John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I come to the floor today to mark another lamentable milestone in the long record of deadlines and misgoverning that might be called malpractice over the last 4 years. As we can see, today is the 1,400th day our colleagues across the aisle, who control the agenda on the floor of the Senate through the majority leader, have failed to produce a budget or even bring one to the floor so we could vote on one. For 1,400 days this body has been truant from one of the most fundamental obligations to the American people. When they look to see what is happening in Washington, DC, they are incredulous. No family, no small business, no local government, no State government, no one except for the Federal Government, could actually operate without a budget. For nearly 4 years the Democratic leadership of the Senate has failed to put forward a fiscal plan to break our economy free from the lingering effects of the Great Recession. And the consequences of that are pretty clear when we look at trillion-dollar annual deficits and when we look at $16.5 trillion of debt which has threatened our economic recovery and job creation. That is the bitter fruit sown from the negligence of failing to produce a budget for 1,400 days. I realize none of this is maybe as easy as it looks, and I know our Democratic colleagues have been under constant pressure from the White House. Indeed, the White House itself has long reinterpreted the role of its annual budget submissions to Congress from the governing documents they once were to now really no more than political posturing. As evidence of that, I would point to the fact that the President's last budget he submitted got zero votes out of 99 Senators voting. No Member, even of the President's own political party, would support his budget proposal last time because they believed it was not a governing document they could support instead of just a political statement. These are some of the reasons I can't vote for Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary. After all, it was on his watch that most of this happened. I am also deeply troubled by the fact that in my office as well as in the hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Mr. Lew would not commit to any limit--to any limit--on Federal spending. Traditionally, over the last 40 years or so, the Federal Government has spent roughly 20 percent of our gross domestic product. It has been as high as 25 percent under the Obama administration. When I asked Mr. Lew what is the right figure we ought to be shooting for, he wouldn't even mention any figure. So he would not commit to any limit on Federal Government spending. He also would not commit to the administration complying with Federal law requiring it to submit a blueprint for reforming Medicare, known as the Medicare trigger. It is a complex formula. But if Medicare is in trouble, Federal law requires the administration to submit a plan to fix it. Mr. Lew said: We didn't do it, and we are not going to do it. I can't support a nominee who refuses to commit to tackling one of the biggest drivers of our debt on the eve of another manufactured fiscal showdown that was actually the President's and the White House's idea--this sequester people are hearing so much about which is now being used as a means by which to extract more money from the American taxpayer. So instead of the Federal Government doing what every family and every business has to do when there is not enough money coming in the door, the White House and the Democratic leadership are insisting on more from hard-working Americans, after a $600 billion tax increase in December. Unfortunately, it is hardly surprising that President Obama would nominate someone who cannot simply commit to following the law. This administration has a record, sadly, of flouting the law of the land, and I will give some examples. This administration, of which Mr. Lew has been an essential member, has, for example, during the government-run automobile bankruptcy process--the company's secured creditors, who were supposed to get paid first, found they were given less than unions were because of politics and flouting the rule of law. As Solyndra was going bankrupt, we know the administration, rather than letting the private lenders pay for their bad judgment, decided to make the taxpayers subordinate to those private lenders. We know that last year, because the circuit court of appeals in the District of Columbia has told us so, the President made unconstitutional appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and to now the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That case hasn't been decided, but it is impossible for me to see how the rationale would be any different from the court of appeals' decision in the NLRB case. We also know that last year the President waived key requirements of the 1996 welfare reform law. And to help implement ObamaCare, the Internal Revenue Service has announced that it will violate the letter of the law and dispense health insurance subsidies through Federal exchanges in those States that do not create State-based exchanges. We know that when the 2,700-page behemoth known as ObamaCare began to be implemented, when some of the supporters--and some of the President's own supporters--complained about it, they were issued waivers even though the rest of the American people had to simply take it. Finally, the President has again missed the legal deadline for submitting his own budget for this year. That was on February 4. In fact, four of the last five budgets have been late. Simply put, we can't keep living like this. We can't allow this to become a precedent for future Presidents and future majorities, regardless of party, to rely on. We can do better. We must do better. And my 26 million constituents in the State of Texas demand that we do better. