John Ensign

Mr. ENSIGN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I rise today to address a relationship between the United States and our ally Israel. I was glad to see that President Obama took some time over the July Fourth recess to sit down with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and discuss the rocky path which U.S. and Israeli relations have taken over the past 2 years. Israel is, by far, our strongest ally in the region. This close relationship and friendship is built on a bedrock of common democratic values, religious affinity, and perhaps most importantly national security interests. We are both nations that face threats posed by radical Islam. While we have been able to take the fight to the enemy, as we fight al-Qaida and Taliban refinements in Afghanistan and Iraq, Israel has not been so fortunate. They face an existential threat. This threat to their existence is not just Hamas and Hezbollah, who attack Israel with suicide bombs and rocket attacks, but also from radical nations such as Iran and their allies. When one nation says to another, ``We are going to wipe you off the map,'' we need to take that threat seriously. This is especially true when that nation says it over and over again, as Iran has. As an ally, Israel should be able to count on us for support. This support is not limited to financial and military support but also diplomatic and moral support. So when Iran says they are going to wipe Israel off the map, the United States needs to stand up and say, ``No, you will not.'' We cannot send mixed messages. That is why what happened at the 2010 Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference worries me so much. For when we fail to stand up for our allies on the smaller issues, they begin to question our resolve when it comes to the large issues, such as their existence. Under the Nonproliferation Treaty, there is a conference every five years to seek ways to strengthen the treaty and advance the goals of nuclear non-proliferation. At this conference, Secretary Clinton opened by stating that: Iran will do whatever it can to divert attention away from its own record and attempt to evade accountability. . . . But Iran will not succeed in its efforts to divert and divide. Additionally, a White House official was quoted in the Washington Post at the beginning of the conference summarizing: ``This meeting is all about Iran.'' Based on these comments, one would expect to see some reference to the fact that Iran and Syria are both flagrantly violating their treaty obligations. One would expect to hear that Iran has threatened the existence of another sovereign nation. One would expect to hear how Israel was forced to destroy a North Korean nuclear facility located in its backyard. We did not see anything of this sort in the final document. What we did see instead was the name ``Israel'' appearing. I am a little bit confused. Why would we agree to a document that does not mention Iran or Syria but does single out our strongest ally in the region? This is even more puzzling considering this is a consensus document. That means that we, as a nation, had to sign off on it. Essentially, we threw one of our closest allies under the bus, in exchange for what? I do not believe there is a good answer to this question. What type of message does this send not only to Israel but to our other allies? It says: We will not hesitate to throw you overboard in exchange for a political tic mark that gets us nothing. In closing, I believe that based on what Secretary Clinton was hoping to achieve and what we actually did achieve--the alienation of an ally--this conference has to be considered an utter failure. Some over at Foggy Bottom, at the White House, and in Congress need to realize how important our relationship with Israel is and start taking steps to strengthen that relationship instead of taking steps to weaken it, as we did at the recent Nonproliferation Conference. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about the extension of unemployment benefits in the larger context of our national debt. Allow me the opportunity to throw out a few numbers which I then will explain in a few minutes: $30 billion, $200 billion, $13 trillion, $114,000, and 60 percent of GDP. To many Americans, these numbers are just that--numbers with no real meaning to them. Unfortunately, the same can be said for many here in the Senate as well. These are just simple numbers without consequence. Nothing can be further from the truth. These five numbers are markers along the road to fiscal catastrophe that we are heading down at full speed. These five numbers together are symbols of the great threat to the stability of our country, both today and in the future. So the $30 billion number. Fourteen percent of Nevadans are unemployed at this point. People are hurting across my State. We lead the country in unemployment. Well, a lot has been said on the issue of extending unemployment benefits, and while this issue has become one of political fodder and partisanship, the facts on this issue have been left out in favor of high-strung rhetoric and political opportunity. Let me take a moment to explain to my constituents the real debate on this issue. I, along with my Republican colleagues, believe that extending these benefits for the unemployed should be a top priority here in the Senate. I think both sides of the aisle agree on that. I know we could pay to extend these benefits now by cutting spending in other areas and redirecting some stimulus funds which have had little impact on the economy in my State and across the country. Despite what some of my other colleagues may say here on the floor, there is no debate on extending the benefits for those who have fallen victim to OUR downturned economy. The debate on this issue actually lies with the fact that those on the other side of the aisle want to take the easy way out, and they want to avoid paying for this important legislation because it is tough to make cuts. Instead, we are going to add another $30 billion on to our record-breaking national debt. I know that $30 billion is just another number to those on the other side of the aisle, but it is one that could easily be paid for now by adhering to their own policy of pay-go. Each time the Senate has proceeded to vote on extending unemployment benefits, Members in this body have had two options: One, the Democratic option of extending these benefits and putting the debt--adding the debt on to our children and our grandchildren. On the other side, they have had the Republican option of not only extending these vital unemployment benefits but also paying for them at the same time by reducing spending in other areas. The other side of the aisle has voted against these commonsense proposals each time--six times, to be exact. Let me make that more clear. Democrats have voted against paying for the unemployment extension six times. