Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I look forward to working with the Senator to make further improvements as well. As I have told the Senator from Oregon in the past, I have some serious concerns about several elements of this plan, including the imposition of mandates; subsidies for higher income individuals; the impact on current market competition; the FDA labeling language regarding comparative effectiveness studies; and the issue of how to determine the appropriate level of coverage offered as part of a health care reform regime. As you know, the bill uses the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, FEHBP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BCBS, standard plan as he actuarial equivalent for the Healthy Americans Private Insurance, HAPI, plans. As the bill moves forward, our goal should be to create a more cost- effective benchmark that focuses on preventive care and core health care services to encourage greater individual responsibility on over- utilization of care.

Mr. GREGG. I appreciate Senator Wyden's comments and I am hopeful that by joining forces with colleagues on both sides of the aisle on a private market approach, we can begin a bi-partisan dialogue, work through our differences, and find workable solutions that will result in a better health care system for all.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I listened this morning to President Obama as he spoke on the budget. In attendance with him were the chairmen of the Budget Committees in the Senate and the House, Chairman Conrad and Chairman Spratt. Essentially, the President was defending his budget, as proposed and sent up here to the Hill. His theme was we should not pass on problems to the next generation. Thus, he said, his budget took on the issue of energy and took on the issue of health care as being core questions that need to be resolved now and not be passed on to the next generation. I could not agree with him more--first, that we should not pass on problems to the next generation, and, secondly, we should take on the problems we have today. And they are fairly big. Where I disagree with him is the conclusion that the budget he sent up here does not pass problems on to the next generation. In fact, it passes the most significant problem on to the next generation, which is that it so greatly expands the size of Government in such a short period of time with so much borrowing that it basically will bankrupt our children and our children's children as a result of the cost of Government going forward. People do not have to believe me to recognize this. All they have to do is look at the President's budget. In 5 years, the President's budget will double the national debt. In 10 years, the President's budget will triple the national debt. To try to put this in perspective, if you take all the debt the U.S. Government has run up since the beginning of our country--from George Washington all the way through to George W. Bush, that total amount of debt--in 5 years it will be doubled under this budget, as sent up by President Obama. Now, a lot of that debt that is being run up in the short run I am not going to claim is inappropriate in the sense that it is something that is under his control or that he is responsible for as President. In fact, I agree that we as a nation need to expand our spending as a government in the short run in order to try to address this recessionary period, and specifically to try to stabilize our financial situation, our financial system. I do not happen to agree with the stimulus package which was passed. I do not agree with the omnibus package which was passed. They were both profligate and unfocused, money being spent inappropriately and inefficiently. But I am willing to accept the fact in the short run there has to be a spike in our national debt in order to address this recession. What is not tolerable, however, is that under this budget, after the short run--after this period from 2008, 2009, say, through 2011, when the recession, by all estimates, will hopefully be over--we will still be running the debt up radically, as sent up by this President. In fact, it doubles in 5 years, but it triples in 10 years, which means there is--I am not aware that a recession in the last 5 years of this budget is being proposed; I certainly hope it is not being proposed, but certainly there is nothing that requires that type of a radical expansion in our debt over that period. The practical implications of this doubling of the debt are that by the time the budget gets into the year 2013, the public debt of this country will be, as a ratio of GDP, 67 percent of GDP. I suspect when CBO scores the President's numbers at the end of this week it will probably be close to 70 percent of GDP. What does that mean? Well, try to put this in perspective. Prior to the recession, our public debt--that is the debt held by people such as the Chinese, for example, and the Europeans--our public debt--the debt which we sell to the world in order to finance our Government--was about 40 percent of our gross national product. That is an acceptable level. Most economists will say we can tolerate a debt to gross national product ratio of 40 percent. But when it gets up to around 70 percent, when it gets over 60 percent--when it gets into those numbers--it is not tolerable. You might be able to tolerate it for a little while, for a few years, but you cannot tolerate it for an extended period of time. What the President is proposing is that 67 percent of public debt to GDP ratio--which will be over 70 percent, I suspect, when it is rescored that goes on forever. In addition, the deficit, beginning in the year 2012, under the President's budget, will be at 3 percent to 4 percent of gross national product. Now, historically, over the last 20 years--prior to the recession--the deficit has been around 2 percent of gross national product. Why is it important to keep that down? Because every time you run a deficit, you add to the public debt. When you get into the 3- to 4-percent range of annual deficits as a percentage of GDP, you are essentially adding so much debt so quickly every year that basically your Government becomes unaffordable. That is the bottom line here. What happens, as you go into the outyears when you triple the debt and keep the deficit at around 3 percent or 4 percent of GDP the currency starts to be under pressure. The dollar becomes questioned as to its value. People start asking, especially in the international community: Do we dare buy American debt? In fact, you heard, regrettably, the Chinese Premier raise that issue already. If you cannot sell the debt and you cannot finance the Government, you do not have too many choices. You must move to inflation. That is not a good choice for Americans. So basically what you are putting in place is a structural debt and a structural deficit under the President's proposal which simply is not affordable, which means our children are either going to be overwhelmed by a tax burden or they are going to find a country where inflation is rampant or basically the standard of living has dropped significantly. Why does this all happen? Well, it happens primarily because under the President's budget he is taking spending up radically. Sure, in the short run that may be acceptable because we are trying to address this recession. But he does not bring spending back down to its historic levels. This chart I have in the Chamber shows you that the historic level of spending of the Federal Government has been at about 20 percent of gross national product. We have been up and down around 20 percent for years. But under President Obama's proposal, he radically moves the Government to the left, greatly expanding the Government role in all sorts of areas: in energy, in health care, in education. As a result, he takes Federal spending up to 23 percent of gross national product and keeps it there for as far as the eye can see and revenues stay down at about 19 percent, so you have this big structural deficit in here. Even if you were to take revenues up to 23 percent of gross national product, the practical effect would be that you would be wiping out most people's incomes with taxes. The President says he is only going to raise taxes on the wealthiest in America. That, first, is inaccurate because he has put in this proposal a massive carbon tax, which is basically a national sales tax on electricity, and every time you turn on your electric lights, you are going to end up with a new tax, a new national Federal tax. But independent of that, he cannot get this debt under control with this type of spending level unless he radically increases the tax burden on working Americans--all Americans--to a point where basically productivity would drop significantly in this country, and that would be a self-fulfilling event, of course. Once productivity drops, your revenues drop, and you never get back to an efficient marketplace and, therefore, you probably aggravate the deficit. But the problem is, this huge debt he is running up and passing on to the next generation--this tripling of the Federal debt, about which he says: We do not pass problems on to the next generation--this is a pretty darn big problem that is being passed on to the next generation--is driven almost entirely by spending, spending at the Federal level, which he greatly expands. Under the proposal which he has put forward as a blueprint--this budget proposal--his way of solving the health care problem is to essentially nationalize health care. His way of solving the educational problem is to essentially nationalize the student loan program. His way of solving the energy problem is not to produce more energy in America, it is basically to significantly increase the cost of energy in America to all Americans by putting in place a carbon tax, which is a national sales tax. His way of addressing the issues which we confront, which are reasonable, philosophical approaches, is to significantly increase the size of Government and, thus, the cost of Government and, thus, to create this huge debt, this massive debt, which we are not going to be able to finance and which is, therefore, going to threaten the economic strength of our Nation and clearly give our children something less than we received. Therefore, when