Al Franken

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 25 minutes.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about climate change. But I first do want to say how pleased I am that we just got cloture to move to debate on the Marketplace Fairness Act. I am a strong supporter of the legislation. As I said, I am a cosponsor. I look forward to the upcoming debate. I plan to speak on this legislation further tomorrow. Now I would like to talk about climate change. More specifically, I rise to suggest that we in this body talk more about climate change so that we can agree on taking action to address it. We need to address the environmental impacts that we are currently facing and the future impacts that will only become exponentially worse if we fail to act. 2012 was the hottest year on record in the continental United States. In fact, it beat the previous record by a full degree. To give you some idea about how remarkable a full degree of warming in 1 year is, scientists tell us since the last ice age 20,000 years ago the Earth has warmed only 16 degrees at the most. Since we began actually measuring temperatures in the continental United States and recording them 117 years ago, the variance between the coldest year and the warmest year has only been 4.2 degrees. So for the temperature to jump a full degree in 1 year is not just remarkable, it is alarming. Often when people consider the harmful consequences of climate change and its cost, they are talking about the future. But make no mistake, climate change is already costing the United States serious money. 2012 was a year when a historic drought caused more than 70 percent of U.S. counties to be declared disaster areas. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has estimated the drought's impact on the agricultural sector to be around $50 to $60 billion. That cost gets passed on to every American. The drought destroyed or damaged major crops all over this country, making corn and soybeans more expensive, increasing animal feed costs. So Americans are paying more for meats and other animal-based products. The 2012 drought dramatically lowered water levels on the Mississippi River, seriously interfering with our ability to transport our agricultural goods to market to compete with those from other countries. So that barges did not run aground, shippers sent them down the Mississippi River the last few months half full, say, with soybeans, making our beans less competitive with Brazilian beans. More and more of my conversation with Minnesota soybean growers who export over one-third of their crop focused on this very issue. Climate change is exacerbating our Nation's wildfires, and that is costing us serious money. When Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell testified before the Senate Energy Committee, I asked him about the link between forest fires and climate change. He told us that throughout the country we are seeing longer fire seasons on average by more than 30 days. Wildfires are also larger and more intense. I asked Chief Tidwell whether scientists at the Forest Service thought that climate change was increasing the size and intensity of wildfires and extending their season. Without hesitation he said yes. The Forest Service is spending more and more of its budget fighting wildfires, now about half of its budget. Longer fire seasons and larger more intense fires are just going to eat up more of that budget. Not only is climate change worsening our forest fires, it is also exacerbating other problems plaguing our forests. That includes a very serious bark beetle crop. The bark beetle is normally kept in check because cold winters at high altitudes kill its larva. Let's talk about the bark beetle at high altitudes. Their larva used to freeze. But now, because of climate change, that is not happening. The winters have gotten warmer and at higher altitudes, and the bark beetles are surviving. That means they are destroying more forests. Similarly, in some Colorado forests scientists have shown that because of warmer weather, mountain pine beetles have gone from reproducing once a year to twice a year. In a little over a decade, this mountain pine beetle has killed more than 70,000 square miles' worth of trees. That is an area equivalent to the entire State of Washington. Of course, we cannot talk about climate change without talking about sea level rise. I serve on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Several months ago we had a hearing on sea level rise. We heard testimony about how rising sea level is increasing the size of flood zones and increasing damage that occurs from storm surges. One of the witnesses told us that just a few extra inches of sea level could result in a storm surge that could flood the New York City subway system. It sounded like something out of science fiction. Yet a little over 6 months later that is exactly what happened. That is exactly what happened when Hurricane Sandy hit New York City and flooded the subways. My colleagues do not need to be reminded of the cost of Hurricane Sandy. It is costing taxpayers a staggering $60 billion. Unfortunately, only one of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, the ranking member, Senator Murkowski, attended this hearing. This has been pretty much the case whenever we have a hearing that even tangentially relates to climate change. A number of my colleagues in Congress do not believe that human activities contribute to climate change. Many others, I suspect, do not talk about climate change because addressing it requires making some difficult choices. But let's be clear about this. Climate change is already costing us. If we do not act now, it will worsen dramatically and be far more costly. The Defense Department has studied potential threats to national security imposed by climate change. DOD's 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review states that climate change may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict. That, in turn, would place burdens on civilian institutions and militaries around the world. The top commander in the Pacific, ADM Samuel Locklear, has said the biggest long-term security challenge in the Pacific is climate change. As the Pacific commander he understands the impact sea level rise and extreme weather events can have on our military resources and on civilian populations in the Pacific. My constituents in Minnesota also understand the threat of climate change. That is why recently nearly 400 people gathered at a local Lutheran church in Willmar, MN, to talk about climate change. Willmar is not a big city. So when this many people gather in one place, you know it is a big deal. They are concerned about climate change and the marked increase in severe weather occurrences. But when they look to Washington they see a disconnect. They see a disconnect between what the country is experiencing and what Washington is doing about it--or, rather, what Washington is not doing. Outside of Washington, and not just in Minnesota, things are different. In fact, many respected Republican leaders outside of Washington understand the importance of addressing climate change. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, for example, Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey acknowledged that climate change is a problem and that human activities are playing a role. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, also a Republican, has launched an organization to fight climate change. Former Utah Governor and Republican Presidential candidate John Huntsman has noted that whenever a party takes a position that runs counter to the position of 98 out of every 100 scientists, that party has a problem. Governor Huntsman is right. Let me illustrate with an analogy. Say you went to a doctor who told you: You know, you better start eating more sensibly and start exercising because you are tremendously overweight. I see in your file that your father died of a heart attack at an early age. So you really have to go on a diet and start working out. You say: You know what, I would like a second opinion. So you go to a second doctor and he examines you, or she examines you, and says: OK, look, you have a family history of heart disease. Your father died of a heart attack at 40. You weigh over 300 pounds. Your cholesterol is out of control. Your blood pressure is through the roof. It would just be irresponsible of me not to immediately send you to the Mayo Clinic to this place I know. You have to go there. Then you say: Thanks, doctor, but I would really like a third opinion. The third doctor says: Wow. This is a problem. You know, looking at your family history and looking at you and your tests, I am amazed you are still alive. You have to do something about this. You say: You know, I would really like a fourth opinion--and this keeps going. It takes months. Finally, you get to the 50th doctor. The 50th doctor examines you and says: Boy, it is a good thing you came to me because all this diet and exercise would have been a waste. You are doing just fine. Those other doctors, well, they are in the pockets of the fresh food and vegetable people. Enjoy life as much as you want and watch a lot of TV. Then you learn this doctor was paid his salary by the makers of Cheetos. Don't get me wrong--Cheetos are a delicious snack. They can and should be eaten in moderation. If 98 out of 100 doctors tell me I have a problem, I should take their advice. If those two other doctors are paid by ``Big Snack Food'' the way certain climate deniers are paid by ``Big Coal,'' I shouldn't take their advice. However, 98 out of 100 climate scientists are telling us we have a problem. Governor Huntsman is right. Outside of Washington, many people get this. Even some of the very companies that previously funded anti- climate change efforts have turned the page on this issue. ExxonMobil used to fund the Heartland Institute, which is one of the leading climate change denial organizations. If you go to ExxonMobil's Web site today, it states, ``Rising greenhouse gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems.'' Shell Oil states on its Web site, ``CO2 emissions must be reduced to avoid serious climate change.'' Even the major oil and gas companies have begun to acknowledge that climate change is real. I respectfully suggest that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle here in Congress also need to engage in a serious conversation on climate change. At a time when Americans are dealing with record droughts and devastating hurricanes, the Senate cannot afford to simply ignore climate change. We need to talk about this, as Democratic and Republican leaders outside of Washington are talking about it. Ultimately, we need to come together to address climate change before its damaging costs to society are out of control. I do not pretend this will be easy. Some people will point out that climate change is a global problem. It is. We can't solve it alone. We can't, and they are right. Emissions in the developing world are now on the rise. China surpasses the United States in total greenhouse gas emissions--not per capita; we are still ahead on that. But China is also making major investment in renewable energy. According to the United Nations Environmental Program, in 2011 China led the world in renewable energy investments, with nearly one-fifth of the global total. This is in spite of the fact that China's GDP in 2011 was half of our GDP. If we are going to lead the clean energy race and create good-paying jobs for Americans, we must invest in our renewable energy infrastructure. Last year the Senate Energy Committee heard testimony regarding a report from the American Energy Innovation Council's report entitled ``Catalyzing Ingenuity.'' The report, authored by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and other business leaders, states: The country has yet to embark on a clean energy innovation program commensurate with the scale of the national priorities that are at stake. In fact, rather than improve the country's energy innovation program and invest in strategic national interests, the current political environment is creating strong pressure to pull back from such efforts. This is very important. I encourage my colleagues--especially those who oppose Federal funding for clean energy--to read this report because what people often forget is that this is nothing new. Government has always supported strategic energy priorities. As Mr. Augustine noted in his testimony, commercial nuclear power was the result of government investments in naval reactors. Do you know why natural gas is transforming our energy sector today? It is because of years of Federal support to develop hydrofracking technology. The Eastern Gas Shales Project was an initiative the Federal Government began back in 1976, before hydrofracking was a mature industry. The project set up and funded dozens of pilot demonstration projects with universities and private gas companies that tested drilling and fracturing methods. This investment by the Federal Government was instrumental in the development of the commercial extraction of natural gas from shale. In fact, microseismic imaging--a critical tool used in fracking--was originally developed by Sandia National Laboratory, a Federal energy laboratory. The industry was also supported through tax breaks and subsidies. In fact, Mitchell Energy vice president Dan Stewart said in an interview that Mitchell Energy's first horizontal well was subsidized by the Federal Government. Mr. Mitchell said of the Department of Energy: DOE started it, and other people took the ball and ran with it. You cannot diminish DOE's involvement. So the basis of the natural gas revolution that is helping make America more energy independent can be traced back to Federal support. In the same way, we must support the renewable energy sector now. We need to be the ones--our country, the United States, Americans--we must be the ones who sell this transformative and environmentally friendly technology to other nations. We must do this. We need to start by having a conversation about climate change. It would be irresponsible to avoid the issue because it is uncomfortable to talk about. The stakes are too high and we would be shirking our responsibility to our constituents, to our children, to our grandchildren, and to posterity. The discussion is not going to be easy because there are going to be painful tradeoffs. I certainly don't have all the answers. I do know we need to have the conversation. We cannot leave this issue to future generations. I have a grandchild on the way--my first. I don't want to look back and tell him that when his grandfather was in a position to do something about climate change, he chose not to because it involved some politically difficult choices. I don't want to tell him that we compromised our moral integrity for political expediency. We all have constituents who care about this issue. When I go back to Willmar, MN, I want to tell my constituents who met in a church and spoke about climate change that we heard them. I want to tell them we are working together across the aisle to talk about and address one of the most difficult problems we face. I invite my colleagues to join in this endeavor and make dealing with climate change a bipartisan issue. We owe it to the Nation and to future generations. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Anna Henderson, a fellow on my staff, have privileges on the floor during today's session.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I want to start off by saying I am deeply saddened by the tragedy in Boston. Franni's and my thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has been affected. Franni and I went to school in Boston. In fact, we met more than 43 years ago at a freshman mixer in Copley Square, so we know Boston. We have witnessed firsthand the kind of compassion and resilience we have seen from Bostonians, and I have faith we will find whoever did this and bring that person or those persons to justice. Mr. President, I came to the floor today to speak in support of the gun violence legislation we are considering. Since the tragedy in Newtown, we have been asking ourselves what we should do to address this problem of gun violence in our country. My primary focus in the wake of Newtown has been on mental health. Improving the access to mental health care has been one of my top priorities since I came to the Senate, and I am glad people are beginning to focus more on the issue. If we are going to make mental health a part of this, let's make it more than just a talking point. Let's make it a true national priority. Let's really do something to improve access to treatment for folks who need it. Since the first day I got here, I have been pushing the administration to issue the final regulations for the Wellstone- Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires insurance plans to cover mental health and addiction services and to do so to the same extent they cover medical and surgical services. Five years after that bill was signed into law, at long last the administration has promised to implement it, and to do so by the end of the year. I expect the administration to follow through on that commitment. I have also introduced the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Act to help law enforcement officers respond to mental health crises in their communities and improve access to mental health treatment for people who end up in the criminal justice system. This is a bipartisan, bicameral bill that I have been working on since last year, well before the tragedy in Newtown. In January I introduced the Mental Health in Schools Act which will improve children's access to mental health services. Catching these issues at an early age is very important. I met with some mothers from the Mounds View School District in Minnesota about this matter. Their children's lives, their own lives, and their families' lives were changed for the better because the kids got access to the mental health care they needed at an early age. My bill has 17 cosponsors and key provisions have been included in a package which was recently reported out of the HELP Committee. I look forward to considering that legislation on the Senate floor soon. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. These are important measures, but let me be absolutely clear: The last thing we need to do is stigmatize mental illness. I said this many times before, and I will say it again because it bears repeating, and it is very important to me: The vast majority of people with mental illness are no more violent than the general population. In fact, they are more frequently the victims of violence than others are. There is a very small subset of those with serious mental illnesses who may become more violent if they are not diagnosed and treated, and that is the one place where this issue of mental health intersects with the issue of violence. Improving access to mental health care is all about improving people's lives. It is about helping people with mental illness and their families by making them happier and more productive people. However, today we are talking about gun violence prevention legislation. People have strongly held views on both sides--or all sides--of this issue. Not only is that true in Minnesota, it is true throughout the country. Minnesota has a proud tradition, like Indiana, of responsible gun ownership. We are home to many sportsmen and sportswomen. Generations of Minnesotans have learned to hunt pheasants, deer, and ducks from their parents, their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors. We cherish our traditions and our Second Amendment right to bear arms for collection, protection, and sport. Minnesota has both urban and rural areas. It is home to moms, dads, teachers, law enforcement officers, and health care providers too. We have members of the National Rifle Association and members of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence. After the shooting at Sandy Hook, I reached out to my constituents. I got on the phone, I traveled across the State, I convened roundtables, I talked to hunters, school officials, law enforcement officers, and mental health experts. I wanted to hear Minnesotans' ideas, their hopes, their concerns, and their thoughts because it was and is important to me to approach this in a deliberative way. Here is what I took away from these conversations: Minnesotans want us to take action to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer, but they want us to do it in a way that honors the Second Amendment and respects Minnesota's culture of responsible gun ownership. There is a balance to be struck there. The overwhelming majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens who responsibly use their guns for recreation and self-protection. Their concern should not be dismissed or trivialized. Their rights should not be undermined because of the horrible acts of just a few. So I suggest that our goal should be to take whatever steps we can to reduce gun violence and improve public safety without unduly burdening law- abiding, responsible gun owners. I believe that is what the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act, the Manchin- Toomey amendment, and the assault weapons ban do. First, we need to improve the Nation's background check system, and we need to strengthen our laws to combat straw purchases and gun trafficking. This was one of the key recommendations I have taken away from my meeting with law enforcement leaders in Minnesota. I think background checks are the single most important thing we can do to save lives. Today background checks are required only when a gun is sold by a federally licensed dealer. Background checks are used to determine whether a perspective buyer has a felony conviction, is a fugitive from the law, has a restraining order against him, or has a serious mental illness. The problem is that people who cannot pass a background check simply go to a gun show or go on the Internet or to the classified ads to get a gun instead, and that is exactly what they do. By some estimates about 40 percent of all gun transactions are processed without a background check. This is like having two lines at the airport: one where people go through the security screening and one where they don't, and those passengers are the ones who choose which line they stand in. Would anyone feel comfortable on a plane if they knew that 40 percent of the passengers didn't go through the security check and they were the ones who chose not to go through the security check? The Manchin-Toomey amendment will expand background checks to gun shows and other congressional transactions. These checks are not an undue burden. They can typically be conducted in a matter of minutes through NICS, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The amendment excludes certain exchanges, such as when a Minnesotan hands his gun down to his son or to her daughter. The Manchin-Toomey amendment fixes another problem. We all know background checks are only as good as the database they use. The problem is that a lot of States are not submitting court documents and other records to NICS. The amendment will provide new incentives and penalties to make sure the States do a better job. This law will work. Since we started administering instant background checks more than 1.7 million felons, fugitives, domestic abusers, and people with serious mental illnesses have been denied access to firearms--and that is under the system that exists today with all of its loopholes and flaws. We have seen that women are less likely to be killed by an intimate partner in States that have expanded their own background check systems. And, look, about 90 percent of Americans want us to pass this measure--90 percent. This is not a Republican idea, it is not a Democratic idea, it is just a good idea. I think it would be a remarkable failure of our democracy if we cannot get this done. If we cannot get this done, I am afraid it is because we have relied on fears and falsehoods instead of on facts. For instance, some have argued that an expanded background check system will result in a Federal gun registry, but Federal gun registries are banned under existing law and the legislation we are considering would not repeal or weaken that. In fact, the Manchin- Toomey amendment would strengthen the current prohibition on Federal gun registries. The other argument we have heard is that we should not bother improving the background check system until we do a better job prosecuting those who cheat the background check system under current law. There is really no reason we cannot do both, enforce and improve the law. In fact, that is exactly what the legislation does. This legislation expands the background check system and strengthens the penalties for straw purchasers and gun traffickers. So I strongly support these proposed improvements to the background check system and to our gun trafficking laws. The Judiciary Committee also reported Senator Feinstein's assault weapons ban to the Senate floor. The bill would ban the future manufacture of large-capacity magazines and certain weapons with military-style characteristics. This bill will not require anyone to forfeit a gun he or she already has. We saw the damage assault weapons or large-capacity magazines can do at Newtown, Tucson, Aurora, and elsewhere. Here is what Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said about assault weapons at a recent Judiciary Committee hearing: Assault weapons are built to inflict violence against humans. Their military characteristics are not merely cosmetic in nature. These weapons are designed for combat. They are designed to quickly, easily, and efficiently cause lethal wounds to humans. We are not talking about just mass shootings. For instance, studies suggest that large-capacity magazines may be used in up to a quarter of all gun crimes and 41 percent of police murders. I believe the assault weapons ban will make our communities safer without unduly interfering with the rights of responsible gun owners. I think the bill strikes an appropriate balance. Others disagree, and I respect their views, but there are a few arguments that have been advanced against the assault weapons ban that I wish to address. The first argument we have heard against Senator Feinstein's bill is that Justice Department studies have proved the assault weapons ban was ineffective. During our first hearing, a witness said: ``Independent studies, including a study from the Clinton Justice Department, proved that ban had no impact on lowering crime.'' And others, including my colleagues, repeated this claim. Well, I went back and looked at the studies. What they actually say-- and they say it over and over--is that it was premature to draw definitive conclusions about the ban's effectiveness. Here is what they said: It is premature to make definitive assessments on the ban's impact on gun violence. The effects of the [assault weapon and large-capacity magazine] ban have yet to be fully realized; therefore, we recommend continued study. The ban's reauthorization or expiration could affect gunshot victimizations, but predictions are tenuous. I could go on and on. The reports repeat this point time and time again. If anything, the Justice Department report suggests a ban would be effective. For example, they said: ``It could conceivably prevent hundreds of gunshot victimizations annually and produce notable cost savings in medical care.'' It is simply not possible to read those studies and honestly say they prove an assault weapons ban is ineffective. Another argument we have heard against Senator Feinstein's bill is it will undermine one's ability to defend oneself. But here is the thing: The record contains no evidence of a real case in which someone actually needed a large-capacity magazine or assault weapon for self- defense. During our first hearing, a witness submitted many examples where guns were used in self-defense, but I have not seen any evidence that any one of those cases actually involved a weapon that would be banned under Senator Feinstein's bill. At our last markup, one of my colleagues submitted some additional cases for the record, but, again, after reviewing that list, I am not persuaded an assault weapon or large-capacity magazine was needed for self-defense in any of those instances. Rather than presenting real cases in which someone actually needed an assault weapon or a large-capacity magazine to defend oneself, opponents of Senator Feinstein's bill instead asked us repeatedly to imagine hypothetical situations where these weapons were needed for self-defense. Sure, I can imagine hypothetical cases, but I am not sure what value that holds, because I can also imagine someone using a large-capacity magazine or an assault weapon to massacre people at an elementary school or a movie theater or a supermarket parking lot. I can imagine these things because they really happened. That is the reality. And it is reality we should be talking about. I asked Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, about this and he said: ``This idea that these weapons are for self-defense is, based on our experience, completely absurd.'' The final argument I wish to address is one of the most important. Some have argued a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines is unconstitutional. The problem with the argument is it typically rests on the premise that the Second Amendment is absolute or unlimited. For example, during our committee markup, one of my colleagues asked Senator Feinstein whether she would ``consider it constitutional for Congress to specify that the First Amendment shall apply only to the following books and shall not apply to the books that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?'' The point my colleague was trying to make, I think, is that banning certain guns is like banning certain speech, and that this ban would violate the Constitution. This line of argument assumes the Second Amendment is absolute and unlimited--that any new gun law necessarily is unconstitutional. But one doesn't have to be a constitutional scholar to know that rights are not unlimited. In fact, my colleague's question actually makes that very point. There are books that are not protected by the First Amendment. The Bill of Rights does not protect libel. The Bill of Rights does not protect child pornography. One cannot yell ``fire'' in