Michael Enzi

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the nomination of Governor Kathleen Sebelius as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. As U.S. Senators, one of our most important responsibilities is confirming qualified, and, hopefully, superior nominees to lead our executive agencies. I am one of several Senators with strong reservations regarding the nomination of Governor Sebelius, and it is important to take this time to explain my opposition to this appointment. In order to fulfill our responsibilities under the advice and consent clause properly, this institution has a process for vetting Presidential nominees. The nominee is required to complete a host of paperwork to the authorizing committee, in this case the Senate Finance Committee, accompanied by a sworn affidavit. I was very disappointed to learn that Governor Sebelius amended her paperwork to the Finance Committee as a result of unpaid taxes and understated campaign contributions. The HELP Committee held a hearing on Governor Sebelius' nomination due to the high number of health and early learning statutes and programs that fall under the committee's jurisdiction. During this hearing, I asked Governor Sebelius her thoughts on using reconciliation to advance comprehensive health care reform legislation. Her response was to keep all options on the table. I couldn't disagree more. But unfortunately it appears that is the direction health care reform will take this year. This week the Senate will vote on a conference agreement for the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution that includes reconciliation for health care reform. Using budget shortcuts--known inside the beltway as reconciliation--is the exact opposite of keeping all options on the table because it shuts out members of the minority party. It will also shut out many centrist Democrats, who want to see health care reform based on a competitive private market, which is fully paid for. That is not a formula for bipartisan success. An open, transparent process with a full debate is the best way to achieve a bipartisan product. At both the Member and staff level, Senators on both sides of the aisle continue to meet regularly to discuss health care reform, and specifically what shape it will take. I believe that if we continue to negotiate in good faith, this process can lead to a bipartisan health reform bill that will enjoy broad bipartisan support now and in the future. Ensuring access to affordable, quality and portable health care for every American is not a Republican or a Democrat issue--it is an American issue. Our health care system is broken, and fixing it is one area where I hope my 80 percent rule comes into play so commonsense reforms can be made. People who have worked with me over time know that the 80 percent rule is one of the main philosophies I follow to get things done. In applying this rule, I try to focus on the 80 percent of the issues the Senate generally agrees upon, while not fixating on the remaining 20 percent, which are divisive and can sometimes overwhelm the majority of issues that we agree on. The next Secretary of HHS will undoubtedly have a critical seat at the table in the health care reform debate. For these reasons it is important to have a Secretary in place who supports an open, transparent process without the distraction of tax issues, misreported campaign contributions, and questionable affiliations. I respect that the President is entitled to staff the executive branch with individuals of his choosing. We may not always agree on every issue. I am and will remain staunchly pro-life, and will continue to advocate for legislation to protect the rights of the unborn. However, if Governor Sebelius is confirmed, I will diligently work with her to overcome obstacles standing in the way of solutions to the health care problems facing America. Prior to her hearing, I met with Governor Sebelius and we discussed the unique challenges that face rural and frontier states. People living in rural areas in Kansas, similar to those in Wyoming, face difficulties in access to primary care physicians and preventive services. Rural and frontier areas struggle to attract and retain doctors and other health care providers. In the 10-steps health care reform bill I introduced last year, I emphasized the importance of access to affordable health care for people in rural and underserved areas. Governor Sebelius understands the challenges in this area--and I hope we can work together to find solutions for this common priority. In closing, while I intend to vote no on this nomination, it is my hope and expectation that we will put aside our differences to find meaningful solutions that will make a positive difference in people's lives.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, built into this budget is an assumption that the 33 percent and 35 percent tax brackets would be allowed to expire. As a result, many individuals and small businesses would see their taxes rise substantially in the very near future. The Administration has been quick to explain that the tax hike wouldn't take effect until January 2011 after the economy has rebounded. But no one can be sure when our economy will turn the corner and the administration's economic assumptions have been criticized as being more optimistic than most. While I do not support raising taxes--especially in this economic climate--I realize I am in the minority in this Chamber. So I am here now to offer my friends across the aisle a chance to improve this budget resolution. My amendment would block any tax increase until the economy has recovered. A sure sign of recovery would be a reduction in the unemployment rate to 5.8 percent, a level many private sector economists associate with a fully productive economy. Common sense tells us that employment is a key indicator of our economy's strength and potential for growth. The organization formally tasked with identifying U.S. recessions, the National Bureau of Economic Research--NBER--used job numbers to determine the start date of our current recession and it is only right to use job numbers as a signal that it has ended. I don't support the tax increases in this budget, but if the majority in this Chamber insists on moving forward with higher taxes, they shouldn't do it while the economy is mired in recession. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I have been allocated 5 minutes. I ask the Chair to let me know when 1 minute is remaining.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, today is April Fool's Day and the biggest prank I have seen so far is the one proponents of this budget are trying to pull on the American taxpayer. Proponents of this budget say the plan is transparent, but the authors knowingly hide a stunning explosion in long-term debt by conveniently dropping the last 5 years of their budget. Proponents of this budget say the plan cuts taxes for low- and middle-income families, but right there on page 32 is the blueprint for a plan that would raise taxes on anyone who drives a car or heats their home that probably includes almost everybody. Proponents of this budget will say that it cuts spending, but this plan adds nearly $5 trillion to the public debt in just 5 short years. Proponents of this budget say this plan is honest because for the first time it extends protections against the tenacious reach of the alternative minimum tax, but revenues from the AMT mysteriously reappear in 2013 and 2014. Proponents of this budget will say it contains no reconciliation instructions and preserves an important minority privilege. But this budget doesn't preclude reconciliation either, and my colleagues know that our brethren in the House of Representatives are banging on our Chamber doors with a budget that does include reconciliation--which is odd because they don't need it at their end at all. They have a Rules Committee that takes care of all that. Now I know folks back home in Wyoming are listening to me, scratching their heads and saying ``what the heck is reconciliation and why should I care?'' Let me sum it up this way: reconciliation is the on-ramp to a national energy tax. Reconciliation will make it impossible for me to protect your family from higher energy prices. Reconciliation will make it impossible for me to protect your community from cost-cutting layoffs. Reconciliation will make it impossible for me to make your voice heard here in Washington, DC. Reconciliation does not allow for a full and open debate. Reconciliation does not allow a thorough vetting and amendment process. Reconciliation's fast-track nature shuts out members of the minority party and will shut out many centrist Democrats too. Reconciliation is the declaration that any idea other than the majority party idea has no place at the drafting table--just as, so far, there has been no recognition of a Republican idea. I know all the ideas aren't great--but not even one? As a former committee chairman and the co-author of many successful bipartisan bills, I know firsthand that ramming through reconciliation is not a successful model for good government, and it is certainly counter to the way Senator Kennedy and I work together on the HELP Committee. Senator Kennedy and I strive to work together in a bipartisan fashion to achieve legislation that both sides can support. Laws like the Pension Protection Act, the Head Start reauthorization, and the MINER Act were hundreds of pages in length but passed with little dissent in the Senate. The budget resolution we have adopt for the new fiscal year ought to follow a similar bipartisan model, especially on issues like education and health care which are so important to the future of our Nation. Misusing the reconciliation process to get a health care bill is not the right approach and it conflicts with the new bipartisan spirit that President Obama has promised. A bill passed without work and agreement by both parties on the front end is more like a shotgun wedding than legislating. This budget includes a massive tax increase--$361 billion in explicit tax hikes and $1.3 trillion embedded in 27 different reserve funds. And despite the ``Robin Hood'' rhetoric of taxing just the ``rich,'' the tax increases contained in this budget will hit all Americans. No one is spared: This budget raises taxes on energy. If you drive a car or heat your home, your taxes will go up. That comes under cap and trade, and there is a clever little thing in here which is where they get the tax cut from. They are going to raise your taxes on all the energy you use, then they are going to give it back to you so you can pay for that. But it will not be an equal distribution based on what you are using. This budget raises taxes on senior citizens who are dependent on dividend and capital gains income for the retirement income. This budget raises taxes on charitable contributions at a time when we need charity the most. This budget reinstates the death tax, making it harder to keep the family ranch or family farm or family business in the family. This budget raises taxes on small business. More than half of all small businesses that employ between 20 and 500 employees will see their tax bills rise and jobs eliminated. Small business is the incubator for entrepreneurship and we should protect it and nurture it, not tax it. That is where the community donations come from. And most foolish of all, none of this ``new'' money will help reduce the deficit. Instead, this budget directs all new taxpayer money to the expansion of big Government--more Government programs we can't afford. I think a newspaper columnist, Diane Badget from Lovell, WY, said it best when she wrote how her mother would react to what is happening in Washington today. Diane wrote, ``Momma always said, `If you don't have enough money to buy a quart of milk you don't take someone else's hard- earned cash and buy ice cream.' '' The budget we are debating this week certainly would put us on the hook for a lot of figurative ice cream all right--all kinds of flavors. This budget charts ominous new policy directions for healthcare, education and energy. I ask unanimous consent her entire article be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. ENZI. Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, has argued that we need to fix health care in order to address our current economic crisis--a sentiment echoed by many in this Chamber. But this argument misses an important point. If we enact the wrong health care fix, our budget crisis will get even worse. Simply throwing more money at the problem--as this budget suggests--is not a solution. I am concerned about the direction of energy policy in this budget. This budget leaves open the possibility of putting in place a carbon cap-and-trade system which will lead to higher energy prices for families and small businesses. Enacting such a system is the equivalent of placing a national tax on energy usage. Raising energy prices at a time when families are struggling to make ends meet just doesn't make sense. I don't support Federal policies that will increase energy costs, even in good economic times, but it is especially troubling that the budget lays the framework for this national energy tax when unemployment is above 8 percent and rising. What we need to do now is prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That is the way to make a better future because in the end this budget isn't about numbers. It is about people. But this budget doesn't prepare us for the future. It robs from it. America, this budget taxes too much, spends too much and borrows too much. I am not fooled by this budget and I hope you are not either. Exhibit 1 [From the Lovell Chronicle, Mar. 26, 2009] If Ma Was in Charge (By Diane Badget) Gee, I wish my mom was in charge in Washington. Things would be a lot different with her up there watching every move. She had eyes in the back of her head and nothing got past her radar. Ma would have taken one look at the stimulus package and had a fit. ``You have one minute to explain to me what you were thinking. Your time started yesterday.'' She would have chewed out our president for spending so many hours each day in front of TV cameras pushing his inflated budget and stimulus package at the expense of everything else. ``Barack,'' she would scold, ``you get out of that TV set right now and let someone else have a turn. For heaven's sake, you are a President now, not a candidate-- start acting like it.'' Boy, she would have let Congress have it! ``You kids have until the count of three to stop that arguing and stomping around. Don't make me come up there or you'll all be sorry!'' There'd be a long pause and then she'd warn, ``I don't CARE who started it--if I have to come up there I know who'll end it!'' If Ma asked a plain question she'd expect a plain answer, and that would mean accepting responsibility for mistakes immediately. I can hear her now: ``Don't you be blaming this mess on each other. I know when someone is wetting on my leg and telling me it's a rainstorm.'' Ma didn't believe in complex ideas. Heck, I'm not even sure she understood them. ``If you keep things simple,'' she'd be telling the economists, ``you don't have so much to remember and fix later.'' I don't think the banking executives would get by unscathed, either. ``Now, fellas, how much sense does it make to bounce a check and then send the bank another check to cover your overdraft? You know better than that! If you can't learn how to handle money then we need to rethink your allowances.'' She would have rolled those incredible blue eyes and questioned the experts. ``We have to jump start the banks, jump start the auto industry, and jump start the economy? Maybe it's time to stop jump starting and just replace the stupid battery!'' Throwing good money after bad was a pet peeve of hers, and she'd flat let the politicians hear about it. ``Doggone it! If you drop a one dollar bill in the john and are dumb enough to throw a five dollar bill in after it to see what's gonna happen, don't whine when someone else comes along and flushes the toilet.'' She wouldn't have cared that Congress has its own agenda and that it has nothing to do with what she would think was best. She'd hit the hallowed halls of the Capitol Building yelling, ``As long as you are under MY roof you'll do as you're told.'' Ma didn't believe in politics. She never voted. With an air of superiority I once made the mistake of telling her that if she didn't vote she really shouldn't be complaining about the people who got elected. I don't remember much after that. Senators and Representatives wouldn't stand a chance against her common sense and strong moral fiber. She'd give one of those guaranteed-to-have-you-regret-your-conception looks and pull no punches. ``I don't care what the Speaker of the House said to do. If she told you to jump off a cliff would you do it?'' Um, no Ma, not with you at the bottom ready to kick my behind when I landed. She definitely wouldn't be happy about the amount of money being discussed. ``What in the heck is wrong with you? If you don't have enough money to buy a quart of milk you don't take someone else's hard earned cash and buy ice cream.'' And she never would have understood the concept of deficit spending. ``You be careful with that money. When it's gone, it's gone.'' If she'd known about the way health care reform would be buried in the stimulus package she would I have come uncorked. ``Alright, just for that little stunt I'm going to sneak broccoli into everything you eat--and you'll eat it and be grateful. There are thousands of starving Americans who would be thrilled to have what you have.'' She would have chewed them out for being wasteful and for hoping that waste would somehow make things all better. ``Garbage is garbage. No point in giving it a fancy name because it won't change the smell.'' She'd look at all the palms outstretched waiting for their share of the bailout and just shake her head. ``I told you what would happen if you got too big for your britches,'' she'd lecture. ``You got yourselves into this mess, so now you get yourselves out.'' What Washington needs is a good dose of Ma. She'd get them back on track. I think they've forgotten that you can't fill up the bathtub unless you put the plug in the drain first. Good Grief! It's finally happened. I sound just like my mother! Thank you, Lord.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I was intending to walk through here on the way back to my office when I saw the sign blaming Republicans for everything--it blames us for the crisis, it blames us for--we keep talking about bipartisanship, but that is not the way you develop bipartisanship. We did have some bipartisan votes today in the Budget Committee. One of them was to have an investigation into what is happening. I bet you are not going to point the finger at just one party on that. I am betting there is plenty of blame to go around on the situation we are in. Congress has contributed, as well as business, as well as employees. We are going to find out the country has been on a path and is still on a path that is not sustainable. We maxed out our credit cards and that causes a lot of problems. Now we are still trying to figure out how to spend more money. I was disappointed that we went into a partisan speech right after such a bipartisan effort that happened in this Chamber. We passed a bill this afternoon that is going to provide 7 million volunteers across America, that is going to make a real difference for America. One of the problems I have with Washington is when something good like that happens, it kind of disappears overnight; when something nasty happens, it is talked about forever. We have to talk more about bipartisanship. We have to stop blaming each other and start working together. One of the ways that bill got done this afternoon is we have been following an 80-percent rule. We know we can agree on 80 percent of the stuff, and we did. Actually, we went a little further than that because we found some third ways in part of the other 20 percent. That made a bill that both sides could agree on that could get finished. There will be more work to do in that area. I am glad we got that done this afternoon. I hope it is not a little, tiny paragraph in the paper. It probably will not be because it was named after the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, because he has been such a leader in this effort and worked on this bill for years and certainly deserves to have the bill named after him. That should not be the only reason we get publicity on something such as this bill. There ought to be people looking at what we achieved and talking about what was achieved and talking about how, on a bipartisan basis, Democrats and Republicans sat down and said: This is what we need. We also said these are programs that are not working; let's replace them. We did that, and we did that in a very fiscally responsible way. That is what can happen when both sides work together. We need to do more of that. We need to do a little bit less blaming. We are not even close to an election right now. So the blame game does not need to be done. I certainly hope we can work for some common goals. I think we have some common goals. Next week, we will be talking about the budget, and there are even some common things on that. But I am willing to bet what we talk about on this floor will be the 20 percent we do not agree on, and that is the 20 percent that can ruin America. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

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

