Bob Casey

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I rise this morning to speak about two issues. The first will be on the matter that is before us, the veterans legislation. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this legislation. I commend the work of Chairman Sanders and others who have brought us to this point. We know we have a challenge ahead of us to pass this legislation. The good news is that these issues are bipartisan. Both parties have a real concern about what happens to our veterans and what happens to our veterans' families. We often have different pathways to get there, but I do think we have a bipartisan concern. Perhaps it is appropriate to start with a reflection on what I think our obligation is as Members of the Senate, but it is our obligation as citizens as well. Years ago I heard it expressed--we often express it by using the word ``worthy.'' When we consider what our veterans have done for us, it is important that we express gratitude in so many different ways. Sometimes that is one-on-one expressing to a veteran: We appreciate your service. And when there is a parade or another demonstration of public support for our veterans, that is important. But the question we have to ask ourselves both as elected officials and as citizens is the following: Are we doing everything we can to prove ourselves worthy of the valor of our veterans? The answer to that question--depending on what year it is or depending on what time period it is, we will get different answers to that question. Most of the time we like to believe that the Congress is worthy of the valor of those veterans, that we are doing everything we can to help them. But we have to be honest with ourselves and say that there are substantial periods of time when this body and the other body--both the Senate and the House--have not been worthy of the valor of our veterans because we haven't done enough to help veterans and their families. We hope, we pray this can be one of those moments when we prove ourselves worthy of the valor of those veterans who served their country. They didn't ask the price; they didn't put down conditions; they just served their country, and they asked us to enact legislation and policy that is commensurate with the sacrifice and the commitment they made to their country. It is about keeping promises, and I hope we can be in one of those moments right now. As many across the country know, the bill improves VA health care coverage. It reauthorizes important job-training programs for unemployed veterans and provides instate tuition assistance benefits for all post-9/11 veterans through the GI bill. We know that when we look at the unemployment data, some of the highest percentages for any sector or category are post-9/11 veterans-- a much higher unemployment rate than the overall unemployment rate and an even higher unemployment rate than all of their fellow veterans. In this case, for this bill, hundreds of people across Pennsylvania have reached out to my office, urging that the Senate pass this bill. It has the support from various veterans service organizations, including the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the American Legion, and the VFW, just to name a few. I wish to address a couple of provisions in the bill, ones that are particularly significant to Pennsylvania and some of the work we have been doing. The VA health care system in Pittsburgh had a terrible tragedy not too long ago where several veterans lost their lives while in the care of the VA health care system. There was a Legionnaires' outbreak. Legionella was the problem in the water system, and that terrible tragedy was obviously a devastating loss for those families. Not only the city of Pittsburgh but all of southwestern Pennsylvania was affected. We are thinking of them today when we reflect upon some of the provisions in this bill. Veterans and their loved ones need to feel confident and secure in the care they receive at all health care facilities. The failures--and there is no other way to describe them--that occurred at the VA in southwestern Pennsylvania surrounding this outbreak of Legionnaires' disease is, in a word, unacceptable. Frankly, that is not a strong enough word to express the outrage I know people felt across southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond, so I worked and it led to the introduction of legislation. Portions of what we worked on are included in this bill, and we are very pleased about that. Specifically, the bill requires the VA to implement local and State reporting requirements of infectious diseases. The bill also requires that the VA develop performance measures to assess whether the veterans integrated service networks and medical centers are complying with these requirements. We are pleased that is part of the legislation. Mr. President, I wish to highlight a part of the legislation that is very important to me. Fortunately, it includes the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Act, which Senator Toomey and I introduced last year. The bill renames the VA medical center on Woodland Avenue in Philadelphia after Corporal Crescenz. He was the city of Philadelphia's only Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam war. I will give a description of why he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam. We know it is the highest honor that can be granted to any soldier. In this case, for his actions in Vietnam on November 20, 1968, his Medal of Honor citation states that he gave his life when he ``left the relative safety of his own position, seized a nearby machine gun and, with complete disregard for his safety, charged 100 meters up a slope toward the enemy's bunkers which he effectively silenced. . . . As a direct result of his heroic actions, his company was able to maneuver freely with minimal danger and to complete its mission, defeating the enemy.'' We are grateful that his family will have some measure of peace of mind that his sacrifice and his service are remembered. I thank Chairman Sanders for including this in the bill, and I know Senator Toomey joins me in that note of gratitude. (The further remarks of Mr. Casey are printed in the Record under ``Morning Business.)

Mr. CASEY. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, as I have every year since I came to the Senate now 8 years ago, I rise today to commemorate Black History Month by paying tribute to a distinguished American. This year we are privileged to recognize Willie F. Johnson, a man who has enriched both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and our Nation through civic engagement and successful entrepreneurial endeavors. Willie Johnson's contributions both as a citizen and as the founder and chairman of PRWT Services, Inc.--one of the oldest and most significant minority-owned businesses in the United States--are a credit to both him and to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Today I am proud to share some of Willie's achievements and the examples he and PRWT have set of responsible corporate citizenship. PRWT does it all. It employs over 1,500 people, makes money for its shareholders, and still manages to give back to its community and its other stakeholders to an extent that few other for-profit companies ever achieve. Throughout his career, Willie Johnson has remained committed to his roots in social services and has never lost sight of the importance of the social and community impact of his work. Willie Johnson's professional life stands as a testament to his values. After graduating from Allen University in South Carolina with a degree in sociology, he earned a master's of social work from the University of Pennsylvania while serving as a house parent for the Philadelphia Development Center, a residential facility for young offenders. Willie pursued a long career in social services after graduating, working for 18 years as the regional commissioner of the Office of Social Services in the southeastern region of Pennsylvania, director of Youth Services Coordinating Office for the city of Pennsylvania, and finally as executive director of the Office of Employment and Training under the Office of the Mayor of Philadelphia. So he has served both our Commonwealth and the city of Philadelphia in that work. After years of serving the people of Philadelphia as a social administrator, Willie's commitment to job creation led him to consider whether he might be better able to benefit his community as an entrepreneur. So in 1983 he worked with partners to found Fidelity Systems, a cable/line construction company that hired and trained local residents to lay cable and work in equipment warehouses. Through this work, Willie became acquainted with the president of the Lockheed Martin company, who was interested in using technology to help State and local governments manage their businesses. In August of 1988 Willie joined with Paul Dandridge, Raymond A. Saulino, and William Turner to establish PRWT Services, Inc., which we now know by the acronym PRWT. PRWT received its first contract in its first year, providing parking services for the city of Philadelphia. The company would go on to secure a significant contract from Lockheed Martin, providing customer service and back-office staff to support Lockheed's technology, drawing on the workforce management expertise of Willie Johnson and his partners to better manage these resources. Over the years, PRWT expanded to provide business process outsourcing services for a variety of industries as well as serve many State and municipal governments nationwide. During Willie Johnson's two-decade tenure as CEO, PRWT grew to employ more than 1,500 workers in eight States and the District of Columbia. In 2001 PRWT acquired U.S. Facilities, Inc. That acquisition marked one of the first purchases of a publicly traded company by a minority- run business. In 2008 a PRWT subsidiary became the first minority-owned manufacturer of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States of America. In 2008, after experiencing a 120-percent increase in revenues, PRWT made the decision to become a publicly traded and owned company. Mindful of their significant role as a successful minority-owned business, Willie and his partners made their first public offering while maintaining majority shares to ensure that the company remained minority owned and run. Willie remains chairman of PRWT's board of directors, which has maintained its leadership and minority-owned status throughout the process of diversifying. As PRWT has expanded, Willie and his partners have maintained a focus on the community impact of their work. PRWT is generous with charitable contributions and investments and encourages its employees to volunteer and remain engaged in their communities. Willie has been just as engaged and committed to service outside of his work with PRWT. He serves on the boards of a number of national and Pennsylvania-based organizations, including the Philadelphia Tribune, which, as we all know, has been a leader of the Black press throughout its history, as well as a variety of educational institutions, including his alma mater Allen University, the Cheyney University Foundation, Girard College, and Community College of Philadelphia. Willie has contributed his significant business expertise to the boards of the African American Chamber of Commerce and the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, where he serves as a member of the executive committee. He has also continued his commitment to employment and job creation through his prior service as chair of the Transitional Work Corporation and membership on the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation Board. It should surprise no one that Willie Johnson and PRWT have been consistently recognized for their significant accomplishments and contributions. In the year 2001 PRWT received the U.S. Conference of Mayors Excellence in Public/Private Partnership Award. Black Enterprise Magazine has ranked PRWT in the top 100 for the past 9 years and in 2009 named them the Industrial/Service Company of the Year. In that same year, 2009, Ernst & Young honored Willie as Entrepreneur of the Year in the Greater Philadelphia region. Willie has noted that ``there is something very unique about Black enterprise: most Black enterprises develop and grow within their own community and within their own region because they are depending on their relationships.'' It is this dedication to community engagement which is a critical part of Willie Johnson's story and the story of PRWT, and it is that community engagement and commitment that we honor today. Willie Johnson has been a dedicated public servant, a trailblazer for Black business enterprise, and a deeply engaged citizen. Willie's path has touched the lives of many in our Commonwealth and our country. In building a world-class entrepreneurial, diversified company, while also remaining a responsible corporate citizen dedicated to community betterment, Willie and his partners have built PRWT into an example of the best corporations have to offer. So today, as we come to the end of the month that commemorates Black history, we express our gratitude for the important work Willie Johnson has done throughout his life in service to the people of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and our great Nation. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I wish to discuss the Agricultural Act of 2014, otherwise known as the farm bill. I sincerely appreciate the Agriculture Committee chairwoman's and ranking member's work in moving the process forward. I have made it a priority to keep Pennsylvania's agricultural industry and our rural economies strong to support Pennsylvanian families. Agriculture is the Commonwealth's largest industry. Pennsylvania's farm gate value--that is cash receipts to growers--is about $5.8 billion. Agribusiness in Pennsylvania is a $46.4 billion industry. Seventeen and one-half percent of Pennsylvanians are employed in the food and fiber system. What does this mean? It means that we must have a five-year farm bill. The farm bill creates economic opportunities in our rural areas and sustains the consumers and businesses that rely on our rural economy. This farm bill would reduce the deficit by approximately $23 billion through the elimination of some subsidies, the consolidation of programs and producing greater efficiencies in program delivery. Furthermore, dairy farmers deserve the best dairy program possible. The Senate bill contains many improvements that I support. Dairy is Pennsylvania's No. 1 agricultural sector. The dairy industry annually generates more than $1.8 billion in on-farm cash receipts, which represent about 32 percent of Pennsylvania's total agricultural receipts. There are so many other important items that come out of having a five-year farm bill. I am especially thankful to the chairwoman and ranking member for inclusion of a provision to establish cooperative lending pilot projects to aid administration of microloans. These projects will help provide business planning support and financial management expertise to farmers to ensure their success in order to foster economic development in agriculture and sustain farm profitability. Making risk management and crop insurance products work better for Pennsylvanians, especially small farmers, specialty crop farmers and organic farmers, is very important. Providing funding through risk management, conservation and agricultural marketing agencies to underserved states, the Agricultural Management Assistance, AMA, program helps to make the farm bill more equitable among regions. I genuinely appreciate the chairwoman's and ranking member's work to enhance the Agricultural Management Assistance program, including support for organic transition assistance. The improvements in this bill to crop insurance delivery are important. We have worked to address the unique concerns of specialty crop farmers and beginning farmers, and we have done so in a bipartisan way. Specialty crops are very important to Pennsylvanian agriculture. The Specialty Crops Research Initiative, SCRI, Specialty Crops Block Grant program and Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program all advance the specialty crops industry, playing a key role in ensuring that this important agricultural sector receives continued acknowledgement in the farm bill. These programs remain strong under this bill. In addition, the Nation's organic industry has grown exponentially from $3.6 billion in 1997 to $29 billion in 2010, with an annual growth rate of 19 percent from 1997-2008. In 2008, Pennsylvania was ranked 6th in number of organic farms with 586 and 3rd in sales at $212.7 million. I also support the improvements in promotion programs within the farm bill. Through research, we develop more efficient and effective farming methods. Research also helps producers maintain a competitive edge in the global market by fighting threatening diseases and pests. I am pleased that the farm bill invests in relevant and targeted research and maintains the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service programs that work to eradicate the invasive species that threaten our nation's forests and farms. The farm bill's forestry programs are essential for assisting forest landowners in managing threats and enhancing stewardship. I am pleased that the farm bill continues important forestry programs so that forest owners can continue to create new economic opportunities. I am also grateful to the chairwoman and ranking member for working with me to fix USDA's Biopreferred program to even the playing field for Pennsylvanian forestry products. Revenues from Pennsylvania's forest products industry exceed $5.5 billion annually. Over 10 percent of the State's manufacturing workforce is involved in the forest products industry. I am appreciative to the committee for the inclusion of my provision directing USDA to work with the Food and Drug Administration toward the development of a standard of identity for honey, a tool which will promote honesty and fair dealing and serve the interest of consumers and Pennsylvania's honey industry. The majority of our honey is imported, but because there is no standard, contaminated, low-quality honey continues to pass through customs and undercut our domestic product. Pennsylvania is a major player in the honey industry. Honey bee pollination can be directly attributed to the production of about $60 million of agricultural produce in Pennsylvania annually. I am committed to keeping Pennsylvania's rural communities strong and support rural development programs that provide access to capital for rural businesses to provide economic opportunities and create jobs. A rural community's viability in attracting and keeping businesses is often directly related to the condition of its infrastructure and facilities. USDA's Rural Development programs empower rural communities, transform local economies and preserve the quality of life in small towns across the Commonwealth. A rural economic development program that saves and creates jobs in rural economies and improves rural life is extremely important for Pennsylvanian families. Farmers are the original stewards of the land and continue to lead the charge in protecting our natural resources. I believe the voluntary conservation programs in the farm bill provide important tools to help farmers comply with Federal and State regulations while keeping farmers in business. I am committed to making conservation programs more efficient, effective and relevant to farmers. Conservation programs are an extremely important resource for many Pennsylvanian farmers. I worked with my Senate colleagues to support enhancements to conservation programs through this process in an effort to ensure that these remodeled programs would better serve the needs of Pennsylvanians. Pennsylvania's watersheds contribute more than half of the fresh water flowing to the Chesapeake Bay. While Pennsylvania does not border the bay, activities in the Commonwealth profoundly affect the bay's health. The bay's tributaries, such as Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers, are important to the region's economy, culture and outdoor recreation. Under the 2008 farm bill, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative, CBWI, provided essential support to farmers facing Federal and State regulations concerning water quality and helped to meet demand for conservation programs. In advance of the Agriculture Committee's consideration of the 2012 farm bill, I introduced the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Fairness Act, which among other things reauthorized the CBWI, because I know Pennsylvania farmers used this program very well. I am grateful that the 2014 farm bill contains portions of this legislation which are aimed at equipping farmers with the tools necessary to better meet water quality goals. To reduce the number of conservation programs, the farm bill consolidates four different programs into one that will provide competitive funds to regional partnerships and will also provide conservation funding directly to producers. CBWI was one of the programs that got folded into this new program. I worked very closely with other Senators from the watershed to strengthen the conservation title to better benefit our region. Together we secured significant policy improvements. The current bill focuses on the most critical conservation areas and will help farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed participate in conservation programs so that they can help the region meet water quality standards. Pennsylvania's agricultural producers and forest land owners use the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, to implement conservation practices, which might otherwise be cost prohibitive, to protect valuable natural resources. Further, the Farmland Protection Program, FPP, protects prime farmland from development. FPP is rolled into a new Agriculture Lands Easement, ALE, Program to help keep working lands preserved as farm land. I support USDA in its efforts to craft the rules of this program to allow flexibility so that States are allowed to use their own easement terms and conditions as long as they are consistent with the program purposes, in order to certify successful entities like the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Farmland Protection and improve the efficiency of this program. While I do not mention all of the farm bill conservation programs, I do believe that each serves an important purpose. My constituents, and all Americans, deserve some certainty and having a farm bill will put us in that direction. A comprehensive farm bill is something that I fought for years to enact and I certainly support the goal of a comprehensive Farm bill to provide long-term certainty for our farmers. Chairwoman Stabenow deserves a lot of credit for her tireless work to get this bill across the goal line. She managed the very difficult task of negotiating a bill that advanced without some of the most egregious and draconian proposals, including $39 billion in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, cuts that the House had passed. However, this farm bill contains cuts to SNAP that will be devastating for many of my constituents. There are 1.7 million SNAP recipients in Pennsylvania. I support changes in SNAP to increase accountability like stopping lottery winners from continuing to receive assistance and cracking down on retailers and recipients engaged in benefit trafficking. But this farm bill will adversely impact many children, seniors, people with disabilities and working families in Pennsylvania. According to the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, the SNAP cut in this farm bill will cause 175,000 Pennsylvanian households to lose, on average, $65 for food each month. These same households already saw a cut to their monthly benefits just 3 months ago when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA, increase in benefits expired. My guest for the 2014 State of the Union was Tianna Gaines-Turner, a Philadelphia woman who knows all too well the challenges working families face. Tianna lost her job in December and is the mother of a nine-year-old and twin six-year-olds. Her husband works in a minimum wage job. Tianna participates in a research and advocacy project founded by the Center for Hunger-Free Communities at Drexel University: ``Witnesses to Hunger.'' In 2008, Dr. Mariana Chilton provided cameras to 42 single mothers in Philadelphia, simply asking that they use them to take pictures to tell us about their lives and their children. These Witnesses to Hunger, seeing the opportunity to spread awareness and create change, accepted Dr. Chilton's challenge and started documenting the poverty and hunger that they face on a daily basis. Living it each day, these remarkable mothers understand the trials of hunger and raising