John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. If the Senator would yield for one last question, my understanding is that the fiscal cliff is going to be caused by the expiring provisions of various tax provisions that have been in place for 12 years, the so-called Bush tax cuts that expired 2 years ago that were extended on a bipartisan basis in a negotiation with our friends across the aisle. That is what I am referring to as the fiscal cliff. I do understand, and the Senator is correct, we also have the second body blow to the economy that is going to be in combination with these tax increases, $1.2 trillion in cuts that, as I understand it, is the sequester, which is what the Senator is referring to.

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it has become disturbingly clear that President Obama does not mind whether or not we drive off the fiscal cliff. Just last week his own Treasury Secretary, Secretary Geithner, said the White House was ``absolutely'' prepared to go off the cliff unless Republicans agree to raise marginal tax rates. In other words, during a period of high unemployment--the highest since the Great Depression--the President is willing to risk another recession in order to increase taxes on small businesses and the people we depend upon to create jobs. How much revenue will the President's tax hike generate? Well, by raising the top two rates, it would produce only about $68 billion in 2013. I say ``only'' because in relationship to the gap between how much money the Federal Government is spending and how much money this would generate, it is relatively small. If we factor in the various stimulus tax expenditures the President wants to extend, the net revenue falls below $55 billion. Again, President Obama is so desperate to secure this revenue that he is willing to risk another recession. Meanwhile, he is asking for more stimulus spending, along with the authority to raise the debt ceiling whenever he chooses. His idea of compromise appears to me to be pretty simple: Republicans should give him everything he wants in return for a meaningless promise that the White House will somehow, someday get around to reforming and preserving Social Security and Medicare. I ask, is that really a balanced approach? Well, I think the answer is self- evident. Of course it is not. Until the President supports real reforms to preserve and protect Medicare and Social Security--something he himself has acknowledged is on an unsustainable fiscal path--until he is willing to come up with real ways to rein in Federal spending, where right now we are spending 46 cents out of every $1 in borrowed money, the Federal Government is, until he comes up with a plan on both of those issues--reining in spending and reforming Medicare and Social Security to preserve them for future generations--he is not offering a serious plan for long-term deficit reduction. After all, we have a $1.1 trillion annual deficit. I know we have become a little bit numb to the numbers we have been using. We used to talk about $1 million being a lot of money. Then there was $1 billion. Now there is $1 trillion. Someone said, tongue in cheek: Don't tell the Federal Government what comes after a trillion because we will end up spending it. If you have a deficit of $1.1 trillion a year, as we did in 2012, then raising taxes by $68 billion or $55 billion does not get you very far. In fact, it would fund the Federal Government for about a week--1 week. That tax increase would also damage economic growth, upon which we depend in order to create jobs, to bring down the unemployment rate, and to put the 20 million-plus people who are either unemployed or underemployed back to work. Here are some numbers the President does not talk about: On top of our $16 trillion national debt, we have more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Those are promises we have made to future generations that Medicare and Social Security will be there for them, even though there is not money to pay for those liabilities. The Federal Government is already spending about $220 billion a year on interest payments alone. Under President Obama's latest budget proposal, the annual cost of servicing our debt would reach $804 billion in 2022--an amount greater than total U.S. defense spending in 2012. We all know that interest rates are also at historic lows because of the action of the Federal Reserve. If they were to return to their historic norms--the 4- and 5-percent range--you can easily see how our debt would spin out of control and there would be very little room to spend money either on safety-net programs or on national security. One more point. The President often says his tax increases would merely restore the top tax rates that prevailed when Bill Clinton was in the White House. But that is demonstrably false. Thanks to new taxes under ObamaCare, including the new 3.8-percent surtax on investment income, the top rates would be significantly higher than they were under the Clinton administration. And, of course, you are not just talking about Federal taxes. People all around the country have to pay State, local, and Federal taxes, many