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I rise in support of the Serve America Act. I haven't been here for the debate. Wyoming has been under snow, particularly the part of Wyoming I happened to be in. I thank the people who made it possible for me to get back as soon as I have. It has kept me from this very important legislation. I am grateful for the leadership of Senator Hatch in the management of this bill and keeping the process moving. He has played a tremendous role in the drafting of this bill, and it is appropriate that he manage the bill and continue to do so. I also thank Senator Mikulski for defending the bipartisan process. I know it has not been easy. I am sorry I missed my friend Senator Kennedy's appearance on Tuesday evening. I look forward to his quick return to the day-to-day business of the Senate. Let me turn to the issue of the national service reauthorization before us. My mother always told me service to others is the rent we pay for the space we take up. This bill will help millions of Americans fulfill that rent payment. After 16 years, we finally have the opportunity to take a hard look at the law surrounding national service and making necessary changes to improve accountability, reduce bureaucracy, and ensure we get the maximum return on the investment we are making. Although the process we took to reach this point was rushed, it was bipartisan throughout. It is not a perfect agreement, but it includes key Republican concepts such as eliminating waste, and it addresses serious concerns about the management and operations of the AmeriCorps program. Senators Hatch and McCain have been stalwarts in keeping us focused on the importance of national service. Each of them has given back to their communities and country through their individual sacrifices and commitment to service. Without their leadership, we would not be here today. I also congratulate Senator Mikulski on the work she has done to ensure this bipartisan process and her willingness to focus on the 80 percent we can agree on to get this bill done. We do need to get it done. Finally, I cannot proceed without acknowledging our friend and colleague, Senator Kennedy, and his lifelong commitment to the issue of national service. He is dedicated to making sure everyone who is called to national service has the opportunity to serve in programs that address the needs of their communities. We look forward to his speedy recovery and return to the Senate. A comprehensive reauthorization of our national service programs is long overdue. Congress has not given these programs a hard look for 16 years. Working across the aisle and with our colleagues in the House, we have been able to identify areas where we can enact reforms, eliminate waste, and expand our national service efforts responsibly. This bill strengthens the management, oversight, and fiscal accountability of these Federal programs while it expands accessibility and streamlines bureaucracy, which is particularly critical for smaller and rural programs. As the Senate's only accountant, I am particularly concerned about how these programs have struggled to get their financial house in order. I am pleased that the bill before us strengthens the role of the chief financial officer and the inspector general at the Corporation for National and Community Service and moves to fixed price grants that will streamline these programs. This bill now requires the Corporation's board of directors to review the national service budget submission before it goes to OMB. Additionally, when the inspector general recovers misspent national service funds, the bill requires that those funds go back into the national service trust. With these changes, I believe we are creating tools that will allow the corporation to better safeguard taxpayer dollars. I hear from Wyoming constituents about the need to make these programs more responsive to the challenges facing small grantees and rural communities. In this bill, we have taken steps to reduce Federal bureaucracy and improve access for small grantees. By giving the corporation the flexibility to use fixed price grants, we are reducing the significant paperwork and administrative burdens that have plagued these programs in the past. We will really see the impact of streamlining access to these programs as the corporation reaches out to more effectively help Native American communities and tribal governments. In the past, a significant portion of the 1 percent set-aside for programs serving Native American communities has not been used. Too often, these are communities that experience the most extreme needs for education, health, and workforce services. I am encouraged that the corporation has recently brought on board a strategic adviser for Native American affairs. They are bringing to the table the kind of focused expertise that can help improve the ability of tribes to access the programs in the National and Community Service Act and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act. These opportunities are critically important. One of the ways youth in Wyoming engage in service is through the Congressional Award Council which connects them to service opportunities and sponsors an award ceremony. In Cheyenne, young people are conducting CPR and first aid classes, improving disaster preparedness training in the community. That is all on a completely volunteer basis. They get a little medal for doing a lot of hours of service. Each year the council sponsors an award ceremony where members of the congressional delegation award certificates and bronze and silver medals. Gold medal recipients have a special opportunity to travel to Washington, DC, in June to receive their medals. I am also pleased this bill creates a veterans corps that provides veterans with an opportunity to use their skills and leadership abilities after they leave the military. Participating in this corps is a way for Americans to provide the essential support that military families need while their husbands, wives, sons, and daughters are deployed. An opportunity corps has been included to address challenges in disadvantaged low-income communities, which is particularly fitting in this time of economic uncertainty. As part of this corps, we have emphasized the need many Americans have for financial literacy education and job placement assistance. I am very supportive of provisions in this bill that build connections to the needs of our workforce. I thank Senator Mikulski for working with me to find a third way to resolve the issue of how best to introduce competition into the senior corps program. In Wyoming, over 1,000 people a year participate as senior companions, foster grandparents, or community volunteers. They perform services such as conducting safety patrols and participating in environmental cleanup projects. The original proposal around competition would have seriously disrupted the important services provided by these programs. In this bill, we have arrived at a workable solution that will improve the good work being done in these programs through technical assistance and responsible competition. I also thank Dr. Coburn for his thoughtful contribution to the establishment of metrics to be used in evaluating the performance of our national service programs. We reached quick agreement around his proposal between committee markup and today, and we will be able to incorporate his suggestions into this bill. I want to focus on that a little bit more because this is a committee that has been one of the most contentious and is now one of the most productive because of this working together, working through the process, and then working after the process. Dr. Coburn brought up these important changes that he thought the bill needed. We looked at them. They were good ideas. We were able to get the language right and get it incorporated into this bill so we will have a better idea of how each of these programs is working. I understand the concern that we are going too far in expanding these programs. I agree it is not a perfect bill. We took out a number of programs and put in some ideas that were important to Senator Hatch and to Senator Kennedy. It has held the line and focused on what needs to be done. By being at the table and working in a bipartisan way, we have been able to limit the number of new programs and control the proposed increases in discretionary spending. We have also added accountability and performance measures at every step of the way for each program. I also would like to clarify further what this bill does. In exchange for an education award and small stipend, we are supporting Americans who have made a commitment to mobilize their neighbors to address the pressing needs of their communities. We are leveraging the efforts of a few to mobilize millions. I am pleased we have worked in a bipartisan way to negotiate a bill we can support in the Senate. It should receive strong support in the House. The 80 percent we have agreed upon is good policy. It reinforces both Democratic and Republican principles, and it will benefit disadvantaged communities across the country. I am confident the House will concur with the bill ultimately passed off of the Senate floor. This bill will then reach the President's desk quickly. I do hope we can get finished in an expedited manner. I am pleased with the cooperation and the work that people who were not even on the committee have done. That will make a difference in getting this very important bill to the finish line. As I mentioned, it has been 16 years since we took a hard look at these programs. The committee, particularly Senator Hatch and Senator Mikulski, worked through this bill, along with Senator Kennedy and myself. We made some very strong improvements that will make this a very workable program and one that we will be proud to move forward. I ask Members to restrain amendments and help us get this bill finished today. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ENZI. I would like to thank Senator Mikulski for all the hard work that she, Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch have put into crafting this bipartisan legislation. After 16 years we finally have the opportunity to take a hard look at the laws surrounding national service, and we are making necessary changes to improve accountability, reduce bureaucracy, and ensure that we get maximum return on the taxpayer's investment. Early in this process we recognized that an important challenge we would face in the reauthorization of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act was the desire of many to inject more competition into the SeniorCorps programs. These programs provide important services in every one of our States. In Wyoming there are more than 1,300 older Americans who are working to meet the needs of their communities in one of three Senior Corps programs: Retired Senior Volunteers, Senior Companion, and Foster Grandparents. In the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program--RSVP-- volunteers are working in Casper and Cheyenne to conduct safety patrols, participate in environmental projects, and provide tutoring and mentoring services. We have included performance indicators throughout the bill that will help us to evaluate the work of these programs. In the RSVP program, we reached bipartisan agreement to phase in a competitive grant process that provides incentives for organizations to improve their coordination with other community-based organizations, to increase their compliance with program requirements, and to assess their strengths and areas in need of improvement. We have included requirements that this new process put transparency first. The process by which the Corporation develops regulations and performance measures should be open and inclusive. As the Corporation for National Community Service moves through the regulatory process, we expect them to take seriously the public comments they receive for how best to move forward with greater competition in this program. There is a lot of on-the-ground expertise within the community of RSVP directors, and we expect the Corporation will listen to their recommendations, the recommendations of the National Association of RSVP Directors, and involve representatives from these communities in the peer review process. Finally, I understand that this new process has the potential for creating some new paperwork and administrative burdens on grantees in the RSVP program. Does the Senator see a way for those concerns to be addressed?