a family more than anyone else. The Witnesses to Hunger inspire me and challenge me to do more in the Senate. I am incredibly grateful for the guidance they provide. Tianna wrote me a letter that said: Our voices and pictures show our pain, struggles. When you're voting, close your eyes and think of the picture of my children. Their hunger pains rest in your hands. Another Witness to Hunger, Angela Sutton's son Jahzaire wrote me a letter that said: I was told that you were cutting food stamps and I want to know why? I need food stamps so I can eat to be big and strong. So I can become Senator one day. Every child deserves adequate food so that the light inside them can continue to burn brightly. It is an impossible situation to raise a family and have to make the choice between heating a home or putting food on the table. Recent research from Children's HealthWatch demonstrated that improved SNAP benefit levels also have a positive impact on children's health. Children in families receiving SNAP were significantly more likely to be classified as ``well'' than were young children whose families were eligible but did not receive SNAP. Hunger and food insecurity is an unfortunate and preventable reality for many Pennsylvanians. Hunger affects working families, children, and older Americans across the Nation and not one community across this country is Hunger Free. Nearly half of all SNAP participants are children and 76 percent of families receiving SNAP have at least one employed member. Cutting SNAP is not a way to address the deficit. Moody's Analytics estimates that in a weak economy, every $1 increase in SNAP benefits generates $1.72 in economic activity. In fact, economic importance is demonstrated in part by Walmart, which on January 31, 2014 put out updated expectations for its fourth quarter. Its report stated: Despite a holiday season that delivered positive comps, two factors contributed to lower comp sales performance for the 14-week period for Walmart U.S. First, the sales impact from the reduction in SNAP (the U.S. government Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits that went into effect Nov. 1 is greater than we expected . . . CBO rated an increase in SNAP benefits as one of the two most cost- effective of all spending and tax options it examined for boosting growth and jobs in a weak economy. About 94.6 percent of Federal spending goes directly for food; administrative costs are low. SNAP's error rates stand at record lows; fewer than 2 percent of SNAP benefits are issued to households that do not meet all of the program's eligibility requirements. I am thankful that The Emergency Food Assistance Program will receive increased funding under this bill, but there is no way for our already- strained food banks to make up for the increased demand they will see due to the SNAP cuts in Pennsylvania. Therefore, I could not in good conscience vote for this bill. I want this Senate to think about the children of the Witnesses to Hunger and all others who face hunger in this Nation--and what more we can do to help them succeed in the face of low wages, unemployment or underemployment.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to my colleague, Max Baucus. Senator Baucus has been a leader in the areas of tax, trade, health, agriculture and the environment. I have served with him on the Finance Committee and the Agriculture Committee and have enjoyed working with him and learning from him. On the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus worked to improve the health care of all Americans, most notably with the passage of the Affordable Care Act. It should also be noted, one of his last acts as a Senator today was to introduce a bipartisan and bicameral agreement on Medicare physician payment reform. On the Agriculture Committee, he was a passionate advocate for farmers. Max leaves a legacy he should be proud of. I wish him well in China and thank him for his continued service.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I first want to commend and salute the work that has been done already on this legislation by the senior Senator from Maine and for her leadership. Senator Collins appropriately focused on the issue of jobs and jobs creation. I know in our State at present we are finally below the half million unemployed number. We went many months where the unemployment rates went as high as 550,000 people. It went down, but it hovered around half a million people for far too many months. We are below that. Now we are at about 443,000. That is still a big number--below 7 percent but just by a little bit. So job creation has to be job one for me and for most of us if not all of us in the Senate. If that is the reality, that our No. 1 obligation is job creation, we have to be able to show the people we represent that we are doing something about it. We cannot do much of anything unless we can get bipartisan cooperation. That is why I am so grateful Senator Collins has been willing to work with me on this legislation and to move it forward and to come together as a team to say to both of our leaders that we want to have legislative action on this bill this year. The reasons are pretty fundamental. If you have run a small business, you know what we are talking about. But even if you have not, even if you have not had that experience, you have encountered the challenges that small business owners face. In some cases it is not just challenges; it is real anxiety and worry that is compounded by uncertainty. There is uncertainty created by what does not happen in Washington or what does happen. When you shut the government down, that creates not just uncertainty but more than that. But there is also uncertainty when they do not see action here to bring the sides together. I am sure the Presiding Officer, who served as mayor of a big city, knows what it is like to talk to small business owners and to hear about their struggles, which have been especially acute in this very tough economy. One part of their struggle is that even if they can identify the problem and even maybe the solution to rectify the problem, they cannot hire a team of accountants or lawyers or tax professionals or consultants to help them. They often have to do these things on their own. Giving them some measure of certainty as it relates to tax policy would help enormously. So that is why we came together on the bill, the Small Business Tax Certainty and Growth Act. Senator Collins outlined some of the provisions. Let me just go through a couple of them by way of either reiteration or reemphasis. One she mentioned is the 15-year depreciation, what is sometimes referred to as the 15-year straight line depreciation schedule for restaurants. Why would we go back to the old policy which was that you had to get your increment--or piece of benefit I would call it--of depreciation in little slices over 39 years. Why not keep it at 15 years so that business owners know in each of those 15 years they are going to have a negative depreciation. It is a more realistic reflection of the useful economic life of the qualifying asset. It makes all the sense in the world to have that in place. Senator Collins also mentioned faster cost recovery that is reflected directly in a company's bottom line. It frees up cash that can be used to expand business operations and hire new workers. These tax provisions can actually allow folks to have the capacity to hire new workers. This is especially important in the restaurant industry which supports--get this number--535,000 jobs in Pennsylvania alone. That number is 13.5 million jobs nationwide in the restaurant industry. A study by the National Restaurant Association found that uncertainty about depreciation--the very thing we are talking about--and other tax provisions forced restaurants to forego improvement projects that would have produced around 200,000 jobs nationwide. So just one provision about one type of uncertainty could unleash substantial job creation. Secondly, the maximum allowable deduction, the so-called 179 expensing. Again, why should a business that is already under tremendous pressure to meet a bottom line, to be able to deliver a product or a service, and has all of those pressures--why should that business not have the certainty to know that this year and next year and for as long as they are in business, they can depend upon, rely upon a deduction level that is set at $250,000 instead of fluctuating as that number has fluctuated. So making that deduction permanent is critically important. This section, this so-called section 179, allows taxpayers to fully deduct certain capital asset purchases in the year that they make the purchase. This type of extension provides an important incentive for businesses to make capital investments. We want them to make those investments. But we cannot just say to them: Go ahead and make that investment, and we hope we can help you in some uncertain way. We need to tell them that the rules of the road are going to be much more certain. That is the one provision that we believe should be made permanent. The deduction under this section 179 has changed three times in the past 6 years. This unpredictably makes it difficult for businesses to plan, for obvious reasons, and neutralizes much of the impact. It is not worth much if you are not sure it is going to be in place the next year. So by making it permanent and indexing it to inflation is a very important point. By indexing it, the bill provides the kind of certainty that businesses need to take full advantage so that they can hire more workers--just what we are hoping they will do and just what we hope we can help them do. A third provision, the so-called bonus depreciation, would help small businesses in much the same way as the expensing rules I just talked about. The bonus depreciation allows companies to expense half the cost. Imagine that--half the cost of qualifying assets that they buy and put into service in the same year. It provides an added incentive. Again, that word is important because we try to put Tax Code provisions in place that incentivize the kinds of actions that lead to job growth. Here are two studies I will cite quickly. In a 2013 report the U.S. Treasury Office of Tax Analysis concluded that this particular provision, the 50-percent bonus depreciation policy, increased small business investment by 31.2 percent between 2008 and 2009. Whether you count that as 2 or 3 years, it is a rather short time period. That provision alone, that bonus depreciation, increased small business investment by more than 31 percent. A separate report from the same department, the Treasury Department, said that this provision lowered the cost of capital by 44.1 percent. So no matter how you measure it, this bonus depreciation policy works. It creates jobs, and it will keep working if we put it in place and provide added incentive. Two more provisions on deductions for start-up expenses are very important. In the accounting rules--we have heard this for years--just by doubling that threshold level for one particular type of accounting and allowing firms to have more leeway with those accounting rules, they will have much more certainty and a much better policy. In 2010, another study by the Kauffman Foundation found that start- ups and young firms were responsible for most of the job growth in our economy, creating 3 million jobs per year on average. So when you add up all of this, it is really about common sense. I do not say that in a theoretical way. We know these provisions work. We are certain of that. There is no dispute that each of those policies is directly responsible for substantial job growth. So that is the first thing we know. Second, we know they are supported across the board by both parties. Every Member of the Senate, even the newest Members, at one time or another has either voted for one of these provisions or supported it. So it makes sense in terms of the dynamic of how to get bipartisan legislation done here. We should put ourselves as best we can to stand, so-called, in the shoes of others. We should try to stand in the shoes of small business owners, try to understand what they are up against, and try to understand some of the pressures they face. One of the most difficult problems they face is something as simple as uncertainty. Putting these provisions in place would remove a substantial degree of uncertainty. If we can do that, they can unleash job creation the likes of which we probably have not seen in the last couple of years. I am grateful that Senator Collins was willing to work with me to move forward with this bipartisan legislation which will be an effective and a proven creator of jobs. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, today I wish to recognize the Pittsburgh Opera on their 75th anniversary. Since its founding by five dedicated women in 1939, the Pittsburgh Opera has consistently worked to foster new generations of artists and fans by making opera accessible to a diverse audience. The stated mission of the Pittsburgh Opera is ``to culturally enrich Pittsburgh and the tri-state area, and to draw national and international attention to the region''. Roughly 31,000 people attend one of their five opera productions each year. Over time, the Pittsburgh Opera established its own orchestra, has become a leader in the use of supertitles, and forming the Resident Artists Program to train young artists and increase awareness of opera, developing community programming throughout southwestern Pennsylvania. In so doing, the company has served not only Pittsburgh and the tristate area, but has become a respected national organization, attracting such luminaries as Luciano Pavarotti, Beverly Sills and Joan Sutherland. The Pittsburgh Opera has also been an invaluable steward for the future of opera and Pittsburgh's arts culture through its focus on environmental sustainability and fiscal management. In 2008, the company moved to new headquarters in the historic George Westinghouse Air Brake Factory, a cultural landmark that became the oldest LEED- certified building in Pittsburgh in 2011, making the Pittsburgh Opera the first opera company in the United States to receive LEED certification in the operations and maintenance category. Similarly, in 1997, general director Mark Weinstein sought, through financial management and long-range strategic planning, to ensure a sound future for the Pittsburgh Opera, increasing the company's assets and establishing a gold standard for financial management in the industry. This planning, as well as the establishment of the Artistic Excellence Project to raise funds for engaging elite singers and directors, has ensured that the Pittsburgh Opera will continue to serve as a cultural centerpiece of Pittsburgh and a respected leader in the greater opera community. Again, I want to congratulate the Pittsburgh Opera on the impressive achievement of their 75th anniversary. I wish them the best and look forward to their continued enrichment of the arts community both in Pittsburgh and nationwide.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to offer a few brief remarks. I am joined on the floor by my colleague Senator Toomey. We are both here tonight to read a list of names of those who gave, as President Lincoln said a long time ago, the last full measure of devotion to their country, Pennsylvanians who lost their lives in Operation Enduring Freedom. We know that since the beginning of the conflict, Pennsylvania now has lost to date--the latest number I have seen is 92 killed in action. Tonight we will read the names of five who gave that last full measure of devotion. Before I turn to my colleague, it is very hard for me to fully understand or appreciate what the loss of a loved one means when they lose their life in war. We often turn to quote Lincoln or the Scriptures. They are both appropriate. One of the best descriptions I heard was by the songwriter Bruce Springsteen. He was writing songs in the aftermath of 9/11. He had one song where the refrain was ``you're missing.'' Of course, it could apply to a family who lost someone in war. One of the lines in that song goes something like this: You are missing. When I turn out the light you're missing. When I close my eyes you're missing. And when I see the sunrise, you're missing. I can only turn to words such as that because I have never walked in those shoes, of being part of a family who lost someone in Iraq or Afghanistan or in any conflict. So tonight we pay tribute to those Pennsylvanians who gave so much to their country, and their families as well have given so much to their country. I am honored to be joined by my colleague Senator Toomey, who will begin to read the names.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for starting the list. I will read the remaining names. I should correct myself. I said five at the beginning. I had the count wrong. It is actually six individuals: SSG Thomas Baysore, Jr., United States Army, Milton, PA; SGT Patrick Hawkins, U.S. Army, Carlisle, PA; SSG Patrick Quinn, U.S. Army, Quarryville, PA. As I conclude the list of Pennsylvanians who were killed in action over the past year, I want to say again we honor them. We pay tribute to them. By this brief commemoration we remember them. We remember them and we also remember the families they left behind. To quote Lincoln a second time, he once wrote to a family, ``I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.'' None of us could say it better than Abraham Lincoln did. But we offer that prayer tonight to the families. So to the families of our fallen heroes, from these and from other conflicts, please know that they and you are in our thoughts and prayers. Again, I thank Senator Toomey. I yield the floor and would suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, today I wish to remember and honor former Pennsylvania Governor William W. Scranton who passed away July 28, 2013. In both his public and his private life, Governor Scranton was always working to serve Pennsylvania and the Nation. Bill Scranton was a descendent of colonists who came over on the Mayflower and his family founded Scranton, PA. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and was an assistant to Secretaries of State John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter during the Eisenhower administration. In 1960, Bill was elected to Congress and was dubbed a ``Kennedy Republican'' for his support of the President's programs, including the Peace Corps, urban renewal projects and the minimum wage. He would only serve 2 years in the House of Representatives, before he was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1962. As Governor, he signed into law legislation creating the State community college system, the State Board of Education, and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, PHEAA. During his four years in office, unemployment went down and wages went up. Limited to one term, he left elected office in 1967, but that did not end his public service. Under President Nixon, Governor Scranton served as a special envoy to the Middle East and after the Kent State University shooting in Ohio in 1970, President Nixon again called on him to serve, appointing him the Chairman of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest. President Ford also reached out to Governor Scranton to serve, appointing him Ambassador to the United Nations where he prioritized human rights. After leaving the United Nations, Bill Scranton retired. Throughout his life he was known as a man of integrity who said and did what he thought was right. In 2000, he received the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's Founders Award, which is given to a living person who represents the ideals of William Penn in individual rights, religious tolerance, representative government, public support of education, and free enterprise. Bill remained devoted to the city that bears his family name. He worked with various civic and charitable organizations and continued to advocate for economic development and job creation projects. His son, William W. Scranton III, followed him into public service as Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987. My thoughts are with his family and we thank him for his life of service to our Commonwealth and our country.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, as this year ends, I wish to remember and honor George M. Leader, a former Governor of Pennsylvania, who passed away on May 9, 2013. Throughout his life, Governor Leader worked to give voice to the voiceless and protect some of the most vulnerable Pennsylvanians. Governor Leader was raised on his parents' poultry farm and educated in a one room schoolhouse before going on to study philosophy, economics and political science at Gettysburg College. He served in the Navy during World War II and returned to open a chicken hatchery in York County, PA. He got his start in politics serving on the York County Democratic Committee then winning a seat vacated by his father to the State Senate. In 1954, he decided to run for Governor and won that election becoming, at age 37, the second youngest Governor in Pennsylvania. While in office, Governor Leader enacted the Industrial Development Authority in 1956 which provided State financing in order to attract new and diverse industries. The program attracted 71 new businesses and created 12,000 new jobs within the first 30 months. Governor Leader also championed civil rights in all forms. He created the Fair Employment Practices Council to police employment discrimination, and fought for William and Daisy Meyers' family when they were threatened for moving into a white neighborhood. He required Pennsylvania schools to educate children with disabilities, which raised the enrollment by 250,000. He created the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry's Vocational Rehabilitation Center, which was the first facility in the country that provided rehabilitation and job training for people with disabilities. He also established the State Office of Aging and began the inspection of nursing homes. Governor Leader left office in 1959, but that did not end his service to the people of Pennsylvania. He established Leader Health Care Organization and later Country Meadows and Providence Place Retirement Communities to provide high quality retirement services for our older citizens. Hubert Humphrey once said that the moral test of government is how it treats those in the dawn of life, those in the twilight of life and those in the shadows of life. Governor Leader not only passed this test, he set a standard for other elected officials to follow. My thoughts are with the Leader family during this holiday season and we thank George Leader for his life of service to our Commonwealth and our country.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, echoing the comments of my colleague from Florida, I am pleased that the budget includes language to address the fraud that is perpetrated with information from the Death Master File. Tax fraud is a large and growing problem. We know that. In 2012, for example, the IRS reported that they identified over 1.2 million identity theft returns. As of June 2013, they identified 1.6 million for this year. Thousands of these cases involve the identities of deceased taxpayers. A recent audit of the 2011 tax year identified 19,000 fraudulent returns from recently deceased taxpayers. Under current practice, for $10, criminals can purchase the full name, Social Security number, date of birth, and date of death of a deceased citizen or legal resident. As a member of the Finance Committee, I have worked with my colleagues to address this issue. I am pleased to see the language limiting access to the Death Master File in the budget deal. As Commerce begins its rulemaking, it is essential to strike the correct balance. The reality is that the Death Master File is used by companies across Pennsylvania and the Nation to prevent fraud and provide other essential consumer protections. Banks, investment companies, insurers, and numerous other businesses run this file to ensure the identity of those accessing their services. Striking the correct balance in the regulatory process is critical to ensuring the continued legitimate use of this information. Businesses and those who contract for assistance with fraud prevention and other businesses must maintain access to the file. Furthermore, access must remain available as those regulations are promulgated. In short, as a certification program is set up, it is important that we get it right. The Death Master File is critical to fraud prevention and must remain available to legitimate users. To that point, I ask the Senator from Washington, the distinguished chairwoman, is it the intention of the Bipartisan Budget Act for the Commerce Department to seek input from stakeholders as it creates the certification program to ensure legitimate users maintain access to the file?

