Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and bring up the DeMint amendment No. 4474.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, if I may, I will mention a few things about the amendment. I am, obviously, disappointed that a germane amendment cannot even be brought up in this debate. A part of this housing package is a $4 billion title III section that we are referring to as community development block grants. Many people here support those. I wish to make clear to my colleagues this is not a normal block grant. What it is--in the name of helping homeowners who have lost their homes, this $4 billion goes to selected areas of the country where there has been the highest concentration of foreclosures. What it actually does is use taxpayer dollars to buy homes from banks. The banks have taken these homes from former homeowners. This money doesn't help the people who have lost their homes. It takes taxpayer money from all over the country and bales out the banks that now hold this. What we are going to end up with is this money that goes through States down to local communities, through the block grant process, to local communities themselves or through an intermediary who is actually buying private property now owned by the banks, and we are spending money to fix those homes up and then to sell them, the local communities--we are helping to make them property owners. The bill, as written, does not prevent them from keeping the property as rental property. This will not only spend $4 billion, it will not necessarily do it in an equitable way around the country. It doesn't help homeowners who have lost their homes. In fact, it may hurt the homeowners who don't get the benefit of Government money to fix up their homes. They don't get bailed out if they cannot make their payments. What we are faced with is the Government fixing up a home. We are giving someone a tax credit to buy that home but not the one for sale next to it. We know this process of how block grants work, and these have been deemed one of the least-effective programs by the General Accounting Office and other Government agencies that looked at this. We are going to funnel money from here to the States, to the local communities, to the banks, and the transactional costs to move these homes and to fix them up is going to probably be more than any value from it. We put responsible homeowners at a disadvantage in this package. I encourage my colleagues to look at this whole bill. First of all, look at the process. If we cannot have a germane amendment postcloture--which was promised when this bill was brought up--and we cannot strike a large provision such as this, which is clearly not in the interest of those who are hurting; it is obviously bailing out banks who have made bad loans, what this will ultimately do is encourage banks to foreclose on homes they might not have because they know they are going to get the Government to buy that home if they take it from the homeowner. The perverse incentives built into this plan need to be thought through. There is no way this will work to help those who have been hurt. It is throwing the money into the wrong places and making homeowners out of local communities in an inequitable way in this country. It is unfortunate we are not allowed to up bring this amendment and vote on it in a fair and open process. Nevertheless, I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I appreciate the chairman's indulgence today. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4328 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, every Senator here today knows we need to address the problem with Social Security. Within the next 8 or 10 years, the current surplus we have for Social Security will run out and we will be in the red as far as cashflow goes. We will begin to transfer money from the general fund to pay for Social Security. Over the last two decades, we have taken over $2 trillion of Social Security surplus and spent it on other things. In the next 5 years alone, counting interest, we will take another trillion of this surplus and spend it elsewhere. This amendment simply says we should spend this Social Security surplus that is in front of us only on Social Security. The last time this bill was on the floor, it got 45 votes. Several of you who voted against it said you thought it set up private accounts, so you voted against it. There is nothing in this amendment about setting up private accounts or how we save it. It simply says that we spend Social Security on Social Security and save it for the future. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Florida.) The Senator from Montana.

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

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4232 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Would it be OK to add an additional 30 seconds, just to clarify the misinformation?

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, since there has already been more than a minute in opposition, that I have 2 minutes to speak on this amendment.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the chairman. This is amendment No. 4339. What it does is what I believe all of us in the Chamber would like to do and that is to make it easier for people without health insurance to buy health insurance. It does not accomplish all our goals or solve all the problems, but what it does is allow people who do not have health insurance through their employer to buy health insurance and deduct it the same way an employer would. It is a very simple amendment. That is the only item in it, to allow individuals to deduct the cost of a health insurance premium from their taxes.

Mr. DeMINT. If that is the case, I now move to waive the Budget Act and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. It is not the intent to bring down the budget or compromise a privilege in any way. If the Senator is worried about privilege, I ask unanimous consent if the motion to waive is successful, that the amendment be withdrawn and deemed passed in a separate Senate resolution.

Mr. DeMINT. May I ask the Chair a question?

Mr. DeMINT. So you would like to bring it up and vote.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, we have had some partisan and controversial amendments tonight. I hope this won't be one. This amendment simply allows individuals who buy health insurance on their own to deduct it from their taxes. All of us talk about the uninsured. This is a chance to give a number of the uninsured the opportunity to buy health insurance on the same basis that we do in Congress, and that is to make it deductible. Some will say this is a cost. We are already paying for this, and probably much more, as people seek health care in the emergency room and other places when they are not insured. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote for the amendment to allow Americans to deduct 100 percent of the cost of the health insurance premium.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, in that case, I move to waive the Budget Act and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. Parliamentary inquiry: Mr. President, if this point of order is waived and the amendment is adopted, would it cause the budget resolution to lose its privilege at this time?

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 4340 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DeMINT. Correct.

Mr. DeMINT. My colleagues, it is time for some straight talk on earmarks. And it is time for some real change that all Americans can believe in. All three of our colleagues running for President are cosponsors of this moratorium on earmarks. All three of our colleagues running for President are cosponsors of this amendment. I thank John McCain particularly for years of warning us of what earmarks and our earmark system were doing to undermine confidence in this Congress. I thank Senator McCaskill for her courage in standing up, and my Democratic cosponsors, Senators Obama, Clinton, and Bayh, and all of my Republican cosponsors who know what we all know: that this earmark system is out of control. It has undermined the faith and the confidence of the American people. It is time for a timeout. My amendment creates a 1-year moratorium on all earmarks by establishing--