John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Chair. So these amendments represent just a small sample of the ideas our side of the aisle has put forward to help the long-term unemployed, accelerate job creation, and grow the economy--something I know we all want. We all want it, so why not talk about it. Why not vote on these ideas. Why not get the Senate back into the position where we have the give and take of ideas and where we come up with the best for the American people. A few other amendments my colleagues from Ohio and Kansas, Senator Portman and Senator Roberts, have offered would increase accountability and much stronger safeguards in the U.S. regulatory system. Regulations are what the bureaucracy does. We can't vote for them or against them. We can't hold them accountable that way, and they are out of control. If someone wants to know why those bills are so important, it is because last year the Obama administration imposed $112 billion worth of new regulations on the U.S. economy--$112 billion worth of new regulations in 2013 alone. Our colleague from Alaska, Senator Murkowski, who is the ranking member of the energy committee, is rightly concerned about the impact of misguided regulations on our energy industry--primarily the oil and gas industry--and she has taken the time to draft a bold plan for reforming U.S. energy policy that would promote economic growth, job creation, national security, and responsible stewardship of our environment. In conclusion, I wish to recognize--in terms of a summary of some of the ideas, 23 of which I have on this card, but I will just mention a few of them--the ideas of our colleague from Utah, Senator Mike Lee, and his efforts to reform our dysfunctional tax system in a way that supports middle class families who are working hard to provide for their children. We should agree, as Senator Lee has advocated, that tax reform should aim not just to simplify the Tax Code and fuel job growth, but also to ease the burden on hard-working, middle-class families. There are a lot of great ideas out there. I can't think of a better time to talk about them than this time, when the President of the United States has made a priority of income inequality which, unfortunately, has become worse under his administration, not better. This has been further exacerbated by burdens such as ObamaCare, which we find out is just a bundle of broken promises, including: ``If you like what you have, you can keep it.'' ``It will lower costs, not increase them.'' We are finding out none of that is true. There are a lot of great ideas that we could, working together in the interests of the American people, agree on that would actually improve their economic situation and help restore the American dream. But what is the American dream to somebody who has been out of work and can't find work? It is a disappointment to say the least. We need to help people to not maintain their dependency on a government benefit in perpetuity but to liberate them from that dependency, to help them regain their self respect and sense of dignity by finding work and providing for themselves and their families, and to live their version of the American dream. In the process we all benefit. The Federal Government can pay its bills because people are paying taxes because they have good jobs, and America will be the same America we inherited from our parents and grandparents and, hopefully, we will make it better for the next generation and beyond. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I was unaware there was a time limit. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, over the last few days our friends across the aisle have been telling the American people that we have a choice when it comes to the extension of long-term unemployment benefits. On one hand, they are saying we can do exactly what the President, Senator Reid, and his allies want, which is to extend benefits for 3 months at a cost of $6.5 billion that we will have to borrow from somebody or we will do nothing at all. Well, I am here to suggest that is a false choice, as President Obama likes to say from time to time. We can do better than that. As a matter of fact, several of my Republican colleagues have offered their suggestions. I have in my hand a list of 23 amendments that would deal with everything from improving access to workforce training to finding a way to pay for this money that would otherwise have to be borrowed from the Chinese or other creditors of the United States and added to our $17.3 trillion debt. In other words, there are a lot of good ideas. We just have not been given the opportunity to debate them and offer these amendments and actually do what the Senate used to do. As the Republican leader said yesterday, we actually used to have committees that voted on amendments and then passed bills that came to the floor. We used to actually have an open amendment process where people could offer their amendments, and then we would debate them and vote on them. What a novel idea. That, of course, is called legislating. That is what the legislative branch--Congress--is supposed to be doing. That is not what we have been doing. The majority leader is basically the traffic cop for the Senate floor. He is the one who determines whether we have an opportunity to have this sort of fulsome debate so we can offer these constructive, bipartisan--in many instances--ideas. We would like to try to reform our unemployment compensation system in order to help grow the economy, help the private sector create jobs, and get more people back to work so they don't have to depend on extended unemployment insurance. However, if they do find themselves in a difficult circumstance, as many Americans unfortunately do, they can then go back to school by the using Pell grant, for example, to go to our community colleges, which do a fantastic job of helping people learn new skills that make them a good fit for the good jobs, of which there are many. Unfortunately, there are not enough skilled workers in the workforce who are qualified for those jobs. To give the Senate a flavor for some of the ideas, my colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Coburn, who is always full of a lot of ideas, filed an amendment to ensure that people don't claim unemployment insurance and Social Security disability benefits simultaneously. If there is a case of double dipping, that would seem to be it, and it is an abuse of the system. He has filed an amendment that would prevent millionaires and billionaires from receiving unemployment checks. I know it is hard to believe, but people with incomes of $1 million or more have claimed nearly $21 million worth of unemployment benefits in a single year. That is unbelievable. What an abuse. That is an insult, really, to people who are in dire straits and need help, to know there are people gaming the system either by double dipping or being millionaires and claiming unemployment benefits. Again, we have borrowed $250 billion to pay these extended unemployment benefits since 2008, and there are some millionaires and billionaires who are gaming the system for their