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time those on the other side of the aisle have gone against their own pay-go policy, but it is the first time they have hurt thousands of Americans in doing so. I mentioned the number of $200 billion earlier. This is the number that represents the amount of spending that has violated the Democrats' own pay-as-you-go policy. Four months ago, there was a signing ceremony down at the Rose Garden with the President. The Democrats decided to heed the warnings of many here, including myself, who said that we were literally bankrupting the future of our country with the amount of national debt we were passing down to our children and our grandchildren. So they came up with a policy that would mandate paying for spending proposals now rather than later. However, there were a few caveats to this new fiscal responsibility proposal, one of which allowed for emergency funding to be exempt. What we have witnessed in the last 4 months has truly been a genius way of skirting this pay-as- you-go policy. They have deemed a grotesque amount of domestic spending as ``emergency spending'' when, in fact, it is not an emergency. They have done this most recently with unemployment benefits. It is hard to argue that funding that we knew would expire to be an emergency, but they have tried to do so anyway. The real sticking point here is that if we are to deem every spending measure that comes to the floor of this body as an emergency, then we are only speeding up our path to fiscal ruin, ensuring that our record-breaking national debt continues to be just that--record breaking. Another number: $13 trillion. That is our national debt today that we have reached. It is a new milestone. But it is not one that I think many are celebrating. Our national debt broke into a new stratosphere when it crossed the $13 trillion threshold--truly an astounding number. But this gets much worse over the next 10 years under the President's own budget. The debt that will be added by 2019 will be three times the amount that was rung up over the first 232 years of this country's history. So take all of the Presidents before President Obama, all the way through George W. Bush, and add the total debt they added to this country, and we are going to triple that in the 10 years from 2009 to 2019. Just like an average family, when they delay payment on a purchase and charge it to their credit card, they are borrowing money from the bank, with interest added to the amount they need to pay back. The United States, when borrowing money, is charging it on our national credit card, so it is the same situation. However, our country isn't borrowing the money from a bank; we are borrowing it from China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Each time the majority deems a spending bill as an emergency funding bill, we delay paying the cost for this legislation. We are adding on to this national credit card bill with interest we pay to China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and many others. At any point, these countries could decide to up our interest rate to such a level that, when we attempt to start paying down our debt, we are only able to pay off the interest we owe on our credit card, not the actual debt. Further, should our economic situation continue to decline, these countries could revoke our borrowing privileges altogether. If that happens, this would be catastrophic for the economy of the United States. I mentioned $114,000 earlier. When President Obama first took office, a child born in the United States was born with $85,000 of debt on his or her back. In a very short period of time, that child born in the United States today now has $114,000 of debt on his or her back. That amount is going to continue to rise because of how fast we are adding to the national debt. Going even farther into the future, should President Obama receive a second term and our spending levels stay at a high level, as they are now, a child born in the United States will owe $196,000. As they are born, that is how much debt they will have-- $196,000 for every child born in the United States. I have spoken a lot over the past year about the future of our country and what this debt burden will actually mean. A new child owing that much money means they won't be able to pay for college, buy a house, start a small business, raise a family, and maybe retire someday. So this isn't just an abstract number; we actually owe these countries the money we have borrowed from them, with interest. We have to pay that money back. Whether these countries demand payment 5 years from now or later, we still have to pay it back. I mentioned 60 percent--60 percent of GDP. Let me remind you of this final number, what it means. It is a critical milestone on the path to fiscal ruin. Most of us remember the images we saw on the nightly news of the riots breaking out across Greece when it was revealed that the government was beyond bankrupt and was no longer able to guarantee services throughout their country. Historically, our Federal debt has been around 35 percent of GDP. Since the Democrats have taken control of Congress, this debt has skyrocketed. The tipping point is what Greece