Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend rule XVI for the purpose of proposing and considering amendment No. 773 to H.R. 2112.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend rule XVI for the purpose of proposing and considering amendment No. 774 to H.R. 2112.

Mr. DeMINT

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 I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DeMINT. I rise to speak in opposition to the Chinese tariff bill being proposed by my colleague from New York. I understand the frustrations that motivated this legislation, and I share serious concerns over China's currency manipulation and trade practices. I have worked for years to ensure that trade happens and that free trade happens on a level playing field. We still have a long way to go. The answer to these frustrations with China is not to start a trade war that will raise prices on many goods for American families at a time when they are already struggling, especially when this approach has already been tried and failed to gain any positive results for American workers. The absolute last thing our floundering economy needs right now is retaliatory tariffs on American products that will destroy more jobs. If we want to strengthen our currency, we should start by getting control of our own monetary policy. We don't need to start a trade war with China; we need to stop the class warfare that is preventing jobs from being created right here in America. American workers are the best in the world, but they cannot fairly compete in a global economy when the U.S. Government is keeping one arm tied behind their back. The solution is to free American workers, not to try to tie up our competitors with more misguided policies that will hurt American families with higher prices on household goods. The U.S. Government needs to give American workers the freedom to work, and that freedom starts with the freedom to get a job. If President Obama and the Democrats want to know who is preventing jobs from being created in America, all they have to do is look in the mirror. Let's be clear about a few things: Other countries are not threatening to massively raise taxes on our Nation's job creators and drive jobs overseas. President Obama is. Other countries did not jam through a health care takeover bill that is raising the cost of health care, making it harder for businesses to hire people and adding trillions of dollars to our national debt. The Democrats in Congress did. Other countries did not force us to pass the Dodd-Frank financial takeover with thousands of new regulations that are raising costs on American consumers and crippling businesses. Democrats in Congress did. Other countries are not writing hundreds of new regulatory rules that are destroying jobs in our Nation's energy sector and keeping us dependent on foreign oil. The administration's EPA is. Other countries are not blocking Boeing from creating thousands of American jobs in the State of South Carolina. The President's National Labor Relations Board is. Other countries are not forcing 28 U.S. States to require employees to join labor unions that make businesses less competitive. Democrats are the ones protecting labor bosses and hurting workers in America. The Wall Street Journal has called this Chinese tariff bill ``the most dangerous trade legislation in many years,'' and for good reason. If we pass this bill, it is likely to spark a trade war. It is unlikely to create new jobs in America but will result in higher prices for U.S. consumers. Businesses will pay more for raw materials from China, which will increase prices on their goods and reduce employment. President Obama and the Democrats should know better after seeing the results of the tariff that was put on Chinese tires in 2009. In response, China retaliated with tariffs on American auto parts and poultry. This well- intended bill will have the same unintended results. I understand the economic frustrations people have with China, but as so many of Obama's policies have done, this bill will only make things worse. This bill doesn't export the best of what American workers have to offer, it exports bad economics. Taxes and tariffs do not create jobs, competition and markets do. Freedom will work if we let it. I urge the Senate to reject this bill and start helping American workers compete more freely here in America and around the world instead of simply trying to hold others back. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I would like to speak in support of Senator Rubio's amendment and thank him for helping us to focus on the original intent of trade adjustment assistance. Obviously, we want to help folks who are unemployed or displaced because of trade. But we have to realize where we are with our country right now. We are using borrowed money and sometimes printed money in order to help people. So we have a responsibility to taxpayers and to some form of fiscal sanity, as well as to those who have lost their jobs. What Senator Rubio is trying to do is to restore those original, responsible boundaries of trade adjustment assistance to make sure this program is focused on those who are hurt by trade agreements. The discussion is somewhat odd in the first place in that for several years the President has been telling us these trade agreements are actually going to increase jobs in our country, expand exports--which I believe they will--but to use this as an excuse and to hold these trade bills hostage for several years in order to fund a program which duplicates many other programs--because we need to remember, those who are put out of work in our country today have not only regular unemployment benefits but they have been extended much beyond what we have done before, and there are dozens of State and Federal training programs now that duplicate each other. Unfortunately, many of them have been found to be ineffective. But for us to lay another layer of duplication on top of that under the guise of showing compassion, I think we also have to make sure we are being responsible. So we want to help folks who are