benefit. Why wouldn't we want to fix that? Why wouldn't we want to have a vote on those good ideas by our colleague Senator Coburn? Meanwhile, our colleague from South Carolina, Senator Scott, has filed a commonsense amendment that would define full-time employment as a 40-hour workweek for the purposes of ObamaCare. The Presiding Officer--and since he walked in, I will pick on my friend from Maryland--remembers when we had a number of leaders from organized labor who came to the White House and said that ObamaCare is turning full-time work into part-time work. Because of the penalties associated with the employer mandate and the like, many employers are shifting full-time workers into part-time workers. That is not just a concern on this side of the aisle; it is a broad concern which impacts a lot of people. I remember recently being in Tyler, TX, at a diner, and the owner of that diner said he tragically had to put a single mom on a 30-hour workweek in order to avoid some of the penalties of ObamaCare. So to make up for that lost income, she had to go and get a second part-time job because of ObamaCare and its unintended consequences. So Senator Scott has an amendment that would address that problem. I hope the majority leader will rethink his longstanding position--at least over the last 6 months--of basically shutting out any other constructive ideas not just on this side of the aisle but on the other side of the aisle as well, as the Republican leader pointed out yesterday. In addition, our colleague from Indiana, Senator Coats, has several ideas. One would offset the extension of long-term unemployment benefits by delaying the individual and employer mandates under ObamaCare until 2015. We all recall that the President and this administration on its own initiative--I am looking hard to find where they have the authority, but nevertheless they did--delayed the employer mandate for a year on their own. Well, this would take the money saved from delaying the individual employer mandate and use that to pay for the extension of unemployment benefits. Another amendment would offset the cost of this extension by requiring people to provide a Social Security number before they claim the child tax credit. All it would do is make them provide a Social Security number to make sure that we root out fraud and abuse in the child tax credit claims. It would save billions of dollars, and it would allow us to pay for this short-term extension of long-term unemployment benefits. I would also add that I think most people need to be reminded that actually the basic program of unemployment insurance covers people for up to half a year, but over the last 5 years Congress has extended that up to 99 weeks, which is about 2 years. Well, this is supposed to be an emergency program, and thankfully the economy is starting to show some signs of improvement and growth. So what we need to do is get off of this temporary emergency measure and get back to normal circumstances and try to find ways to pay our bills and make sure people don't abuse the American taxpayer by gaming the system. We need to continue to look for ways to help people learn the skills they need in order to get the good, high-paying jobs that exist, among other things. Well, here is another idea. Our colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Ayotte, has filed an amendment that would restore the military pension benefits. This is something, if you will remember, that was taken out of the Murray-Ryan budget deal that passed before we left for Christmas, and I think it is fair to say there is broad bipartisan support for restoring those cuts to the military pensions, and Senator Ayotte's amendment would do that. All of these amendments deserve debate, which I am trying in some small way to provide here, but others have their ideas and have their way of talking about it, and they also deserve a vote. But, again, the majority leader, Senator Reid, is the traffic cop on the Senate floor. As Senator McConnell pointed out yesterday, the Senate has been dramatically transformed from a place where the Senate was justifiably claimed as the greatest deliberative body on the planet but no more. We can return to the way the Senate used to be by having this sort of constructive, bipartisan, fulsome discussion and vote on good ideas and make legislation better and not settle for something less. I said--and it is true--that Senators have a right to debate and offer legislation. I am not sure many people across America have thought very deeply about what that means. This isn't about the Presiding Officer's rights as a Senator or my rights as a Senator. This is about the rights and the voices of the 26 million people I represent, because when I am shut out of the process-- when I can't offer amendments and ideas about how to improve legislation--they are shut out as well, and that is wrong.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, despite the differences between the different sides of the aisle on the underlying legislation-- particularly on the refusal so far of the majority leader to actually pay for the $6 billion cost of the 3-month extension of long-term unemployment benefits and adding that $6 billion to the $17.3 trillion national debt--I am confident both parties would like to find a way to deal with the problem of America's long-term unemployed. There are people who don't necessarily want to collect unemployment benefits because they want a job and they want to work. They want to provide for their families. Even as we stand here and debate yet another extension of Federal unemployment benefits, it is important that we keep the big picture in mind. Obviously, what we are talking about--just to remind everybody-- is the basic unemployment program, which provides half a year or 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. Democrats want to extend that emergency measure, which was enacted after the fiscal crisis of 2008 and now appears to be permanent. We have spent $250 billion since 2008, and to continue to recklessly borrow money from our creditors, such as the Chinese, and others, and leave it for our children to pay back--how responsible is that? The best way to help the unemployed and the best way to help Americans and America is to increase economic growth and increase job creation. We had a grand experiment known as the stimulus, which was back in 2009 when we had $1 trillion worth of borrowed money. Grand projections were made at that time that if the Federal Government would just spend borrowed money rather than have the private sector do it, we would see unemployment rates plummet, and, of course, that has proven not to be the case. In fact, this economic recovery after the great recession of 2008 has been the slowest economic recovery we have seen since the Great Depression back in the 1930s. Congress and the Federal Government can't adopt policies that hamper growth and discourage job creation and expect the economy to grow and jobs to be created. Let me say that again. You can't adopt policies that actually discourage small businesses from starting a business or growing their business and creating jobs and expect jobs and economic growth to follow. What that means is that, notwithstanding the good intentions of those who embrace some of these policies, they are actually hurting the unemployed no matter how many times they want to extend unemployment benefits on a long-term basis. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Obama administration has done time and time again. Let me say that I am confident President Obama would like to help people who can't find work. I am sure the President believes as well that ObamaCare will improve the health care system for 300-plus million Americans. The problem is that we have seen that this experiment in big government and government takeovers--whether it is of the health care system or through a $1 trillion stimulus package--simply has not worked. At some point good intentions have to give way to reality and the facts, especially when those good intentions are not translated into good results. Let me give one example. Recently, I was in Tyler, TX--which is over in northeast Texas near Louisiana--at a restaurant doing a roundtable on the impact of the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, on employers, such as the owner of the small diner where we met. He told many tales, but one story that stuck in my mind was of a single mother who, instead of working her normal 40 hours a week, was relegated to a part-time job of 30 hours a week, and that is in order for her employer to avoid the penalties and mandates of ObamaCare. So what this single mom has to do in order to compensate for her lost income is to find another part-time job. So instead of working 40 hours at one job, she works 60 hours at two jobs in order to make up for that lost income. Here again, if the President and his allies think we are going to make up for the lost wages this single mom is making by having her workweek cut from 40 hours to 30 hours, I think they need to think again. That is what I mean when I say the policies of this administration have actually hurt the very people they now say they want to help by increasing long-term unemployment benefits. It is true that facts are stubborn, and there is a mountain of evidence that says if we pay people too generously, it actually discourages some people from actively seeking employment. In fact, several years ago, President Obama's own former chief White House economist said that ``job search is inversely related to the generosity of employment benefits.'' Translated, that means if we pay people too much not to work, some people are going to be persuaded not to look for work. Indeed, I know there are perhaps many explanations for the slow economic recovery and the high rate of unemployment, which is up around 7 percent, including the largest number of people who simply dropped out of the workforce in the last 30 years, known as the labor participation rate. There are a lot of reasons for why we find ourselves where we are now. But adding benefits for people not to work and not dealing with the underlying problem of slow economic growth and people being discouraged from creating new jobs or making full-time work part-time work--we need to be looking at the root causes of the problem as well as the problems and the policies of this administration time and time again. The majority leader and his allies want to extend benefits for 3 more months--3 more months. This is on top of the 26 weeks which are part of the basic unemployment compensation package. But my question is, if we want to extend it for 3 months, where will we find ourselves 3 months from now? Will we be met with yet another request for the extension of long-term unemployment benefits that adds another $6 billion to the deficit? What about 3 months later? I hope I can be forgiven for saying this feels like a political exercise more than a sincere effort to deal with the underlying problem of joblessness in our country, particularly since we are $17.3 trillion in debt, something the President seems to not care one bit about. Also, as the Federal Reserve begins to wind down their bond-buying program, we are going to see interest rates go up and we are going to end up spending more and more tax dollars just to pay our creditors for the debt while we ought to be focused on dealing with some of the root causes of unemployment. Let me get back to my point. Some Republicans have offered to find ways to pay for this 3-month extension. My impression is that if that were done, it would probably happen--for 3 months. But we have also suggested long-term reforms that would make our system of unemployment insurance more effective. Senator Alexander, a former Secretary of Education and former Governor of Tennessee, discussed yesterday at our conference lunch some ideas he has, including making Pell grants--I think they are in excess of $5,000 per person--available so people can study job retraining at community colleges during that 26 weeks of unemployment. So if they can't find a job in their existing field, they can learn new skills that will allow them to get well-paying jobs in another field, using those Pell grants for job retraining. There are a lot of good ideas about how we can improve the unemployment system if, in fact, the majority leader will just allow it. He remains agnostic, I would say, at this point about whether he is even going to allow us to offer amendments to pay for the 3-month extension or some of these good, solid ideas of dealing with the root problems rather than just continuing to treat the symptom with the same lack of success in terms of decreasing joblessness and getting the economy back on track. I know many of our colleagues on the other side share these same goals. Yet the majority leader has made it clear this week that he is more interested in rhetoric and political gamesmanship than in real reform. That is why I objected on Monday night when 17 Senators were missing. The majority leader wanted to have a vote on cloture that was doomed to fail. Why? Not because he was interested in a real solution but because he wants a ``gotcha'' moment, to say, look, with 17 Senators missing, the 60-vote threshold for cloture was not going to be achieved. What possible purpose could be served by having that vote then instead of doing it on Tuesday? The vote was moved to Tuesday, at which time that 60-vote threshold was met. The only conclusion I can draw is the majority leader was interested in a ``gotcha'' moment instead of a real solution. Fortunately, he reconsidered and moved it to Tuesday. So far, the majority leader is refusing to pay for this extension of benefits. They are refusing to change the program by modernizing it, making it more efficient, and helping people learn new skills so they can get back to work, and they are refusing to consider any other ideas than those cooked up in the majority leader's conference room behind closed doors. I have in my hand 11 Republican amendments, many of them are bipartisan or they enjoy bipartisan support. For example, Senator Paul from Kentucky has the Economic Freedom Zones Act. I saw the President announce this morning--I think there were five and he calls them by another