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, today I wish to honor Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's impressive feat of preserving 100,000 acres of farmland. Lancaster County became the first county in the Nation to preserve this many acres of farmland, a full 25 percent of all land available for farming in the county. My father, Governor Robert P. Casey, served as Governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995 and signed into law the State farmland preservation program. Governor Casey made preserving farmland a high priority to ensure that Pennsylvania's farmers could continue to produce agricultural products and sustain the Commonwealth's number one industry. Farmland preservation is one of Pennsylvania's noblest accomplishments. There are a lot of words that can describe this achievement. But the one word that I think is most important is the word sacred. This is truly a sacred act. Reflecting on this tremendous milestone, I am reminded of a line from the Prayer of Saint Francis, which reads ``For it is in giving that we receive.'' When I think about conservation, I am inspired by the gifts which flow so directly from the preservation of land. Conserved lands purify our water, clean our air and maintain open spaces. Conserved lands serve as precious wildlife habitat, allowing species to forage and to flourish. We know that bees, which provide sweet honey and pollinate our crops, are searching for habitat in these modern times. Lancaster County's triumph in conservation helps afford bees, which have lived on Earth for more than 100 million years, a place to inhabit. Another gift created when farmers, foresters and ranchers conserve lands is the knowledge that these critical professions--these cherished ways of life--will continue to have a valued role in American society for many generations to come. In giving lands over to the committed purpose of conservation, people receive bountiful rewards. As a government official, I believe in the transformative and restorative qualities of conservation easements. I will work to ensure vital conservation programs continue to work for Pennsylvanians and partner organizations, such as the Lancaster Farmland Trust and the Lancaster County Agricultural Preserve Board. Furthermore, more than half of Pennsylvania and most all of Lancaster County lies within the Chesapeake Bay watershed--and approximately 3 million people live in this area. The challenges of farming in this region are significant. Thus efficient, effective and relevant Federal conservation programs are critical to farmers' success. In advance of the Senate agriculture committee's consideration of the 2012 farm bill, I introduced the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Fairness Act, legislation aimed at helping farmers to better implement beneficial conservation practices and to meet water quality goals in the watershed. The 2013 Senate bill contains portions of this legislation and features additional improvements that better ensure that the remodeled conservation programs will serve the needs of farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As we move forward with the farm bill, providing farmers in the watershed with the conservation tools included in the Senate bill is extremely important. Federal farm land conservation programs must remain strong. The voluntary conservation programs in the farm bill provide important tools to help farmers comply with Federal and State regulations while keeping farmers in business. Of particular importance to Pennsylvanians are programs like the proposed Agricultural Land Easements program, designed to take over the current Farmland Protection Program, which helps to preserve working farm lands from development. These conservation programs must continue to work for Pennsylvanians and those across the Nation who desire to perform the sacred act of preserving farmland so our future generations can continue to provide us with food, fiber and fuel for the benefit of all.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I stand today to recognize the 5- year anniversary of Witnesses to Hunger. Launched in 2008, Witnesses to Hunger is a research and advocacy project founded by the Center for Hunger-Free Communities at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. In 2008, Dr. Mariana Chilton provided cameras to 42 single-parent women in Philadelphia, simply asking that they use them to take pictures to tell us about their lives and their children. These women, seeing the opportunity to spread awareness and create change, accepted Dr. Chilton's challenge and started documenting the poverty and hunger that they face on a daily basis. Their photographs provide a window into the lives of mothers who understand the challenges of raising a family on a limited income. Since inception this project has grown, expanding throughout Pennsylvania and the country. Over the last 5 years, the Witnesses have grown by more than 29 participants. By encouraging advocacy and community engagement, Witnesses to Hunger has empowered mothers in cities across the country by uniting their voices. Living it each day, these remarkable mothers understand the trials of hunger and raising a family more than anyone else. These powerful photographs serve to start a dialogue and bring much needed attention to the issues that impact their lives daily. Photography is an opportunity for these women to share their lives with others. I had the privilege of bringing the Witnesses to Hunger's exhibit to Capitol Hill in Washington DC, the State Capital in Harrisburg, PA and to several other cities within the Commonwealth. I am humbled to have played a small part in sharing the stories of their lives. These women have begun a movement that has inspired countless others and will inspire many more yet to come. They inspire me and challenge me to do more in the Senate. I am incredibly grateful for the guidance they provide. We need more projects like Witnesses to Hunger to continue to raise awareness of the struggles that everyday mothers go through to raise a family in communities across the country.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to talk about the matter that is before us, which is the National Defense Authorization Act. I don't think we have to make a fulsome argument tonight that it is very important we pass this authorization act for the fundamental purpose of making sure we can, at a minimum, complete action in the very near future on authorizing a whole range of programs that keep our people safe and ensure our national security. I am confident we will do that, but that is vitally important. I rise tonight to talk about one aspect of that challenge--and, again, it is just one part of our national security interest--relating specifically to what has been happening in Afghanistan over the last decade, and particularly to women and girls in Afghanistan. The amendment I have introduced and will be speaking on behalf of tonight is amendment No. 2172, which regards the security of Afghan women and girls. For the past 12 years, United States servicemembers have been deployed in Afghanistan fighting the insurgency there. Their sacrifice--the sacrifices of our own people--have created a space for Afghan democracy to take root and for a civil society to develop. It is imperative as we draw down U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan we remain focused on the United States long-term strategic interest in the region. It is in the United States national security interest for Afghanistan to remain stable, secure, and democratic. We have seen from a distance what life under the Taliban looks like in Afghanistan when the Taliban was in charge. We also can see with the perspective of recent history what it has looked like since the Taliban was removed. A return to their rule, however, will not only set back the progress that has been made, but it will also allow the forces of intolerance and extremism to triumph. So 2014 marks a significant transition in Afghanistan. U.S. and coalition forces will draw down while voters will go to the polls to choose their second democratically elected president. We are considering this year's National Defense Authorization Act with just 6 weeks remaining before the beginning of 2014. Our military families are welcoming back soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who have seen more than a decade of conflict in Afghanistan. When I meet-- as I know the Presiding Officer and other Members of the Senate do-- with servicemembers who have served in Afghanistan, I never forget--as none of us must ever forget--their sacrifice, their determination, and their valor. Since October of 2001, Americans have fought for a stable, prosperous, and democratic Afghanistan. On my trips to Afghanistan, which now number three, I have come to understand that women and girls often display remarkable courage but are often the most vulnerable targets. But great progress has been made, and I will just mention a couple of examples. About a decade ago, almost no girls were in school in Afghanistan-- very close to, if not, zero. The number of Afghan girls in school now is 2.4 million, and women represent more than 27 percent of Afghans serving in parliament. A small but brave corps of women has joined the Afghan National Security Forces in service to their country. None of this would have been possible just a little more than a decade ago--12 years ago. Whenever I meet with them, Afghan women emphasize they are not willing to give up--nor should they be--on the gains they have achieved with help from the American people. Just yesterday I met with Nilofar Sakhi, who is working to promote women in the workforce. Hearing her commitment to advancing the role of women firsthand, as I did yesterday, further motivated me to introduce and advance this amendment. During my last trip to Afghanistan I met with Fawzia Koofi, who is an inspiring lawmaker and women's rights advocate. As a mother of two young daughters, she has worked to instill the importance of education and to make sure her daughters understand that. She now serves in a leadership role in the Afghan parliament. I would also mention when we were meeting with her she talked about how both her father and her husband had been killed because they were politically active. Yet even in the face of that, she has put herself forward to serve in public office in Afghanistan. A third example, another brave woman showing the people of the world what it means to serve and to act even in the face of danger, is Suraya Pakhzad, who lives in Herat. Ms. Pakhzad recently traveled to the United States and visited not just my home State of Pennsylvania but literally the county I live in and impressed the people there, as she always does. Suraya is a true entrepreneur and philanthropist. With U.S. government support she has opened a women's shelter in Baghdis province. That is just the beginning of what we could say about her service. We don't have enough time tonight to give more examples, but Suraya has been a great example to me and to so many others. These three inspiring stories I have talked about are just a few of the many, but I am deeply concerned--and