Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent to speak on the resolution for 20 minutes.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I come to the floor aghast that we have entered into a unanimous consent agreement to spend less than 2\1/2\ hours talking about raising the debt ceiling another $1.2 trillion-- $1.2 trillion. We passed the Budget Control Act that raised the debt limit to $15.2 trillion. The President has requested another increase in the debt limit of another $1.2 trillion. We passed the Budget Control Act that didn't cut spending. There is no absolute reduction in spending. We didn't eliminate one program. We didn't do one oversight hearing on the waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government from the time of August, when we passed that, until now. No wonder America is disgusted with Congress. On September 7, the debt limit was increased from $8.9 trillion to $9.8 trillion. In July of 2008 the debt limit was increased to $10.6 trillion, and in October to $11.3 trillion, in February of 2009 to $12.1 trillion, in February of 2010 to $14.3 trillion, in August of 2011 to $14.7 trillion, in September of 2011 to $15.2 trillion, and now we are going to raise it to $16.3 trillion. I did not vote for one of those. The reason is a debt limit does not mean anything in this country, because every time we come up to the debt limit, what we do is just pass it rather than do what the American people have asked us to do. Little has changed in Washington in the last 5 years. We have argued, debated, and lamented over how to rein in the Federal Government's costs and the out-of-control spending. All the time that was going on, we were on a spending binge, spending money we do not have on things we do not need. Even though we knew we had to borrow more money, Congress has done nothing to avoid raising the debt limit--nothing. We did not do oversight of Federal programs. We did not eliminate one duplicative program. We did not eliminate any spending in the Tax Code. We hear all the Members of Congress and the President talking about how we have to change stuff. We did not do anything on that which would generate more revenue, fair revenue to the Federal Government. We did not work to save Medicare. We did not work to save Social Security. Instead of fixing the problem, we made it worse. We increased the deficit. We funded ineffective programs. We wasted money on silly projects. We funded duplication. We approved $1 trillion in more spending for next year--all of which will essentially be borrowed on the backs of our grandkids and our kids. Let me give some examples of what we spent money on last year. We spent $75,000 to promote the awareness that Michigan raises Christmas trees. We spent $113,000 for video game preservation. We spent $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We spent $48,000 for the second annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival. We spent $350,000 to support an international art exhibit in Venice, Italy. We spent $10 million to remake ``Sesame Street'' for Pakistan. We spent $35 million on our own party conventions, and we spent $764,000 to figure out how students use mobile messaging devices for social networking, which they already know how they do it. In February of last year, GAO brought us a wonderful report. It showed thousands upon thousands of programs that are duplications. The majority leader of this body voted against both attempts I made to take advantage of that and eliminate waste and duplication. He never once instructed committee chairmen to go find this duplication and eliminate it to save our children, to save our country, and we did not do any better on our side of the aisle. The fact is, we did not do anything. Of the thousands of things we could have done, we did nothing to lower our deficit, cut the waste or eliminate duplication. We have known about this significant $100 billion gold mine of savings from the GAO report for over 1 year now, and we have done nothing--zero. America should be disgusted with Congress because what we care about is party power, not fixing the problems of this country. Just this week, the GAO reported--an additional report; and next month we are getting the second third of the Federal Government on duplication, and it is going to have another $100 billion identified as waste--we have 209 separate Federal programs to advance science, technology, engineering, and math education--209 programs, of which most of them overlap one another. We have put amendments on the floor to say: We want every agency to tell us of all the programs. It is defeated. They vote against it because they do not want to know what all the programs are. The only way we eliminate the duplication is to make the agencies show us what they are doing. That goes down to defeat. Why? Because we do not want to do the hard work of living within our means such as every family and every business in this country does. We ignore the realities. We are in la-la land on who can win the next election. We have done nothing about the $9.5 billion in government benefits that have been paid to people who earn more than $1 million a year in