Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a community in North Dakota that is celebrating its 100th anniversary. On June 22, 2006, the residents of Pekin will celebrate their community's history and founding. Pekin is a community of 80 people located in northeastern North Dakota. Nestled between the winding Sheyenne River and beautiful Stump Lake, the Pekin area offers recreational opportunities and scenic vistas. This charming location is the setting for Pekin Days, an annual citywide celebration that features the Nelson County Art Show. Known as the Littlest Town with the Biggest Art Show in North Dakota, Pekin also boasts the largest annual juried art show and sale in the State of North Dakota. The area was homesteaded as early as 1881 but not established until 1906 when the Great Northern Railroad brought railroad workers and their families. The community was named by settlers from Pekin, IL, a town itself named due to the belief that it was located on the opposite side of the globe from Peking, China. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating Pekin, ND, and its residents on their first 100 years. By honoring Pekin and all of the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Pekin that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why Pekin is worthy of our recognition.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a community in North Dakota that will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. On June 29 to July 2, the residents of Harvey will gather to celebrate their community's history and founding. Harvey holds an important place in North Dakota's history. Harvey was founded in 1892 and named for COL James S. Harvey, a stockholder from Wisconsin. It became a city in 1906, with Aloys Wartner serving as its first mayor. Today, Harvey is a vibrant community in central North Dakota. Situated at the head waters of the beautiful Sheyenne River and in close proximity to the Lonetree Wildlife Management Area and the North Country National Scenic Trail, Harvey has great appeal for recreation and wildlife enthusiasts alike. The people of Harvey are enthusiastic about their community and the quality of life it offers. The community has a wonderful centennial planned that includes a street dance, golf tournament, demolition derby, lumberjack show, centennial games, parade, and many other activities for all ages. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating Harvey, ND, and its residents on their first 100 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Harvey and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Harvey that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Harvey has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a community in North Dakota that will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. On June 23 to 25, the residents of Butte will gather to celebrate their community's history and founding. Butte holds an important place in North Dakota's history. When it was founded in 1906, this Soo Line Railroad townsite was named Dogden. About 20 years later, the name was changed to Butte. Both names come from the nearby landmark, Dogden Butte, which was discovered by the explorer David Thompson in 1797. Butte is located within minutes of excellent game and waterfowl hunting. Nearby Cottonwood Lake is a great fishing site for northern pike. Butte is home to several businesses including Butte Manufacturing and the Northern Tier Federal Credit Union, to name a few. The community has a wonderful centennial planned that includes a street dance, pitchfork fondue, parade, picnic, and much more. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join in me congratulating Butte, ND, and its residents on their first 100 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Butte and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Butte that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Butte has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I have great respect for the Senator from South Carolina. But when he says to the Senator from New Mexico that you think you are helping and you are not, I come down on the other side. I am one of those people who has not decided how I am going to vote on this final bill. But this will help make up my mind. If there are no caps, that would have significant bearing on how I might vote on final passage. I have great respect for those who have managed this bill. I think this bill has been improved substantially since it came to the floor. We have actually gone through a legislative process for once around here. For the first time in a long time, we are actually legislating. This bill has been improved as a result. The provisions to strengthen and protect the border have been dramatically improved. The credibility of the plan to deal with the 11 million or 12 million illegal immigrants that are already here has been substantially improved. This bill is still very imperfect. I want to conclude by saying that the Senator from New Mexico is I think casting a lifeline out to sponsors of this bill. If this bill has no caps, I think you will find a strong public reaction against this bill.