I know a lot of people are-- that we have already begun to see the progress on Afghans women's rights and security being rolled back. In an effort to honor the sacrifice the American people have made to help women and girls in Afghanistan, I, along with Senator Ayotte, have introduced an amendment to this authorization act to ensure those gains are not degraded. The amendment is No. 2172, and I am grateful to Senator Ayotte for her work and for her leadership on this issue. It is clear as can be that the security of Afghan women and girls is not simply about their own security and its value and importance. It is also critically important to the long-term future of the country. We know if more women and girls are allowed to be educated--to go to school and to learn, and to grow and to achieve--that, in and of itself, has an economic impact, a positive impact, on a woman and her family but also on the economy of Afghanistan. The question is what steps are we going to take to ensure not just their own security but the security of the country. If they advance, if women and girls in Afghanistan advance, Afghanistan will be a safer place. It is likely the threat of terrorism will be reduced because of the direct involvement of women in the economy and in the life of the people in Afghanistan. Let me quickly summarize what the amendment does. First, it focuses on political transition. Afghanistan will hold, as I mentioned before, historic elections in April. As the country votes for a president--a president that will help Afghanistan transition from conflict--it is critical that women not be disenfranchised. Therefore, this amendment seeks to ensure the adequate staffing of polling stations by female officers. Second, the other part of the transition, of course, is the security transition. This bill would also improve awareness and responsiveness among Afghan National Security Forces personnel regarding the unique challenges that women confront. It will also focus on the recruitment and retention of women in the Afghan National Security Forces. It would be, to use just one word, unconscionable to abandon the women and girls of Afghanistan who have made such great progress. If we take steps that lead to the abandonment of women and girls in Afghanistan during this transition--this drawdown--we will be making a terrible mistake, and we will not have honored the sacrifice of our own service men and women, and we will be harming the important transition that is taking place in Afghanistan. This legislation will demonstrate not just our commitment and dedication to this important goal but it will also ensure a much brighter future not just for that young girl or woman in Afghanistan and their family, but it will ensure literally a safer and more secure and much less extreme situation in Afghanistan, when we consider all of the threats that are present there on a daily basis. So I urge my colleagues to support in this authorization process amendment No. 2172, and I again want to commend and salute the work of Senator Ayotte on this very important priority for the United States. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, today I wish to recognize the 40th anniversary of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Since its founding, the University of Pennsylvania has been at the forefront of education. It is one of the oldest universities in the United States, founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin who later went out on to found the Nation's first hospital, Pennsylvania Hospital. From its inception the university was a leader in medical care and research which culminated in the creation of the Nation's first school of medicine in 1765 and then the first teaching hospital, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 1874. Today, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania is ranked in the top 5 best medical schools in the country and the hospital is ranked in the top 15 best hospitals. With the growing diagnoses of cancer throughout the world, in 1973 a dedicated team of specialists established a center that would bring together all cancer research at the university, which one year later was designated a comprehensive cancer center by National Cancer Institute, NCI, one of only 41 in the country. In 2002, the center changed its name to the Abramson Cancer Center after the generous donation from Leonard and Madlyn Abramson. This gift allowed the center to conduct innovative cancer research and improve the quality of care for patients. The Abramson Cancer Center is composed of 318 faculty members from 37 departments and 8 schools within the University of Pennsylvania. In 2010, the NCI described the quality of care at the center as ``exceptional.'' One of the reasons the Abramson Cancer Center is ranked among the top 15 cancer centers in the country is because of its outstanding faculty collaboration. Healthcare professionals including medical and radiation oncologists, counselors, dieticians, and rehabilitation specialists work together to ensure that patients receive the most comprehensive care possible. Having the Madlyn and Leonard Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute as a part of the university research facilities ensures that the transition between the laboratory and the clinical care setting is expedited. This guarantees that patients are able to receive the cutting-edge treatment and prevention options they need. Since its establishment, the Abramson Cancer Center has been essential in the fight to cure cancer. The center works to achieve this through extensive research, innovative clinical trials and exceptional cancer care. I am proud that the Abramson Cancer Center is located in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and wish to congratulate and recognize them on their 40th anniversary.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I was with my wife today, who was recovering from surgery, but had I been present I would have proudly cast my vote in favor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). As a cosponsor of ENDA, I am grateful for today's bipartisan Senate vote, and I was pleased to vote for cloture earlier this week. Despite the progress our Nation has made in ensuring equality for all, more than one in five lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender employees have experienced workplace discrimination. That is completely unacceptable and Congress is long overdue in extending workplace protections to the LGBT community. Workers should be judged on the quality of the job they do, not who they are. I applaud today's vote and hope that the House of Representatives will quickly follow the Senate and work in a bipartisan way to send this legislation to the President for signing.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today on a day when we are ever hopeful that we will be able to complete legislation tonight that will remove the threat of a default as well as to open the government and to allow us to go forward now with negotiations on short-term budget issues for the next year and even beyond. I am confident that will happen, that we will be able to complete most or all of the work tonight. In a larger sense, the reason it is vitally important we get this agreement effectuated is because there are an awful lot of people out there hurting, and hurting for several reasons. We have had a recovering economy, but job growth hasn't moved fast enough. We still have, by way of example in Pennsylvania, over \1/2\ million people out of work--at last count, 501,000 Pennsylvanians out of work. The percentage number really doesn't tell you much. It has been hovering around 7\1/2\ percent or a little higher for a long while, but more than \1/2\ million people out of work is devastating. As the Presiding Officer knows, his State of Ohio and Pennsylvania have a lot of similarities in terms of our workforce. When I go across Pennsylvania, we have sometimes the biggest urban areas, such as Philadelphia, still having high unemployment numbers, and sometimes very small counties having an equally high percentage of people out of work. My home area of northeastern Pennsylvania has still far too many people out of work. So when you add a tough economy still for a lot of people, plus the impact of the indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts by way of sequestration--which I believe is bad public policy, and we will talk more about that later, and it will be the subject of greater debate than it has been--and, thirdly, you add the impact of the shutdown, and, finally, you add this time of coming perilously close to a default, it has been, for all those reasons, a difficult period for the country and a very difficult period for those who are trying to make ends meet every day. We have a chance in the next couple of hours to vote in a manner that will lift some of that anxiety, some of that worry. I was here this past weekend on the floor talking about a letter I had received from a woman in northeastern Pennsylvania. She talked about her circumstance and her husband's circumstance as a result of the government shutdown, but then she talked about her parents, ages 85 and 83. Here is what she said about her parents: . . . they should not have this uncertainty. These should be their golden years. It breaks my heart to hear my mother saying she can't sleep and has a stomachache from the worry about where our country is headed. Middle and low income families cannot afford another economic downturn. We are just barely recovering from the last one. That letter that came from northeastern Pennsylvania I think spoke for people across our State and across our country as to what people have been living through, trying to recover from the recession of several years ago and then being hit with a government shutdown and then our coming to the brink of default. For all those reasons, we hope the work that is done today with the compromise agreement Majority Leader Reid and Republican Leader McConnell have entered into becomes the consensus not only here in the Senate but in the House as well. No legislation can remove all of the anxiety and the worry people have, but certainly it will provide some measure of relief for families. We had another story that came to us yesterday of a family in Pennsylvania, led by the mother of the family. Kelly Brown is her name. She has four children, and the children's ages are 17, 14, and she has two 9-year-old twins. This story was in the Pottstown Mercury, Tuesday, October 15. Kelly's story is emblematic of the impact of the shutdown-- just the shutdown itself--and what that did to her. Kelly is in an apartment in southeastern Pennsylvania with her four children. She was moving along the path to getting a mortgage and being able to move into a house kind of one county over, not too far from where she was living. In the first couple paragraphs of the story, it says: Then the government shutdown froze her mortgage. And over the weekend, the home's seller notified Brown that she couldn't wait any longer. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this story dated October 15 of this year entitled ``Gov't shutdown could leave single mom, kids, homeless.''