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, we all know the Chamber is about to hold a cloture vote on the President's nominee to be the next Secretary of Defense. If former Senator Chuck Hagel is eventually confirmed, he will take office with the weakest support of any Defense Secretary in modern history, which will make him less effective on his job. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter regarding this nomination following my remarks. It is a letter dated February 21, signed by 15 Senators, to the President asking him to withdraw the nomination, noting that no Secretary of Defense since that position has been created has received more than 11 opposing votes. I am confident this vote will eclipse that former record demonstrating what the Senator from Indiana was just talking about, and that is a lack of bipartisan support for this critical position in the President's Cabinet. What should we expect from Senator Hagel if he is confirmed as Secretary of Defense? Well, it is hard to say. Over the last 2 months he has repudiated many of his past votes and stated positions related to the Middle East and the Defense Department. During his confirmation hearings, he actually said the Defense Secretary was not a policymaking position. I had to scratch my head at that one. I also had to scratch my head when Senator Hagel described President Obama's policy toward Iran and its nuclear program as containment. When he tried to correct himself, he said President Obama does not have a position on containment, but that is not true either. The U.S. position--as the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee reminded Senator Hagel during that hearing, and which reflects a wide bipartisan consensus--is that we oppose containment and will prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That is the U.S. policy, one that people would think the nominee for Secretary of Defense would be aware of. Unfortunately, I fear Senator Hagel is actually expressing his own personal views. I fear he really does think a nuclear Iran could be contained. He suggested as much in the book he wrote in 2008. At another point during the hearing, Senator Hagel described the murderous, terror-sponsoring Iranian theocracy as an ``elected, legitimate government.'' That comment is a slap in the face to all of the courageous Iranian democracy activists who have risked their lives and, in many cases, given their lives to oppose the dictatorship and promote freedom. There is simply no way to sugarcoat it. Senator Hagel's performance before the Senate Armed Services Committee was remarkably inept, and we should not be installing a Defense Secretary who is obviously not qualified for the job and who holds dangerously misguided views on some of the most important issues facing national security policy for our country. For that matter, Senator Hagel was candid to admit there are many things about the Department he doesn't really know. He has assured us he will learn on the job. That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in me because I don't think we want a Secretary of Defense who has to learn on the job. A moment ago I mentioned Senator Hagel holds dangerously misguided views about many critical issues. His supporters have called him a realist. In fact, there is nothing realistic about his world view. It is not realistic to think that by offering unconditional talks or establishing a new U.S. diplomatic post in Iran it will change the character of a regime that has spent the past 34 years waging war against America and our allies--a regime that was recently discovered to have been plotting to assassinate a Saudi diplomat by blowing up a crowded restaurant in Washington, DC. Likewise, it is not realistic to think that further engagement with Hamas will dissuade it from pursuing Israel's destruction. A terrorist organization that promotes genocidal violence is never going to be reformed by dialogue or concessions. Finally, it is not realistic to think that browbeating Israel will jumpstart the Middle East peace process. President Obama tried that approach himself during his first term, and it was a spectacular failure. We are further from a lasting peace agreement today than we were in January 2009, and many Israelis, along with many Arabs, believe the United States is no longer a reliable ally. When we look around the Middle East, not only do we see a theocratic dictatorship trying to acquire nuclear weapons, we see a terrible civil war raging in Syria which is led by a desperate, pro-Iranian regime with massive stockpiles of chemical weapons that has no reservation whatsoever at killing tens of thousands of its own civilians. We see the Muslim Brotherhood attempting to create a new dictatorship in Egypt. We see rising sectarian violence in Iraq because of our withdrawal without a status of forces agreement that would stabilize the country and a democracy earned by the blood and treasure of so many Americans. We see a substantial al-Qaida presence in countries such as Libya and Yemen. President Obama would like to pivot away from the Middle East, but the region isn't cooperating. Now, more than ever, we need a Secretary of Defense who understands the disastrous consequences of a nuclear Iran. We need a Defense Secretary who understands the importance of a robust U.S.-Israeli alliance. We need a Defense Secretary who understands Hamas for what it is: a genocidal terrorist group sworn to Israel's destruction. In a larger sense, we need a Secretary of Defense who understands why U.S. leadership is indispensable to solving our greatest challenges in the Middle East and beyond. Senator Hagel is clearly the wrong man for the job. This isn't about personality, this isn't about politics, but I will be voting against his confirmation for that reason: because he is clearly the wrong man for the job.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul).