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am voting for the immigration reform bill today because it is urgent that we act to secure our borders. And we must find a way to deal with the 11 or 12 million illegal immigrants already living in the United States. As imperfect as this bill is, it is at least a beginning on strengthening our borders and dealing with those who are here illegally. Currently, we have 500,000 new illegal immigrants entering our country every year. That is an unacceptable security risk. If we cannot control our border, we cannot control our future. This bill dramatically strengthens border security. It provides for triple-layered fencing, adds thousands of additional Border Patrol agents, and cracks down on employers who hire illegal aliens. The bill also begins to deal with the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants who are currently in this country. The bill provides a path to earned legalization for those who pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and fulfill other requirements. We need some process like this; the alternative of deporting 11 million people who do not want to leave is simply unrealistic. Finally, the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that this bill will have a positive effect in reducing the deficit. However, there are serious flaws in this bill. I think that asking the millions of illegal aliens who have been in this country fewer than 5 years to return home before getting on a path to citizenship is unworkable. And, although the bill was improved by cutting in half the number of new guest workers who will be able to enter the country next year, I still cannot support the guest worker provisions. Finally, overall, the bill will result in millions of new immigrants entering the country over the next decade. In my view, we need to consider very carefully the effects on our society of trying to assimilate such a large number of additional immigrants in a relatively short period of time. But at the end of the day, we are faced with one question: will this bill help secure our borders and deal with the people who are here illegally? I have concluded that, although deeply flawed in many respects, it does make improvements over the current failed system. This is not the end of the process. During the negotiations between the House and the Senate, there will be opportunities to address the serious flaws and produce a better bill. If, at the end of the process, the bill is not substantially improved, I will not be able to support the final product. Mr. Hatch. Mr. President, although I rise today in opposition to S. 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, I would like to take a moment to commend its proponents. The task of reforming this Nation's broken immigration system is Herculean. As my colleagues know all too well, the issue of immigration riles--justifiably so--the public like nothing else. I cannot think of any piece of legislation that has provoked a prolonged national debate such as this one. I cannot think of a day in recent months that I have not turned on the television or picked up a newspaper and read about or listened to a discussion of immigration reform. This bill consisted of roughly 616 pages when we began this debate last week, and I have no doubt that the legislation is now over 700 pages. This undertaking has been truly monumental, and while I do not agree with the result, I must acknowledge and commend the sincerity, the diligence, and the good faith of the bill's architects. The majority leader, the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, should be recognized for his leadership on this pivotal issue. The fact that Senator Frist has managed to get an immigration bill through the Senate despite a splintered caucus and a hotly partisan atmosphere is a tribute to his abilities as a leader. While I believe Senator Frist deserves a great deal of the accolades for the passage of this bill today, I would be remiss if I did not mention Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter. The senior Senator from Pennsylvania has once again achieved the impossible. This bill, regardless of what one thinks of the policies it contains, is a tribute to his daunting work ethic, intelligence, and remarkable ability. Time and time again, Chairman Specter has overcome the odds both personally and professionally--to make sure the people's work is done, and done well. There are many others who deserve recognition--Senators Mel Martinez and Chuck Hagel were critical to this effort, and we cannot ignore the tireless efforts of Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy. I must also thank Senators John Kyl, Jeff Sessions, and John Cornyn for their vigilance and conscientious objections to this legislation. Their work has been invaluable and will continue to be so as we move to conference. It is with great regret that I cannot endorse the substance of the bill before us despite the best efforts of many in this body. There are many laudable aspects of this bill--particularly the enforcement provisions--and, as many believe, the DREAM Act, upon which we worked so hard through the years, but at the end of the day this bill amounts to an amnesty that is several orders of magnitude larger than the one undertaken in 1986. I would like to provide some perspective to this debate. In 1982, award-winning journalist Mr. Theodore W. White stated the following in his book, America in Search of Itself: ``The United States has lost one of the cardinal attributes of sovereignty--it no longer controls its own borders. Its immigration laws are flouted by aliens and citizens alike, as no system of laws has been flouted since Prohibition.'' These words were true nearly a quarter of century ago, and they are true today. Some may ask what Congress has done to address the issue during this time well, I will tell you. In 1986, Congress passed, among other things, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, or IRCA, and we passed stringent enforcement measures in the 1990s. I submit that neither the IRCA amnesty policy nor the previous enforcement measures have worked. Moreover, I submit that the current legislation amounts to the combination of two failed policies that will yield nearly identical results today and in the future. We are all aware that we have lost control of our own borders. The President of the United States has made statements to that effect. Something has to be done. Illegal immigration has also been tied in with the enormous flow of illegal drugs into this country and to international terrorist violence being imported here from abroad. Something must be done, but this bill is not the answer. The idea that a legalization or amnesty can be given to potentially millions of illegal immigrants, who arrived illegally in this country before January of 2004, is to undermine the very principles of legality upon which our