unemployed, but we do need to make sure we are being responsible to the taxpayers. As I said, the trade adjustment assistance was originally designed to help those who were put out of work. And, believe me, coming from a textile State such as South Carolina, trade with China and other countries has displaced a whole lot of textile workers. Retraining is very important. The new jobs that moved in required more technical capabilities. But what we have found, as we have seen how our good intentions have hit the ground in South Carolina and around the country, is that even our own Office of Management and Budget rated TAA as ineffective. The program costs taxpayers $1.3 billion in just this year, in 2011, and we are finding that what it was intended to do it is not doing. It is not well managed. It is not helping the people it is supposed to help. Since its inception, the program has gone from a focus on those who lose their jobs because of trade to all kinds of institutions, training groups, and, frankly, fraud, duplication, and not helping the folks it is intended to help. If we want to know how far out of bounds the program has gone, we all know the story of Solyndra solar company that got over $\1/2\ billion from the American taxpayers and then went bankrupt and we lost our money. The workers now at Solyndra are applying for TAA benefits not because trade put them out of business, but, frankly, a coordinated effort of our government and Solyndra management have put these people out of work. But we can see, if they are now using a program called trade adjustment assistance to add to their unemployment benefits, the program is no longer within the bounds that it was intended. If we are going to tell the taxpayers this program is intended for one thing, we need to make sure it is. What we are talking about now are trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. No one has come and told us these agreements are going to cost American jobs. Yet we have to pass more spending programs and add on to a program that has been proved ineffective in order to add jobs in America. That is not good policy. I do not think it is good politics. I am thankful Senator Rubio is taking the leadership to shine a spotlight on the need to help people while at the same time being responsible to taxpayers. We do not need to be funding additional unemployment for every company that goes out of business and was not properly managed. If we keep the program focused, it will help the people we need to help while, again, being responsible for hard-working Americans who are paying the taxes. I encourage my colleagues to take a look at this amendment. Federal programs that continue to expand and expand and expand, they become less and less effective; they cost more and more money. If we are going to continue this program, let's do it responsibly. Mr. President, I yield back and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and several colleagues, I object.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I wish to commend my colleague for his attention to this issue. Autism is a very difficult issue for many families, and the incidence of autism in our country is growing. I am thankful Congress, in its wisdom, a number of years ago, established agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, where we have scientists and physicians and many others who are dedicating themselves to researching not just autism but cures for many diseases. I appreciate again my colleague bringing this up, but I am afraid this is another example of political good intentions having many unintended consequences. The lobby to support autism is definitely very strong, and we appreciate that, but there are many diseases that children and people throughout our country face. We have put experts in place to determine where we can spend the money we allocate for medical research, and we need to leave that to the experts. We have seen unintended results when our government tries to pick winners and losers. We tried to do it in the solar business 1 year or so ago. There are many companies in the solar business, but we picked one, and we didn't exactly know what we were doing. We gave $\1/2\ billion dollars to an effort that turned out not to be the best place to send taxpayer money. Autism research will continue, and I think that is something we need to make very clear. The people we have put in charge of doing medical research will continue to do that medical research. The Congress does not have to decide how much we are going to spend on all the different diseases that affect Americans. There are many children facing diseases we don't understand, and they do not have the lobby many other diseases have. We cannot, from a political perspective, in an attempt to demonstrate our compassion, try to direct all the scientific and medical research from the floor of the Congress. So I wish to make it clear that all of us who object support autism research. We will continue to try to make sure the funding for medical research is there. But it makes absolutely no sense for us, from where we sit, to try to play scientists and physicians and to know where the best outcomes will be and where we get the most for our money. If we are going to do that, we might as well decide what kind of medical equipment is going to be used or what kind of drugs are going to be used, and we certainly don't have that capability. I am very thankful Dr. Coburn has taken up this issue for years and urged us to leave the decisions for medical research in the hands of those who understand it. Our job, as a Congress, is to continue to appropriate the money, which we will, for medical research. Autism research will continue, as well as research for many other diseases. Hopefully, we can make sure that funding is there because many families are suffering and we need to make sure we do our part in the research area. So I welcome my colleagues in the majority bringing this bill to the floor for debate. We certainly are not blocking debate on this issue. But passing something such as this, without any debate and without any open vote, is not what Congress should be doing right now. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you, Mr. President. The last 2 years--2\1/2\ years--have been remarkable in a lot of ways. We have seen a lot of things around our country that are beginning to change the political landscape in Washington. After President Obama's election, with a lot of fanfare and hope attached, we saw a lot of changes begin in Washington--a lot of new spending with huge stimulus plans that clearly have not worked. We have seen a takeover of the health care system and the financial system. But what we saw across America is what encouraged me. We saw millions of Americans, from all spectrums of politics, united, coming together for tea party rallies and townhalls. They were concerned about our country. They were concerned about the spending and the borrowing and the debt. In these groups were liberals and Libertarians and Independents and Republicans and Democrats--people with all political beliefs who knew intuitively, instinctively, in their guts, that, in Washington, we couldn't keep spending more than we were bringing in without bankrupting our country. I joined a lot of those groups around the country, and these were hardly radical people. They were commonsense Americans from all walks of life who were just concerned about what we were doing in Washington. They wanted us to get control of the spending and debt. We saw a lot of people in Washington ignore what was going on. But across the country, many Republicans, and even some Democrats, were listening to what they were saying and made strong commitments that if they were elected to the House or the Senate, they would come and get control of the spending and the borrowing and the debt and try to return to some fiscal sanity, some concept of constitutional limited government that we promise people when we take our oath of office and that we would stand by it. So we saw many new Republicans come to the House and to the Senate with a commitment to get control of the spending and debt, to save our country from this obvious bankruptcy we are headed toward. The tea party was involved with that. It is hard for me to listen to a lot of the criticism of the tea party and their desire to balance the budget. There is no one tea party. What we are talking about are thousands of citizen groups across this country who are being vigilant about their government, which is what our Founders asked them to be. They are not radical people. They are very commonsense people, and they understand what we are doing in Washington is about to destroy the country. The tea party is being used a lot to suggest it is a small, radical group that is controlling some in the Republican Party. Over 70 percent of Americans agree with them--that we should balance our budget, that we should cut spending and send a balanced budget amendment to the States to ratify. For every person who says they are part of a tea party, there are hundreds of Americans who feel the same way who share those ideals of constitutional limited government and the concern and real fear that what we have been doing in Washington is taking our country literally to the brink. It is deeply disturbing to hear the Vice President refer to tea parties as terrorists, as he did today, holding a gun to the heads of Republicans and forcing us to make cuts. Clearly, Vice President Biden and many here are not listening to what Americans are saying, and they are trying to diminish what Americans are saying by suggesting this is part of one small group. The President showed right away this year, even after the November election, that he wasn't listening. He sent a budget to Congress that increased the debt another $10 trillion by his measures but actually another $15 trillion if we look at it in any kind of objective way. When the Republicans in the House demanded that they keep their commitment to cut $100 billion the first year, what did the President do? He said he would meet halfway, at $30 billion. He doesn't think we need to cut anything. He thinks we need to increase spending, and that is what he has been doing. This is the second crisis we have had this year. The first was that year's budget, where we came right to the edge of closing the government because the President and the Democrats did not want to cut anything--at least in the negotiations we see. If they are going to meet us halfway between 100, they start below zero if they end up at 30. They are not with us, and it is hard to negotiate with people who don't understand that we truly do have a problem. Washington, as Senator Rubio said, has a debt problem, but America has a jobs problem. One of the things we need to understand is, if we could stop growing the government, we could start growing the economy. More jobs would mean more tax revenue and less debt. But, unfortunately, this President continues to make things much worse. He wants to continue to spend and borrow, but he will not take responsibility for his spending. He has failed to lead and he loves to blame others. Sure, he inherited some problems--every President does. George W. Bush before him inherited a recession. Reagan inherited double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates. Yet they moved to solve the problems. The difference is, Obama continues, after 2\1/2\ years, to blame others and his policies continue to make things worse. Let's talk about this debt ceiling for a minute, this debt crisis, and try to set the record straight. Clearly, President Obama has failed to lead in this whole process. We do need to remember, while he is trying to blame others for this debt ceiling problem, that it was a Democratic Congress and the President who signed into law the current debt limit we have. This was not a Republican-created problem that we have. Then, for the last 4\1/2\ years, Obama and the Democrats had control of spending, so they set the debt limit, and they have spent the money to take us up to the debt limit. We have known for the last 6 months that we needed to deal with this problem. Yet the President submitted no