of whom would end up paying the majority of their paycheck in taxes. Here is the reality: Tax cuts did not create our fiscal problems, so it is axiomatic that tax increases will not solve our fiscal problems alone. We can and we should reform our Tax Code so that it helps promote stronger growth and higher revenues. The President's own bipartisan fiscal commission, Simpson-Bowles, made a proposal to do just that when it comes to corporate taxes. But ultimately the only way to prevent fiscal Armageddon is through major reforms of Medicare and Social Security and reining in Federal spending. As we debate various strategies for avoiding the fiscal cliff, it is important for us to remember that our actions--or inactions--will have real-world consequences for millions of Americans. Many folks here in Washington seem too casual about the possibility of a massive tax hike and what that would do to our economy. Indeed, some of my Democratic colleagues apparently think they could quickly undo all of the tax increases that would fall on middle-class workers. In reality, it would not be that simple. Just ask any small business owner trying to meet payroll and plan for the future. Everyone knows, as I said to start with, we are experiencing the weakest economic recovery since World War II and the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression. If you ask me, this is the worst possible moment for a huge tax hike--something the President himself acknowledged when he agreed to extend the so-called Bush tax cuts in 2010 when the economy was growing slower than it is today. Too many of my colleagues across the aisle seem to be comfortable with threatening the possibility of a recession by driving off the fiscal cliff only to extract more revenue for the Federal Government-- by the way, not revenue necessarily used to pay down the debt or to sustain and preserve our programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, but to expand spending even further. I hope cooler heads will prevail. One final thought. When I talk to people all across the country, who tell me they are watching us here in Washington to see what we are going to do, it is the uncertainty that is freezing them into place and preventing them from starting new businesses, growing existing businesses, or making investments that will help grow the economy. The saddest part about this is how manufactured this crisis really is. All of these decisions were kicked off until after the election into this so-called lameduck session, and this crisis, this fiscal cliff crisis, was manufactured, as I say. We should have tackled these challenges a long time ago to give American families and American businesses the certainty they need in order to plan for the future. Instead, we have created a highly volatile situation in which everyone is preparing for the worst. It is hurting investment. It is hurting job creation. Above all, it is hurting millions of Americans who are still unemployed or working part time. And it is completely and totally unnecessary. Whatever the outcome of these negotiations, I hope we will all resolve to never let this happen again. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. I am a little confused. I do not know whether the distinguished majority whip is talking about the expiring tax provisions on December 31 as being manufactured or a bipartisan agreement or--what part of this did we have a chance to vote on and create in a bipartisan fashion?

Mr. CORNYN. We yield back.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, can you tell me how much time is remaining on this side?

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I think the record should be clear that our side of the aisle believes we should act today and not wait and not delay further this important STEM Jobs Act for the very reason I said earlier, which is that it will help job creators and entrepreneurs. The reason STEM visas are particularly powerful is because these individuals with special expertise in math, technology, engineering, and the like are uniquely qualified to be able to start up new enterprises and to attract and create jobs for other people. In other words, there is a multiplier effect. For every 1 of the 55,000 green cards that would be created by this act, there are hundreds of thousands of people who would enjoy jobs as a result of the economic activity in this country. I hope we don't sacrifice another crop of science, technology, and engineering graduates in the hope that we can get the perfect immigration bill. In fact, we know this is a difficult area in which to legislate, and both sides of the aisle know we need to deal with all of the different facets of our broken immigration system. But this bill has passed the House. It is here and now. We could pass it today by unanimous consent but for the objection of our friends across the aisle and the objection, amazingly enough, of the President of the United States who himself has claimed for at least the last 4 years that he is in favor of immigration reform. It is also an important confidence builder in terms of the acceptance of this legislation by the American people. The