Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I hope not to use all our remaining time. But I come to the floor to talk about an issue that should be very important to every American. In less than 20 months, the Social Security Disability system will be bankrupt--out of money. That may sound like just a scare tactic, but that is what the trust fund trustees say. And we have known this for some time. My colleague Carl Levin, as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and myself as ranking, have spent a great deal of time oversighting Social Security disability. We issued a report that had some pretty remarkable findings in it. I thought I would go through some of those findings today, because I have two major concerns. One is that those people with true disabilities are going to see in 18 months a 20-percent cut in what they get paid each month, and they are barely surviving on the disability payments we give them today. The second thing is the failure of the Justice Department, when handed an absolutely, totally perfect case to prosecute criminals taking advantage not only of people with disabilities but other people of this country. Social Security disability insurance is an important safety net for a large number of people--about 11 million--in this country. In the past 5 years, we have gone from 11 million to 14.1 million applications for disability--some of that is associated with our recession, but some with true injury. We started out very meticulously as we looked at this, and I wish to applaud some of the employees of the Social Security Administration because they were the ones who highlighted to me--people who worked in the Oklahoma City Social Security office--the lousy quality of what was happening as these were being processed. So what we did is we went to the Social Security Administration and we asked them to randomly select 300 case files--100 each--from 3 different geographical locations throughout the country. That included Oklahoma County, in my home State. What we looked at was a large random number of cases, most of them drawn from decisions made by the Social Security Administration's 1,500 administrative law judges. What we found, using Social Security's own criteria, was that 25 percent of the cases were decided absolutely erroneously, according to their own rules and their own guidelines. But that didn't surprise the Social Security Administration, because they had been looking at it all along and they knew that, according to their records, 23 to 24 percent of all the cases had been being decided erroneously. Our second step was to look where we saw this abuse at the highest, and that was in the Huntington, WV, Social Security Disability Hearing Office. So Senator Levin and I set our investigators about doing a total and comprehensive investigation of that office. The problems we found there were similar to the problems we found in our prior investigation in these three other offices, except much worse. The Huntington office got our attention in part because it processed more disability cases than almost every other Social Security office in the Nation--much of that to just one attorney by the name of Eric Christopher Conn. Despite practicing in a town of only 500 people, Mr. Conn had become the third highest paid disability attorney in the entire United States. He helped thousands of people get on to the disability program, and in 2010 he received $4 million in payments from the Social Security disability program. The only other attorneys receiving more from SSA were Charles Binder of Binder and Binder--who, I noticed, filed bankruptcy this week--who received $22 million; and Thomas Nash of Chicago who received $6.3 million. When we looked more closely at Mr. Conn's operations, what we found were reasons for serious concern. While some of what Mr. Conn did involved outright fraud--which we have documented and proven--at times he was simply able to exploit loopholes in Social Security's system. Both of those things should be a concern to Congress. To ensure the cases were approved and his attorney fees kept flowing, Mr. Conn colluded with an ALJ in the Huntington office by the name of David B. Daughtery. The two men worked together to award hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in fraudulent disability claims. This is an administrative law judge. The plan involved several calculated steps. First, Judge Daugherty needed to ensure that Mr. Conn's cases were assigned to him. Normally, agency rules require cases to be assigned to the ALJs on a rotational basis, with the oldest case being assigned to a hearing date first. This way, no one administrative law judge receives too many of one attorney's cases. Judge Daugherty, however, would at times intercept Mr. Conn's cases and assign them to himself. If cases would slip past him and get assigned to another judge, Judge Daugherty would inappropriately go into the computer system and move the case to his jurisdiction. The next step in the plan involved Judge Daugherty calling Mr. Conn's office every month to let them know what kind of additional evidence he needed for each client to be able to award disability benefits. Judge Daugherty started the monthly call by relaying the name and Social Security number of each person he was ready to approve. He would then say whether the new piece of evidence should relate to a mental or a physical medical impairment. The list of claimants would then be typed up by employees in Mr. Conn's law firm. Mr. Conn's staff referred to these monthly lists as the DB lists--the David B. Daugherty list. We reviewed these DB lists, every one of them, from June 2006 through July 2010. Each list contained as many as 52 names each month. In total, the DB lists from that time period contained the names of 1,823 claimants who were all approved for disability benefits. After Judge Daugherty told Mr. Conn the kind of medical evidence he needed, the next step shifted to Mr. Conn to ensure a doctor provided that evidence. Fortunately for Mr. Conn, he had a crew of doctors in his pocket, ready to provide what he needed. To find doctors willing to go along with him, Mr. Conn searched the Internet for ones with checkered pasts. The doctors Mr. Conn used often had histories of malpractice and some had medical license revocations in multiple States. In fact, Mr. Conn's ``go-to'' doctor was the subject of numerous malpractice lawsuits and even had his medical license revoked and suspended in several States. Mr. Conn scheduled the DB list of claimants to be seen by his doctors. The doctors spent as little as 15 minutes evaluating each claimant and sometimes saw 35 to 40 claimants a day. Mr. Conn paid the doctors that he knew $500 for each claimant they saw. The doctors would complete a form used by the agency to determine a claimant's residual functional capacity to work in any job available in the national economy. While the evidentiary forms provided by the doctors were supposed to be specifically tailored to the physical or mental impairments of each client, all of Mr. Conn's forms were the same. They were prefilled out. He had 15 versions of the physical form and 5 versions of the mental form that were rotated among the clients. As a matter of fact, a committee determined that 97 of Mr. Conn's claimants approved by Judge Daugherty had exactly the same residual functional capacity--a statistical impossibility. It could not happen. Mr. Conn would then submit the RFC forms--the residual functional capacity forms--with a brief description of the claimant to Judge Daugherty. Judge Daugherty would then approve the claim for benefits in an abbreviated decision, determining the evidence presented by Mr. Conn outweighed all the other evidence in the claimant's medical file. At times, the medical evidence Judge Daugherty ignored could be thousands of pages long. The plan made Mr. Conn millions. In 2010 SSI paid Mr. Conn almost $4 million in attorney fees, making him the third highest-paid attorney in the country. In turn, he paid out almost $2 million to the doctors who were giving the unscrupulous, ill-advised, and absolutely erroneous premanaged outcomes. Judge Daugherty, mysteriously, under our subpoenas had received some $100,000 in unexplained cash deposits into his bank accounts during this time. But Judge Daugherty wasn't approving just Mr. Conn's cases. In the last 5 years of working for the agency, Judge Daugherty awarded more than $2.5 billion in disability benefits. During that period, he approved more cases then any other ALJ in the entire United States. There was another judge, Chief Judge Charlie P. Andrus, who played a major role in approving the fraudulent claims. He allowed Judge Daugherty to decide a high number of claims. He and Judge Andrus enjoyed accolades and national recognition. The Huntington office rose to have the second fastest processing time in the entire country. No wonder--they didn't actually process claims. It was a slam dunk. You get under Judge Andrus, you get under Judge Daugherty, you get Eric Conn, and you get approved--no matter whether it is true or not. Mr. Andrus, as the acting superior judge, did nothing to stop Mr. Conn and Judge Daugherty. He actually colluded with Mr. Conn to target a whistleblower from his own office. The second thing I would note about Judge Andrus was he was not truthful in his testimony before the committee under oath, and we have evidence of his lying to the committee under oath. When all of this was exposed, the agency put Judge Andrus on paid administrative leave and filed a claim with the Merit Systems Protection Board. That was in January of 2013. In 2014 Mr. Andrus voluntarily retired according to a decision from the Merit Systems Protection Board. The complaint the agency filed against Mr. Andrus charged him with conduct unbecoming an ALJ; engaging in an apparent conflict of interest; lack of candor; and unauthorized disclosures. Despite these charges, as part of the settlement agreement, the agency agreed to refrain from pursuing any disciplinary action against Andrus and to provide a neutral reference to prospective future