a crowded movie theater where there is no fire. And, likewise, the Second Amendment does not protect the rights of everyone to carry whatever weapon he likes in anyplace he wishes for whatever purpose he desires. The Second Amendment does not entitle felons or fugitives or domestic abusers or people with serious mental illnesses to carry guns. It does not entitle Americans to own a fully automatic machine gun or a bazooka or to bear nuclear arms. Here is what Justice Antonin Scalia said in the Heller decision: Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. . . . The right is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. Senator Durbin chaired a hearing on this issue in February. I was persuaded by Professor Lawrence Tribe's testimony. He examined the legislation and said: ``I'm convinced that nothing under discussion in the Senate Judiciary Committee represents a threat to the Constitution or even comes close to violating the second amendment.'' Remember, Professor Tribe has supported gun rights. He argued for an individual's right to bear arms many years before the Heller decision. I was also persuaded by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals' analysis in Heller II. There, the Court examined the District of Columbia's assault weapons ban by asking a series of questions. First, to what extent does this law burden an individual's right to bear arms for lawful purposes? Second, how does that burden compare with the public's interest in implementing the ban? Finally, is the ban sufficiently well tailored to that public interest? This is the sort of inquiry that is typical in constitutional cases, and I think it is appropriate in the Second Amendment context too. It is nuanced and principled, not absolutist. The constitutional question is not whether a law touches upon Second Amendment interests at all. The question is whether the law unduly burdens those interests--whether it strikes an appropriate balance between the Second Amendment interests at stake and the public's interest in its safety. We don't have to choose between the Second Amendment and saving lives. That is a false choice. The Heller II Court correctly concluded that the District of Columbia's law--their assault ban--struck an acceptable balance and upheld DC's ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. In fact, every court that considered laws banning assault weapons and large-capacity magazines has upheld those laws as constitutional. I am confident Senator Feinstein's bill will be upheld in the courts as well. When my colleague began drawing comparisons to the First Amendment, I was reminded of what Justice Potter Stewart famously said of obscenity: ``I know it when I see it.'' The debate on this issue changed the day that gunman massacred 20 little children and 6 educators with an assault weapon and large-capacity magazines at an elementary school in Newtown. That was an obscenity. Americans knew it when they saw it. I hope we will continue to debate these issues in the days ahead. Debate is important, especially when people feel so strongly on both sides of this issue. I respect those who hold different views, and I hope they respect mine. As we debate this issue, I hope we keep in mind what Gabby Giffords, Miya and Sam Rahamin, and Neil Heslin told us during our committee hearings. Gabby Giffords was shot in the head during the massacre in Tucson in 2011. Six people died that day. The youngest among them was Christina-Taylor Green, the 9-year-old girl who loved to dance and who very well may have followed in Gabby's footsteps. Christina-Taylor had just been elected to the student council at her elementary school and she had taken an interest in public service at a young age. That is why she was visiting her Congresswoman. Christina- Taylor was killed with the 13th bullet fired that day. Christina-Taylor Green is not with us anymore, but by some miracle Gabby is, and Gabby has used this second lease on life to be a voice for people such as Christina. Gabby mustered every bit of energy she could to appear before the Judiciary Committee in January. Let's not forget what she said, which was this: Speaking is difficult, but I must say something important. Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too. Many. Children. We must do something. It will be hard. But the time is now. You. Must. Act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you. Miya and Sam Rahamim asked us to take action too. They lost their father Reuven when a gunman opened fire at a sign factory in Minneapolis in September. Reuven is an immigrant from Israel and lived the American dream. He started a company that employed dozens of people over the years and exported products to the rest of the world, even to China--something Reuven was always eager to tell people. And Reuven was especially proud of his patented method for making Braille signs which, obviously, helped the blind. That was Reuven's thing--helping people. He was active in my synagogue and in his community, and he will always be remembered for his generous spirit. Miya and Sam gave me a letter in January just a few weeks after Sandy Hook and a few months after the mass shooting that took their father's life, and others. This is what the letter said: While Congress cannot prevent every death from gun violence, it has a moral obligation to attempt to save as many lives as possible. By passing this legislation, Congress can prevent some Americans from receiving the call that is dreaded most--that their father or mother, brother or sister, spouse or child will not be coming home. . . . I want my story told so that other families will not have to go through the devastation that mine has been through. And then there is Neil Heslin. He came to Washington to testify at a Judiciary Committee hearing a few weeks ago. Neil told us about the morning of the shooting at Sandy Hook when his son Jesse was killed. On the way to school that morning, Neil and Jesse stopped at the deli to get breakfast. Neil got coffee. Jesse got what he called coffee, which was really hot chocolate. That is the part of the story that has really stayed with me. It is a small detail but it is a pure detail. It says something about how an innocent child looks up to his dad. Neil was in a good mood. Christmas was around the corner and he had plans to make gingerbread houses with Jesse and Jesse's classmates that afternoon. Talking to Neil, you kind of got the sense that he was just as excited about this as the kids were--maybe more so. He really cherished this time together. After they had their ``coffees,'' Neil dropped Jesse off at school. It was 9:04 a.m. Neil told us this: Jesse gave me a hug and a kiss. And he said, ``Goodbye, I love you.'' Then he stopped, and he said, ``I love mom, too.'' That was the last I saw of Jesse. Neil is not a political guy. In fact, he told us: Half the time, I think it doesn't matter which group of you guys runs things out there, no offense. But he continued: Let me tell you, when you're sitting at a firehouse and it's one in the morning and you're hoping against hope that your son is still hiding somewhere in that school, you want any change that makes it one bit more likely that you'll see your boy again. For me, that is what this is about, to make any change that will make it one bit more likely that the next Jesse will live to make gingerbread houses at Christmas. To see so many innocent lives lost on that December morning, so many hopes and dreams dashed, so many families grieving, the country was heartbroken, my wife and I were heartbroken, and we are still. I wish we could offer more than our thoughts and our prayers and the thoughts and prayers of our fellow Minnesotans. We cannot turn back time. We cannot bring back the lives we have lost. But if there is something we can do today in this Chamber--this week in this Chamber--to save lives in our communities tomorrow, to make it more likely that boy will be coming out of the school, then I think we should do it. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent that the time for debate only be extended until 8:30 p.m. and that at 8:30 p.m. the majority leader be recognized.

Mr. FRANKEN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

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

Mr. FRANKEN. I rise today to discuss the confirmation of Mary Jo White as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ms. White has had an impressive career--from prosecuting terrorists and white-collar criminals as a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to heading a large litigation department in private practice. There is little doubt that Ms. White has the Wall Street expertise necessary to navigate the complex issues before the SEC. I come to the floor today to discuss a critical problem I have asked Ms. White to prioritize as Chair of the SEC. Currently, when a bank issues a structured finance product, it needs to get the product rated by the credit rating agencies, and the bank pays them for the ratings. The banks have an interest in getting high ratings, and the credit rating agencies have an interest in getting repeat customers. Of course, this creates a fundamental conflict of interest. This conflict played a key role in the financial meltdown. It is a problem we sought to address in the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation we passed in 2010. Yet it is a problem that remains. It is awaiting action by the SEC--more than 5 years after the financial crisis hit and nearly 3 years since Dodd-Frank was signed into law. Resolving the problem of the conflict of interest in the rating industry will be a vital test of the SEC under Ms. White's chairmanship. In a meeting we had together last month in my office, Ms. White expressed her appreciation of the importance of this issue and her commitment to scrutinize conflicts of interest inherent in the credit rating industry. I look forward to working with her to find a meaningful solution to alleviate the ongoing threat to our financial system posed by these conflicts of interest. The next concrete step in that process is a roundtable the SEC will hold on this issue in May. That roundtable must be a balanced assessment of the issue, and it must lead to meaningful action by the SEC. This is not, to be sure, the only issue in financial reform facing the SEC. I wish to talk a little bit about why I care so passionately about reforming the credit rating process and why this is so important. In the years leading up to the 2008 financial collapse, the credit rating agencies were enjoying massive profits and booming business. Of course, there is nothing wrong with massive profits and booming business in and of themselves, but there was one fundamental problem: Booming business was coming at the expense of accurate credit ratings, which is supposed to be the entire reason for the existence of the credit rating agencies. The fact that the credit rating agencies were not providing accurate ratings should come as no surprise given the industry's compensation model. Credit rating agencies were and still are paid to issue ratings directly by the big Wall Street banks issuing the paper and requesting the ratings. If a rating agency--let's say Moody's--doesn't provide the triple-A rating the bank wants, the bank can just take its business over to Fitch or S&P's. That is called ratings shopping, and it continues to this day. The opportunity for ratings shopping creates an incentive for the credit raters to give out those triple-A ratings even when they are not warranted, and that is exactly what happened with the subprime, mortgage-backed securities that played such a crucial role in the financial crisis, and it happened over and over again. It became ingrained in the culture of the industry. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Levin, took a close look at the big three credit rating agencies, examined millions of pages of documents, and released an extensive report detailing the internal communications at Moody's, S&P, and Fitch. Among the many troubling e-mails, there was one from an S&P official that sums up the prevailing attitude quite nicely: ``Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.'' With all the risky bets in the financial sector--and bets on those bets--our financial sector had indeed become a house of cards. But without the conduct of the credit raters, the house of cards would have been one card tall because it gave triple-A ratings to these bets on bets on bets--these derivatives. Two years after that e-mail was written, that house of cards didn't just falter, it collapsed. Because that house of cards had grown so tall--thanks to the credit rating agencies--when it collapsed, it brought the entire American economy down with it. The financial meltdown cost Americans $3.4 trillion--let me say that again--$3.4 trillion in retirement savings. It triggered the worst crisis since the Great Depression with its massive business failure and mass foreclosures and job losses and the explosion of our national debt. The crisis profoundly affected the everyday lives of millions of people across the country in so many negative ways, including in Minnesota. People lost their homes, their jobs, their health insurance. I know the Presiding Officer saw it in New Mexico. I saw it in Minnesota. Every Senator here saw it in their State. In May 2010 I called on Minnesotans to participate in a field hearing to learn about their experiences during the financial collapse. I would like to share some highlights from the testimony presented by Dave Berg of Eden Prairie, MN. My situation mirrors the situation of thousands of Minnesotans in my age group--and illustrates why it is so important to reform the way Wall Street operates. I am 57 years old and looking for a job. After having spent most of my career in the IT field, I have been out of work for 14 months . . . Throughout my working career, I saved for retirement. I participated in pension and 401(k) plans that my former employers matched. I thought I would have a secure retirement because I was doing the right thing . . . Much of my overall retirement security is now gone . . . At the age of 57, I need to again start building up a nest egg so I can hopefully retire in my seventies. This was not my plan. As a job seeker in my 50s, I am not alone. Twice weekly, I meet with groups of job seekers, many of whom are in the same situation as I am. While we keep our outlook positive, most of us are faced with the prospect of starting over and we are resigned to the fact that we could be working in our seventies. The downturn of the economy, caused in part by the abuses on Wall Street, led to the loss of my retirement security. Reforming the way Wall Street operates is important to me personally, because I have a lot of saving yet to do--and I simply cannot afford another Wall Street meltdown. I need to have confidence in the markets--and I need to know that there is accountability to those who caused this financial crisis. As Dave points out, he is not alone. Everyone in this body has heard stories like this. It is hard to overestimate the extent to which the credit rating agencies contributed to the financial crisis in which thousands of Minnesotans lost their homes, thousands lost their jobs, and