American people are justifiably skeptical of Congress passing another omnibus or comprehensive piece of legislation. We tried that before, and we found out that even if people have read bills going into the thousands of pages in length, many times there are unintended consequences. So I believe it is very important that we start with this important STEM Jobs Act, that we demonstrate we are worthy of the confidence and trust of the American people when it comes to addressing our broken immigration system, in an area where we have consensus such as the STEM jobs field. I tell my colleagues they have my personal commitment that I will be there to work with them to deal with other parts of our broken immigration system as we go forward. The best way to do that, in my opinion, is to start here. If we can't pass this legislation--and I am skeptical based upon the objection we have heard today--I wonder if we will ever be able to pass immigration reform. If we can't do this consensus bill, tell me one other piece of legislation we could pass in this field by agreement of the political parties and send it on to the President. Indeed, I think there is room to wonder whether some people in this Chamber would prefer to have this an issue they can wield in the next election rather than to join together on a bipartisan basis and to solve what is broken in our immigration system. Let's start here. Let's build on this. We can do it today if we can just somehow avoid the objections and pass this legislation that has been passed by the House. It passes the STEM visa bill, it keeps families together, and it represents values I would think both sides of the aisle would applaud. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of the distinguished Senators from Iowa, North Dakota, and Kentucky. I think what people find so maddening about Congress and Washington, DC, is even when we agree, we still cannot seem to get anything done. How is it that we can agree on the importance of additional STEM green cards and still not be able to get anything done? This is not about what is perfect, but this is about what is possible given what has happened in the House of Representatives. We could do this today and send it to the President of the United States in the next couple of days so he can sign it. The question is, How many more years will pass while we have these highly qualified students who graduate from our own colleges and universities with master's degrees and Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering, and math before we finally address the problem? I realize there is other legislation people would like to have considered, but this has actually passed the House of Representatives. I remember the hearing we had in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration of which I am the ranking member. The Senator from New York said at that time--and this would not be a surprise to him since these are his own words, and it is consistent with what he said on the Senate floor: If we do not enact an immigration policy that continues to attract the world's best minds, we will cease to be the world's economic leader. That is why I call this a self-inflicted wound. If we agree that American workers should get the right of first refusal, but there are not sufficient American workers with the qualifications in these important fields, why in the world would we not allow the creation of jobs and new enterprises that would come with the STEM Jobs Act that has passed the House? I have a series of letters: one from the chancellor of the University of Texas System, Texas A&M University System, Texas Tech University System, the University of Houston System, the University of North Texas, and the Texas State University System in support of STEM legislation. I also have a letter from Rice University president David Leebron supporting this same type of legislation. I have a letter dated June 25, 2012, addressed to President Obama, Leader Reid, Leader McConnell, Speaker Boehner and then-Leader Pelosi from the Partnership for a New American Economy signed by the presidents or chancellors of 42 public and private universities. I have a letter to Congress from the Information Technology Industry Council, Partnership for a New American Economy, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supporting STEM immigration reform such as this bill. I have another letter dated November 15, 2012, to Members of Congress from the American Council on International Personnel and the Society for Human Resource Management supporting this type of STEM legislation. I have another letter dated September 19, 2012, to Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor, Whip McCarthy, Minority Leader Pelosi, and Minority Whip Hoyer from CONNECT, a U.S. San Diego tech transfer commercialization enterprise. I also have a letter from the president of Baylor University in support of STEM legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the letters I just referenced be printed in the Record at this time.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I yield to the distinguished Senator from Iowa for any comments he cares to make.

