John Ensign

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. There are plenty of others we could go through, but for the sake of time, let's just be fiscally responsible right now. Let's add a little fiscal responsibility into this body, and let's adopt this amendment that says we are going to freeze spending from Government that was not already plussed-up in the stimulus bill. Let's be fiscally responsible. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I wish to first address a few of the misrepresentations of my amendment by the Senator from Washington. My amendment does not cut any specific program, and you know it. It says to the Appropriations Committee: We will send this back to the Appropriations Committee, and you determine which programs are funded and which ones are not funded. But you will fund them at last year's level. If you want to raise the level in certain areas, then you will have to cut funding in other areas. We just have to ask ourselves the question: Does anybody believe there is wasteful Washington spending? Does our Government have any wasteful spending in it? If you say there obviously is wasteful spending, when was the last time we cut anything? When was the last time we cut any wasteful spending? Congress needs to address this wasteful spending. Part of the Appropriations Committee job is oversight. The Committee then figures out what is working, what is not working, fund what works and cut what does not work. But that doesn't happen around here. All they do is add and add. If you check the Constitution, the purse strings are controlled by Congress, not by the President. Democrats are entering their third year of that control in both houses. So what we have to do here is exercise our authority and say we are going to be fiscally responsible. You can say you are fiscally responsible all you want, but unless you act on it, the words are hollow. Businesses across America are looking for ways to cut waste from their budgets during this economic downturn. Do you know what they are finding? Talk to them. I have been in business myself. I understand that when times are good, you sometimes add staff you don't need, you waste money in places you don't need to, and that is in the private sector. The Government is less efficient than the private sector. Times are tough in this country, instead of thinking we will just add to the deficit, we will just raise taxes, let's look for efficiency and let's eliminate wasteful spending. We have a bill in front of us that is going to increase spending over last year's level by 8 percent. Is that fiscally responsible? We just passed a nearly $1 trillion spending bill called the stimulus bill, and now we are going to increase this by 8 percent? It seems to me that is not fiscal responsibility. That is the height of irresponsibility. Let's have a debate on this, but let's have a honest debate. We are not cutting any specific programs. Do not say we are cutting education. Do not say we are cutting health care. Do not say we are cutting police and firefighters because this amendment does not do that. What this amendment says is, let's send this bill back to the Appropriations Committee, to last year's level. The Appropriations Committee can determine which programs are funded at what level. If you believe there are certain priorities that need more funding, then fund them; otherwise, let's be honest about this debate. And I am more than happy to go back and forth with the other side about the merits. But if anybody thinks there is not wasteful spending going on in Washington, DC, you need to wake up and smell the coffee because it is outrageous how much waste there is in our Government today--outrageous. We do not require fiscal discipline in our agencies, and that is what we need to start doing. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside to call up the amendment No. 587.

Mr. ENSIGN. I ask for the yeas and nays on amendment No. 575.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I wish to clear up a couple of misstatements made by the other side. First, they said that somebody who is mentally ill could get a gun under this provision. That is not the case. We basically take the Federal definition which does not allow people who are mentally ill to get guns because reasonable background checks can be required and should be required so that somebody who is mentally ill won't get a gun. We don't want to see a Virginia Tech type of a situation happen again. This amendment does not allow it. The bottom line is, the District of Columbia has the highest murder rate. It has had the highest murder rate, and that rate has gone up as the District has enacted stricter and stricter gun control laws. As the Senator from California said, we want to protect citizens. Shouldn't we do what other places have done and allow law-abiding citizens to actually own guns? That is what the amendment provides. It says: Let's protect the second amendment rights for law-abiding District of Columbia residents so they can protect themselves against intruders coming into their homes. Criminals are going to get their guns. We know that. Criminals get their guns in DC and around the country. They do it through the black market. In DC, they can go right across the border and get a gun pretty easily. We want to make sure that law-abiding citizens are able to get guns and to protect themselves. That is the basis for this amendment, to say: Let's uphold the Supreme Court. Let's make sure we protect the second amendment rights of citizens in the District of Columbia. We are exercising our constitutional duty both with oversight over the District of Columbia and by protecting the second amendment rights of our citizens. I urge a yea vote on the amendment.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I wish to take a little bit of time to refute some of the inaccuracies about my amendment dealing with the repeal of the gun ban in the District of Columbia. This really is about restoring second amendment rights to residents who live here in the District of Columbia. We have a constitutional right and duty to deal with matters dealing with the District of Columbia. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the laws that had been passed by the city council in the District of Columbia were in fact unconstitutional because the District of Columbia did not recognize there was a constitutional right to the individual--not just a militia but to the individual--to keep and bear arms. Since then, the District of Columbia has attempted to subvert what the Supreme Court said by putting very burdensome types of laws to make it more and more difficult for District residents to own a gun in order to protect themselves in their own homes. It is interesting. If you go back to what the Founders talked about, as far as the second amendment, look at James Madison. He wrote in Federalist No. 46: . . . the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation . . . forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Washington, DC, has blatantly violated this right for more than 30 years, and it has led to catastrophic results. This chart reflects the murder rates in Washington, DC, relative to 48 other of the largest cities, excluding Chicago, from the top 50 list. And this is all weighted by population. You can see here, and especially as we go forward, when other crime rates in the country were actually going down and murder rates in the country were going down, as Washington, DC, was enacting more and more gun ban laws and stricter gun ban laws, the murder rate in Washington, DC, continued to rise. It has been characterized that this bill would allow a 10-year-old to carry shotguns in the streets of Washington, DC. That is completely ridiculous. That is a scare tactic. Our amendment basically ensures the individual's second amendment right. It removes the tremendous barriers and burdens on law-abiding citizens to be able to have the protection they want, to protect themselves in their own homes. Right now, we know that if a criminal in Washington, DC, wants to get a gun, they will get a gun. We are making it difficult for the people who actually abide by the law to get a gun. We want law-abiding citizens to have the arms, not just the criminals. That is what this amendment is really all about. You are probably going to hear some people say that Washington, DC, is just trying, within the Supreme Court decision, to enact laws that will put reasonable restrictions on guns. I would say that is not the case, and the reason it is not the case is they are actually trying to make technical changes in the law which they think will restrict people's rights to keep and bear arms. It is going against the intent of what the Supreme Court has enacted. People across the United States have recognized for a long time how important it is for individuals to be able to keep and bear arms. Around the world, we often hear asked: Well, why does Great Britain have a lower murder rate than the United States? Well, first of all, there are a lot of cultural differences between the United States and Great Britain. But also, since Great Britain enacted some of its strictest gun control laws, murder rates have actually gone up in London. In case after case where you look to find out whether gun control laws actually are effective in reducing crime, the statistics are pretty overwhelming against it. Criminals will get the guns. They get them on the black market or they go someplace, but they get their guns. The question is, Are law-abiding citizens going to be able to protect themselves in their own homes? That is what this amendment is attempting to do, to say to citizens who live in the District of Columbia: We are going to protect your second amendment rights. The laws the District of Columbia has enacted to own a gun are stricter than what we require in Nevada to get a concealed weapons permit. Mr. President, I believe it is high time this body give the citizens who live in the District of Columbia that second amendment right to keep and bear arms in order to protect themselves in their own homes, so I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. President, I will save a couple of minutes right before the vote to be able to conclude my remarks, but how much time remains on my side?

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to call up my amendment, get it pending, and speak on it for 2 minutes.

Mr. ENSIGN. Yes.

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I rise to offer a DC voucher program for low-income children at or below 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Line. Children would be eligible to receive up to $7,500 to attend a private school in the District. It has been said that education, especially K-12 education is a civil right. I believe it is. In Washington, DC, public schools are failing too many of our kids--especially our low-income kids. These children are trapped in schools that are failing. About half the kids in Washington, DC, public schools do not graduate, and this is not because of money. The District spends perhaps the most in the country, on education. They spend almost $15,000 a year per student per year in public schools. That is almost three times the amount we spend per student per year in Nevada. Yet the performance of the public schools in the District is pathetic. There are very few Members of Congress who would allow their kids to go to these failing schools. The reason I am offering my amendment today, which would reauthorize, for 1 year, a very valuable voucher program, is because the upcoming Omnibus appropriations bill basically guts the program. We need to make sure this program is in place in time for parents to plan for their children's education in the fall. This is an important amendment. This is a civil rights amendment. We are talking about the right to a DC Representative voting here, we should care enough about our children to give them the right to a good education. That is what this amendment is about. Now, we are going to try to work this out. We may not be offering this amendment if we can get an agreement from the majority leader for time on the floor sometime this spring to be able to debate a full bill. That is what I would hope we could be able to do. If not, then we will hope for a vote on this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I may call up my amendment, which I have sent to the desk.