far too many Minnesotans had their hopes for the future dashed. They are not seeking retribution from Wall Street, they just need to know it will not happen again. They know that there is a problem and that the problem needs to be fixed. We do not need further proof of that, but we get it in the recent complaint filed by the Department of Justice against S&P in which DOJ alleges--as it said when it filed the complaint--that the credit rating agency ``falsely represented that its ratings were objective, independent, and uninfluenced by S&P's relationships with investment banks when, in actuality, S&P's desire for increased revenue and market share led it to favor the interests of these banks over investors.'' The complaint highlights the patently problematic way the credit rating agencies habitually did their business. One e-mail obtained in the investigation from a high-level S&P official reads: We are meeting with your group this week to discuss adjusting criteria for rating CDO's of real estate assets . . . because of the ongoing threat of losing deals. CDOs--collaterized debt obligations--are one of those derivatives or bets that added stories to the house of cards. This official had apparently become so comfortable with the culture of conflicts of interest that he appeared to have no reservations about putting it in writing. I am glad the Department of Justice is pursuing a case against the S&P, but DOJ's action is not enough. It is backward-looking and addresses past harms, but my concern is that the conduct continues to this day. The credit raters are still influenced by the relationships with the banks because that is who pays them. It is a clear conflict of interest and we need to prioritize actions that will prevent another meltdown in the future. That is exactly what Congress--and I--did as part of the financial reform legislation in 2010. As part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act, I proposed a solution with my friend and colleague Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. If our provision is implemented in full, it would root out the conflicts of interest from the ``issuer pays'' model. The amendment Senator Wicker and I offered to the financial reform bill directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to create an independent self-regulatory organization that would select which agency--one with the adequate capacity and expertise--would provide the initial credit rating of each product. The assignments would be based not only on capacity and expertise but also, after time, on their track record. Our approach would incentivize and reward excellence. The current pay-for-play model--with its inherent conflict of interest-- would be replaced by a pay-for-performance model. This improved market would finally allow smaller rating agencies to break the Big Three's oligopoly. The oligopoly is clear. The SEC estimates that as of December 31, 2011, approximately 91 percent of the credit ratings for structured finance products were issued by the three largest NRSROs--Fitch, Moody's, and S&P--each of which was implicated in the PSI investigation. The other five agencies doing structured finance make up the remaining 9 percent. The current oligopoly doesn't incentivize accuracy. However, if we move to a system based on merit, the smaller credit rating agencies would be better able to participate and could serve as a check against inflated ratings, helping to prevent another meltdown. In our proposed model, the independent board would be comprised mainly of investor types--managers of endowments and pension funds--who have the greatest stake in the reliability of credit ratings, as well as representatives from the credit rating agencies and banking industries, and academics who have studied this issue. Our amendment passed the Senate with a large majority, including 11 Republican votes, because this is not a progressive idea and it is not a conservative idea--it is a commonsense idea. The final version of Dodd-Frank modified the amendment and, to be frank, put more decisionmaking authority in the hands of the SEC in how to respond to the problem of conflicts of interest in the credit rating industry. The final version directed the SEC to study the proposal Senator Wicker and I made, along with other alternatives, and then decide how to act. The SEC released its study in December. The study acknowledged the continued conflicts of interest in the credit rating industry and reviewed our proposal and many of the alternatives, laying out the pros and cons of each without reaching a definitive conclusion on which route to pursue. The next step is a roundtable the SEC is holding on May 14. I will be participating in the event, and I hope that under Ms. White's leadership the SEC will make the roundtable a meaningful and balanced discussion of the different possibilities for reform. I have said all along that I believe the proposal of Senator Wicker and myself is a good one--and the right one--the more I have thought about it and looked at it over these few years. But if someone makes a compelling case for an alternative--an alternative that truly alleviates this danger of this inherent conflict of interest--I will gladly lend it my support. Following the roundtable the SEC must take prompt and decisive action to implement a meaningful plan for reform. But don't get me wrong. The need for reform is obvious and necessary, and I will pursue this issue until the American economy is no longer subject to these unnecessary risks. Too many Minnesotans--too many Americans--were devastated by a financial crisis to which the credit rating agencies contributed mightily. The conflicts of interest in the credit rating agencies must be addressed so they don't contribute to yet another crisis. Ultimately, it is up to the SEC to act, and the action they take on this issue will be an important measure of Ms. White's tenure as chair of the Commission. Ms. White has assured me she will give this critical issue the attention it deserves. I congratulate Ms. White on her confirmation and I do intend to hold her to that commitment. I look forward to working with her and the rest of the Commission on this very important issue. Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the budget we are proposing. It has three basic guiding principles: First, we must protect our fragile economic recovery by creating jobs and investing in economic growth. I remember when we did this during the Clinton administration. President Clinton proposed as a deficit reduction package raising income taxes on those who earned above $250,000 at 39.6 percent. Every Republican voted against it, and many of them went on record saying it was going to cause a recession. Some Members of this body voted against it saying it was going to cause a recession and it would be Clinton's recession. So 22.7 million jobs later there was no deficit. We had a surplus. This idea we hear from the other side that every time we raise taxes we hurt the economy just defies history. All we have to do is look at recent history, and especially now, at a time when there is a growing disparity in income in our country. What we are trying to do is to promote growth. We promote growth by investing in that which creates growth. We know what they are. One is education. We are going to cut Pell grants? When my wife was 18 months old her father died in a car accident. He was a decorated World War II vet, leaving her mom widowed at age 29, with 5 kids, four girls and a boy. The boy, my brother-in-law, went into the Coast Guard and he did 20 years in the Coast Guard and he still works for the Coast Guard. He is an electrical engineer in the Coast Guard. He is the second most important man in my son's life. My son was able to get a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. My three sisters-in-law and Franni went to college on Pell grants and scholarships. At that time the full Pell grant paid for 85 percent of a public college education. Now it pays for less than 35 percent. The Presiding Officer knows, because my mother-in-law ended up going to the University of Maine. But the Presiding Officer knows that today, kids who go to the University of Maine have debt. All of us know our kids, our students have debt. In Minnesota the average debt is $29,000. My wife's family lived on Social Security survivor benefits. My mother-in-law went to college on the GI bill. She got a loan on the GI bill. She became a teacher, teaching title I kids--because of Social Security, because of the GI bill. My wife's family was able to just barely get by. They barely made it. Sometimes there wasn't enough food on the table. Sometimes they turned the phone off, but they made it. We have people now--they all made it into the middle class. The ladder was there. We are trying to preserve that. They tell us to pull ourselves up by our boot straps in this country. Sometimes people just need the boots first. The government gave my wife's family the boots, and they are all productive members of our society because of programs. We had a hearing in the HELP Committee, and we had a witness whom the Republicans called, and he testified about what creates the middle class. They called a witness who was from the American Enterprise Institute. They are good people at the American Enterprise Institute. The witness's testimony ended with the idea that government can create jobs is a myth. So when it got to my turn to question him, I said: Have you heard of the Erie Canal? He had. The Erie Canal opened the Midwest to Europe. It made shipping our timber and our agricultural goods 97 percent more efficient. I asked him if he had heard of the Interstate Highway System. He had. I asked him if he understood that we were on C- SPAN, as we are right now, the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network. I asked him if he knew who put up the first satellites; it was the Defense Department. I noted that he had gone to the University of California at San Diego. I asked him if any of his professors had helped him at all. He said they had. He got his doctorate at UCLA. I asked him if he had heard of the Internet. He had. By the end of my questioning, he said: To say that the government can't create jobs would be absurd. It started with the idea that government can create jobs is a myth, and he ended his testimony with saying: To say the government can't create jobs would be absurd. There was a 180-degree difference except he added absurdity. So he injected it. That is what I used to do. I used to identify absurdity. There is absurd stuff going on and being said here. We are hearing things cited that have been disproved so many times. The budget we are proposing today is based on three guiding principles. First, we must protect our fragile economic recovery by creating jobs and investing in economic growth. Second, we must tackle our deficits in a responsible way. And finally, we need to honor the promises we have made to our seniors, our veterans, and our middle class families. This budget does all of those things--and in doing so, it reflects our values and our priorities. In contrast, the budget being debated in the House provides massive tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations, while slashing critical investments that will endanger our economic recovery. Everyone agrees we shouldn't saddle our children and grandchildren with insurmountable debt--addressing our debt is a responsibility we take very seriously. But at the same time, if we fail to make the necessary investments in economic growth, public health improvements, quality education, rural development, and clean energy, our children and grandchildren will inherit an equally unacceptable burden. Drastic cuts to infrastructure, innovation, and education are penny wise and pound foolish. Even if we save a little on paper upfront, the realistic long-term effects are costly and devastating. That is why our budget includes a $100 billion infrastructure recovery plan that will get workers back on the job, repairing our crumbling schools and bridges, and building up our technology infrastructure, so schools and small businesses, even in rural Minnesota, can stay competitive. It also lays the groundwork to pass a comprehensive 5-year Farm Bill that will provide certainty and support for Minnesota's farmers. This budget plan protects Head Start, early childhood education, and Pell grants--which make a quality education possible for all students, regardless of background, and will prepare our children for the 21st century workforce. This budget demonstrates our commitment to responsible deficit reduction. Since the Simpson-Bowles proposal, Congress has reduced the deficit by $2.4 trillion--$1.8 trillion coming from spending cuts, and $600 billion from allowing tax rates for the wealthiest to return to prior levels. This budget builds on that deficit reduction with an additional $1.85 trillion. That is a total of $4.25 trillion in deficit reduction--which exceeds the goal set out in Simpson-Bowles. This budget shares other principles of Simpson-Bowles--that deficit reduction should be achieved through a mix of spending cuts and new revenues, and that deficit reduction should not be done on the backs of the most vulnerable. At one point in time, there was enthusiasm among some of my Senate colleagues from the other side of the aisle for Simpson-Bowles. One such Senator said, ``Say yes to Simpson-Bowles . . . I'm willing to say yes to Simpson-Bowles.'' Another said, ``Everybody knows what the solution is, and that's Simpson-Bowles . . . I mean, everybody knows that that's the template for what we need to do.'' Another called the plan ``a good starting point and should be seriously considered by Congress.'' Our budget exceeds the deficit reduction goal in Simpson- Bowles, and follows the same general principles--yet my colleagues on the other side have not yet come around to supporting it. Finally, in addition to growing our economy and responsibly addressing the deficit, our budget honors the promises we have made to our seniors, our veterans, and our most vulnerable. This is in sharp contrast to the budget being considered in the House. My colleagues and I pay into Medicare every month, and so we are entitled to Medicare benefits when we reach age 65. The fact that we are entitled to these benefits is not a bad thing. In fact, it is a very important thing for millions of American seniors. In 1965, we created Medicare and Medicaid so seniors could count on having access to medical care in their retirement. As a nation, we promised our parents and grandparents they could count on Medicare and Medicaid as a safety net in their golden years. And the Senate Democratic budget protects that safety net. However, the House Republican budget would undermine the very foundation of the promise, and end Medicare as we know it. Their budget would replace Medicare's guarantee of health coverage with a voucher, and would raise the Medicare eligibility age. In my home State of Minnesota, this proposal would shift costs to more than 800,000 seniors when they can least afford to bear that burden. It would end the guarantee of health coverage that Medicare has made for decades. In fact, it would end Medicare as we know it. The House Republican budget