Mr. CORNYN. How much time remains?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, at this time I yield to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota and then, following that, the distinguished Senator from Iowa for any comments he cares to make.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the problem with the Senator's proposal is that this piece of legislation he has referred to has not passed out of committee in the Senate. It has not passed the House. This bill, the STEM Act, has passed the House. Theirs has a 2-year sunset provision; this is permanent legislation. Also, it has no family unification provision that will allow the immediate family members of the green card holder to wait the time when they will become eligible for a green card in the United States as opposed to back in their country of origin, and it does nothing to promote merit- based immigration reform. We ought to be looking at immigration reform from the standpoint of not just how it can help the immigrant but how it can help America create jobs and entrepreneurship. For those reasons, I object.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Under those circumstances, I agree to yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, we have four Senators who are prepared to speak, and I just want to make sure we have adequate time to speak. I ask that any time that is used by the distinguished Senator from New York not be added to or subtracted from our time. We have retained a total of 45 minutes.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I understand that the Senator from New York has objected, and of course here we go again making the perfect the enemy of the good and not moving forward on commonsense immigration reform in an area where there is a consensus. There are several problems with the Senator's proposal. One is that it has not passed the House and this one has. It also has a 2-year sunset provision, as I understand, and there is no family unification provision. Also, it doesn't eliminate the diversity lottery visa which allows people to get green cards without regard to the qualifications that they bring to this country to create jobs and start new businesses. I know we have the distinguished Senator from North Dakota here.

Mr. CORNYN. I ask the Senator to withhold for a moment because I do have a unanimous consent request. I understand the Senator likely will have an objection to that. We have other Senators who are going to speak. Given the limitation on our time, what I wish to do, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 559, H.R. 6429, that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be made and laid on the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would say in response to the Senator from Kentucky that I have been in the Senate for some time now. I have been engaged in the immigration debates for a long time. I think one of the biggest challenges is we have tried to deal with this in a comprehensive way that has so many moving parts it is almost impossible to find a majority in the Senate, much less the House, in order to support all the various components of it. That is one of the things I like about this bill. It is narrow, it deals with a consensus reform-- commonsense reform--and it avoids a lot of the controversy associated with other parts of the immigration subject. I do believe we owe it to the American people not to stop here, but it is a good place to start. Once we pass this legislation and people see that we have acted responsibly and in America's best interests, then we can regain their confidence that we can deal with other broken parts of the immigration system.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this last week the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan piece of legislation called the STEM Jobs Act. For those who are unfamiliar with the term STEM, it stands for science, technology, engineering, and math--the hard sciences programs that we have too few graduates from in our colleges and universities. This bill passed in the House of Representatives with 245 votes and was originally sponsored by my friend and colleague Lamar Smith of Texas. It is very similar to a piece of legislation I myself introduced earlier this year. The goal of this legislation is one that I think enjoys broad bipartisan support, and that is to help the United States retain more of the highly skilled immigrants who come to study at our colleges and universities. In particular, this bill would make eligible for a green card those who graduate from the STEM fields who get a master's degree or a Ph.D. We would not add to the net number of green cards that would be eligible. There are 55,000 diversity lottery visa green cards that would be substituted for by these STEM green cards. We all know America's immigration system is broken. Unfortunately, it causes self-inflicted wounds in many respects, but particularly by driving away highly skilled foreign workers who want to start businesses and create jobs right here in America. This is not about hiring foreign workers to perform jobs where we have qualified Americans waiting in line for these jobs. The fact of the matter is, we do not produce enough American-born workers to fill the job vacancies in these fields. Many of these potential job creators and entrepreneurs attend our colleges and universities. You might even say that the American taxpayer helps subsidize their education because many of them received world-class training at our public and private colleges and universities and then reluctantly return home to pursue their careers because they cannot get a visa or cannot get a green card here in America. We are cultivating human capital and then sending those individuals back home. This is an area where there is broad support. My colleague Senator