Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on the Democratic side?

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, most people who are following this debate may be a little bit put off by some of the initials that we use around here--TPP, TPA, TAA. What is it all about? It is about a trade agreement. It involves a dozen countries, including the United States. Most of them are in Asia. We are preparing to discuss and debate it, and that trade agreement is known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. I think that is what that stands for. I will correct the record if I am wrong on that. But before we get to the trade agreement, we have to decide how we are going to consider it, and that is known as TPA, trade promotion authority, or fast track. The question is whether the Senate will agree that we cannot amend the trade agreement--no amendments--and that it is a simple majority vote. That is what is known as fast track. Virtually every President in modern time has had that authority. It has expired, and now it has to be recreated by a vote on the floor. What we are anticipating this afternoon is whether we go to the arguments about these various issues, and the uncertainty is what leads my friend from Utah, Senator Hatch, to come to the floor. The uncertainty from our side is this: How are we going to consider this? Four bills came out of the Finance Committee related to trade. How are they going to be brought to the floor? Are they going to be part of one package? Are they separate votes? Which one will come out of the Senate? Will more than one come out of the Senate? These are unanswered questions, and because these questions are unanswered, the vote at 2:30 or so is in doubt. Senator Hatch is upset. He believed that there was an agreement. I wasn't a party to it. I don't know. But this much I do know: Trade is a controversial issue. It is important to America's economy. But when you take it home and meet with the people you represent, there are strong mixed feelings about trade. Some who work for the Caterpillar tractor company in Illinois want to promote trade, sell more of those big yellow tractors, and put more Americans to work to build them. But many look at trade and say: I could be a casualty. I could be a victim. They could ship my job overseas, Senator. So what are you going to do to make sure I am protected in this? That is why trade isn't an easy issue. It is a controversial issue. TAA, which Senator Hatch referred to, is trade adjustment assistance. What it says is that if you lost your job because of a trade agreement, we will help pay for your training for a new job. Senator Hatch said he opposed that. I fully support it. I just visited a high school in downstate Illinois. There was a man there teaching high school students--good, gifted high school students--how to repair computers. I said: How did you get into this business? He said: It is a funny thing. I lost my job in a factory years ago because of a trade agreement. But because of trade adjustment assistance, I was able to go back to college, got a degree, and now I am a teacher. Do I support trade adjustment assistance? You bet I do--for that teacher and for many others who want to transition into a new job if they lose their job because of trade. So including trade adjustment assistance in any part of a trade agreement is important to many of us. We want to make sure it is included on the floor of the Senate. Equally so, we want to make sure that trade agreements are enforceable. It wasn't that long ago that we had thriving steel production companies in America that were victimized by many foreign countries that started dumping steel in the United States. What does it mean to dump steel? These countries--Brazil, Japan, and Russia--were selling steel in the United States at prices lower than the cost of production. Why? They knew they could run the Americans out of business--and they did. By the time we filed an unfair trade grievance, went through the hearings and won our case, the American companies disappeared. Enforcement is an important part of any conversation about trade. We want to know from Senator Hatch and the Republicans who bring this to the floor, if we are going to enforce the trade agreements so Americans are treated fairly. I think that is a pretty legitimate question. Until it is answered, there is uncertainty. Maybe the vote at 2:30 will reflect it. I hope we can get an answer before 2:30, but if not, then soon after, on how Senator McConnell wants to bring this issue to the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to say, very briefly, a word about the situation in Syria. On May 13, 1994, a Senator from Illinois named Paul Simon was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa. His ranking Republican was Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Senators Jim Jeffords and Paul Simon had been told that there was a looming genocide about to occur in Rwanda. They went on the phone together and spoke to U.N. General Romeo Dallaire in Kigali, Rwanda, in May of 1994. They asked: What can we do to stop the killing in Rwanda? General Dallaire said: If you would send 5,000 uniformed troops, I could stop this genocide. Senators Simon and Jeffords wrote to the Clinton White House immediately at that time and asked for the administration to call on the United Nations to act. Their letter said in part: ``Obviously there are risks involved but we cannot continue to sit idly by while this tragedy continues to unfold.'' The Senators received no reply from the White House. In less than 8 weeks, 800,000 Rwandans were massacred. Today, President William Clinton acknowledges that he should have done more--we should have done more. What happened in Rwanda was a classic genocide. Today, what is happening in Syria may not meet the classic definition of a genocide, but it certainly meets every standard and every definition as the looming humanitarian crisis of our time. The question before us and the United States is this: What will we do? I think it has reached the point where we must act. That is why I have joined three of my colleagues--fellow Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona--and we have written to President Obama, urging him to call together world leaders and to establish a humanitarian zone--a safe zone, a no-fly zone--in Syria, where modern medical treatment can be provided and displaced persons can escape. We think it should be done under the auspices--I do--of the United Nations and that the United States can join other countries in