name--basically, the same sort of concept, looking at blighted areas and trying to provide incentives for investment and job creation in those areas of high unemployment. So Senator Paul has a bill that would deal with that. Senator Portman from Ohio has a reform that would prohibit simultaneous collection of disability benefits and unemployment. That is double-dipping, it seems to me, and something we ought to be dealing with. Senator Moran of Kansas has a bill he calls the Startup Act 2.0, which is a jobs bill. Senator Coats of Indiana wants to offset the extension of unemployment insurance by delaying individual and employer mandates for 1 year. The President has already done that unilaterally for employer mandates. Why not delay the individual mandate for 1 year and use that to offset this extension for 3 months of unemployment insurance? So there are plenty of ideas out there. I mentioned some of them. Both of the Senators from Oklahoma have amendments that would be good amendments to offer on this legislation. The Senator from Louisiana has one. The Senator from New Hampshire has one. So these are at least 11 ideas. If the majority leader would allow us to actually have a real debate as opposed to a political exercise, I believe we could come up with a bipartisan consensus that would actually help deal with the underlying problem and not just treat the symptoms in a way that ignores those root causes. Let me get back to what I think is cause No. 1 for the difficulties many small businesses are having and the difficulties many people who work for those small businesses are having; that is, ObamaCare. I realize some people would like us to believe this is all about the Web site and once the Web site gets fixed it is all going to be hunky-dory, regardless of the fact that more people have lost their current coverage by cancellation than have been signed up on the ObamaCare exchanges. The administration seems particularly proud of the fact that ObamaCare has added hundreds of thousands of Americans to Medicaid. As we all know, this is the safety net program designed to help low-income people. The problem is Medicaid itself is a fundamentally broken program that is failing our neediest citizens. The problems with Medicaid are a stark reminder that access to coverage does not mean the same thing; access to coverage is different from having access to care. Here is what I mean by that. In Texas only about one-third of doctors will see a new Medicaid patient. Someone might say that doesn't make much sense. It does if we consider the fact that Medicaid--this government program--pays doctors about 50 cents on the dollar of what a private insurance coverage would pay, and because it reimburses at such a low rate, some physicians have simply said: I can't continue to add new patients to my practice and be compensated 50 cents on the dollar. So they have limited their practice. That is what I mean when I say there is a difference between access to coverage and access to care. Medicaid is sorely in need of reform. All across the country, Medicaid patients have been forced to endure the humiliating experience of walking into a doctor's office and then getting turned away because the office doesn't accept Medicaid for the reason I mentioned. We have also seen lawsuits brought by providers and patients against their own State Medicaid Program, saying the reimbursement rates are so low, doctors can't actually see patients at that price. In Texas, a 2012 survey conducted by the Texas Medical Association shows that a large majority of Texas physicians agree that Medicaid is broken and should not be used as a mechanism to reduce the uninsured. Despite all of that, there are those who say that ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion will help hospitals cope with excessive emergency room visits. Again, the problem is that flies in the face of the facts. In a recent study in Oregon, Medicaid recipients in Oregon went to the emergency room 40 percent more frequently than people without health insurance. One might ask why in the world would they go to the emergency room for routine care if they have Medicaid coverage? Because they can't find a doctor to see them at Medicaid prices. Again, ObamaCare is creating the illusion of access but with no real access to care but for through the emergency room. There are much better ways to expand health coverage than simply pushing Americans into a dysfunctional safety net program that is supposed to help the most vulnerable in our society but which does not. Our side of the aisle made that argument consistently 4 years ago, but the President and his allies chose not to listen and decided to go it themselves on a purely party-line vote when ObamaCare was passed. Maybe after voters render their verdict on ObamaCare in November, we will have another chance to revisit this issue. Rather than asking the States to expand their existing Medicaid Programs, the Federal Government should give each State greater flexibility to design a program that meets those States' needs. What works best in Texas may not work as well in New York and vice versa. What we ought to do is give the States a defined amount of Medicaid funds with very few strings attached so they can create innovative programs that provide quality care. One of the good things about doing that is the States would actually be the laboratories of democracy we have talked about from time to time, where we can actually learn from best practices and innovations, and other States can then use that knowledge to improve access to quality health care at a more affordable price. I will tell my colleagues that despite all of our differences over ObamaCare, Republicans and Democrats alike both want to find a way to make health care more affordable and more accessible. Unfortunately, ObamaCare has proven not to have worked out as the most ardent advocates hoped or promised. Republicans believe the best way to achieve these goals is to leave the choices in the hands of patients. That is the fundamental difference between ObamaCare and the alternatives. The President wants the government to choose the plan, to choose the doctor, and to make those decisions for patients. We think it is better to leave those choices in the hands of patients, in consultation with their own personal physicians--a doctor they have come to trust over the years-- to help counsel them on what are wise health care choices for themselves and their families. We can add to that by increasing transparency and enlarging a real marketplace so people can shop, as consumers do day in and day out. We know that kind of transparency in terms of price and competition, when it comes to people providing a service, improves the quality, and it lowers costs. That is what our market economy teaches us. We know, I would hope by now, the answer is not to place more people into a broken government program that takes their choices away. As I said earlier, good intentions do not always produce good results. But I would hope we would learn from our mistakes as individuals, as a Congress. The results of the last 5 years include some pretty miserable outcomes that