John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I agree.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, at this time, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 4108 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I again congratulate the Senator from Arkansas and the Senator from Alaska for working on an important piece of bipartisan legislation, this reform of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This is very important to all Americans. I agree that we ought to be able to move through the amendments that are being offered. I have tried to offer amendments early so we don't backload them and create problems later in the week. I appreciate what the Senator from Arkansas had to say. I have one amendment pending. In a moment, I intend to offer another amendment, so it will be pending. I have told Senator Pryor that I am more than happy to agree to a short time agreement and a time for a vote after a debate and everybody has had a chance to be heard. These are not complicated amendments, but they are important. I hope we can move through this and vote on the amendments and complete our work shortly. I told Senator Pryor that I do have another amendment I would like to call up and get pending. Amendment No. 4108

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I thank the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. CORNYN. Well, I certainly hope that we do not see a repeat of this outrageous tax-and-spend budget this year, and that there is a great deal more honesty and transparency about what the Government is spending and how. I hope to see a return to fiscal discipline, with an eye on how today's budget will impact future generations.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, I remember when you were Budget chairman, Senator Gregg, we worked under the reconciliation process in fiscal year 2006 to reduce spending by nearly $40 billion over 5 years. Didn't the Democrats use reconciliation last year, too?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from New Hampshire, there was talk about a surplus, and then there ended up being a promise to extend middle-class tax cuts. I believe Senator Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, proposed an extension of certain tax cuts. I wonder if the Senator from New Hampshire can explain how you can have a surplus and then ultimately how that relates to tax cuts the Senator promised.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from New Hampshire, although he has pointed out this last year's budget raised taxes and failed to control spending--indeed, spending increased----

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to commend my colleagues for coming down to the floor and talking about Senator McCain, who won the Republican nomination for President last night as a result of his success in the Texas primary. If there is one thing I can relate to beyond his security credentials, it is his commitment to eliminating wasteful Washington spending and making sure we are good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. I would like to engage in a colloquy with my distinguished colleague from New Hampshire, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, about some aspects of the budget we are going to be considering first in the Budget Committee and then on the floor of the Senate as early as next week. Because this is front and center in terms of whether we are going to restore our reputation, frankly, as Senators who believe in limited Government, if we believe Government should work effectively and we should keep our promises when it comes to how we deal with the American people. I wish to ask the distinguished Senator, through the Chair: As we await the fiscal year 2009 budget today, I remember the majority last year, the Democrats, said they were very proud to announce a surplus as a result of that process. I would like to ask the Senator, how did that turn out?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from New Hampshire through the Chair: I remember the Budget Committee chairman saying on ``60 Minutes'' last March that ``We need to be tough on spending.'' Surely, as the architect of the fiscal year 2008 budget, he was able to do that; correct?

Mr. CORNYN. But I thought that the Democrats were congratulating themselves for the hard choices they had to make in order to comply with pay-go.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I agree with that.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I congratulate my friends, Senator Pryor and Senator Stevens, the principal cosponsors of this legislation. I had the great pleasure of working with Senator Pryor when he and I both were State attorneys general. As such, we were the chief consumer protection officers for our States and our citizens. I believe strongly in the importance of strong consumer protection laws. I believe this bill actually does something positive by adding to the resources available to the Federal Government by authorizing the State attorneys general under some circumstances to help make sure consumers are protected and the laws are enforced. There is also a concern I have. That has to do with the use of outside counsel when it comes to filing legislation on behalf of a sovereign State such as the State of Texas, the State of Arkansas, or the like. We have seen examples of abuses in the past where State attorneys general have essentially transferred their authority to outside lawyers and paid them a contingency fee based on whatever the value is of what they were able to recover by way of a judgment or settlement. This, unfortunately, has created an anomaly under our system of government where we have nonelected, nonaccountable private sector lawyers who are essentially making decisions on behalf of a sovereign State. If the people of my State, for example, don't agree with what they are doing, they essentially have no right nor ability to hold them accountable or to demonstrate their displeasure with what these outside counsel have done. There is also a tremendous--and, frankly, tragic from a historical perspective--abuse of this contingency fee arrangement when it comes to outside lawyers. In my own State, my predecessor, as attorney general, got caught up in one of these tragedies--there is no other word to describe it--and actually served time in the Federal penitentiary for directing some of the proceeds in the tobacco litigation to a friend, an outside lawyer in the case, something that, obviously, he should not have done and for which he has paid a high price. But it demonstrates the type of temptation and, indeed, the potential for corruption that exists when an elected official abdicates their responsibility and essentially hands it over to a private individual who is not accountable in a way that elected officials and public stewards of the public trust are. What this amendment does is say the State attorneys general who are authorized under this legislation to seek an injunction