providing a defensive security force. We need to turn to our NATO allies, such as Turkey. We need to reach out to Saudi Arabia, even Iran, and try to find an international consensus to spare the suffering and death which has been occurring now for years. We do not know the exact number of casualties. We estimate that some 400,000 may have died in Syria. Millions have been displaced. This is a picture of just one of the refugee camps to which the people of Syria have fled. I have visited camps such as this in Turkey. They are in Lebanon and Jordan. They cannot accommodate all of the people who are evacuating that country. Once every few months a friend of mine comes to visit in Chicago. He is an extraordinary man. His name is Dr. Sahloul. He heads up a group of Syrian Americans who travel to Syria on a regular basis. They have to sneak into the country--this war-torn country. As doctors, they are providing basic medical care to the victims of the violence that is taking place in Syria. Dr. Sahloul brings heartbreaking photographs to show me. The last photographs were of children who had been victims of barrel bombs, which Bashar al-Assad, the leader of Syria, drops on his own people. These are literally garbage cans filled with munitions and explosives that explode, killing civilian populations. The photos showed children who had been maimed, lost their limbs, and some had been killed by these barrel bombs that continue. Now Assad has decided to up the ante. He is including chlorine gas in the barrel bombs as well. These doctors try to save these children and save these victims. Many times they are operating on tables in abandoned schools. They are begging for medicines, which are at a high premium. Many times they are not successful. What will we do? What can the United States do? I hope that we can be part of an effort--an international effort--to provide safe zones for medical treatment and for the displaced persons in Syria. I hope to join with others on a bipartisan basis in urging that alternative. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, May 31--today is May 12. On May 31, the Federal highway trust fund authorization expires. What it means is at that point in time, the Federal Government will stop sending Federal dollars back to our States to build highways and bridges and support buses and mass transit--May 31. What are we going to do about it? We have 19 days to do something about it. Sadly, we know what we are going to do about it. The Republicans who control the House and the Senate have failed to come up with any means of extending the highway trust fund. What they are going to do probably is ask us for a short-term extension--1 month, 2 months. The reason we think this will happen is that in the past 6 years, there have been 32 extensions of the highway trust fund. We used to pass highway trust fund bills to last 6 years, for obvious reasons. You cannot build highways a month at a time. You have to know you have money that is going to be there for years to build a highway, to repair a bridge, to make certain you have new mass transit modernization. But the Republicans have been unable to reauthorize the highway trust fund for any period of time. They want to extend it 30 days at a time, 60 days at a time. There are some realities that we need to accept. We cannot patch our way to prosperity in America. You cannot fill enough potholes to build a highway. If we are going to accept our responsibility to be a great nation and a great leader in the world economy, we need an infrastructure to support it. The Republican failure to extend the highway trust fund for 5 or 6 years, sadly, is going to cost us jobs in America--not just good-paying construction jobs but jobs in businesses that count on infrastructure. I have them all over Illinois. There are thousands of workers in Illinois who depend on them. But because the Republicans have failed to come up with an extension of the highway trust fund, we are going to limp along here and, sadly, not meet our national obligation to create an infrastructure to support our economy. I am hoping that cooler heads will prevail and leadership will prevail, and that the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate--they are in the majority in both Chambers--will step forward with a plan to create a highway trust fund for 6 years. The President has; he put it on the table. Republicans rejected it. They have no alternative--none. Let's get down to business. Let's put America back to work. Let's create the infrastructure we need to build our economy. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I want to make a statement on Syria and humanitarian concerns in Syria, but it will take longer than that. I know my colleague from Vermont is here, and I would like to yield the remaining 5 minutes.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator wants to make that unanimous consent request----

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I believe the previous Presiding Officer suggested I had 5 minutes remaining of Democratic time at this point.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I commend my colleague from New Mexico. It is difficult to put in words the way I feel about his effort on this subject. It was first brought to my attention when there was a series in the Chicago Tribune about fire retardant chemicals in furniture. It turned out that many people who were making furniture were putting fire retardant chemicals in the fabric of the upholstery, as well as in the cushions of chairs and couches. After further examination, we found that these chemicals were not, in fact, fire retardant, and secondly, they had properties that were dangerous and, frankly, should not be in our homes. I thought about that series over and over again because my wife and I have two of the cutest grandkids on Earth who are a little over 3 years old. I thought to myself: Every time I plop down on the couch to play with the kids, I am pushing down on that cushion and spraying those chemicals into the room. I thought long and hard about it. I didn't know what those chemicals meant, what they could do to my grandkids or what they could do to innocent people. It never crossed my mind. Senator Udall has taken on what is in many ways a thankless task but a very important one--to try to come up with some standards for new chemicals so they are reviewed and so we know they are safe for Americans and for families. He has taken his share of grief in the process. I may have given him a little of grief along the way because it is