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I am pleased that the Serve America bill was considered through the regular legislative process. We held a hearing and a markup in the HELP Committee and reported it to the floor. Amendments have been offered, debated and dealt with, and we are about to vote to pass the bill. Although we have had to work faster than most of us would have preferred, it has been a bipartisan process every step of the way. While this is not a perfect bill, it is a better bill because we have followed regular order. The result is good policy with bipartisan support. We have finally taken a hard look at the laws surrounding national service, and made necessary changes to improve accountability, reduce bureaucracy, and ensure that we get maximum return on the investment we're making. The bill includes key Republican concepts such as eliminating waste, and addressing serious concerns about the management and operations of the AmeriCorps programs. It strengthens the oversight and fiscal accountability of these Federal programs, while it expands accessibility and streamlines bureaucracy, which is particularly critical for smaller and rural programs. The role of the chief financial officer and the inspector general at the Corporation for National and Community Service are strengthened. Additionally, the Corporation's board of directors is required to review the national service budget submission before it goes to OMB, and recovered misspent funds must go back to the national service trust. As the only accountant in the Senate I wanted to make sure that we provided the Corporation with the tools it needs to be on sound financial ground as it moves forward. I believe that with the changes we have made, the Corporation for National and Community Service will be a better steward of the taxpayers' money, and we will see ever increasing numbers of Americans serving in their communities to address locally determined needs and challenges. This bill is good for Wyoming because it makes programs more responsive to rural needs. It reduces paperwork and administrative burdens through fixed price grants so that so that programs can work better for small and rural communities. The impact of streamlining access to these programs will allow the Corporation to reach out more effectively to Native American communities and tribal governments, particularly now that it has brought on board a strategic adviser for Native American Affairs. Often these communities are the ones experiencing the most extreme needs for education, health and workforce services. With these changes I am hopeful that the increased set-aside for programs serving Native American communities will not be underutilized and used more efficiently. During the course of this debate we have heard about the many other important changes and improvements that we have made to the national service programs. I am glad that we have been able to improve the bill even more through the amendment process. This bill represents a landmark bipartisan achievement in a time of fierce partisanship. By working in a bipartisan way we have limited the number of new programs and controlled increases in discretionary spending. We have also added accountability and performance measures at every step of the way for each program. This bill will mobilize millions of faith-based organizations, church groups, nonprofits, and individuals to volunteer their time and energy freely to serve their communities. It does not include any mandates of any kind for individuals or groups to volunteer. I am pleased that this bill creates a Veterans Corps that provides services so important for returning veterans and their families. The bill establishes an Opportunity Corps to address issues in disadvantaged, low income communities, emphasizing financial literacy, education and job placement assistance, which are particularly fitting in this time of economic uncertainty. I am very supportive of provisions in this bill that build connections to the needs of our workforce. With Senator Mikulski I believe that we have found a way to introduce responsible competition into the SeniorCorps programs. The original proposal around competition would have seriously disrupted the important services provided by these programs. Finding a solution was particularly important in Wyoming as over 1,000 people a year participate as senior companions, foster grandparents or community volunteers. This is a bill that deserves our support, and I encourage my colleagues to vote for it. What we have agreed upon is good policy that reinforces Republican principles and will benefit disadvantaged communities across the country. I am confident that the House will concur with what we have done, pass the bill quickly, and send it to the President for his signature. As debate on this legislation comes to a close it is necessary to thank those who have worked long and hard on this bill. First and foremost I would like to thank Chairman Kennedy and Senator Hatch for agreeing to work together on designing the Serve America Act. It is a fine example of the importance of working together. I want to further acknowledge our friend and colleague Senator Kennedy. His is a life of dedication to national service and commitment to the issue of national service. I am sorry that I missed him when he was here earlier this week. However, I know that we all look forward to his complete recovery and return to the Senate. I also want to thank Senator Hatch for his management and leadership in shepherding this bill over the past few days. He has kept us focused on the importance of national service through his actions and dedication. And I want to congratulate Senator Mikulski for the work she has done to ensure a bipartisan process and her willingness to work round the clock to get this bill done. I would like to thank everyone on my staff who has worked tirelessly to get us to this point. In particular I would like to thank Frank Macchiarola, Greg Dean, Adam Briddell and Beth Buehlmann. I would also like to thank members of Senator Kennedy's and Senator Mikulski's staff for their hard work--Michael Myers, Portia Wu and Emma Vadehra, and Mario Cardona and Ben Gruenbaum. Thank you also to Senator Hatch's staff, Chris Campbell and Bryan Hickman. I also want to thank Liz King and Kristin Romero, the excellent legislative counsels who worked many long hours to carefully draft bill language. Finally, I thank all of the members of the HELP Committee and their staffs for their hard work.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I would like to state my position on four votes I missed in the Senate on March 23 to 25, 2009. I was unable to vote due to being in Gillette, WY, during blizzard conditions. If in attendance, I would have voted as follows: March 23, 2009-- ``yea'' on vote 108, motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 1388; and March 25, 2009--``yea'' on vote 109, confirmation of David S. Kris, of Maryland, to be Assistant Attorney General; ``yea'' on vote 110, motion to waive Congressional Budget Act on the Crapo amendment No. 688; and ``nay'' on vote 111, motion to table Ensign amendment No. 715.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, this morning I want to address the budget a little bit, and to all Americans, I want to be clear: I want to work with the President to get our economy back on track. I want to fix housing, reform the financial markets, and help every citizen get access to high-quality, affordable health care. I want our President to succeed in leading our Nation out of this economic crisis. But I draw the line with President Obama's idea of raising taxes. He may think it is a great idea to raise taxes in the midst of a recession, but I surely don't. The President's proposed tax increase is a whopper--$1.4 trillion in new taxes, which is equal to the annual economic output of all of Spain. Despite the White House rhetoric, these taxes will hit all Americans. No one is spared. This budget raises taxes on energy. If you drive a car or heat your home, your taxes are going to go up. This budget raises taxes on small business. More than half of small businesses that employ between 20 and 500 employees--that is the Federal definition of ``small business,'' 20 and 500 employees--will see their tax bills rise and jobs eliminated. This budget raises taxes on senior citizens who are dependent on dividend and capital gains income for retirement income. This budget raises taxes on charitable contributions. Just the announcement that it will happen, we have already seen decreasing charitable contributions. Of course, a lot of those charitable contributions are ones that come from these small business employers who have single proprietorships or small business corporations where they have to pay their taxes right away, even though they have to put all that money back into the company. I will talk about that later. This budget reinstates the death tax, making it harder to keep the family farm, the family ranch, or the family business in the family. This budget simply taxes too much. I heard lots of complaints from Wyoming ranchers about the President's tax increase. Many of our ranches and farms are structured as S corporations or limited liability corporations, and this tax hike would hurt them. The President will say his proposal to let some 2001 tax cuts expire will affect only 3 percent of all taxpayers, but this statistic obscures the fact that these taxpayers employ the most number of workers and generate the most economic activity of all small business entities. According to a 2007 Treasury Department report, over 30 percent of all business income comes from passthrough entities, such as S corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies. That means it goes right back in to take care of the business. Last weekend, I was in Wyoming. I visited Sanford's restaurant in Gillette, WY. They started with one restaurant and now they have eight different locations. At the location I went to, one of the owners happened to be there. He said proudly, and he should: We started this business on $2,000. Now we have eight stores, and we still only have $2,000. That is because everything has been plowed back into the business, which results in more jobs for more people. That is what we are talking about. We want this economy to grow. Small businesses are the ones making this grow. It is the guys and women with an idea they can take their last $2,000 and put it into something productive and they can grow it. The problem is, when they grow it, they pay the taxes on it immediately. They pay the taxes as though it actually flowed into their pocket. But it doesn't. As a result, some of these people who have been successful who are creating all these jobs make more than $250,000 a year. They don't get to keep it. That is the important part. They don't get to keep it. They have to pay taxes on it right away. That puts them into this new higher tax bracket. It is going to have a devastating effect. Suddenly, the house they own--they are not going to have the same kind of house deduction, as if they didn't have a business at all. Charitable contributions--it is the small businesses that keep the towns going. It isn't the big corporations that buy the ads in the yearbooks. It isn't the big corporations that make a donation when somebody comes around because there has been a fire. It is those little businesses that want to grow. They are growing, but they have to put everything they have back into it. I know small businessmen who have been able to pay everybody who works for them but not themselves. We are not talking about the big corporations with the big bonuses. We are talking about the little corporations that are family. By ``family'' I mean every employee who works for them understands how difficult the business is, how close to not succeeding the business is, and because they want their job, they help the business to succeed. As a result, they are included in ``the family.'' All of those people are going to suffer. Because 30 percent of all business income that comes through these passthrough entities, such as S corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies, these small businesses that are hiring people-- they are hiring people; they are not laying them off. The unemployment would be tremendously higher if it were not for this 30 percent of all business income that gets passed through and back into the business. Over 70 percent of that income is concentrated in the top two marginal income-tax rates. They pay the highest rate we have because they did business and because the business is making money. But it isn't money they get to put in their pockets; it is money they put back into the business. So nearly a quarter of all business income would be subject to higher taxes under this budget. Let me repeat that. Nearly a quarter of all business income would be subject to these higher taxes under this budget. According to a 2007 survey completed by Gallup for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, 50 percent of all businesses that employ between 20 and 499 workers will face higher taxes if the 2001 rate reduction in the top two rates is allowed to expire. Fifty percent of all businesses that employ between 20 and 499 workers will face higher taxes if we do not change that, if we allow it to expire. And the plan, according to the budget, is to let it expire, to shove these taxes off on these small businesses, the ones that are still doing well, the ones that have not succumb to the greed, the ones that have been doing the right thing, particularly with their community. Raising taxes on our Nation's job creation engine at any point in the business cycle is just bad economic policy. The key to our Nation's economic growth and our ability to recover from a crisis such as this one is the flexibility and the vibrancy of our non-corporate sector. Small business is the incubator for entrepreneurship, and we should protect it and nurture it, not tax it. For example, many in the companies that fueled the economic growth of the 1990s and beyond started as passthrough entities: For example Yahoo and Microsoft, just to mention a few that the President mentioned earlier in the week when he was talking about the importance of helping out small business and said all the right things about small business. I am encouraged by what he said. I am encouraged by the differences he is going to make in the way the Small Business Administration works. But it is going to come back again in the way of higher taxes for those same people. We need to encourage, not discourage, those people. When I was in Wyoming, I had a procurement conference. That is where the Federal Government comes to Wyoming and talks to my businessmen to see if small business can't provide for some of the Government contracts. Every year it is a huge success. People from all over the Nation, not just Wyoming, are able to take advantage of that sort of thing. At that conference, a guy in Montana was talking about the need for some liquidity so he could get a loan--a loan, not a bailout--a loan so he could grow his business. As we learned at the White House summit on Monday, the banks do not have a secondary market for their loans. That means when they make the loan, they cannot turn around and sell the loan to free up the capital to make another loan. When that happens, these small businesses cannot get loans, and a lot of them need short- term credit. You have to order your inventory a year ahead of time often. When it gets there, you have to pay for it, and then you sell it. A lot of them need just a kind of cashflow loan, one that will pull them through that time when all the inventory hits and gets paid off and the time the inventory gets sold. A guy in Montana talked to a guy in Wyoming who talked to me and proposed several different ways that I have passed on to the White House and to Secretary Geithner that money could be freed up for these businesses to grow. I am encouraged and hope that will happen. I hope it is not reversed by these new taxes. I will fight to preserve low taxes for our Nation's small business, and I am prepared to offer an amendment to any legislation that attempts to raise taxes on small business income. I have pledged to work with the White House to fix housing, to reform our financial markets, and to help every citizen get access to high- quality, affordable health care. My question today is: Will the White House work with me to protect small business from the harmful effects of this budget's tax increase? This budget taxes too much, spends too much, and borrows too much. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 668 be made pending.