entire immigration system is founded. In the words of my former colleague, Senator Richard Schweiker, the so-called legalization or amnesty ``puts the Government squarely behind the lawbreaker, and in effect, says `Congratulations, you have successfully violated our laws and avoided detection--here is your reward.' '' In clear language, granting amnesty rewards the lawbreaker, pure and simple. To highlight the scope of this problem and the dangers of charting the wrong course yet again, I must point out to my colleagues that a significant portion of the comments I just made are over 20 years old. I changed a few names and a few numbers, but the substance remains the same. It took the proponents of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 3 years to put a bill together. This effort took 3 months. Despite the rhetoric to the contrary, the bill before us today constitutes a massive amnesty one several orders of magnitude larger than the one undertaken 20 years ago. I do not understand how this body has failed to learn from its mistakes. I commend the sincerity, the diligence, and the good faith of this bill's proponents, but I cannot agree in its result. I fail to understand how a massive guest worker program that constitutes an end run around our immigration system is a good idea. I fail to understand how an amnesty for millions of illegals is a good idea. I fail to understand how a bill that does not address the root causes of our immigration crises is a good idea. I ask my colleagues, why does this legislation ignore the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform--an entity that spent 7 years examining the issue of immigration and making recommendations for this august body? Why do we insist on pursuing failed policies? We have an obligation to the American people to leave no stone unturned in this debate, but we have failed to live up to that obligation. The time has come to undertake truly comprehensive reform. We must start from the ground up. We must secure our borders. We must identify the problems with the current immigration system with certainty. We must, in turn, develop meaningful solutions. I submit that the bill before us today builds upon a faulty foundation--we may have renovated a few rooms, we may have updated a few appliances, but it will all come to naught unless we fix the basic structure. My colleagues know the extent of my commitment to my Hispanic friends. I founded and I have chaired the U.S. Senate Republican Conference Task Force on Hispanic Affairs for years now--I know the immigration issue is not solely a Latino issue, but we all know that the vast majority of the illegal aliens in this country are Hispanic. I say to my friends that my opposition to this bill has nothing to do with a lack of support or dedication to the Latino community but, rather, a fundamental and principled opposition to widespread amnesty. We have been down that road, and that road led us to this moment. There is no question that the millions of people who are here illegally broke the laws of the land and further that they should not be rewarded for that conduct. We gave over three million illegals amnesty 20 years ago. Today, we are poised to grant amnesty to three times that number. When will we learn? What will we do when we are faced with this exact situation in another 20 years? Enough is enough. We must take the time to craft real legislation with real solutions to real problems. We cannot afford another failure. Our children cannot afford another failure. And our Nation cannot afford another failure. We must restructure our visa system. We must determine-- affirmatively--what policies should guide admission to this country. We must provide for a truly temporary guest worker program. We must create a realistic and effective employer verification system. And we must find a humanitarian, just, and equitable solution to the millions of people in this country illegally. This bill does nothing to address the underlying flaws in the current immigration system. This bill does not fix the current visa system. This bill does not create a truly workable employer verification system. This bill does not create a truly temporary guest worker program. Instead, this bill creates more visa categories. It increases the numbers in existing visa categories. It creates a shell of an employer verification regime. It creates a guest worker program that is an end run around the immigration system. And finally, it grants the largest amnesty ever undertaken in any country, at any time. I wish I could support this bill. I wish we had taken more time in Committee, I wish we had taken more time before the Committee process, and I wish we crafted a comprehensive reform bill that actually lived up to its name. I am fully aware of the hard work on both sides of these very important issues. It is important that we get this bill to conference where I hope we can correct the many deficiencies therein, and I am aware some are voting for it with that in mind despite their severe reservations. I believe it is absolutely critical that the Congress address the issue of immigration, and I look forward to working to improve this bill during the course of our negotiations with the House. The real work lies before us, and I believe the men and women of both bodies have the mettle, the tenacity, the intelligence, and the drive to do what is right for the American people.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. It is the understanding of this Senator.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, again, I thank the Senator.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. That is my understanding.

Mr. CONRAD. With that understanding, that is entirely acceptable on this side.

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, the Senator is correct. I apologize to the Senator. I'm not the manager of this bill. I am simply standing in for the manager of the bill on our side who is not available at this moment. That is what I have been asked to do on behalf of the manager.