a critically important subject. But he is right to invoke the name of Senator Frank Lautenberg. The Senator's widow, Bonnie Lautenberg, was in to see me yesterday. We talked about Frank and all the things he had done over the years. He was my Senate sponsor when I was a House originator of the bill banning smoking on airplanes 25 years ago. Frank Lautenberg carried the flag over here in the Senate. He was my partner. One of the last press conferences I ever had with him was on this subject, the toxic chemicals and the review of these chemicals. I remember that it was right outside. I thank the Senator from New Mexico for continuing this. I am not one of the cosponsors, but I might be. I have three or four issues I want to sit down and go over with my friend and make sure I understand them and maybe suggest some changes. But I commend the Senator for sticking with this. I know it has not been easy. There are those who disagree with him, even within our own caucus. Again, I thank the Senator for trying, on a bipartisan basis, to deal with an issue that we should deal with as a nation. I commend the Senator for that. I thank the Senator from New Mexico for his leadership. For-Profit Colleges and Universities Madam President, for several years I have been coming to the floor and giving speeches--which some of the staff here can repeat because they have heard them so often--about the for-profit colleges and universities in America. I always preface my talk about these for- profit colleges and universities by saying: I am going to give you three numbers that are going to be on the final. So get out your pen and paper, students, because this will be on the final. Ten percent of college students go to for-profit colleges and universities. Who are the for-profit colleges and universities? The biggest ones are the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, DeVry University, and many others that I will mention. Ten percent of college students go to these colleges and universities that are run for profit. How do they find them? They cannot avoid them. Ask a high school student when the last time was that they logged in on the Internet with the word ``college'' or ``university'' and whether they were not inundated for ads to go to for-profit schools. They are on billboards and on television. They are everywhere. So 10 percent of students go to these schools. That is the first question on the final. The second question: What percentage of Federal aid to education goes to for-profit colleges and universities? The answer is 20 percent--20 percent of Federal aid to education. Why so much? Ten percent of the students and 20 percent of the Federal aid? These schools aren't cheap. They charge a lot of money. Students have to borrow a lot more money to go to school. So the Federal aid to education, which includes student loans to for- profit schools, is 20 percent. Ten percent of the students; 20 percent of the Federal aid to education. But here is the important number: 44. Forty-four percent of all of the student loan defaults in the United States are from students at for-profit colleges and universities. Why? Well, there are two reasons--maybe more but two that are obvious. They accept everyone. If a student is low income--particularly a minority student--they can't wait to bring them in the door. Why? Because they automatically qualify for about $5,000 in Pell grants that the school can get right away, and they automatically qualify for college loans because their family doesn't have a lot of money. So those are the great opportunity students: low-income students. What happens to those students? They start in these schools. They sign up and pay to the schools what they can afford. They take their grant money and give it to the schools, and then they sign up for student loans and they start their classes. Then they find, for a variety of reasons, they can't continue. Maybe they are not ready for college. Maybe--just maybe--they start adding up all of the loans they have taken out and say, I have to stop; it is getting too much--because the indebtedness of students coming out of for-profit colleges and universities is twice what it is for those who go to public universities. It is a very expensive undertaking. Then there is the other category: those who finally finish at these for-profit colleges and universities but can't get a job. One of them was at a press conference with me last Monday in Chicago--a sweet young woman who was born in West Virginia and raised in Eastern Kentucky. She moved to Chicago, went to Everest College in Chicago, a for-profit school owned by Corinthian Colleges. She didn't quite finish, but she spent several years there. Then she learned something after she went out looking for a job. The employers would look at her and say: Corinthian, that is not a good college. Why did you go there? Don't put that on your resume. Stop putting that on your resume because it makes you look bad. Here she is in debt $20,000 to this for-profit college and her employers are saying stop putting that on your resume; it is not a real college. This poor young woman, now in City Colleges, is trying, at a very young age, to put it back together again. So that is where we start: for-profit colleges and universities, 10 percent of the students, 20 percent of the Federal aid to education, and 44 percent of all of the student loan defaults. I have been giving this speech on the floor for literally years saying something is wrong. Why are we accrediting these schools that have such dismal records? Why are we looking the other way when the students who go to these schools have massive debt and can't pay back their student loans? When are we going to wake up as a Federal Government and stop shoveling hundreds of millions--and billions--of dollars at this industry? For-profit colleges and universities' share of Federal aid to education--if it were a separate line item in the Federal budget, would be the ninth largest Federal agency. That is how much money we send to these people. These are for-profit, private sector companies--baloney. Their revenues--80 to 95 percent of their revenues come right from the Treasury. This is the most heavily subsidized industry in America. But now something historic has happened. Corinthian Colleges, one of the largest for-profit colleges and universities, announced its bankruptcy last week, and that isn't the end of the story. Yesterday, Career Education Corporation, headquartered in my home State of Illinois, announced it would teach out, which means close, its 14 Sanford-Brown