found when they had so much debt on their books that people realized they were going to be unable to pay it back. The tipping point where the world community realized that they should be charging a lot more to lend Greece money was when Greece exceeded 60 percent of GDP. The United States passed that magic number this year. Sixty percent was the tipping point for Greece. How far behind them do you think we really are? The United States passed that 60 percent part of GDP this year with the help of the health care bill--the $200 billion that should have been offset with pay-go, the stimulus bill, and last year's appropriations bills, which had large increases in each one of them. The country of Greece is foreshadowing the possible fate of the United States if we don't take responsibility for the fiscal mess we have created. We have lived this year through instant-gratification policies, and not only is the future of our country in jeopardy, so are the next 10 years, the next 5 years, and this year. Mr. President, $30 billion represents the amount of money the Democrats want to add to our national debt to extend unemployment benefits; $200 billion represents the amount of money that has been deemed as emergency to get around the pay-go rules; and $13 trillion represents the recordbreaking national debt we have reached just this year. The $114,000 I mentioned is the amount each child born today in the United States has as debt on their back. Sixty percent of GDP is the tipping point of economic collapse that puts the United States one step closer to Greece. To many in this body, these are just numbers. I think we all have to face the reality that these numbers represent markers on a path to fiscal ruin if we don't turn it around. We are heading dangerously close to fiscal catastrophe, and our country literally stands at a crossroads. We have to draw a line in the sand and stop borrowing money for legislation when the option to pay for it stands only one vote away. Extending unemployment benefits isn't a partisan issue, and neither is our country's impending fiscal crisis. The Senate needs to extend these benefits by paying for them now, and we can take the first step and move the country in the right direction toward fiscal responsibility and economic recovery. Why are we not reducing unnecessary and wasteful government spending to pay for these unemployment extension benefits? Senator Coburn's office has identified almost $4.4 billion in savings over 10 years from reducing unnecessary printing and publishing costs of government documents. Add up the savings from these cuts and this kind of wasteful spending, and it could pay for unemployment extension for a short time. How about redirecting some of the unused stimulus funds? The stimulus bill was supposed to be an immediate stimulus. Some of the money has still not been paid out or obligated. How about, instead of just adding to the debt, we take that money and pay for and offset spending for the unemployment benefits? I don't understand the absolute refusal by the other side to extend unemployment benefits in a fiscally responsible way. For example, the small business lending bill, which the Senate is set to consider, contains a number of offsets for improving tax collections and changing the tax rules on retirement accounts. The so-called Medicare doc fix was recently signed into law by the President. This was completely offset by changes in Medicare billing and antifraud provisions and changes in pension rules. I don't necessarily agree with some of the offsets the other side of the aisle has used, but the point is that the debate on the floor regarding paying for any piece of legislation should not rest with whether we pay for new legislation but how we should pay for it. This is a debate we owe to the American people, our future generations, for the continued prosperity of our great Nation. We will soon be voting on a bill that will extend unemployment insurance benefits. The other side of the aisle will have one that extends those unemployment benefits, but it will just be adding to the national debt. The Republican side will be offering an alternative that will be completely offset. I hope this Chamber finally gets its fiscal house in order and extends those very important unemployment benefits that need to be given to folks who are struggling in America, but let's do it in a fiscally responsible way. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an amendment Senator Kerry and I will be offering as an amendment to the small business jobs bill. This amendment is to correct something we do not want the IRS enforcing right now. Senator Kerry and I have 72 Members who have cosponsored our bill that we will be offering as an amendment. There is overwhelming bipartisan support for this. I thank Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley for committing to work with Senator Kerry and myself to get this issue addressed. The need for the amendment is based on a little-noticed provision that was added in 1989. It has to do with cell phones and similar devices that are treated as what the IRS has known as ``listed property,'' along with computers and automobiles. As a result, employees and employers must keep detailed records of all calls made on their employer-issued cell phones, indicating whether they are personal or business related, or have the value of the phone included as taxable income. This law is a good example of the Government attempting to micromanage the economy and why they shouldn't. Government is not good at keeping up with the private sector. Twenty years ago, cell phones were bulky, they were cumbersome and expensive, they were the size of a brick and weighed almost as much. When given by businesses to employees, they were considered to be an executive perk or a luxury item and were often hardwired to the floor of a car. During the past 20 years, of course, cell phones and mobile communications devices have become incredibly small and cheap, and their use has skyrocketed. Cell phones and other mobile communications devices