Mr. CONRAD. Not that I know of. I apologize to the Senator. We are in this bit of a situation where we have to have a manager of our bill here before those agreements can be made.

Mr. CONRAD. Could the Senator share with this Senator and colleagues, what is the upshot of the Senator's amendment? What is the force and effect that would be provided in law if the Senator's amendment were agreed to?

Mr. CONRAD. Reserving the right to object, I am not the manager of this bill, but I have been called into service because the manager on our side is not immediately available. I apologize for that. Senator Kennedy's staff informs me apparently Senator Lieberman will not go forward with his amendment and Senator Kennedy would like to have an amendment on our side before we go back to the other side. Perhaps that can be worked out with the managers. At this point, I am constrained to object to setting the amendment aside.

Mr. CONRAD. Could I say to the Senator, speaking for myself, I am very interested in his legislation. If he could provide a copy of that legislation and an interpretation to my office, I might well be a cosponsor of the Senator's legislation. My family came here as immigrants from Scandinavia. The first thing they wanted to do was to learn English. My wife's family came here as immigrants from Italy. The first thing they wanted to do was learn English. I don't think we do people any favors by not having a requirement in place.

Mr. CONRAD. Would it be that English would be the official language of the country?

Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield for a question, briefly?

Mr. CONRAD. Are there legal requirements as to how that would apply?

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to thank my very able colleague from Delaware, Senator Carper. I always enjoy listening to him and his perspective on these issues. I think he is somebody who is rock solid on this issue of fiscal responsibility. I am hopeful at some point very soon we will get serious about restoring fiscal discipline to this country. We are headed for the cliff, and we are headed at a very rapid rate. So I again thank my colleague from Delaware, Senator Carper. I have said publicly before, and I believe it, that I have never seen this city, this institution, the White House, more disconnected from reality than we are at the current time. Let me just put in perspective where I see that we are and where we are headed. This chart shows the fiscal failures of this administration. He inherited a surplus of $128 billion in 2001, and by his second year in office he had us in the ditch, right back in the deficit ditch that we dug out of: $158 billion of red ink in 2002. Then the deficits really exploded to almost $400 billion in 2003, over $400 billion in 2004. We saw somewhat of an improvement in 2005 to about $320 billion. Now it is going back the other way. We now estimate the deficit will be in the range of $325 billion this year. Far more serious is what is happening to the growth of the debt because the deficit, while it is projected to go up $325 billion this year, here is the projection on the debt. The debt is now estimated to be increasing by over $600 billion this year. Put that in perspective. At the end of the first year of this Presidency we had a gross debt of the country of $5.8 trillion. In 1 year under the President's plan--this year we are going to add another $600 billion to the debt. That is an absolutely unsustainable course. Now the President comes to us and says what we need to do is make all the tax cuts permanent. Let's dig the hole deeper. Here is what the President's proposal would do. In the first 5 years--see, this is a little like hitting the iceberg. You know, most of the iceberg is underwater. Most of the President's tax cut is hidden from view because it is outside the 5-year budget window. The President only shows 5 years. Why? Maybe it is because he doesn't want to show where all this is headed. But here is the revenue loss as you go forward. The cost of these tax cuts absolutely explode. This is at a time when the debt is exploding. Remember what the President told us when we adopted this fiscal course? He told the country he was going to have maximum paydown of the debt. Do you remember that? He was going to pay off all the debt that was available to be paid off. Now we can go back and check the record and see what actually happened, and here is what actually happened. This is what has happened to the national debt under this President's watch. There is no pay down of debt. The debt is exploding. As I indicated, it was $5.8 trillion after his first year in office. We don't hold him responsible for the first year because we were operating under another fiscal plan. But look at what has happened since. The debt has skyrocketed. At the end of this year it will be $8.6 trillion. This President has already added $3 trillion to the national debt. Under the budget plan that is over in the House of Representatives and here, it is going to go up another $3 trillion. They will have more than doubled the debt of this country. Perhaps most stunning is how much of this debt is being financed by foreigners. This chart shows it took all these Presidents, 42 Presidents, 224 years, to run up $1 trillion of debt held by foreigners. This President has more than doubled that amount in just 5 years. This President has trumped all these Presidents combined, in terms of running up foreign debt, U.S. debt held by foreigners. That is truly a stunning