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it has been 1,398 days since the Senate passed a budget. People wonder why we are lurching from one budget crisis to another one in Washington. The fact is this is not the only deadline that has been missed. This year the President failed to submit, by February 4, his proposed budget. But the truth is even last year when he submitted a budget, and it was voted on by the entire Senate, it received zero votes. In other words, it was not viewed as a reasonable and practical solution to the financial crisis that faces our country with $16.5 trillion in debt and 40 cents out of every dollar being spent by the Federal Government being borrowed from our creditors. Even before we reach the upcoming crisis which is known as the budget sequester--and I suggest most Americans would not consider a 2.4- percent cut in spending to be a crisis, but even before we reach this next stage in the budget negotiations, we know President Obama has proposed the same old solution to every budgetary question; that is, to raise taxes even though on December 31, with the fiscal cliff negotiations, we saw the President get his pound of flesh when it came to spending, and that is $600 billion in additional revenue. But this does, indeed, seem like the Washington version of Groundhog Day. We know the President has rejected his own bipartisan fiscal commission's recommendations, the so-called Simpson-Bowles Commission recommendation, and he has rejected budget proposals put forward by the House of Representatives. Even though our gross national debt has gone up by nearly $6 trillion under his watch, and even though it is projected to go up another $9.5 trillion over the next decade, the President seems to be stuck on telling us it is only going to take a little bit more in taxes in order to solve the problem. The American people understand we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem--spending money we do not have--and the only way to reduce our long-term debt burden is through reining in that spending. And not just the 39 percent of it which represents discretionary spending; we need to reform our entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security, in order to preserve and to protect those programs for future generations. Yet when we try to enact spending cuts or entitlement reforms, the President, unfortunately, has resorted to shameless fear mongering. He is now warning that it will be the end of western civilization, or something like it, if we cut the Federal budget by 2.4 percent. When we consider that Federal spending has gone up over 19 percent since 2008, and when we consider how much inefficient and duplicative and downright wasteful spending there is in the Federal Government, it is hard to take this argument seriously. For example, no one should be talking about raising more taxes from the American people on top of the $600 billion that was extracted as a result of the fiscal cliff negotiations. No one should be talking about raising more taxes when the Federal Government made more than $220 billion in improper payments over the last 2 years--that's right, $220 billion in improper payments in the last 2 years--and this is just one example of costly government waste. The President does not appear to believe in the urgency of the moment. He does not appear to believe that our country is headed for a true crisis. We all know interest rates are at historically low levels at this time. If interest rates were to go up just 1 percent or 2 percent more, for each percentage increase it would represent more than $1 trillion in additional interest we would have to pay on our debt. It is easy to see if interest rates were to go back up to historic norms, 4 or 5 percent, that very quickly we would lose control of our financial system, and we would be able to do little more than pay interest on the debt and pay for Medicare and Social Security. Both Senate Republicans and Democrats have shown that they understand the nature of the crisis we have before us, but we believe it is imperative that we support a budget that reduces our long-term debt. The only way we can see a significant path forward to debt reduction is if the President joins us in these important negotiations. Unfortunately, so far, the President seems truly allergic to genuine bipartisan compromise. Until the Obama administration, virtually every landmark domestic policy change in American history was achieved with bipartisan support. We all understand that; it cannot happen any other way. For example, both the 1935 Social Security Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act were signed by a Democratic President and supported by large majorities of Senate Republicans. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act signed by President Clinton was backed by every single Member of the Republican Senate caucus, along with the majority of Senate Democrats. Likewise, during the Reagan years, most Senate Democrats voted for the 1983 Social Security amendments, and a whopping 94 percent of Senate Democrats voted for the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Under President George W. Bush 84 percent of Senate Democrats voted for No Child Left Behind. In other words, Presidents have traditionally understood that reform and results take leadership and only then will bipartisan support follow. Yet the President seems to neglect this obvious fact and instead prefers to continue what seems like a perpetual campaign and knock down straw men rather than actually doing something about our skyrocketing debt. Real debt reduction will require Presidential leadership, the kind of leadership that President Clinton displayed in 1993 when he convinced 47 percent of Senate Democrats and 40 percent of House Democrats to defy organized labor and support the North American Free Trade Agreement. Since then, U.S. trade with Canada has nearly tripled, and U.S. trade with Mexico has increased almost sixfold. My hope is that the President will ultimately show the kind of leadership we have seen throughout this Nation's history when we are confronted with big challenges. He has acknowledged the need for serious reform. I believe he understands the problem perfectly: We cannot preserve and protect Social Security and Medicare unless we deal with those programs now. Yet he has never acted on his words, instead choosing to engage in the perpetual campaign. As a result, Washington keeps spending money it doesn't have and saddling our children with more debt. Meanwhile our safety-net programs are spiraling toward a collapse that will leave the poor and elderly even more vulnerable. It is time for a change, and it is time for the President to take his rhetoric about debt reduction and turn it into real meaningful reform. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, to my knowledge we do have a Secretary of Defense, and his name is Leon Panetta. It is my understanding that Mr. Panetta is going to stay on the job, a job he has done very well as Secretary of Defense and as CIA director for the last several years. The majority leader knows full well the reason why cloture was denied-- or closing off debate was denied, because there are reasonable requests being made on this side for additional information. I hope and trust information will be provided in the next few days. When we come back from the recess, we will have another vote and another opportunity for Senators to express themselves. This is not any attempt to kill this nomination. This is not a filibuster. I realize it is the headline the majority leader would like the newspapers to write. We actually had some very reasonable discussions going on earlier today among Senators on the Democratic side and the Republican side to try to work this out, given the fact that this nomination has just been so recently reported from the Armed Services Committee, and to accommodate the reasonable request for Senators to receive answers to their legitimate questions. We didn't need to have this vote today. We could have delayed it until after the recess. I am confident the vote would have turned out differently. The White House and the majority leader were determined to have this vote in order to try to get a story in the newspaper, one that misrepresents the nature of the objection on this side which, as I said, was a vote not to cut off debate because it was premature. Reasonable requests for information have not been accommodated by the nominee. There are solid public policy differences between Members of this other side of the aisle and the nominee. This is not about politics. This is not about personalities. It is about questions such as whether Iran should be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. Should we have direct negotiations with terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas? What is the official posture of the U.S. Department of Defense and this administration relative to our best ally in the Middle East, Israel? What would be the plan for the nominee should he be confirmed when it comes to dealing with steep cuts to the military that are going to come out of the sequester, which was the President's idea and which is now going to go into effect on March 1. This is something which the President himself said was not going to happen. All of these are legitimate areas of difference and areas of inquiry that could be accommodated, could have been accommodated without necessity of this vote today. This was the majority leader's choice, which was his prerogative, and the White House's choice. We could have done this differently. We could have worked this out, but that did not happen, unfortunately.