in Federal court to enforce Federal law--something I support--should play by the same rules regarding the recovery of costs and attorney's fees. Section 20(g) of the bill awards costs and attorney's fees whenever the attorney general of the State prevails in any civil action under Federal consumer protection laws. But the word ``prevails'' is not defined. Under the Consumer Product Safety Act and the Flammable Fabrics Act, the Federal Government can go to court to seek an interim or preliminary injunction against a company pending a determination by the Consumer Product Safety Commission whether a product violates either act. State attorneys general would be granted the same authority under section 20 of the bill. I support that because I think the additional resources over and above what the Department of Justice and the Federal Government currently have will help us be more vigilant when it comes to protecting consumer safety. But to charge costs and attorney's fees against a defendant based on a court's preliminary finding and before the Consumer Product Safety Commission determines whether any law was violated would be clearly unjust. The Consumer Product Safety Act already has standards governing when the Consumer Product Safety Commission can be awarded costs and attorney's fees. So my amendment would make sure these same standards would apply to State attorneys general who would be authorized to seek an injunction under the act, that they would be no better off and no worse off but actually in the same shoes as the current standard for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. My amendment also requires State attorneys general to play by the same rules with regard to contingency fees. We want attorneys general to bring civil cases to protect the public interest not to create a windfall for private sector lawyers. I believe this also is consistent with Executive order No. 13433 of May 16, 2007, that prohibits the Consumer Product Safety Commission and other Federal agencies from entering into contingency fee arrangements with private lawyers, and the same standard should apply to State attorneys general under this bill's new enforcement authorities. I have talked to my friend, Senator Pryor, former attorney general of the State of Arkansas. We have had a lawyerly discussion about why would we want to ban contingency fee arrangements when the only authority given to them under the statute is to seek an injunction and not recover money damages or fines. The fact is, creative lawyers can come up with ways to create a fee arrangement, even where only injunctive relief is sought. There is a case that he and I talked about where basically what happened is the contingency fee was calculated following an injunction based on what complying with that injunction would cost the defendant. Some percentage of that cost was then calculated as a contingency fee. Ironically, in that case it wasn't the defendant who paid that fee, it was the taxpayers of the State, in a further sort of ironic twist. There is a way for contingency fees to be calculated, even where the only authority granted is to seek an injunction. Finally, it is important that the Senate send a strong message about contingency fee arrangements with outside counsel under these circumstances for the purposes of this act because we know the Senate will not be the final word on this--there will be a conference committee--a strong statement by the Senate that while we believe that State attorneys general can perform a useful function in seeking injunctive relief, that we should not put them in a better position than the Consumer Product Safety Commission, nor should we see the kind of abuses that can occur with hiring outside counsel under contingency fee arrangements. I thank the distinguished Senator from Arkansas. I congratulate him on his good work. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have conferred with the distinguished Senator from Arkansas, the bill manager. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment, call up my amendment No. 4094, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from New Hampshire for his leadership as the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and somebody whom I think understands the complexities of the Federal budget better than just about anybody. I do not claim to have that same level of understanding, but what I do think I understand is what works and what does not work. I will cite as an example a story in today's Wall Street Journal comparing my State, Texas, to another State that I will not name for present purposes, and wondering why the economy is booming, why jobs are being created in Texas when jobs are leaving the other unnamed State. They cited three main reasons. One is the belief in the benefits of free trade and selling our goods and services overseas in a reciprocal free-trade arrangement. They cite lower taxes which provide more incentive for productivity. And they cite the fact that in Texas, you have a right to work without having to belong to a labor union. You can if you want to, but you don't have to in order to work. And I add to those three items, sensible tort reform, which has not only created a business environment in our State which says to employers: You are not prey for predatory activity on the part of the trial bar, but you are welcome in our State to create jobs. Yes, you are going to be held accountable, but we are not going to create a hostile litigation lottery which is going to chase jobs and employers out of our State. A lot of those basic principles which have helped make my State, the State of Texas, such a welcoming State for economic growth and prosperity and creating jobs and opportunity apply to the Federal budget, too, about which I wish to talk. Senator Gregg had this chart up which talks about last year's budget; frankly, things that were done last year that I hope we would have learned our lesson this year and will not repeat. For example, last year's budget anticipated a tax increase on the American people of $736 billion. One might ask: From where is that money going to come? Is Congress actually going to vote for a tax increase? We may recall that the tax relief that we passed in 2001 and 2003 was not permanent because we could not get sufficient votes to make it permanent, so it was temporary. A significant portion of that tax relief--the capital gains and the dividends reduction--will expire during this budget period. It will result, if it does expire, without Congress acting, in effectively the largest tax increase in American history--but here is the worst part--without a vote of Congress. In other words, by Congress's inaction, we will see the largest tax increase in American history, and that is part of the revenue that this budget that was passed last year anticipates. That contradicts the lesson I mentioned a moment ago that we have experienced in my State. We don't have a State income tax. We have tried to keep taxes as low as possible. It