achievement. This morning in the Budget Committee we were interviewing Mr. Portman, who has been nominated to head the Office of Management and Budget. One of my colleagues said: The performance of this administration on fiscal affairs has been extraordinary. And I agree. It has been--extraordinarily bad. No other President has come close to this record of running up debt, debt on top of debt. He will have doubled the debt of this country, and he has already more than doubled U.S. debt held by foreign countries. Our Republican colleagues say: Don't worry. If you cut taxes you get more money. The only problem with that is we are now able to examine the record. We are now able to go back and look at what happened since they started down this policy road, and here it is. The numbers do not lie. In the year 2000, we had over $2 trillion of revenue. The President came into office and said he had an idea, he was going to cut, and cut massively, taxes, and we would get more revenue. Let's look. Did we get more revenue? In 2001, the revenue went down to under $2 trillion. The next year it went down some more. It went down to $1.85 trillion. How about the next year, did it go up then? No. It went down some more. In 2003, we went down to $1.78 trillion. In 2004--how about this, now, 4 years later, was the revenue up to where it had been in 2000? No, not even close. What is this talk, you cut taxes and you raise more revenue? The only problem with that is it hasn't worked. It didn't work. We didn't get back to the 2000 level of revenue until 2005. It is even more clear for revenue as a share of gross domestic product, which is what economists say we should use so that we are taking out the effects of inflation and growth. What do we see? The President came into office in 2000, revenue was 20.9 percent of GDP. Look what happened. This is what happened on the revenue side of the equation. It absolutely collapsed, most of this because of the tax cuts. So in 2004 we were down to 16.3 percent of GDP, revenue of the Federal Government. That was the lowest it has been since 1959. Now we have had an uptick, but we are still way below where we were. We are also well below where they said we would be back in 2001. If you go back to 2001 and see what their estimates were of what revenue would be in 2006, this is what they said. In January of 2001, they said: When we get to 2006, we will have $2.7 trillion of revenue. Here is what we see--not $2.7 trillion but far short of that, $2.3 trillion. Maybe we are going to have something a little bit better than that, maybe even 10 percent better, but still way short of what they projected. Now our Republican colleagues come out with this plan. It's breathtaking that, when already we can't pay our bills, we are adding dramatically to the debt. Their answer? Spend more money. We just approved more than $100 billion of additional spending that was off- budget--and cut the revenue some more, cut the revenue $70 billion, and that is just step 1. They are going to come out here with some more tax bills and cut it even more. So their answer is dig the hole deeper. They are saying: America, you are going to get a big tax cut. It is your money. Let's examine that statement: It is your money. I agree with that. All of this is the people's money. That is exactly right. But, you know, to give this tax cut--because we are running deficits, there is no money to give back. This money is all being borrowed. It is being borrowed largely from the Japanese and the Chinese. So let's think about what we are doing. We can't pay our bills so the President says let's have a big tax cut, reduce our revenue even more, and we have to borrow it. Increasingly, we borrow the money from the Chinese and the Japanese. So we are going to borrow the money from the Chinese and the Japanese to give people a tax cut and here, who is going to get it? Those who earn from $10,000 to $20,000 are going to get an average tax savings of how much? Two dollars. That will certainly be helpful to them. Those earning $20,000 to $30,000 are going to get $9. Those earning from $30,000 to $40,000 are going to get $16. Those earning between $40,000 and $50,000 are going to get $46. Those earning from $50,000 to $75,000 are going to get $110. Let's go to the other end, those earning more than $1 million. They are going to get $42,000. And where are they going to get it from? They are going to get it from borrowing from the Chinese and the Japanese-- and the British and the Caribbean banking centers and the South Koreans and every other country in the world that we can borrow money from. Does this make any sense? Let's see. We can't pay our bills now, so what is the answer? The administration says: Spend a bunch more money. They wanted $92 billion off-budget additional spending, and by the way, cut the revenue some more so that the hole gets deeper. Where are you going to get the money? We don't have the money. So we are going to have to borrow the money. Who are we going to borrow the money from? From the Chinese and the Japanese so we can give those earning more than $1 million a year a $42,000 tax cut, so we can give those earning $10,000 to $20,000 a year $2. That way they can say everybody is getting something. As amusing as it might be, it is also serious and it is leading us down a path that is, in my judgment, a complete disaster. The tax bill that is before us also leaves out things that we typically extend year to year that would normally be included in this legislation. But our