Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Senator from Texas and my other colleagues who have participated in this colloquy. I hope we can speedily bring the Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act to the floor. When the Senator from Texas talks about his constituents and what they endured at the hands of the IRS, how anybody can say there is nothing amiss there or there is nothing wrong, especially when somebody is asked, upon application for a 501(c)(4), to give up their Facebook posts and tweets and let the IRS review them to see if they are worthy of receiving such status, there is something wrong. I think Americans know that. I appreciate the support of my colleagues on this legislation and I appreciate the Senator from Kansas, my partner in this effort. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Senator from Kansas. I yield to the Senator from Utah, the ranking minority member on the Finance Committee.

Mr. FLAKE. I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Utah and his recitation of the chronology and how this happened. These regulations are supposedly in response to the scandal that came up, although the President is not calling it a scandal. He says there is not any evidence there was any wrongdoing. But these plans were actually being developed a couple years ago--long before we knew the IRS was targeting conservative organizations. So the notion this is in response to what just occurred is wrong. What is equally troubling--or more troubling--as the Senator from Utah noted, these plans were described, in an internal memo, as ``offplan,'' around the process--that were hidden. So that is what we are asking for in this legislation. Let's not do any rulemaking until the results of the investigations that are going on come back to us. That is a prudent thing to do, and I hope we will follow through. I now yield to the minority whip, Senator Cornyn.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, as the Senate turns its attention this week to the farm bill conference report, my thoughts turn to the Wild West to put its provisions in context. Frankly, its 950 pages lend themselves to talking about the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly. I mention the good, because while this farm bill falls far short of gaining my support, it is not entirely without provisions worth highlighting. Conferees, including a one-term extension of the Payments in Lieu of Taxes, or the PILT Program. That gives temporary predictability at least for counties with low tax bases due to Federal land ownership and provides Congress with time to chart a long-term solution in this regard. In addition, the bill authorizes permanently the stewardship contracting authority. This is a critical land management tool that allows us to proactively reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. It is one I have long called for. While reforms to the liability requirements are also included, the report fails to include necessary flexibility on cancelation ceilings. That is something I will continue to work on in the future. Sadly, when it comes to the bad, there is not enough time to list all of the items in the report that should make any lawmaker cringe who is concerned about our crushing national debt or those of us trying to reform agriculture policy. Rather than truthfully trimming the already generous agriculture safety net, taxpayers should prepare for yet another round of entirely new alphabet soup subsidy programs. The Senator from Illinois explained very well the Crop Insurance Program that is so heavily subsidized, 62 percent. I think all of us with auto insurance or other types of insurance would love to have that kind of contribution from the Federal Government. This report does not even provide commonsense reforms that limit waste and largess to sustained hallmarks of agriculture subsidies. The report also fails to limit agricultural payments to those who are actually involved in farming. It cannot even provide a reasonable income limit, as was discussed by the Senator from Illinois, for those who already receive crop insurance subsidies. Incomprehensibly, any renegotiation of the arrangement between crop insurers and the Federal Government would be required to be revenue neutral, despite billions of dollars in taxpayer savings having been found in previous renegotiations. This bill is purported to be fiscally conservative because it saves $16 billion or so in tax dollars. Before we pat each other on the back in this regard, we need to remember that Congress has a pretty dismal record of actually knowing how much farm bills are going to cost. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, ``The last two farms bills are on pace to exceed their Congressional Budget Office score by more than $400 billion, and there's no assurance that this farm bill will be any different.'' Let's get to the ugly. For years, direct payments have been one of the clearest signs of what needs to be changed in Federal spending. The Federal Government has been handing out roughly $5 billion a year to farmers regardless of whether they are farming the land. I want to pay tribute to the Senator from Michigan who has fought to end these direct payments. The Senate did a pretty good job there, but the House did not. I myself have long sought to end these direct payments. I was encouraged with the Senate action to end these payments outright. But despite our fiscal situation, the best we could get in the House was allowing direct payments to continue, albeit slightly reduced for cotton, for 2014 and 2015. This conference report purports to end direct payments but ends them in name only for cotton. Let's be clear. It simply renames direct payments for cotton for 2 years. They will now be called transition payments. Cotton growers will continue to receive payments until--wait for it--the other new subsidy programs created in this report come online. Perhaps, instead of western movies, I should have conjured up images of Shakespeare to describe this fiscal tragedy: a government-funded handout by another name is still a government-funded handout. It is also worth recalling that when originally created in 1996, in the 1996 farm bill, direct payments went by the name AMTA payments or Agricultural Market Transition Assistance payments. It would appear that for some commodities, there will always be a transition from something to something else that will result in a taxpayer-funded handout. According to the CBO score, the report actually takes the zero cost from the Senate proposal and the $443 million cost from the House proposal and compromises at a higher cost of $556 million in 2015. That is some compromise, to go well above both the House and the Senate numbers. While the 10-year score for the transition payments in the report is lower than the House proposal, the first-year costs are actually higher. It is at this point that one can simply stop being surprised at what will happen when it comes to farm subsidies. Sadly, rather than a blockbuster of fiscal sanity, taxpayers are going to be saddled with what looks to be another rerun of missed opportunities to reform Federal agricultural policy. Although livestock groups have decried the absence of fixes to ongoing regulatory problems, and fiscal conservatives are chafing at the continued waste in spending, this report is still likely to be adopted. There are other issues addressed, and I am pleased that some of this will end up on the President's desk, but I cannot support this conference report. I will continue to push for real fiscal discipline and sound agricultural policy. I should note I remember when I first came to Congress, or about 1 year after, I came to the floor of the House to rail against the farm bill at that time, the 2002 reauthorization. We had gone in the 1990s from the Freedom to Farm Act to the Farm Security Act. For those of us conservatives who talk about moving from freedom to security and all that means, that was actually in the title of the bill, and we haven't improved much since that time. That was more than a decade ago. I have to say we should have made progress that was simply not made in this bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate my colleagues on the recent introduction of legislation to promote trade promotion authority. Increasing free trade levels the playing field for U.S. companies. We all know that. It increases competition. We know that too. It also increases access to foreign markets, with all the attendant benefits. U.S. businesses stand the best chance to see gains in accessing foreign markets through bilateral and regional free-trade agreements. Given the complexity of these agreements, the consultation process and the expedited consideration provided by TPA is really the only way to go. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the United States is ``the world's largest economy and the largest exporter and importer of goods and services.'' We exported more than $2.2 trillion in goods and services last year. For those of us who represent border States, the issue hits very close to home. In recent years Mexico has become America's third largest trading partner and our second largest export market. According to the Arizona-Mexico Commission, Arizona's ports of entry serve as gateways for $26 billion in U.S.-Mexican trade annually. Arizona benefits from more than $13 billion in bilateral trade with Mexico every year. Given the benefits of vibrant export markets and access to low-cost imports, it is difficult to overstate the importance of getting trade agreements in place. A U.S. Chamber official recently noted in Roll Call that nearly half of U.S. exports go to our free-trade agreement partners and that these countries make up just one-tenth of the world economy. Let me repeat that. Half of our exports go to those countries with which we have free-trade agreements. Yet those countries represent just one-tenth of the world's economy. That tells us the importance of getting these free-trade agreements in place. In a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick noted that ``on average, in the past five years of a new free-trade agreement, U.S. exports grew nearly three to four times as rapidly as U.S. exports to others.'' This is great news given that negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, are ongoing. Its successful approval would yield the largest free-trade agreement the United States has ever been a part of. Approval of the TPP agreement would provide increased access to critical Asia-Pacific markets for U.S. businesses at a critical time. It is difficult to see how this agreement will be concluded without TPA reauthorization. Given that a 2010 study prepared by the Business Roundtable found that 38 million jobs--1 in 5 jobs in the United States--are supported by trade, the introduction of TPA renewal legislation couldn't be more timely. Again, I congratulate my colleagues for the introduction of this legislation. I look forward to its consideration. I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam President, I rise to address the nomination and some other issues. I want to say a few words about nominations. The Senate just confirmed President Obama's third nominee to the DC Circuit this year, and did so without the support of a single Senator from the minority party. I have only been in the Senate for a year, but I understand the importance of minority rights and the moderating effect that the minority has on the nominations and on legislation as a whole. Requiring the support of at least some of the minority Senators encourages both the nomination and appointment of more mainstream nominees. I think in the case of executive nominees, it ensures the heads of executive agencies are responsible to both the minority and majority parties. Minority input reinforces the separation of powers and safeguards the ability of Congress to conduct effective oversight. Let me give a couple examples of where I think this is important and something we have lost once the nuclear option was employed with regard to executive appointments. Earlier this year we had the appointment of a person to head the Environmental Protection Agency. It is an extremely important agency. It is important to Arizona--particularly since Arizona has a lot of Federal, State, and public lands--where actions of the Federal Government are perhaps amplified, and so that was an extremely important appointment. I ended up voting for Gina McCarthy. I think she is a good nominee. I understand that the President won the election, and he has the power to appoint his people and his team. Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, he ought to have that right. I have voted for nearly all of his nominees. In this case, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, while she was the nominee she knew she needed 60 votes. She knew she ought to see not just the Members of the majority party but those in the minority as well, and she made the rounds to my office as well as others. We had a good meeting. For example, I explained the importance of the dust regulations that are promulgated by the EPA where Arizona has a problem. We have occasional dust storms that are not recognized as such, and sometimes we have to fill out paperwork that is costly and time consuming just to convince the Federal Government that an occasional dust storm does blow through. It has nothing to do with the air quality protections or provisions that have been put in place but just because of the conditions on the ground. The Environmental Protection Agency's guidance and regulations have not caught up to that. She was understanding of that. She worked at the State level and agreed to talk to the stakeholders and interested parties in Arizona about this issue. She made good on that promise. We had that conference call a few weeks later, and it was the first time that many of these people in Arizona had been heard on the issue. They had a good meeting with the EPA, and I think it will lead to better regulations coming out of the EPA. That was a product of the process we had here which requires nominees from the President to not just go to the majority party, but to go to the minority party as well. I fear that has been lost, and I think that is a shame. I wish we could go back to the system we had and the system the Senate has operated on for a long time. When I gave my maiden speech on the floor a few months ago, I mentioned that the party holding the gavel is on a short leash. Bringing even the most noncontroversial resolutions to the Senate floor requires the agreement, or at least the acquiescence, of the minority party. I mentioned at that time that over the past decade both parties have chafed under these arrangements. Both parties have, at times, considered changing the rules that would in some measure make the Senate more like the House. I mentioned at that time, up to that time, that both parties had resisted that urge. They had been convinced by their own Members and others that it wasn't the way to go. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case, and I think this body, this institution will be the poorer for it. I hope we can return to the traditions of the Senate, one where consensus is the hallmark of this body. I hope we can get there. Let me turn my attention to one of the issues that I think is a good example of what happens when one party moves legislation through this body too quickly, without consultations from the other party. It has to do with the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act passed with not a single Republican vote in the House or in the Senate. I think it is a good example of what can happen if legislation is rushed through without consultation or input from both parties. Let me speak about some of the issues that have come up with the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. The Wall Street Journal had an editorial the other day that talked about some of the issues that are going on with the enrollment data. It says: Most of Washington seems to have bought the White House claim that 36 federal exchanges are finally working. . . . They go on to explain what working really means: A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual plans liquidated as ObamaCare- noncompliant-- They are liquidated because they were noncompliant with ObamaCare-- offset by about 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found to be eligible to receive Medicaid. So if we take that and net it out, it means that net enrollment-- people who now are covered by insurance of some type--has gone down by about 4 million. I think when we consider things are picking up in terms of people signing up, they are still being dropped far faster from private insurance plans than they are being picked up. It goes on, this editorial from the Wall Street Journal, saying: HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62 percent of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal version. Then again, 41 states posted sign-ups only in the three or four figures, including eight states that run their own exchanges. Oregon managed to scrape up 44 people. Among the 137,204 federal sign-ups, no state is reaching the critical mass necessary for stable insurance prices. One problem they mention as well is that these figures are probably misleading. They say: A larger problem is that none of these represent true enrollments. HHS is reporting how many people ``selected'' a plan on the exchange, not how many people have actually enrolled in the plan with an insurance company by paying the first month's premium, which is how the private insurance industry defines enrollment. HHS has made up its own standard. I think when we find out that there is probably a pretty large dropoff between those who actually enroll and those who actually sign up, then they will realize these figures are misleading as well. Let me turn to another related issue. Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute had a piece the other day where he said: The good news, if you want to call it that, is that roughly 1.6 million Americans have been enrolled in ObamaCare so far. The not-so-good news is that 1.46 million of them actually signed up for Medicaid. If that trend continues, it could bankrupt both federal and state governments. He notes: Medicaid is already America's third-largest government program, trailing only Social Security and Medicare, as a proportion of the federal budget. Almost 8 cents out of every dollar that the federal government spends goes to Medicaid. That's more than $265 billion per year. As these Medicaid rolls expand, we know that is going to be a huge expense and probably a greater number of people signing up than anybody we thought would do. The Federal Government has committed to pick up 100 percent of the cost of new enrollees for a 3-year period, and then 90 percent thereafter. If the Federal Government makes good on that pledge, it may cost us a lot more than we figured, and it will increase the budget pressure on the Federal Government. If the Federal Government does what it often does and shifts those costs to the States, then the States are going to need to be prepared for a big increase as well. Mr. Tanner mentions: State governments pay another $160 billion for Medicaid today. For most states, Medicaid is the single-largest cost of government, crowding out education, transportation and everything else. New York spent more than $15 billion on Medicaid last year, roughly 30 percent of all state expenditures. The Kaiser Foundation projects that over the next 10 years, New York taxpayers will shell out some $433 billion for the program. There are going to be increasing pressures on State budgets as well. So these are some of the things we haven't considered yet. As we go into the new year, the next big shoe to drop will be in April or so when insurance companies actually see who is enrolling and who is not in the exchanges. I think everyone's fear is that there are too few healthy 28-year-olds signing up and more who are more high-cost enrollees and the numbers just will not add up and the insurance companies will be forced to jack up their rates, which will make insurance even less affordable than it is today and could increase the pressures we are talking about both on the Federal Government, on State governments, and, most importantly, on families across the country. I found of interest today a story by CNN. CNN looked at four stories after the ObamaCare so-called fix. They concluded in their headline ``many are still left out.'' Let me discuss briefly a couple of these and it gives some idea of what families are facing. This is exactly what I am hearing at home from neighbors and family and friends and exactly what I am experiencing enrolling in the Federal exchange as well--these kinds of cost increases. It reads: In the face of mounting criticism, President Barack Obama announced last month that he would allow insurance companies to renew so-called ``subpar'' plans for existing customers. But nearly a month later, not everyone is seeing the benefit of this policy change. They note that they spoke to four people in the days and weeks following the President's announcement to see how they have been affected. The results were varied, and for some of them the future remains uncertain. When we read through the stories it seems for everyone it is a pretty uncertain and more costly future. The first person they talk to is a woman by the name of Catherine. She said it is a 280-percent increase in premiums for her family. It was in September when Catherine received her letter. The much-maligned HealthCare.gov Web site had yet to be launched and approval ratings for the President's signature health care law were on the upswing. Catherine knew she would have to sign up for a new insurance plan but didn't expect her options to be so costly. She is a mom and a Navy veteran employed part-time as a nurse. Her husband is a small business owner. Her employer offers insurance plans but because she was not working full- time, getting a policy to cover her family of three was expensive. Unfortunately for her, a provision in the new health care law states that since her company offers plans that she could afford to cover herself but not her family, she does not qualify for a subsidy from the Federal Government, even though she is below the income threshold. She is, therefore, subject to an unusual loophole that requires her to pay the full premium of a new policy if she wants to cover her family or leave her job to get the subsidy. So we are seeing a huge increase in premiums. She experienced a 280- percent increase in premiums. That mirrors what I have been hearing from others as well. Greg and Linda live just down the street from me at home. I got an email from Greg, a friend of ours, the other day. He said that he and Linda, who are near 60 years old, had their insurance canceled because it was noncompliant with the new law. They went out and shopped on the exchange and found that the cheapest policy or the policy that most closely mirrored theirs--actually not as good as theirs but most closely mirrored theirs--was double their previous cost to more than $800 a month. That is what I am hearing again and again and again. When we read through these stories, we see it again and again. Here is another one, again from the CNN story: By most people's standards, Valentina Holroyd is in excellent health. She works out six to seven days a week and competes in triathlons with a group of equally high-energy friends. She participates in 10 or 12 races a year. She is a moderate Democrat who hoped that this new law would help people with preexisting conditions such as her husband get access to insurance and would allow people who could not afford insurance to get plans within their reach. It goes on to say that she had a plan, but then everything changed in October. She was notified by her insurer that her plan could not be renewed for 2014. The comparable plan offered was a 29-percent increase in premiums with higher copays as well as significantly higher prescription drug costs. The people I talk to, virtually all of them, are saying not only is there an increase in premiums but there are higher copays, higher max out-of-pocket costs. It is just not as affordable as it was before. I think the fear all of us have is that as we go into the new year and we see the numbers of those who are actually signing up or not signing up, it simply means that rates are going to go up again and again. Once the employer mandate kicks in and a lot of businesses then unload their employees into the exchange, we are simply going to see the same problem. Only those who can afford it or those who are more expensive to insure will be signing up, by and large, and too few healthy individuals to lower the cost for everyone in a high pool, so costs will simply go up again. We can't have this go on for very much longer. This is called the Affordable Care Act, but I think most of us are finding it is anything but. Let me just go to one more of these stories while I have time. This is a Connecticut psychologist by the name of Martin Klein, and he is someone who has had plenty of experiences dealing with insurance companies. He has been practicing in the State for 11 years, runs two offices. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield sent him a letter notifying him that his plan would no longer be offered for renewal when it expires in January. They said he needed to shop on the exchange. He goes on to explain that it is simply not as affordable as his old plan. As we go along in this coming year, we have to find out how we can actually make good on the promise that was given to have health care that is actually accessible and affordable for those who can't access it now. We all know the current system doesn't work very well. It needs to be changed. But change in this matter simply means that more people are uninsured and unsure about the future as well. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and speak about this tonight and I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I am pleased to take the floor today and join my colleagues in opening the mailbag. All of us have received a lot of mail and email and faxes and texts from individuals who are being harmed by this law. For example, Steve from Peoria, AZ, is looking at the premium for his policy through his employer going up in response to ObamaCare nearly 20 percent. In addition, his employers have told him to brace for more impacts like rising prices--all customers are going to get this--and falling salaries for new hires as well. Leanne from Eager, AZ, is facing what she calls ``sky high'' rates now thanks to ObamaCare. If this is not bad enough, it looks as if she and her husband will have to put off buying their parents out of their family business. It looks likely that Leanne's parents are going to have to keep working for a while. Cristian from Flagstaff, a young husband and father who has a young boy, says he might see his premiums actually decrease marginally. However, thanks to ObamaCare and thanks to changes his employer is making in response to ObamaCare, he is looking at higher copays, higher deductibles, and a decrease in the level of coverage. He is looking at ``a large increase in my responsible portion of my medical bills.'' ObamaCare is far from ideal for those in the workplace, those looking to retire, and for new families. With story after story like these, we clearly see that the Affordable Care Act is a misnomer. I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, we are now at the halfway point in the countdown to the next budget deadline. By December 13 the budget conference committee has to report its plan for the remainder of this fiscal year 2014 and beyond. We are already 2\1/2\ months into the fiscal year. It is critical the conferees agree on funding government within the framework of the Budget Control Act. As I have mentioned before on the Senate floor, the BCA, which places caps on discretionary spending, has provided us with a necessary dose of fiscal discipline. While the BCA is not a silver bullet which fixes all of our problems, it represents $2 trillion in projected deficit savings that improves the Nation's long-term fiscal outlook. Without it, Federal spending would go unchecked, allowing the deficits to be even higher. In 2013 the deficit reached $680 billion; in 2014 it is estimated to be $750 billion. Should Congress ignore the BCA, we will find ourselves even deeper in the red. In fact, some across the aisle have indicated that they want to spend a whopping $91 billion more than the BCA mandates in 2014 alone. Instead of offering smart spending cuts to eliminate waste and prioritize funds, many are compiling a list of their favorite tax hikes to replace the sequester. That action fails to recognize one simple point, a point I made on the floor last weak and one I will make over and over. Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. In fact, 2013 set a record for the most taxes ever collected, $2.77 trillion. That is a 13-percent increase from 2012. Yet some of my colleagues want taxpayers to shoulder the burden of their plans to increase Federal spending. While the BCA has proved to help moderate the Federal budget's hunger for taxpayer dollars, make no mistake this budget is still bloated. Anyone who says there is nothing left to cut simply is not looking hard enough. Last week I offered my suggestion for cutting waste at the Department of Agriculture. Just the programs I highlighted--and there are surely others--would save $5 billion when compared with the President's budget. Today I wish to share some similar fiscal follies at the Department of Energy. The Department of Energy spends an astonishing amount of taxpayer dollars on industries and technologies that are already well established in the public marketplace. But few examples stand out more than the agency's growing role in the automotive industry. Take the Vehicle Technology Program which is slated to receive $575 million under the President's 2014 budget. This program conducts research and development into seemingly every facet of vehicle manufacturing from hybrid technologies to engine efficiency to advanced lightweight materials. It even goes so far as to draw marketing strategies to promote consumer acceptance of products such as electric vehicles and renewable fuels. Is there anyone in America who does not know what an electric vehicle is or what it does? Yet we are supposed to spend money to improve consumer acceptance for these products. The Vehicle Technologies Program has also awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to automakers, including Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. Since 2010, the program has received $1.2 billion in taxpayer funds. Curiously, the Vehicle Technology Program's official online listing of goals and accomplishments has not even been updated for 2010. Another well-established industry benefiting from taxpayer largesse is wind energy. Read DOE's budget request which prominently highlights the wind industry's ``great success in deploying planted-based technologies over the past 5 years.'' You may recall recently retired energy Secretary Steven Chu's admission that he considers wind a ``mature'' technology. Why then are we pumping money into a technology that even DOE indicates should be able to stand on its own? A recent Navigant Research study made headlines when it reported that the United States is both the world's largest wind power market and home to the world's No. 1 wind power supplier, General Electric. A recent GAO report found that 82 Federal wind-related initiatives funded across 9 agencies cost $2.9 billion in fiscal year 2011. This is for what we have been told is a mature technology. What is more troubling than the sheer cost of the Federal Government's fragmented Wind Program is GAO's finding that more than 80 percent of those programs have overlapping characteristics. GAO's subsequent recommendation seems reasonable enough; that the DOE should formally assess and document whether Federal financial support of its initiatives is actually needed. Yet the President's budget, released 1 month later, recommends an unprecedented level of $144 million for the DOE wind energy program, just in 2014. Wind's windfall from DOE comes on the heels of yet another extension of the multibillion dollar wind production tax credit. This tax credit was temporarily established more than two decades ago to encourage investment in the then-fledgling wind industry. This is two decades ago. Congress gave energy a 7-year window to take advantage of and prepare for the expiration of the original PTC in 1999--given 7 years. But to the surprise of no one, parochial interests and a host of extensions continue to keep this zombie subsidy from expiring as designed. Today, as the credit supporters repeat their plea for just 1 more extension, they ignore America's debt-ridden reality and so the walking dead wind production tax credit, which is little more than a taxpayer-funded entitlement program, lives on. While I have singled out automotive and wind programs at DOE, similar arguments could be made for reducing or eliminating the Department's support for other established industries, including oil, natural gas, solar, and nuclear. Many of these programs are both unnecessary for further development of these technologies and are blatantly duplicative. In fact, another GAO study identified a mind-boggling 679 renewable energy initiatives across 23 agencies in fiscal year 2010. Prominently featured in a report by my colleague from Oklahoma Senator Coburn, these redundant programs cost $15 billion in 2010 alone. Instead of continuing to pick winners and losers, Congress needs to reduce its footprint in well-established areas of the energy sector. Not only will this help level the playing field for emergency energy technologies that are actually preparing to compete in the marketplace, it would save taxpayers untold billions of dollars. With just 1 month to go before the budget deadline, I urge my colleagues to reject the urge to fixate on raising taxes and instead help focus negotiations on smart, achievable spending reductions. By eliminating waste and prioritizing spending within the BCA framework, we can shore up this country's fiscal future. Turning out the lights on wasteful programs at the Department of Energy would be a step in the right direction. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, it is interesting in terms of the money being used where it should not be. I gave the example last week, and I am coming down every week and speaking at least 5 minutes on waste and duplication in government. I talked a couple of weeks ago about the Department of Agriculture. The Department of Agriculture--this is the Department of Agriculture, but you would not know it when you look at some of the programs run by the Department of Agriculture. No. 1, they have a Single-Family Housing Direct and Guaranteed Loan Program in the Department of Agriculture. It provides zero downpayment mortgage loans. It has cost the taxpayer about $10 billion since 2006. That is the Department of Agriculture, running a housing program. We see this all over government. It is wrong. Eliminating the duplication that Senator Coburn, the Senator from Oklahoma, has spoken of many times can save our government and the taxpayers billions of dollars a year. I appreciate, my colleagues, this colloquy we have had, and I look forward to more.