employers. Andrus retired with his pension. So a crook retires with their pension. So no disciplinary action is taken against Charlie Andrus, even after he turned a blind eye for years and allowed Judge Daugherty to award billions of dollars in disability benefits, admitted he conspired to retaliate against an employee, and was untruthful to Congress under oath. Nor has the Department of Justice taken any action against Mr. Conn or Judge Daugherty. In fact, Mr. Conn continues to represent disability claimants before the Social Security Administration--these two men who actively committed fraud on one of the most important safety net programs our government runs. We should not let the actions of these individuals go unpunished. But that is what is happening. I recently had a visit with the IG from the Social Security Administration, Mr. Patrick O'Carroll. At this point the U.S. attorneys in West Virginia and Kentucky had both recused themselves and declined to prosecute Mr. Conn. Now I wonder what he has over them. I wonder what it is when you have a closed case--a prosecutorial case that you have to do no work on--and the U.S. attorneys will not prosecute a thief of the highest order. Since both U.S. attorneys recused themselves, Mr. O'Carroll is now trying to convince the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice here in Washington, DC, to take action. But to date no charges have been filed against Mr. Conn, Judge Daugherty or Judge Andrus. If they do not take action against Mr. Conn, the Justice Department is sending a message that disability fraud will go unpunished. We need to be sending the opposite message--that these types of fraudulent practices by attorneys like Eric Conn must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law--otherwise the disability program, no matter how much oversight we do on it, will continue to be abused, leaving those Americans who have no choice but to rely on it with less than what they expected. I would add one final statement. In working with a lot of the disability community, we introduced this week what we hope the Congress will take up in future years as a reform to the disability program that takes the fraud out of it--the opportunity for fraud--that takes the ability actually to hold people accountable and also gives back the dignity to those who can get back to work and uses that to help them accomplish that goal. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. According to industry calculations, TRIA has made the industry $40 billion in the last 12 years. The American taxpayer takes all the risks, except for 35 percent, and the insurance industry makes the money. We had a compromise bill coming out of the banking committee. My objections were well known at that time. They were trying to be accommodated by Senator Schumer. With that, I must object to the bill.

Mr. COBURN. Reserving the right to object, to continue one portion of my statement, if I might.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Schumer for trying to work with me on this bill, and the members of the banking committee. They have known my objections all along on both NARAB and the options we offered. We offered this evening to the House three options under which they could enroll to come back to where the Senate had been in terms of a 2- year sunset provision. They disagreed with that. And the other options we offered--taking NARAB completely out of this bill--which doesn't have anything to do with the terrorism risk insurance bill, or to give States an opt-out so the States that don't want to be a part of the NARAB provision don't have to be a part of it, we have not been able to find agreement on that, despite the best efforts of a lot of people here this evening. I ask the majority leader if he would agree to amend his request to strike the NARAB provision from the bill.

Mr. COBURN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, first of all, I will say that I recognize the honor of the Senator from Connecticut for his distinguished service in the military. I didn't serve in our military. I was actually in college during the Vietnam war. I drew No. 354 on the lottery the week before I was to be drafted. I had two brothers who served--not in Vietnam--in the military. My father and both uncles served during World War II. My grandfather was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the highest honor the French give, for his work during World War I. I will also state that, as a physician, I know suicide all too well. I have failed patients in the past even though I did everything I knew to do. Yet they still took their lives. I have also experienced it personally in my own family. I know this issue. I also know what we did 3\1/2\ months ago--we passed the Veterans Choice Act, which I ultimately voted against because it didn't do what we promised the veterans we would do. To this day Secretary McDonald has fired one person out of hundreds who should have been fired because we didn't give him the right authority on that day to hold the VA accountable. I have treated patients with the demons that these young men and women have when they come back from war--the night terrors and the conflict that happens when they turn a corner and get a flashback of where they were versus seeing their wife and daughter. On top of that, they have the guilt that has built up, and they wonder to themselves, what is wrong with me? Thirty-four percent of the people who are applying for mental health benefits today from the VA are getting seen within the appropriate time. Almost everything in the bill has already been authorized and approved with the $10 billion that we sent to the VA. When every veteran--regardless of how long his hair is or how unshaven or how scraggly or how nice he looks--is greeted with a smile and a ``yes, sir'' or ``yes, ma'am,'' when they are treated with the respect they deserve at every veterans facility because they served and some of us didn't, that is when we know we have put the VA back on course. My great colleague from Connecticut is going to be the ranking member on the VA Committee, along with Johnny Isakson from Georgia. I have a challenge for him. I am going to be objecting to this bill because it throws money out there and doesn't solve the real problem. I know most of my colleagues disagree with me on that, but I actually did the work. I started a year before all the VA scandals started, and I documented nearly 1,000 deaths at the hands of lack of our oversight and the lack of us holding the VA accountable. People are going to make mistakes all the time, but we are the ones who have no excuse for not holding the VA accountable. Our veterans deserve the very best. We cannot eliminate all of the tragedies that occur with war. Some of the most remarkable things happened during this bill. I have a military liaison who had significant injuries as a result of serving this country. He got targeted by the veterans groups who wanted to pass this bill--talk about dishonoring a veteran. You are going after my MLA who served this country with distinction, who has had multiple operations because of his injuries and second degree burns in his service to this country. Nothing could be lower than that. That is politics at its worst. So I believe in all my heart--I prayed all weekend. How do I answer this question? And the answer to the question is to do the hard work over the next year. Don't pass another bill. Hold the VA accountable. There should be a hearing every week on every aspect of every aspect of everything the VA does for the whole next 2 years so that they, in fact, will treat the people who put their lives on the line with the very respect, the very service that they so richly earned and we have spoiled because we undervalue it. We have great employees at most of the VA facilities, but we have some stinkers. Until we change the attitude, until we hold the administration of the Veterans' Administration accountable, we will never change the attitude that our veterans aren't getting the very best. And they deserve the very best. My heart breaks for the people who commit suicide. Do we know what it is? They find no relief anywhere else except death. There is no answer for them. We don't give it to them. We have failed them. I personally have failed them in my own medical practice. So they look at the only option that gives them relief from the tremendous pressure and tension they are experiencing. I had a very close friend in the House whose son took his own life. We spent years building and loving that family to help them to deal with that loss. Catastrophic events, depression, and situations lead people to suicide--not any one individual. They are searching for an answer we have failed to give them. They are searching for the support and the nurturing and the love that needs to be there to say: I am going to mentor you and get you through this. That is where the VA has failed. That is where the military has failed. That is where we have failed. Even the Veterans' Administration says everything in this bill has already been authorized. So what is it really about? It is about addressing an issue without addressing the issue. The real, hard work will come when, on C-SPAN, with me sitting in Oklahoma, I get to see Dick Blumenthal and Johnny Isakson grilling every aspect of the VA to make sure they are top notch, they are putting their sacrifice on the line the same way our soldiers do. That is when we start changing things. So, regrettably, I object to this bill, not because I don't want to help save suicides but because I don't think this bill is going to do the first thing to change what is happening. What is going to change what is happening is when we as Members of the Senate and the Congress start bearing down and creating the transparency that is necessary so that Americans can see that our veterans are getting everything they deserve and a ``yes, sir'' and a ``no, sir,'' a ``no ma'am,'' a ``yes ma'am,'' a smile, and a greeting, and when they interact with the VA, they leave there fulfilled and proud that they are a veteran. I object.