he says he is not going to pass the problems on to the next generation, the exact opposite is true. He is creating a huge problem for the next generation in the way he wants to spend this money. Now, there is a second issue I want to address today. That goes to the issue of the substance of the points made today at the press conference. This could be addressed, of course--this issue of spending and those questions regarding these major public policies--if he wanted to reach across the aisle and approach things in a bipartisan way. Senator Conrad, the Chairman of the Budget Committee, and I have proposed an idea calling for a commission with fast-track authority which essentially would talk on the big issues which drive this spending problem--health care, specifically; Social Security, also; and tax policy--and would allow us, in a bipartisan way, to come forward and grapple with these issues and put forward ideas as to how to solve them and bring under control these numbers so they are affordable and so we do not run up this massive debt on our children. That is a bipartisan initiative which I am totally committed to. In the area of energy, there are a number of bipartisan initiatives which make sense. But we are now hearing that rather than proceeding on a bipartisan path to try to address these issues, they are going to think about using something called reconciliation. That is a term of art around here. Most people do not know what it means. But what it essentially means is that you say here in the Senate that the Senate will function as an autocracy, it will function like the House of Representatives, that you will have the ability to bring to the floor a bill which will not essentially be amendable and which will only take 51 votes to pass. Reconciliation was a concept enacted as part of the congressional budget process, and its use has evolved. Its purpose was to reconcile the budget. In other words, if the numbers on spending around here did not meet the budget, then there would be a bill to correct that, so that if the appropriations numbers were not correct or the entitlement numbers were not correct or the tax numbers were not correct, there could be a bill that comes through called reconciliation, which would follow the budget resolution. Sometimes over the years, it has been used in an aggressive way. It was used to adjust already existing programs--authorized programs, entitlement programs, and tax proposals. President Bush used it aggressively on taxes. In 1997, President Clinton used it aggressively, along with a Republican Congress, on everything--entitlements and taxes--but it was always directed at existing policy and adjusting that policy. In other words, we were raising the tax rate or dropping the tax rate, changing an entitlement program in some way that already existed or not changing an entitlement program. Reconciliation has never been used for the purposes of putting in place a dramatic new Federal program which will fundamentally shift the way the Government functions in this country. It has never been used in the sense of an ab initio event or program. The carbon tax--or, as I call it, the national sales tax on electric bills--is a massive exercise in industrial policy, totally redirecting how energy is produced in this Nation and affecting everybody in this Nation because everybody's energy bill will be increased as a result of this tax, especially in the Midwest and in the Northeast. It is a brand new program--something we have never seen before. It is a huge program. Obviously, rewriting the health care system of this country is a dramatic exercise affecting absolutely everyone in this Nation at all sorts of different levels. It is a brand new, major program. These are initiatives of significant size and import. Reconciliation was never conceived to undertake those types of events, those types of initiatives. You can't bring to the floor of the Senate a bill which totally rewrites the way people produce and pay for energy in this Nation with a brand new national sales tax, under a rule that says you will get 20 hours of debate and no amendments, and have the Senate function as is its purpose, which is to be a place of discussion and amendment. It would function like the House of Representatives, that is true, but it would basically eliminate the Senate as a concept and it would go right directly at destroying the purposes of the Senate. The same, of course, is true, to bring a major initiative--to basically rewrite health care completely--basically quasi-nationalize it, as far as I can see, is the proposal--but to have a massive health care initiative which would affect everything that has to do with health care brought to the floor of the Senate under reconciliation would be to fundamentally undermine the purposes of the Senate, which is to discuss, debate, and have the right to amend major public policy. I can't think of two things which would be more significant public policy than those initiatives. Yes, if they used this system of reconciliation, they would take serious risks because they would be subject to something known as the Byrd Rule on public policy, but just the concept that they would be thinking about this is the reflection of their willingness to ignore the concept of bipartisanship which we hear so much about. If you are going to talk about reconciliation, you are talking about something that has nothing to do with bipartisanship; you are talking about the exact opposite of bipartisanship. You are talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement, and throwing them in the Chicago River. Basically, it takes the minority completely out of the process of having a right to have any discussion, say, or even the right to amend something so fundamental as a piece of legislation of this significance. It also, I would note, takes anybody who disagrees, even on the majority side, out of the discussion, anybody who disagrees with the actual document brought to the floor under the reconciliation instructions. So using reconciliation in this manner, on this type of an issue, would do fundamental harm--fundamental harm--to the institution of the Senate. Why even have a Senate if you are going to use reconciliation on something this significant? You might as well just go to a unicameral body and be like Nebraska: just have one body. It would be the House of Representatives because that would be the practical effect of using reconciliation. It is such a dangerous precedent to set or to even discuss because by discussing it, you basically devalue the purposes of the Senate, which is to amend and debate and have an open forum; one where, as Washington said, the hot coffee can be poured from the teacup into the saucer. The Senate is supposed to be the saucer. It is supposed to be where we get an airing, and certainly on issues of this size we should have it. So I certainly hope we have no further discussion of the idea of using reconciliation for the purposes of pursuing either a national sales tax on energy called the carbon tax and the policies it would imply for industrial policy relative to energy production in this Nation or for the massive rewrite of health care. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to address, again, the issue of the budget as proposed by the President of the United States, which is about to be taken up by the Budget Committees of the Senate and the House, and its implications for us as a nation because the implications of it are rather dramatic. Now, I understand--and all of us on our side of the aisle understand--the last election was won by the President and his party, that the Democratic Party now controls both the House and the Senate and the administration and, therefore, they have absolute responsibility and the right to send us a budget which reflects their priorities. But I think we ought to have openness as to what the implications of that budget are relative to the future of our Nation, and they are dramatic. As you look at the budget that has been proposed by this administration, it represents the largest expansion of Government in our history. It is a proposal which is essentially moving the Government into arenas with an aggressiveness that has never been seen before. It has in it the largest tax increase in history, as well as the fastest increase in the debt of our Nation in history. The taxes go up by $1.4 trillion under this budget. Discretionary spending, which is spending that is not entitlement spending, goes up by $725 billion. Entitlement spending--which are things such as health care--goes up by $1.2 trillion. Yet there is no effort to save money in this budget to reduce the cost of spending and the cost of the Government. Instead, there is an expansion of the Government in this rather aggressive way. The practical effect of this is that within 5 years the debt of the United States held by the public will double. That means in the first 5 years of this administration--presuming it is reelected--they will have increased the debt more than the debt was increased since the founding of the Republic all the way through the Presidency of George W. Bush; they will have doubled the debt of the country. In 10 years, because of this massive expansion in the size of the Government, they will triple the debt of the country. What does ``debt'' mean? What does tripling the debt from $5.8 trillion to $15 trillion in 10 years mean? Well, basically, it means Americans coming into the workforce, Americans of the next generation, and the generation that follows that generation, will bear a burden from our generation--that the costs of today are being offloaded onto our children. The result of that is very simple. Our children and our grandchildren will have a country which will not give them as much opportunity as our country has given us because the burden from our generation will be weighing them down. The costs we have run up as a generation and passed on to them will set them behind the starting line. They will end up having less opportunity to buy a house, send their kids to college, live a quality of life we have lived because they will start out with a debt and a burden of a government which exceeds, in many instances, their ability to pay. We are, under this proposal, heading the Nation into an untenable situation. In