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

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I rise to discuss amendment 668. This amendment relates to the Ryan White Program. We reauthorized that program 3 years ago. We did it on a very bipartisan basis. I need to expose how one person has once again overruled a bipartisan, bicameral effort to create fair and equitable funding mechanisms for the program. I did this last year. It was funneling money specifically to one area that had less people. The idea behind the bill was to make sure we had money for the people with HIV/AIDS, and the money is supposed to follow the people. Why do I bring this up? I was involved in the original reauthorization. We will be doing that reauthorization later this year. I can tell Members that Wyoming is not affected one way or the other by my amendment. But 46 States are affected by this amendment; 46 States are affected adversely if this amendment does not pass. If anybody wonders which States those are, I am more than happy to tell them who the losers will be. And it will probably be a lot easier to say who the winners would be. I will get to that in a little bit. The Ryan White CARE Act provides funding to States across this country to provide HIV/AIDS treatment, care, and prevention to individuals in need. In 2006, the committee reauthorized the program and established new bipartisan, bicameral funding formulas that provided more equity in the program. It required funding determinations to be made based on the number of people with HIV and AIDS. This is a major distinction. Before 2006, funding was only based on AIDS cases. The Omnibus Appropriations Act includes a provision that will modify and dramatically change these bipartisan funding formulas. It allows larger cities to receive more Ryan White funding simply because they received more money in the past. The cities that had a high number of people with AIDS before 2006 will benefit, and those that have seen an increase in HIV and AIDS since 2006 will not be awarded the funding they need. Sadly, larger cities, most notably San Francisco, will receive more money than other cities for all the wrong reasons. Unfortunately, this is not new language. We have seen it in the appropriations bills in the past. We know exactly what the language does. It primarily benefits San Francisco--a city that continues to receive funding to care for people who are deceased. All the while, nearly every other city would have reduced funding so San Francisco can receive more riches. According to data put together by GAO--these are not my numbers; these are GAO's numbers, provided last Friday--so according to data put out by the Government Accountability Office, the language in the bill will ensure an additional $6.7 million will be awarded to San Francisco, while the other large cities will see a decrease in funding. I do not know why they did not ask to print $7 million more and put it in there instead of taking it from other people. That is kind of what we are doing these days. That additional funding is not based on the number of people they are treating or how many new cases they have. As a hold-harmless provision, it is related to what that city has received before. Let me expand on that. If your city's problem is increasing, under the omnibus, you will get less money. You will be penalized if your city's HIV/AIDS problem is increasing. Now, if your city's problem is decreasing, according to the omnibus, you will get more money. If we are giving cities with more people with HIV/AIDS less funding, and cities with less people with HIV/AIDS more funding, how fair is that? What is even more egregious is that after being exposed more than a year ago, someone has the audacity to include the language again. Of course, that may be because in conference they were able to get that pulled out and it happened anyway, even after a very substantial vote on this side of the building. Our bipartisan reauthorization was based on a pretty simple idea: The money should follow the patients. We modernized funding formulas in order to fight this deadly disease on its new front lines. More people in rural areas and the South, more women, and more African Americans are being infected with HIV/AIDS every day, and we made sure these populations could get the treatment they needed. It was a bipartisan, bicameral agreement. We were very clear about the implications of those new formula changes. In fact, we provided GAO reports with estimates on how the new formulas would change funding levels for grantees that were nearly identical to how the funding would be distributed today--but because of the language in the appropriations bill, it has not. Yes, that is how we did this vote last year, which, again, I repeat, Wyoming had no gain or loss in. We are not even involved in this issue. I have been involved in this issue trying to take care of HIV/AIDS patients. My amendment was taken out so the language can continue, and it is very unfair. It is unfair to the people in rural areas and the South, where more women, more African Americans are being infected with HIV/AIDS every day. We made sure treatment could be gotten. It passed this body. It passed the House. We agreed to these formulas. We were clear about the implications of the new formula changes. As I have mentioned, the GAO reports are practically the same this time as they were a year ago. Those funding formulas included hold-harmless provisions to ensure that the formula funding would not decrease by more than 5 percent for anybody. Now, when we did that, I think we all thought that was going to be 5 percent for each of 3 years. As it turned out, it was a total of a 5-percent decrease over the 3 years for anybody. I would have preferred no hold-harmless provisions or ones that allowed for more dramatic fluctuations so the money could follow the HIV-infected person, but that was what we agreed on. That is the agreement we reached in this bipartisan, bicameral bill. We did not pull the wool over anyone's eyes. We provided clear information about the implications of those funding formulas. We found the third way. Now, with one simple pen stroke, someone is again undoing all those carefully crafted bipartisan, bicameral compromises by inserting another hold-harmless provision with little thought to how this change would affect others. Last year we had the list of people, and we have that again, of who gains and who loses, and it was an easy vote to win. This change does not allow money to follow the patient. It allows money to follow those who are in power. We want to change that with this amendment. I do not know about you, but I find this reprehensible. This is simply unfair to those cities and States that are struggling to come up with the moneys for basic HIV/AIDS treatments. What is worse, the majority--well, what is worse is that this bill continues to cheat others. Not just once, not twice, but this would be the third year that San Francisco will have benefited from this language. In 2007, I brought up this exact issue. A very strong majority of the Senate agreed with me. Unfortunately, it did not change. They are still willing to try to institute an unfair and unjust formula. I object to that provision and the implications of it. We changed the formula to have money follow the problem. In 2007, we passed my amendment to focus the funding on people living with HIV/ AIDS. Most of the people in this Chamber voted with me. Of the ones who are still here, it is a vast majority. Now, I understand that after passing it with those kinds of numbers, it was dropped in conference. I understand that will probably happen this year too. But I do think we need to send the message and hope for fairness. Without this amendment, there will be no fairness. You realize that--last year--only a couple of States have a city that is helped. Most of you will be contributing money from your cities to help those with declining problems. Where I come from that is called cheating. So if you wonder if your State gains or loses, check with me. The amendment I am offering is simple. It states that the language in the omnibus bill will not change the funding formulas we agreed to in a bipartisan, bicameral process in 2006. If you support an equitable system that distributes funding on the true basis of need, I believe you should support my amendment. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from GAO to me dated March 6, 2009, and relevant material be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, this amendment is an issue of the fairness of HIV/AIDS funding on which most of my colleagues who were here last year voted with me. With just those votes again, my amendment would be adopted. When we passed the last reauthorization of Ryan White 3 years ago, we changed the formula to follow the HIV/AIDS patients. We did not just keep increasing the amounts the cities got. The amount had to relate to HIV or AIDS patients who were still living. We even put in a hold harmless clause so no one would lose more than 5 percent over the 3- year period. The reauthorization passed unanimously with the House agreeing with our changes. This amendment does not affect Wyoming, but I am sensitive as chairman of the committee when we passed the reauthorization. The omnibus has a provision which, according to the GAO, only four States gain money. Of the $10 million being redistributed, San Francisco gets $6.7 million. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and California are the only States that gain. This is redistributed money, which means it is not new money. This is money being taken from those with an increasing problem to pay for those with a decreasing problem. This language is an attempt to change a formula for which most of my colleagues voted. I ask my colleagues to vote for the amendment.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I wish briefly to discuss an amendment that I filed related to the royalty collection of coal and other leasable minerals. I want to be clear that I am in favor of having coal companies and other mining companies pay the royalties they are required to pay. I believe that they should pay them on time and I believe that they should face the consequences if they do not pay them on time. The provision in the omnibus bill is arbitrary. It attempts to apply the penalty sections of the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Management Act to coal leases. The provision comes out of nowhere and, to my knowledge, has not been studied by the Senate Energy Committee nor the House Natural Resources Committee. This is a policy change, not a funding matter, and therefore, it should be considered in the normal legislative process--not slipped into an omnibus appropriations bill. I have put forth this amendment to take a more considerate approach. My amendment would strike this provision and replace it with a study by the Minerals Management Service, MMS, the Government's royalty collection agency. The MMS would examine the current royalty system and provide a report back to Congress within 180 days that includes any recommendations with ways that royalty collection process can be improved. Doing so would then give the Senate the appropriate amount of background to consider making these changes and would ensure that we do not make a change that has unintended consequences. Again, I want to reiterate that I fully support companies making royalty payments on time and if they don't, I support them being punished. I do not, however, support the process by which the majority has stuck this legislative provision in an appropriations bill. Rather than shooting from the hip, the Senate should give it proper consideration.