would also turn Medicaid into a block grant. Now, a lot of people think Medicare will provide long-term care services for seniors since Medicare is thought of as the health care program for seniors. But it is actually Medicaid that provides those long-term services and supports. Medicare does not cover those. So when the House Republicans talk about turning Medicaid into a block grant, what they are actually talking about is ending the guarantee that seniors can get the care they need when they need it most. In my home State of Minnesota, that means the nearly 100,000 seniors who depend on Medicaid would no longer be able to count on getting the care they need. Our Senate budget protects the Medicaid program so seniors can access that care when they need it. I also want to talk for a moment about the SNAP program, or food stamps. The House Republican budget would cut the SNAP program by $135 billion. This could mean that as many as 13 million people would be cut from the program. More than a quarter of these people would be low- income seniors and people with disabilities. That is as many as 3 million seniors who would no longer have the assistance they need to buy food. Fortunately, the Senate budget protects the SNAP program so that seniors can continue to buy food. This budget also keeps our Nation's promise to our veterans. We just marked the 10-year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. We have responsibly brought that war to an end. We remain in Afghanistan, where we have been for well over a decade, though we are also bringing our participation in that war to a responsible end. Well over 2 million Americans have deployed during those wars as part of our all-volunteer force. The budget funds veterans programs so that veterans can get the education they need, the jobs they are seeking, the homes every American should be able to depend on, and access to the health care they have earned and deserve. I am proud of our budget, and of the values it reflects. It reflects a commitment to the success of future generations, and to the middle class. It puts the interests of regular people above those of our most profitable corporations. It tackles our budget deficits in a way that will promote growth and prosperity. I have also filed several amendments that reflect priorities for Minnesota--in particular, the expansion of rural broadband, the promotion of college affordability, encouraging public-private partnerships in workforce training efforts, expanding access to skills courses for the unemployed, and promoting clean energy on tribal lands. I thank Chairman Murray for her leadership during this process, and look forward to carrying out this budget's priorities alongside her in the coming years. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Marketplace Fairness Act. This act will level the playing field for small business retailers in Minnesota and across the country. I want to thank Senator Enzi for his years of work on this. He had a retail shoe store. I thank Senator Durbin, Senator Heitkamp, and Senator Alexander for introducing this legislation. This legislation will simply allow States to help their brick-and-mortar retailers, including the mom-and-pop shops on Main Street, stay competitive in a marketplace where online sales have become a fact of life. The amendment we offered to the budget resolution today lays the groundwork for passing that legislation. It is a commonsense measure which brings our sales tax into the 21st century. In Minnesota, the retail industry includes nearly a half million workers, which is about one in five jobs in our State. Those retailers need to compete on price and service every single day. The current sales tax system makes it impossible for them to compete. Senator Cardin spoke about something that is very common around this country. I have heard the same exact story myself. It is where someone walks into an electronics store and wants to buy a big flat-screen TV, and they get the guy who knows everything to come over and point out what is the best for their needs. The salesman is a very skilled guy. He was hired because he knows what he is doing. He sells the TV, except he doesn't sell it, not for his store. Instead, the customer gets on their smart phone and buys it online. They buy the same exact model at the same exact price, but because he or she doesn't have to pay the sales tax--they are supposed to, by the way, but they don't--they buy it online. They end up saving $100 and the brick-and-mortar store, which pays for employees, sewer, schools, and everything which makes a society work, loses the sale and cannot compete. It is just not fair. It is just not fair. This is a commonsense amendment. Small businesses have an exemption. The exemption is written in the amendment. People cannot say, well, just because they have an exemption, we are going to get rid of the exemption in some way. It is an exemption that is a part of the amendment we are proposing. I am proud to be on this bill. I am proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The Marketplace Fairness Act is common sense, it is bipartisan, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN. I rise today to speak about the promise of biomedical innovation in our country, as did Senator Klobuchar. I talk a lot about the importance of biomedical innovation because in my home State of Minnesota there are 400 medical device companies, and there are more than 30,000 employees who support our economy while creating high- quality jobs. They do it while saving and improving patients' lives. The industry is being punished for its innovation and growth. The medical device tax is cutting into the proceeds which go toward research and development and workforce training. By taxing companies on the first dollar of sales, they are especially hurting the very small companies, the startup companies, which may not be in profit yet. This is why I am happy to join with Senator Klobuchar, with Senator Hatch, in filing this amendment to the budget resolution to allow for the repeal of the medical device tax. This amendment is an important first step toward fully repealing the tax and providing much-needed relief for our innovators and doing it in a fiscally responsible way. Along with Senator Klobuchar, I fought this tax from the beginning. The health care law will insure 30 million new Americans while also improving the health care of every American citizen. While I am proud to be a champion of that law, I believe the medical device tax is not the way to pay for it. On this point, I disagree with the Obama administration, as I did from the beginning. Senator Klobuchar also disagreed from the beginning. We fought against the tax and ultimately we were successful in getting it cut in half from what it was when it came out of the Finance Committee. As a member of the HELP Committee, I will continue to improve our regulatory process. I am very proud I had a part in helping create the Medical Device Innovation Consortium, a private-public partnership in this industry which is a first of its kind. Part of this, I believe, is the full repeal of the Medical Device Act. As a first step, I ask my colleagues join those of us who are cosponsors of this critical amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise today to discuss tribal school construction funding--an issue that is central to the academic wellbeing and intellectual development of tribal children across the country. It goes without saying that all kids need clean, safe places to study. And making sure that every child gets a good education, in a safe, clean environment will benefit our economy and our society as a whole. Unfortunately, many Indian kids attending schools run by the Bureau of Indian Education are forced to study in aging facilities that should be replaced. As Senators, we have responsibilities to all children in our States to ensure that they all have access to safe and clean school buildings. The Federal Government has a particular responsibility to the tribes that includes taking care of tribal schools. That is why I offered an amendment to the continuing resolution with Senators Tom Udall, Tim Johnson, Klobuchar, Heitkamp, and Heinrich, to secure funding for tribal school buildings that need to be replaced. In these times of tight budgets, everyone is making sacrifices. Programs across the Federal Government are forced to make difficult cuts and to do more with less. School construction is one small but vital program that I believe should continue to be funded. I was disappointed that the administration's fiscal year 2013 budget did not include funding for Indian school replacement construction. I ask the Senator if it would be fair to say that the absence of funding for tribal school construction replacement in this CR should not be seen as a lack of support for this activity in future appropriations bills?

Mr. FRANKEN. The continuing resolution we are now considering is needed to get us through the last 6 months of this fiscal year. It is my hope that as we return to a more regular appropriations process for fiscal year 2014, we can refocus on this important priority to support Indian school construction. I ask the Senator, would he be willing to work with me and our colleagues on that?

Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Senator for committing to work with us.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, last spring, just before the Senate passed the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, I came to the floor to share some words from my late dear friend Sheila Wellstone whose commitment to ending domestic violence is an everlasting source of inspiration to my wife Franni and to me. I shared with my colleagues something Sheila said, which was this: I have chosen to focus on domestic violence because I find it appalling that a woman's home can be the most dangerous, the most violent, and, in fact, the most deadly place for her. And if she is a mother, it is dangerous for her children. . . . It's time that we tell the secret; it's time that we all come together to work toward ending the violence. Sheila's words rang true in her time, but they have perhaps never rung more true than they do today. It is time that we all come together to work toward ending the violence. We passed the VAWA Reauthorization Act in the Senate last April, but the House did not let it go to the President for signature and enactment, so we are back here today voting on the bill again because those of us who believe in VAWA will continue to fight for the bill's passage until it is signed into law. I encourage my colleagues, both in the Senate and in the House, to come together to work toward ending the violence, to support this bill. The bill's managers, Judiciary Committee chairman Pat Leahy and Senator Mike Crapo, have demonstrated remarkable resolve and leadership. We all are grateful for that. I also thank them for inviting me to author two parts of the VAWA reauthorization bill, which I would like to describe briefly. First, the VAWA Reauthorization Act includes provisions from the Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act. We just heard Senator Hagan talk about an aspect of that. This is one of the first bills I introduced after being sworn in to the Senate. When this bill becomes law, never again will survivors of sexual assault suffer the indignity of paying for the forensic medical exam, the rape kit. VAWA provides State and local governments with funding to administer these exams, which are used to collect evidence in sexual assault cases. The problem is that under current law, grant recipients can charge the survivor-- the victim--for the upfront cost of administering the exam, leaving her to seek reimbursement later. Too often survivors get lost in a maze of paperwork and they are not reimbursed. Under my bill, grant recipients will be able to charge insurance companies or victims' assistance funds or other sources, but they cannot charge the survivor. I believe survivors of sexual violence have endured enough already. They should not have to pay for rape kits, and they will not have to once this bill is passed and signed by the President and becomes law. Second, the VAWA reauthorization bill includes the Housing Rights for Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence Act, legislation I introduced with Senator Collins and Senator Mikulski in the fall of 2011. This bill will help women stay in their homes when they are the most vulnerable, when they need a roof over their heads the most. The link between violence and homelessness is undeniable. By one account, nearly 40 percent of women who experience domestic violence will become homeless at some point in their lives. Once a woman becomes homeless, she becomes even more vulnerable to physical or sexual abuse. In my State, nearly one in three homeless women is fleeing domestic violence, and half of those women have children with them. That is unacceptable. Franni and I have visited battered women's shelters, and I have to tell you it is heartbreaking. They are crowded. They are full. And a lot of mothers are there with their kids. On a bitter-cold Minnesota night, these women often have nowhere to go. Transitional housing is really important. If a woman has a choice between going out in the cold winter night in Minnesota or maybe going back to her abuser and exposing children to that, that is wrong. This can be heartbreaking. But there is something heartwarming too about seeing people come to each other's aid in their time of need. That is what the people who run the shelters do every day--the staff of Advocates for Family Peace in Itasca County, the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women, the Casa de Esperanza, and the many other advocacy groups across my State. Talk to these folks about VAWA, and they will tell you what it means for women in Minnesota. It means nights spent under a roof instead of in a tent or in a car or on a street or, even worse, having to go back to live with their abuser and exposing their children to that danger, to witnessing that violence. We need these shelters and transitional housing programs for women who are fleeing danger. The VAWA reauthorization bill provides continued support for these programs. My housing rights legislation provides additional support. It is a preventive measure that is intended to keep women from becoming homeless in the first place. My bill will make it unlawful to evict a woman from federally subsidized housing just because she is a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking. A woman may be living away from her abuser in Federal housing and the abuser comes and knocks down the door and the landlord will say: Let's evict her. Under my bill, that cannot happen in Federally subsidized housing. This bill is for every woman who has hesitated to call the police to enforce a protective order because she is afraid she will be evicted from her home if she does so. The VAWA Reauthorization Act is a crucial bill. It is a good bill. It is an important bill, and I encourage my colleagues to support it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record these letters from professional medical organizations in support of S. 47, the Violence Against Women Act.