Mr. FLAKE. The Senator mentioned the problem we have of the Defense Department running schools which ought to be run by local school districts. It goes even beyond that. Just in the past couple of years we have absorbed into the defense budget a capital maintenance--new capital building and replacement of schools that are managed by the local district. Several hundred million dollars just in the past couple of years, and obligated for the next several years, will be used to rebuild or refurbish or to maintain schools which are the responsibility of local districts. What has happened is people say the local districts may not be able to afford it or the Department of Education doesn't have jurisdiction. There is a defense budget we can put it in. We have seen that in other areas as well. So the Department of Defense is assuming responsibilities it just shouldn't have. When it does, typically the costs are much greater as well. So I take the Senator's point and just say it is worse than we know because we have added new responsibilities and new budget items just in the past couple of years.

Mr. FLAKE. Would the Senator yield?

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. As my colleagues have said, I think all of us have heard from hundreds of our constituents in the past week who have had their insurance policies canceled or their insurance policies have been made unaffordable by the Affordable Care Act. I wish to talk a minute about Greg and Linda. They live a couple doors down from me. I heard from Greg earlier this week. Greg and Linda are in their late fifties, early sixties. They know at this stage in life what kind of policy they need. They know what they do not need. They had a premium of about $400 under their old policy. They paid $440, to be exact. The new plan they have been able to find that matches most closely with what they had, after their other policy was canceled, would cost them just over $1,000--$1,055 to be exact. How is that affordable? The President promised: If you like your plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep him or her. Period. That has not been the case. The President needs to explain to Greg and Linda and to hundreds and thousands of other Arizonans who are losing their health coverage how it is he said they could keep their coverage and now they can't. I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank both the Senator from Oregon and the Senator from Wisconsin for working with me and look forward, as this process goes on, to making sure the provisions in the legislation work for employers as well as for employees. I appreciate the work and the assistance the Senator has given our office. I thank the Senator.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, after weeks of budgetary wrangling and a government shutdown that had the country on edge, last week marked the beginning of the bicameral budget conference. I commend my colleagues who are meeting on the issue and are trying to reconcile the goals of wildly different budget outlines. That is no easy task. I think we all know that. However, we all know that shoveling more IOUs into our $17 trillion debt is simply unsustainable. No matter on which side of the aisle we sit, I hope we can all agree that America's present fiscal trajectory is untenable and that our Nation's future depends on turning these economic issues around. There is no secret formula. At a minimum, Congress should abide by the budget control framework which has produced some of the most meaningful discretionary spending reductions in decades. Beyond that, we have to slow the rising costs of entitlement programs in order to achieve significant long-term deficit reduction. Sadly, some seem fixated on spending beyond the BCA's cap for next year. Some of our colleagues have suggested that the spending discipline we achieved with the sequester should be replaced with revenue increases. Now, we all know that sequestration is a blunt instrument for reducing spending, but this desire to replace it by driving up taxes is based on an incorrect assessment. Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. In 2013 the government spent some $3.5 trillion. We are on track to spend another $3.7 trillion in 2014. Before anyone starts to look at tax hikes, we should realize that we are nowhere near cutting our budget to the bone. In fact, there is a lot of fat left in a lot of agencies. These budgets deserve to get the knife. But do not just take my word for it. The administration, our colleagues in the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office, and numerous concerned-taxpayer organizations have also posed examples of wasteful spending that should be eliminated. If the sequester's bluntness has taught us anything, it is that Congress ought to jump at the chance to make smart, surgical spending cuts. To that end, I intend to take 5 minutes each week for the coming weeks to highlight some of the wasteful spending programs that still, even in times of economic belt-tightening, lurk in our Federal budget. Today I would like to highlight some of the programs in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. With a budget request of $146 billion in 2014, the USDA rounds out the top five most expensive Federal agencies. Many programs within the USDA provide valuable services, including meat inspection, crop data collection, and managing the agricultural safety net. But the USDA also has its own agency-level homeland security department, pays for Sunkist to advertise overseas, and underwrites an astonishing number of zero-down-payment suburban home mortgages. That is the USDA. The most obvious place to realize significant savings in the USDA is with the Federal Crop Insurance Program. Here is a program in which the taxpayers cover the majority of the risk. It pays private insurance agents commissions to sell and administer individual policies. It funds the oversight of the program and, on top of all of that, subsidizes policyholders' premiums. That is a pretty good deal if you can get it. In 2012 taxpayers spent more than $7 billion to subsidize this program. In 2010--one of the better recent crop years--when the USDA took in a record $2.5 billion more than it paid in claims, the Federal Crop Insurance Program still cost taxpayers $3.7 billion. That is because taxpayers foot the bill for roughly two-thirds of each premium, leaving the policyholder only to cover the remaining third. Congress could reap significant savings just by reducing the percentage the taxpayers have to spend to subsidize these premiums. In fact, according to CBO, simply rolling back the percentage of taxpayer subsidy in the program to pre-2000 levels would shave more than $40 billion in spending from the pre-2013 farm bill baseline. To that end, I have introduced the Crop Insurance Subsidy Reduction Act, which would do just that. There are a number of other places at USDA where Congress can find savings. Surely one of those is USDA's own Office of Homeland Security, created in the post-9/11 security glut. This department is supposedly responsible for providing oversight and coordination for USDA's preparation and response to matters of homeland security importance. A $1 million program such as this may be easily lost in the President's $4 trillion budget, but there is an entire agency in the Federal Government tasked with the same objective and funded with the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. Another place to find savings at USDA is in the Market Access Program, which has spent $1.4 billion since 2006 and looks to collect another $200 million in taxpayer funds in 2014. This program has spent billions of tax dollars on overseas advertising campaigns that benefit some of the most deep-pocketed corporations around, including McDonalds, Nabisco, Welch's Foods, and Sunkist. When it comes to questionable budgetary items at USDA, the single- family housing direct and guaranteed loan program takes the cake. This obscure but growing home loan program writes and guarantees mortgages for low- and moderate-income families in rural and suburban areas. These loans are 100 percent financed and