just makes common sense. You don't have to have a Ph.D. in economics to understand that if you want more of something, then you reduce the burden of producing it through lower taxes, through less regulation, and less litigation. If you want less of something, then you increase taxes, you increase regulation, you increase litigation. To me, that is the lesson we have learned, not only in my State, as I mentioned, but also in the Congress as a result of the tax relief we did pass in 2001 and 2003. We have seen more than 50 straight months of economic growth with more than 9 million new jobs created in the United States since 2003. Was that an accident? Was it serendipity? No, it was a result of reducing the burden of producing income and allowing taxpayers to keep more of what they earn, and it resulted, coincidentally, in some of the highest levels of revenue to the Federal Treasury because more people were working. They were incentivized to work harder and, as a consequence, they ended up paying more taxes which generated more revenue to the Federal Treasury, bringing the deficit down over what had originally been projected. Of course, keeping taxes low is part of the equation. The other part of the equation is spending. As Senator Gregg pointed out, this budget passed last year dramatically increased Federal spending. This is one of the hardest things Members of the Congress have to do because, of course, we have people coming to see us every day saying: Senator, I would like your help funding this transportation project or providing an appropriation to pay for this or for that. But the fact is, we need to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money, and we need to learn how to say no because it is in the best interest of our economy and, in the long run, it is in the best interest of the American people because when we increase spending, we grow the size of the Federal Government. As Government expands, individual liberty contracts. In other words, the bigger Government is, the less freedom we have to do what we want, as long as it is lawful. And what that means in the economic sphere is we are going to generate more economic activity, more revenue, create more jobs and more opportunity in the process. So greater spending, dramatically increasing spending, is exactly the wrong thing. We ought to cut spending, eliminate wasteful programs, particularly those--and I have spoken on this issue before. The Office of Management and Budget has a Web site called expectmore.gov. You can go there and see a thousand different Federal programs that have been surveyed by the Office of Management and Budget, 22 percent of which either there is no evidence that they are meeting their intended purpose or effective, in other words, or the Office of Management and Budget simply cannot tell. Those are exactly the kinds of programs, the kind of waste that ought to be eliminated to reduce spending so that we can spend where it is absolutely necessary on our national priorities. But eliminate that wasteful spending. This budget does not do that. Then, I think the most, frankly, shameful part of this budget is its failure to step up and recognize our responsibility to our children and our grandchildren who are depending on us to make sure they are not left with a debt they have to pay but, rather, they are left with, hopefully, a better life and better opportunity than we as their parents and our grandparents had. I know that is what my parents wanted for me and my brother and my sister. They wanted at least as good a life as they had, hopefully better. That is what every parent and every grandparent wants for their children and their grandchildren. What has this Congress done to make sure that can happen? Frankly, not much. Let me put it this way: not enough because what we see is a growing debt. This budget passed last year grew the debt by $2.5 trillion. I know it is hard to think in terms of trillions. I doubt there is a human mind that can really conceive of how big that is. I mentioned yesterday that a billion seconds ago it was 1976. We are talking about not billions but trillions--a huge amount of money. This budget grew the debt by $2.5 trillion but, frankly, what this proposed budget we are going to take up next week will in all likelihood fail to address is 66--6-6--$66 trillion in unfunded liabilities of the Federal Government. One might ask: We understand the budget deficit, but what is the debt? The deficit is the amount of money we overspend each year, but the debt is how much we owe to our children and grandchildren, the debt we are simply passing down to them by failing to fix the Medicare Program, failing to ensure that the Social Security Program is on a solid fiscal financial basis. The fact is, there is legislation that I hope will be offered during the course of this budget debate that a task force be created. As a matter of fact, the distinguished Democratic chairman of the Budget Committee and Senator Gregg, as ranking member, have proposed a task force so we can finally roll up our sleeves and come to grips with this growing financial crisis and the debt we are simply passing on to our children and grandchildren. I mentioned that $1 trillion is impossible, perhaps, for us to comprehend, but let me bring it down to a number that we all can understand; and that is $66 trillion in unfunded liabilities due to the Congress's failure to deal with this growing cost of entitlements-- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. If you divide that by every man, woman, and child in the United States of America, it comes down to about $175,000. So $66 trillion in unfunded liabilities, for entitlements primarily, boils down to $175,000 for every man, woman, and child, including the baby who was born last night. That baby was born into the United States--the most prosperous, the freest Nation in the world--burdened by $175,000 of debt because that baby's adult parents and the people they elect to Congress have failed to take responsibility to make sure that baby would be born into a world of prosperity, opportunity, and freedom. Instead, the baby has been born into a world that has that freedom and opportunity but also is burdened by $175,000 in debt. There are a lot of challenges that lie ahead, and I have other charts I won't bother the Members of the Senate with here today, but we have to have an important debate here as we write the Federal budget. I agree with the Senator from New Hampshire, this is not the President's budget. As a matter of fact, everybody knows what happens to a President's budget, whether it is a Democrat or Republican in the White House. It is basically ``dead on arrival'' at Congress. I could say it another way. The President proposes and Congress disposes the budget. But it is our responsibility to write that budget, and we should do so in a way that is fiscally responsible. We should also do it in a way that addresses the real pinch that average Americans feel when they fill up their gas tank and find that gasoline is $3.25, $3.50 a gallon, on its way to $4 a gallon probably this spring; and when they find that their health care costs continue to go up year after year after year such that they have less and less disposable income. Those are the sorts of things we ought to be paying attention to--reducing taxes, eliminating the debt, taking responsibility for that, and taking care of those bread-and-butter issues that the American people care about, because those are the ones that impact their quality of life on a day-to-day basis. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, next week we will be marking up and working on the budget for the Federal Government for fiscal year 2009. I wish to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about the budget we passed last year and to highlight a few areas of caution where I hope we will not repeat the mistakes this year in the budget we pass like we did in the budget we passed last year. First of all, in the fiscal year 2008 budget, the budget anticipated an increase in revenue--which is Washington speak for a tax increase-- of $736 billion that would be needed in order to meet the demands of that budget. Of course, we all know whom those tax hikes fall on. It is the middle-class families, the farmers, the entrepreneurs, the people we need in this country to remain productive and remain incentivized to keep our economy and job creation humming. Considering the economic situation we are in today, the last thing the Federal Government should do is increase taxes and create a wet blanket of deterrence on those very entrepreneurs and people who create the jobs. One example is, last year you will recall that Congress waited until the last possible moment to pass temporary tax relief, relieving the middle class from the alternative minimum tax--a tax that more and more middle-class families will soon pay. As a matter of fact, I think this is a perfect paradigm for what I have heard here as ``tax schemes designed to tax only the wealthy.'' You will recall that the alternative minimum tax, as originally conceived, was designed to tax only 155 taxpayers who were not otherwise paying Federal tax. But true to form for Washington, DC, and for, unfortunately, the Federal Government, this tax-the-wealthy scheme this last year affected 6 million taxpayers, and because it is not indexed for inflation, would have affected, if Congress had not acted, 23 million taxpayers--from 155 to 6 million to 23 million. But because Congress waited until the last possible moment to pass a 1-year patch or relief from the alternative minimum tax for the middle class, millions of taxpayers will see a delay in getting their refunds--money that belongs to them, after all, and not to Uncle Sam. We also saw, unfortunately, in last year's budget an attempt rebuffed; a bipartisan vote that would make it more difficult to pass tax increases. Last year, I offered an amendment that received a strong bipartisan vote that created a 60-vote budget point of order against any legislation that raised income taxes. Even though this amendment found broad bipartisan support here in the light of day, behind closed doors in the conference, this amendment was stripped out of the conference report and summarily buried. This amendment could have sent a strong message to the taxpayers that their Federal Government was more interested in ending wasteful spending than it was in picking their pockets. Unfortunately, as a result of the summary execution and burial of this amendment behind closed doors in the conference committee, the opposite message was sent: that Congress is more interested in getting their hands on the hard-earned money taxpayers earn and spending it on bigger and bigger Government--obviously, the wrong message and one that a bipartisan group of Senators was unwilling to support in the light of day but, unfortunately, the conference, behind closed doors, was willing to embrace. American taxpayers got a budget that would have spent $23 billion above the President's request last year. Now, a friend of mine in Texas likes to remind me from time to time how much a billion is because we throw numbers around up here--a million here, a billion there. A billion seconds ago it was 1976. A billion seconds ago it was 1976. We do not even seem to flinch at a budget that Congress passed that exceeded the President's request by $23 billion. In fact, over the next 5 years, the majority budgeted $205 billion over the President's request. Whatever happened to being good stewards of the taxpayers' money and trying to control Government spending so it does not run amok? Thankfully, we were able to stop this unwarranted expansion, and we were able to remain within the President's top line number for the current fiscal year. At the last minute, we were able to do that in December. When it comes to entitlement reform--something the majority promised to make a top priority when they took power--they did absolutely nothing to rein in the $66 trillion long-term entitlement crisis we are facing. It is no secret to anybody in this institution that entitlements are quickly eating more and more of the budget and will continue to gobble up more and more of our economic resources. As a matter of fact, I have in my hand a PowerPoint by the U.S. Government Accountability Office called ``Saving Our Future Requires Tough Choices Today,'' pointing out that in 1966, for example, 67 percent of the budget was discretionary spending. Today, it is 38 percent. That is because of the growth of entitlement spending from 26 percent in 1966 to 53 percent of the budget today. Mandatory spending, together with interest on the debt, amounts to 62 percent of the Federal budget today. If we do not do anything about it, by the year 2030, this Federal Government will be unable to fund anything else other than Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt. So I believe it is very important for us to avoid this fiscal meltdown--as entitlements kick in for the baby boom generation, and in a way that will make Government unaffordable for our children and our grandchildren. This story, as bad as it is, is even worse when you consider the fact that $185 billion in Social Security surpluses is spent for general Treasury items today. In other words, we are taking the money wage earners are paying into Social Security that is not currently needed to meet the obligations of Social Security and spending it for other purposes, making it even more likely that when our children and grandchildren come of age, they will not have any social safety net available to them through Social Security or Medicare. When you look further at this report of the Government Accountability Office, for fiscal year 2006 and 2007 deficits, you see that the deficit increases dramatically. If we do not begin to deal with reining in the entitlement spending crisis in this country, it will get nothing but worse. But while the news media tends to focus on deficits on an annual basis, the