the area of deficits, which translates into debt--a deficit is what happens at the end of the year when your bills come in. If you have more bills than you have income, you end up with a deficit. That, then, becomes debt. In the area of deficits, this budget takes us up dramatically in the next 2 years to an all-time high--a number that is hardly even contemplatable--a $1.7 trillion deficit this coming year. That is 28 percent of gross national product being spent by the Federal Government. Now, I am willing to accept this number and not debate it because we are in a recession. It is necessary for the Government to step in and be aggressive, and the Government is the last source of liquidity. So one can argue that this number, although horribly large, is something we will simply have to live with. What one can't accept is what happens in the outyears--rather than bringing this deficit down to a reasonable number, a number which would be sustainable for our children to bear-- because the President is proposing to expand the Government dramatically, its size and its cost. He is proposing deficits as far as the eye can see of 3 to 4 percent of gross domestic product. What does that mean, 3 to 4 percent of gross domestic product? Well, historically, the deficit of the United States over the last 20 years has been 1.9 percent of gross domestic product. It means every year we are adding so much more debt than we can afford to our Nation that our children, again, will have less opportunity to succeed. To put it in numbers terms, historically, the debt of the Federal Government has been about 40 percent of gross domestic product. In these outyears--ignoring this situation which is driven by the very severe recession--in these outyears, the public debt compared to the gross domestic product will stay at about 67 percent of gross domestic product, not 40 percent, which is sustainable but 67 percent. Those are numbers which, if we were in another part of the world, would be described as a Banana Republic because they are not sustainable and they drive us up to a cost which is not affordable. Those are the numbers which are driving the tripling of the national debt in 10 years. One may say, well, where does that all come from, all this expansion of debt that is going to be put on our children's backs? It comes, quite simply, from spending. This administration has proposed the largest increase in the size of the Federal Government in our history, a massive shift to the left of the Government. This is a chart which shows the historical spending of the Federal Government as a percent of GDP. Historically, this line right here reflects the mean, which has been somewhere around 20 percent of gross national product. That is a big chunk of the gross national product to be spending on the Federal Government, but that is what we have been doing. With the recession, obviously, it spikes up to 28 percent, but the point is that this administration doesn't plan to bring it down to historical levels; rather, they intend to keep spending at around 22 to 23 percent of gross national product. That is not affordable. It is not sustainable. Why is it not sustainable? Because they don't increase taxes to that level. If they did, they would basically be creating a confiscatory situation for young people who are going into the workforce; rather, they simply run up debt to try to cover that difference at a catastrophically fast rate. We have to bring this spending line down if we are going to have a responsible budget. Now, why does this go up so much? Why does this spending level go up so much? Well, it goes up so much because essentially they are planning to nationalize large segments of the economy; to have the Government take over the responsibility for large segments of the economy. The most specific area they do this in is in educational loans, where today we have what is known as the public-private balance, where some people get their loans directly from the Federal Government and some people get their loans from the private sector. They are going to end that policy, and they are going to have the Federal Government take over all lending. That is the most specific. However, if you look at their health care policy, they are moving in that direction there too. They have suggested in this budget that we should increase health care spending as a downpayment for $634 billion. That is a downpayment. The actual number of the increase is closer to $1.2 trillion in new health care spending. What does that really mean? Well, essentially we as a government and we as a nation spend 17 percent of our gross national product on health care. That is much more than any other industrialized nation in the world spends. The next closest nation spends about 12 or 11 percent. So it isn't that we are not spending enough on health care in this country; it is that we don't use it very well--the money. We don't allocate it very well, and we don't use it efficiently. What the administration suggests is that we should expand that spending in the area of health care by another $1.2 trillion, as they move the Federal Government into the role of basically deciding how health care should be managed in this country, in a much more direct way. That is one of the reasons this spending line stays up so high. At the same time, they are suggesting massive new tax increases-- massive new tax increases--the largest tax increases in history. Now, this has been covered with the argument that, oh, this is just going to tax the wealthy; the rich among us are going to be the ones who pay these taxes. Well, that is a canard. That is a straw dog. When you start increasing taxes at the rate they are proposed to be increased in this budget--$1.4 trillion of new taxes--you are going to hit everybody. You are going to hit everybody pretty hard. There is in this budget proposal something that is euphemistically called a carbon tax. That is a term of art to cover up what it really is. It is a national sales tax on your electrical bill. It is estimated by MIT, a fairly objective institution, that this national sales tax on your electrical bill will raise around $300 billion a year. That is $300 billion a year that will be added to your electrical bill. The administration says it is $64 billion, but the same program they are talking about when looked at by an objective group at MIT, they concluded the real cost would be $300 billion. Whether it is $64 billion or $300 billion, it is a huge tax that is going to affect every American when they get their electrical bill. In addition, they have this tax which they call the wealthy tax. People making over $250,000, they are essentially going to nationalize their income and say: If you make more than $250,000 we are going to raise your tax rate up to an effective rate of 42 percent. Well, I guess if you don't make that type of money, it probably doesn't bother you, but think about the people who are making $250,000. For the most part, they are small business people. They run a restaurant. They run a small software company. They run a small manufacturing firm. They are the people who create jobs in this country. Most small businesses are sole proprietorships or subchapter S corporations. The money they make is taxed to the individual who runs the small company. Whether it is a restaurant or a software company or a small manufacturer, it is taxed to them personally. What do they do with that money? They take it and they invest it in their small business. Where are jobs created in this Nation? They are created by small business. This is a tax on small business. Then, of course, they raise the capital gains rates. They raise the dividend rates. Aren't we in a recession? Why would you raise taxes on the productive side of the economy when you are in a recession? Is that constructive to getting out of the recession? No. In fact, the stock markets are saying exactly that. They are looking at this budget and saying: Wow, this is the largest increase in the Government ever proposed, and it is going to be borne by the people who are the entrepreneurs and the small business people. So do we really want to invest in America? Do we really want to put our money into the effort to try to make this country grow? Second thoughts. That is what is happening in the stock market. It is not constructive to economic growth. Tax policy has to be constructed in a way that creates an incentive for people to go out and take risks. It creates an incentive for people to be willing to take their money and invest in something that is going to create jobs. When it is said to someone we are going to take 40 cents of the next dollar they make and throw State and local taxes on top of that--for example, in New York, it would amount to almost 60 percent of the next dollar they make--people start to think: Well, why should I invest in something that is a taxable event? Let me invest in something that is not a taxable event. So instead of getting an efficient use of capital, people are running around investing their money to try to avoid taxes. As a result, we don't create more jobs; we just create more tax attorneys. Well, maybe that is jobs. I used to be a tax attorney, so I shouldn't pick on tax attorneys, but as a practical matter, it is not an efficient way to use capital. We saw over the last 7 years prior to this recession--and granted, this recession has created an aberration for everything that is economic--we had a tax policy which saw the largest increase in revenues for 4 straight years that this country has ever experienced. We saw a tax policy which basically stood on its head the idea that if we maintain a low tax burden in capital gains, we would collect less taxes. In fact, it did just the opposite. We collected much more taxes from capital gains. In fact, over the last 7 years, because of the tax policy that was in place, the Tax Code became more progressive. The top 20 percent of income producers in this country ended up paying 85.7 percent of the income taxes in the country. That was compared with the Clinton years when the top 20 percent of income producers in this country paid 82 percent of the taxes. At the same time, the bottom 40 percent of people receiving income in this country ended up getting twice as much back because they don't pay income taxes and they get a rebate in many instances through the EITC. They ended up getting twice as much back than during the Clinton years. So you actually had in the last 7 years a tax policy that encouraged growth, encouraged entrepreneurship, encouraged job creation, which was generating more revenues to the Federal Treasury, and yet being more progressive than during the period of the Clinton years. What the administration has suggested is, we should not only go back to the Clinton years, we should do even more by taking an effective rate that will even go above the rate of the Clinton years to 42 percent, 41 percent. It makes no sense, especially in a time of recession, to basically have that sort of attack on small business and job producers in our Nation. So this budget is a statement of policy which is pretty definitive, and I don't believe it is very constructive. It is a statement of policy which says we are going to radically expand the spending in this country. We are going to radically expand the size of Government in this country. We are going to end up after 5 years with Government we can't afford, that is spending more than at any time in our history, and that is running up deficits which are going to compound the problems for our children. It is not constructive, in my opinion. I think we can do a lot better, and we can do it this year rather than wait. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Tennessee. I know the Senator from Tennessee will not be surprised to learn that there is no entitlement reform in this budget; that this budget, regrettably, dramatically increases entitlement spending. The chart I have here reflects that increase. If you would use the present baseline on entitlement spending, that would be the blue. Now that is going up pretty fast. During this period, it would go from $1.2 trillion up to almost $2.4 trillion. That is the baseline, if you did nothing. Now one would have presumed with that type of increase in entitlement spending, and the fact that this budget, as it is proposed, is going to run up a public debt which will double in 5 years and triple in 10 years, that it will create a deficit this coming year of $1.7 trillion and a deficit in the last year of the budget of $700 billion--deficits which are larger in the last years of this budget than have historically been those that we have borne as a nation over the last 20 years, and a debt which will go from $5.8 trillion to $15 trillion plus. One would have presumed that in that area where the budget is growing the fastest, and which represents the largest amount of cost, that this administration would have stepped forward and said: Well, we can't afford that; we have to try to slow the rate of growth of spending in that area, or at least not have increased it. But what the President's budget has done is they have proposed to dramatically increase the amount of spending in the entitlement accounts. Most of this increase will come in health care. Now, people say, and legitimately so, that we have to reform our health care delivery system in this country; that we have to get better with health care in this country. But does that mean we have to spend a lot more money on it? No. We spend 17 percent of our national product, of what we produce as a nation, on health care. The closest country to us in the industrialized world only spends 11\1/2\ percent of their product on health care. So we have a massive amount of money we are spending on health care as an industrialized nation that is available to correct our health care system. We don't have to increase it even further. What the President is proposing is to increase health care spending. As a downpayment, they are saying $600 billion, but actually what they are proposing is $1.2 trillion of new entitlement spending in health care. No control there. In addition, as the Senator from Tennessee noted, they are taking programs which have traditionally been discretionary, which have therefore been subject to some sort of fiscal discipline around here, because they are subject to what is known as spending caps on discretionary programs, and taking these programs and moving them over to the entitlement accounts. Why? Because then there is no discipline. You spend the money, and you keep spending the money, and there is no accountability. So they are taking the entire Pell program out of discretionary accounts and moving it over to entitlement accounts. As the Senator from Tennessee noted, this is over $100 billion of new entitlement spending. If we keep this up, what is it going to do? Essentially, what it is going to do is bankrupt our country, but it will certainly bankrupt our kids. We are going to pass on to them a country which has this massive increase in debt--something our children can't afford, as I mentioned earlier--a debt which will double in 5 years because of the spending, and triple in 10 years. Almost all of this growth in debt is a function of the growth of the entitlement spending in this program. Although there is a considerable amount of growth in discretionary, the vast majority of this increase is in spending for entitlement programs. To put it another way, and to show how much this is out of the ordinary and how much this is a movement of our government to the left--an expansion of government as a function of our society--this chart shows what historically the spending of the Federal Government has been. It has historically been about 20 percent of gross national product. That has been an affordable number. Granted, we have run deficits during a lot of this period, but at least it has been reasonably affordable. But this administration is proposing in their budget that we spike the spending radically next year, which is understandable because we are in the middle of a very severe recession and the government is the source of liquidity to try to get the economy going. So that is understandable. Maybe not that much, but maybe understandable. It is more than I would have suggested, but I will accept that. The problem is out here, when you get out to the year 2011, 2012, and 2013, when the recession is over. When the recession is over, they do not plan to control spending. They plan to continue spending on an upward path so it is about 23 percent of gross national products. What does that mean? That means we are going to run big deficits, big debt, and all of that will be a burden and fall on the shoulders of our children. Our children are the ones who have to pay this cost.

Mr. GREGG. Yes. When President Clinton raised taxes in the mid 1990s, and a Republican Congress came into play, we controlled spending. He got his tax increase, the deficit went down, because the tax increase was put to reducing the deficit. What President Obama is proposing is that he increase taxes by $1.4 trillion--the largest tax increase in the history of our country. Is it going to be used to reduce the deficit? No, just the opposite. It is going to be used to grow the government and allow the government to now take 23 percent of gross national product instead of the traditional 20 percent. So you can't close this gap. Basically, all the new taxes in this bill--and there are a lot of them. There is a national sales tax on everybody's electric bill, a tax which is basically going to hit most every small business in this country and make it harder for them to hire people; and a tax which limits the deductibility of charitable giving and of home mortgages. All these new taxes are not being used to get fiscal discipline in place, to try to bring down the debt, or limit the rate of growth of the debt, or to limit the size of the deficit. They are being used to explode--literally explode--the size of the Federal Government, with ideas such as nationalizing the educational loan system, ideas such as quasinationalization of the health care system, which is in here, and massive expansion of a lot of other initiatives that may be worthwhile but aren't affordable in the context of this agenda. So this budget is a tremendous expansion in spending, a tremendous expansion in borrowing, and a tremendous expansion in taxes. And it is not affordable for our children.

Mr. GREGG. That is a good point, and that has certainly been made by the other side of the aisle: Well, under the Bush administration all this spending was done and this debt was run up. In the first 5 years of the Obama administration, under their budget--not our numbers, their numbers--they will spend more and they will run up the debt on the country more and on our children more than all the Presidents since the beginning of our Republic--George Washington to George Bush. Take all those Presidents and put all the debt they put on the ledger of America, and in this budget President Obama is planning to run up more debt than occurred under all those Presidents. It is a massive expansion in debt. It is also an interesting exercise in tax policy. Now, I know we are not talking so much about taxes today, but I think it is important to point out that when you put a $1.4 trillion tax increase on the American people, you reduce productivity in this country rather dramatically. One of the unique things about President Bush's term was that he set a tax policy which actually caused us to have 4 years-- prior to this massive recession, which is obviously a significant problem and a very difficult situation--but for the runup during the middle part of his term right up until this recession started, the Federal Government was generating more revenues than it had ever generated in its history. Why was that? Because we had a tax policy which basically taxed people in a way that caused them to go out and be productive, to create jobs, and to do things which were taxable events. Unfortunately, what is being proposed here, under this administration's tax policy, is going to cause people to do tax avoidance. Instead of investing to create jobs, they will go out to invest to try to avoid taxes, and that is not an efficient way to use dollars. The practical effect is it will reduce revenues and increase the deficit. So on your point, the simple fact is, as this proposal comes forward from the administration, it increases the debt of the United States more in 5 years than all the Presidents of the United States have increased the debt since the beginning of the Republic.