are now part of daily business practices at all levels. As a matter of fact, they are part of almost every American's daily life. They are an extension of the office for many employees and everyone recognizes the real motivation of employers is being able to call their employees at any time and at any place. The cost of providing coffee per employee today is likely higher than the per-employee cost of a cell phone or personal device. The mobile cell phone amendment updates the tax treatment of cell phones and mobile communications devices by repealing the requirement that employers maintain these overly burdensome, detailed usage logs. Outdated tax laws such as this must be updated to reflect 21st century realities, and this bipartisan amendment would do exactly that. This is a small but important measure that we should be able to enact today to help small businesses, nonprofits, colleges, and employees use today's technology for business without interference from yesterday's regulation. This proposal was included in the President's budget, and if you need more reasons to vote for this bill, talk to the Internal Revenue Commissioner, Doug Shulman, who released a statement that supports repeal of the current IRS cell phones reporting rules. In his statement Commissioner Shulman states that: The current law, which has been on the books for many years, is burdensome, poorly understood by taxpayers, and difficult for the IRS to administer consistently. Let me quickly summarize what we are doing. Basically, everybody who gets a cell phone from their employer, we don't want them to pay tax on that cell phone as some kind of a perk. If you think about how bills are paid today with cell phones, you have a monthly usage charge. You don't get charged per cell phone call as it used to be in the old days when cell phones were very expensive. People buy plans per month, so many minutes you get with those plans. For virtually everybody who gets a cell phone from a company, that is the way those plans are purchased today. We need to simplify the Tax Code. This is a very minor provision but an important provision because you don't want, all of a sudden, when you are going back through an IRS audit, to have to go back years and years and go through every one of your cell phone records and determine whether that was a personal phone call, was this a business phone call, and what percentage now, and having to figure all that out. This is a simplification of the Tax Code. It is the right thing to do. It is a very simple thing to do. As soon as the amendment process is figured out, we will be offering this as one of the first amendments to the small business tax bill. Once again, it has been a pleasure working with my colleague Senator Kerry on this bill. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ENSIGN

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up amendment No. 4229.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be waived.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up amendment No. 4230.

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify my amendment. The clerk has the modification.

Mr. ENSIGN

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the American people have accused Washington and this Chamber of being far too partisan, and they have been right. But I would venture to guess that we can reach a bipartisan agreement on the fact that our economy has taken a major hit over the last few years--a hit that I would argue we have yet to recover from. So here we are, debating another massive bill that is supposed to stave off another economic disaster. But does it do that? I am sure that most here are familiar with the children's tale of the boy who cried wolf far too often. The problem faced by this character was that when there was an emergency--such as the wolf verging on attack--there wasn't anyone around to take that alarm seriously. This is the path we are heading down. The Senate is passing a massive bill, after many other massive bills that we have passed, and expanding the Federal Government to an unsustainable level, all in the name of avoiding another economic downturn. But what we are doing here is setting our country up on a course that we cannot correct and creating unintended consequences that may ultimately rain more economic damage down on the American people. I think it is important to remind the American people why the government felt it necessary to use taxpayer dollars to bail out the GSEs--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They did this because they claimed the two companies were too big to fail. The idea that the failure of two mortgage companies could bring down the whole U.S. economy was frightening to many, but confusing to many more. Make no mistake about it, this was a problem the Congress created. Beginning in the 1990s, Congress decided to expand the goals of the Community Reinvestment Act by writing laws designed to encourage the GSEs--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--to meet certain affordable housing goals, giving Fannie and Freddie government permission to buy subprime home loans. This of course created an incentive for lenders to make more and more bad loans since the GSEs would stand ready to buy them and take on the risk. We now know, however, that it is the American taxpayer who actually was taking on this risk. Before September 2008, few Americans realized that Fannie and Freddie had taken over the subprime markets and were singlehandedly making the dream of home ownership a reality for thousands of Americans. However, those Americans were realistically unable to afford the mortgages Fannie and Freddie guaranteed. As home after home and neighborhood after neighborhood fell victim to the home foreclosure plague, Fannie and Freddie's losses started to greatly impact the U.S. economy--hence the notion of being too big to fail. I have spent the last 2 years arguing that the government's interference in the situation with a taxpayer bailout was not the right move to make. By stepping in, blank taxpayer check