really what we want to be known for? Do we want to be known for not making the hard choices that are necessary to fund this war and at the same time not take away opportunity from our children and grandchildren? That is not a personal criticism, but that is a legitimate criticism that the American people ought to be asking. The third thing is there are things in this bill that are pure politics in nature. Let me just describe one. I withdrew this amendment on the floor, but I think the American people ought to understand what is going on. There is over $200 million in this bill for Osprey aircraft, the V-22 that has never proven itself in combat. It has never made the test in battle simulation that says it is a viable option. Neither the administration nor the Defense Department requested this money, and this money is going to be spent, it is in the bill, and this bill is going to pass and the President is going to sign this bill. But we are going to spend money, a quarter of a billion dollars, on this program, not because it was requested by the Pentagon, not because it was requested by the administration, but because it was requested by a business to continue a program that hasn't proven itself yet. There has to be some risk to those who don't perform when they are supplying our military with the latest in terms of equipment and materials, and there is not any, if we continue to do it this way. I am not an expert in the Defense appropriations process, but I have read what the Defense Subcommittee has said on this, and I have read what the articles have said on this, and it doesn't meet the test. Yet, we are going to spend it. The reason we are going to spend it is because there are enough Members in this body that have employment with this company throughout the country that the pressure to not fund it is greater than the pressure to do what is right. I believe we ought to ask ourselves about the criticism of that. That is not a way to run the future of this country, and it is certainly not a way to protect the heritage for our children in giving them the opportunity that we have all experienced in being in the freest and greatest country in the world. The risk for our country is a risk that we will lose that heritage of sacrifice today to create opportunity tomorrow. I know I am like a broken record to the appropriators, but my heart says that we should create at least the same opportunities in the future that we have all experienced, and to do less than that denies the very heritage that was given to us. So I haven't decided for sure whether I am going to vote for this bill. I know it is important to take care of the critical needs in the hurricane area. I have had two hearings on that, part of my subcommittee, the waste, fraud, and abuse associated with that. But I must emphasize, out of 37 hearings in the Federal Financial Management Oversight Committee, we found over $200 billion--$200 billion--of waste, fraud, and abuse in the last year and 2 months. Forty billion dollars of it in Medicaid in terms of false and inappropriate payments, $46 billion in Medicare, and $16 billion in Medicaid fraud in New York City alone. Yet we don't respond to it. There is no action on it. We had the Pentagon in 2005 pay $6 billion--$6 billion--in performance payments to contractors who did not meet the performance requirements of their contract. Yet we paid it anyway. But we haven't had a prohibition on that. I know on the Defense authorization as we get to that, Senator McCain is going to offer an amendment that I think is appropriate that we require that portion of the funding of the war that is legitimate to go through the appropriations process and regular order will be there. There are certain portions of that which are unexpected and we will continue to have to do supplementals to do that. But I would remind my colleagues that we are not going to be measured on what we do now; we are going to be measured on what is the opportunity for America 10 years from now and 15 years from now. We were sent here to make the hard choices, and they are not fun. But we are not making the hard choices, because we are not looking at the programs that aren't effective, that aren't accomplishing the goals and eliminating them to pay for the things that we think are; we are just ignoring them and paying as we go, except we are not paying as we go. We are asking our children and grandchildren to pay. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. COBURN. A lot has been made that we are going to borrow money to pay for this tax. But the fact is that the amount of money not collected that is owed to the Federal Government is close to $400 billion a year. The other side of that is there is over $200 billion a year that has been proven to be wasteful or fraudulently misspent by this Government, which we condone each year. That is $600 billion. We would not be debating this tax if we were doing our job in terms of oversight. Just in terms of improper payments, is the Senator aware of the fact that there is over $150 billion a year paid out by the Federal Government to people who do not deserve it, have not earned it, and yet have manipulated the system to get it? I am not talking about poor people; I am talking about contractors. The point I want to make is that we would not even be having a discussion on the principles of this tax because it is not needed because we are not doing our jobs in terms of oversight. There is $600 billion that would put us into surplus by $200 billion right now, including the cost of the war, if we would just do our job. I wondered if the Senator was aware of that.