Mr. FRANKEN

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

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about Medicare. My esteemed colleague from Alabama just talked about Medicare reform. The Presiding Officer and I--all of us--pay into Medicare every month, so we are entitled to Medicare benefits when we reach age 65. The fact that we are entitled to these benefits is not bad. In fact, it is very good for so many millions of American seniors. The fact that many call it an entitlement only means we have a right to expect to get the benefits we paid in for. Entitlements, in this case, should not be a pejorative. We have heard a lot about entitlement programs recently and about the place of Medicare in the conversation about our Federal deficit. We just heard the Senator from Alabama talk about that. He said there is no discussion of reform of Medicare. But in these discussions sometimes I think a critical component is missing, which is we already reformed Medicare, and these reforms extended the life of Medicare by 8 years while expanding benefits for seniors. During the recent campaign, as the Presiding Officer has pointed out, we saw a lot of ads about the so-called $716 billion in cuts to Medicare and how terrible that was, is, and will be. I would like to take just a few minutes to explain what these savings were, what they are, and what they will be. The two biggest sources of the $716 billion are, one, insurance companies overcharging the government for Medicare Advantage and savings in payments to hospitals. First, Medicare Advantage. As the Presiding Officer knows, as people watching no doubt know, seniors can choose to get their Medicare benefits directly from the Medicare Program or get them through a private insurance program that gets paid by Medicare, which is called Medicare Advantage. Before we passed the Affordable Care Act, we were overpaying those private insurers by 14 percent. These insurers were getting much more than they should have based on the benefits they were providing to seniors. So we cut what Medicare gives to these private insurance companies. Over the next 10 years, we are going to cut these insurance payments by 14 percent, which CBO scored in 2010 as saving Medicare $136 billion over 10 years. We were told by some of our colleagues that insurance companies were going to leave the market, that we were not going to have Medicare Advantage anymore. So far, enrollment in Medicare Advantage has gone up by 11 percent. That is many billions of dollars we were able to take-- instead of overpaying insurance companies--to extend the life of Medicare. Second is the lower reimbursements to hospitals. Why does this work out for hospitals? When we insure 31 million more people, and those 31 million people go to the emergency room, go to the hospital, the hospital is no longer on the line to pay for that. They are not left holding the bag. Those 31 million people now have insurance that pays for it. So the hospitals are now able to take lower reimbursements for Medicare patients. That is why it works out. So when people talk about the $716 billion, this is a huge part of what they are talking about. It is not cuts to benefits. It is not shifting costs to seniors. It is streamlining the program and making it more efficient. We took these savings and we reinvested the savings in the program. We overall extended the life of Medicare by 8 years. That is entitlement reform, extending the life of the program. That is what we are talking about when we talk about reforming Medicare. That is what we did. But not only that, we actually expanded benefits for seniors. I go to a lot of senior centers around Minnesota, nursing homes. I have to tell you seniors are very happy we expanded their benefits. They are happy about the new free preventive care they get, wellness checkups, colonoscopies, mammograms. They know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This saves us all money and keeps people healthier. What else are we doing with this money in addition to expanding the solvency by 8 years? We are closing the doughnut hole, the prescription drug doughnut hole. I have to tell you, seniors are very happy about that too. For more than one-third of seniors, for them, Social Security provides more than 90 percent of their income. For one-quarter of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security is the sole source of retirement income. So when they hit their doughnut hole, that is serious. Sometimes they have to make choices between food and heat and medicine. Because we are closing the doughnut hole, in many cases, people do not have to make that choice anymore. This is important stuff. When I was running for the Senate, a nurse who worked in Cambridge, MN, a town north of the Twin Cities, came to me and told me that in the hospital she worked in very often they would admit a senior who was very sick and the doctors would treat this senior and get them back on their feet and send them home with their prescriptions. As this started happening, they would call the drug store, the pharmacy a few days later, 1 week later, and say: Has Mrs. Johnson filled these prescriptions? The pharmacist would say: No; because she was in her doughnut hole. A couple weeks later, Mrs. Johnson would be back in the hospital. How wasteful is that? How wise? That costs a tremendous amount of money to our system. This is saving money. This is health care reform. This is Medicare reform. It is improving people's health and saving money at the same time. So we have increased benefits. We have extended the life of Medicare. That was done as part of health care reform. That is Medicare reform. In the election we had a discussion about this. There were a lot of ads about it. We know what Governor Romney would have done to Medicare. He said very explicitly that--and again the Presiding Officer has quoted this. He said very explicitly he would restore those billions and billions of dollars in overpayments to private insurance companies for no reason, for no good effect, just so, I guess, these insurance companies could have more profit. Instead, we reinvested this money into Medicare. But he would have given it to the insurance companies. He would have replaced this health care law. He would have made the 8 years we extended Medicare vanish. Governor Romney supported raising the Medicare eligibility age. If we raise the age from 65 to 67 as he suggested, that means hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of seniors would no longer have access to Medicare. They would end up receiving Federal subsidies in the exchanges and some of them would go to Medicaid. They would be--these 65- to 67-year- olds--by definition, older and as a population sicker than the other people in the exchanges and in Medicaid. So they would make both these programs more expensive. They would also make Medicare more expensive because they would be the youngest and least sick and be taken out. Although this sounds like a reasonable compromise, trust me, it is a bad idea. It would cost the health care system twice as much as it would save Medicare. This is exactly the kind of bad idea which explains why we pay twice as much as other developed countries around the world for our health care and in many, if not most, cases with worse outcomes. Medicare reform was an issue in the campaign because we already did it. We extended the program by 8 years. It is not like it was a secret. It was part of the conversation during the election. In the election, the American people voted to keep those reforms. As we continue this conversation about our fiscal future, I would love to hear from my colleagues across the aisle about how they would reform Medicare, how they would expand its life by 8 years while expanding or at least, at the very least, not cutting benefits. How would they do it? Because we extended its life for 8 years and increased benefits--very meaningful benefits. I would ask my colleagues why, before the election--and this is the very point the Presiding Officer made a few days ago on this floor--why they were attacking us--incorrectly I might add, inaccurately--for making cuts in Medicare, but since the election they have been insisting we make cuts to Medicare. Going forward, I think we need to move from talking points to taking a thoughtful look at policies and working together to tackle our Nation's fiscal challenges and do it based on a little bit deeper look at what we have done and what the health care reform was that we passed in the Senate and the House, now the law of the land, what that does. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I thank Senator Merkley. I would like to echo the concerns of my friends and colleagues, Senators Harkin, Udall, Merkley, and Chairman Johnson. This legislation is intended to provide relief from a physical signage requirement that is subject to abuse, not reduce the disclosure available to consumers using ATM machines. I encourage the CFPB to issue regulations that clarify that consumers should have, at a minimum, the same access to timely information as they had prior to the passage of this legislation. Consumers are in the best position to make the financial decisions that are best for them, but to do so, they must have the relevant information at the appropriate time. I am pleased that so many of my colleagues have come together to support this legislative effort--one that remedies a problem affecting so many of our community banks and credit unions, but that retains protections for American consumers.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, today I vote to support S.J. Res. 41, reinforcing President Obama's policy of preventing Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon rather than containing a nuclear Iran. I support this resolution, which explicitly states that nothing in it should be construed as an authorization to use force, because its intention and its purpose is to echo and reinforce President Obama's policy toward Iran. It is particularly important to make that clear because there has been a lot of debate about the meaning of the term ``nuclear weapons capability'' in the resolution. But a brief examination of the issue shows that the resolution and its language support the President's policy of preventing Iran from developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon. An authoritative definition of a nuclear weapons capability was offered in testimony by the Director of National Intelligence in 2009. He stated that there are three parts of an effective nuclear weapons capability: production of fissile material; effective means for weapon delivery; and design, weaponization, and testing of the warhead itself. According to this definition, the Senate and the President are articulating the same position: we are committed to preventing Iran from achieving all of those components of a nuclear weapons capability, which amounts to saying that Iran must not develop or acquire nuclear weapons. That we are reinforcing the President's policy was one of the main themes in the debate on the resolution on the floor of the Senate. When this was debated in May, that is what both the sponsor, Senator Graham, and the lead cosponsor, Senator Lieberman, emphasized repeatedly. Senator Lieberman stated, ``This resolution's main focus is to essentially back up with a congressional statement the position President Obama has articulated: that no matter what happens, containment of a nuclear Iran is not an acceptable policy from the point of view of the security of the United States; that our policy is to prevent the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.'' And Senator Graham stated, ``We are intending to echo a policy statement made by President Obama that the policy of the United States will be--if you are listening in Tehran--not to contain Iran if they obtain a nuclear capability.'' Again, Senator Graham stated, ``We are not coming up with a new idea: we are just reinforcing an idea put on the table by our own President-- we are not going to contain a nuclear-capable Iran as a policy.'' Other leading voices on this issue in the Senate made the same point at the time. Senator McCain stated, ``So this resolution we are considering is no different in any way--in fact, it is less specific than what the President of the United States has said and what I believe most every Member of the U.S. Senate is on record one way or the other saying: that the development of a nuclear weapon by Iran would be an unacceptable situation.'' Senator Menendez similarly characterized the resolution as ``making the intentions or amplifying the intentions of the President crystal clear.'' Those intentions are to prevent Iran from developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon. I share those intentions, and that is why I support the resolution today.