in hand, the government set the American people up for bailout after bailout of Fannie and Freddie, with no plan in place to reform these government- sponsored companies so that taxpayer support would eventually end. Last Christmas, the Obama administration lifted its $400 billion-- $400 billion--limit to aid Fannie and Freddie. They took the cap off. They pledged unlimited support through 2012. This is unlimited support for Fannie and Freddie. Imagine what that means. We don't have the funds to provide that kind of support, and the American people should not be on the hook for an indefinite blank check. In this last month, while we were debating this bill on the floor, Fannie Mae asked for another $8.4 billion from the taxpayer and Freddie has asked for an additional $10.6 billion from the taxpayer. Is the American taxpayer to assume we will continue to fund the demands for more and more money every single time they ask? What if this happens to be a monthly request for the next 2 years? The American taxpayer right now has no choice but to pay up. Simply put, I believe this is ridiculous. Fannie and Freddie are referred to as government-sponsored entities because the wallets of the American people go straight into the bank accounts of these companies. The purpose of this financial reform bill before us should be to protect taxpayers against this concept known as too big to fail, but unfortunately it does little to address this issue. I offered an amendment to address the too-big-to-fail issue with Fannie and Freddie. However, it was defeated, mostly along party lines. My amendment would have protected the taxpayers from future bailouts of Fannie and Freddie by restricting their size so they do not continue to be too big to fail. Fannie and Freddie remain large enough to threaten the stability of our economy in another economic downturn. My amendment would have limited their size to less than 3 percent of our GDP. Again, the amendment was defeated, mostly along party lines. If the government is arguing we have to continue bailouts of Fannie and Freddie because they are too big to fail, shouldn't we be doing something to fix the internal problems of Fannie and Freddie? Senator McCain and Senator Shelby introduced an amendment to protect the taxpayers from Fannie and Freddie and their too-big-to-fail state, but once again their amendment was also defeated along party lines. Their amendment, of which I was a cosponsor, would have meaningfully reformed these government-sponsored entities in an orderly fashion. It would have ended the government takeover of Fannie and Freddie within 3 years, would have provided more oversight to the companies, and would have eventually eliminated all government subsidies to Fannie and Freddie. This amendment was a thoughtful, clear-eyed approach to dealing with the two companies that drove my State of Nevada and our country into the housing foreclosure crisis. But again, this amendment was defeated along party lines. Instead of seeking meaningful reform of Fannie and Freddie through the financial reform bill, those on the other side of the aisle have decided they will study the issue of Fannie and Freddie. They have asked the Treasury Department to make recommendations on these companies in 2011. In simple terms, this means we have punted dealing with the risk of Fannie and Freddie, the risk they pose to our economy for another year and, undoubtedly, more blank checks are on the way to Fannie and Freddie. By the time the Democrats and the Treasury Department have further evaluated their risk, 30 months--2\1/2\ years--will have come and gone, with taxpayers holding up these two companies with their hard-earned money. I believe that is unacceptable and, frankly, it is unconscionable to ask the hard-working taxpayers of this country to foot the bill for hundreds of billions of dollars of bailouts when Congress and the administration cannot even come up with a plan for Fannie and Freddie within 2\1/2\ years of taking them over. Additionally, the bill before us creates this new Financial Stability Oversight Council that will have the authority to vote on which companies are, in their opinion, too big to fail. As we saw during the height of the financial crisis, the government, given the opportunity, is willing to arbitrarily select which companies can get government support and sponsorship. I believe this sets a dangerous precedent that will encourage large companies to take more unnecessary risk, since they will ultimately pass any losses associated with that risk on to the taxpayers in the form of a bailout. Under the bill before us, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, under the guise of monitoring systemic risk to the financial system, will have the unintended consequences of encouraging more taxpayer bailouts. This is because the council has the authority to identify firms that would ``pose a threat to the financial stability of the United States,'' and would place those firms under the Federal Reserve's supervision. The benefit of being placed on this exclusive list is that it comes with a market understanding that the U.S. Government stands ready to keep the company afloat when it gets in trouble. It means that company will have certain advantages over its competitors, including access to cheaper funds from the Fed. This will consolidate the market and enable the company to use the savings to take bigger and unnecessary risks. A regulatory structure that facilitates this kind of moral hazard does not work. Remember the boy who cried wolf I was rehashing earlier? Well, the wolf came when confronted with the collapse of Fannie and Freddie and the government rushed in, no plan in hand, to bail out these companies. Now we are sitting around debating legislation that does not even address the risks they will pose in another economic downturn. We have to ask the question: Do we honestly think we are protecting ourselves from another too-big-to-fail bailout of Fannie and Freddie? This bill should have been our chance to protect the taxpayer and reform Fannie and