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I am proud as we approach this Memorial Day that we will have occasion to celebrate the renaming of the Department of Veterans Administration Hospital in Muskogee, OK, after a true American hero--Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and Cherokee, Jack C. Montgomery. I would first like to thank a fellow member of the Oklahoma congressional delegation, Congressman Dan Boren of Oklahoma's 2nd District, for his diligent work in bringing this important matter to a successful conclusion. This legislation has been cosponsored by the rest of the Oklahoma delegation and also has garnered the strong support of Oklahoma's major veterans' service organizations. H.R. 3829 pays tribute to the heroism of Mr. Montgomery, who was awarded the highest honor bestowed by our Nation upon a member of the armed services for his courageous actions on February 22, 1944, during the Italian campaign of the Second World War. On this date, Montgomery's platoon had sustained intense fire near Padiglione, Italy, from three echelons of enemy forces, at which point Montgomery displayed a singular act of courage by attacking all three positions himself and taking prisoners in the process. After witnessing this tremendous display of courage, Montgomery's men rallied and defeated the enemy. In addition to being only one of five Native Americans to be awarded the Medal of Honor, Lieutenant Montgomery was also awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster. Upon his release from the U.S. Army, Montgomery continued his service to our Nation by beginning work with the Veterans Administration in Muskogee where he remained for most of his life. Mr. Montgomery is survived by his wife Joyce, and I am hopeful the President can sign this bill into law in swift fashion. In conclusion, as we do pause this Memorial Day to remember those who sacrificed so that we may remain free, I can think of no veteran more worthy of our gratitude than Jack C. Montgomery.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, months ago in the Judiciary Committee markup I offered an amendment that codified the process of expedited removal and extended it to include criminal aliens. We have to remember, this is about criminal aliens. What we do know from one of the Judiciary Committee hearings is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent of the people coming across our southern border have a criminal history. There are valid points to the questions that have been raised by the Senator from Wisconsin, who I have the utmost respect for, but I think this is a question about what could happen versus what is getting ready to happen. What is getting ready to happen is instead of 28 percent of our Federal prisons today being filled with illegal aliens, it is going to become 45 and 50 percent, because they are going to stay here. We are going to give them 27 months. They are going to use stays to stay here, and what we are trying to do is have a balance. Is it possible that somebody could be denied entry into this country and have a negative consequence? Yes. But it is far more likely there is going to be a tremendous negative consequence to us in costs and to our children as we allow this system to continue to go on and be perpetuated the way that it is. I also remind my colleagues that current law under what we call expedited removal is law, and it is being carried out. What this amendment does will get rid of the expedited and ultimately will get rid of the removal, and what we are going to see on criminal aliens is we are going to see our prisons not having 28 percent illegal aliens who are criminals, but we are going to have 50 percent. The cost right now is $7 billion a year to our country, and $1.7 billion of that is associated with Federal prison costs for illegal immigrants. So we are talking about expedited removal. The other thing to remember that we are talking about is this is only going to be applied to people who have been here less than 14 days and within 100 miles of the border. The administration opposes this amendment, and for good reason. The Feingold amendment would allow aliens to remain in the United States and would perpetuate the incentive for aliens to pursue even the most meritless appeals. That is what happens when we allow this. I am not a lawyer, but I know that the obligation for clear and convincing evidence is a high standard, and that is a difficult thing. But we have to measure it against all the other consequences of not having that standard. The arguments that the Senator from Wisconsin makes are real. They are true. But he doesn't talk about what the downside is, and the costs and the lost opportunity and actually human grief that comes from having that process for those who are going to bear the cost of it. The section that the Senator from Wisconsin focused on in his amendment is already law. It is already U.S. Code, Section 242(f) 28 USC 1252(f2). All my amendment did to this section of the Code was to add the judicial injunction being amended to include stays. What is happening is that 90 percent of these stays are overturned right now. Ninety percent of them are overturned at the appellate division. So what we are doing is comparing what could happen to what is happening and what is the cost of that. The heart of the Senator from Wisconsin is good. The heart of the Senator from Kansas is good. The question is, How do we balance that with the human costs of carrying out this sacrifice of not being 100 percent? We could be 100 percent. What we would do is not allow