Mr. CORNYN. And I will quote from that letter. This is a letter signed by Chris Dodd, our former colleague who served on the Foreign Relations Committee, and Joe Biden, when he was a ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee back in 2005. Dear Democratic Colleague: We write to urge you to oppose the cloture on the Bolton nomination tonight. We want to make clear that this is not a filibuster. It is a vote to protect the Senate's constitutional power to advise and consent to nominations. I will skip down, because the letter will be in the Record, to the last paragraph, which says: The refusal of the Executive Branch to provide information relevant to the nomination is a threat to the Senate's constitutional power to advise and consent. The only way to protect that power is to continue to demand that the information be provided to the Senate. The only means of forcing the Administration to cooperate is to prevent a final vote on the nomination today. And the letter, as I said, was signed by Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. My point is, this is exactly what the Senator from Tennessee said it was--a vote not to end debate but to allow these inquiries to be answered. And the shoe will likely be on another foot some other time with some other nominee, so we ought to, I think at a minimum, respect and protect the right of the Senate and of an individual Senator to make reasonable inquiries of a nominee as part of the power of advise and consent. This is not a filibuster. If it is, then this was in 2005, contrary to the assertions of Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. But I agree with them in this instance, this is merely an effort not to close off debate but to allow reasonable inquiries to get information that will advise the Senators in their vote when it comes time to vote on this matter after the next break. Exhibit 1 United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC, May 26, 2005. Dear Democratic Colleague: We write to urge you to oppose cloture on the Bolton nomination tonight. We want to make clear that this is not a filibuster. It is a vote to protect the Senate's constitutional power to advise and consent to nominations. For more than a month, we have been requesting two types of information from the Executive Branch. First, materials related to the preparation of congressional testimony on Syria and weapons of mass destruction that Mr. Bolton planned to give in July 2003 and ultimately gave that September. We think this will show Mr. Bolton's continued effort to exaggerate intelligence information. It may also show that he misled the Foreign Relations Committee when he told us that he was not personally involved in the preparation of the testimony. Second, information related to National Security Agency intercepts and the identity of U.S. persons on those intercepts. During the past four years, Mr. Bolton requested the identity of U.S. persons on ten occasions. There may be nothing improper in this; or there may be something highly improper. But we won't know unless we see the very same information shown to Mr. Bolton. So far that has not occurred. The Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence were shown the intercepts, but not the identities of the U.S. persons. In refusing to provide the information about the Syria testimony, the State Department has asserted that it does not believe that the request is ``specifically tied to the issues being deliberated by the Committee.'' In other words, the Executive Branch is deciding what it thinks is relevant to the Senate's review. That's unacceptable. In the case of the NSA intercepts, no one in the Executive Branch has even tried to explain why the chairman and ranking member of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees are not allowed to see information that was made available to Mr. Bolton and even to his staff. That, too, is unacceptable. The refusal of the Executive Branch to provide information relevant to the nomination is a threat to the Senate's constitutional power to advise and consent. The only way to protect that power is to continue to demand that the information be provided to the Senate. The only means of forcing the Administration to cooperate is to prevent a final vote on the nomination today. We urge to you vote no on cloture. Sincerely, Christopher J. Dodd. Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Mr. CORNYN. I want to assure the assistant majority leader that we still have a Secretary of Defense. His name is Leon Panetta. And I am referring to an e-mail his press secretary George Little sent out on Thursday: The Secretary plans to stay in office until Senator Hagel is confirmed and sworn in. So if anybody is under any misapprehension, I believe the Pentagon press secretary has made that clear. We have a Secretary of Defense. He has not resigned, and he will continue to serve until such time as his successor is sworn in. I would say again to my friend, the Senator from Illinois, the assistant majority leader, we all know what a filibuster is. A filibuster is designed to kill a nomination or to defeat legislation, as the Senator from Tennessee said. I would also say this is equivalent to what happened back in 2005. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks a letter signed by Chris Dodd and Joseph Biden.