Mr. COBURN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I object.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I would prefer she go ahead and I will do all mine in consequence, if I may.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I inquire of the Senator from Wisconsin how much time she is going to need to take.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I first congratulate my colleague from Wisconsin. There is a lot of controversy over lands packages, and her very pleasant example is what isn't controversial. The reason we have a discussion about what is going on is the very mundane--the very things we can get done have never been brought forward on the floor without being brought forward with a very controversial land project. So I agree with her 100 percent that what is happening for her and the people of Wisconsin and her tribal nation is absolutely appropriate. The question we ought to ask and the question that causes all the trouble is, Why in the world does the Federal Government own 640 million acres of our land and have all sorts of rules--of our land-- that say we can't utilize it in a way that is best for our citizens, best for our States, best for our region, best for the ecology, and best for preservation of history? Until Congress solves that problem, we are going to continue to have these battles. What is disappointing to me is we spent 1\1/2\ years looking at the National Park Service--which nobody in this body read. It is quality scholarship. It is scholarship that the Park Service agrees with. It is scholarship that the historians of the Park Service agree with. It is scholarship that the people who write about the parks agree with. So today we have before us a bill that has 68 separate land items in it, of which 40 are totally noncontroversial, which could have been run across the floor 2 years ago, I would tell my colleague from Wisconsin, but they were chosen not to because the desire is to get recognition at home and expand the National Park Service. If we were to happen to just take the couple hours to read this, we would see right now why expanding the National Park Service is a disastrous idea. The reason it is a disastrous idea is our parks are falling apart--a $12 billion backlog on our most pristine, greatest national monuments and parks with which we have set the pace for the rest of the world in terms of recognizing and valuing such wonderful natural landscape and creation. But we have ignored that because the desire to please a parochial benefit at the expense of harming these most precious resources cannot be resisted by most of our colleagues. So I find myself on the floor today. I know I won't win this battle, but I won't quit fighting. We should fight for what we have already invested in. We should preserve what we have already invested in. We are falling behind $250 million a year. It is ludicrous to say this bill doesn't cost anything. It costs $320 million a year, the ``no cost park program'' that we are putting out and saying it doesn't cost anything. I was born in Wyoming. I love Yellowstone. I love the Great Rocky Mountains national forest. I love our wonderful programs. But the vast majority of the parks we have created in the last 20 years are nothing but drains on the National Park Service. We have the data--this has the data to show that. We are going to do the largest expansion of national parks since 1978 in this bill, and we don't have the money for it. So what will happen as this goes through? And I say to my colleague from Wisconsin, you are absolutely right--yours should fly through here. It is not a significant cost. You are absolutely right. But fixing the real problem is restoring the right to the States to the lands that are there, taking it out of the hands of the Federal Government, and letting the States make the decisions about what happens to the land within their confines. So it is disappointing to me that when great scholarship is done and is recognized, parochialism trumps even the reading of the information with which to make good decisions. And it is a blight on the Senate. We don't have to agree with everything in this, but we can't deny the facts that are totally documented in this. We can't deny the statements of the National Park Service. We can't deny the people we are actually charging to do this--we can't deny their concerns about what we are getting ready to do. Let me read for a moment what Harry Butowski, a historian who recently retired from the National Park Service, said about this bill. He summed up how Congress is out of touch with National Park Service needs and priorities when he was expressing his opposition to the lands package in the national defense authorization bill, of all places. He said: I think it is irresponsible for Congress to create so many new parks, heritage areas and expansions of existing units and not provide the funding and manpower necessary to manage what we now have. I think the National Park System should not be added to or expanded until we can fund and staff all of our parks and programs. To add more units at this time is just not responsible. It is the opposite of good management. Here is the historian for the Park Service telling us as Members of the Senate: You are irresponsible in what you are doing. I know we will blow that off. That doesn't mean anything. But this is somebody who has had his eye on the Park Service for years. . . . Perhaps what Congress should do is an analysis of the entire National Park System and start getting rid of marginal units that cost many dollars and have few visitors. That is exactly what this report recommends. But nobody read it, studied it, considered it, to try to solve the problem. And it doesn't mean we cannot have new national parks--we can--but we ought to have a plan to take care of the ones we have now before we add additional national parks and put at risk the most fantastic National Park System in the world. Here is what the first National Park Director stated--the first one-- and we ought to pay attention to him. The national park system as now constituted should not be allowed to be lowered in standard, dignity, and prestige by the inclusion of areas which express in less than the highest terms the particular class or kind of exhibit which they represent. Let me tell you, this is exactly what he is talking about. Hinchcliff Stadium in Patterson, NJ, is going to add $100,000 to the Park System. Does it have historical significance? Yes. Should it be part of the Park System? Absolutely not. Does it look good for those who sponsored it back home? Yes. Get the attaboys back home. But what damage do you do to Yellowstone, Yosemite, Rocky Mountain National Park, Grand Mesa, Grand Canyon? What pain, what lack of maintenance, comes across from that? I have stated before, I have no problem with land swaps and conveyances. I think we ought to make them easy, and the best way to make them easy is to get the Federal Government out of them, and return the land that is in Wisconsin that the Federal Government owns to the people of Wisconsin. They will be the best stewards of that land. Same thing in Oklahoma, in Colorado, in California, in Washington State, and Arizona, and in Nevada, where it has the largest percentage ownership by the Federal Government. We have to kowtow to a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington for the people in the State of Nevada to do what is in the best interests in the State of Nevada of the land that is there? That makes no sense. I have mentioned the bill is not deficit neutral--$310 million, including more than $200 million in cost to the National Park System, is going to come through with this bill, and unless you assume that nothing is going to happen that is authorized in this, there is no way you can deny this doesn't cost another half a billion dollars a year. As a matter of fact, I found it interesting listening to the chairwoman of the energy committee this past week when she was excited about this land package because we are clearing all the old land pieces of legislation. So we are taking care of the politicians, but are we taking care of the parks? Are we doing what is in the best long-term interest of preserving the pristine, unique aspects of our country as we add ballfields or the old Colt manufacturing facility in Connecticut? Really, a national park? Does it meet the requirements as set out in parks? No, it doesn't come close to meeting requirements for a national park, but it is in there, because it is going to look good to a politician back home. I kind of used the commonsense test. The country is broke. We had a $460 billion deficit last year. We are going to add a half a billion dollars on to a park system that has a $12 billion deficit in terms of backlog of repairs of what we already have. Most people with any semblance of common sense would say that is really stupid. It is really destructive of the whole goal of the National Park System in the first place. The final point I would make is the NDAA. Even though it is a necessary bill, I want it to pass, I want us to have what we need for our military, this bill represents the worst of Washington; because what we have added to a must-pass bill are measures that are very low priority in terms of the long-term priorities of the country and fiscal soundness of the country, but are really high priorities for the politicians in this body. It is amazing how we can take something as important as the Defense authorization bill--the measure that is going to give our military leaders what they need to make the decisions to defend this country in this very dangerous world today, and lard it up with things that don't need to be happening right now--shouldn't be happening right now, and can be happening in other ways. The reason I will assuredly lose this vote is because it has already been bought and paid for, because 35 States have something in title XXX, and most politicians up here don't have the courage to vote against their State interests when it harms the national interest. It is just not there. Alaska: Two provisions, $3 million; backlog on Alaska parks, $121 million. Arizona: Two provisions worth $2 million; backlog, $592 million in terms of their national parks. California: Four provisions that reduce the deficit by $225,000, but a backlog of $1.6 billion at Yosemite and other parks throughout California. Colorado: A provision worth $500,000, backlog, a quarter of a billion dollars. Connecticut: One provision, $9 million, backlog, $6.2 million. This is the Coltsville National Historic Park. But none of that--none of that--meets the requirements as set out by the National Park Service of meeting the requirements for a park. So we just violate the rules--to heck with the rules--because we are going to do it. Georgia: $400,000--they have a $100 million backlog. Idaho: $17 million backlog. Kentucky: $112 million backlog. Maryland: One provision worth $12 million, and a $363 million backlog on our parks in Maryland. Massachusetts: Quarter of a billion dollars in backlog. Maine: $72 million