this country. We have done nothing about that since that report came out. Government benefits from unemployment insurance to student loans, $9.5 billion a year, and we have done nothing--zero. We could have done it. We could save money. We have done nothing. Real Americans--everyday Americans--understand the way we get out of our problems is through sacrifice and prioritizing what is important for our country. We lack the leadership in this body to do that. A veteran who served our country in a time of war wrote me a letter about our current financial situation. More than nearly anyone I come in contact with in Washington, this regular citizen from the middle of the country understands the problem, and he understands what is needed to fix it. Dear Senator Coburn: I'm a retired military member and Veteran, deployed four times during my career--having spent years of my life in some very dangerous places, away from home, and in tough conditions. I am very familiar with shared sacrifice. In all those days away, my sole purpose was to be prepared and ensure my Soldiers were ready to deploy and return alive. In our current situation, it's easy to feel like we're (as a country) going into battle unprepared against an economic, financial enemy of political gridlock and no compromise [no leadership]; with two political parties vying for the next election. I'm well aware that many proposals currently out there would potentially affect me. However, I'm willing to work hard now and be part of a solution which solidifies our country's future versus robbing my kids and grandkids from the same opportunities our great country [offered me]. Please inform your colleagues--there are more people like me awaiting leadership and good decision making than there are left and right side uncompromising voters. These times call for briefings to the American people, not speeches. These times call for members of congress to stand together and [to brief us on our unfunded liabilities]--and to show how sacrifice now can lead to renewed prosperity later. Sincerely, Robert Boudiette, Jr., Lawton, OK. I am embarrassed for us that we fail to meet the very standard we ask of the people who serve this country. So rather than give a speech, let me give a briefing. We have done nothing to fix the 100-plus programs in surface transportation. We have done nothing to eliminate the duplication in the 82 Federal Government programs for teacher quality. We have done nothing to consolidate the 88 economic development programs. We have done nothing to consolidate the 80 different transportation assistance programs. We have done nothing to eliminate the 56 financial literacy programs. We have no business teaching anybody financial literacy when we do not even have it ourselves. We have done nothing to consolidate the 47 job training programs. As a matter of fact, we heard the President say he wanted to add to it. Homeless prevention and assistance, 20 programs we have done nothing to consolidate; the food programs, disaster response and FEMA, and there are hundreds more. Yet we have done nothing. Shouldn't we come together as men and women, Americans--not Democrats and Republicans--and say we are going to do what we can do to assure the future of this country and quit thinking about the next election? We ought to be doing what is needed. It is called making priorities. We could save $50 billion if we got together and said: OK. Every committee is going to do oversight, eliminate duplication, and eliminate fraud. We have a bill with 37 cosponsors to eliminate the fraud in Medicare-- 37. It is bipartisan. We cannot even get it to the floor to vote on it to make sure CMS eliminates some of the $100 billion a year in waste and fraud at CMS in terms of Medicare. That is how we save Medicare. But yet we cannot get it to the floor. So when we do work together, we are blocked or impeded from having a vote where we have bipartisan consensus. I call on my colleagues--I love them dearly; I think they are tremendous individuals--we better change our vision. We better change what we have our eye on in terms of the risk to our country, the survival of our country, and it is time we come together, put partisanship aside, and say we are going to solve the problems in front of this country. We can do it. The brainpower is here. The capability is here. Let's do it.

Mr. COBURN. So the total amount of time is less than 2 hours today that we are going to discuss this resolution; is that correct?

Mr. COBURN. Well, actually, that was my whole point. We are going to spend a little more than 2 hours to raise the debt limit by $1.2 trillion, and we can't give a Senator 20 minutes to talk about it?

Mr. COBURN. I understand that, but what is the total amount of time that has been allocated to H.J. Res. 98?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I am asking for unanimous consent to speak on this issue, a $1.2 trillion raise in the debt limit, for 20 minutes.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, what is the pending business before the Senate?

Mr. COBURN. And the amount of time that has been allocated by the majority leader and under the unanimous consent agreement?