real crisis is the growing fiscal exposure due to long-term commitments, such as future Social Security benefits, future Medicare Part A benefits, future Medicare Part B benefits, future Medicare Part D benefits--our prescription drug provisions we passed a couple years ago. These lead to an ultimate liability for the American taxpayer of $52.7 trillion. So I talked about a million dollars. I talked about a billion dollars. Now we are talking about trillions of dollars--something that is nearly impossible for the human mind to conceive of, the number is so big. But let me give you a number you can understand, we can conceive of. Unless we deal with the growing entitlement crisis of Medicare and Social Security, not only will they run out of money, but the burden on each person in this country--the financial burden--will amount to $175,000 a person. So not only will we be unable to pay our young men and women who are working today the Social Security and Medicare benefits they should receive when they come of age, we will also burden them with a $175,000-per-person share of the Federal debt in the process. This is an IOU we will never repay. Of course, if the Federal budget continues to grow in terms of its requirement of paying entitlements--Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt--as I said, by 2030 there will be no money for anything else. We would not have the resources for other important priorities, including national defense, securing our borders, immigration enforcement, veterans health care, or education. Unfortunately, the budget that passed last year allowed the debt to increase by $2.5 trillion over the next 5 years. In other words, the message is consistent: We spend now and the next generations pick up the tab later on. I can only beg my colleagues not to follow the example they set last year. We cannot afford to take more money out of the hands of hard-working Americans in order to grease the gears of bigger and bigger Government. I fear the next budget will only be more of the same. We should not raise taxes on working families and small businesses. We should not wash our hands, as we did last year, of the entitlement tsunami we all know is approaching and threatening to engulf us, and we should not allow the debt to continue to grow so that the $175,000 share per person of the debt will continue to get bigger and bigger. I know we can do better, and we must do better. As the Budget Committee takes up the 2009 budget tomorrow in the committee and on Thursday when we will actually mark up the budget, and when it comes to the floor next week, I hope all of us will work together to make sure we don't continue to increase taxes and further dampen and soften the economy in a way that hastens a recession rather than avoids it. I hope we will step up and accept the responsibility each of us has to make sure we don't spend money today to impose a financial burden on our children and grandchildren tomorrow. We can do better and we must do better.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. 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 order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, we are confronted with a piece of legislation introduced by the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold, which calls for setting forth the global strategy of the United States to combat and defeat al-Qaida and its affiliates. The question I guess I would ask is: Where have those who propose a new strategy been? Have they been paying attention to the good news that has been coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan when it comes to our ability and our successes to combat global terrorism and particularly the threat of al-Qaida? I think the legislation that has been proposed is both misguided and unnecessarily duplicative of the efforts which I will describe here, which are ongoing, and would literally cause us to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. On a more basic level, I think this legislation misses the point. Every time I come back to work here in Washington, DC, I almost feel there is a parallel universe operating here in Washington where some have voluntarily suspended their powers of disbelief and ignored the facts that seem to me to be as plain as the nose on your face. But I think in light of the fact that this legislation has been introduced, we need to talk about it and provide the American people with the evidence with which they can make their own decisions about what is happening with regard to the fight against al-Qaida. This bill would require the administration to set forth a strategy for fighting al-Qaida. I do not know what the proponents think we have been doing since 9/11 but fighting al-Qaida wherever we may find them, but that is what the bill calls for. Of course, the bill also conveniently neglects the various strategies we have in place, including some that are classified which we cannot talk about here on the floor of the Senate, but which the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin as a member of the Intelligence Committee knows--because he is on the Intelligence Committee; he has been briefed in a classified setting about these strategies--he knows we have a number of strategies in place, and this proposal seems to act as if nothing has happened, when that is not the case at all. I would interject that overall in the operations against al-Qaida, in Iraq in 2007, we have seen the capture of 8,800 terrorists, while an additional 2,400 have been killed. Of those we captured or killed, 52 were senior emirs or commanders, 32 were leaders of improvised explosive device teams, 24 were cell leaders, and 92 were other facilitators. In other words, we have been effective in going after high-value targets in Iraq and literally decapitating the leadership of al-Qaida. That is the reason why al-Qaida is on the run in Iraq and, yes, even in Afghanistan. But to recapitulate, the various strategies that are already in place would seem to be ignored by this legislation. These include the President's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which was revised by the administration in September of 2006, and which outlines in a clear and straightforward fashion the strategic vision for the global war on terror. Also, there is the President's National Implementation Plan, which was completed in June of 2006. This document is a classified, comprehensive plan, so we are not going to talk about it on the floor in detail. But it provides for the execution of our national counterterrorism strategy, and it provides a detailed breakdown of which executive branch agencies are charged with carrying out the specific tasks and activities as part of that overall strategy. Now, Congress, as I said, is aware of all these documents. We get classified briefings. Any Member of Congress who cares enough about it can go to room 407 here in the Capitol and gain access to them. Additionally, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is