friends on the other side said, No, it is much more important to give these big breaks to those who are at the very highest part of the income level in our country. We are going to leave out the R&D tax cut, which might actually help strengthen our country for the future. We are going to leave out tuition deduction, which will help families afford tuition so we can better educate them. That is left out. The sales tax deduction is left out for States that have sales tax and people deduct what they pay in sales tax. The work opportunity and welfare-to-work credit is left out. The savers credit-- and we have negative individual savings in our country--they leave out that credit. That is an interesting idea. Leasehold and restaurant improvements is left out. Teacher classroom expenses is left out. The new market tax credit is left out. Our friends last year labeled this whole plan the deficit reduction plan. Let us look at what they have done. They reduce spending $39 billion over 5 years. They did not actually reduce spending. Spending, of course, is going up dramatically; it is not going down. They reduced the rate of growth theoretically over 5 years by $39 billion. But then they turned right around and in this bill cut the taxes $70 billion. When you put the two together, there is no deficit reduction. The deficit increases. Instead of labeling it the ``deficit reduction bill,'' they should have called it the ``deficit increase bill.'' They are not done yet because we all know they are going to come with a second tax package outside of reconciliation and add another $30 billion or $40 billion of revenue reduction. On top of it all, they have used the series of budget gimmicks to make room for these additional tax cuts. They count short-term savings from the revenue-losing Roth IRA provision. That gains about $6 billion in the near term but loses $36 billion over a longer period. They concocted this as a way to make the numbers work at least for a moment. They sunset small business expensing provision, they have a 5-year delay on the implementation of withholding on Government contracts, and they have a timing shift for corporate estimated payments--gimmicks on top of gimmicks to make something look like something it is not. That is an old Washington tradition. Perhaps the most egregious is the Roth gimmick, counting short-term savings for something that is a long-term loser. There is a quote from the Washington Post: One measure would allow upper-income savers with a traditional Individual Retirement Account to pay taxes on the account's investment gains and then roll over some of the balance into a Roth IRA, where the money can be withdrawn tax free upon retirement. The provision would raise about $6.4 billion over 10 years, seemingly keeping the size of the tax- cutting package down. But over the next 5 years, it would cost the Government $36 billion, according to the Urban Institute Tax Policy Center. This is the kind of shell game that gets us deeper into trouble. If you look at it, just visually, what they are doing with business expensing, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, it is $100,000. What do they do? They drop it dramatically by 75 percent to make it look as though somehow this whole package fits within the $70 billion. It is, frankly, a giant fraud. Here is what our Comptroller General said about the current fiscal path. He says: Continuing on this unsustainable fiscal path will gradually erode, if not suddenly, damage our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately, our national security. That is what is at stake here. Ultimately, that is what is at stake here--the economic security of our Nation, the national security of our country. And our friends are playing fast and loose with the long-term security of America--doubling the national debt over a very short period of time, doubling the amount of money that we will owe foreign investors, utterly unsustainable. None of it adds up. What are the consequences? Here are the consequences. Here is what the Federal Reserve has been doing to interest rates. Interest rates-- up, up, up, up, up, and up--16 rate increases. Why? Because they are desperately afraid of the inflation that comes when you borrow massive amounts of money and you spend more than you take in. They are very worried about a country that is going add $600 billion to the national debt this year and run a trade deficit of another $700 billion-- unprecedented in our Nation's history. Our friends on the other side say the economy is doing well. Is it doing well? Here is what has happened to real median household income. It has declined 4 straight years. Real median income is down, down. That is not success. When we compare this economic recovery with the previous nine economic recoveries since World War II, here is what we find. This dotted red line is what has happened in the nine previous recoveries on business investment. The black line is the recovery. What you see is we are 45 percent lower than the average of the nine previous recoveries since World War II. That is not economic strength. That is an economic plan that is not working. It is not just true in business investment; it is also true in job creation. Again, the dotted red line shows what has happened in the average of nine recessions since World War II. The black line is the recovery. You can see that we are 6.5 million private sector jobs short of the average recovery since World War II. Something is wrong. I submit that one of the things wrong