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I want to follow the comments of the Senator from Washington, being the ranking member on the committee that worked on this nomination. I thank Senator Kennedy, Senator Murray, and other Senators on the committee for their help, cooperation, and due diligence on this matter. I would be remiss if I did not thank Secretary Elaine Chao for the effort she put in during the time she was in office. I would mention that she made some of the first changes to OSHA and we made the first change in MSHA in 28 years while she was in office. It was a very bipartisan effort that we made, worked on both sides of the aisle, and done in 6 weeks, which is a record time for any of the committees around here to go through the regular process. There are other things we need to do in both OSHA and MSHA. I hope we have a chance to work on that. I am here today to discuss the nomination of Representative Hilda Solis to serve as Secretary of Labor. This nomination followed regular order and worked through the committee process. Carefully reviewing nominations for Cabinet positions through the regular order is critical to fulfilling our constitutional advice and consent obligations. As Senators, one of our most important responsibilities is confirming qualified and hopefully superior nominees to lead our executive agencies. In order to fulfill our responsibilities under the advice and consent clause properly, we have developed a process for vetting the President's nominees, all Presidents' nominees. This vetting process typically includes a committee hearing, which encompasses a review of the nominee's credentials; a background check to screen for conflicts of interest, often related to financial holdings or associations with outside groups; followed by a markup and floor consideration, which is what we are doing today. I am pleased that we are proceeding in this fashion with respect to the nominee for the Secretary of Labor. Representative Solis has a diverse background and a compelling personal story. Her life is one that epitomizes the American dream. Her dedication to public service is admirable, and it should serve as an example to young people everywhere. Once confirmed, as chief Labor official, she is charged with overseeing job training programs, private pension plans, veterans employment and training issues, protecting America's workers' occupational safety and health, as well as ensuring mine safety and health, to name a very few of the things. The Labor Secretary manages an annual budget of approximately $53 billion and nearly 17,000 full-time employees. Unfortunately, based on my review of her background, I am concerned about a lack of management experience that is needed to meet the demands of the job, even though I recognize that it is the President's prerogative in selecting his Cabinet. In reviewing this nomination, we followed the same due diligence and background check that we follow for all nominees in both this administration and the previous administration. Unfortunately, we were not able to act on this nomination for over a month because the nominee had numerous errors and omissions in the documents she filed with the committee in her application, as well as the financial disclosures to the House of Representatives, going back several years, and the Office of Government Ethics. Because of these errors, we had to reconstruct her application and her financial statements to remove the possibility of any conflict of interest. If we had not faced these paperwork problems, we probably would have been able to vote on her nomination in January. One of the conflict of interest issues that concerns me most is Representative Solis's position as a treasurer, a position with fiduciary responsibilities, of a 501(c)(4), a not-for-profit lobbying firm. As an accountant and the coauthor of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, I can assure my colleagues that there is no such thing as an ``honorary'' treasurer of a 501(c)(4) organization that lobbies Congress. So-called ``honorary'' positions are reserved for board of director positions on 501(c)(3) charitable organizations but not positions with a fiduciary responsibility, such as treasurers or general counsels for 501(c)(4) groups. I was also deeply troubled to learn that this entity has filed lobbying disclosure paperwork with the House of Representatives that shows it lobbies in support of bills that Representative Solis cosponsored and in which she would be involved as the top Labor official in the executive branch. To address these concerns, I have obtained from Representative Solis a sworn affidavit that she has no check-writing or signing authority as treasurer for this 501(c)(4) entity, nor does she have any control over the ability to control this entity's expenditures for campaign ads. This affidavit goes a long way to showing that no conflict of interest appears to have taken place. In addition, the entity has filed amended filings with the Federal Election Commission that do not list Representative Solis as being responsible for any monies going toward the campaign ads. To avoid any future conflict of interest, I hope and expect that Speaker Pelosi will immediately amend the House ethics rules to prohibit Members of Congress from serving in a position of fiduciary responsibility for 501(c)(4) board organizations. It is a blatant conflict of interest, not allowed in the Senate, and the House of Representatives should prohibit it immediately. Additionally, the press recently reported that there were unpaid tax liens related to Representative Solis's husband's small auto repair business. It now appears that all of the outstanding liens are paid, and all of them were her husband's liens. I have obtained a letter from the County of Los Angeles treasurer and tax collector verifying that the county liens have been released. My staff also held a conference call with officials from the State of California and received word that all outstanding state liens have been released. Of equal importance, I am concerned that Representative Solis simply failed to fully respond to a host of very basic labor policy questions posed at the committee in the hearing and in writing. The nominee dodged legitimate questions relating to the Employee Free Choice Act, right-to-work laws, employment standards, and overtime regulations, to name a few. This is not a nomination for a judicial position where a nominee quite understandably should not be expected to respond to hypotheticals involving cases that might come before her. This is a policy post, and policy questions deserve full answers from any nominee. I am disappointed that we did not receive them, and equally disappointed that her reticence to discuss them precluded us from having a more thoughtful and necessary discussion of her views. I was very disappointed when President Obama issued an executive order that discriminates against the 94.7 percent of the construction workers in Wyoming who are nonunion members, and 84.4 percent of construction workers nationwide. The order reverses the Bush policy of neutrality on Government contracts and instead encourages agencies to require their private contractors to engage in collective bargaining agreements on contracts of $25 million or more. During the confirmation proceedings, I asked the nominee whether she would support the neutral Bush policy. Her response was that she had not studied it nor participated in discussions about repealing it. Now that it has been repealed, I hope she will study the issue closely and urge the administration not to further expand the executive order to smaller contracts. I am very concerned that the administration is choosing to limit access to good construction projects at a time when construction unemployment is extremely high and a tremendous amount of taxpayer dollars is being spent on building projects. In many communities, the only construction projects bid on may well be Federal and not be restricted to 15.6 percent of construction workers who are unionized. This policy excludes many small and local contractors and also disadvantages women and minority employees who are less likely to be union members. Reserving the spoils of the stimulus bill for large unionized contractors seems to me the exact wrong policy for the current economic crisis. I hope Secretary Solis will take a careful study of these concerns and advise the administration that a neutral policy achieves the most equitable result and, even more importantly, will ensure that taxpayers get the most for their money. Finally, I would also like to mention that prior to her hearing, Representative Solis and I discussed the Workforce Investment Act and how we need to reauthorize it immediately. I have been working on that for about 4 years, and we passed it unanimously through the Senate before, and it would train 900,000 workers for higher skilled jobs. I do not understand why we cannot get it through both bodies and get it conferenced and get it enacted. Instead of training people to get higher skilled jobs, we keep sending the jobs over to India and China and other places. So at a time when our economy is being challenged to create jobs that will bolster our infrastructure and our competitive edge in the 21st century, the skills of our workforce have not kept pace. We cannot afford to overlook the importance of providing lifelong access to quality education and training in our workforce. That is why I strongly believe we must renew and improve the Workforce Investment Act. Governors from States all over ask for more flexibility so they can actually use the money in that act. That is a law that would help provide American workers with the skills necessary to compete in the global economy. I look forward to working with Representative Solis in her new Cabinet position as Secretary of Labor, and her staff, on this and many other labor and economic issues facing our country. I know Members of the Senate are anxious to have a permanent Labor Secretary in place. I am too. It took longer than I would have liked to complete the necessary vetting, and, again, I wish to thank all my colleagues for their patience and help in allowing us to work through the regular order to ensure we fulfill our duties under the Constitution. Now that we have done our due diligence, we can move to have this nomination confirmed. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the following documents: the affidavit from Representative Solis stating she did not have check-signing authority for American Rights at Work or control of their lobbying or campaign expenditures; and a statement from the Los Angeles County treasurer and Tax Collector's office stating that all liens relating to Representative Solis' husband's small business have been released.