require no down payment. While home buyers in big cities are not eligible for these loans, residents of many fast-growing towns and suburbs--some within 30 miles of this very building--are receiving those kinds of subsidies. Do not be fooled into thinking these loans are for rustic farmhouses either. They are specifically designed to finance your standard home, and, inexplicably, the USDA discourages buyers from using them to purchase farms or ranches. This is the USDA discouraging us from using these subsidies to purchase farms and ranches but, rather, regular homes. Since 2006 the USDA--remember, that is the Department of Agriculture--has spent nearly $10 billion on single-family housing direct loans. While it did not show up in the budget, home loan guarantees by the USDA have also put taxpayers on the hook for another $118 billion. The agency has requested another $320 million to fund single-family housing direct loans in 2014 and plans to issue another $24 billion in guarantees. To put the figures in perspective, the entire Department of Housing and Urban Development submitted a budget request of $47 billion. When we have such egregious examples of waste, why should we demand more of the taxpayers' money? In the coming weeks I hope my colleagues on the budget conference committee, along with the President and Members of Congress and various fiscal organizations, will consider some of the proposals I am offering to eliminate this wasteful spending. A good start would be sowing the seeds of fiscal restraint at the Department of Agriculture. I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I appreciate the work the Senator from Oregon did with my office this week to try to arrive at language we could put into an amendment. We were not able to get that amendment. When I voted for ENDA in the House in 2007, as the Senator mentioned, it did not contain the provisions with regard to gender identity. Those added provisions have concerned me in terms of potential costs of litigation or compliance. I still have those concerns. I hope that as we work through the process, as this bill moves on to the House, we can find ways to make sure employers can implement these provisions in a way that is reasonable and proper. I also thank the Senator from Wisconsin for working with my office on these issues as well. I have a better appreciation for what needs to be done and what we can do with this legislation as it moves through the process. I yield to the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam President, I know this is not a town that has ever been known for having a long memory. In fact, the recent warning bells rung about our deficits and our debt have predictably faded into the background with all of the attention on the rocky start to this fiscal year. Last month, the Congressional Budget Office released its long-term budget outlook. Headlines and news stories associated with that release use words such as grim and gloomy and raised alarm about our ``long- term fiscal crisis.'' The very first line in that report reminds us that between 2009 and 2012, the U.S. Government recorded the largest budget deficits--when compared to the size of the economy--in over half a century. Reflecting on the current state of play, CBO noted that the Federal debt currently stands at roughly three-quarters of our gross domestic product. More alarming, they predict our Federal debt will match the size of our economy or be equal to 100 percent of GDP by the year 2038. I understand the temptation to roll our eyes and politely suggest that those facts and figures are of more interest to green-eyeshaded bean counters or to simply wave them off as last month's news. Frankly, this is made much easier when the administration says things such as ``we don't have an urgent debt crisis'' and when appropriations bills come to the floor at levels that make little sense given our current fiscal realities. Unfortunately, these facts and figures only tell part of the story. The CBO provides us insight into the impact these facts and figures will have on the economy and the Federal budget deficit. If the growth in our Federal debt is left unchecked, we could eventually see a further drop in private investment, an increase in interest payments, a decrease in Congress's flexibility, and, obviously, a risk of fiscal crisis. CBO notes that ``the unsustainable nature of the federal government's current tax and spending policies presents lawmakers and the public with difficult choices . . . To put the federal budget on a sustainable path for the long term, lawmakers would have to make significant changes to tax and spending policies.'' We all know that given the current environment, it is difficult to do that. It is difficult when we have a problem just bringing routine spending measures to the President's desk. So this is not an easy conclusion to hear. But within our dim current fiscal landscape and even dimmer outlook, there has been at least one bright spot. In 2011, Congress agreed to and the President signed into law the Budget Control Act--the BCA. This included statutory discretionary spending caps as well as automatic, across-the-board spending cuts for our failure to enact additional deficit reduction measures. Certainly trimming Federal spending via across-the-board sequestration cuts is an inelegant means, at best, of addressing our spending problem. It is often referred to as a ``blunt instrument.'' At a minimum, it is a lazy way to legislate. I believe I join a number of my colleagues when I say I am open to providing additional flexibility while staying within the budget caps with respect to the sequester. But we simply can't deny that locking in discretionary spending caps and enforcing them with automatic sequestration has yielded some of the most significant spending cuts we have seen in Congress in years. As my colleague from Tennessee, who recently came to the floor, said, 2 years ago, discretionary spending stood at nearly $1.5 trillion. Last year, under the BCA spending caps, that number dropped to just under $1 trillion. This year, if no changes occur to the sequester enforcement cap, we will be at $976 billion. That is a significant drop. That is significant. And that is a good thing. A recent Wall Street Journal story entitled ``The GAO's Unheralded Victory on Spending'' quoted the head of Americans for Tax Reform as concluding that we had ``made a fundamental shift in the size of the government equation.'' While runaway spending on mandatory programs represents an ever- present issue we have to get our arms around, the BCA spending caps and sequester have put real and meaningful downward pressure on discretionary spending that represents about a third of our Federal budget. My colleague from Kentucky, the minority leader, recently pointed out that the BCA which passed 2 years ago ``actually reduced government spending for 2 years in a row for the first time since the Korean War.'' I agree with him when he urges that we not walk away from the spending reductions we have already promised taxpayers. I have made no secret of the fact that I do not favor the strategy of tying the funding of ObamaCare to the current continuing resolution. As the resulting shutdown drags on and there are more stories about the fights over funding next year, and then the coming debate over the debt ceiling, I find myself favoring this strategy even less. It is entirely likely that the sequester opponents will use the larger debate to push to undo the gains we have made of meaningful spending cuts by abolishing the sequester by replacing it with meaningless savings, budget gimmicks, or even new taxes. Far from a conspiracy theory, in recent months there have already been calls for a 2-year sequester hiatus. I agree with Taxpayers for Common Sense when they say that ``this may be the convenient answer, but it is no way to get our fiscal house in order.'' It is my hope we can find a way through this shutdown sooner rather than later. It is also my hope that we can at some point have a real conversation about the long-term drivers of our crushing debt that underlie our need to regularly hike the debt ceiling. In the meantime, and as this debate unfolds, I urge my colleagues to resist any effort to undermine the sequester-enforced Budget Control Act spending caps. I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent during Friday's cloture vote on H.J. Res. 59, the continuing resolution, as well as the motion to waive the budget act points of order with respect to H.J. Res. 59, the amendment offered by Senator Reid to strike language defunding Obamacare, and final passage of the resolution, due to my son's wedding in Arizona. Had I been here, I would have voted against all four measures. I would not have supported a bill that would weaken the meaningful spending reductions required by current law. The rate of spending under this continuing resolution exceeds the budget cap set by the Budget Control Act. Additionally, I took issue with the restrictive process under which this bill was considered on the floor: There was no indication that Senators would have had the opportunity to vote on an amendment that respects the overall budget cap and funds the government at the required $967 billion level for next year.