in backlogs. Mississippi: A $26 million provision--a quarter of a billion dollars in backlog in our battlefield parks in Mississippi. Montana: Five provisions--great parks out there--$348.8 million in backlogs. But we are going to spend this money. North Carolina: One little small provision--6 million bucks, but a backlog of a half a billion dollars in our pristine parks. I won't continue. I understand the frustration of my colleagues in terms of trying to get land conveyances. We can do them, but not if we always hijack them with something that is of better parochial and political benefit for the Member, and that is why they don't go through. The land conveyances aren't hard to get through. We always add them with something that is controversial that shouldn't be there, to the benefit of a politician. Motion to Refer Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, later today I will be offering a motion to attempt to undo a precedent set in 2011 that took away the right of all Senators, a right that was provided by Senate rules for Senators to suspend the rules in a postcloture environment to offer an amendment. It is a very high bar. It requires 67 votes to ever pass an amendment under that. This right allowed the minority or individual Senators to circumvent parliamentary obstacles, namely the filling of the tree to receive votes. History now shows us that the filling of the tree has occurred two times more under the leadership of Senator Reid than all of the leaders in the past--91 times. The question will essentially be, Do we want to keep the Reid motion to suspend the precedent prohibiting motions to suspend the rules postcloture by sustaining that precedent? This is not a nuclear option, does not have anything to do with that. As I thought about bringing this forward, I thought about how important it is for the new minority. I am not going to be with you. But it is my valid opinion, I believe, that you are not going to see the limitations on your amendments that we have seen in the last 6 years under the new leadership of the Senate. But if we were to see that, this is a particularly good way to have the Senate vote on a topic of interest to the American public. So when this is offered, voting yes keeps the Reid precedent which says even postcloture you cannot offer to suspend the rules, even with a 67-vote margin and have a vote. Voting no will reverse the Reid precedent. If the precedent is overturned by a majority of Senators voting against the ruling of the Chair, the rights of all Senators, as written in the Senate rules to suspend the rules postcloture, would be returned--Democrats, Republicans, all. If I am successful in overturning this precedent, I am not planning on following up with another motion allowing me to offer an amendment at this time. The whole goal is to try to restore the Senate. So I have no ulterior motive with another amendment if I were to win this attempt. The distinguishing characteristics of the Senate are the right to offer amendments and the right to debate. That is what makes it unique. That is what forces consensus. Throughout his tenure, my colleague, the Senator from Nevada, has aggressively deployed a tactic to block other Senators from offering amendments to legislation. This tactic is known as filling the tree. It fills all available slots for all amendments with shell legislation, preventing all other Senators from offering amendments, both of his party and the opposition party. He has done this 91 times during his tenure as the majority leader. From 1985 to 2006, it only occurred 40 times. What this tactic effectively does is shut down every other individual Member of the Senate from even input into legislation and carrying on the responsibility they were granted by the citizens of their State to offer amendments to pieces of legislation coming through the Senate. Starting in 2010, as Senator Reid continued to use the filling-of- the-tree maneuver, Senators in both parties resorted to other procedural options to assert their rights as Senators. Under rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the other rules may be suspended, including blocking amendments by filling the tree. From 2010 until October 6, 2011, Senators filed more than 30 notices and the Senate held 15 separate votes to suspend the rules and allow amendments to be offered during postcloture debate, as was the history of the Senate for its entire history. On October 6, the majority leader interpreted Senate rules with a simple majority, ending the right of Senators to suspend the rules postcloture. He called up a motion to suspend the rules that had been filed on the previous day by myself. He made a point of order that a single motion to suspend the rules was dilatory. A single motion to suspend the rules was dilatory under rule XXII. Never before had the Senate ruled that a single motion to suspend the rules was dilatory. In fact, the Senate Parliamentarian had previously upheld the maneuver. As such, the Presiding Officer correctly ruled that the postcloture amendment was not dilatory under rule XXII. A single motion to suspend the rules cannot be considered a delaying tactic. Senator Reid's point of order was, therefore, not sustained. He then appealed the ruling of the Chair and held a vote to overturn it by a simple majority of 51 to 48. The Chair's decision was overturned. Every Republican and one Democrat voted against this appeal, instead voting to uphold the Presiding Officer's decision which reflected the written rules of the Senate. This vote established a new precedent to interpret the meaning of the word ``dilatory.'' Only it did so in the most heavyhanded way, fully intended to block the ability of Senators to offer amendments. From that point forward, it was considered out of order to offer postcloture motions to suspend the rules, despite such right being explicitly provided for under Senate rules. In order to overturn this precedent, a Senator must offer another postcloture motion to suspend the rules for the purpose of considering an amendment. The Presiding Officer most likely will rule that the motion is not in order based on the 2011 precedent. At that point, the Senator offering the motion will appeal the ruling of the Chair on the basis that a single motion to suspend the rules postcloture is not dilatory. The Senator would then ask for the yeas and nays. If a simple majority of Senators vote to overturn the decision of the Chair, the precedent will be reversed, restoring the right explicitly provided in the rules that allows Senators to offer motions to suspend the rules postcloture as before. This issue is unrelated to the nuclear option and will have no impact on the outcome of that debate. Senators who support or oppose changing that issue can both support this effort. At the appropriate time, I will be offering that motion. I came to the floor today to put my colleagues on notice of my intent. I yield the floor, and 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. I reserve the remainder of my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COBURN. I thank Senator Reid for coming to the floor. Since we last asked this unanimous consent on the Taxpayers Right to Know, I have had a conversation with the administration and Shaun Donovan, the head of OMB. When Shaun came to see me in our committee of jurisdiction over his nomination, one of the things he assured me is that he would try with all due haste to move forward on the things for transparency for the Federal Government, one of President Obama's key projects. He assured me he had the capability to lead that organization, even when things are hard and difficult. So I would like to describe for a minute what the Taxpayers Right to Know is. President Obama, myself, John McCain, and Tom Carper passed a bill when President Obama was in the Senate, which was the Federal Transparency and Accountability Act. It made it so that Americans could start seeing where their money was spent. We have since then passed the DATA Act which would be an improvement on that, and the third and final step in that is the Taxpayers Right to Know. Now what does that mean? That means the taxpayer has the right to know where their money is being spent. The taxpayer has the right to know what programs are out there. The taxpayer has the right to know what is working and what isn't. So we hear from the administration in a long conversation that this is too hard. You know, we didn't tell that to our troops in Afghanistan or Iraq, that this is too hard. And their real complaint is under the definition of a program. Well, most of us know what a program is. We know it when we see it. But the fact is, we will never control spending nor will we accentuate what is working well until the Taxpayers Right to Know Act is implemented. What I told the Director of OMB is there is one agency already totally compliant with this. It is called the Department of Education. If they can do it, why can't everybody else? They know what the definition of a program is. They figured it out. I see this as an excuse not to be transparent with the American public. This has 38 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate, and it passed the House unanimously. There is only one objection in the Senate, and that is from the OMB. Everybody else recognizes this is commonsense, good- government transparency. I recognize the important role the majority leader has in terms of representing the administration's views. I just happen to say he ought to tell them to take a hike this time because the American people will benefit greatly, and it really is not that much more work. Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2113 I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 531, S. 2113. I ask that the committee- reported substitute be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. I wish to also note that this bill is going to pass next year. The President is going to get it anyway. Either he is going to veto it or he is going to make Shaun Donovan implement it. Why don't we get after good government now rather than wait 3 or 4 months? I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I will be asking for a vote on this motion. I am sure it will be tabled, and I understand that, but I hope the American public has gotten a flavor of what we are doing. Here in the end of December, we are trying to get one of the most important pieces of legislation out, which is the Defense authorization bill. We are trying to get the appropriations bill through December 30 of next year, and what we do is put the politicians' interests first. Maybe that is too harsh. Let me take that back. Maybe we put the Park Service's best interests last, which is even worse. I have asked direction from the Chair. I have three other areas that I need to speak on today. I will hold those or follow the direction of the Chair in terms of bringing forth both motions and discussions. I would also ask unanimous consent to have an article by Kurt Repanshek, dated December 9, 2014, entered into the Record, the ``Traveler's View.''