Freddie, but we are ignoring this issue altogether and the systemic risk that follows with it. More simply put: We are ignoring the American people. The next time the government cries wolf and steps in to bail out Fannie and Freddie again, the American people are going to be up in arms, as they should be. We are ignoring the American people at a time when they have joined together across this country to shout from every rooftop, mountaintop, and platform they can find that they are done with bailouts. Unfortunately, Washington isn't listening. People in this body believe we know better than the American people; and if the American people would just sit back and let us do our jobs, we will figure all this out. Is that the reality? When Washington is in charge of something, we undoubtedly make a larger mess than what there was to begin with. Some of us just don't get it. Some don't get that the taxpayer should not be on the hook for bailing out the financial industry when there is a proper course of action for companies that are struggling to pay their debts--it is called bankruptcy. Wouldn't you agree that if the bankruptcy process is good enough for Main Street it should be good enough for Wall Street? When the automakers were struggling with an economic downturn, I argued they should utilize the orderly bankruptcy process to reorganize. But the government thought it knew better and decided to bail them out. The government then decided who the winners and losers would be in that process instead of following the rule of law. The same has happened with the financial industry. Instead of declaring bankruptcy, the financial giants waited for the government to step in and lend them an American taxpayer hand. The executives who drove these companies into the ground when the bailout came are those same executives who later received huge bonuses. Does this make sense to anybody? Moving forward, this needs to end. But this bill does not do that. Under this bill, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation--the FDIC--would have expanded authority to take over, manage, and liquidate troubled financial companies. The FDIC would take over the assets and operate the financial company with all of the powers of management, shareholders. In that way, the government acting through the FDIC, will continue to determine financial companies continue and which do not. This bill would essentially institutionalize the kinds of bailouts that have occurred in the recent crisis. Rather than providing an alternative to policy of bailouts, it would permanently establish such a policy. Second, the expanded resolution authority would be operated with a considerable degree of discretion about when to start the intervention and about the priority to give different creditors. People talk about the impact of Lehman Brothers' sudden collapse on sparking a market panic, and the authors of this bill seem to think that the answer is to create a system to prop up future banks. It was not the collapse, but rather the surprise involvement and then abandonment by the government, that created market turmoil. Do you understand why one bank might be bailed, but another would be left to collapse? It was all done behind closed doors. The better lesson learned from the crisis is that we need a predictable, rule-based bankruptcy process rather than an expanded discretionary resolution authority. These bailouts do not incentivize these institutions to minimize their risk, instead they go as far as to privatize their profits while socializing their losses. In other words, putting that risk onto the taxpayer. Senator Sessions introduced an amendment, that I cosponsored, to offer hard-working American families a reprieve from footing another financial sector bailout, while also discouraging these companies from continuing the irresponsible practices that got them into trouble in the first place. Again, this amendment was defeated along party lines. The amendment would have made these companies utilize an enhanced bankruptcy process to ensure that the costs are covered by the financial institutions and their creditors, not the taxpayer. Additionally it would have created a new chapter 14 in the Bankruptcy Code that would utilize many of the tenets of chapter 11 bankruptcy, but would be for the specific use of these financial institutions. This addition to the Bankruptcy Code would have created a new pathway to limit the cascading spread of risk and panic through the financial system and assured the more orderly winddown of financial institutions--insulated from bailouts and political influence. The Sessions amendment would have delivered much-needed transparency, accountability, stability, and due process through the use of bankruptcy courts. Further, to protect taxpayers, it specifically denied the Federal Government the authority to take over firms, dictate the terms of their reorganization or liquidation and support them with Federal bailouts. It protected the taxpayer. The amendment guaranteed real reform that would have resulted in real stability. Unfortunately, the Democrats decided to go in a different direction, one that moves away from protecting the taxpayers, and swiftly defeated this bankruptcy amendment. So, what does this mean for the average American? It means that this financial reform bill does not end ``too big to fail'' and ensures more taxpayer bailouts with the next financial crisis. In fact, this legislation goes as far as to create unnecessary and burdensome regulatory requirements that will ultimately hurt small businesses. Nowhere is this clearer than the creation of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This new government bureaucracy will have the authority to write and enforce rules that could ultimately tighten the availability of credit and discourage business investment at a time when we can least afford it. I am deeply concerned about the jurisdictional reach of this new agency. I was pleased that the Senate adopted my amendment last night that would exempt from the new agency all sellers of nonfinancial goods