Moran recently wrote a ``Dear Colleague'' letter which points out that roughly--he cites in the letter that more than three-quarters of voters support a STEM-type visa. He quotes in this letter, dated July 20, 2012, 87 percent of Democrats polled, 72 percent of Republicans polled, and 65 percent of Independents support the creation of a STEM visa. Of course if you think about it, it is common sense. Why in the world would we want to subsidize the education of these students from other countries, train them in these highly specialized and highly desirable fields, and then simply send them home? I have introduced legislation over the past years that would increase the number of H1B visas, which are not green cards. They are actually temporary visas that would allow more of these foreign national students, trained in these STEM fields, to stay here in the United States and help create jobs here in the United States. This bill actually goes a step further. What it does is it provides them a green card, which is the first step toward a path to citizenship. If you believe our current policy is a self-inflicted wound on our economy, you are exactly right. We are educating brilliant students and then compelling them to go to work in Shanghai or Singapore rather than San Antonio or the Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, we are handing out tens of thousands of diversity visas to immigrants chosen by random lottery, without regard to any qualifications they may have when it comes to job creation and entrepreneurship. It makes absolutely no sense. I believe we need an immigration policy that serves our national interests. If there is one thing that we need more than anything else now, we need job creators and entrepreneurs in the United States. We know in the global economy it is people with special skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who are the ones who are going to help us create jobs and grow the economy--not just for these individuals but for the people who are hired by the startup businesses they will create. The STEM Jobs Act would mitigate the problem with the diversity lottery visa, which again does not distinguish between immigrants based upon the qualifications they have or their ability to create jobs or be entrepreneurs. It would mitigate this problem by making our immigration system more economically sensible. It would establish new visa categories for 55,000 STEM graduates of American research institutions and would eliminate the random diversity lottery visa to offset these new green cards. Our competitors abroad are observing this brain drain that America is experiencing and they are taking advantage of it. In a global economy they are more than happy to take the best and the brightest foreign students who come and train in the United States and to encourage them to come to their countries and create jobs and economic growth there. This relatively minor change to our immigration system could deliver a major boost to U.S. economic growth. I realize many of our colleagues have different priorities when it comes to fixing our broken immigration system, but the reforms contained in the STEM Jobs Act enjoy bipartisan support. I urge my colleagues, let's show the world we can agree on this commonsense, bipartisan immigration reform. Let's do something for our economy and let's take this first step in solving our broken immigration system. Before I turn the floor over to my colleague from Kentucky, who I know has some comments on this topic, let me address two issues quickly. I can anticipate hearing from some of our colleagues that this does not solve all of what is broken in our immigration system, and I concede that is correct. But what we need more than anything is to develop some confidence-building measures for the American people to demonstrate that we can come together, Republicans and Democrats alike, and do what needs to be done which almost everybody agrees is common sense and then we can follow on with other solutions on a targeted basis for our broken immigration system. I once believed, back in 2005, when Senator Jon Kyl from Arizona and I introduced something we called the Comprehensive Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2005, we should address this issue comprehensively. We tried in 2007. That bill failed on the Senate floor when Senator Reid pulled the bill from the floor. I believe now, given the temper of the times and given the skepticism with which the American people view us here in Congress, the only way we are going to crack this nut is to start small in targeted reforms such as the STEM Jobs Act. I believe this is the beginning and not the end of fixing what is broken about our immigration reform system. But if we cannot do this--if we cannot do this--I have next to no confidence we can do the rest that needs to be done as well. A final point. I believe we should be family-friendly when it comes to our immigration system. This STEM Jobs Act takes a very important step in making sure families can be unified. Under the current law, someone who has a green card is not entitled to bring their immediate family into the United States to live with them while they are waiting for their eligibility for a green card. The STEM Jobs Act, though, addresses that by recreating the V visa, which would help us retain more of the potential job creators but it would also help unify the immediate families of U.S. permanent residents. Right now, the spouses and children of U.S. permanent residents have to wait outside, to wait in line for their green card, which causes families to be separated-- something that none of us believes is an optimal situation. The STEM Jobs Act would let them wait inside the United States, unified with their loved ones until they are off the waiting list, which takes several years, and thus would promote family unification. That is yet another reason why this bill deserves our support. I yield to my distinguished colleague from Kentucky, who I know supports this approach, for any comments he would care to make.