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I have a question for my colleagues. Are we proud of this process? Have we fulfilled the responsibility to the citizens of this country with this process? Nobody can answer yes to that. And yet nothing seems to change. You know, $3.5 billion worth of phony earmarks totally puts an earmark ban on its head. The idea that parochialism trumps our Nation's vital interests puts our responsibility and our oath on its head. I know the hearts of everybody here. They are great. The intentions are great. With this bill, we have failed America. We failed America in the process, we failed America in our oath. This next year is going to be much more difficult than anybody can anticipate. At a time when we are facing our national survival, business as usual occurs. That is a reflection of lousy leadership by all of us, including me. It means I didn't make my case big enough about what the priorities should be in our country. It is a great time for reflection. We are going to go home. We are going to pass this bill that is going to be far less than what this country needs in terms of its integrity and its actions. Hopefully, we will think and return with a renewed spirit to fix the ship of state and do what is in the best interest of the Nation, not what is in the best interest of our parochial political careers. I yield the floor. boiler mact

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I would just respond to the Senator, I don't know for sure because we haven't been able to go through the whole bill, and the creativity associated with parochialism and getting reelected by helping the very well-connected few in this country is unbelievable. So it is hidden, and it takes a long time. It doesn't take 48 hours. We got this bill at 2:00 Tuesday morning. That is when we got it. And of course nobody is around at 2:00 Tuesday morning, are they? So we will have 72 hours to read a 1,200-page book, and then we have to figure out what is in it. As the Senator said, we are not going to know what is in it, not until the next Solyndra comes, not until the next person goes to jail, not until the next Senator goes to jail. We are not going to know. The fact is, what we are seeing is irresponsible behavior on the part of the Congress with this bill, and if we don't break this cycle of protecting incumbency through spending money, we are not going to have a country left. It is not just wrong, it is immoral. It is immoral. The Senator talked about research at the Department of Defense. There are good reasons to do medical research at the Department of Defense, but we have the world's premier institutes, the National Institutes of Health. Now, we are not increasing them significantly, but we are markedly increasing the study of MS at a military research facility instead of through NIH, where we are spending $100 million already a year on it? So we are going to duplicate it. I have said it before: We have taken a stupid pill. We have either taken a stupid pill or a corruption pill. I don't know which it is. But I know that the long-term effects of doing this kind of legislating at this time in our history, when we have the greatest difficulty and the greatest landmines ahead of us financially--for us to do what we are doing here today to please a very small group of Congressmen and Senators who happen to make up the Appropriation Committee and to address their election concerns and their knowing better than the authorization committees--it won't surprise the Senator that in this bill, this conglomeration of what I will call an omni-terrible, is over $400 billion in spending that is unauthorized, that has never been authorized or the authorizations have expired long ago and the authorizing committees don't reauthorize it for a reason, and yet we keep spending the money. So I think it is amazing that we have as high as a 9-percent approval rating. And I am saddened not just for us, I am saddened for the future of America that we would now, right before Christmas--because we are running on a deadline to go home we are going to pass a bill that is essentially irresponsible, inept, and loaded with political favors instead of doing the best right thing for this country. The GAO, in late February, early March, put out a report on duplication in the Federal Government. Most of my colleagues applauded it. It was a great deal of work that they spent a lot of time on. The second and third component of that, of the Federal Government, is coming out this February, and in it were hundreds of billions of dollars of duplicative programs. Not in one place in this bill that we have been able to find so far has any of what the GAO said should be eliminated, should be discontinued--none of it has happened. What is the consequence of spending $200 billion of borrowed money-- money we don't have--on things the GAO says we don't need? What is the consequence of that? The consequence of that is impoverishment of our children. It is the theft of opportunity from our children. That is what it is. So I don't say the word ``corruption'' lightly. When you are stealing opportunity and you are impoverishing those who follow, that is corrupt. It is also immoral. We won't be able to defeat this bill. We won't be able to amend this bill. We won't be able to offer amendments to what the GAO said is absolute stupidity because of the way we are bringing this up and the fact that we didn't bring these bills through here. And the bills they did bring through, they limited the amendments on anyway. So the voice of the average American doesn't get heard in the Senate under the way it is operating right now. Good ideas that actually will improve our country and save us money don't ever get heard. That is not the America I know. That is not the country I love. So we are leading by example into our demise, and this is one of the greatest examples of that I have seen.

Mr. COBURN. If I could respond, that $25 million is going to go to one company--we don't know where yet--that is well-connected and well- heeled to either a Member of the House or the Senate. Mark my words, that is where it is going. Somebody--one individual business, one individual constituent--is going to benefit from that at the expense of our children and our future.