Mr. GREGG. It has the largest increase in taxes, the largest increase in spending, and the largest increase in debt in the history of our country.

Mr. GREGG. I think the Senator is absolutely right. The stimulus package was a massive unfocused effort by people to fund things they liked. I don't think it was directed at stimulus. It was more directed at areas where people believed there needed to be more money, people who served on the Appropriations Committee, and therefore they massively funded those areas. Between the stimulus bill and the omnibus bill, there were 21 programs which received on average an 88-percent increase in funds for 2009 compared to 2008; $155 billion more was spent on those programs for this year than last year. That is just a massive explosion in the size of the Government. It is inconsistent with what the purposes of a stimulus package should have been. The stimulus package should have put money into the economy quickly for purposes of getting the economy going. What this bill did was basically, as you mentioned earlier, build programs that are going to be very hard to rein in. The obligations are there. They are going to have to be continued to be paid for, and, as the Senator from Arizona pointed out, that was probably the goal: to fundamentally expand the size of Government in a way that cannot be contracted. Take simply, for example, a very worthwhile exercise which is NIH. They received an extra $10 billion, I believe, on the stimulus package, for 2 years of research. Research doesn't take 2 years. Research takes years and years and years, so you know if you put in that type of money up front you are going to have to come in behind it and fill in those dollars in the outyears. They basically said you are going to radically expand the size of this initiative. The same thing happening in education. The same thing happening in health care. That is where this number goes up so much, 23 percent of gross national product, and it goes up from there. The only way you pay for it is basically taxing our children to the point they cannot have as high a quality of life as we have.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Tennessee for taking this time. I think it all comes down to these numbers. Really, what does spending do? Sure it does a lot of good things, but in the end, if you don't pay for it, it makes it more difficult for our country to succeed and for our children who inherit the debts to succeed. When you double the debt in 5 years because of the spending, and you triple it in 10 years, you are absolutely guaranteeing that you are passing on to our children a country where they will have less opportunities to succeed than our generation. That is not fair. It is simply not fair for one generation to do this to another generation. Yet that is what this budget proposes to do: to run up bills for our generation and take them and turn them over to our children and grandchildren at a rate greater than ever before, a rate of spending greater than has ever been seen before, and a rate of increasing the debt that has never been conceived of before, that you would triple the national debt in 10 years. It is not fair, it is not right, it is not appropriate, and it certainly is a major mistake, in my opinion.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I rise today to speak a little bit about where we are in our economic situation in this country and specifically as it is affected by the President's budget as he has brought it forward. I want to begin by acknowledging my respect and appreciation for what this administration has tried to do in the area of stabilizing the financial industry of this country. They, in conjunction with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and Larry Summers, the Special Adviser to the President, along, obviously, with the input of Chairman Volcker, have put together a very comprehensive effort to try to use the strengths of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Government to basically inject liquidity into the system and put stability into the financial system of the country. There has been a tremendous amount of commentary on this and much of it has reflected a lack of confidence in the initiatives that have been brought forward by this administration because, in many instances, they have not been as specific as they might have been. But the general thrust of what the administration has done in this area has been positive and I believe we are starting to see it work. The initial TARP dollars, which were put in by the prior administration, did stabilize the banking industry during a critical time. That has been followed on with additional TARP dollars from this administration, followed on by the initiatives from the Fed in the area of TALF, which basically is potentially over $1 trillion of support for new loans in the area of consumer credit and maybe commercial real estate; trying to do something in the mortgage area--initiatives have begun there using the FDIC and also the Treasury and the Fed again; in the area of basically underwriting the stability of major banking systems in the country, significant efforts have been made; and we are now hearing there is going to be an additional effort made to take toxic loans off the balance sheets of the banks using the leverage from the private sector. All this has been, in my opinion, the right way to go. I didn't support the stimulus package because I thought it was unfocused and I did not think the dollars were used as effectively as they might. I wanted to see the dollars in the real estate area. But as a very practical statement, on balance the efforts of this administration to try to stabilize the financial industry, because stabilizing the financial industry is critical to getting the economy going, have been positive in my opinion. There is still a long way to go and there are more specifics that need to come and I guess more of that is going to come this week. But that initiative to try to get this economy going and try to address the issue of people's concerns about their jobs and the value of their homes and their ability to live their lives in a constructive way in the face of severe financial distress which is being caused by this recession, stands in juxtaposition to this budget they have sent up. It is as if they have a ying and yang personality down there at the White House because they sent us up a whole group of ideas in the area of stabilizing the financial industries and trying to get the economy going with their stimulus package, the purpose of which is to lift the economy using the Federal Government. Then they sent us up a budget which essentially creates a massive expansion in spending, a massive expansion in taxation, a massive expansion in borrowing, not only in the short run when you might be able to justify more spending, when you can justify more spending and borrowing, but as far as the eye can see with the practical effect of having a dampening effect, throwing a wet blanket on top of this country's productivity capabilities and this country's ability to be moving forward as an entrepreneurial society. Look at the budget in specifics. The budget, in the short run, spikes the deficit dramatically. I am not going to argue with that. That may be necessary--maybe not at the levels they are doing it, but it may be necessary. It is necessary in order to put liquidity into the market, put liquidity into the American economy. But then it continues to expand the size of Government; 28 percent of GDP will be the size of the Government this year. That is massive compared to our historical size of the Government as part of the GDP. That has got to come down. It does come down, but it does not come down all that much. By the fifth, sixth, seventh year, we still have Government spending that is 22, 23 percent of GDP. We have a deficit in the fifth year that is 3 to 4 percent of GDP. The debt of the Federal Government, the public debt, is doubled in 5 years under this budget. It is tripled in 10 years under this budget. Taxes are increased by $1.4 trillion under this budget, $1.4 trillion. What are those taxes used for? Not to reduce the deficit but to expand the size of the Government even further. Health care is essentially put on a track toward nationalization. Educational loans are nationalized. Discretionary spending goes up by almost three-quarters of a trillion dollars. And there is absolutely no restraint in any accounts of any significance on the spending side of the ledger in this budget. So that by the time we get to the fourth and fifth year of this budget, rather than seeing the numbers come down to something that is manageable for our society, rather than seeing the debt-to-GDP ratio come down to what might be a manageable number, it remains at a very high level, 67 percent. Historically, debt to GDP in this country has been about 40 percent. Those are numbers. What do they mean? Well, essentially, instead of having a traditionally strong industrialized society, where your debt is manageable at 40 percent of your GDP, you are heading toward a banana republic society or country where your GDP-to-debt ratio is up around 70 percent. You cannot sustain that. Yet this budget presumes we are going to have a debt-to-GDP ratio of the banana republic type as far as the eye can see. And the deficit? It is claimed that it is cut in half. Well, if you increase the deficit four times, and then you cut it in half, you do not gain very much. That is like taking four steps backward and only two steps forward. The practical effect of that is that we still end up with a deficit 4 or 5 years out, well after we are past this recessionary period, hopefully. I am sure we will be past it by then because we are a resilient nation. A deficit which is still way above the historical norm for this country, a $712 billion deficit is projected by the year 2019 under this budget, 3 to 4 percent of GDP. That is not sustainable. What is the practical effect of this? Well, the