with this massive debt is we are loading on this economy the biggest increase in debt in the history of our country--and it just keeps on coming. Our colleagues on the other side have abandoned fiscal responsibility completely. They have decided to put it on the charge card, send a bill to our kids and our grandkids, and they have done it at the worst possible time. They have done it before the baby boomers retire. This is the sweet spot in the budget cycle. These are the good times. What is going to happen when the baby boomers start to retire? The baby boomers are not a projection; they are a reality. They are going retire, and they are going to be eligible for Social Security and Medicare, and we can't pay our bills now. What is going to happen when they begin to retire? Let me tell you that the logic of what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing is to force this country into a situation in which they have to shred Social Security and Medicare in order to keep this country from bankruptcy. That is the logic of where they are taking our country. It is a disastrous fiscal direction. I hope very much that our colleagues will say no to this, say no and get us back on the course of fiscal responsibility. I ask unanimous consent that a description of a provision, which is extraneous pursuant to the Byrd rule, be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, let me say that Democrats and Republicans are perhaps not all of one mind on the question the Senator just raised. I personally believe it is absolutely essential to the strength of America that we encourage and insist that people who come to this country speak in English. A common language is absolutely essential to the unity of a nation. I look to our neighbors to the north and see the incredible traumas they have been through because they are speaking in two different languages. My own strong belief is we ought to say the pledge in English, we ought to sing the national anthem in English. That doesn't prevent someone else from singing it in another language. That does not offend me. But I do think that it is absolutely essential for the strength and the unity of our Nation that those who come here, those who become citizens, are able to speak English. I come from a proud tradition of immigrants. We are sort of the North Dakota melting pot. I am part Danish, I am part Swedish, I am part Norwegian, I am part German, I am part Scots-Irish, I am part French. So many of the people of my State came here from Scandinavian and German countries. They are intensely proud of their traditions. Many of them continue to speak the languages they came to this country with, but almost without exception they made a priority of learning English, speaking in English. I believe that is essential to our common heritage, that we have a common language. I personally certainly believe that in any official setting, we ought to sing the anthem in English, we ought to say the pledge in English. If someone wants to, at some other setting, sing in some other language, that does not offend me, but in any official setting and in terms of what we ask and insist people do who are going to be part of our country, it is absolutely imperative they learn English. That is not just for the good of the country, although it is certainly that, it is also for their own good. My wife's family came here from Italy. My wife told me many times about growing up in that family. Her grandfather for a time came and lived with them. There was an insistence in their family on speaking English even though the grandfather who lived with them spoke no English. I find many who come from an immigrant background--as did I, as did my wife and her family--in our families, there was an understanding that the first order of business was to learn English, to speak English if we were going to be part of this country of which we are so proud. I hope very much this is not presented as a partisan matter. I don't think it is. As one person on this side of the aisle, I believe it is imperative that we take the pledge in English, that we sing the anthem in English, that we insist that people who come to be part of this country learn English. I believe it is absolutely essential that English clearly be the official language of our Nation. That is absolutely imperative for us as a country. I also believe it is absolutely in the interest of the people who come here. That is certainly the lesson learned in my family, of people coming from all over the globe. My relatives who came from Denmark, my relatives who came from Sweden, my relatives who came from Norway, and my relatives who came from Germany were so proud to be part of this country. And they recognized that it was in their interest and it was their responsibility as a first order of business to learn English.