conducting his own review of the al-Qaida strategy, which will be finished later this year. So it is a disingenuous and hollow argument, indeed, to say the administration or this country, the U.S. Government, lacks a coherent plan to neutralize al-Qaida or that the current strategy for combating al-Qaida is not working and it needs to be replaced. The numbers speak for themselves. I am going to go through these in rather quick order, but I think the numbers speak louder than words. During the period of May to June 2007, as this chart demonstrates, we have seen 26 al-Qaida in Iraq leaders captured or killed. They include some pretty evil characters, people such as Khalil al-Mashhadani, a senior Iraqi in the al-Qaida-Iraq network. He was a principal intermediary between al-Qaida senior leadership and Abu Ayyub al-Masri. He ordered all Iraqi emirs to wear suicide vests--a trend we are still seeing today--and confirmed in interrogation that al-Qaida lost the al- Anbar safe havens due to coalition operations and tribal engagements by the Awakening Groups, which I will talk about in a minute. He was captured in July and sentenced to death by an Iraqi court this past September. We have seen since that time, in July and August, senior terrorists captured or killed. It simply is not true to suggest that we are ineffective or not focused on capturing or killing al-Qaida's senior leadership in Iraq or wherever we may find them in Afghanistan or elsewhere. For example, in August, we were successful in capturing the emir of greater Samarra, the mastermind behind the destruction of the Samarra mosque in February of 2006, generally credited with unleashing the ethnic conflict which nearly led to a civil war in Iraq. He operated the Samarra terrorist network responsible for improvised explosive devices and vehicle bomb attacks. He orchestrated the Kirkuk courthouse bombing in June of 2006 that killed 20 and injured more than 100. This emir of greater Samarra was killed in a targeted raid this past August. But to remind my colleagues of the kinds of barbaric and evil attacks these al-Qaida leaders have perpetrated on their own people, by and large in Iraq, this individual orchestrated the Kirkuk courthouse bombing in June of 2006. He masterminded a vehicle bomb attack against the Iraqi Army checkpoint in Samarra in 2006, in which 29 Iraqi security forces were killed and another 66 injured. So that is August of 2007. As you can see, the numbers even go up in September of 2007, with senior terrorists captured or killed. Each one of these pictures on this chart is a different story: the brown squares depicting those who have been captured; the red squares indicate those who have been killed. Clearly, Iraqi, American, and coalition forces, along with our allies--the Iraqis who have basically turned state's evidence on al- Qaida in Iraq have allowed us the intelligence necessary to capture or kill some of the worst of the worst among al-Qaida in Iraq. In October of 2007, as you can see, the pace remains a steady one and a strong one in terms of capturing or killing al-Qaida's leadership. The fact of the matter is, we could put up a new chart for each month until this month and last month. The fact is, we are making enormous progress. So why in the world would this Senate want to change course and grab defeat from the jaws of victory, when it comes to putting al- Qaida on the run? I have to say on a contentious subject such as this, where it seems as though people have their own version of reality, the best evidence-- and one that is undeniable--is the fact we have not had another terrorist attack in the United States since September 11, 2001. While al-Qaida is on the minds of my colleagues, though, this is a valuable opportunity for us to talk about the fight against al-Qaida as part of the overall global war on terror. Today, al-Qaida and other like-minded radical jihadist groups still pose a very real threat to the safety of America's vital national security interests, both here and abroad. These Islamic extremists go under a lot of different names: Hezbollah, operating in Lebanon and in parts of Iran and Syria; Hamas; al-Qaida in Iraq; the Taliban--all of which have the common ideology which allows them somehow to celebrate the murder of innocent civilians as part of their twisted goals. Al-Qaida remains active not only in Iraq but worldwide. This is literally a franchise operation which in an Internet age allows like- minded radicals to communicate with one another, and through the use of relatively cheap explosives and human bombs to basically commit terror all around the world. It is the existence of this threat that warrants our continued vigilance and sustained efforts to neutralize them, and Congress must continue to support our military in defeating al-Qaida on every front. We have been successful. But it is important to recognize this threat is not only located in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is a global threat. Recently, ADM Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, outlined terror attacks prevented in New Jersey and Illinois--that is right, right here in the United States of America. He also outlined attacks that have been prevented abroad in Denmark, Spain, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In the opinion of those who know best--our intelligence professionals--this enemy and this threat is real. This enemy plans to attack us, and it is smart, adaptable, and ruthless. Somehow, some Members of the Senate have been able to convince themselves against all the evidence that al-Qaida is not present in Iraq and that if we fought al-Qaida in Afghanistan we would be safe here at home. The fact is, it is true the Taliban provided safe havens for al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has also found a safe haven in Iraq. But due to the great work of our young men and women in the military, due to our intelligence professionals, due to the intelligence we are able to gain from the cooperation of Iraqi citizens through the Awakening Councils, who have simply gotten fed up with the barbaric tactics of al-Qaida--the murder, the rape, the torture of their own people and thus have cooperated now with coalition forces to root out al-Qaida--we do have al-Qaida on the run in Iraq. But that is a fragile condition, and a trend we must continue, not only through the use of allied and coalition forces but through the rebuilding of the Iraqi police force and military, and encouraging citizens, such as the Awakening Councils, to come forward and provide intelligence. But the fact of the matter is, if the United States of America does not lead the fight in this global war on terror, more innocent people will die. There is no other country in the world that is capable as we are, that has the vital national security interests that we do, to fight this war. Again, this parallel universe that some occupy here in Washington, DC, that allowed them somehow to convince themselves that this threat is not