practical effect is that we give our kids a country they cannot afford. We put on them a debt burden which basically stymies their ability to succeed and prosper. In addition to this, you have got to look at the policies underlying this budget. What are the policies that are driving this massive expansion of Government in this massive expansion of debt? Well, they are basically policies which say, we are going to take the Government and we are going to explode its role relative to the private sector activities. There is a proposal in this budget, as I mentioned earlier, to nationalize the student loan program. That is certainly an unnecessary act. We had a very vibrant private sector student loan program and a vibrant public sector student loan program. There is no reason we cannot have both. That is no longer acceptable. We are going to nationalize the student loan program. There is a $636 billion place holder in this budget for the expansion of health care. They say it is a downpayment. Well, if it is a downpayment, we are talking about health care expenditures exceeding $1 trillion under this budget, growth in health care costs. Well, health care already absorbs 17 percent of the gross national product. That is about 5 percent higher than any other industrialized nation. It is not that we do not put enough money in our health care system, it is that we do not use it very well. And to increase the dollars going into health care by those numbers means what you are proposing is essentially for the Government to take over the entire health care system at some point in the future--another great expansion in the size of Government. Then you have got this expansion on the discretionary side of the account. Every discretionary program expanding, except for defense, where they play a gimmick for the purposes of claiming budgetary savings that do not even exist on spending that will not occur. So the goal of this budget is not to contain or to slow the rate of growth of Government in the outyears after we are past this recession, it is rather to explode the size of Government as we move out of this recession, and put in place a government that continues to grow at a rate which the economy cannot afford and which obviously our children cannot afford. How is this paid for, this dramatic expansion of Government? Well, most of it is borrowed, borrowed money. But some of it comes out of taxes. There are major new taxes proposed. We have all heard about the taxes on the wealthy. Let me point out that essentially what is being proposed here is that if you make more than $250,000, your income is going to be nationalized. Well, there are a lot of wealthy people who make more than $250,000, but there are also a lot of small businesses in this country that make $250,000. That is where jobs come from in this country--the person running the local restaurant, the person running the local garage, the person who started a software company, the person who has initiated a new product, a new catalog product, maybe, selling something. All of these are small businesses, and they are across this Nation, and they are what create jobs. When you say to those folks, well, we are going to tax away whatever you make above a certain amount, $250,000, you are saying to them they do not have the assets to reinvest in their small businesses. You are basically going to create a huge disincentive. This creates a huge disincentive for small businesses to expand and for people to be added, for employees to be added to their businesses. It throws a wet blanket on the expansion of small business. There is another tax in here that is not talked about too much. They call it a carbon tax. This is a massive new tax on everybody's electric bill. If you described it fairly, it should be described as a national sales tax on electricity. If you use electricity for anything, something in your home, if you use energy basically for anything--and almost every American does; I cannot think of anyone who does not--you are going to find yourself hit with a new tax, this carbon tax, this national sales tax on energy. And what does it amount to? It is not a small sum. It is scored in this budget. It is understated in this budget. It is scored at, I think, $70 billion a year or something like that. That is still a lot of money, by the way. But it is understated. According to the MIT study and according to the numbers which were being used last year when this was being discussed, the actual number is closer to $300 billion, $300 billion in a brandnew tax burden on the American consumer. And what is this tax used for? Well, it is used, in large part, for walking-around money for various constituencies who have an interest in getting money from the Federal Government. It is not used to contain the Federal Government or to reduce its size by reducing the deficit. A large percentage of these tax revenues are going to be added to various initiatives around here which are the projects of Members--worthwhile, I am sure. But it is pretty hard to justify hitting Americans with a brandnew national sales tax on their energy bills for the purposes of expanding this Government, which is already too large to begin with. And, remember, none of this expansion in the Government taxes takes into account the huge costs which we have coming at us which we do not know how we are going to handle. Those are the costs of the retirement of the baby boom generation, for as this baby boom generation continues to retire--it has begun retiring now--it is going to generate massive costs on our Government. We know we have $60 trillion of unfunded liability to pay for Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid for the baby boom generation as it retires. And why is that? Why are there all of those trillions of dollars? Why is all of that money out there and obligated? Because we have created a massive cost, and we have the largest generation in America retiring that is going to push that cost onto our children. We go from 35 million retired people to 70 million retired people, and most of that is going to occur by the end of this administration's term in office should the President be reelected. So you would think that in this budget they would have said, well, we better start addressing that issue. We better start disciplining ourselves relative to how we are going to handle this massive increase in spending, which we know is coming at us--I call it a fiscal tsunami--as a result of the baby boom generation retiring. But, no, not one word in this budget about containing or slowing down or in any way addressing the issue of entitlement spending as a result of retirement of the baby boom generation. The practical effect is there is an elephant in the room that we know we are going to have to address relative to cost that is not addressed, but at the same time the budget radically expands the size of Government, using resources that might have been used to address entitlement reform. It is a budget which, if you look at it, essentially says to the productive and entrepreneurial side of our Nation: We are going to tax you. We are going to regulate you. And we are going to create an atmosphere where we are going to crowd out your ability to borrow money because the Federal Government is going to borrow so much money. It is simply an attack on the entrepreneurial elements of our society, the people, the small business people who go out there and create jobs. That is why I said there is a conundrum here. On the one side this Government is proposing all sorts of initiatives, which I agree with, to try to float the economy using the liquidity of the Federal Government in a lot of different areas but primarily focused on getting stability back into our financial system and helping people who have mortgages that they cannot pay. But, on the other side, you have this budget sent up here which is a clear and present attack essentially on the productive side of our ledger as a nation, while it expands radically the size of Government. So you can understand why the stock market and others are saying, whoa, what is happening here? Who am I to believe, the part of the administration which says we are going to try to get this economy going or the part of this administration that says, once we get it going, we are going to stuff it down with a major new tax burden and a dramatic expansion in Government? So much more could have been accomplished in this budget than what has been proposed. If it had come forward with any reasonable ideas in the area of disciplining and managing the entitlement accounts, there would have been strong bipartisan support for that. But none were put on the table. The opportunity to move forward in the area of Social Security was not taken. The opportunity to do something significant in the area of Medicare was certainly not taken in this budget, and the practical effect of that is, that if you are looking at this budget, and you are an investor from somewhere around the world buying American bonds--and, remember, most of our debt today is being bought by people outside the United States. They are basically funding our capacity as a nation to function--you are going to look at this budget and you are going to say, do I have confidence that the bonds I am buying are going to have the value that I am putting into them 5 or 10 years from now? If I look at this budget, I am going to conclude that the American Government is not going to discipline itself, that it is going to continue to run a debt-to-GDP ratio that is not sustainable, and that, therefore, it is very likely that maybe my debt that I am buying from the United States, the Treasury bonds I am buying, are not going to be the value I am paying for them. This budget not only stifles the entrepreneurial spirit of America in the outyears--and people looking 4 or 5 years down the road are not thinking that far now, but in October, this budget repeals many of the tax initiatives which create entrepreneurship and tax people at a heavier rate; it