I would hope would cause us to reconsider, as we go forward together, to try to address the problem of chronic joblessness in our society. As I said, the last 5 years have given us the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, a massive decline in labor workforce participation. The percentage of people actually looking for work has declined to a 30-year low. It has also given us growing income inequality--the thing the President says he cares the most about, but he does not offer any proposals that deal with the underlying cause, merely treating the symptoms by paying people extended unemployment benefits. We have seen an explosion of job-killing regulations. I am reminded when I see the Presiding Officer that I think the city with the lowest unemployment rate in America is Bismarck, ND, if I am not mistaken. Close behind that is Midland, TX. The two things they have in common are the shale gas renaissance and the jobs that have been created by unleashing this great American job-creating machine and particularly in the energy sector. So what we need to do is look for ways to avoid some of the job-killing regulations, which make it harder, not easier, to produce those jobs in places such as North Dakota and Texas. We have also seen millions of canceled health care policies, millions of people with higher premiums, not lower premiums like the President offered and promised. We have seen an unprecedented increase in our national debt and an incredible complacency when it comes to adding $6 billion more to our national debt for a 3-month extension of long-term unemployment benefits. We have seen, not surprisingly, associated with all of this a huge erosion in the public trust in the Federal Government. That is why this side of the aisle has been pushing, and will continue to push, a new set of policies that address the biggest concerns of the American people and the biggest challenges facing the American dream. The only question is this list of 11 bills that Senators on this side of the aisle would like to offer on this underlying legislation, not just to treat the symptoms of unemployment, but actually deal with the root causes--whether the majority leader is going to allow those amendments to be taken up, debated, and voted on, and to allow the Senate to work its will on a bipartisan basis. That remains to be seen. If he does not--and recent history does not give me a lot of optimism that he will--then I think it will become even more transparent that this is not an exercise in trying to help people who are out of work. This is an exercise in trying to politicize this in a way that distracts attention from the epic failure of ObamaCare and its wet blanket effect on the American economy and job creation. So I guess hope springs eternal. You cannot serve in this body and hope to make a difference in the lives of the American people without being an optimist by nature, but, unfortunately, in the case of the majority leader and this, there is some doubt in my mind. I hope he proves me wrong. I hope he will open this up to an amendment process that will allow us to deal with the root causes and will not just be another exercise in gotcha Washington politics. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Senator for responding to that question. I would point out, in conclusion, that this bill extends unemployment benefits for 3 months at a cost of $6.5 billion, right now which is unpaid for. But if the amendment of the Senator from Ohio is adopted, there is the solution to that problem, along with reform of the job training components of our current unemployment compensation system. But if we are unable to have this broader debate, we will find ourselves right back here in 3 more months because none of the underlying problems, of which high unemployment and low growth are symptoms, will have been addressed. So what I hope--and I would love to be optimistic about the majority leader's willingness to allow those amendments and allow those votes and have that fulsome debate. If he does not, then we have had a 3-month patch and we will be right back here with the same problems confronting us, with the underlying symptoms of an anemic economy, with slow economic growth and high unemployment. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. Before the distinguished Senator from Ohio leaves the floor, I did not know he was coming down, but I am delighted he did. Not only is he an expert and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, distinguished Member of the House, now the Senate, and a great new addition since 2010, he understands these issues, particularly the fiscal issues, better than most of us. But the Senator makes a very important point. I am worried, based on what the majority leader did last night, that they preferred to have a ``gotcha'' moment, have the bill fail at the very outset, rather than have a fulsome debate and a realistic discussion about what the alternatives are to basically permanently paying people not to work, through virtually a permanent extension of unemployment. More than most people, the Senator from Ohio, when he came to this Chamber, said what we need is a jobs program. So he advocated among those in our Republican conference. He said: We need a positive program for how do we facilitate the economy, the private sector, creating those jobs. Of course, he described the amendment that he intends to offer on this bill, not only to pay for this 3-month extension, which would be a welcome measure, but also to reform the unemployment system so that people can learn skills that actually match them with the jobs that do exist. I would add, while the Senator is on the floor, that as he knows, there are a lot of other good ideas that will be offered this week by this side of the aisle, but it is entirely dependent upon the majority leader allowing that sort of fulsome debate and those ideas to come to the floor and be available for a vote, things such as the Forty Hours Is Full Time Act that Senator Collins has promoted, the medical device tax which I talked about, the repeal sponsored--the chief sponsor, Senator Hatch of Utah. Senator Barrasso from Wyoming has got one that would repeal the health insurance tax from ObamaCare, which is a direct passthrough to consumers. Senator Paul, Senator McConnell have their economic freedom zones idea to help blighted areas where unemployment is high, and to create a way for the private sector to be incentivized to come in and start jobs and to create opportunity. We have got regulatory reform bills and proposals. We have got the Keystone XL Pipeline idea. I know Senator Lee and Senator Rubio have both recently come up with some very visionary ideas about how do we fight the war on poverty in a realistic sort of way. But my point is that whether we are going to get into that debate and give a full and fair consideration of all of these ideas about how to solve this problem depends on the majority leader allowing amendments to be offered and voted on. I would ask the Senator from Ohio what his expectation is in that regard, and what the consequences would be if the majority leader decides to deny any amendments and basically shut down this process?