Mr. COBURN. I thank the Senator for his question. I think the people need to know what the GAO actually does. The GAO is nonpartisan; they are not Democrats or Republicans. They are accountants, and they are investigators, and they are the most valuable tool we have because we won't do the oversight of calling agencies up here. I think the numbers are that we are going to lose 400 investigators and auditors out of the GAO. One question to ask is, Why is it we are cutting the GAO more than we are cutting our own budget? Let me make one additional point. Things are not right in our country because things aren't right in the Senate. This 1,200-page bill that should have come out here appropriations bill by appropriations bill-- 11 or 12 appropriations bills--has over $3.5 billion worth of phonemarks in it. We don't have earmarks anymore; they are all phonemarks. The corruption is still here. The pay-to-play game is still going on in Washington. Now we just don't do it in the bill, we do it by telephone, and we threaten agencies: If you don't give this money to this person, your money will be cut the next year. So the fact is, although we have an earmark ban, there are thousands of earmarks in this bill. And what do we do? We cut the very agency that is going to be required to help us solve our financial problems over the next few years; we cut them more than we cut our own budgets. Now, they can be cut, and appropriately so. Everybody is going to have to share. But to cut the GAO 6.4 percent--40 percent more than we are cutting our own budgets--out of spite? They and the Congressional Research Service do the best work on the Hill. They do better than we do. Yet we are going to take away a tool that is going to help this country solve its very difficult financial problems. I think it is outrageous. It nauseates me.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I rise today to give tribute to Mr. Earl Devaney, who will be retiring from 42 years of public service at the end of this year. In an era when the American people have a record-level of distrust in government, Mr. Devaney has risen above partisanship as a staunch defender of taxpayers and champion of government transparency. Devaney started his career as a cop on the beat in Massachusetts. Then, Devaney went to work for the U.S. Secret Service until 1991, where he was the Special Agent-in-Charge of the agency's fraud division. In 1999, President Clinton appointed Devaney the inspector general of the Interior Department. There, he gained wide renown for overseeing the public corruption investigations that helped lead to the convictions of Jack Abramoff, a Washington superlobbyist and major beneficiary of the congressional earmark favor factory that polluted our politics for several decades. He also presided over the landmark investigation of the royalties program in the Minerals Management Service, finding a ``culture of ethical failure'' among public officials there, involving illegal gifts, illegal drug abuse, sexual misbehavior and more. In his role as the chief watchdog of the Department of Interior, I got to know Earl and spent significant time visiting with him. What I have learned to appreciate about him was his honesty, integrity and forthrightness. In February 2009, President Obama named Devaney to head the Recovery Board, which is charged with overseeing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA. In this position, he was integral to making sure that the spending in the stimulus was as transparent as possible. At the end of the year, Mr. Devaney will be resigning from three posts: the Chair of the Recovery Board, inspector general for the Department of the Interior, and Chairman of the Government Accountability and Transparency Board, the position that Vice President Biden appointed him to for managing the administration's efforts to reduce government waste and to provide ``concrete methods'' for improving oversight and transparency of Federal funds. I can't think of a tougher defender of the interests of citizens and taxpayers in the Federal Government than Mr. Devaney. As one of the best inspectors general, his dogged pursuits of corruption and waste in government will be missed. In his resignation letter to President Obama, Mr. Devaney thanked the President for the ``opportunities you have given me to serve my country, and I will always look fondly on my decades as a public servant.'' Mr. Devaney, the American people will also look fondly on years of public service. Thank you for all you have done.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business.

Mr. COBURN. I am coming to the floor now because we will not have an opportunity to debate on the payroll tax cuts because the vote is going to be at 2:30 and that time is taken. I think it is important for the American public to look at what is happening in Washington right now. There is not a disagreement in Washington about whether we want people to continue to receive this tax cut. The disagreement is, should it come out of Social Security? Should we continue to undermine Social Security or should we do it a different way? That is No. 1. No. 2 is, if we are going to borrow $117 billion against our children knowing that we have significant waste, fraud, abuse, and duplication in the Federal Government of in excess of $350 billion a year, should we not eliminate some of that, pay for this rather than borrow the money? So we have the posturing between the two parties based on the election that is coming to create a predicate that some people only care for the rich and some people only care for those who are less fortunate, which is all smoke and mirrors. There is unanimity that we want this to continue. So what the American people are not hearing is the real debate. The real debate is, should we eliminate some of the waste, some of the stupidity, some of the duplication in the Federal Government and actually do that to be able to pay for this so that as we do this thing that we all want to do--in other words, keep this $1,000 to $2,000 per family in the economy now--that we do not do that by crippling the children of the very people who are in the economy. You know it is a zero-sum game. Somebody is going to