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, while we are here debating the constitutional implications of this bill, I want to take this time to discuss a 30-year constitutional injustice happening right here in Washington, DC. On June 26 of last year, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling affirming the second amendment right to bear arms as an individual and constitutionally protected right. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court affirmed that the District of Columbia's ban on ownership of handguns was an unconstitutional restriction on that right. Prior to this decision, Washington, DC, had enforced the most prohibitive gun control laws of any city in the nation. Not only did the District prohibit ownership of handguns, it also required that allowed firearms, such as rifles and shotguns, be ``unloaded and disassembled'' or ``bound by a trigger lock.'' Millions of Americans were supportive of Mr. Heller, who was simply wishing to excise his constitutional right to protect himself. Recognizing the District's restrictions were not only unreasonable but also unconstitutional, the majority of the Supreme Court held that ``the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self- defense.'' Despite the Court's ruling in June, the District of Columbia City Council has continued to exact onerous and unconstitutional firearm regulations on law-abiding residents. In response to the District's obstruction of the text and spirit of the Court's decision, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6842, the National Capital Security and Safety Act. Last year, almost half this body joined me in a letter to the majority leader urging prompt consideration of this bill, which was denied and the bill died. That bill would have unequivocally restored the Second Amendment rights of the District residents, and that is why I offer this updated bill as an amendment to S. 160 and encourage my Senate colleagues to join me to address this real injustice. Mr. President, the residents of the District have waited long enough, and it is time for us to ensure that they realize their constitutional right to bear arms. We must pass this amendment so the Second Amendment rights of the citizens of DC are protected. This amendment is substantively identical to the bipartisan compromise that passed the House last year, with the exception that it repeals the 2008 DC anti-gun law that was enacted in the interim, and the inclusion of a severability clause. As I said, these are merely technical changes to this widely supported bill that 47 of my colleagues supported in a letter to the Democratic leader in the 110th Congress and two of our new Senate colleagues voted for while they were in the House, when it passed by a vote of 266 to 152 including 85 Democrats. These changes were necessary to guarantee the second amendment rights to DC residents are adequately protected. Instead of abdicating our constitutional duties as a co-equal branch of Government, we should enact legislation such as my amendment, to defend and protect the constitutional rights of American citizens. It is high time we address this real constitutional injustice and adopt my amendment. Mr. President, it is high time that we address this real constitutional injustice and pass my amendment. According to the Census Bureau, Washington, DC, is the 27th largest city, with close to 600,000 residents. Similarly large cities, however, have not enacted comparably restrictive gun laws. For example, both Las Vegas proper and the District of Columbia are cities with populations between 500,000 and 600,000 residents. According to the Census Bureau, in 2007, Las Vegas without incorporated areas, was the 28th largest city, just behind DC. These cities, however, have very different gun-control laws. According to FBI Criminal Justice Information Service Division, in 2007, the murder and non-negligent manslaughter rates were higher in DC than Las Vegas, including all the incorporated areas. When you include the incorporated areas, this more than doubles the population count in Las Vegas. In fact, if you total all the population of Nevada, DC still would reigns in this category. Can you honestly tell me gun control in DC has been effective? According to the FBI, murder rates in the United States peaked at around 10.2 per 100,000 persons in 1980. Despite the strictest gun ban in the country, however, murder rates in the District continued to climb well into the 1980s and 1990s, peaking in 1996 at about 80.6 per 100,000--nearly 8 times the average of what the rest of the United States had experienced. Since then, the murder rate in DC has declined somewhat and is now fairly level, following a national trend of decreasing violence. As this chart shows, however, the murder rate in DC still remains over 250 percent higher relative to the 48 largest cities in America. Law-abiding, Nevada residents only need to register handguns if they live in Clark County, the home of Las Vegas. And then, to do so, they simply bring an unloaded handgun to any police substation--unlike the District of Columbia's single location--where they receive a cursory background check and are given a gun registration card. There are no fees or other onerous hurdles to infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The DC gun registration laws for lawfully permitted firearms are even more restrictive than Nevada laws for concealed-carry permits. Yet, I repeat, even with a gun ban, DC crime rates are significantly higher. Disarming the law-abiding residents of DC has made them easy prey for criminals to target. Furthermore, most criminals who use guns get them through unregulated channels. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, most criminals get guns via theft or the black market. According to the ATF, almost 90 percent are acquired through unregulated channels, and the median time between a gun's acquisition and its use in a crime is over 6 years. Mr. President, it is high time we address this real constitutional injustice and let DC citizens lawfully defend themselves. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to protect the Second Amendment rights of DC residents. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Reserving the right to object, is it in that order----