anybody to return to their country until we know that they are going to be adequately clothed and adequately fed. Forget abused and incarcerated. What about the standard of making sure they have the same opportunities that people in America have. We are not applying that standard to these people, the 90 percent where the stays are denied. So I don't challenge what could happen to somebody who was denied the basis of asylum. What I ask is, where is the common sense on how we handle these thousands and thousands and thousands of cases that allow somebody 27 months here, who uses the claim of asylum, which, in fact, has nothing to do with why they are here, but allows them to stay another 27 months? It also raises a tremendous cost for us, because they not only have to be held, they have to be defended, and we are paying for that as well. As to the points made by the Senators from Kansas and Wisconsin on the possibilities of what could happen, it is true; they could. But it doesn't consider what is going to happen if we continue to allow this abuse of the system where an injunction is forbidden by Federal law and a stay is issued because they can't offer an injunction, because it is illegal to do so. So is it a difficult issue? Yes. Do I see the problem of abuse of this much greater than they? Yes. Do I balance the scales differently? Yes. Because the undetermined cost and the undetermined consequence of the way that we are doing it now is just as dangerous in the long-range measure of humanity as of the potential dangers of one person--even if it is one--if only one person was denied asylum, if it is just one, should we go even further? The fact is we can't be perfect. Even without clear and convincing evidence, we are not perfect. Even 90 percent of those that are--the stays are overturned. Some of those we decided wrongly. So it is not as clear-cut as the Senator would make it seem. And it is not just the issue of some people who might be interested, because some are going back now after a denial of the stay, using a better standard of evidence. So I would hope that we would keep this in the bill. It is not in the House bill. It may not stay in the complete bill. But it is certainly something that will turn resources that are today wasted tremendously and turn those resources to help those people who get here and have gotten asylum to have a better life. Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. COBURN. Is the Senator aware whether the CBO included in their scoring the disaggregated cost of the 11 million people who are here already in terms of the discretionary costs associated with them?

Mr. COBURN. I am talking about the discretionary costs associated with the implementation. There are 11 million people here today. In fact, if the Senator will yield for just a moment, they do not consider that. That is just one of the flaws in the CBO's report. I thank the Senator for allowing me to ask a question.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I spend a lot of time on the floor on budget issues and on spending issues, and I am first of all appreciative that this point of order was brought up. One of the greatest problems we have is not thinking in the long run. We think in the short run. We think in election cycles. We don't think in generation cycles. Here are some facts that we do know: We are on an unsustainable course as a country. We have approximately $70 trillion in unfunded liabilities. That is greater than our private net worth today. And we are going to transfer those liabilities to our children and our grandchildren. What is important about this point of order is a reflection of one of the things we are going to be talking about in June in this body, and that is budget process reform. Because the instructions to the CBO are so arcane that they didn't really even look at the real numbers associated with this bill. They didn't talk about the discretionary costs associated with this bill. This bill actually costs $40 billion over the first 10 years. After that, at a minimum, this bill will cost in the next 10 years one-half of $1 trillion. That is $500 billion. Let me put that in perspective for a minute, what a billion is, because we throw that number around here all the time. A billion seconds ago it was 1959. Three hours and 20 minutes ago, we spent $1 billion, over 3 hours and 20 minutes, this Government. The debt that we are transferring now is close to $27,000 per person; that is $8.3 trillion. That is 8,300 billions. So the fact is that the scoring by the rule says CBO has to say it costs in excess of $5 billion. The fact is, CBO didn't even look at this. The one thing that they did look at is that in one year, in 2016, the 10th year, the direct spending, the direct cost is at a minimum of $11 billion. That is not counting EITC. That is not counting figuring in the 12 million people who are here already in any of the numbers or any of the costs associated with this. So when we use CBO scoring to say it is a net plus in the first 9 years, you have to ask, what does CBO say about where we would be on surpluses? What does CBO say about the cost of Medicare when it was started and the cost of Medicare 10 years ago when they projected it to be about 70 percent of what it is today, and the projected cost in the outyears of Medicare? They never get it right. One of the reasons they never get it right is because we are not honest with them in the legislation that we put through. So if we are going to pass this bill out of the Senate, as I suspect we will, the American people need to know not only the four things that