pay the bill sometime. If it is us who refuse to do the hard work of ferreting out waste, duplication, fraud, then our service will have been in vain because what we are really doing is transferring to our children the responsibility for us today. Actually, it is going to come doublefold because the way this bill is lined out is we are going to borrow the money in the market to pay for this continued decrease in Social Security taxes. We have already stolen $2.6 trillion from Social Security, Congresses have the last 20 years. When we borrow that money and put it back in, there is no reduction in what is owed, so our kids are actually going to get to pay for it twice. They are going to pay for it now with the new debt that we are taking, and the fact that new payment was not recognized as a reduction, they are going to get to pay it again. So it is going to cost our children a quarter of a trillion dollars. There is a lack of honesty in talking plainly with the American people. They know we are in trouble. The question is, Will we be honest with them, treat them as adults in terms of how we go about solving the problem? We hear the mess. The press takes advantage of that. There is not a lot of difference between the Senator from Ohio who just spoke, in terms of what we want to do in terms of protecting seniors. But the politics surrounding it and the game playing poorly serves our country. So for all the press that is watching, we are going to get this done. I know it is the game Blood Sport that is happening right now, with the press saying: Will they or will they not? It is going to happen. We are going to fix unemployment so that we have a continuation of that. The real question is, Will we fix the real things that the country needs fixed or are we just going to kick the can down the road? What we are doing is kicking the can down the road because we won't make the tough choices to pay for it. We won't pay for the unemployment benefits. The first 26 weeks is what is earned; that is what people contributed to. We are up to 99 weeks, and that comes directly from the American taxpayer--it actually comes from the future American taxpayer. Some real questions ought to be asked. What is the game being played in Washington by both sides--trying to get advantage in the next election? As our country drowns in debt, we continue to further mortgage our children's future, and we continue to treat the American people like children rather than the adults they are. Everybody knows we are all going to have to sacrifice. Does that mean we are going to abandon the social safety net? No, it doesn't. Does that mean a 62- year-old who is trying to get on Social Security is not going to get there? No; they are. Those are the tactics of fear that something will not be there. As a fiscal conservative or a constitutional conservative, I want us to fulfill our obligation to the promises we have made and to our oath, which is to uphold the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson said you should never borrow money which you have not laid a tax to pay for. He is a Founder--one of the Founders of our country. We would do well to go back and revisit the wise and prudent advice of our Founders. You don't see that or hear that much anymore in the U.S. Congress. These are big problems our country is facing. I am 63--soon to be 64--years old. We have never faced anything close to what we are facing today. How we react and how we respond is going to make all the difference in the world--not only for our short-term future but also for our long-term future. I hope the American people who are listening right now understand that we are going to do what is necessary to help get the economic process of our country running again in a better and viable way. I hope you will dismiss the partisan rhetoric and the class warfare rhetoric that is all too commonplace today. If we will focus on what the problem is rather than the next election, we will have a great deal more success in coming together and forging solutions the American people can be proud of and we will actually move our country ahead. With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I have cleared with Senator Levin to be able to speak about a topic but not offer an amendment. I understand we are working on a unanimous consent agreement. I do have an amendment that at the appropriate time hopefully will be able to be brought up, but I wish to discuss it now. I think it is a way for us to save $1.1 billion over the next 5 years in the Defense Department, give children of on-base military schools a better education, help the local school districts through Impact Aid by $12,000 per student per year, and actually do what we are intending to do in terms of education. We have 64 schools right now on 18 military bases within the United States. There are 26,000 students taught by 2,300 teachers. That is 1 teacher for every 11 students. The average cost per student per year is $51,000 in a military school--$51,000. That is 250 percent higher than the highest cost district anywhere in the United States--2\1/2\ times. This amendment says let's use local schools, let's help local schools through these military bases, and let's give an exemption if we need to, if it is not available. If we were to do that, three positive things would happen. The first one is probably a better education. According to the teachers, conditions are so bad that some of the educators at base schools envy the civilian public schools off base, which admittedly have their own challenges. ``Some of the new schools in town make our schools look like a prison,'' said David Primer, who uses a trailer as a classroom to teach students German at Marine Corps headquarters in Quantico, VA. In other words, what they are looking at, what they are doing, and for the cost of it, the value can be higher. That is No. 1. Second, it will help the local school districts because they will not only get Impact Aid, but they will be given up to $12,000 per year per student off a military base. Then, finally, third, it will, over the next 5 years, save $220 million a year out of the military's budget that they would not be spending. That is after the $12,000 and the Impact Aid. So it is a way to save $1.1 billion and give a better education with better facilities to the children of our military service bases, these 26,000 students at 16 military installations. It is a win-win-win. My hope is we will be able to call up this amendment and make it pending in the future. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. COBURN. Yes.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I listened to part of what Senator Reid had to say as we opened the Senate today. I was struck by the fact that so many people are unemployed and our economy is still barely growing, that there probably is not any firm objection to trying to alleviate some of the pain by continuing a process where we lessen the tax burden through a decline in the Social Security tax. I don't think that is going to be the issue with many Senators. The question is, do we do that by raising taxes on other people or by getting rid of waste. I had an interesting phone call today with somebody I trust and have been talking to for 3 years, who actually predicted everything that has happened so far. He predicted what is going to happen in Europe, and he predicted the fact that ultimately there will be default in Europe on government bonds. There is no way they grow themselves out of it or no way we loan them enough money to buy them enough time to get out of it. The only way is to trim their spending, which they should have started 2\1/2\ or 3 years ago. The same lesson applies to us. I think some things that are factual ought to be brought up. We had, over this past week, the inability of the committee to come to an agreement on $1.2 trillion. Therefore, there is going to be a sequestration. The interesting thing, on the way to the farm, is that when you have the sequestration carried out, there will actually be no decrease in spending in the Federal Government. This is the important thing I want the American people to hear. They think we are cutting spending. Defense will rise 16 percent with sequestration; nondefense discretionary will rise 6 percent; Medicare will still rise 71 percent; and net interest will rise 160 percent with the sequestration. So it is dishonest--to put it mildly--to say that we are cutting anything in Washington. And there begs the problem. The problem is that the political elite in this country are failing to make the adjustments we have to make or we are going to end up like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and ultimately France. We have to do that. The sooner we do it the less pain we are going to have. The first thing we ought to do is be honest with the American people. Nobody has done anything in Washington yet to cut any spending, because it is still going to rise in discretionary, defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest. It is still going to rise. So we have to go back to the fundamental problem. What President Obama is proposing costs about $240 billion for next year. I think he would get great support from many of us if he said I want to do this to help people out there, and I want to do it by getting rid of some of the waste, fraud, abuse, and duplication we have. I would be the first to help him. But that is not what is going to be proposed. Instead of playing the political game, why don't we solve the problem? We had a GAO report that came out in March that showed massive duplication throughout the Federal Government--massive. My estimate is close to $200 billion a year. That is not theirs, that is mine. But at a minimum, $100 billion a year could be saved by consolidating programs and eliminating duplication. We have not done anything or made any attempt to do that. Senator Warner and I offered an amendment to eliminate $5 billion of it. The bill it was riding on was withdrawn. We haven't had an opportunity in all the bills that came before to offer an amendment to eliminate duplication. Before we ask anybody to pay more taxes to offset the taxes we are going to decrease for the businesses under $50 million, and for the decline in the payment of Social Security tax of 3.1 percent for business and 2 percent for the individual, we ought to get our house in order first. We are doing exactly what the European countries refuse to do. Now we hear over the weekend that we are about to participate, through the IMF, in socializing the debt of Europe, of which we are required, through the IMF, to absorb 26 percent of the cost. We are not going to let that happen, because what we are going to do is exactly the same thing we are doing in the cities--delaying the onset of the time to make the hard choices. Here is the growth curve on this chart. In the red is sequestration. The blue line is without sequestration. Spending is still going up. We are going to be at a $5.4 trillion annual budget in 2021, 9 years from now. No spending has been cut. We need to quit lying to the American people about what we are doing. A 9-percent approval rating is well earned as long as we are dishonest with the American people about what we are actually doing. They understand the problem. We are broke. If you don't think that is the case, look at this chart. Medicare is broke, no question about it. Medicaid is broke. The census is broke. Fannie and Freddie are broke. Now FHA has 0.2 percent of the capital they need when they have a minimum statutory requirement of 3 percent. FHA is broke. Social Security is broke. There is $2.6 trillion in the trust fund. We put $105 billion from the Treasury in to offset what we did last year. Now we are going to pay for it twice because there was no decrease in the IOU. For that $105 billion, our children and grandchildren will pay back $210 billion. With the new program, they are going to pay back $280 billion. The U.S. Post Office is dead broke. We won't even pass a bill that allows it to be fixed. We just delay the time of its demise. Cash for Clunkers was broke. The highway trust fund was broke. We are passing bills for the highway trust fund, which is $13 billion short. We don't know where the money will come from because the trust fund is broke. Government-run health care--we don't know, but it is likely to be broke before it starts. How do we solve the problem?