institutions across the country and online. This follows the decision to close its Harrington College of Design in Chicago and to look for a buyer for its Le Cordon Bleu culinary schools. Ever heard of those? I can guarantee my colleagues that high school kids have heard of them. I have run into students at these places. Harrington College of Design. I cannot tell my colleagues how many students went there, took out the loans, and found out it was worthless, and then contacted my office and asked, What are we supposed to do next? I had a hearing on for-profit colleges and universities in Chicago and there were students from these for-profit colleges picketing ``Durbin is unfair.'' I went out to the students and I said: Where do you go to school? One student said: I go to the Institute of Art of Chicago. Now, there is a Chicago Art Institute, but this play on words turned out to be significant. I said: What are you studying there? The student said: I am going to be a super chef. Oh, really. How much is it going to cost you to take the culinary courses to be a super chef? It is $54,000 in tuition. To be a chef? I have asked the major restaurants in Chicago; they don't even want to see those degrees. They don't look for them. They don't value them. These poor kids, these young men and women who watch these cooking shows on TV and get all caught up in it and say, That is for me, end up getting suckered into these schools. Le Cordon Bleu is another one. Le Cordon Bleu--doesn't that sound great? My wife has a cookbook that says that on it. These students quickly sign up for this French-sounding culinary school and get in debt and deeply in trouble. Now they are in more trouble because the school is in the process of going out of business. In a public statement about their decision, CEO Ron McCray of Career Education Corporation blamed a more difficult higher education environment and challenging regulatory environment. Do people know what the challenge is? The Department of Education is finally challenging these schools when they say to the Department, Oh, our kids all get jobs--when they graduate, they all get jobs. When they challenged Corinthian Colleges, here is what they found out. Corinthian graduates would be employed--check the box--after they graduate for about 30 days, sometimes less. Corinthian had cooked a deal with employers to hire their graduates for 30 days, and it paid them to do it, and they were caught redhanded and eventually went out of business. Fraud-- fraud in reporting to the government, fraud on the taxpayers leading to the collapse of Corinthian Colleges. Career Education Corporation, incidentally, is under investigation-- this for-profit school--by 17 different State attorneys general relating to recruitment practices and graduate placement statistics, among other things. In 2013, this company, Career Education Corporation, settled with the New York attorney general for 10 million bucks. The company is on the Heightened Cash Monitoring list, meaning they are suspect, of the U.S. Department of Education. What else happened yesterday? This is all within the last 2 weeks. Education Management Corporation--EDMC--announced that it was going to close 15 of these art institute campuses. Remember that one? I told my colleagues about that costs $54,000 tuition to become a cook? They are going to close 15 of these campuses, including reportedly one in Tinley Park, IL. They have been financially faltering for some time. They had recently tried to do a debt restructuring which apparently didn't work. They are currently being sued by the Department of Justice for false claims violations. The Justice Department alleges that this one, Education Management Corporation, falsely certified compliance with provisions of the Federal law that prohibit the university from paying financial incentives to its admissions staff that is tied to the number of students they recruit. We made it a law that said you can't pay a bounty for bringing in kids and signing up in the school. They did it anyway. In addition, this company is under investigation by 17 State attorneys general, just like the other one, related to, among other things, marketing and recruitment. EDMC is also on the Department of Education's Heightened Cash Monitoring list. Let me say a word about ITT Tech. We have to watch the names of these places because they sound like real schools. We have an Illinois Institute of Technology that is a real university, one of the best in the Nation--one of the best in the world--when it comes to engineering and science. So along comes a for-profit school and makes a little change. It is ITT Tech, hoping the Illinois students will not catch it. They are another company under heavy scrutiny. They have been sued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for predatory lending to students. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleges that ITT pushed students into high-cost private loans that they knew were going to end in default. Sometimes these students are still eligible for government loans at low interest rates and good terms and these schools don't care. They push them into private loans with high interest rates. Do my colleagues know how high the interest rates on the student loans were from private lenders to these kids at ITT Tech? How about 16.25 percent. Think about that for a minute. At a time when the interest rates in our country are at rock bottom, these kids were paying 16 percent to the lenders for private loans. There is something else we should know. Unlike virtually any other loan that we take out in America, student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. No matter how deep a hole these kids get into--and their families--no matter how deep the hole, if they go bankrupt over student loans, they can't discharge them in bankruptcy. Student loans follow you to the grave. That is what these kids at age 19 and 20 are getting into. Sadly, these for-profit schools are dragging them in that direction. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau believes ITT misrepresented the basics, including how often you can get a job, the quality of the diploma. Does this sound familiar? It is a recurring theme in this industry. ITT is under investigation by everybody in sight: 15 State attorneys general, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New Mexico attorney general is suing them, and ITT is on the Department of Education's Heightened Cash Monitoring list. What happens when these schools go bankrupt, when they close or teach out and finish? Well, Corinthian ended up closing many of their campuses a week or so ago and now the students who are in debt because they went to school there have an opportunity. They can walk away from the credits they earned at a Corinthian college and then walk away from their college debt associated with them since their school closed. But some of these other students will not be so lucky. They will have ended their education at these worthless schools and have a mountain of debt to show for it and the school will go out of business. This isn't fair. There comes a point where we are supposed to step in, the government is supposed to step in. This is our money, hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers going to these rotten schools that are abusing students, leaving them deeply in debt and then going out of business. We shouldn't be surprised to learn that the CEOs of these schools do quite well. The CEO of Corinthian College that went bankrupt: $3 million a year--not bad for what turned out to be a fraudulent enterprise. That is why this week I joined several of my colleagues and sent a letter to the Department of Justice. The Department of Education said we don't know how to go after these individual wrongdoers at these for- profit college corporations. So we said to the Attorney General: We hope you will investigate this. Take a look at it. If you cheat on your income tax or you defraud the government, you are going to be held responsible for it. Why shouldn't these people who took hundreds of millions of dollars not only from Federal taxpayers but at the expense of students now burdened with the debt of their schools also be investigated? I think it only stands to reason they should be. Madam President, I have another statement to make, but I see two of my colleagues. I will come back a little later in the day. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, what is the business pending before the Senate?

Mr. DURBIN. On the budget.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I hope some of the comments I make in reference to this product are not taken personally. I thank the Presiding Officer for all the work he has put into the budget and for his friendship and cooperation on so many different issues. What is this budget all about? A budget is really like a blueprint. It really says what we want to do and spend in the next fiscal year that starts October 1. As a result of passing a budget, we send a message to the spending committees and tell them how much to spend in different areas. The budget tries to spell out not only the amounts but also the policy we are to follow when we pass these spending bills. It is really a pretty small document by Federal standards, but it really packs a lot of wallop when it comes to what we are going to be doing for the next several months. Budgets make choices, just as our family budgets make a choice. Can we afford a new car? Is it time to move? Can we remodel the kitchen? Can we pay for the kids to go to college? These are family budget decisions that are made that really impact the lives of members of the family. Just as those decisions impact lives, so does this, in a large way, for over 300 million Americans. Sadly, from my perspective--and I have great respect for the Senator from Wyoming, who serves as the Senate Budget Committee chairman--from my perspective, this budget has the wrong priorities. Let me tell you why. Many times, you are going to hear speeches given on the floor of the Senate about how the government should not pick winners and losers. I have heard that so many times. It basically says: Let's leave it to the free market forces and other forces. Government shouldn't pick winners and losers. This budget being offered to the Senate picks winners and losers, and we can almost identify those winners by name because what this budget does is it eliminates the Federal estate tax. The Federal estate tax in this circumstance--changes that are called for, reforms in it, will result in tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America. Roughly 4,000 people a year will be spared, if their estates are worth more than $10 million, from paying the estate tax. For these individuals who are that wealthy, it means a $3 million tax break. When you add it up over a 10-year period of time, 4,000 people per year, it comes out to $268 billion. So the wealthiest people in America are declared the winners in the Senate Republican budget. Who are the losers? The losers are 16 million Americans who will find that they don't have the benefits of the EITC tax credit, as well as the child tax credit that has been proposed. For 16 million Americans, we cut back tax credits which they can use to build and sustain their families in order to give tax breaks to 4,000 people a year who have an estate worth more than $10 million. We haven't ignored the estate tax. In fact, we substantially reformed it. We indexed it. We made a lot of changes to it. But the Republican budget said we haven't gone far enough. We still have 4,000 people who are so rich that they are going to pay the tax, and this budget says it is time for that to end. I think they are wrong. In order to deal with reducing the budget deficit, let me tell you where this Republican budget turns. All of us are aware of the fact that student loan debt now is the largest debt in America other than mortgage debt. There is more student loan debt in America than credit card debt. Think about that for a second. Millions of students are deep in debt and carrying that debt for year after year because higher education--colleges and universities--cost so much. Middle-income families can't afford to pay it. They haven't saved enough. So the kids and sometimes the family have to borrow the money to get it done. What does this budget do for those student borrowers? First, it reduces the amount of money available in Pell grants. Pell grants are grants--not loans--given to low-income students at colleges and universities. That is money the students don't have to borrow because they come from low-income families. Well, in this bill, we have a 31- percent cut in Pell grant funding; it is about $90 billion over 10 years. Eight million Americans are dependent on Pell grant funding in this current school year. They will find that there is less money available in grants--even though they are from low-income families--to go to college. So what is the alternative? Don't go to college or borrow more money. So the Republican approach to the student loan debt crisis is to decrease the grants and