that give customers the option of making installment payments. At a time when the economy has taken its toll on many American families, it is vital that businesses are not discouraged from offering their customers flexible payment options. This is classic overreach by Washington, and I am glad that my colleagues narrowed the scope of the agency so that we don't further stunt our country's economic growth. However, my amendment fixes but one problem with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This new bureau has no oversight and has access to billions of dollars. We have seen too often bureaucracies grow and grow normally; that's simply what bureaucracies do. Can you imagine what this monstrosity with no size restriction and no oversight can become? So, I ask you, do you feel like we are really reforming this financial industry with this legislation? The purpose of my speech today was to highlight all that is wrong with this bill for the American people, but I ran into a problem when doing this because what's wrong with the bill is literally every single line in the bill. I point out the issues of Fannie and Freddie, bailouts versus bankruptcy, because had those amendments been offered to this legislation, they would have been the sole examples of what is right with this financial reform bill; but they were not adopted and were defeated along party lines. The American people are tired and frankly, so am I. I am tired of standing up to speak about real reform, all the while, watching as my colleagues pass massive pieces of legislation through this body as solutions looking for a problem, while continuing to ignore that we have real problems that need real solutions. This financial reform bill does nothing to address real reform of the financial industry, but it does ensure that the taxpayers guarantee the bad debt of Fannie and Freddie and Wall Street, just as these companies guaranteed bad debt that eventually brought them to their knees. At the rate we are going, this will become our reality. The economic issues plaguing Greece aren't just a scary thing to watch unfold on TV, it is the future of our country, the great United States of America, if we don't start shaping up. Rushing legislation through Congress and into law doesn't mean that we are addressing pressing issues, it means that we are passing time and passing unintended consequences on the taxpayers' dime. We are passing time that we do not have, using money that we do not have, and doing so in a country that can not afford another bailout or another collapse of another ``too big to fail'' company. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. I ask that the amendment be called up for immediate consideration.

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, from what I understand the amendment is agreeable to both sides.

Mr. ENSIGN. It is already modified. I would tell the chairman of the committee, through the Chair, the modification was the amendment we called up. So it is actually the modified amendment at the desk.

Mr. ENSIGN. That is correct. I ask for a voice vote.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, we are venturing down a dangerous path that threatens to put the economic future of our country in jeopardy. When the housing market collapsed, the government stepped in with a blank check to bail out the Nation's largest mortgage giants--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When the automakers started to feel the pinch of a downward economic turn, again the government stepped in, taxpayer money in hand, and bailed them out. When the giants of the financial market started to see their bank accounts drop below zero, again the U.S. Government stepped in to bail them out, allowing them to sidestep the pain of their financial mismanagement--pain that was then passed on to hard-working Americans, many of whom are barely scraping by during these difficult economic times. The pain was certainly not felt by the managers of these institutions when they received exorbitant bonuses, despite their bad performance. This country has witnessed bailout after bailout after bailout. Yet not one piece of legislation has passed this body that would establish protections for taxpayers to ensure that we do not remain on the hook for bailing out these institutions every single time they mismanage themselves. Unfortunately, this financial reform bill that we have before us continues this trend. Last week, I offered an amendment that would have restricted the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so they would not continue to be too big to fail. My amendment was defeated, largely along party lines. Senator McCain offered an amendment this week that would have reduced the size of Fannie and Freddie, while moving to let them stand on their own so the government gets out of the business of subsidizing mortgages. Again, his amendment was defeated, largely along party lines. Today, we have another chance to listen to the American people and to stop the bailouts of these mismanaged corporations. The amendment offered by Senator Sessions, of which I am a cosponsor, will do this by taking away the bailout option, to, instead, force these companies to declare bankruptcy. This amendment will produce a clear set of rules which will create certainty in the marketplace, rather than continuing the precedents set during the crisis where the government was allowed to pick winners and losers. This is not the first time I fought against these bailouts. In 2008, when we were debating the bailout of the automakers, I offered an amendment, along with Senator Shelby, that would have required the big three to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At that time, I argued that this was the best way to ensure the automakers would emerge in the future as successful companies. I still believe that. Chapter 11 bankruptcy would have allowed them to restructure their firms and would have protected the employees of these automakers by keeping politics out of the process by eliminating the need for an auto