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Presiding Officer and I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I, too, want to speak about the conference committee report. I did not think it was possible, but after waiting until late last night to finally receive the text of this trillion-dollar economic bailout legislation, the Speaker of the House and the majority leader took a bad bill and made it worse. Fix housing first. The housing market is where the problems began, and it is where they will end. Fix housing first. So what did the negotiators between the House and the Senate do? Amazingly, Democratic leadership managed to remove one of the provisions that would really do some good and help address housing. Stripped from the conference report is Senator Isakson's home buyers tax credit extension amendment. Expanding that successful tax credit program--we know from the 1990s-- would have addressed the source of our economic crisis--housing--and would help bring tentative homeowners back into the market. There are over 3.5 million homes on the market right now and no buyers. Instead of including this provision, the conferees replaced it with more wasteful Government spending. They have used our last bullet. They have maxed out the Federal credit card. Every drop has been taken out of the well, and they have spent this one-time money on expenses that will go on and on--and that is the real problem--on and on with money we do not have for things we do not need. I have listened to the Democratic leadership speak on this legislation over the past day or so and have been surprised as they described it as bipartisan compromise legislation. I have been a Member of the Senate for 12 years, and in my experience, finding only three Members of the minority party to support legislation and only involving them at the end of the process is not bipartisan. It is not bipartisan in the slightest. I am disappointed that we have reached this point. When we first began discussing this legislation, President Obama asked for change. He asked for a bipartisan economic stimulus measure, something that could garner as many as 80 votes. I wanted to see that as well. I wanted to see legislation that both parties could support because the economic crisis we are in is not a partisan problem. Unfortunately, the legislation we have before us is partisan, and it reads like a list of bundled liberal priorities that could not gain support individually. How do I know? It is a wish list that could not be passed for the last 20 years because they could not find the money. Democratic leaders, even at the exclusion of other Democrats, wrote a bill, brought it to the floor, and then negotiated with Republicans they thought they could pick off. Several saw what was happening and dropped out. They picked three off by asking what it would take to get them to vote for the Democratic bill and making a few changes. It was not a bill made by both parties. President Obama turned the drafting of this bill over to the Speaker of the House and other Democratic leaders who did not consult Republicans and even said: We won the election, we get to write the bill. Then the President went out on the campaign trail to stump for a plan crafted solely by Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. He complained that he reached out to Republicans but they did not reach back. Reaching out cannot just be an afterthought. The supporters are using the politics of fear. Fear mongering adds to the problem. I was not part of the initial ``gang of eight'' Republican Senators who were handpicked to work with Senator Ben Nelson and the majority leader on a ``compromise'' ``stimulus'' bill. I would note, however, that five of the eight Republicans quickly saw how superficial the compromise was going and bowed out. I nevertheless offered and supported ways to improve the bill that was put forward by some of my colleagues. I am not just talking about amendments you saw on the floor that would reduce the price. Those were simply efforts to salvage something out of the wreck. I suggested removing a number of things that did not make sense--policies backed by Republicans and policies backed by Democrats. I always recognize that both sides have to have things left out to be fair. I also backed moving the bill forward in several understandable pieces so we could bring the American public along. I offered amendments that sought to improve several parts of the bill, including a change that would make sure the billions of taxpayer dollars spent to pay for health information technology would go toward items that will actually work in the real world. This was a real bipartisan effort which enjoyed broad support among both Republicans and Democrats. In fact, I did get an amendment adopted that was just technical changes, and that was difficult to do. I think it has been ripped out now too. But the bill will not work without those. Unfortunately, it, along with my efforts to try to protect patients from Government bureaucrats rationing their access to health care, was largely ignored. As a result, I have strong concerns that this stimulus bill will likely backfire on patients and providers, resulting in more harm than any good we are likely to see from its ill-conceived and misguided efforts. We are going to do health care reform this year. Partisan pieces do not have to be rushed through as ``stimulus.'' We do not have to legislate on a spending bill. This massive bill contains short-term and long-term spending, and I advocated moving forward with the short-term spending immediately. I advocated for addressing the housing crisis and the jobs crisis right now. I suggested that after we dealt with those pieces of legislation, we should work together on the long-term items, not jam them in with no time for debate. Some of those items in this bill are important, but they should be dealt with in a separate measure going through the normal legislative process where we can have the time for real debate about our Nation's priorities. I am not happy about deficit spending in these bailouts. I realize something is wrong with our economy, and we need to take steps to fix it. I worked to create a bill that efficiently used taxpayer money to improve the housing market and put people back to work. The ``compromise'' we are forced to take or leave is so far off the mark and full of pork that it is obscene. I will not support spending money we do not have for projects we do not need. I will support legitimate efforts put forward by either party that could help our country out of this economic mess. I have been very critical of this bill and other bailout bills passed last year, and time is showing I made the right decisions opposing those bailouts. I would support an economic stimulus package if only it lived up to the President's own threshold of being targeted, timely, and temporary. I am leery of spending one-time money on programs that will have to continue. These will be continuing payments on our maxed- out credit card. But this bill does not fit with the President's words, and Democratic leadership has made no real effort to make it conform. This bill is both bad in content and in process. It includes wasteful spending, including $2 billion for groups like ACORN and $1.3 billion for Amtrak. Funding that was stripped from the Senate version for sexually transmitted disease prevention was included in the conference report. As is typical in Washington, programs that were Members' pet projects saw ridiculous increases in the conference. The Senate bill provided $2 billion for the High-Speed Rail Corridor Program. The House bill included no funding for the program. How did we compromise that? How much did the conference provide? It provided $8 billion. This is compromise according to Congress. Both the House and the Senate version of the bill included $200 million for ``Transportation Electrification''--both bills, House and Senate--$200 million for transportation electrification. Logically, one would then expect that the conference would provide $200 million, but logic flies out the window around here when you come inside the beltway. The conference provided $400 million--double what either body suggested. I know how to do more than talk about bipartisanship. I have built a career on it without compromising my principles. Take a closer look and we will see bipartisan isn't about compromise; it is about establishing common ground and finding a third way. First you sit down together with principles each side can agree on. That is probably about 80 percent of any issue. Then you identify the 20 percent you were never able to agree on and either leave that out or preferably find a new way both sides can agree on--one that hasn't already been down in the weeds and washed for years and years. After you have the principles, you work on the details, keeping what you can agree on and throwing out what you can't, until you have legislation that is for and from both sides, from the beginning. That didn't happen here. Talk is cheap, but the latest economic bill pushed through by a majority and three Republican Senators is not. And if this is the description of bipartisan support, then the House, with every Republican and 11 Democrats voting no, must be bipartisan opposition. This legislation is the single most expensive bill in the history of the United States and it is being sold to the American people as a ``compromise.'' Buyer beware. Mr. President, I reserve the balance of the time, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask that the time be equally divided.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I ask unanimous consent that the following speakers on the Republican side be recognized for up to 10 minute each, in no designated order, with the remaining time under the control of Senator Grassley: Senators Kyl, Alexander, Inhofe, Thune, Graham, Chambliss, Bond, Sessions, and Coburn.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I have to say it: The emperor has no clothes. Somebody has to say it. I am referring to this additional bailout, a spending bill that spends everything we have on nothing we are sure about. I have watched with dismay and disgust as this stimulus ballooned from $800 billion to more than $930 billion in only 4 days of debate. Today my colleagues tell me I am supposed to be giddy that we are only spending $827 billion. Frankly, I have had enough of this bailout baloney. Members from both sides of the aisle are taking advantage of taxpayer shell shock and a strident sense of national urgency to pump the recovery package with wasteful spending and unending tax provisions that blatantly fail a crucial yet simple test set by my Democratic colleagues--that the provisions of the stimulus bill would be targeted, timely, and, most important, temporary. For example, this bill includes billions of new money for Federal agencies. Presumably these agencies will hire new workers. What happens at the end of the fiscal year when the funding for these new hires goes away? Will these new jobs be eliminated? Of course not. We never do. Lawmakers simply come back to the well in a few months and exert even more pressure to maintain the new programs and keep these new jobs and keep the bloated spending that supports them. There is nothing temporary about that kind of spending. There is also nothing temporary about much of the programmatic spending included in this bill either. For example, the compromise includes $13.9 billion in additional funding for Pell grants to help college students pay for college costs. I am a strong supporter of Pell grants. But we provide funding for them in the normal appropriations process which, incidentally, we haven't passed last October's appropriations yet. I always wonder when we will get around to doing that. We are kidding ourselves that after the stimulus bill, we will be able to return Pell grants to their prestimulus level. If we try to go back to that level, we will be accused of making college unaffordable. The same goes for the IDEA Program. It receives $13 billion in the compromise to improve education for disabled children. We are all for improving education for disabled children. But if we suggest that the IDEA Program go to a prestimulus level, we will be accused