starts pretty soon here--at the same time it is putting at risk the value of our currency and the value of our debt. It is saying to the world: We are not going to discipline ourselves in the outyears. When we raise taxes, which this administration is proposing--and that is what they said they would do--one presumes they would do what President Clinton did when he raised taxes. He used it to try to reduce the deficit. With the help of a Republican Congress, which limited spending, we were able to accomplish that. This budget does not accomplish that. This budget takes $1.4 trillion in new taxes and spends it on a massive expansion of the Federal Government in the area of health care and the way we finance student loans, all the different initiatives basically expanding Government's role. The practical effect of that will be to weaken the dollar, our currency, and to cause people to question the value of our debt. That is serious. That is very serious for us as a nation. I agree with those who say the market is confused by this administration. It is confused because, on one hand the administration is pursuing what is a necessary policy to get liquidity into the market and stabilize the financial industry, stabilize the housing industry, but, on the other hand, it has put forward a budget which is probably the largest expansion of Government in the history of the country or the largest proposed expansion of Government in the history of the country, unpaid for and, therefore, threatening the future of our children with debt they can't possibly afford. As we move forward in this effort, I suggest a better course of action would be for this administration to come forward with some fiscal discipline. Why don't they propose some specific ideas which will address the impending fiscal tsunami? There are bipartisan initiatives in the Senate to do so. Senator Conrad and I have proposed a procedure which would allow us to put in place a process which would lead to policy, which would lead to a vote, which would actually limit and make affordable a large percentage of the outyear cost of entitlement programs as we try to fund the retirement of the baby boom generation. Take us up on that offer. It has very significant bipartisan support. Why not take up an initiative in the area of trying to get the deficit and the debt back to the prerecession period? When we went into the recession, the debt was 40 percent of GDP. The deficit was down to about 1.5 percent of GDP. Let's get back to those numbers. If we are going to raise revenues, let's use them to reduce the deficit, not to expand the size of Government. These are initiatives that would get a lot of Republican support, certainly on the first point. There might even be some support on the second idea of getting the deficit down. I would certainly support lowering the debt. But the proposal as put forward now is confusing. Not only is it confusing, but if it were actually put in place, it would put our country in a very serious situation as our children try to lead their lives and move forward in a nation which gives them an opportunity for prosperity. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. GREGG. I want to associate myself with the Senator's concern. I think a proper explanation of how the bill is structured is in order. As I understand it, as the bill left the subcommittee, and then the full committee, it made it unalterably clear no money that goes into Gaza can be used for Hamas. That doesn't need to be restated in an amendment. In fact, doing that might imply that the language in the bill isn't as strong as it should be. Also, on the issue of resettlement of Palestinian refugees, there may be many we would want to come to the United States--maybe physicists and other folks. This blanket approach that nobody can enter the country is really over the top and far too broad a brush to paint on the entire population of an area. Obviously, we don't want terrorists or anybody who is sympathetic to the Hamas to come. But there are others we may wish to come to the United States because maybe they were opposition leaders to Hamas. Thirdly, the issue of the language relative to Egypt concerns me, and I guess it concerned the Senator from Vermont. I will put this in the form of a question. To complete my inquiry of the chairman of the subcommittee, the language relative to Egypt in using funds from the money that was allocated to Egypt, approximately $1.3 billion for the purpose of making sure the border entries into Gaza and other entries that might affect Israel are adequately monitored, that language truly is not necessary because we have language in the bill that says it can be used for the purpose of limiting access on the borders. There is an ongoing, good-faith effort, as I understand it, by the Government of Egypt to police those borders, using our resources to some degree. Further, Egypt has worked very hard to be an ally to us in the region. It is one of our key allies in the sense that it has always been reasonably supportive of what we have tried to do. I think we have a responsibility to be equally supportive of them when they make a legitimate request, which is that we not be overly officious in directing them under this language.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to discuss the Veteran's Health Equity Act, a bill that has been introduced by my friend from the other side of the aisle, Senator Jeanne Shaheen. I am pleased to start the 111th Congress in a bipartisan fashion and to support legislation that addresses an issue that is extremely important to our Nation's heroic military veterans, especially in my home State of New Hampshire. This important piece of legislation, which I hope will have the Senate's full support, would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to guarantee that veterans in every State have access to instate hospital care. More specifically, the Veteran's Health Equity Act would require the VA to either provide a full-service VA hospital in every State or contract with one or a number of full-service hospitals to provide veterans with a comparable level of care. At this time, New Hampshire, like Alaska and Hawaii, is without a full-service VA hospital and veterans are being forced to travel to Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont in order to receive necessary medical treatment. Oftentimes, especially during the winter months, interstate travel can be extremely dangerous in New England, and our veterans should not be forced to travel long distances in order to receive the medical care they have earned and deserve. I will continue to press the VA until veterans have access to local, full-service medical care. Our Nation's veterans, who have selflessly served our country, are owed high-quality medical care in exchange for their courageous service. The Veteran's Health Equity Act will guarantee that they receive that care in a local health care facility.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to discuss the Veteran's Health Equity Act, a bill that has been introduced by my friend from the other side of the aisle, Senator Jeanne Shaheen. I am pleased to start the 111th Congress in a bipartisan fashion and to support legislation that addresses an issue that is extremely important to our Nation's heroic military veterans, especially in my home State of New Hampshire. This important piece of legislation, which I hope will have the Senate's full support, would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to guarantee that veterans in every State have access to instate hospital care. More specifically, the Veteran's Health Equity Act would require the VA to either provide a full-service VA hospital in every State or contract with one or a number of full-service hospitals to provide veterans with a comparable level of care. At this time, New Hampshire, like Alaska and Hawaii, is without a full-service VA hospital and veterans are being forced to travel to Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont in order to receive necessary medical treatment. Oftentimes, especially during the winter months, interstate travel can be extremely dangerous in New England, and our veterans should not be forced to travel long distances in order to receive the medical care they have earned and deserve. I will continue to press the VA until veterans have access to local, full-service medical care. Our Nation's veterans, who have selflessly served our country, are owed high-quality medical care in exchange for their courageous service. The Veteran's Health Equity Act will guarantee that they receive that care in a local health care facility.