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I rise to mark another sad record for the Senate: 1,387 days since the Senate has passed a budget--1,387 days. The last time I checked the 2012 election was over, and of course it has been over for more than 3 months now. Unfortunately, the President still seems to be very much in campaign mode, giving speeches all around the country. For the time being, what we need, rather than a President on a perpetual campaign, is for Democrats and Republicans to work together to try and solve some of our Nation's most pressing problems, and there is no more important issue than our national debt. Unfortunately, the President, after extracting about $600 billion in new taxes as a result of the fiscal cliff negotiations, is still coming back to the well, and he is calling for tens of billions of dollars in new spending. At a time when we ought to be talking about bending the cost curve down, trying to rein in wasteful Washington spending, the President wants to spend more, and he wants to raise taxes to do it. Perhaps worst of all, we know the promises we made to our seniors for Medicare and Social Security are imperiled. Unless we act together to save and protect Social Security and Medicare, they are on a pathway to bankruptcy, and that is irresponsible and wrong. I am tempted to describe President Obama's spending and tax ideas as small ball, but they are worse than that. They represent a conscious decision to neglect some of the most pressing issues that confront our country. One might even say it is a dereliction of duty in the battle to save America. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office projected our gross national debt will increase from $16 trillion in 2012 to $26 trillion in 2023. Now that may seem like a long way off, but since President Obama has been President, the national debt has gone up by 55 percent-- just in the last 4 years. If we project that forward to 2023, when some of these young men and women who are working here as pages will be looking at entering the workforce and looking at their futures, all they will see ahead of them is debt and a reduced standard of living. This is what lies ahead for all of us unless we embrace real spending cuts and unless we deal with the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security. If President Obama has a secret strategy for getting our debt under control, we would all love to hear it. His last two budget proposals failed to receive a single vote in the Senate. The last 2 years his budget has actually been put to a vote, no Democrat voted for it and no Republican, because it simply didn't address the problems I have described. I hope this year is different. Unfortunately, the President has already missed the statutory deadline for submitting his own budget, which was February 4. I hope when he finally gets around to sending us his proposed budget it is a serious plan for long-term debt reduction. Based on experience, I can't say I am overly optimistic, but hope springs eternal. I guess one of the things that worries me the most is that in the President's State of the Union message, which he so eloquently delivered a few nights ago, he didn't say one word about his 2014 budget--not one word. I would urge the President to take a long hard look at the new Congressional Budget Office report. I would urge him to launch serious bipartisan budget negotiations as soon as possible so we can avoid another last-minute cliffhanger and another 2 a.m. Senate vote. Above all, I would urge the President to take a look at a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution that I have cosponsored along with all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle. That amendment would require the Federal Government to balance its budget each and every year. Is that such a crazy idea? Well, no. That is what every family has to do. That is what every small business has to do. And that is what 49 States are required to do under their laws. This amendment to the Constitution would be the 28th amendment to the Constitution, including the first 10, which are, of course, our Bill of Rights. It would require a congressional supermajority to raise taxes or to raise the debt ceiling. As I said a moment ago, families across America have to balance their budgets. And, of course, along with a budget brings the discipline of deciding what our priorities are--the things we have to have and we can't live without, the things we want but we have to defer, and then the things that maybe we would like to have but simply can't afford. Well, this number right here, 1,387 days since the Senate passed a budget, is one reason why our debt continues to go up by leaps and bounds, and there is no plan in sight to bring it under control. Here is the bottom line for President Obama: The 2012 election is over, and now it is time to govern. It is time to move beyond the campaign rhetoric, drop the gimmicks and work across the aisle with Republicans to do what is right for the country. We are ready, willing, and able to engage with the President and our Democratic colleagues to try to address these problems that confront our country. In fact, there is no good reason for any of us to be here unless we are willing to do that. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I would like to tell the distinguished Senator from Delaware how much I appreciate him and his friendship, and it is genuine. I guess the thing that is so maddening about serving in the Senate is that everyone in this body--the Senator from Delaware, the Senator from New Hampshire--everyone who serves in this body understands the problems that confront our country that he so eloquently described in terms of unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security, which are on a path to bankruptcy, the debt, and just imagine, if interest rates were to go up, what that would mean in terms of our ability to fund everything from safety net programs to national defense. But it never seems to happen. The date never seems to arrive when we actually sit down and address it. And I believe this number of days without a budget is really symptomatic of the problem. But thanks to our colleagues across the Capitol--who passed a ``no budget, no pay'' bill, which has now been signed by the President--unless Congress passes a budget, we are not going to get paid, which is entirely appropriate and long overdue. So I would just say to my friend, and he is my friend, that I appreciate his comments. I hope someday soon we can find a way, Republicans and Democrats alike--that is the only way it is going to happen--I hope we can get serious about this. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened yet. I am an optimist. I think it can happen. But it is going to require Presidential leadership, and, frankly, that is one reason I wish the President would get off the campaign trail. Now that he has won--he has another 4-year term--he doesn't have to worry about running for election again, but then to work with us because that is the only way it is going to happen. So I appreciate his comments and look forward to continuing to work with the Senator.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I want to express my appreciation to the Senator from North Dakota for his leadership on this issue. He has been relentless in pursuit of this Presidential permit to authorize the Keystone XL Pipeline because he recognizes, as I do, that it is important in terms of jobs, energy security, and national security. It has been said that because of the revolution in natural gas production in America, and as a result of horizontal drilling and fracking--combined with the energy we can get from the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada--that North America could potentially be energy independent--North American energy independence--in the not-too-distant future. The Senator from Louisiana is scheduled to be here as well. This is a bipartisan effort, as all successful efforts around here must be. Before Senator Landrieu speaks, I want to talk about the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would create an estimated 20,000 American jobs in construction and manufacturing in my State, which still is the No. 1 energy-producing State in the Nation. As a result, job growth in Texas is outpacing most of the rest of the country. I would add that North Dakota is now the second largest energy producer in the country thanks to the Bakken shale efforts. In Texas alone the Keystone would lead up to $1.6 billion worth of direct investments and would boost our State's economic output by an estimated $2 billion. This would not only create thousands of long-lasting and well-paying jobs, it would allow Texas refineries to refine up to 700,000 barrels of oil each day to produce gasoline, jet fuel, heating oil, and the like. As the distinguished Senator from North Dakota pointed out, this would increase the supply at a time when gas prices have gone up, because of restricted refinery capacity, in the worldwide price of oil. It can do nothing but help America contain those high prices. It strikes me that this is a no-brainer. While we find ourselves engaged in armed conflicts in places such as the Middle East--where Iran periodically threatens to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world's oil supply flows-- why wouldn't we want to make ourselves less dependent on Middle Eastern oil? Why wouldn't we want to make ourselves more independent on North American energy? This is a no-brainer on almost every count I can think of. Let me express my gratitude to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota for his relentless leadership. I know he is not going to give up. He just keeps getting stronger. In excess of 50 Senators have signed a bipartisan letter to the President on this, and it is very important for our country as it relates to jobs, energy independence, and national security. I see the distinguished Senator from Louisiana here, and I know others wish to speak on this important issue as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, after listening to President Obama's State of the Union speech last night, I was left scratching my head. Essentially, the President wants us to pretend the last 4 years never happened. He wants us to pretend his economic policies have delivered a strong recovery from the recession of 2008; he wants us to pretend his administration has made real progress on reducing the national debt; and he wants us to pretend that more taxes, more spending, and more debt are the key to middle-class prosperity. In other words, the President is hoping we all have a case of amnesia. He wants us to forget about $5.8 trillion in new debt that was racked up during his first term--$5.8 trillion. He wants us to forget our gross national debt is now larger than our entire economy--100 percent of our gross domestic product. He wants us to forget the debt is projected to grow even further, to $26 trillion, by 2023; and he wants us to forget his health care bill will increase taxes by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. He wants us to forget America's credit rating has been downgraded for the first time in our history. He also wants us to forget we have been suffering through the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression, as well as the highest, longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression. He wants us to forget that nearly 4 out of every 10 unemployed Americans have been jobless for at least 6 months. He wants us to forget that the average family median income has fallen by nearly $2,500 since the official end of the recession. He wants us to forget that the cost of health insurance for the average American family has increased by more than $2,300. And he wants us to forget that as part of the fiscal cliff negotiation, the payroll tax went back up, taking an additional bite out of the check of middle-class workers. Last night President Obama said we should ask ourselves three questions every day--those of us with the privilege of serving here in the Nation's Capital in the Congress and in the administration. He said: No. 1, how do we attract more jobs to our shores? No. 2, how do we equip people with the skills they need in order to get those jobs? And No. 3, how do we make sure hard work leads to a decent living? I may have my differences with President Obama on a number of policies, but I actually think those are really good questions. If the President is truly serious about finding the answers to those questions, this may not surprise my colleagues, but he need look only to the model reflected in my home State of Texas. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article entitled ``The Texas Growth Machine'' at the end of my remarks.