are in this bill that are inappropriate for a constitutional republic that is going to need to defend itself in the future--and I am not talking about anti-Hispanic or anti-immigrant; I am talking about the rule of law and how that will impact us as a future country--we have to be considerate about what this will do from a financial impact to the very perilous state that we will find ourselves in 10 years from now anyway. In 2016, we are going to be close to having 81 percent of the budget--81 percent of the budget--consumed by Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest on the debt. That means 19 percent is going to have to do everything else. So what you are talking about with this bill in the outyears is at a minimum of $50 billion in new expenditures per year starting in 2016. And probably the CBO scoring, because it does not reflect the direct costs of discretionary spending in this bill today for the 12 million who are here, this will be a net cost of several billion dollars over the next few years, up to $40 billion to $50 billion in year 10, and $50 billion plus after that. That violates the budget rules of this body. We may not get the votes to win this point of order, but the American people should know, even if they agree with everything that is in this bill, that they are transferring again a lower standard of living, less opportunity, and less future to the Americans who are here today by passing this bill. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask that it be submitted to the Record that I inadvertently missed the vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 22, the Medical Care Access Protection Act of 2006, due to unavoidable airline flight delays. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.'' Americans are going to spend $2.3 trillion this year on health care. One out of every three dollars does not go to help anybody get well. We are never going to be able to compete globally if we cannot control the health care costs in this country. The threat of medical liability raises the cost of health care for everybody in this country. Only 16 percent of the lawsuits that are filed across the entire country have any merit whatsoever--84 percent of them are filled with the idea that we can intimidate people into settling a case so a lawyer can make money. It has nothing to do with the patient. It has everything to do with enriching the trial bar. I have experienced that personally as a physician who has delivered over 4,000 children into this world. We have a problem with out of control medical liability--the cost of defensive medicine alone is up to $126 billion per year. We can fix those problems. But we can't fix them by protecting special interest groups that have been protected for years--special interest groups that claim they want to do something great for people but who most of the time are motivated to do something great for themselves. The Medical Care Access Protection Act of 2006 is based on the successful Texas model of medical liability reform. It's a solution to the problem that is already getting results.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, first of all, thank you for taking my stead in the Chair this evening so I could participate in this debate. I have been in the Chair 2 hours and 30 minutes and have heard quite a range of things. Health care is a problem that affects the whole country today. We are going to spend in our Nation $2.3 trillion this year. The largest amount of money we are going to spend on anything in our country, we are going to spend on health care, and one out of every three dollars we spend does not help anybody get well. We ought to ask ourselves--with 45 million people truly not covered in an insurance product, with the cost of health care rising double digits every year, with the cost of drugs skyrocketing, with the cost of hospitalization, emergency care skyrocketing--how is it we are spending all this money, with $1 out of every $3 not helping somebody get well, and costs are going through the roof? It is because we have some real structural problems. This bill is meant to address a small portion of that. It is not the end-all, answer-all to our problems in health care. We all realize that. But this is something we can do in the short term that will make available an opportunity for costs to be controlled in a small area of our economy that will have impact and will create accessibility. I would say we all in this body want everybody to have access to health care. The question is, Who pays for it? Right now, in terms of Medicare, our grandchildren are paying for it because it ran a $120 billion deficit last year. In other words, we borrowed $120 billion to run Medicare last year because that is the amount of money we did not have coming in from Medicare premiums. The whole question on how we address health care is going to be: How do we get a better system that will give more people access, that does not waste that $1 out of $3? That is what we have to be concerned with. We have the brains, we have the science, we have the facilities, but something is wrong. What is wrong is there is not a competitive system out there where we allocate scarce resources based on quality and value and price. This bill will move a little bit in that direction. There are going to be a lot of areas where we move. The one thing I have heard from the other side that I agree with today is, we ought to be emphasizing prevention. I agree with that 100 percent. We have 19 different agencies in the Federal Government that have something to do with prevention. We