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the legislation we have just passed and to say to my colleagues there are provisions in the legislation for agriculture disaster that have been ridiculed in some circles. I would say that those who have ridiculed the notion of disaster assistance for our Nation's farmers are way off base, and they really do not know what they are talking about. I was extremely disappointed in the Secretary of Agriculture, who has suggested the only problem that farmers have is in the gulf of this country. Look, we recognize that no part of the country was harder hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita than the gulf region. And these legislative proposals that are in this bill will first and foremost help them because these are national provisions, these are not provisions just for one section of our country. But to suggest that nobody else in the country has had serious problems, that reflects an ignorance that ill becomes the Secretary of Agriculture, ill becomes a man who is supposed to be the spokesman for this Nation's farmers and ranchers. Yes, Hurricanes Rita and Katrina devastated the gulf, and they deserve first-priority consideration. But they were not the only ones hurt. Here are the headlines out of North Dakota: ``Rain Halts Harvest;'' ``North Dakota Receives Major Disaster Declaration;'' ``Heavy Rain Leads To Crop Diseases;'' ``Beef Crop Could Be The Smallest In 10 Years;'' ``Crops, Hay Lost To Flooding;'' ``Rain Takes Its Toll On North Dakota Crops;'' ``Area Farmers Battle Flooding, Disease.'' Those were the headlines all across my State last year. Shown on this chart are the number of counties in my State--they are the counties in yellow--that were given disaster designations by the President--by the President--last year. They are the counties in yellow. I say to the Presiding Officer, you will notice every single county was designated a disaster. Why? Because we had rainfall 250 percent of normal. I do not know what is happening. Some say it is global climate change. Some say it is a weather cycle. I do not know. But I do know the result. The result is this, as shown in this picture: The result is farms all across North Dakota that looked like they were in the middle of lakes last year. This is what eastern North Dakota looked like last year, when we had a million acres of land that was even prevented from being planted--a million acres. The Secretary of Agriculture said there is no problem outside the gulf. Where has he been? Who is he listening to? Does he not do even the least amount of homework before he makes these statements? We need a new Secretary of Agriculture, if that is what he reports to the President. These are the acres prevented from being planted in North Dakota last year--over a million acres that could not even be planted--and this Secretary of Agriculture says there is no problem outside the Gulf States? Mr. Secretary, you ought to get with it. You ought to inform yourself before making such ridiculous statements. As shown in this picture, this is North Dakota last year. These are tractors stuck in the mud. They could not plant. And in hundreds of thousands of additional acres where they were able to plant, they got dramatically reduced production. In those places they got production, when they went to the elevator, they got dramatically discounted prices. Why? Because of a disaster of enormous consequence--no, not as severe as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, where there was loss of life, which we mourn along with those who lost loved ones. We absolutely respect that they had, by far, the biggest catastrophe. And this legislation will primarily help them. I am the author of this legislation. I had 27 cosponsors, on a bipartisan basis, in the Senate. When it was offered in the Appropriations Committee, it passed on a unanimous vote. When there was an attempt to take out this assistance on the floor of the Senate, 72 Senators said: No, we are not going to take out disaster assistance for our Nation's farmers and ranchers. That was the right decision. And, yes, this should be national in scope because everyone who is an American who suffered a natural disaster deserves some assistance. Not only did farmers and ranchers suffer egregiously in different parts of the country from different types of natural disasters, but they were also hit with a second blow, and that was a dramatic runup in agricultural energy inputs. Every part of agriculture is dependent on inputs that are based on petroleum--whether it is fuel, with the cost up $3 billion; fertilizer, with the cost up $1.4 billion; marketing, storage, and transportation, with the cost up $400 million; electricity, with the cost up $200 million--with total energy-related costs up $5 billion in one year in agriculture. That had a devastating effect in my State. I just had a series of farm meetings in which farmers brought to me their operating statements--the difference between last year and this year--and income was cut in half--cut in half--in 1 year because of natural disasters, because of discounted prices, because of a failure to even be able to plant, and, on top of that, because of dramatically escalating energy prices. And we have a Secretary of Agriculture who says there is no problem outside the Gulf States? Excuse me, Mr. Secretary, where have you been? Shame on you for providing that kind of false statement to the American people. Here, shown on this chart, are the agricultural groups that endorsed the legislation, the disaster assistance that we passed--22 groups--the broad spectrum of American agriculture saying: Yes, disaster assistance is essential. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this material printed in the Record listing the 22 groups.

Mr. CONRAD. Maybe the Secretary of Agriculture might want to inform himself of what has been said. Finally, I have a letter from the State agriculture commissioners telling us, unanimously, disaster assistance was necessary and needed. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I hope the Secretary of Agriculture gets the message--gets the message--disaster assistance is needed in this country. I thank the Chair.