Mr. CORNYN. I will.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last month the President of the United States gave a speech on what has come to be known by the code words ``income inequality,'' which means different things to different people. He also talked about a very important aspect of that, and that is upward income mobility. In other words, we want to make sure that somebody who goes to work in a restaurant bussing tables can work their way up the income and education ladder to where they can actually own their own restaurant and create jobs and opportunities for other people. The President called it ``the defining challenge of our time.'' Well, the timing, coming as it has, one might be forgiven from wondering whether the President and his allies want to change the subject from ObamaCare. We know that the rollout of ObamaCare has been an unmitigated disaster, and, frankly, there is more to come. We can certainly understand why the President might want to change the subject. But while he is changing the subject, Republicans should embrace the challenge of discussing this: What are the policies that have resulted in income inequality and insufficient upward mobility when it comes to jobs in America? Of course, the President, you might predict, has talked about his proposed solutions, which are creating more government programs and more spending, including up to $6 billion of money that we have to borrow from China and our other creditors just to extend the unemployment insurance program by 3 months. My question is: What happens after that 3 months? I don't want to be rash, but I will make a prediction that the Democrats will say: We need another 3 months. After that, they will say: We need another 3 months. Before you know it, unemployment insurance has been extended beyond the half-year mark, which is the basic program, to another full year beyond that at a cost of $25 billion. Just to put all of this in context, the Federal Government spent $250 billion for extended unemployment insurance benefits since 2008. Of course, the President did not mention some of the primary causes for income inequality and the loss of upward mobility because he is responsible for a lot of that, along with his allies. He failed to mention that under his administration America has suffered the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, and he failed to mention his signature health care law. I mentioned that a moment ago. He is trying to pivot to another subject, but inevitably we find ourselves coming back to ObamaCare and its negative impact on job creation and the 40-hour workweek. We know that ObamaCare has done a number of things in the short period of time since it began the rollout, which was October 1st. Millions of people have lost their existing insurance coverage. In fact, more people have lost their insurance coverage than have signed up for ObamaCare or even Medicaid. Then there is the issue of skyrocketing insurance premiums. So I thought the idea was: How do we make health care more affordable? In fact, instead of making health care better and more affordable, it has become less affordable. We are not just talking about the insurance premiums, we are talking about deductibles. We have all heard the stories of people signing up on the ObamaCare exchanges only to find out: Yeah, they have health insurance, but you know what, the first $5,000 per person is the deductible, which effectively means--for all practical purposes--that person is self-insured. That is a deal breaker for many hard-working middle-class Americans. We know, of course, that even organized labor has complained about the fact that ObamaCare has turned full-time work into part-time work. Why is that? For employers who put their employees on a 30-hour workweek, they are not required, under the law, to pay for health care benefits. But if you have a full-time worker, you are required to pay for health care benefits. So what is happening is that many employers are cutting people back from 40 hours to 30 hours with a commensurate loss of income. Recently, I was in Tyler, TX, sitting around a table at a restaurant when one gentleman who owns a restaurant said that because of ObamaCare one of the single moms who works in his restaurant lost her 40-hour workweek job. He had to cut her down to 30 hours. So she had to get two 30-hour jobs in order to get by. In other words, she now has to work 60 hours instead of working 40 hours, and obviously she is worried about the lack of time she has with her children in addition to having lost her full-time job. The President has also failed to mention a number of other items which have contributed to income inequality and the loss of upward mobility, such as the medical device tax that is a feature of ObamaCare. In Texas we have a number of medical device companies that came to see me after the ObamaCare legislation passed. They said: We have a duty to our shareholders not to spend their money inefficiently, and so our only alternative is to expand our existing facility in Costa Rica rather than in Texas. So the jobs that would have been created in Texas effectively moved to Costa Rica because of the medical device tax. So much for job creation and reducing income inequality and enhancing upward mobility. The President also declined to talk about his refusal to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. Of course, this is a pipeline that would start in Canada and end up in Port Arthur, TX, in an area we call the Golden Triangle. We happen to have a lot of refineries there that can refine that oil into gasoline, jet fuel, and other products for Americans consumers. The President promised the country he would make a decision by the end of 2013. I may have missed something during the holidays, but I don't recall the President making any announcement whatsoever on the Keystone XL Pipeline. Not only would it produce thousands of good well- paying jobs, it would also produce a dependable supply of energy from a friendly country--the nation of Canada. What else did the President fail to mention in his income inequality and upward mobility speech? He failed to mention how the impact of his regulatory policies are piling hundreds of billions of dollars of additional costs on small businesses. For example, the small banks in Texas have told me that they have hired new people, but the people they hired are the people who help us comply with the Dodd-Frank regulations. This bill--just to remind everybody--was filed to address the abuses on Wall Street that led to the subprime loan crisis and collapse in 2008. As we now know, while Wall Street was the target of Dodd-Frank and these regulations, Main Street is the collateral damage. Yes, people are being hired but not for the purpose of loaning more money and helping small businesses start and grow their businesses but, rather, just to comply with new government regulations. What else did the President fail to mention in his discussion about the lack of jobs and upward mobility? He failed to mention his proposed greenhouse gas rules, which will kill jobs and drive