Mr. CORNYN. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. The fact is our State relies on a simple economic model the Federal Government could emulate if it would like to have similar positive results: lower taxes, limited government, sensible regulations, and progrowth energy policies. I know the occupant of the chair comes from a State that I believe is the second largest producer of oil and gas in the country--second only to Texas--and I know the Presiding Officer has seen the economic engine that is created when we unleash our potential when it comes to our energy resources. These are policies that recently helped Texas turn a $5 billion deficit during the recession into an $8.8 billion surplus. These are the policies that made our State a robust engine of job creation that is attracting Americans from all across the country. The total number of jobs in Texas since 1995 has grown at the rate of 32 percent. When we compare that with the rate of growth of jobs in America nationwide, we see it is 12 percent--32 percent to 12 percent. That is not an accident. Texas is also a leader in the creation of high-paying jobs. Between 2002 and 2012, our State accounted for close to one-third of all U.S. private sector job growth in industries that pay more than 150 percent of the average wage, even though we have only 8 percent of America's total population. Last night the President talked about, How do we get middle-class wages up? His prescription was an increase in the minimum wage, but I say why don't we look at ways to achieve a maximum wage by creating private sector, high-paying, good jobs, as we have been successful in doing in Texas and as a few other States have done as well. After 4 years of trillion-dollar deficits and historically high unemployment--right now our unemployment rate is roughly 7.9 percent, but that doesn't really account for all of the people who have since given up looking for work, and it is estimated that more than 20 million Americans either are out of work or they are working part time when they would like to work full time, but they can't find those kinds of jobs. I believe it is time for the President and this Congress to try a new approach. The great thing about our system of government--of shared sovereignty between the States and the National Government--is that we have essentially laboratories of democracy all around our country where we can try different things to see what works and what does not work. I only hope the President and Congress will look at those places around the country where the policies actually work in creating jobs and economic growth. I believe it is time for the President to embrace policies that will encourage private entrepreneurship, private sector job creation, income growth, and greater domestic energy production. In short, it is time for him to embrace the Texas model. Exhibit 1 The Texas Growth Machine (By Wendell Cox) The American economy has had little to cheer about since the 2008 financial meltdown and the resulting recession. Recovery has been feeble, and many states continue to struggle. One bright spot in the general gloom, however, is Texas, which began shining long before 2008. Not only has Texas created jobs at a stunning rate; it has also--pace critics like the New York Times's Paul Krugman--created lots of good jobs. Indeed, the rest of the nation could turn to the Lone Star State as a model for dynamic growth, as a close look at employment data shows. The first thing to point out is that Texan job creation has far outpaced the national average. The number of jobs in Texas has grown by a truly impressive 31.5 percent since 1995, compared with just 12 percent nationwide, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Texas has also lapped California, an important economic rival and the only state with a larger population. The Texas employment situation after the financial crisis was far less spectacular, of course, with the number of jobs growing just 2.4 percent from 2009 through 2011. But that was still six times the anemic 0.4 percent growth rate of the overall American economy. The National Establishment Time-Series (NETS) Database, which provides detailed information on job creation and loss for firms headquartered in each state, can tell us more about Texas's employment growth. NETS data are divided into two periods--the first from 1995 to 2002, the second from 2002 to 2009. During the 2002-09 period, small businesses of fewer than ten employees were the Texas employment engine, adding nearly 800,000 new jobs; of those, about three-quarters were in firms with two to nine employees. Larger Texas companies-- those with 500 or more employees--lost a significant number of jobs over this span, and medium-size firms likewise shrank, trends that also showed up on the national level. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that many of the new Texas jobs paid well. Indeed, Texas did comparatively better than the rest of the United States from 2002 through 2011. For industries paying over 150 percent of the average American wage, Texas could claim 216,000 extra jobs; the rest of the country added 495,000. In other words, the Lone Star State, with 8 percent of the U.S. population, created nearly a third of the country's highest-paying positions. Texas also added 49,000 positions paying 125 percent to 150 percent of the U.S. average; the rest of the country lost 174,000 jobs in that category. Two sectors in which Texas employment did particularly well during the same period were natural- resource extraction (in fact, the state gained 80 percent of all new jobs in the country in that field) and professional, scientific, and technical positions. Both job categories boast average wages far higher than the national overall average. As happens whenever an economy grows, Texas also added hundreds of thousands of positions in food services, health care, and other lower-paid fields, in addition to the more lucrative jobs. Texas did lose 10,000 construction jobs, but that was a modest downturn, in light of the massive national slowdown in building caused by the crisis of 2008. Vital to the economic health of Texas is that people are moving to its cities in droves. In 2011, Houston surpassed Philadelphia in population and became the country's fifth- biggest metropolitan region, with 6.1 million people. Dallas- Fort Worth, with 6.5 million, was already the country's fourth-biggest. The two cities trail only New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, marking