real, defies the facts. There are those who propose countless resolutions in the Senate and the Congress to withdraw from Iraq based on a political or arbitrary timetable, which makes no sense. As the Iraq Study Group said, we should leave Iraq as soon as possible and define it not in political terms but in terms of conditions on the ground, and that is once the Iraqis are able to govern and defend themselves. We know that politicians here in Washington have declared the surge a failure before it even started, but they have had to come to grips with the fact that you are always in jeopardy when you bet against the men and women of the U.S. military and our leadership and under the leadership of people such as GEN David Petraeus and GEN Raymond Odierno. We have seen the surge of American troops, along with the increased capacity of the Iraqis to defend themselves, meet with enormous success and reverse a trend that was dangerously cascading toward a civil war and ethnic cleansing. But the fact is that despite the repeated efforts by some here in Congress who have declared defeat before this new strategy was even allowed to take hold have now had to deal with the fact that almost without exception, everyone who goes to Iraq comes back with the report that our men and women in uniform are being successful and that the surge is working. I went with a couple of my colleagues, Senator Isakson and Senator Coleman, to Iraq in January where we were able to ride, in armored vehicles, admittedly, to forward operating bases that previously had been lost to al-Qaida, where refugees had simply abandoned their shops and their homes given the threat posed to the Iraqi people themselves from this ruthless enemy. The fact is, people are moving back home. Shop owners are opening their shops. We were able to taste some of the bread cooked in a bakery in an area called Ghazaliya outside of Baghdad that previously could not operate. We went to a local department store that previously had to be closed and abandoned literally because of the threat of al-Qaida and looked at some of the wares for sale. So this debate that continues here in Washington seems to me to be increasingly out of touch with the reality in Iraq and the clear evidence that this new tactic, this counterinsurgency tactic being deployed by General Odierno, General Petraeus, and our men and women in uniform in Iraq is succeeding. It is because of that success that we are able to bring back by this summer roughly 40,000 troops to the loving arms of their families and in answer to the prayers of many Americans who wish to bring them home but bring them home with honor and after they have been successful in accomplishing the goals they set out to do. Now, because of the evidence of the military effort in Iraq, a combination of our coalition forces and Iraqis and local citizens cooperating to get al-Qaida on the run, there are those who said: Well, OK, the glass is not half full, it is still half empty. Where is the political reconciliation that is necessary for the Iraqis to govern themselves? While progress on the political front has been slower than any of us might have wished for, we are seeing very positive signs of political reconciliation. The Iraqi Parliament recently met some major milestones for success, and these are very important because these are the evidence of the political reconciliation many of the skeptics have looked for and pointed out as not having been met. So it is important to acknowledge the facts. First, they passed an accountability and justice law--the first major step in debaathification reform. We know that many of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party members were excluded from the new Iraq, and this is the first major step to allow people who do not have blood on their hands, who weren't part of the leadership of Saddam's Baath Party, responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, to allow them to take their first steps back into governing the new Iraq and participating in full civic life. In addition, just a few short weeks ago the Iraq Parliament passed three other significant pieces of legislation. They set a date for provincial elections, recognizing, as we do here in Washington, that not all wisdom emanates from the Nation's Capital, that they believe in local governance and regional governance, and that is why the provincial elections are so important as well. The Iraqi Government or Parliament allotted $48 billion for 2008 spending, meaning that because of increased oil revenue, they were able to take on more and more of the financial responsibilities of rebuilding and governing their own country. Finally, they provided limited amnesty to certain detainees in Iraqi custody--an important, although difficult, step to try to make sure the reconciliation occurs on an individual level so that people need not be permanently cast as outsiders and given nothing but the opportunity to undermine reconstruction and reconciliation but actually be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. The passage of the provincial powers law is one of the 18 benchmarks for reconciliation in Iraq which were set by the Congress just this last year. Despite this concrete evidence of improvement and of meeting benchmarks for political reconciliation, there are those here in Congress who have simply ignored those positive steps, not only on the security front but on the political reconciliation front. Unfortunately, it seems as if too often our partisan differences seem to overwhelm facts and common sense and the common interests of all of us in America in an Iraq that is able to govern and to defend itself because our shared goal--which is to bring home our troops--is one that could be met when conditions on the ground permit those troops to come home without squandering the blood and the treasure that have been spent in trying to restore democracy to a country that knew nothing other than the boot heel of a dictator for too many years. There are so many wonderful stories of success and commitment and patriotism in Iraq, and I would like to just close on this. I see my distinguished colleague from Wyoming on the floor, and I want to defer to him after another few minutes. I want to recognize and honor the great sacrifice by Texans deployed in harm's way in support of the global war on terror. Some of our troops serving in faraway battlefields since 9/11 have exhibited incredible bravery and heroism in the face of personal danger, and I wish to share one story of one Texan among many who has served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I wish to tell the story of SGT Omar Hernandez, assigned to Bravo Company, the 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, TX. Sergeant Hernandez has been awarded the Silver Star for exceptional bravery and gallantry in action against an enemy. He did this while serving as a team leader on a foot patrol in Baghdad. His patrol consisted of a squad of American soldiers, an interpreter, and