up energy costs. He failed to mention that during the so-called Obama economic recovery--the President has now been President for 5 years. He can't blame this on George Bush anymore. But during the so-called Obama economic recovery, real median household income has fallen more than $2,500. At the same time that real household median income has fallen by $2,500, households are finding that their health care insurance costs have gone up by $2,500, for a net loss of $5,000 for most hard- working American families. The President has failed to acknowledge--in his discussion of slow economic growth--high unemployment. He has failed to mention that the economic recovery following the 2008 recession has been the weakest U.S. recovery since World War II. Economists ordinarily say that after a recession there will be sort of a V-shaped recovery--once you hit the bottom, you come out of it very quickly and the economy grows fast. Under the Obama recovery, that has been flatlined to anemic growth, which is not fast enough or strong enough to hire more American workers. Indeed, we have the lowest percentage of Americans actually in the workforce in the last 30 years. What that means is that even though the unemployment rate is roughly 7 percent--that is on a national basis-- millions of people have simply dropped out of looking for a job because they see the prospects for finding work so dim. The President also failed to mention that his 2009 stimulus package-- at that time you may remember that Speaker Pelosi said: Our goal is to make timely, targeted, and temporary investments in government spending to help stimulate the economy and help bring down the unemployment rate. The President later joked and said--we found out it wasn't a funny joke--that ``shovel ready'' didn't actually mean it was shovel ready, which was absolutely true. He failed to add that his 2009 stimulus package added more than $1 trillion to the national debt, which now stands at $17.3 trillion. That is equivalent to more than $54,000 worth of debt for every man, woman, and child living in America today. I don't think anyone in their right mind believes we can continue down this same path of racking up more and more debt by borrowing more and more money without having some negative consequences at some point in the future. One thing we do know will occur is that the present generation that is racking up all of this debt will probably not be around to have to pay it back, but the next generation and beyond will. If the President wants to have an honest debate about income inequality, he needs to be honest about his own record, and he needs to talk about it in a holistic context. A few months ago, the New York Times reported that the trend of rising inequality ``appears to have accelerated during the Obama administration.'' Indeed, according to one measure of the income gap, inequality has increased about four times faster under President Obama than it did under President George W. Bush. Here is the reality: If we want to reduce income inequality, we need to boost economic growth. That is the debate we should be having and which this side of the aisle embraces--not how we can pay more government benefits to people who can't find work or artificially fix the price of wages. We need to figure a way to benefit the entire country by growing the economy. Largely--at least where I come from--people say there are three things that the Federal Government can do to help grow the economy: Get out of the way, get off our back, and get your hand out of our pocket. Those are three things the Federal Government could do which would help the economy grow, create more opportunity, and deal with this issue of income equality in an effective sort of way. So we need to boost economic growth. That is the debate we should be having--how do we create more jobs, or actually how do we allow the private sector to create more jobs? We tried having the government spend borrowed money to create more jobs, and that did not turn out so well. So now we need to figure a way to get out of the way so the private-sector economy can create the jobs that will put Americans back to work and deal with this issue of income inequality once and for all. As we saw last night, instead of trying to actually solve the problem, sometimes I am tempted to think that the majority leader and his allies really want a political issue rather than a solution to the problem, because we saw last night the majority leader was ready to have a vote with 17 Senators missing because of the storms around the country. We know people could not get back because of cold weather and storms and flight cancellations and the like, and I predict if we had had the vote last night, the cloture vote that we had today would have failed, and that would have fit very nicely into the majority leader's and the President's desire to change the subject from ObamaCare to Republicans blocking this unemployment compensation bill. It did not turn out that way because we had the vote here this morning. We embrace the opportunity to talk about our progrowth alternatives, which will actually make life better for the American people, not worse, as the policies of this administration have over the last 5 years. Basically, we know that the demand is this: to extend long-term unemployment benefits beyond the half year, which is the basic program, another 3 months, and to put the entire $6.5 billion tab on our national credit card. But I ask you, What is going to happen after 3 months? Will the President and his allies be back asking for another 3 months and another $6.5 billion in deficit spending that will be added to the debt? I think so. How about in 9 months? If we extend it for two 3-month periods, we will be here for another one that will extend it to 9 months and beyond, ad infinitum--$25 billion in added deficit and debt spending--unless we solve the root of the problem. Republicans would prefer that we offset any real extension with spending cuts that would make it revenue neutral. We would also like to reform the unemployment insurance program so it delivers better results to the unemployed. For example, if there is one thing that most people who are unemployed need it is the opportunity for job skills training. We ought to make sure things such as Pell grants are available for people during that 26-week period of time they are on unemployment, that they can go to a community college in their own town and learn new job skills, and so they do not have to be stuck in the same old position. They could learn new job skills, which will open a whole new world of opportunity for them when it comes to jobs. Before I conclude, I want to mention a few numbers that help put the Obama economy in perspective. According to the Joint Economic Committee, the economy grew during the first 4 years of the Reagan administration by 22.3 percent--22.3 percent. During the first 4 years of the Obama administration, it was about 9 percent--less than half. Why is that? Why is it that the economy grew during the first 4 years of the Reagan administration by 22 percent; in the first 4 years of the Obama administration by about 9.2 