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the next 45 minutes be devoted to a colloquy between myself and my colleagues on this side of the aisle.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, tonight the Senate will vote on an amendment offered by the senior Senator from California that affects the lawful authority of the U.S. military to detain enemy belligerents during wartime. This issue is necessarily complicated and difficult because the universe of detainees at issue includes U.S. citizens who are captured on American soil while taking up arms against their fellow citizens in the name of a foreign power or global terrorist organization. This is not an abstract issue. The U.S. homeland remains a target for al Qaida terrorists, who hide among civilian populations and have successfully recruited our fellow citizens to carry out acts of terrorism. Some of my colleagues contend that U.S. citizens forfeit their citizenship when they commit terrorist acts or acts of war against their fellow citizens but that they nevertheless should be tried and treated as common criminals with all of the attendant constitutional rights. Others believe that U.S. citizen-enemy combatants forfeit their constitutional rights altogether and can be detained indefinitely by the military without any judicial review. I respectfully reject both of these positions. It is entirely consistent with both the Constitution and laws of war for the U.S. military to detain such individuals pursuant to a force authorization or war resolution until the cessation of hostilities. To be sure, there is historical precedent for this proposition. What is critical to remember and too often seems to be omitted from this debate is that a U.S. citizen or any other person lawfully inside our nation's borders-- who is detained by our military does not forfeit their rights to habeas corpus review in a Federal court. In other words, they retain the constitutional right to challenge their detention before an impartial civilian judge. The Supreme Court has noted that the ``writ of habeas corpus is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action.'' And, in fact, a citizen's right to habeas corpus extends all of the way to review by the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest Court in the land. In closing, what I find so confounding about this debate is the fact that groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International have urged the Senate to reject the Feinstein amendment. These groups have said that a vote against the Feinstein amendment would send a clear message about our commitment to constitutional rights. I respect the views and passion of these groups but would urge a vote against the amendment for a different reason: namely, I believe that we can keep faith with the Constitution and maintain the global fight against al-Qaida.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I thank the distinguished chair of the Armed Services Committee and ranking member for their work with us on this important amendment. The Veterans' Administration defines a backlogged claim as one that has been pending for more than 125 days. Scandalously, there are 600,000-plus backlogged claims in the Veterans' Administration system and about two-thirds of all pending claims are backlogged. There has been a lot of attention, particularly in my State and across the country, by veterans to this unacceptable situation. In my State we have currently at the Veterans' regional office in Texas a State agency called the Texas Veterans Commission that is working with both the Waco office and other field offices in Houston and elsewhere to clear these backlogs. The Texas Veterans Commission is doing outstanding work, working on a voluntary basis to help make sure veterans file fully developed claims which shortens the processing time dramatically. The goal of the Texas Veterans Commission is to reduce the backlog of VA claims in Texas by 17,000 in 1 year. You can see from the size of the problem this is an important first step but it is only that, a first step. The purpose of my amendment is to provide this useful model across the country, to require a plan from the Veterans' Administration to deal with this backlog. I am confident that Members will have no trouble voting for this amendment because I am sure they have heard what I have heard from my constituents about how outraged and upset they are at the current backlog of claims. In order to capitalize on the successful model we have implemented, this amendment would require the Veterans' Administration to report to Congress with a plan to address the claims backlog through partnerships between the Veterans' Administration and other entities including State veterans affairs offices and county veterans service offices, similar to the Texas Veterans Commission operation in my State. The purpose, of course, is to eliminate the current backlog of claims and ensure that new claims are fully developed when they are submitted, all with the purpose of making sure that we keep our commitments to veterans who have made great sacrifices serving our country, that we will keep our commitments to them, that we will keep our promises once they return home having suffered the wounds of war, both seen and unseen. I ask the support of my colleagues on this important amendment. I ask unanimous consent to set aside all pending amendments and call up Cornyn amendment No. 3158.

Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CORNYN. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin.) Without objection, it is so ordered. The Fiscal Cliff