eight Iraqi national policemen. Their mission, as is critical to the counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, was to secure the population, to make them feel safe. They moved from house to house on crowded Baghdad streets interviewing the local population as part of their job. During the course of one interview, though, Sergeant Hernandez and the Iraqi police accompanying him were moving to security positions on the outside of a home when they were suddenly engaged by several well- aimed bursts of machine gun fire from the south. Sergeant Hernandez immediately identified the enemy's location and returned fire, simultaneously instructing the Iraqi police to follow his lead. A second burst of well-aimed fire erupted from the enemy's position, wounding all three members of the team. Sergeant Hernandez himself sustained a gunshot wound to his right thigh. Both Iraqi police sustained serious injuries, immobilizing both of them. Not realizing the severity of their wounds, Sergeant Hernandez ordered the Iraqi policemen to follow him to a covered position behind a cement wall. As he continued to engage the enemy, Sergeant Hernandez realized that the Iraqi police were too badly injured to reach cover on their own. Seeing that these Iraqi policemen were stuck in the enemy's direct line of fire, Sergeant Hernandez went above and beyond the call of duty, risking his own life by running under direct fire to pull these Iraqi policemen to safety. Without covering fire, Sergeant Hernandez left his covered position--not once but twice--to move these wounded Iraqi policemen to a safer position. He did all of this despite the danger to himself and having a gunshot wound to his leg. Despite his injuries and despite the continued barrage of enemy fire, Sergeant Hernandez continued to fire on the enemy position. It was only after he was certain that the threat was eliminated that he finally allowed a squad mate to treat his wounds. Sergeant Hernandez is just one of many brave men and women who wear the uniform of the U.S. military who are serving nobly in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there is no doubt that his courage and strength were extraordinary, in some ways this is a typical sort of story of the bravery of our men and women in uniform. It should be clear that Sergeant Hernandez is representative of the quality and character of our military men and women. I think this also tells a story of the relationship that exists between our soldiers and Iraq security forces. They fight shoulder to shoulder. They fight and sacrifice together to make their country a better place so that peace and stability might come to Iraq and so that the forces of terror and extremism that wish America and our allies harm will find no sanctuary in that country. Sergeant Hernandez, thankfully, has now recovered from his wounds and is stationed at Fort Bliss out in El Paso, TX. He has a 17-month-old boy and has been married to his wife Jennifer Kay for 3 years. Sergeant Hernandez, it is worth noting, was on his third tour in Iraq. These young men and women and their incredible families are our most precious national asset. The tremendous sacrifices they make and have made over these last years ought to leave us with awe-struck silence. Think of what these men and women have invested in this war in terms of their sweat, their blood, tears and effort. What message would we be sending to these brave men and women when we tell them to come home when victory sits on the horizon? Sergeant Hernandez wouldn't abandon his colleagues in the Iraqi National Police force, but there are some here in Washington--a world away--who want to ask him and all of our troops to abandon the Iraqis and come home before the job is done. Those who have been clamoring for troop withdrawals for months upon months, regardless of the news from Iraq, all the while extolling the virtues of our military, I think have been telling only half the story. Yet, at the same time, they refuse to pass the critical funding, intelligence capabilities such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization bill which sits over in the House of Representatives and which, because of the failure to act by Speaker Pelosi and the leadership in the House, has left our intelligence authorities deaf to new terrorist targets that, if detected, would likely detour and defeat attacks against American citizens, both here and abroad. Mr. President, the American people often accuse politicians of saying one thing and doing another. But this is a clear case. Servicemembers such as Sergeant Hernandez deserve not only our words but our unmitigated support. I think our task is clear and that is to let our men and women in uniform do the job they have volunteered to do and which they are so ably performing. We ought to do nothing to deter or impede or obstruct their success, especially when success appears to be so much more clearly on the horizon than a few short months ago. But as these charts have indicated, we are having tremendous success in taking down al- Qaida--those who celebrate the murder of innocent civilians in pursuit of their own twisted goals. The last thing we need to do is to pass legislation that would literally draw defeat from the jaws of victory. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, we are advised by the Democratic cloakroom there will not be a member of the majority who will come in to use the remainder of their morning business time, so I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak during the remainder of that time as well as the 30 minutes allotted to the minority.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Will the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Republican leader--the majority whip has said there is some sort of crisis in logic, but I ask the minority leader to respond. Isn't the crisis in logic that the telecommunications carriers, whose cooperation is absolutely essential to the continuation of our ability to listen in on communications between terrorists, isn't that what is at risk here, by merely extending the current law and finally to come to grips with the bipartisan legislation that passed the Senate and is supported by a bipartisan majority in the House?

Mr. CORNYN. The Republican leader is aware that the House of Representatives only recently had widely publicized hearings into the use of steroids and human growth hormone by baseball players. There has also been an action taken recently to hold a former White House counsel and the Chief of Staff of the President in contempt. Yet there appears to be no time available on the House calendar to do things that actually would protect the lives of the American people. Perhaps it is an obvious answer, but it would seem to me to be clear that this ought to be a high priority. Before we get to these kinds of political machinations or perhaps publicity stunts, we ought to first protect the security of the American people by passing this bipartisan legislation.