percent? As I pointed out, there are some good reasons why this recovery has been anemic and so slow and why so many people are still struggling to find work. If the Obama recovery had been as strong as the Reagan recovery, we would have millions more private-sector jobs. Isn't that what we want? The recipients of unemployment insurance compensation do not want to receive a government check. What they want is the dignity and the self-confidence and the opportunity to provide for their family that comes with a good job. That is what is missing in this whole equation and this transparent political exercise to play gotcha at their expense. We know it was President Reagan's economic strategies, combined with permanent, broad-based tax cuts and sensible regulatory policies that helped grow the economy. By contrast, President Obama's strategy is to combine massive tax increases--including the payroll tax, a year ago January--with a regulatory bonanza. We do not have to speculate about what the impacts of President Obama's policies are. We are living with them today. So I would say to President Obama, if you really want to reduce income inequality and promote upward mobility, we want to have that conversation. Let's get back to the policies, though, that have worked so well in the past, not those which have failed us and the American people during the last 5 years. Let's put a stop to regulations that do not pass a cost-benefit test. Let's do what we need to expand domestic energy production and create jobs. Do you know where the two lowest unemployment rates in the country are? Bismarck, ND, and Midland, TX, and that is because of the shale energy renaissance that has created jobs. If you can pass a commercial driver's license test, you can get a job driving a truck with a high school degree in both of those places and earn between $75,000 and $100,000 a year; the lowest unemployment in the country but this administration's policies have made it harder and harder for those jobs to be created, along with the Keystone Pipeline and the jobs that would create. We need also to reform our Tax Code to encourage more investment. We need to reward earned success so that small businesses can be started, so existing small businesses can expand. All of the President's policies, including, of course, most notably, ObamaCare, have made that harder. We need to do what we can, as I said, to expand domestic energy production and create jobs. We need to reform unemployment insurance to get more people back into the workforce by making sure they have the job training they need to learn employable skills. Then, of course, the subject that will not go away--notwithstanding the President's most earnest desire--that is, we need to dismantle ObamaCare before it does any more harm to our health care system and our broader economy. We need to replace it with more affordable coverage that lets consumers keep the doctor they trust--a promise that ObamaCare made, but a promise that has been broken, as too many people already know.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this is a serious issue, but if this was anything other than a political exercise, the majority leader would have rescheduled this vote when we did not have 17 Members of the Senate unable to be here and vote on this. I have no doubt as to what the outcome will be on this cloture vote, but I believe it is purely a scheduling matter. It ought to be postponed to a later time when we can have a real debate so we can look for a way to pay for this extension of unemployment benefits and how to get the economy growing again so people can find jobs. That is what people want; they want to work. They don't want unemployment compensation; they want jobs so they can provide for their families. Unfortunately, because of the timing of this vote, we know what the outcome is, and it is transparent that this is a political exercise and not a real effort to try to fix the problem.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune), and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Arizona, (Mr. Flake), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee- (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, in order to offer that amendment and others that I believe would be in order and should be allowed to be offered, I move to table the pending Reid motion to concur with a further amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CORNYN. Further parliamentary inquiry, Madam President. If a motion to table the Reid amendment to concur with a further amendment is successful, would there be an opportunity to offer my amendment, No. 2602, the Fort Hood Purple Heart bill?

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, to clarify, I believe the Defense authorization bill will pass this evening. That is not in any doubt. The problem is this isn't just about the process, this isn't just about minority rights in the Senate, but this is about people getting hurt. And the people I am talking about are our Active-Duty military whose pensions have been cut by the vote we cast yesterday passing the budget deal. All we want to do is fix that. There is bipartisan consensus this was a big mistake, and we could pass that, if the majority leader would allow us, today; it would pass through the House, as I said yesterday, like a hot knife through butter. Everyone agrees this was a mistake, and that is what the process is supposed to do, to fix this kind of error before it happens; and now that it has happened, to remedy it through an amendment. But this is exactly what the majority leader is denying us the opportunity to do and why this is so important. I mention again, so it not be forgotten, the 12 Americans who were killed at Fort Hood some 4 years ago by a domestic terrorist attack, along with 30 others whose lives were changed forever when they were shot by MAJ Nidal Hasan, who had become radicalized by the same cleric whom President Obama targeted on his kill list with a drone attack in Yemen, and appropriately so. He was an agent of al-Qaida. To now call this workplace violence and not to give us a chance to recognize the loss of lives in an act of war and to make sure these patriots get the benefits they are entitled to is just wrong. So this is not just about the process, it is not just about minority rights, it is about real people getting hurt and our ability to fix that today. That is being denied as a result of this process. I would conclude by saying the distinguished Senator from Arizona is exactly right. The average number of amendments since 1996 on the national defense authorization bill is 138 amendments--138 amendments. The average number of recorded votes, 11\1/2\. The average number of days we are on the bill is 8.8. So this is a big, important, profoundly significant piece of legislation, yet it is being jammed through here in about 24 hours without any opportunity to offer amendments. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry. Is it correct that no Senator is permitted to offer an amendment to the House-passed Defense bill while the majority leader's motion to concur with a further amendment is pending?