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, as we debate legislation to keep the government running, we should not be debating a budget number that is higher than the Budget Control Act asks for. Frankly, this is a statement that should not have to be said here on the Senate floor. Why would we even begin to consider a budget number that is some $20 billion higher than the Budget Control Act? Have we somehow become flush with cash? I don't think so. Did we decide the way to run the country is to increase spending for a few months, only to have the sequester kick in, in January? Who are we kidding? We are not kidding most Americans. They justifiably wonder what we are doing. Once again we find ourselves on the brink of a showdown and a shutdown. It is the same old story but amid the back-and-forth between the two sides of the aisle, Americans do not see Congress getting serious about Federal spending. We failed to pass even 1 of the 12 spending bills to responsibly fund the government for the fiscal year that starts in a few days. Had we taken up these bills in regular order, Members would have had the opportunity to review and consider our spending priorities. That is what people expect us to do here. Instead, we have procrastinated and put off the hard decisions like a bunch of teenagers putting off the pain of a term paper, but this has more serious consequences. Over the past several months the Senate could have voted on these bills, setting spending priorities while abiding by the $967 billion budget cap for the next year. Instead, we chose to go through the motions of preparing spending bills as if no spending limit existed, with the knowledge that these bills would never see the light of day. Now as we quickly approach the 1st of October, we are faced with either passing the continuing resolution with a pricetag of $986 billion, $19 billion more than the law allows, or risking a government shutdown. The Senate should at the very least take up a spending resolution that respects the realities we face, one that respects the Budget Control Act, one that funds government at the $967 billion level for next year. If we pass a bill above the limit set by law, we will simply cause another round of sequester cuts in January. I am all for responsible sequester replacement legislation that brings down our national debt, but we cannot and should not weaken the law of the land, the Budget Control Act, that has locked in real and meaningful cuts in spending. As such, I hope the majority leader allows us to have a vote on a fiscally responsible continuing resolution. The majority leader has made clear his intention to amend the continuing resolution to address his concerns. A fair process would include affording other Members the same opportunity. Any process that yields a take-it-or-leave-it approach to funding government while ignoring spending caps that are the law of the land is, quite simply, irresponsible. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I came to the floor to urge my colleagues to do everything we can to ensure that ObamaCare is delayed, guaranteeing the least- harmful pass forward for patients, providers, and taxpayers. We all have stories from our home States that highlight what many of us have said was going to happen when the Federal Government began its takeover of the Nation's health care system. Because of ObamaCare, a constituent of mine in Arizona who owns a number of restaurants is eliminating the entry-level job of busboy because he can no longer afford to employ busboys and pay the new health care expenses for his other employees. Eliminating a restaurant- wide position is a decision that he had to make because of ObamaCare. Another Arizonan, Michael Monti, who runs a historic restaurant in Tempe, was recently featured on the local news because he is being forced to decide about whether to offer health insurance to his employees working more than 30 hours a week or paying the penalty from the Federal Government. Again, it is likely that employees will be laid off or not hired. He doesn't want to cut back his employees' hours. That doesn't help his business. I am sure it doesn't help his employees. Like other business owners, he doesn't have any other option. Sadly, these stories are not isolated incidents. Companies like Trader Joe's and Home Depot have recently announced they will end health benefits for part-time workers next year, and those employees will be directed to the new insurance marketplaces. SeaWorld announced that it will be cutting back employees' hours as well. UPS will no longer cover the health insurance for some 15,000 employees' spouses. Just when we need a full bore, full-time economy, America is becoming a part-time economy. These are the effects of ObamaCare. I believe that it is helpful to have this debate come sharply into focus as it has been over the past 24 hours. Like many of my colleagues, I have opposed ObamaCare from the beginning. I think every Republican in the House and in the Senate has done so. I voted to do away with this legislation more than 30 times. Earlier this month I introduced S. 1490, a bill that would delay by 1 year all of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that are supposed to take effect on January 1, 2014, or later. I believe we all know the President has already decided to delay the employer mandate. Doesn't it make sense to delay the rest as well? How can you tell individuals there is still a mandate for you to buy insurance but to tell employers you are going to get a year break. As lawmakers, we have a responsibility to our constituents. We have to do everything we can to make sure that this train wreck of a law doesn't continue to wreak havoc. As we continue to discuss the need to delay this onerous law, I hope that Senators will join me in devoting the same time and energy to fix the fiscal problems facing this country. In this debate we are told we have two choices. We have a continuing resolution with a price tag of about $986 billion--about $20 billion more than the law allows--or we risk a government shutdown. It is disingenuous to tell our constituents that these are the only two choices, a shutdown or a CR that busts our budget limits. The majority leader is going to amend the CR to get what he wants. Shouldn't other Members be afforded the opportunity to offer amendments as well? Wasn't this the promise the majority leader made to the Senate when we made changes in January? The Senate should be given the opportunity to vote on a continuing resolution that respects the Budget Control Act and funds the government at the $967 billion level for next year. Passing a bill above that limit--above the limit set by law--will cause a second round of sequester cuts in January. Why would we do this? Lurching from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis is no way to run a country. You can say what you want about it, but the Budget Control Act has provided us at least some meaningful cuts in spending we wouldn't make otherwise. Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported our debt is on track to total 100 percent of our Nation's output in 25 years. Interest on the national debt will consume 14 percent of our annual budget in 10 years' time, up from 6 percent today. Those projections demand we take a harder look at our spending and, at the very least, we should be allowed to vote on a fiscally responsible continuing resolution that meets the $967 billion budget threshold. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