plan at all. He just asked Congress to rubberstamp an increase of $2.4 trillion in our debt, to borrow another $2.4 trillion, and, he said, with no strings attached. He didn't want to cut anything when this whole debate started--no leadership; 6 months, no plan, just speeches, trying to shift the blame. He likes to ignore the fact that the House passed a bill that would solve our problem. It was a bill called Cut, Cap, and Balance. It cut spending right now, it controlled spending out over the next 10 years, and it sends a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to the States to ratify. The response from the Democrats in the Senate and President Obama was truly astounding. The President says he wants a balanced solution, but he does not want a balanced budget. He has actually called us extreme for wanting to balance the budget, and, he said, we can do our job without a constitutional requirement to balance the budget. We can do a job on America, but we are not doing the job we were sent to do, and we certainly have proved we cannot control spending unless it is by law that requires us to do that. Even though this bill passed the House by a large number, with some Democratic support, and it gave the President a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt limit but only if we cut spending and controlled it and created some permanent accountability, we sent it to the Senate, and the leader of the Democratic Party would not even allow it on the floor for any debate because he saw the polls. He saw that already, within just a couple days, that 70 percent or nearly 70 percent of Americans supported the approach of cutting and controlling spending and creating some permanent accountability. So it was pushed aside so we could make some more backroom deals, with no transparency, no accountability, no leadership. I commend Speaker Boehner, Leader McConnell, the Republicans who have worked through this process. Dealing with people who will not put a plan on the table is very difficult. The Republicans passed cut, cap, and balance. Then they followed up with another plan that was not so good, but it was a plan, and it did not even get past the front door in the Senate. For 6 months, no plan from the President, no plan from the Democrats. Now we have gotten a deal with a partner who does not want to cut spending, after a November election where we were sent here, and the country pleaded with us to get control of spending, borrowing, and debt. We can look at this deal two ways. There are two realities. From any Washington standard, this is a historic sea change in the way we do business. Instead of what we were doing last year, where we were talking about how much more we could spend and how much porkbarrel bacon we could take home, at least this year we are talking about the fact that we need to cut spending. So we can say the deal makes progress in that respect. But in the real world, a dollars and cents world, we have to realize our country is on a path toward bankruptcy right now. We are projecting adding another $10 trillion or $15 trillion to our debt. No one is going to lend us that amount of money. We do not have 10 years. This deal does not change that trajectory at all. We will still borrow $10 trillion or more in the next 10 years. We will still add $1 trillion a year to our debt. We cannot call this a debt reduction bill. We can not even call it a spending reduction bill. For the next couple years, it hardly cuts anything. When we talk about cutting in Washington, we are not cutting spending from where it is today; we are reducing the rate of increase that is planned. So it is important we tell the truth to the American people that while this deal may be the best we can do--with the leadership in the White House, or lack thereof, as well as the leadership, or lack thereof, in the Senate--it may be the best political solution we can get, but it does not solve America's problem. It certainly does not solve America's job problem, and it does nothing but add another $10 trillion to our debt if we are able to go that far. I will be voting against this bill because I do not believe we have 10 years to try to get it right. I think it is very likely, over the next year or two or three, that we are going to reach a very real debt limit when no one will lend us any more money. Today, in America, we have to borrow $140 billion a month in order to pay our regular bills. The people who are adding to that debt every month think it is extreme to balance their checkbook. It is time we get our House in order and force this Congress, by the Constitution, to balance its budget. We cannot continue to spend more than we are bringing in and expect to reduce our debt. That is the inside Washington mentality. This deal is not a good deal for America. It may be the best deal Washington can come up with, with the current leadership, but it puts our country at risk. But in a Washington where there is no leadership in the White House, there is no accountability, and there is someone sitting in the Oval Office who will not take responsibility for anything, this may be a deal we have to accept for now. I intend to vote against it because it is important we tell America the truth; that this puts our country at risk. It is time we do what is best for America, not what makes the best deal in Washington. I would encourage my colleagues to vote against this deal, even though I know they already have the votes. But I hope when this is passed, we will not think for 1 minute we have solved the problem, we will not try to convince Americans that now we have a few more years to spend and borrow without any repercussions. We need to immediately get back to the debate that was getting America involved in the last election, which was balancing our budget and getting some fiscal sanity in Washington. While we are in desperate straits in our country right now, and we see our economy getting worse because of the policies of this administration, the good news is this: We can solve this problem with one more good election. That is what I am looking forward to: taking my case to the American people and the case they sent us here to make to this Congress, that we need one more election to finish the job they started in 2010. If they want us to get control of spending and borrowing and debt, we need a few more good people, such as the House freshmen who have stood their ground on this whole debate and those who have come in here in the Senate and have led the way for a balanced budget. It is that day I am looking forward to because on that day, we will once again, hopefully, listen to America, get our House in order, balance our budget, and do what is best for our country. I yield back. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Senator from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, and Senator Collins, for their leadership on this issue. It is good to see Democrats and Republicans working together on something. Unfortunately, like many of the things we work on, we are dealing with symptoms of a much deeper problem that we fail to recognize. The reason we have gone from a few hundred confirmations during President Kennedy's time to thousands today is because of the incredible exponential growth of the Federal Government--new departments everywhere, where we have new positions that have to be filled with nominees who are confirmed by the Senate. Rather than look at the behemoth we have created, we are moving to make it somewhat less accountable. I appreciate the rationale behind this, but I do think we have to recognize when we are treating symptoms and not solving the problem. The problem has led to much of the debt, the spending and an out-of- control Congress and congressional interventions, because all of these agencies invade on the private sector. But I do appreciate the opportunity to speak and to offer an amendment. The amendment we will be voting on in a few minutes does relate to the International Monetary Fund. This is a fund set up years ago to help struggling poor nations that get themselves in trouble. The United States has been the largest contributor for years. But the IMF has gone from being an international agency that helped in a limited number of difficult situations to one that is now huge; that has access to Americans' general fund. That is what I want to talk about today. My amendment would deauthorize what we did in 2009 to open our bank account to bailouts all over the world. Americans have gotten plenty tired of our spending and our borrowing, and particularly the bailouts they have seen from Washington and how these bailouts have not worked but often made things worse. The international bailout fund is the International Monetary Fund. In 2009, this Congress passed an additional $100 billion credit line to the International Monetary Fund. This can be drawn on without any congressional approval, without the President's approval. It is an open checkbook, in effect, that the International Monetary Fund can use, and they will use, during these difficult times, as we see irresponsible nations such as Greece that need international funds to continue their profligate spending. We must deauthorize this. Our country is in dire straits--close to bankruptcy itself. The President is asking us, for the fourth time, to increase the debt limit of our Nation so we can borrow another $2 trillion on top of the $14 trillion we have already borrowed. We cannot afford to let the International Monetary Fund--which we discovered in the last month has some questionable management practices--access $100 billion more than they already have of our money and help bail out countries all over the world that have failed to make the difficult decisions. Don't think for a moment this is helping the poor in other countries. This is a bailout for the big banks around the world that have made loans to governments and now expect the International Monetary Fund to back them. Americans saw enough of that during our own Wall Street bailouts. Yet this Congress approved $100 billion more, which has not been accessed yet but is available to the International Monetary Fund right now without our permission. We can stop that today with this amendment. There is no excuse for giving away money around the world when we cannot even keep our promises here in America--promises we have made to our seniors and promises we have made to our veterans.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I encourage my colleagues to maybe do one responsible fiscal thing in this session of Congress and at least put this on hold. Let's stop this authorized $100 billion for international bailouts. Madam President, I yield the floor, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, this next amendment is about accountability and transparency. I thank the leadership teams on both sides for accepting most of the positions here for legislative affairs that interface on our behalf with the administration. There are eight more positions and that is all this amendment is about. They are public affairs positions that interface on behalf of the public with the administration. Certainly we can give the public the same accountability and transparency we ask for ourselves. These are the positions within the White House. If Americans have a problem in any area, whether it is defense contracting, Health and Human Services, HUD, Labor, they call a public affairs officer. These folks need to be accountable to us and we need to make sure they respond to the American people. There are only eight positions here that we are asking to go through the normal confirmation process. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. I would like to speak on my amendment which will be voted on in a few minutes. Amendment No. 510 This amendment would strike the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics from the list of the Senate-confirmed positions that would be removed from the confirmation process. I wish to explain why this is important because this seems to be something that maybe would not be important to pull out from this long list of nominees who no longer need be confirmed. It is very important that this particular position, this nominee for this position, be vetted and confirmed by the Senate. It is often said statistics don't lie; people do. Particularly in this business, we have seen one set of statistics be interpreted and publicized in totally different ways, and that is why this position is so important. The role they have is critical. In a democracy and in a free country, one of the most important aspects to protect against is that risk of the government becoming a propaganda machine. I wish to read what this particular position does: The Bureau of Justice Statistics collects, analyzes, publishes, and disseminates information on crime, criminal offenders, crime victims, and criminal justice operations. It is very important. This information is acted on by local, State, and Federal officials. Lots of our laws are shaped and based on this information. Statistics are only as valuable as the reputation of the statistician, and that is what this position is. Every Member of this body knows how to write a question so you get the answer you want. If we are going to have a Bureau of Justice Statistics, don't we want the public to have some level of trust in the data they publish? If we just put some political hack in this position--as, unfortunately, has happened over administrations of both parties, not necessarily for this position but we know in some positions--it would totally discredit what this person does. So do we want the public to think they are cooking the books to promote policy ends on issues such as gun control, hate crimes, racial profiling, immigration, drug policy, and so forth? If we cannot absolutely trust the impartiality of the management of the Bureau, we should abolish it and give the money back to the taxpayers. We know we are $14 trillion in debt. Our Nation is on the brink of financial collapse. My constituents have no interest in borrowing money from the Chinese to fund the Bureau to compile crime statistics if we can't trust the numbers. If there is even a hint of bias of a political agenda or of the head of this Bureau being friendly to the perspective of whatever party is in the White House, then we should abolish the agency. In the past, those on the right have been suspicious that the Bureau of Justice Statistics has had a bias against gun rights and against the first amendment. Whether that is true, who knows. BJS statistics are used to form policy decisions. If the agency becomes a tool of the party in power, that will no longer be the case. When James Lynch, the nominee for the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, was asked in his confirmation hearing what the biggest challenge for the Bureau of Justice Statistics moving forward was, he responded: ``I think the biggest challenges of the Bureau of Justice Statistics moving forward are the perennial challenges to a statistical agency; that is to say, to maintain its credibility as an independent Federal statistical agency.'' It is important we hear that. It is important Americans hear that, and we will not have that opportunity if this position is no longer confirmed. It is not often that you hear a nominee suggest that the No. 1 challenge he faces in assuming a position is to maintain the credibility and independence of the agency he is about to run. But, as Dr. Lynch said, that is the nature of a statistical agency, and it is precisely the reason why we should not remove this position from the confirmation process. The questions at the live hearing and the submitted written questions appropriately focused almost exclusively on this issue of credibility, independence, and accountability. How do we protect the Director from political influence and tampering by the executive? There was discussion about ways to restructure the office to make it more independent and further reinforce its independent roll. There was discussion of moving the director to a 6- year term to further reinforce his independence, a proposal that the nominee supports. Of course, a 6-year term would imply Senate confirmation. In every way possible, the committee and nominee discussed ways to solidify the independence of the position and protect it from political influence. In the context of these discussions, it was once suggested that we remove the position from the confirmation process.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President I ask that the quorum call be suspended.

Mr. DeMINT. With all the nominees who are confirmed in the Senate with no debate or vote, it would seem the confirmation process is serving a purpose. First, there are things that happen behind the scenes to vet and review these nominees and their backgrounds. Unfortunately, as we have seen, the President, in some cases, with what we call czars in other positions and recess appointments, has sidestepped that. That has reduced the credibility in these positions, but let me just focus again on this one position. We never want the American Government to be accused of being a propaganda machine, as we see from governments all over the world. This one area of statistics, where they are disseminating information all over the country that so many respond to, needs to be credible and independent. I encourage my colleagues to keep this one position in the confirmation process so we will have an opportunity to make sure that, regardless of which party is in power, we have a credible, independent voice dealing with these statistics. I thank the President for yielding me a little more time. I yield back.

Mr. DeMINT

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

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I would like to call up three amendments and speak on them at another time. First, I would like to call up amendment No. 501.

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

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 510.

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

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 511.

Mr. DeMINT. I ask further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT

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