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, two enormous challenges will await us when we return from recess. Our economy is still not yet fully recovered from a devastating recession, and the prospects for our middle class and for those aspiring to be in the middle class or to get back into the middle class remain uncertain. Meanwhile, our budget remains sorely out of balance, and our long-term debt crisis is putting our Nation's fiscal future at risk. These two challenges are, of course, linked. We cannot hope to solve our long-term debt problem unless we get our economy growing again, and we cannot hope to rebuild our prosperity unless we resolve our budget problems. So we will have big decisions to make when we come back, but in the meantime the American people will be wrestling with the same issues: What should we do to grow our economy and reduce our debt? What are the right investments to make? How should we pay for them? What sacrifices must be made in the name of fiscal responsibility? Who is going to make them? That is the debate our Nation will have over the next 6 weeks. Those are the questions we must be prepared to answer when we return. So before I go home to Minnesota to share my thoughts with my constituents, I wanted to take a few moments to share them with my colleagues. My view of what we should do in response to these challenges is based upon what we have done in response to similar challenges in the past. We are not the first Congress or the first generation to struggle with these issues. At the end of 2011, our national debt had reached 100 percent of our gross domestic product. That is frightening. But after World War II, our debt was 121 percent of GDP. To be fair, we had something to show for it. We had won World War II and the world was a very different place in 1945 than it is today. But the point is that we were tested. How did we respond? Well, we invested in the things we believed would grow the economy. We invested in education, things such as the GI bill, which helped my mother-in-law, widowed at age 29, go to college. We invested in Pell grants which helped my wife Franni and her three sisters go to college. We invested in infrastructure. We built 40,000 miles of highways in the 1950s. We invested in innovation and we won the space race which, in turn, led to the creation of whole new industries such as personal computers and telecommunications. Those investments paid off and our economy experienced three decades of incredible growth, growth that flowed to the top, to the middle, and to the bottom. Between 1947 and 1977, wages for the top fifth, the top fifth of workers, grew by 99 percent, and wages for those in the bottom fifth rose by 116 percent. I know that is hard to believe. The wages of the bottom fifth grew more than those of the top fifth. But that happened. Even though we remained a Nation in which many kids like my wife Franni grew up in poverty, we had enough to invest in a strong safety net that helped those kids like Franni and her sisters and her brother work their way into the middle class. We bounced back from World War II to build an economy with a middle class that was strong, secure, and accessible to almost everyone. Thanks in large part to the growth generated by that thriving middle class, we were able to lower our national debt to about 31 percent by 1981; so 121 percent at the end of World War II, to 1981, about 31 percent. Since then our economy has had some good times and some bad times. We have raised taxes and we have lowered taxes. We have had surpluses and we have had deficits. As this chart shows, our debt relative to GDP has gone up and down. We have seen the results of a variety of approaches to the issues we face today. In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan was elected on a platform that appealed to concerns that the government taxed too much and spent too much. His approach was later called ``starving the beast.'' Here is how he explained it. This is a quote. This is President Reagan. There are always those who told us that taxes could not be cut until spending was reduced. Well, you know, we can lecture our children about extravagance until we run out of voice and breath or we can cure their extravagance by simply reducing their allowance. Cutting taxes, cutting revenue to the government. When Reagan took office, he fulfilled his campaign promise and signed into law a huge tax cut, and on cue we began to amass enormous deficits almost immediately. In fact, President Reagan's Budget Director at the time, David Stockman, has explained that 1981 was when the era of large permanent deficits began. The deficits were so bad in his first year, in 1981, that President Reagan had to increase taxes in 1982, and again in 1983. In fact, he ended up raising taxes 11 times; not because Ronald Reagan was a Socialist--at least I really do not think so--but, rather, because he could not ignore the arithmetic. Still that first tax cut was so big that over the course of his Presidency, our national debt nearly tripled. It did not grow rapidly during the administration of George H. W. Bush. Then he handed it off to President Clinton. And what he handed off was at that point the largest deficit in the history of our country. In President Clinton's 1993 deficit reduction package, he added two new tax rates, marginal tax rates, at the top end: 36 percent for income above $180,000, 39.6 percent for incomes above $250,000. The Republicans objected rather vehemently, arguing that asking the top 2 percent pay a little more would send the economy into a recession, which, of course, would be detrimental to the goal of reducing the deficit. The bill passed without a single Republican vote in either House. But the Republicans' dire predictions turned out to be wrong, extremely wrong. Between 1993 and 2001, this country experienced an unprecedented expansion of our economy. We created 22.7 million net new jobs. We decreased the number of Americans in poverty to record lows. We increased the median household income and we created more millionaires than we ever had before. Not only did President Clinton's deficit reduction plan reduce the deficit, it eliminated the deficit. President Clinton was able to hand off to President George W. Bush a record surplus. In fact, in January of 2001, we were on track to completely pay off our national debt by the year 2011. However, as we know, President Bush chose a different course. Whether you agree with the two wars we entered into during his administration, the new entitlement program that we created, or the two tax cuts we passed, the fact of the matter is we did not pay for any of those things. They all went on our national credit card. While the two tax cuts tilted toward those at the top--they did help some at the top do extremely well during the Bush administration--it is hard to say the things we put on that credit card created the kind of durable broad-based prosperity we saw in the 1990s or that we built in the 30 years after World War II, for that matter. It would be hard to say, because when President Obama took office from President Bush, the economy was hemorrhaging jobs at the rate of over 800,000 a month. And when the bill came for the Bush policies, we were staring at a projected $1.1 trillion deficit for 2009. That was the projected deficit that President Bush left for President Obama. So far I have talked about President Reagan and his approach of cutting revenue in order to force the government to cut spending. We saw what happened. We could not or did not cut enough spending to keep our budget in balance. We had huge deficits even when Reagan tried to backtrack and raise more revenue. I have talked about President Clinton and his approach of raising taxes on the top 2 percent in order to bring the budget into balance. We saw what happened. The economy grew and we generated a record surplus. I have talked about President Bush and his approach of cutting taxes and incurring large expenses without worrying about the ramifications on the deficit. We saw what happened. Deficits ballooned and when the economy crashed, it crashed hard. So what about President Obama? What has his approach been? Well, if you ask some people, including unfortunately many in this Chamber, they tell you that President Obama's approach was to go on a massive spending spree. Well, it is not true. Over his 4 budget years, Federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annual increase of 0.84 percent. You can hash these figures out, but here is a chart that comes from Market Watch, a publication of Dow Jones which also owns the Wall Street Journal, that shows Obama's increase in spending from 2010 to 2013. These are Reagan's. These are numbers from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, from the Office of Management and Budget. You can see the growth of Federal spending. This is lower than it was under any of the Presidents I talked about. Indeed, the article that ran with this chart concludes that the growth of Federal spending under President Obama is the lowest it has been since the Eisenhower administration during the wind-down from the Korean war. But remember that besides a $1.1 trillion deficit, President Obama inherited an economy that in the month he took office lost over 800,000 jobs. That was January. The next month, February, 2009, he lost about 700,000 jobs. But that is also the month in which we passed the Recovery Act. By the way, when the Recovery Act was passed in February of 2009, the unemployment rate was already above 8 percent. The Recovery Act, also known as the stimulus, is what people usually point to when pressed to explain why they think President Obama has increased spending. But the truth is that more than one-third of the Recovery Act was tax cuts. The stimulus cut taxes for 95 percent of American families. Another one-third was fiscal aid to the States, which were feeling the same budget crunch as the Federal Government but, in most cases, didn't have the option of running a deficit in tough years. Without the Recovery Act, imagine how many more teachers and firefighters and police officers would have had to have been laid off, and imagine what that would have meant to our economy, never mind what it would have meant to our communities. But the one-third that gets the most attention was the one-third that went toward creating jobs. Did it work? There are a few ways to answer that question, but the answer is the same every time: Yes. First, we can look at our chart and see that once the Recovery Act began to be implemented we started losing less jobs and then we started creating jobs. We have had 30 straight months of private job creation--of growth. Secondly, we can ask economists. The most reputable economists, including----

Mr. FRANKEN. Certainly.

Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Chair. That is too bad. I was going over what happened, reviewing what happened once the stimulus package had been passed in February, when unemployment was over 8 percent. And we can see as it started taking effect we lost less and less jobs and have since had 30 straight months of private sector job growth. I said we could ask economists. Most reputable economists, including those of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, agree the Recovery Act created or saved anywhere from 2.5 million to 3.5 million jobs. In the words of Mark Zandi, the economic adviser to Senator John McCain in his 2008 Presidential campaign, the Federal policy response to the financial crisis, including the stimulus, ``probably averted what could have been called the Great Depression 2.0.'' But we don't have to take the word of Mark Zandi. We don't have to take the word of all the other reputable economists. We don't even have to take the word of the Congressional Budget Office, although the CBO sort of exists for those of us in Congress. We can ask Jamie, Cecil, and Sheila. This is Jamie, working on the Duluth Lift Bridge a couple years back. This is a picture of Cecil, who is working on a highway extension project. Let's give Cecil his due. He is working on a highway extension project in Brooklyn Park in the suburban Twin Cities. Then we have Sheila. This is Sheila in front of her Bobcat working the night shift on an I-94 improvement project. These are people who were put back to work by the stimulus. Despite claims by some that the only jobs created by the stimulus went to government bureaucrats, we will notice Jamie, Cecil, and Sheila are not, in fact, government bureaucrats. Thankfully, we do not let government bureaucrats operate heavy machinery. What can we say about the approach of President Obama so far? He slowed the growth of Federal spending to its lowest level since Eisenhower. He has cut taxes--not just in the stimulus package but many times during his first term--to the tune of more than $850 billion. When the economy was at its low point, he made investments and put people back to work in the short-term and prevented things from getting even worse. There was another road we could have taken. That approach would have involved not just cutting spending but gutting the government, and it definitely wouldn't have involved making investments to put people back to work. We will never know whether that approach--known as austerity--would have gotten us results such as the ones reflected on the previous chart, but we do know what happened in countries where they tried this alternate approach. This is a chart of European countries that went the austerity route. This is GDP from 2008 to 2012. This would be where President Obama became President and this is Europe and we all were seeing a global meltdown. These are countries that did austerity in Europe, and this is the United States. The evidence tells us our way worked. President Obama's way worked and theirs did not. Of course, while we are better off than we were 4 years ago and better off than we would be if we had tried austerity instead of the approach taken by President Obama, which, if we look at the growth in spending, was pretty close to austerity, we are obviously still not where we want to be, either in terms of our economy or in terms of our deficit. What is the right way going forward? First, let us talk about deficit reduction. It is clear to me that any solution that does not include both increased revenue and decreased spending simply isn't going to work. The hole is too big for us to tax our way out or to cut our way out. We have to do both. The hole is, in fact, so big we can't even get out of it just by taxing and cutting. We have to grow our way out too. That is why I think we need to invest in education, and infrastructure, and innovation. That means early childhood education, which has a return of investment in every study--quality early childhood education--of $16 for every $1 spent, and in workforce training, in roads and bridges and rural broadband, in clean energy and health care technology. I don't think only government can create jobs. I know that. But I know that only government can make those critical investments that will help the private sector create jobs, and I know it works when we do. It worked after World War II, it worked under President Clinton, and it worked in the Recovery Act. Those investments, however, cost money, and we will not be able to afford them unless we reduce our deficits. I think people who talk about cutting spending should say what spending they want to cut. I want to cut spending, so let me tell you what spending I want to cut. I want to cut the billions in subsidies we give to oil companies that simply don't need them. I want to let Medicare negotiate for pharmaceuticals under Part D, just as the VA does, because prohibiting Medicare from doing so amounts to a subsidy for pharmaceutical companies, one that, again, they do not need. I want to make cuts in our military budget, because as the comprehensive defense review found--begun under Secretary Gates and completed under Secretary Panetta--we can make hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the defense budget without compromising our fundamental security and military interests. Of course, we can't only cut the things we think are easy calls to cut. We are going to have to cut some things we don't want to cut. Speaking personally, I have already had to vote for some of those hard cuts, and it was not fun. But there simply aren't enough cuts to make. It is clear to me, if we are going to protect our most vulnerable Americans--our children, the sick, the disabled, our seniors--and make the investments that will grow our middle class and our economy, we are going to have to raise revenue. Just like President Reagan--but unlike some of today's Republicans--I know we don't raise revenue by cutting taxes. That is why I support restoring the Bush tax cuts for the first $250,000 of income but after that allowing the top marginal rate to go back to where it was under President Clinton. I know that, as they did in 1993, people will argue that doing so will hurt the economy. But I am equally confident that, as they were in 1993, they will be wrong. I know we all come to the debate about our Nation's challenges with different philosophies and different convictions and I respect that many of my colleagues feel they would be betraying their own political core by asking the wealthy to pay a little more or investing taxpayer dollars in job creation. I didn't feel great about all the cuts I had to vote for over the last couple years either. But I don't think we are going to get anywhere if we are so invested in following our own ideologies that we refuse to acknowledge the lessons of where we have been or the truth about where we are and where we are headed. We are not going to get anywhere if we can't agree that, yes, the government does have a role to play in helping the private sector create jobs; and, no, we will not cut the deficit by cutting taxes; and, yes, we are going to have to both raise revenue and reduce spending if we want to get a balanced budget; and, no, asking the wealthy to pay a little more will not drive us back into a recession. We have debated these issues a lot this year and we haven't resolved the argument. Now we are going home, and it is the American people's time. It is the American people who get to have their say. I hope that over the next 6 weeks we lead them in a debate worthy of the challenges we face--a debate rooted in the facts and mindful of our history. I hope when we come back we are ready to have that kind of worthy debate ourselves and then make the tough calls, as our constituents will in November. I wish my colleagues well over the recess, and I look forward to getting back to our important work when we return. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. On this vote, the yeas are 58 and the nays are 40. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. The point of order is sustained, and the amendment falls. Under the previous order, the cloture motions with respect to amendment No. 2789 and S. 3457 are withdrawn and the bill will be returned to the calendar. The majority leader.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Franken pertaining to the introduction of S. 3557 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

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

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a bill I have just introduced, the Arbitration Fairness for Students Act, and to talk about why it is so important to protect our Nation's students. Access to higher education is becoming increasingly important in our Nation. In 2018, 70 percent of the jobs in our State, Minnesota, will require some postsecondary education. We must also make sure access to higher education remains and stays a positive experience and not a damaging one. Colleges and universities need to deliver on the promises they make to students. If they don't, students need to be able to hold them accountable. That is why I have introduced this bill today along with Senator Harkin and six cosponsors, including Senator Sanders. It would prohibit any school participating in the title IV Federal student aid system from forcing its students to forego access to the courts when they have a valid dispute and instead forcing them into private arbitration proceedings. This bill is simply about accountability. It is about the basic American right to seek justice in our court system--a right that is, unfortunately, being denied now to thousands of students after the landmark Supreme Court decision in the AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion case. A recent report from Public Citizen and the National Association of Consumer Advocates highlights how that decision is harming students. Before that decision, thousands of students who had attended a chain of culinary schools formed a class action lawsuit alleging that the school had exaggerated the salaries of its graduates, and they won. The students received payments of up to $20,000 each, which they desperately needed since, according to the lawsuits, these students typically had more than $40,000 in student loan debt. But that was before the Concepcion decision, which now allows corporations to block class action lawsuits through the use of mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts. Now, a group of students who can prove they were lied to by their college can be barred from accessing our court system. I think that is wrong, and my bill would change that. But don't just take it from me. Take it from judges who are ruling in the post-Concepcion world and who believe that students are being hurt. In one recent case students alleged that a school misrepresented basic facts, such as the cost of education and the school's accreditation status. The students even showed they had to sign the enrollment contract, which contained the mandatory arbitration clause, before they were allowed to speak to financial aid counselors. The court ruled against the students, citing the Concepcion decision. According to the court: The argument had considerable validity and the court would likely have found the Arbitration Agreements at issue here unconscionable . . . if it were issuing this decision pre- Concepcion. The court also said that Concepcion ``likely foreclosed the possibility of any recovery for many wronged individuals.'' As I said, this bill is about accountability. It is also about college affordability. Our higher education system often requires students to take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt. In exchange for this debt, students believe they are receiving an education that will allow them to pay that money back, often because that is exactly what the school is telling them. But what if the school is lying? Students need to be able to hold those schools accountable for their actions. Otherwise, what is going to stop other schools from charging whatever they want and convincing their students they can afford it by lying? We can stop these anticonsumer, antistudent contracts, and my bill would do just that. Congress has acted several times to protect individual industries from abuse of mandatory arbitration clauses. In 2001, Congress heard from William Shack, a long-time automobile dealer from Nevada. He told his story to Congress about how he and a partner had been working together to open a Saturn dealership, investing a lot of money, when Saturn suddenly pulled the deal. As a result of the arbitration clause in their contract, Mr. Shack and his partner were required to arbitrate the dispute. In his testimony, he said Federal legislation was the only remedy available to protect auto dealers from the imposition of these unfair contract provisions and to preserve State procedural and substantive protections. He explained: We reject categorically the idea that we ``voluntarily'' agreed to submit to mandatory binding arbitration. The most compelling portion of Mr. Shack's testimony was this: [T]he dispute drove home to us in a drastic fashion just how one-sided the mandatory binding arbitration process can be for dealers. We were surprised to learn that, despite the great system of justice that we have in this country, we could be deprived of the basic right to an impartial decision on the merits of our case. That is a grave injustice. In response to stories like Mr. Shack's, Senator Orrin Hatch introduced the Motor Vehicle Franchise Contract Arbitration Fairness Act. The bill had 66 cosponsors--an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Unsurprisingly, there was opposition to this legislation-- the Chamber of Commerce testified against it. But Congress decided to prioritize the rights of auto dealers to seek justice in our courts, and in November of 2002, Congress passed this bill and made it law. Today automobile dealers cannot be bound by mandatory arbitration provisions in their contracts with their manufacturers. This change didn't result in a flood of litigation. It simply provided some equal footing for small auto dealerships to bargain with the large manufacturers. Once Congress determined that this particular industry was subject to the abuse, it took action to protect the vulnerable party. Congress again acted in 2007 to protect members of our Armed Services. Congress heard from military leaders that predatory lending targeted at our Nation's servicemembers was impairing our country's military readiness. In response, Republican Senator Jim Talent from Missouri, along with his colleague Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, a Democrat, introduced an amendment to the 2006 national defense authorization bill. Their provision prohibited predatory lending practices, including a prohibition on enforcing mandatory arbitration clauses in financial agreements with servicemembers. This amendment passed the Senate unanimously, and it went into effect in 2007. Despite strong opposition from the Wall Street lobby, Congress came together in a bipartisan manner to target abuses against our servicemembers. In addition to auto dealers and servicemembers, Congress has also taken up the plight of poultry growers. In a 2007 hearing in the Senate Agriculture Committee, one witness shared this terrible story. Gertrude Overstreet was a 67-year-old contract poultry farmer. She operated two chicken houses, so her total monthly income, including food stamps, was less than $1,000 a month for her and her husband. Mrs. Overstreet had a 10th grade education. When the poultry producer for whom she worked violated the terms of their agreement, that company required Mrs. Overstreet to bring her claim into arbitration, where she was required to pay $27,000 in upfront costs before she could even get a hearing. Mrs. Overstreet didn't know what arbitration was or that her legal remedies had been stripped from her. This is an elderly couple who could not afford the cost of their medication, much less $20,000 in upfront arbitration fees. This might be the most compelling example of disparate bargaining power, a giant poultry processor versus Mrs. Overstreet. But Senator Grassley took up this cause and introduced the Fair Contracts for Growers Act. Thanks to his efforts, when the farm bill passed the following year, it included provisions that enabled poultry farmers to opt out of mandatory arbitration clauses imposed by the big processors. Most recently, Congress took up an amendment that I introduced in the national defense authorization bill in the fall of 2009. Some of the most offensive uses of mandatory arbitration clauses that I have seen are by overseas military contractors against women who have been victimized on the job. Too many women working for military contractors have had to endure unimaginable workplace harassment and environments. Those women deserve their right to a day in court just like the auto dealers, the servicemembers, and the poultry farmers. Once again, the amendment passed with broad bipartisan support. Once again, Congress took steps to tackle the most egregious abuses of mandatory arbitration. When confronted with a group that has been victimized by mandatory arbitration clauses, Congress has repeatedly taken steps to protect the little guy and their right to a day in court, and we have done so on a bipartisan basis. I believe Minnesota's students--and students across the country--deserve the same protection we have afforded to auto dealers, to servicemembers, poultry farmers, and employees of military contractors. The Arbitration Fairness for Students Act would provide that protection, and I urge my colleagues to support it.