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

Mr. FLAKE

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

Mr. FLAKE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I also rise today to speak about the need for continued attention to our Nation's fiscal health and to encourage my colleagues to seize the opportunity to take the necessary steps to rein in our out-of-control spending. As so often happens this time of year, talk has turned to the need for a continuing resolution for at least part of the next year, and I urge my colleagues to join me in pushing for a CR that respects the commitments we have already made. As we all know, the President and the Congress approved the Budget Control Act in 2011, putting in place annual spending caps and establishing a deficit reduction commission to find additional savings and solutions to ensure the solvency of our entitlement programs. With the failure of that commission, a sequester that forced $1.2 trillion in automatic spending reductions was put in place. In the absence of an agreement to replace them, the caps and sequester guarantee at least $2 trillion in deficit reduction. Seventy-four Members of the Senate believed these enforcement measures were needed to put us on the right fiscal track. The President signed the Budget Control Act into law, saying that, ``It's an important first step to ensuring that, as a Nation, we live within our means.'' Yet there are continuing conversations about passing a short- term continuing resolution that would fund the government at a level above that established by the Budget Control Act for next year. I should have to remind no one that under the Budget Control Act, passing a continuing resolution at anything higher than the $967 billion limit would trigger another statutory, across-the-board sequester cut in January that would bring spending down to the $967 billion level for the next fiscal year of 2014. I can see why there are those who would like to take such action. Passing a CR at a higher-than-BCA-appropriate level would create yet another fiscal cliff, with hopes, I am sure, of causing enough pressure to finally do away with the sequester. That is what some would like. However, such a scenario does little to add pressure to address the sequester, provides the pretense that the BCA levels don't mean anything if even for a short while, and it further complicates agencies implementing what are sure to be the required cuts. Make no mistake, I understand the sequester process is a blunt instrument and not a preferred method of fiscal restraint. However, it was put in place because Congress failed to do what is needed to rein in reckless spending. I also understand the difficult position it puts agencies in, particularly the Department of Defense. I am open to allowing reasonable flexibility and to replacing the sequester, albeit with changes to mandatory spending and entitlements, and not hikes in taxes. But that deal, much like the supercommittee's success, has been elusive, and to seek to pass a CR that doesn't reflect the reality of the post-BCA world raises itself a set of problems. However, such a scenario does little to add pressure to address the sequester, as I mentioned. It simply would make it more difficult for agencies to address their needs and to bring down their own spending. Certainly, passing any budget bill for next year at levels in excess of those that are outlined in the Budget Control Act breaks any promise to ``live within our means.'' In addition, passing a short-term CR that will allow agencies to spend money as if the sequester isn't imminent early next year only complicates their situation. This would force agencies to squeeze all the necessary spending reductions in just over 9 months instead of an entire year. We can imagine the burdens that puts on agencies, particularly the Department of Defense, with unique procurement requirements. A less charitable view of why anyone would seek to ignore, even for a short time, the realities of the BCA would be that they might think deficits have fallen and attention to our fiscal state is no longer needed. In fact, the President recently told an audience that, ``We don't have an urgent deficit crisis. The only crisis we have is one that is manufactured in Washington.'' I beg to differ. Our fiscal problems aren't solved. In fact, we are still on track to add $753 billion to our national debt in 2013. There is no doubt this is an improvement from past years. Yet the trillion- dollar deficits of the past 4 years are hardly appropriate benchmarks for today. Even at $753 billion, this year's deficit is larger than any of those under any previous administration. Meanwhile, our entitlement programs are still on track to be insolvent, with Social Security Disability set to go broke by 2016, Medicare by 2026, and Social Security by 2033. This is simply not the time to backpedal, by any means, on the agreement we made in 2011. Congress and the President agree that the Budget Control Act is the first step needed toward budget deficit reduction. We must complete the first stride to set our Nation on the right course and prove to the public we can address the even larger looming challenges we face, such as the solvency of our entitlement programs. There is no doubt this is going to be a difficult job in the days to come, and we must address it. I urge my colleagues to keep their promise and push for appropriations bills that responsibly respect the spending limits outlined in the Budget Control Act. To that aim, I invite my colleagues to join me in sending a letter to the majority leader asking him to bring to the Senate floor a fiscal year 2014 spending bill that abides by the $967 billion discretionary limit that is required by law. Let us continue the progress that has been made so far and keep our promise to fight for a more sound fiscal future. Madam President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam President, today, September 11, 2013, is a day in which we remember lives cut too short in the attacks on our Nation 12 years ago. We also remember acts of bravery, selflessness, and all that took place that morning and in the days and months and the years that followed. I wish to take a moment to thank all the others who have sought to protect us from harm in the intervening years.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the chairwoman for her commitment. To be frank, I believe the Senate farm bill leaves much to be desired. In fact, to gain my support, the farm bill will need to undergo dramatic changes to reduce the taxpayer cost of Federal crop insurance, remove market- distorting price supports, and limit the scope of the Federal Government in U.S. agriculture. That said, the chairwoman is right to point out that as uncertainty continues to surround the farm bill, Congress appears poised to pass yet another extension of the 2008 farm bill and, in turn, continue direct payments. With regard to direct payments, such an outcome would be a costly regression in light of the Senate's bipartisan efforts to eliminate this multibillion-dollar subsidy. After 17 years, three extensions, and more than $92 billion paid out, it is time for direct payments to come to a full and immediate end. On this point, the chairwoman and I are in full agreement. To that end, the chairwoman has my commitment to do everything I can to ensure that any legislation that should come before the Senate containing an extension of direct payments will be met with my fierce opposition. I thank the chairwoman again for her commitment and for her attention to these concerns. Mr. President, I yield the floor.