czar. Unfortunately, the government stepped in and, with the exception of Ford, decided to bail them out. I thought this was wrong at that time, and I still believe this was the wrong thing to do. While we cannot erase the decisions of the past that led to the bailouts of the automakers, Fannie and Freddie and the financial firms, we can correct course to ensure that the American taxpayers get off the hook for bailing out these industries in the future by forcing them to file bankruptcy, should they mismanage their finances again in the future. The reality is, when Americans mismanage their funds or are unable to stay afloat under mounting debt, they file bankruptcy. I am sure many would rather have the government step in and pay off their debt, but this is simply an unsustainable option. The same argument can be made for bailouts of financial firms. Bailout after bailout footed by the taxpayers will force our already debt-laden country into further debt that we cannot afford to crawl out from under. We are already rapidly approaching this reality. These bailouts do not incentivize these institutions to minimize their risks. Instead, they go as far as to privatize the profits while socializing the risks of their losses. The amendment offered by Senator Sessions offers hard-working Americans a reprieve from footing another financial sector bailout. But he also discourages these companies from continuing the irresponsible practices that got them into trouble in the first place. Under the financial bill we are currently debating, the government will continue to pick winners and losers and the taxpayer will continue to foot the bill, unless we adopt the amendment offered by Senator Sessions. This amendment would make these companies utilize an enhanced bankruptcy process, which would ensure that the costs are covered by the financial institutions and their creditors, not the taxpayer. The amendment creates a new chapter 14 in the Bankruptcy Code that will utilize many of the tenets in chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy but will be for the specific use of the big financial institutions. This addition to the Bankruptcy Code creates a new pathway to limit the cascading spread of risk and panic throughout the financial system and ensures the more orderly wind down of these financial institutions insulated from bailouts and political influence. The amendment offered by Senator Sessions delivers much needed transparency, accountability, stability, and due process through the use of bankruptcy courts and the expertise that we have in bankruptcy courts. Further, to protect the taxpayers, it specifically denies the Federal Government the authority to take over firms, dictate the terms of the reorganization or liquidation, and support them with Federal bailouts. This amendment guarantees real reform that will result in real stability. This is what the American people are asking us to do. They are asking us to make sure they are not the ones responsible for bailing out these financial giants that make poor decisions. The American people are working hard to weather through these tough economic times, and we owe them much more than legislation that will continue to allow the government to pick winners and losers and will allow too big to fail to continue. I hope we adopt the Sessions amendment. Unfortunately, almost every good amendment that has been offered to this Wall Street bill has been defeated, largely along party lines. This is an amendment that will actually stop too big to fail. It is a responsible amendment. It is my hope that we will finally adopt a good amendment to this bill. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment to the Brown amendment at the desk.

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I have a very simple second-degree amendment actually supporting the underlying amendment. But what my second degree does is it simply says that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be subject to the same limits. Everybody has been talking about too big to fail. That is one of the problems. All of this interconnectedness of our financial markets, when one is too big to fail, draws the entire market down. That is why TARP was needed. That is why people have justified a lot of bailouts. I don't think there is anybody who can legitimately argue that Fannie and Freddie aren't too big to fail. What this second-degree amendment says, very simply, is the 3 percent of GDP that we are limiting the banks to, we limit Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to those same limits. We saw yesterday afternoon that Freddie Mac said they needed another $10 million in taxpayer bailouts. There is no question it is too big. There is no question that if we actually put their debt on our balance sheets, we look much worse, the deficits on our balance sheet, we look much worse. What we are seeing over in Greece with the rioting and how that is affecting our financial markets, we need to be honest in our accounting, but we also need to make sure these things don't continue to get larger and larger. Back in December the President took the limits off of Fannie and Freddie--took the limits off. That is saying they can grow and keep borrowing and keep doing the irresponsible things they did in the past. When we look at the root causes of the financial crisis, people took risks they never should have taken because there were implicit guarantees not only in the banks being too big to fail but especially in Fannie and Freddie being too big to fail. It skewed the markets. People took risks they never should have taken. There are other things I believe that need to be done with Fannie and Freddie, but certainly we can't allow them to get as large as they are now. So the reasonable limits that have been put on the large banks I think need to be put on these GSEs, the government-sponsored entities, and if we do that, I think we will be in better shape in the future for not having another financial collapse. It is a very simple amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time.