increase the debt of future students. That isn't all. There is a provision that says: If you borrow money to go to colleges and universities from the Federal Government, then your repayment of those government loans is going to be at least sensitive to your situation in life. In other words, you won't have to pay more than 10 percent of your income each year to pay off the student loan. They eliminate it. That basically means these students are going to have to pay higher amounts of their earnings on their student loans. Is that a problem? It is a big problem. It is a problem for those fresh out of colleges and universities who want to start their lives. How are they going to start their lives and take the jobs they want and still pay off the student loans? Students are making decisions now about where they go to work and what they do with their lives because of the debt they carry with them out of colleges and universities. The Republican budget before us today makes it more difficult for those students by reducing the Pell grants and increasing the payback cost on student loans. They do something else for students, too. The Affordable Care Act, which some call ObamaCare, said: If you graduate from college, you can stay on your parents' health insurance plan until age 26. Is that important? Boy, it was in our family. I can remember when my daughter graduated from college, and I said: Jennifer, do you have health insurance? She said: Dad, I don't need it. I feel fine. Really? Well, now, under the Affordable Care Act, my daughter and other kids can stay on their parents' health insurance plan. So what does the Republican budget do about that? It abolishes the Affordable Care Act. It abolishes that protection for families to keep their kids on their health insurance plans. How can that help families and kids fresh out of college? A lot of kids out of college are not finding jobs right away. They are doing internships. They are working part time. They can't afford health insurance. But they are on the family plan now because of ObamaCare--not according to the Republican budget; they want to get rid of it. That isn't all. When you take a look at eliminating the Affordable Care Act--at this point, we have 16 million Americans who have the benefit of health insurance because of ObamaCare, and they eliminate it over a period of time. And we believe that number will grow to 27 million Americans who, because of the Republican budget, will not have the opportunity to get health insurance. They cut back on Medicaid eligibility. Medicaid, of course, is health insurance for those in low-income situations. What will happen to those people? I wonder if the Budget Committee sat down, took a look, and said: Well, what is going to happen if people lose their health insurance, 27 million Americans? It would be naive to say that they just won't get sick. We know they will, and it will go back to the old days. In the old days, sick people who had no health insurance still showed up at the hospital. The hospital took care of them. The doctors took care of them. They were charity patients. Who paid for their care? All of us who have health insurance. I don't want to go back to the old days. I don't think America wants to. But this Republican budget does. It eliminates the Affordable Care Act. I travel around Illinois and Chicago--I am honored to represent it-- and I go to community health centers. They are popping up all over, in rural areas and cities as well, in neighborhoods. I want to say how proud I am that the Affordable Care Act created many of these centers. I have said, and I stand by it, that if I were sick or a member of my family were sick, I would be confident that if they walked into that center, that clinic, they would be treated to professional care. They are popping up all over the place. Elderly people now have someplace close to home to go to a clinic. Those who are on Medicaid--the health insurance from the government--can go in and be treated the same as anybody else. What do we have in this bill when it comes to these health care clinics? This bill not only kicks 11 million people off Medicaid by taking away States' rights to expand health care to lower income residents, it cuts funding for community health centers by 70 percent-- community health centers that are now serving 23 million Americans, which includes 7 million children and 250,000 veterans. How can we be better off by cutting back on the medical care in these health clinics? Do we think people won't get sick? Of course they will, and the cost will be shifted to others, just like the bad old days that we remember when health insurance premiums were going through the roof. But that is the proposal, and I think it is a serious mistake. When I look at this Republican budget, I wonder if the Members who voted for it have really taken these ideas back home; if they have sat down with people and talked about what the impact will be when working families lose the tax credit of the ITC and child care. I wonder if they have considered what the impact will be by saying they want to perpetuate breaks in the Tax Code which reward companies for taking jobs overseas. Isn't that the last thing we should be doing? Shouldn't the Tax Code be rewarding American companies that keep quality jobs in the United States, instead of shifting their mailing address to the Cayman Islands or someplace in Europe? I think it is pretty clear: If you want to build a strong American economy, you stand by the best, most patriotic American corporations that keep people working in the United States. Yet that is not what this budget proposal does. We can do better. I hope we defeat this budget resolution, and I hope we can then sit down and actually have a bipartisan conversation about the future of this country. I think the future of this country includes a Tax Code that is fair to working families. I think it rewards American companies that create jobs in the United States. I don't think it gives 4,000 people a year, who happen to be the wealthiest people in America, a winning Power Ball ticket, as this budget proposal we have before us does. I think we ought to expand the reach of health insurance, not reduce it. We want to give families a chance to be able to send their kids to college and kids not be so burdened with debt they can't chart their own futures. That is an optimistic, positive view of a growing America. This budget resolution is not. I urge my colleagues to vote against this budget resolution and say to the Committee on the Budget that we can do better. If we are going to pick winners and losers, let's pick working families right here in America as the winners. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. For 100 years, the Chicago Community Trust has connected the generosity of Chicagoans with the needs of the community. In 1915, 6 years after Daniel Burnham unveiled his visionary plan for the city of Chicago, Norman Harris and his son Albert recognized how much could be achieved by combining the philanthropy of business and community leaders who cared deeply about the future of Chicago. They founded The Chicago Community Trust. As brilliant as Burnham's plan was, Norman and Albert Harris understood that it takes more than steel, glass, and concrete to make a great city. A great city needs healthy, hopeful people, good schools, culture, and arts--all things that the trust has helped nurture for 100 years. Whether its economic opportunity, education, housing, conservation, or health care--the list of important causes in which the Chicago Community Trust is involved is remarkable. Since its founding, the trust has granted more than $2 billion to nonprofit organizations working to improve the quality of life in the community. The trust has helped develop new audiences to sustain arts organizations, protected the human services safety net for those hardest hit by economic challenges, eased the devastating effects of foreclosures in Chicago neighborhoods, and elevated teaching to meet world-class standards. In the wake of the worst recession since the Great Depression, the trust stepped up and distributed $11.4 million in Unity Challenge grants to meet the needs of Chicago's most vulnerable citizens. The grants supplied food to more than 800 soup kitchens and food pantries. The trust helped expand capacity at homeless shelters and bought winter coats for children. The trust put money in community health centers and helped seniors pay for their prescription medications. The recession was hard on Chicago, but the business and community leaders at the Chicago Community Trust made sure that the community took care of its own. This month, the trust is launching its centennial campaign, starting with the return of ``On the Table,'' a forum that brings together thousands of Chicago residents to share a meal and talk about how they can work together to make the community stronger, safer, and more dynamic. Last year, nearly 12,000 people participated from every Chicago neighborhood and 11 neighboring counties. This year, the trust is expecting to at least double the number of people participating. I congratulate the Chicago Community Trust on 100 years strengthening the community. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do to make Chicago a great and caring community.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I want to pay my respects to a man who championed the underdogs of Metro East, IL. Rex Carr passed away on Monday at the age of 88. For over one-half century, people who were out of luck or injured could call on Rex Carr to be their champion. He did it with a style and grace that made him a legend in the community. Rex grew up in my hometown of East St. Louis. He was the second youngest of five boys. His mother was a teacher and father was a firefighter with the Illinois Central Railroad. His family could not afford much and often had to move when they could not pay the rent. When Rex graduated from East St. Louis High School, he joined the Navy and served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Rex would go on to attend college and law school at the University of Illinois. During summers, he worked filling freight cars with ice and hitched a ride back and forth between home and the University of Illinois. In 1949, Rex finished law school and started practicing in East St. Louis. He was so poor that his first office was in the chambers of a friendly judge, where he could only work when the judge was busy in court. He earned $500 his first year of practice. But he would keep an office in East St. Louis for the rest of his life. In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird, Atticus Finch defined courage, ``When you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.'' Rex did not win all his cases, but he won quite a few and always tried to see things to their end. Rex had that courage that Atticus Finch described. During the 1960s and 1970s, Rex earned a reputation as a civil rights and labor attorney. He fiercely fought for equal rights for African Americans and represented teachers in East St. Louis. By the end of the 1970s, Rex's practice had turned toward personal injury, and he became a legend. He won national acclaim as the best- prepared lawyer in Metro East and even made it into the Guinness Book of Records for three categories: the longest civil jury trial; the largest personal injury verdict at the time; and the largest libel verdict. The longest trial also was one of his proudest moments of his career. A tanker car carrying wood preservative with a dioxin contaminant spilled in Sturgeon, MO, injuring many of the town's residents. He represented 65 of them. All but one of the parties settled with the residents. Chemical giant Monsanto, manufacturer of the dioxin, refused, and Rex took them to court. Rex fought for three and a half years in the case. There were 182 witnesses, 6,000 separate exhibits, and over 100,000 pages in transcript. Rex's skill was on full display. He cross-examined a witness for 6 months and then another witness for 5 months. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $16 million. An appeals court would disappoint him and the residents by reducing the award to $1 million. Rex went on to win many cases and mentor many young lawyers in Metro East. His career was about holding corporations responsible and ensuring his clients' rights. Rex's cross-examinations were the stuff of folklore. At 88 years old, he was still working out of his Missouri Avenue office in East St. Louis. It's where he was from, and he wanted people to be able to come to him for help. Rex was a giant in Metro East. My thoughts and prayers go out to his four sons, Rex G. Carr of Vermont, Bruce Carr of Valparaiso, IN, Eric Reeve of Mack's Creek, MO, and Glenn Carr of Columbia, IL; a daughter, Kathryn Marie Wheeler of Los Angeles, CA; 16 grandchildren; and 20 great-grandchildren.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I come to the floor today to join Senators Carper and Blumenthal on a subject we would like to speak to by way of colloquy, without objection by my colleagues.