are going to be introducing a bill that pulls all those together into one and has a leader who is emphasizing prevention and what we can teach the American people about saving money, preventive health care. As grandma used to say: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And it works every time. We know we can prevent diabetes. We can stop 50 percent of diabetes just with education, but we don't have it. We are wasting resources and duplicating resources. We have opportunity costs from programs that are designed to do it and don't do it well. Others do it much better, but we are still funding the ones that don't do it well. There are lots of problems we have. I want the American people to understand that the choice that has been outlined by those who oppose this bill today isn't a choice of whether we have to have mandates. It is a choice of somebody who has no care now, no mandate, versus getting some care. If we do our job on prevention, then we will be educating the American people. But the ultimate health care responsibility in this country isn't the Congress. It isn't the States. It is the individuals who make choices about what is going to impact their lives and what value they want on their health care. That is why HSAs, although they have been blocked, need to be expanded vastly. They need to be funded better. They need to have an application for chronic care, and they need to have a tax deductibility to bring you up to the level of that so that we put everybody's skin in the game, so you know you are going to make a choice based on what is valuable to you. Everywhere else in this country, we have trusted markets to allocate scarce resources. We are a little timid about how they are doing it in oil, but the fact is, the market is scarce, and the price is up. As soon as either demand decreases or supply increases, the price will come back down, or some other form of energy is going to be there to supply it, such as agrifuels. We have to trust the market to help us because we can't afford what we have promised. We can't afford what we promised in Medicaid, in Medicare. The money is not going to be there in 10 years. It is going to start winnowing away. So what are we to do? Continue to create a charade for the American people that says yes, we can, or start with one small step with this bill which offers availability through group purchasing, expanded purchasing power, lowering the overall risk to a million people? Why would we not want to do that? Is it perfect? No. There isn't a bill we pass that is perfect. But this is a step in the right direction, although it does walk over some State mandates, I agree. But the problem is, Medicaid walks over State mandates every day. Medicare walks over State mandates every day. They set a mandate. We have two choices in health care: the Government is going to run it all, or we go to the private sector where we really trust the market to allocate and protect those who need the help, those who can't help themselves. Those are the only two choices we have on health care. If you think we have problems now, wait until the Government runs it all. I am a physician. I have practiced since 1983. That is 23 years. I have delivered 4,000 babies. I have done every kind of operation you can think of. I have seen a system decline based on how insurance has been applied to it and copying the mandates of the Federal Government. So we are in a mess on health care. Let's get out of the mess. Let's start with this, but let's don't stop there. Let's start with prevention. Let's make sure there is competition in the pharmaceutical industry. We don't have it. As a practicing physician, there is no competition in the pharmaceutical industry. Drugs that do exactly the same thing and are priced the same way, nobody wants an increased market share. The Federal Trade Commission ought to be asking why. Why don't they want increased market share? I believe there is collusion on sharing of markets in the pharmaceutical industry so that they can keep the prices high. We need worldwide competition on pharmaceuticals. If we will do that, we will get a lot of bang for our buck. There is even collusion when it comes to the generics. The FDA has created this wonderful system which enhances no competition for 6 months to 18 months for the first person who comes out with a generic. What is that all about? That is taking away from the market. There are lots of problems, but this is a good start. It is not perfect. Is it as good as we can get? It probably is right now. But it starts us down the path on what we need to do to fix health care in this country. That is competition. We need transparency. We have seen recently hospitals not wanting to give their rates, doctors not wanting to give rates, Medicare not wanting to publish rates. Why not? Let people know what they are supposed to be getting charged. Let's have a little open sunshine on the health care industry. Let's talk about the 19 percent of every dollar that goes into the health insurance industry that never goes to help anybody get well. Let's talk about that. Let's create real competition in the health insurance industry. The more people get into it, the more competition we will have. I thank the Senator for filling in for me so I could take the time to address the Senate. Our goal is making sure everybody has access to care and doing it in a way that our children can afford to pay for it because we are not paying for it today. We need to be mindful of that as we make those decisions. This bill starts with that. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.