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, a motion to suspend the rules postcloture is not dilatory, and on those grounds I respectfully appeal the decision of the Chair, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I move to suspend rule XXII for the purposes of proposing and considering amendment No. 4098, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, following in the traditions of the Senate, I come to the floor to speak about my experience in the Senate. Unfortunately, this will not be the last time I speak, much to the chagrin of many of you, as I have some adamant opposition to some of the things we are doing. But I nevertheless will try to put in context some of my feelings and thoughts about the great privilege that has been granted to me by the people of Oklahoma. We hear a lot of speeches in this place. As Members who are elected, it gets reflected on us, but nothing could be further from the truth. Because the things that really make this place operate are the people who work with us, the people who support us, the people who help guide us, the people behind the scenes who are both brilliant and committed and dedicated to the founding principles of this country. We all have them working for us. Yet they are rarely recognized. So whether our accomplishments are big or small, those accomplishments come through the work, efforts, and labors of those who join with us as we come here to try to make a difference. So I first wanted to say there are a lot of people I need to say thank you to; from our Parliamentarian Elizabeth to all of the staff who work in the Senate, to the people who work at GAO, wonderful people, CRS, the IGs, legislative counsel--they have written thousands, I mean literally thousands of amendments for me. They probably are going to have some real mixed feelings about my departure. Then I have personal staff, one of whom--all tremendous--but one of whom I found to be a phenomenal, brilliant person. His name is Roland Foster. There is not anything he has ever forgotten. You can ask him anything. He will find it. He knows it. So I mention him. I have hundreds of others whom I could equally speak about, from my former chief of staff Mike Schwartz, who passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease, to those in my office and staff who each knows what a difference they make--they did--the cloakroom staff and the help we get from Laura Dove and David Schiappa and Mr. Duncan on our side--same on the opposite side. We are only able to function because of all of the people who enable us to do that. So with those thank-yous, I actually wanted to move to a different topic. The topic is believing in our country. I tell people wherever I go: We do not have one problem we cannot solve. There is nothing too big for us. They are all solvable. To prove that is my chairman, Tom Carper, on homeland security. He has been a phenomenal chairman. He is not in my party. We do not agree on everything, but the one thing we agreed on was that we were going to work together to solve problems. We have. We did not solve them all, but I would suggest if we look at what has come through this place, even in this dysfunctional place at this time, we will see more coming out under his leadership than any other pieces of legislation. Why is that? It is because the focus was not about him, it was not about me, it was about solving the problems of our country. To those of you through the years whom I have offended, I truly apologize. I think none of that was intended because I actually see things differently. You see, I believe our Founders were absolutely brilliant, far smarter than we are. I believe the enumerated powers meant something. They were meant to protect us against what history says always happens to a Republic. They have all died. They have all died. So the question is, What will happen with us? Can we cheat history? Can we do something better than was done in the past? I honestly believe we can, but I do not believe we can if we continue to ignore the wisdom of our founding documents. So when I have offended, I believe it has been on the basis of my belief in article I, section 8. I think we can stuff that genie back into the bottle. E pluribus unum. ``Out of many, one.'' But you do not have one unless you have guaranteed the liberty of the many. When we ignore what the Constitution gave us as a guideline, to protect the individual liberties, to limit the size and scope of the Federal Government so the benefits of freedom and liberty can be expressed all across this land, that is when we get back to solving our problems. I think about my father--he had a fifth-grade education--a great believer in our country. He would not recognize it today. The loss of freedom we have imposed by the arrogance of an all-too-powerful Federal Government, ignoring the wisdom and writing of our Founders that said: Above all, we must protect the liberty of the individual and recognize that liberty is given as a God-given right. So my criticism isn't directed personally, it is because I truly believe that freedom gains us more than anything we can plan here. I know not everybody agrees with me, but the one thing I do know is that our Founders agreed with me. They had studied this process before. They know what happens when you dominate from a central government. This didn't mean intentions are bad; the intentions are great. The motivations of people in this body are wonderful, but the perspective on how we do it and what the long- term consequences are of how we do it really do matter. We see ourselves today with a President whom we need to be supporting and praying for, with an economy that is not doing what it could be doing, and we need to be asking the question, Why? Is there a fundamental reason? And there is. We are too much involved in the decisionmaking in the economy in this country that inhibits the flow of capital to the best return, which inhibits the growth of wealth, which leaves us at a standard of living the same as what we had in 1988. That is where we are, yet it doesn't have to be that way. I am going to read some words we have all heard before, but they are worth rereading. WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . All of us. . . . that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness-- I look at legislation and say how does that have an impact on those two things, and too often it has a negative impact. . . . That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it. I don't know where we are on that continuum, but I know we are not where we were intended to be in the vision of our Founders, and we are suffering, no matter where you are in the country, as a consequence. We established the Constitution to try to protect those rights and to delineate those rights. We put in the limitation of the government and outlined the rights of each individual citizen upon which the government shall not infringe. Yet what comes out of this body and this Congress every day, to my chagrin, infringes those guaranteed rights. Every Member of the Senate takes the same oath and this is where I differ with a lot of colleagues. Let me read the oath, because I think it is part of the problem. I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God. Your State isn't mentioned one time in that oath. Your whole goal is to protect the United States of America, its Constitution and its liberties. It is not to provide benefits for your State. That is where we differ. That is where my conflict with my colleagues has come. It is nice to be able to do things for your State, but that isn't our charge. Our charge is to protect the future of our country by upholding the Constitution and ensuring the liberty that is guaranteed there is protected and preserved. The magic number in the Senate is not 60, the number of Senators needed to end debate, and it is not 51, a majority. The most important number in the Senate is one--one Senator. That is how it was set up. That is how our Founders designed it, and with that comes tremendous amounts of responsibility, because the Senate has a set of rules or at least that gives each individual Member the power needed to advance, change, or stop legislation. That is a tool that has to be mentored and refined and wise in its application. Most of the bills that pass the Senate never receive a vote. We all know that. It is a vast majority of the bills. They are approved by unanimous consent. It only takes a single Senator to withhold consent to stop most legislation. There are many other rules and procedures a Member can use. They are often referred to as arcane, but that is only because they are rarely used. They are not arcane. They were designed to protect liberty, to secure liberty, to make sure that we don't all follow history and fail. Every Senator has the power to introduce legislation and, until recently, offer amendments. No single Senator should be allowed to decide what the rights of another Senator should be. That is tyranny. It has nothing to do with the history and classics of the Senate. To exercise the rights we have been entrusted with, we must respect the rights of others. That is the true power of our Constitution. That is also the true power of the Senate. It is what binds our Nation together, and it is what is needed to make the Senate work properly again. The Senate was designed uniquely to force compromise, not to force gridlock--to force compromise. One Senator had the power to stop everything for the first 100 years, but it didn't because compromise was the goal. Our