of cutting funding for disabled children. They are both good programs, but they should be funded in the normal appropriations process because they are not temporary spending increases. That is $26.9 billion with only those two. That used to be big money around here. While this bill does not include traditional earmarks, we should all understand that there are earmarks in this bill. There is $850 million--just millions, nothing--to bail out Amtrak; a $75 million earmark for the Smithsonian, a $1 billion earmark for the 2010 census. In addition to that, thousands of the projects that will be funded from this bill are what the American people would consider to be earmarks. For example, the compromise includes $1.2 billion for Byrne grants that will go to local law enforcement agencies to be spent on basically whatever they desire. This bill is not a stimulus package; it is another bloated appropriations package. That is another $3 billion that used to be real money around here. I wish I had time to cover the thousands of other spending ideas we would not fund in the past. Time does not allow it when you are talking about $800 billion. I think it is ironic that Congress spent last fall criticizing subprime mortgage lenders who sold overvalued homes to people who could not afford them--and created this mess we are in--when we are committing that very same sin today in this ``stimulus'' bill. This Chamber is guilty of trying to sell an overvalued, bloated spending bill to taxpayers who can ill-afford the price tag. But unlike those homeowners who just left the keys and closed the front door, the American taxpayer does not have that option of just walking away when this bill comes due. It is time to admit that, just like many Americans, the Federal Government has maxed out its credit card. But while most Americans are wisely trimming the fat in their budgets, reexamining their spending patterns, and focusing on what is truly essential, Congress has not smartened up yet. Now is not the time to put every politician's Christmas wish list on the Government credit card. We are already approaching the debt ceiling with alarming speed. In fact, I will bet most Americans do not know that buried deep in this stimulus bill is the increase to $12.1 trillion in the Federal debt limit. Let me repeat that: a $12.1 trillion debt limit. And that is on top of the trillions already set as a debt ceiling. The American people want Congress to act now, to act with urgency. They say we do not have time to wait. Well, that is what the party in charge is telling us. My reply is, do we have time to get it right? The American people do not want us to go fast for the sake of being fast. They want us to solve the problem, and they want a solution that makes sense to them. That is what will give the American people confidence, and confident American people are going to make our economy better, not the Federal Government throwing their money around with reckless abandon. Do not get me wrong, I understand the immediate need to jump-start our economy. The employment numbers released last week were stark evidence that jobs continue to disappear at a fearsome pace. People are frightened, and they feel they have nowhere to turn. But in steering a ship through a crisis such as this, Americans need to be confident that the lawmakers have a steady hand on the tiller and a firm eye on the horizon. And it is clear from the sinking poll numbers that this stimulus bill gives them no such confidence. Americans have had enough bailout baloney too. What we need is a new plan and a new approach. Alice Rivlin, a former OMB and CBO Director, suggested we split this bill into smaller pieces. I agree, and some of my colleagues agree too. Our first priority should be an antirecession package that can be both enacted and spent quickly. Elements of this bill should meet very strict criteria: The funds must spend out completely or expire by the end of this calendar year; the funds cannot be used to support permanent obligations such as entitlements or operating budgets; and the funds must be targeted at specific needs. A second, separate set of packages could be considered without the same urgency after the completion of the antirecession package. These smaller bills would include funds for long-run investments that are not needed to enhance the future growth and productivity of the economy, including infrastructure investment, education, and worker retraining. I have been trying to get that through for 4 years. Rushing this type of spending through, as we are doing in this bill today, ensures that mistakes will be made, plans will be poorly crafted, and precious taxpayer money will be wasted. This bill's ability to create jobs is dubious at best. When combined with the outrageous cost of past bailouts for Wall Street and the automakers and bailouts we are told are yet to come for the banking and housing sectors, the only sure thing about this bill is that taxes are going up for everybody--working Americans; senior citizens; businesses small and large; and, as we have mentioned all along, our children and grandchildren. No one will be spared the cost of this stealth expansion of the welfare state. I simply cannot support a future tax increase the size this bill implies and will need. I plan to oppose this bloated bailout, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. This is an extremely important bill for the section that deals with Health IT. Senator Kennedy and I have been working on that for 3 years as well as many others in this Chamber. If we are going to have health care in this country that improves, we are going to have to have Health IT, and I think everybody realizes that. We have tried to come up with a mechanism for getting interoperability. We have had good success on that without being able to get the bill passed that we have been working on for 3 years. But there is a provision that moves Health IT along in this bill, but it needed some modifications so it actually would work. I am ever so pleased people on both sides of the aisle, particularly Senators Baucus, Kennedy, and Grassley, have helped and worked on this. The reason there had to be a modification was a little while ago we were able to clear up one more difficulty in that bill. Without this, it will not work well. There are still other things that ought to be done with it. There are still other things I would like to have with Health IT. There are some things in there that I would not like to have. But this is the part we were able to get agreement on in order to make it work a lot better. The Certification Commission for Health IT, or CCHIT, has done a lot of great work to accelerate the adoption of health IT by creating a credible, efficient certification process. Many companies have already begun voluntarily participating in the certification process. This system is working and is putting us on the right path to interoperability. Unfortunately, CCHIT is concerned certain details of the underlying bill will cause an ``unintended slowdown in the adoption of health IT''. This amendment allows CCHIT to continue their current mission without changing their priorities. CCHIT sent me a letter stating ``the amended language makes the path forward much clearer, and will build on current health IT momentum rather than disrupting it''. This amendment puts the standards section back on the right track by building upon the progress of Secretary Leavitt and the Bush administration. Secretary Leavitt worked tirelessly to create the American Health Information Community, AHIC, a public-private partnership designed to ensure the Government and the private sector could work together on interoperability standards. Under Secretary Leavitt's leadership, the AHIC recently transitioned into the National eHealth Collaborative, a voluntary consensus standards body. I strongly support the collaborative and I want to ensure it is able to continue. The bill before the Senate, however, threatens to ``take'' the assets of the collaborative and nationalize the collaborative. My amendment prevents that from happening. I have been working with the leaders of the collaborative and they ``strongly support my proposed amendment''. The amendment will also ensure that Federal investments in IT comply with technology standards harmonized by the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel and certified by the Certification Commission for Health IT, and at a minimum this bill should accelerate the work of those two entities rather than delay it. My amendment also makes other changes that were included in the bipartisan ``Wired for Health Care Quality Act'' that were left out of the bill before us today. Those changes include making sure the membership of the Health IT Standards Committee and the Health IT Policy Committee is balanced so that no single sector of the health care industry influences the actions of the committees. The amendment also specifies an appointment process for the HIT Policy Committee and adds back a lot of the other ``good government'' provisions that were included in the ``Wired Act'' but left out of this bill. In order for health IT to achieve this potential, however, it must be done right. It must be interoperable, and the standards of interoperability should be defined by standards developed by all the stakeholders. Consensus will help prevent Government bureaucrats from mandating the equivalent of Beta Max standards in a VHS world, while assuring doctors and hospitals that their IT purchases will not be like investing in compact discs the day before iTunes launched. I strongly believe all of these changes are critical to ensuring we don't backtrack on the progress we have made. I want to be clear though, I would have preferred to continue working with the other bill authors of the Wired for Health Care Quality Act. The ``Wired Act'' took a much more fiscally sustainable approach with regard to responsibly funding health IT for providers experiencing financial hardship. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated 90 percent of providers will adopt health IT by 2030 without spending any Federal dollars. This bill spends roughly 28 billion in hard-earned taxpayer's dollars to achieve that same 90 percent adoption rate, a few years earlier. This is not a wise use of the taxpayer's dollars and I do not support these provisions. I feel the ``Wired Act'' also did a better job balancing patient privacy with proper access to health information. If information is wrapped up in so much red tape that doctors and their staff are not able to access it when they need it, patients will suffer and costs will increase. It will take time and hard work, but we must find the right balance so patient care does not suffer. In closing, I would like urge all members to support this amendment. I have been working on this amendment with members from both sides of the aisle and I believe it reflects a bipartisan agreement. We need to make sure we continue the progress we have made rather than backtrack.

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Senator. It is my understanding that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has in its health provisions $1.1 billion in new funds for comparative clinical effectiveness research. This is an important issue to me as HELP Committee ranking member. I am pleased to see that in its consideration of this bill, the Appropriations Committee made sure this research will evaluate comparative clinical effectiveness, not comparative cost- effectiveness. In addition, the committee's report language references provisions of the existing comparative effectiveness research program at HHS that ensure that the agency developing comparative information does not use it to set national practice standards or coverage restrictions. I also believe that comparative effectiveness research must be conducted using an open and transparent process, and must consider differences in how people respond to treatment. It is my understanding that the Comparative Effectiveness Research Act of 2008, which you introduced with Senator Conrad last Congress, is consistent with these principles. I would like to see the $1.1 billion used consistently with these principles, and ask that you advocate for these principles in conference.