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I claim the 7 minutes that is part of the unanimous consent agreement.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the scope of this legislation is enormous and endangers our country's future economic health. Currently, the U.S. debt burden is huge, but it is going to rise to 54 percent of the economy in just the next 2 years. That is before we take into account this omnibus spending bill that is still to come before the Congress, another round of TARP, and approximately $1 trillion that we have in the bill before us today. When we add the Children's Health Insurance Program that was passed, TARP, a supplemental, the omnibus bill, we will add an additional $2 trillion to our national debt. That means higher taxes for our children, our grandchildren, and actually just in a few years for almost all Americans. We have been borrowing against future generations. Keep in mind that we have a $60 trillion debt out there in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs. That money has to be paid someday. We have to ask ourselves: What will the credit markets around the world think? What will they think about the idea of the United States being actually solvent? The previous administration, as we heard from the other side, spent money like crazy. I am not going to defend them. I was one of the people fighting against a lot of that spending. The spending that is before us today is unprecedented. Unfortunately, in the so-called stimulus bill, only about 25 percent of the bill is in true tax relief. A lot of it is disguised as tax relief, but it is just spending. Not all tax relief is equal when it comes to stimulating the economy. Unfortunately, some of the tax relief in this bill that was actually good was stripped out of the bill. Today, as a percentage of GDP, Government spending last year was around 21 percent. This year, it is going to be close to 30 percent. The historical average over the last 40 years is around 20.6 percent. If we continue to add and add, in not too many years, it is heading toward 40 percent. This amounts to the Europeanization of the United States. Why is this? The government takes up a large percentage of the budgets of Europe's economies. These are more socialist-type economies, and that is the percentage of their gross domestic product they spend on government. Let's consider the cost of this bill. If we count everything that is going to expire in the stimulus and say it is not going to expire over the next 10 years, the true cost of this bill is somewhere around $3 trillion. We have to ask ourselves: When was the last time a Federal program was cut or was discontinued? That does not happen around here. Once we put something in place, it seems to be in place forever. The assumptions in the bill that the spending put in place is actually going to go away in 2 years seems a little ridiculous to me. That is why we actually should be honest about the true cost of this bill. According to CBO, all the stimulus spending will do little to help our long-term economic growth. It will help some in the short term but not in the long term. We have to think about not just short term. Too many companies in America were thinking short term. We have to think long term as well for our, once again, children and grandchildren. We did not even receive this 1,100-page bill until 11 p.m. last night. Thanks to all my staff, and the Republican Policy Committee staff. They spent most of the night and today going through this bill. There is no way everybody is going to know everything that is in this bill because of the difficulty of trying to go through an 1,100-page bill in less than 24 hours. We need to look at history. Japan, in the 1990s, gave us valuable lessons about not what to do. They spent $6.3 trillion. Unfortunately, they spent it building a lot of bridges to nowhere, roads to nowhere. We heard we need a lot of infrastructure spending in this country. If this bill had only answered that call. This bill has very little to do with infrastructure. Only a small percentage of this bill actually deals with infrastructure. That is unfortunate. Japan also failed to address the underlying problems in their banking system. Japan created zombie banks. These are banks that should have failed but were not allowed to. Japan also suffered from a bad course of monetary policy. While the parallels may not be exactly the same between Japan and the U.S., we may be headed in the same direction. That is why a lot of us are afraid that this stimulus bill before us today is actually not going to cure our economic woes. The housing industry is what brought this whole economy down. We understand that. The American people in my State of Nevada know it was the housing crisis that brought the economy down. So if we don't fix housing, how are we going to fix the economy? The underlying problem with the patient here is the housing problem. I had an amendment that actually would have gone a long way toward fixing housing. My amendment had three components. The first was that Americans would have been able to get a much lower interest rate-- somewhere between 4 to 4.5 percent. About 40 million American households would have qualified for it. It would have given the average American household about $450 per month more for their budget. This was permanent, though, it wasn't just a one-time check. This was a 30-year fixed interest rate. That actually would have helped stimulate the economy. The second part of the amendment was that we took a provision from Senator Isakson. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. ENSIGN. The second part of the amendment would have given a $15,000 tax credit to buy homes. That would have helped to stimulate the housing market. Unfortunately, in this bill, that was dramatically cut down. And the third part was to help those houses underwater. This spending bill that is before us could have been made so much better if we had sat down in a bipartisan fashion--not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans. I hope we learn from the way this bill was done that it is not the way we need to fix some of the major problems the country will face in the future. I hope we can actually sit down in a bipartisan fashion. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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. ENSIGN. Mr. President, today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of this Nation's finest leaders. Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 destined for greatness but with humble beginnings. It is remarkable and inspiring to study the life of Abraham Lincoln. Today is a fitting time to reflect on some of the lessons we can continue to learn from him, especially in light of the challenges we are facing today. President Lincoln's rise to leadership was full of trials and setbacks, most of which would have deterred a lesser man but not Abraham Lincoln. Throughout his lifetime, he was the picture of incomparable character, willing to put his ego aside for the greater good, committed to freedom for the generations, and a true believer that he was not superior to anyone. These traits may seem like words that are easy to put together, but to live your life by them is truly exemplary. It is especially remarkable in the face of adversity. It is said that trials don't build character, they simply reveal it. Well, President Lincoln served in the highest office of our country at one of the most tumultuous times in our history. His character was revealed time and time again. Americans are still proud of his leadership and his vision. During Lincoln's Presidency, our Nation faced the gravest of challenges. We were at war amongst ourselves, and the consequences of our leadership would go down in history. Either America would cease to exist, or we would survive, heal, and one day be stronger than ever. Abraham Lincoln made it possible for us to be here today as the United States of America. Today, we face many overwhelming challenges. They are significant, but they are not as dire as the Civil War. We can work together to get out of this economic downturn. In 1862, Lincoln declared: The bottom is out of the tub. It sort of feels that way today. All you have to do is talk to people to realize the numbness that is permeating our country. Those who have lost jobs or homes are facing a painful reality. Most Americans are not sure what to do. If you are thinking about buying a home or a car, you think many times about it because of the uncertainty of our economy today. We have to do something here that will boost the confidence of Americans. They have to become consumers again if we want to get this economy going. That means dealing with the underlying housing crisis that set off the bottom falling out of this ``tub.'' The other issue we have to remember is that the money we spend today will have to be paid for by our children and our grandchildren. So each dollar that goes into this stimulus bill needs to be spent efficiently, and it needs to be far reaching. Each dollar needs to go toward creating jobs and stimulating growth. That way, we can recover from this deepening recession and continue to grow. Unfortunately, this so-called stimulus bill is not even close to ideal legislation. It will bury us in debt, reduce our creditworthiness as a nation, and only minimally stimulate the economy. It just doesn't speak to the opportunity Abraham Lincoln knew was possible in this country. He once said: There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago, I was a hired laborer. Americans have a unique gift in this country. That gift is opportunity--the opportunity to grow, change course, and improve one's circumstances. One of the great freedoms we have in America is the freedom to fail. Abraham Lincoln knew a lot about that freedom. He failed many times, but he also knew about the gift of opportunity, and he took advantage of it. We have seen the resilience and ingenuity of the American people throughout history. Our job is to do what we can to let that promise grow and not get in the way. I believe the stimulus bill we will vote on soon could have been vastly improved if it had been written from the beginning with Republicans and Democrats as part of the process. That is a lesson we should take from President Lincoln. The political process can be messy and petty. We should put our egos aside, as Lincoln did when he brought his greatest rivals into his Cabinet. We should focus on the end goal being the good of our country, not groups to whom each of us is beholden. We should understand there are no guarantees when it comes to the future of our country. We always have to work to protect what has been defended for more than 200 years. Lincoln reminded us that ``it is not merely for today, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children's children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all of our lives.'' If we ignore the consequences of our actions today, then we take for granted what is to come for the future of our great country. President Lincoln was a visionary. On this special day, we cannot lose sight of the tremendous lessons of his lifetime. It is never too late for us to join together as Americans to create a better and a stronger future. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, it seems as though reason and common sense are once again being tossed aside. I am referring to the recent remarks by President Obama when he singled out one of the most premiere cities in the world, Las Vegas. When it comes to convenience and affordability, very few, if any, places in the world can compare to Las Vegas. It is home to more than 140,000 hotel rooms, millions of feet of meeting space, and a central geographic location that makes it easy for employees from around the country to come to meet. It is no wonder so many businesses decide to have their conventions in Las Vegas. It is more than convenience, though. Las Vegas offers a value that is unique. For instance, the average hotel room today in Las Vegas is $119 a night. That is why I find it disturbing that Las Vegas is being singled out. It is more than that. Take Goldman Sachs as one example. First, it goes without saying that all companies that are receiving TARP funds must be responsible and not waste precious taxpayer dollars. Because of recent criticism, Goldman Sachs announced that it was moving a 3-day conference from Las Vegas to San Francisco. To do this though, they had to pay a $600,000 cancellation fee, re-route flights, and re-book the same trip in another city, which is even more expensive than Las Vegas. I ask, is that common sense? Let me repeat this. They had to pay more than a half million dollars in cancellation fees, re-route flights, and re-book the same trip in another, more expensive city. For what? So that Goldman can promote a false sense that it was spending the taxpayers' money more wisely. This is ridiculous. This is what the American people are sick of. Is San Francisco a more affordable city than Las Vegas? Actually, it is much more expensive. I will shoot this straight. What Goldman Sachs did was purely a phony public relations gimmick, but it is not fooling anyone. The conference they booked in Las Vegas is still taking place. Now it is just much more expensive. This makes no sense at all. So let's cut to the chase. Wherever these meetings take place, business takes place. Let me give you an example. The Consumer Electronics Show, known as CES: This is an annual business meeting in Las Vegas. CES attendees come to Las Vegas from over 140 countries around the world. They can conduct a year's worth of business in one location, minimizing travel and saving energy in the process. During the Consumer Electrons Show, approximately 1.7 million meetings are conducted. Transactions are ordered, commerce is buzzing, and the entrepreneurial spirit of business flourishes. This is economic activity that extends beyond whichever city serves as the host. It benefits all of us when an opportunity for business growth and productivity takes place. So let's not lose sight of this fact, especially now. Business meetings are an important tool. Let's make sure we do not leave common sense off the agenda.

Mr. ENSIGN

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

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly. I know my friend from Oklahoma is going to come back and speak, but I wish to make a couple comments. I know there has been a deal reached on the stimulus bill. I wish to make a couple comments about that. We have not received the bill. There are rumors going around about this, that, and the other. One of the details that seems to be coming out is that the housing portion of the stimulus bill has been cut down dramatically. I had an alternative to the stimulus bill that focused on housing, to a great degree, and also targeted some tax cuts to families and small businesses to create jobs. The reason we focused a great deal of it on the housing problem was because the housing problem is the cancer that has dragged the rest of the economy down. It has spread throughout the rest of the economy. As any person in the medical field understands that if you just treat the symptoms and not the underlying cause, the patient gets sicker and sicker. Unfortunately, the President is talking about fixing housing but certainly not at this point. It is regrettable that we didn't take a big portion of the money that is being spent in this stimulus bill and actually fix housing. It is very disturbing because we are going to spend $800 billion and who knows how much more in order to fix the housing problem. We are running up debt after debt on our children. This is their credit card we are running up, and they are going to have to pay higher taxes into the future. Once we get the bill, we are going to have to take a close look over the next day or two and go through it. It is very disappointing, it appears, that this stimulus bill is going to do very little, if anything, to fix the housing problem in the United States. My home State of Nevada leads the country in foreclosures. We understand what other States are starting to go through or just recently have been going through, and how severely it affects the economy. It is unfortunate that the stimulus bill that is supposed to fix the economy is not addressing the No. 1 problem we have in the United States.