the first time that a single state has had two metros in the country's top five since the Census Bureau began designating these areas a century ago. Meanwhile, of all metropolitan areas in the country with more than 1 million residents, the fastest-growing from 2010 to 2011 was Austin. Though the national downturn has slowed job creation in Texas's cities, they're still adding jobs, sometimes briskly, unlike many other American metropolitan regions. Austin's strong information-technology sector and government-related work (the city is Texas's state capital) helped propel 4.3 percent job growth from 2009 through 2011 (and 15.3 percent growth from 2002 through 2009). The number of jobs in McAllen, which benefits from increased trade with Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement, grew 3.7 percent. Job growth in economically diverse Houston has matched or exceeded the state rate since 1995. What accounts for the resilience of the Texas economy, which has outperformed the rest of the country not only over the long term but during the Great Recession as well? A pro- business climate has unquestionably been a substantial advantage. In its annual ranking of business environments, Chief Executive has named Texas the most growth-friendly state for eight years in a row. (California has been last for the same eight years.) The reasons included low taxes and sensible regulations; a high-quality workforce (Texas ranked second only to Utah in that category in 2012); and a pleasant living environment (an eighth-place finish, slightly below sixth-place Florida but, perhaps surprisingly, far better than 28th-place California). Part of the explanation for the high living-environment score is doubtless Texas's low cost of living. In 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis put Texas's ``regional price parity,'' a measurement of the price level of goods in an area, at 97.1, a bit lower than the national level of 100 and far lower than the California level of 114.8. Adjusted for cost of living, Texas's per-capita income is higher than California's and nearly as high as New York's. Factor in state and local taxes, and Texas pulls ahead of New York. More than three-quarters of the cost-of-living difference between Texas and California can be explained by housing costs. Texas mostly dodged the real-estate bubble of the 2000s: the affordability of houses in large metro areas spiked in America as a whole but rose only modestly in Texas. A major reason that Texas real estate is so affordable is that the state lacks the draconian land-use restrictions that drive California housing prices into the stratosphere. The affordable housing attracts both people and businesses. Since 2000, 1 million more people have moved to Texas from other states than have left. All these considerations suggest that Texas is poised for further growth. And a final reason for Texans to be optimistic is that a major expansion of the Panama Canal will be completed in 2014. That could bolster the Lone Star State's success by rerouting Asian commerce from West Coast ports to Texas alternatives, which are closer to the nation's major markets.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as President Obama gets ready to deliver his State of the Union Address tonight, I would like to remind the American people of what he said 4 years ago during his first speech to a joint session of Congress. Four years ago President Obama said he did not believe in big government. Since then he has given us four consecutive trillion-dollar deficits, he has nationalized our health care sector, and he has used Federal agencies to impose Draconian regulations. If we add the cost of all these proposed or final regulations the Obama administration published last year, the total economic burden comes to more than $236 billion. That is a wet blanket on the American economy and economic growth and job creation. If anyone out there still thinks President Obama opposes big government, as the song goes, ``I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona'' I'd like to sell you. Four year ago the President told us he was concerned about our massive national debt. Since then our gross national debt has increased by nearly $6 trillion and has grown larger than the entire U.S. economy. Four year ago the President said we could not ignore our long-term challenges. Since then he has ignored the recommendations of his own bipartisan fiscal commission known as Simpson-Bowles, and his own Treasury Secretary has acknowledged that the Obama administration does not have a serious plan for long-term debt reduction. Four years ago the President told us his trillion-dollar debt- financed stimulus package would feature unprecedented oversight. Then we learned the stimulus package wasted money on boondoggles such as Solyndra. Four years ago the President promised us his plan for health care reform would reduce the cost of health care for American families. Since then the cost of employer-provided family health insurance has increased by more than $2,300 per family. Four years ago the President said he viewed the Federal budget as a blueprint for our future. Since then two of the President's budget proposals have been unanimously rejected by this Chamber--by Republicans and Democrats alike--and America's credit rating has been downgraded. If you buy these unfulfilled promises the President has made over the last 4 years, as the song goes, not only will I sell you some oceanfront property in Arizona, ``I'll throw the Golden Gate in for free.'' In short, much of what the President has said in February of 2009 has been hollow rhetoric, unmet with action and followup. I can only hope the President's speech tonight will seriously address our biggest fiscal challenges: a debt burden larger than our economy, $37 trillion in unfunded Medicare liabilities, and more than $100 trillion in total unfunded liabilities. In addition, I can only hope the President will offer a serious plan for boosting economic growth and reducing unemployment. Amid the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, with the national rate still hovering near 8 percent, Americans deserve a President who is focused intensely on the right policies for job creation. A second term offers a second chance. If the President wants to regain the credibility he has lost over the last 4 years on each of these issues, he will start tonight. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

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