Mr. COBURN. Yes, and the recommendation of the President of the United States. What about duplication? Is there not someplace we can find the $240 billion that President Obama wants to put into the economy for helping those of the middle and lower income levels make it through this tough time? Sure there is. We have 100-plus surface transportation programs that can be consolidated into about 20 programs. We have 82 Federal teacher quality programs. Not one has the metric on it, and we don't know if they work. Economic development programs--we have 88. Transportation assistance programs, outside surface transportation--we have 80 of those. We have 56 financial literacy programs. We have 47 job-training programs, at $18 billion a year. All but three of those overlap one another, and not one has a metric to say it works. Homelessness prevention and assistance--there are 20 separate programs. There is nothing wrong with that goal, but why do we need 20? Food for the hungry--we have 18 different programs. Couldn't we do that through one Federal program? Why do we need to have 18? Disaster response and preparedness in FEMA has 17 different programs. We have taken a ``stupid'' pill, and now we sit bankrupt. We are physically bankrupt--fiscally and physically bankrupt at this moment, except we just haven't recognized it, and what is happening in Europe is going to happen to us in less than a year. The price we pay for our bond interest is going to go up. The price differential between a German and Italian bond in the last 10 days has risen 270 basis points--a spread of 270. Germany couldn't even sell all its bonds Friday. What is happening? It is a lack of confidence. So we have to restore confidence, and the way we do that is by actually paying for the good we need to do by putting forth commonsense solutions for elimination of programs that are duplicative. I will finish with just a couple other points, just some ideas. If you started now, you could put the 2020 census online and save $2 billion. If we increased the paperless transactions at the Treasury Department, we could save $1 billion. These are per year, by the way-- per year. We need to gradually increase fees for GSE securities. President Obama has started that, but it needs to be accelerated. Move the core functions of the Election Assistance Commission to the FEC. That is $161 million. We could consolidate that. We could do some commonsense things. We could combine the SEC and the CFTC and save $2.8 billion. We could move the SBA disaster loans to FEMA. You have to go through FEMA anyway before you ever qualify for one, so why not let them do it? Why do we have two separate programs? Why do you have to go through two doors? It would be like getting your license where you bought the car, but then you had to go somewhere else to get it, and then you had to go somewhere else. We could eliminate that. The National Drug Intelligence Center--it doesn't do anything. It is an earmark we have spent $488 million on in the last 10 years. It does nothing of concrete value to anybody in the intelligence network, but it is an earmark gone crazy. So what do we do? Well, we put together a shopping list that could be used. You don't have to agree with any of this, but over the next 10 years, if you just agreed with one-third of it, you could find the third and save $3.3 trillion. That is $85 billion more--if we just did one-tenth of it this year--than what the President would like to do with this jobs stimulus program. None of this is hard. There certainly can be some debate over what we fund and don't fund in defense, but most of it is common sense. Will people squeal? Yes. Everybody is going to have to squeal if we are to get out of the problem we have in this country. I will conclude with this: I think we ought to continue, until our economy is back on keel, with a Social Security tax cut, but I think the only way we should do that is by eliminating some of the $350 billion a year of waste, of duplication, and of fraud in the Federal Government. And if we can't do that, we shouldn't be here. None of us should be here. The fact that the politics of the next election is crippling this country says we deserve the 9-percent rating the American people are giving us. All we have to do is change that. What we have to do is grow a backbone, stand, and say no to people. We have to say it to everyone. We have to do this. It is for our future and for our kids' future. And these are the things that are least painful. Here is what happens if we don't. The very people we say we don't want to harm by eliminating the multitude of duplication in all these programs, eliminating all this waste, all these feel-good things that part of the time accomplish good things, are the very people who are going to suffer significantly more because of our inaction. It is time for us to act. It is time for us to do what is necessary to put our country back in the right direction and on a healthy diet of fiscal prudence, smart tax policy, and get out of the rut we are in. That requires leadership--and not just by the President but by all of us. It means you have to take some hits. When I put ``Back in Black'' out, I got some terribly nasty letters from all sorts of people. I understand. They are getting something, and some of that is put at risk, so therefore you can't represent them. But everybody is going to have to give, and if everybody doesn't give, we won't have a country left. That is what is coming--default. We are broke now; we just are not in the reality of it. But what is coming is default of American bonds if we do not act now. It can't wait 2 years. It can't wait for the next Presidential election. We have to do it now. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want to spend a minute because I do not think the American public knows how badly they have been hoodwinked by Congress. The Budget Control Act told the American people that we cut $1 trillion. That is what the claims were. The fact is, under the Budget Control Act spending, discretionary spending will still rise by $850 billion over the next 10 years. That is the truth. We hear in the bills that are coming up the word ``emergency.'' One of the things the American people cannot quite understand is--when they have an emergency what they do is they end up having to make choices. They do not have a bank that will loan them money regardless of whether they are worthy of paying it back, and that is where we are. We are not worthy of paying the money back that we are borrowing now. That is going to become acutely obvious over the next 18 months in our country as we see our interest rates rise. We have a bill on the floor that meets the numbers and meets what the Budget Control Act said but totally denies what the American people are expecting. Let me talk about what I mean by that. There are five major problems with this bill. No. 1, it claims to cut spending when in fact it does not. When you take all spending, it does not cut spending. We are going to hear and we have heard already how it cuts spending but usually with the caveat ``not counting emergency spending.'' So the first thing it does is not to address any of the problems our country has in terms of having to deal with real cuts in spending, not decreases in the rate of growth of spending. We have to have real cuts if we are going to create a future for our kids. If we are going to be able to borrow money in the future at an affordable interest rate, we are going to have to have real cuts. We have to quit playing the game to the American people and start talking to them as adults, not playing the game and actually being dishonest with them about what we are doing. This bill also continues to demonstrate that we are shirking our duties in terms of doing oversight. We have provided funding for things that obviously need to be corrected but we will not correct them. We do not eliminate the wasteful programs. There is nothing in here, not one duplicative program in any of these three segments of appropriations bills, that is eliminated. Yet we know there is over $200 billion a year in duplication costs to the Federal Government on programs that do exactly the same thing. Yet we did not do any of it. It is no wonder you can't cut spending if you don't get rid of programs that do the same thing, none of which or 80 percent of which never accomplish their goals or never have been measured as to whether they accomplish their goals. That is the third thing. The fourth thing this bill does is absolutely ignore FHA's condition. It was announced they are about to run out of money. What do we do? We raise the amount of money that people can borrow from the FHA at the time when FHA is running out of money. The only problem with that is FHA has a very friendly banker which the Congress has no control over because when FHA runs out of money, do you know what they do? They go and get it from the Treasury and we cannot stop it. What we have done is we have raised the loan limit for FHA homes to $729,000 in this bill. FHA is going to be out of money this year. They will have no capital to protect the $1.1 trillion worth of loans they are guaranteeing, and they will go get the money. Where is that money going to come from? That money is going to come from--we are going to borrow it from the Chinese. So we are going to compound the very problem we have today. It is absolutely ignoring what the real situation is on the ground, ignoring the real complications of not acting, and consequently we actually make it worse for our kids and our country. Finally, it includes very few of the amendments that were passed by wide margins in the Senate. One of mine is there. I am very thankful for it. I think it is an appropriate amendment. But several others are not, that were good, commonsense amendments. Yet somebody in the Appropriations Committee decided even though they may have voted for it, they pulled it out. It was not the majority on the other side who insisted it come out because I checked. What we have done is we are up here and we are going to pass this bill. I have no doubt about it. But we are continuing down the road of, No. 1, being dishonest with the American people about what we are doing, how we are doing it; No. 2, we are shirking our responsibility to eliminate the wasteful portions of the Federal Government which at least are $350 billion a year, when you combine waste, fraud, and duplication. None of that was attacked in this bill, none of it. Then we are lying to them about whether we are actually increasing spending or not increasing spending. Our time is shortening. If you look at what happened in Europe in the last 2 weeks, to the bond yields for Italy, to the bond yields for Spain, we know what is coming. How bad does it have to get or how close does it have to get to us before we will act in the best interests of the country instead of the best interests of partisanship or the best interests of our careers? This is not a bad bill. It just doesn't do what the American people need us to do right now, which is start cutting out the waste, fraud, and duplication in the Federal Government so that their children will have an opportunity to live in a country of opportunity. This bill fails on that count. It should be defeated and a bill coming back here with $10 or $12 or $15 billion less is what ought to come back here. That is what ought to happen, if we were going to be truly honest. Either I am being dishonest about the situation facing our country or you are being dishonest in what you are bringing as the answer on the floor. One of us is not telling the truth and I guarantee the markets are going to prove me right. When we can no longer borrow, as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve said, we are going to eventually fix all this, regardless of the politicians. Do you know why we are going to fix it? Because they are going to quit loaning us money. And we have done nothing with this bill to solve the very real and immediate problems in front of this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. It is my understanding we have until 11 a.m.

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