Mr. CASEY. My office is working with Kelly now to see if we can't be helpful. But the point is she should never have had to go through that anxiety and worry, and risk not being able to move into that house that she had a chance to move into. That is what real life is. Real life is trying to complete a mortgage application and moving along to go from an apartment to a home with your four children and being stopped because of a shutdown here. And in the case of the earlier letter I referred to, it is a daughter talking about her parents and the worry they have, and the literally sleepless nights and pain and anxiety because of what is happening or not happening here in Washington. We hope and pray on days such as this that the actions taken will lift some of that anxiety and provide a measure--and maybe it will only be a very small measure--of comfort and what we hope will be some degree of stability. I think once we get past this period, we can get back to the work the American people expect us to focus on, which is--if I could put this in a sound bite, what I hear from people in Pennsylvania saying they hope I will do as one of their representatives--that we will work together to create jobs or work together to help the middle class, work together to move the economy forward, or some variation of that, and that is what we hope to get to. As important as it is to begin the process of talking about and negotiating on a budget for the next year and on the longer term fiscal question, it is very important for both parties to get back to the focus of building a stronger middle class and building a stronger economy. You don't have to go very far or read the paper for many days to find evidence that the middle class has never been more under siege, never been more undermined or weakened over time than the middle class is today. On September 19 of this year, in The New York Times, there was a graph--I won't put the graph in the record but I will summarize it very briefly--of all kinds of data that indicated what has happened to the middle class in the last generation. The headline over the description of the graphs was ``standing still,'' with a big question mark. The point it makes is that the middle class is virtually where it was many years ago, if not further behind. I am quoting from some of that summary where it says: The costs of maintaining a middle-class life-style have increased. Then in the middle of the page there is a graph that talks about the middle 20 percent of the country--basically what most would describe as the middle class. And in that 20 percent you can tell, just from a little more than a generation--this graph goes from 1967 to 2012--that the share of total income of that middle 20 percent of the country has gone from 17.1 percent to 14.8. That is a substantial erosion of income for the middle class. That is a problem and a challenge we should work on in the days ahead, in addition to working on our budget. I will make one final point about what we should do on the other side of this important work we are going to do today to complete this agreement and to lift the threat of default and to make sure we open the government and move to negotiations. On July 20 of this year there was a long piece in The New York Times about not just the middle class but also about other measures of how we are doing as a country. Two data points jumped out at me and, frankly, would outrage anyone reading it. They listed the top 20 countries that are our peers. This category was the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, so-called OECD countries--in other words, the 20 countries in the world that are most similar to the United States by way of economies and, to a certain extent, by population. So we are compared to our peers. That is the measurement. If you look at the top 20, under two categories--infant mortality and child poverty-- the United States of America ranks 17th in both out of 20. And 17th, obviously, is right near the bottom. Instead of being in the top 3 or top 5 or even the top 10, the United States, when it comes to child poverty and infant mortality, is ranked No. 17 in the world out of 20. So as we move to focusing on the middle class and focusing on job creation strategies, and even focusing on budgets and whatever else people want to debate and negotiate about around here, I hope we will all feel challenged by the admonition that we cannot lose sight of what is happening to our children. This is the most powerful country in the world. Our economy may not be demonstrating it right now, but we are and we will be, and we can never say we are doing the job we must do if we are not focused on the needs and the challenges faced by our families, especially the most vulnerable member of any family--a child. Infant mortality and child poverty are two indicators where this country is far, far behind, and we all need to do more on those issues. We are happy we are moving to a resolution of this long nightmare the country has lived through and these families have lived through, but even on the other side we have some major challenges that should be a summons to our conscience to do something about them, and I hope our actions and our work can be commensurate with the challenges faced by families and especially the challenges faced by our children. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I commend the words of our chairman, the senior Senator from Iowa, for his warnings about the impact of sequestration and the across-the-board indiscriminate cuts. We are grateful for that because we need to be thinking about what happens down the road when we have a budget agreement. I want to start today with a brief comment on what happened earlier. At about noontime we had a vote, which is a procedural vote which I was hoping would go in a certain direction, but it didn't. It was a vote to move forward on the question of how we are going to avoid default. I don't think it is the last word on this issue for the next few days, but I was hoping that the Republicans would at least allow a debate on how we can avoid default. So far that hasn't happened, but we are confident that in the next couple of days we will resolve this. But I do think it is important we lay a foundation for why we need to avoid default, because we have talked a lot about the consequences and the impact of a government shutdown--and that remains what might be called a clear and present danger to the middle class and to our economy--but we have to talk at the same time about the consequences of default because we are only days away from the deadline. Maybe the best way to start is not with numbers but with part of a letter I received from a constituent this week. The letter was dated October 8, so my assumption is that most of what is contained in this letter are fears about and the impacts from the shutdown only. The sentiments expressed in this letter will only grow in significance and severity as we get closer to the deadline and closer to default. I am reading just in pertinent part. This particular constituent is from northeastern Pennsylvania, about an hour from where I live, but in the same basic region. She talked about her own circumstances and that of her husband and then she continued on: Besides our personal difficulties due to the budget impasse, my elderly parents live with the worry of when and if they will receive their Social Security checks. At 85 and 83 they should not have this uncertainty. These should be their golden years. It breaks my heart to hear my mother say she can't sleep and has a stomachache from the worry about where our country is headed. Middle- and low-income families cannot afford another economic downturn. We are just barely recovering from the last one. That is what she says about her parents. Now, again, it is my assumption the worry and the anxiety expressed in that paragraph are solely attributable to the government shutdown. Those worries and anxieties, and, frankly, real pain, the physical pain expressed in that paragraph about her mother, will only grow the closer we get to default, because we know the consequences of default are almost unimaginable--about the worst economic hit we could take as a country. So that is why we have to take every step necessary to avoid it. But I think the words of a constituent from Pennsylvania speak in this case for the Nation. Why should people have a worry, even if that worry is unfounded? We know Social Security checks are going out now, thankfully, but they are slowed down substantially if there is a default. We know even in a shutdown, if you reach the age of 65, it is going to take you a while to get the checks you are entitled to because the process of validating your eligibility is held up. But why should there be uncertainty? Why should any mother or father or grandmother or grandfather have an anxiety and a worry that leads them to have a stomachache, in the case of this letter, or where they can't sleep because of the political agenda of one part of one political party in one House of Congress? So that is where things are with people's feelings and their anxieties, and we have to be able to respond to that. The default question itself is of great significance now. Maybe 10 days ago it wasn't, but I am afraid we are in a period now where just the talk of default, just getting close to default, will have an adverse impact on our economy. This did happen in 2011. That is irrefutable. All the data, all the facts, show just getting close to default has an adverse impact on the economy. By one estimate, a recent estimate, that was almost a $20 billion hit to the economy, if you measure it over 10 years. There are all kinds of other consequences that I won't dwell on right now. There were two statements made by Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew in his opening statement to the Finance Committee on Thursday morning that I think we should be reminded of. This was in reference to the question, what if you go over the line in default and you have to decide which bills to pay, which is the wrong way to go, but Secretary Lew posited these two questions. How can the United States choose whether to send Social Security checks to seniors or pay benefits to our veterans? That is question No. 1. Question No. 2. How can the United States choose whether to provide children with food assistance or meet our obligations to Medicare providers? These are the kinds of questions we are all going to have to answer if we--as some people apparently want us to do--go over the default line for the first time in American history. To say it is fiscal madness doesn't begin to describe it. Secretary Lew also said something else which we should contemplate today. He said: It is irresponsible and reckless to insist that we experience a forced default to learn how bad it is. We have heard talk in this body and in the other body about maybe we can survive if we go over the line; that maybe it is okay, maybe we can prioritize payments. I think we should be reminded of those words. Again, that quote: . . . to insist that we experience a forced default to learn how bad it is. It makes no sense and, fortunately, there is a consensus against it, but we still have work to do to prevent it from happening. I will read as well a couple of lines from a letter I received from a friend of mine who has spent a lot more years in the financial markets and has spent a lot of years trying to get both parties in Washington to come together fiscally. I will read some lines from this memo he sent me. He was talking about what happens with default. It is like anything else--if you default on your mortgage, if you default in your personal life, you have a credit problem. He said: From the standpoint of our creditworthiness, a default is a default. Once you have defaulted, you are a-- And I will leave the word out he put in there because it may not be appropriate for this Chamber, but I think people can figure out what the word might be here.-- And everyone fears they will be the next party not to be paid. As in the Lehman bankruptcy-- And here he is talking about the fall of 2008. the potential for unintended consequences that spiral out of control is enormous. In short, toying with default is not akin to playing with fire but is more like handling financial weapons of mass destruction. It is a violation of the trust we place in our elected leaders to safeguard the welfare of our country. That is what this person, who I know has a lot of experience in the markets, describes could happen in the event of default. I will conclude with some quick references to the impact of default as described by economists, as described by experts in the field of measuring the impact of default, and folks who know a lot about what would happen. I will read them as quickly as I can, because we know some of these already but we have to remind ourselves: Increasing borrowing costs. Many have talked and written about that. Damaging economic growth. Higher interest rates. Higher debt payments. Slow economic growth. One expert was talking about the Lehman bankruptcy and then putting that in the context of a default, and making the case that a default has a much bigger impact than even the Lehman bankruptcy had. Consider this: In 2008, the Lehman bankruptcy was an ``event that triggered the financial crisis that caused the stock market to lose half its value over just 5 months and helped to trigger the worst recession since the Great Depression.'' That was just the Lehman bankruptcy. Imagine in the context of default how much worse it could be. Retirement savings. According to newer data, an equivalent hit could cost--comparing it to what happened in 2011--the average person in his or her fifties, who has been saving for 20 or 30 years, as much as $11,000. Mortgage payments would be hiked. After the 2011 shutdown, mortgage spreads jumped by 70 basis points, which would have added $100 per month to the cost of a typical mortgage. So we have data from 2011 that measures the adverse impact on mortgages just by getting close to default, not in the event of default itself. Disrupted payments. Delayed or disrupted payments would prevent 57\1/ 2\ million Americans from receiving Social Security benefits in a timely manner and interfere with payments to 3.4 million veterans. I will read two more. Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi, who has testified in front of the Senate many times--who, parenthetically, as relates to the shutdown testified yesterday over in the House, because the Joint Economic Committee is a joint committee--predicts that, just as it relates to the shutdown, in this fourth quarter, the fourth quarter we are in, we will have lost \1/2\ point of growth. So instead of the GDP growth in the fourth quarter being 2\1/2\ percent, as Mark Zandi would have projected absent a shutdown, with the shutdown we will go from 2\1/2\ percent growth to 2 percent. That is a shutdown in one quarter. Just imagine the impact on growth if we default. Here is what Mark Zandi says. I am quoting him directly: It would be devastating to the economy. Confidence will evaporate, consumer confidence will sharply decline, businesses will stop hiring, consumers will stop spending, the stock market will fall significantly in value, borrowing costs for businesses and households will rise. And he goes on from there. But, look, you don't have to be an economist to know the impact of default. All you have to do is read what economists are saying across the board. These are people who disagree on a lot of things. They might disagree on a budget item. They might disagree on econometric modeling. They might disagree on tax cuts. They might disagree on a usual Democrat versus Republican approach to the economy. They might have fundamental disagreements on everything, but on this they are speaking with one voice: Don't default, they are telling us. Don't even get close to defaulting. Don't even talk about or debate defaulting. Just prevent it from happening. That is the overwhelming consensus. Let me conclude with one reference here. When I got to the Senate, one of the leading Republican voices on the budget--because he happened to be the ranking member on the Budget Committee--was Judd Gregg from New Hampshire. He had been a Governor of New Hampshire and then served in the Senate for many years. This is what he had to say recently in talking about what would happen in the event of default and brinkmanship with the debt limit. [It] is the political equivalent of playing Russian roulette with all of the chambers of the gun loaded. It is the ultimate no-win strategy. A default would lead to some level of chaos in the debt markets, which would lead to a significant contraction in economic activity, which would lead to job losses, which would lead to higher spending by the Federal Government and lower tax revenues, which would lead to more debt. So says the former ranking member of the Budget Committee, the former Republican Senator from New Hampshire. So the idea that some think for some reason we could go into default or even get close to it doesn't make a lot of sense. I will conclude with this thought. That letter I started with from my constituent in Pennsylvania, who speaks for the country, I believe, when she was talking about her parents--her 82- or 83-year-old parents--and about the uncertainty they have, about the worry and the anxiety that is literally causing, in the case of her mother, according to this letter, physical pain, but even if it didn't rise to that level, just the idea of a government shutdown coupled with the potential default is causing that kind of anxiety and is really disturbing, and I think it is an insult to so many Americans. We have to come together and open the government at long last and make sure we pay our bills and not even get close to defaulting, and then we can have negotiations and discussions for weeks and months about long-term and short-term issues. In the meantime, we have to make sure we pay our bills and open the Federal Government. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I object.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, pending before the Senate is a unanimous consent request on H. Con. Res. 58, a bill to urge the Department of Defense to allow military chaplains to perform duties during the shutdown. Earlier today, I objected to this bill because I misunderstood its purpose, and I would like to withdraw that objection at this time. The bill will urge the Department of Defense to allow military chaplains, including contract personnel, to perform religious services during the shutdown and permit services to take place on property owned by the Department of Defense. Today, just as the Department of Defense and the administration solved the problem with military families and their death benefits upon the loss of one of their loved ones serving our country, I urge, and I know others will as well, the DOD to ensure that all active-duty members are able to exercise their First Amendment rights and participate in religious ceremonies while they are serving. So that is something I hope we can resolve. I also want to raise some issues that relate to the shutdown. I raised some earlier, but these are additional concerns I have with regard to the shutdown. The impact of this shutdown is being felt across the board, across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and, indeed, across the country. It is felt by small businesses, States and municipalities are feeling it already and anticipating much more of an impact as time goes by, and, of course, families are feeling it very acutely. Yesterday I sent a letter to Speaker Boehner emphasizing the detrimental impact the shutdown was having on my constituents in Pennsylvania. Just by way of a couple of examples that apply to Pennsylvania and to the Nation, domestic violence programs across the country have been impacted directly by the shutdown. The offices that oversee grants under the Violence Against Women Act have had to shut down and are not able to issue grants or provide reimbursements to local programs. I would say parenthetically that it took many months for the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization to go forward. There were a lot of problems along the way, a lot of objections. Fortunately, we have the program reauthorized, but now, because of the shutdown, we are having problems with women who are victims of violence getting the services they are entitled to. We are hearing as well from folks in our domestic violence shelters-- shelters that rely upon Federal funds and that have already been impacted by the sequester--the across-the-board indiscriminate cuts that have been in effect since March. These shelters may have to further reduce services to vulnerable victims of domestic violence. In the words of one State advocate: We are hanging on by our fingernails. Meaning they are hanging on in terms of just being able to provide services, with funding either limited or funding being jeopardized. Women trying to escape abusive relationships should not be hampered by the failures here in Washington to end this shutdown. In terms of Social Security, we know Social Security checks are going out, fortunately, but in Pennsylvania, on average, 2,900 new claims are processed each week. That is the typical weekly total for new claims. This means Pennsylvanians who have reached retirement age and have paid into the system their entire careers are now forced to wait for benefits. You have to ask yourself: Why should a domestic violence center, with people who work to help domestic violence victims, have to wait for a political dispute where one wing of one party engaged in an ideological exercise allows a government shutdown, and, therefore, that domestic violence center doesn't get the help it needs, and the women, mostly women who are impacted, don't get the help they need. The same could be said of someone who reaches retirement age and expects, and has a right to expect, their Social Security eligibility will be processed. Why should they have to wait for Washington? In Pennsylvania alone, when it comes to small businesses, 30 loans, on average, are made each week by the SBA, for a total of $13 million each and every week. The loss of these loans is hindering entrepreneurs from growing their businesses and from obtaining much-needed capital. Again, why should a business owner--a small businessperson who gets help from the SBA and has an expectation of getting that help--and, remember, we average 30 of those loans every week in Pennsylvania amounting to $13 million--why should that all be stopped because someone in Washington has an ideological point to make? It makes no sense, and it is an outrage. The shutdown is also impacting infrastructure in public lands across the country. Until the government is open, the maintenance of our Nation's basic infrastructure is impacted. In Pennsylvania, a lot of that basic infrastructure involves our waterways--the locks and dams. That whole system which is in place for Pennsylvania and many other States, the maintenance of those locks and dams, is deferred. We all know what happens when you defer maintenance on something as fundamental as infrastructure. I have been informed that repairs that were scheduled to take place on locks along the Lower Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania are suspended. If you have a problem with those, with a lock--and locks and dams generally, but in particular focusing on the Monongahela River-- you stop the flow of commerce or you slow it down substantially. When you slow down or stop the flow of commerce, that affects jobs and the economy of southwestern Pennsylvania. If just one of these locks were to fail, it could have a detrimental economic impact on the whole region. How about national parks? We have heard a lot about that topic this week and last week. The closure of national parks is negatively impacting Pennsylvania's economy. According to the National Park Service, the communities and businesses surrounding Pennsylvania's national parks and memorials are losing up to $5.7 million in spending by nonlocal visitors for each week the government remains closed. That is just national parks and just in Pennsylvania--almost $6 million--and that is just the beginning of what could be a much more substantial and detrimental impact to the State's economy. I would go back to the point I made several times--and all of us have made these arguments in different ways--and that is that we know for sure there is a very simple way out of this predicament for Washington but, more importantly, for the country, and that is for the Speaker to put on the floor a bill which both parties now agree will pass. It is a clean funding bill. All it does is fund the operations of the government, albeit at a much lower level--$70 billion less--than our side wanted. We compromised greatly at the beginning of this process, despite what some have said. So we have compromised to make sure we can fund the government. It is about time for the Speaker to put this bill on the floor. They can vote on it very quickly, and it would pass very quickly. It is only 16 pages long. And that is the key to resolving and ending this tea party shutdown. I urge the Speaker to do that. I have urged him, as we all have in various ways, and we respectfully suggest that could happen tomorrow. Thursday would be a good day to end all of this so we can get people back to work, we can have the functions of government operating to such an extent the economy can grow, and we can have a lot of debate and discussion about how to fund the government long term or what to do about our fiscal challenges--what to do about a whole range of issues. But it is time for the government to open, and it is time for the House to act to do that. It is also time to make sure we pay our bills. Thirdly, it is important we continue to negotiate, just as we negotiated a long time ago, many weeks ago, to reach the point where we can have a bill that would fund the operations of the government. Some people in the House chose to take a different path which led to the shutdown. It is about time we get them back on the right path, which is to open the government, pay our bills, and then have negotiations and discussions and compromises to move the country forward. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the provisions of S. Res. 267, as a further mark of respect for the memory of the late Senator Rod Grams of Minnesota.