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, Senator Carper, Senator Blumenthal, and I have come to the floor to discuss a terrible loophole in Federal law. It is the Federal 90-10 rule that limits the amount of Department of Education title IV dollars for for-profit colleges. They can receive 90 percent of their revenue from the title IV. The intent was to make sure for-profit colleges were not totally reliant on Federal taxpayers for operations and that they could survive without taxpayer dollars. Well, I think 90 percent is way too high to accomplish that goal. What is more, the law doesn't count non-title IV Federal programs as revenue when they calculate the 90 percent. The Department of Veterans Affairs Post-9/11 GI bill and Department of Defense tuition assistance and MyCAA dollars are some of the biggest examples of Federal revenue not counted in the 90 percent calculation. It means that some for-profit colleges get vastly more than 90 percent from the Federal Government. These are supposed to be private institutions in the private sector? No way. If they were standing alone as an industry, the for-profit colleges and universities would be the ninth largest Federal agency in Washington. They get that much money. Who are some of these schools that get more than 90 percent of their revenue from federal taxpayers? Well, names you might have heard: Everest College in Newport News, VA; Everest College in Portland, OR; Heald College campuses in Fresno, San Francisco, and Stockton, CA. If the names sound familiar, it is because they are part of the now bankrupt and out-of-business Corinthian Colleges system that defrauded students, lied to the Federal Government, and raked in $1.4 billion annually in title IV dollars and another $186 million from GI bill benefits. Ashford University in Clinton, IA, is another notorious story of a for-profit school that received more than 90 percent of their revenue from Federal dollars when the Department of Defense and VA funds are included. I know that one very well. A past Bloomberg news article really demonstrated the depths these companies will sink to in order to ensnare or enroll veterans and servicemembers who qualify for Federal benefits. James Long was reported to have suffered a brain injury when artillery shells hit his humvee in Iraq. The Ashford recruiter came to a barracks for wounded marines at Camp Lejeune while Long was recovering from his brain injury and pitched to him to go to Ashford University, this for-profit school. Their parent company, Bridgepoint Education, is under investigation by at least three State attorneys general. I could go through the list, but I will yield the floor for my friend from the State of Delaware, Senator Carper, to say a few words as well. Westwood College, based out of Colorado, in my State of Illinois, is under investigation by the Illinois attorney general. I have been contacted by their students, including veterans, who have been lured into their worthless degree programs and use up their GI bills as a result of it. There are many other schools included on this list of schools that receive more than 90 percent of their revenue from federal taxpayers. Vatterott College and Coyne College are in my home State. There are schools owned by Apollo, the largest for-profit college and university in the United States, which is currently under investigation by two State attorneys general. Career Education Corporation--which is another notorious for-profit school--is under investigation by 17 different State attorneys general. And there are schools owned by Kaplan, which used to be owned by the Washington Post, which now is on its own, and is under investigation by three different States attorneys general. Why do we allow this to happen? These schools are targeting our veterans and our servicemembers and members of their family. I was listening to Pandora the other day and I heard American Military University advertising. Well, they know it is Washington, DC. There are a lot of people in uniform in Washington, DC. The American Military University is not part of any official part of our military. They just picked up the name. It is a for-profit school raising questions, again, about whether they are providing our veterans and servicemembers with any value for their GI benefits. So I have joined with a number of my colleagues, Senator Carper, and 18 other colleagues, in writing to the Secretary of the Department of Education to publish its annual 90-10 data with all the Federal education benefits, including the Department of Defense and VA benefits. According to documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Department of Education has produced data internally. So it is there, and it is time that it be shared with the public. I thank Senator Carper. Many people have heard me come to the floor and talk about for-profit colleges and universities and probably think: Well, there goes Durbin again. Well, this time I am joined by a couple of my outstanding colleagues, and one of them is the Senator from Delaware, who helped me to bring together 20 Senators to sign this letter. I yield to Senator Carper.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

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