Founders understood there were many differences between the States--in size, geography, economy, and opinions. They united the States as one country based upon the premise that the many are more powerful than the one. As Senators, we have to follow this example. I have not always done that; I admit that freely to you. I should have. As Senators, we must follow the example, stand for our principles, but working to find those areas of agreement where compromise can be found to unite and move our country forward. My colleague Senator Carper has my admiration because he has worked tirelessly the past 2 years to try to accomplish that. Not all of the powers of the Senators are exercised on the Senate floor. Each Member of the Senate has a unique role to participate and practice oversight, to hold the government accountable, and that is part of our duties, except most often that is the part of our duties that is most ignored. To know how to reach a destination, you must first know where you are, and without oversight--effective, vigorous oversight--you will never solve anything. You cannot write a bill to fix an agency unless you have an understanding of the problem, and you can only know this by conducting oversight, asking the tough questions, holding the bureaucrats accountable, find out what works and what doesn't, and know what has already been done. Effective oversight is an effective tool to expose government overreach and wasteful spending, but it also markedly exposes where we lose our liberty and our essential freedoms. I have had some fun through the years, taken some criticism for the waste vote--and it is opinion, I agree. Everybody who has seen the waste book has a great defense of why it is there. But the real question is will we become efficient at how we spend the money of the American people? This is a big enterprise. There is no other enterprise anywhere close to it in size in the world. It is not manageable unless we all try to agree to manage it and have the knowledge of it. I think there ought to be 535 Wastebooks every year, and then we ought to have the debate about where we are not spending money wisely and have the information at our fingertips so we make great decisions because, quite frankly, we don't make great decisions because we don't have the knowledge. Then what knowledge we do have we transfer to a bureaucracy to make decisions about it when we should have been guiding those things. True debates about national priorities would come about if we did effective oversight. It is the Senate, once hailed as the world's greatest deliberative body, where these differences should be argued. Our differences should be resolved through civil discourse so they are not settled in the street. Just as the Constitution provides for majority rule and our democracy while protecting the rights of the individual, the Senate must return to the principles to bring trust of the electorate, and it can. Our Founders believed that protecting the minority views and minority rights in the Senate was essential to having a bicameral legislature that would give us balance and not move too quickly against the very fundamental principles upon which this country was based--and not out of guessing, but out of thorough knowledge of what had happened in the past. We have to be very careful to guard both minority rights and the rule of law. There is no one who works in the Senate who is insignificant, whether it is the people who serve us when we have lunch, to the highest of the high. They all deserve our ear. Each of us has value. I would end with one final comment. The greatest power I have not used as a Senator, which I would encourage you to use in the future, is the power of convening. You have tremendous power to pull people together because of your position. To convene the opposite opinions--Chuck Schumer has been great at that for me. When we have a difference, he wants to get together, convene, and see how we work. That power is the power that causes us to compromise, to come together, to reach consensus. So my encouragement to you is to rethink the utilization of the power of convening. People will come to you if you ask them to come. Again, I end by saying a great thank you to my family for their sacrifice, a great thank you to the wonderful staff I have, and a thank you to each of you for the privilege of having been able to work for a better country for us all. I yield the floor. (Applause, Senators rising.) Tributes to Tom Coburn

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

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with Rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend Rule XXII, for the purpose of proposing and considering the following amendment No. 4098 to bill H.R. 3979, as follows: At the end, add the following:

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with Rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend Rule XXII, for the purpose of proposing and considering the following amendment No. 4003 to bill H.R. 3979, as follows: At the end of subtitle J of title XXX of division B, add the following:

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, as a father, grandfather, and doctor, there are few issues that are more important to me than making sure Social Security benefits are protected for both current and future generations. While both the Social Security Disability Insurance program and the Social Security Insurance program will be exhausted during my kids' lifetime, the disability program's finances are particularly dire. Since 2005, the disability trust fund has paid out more in benefits each year than taxpayers pay back in. Last year alone the shortfall was $32 billion. As a result, the trust fund will run out of money by 2016, after which the Social Security Administration, the ``Agency,'' will only be able to pay 81 percent of disability benefits to the 11 million Americans currently dependent on them. This outcome is unacceptable. Faced with the impending insolvency of the disability program, politicians have debated the principal causes of the trust fund's rapidly expanding shortfall. Some argue the program does not need reform, believing that the increase in the disability rolls is due to factors beyond our control. Citing aging baby-boomers and the rise of women in the workplace, opponents of reform argue that dramatically rising disability spending was and is unavoidable. That is simply wrong. Since 1989, the percentage of working-age Americans receiving disability benefits has more than doubled, while the percentage of Americans reporting a work limitation has remained fairly stable. A paper published by the Center for American Progress and the Brookings Institution noted that even among middle-aged men, the fraction receiving disability benefits has risen by 45 percent since 1988. A significant driver of the program's increased cost is fraud, waste, and abuse. Over the past 4 years, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the ``committee'', and the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the ``subcommittee'' have conducted several bipartisan investigations into aspects of the Agency's disability programs and uncovered significant problems with the program that Congress and the Agency need to correct. In 2012, the subcommittee looked at a random sample of 300 disability cases and found that one-quarter of the decisions made by the Agency were not supported by the medical record. Much of this was the result of the Agency's poor supervision of its 1,500 Administrative Law Judges ``ALJs''. This was not just the subcommittee's judgment; the Agency agreed. After conducting its own study, SSA similarly found that 23 percent of ALJ decisions nationally were not supported by the record. In 2013, the Committee issued a report showing how the disability programs could be gamed by attorneys, doctors, and ALJs. The report detailed how attorney Eric C. Conn, ALJ David Daugherty, and several doctors conspired to manufacture fraudulent medical evidence to award benefits. Mr. Conn got rich and also paid a few doctors millions of dollars to sign fraudulent medical evidence, which Judge Daugherty then used to approve claims without a hearing. The result of their plan was millions in potentially fraudulent disability awards. Mr. Conn became the third highest-paid disability attorney in the country, and we found a number of large, unexplained cash deposits in Judge Daugherty's bank accounts that were not reported on his taxes or his public disclosures. Both reports highlighted how the Agency's push to reduce the hearings backlog came with significant costs: the Agency paid little regard to the quality of decisions being made by ALJs, and focused only on encouraging ALJs to decide as many cases as possible. The Agency's Office of Inspector General recently issued a report estimating that a group of high-approving judges granted at least $2 billion in improper benefits. As a result, the Agency will pay out another $273 million in improper benefits each year. This is only a sample of the work the Committee and Subcommittee have done in the last few years, and it does not crack the surface of the excellent work done by the Agency's Office of Inspector General, including uncovering huge fraud schemes in New York and Puerto Rico. The program's antiquated, subjective, and ambiguous rules make it easier for lawyers, doctors and claimants to game the system. Changes in program criteria used to determine eligibility for benefits has made determinations less objective. Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research attributed 53 percent of growth for men and 38 percent of growth for women not to age, workforce participation, or economic factors, but to weakened eligibility criteria. Since changes by Congress in 1984, the Social Security Administration no longer makes benefit decisions based strictly on medical evidence, but instead determines whether vocational factors such as age, education, and skills prevent an individual from working ``any job in the national economy,'' a standard that should be hard to meet. But the number of applicants approved based on this standard has more than doubled. Eligibility criteria are not the only rules that can be gamed. Most recently, I examined how some claimant representatives systematically withhold medical evidence from the Agency to help their clients win benefits and engage in other misconduct to pad their pockets and clog the disability program. What I found is a program that offers backward incentives for everyone from the applicant and representatives to the beneficiaries. Because the program accepts applicants only after they quit their job, and provides them with rehabilitation services only after they start receiving benefits, applicants must leave their job and often go years before they receive services they need. Because beneficiaries will lose their benefits if they make too much money, there are discouraged from working to their abilities. Because the program rewards representatives only if they win, and awards greater fees the longer the case sits, representatives hide bad evidence, delay decisions, and provide poor representation to disabled Americans. For most Americans, disability benefits should not continue indefinitely for their lifetime. Yet only one-half of 1 percent of individuals on disability rolls leave because they have returned to work and earned over the amount allowable by the Agency. Additionally, scholars believe 23 percent of applicants are on the margin of program entry--that is, whether they are awarded benefits depends on who reviews their case. Accordingly, there is a relatively high percentage of beneficiaries that can work, but choose not to, either because they do not want to lose their benefits, both monetary and Medicare, or because they need supports that are not currently offered to them. Our Federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and dozens of Federal work programs, are designed to assist disabled Americans in leading integrated, self-sufficient lives. Yet we have failed to target and coordinate the resources they need before they have to leave their jobs. The Social Security Advisory Board, SSAB attributes Ticket to Work's low success rate to the fact that intervention ``comes too late in the process--after the individual's connection to employment has been severed and frequently after the individual has undergone a lengthy process of proving inability to work.'' According to the SSAB, ``focusing all of the return-to-work efforts inside the structure of the disability program seems to be too late for many individuals. In order for the intervention to be effective, it needs to occur before the individual comes to SSA, before he applies for SSDI or SSI, and before the attachment to the workforce is lost.'' The SSAB has advocated for comprehensive front-end services, arguing they are ``a real chance to access tailored services that can enhance return to work efforts.'' When the trust fund is exhausted in 2016, many Members of Congress will say we just need to move funds from the Social Security retirement program Let me be clear: this is not a solution; it is a Band-Aid, a temporary fix that takes money away from seniors and will eventually hurt taxpayers when both funds go broke in 2033. I hope there will be a rigorous debate in the next year about how we can better serve disabled Americans with a program that gives them the resources they need to work to the extent they are able and protects benefits for those who are forced to rely on them. The disability program is an important safety net, but it does not serve the disabled or the taxpayers to treat it like an early retirement program or long- term unemployment. This is a conversation that will take place after I have left the Senate. Accordingly, after 4 years of research, investigations, and thoughtful meetings with other interested, engaged parties, today I am offering a bill I believe can be used as a blueprint to shore up the fund before its exhaustion in 2016, fix systemic problems with the program, and provide targeted resources for the millions of disabled Americans who want to work to the best of their abilities. The Protecting Social Security Disability Act of 2014 was drafted with three goals in mind: first, to make systemic changes to the program that preserve it for future generations; second, to ensure benefits are adequate and quickly available for those who need them by adding program integrity measures that root out fraud, waste and abuse; and third, to provide resources and incentives to those disabled Americans who want to work and have the ability to do so. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the section-by-section summary of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, as a father, grandfather, and doctor, there are few issues that are more important to me than making sure Social Security benefits are protected for both current and future generations. While both the Social Security Disability Insurance program and the Social Security Insurance program will be exhausted during my kids' lifetime, the disability program's finances are particularly dire. Since 2005, the disability trust fund has paid out more in benefits each year than taxpayers pay back in. Last year alone the shortfall was $32 billion. As a result, the trust fund will run out of money by 2016, after which the Social Security Administration, the ``Agency,'' will only be able to pay 81 percent of disability benefits to the 11 million Americans currently dependent on them. This outcome is unacceptable. Faced with the impending insolvency of the disability program, politicians have debated the principal causes of the trust fund's rapidly expanding shortfall. Some argue the program does not need reform, believing that the increase in the disability rolls is due to factors beyond our control. Citing aging baby-boomers and the rise of women in the workplace, opponents of reform argue that dramatically rising disability spending was and is unavoidable. That is simply wrong. Since 1989, the percentage of working-age Americans receiving disability benefits has more than doubled, while the percentage of Americans reporting a work limitation has remained fairly stable. A paper published by the Center for American Progress and the Brookings Institution noted that even among middle-aged men, the fraction receiving disability benefits has risen by 45 percent since 1988. A significant driver of the program's increased cost is fraud, waste, and abuse. Over the past 4 years, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the ``committee'', and the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the ``subcommittee'' have conducted several bipartisan investigations into aspects of the Agency's disability programs and uncovered significant problems with the program that Congress and the Agency need to correct. In 2012, the subcommittee looked at a random sample of 300 disability cases and found that one-quarter of the decisions made by the Agency were not supported by the medical record. Much of this was the result of the Agency's poor supervision of its 1,500 Administrative Law Judges ``ALJs''. This was not just the subcommittee's judgment; the Agency agreed. After conducting its own study, SSA similarly found that 23 percent of ALJ decisions nationally were not supported by the record. In 2013, the Committee issued a report showing how the disability programs could be gamed by attorneys, doctors, and ALJs. The report detailed how attorney Eric C. Conn, ALJ David Daugherty, and several doctors conspired to manufacture fraudulent medical evidence to award benefits. Mr. Conn got rich and also paid a few doctors millions of dollars to sign fraudulent medical evidence, which Judge Daugherty then used to approve claims without a hearing. The result of their plan was millions in potentially fraudulent disability awards. Mr. Conn became the third highest-paid disability attorney in the country, and we found a number of large, unexplained cash deposits in Judge Daugherty's bank accounts that were not reported on his taxes or his public disclosures. Both reports highlighted how the Agency's push to reduce the hearings backlog came with significant costs: the Agency paid little regard to the quality of decisions being made by ALJs, and focused only on encouraging ALJs to decide as many cases as possible. The Agency's Office of Inspector General recently issued a report estimating that a group of high-approving judges granted at least $2 billion in improper benefits. As a result, the Agency will pay out another $273 million in improper benefits each year. This is only a sample of the work the Committee and Subcommittee have done in the last few years, and it does not crack the surface of the excellent work done by the Agency's Office of Inspector General, including uncovering huge fraud schemes in New York and Puerto Rico. The program's antiquated, subjective, and ambiguous rules make it easier for lawyers, doctors and claimants to game the system. Changes in program criteria used to determine eligibility for benefits has made determinations less objective. Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research attributed 53 percent of growth for men and 38 percent of growth for women not to age, workforce participation, or economic factors, but to weakened eligibility criteria. Since changes by Congress in 1984, the Social Security Administration no longer makes benefit decisions based strictly on medical evidence, but instead determines whether vocational factors such as age, education, and skills prevent an individual from working ``any job in the national economy,'' a standard that should be hard to meet. But the number of applicants approved based on this standard has more than doubled. Eligibility criteria are not the only rules that can be gamed. Most recently, I examined how some claimant representatives systematically withhold medical evidence from the Agency to help their clients win benefits and engage in other misconduct to pad their pockets and clog the disability program. What I found is a program that offers backward incentives for everyone from the applicant and representatives to the beneficiaries. Because the program accepts applicants only after they quit their job, and provides them with rehabilitation services only after they start receiving benefits, applicants must leave their job and often go years before they receive services they need. Because beneficiaries will lose their benefits if they make too much money, there are discouraged from working to their abilities. Because the program rewards representatives only if they win, and awards greater fees the longer the case sits, representatives hide bad evidence, delay decisions, and provide poor representation to disabled Americans. For most Americans, disability benefits should not continue indefinitely for their lifetime. Yet only one-half of 1 percent of individuals on disability rolls leave because they have returned to work and earned over the amount allowable by the Agency. Additionally, scholars believe 23 percent of applicants are on the margin of program entry--that is, whether they are awarded benefits depends on who reviews their case. Accordingly, there is a relatively high percentage of beneficiaries that can work, but choose not to, either because they do not want to lose their benefits, both monetary and Medicare, or because they need supports that are not currently offered to them. Our Federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and dozens of Federal work programs, are designed to assist disabled Americans in leading integrated, self-sufficient lives. Yet we have failed to target and coordinate the resources they need before they have to leave their jobs. The Social Security Advisory Board, SSAB attributes Ticket to Work's low success rate to the fact that intervention ``comes too late in the process--after the individual's connection to employment has been severed and frequently after the individual has undergone a lengthy process of proving inability to work.'' According to the SSAB, ``focusing all of the return-to-work efforts inside the structure of the disability program seems to be too late for many individuals. In order for the intervention to be effective, it needs to occur before the individual comes to SSA, before he applies for SSDI or SSI, and before the attachment to the workforce is lost.'' The SSAB has advocated for comprehensive front-end services, arguing they are ``a real chance to access tailored services that can enhance return to work efforts.'' When the trust fund is exhausted in 2016, many Members of Congress will say we just need to move funds from the Social Security retirement program Let me be clear: this is not a solution; it is a Band-Aid, a temporary fix that takes money away from seniors and will eventually hurt taxpayers when both funds go broke in 2033. I hope there will be a rigorous debate in the next year about how we can better serve disabled Americans with a program that gives them the resources they need to work to the extent they are able and protects benefits for those who are forced to rely on them. The disability program is an important safety net, but it does not serve the disabled or the taxpayers to treat it like an early retirement program or long- term unemployment. This is a conversation that will take place after I have left the Senate. Accordingly, after 4 years of research, investigations, and thoughtful meetings with other interested, engaged parties, today I am offering a bill I believe can be used as a blueprint to shore up the fund before its exhaustion in 2016, fix systemic problems with the program, and provide targeted resources for the millions of disabled Americans who want to work to the best of their abilities. The Protecting Social Security Disability Act of 2014 was drafted with three goals in mind: first, to make systemic changes to the program that preserve it for future generations; second, to ensure benefits are adequate and quickly available for those who need them by adding program integrity measures that root out fraud, waste and abuse; and third, to provide resources and incentives to those disabled Americans who want to work and have the ability to do so. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the section-by-section summary of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I wish to spend a few minutes to talk as in morning business. I am not going to offer a unanimous consent request, but I am putting the majority leader on notice that I will do that before we leave today or tomorrow or whenever we leave. Yesterday the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Carper, and I, thought we cleared all holds on the Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act. I wish to give a little history about that because for 2 years the House and Senate, in conjunction with the committees, have been working on this bill. The history goes back to a bill that was passed with President Obama, myself, Senator McCain, and Senator Carper, and it was the Federal Financial Transparency and Accountability Act, usaspending.gov. It was the first start towards transparency in terms of how and where we spend our money. Quite frankly, as we got that bill through Congress, with we heard the same thing from OMB that Senator Reid is representing today. President Bush and his OMB Director didn't want that bill. They didn't think the American people ought to know where their spending was going. They didn't think the American taxpayer ought to have the right to hold us accountable to know where we spent the money, on which programs, and how. Interestingly, under Republican leadership, we passed that bill against the wishes of the OMB Director of the Bush administration, and that bill became law. The President has touted that bill as the first in a long line of transparency which his administration has embraced-- the idea that the American people ought to know where their money is being spent. Since that time, we passed the DATA Act, which will move us towards better quality in terms of usaspending.gov, and then we have the Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act, which the majority leader objected to yesterday. Here is what the Taxpayers-Right-To-Know Act says. It says the taxpayer has the right to know how many programs we have in each department, how much spending is going on in each program, and where the money is being spent. It is pretty simple, straightforward stuff that we ought to know about our government. The question that I am asking is, Why would anybody in this body object to us knowing where our money is being spent? Why would anybody in this body object to knowing how many programs each agency has? Why would anybody in this body object to coordinating with all the transparency things that we have done thus far and make it so that 2 years from now the American people can actually see where their money is being spent, how much is being spent on each program in each State and at what location. If somebody can give me an honest explanation and a logical reason for why we wouldn't want to do that, I will take that, and I will not offer another unanimous consent request. But the answer from OMB is that it is too hard to work. It is not too hard to work. That is exactly what the Bush administration said when we said we are going to have the transparency act and usaspending.gov. They said it was too hard, and we can't do it. We can do it. The American people are owed that explanation, they are owed that transparency, and this administration, through its claims of being the most transparent administration should step forward and release this hold. So before we leave here, I will offer the unanimous consent request again. If it is objected to, we will know that it has nothing to do with reality. It has nothing to do with honesty, it has nothing to do with integrity, it has nothing to do with truth, it has nothing to do with being transparent with the American people, and it has everything to do with the Federal Government saying that it is just too hard to be honest with the American people to allow them to see where we are spending the money. I find that is really unacceptable for us, as Members of the Senate. For a Member of the Senate to stand up and say, I object to doing that, tells us that we have a long way to go on much, much bigger problems if we are going to play the game just because something is a little bit tough to do, and we are going to fall for complaining that we just can't get it done. With that, I yield the floor.