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to speak briefly about the White Mountain National Forest and the U.S. Forest Service's efforts to manage these lands for the benefit of all Granite Staters. In particular, I wanted to extend my appreciation and support for the agency's commitment to implementing its 2005 management plan for the forest, including the Mill Brook timber harvesting proposal. It goes without saying that the White Mountain National Forest is a special place for all New Hampshire residents. Drawing millions of visitors each year, these lands have long appealed to those who enjoy the outdoors, while also providing natural resources that support communities across the State. Through balanced, multiple-use management policies, I remain confident that the White Mountain National Forest will remain one of the crown jewels of the National Forest System for generations to come. As such, I was pleased when, in 2005, the U.S. Forest Service released its new management plan for the White Mountain National Forest. Striking a delicate compromise among stakeholders, it was overwhelmingly supported in New Hampshire and established a consensus- based blueprint for how this natural resource will be managed. I applauded all of the hard work and public outreach that the Forest Service put into this plan and was pleased to coauthor legislation that implemented its wilderness recommendations. Signed into law in December 2006, the New England Wilderness Act designated nearly 35,000 acres of new wilderness in the Forest and strengthened our nation's commitment to land conservation. The 2005 management plan also included timber harvesting, which is critical for both regional economic activity and wildlife diversity purposes. The timber industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries in New Hampshire, supporting well paying jobs and local communities, especially in the north country. Carefully managed timber harvesting can also play an important role in maintaining habitats that are critical for certain types of wildlife. Fully consistent with the 2005 plan and its timber harvesting guidelines, the Forest Service has proposed logging projects which have been subject to environmental review, are limited in scope, and have the support of well respected groups across the spectrum such as the Society for Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Appalachian Mountain Club, the National Audubon Society, the New Hampshire Timberland Owners, and the North Country Council. Two of these proposals, the Batchelder Brook and Than Brook Resource Management Projects, have been unsuccessfully challenged by certain environmental groups such as the Sierra Club that do not represent the view of most Granite Staters. Even though they seemed fine with the 2005 management plan when it was released, these groups now want to undo it via lawsuits and other challenges that use up taxpayer resources and stymie economic activity in New Hampshire. Fortunately, the courts have so far ruled in favor of the Forest Service and have allowed these two timber harvesting projects to proceed. With each ruling against these challenges, it has been my hope, as well as the hope of many others in our State, that all parties would now act in good faith and respect the 2005 management plan's timber harvesting guidelines. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, and it is why I am once more speaking on the Senate floor about the White Mountain National Forest. Once again, we now have the Sierra Club and its allies trying to tie up yet another important timber harvesting proposal, the Mill Brook project. This project, which consists of around 1,000 acres, is wholly consistent with the plan's timber harvesting guidelines. It is also supported by a large number of well respected environmental groups and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. But this is apparently not enough. Recycling some of the same legal arguments that have proven unsuccessful in the past, the Sierra Club and its friends are trying to thwart the good intentions and popular support of the 2005 plan, choosing the path of antagonism over the spirit of compromise. Now of course, I recognize that it is within these groups' rights to file an administrative appeal and try to hold things up. And I also recognize that such tactics may appeal to their partisan supporters. That being said, I also feel that these groups' actions are meant to undermine the longstanding consensus approach that New Hampshire has taken to environmental protection and the management of the White Mountain National Forest specifically. During these challenging times, I also find it hard to understand why some groups are trying to thwart the Mill Brook proposal when their previous attempts to block similar projects have not succeeded, especially when timber harvesting in this area will provide an economic boost for the Granite State. As I have said in the past, the White Mountain National Forest can and should be accessible to a wide variety of uses, including timber harvesting. While I certainly agree that the Forest Service must follow the law and carry out certain environmental reviews, I also believe that this administrative appeal runs counter to New Hampshire's interests. I therefore hope that this appeal process is resolved as soon as possible and that we can all support the Forest Service's management of the White Mountain National Forest, including the Mill Brook project.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the issue of the economy and how we address the question of economic stimulus in the context of what is a very severe slowdown, recession, and in the context of what is an extraordinary situation relative to our deficits. Just yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the deficit this year will be $1.2 trillion. That is a number which most of us cannot even fathom. To try to put it in context, that size of deficit has not occurred in this country, if you calculate it as a percentage of GDP, since World War II. It is a deficit that is extraordinarily large. A deficit means we are running up debt our children are going to have to pay for. So it has a real effect on the next generation and generations after that and their ability to be prosperous. Not only does CBO tell us the deficit is going to be $1.2 trillion, but they also tell us that with the stimulus package that is being proposed--and the package that is being talked about is in the range of $700 billion to $800 billion, and when you throw that spending on top of the deficit, we are talking about a deficit which will be closing in on $2 trillion, which is about 11 percent of GDP. That will be almost four times larger than the largest deficit we have run since World War II. There are a lot of things causing this, of course, and most of them are tied to the economic slowdown. The economic slowdown is severe, but as we try to mute and lessen the impact of that slowdown on working Americans and on everyday Americans, we have to be careful that we don't do things which aggravate significantly in the outyears this country's fiscal strength and our children's ability to have a high quality of life. I have said on numerous occasions that I believe President-elect Obama is on the right track relative to bringing forward a very robust and aggressive stimulus package. But what is key to determining whether that package is a good package or a marginal package is the policy that underlies it. It is not the numbers so much as it is the policy. I believe there are a few signposts which we should follow as we develop such a package. The first is that we not unduly aggravate this long-term debt situation which we have as a country. We know we are facing a fiscal tsunami as a nation. The baby boom generation is about to be into full retirement. During the term of this Presidency, should the President be reelected, the baby boom generation will be very close to full retirement. That will mean we will have doubled the number of people in retirement in this country, and the cost of maintaining those retirees will put a massive burden on the backs of this tax generation but especially the next generation. We are talking $60 trillion of unfunded liability that is coming at us. That is debt coming at us. That doesn't count the debt we are putting on the books today to deal with this economic slowdown. So what is very critical as we address trying to get the economy going by using a stimulus package is we have to be very careful that we put in place programmatic activity that doesn't add to the long-term debt of the Nation, that are one-time items that will basically retract and no longer be part of the deficit function or add to the deficit function in the outyears. The TARP program is a good example. The TARP program was a program we put in place to try to stabilize the financial institutions of this country, and it has. That program basically used investment versus spending relative to tax dollars. We purchased preferred stock in a series of financial institutions across this country. That preferred stock, the purchasing of it, has helped to stabilize those financial institutions and the financial system of the Nation. The purchase of that preferred stock creates a significant jump in the deficit for next year. Depending on how many of the dollars we end up using of the TARP, it could be $400 billion or $500 billion. But in the outyears, we are going to get that money back because we are buying assets. In fact, we may get it back with interest--or we will get it back with interest and make a little money for the taxpayers, which would be good. They deserve to make a little money off that initiative. That type of investment is a one-time event which may aggravate the deficit in the short run but does not aggravate the deficit in the long run. That is the type of initiative we need to look at. In the area--and this is being talked about a lot--of the Federal Government going out and just spending money, not investing money that comes back in assets to us, we have to take the same approach: that we are basically going to put the dollars of the stimulus package into initiatives which will make our Nation more competitive and more productive in the outyears so that we get more tax revenues, hopefully, but at least have more jobs created in this country as we compete in the worldwide economy. Thus, as we invest in infrastructure, which will be a large part of this stimulus package, it is absolutely critical that we have entry-level tests to be sure that the infrastructure we are investing in is infrastructure which is going to produce an outyear return to us beyond the dollars that are put into them. Now, we all love things such as beautifying Main Street or putting in running tracks. These are all things people love to do, and some people even love to build halls of fame to this issue or that issue. But that is not the type of infrastructure investment which is going to help us be more competitive and create more jobs, and the bottom line is to create more jobs. What we want to do is invest in what is going to create more jobs and make us more competitive in the global economy: roads, bridges, high-speed broadband in areas that aren't quite as dense population-wise to make it affordable in the commercial sense; IT, and especially in these quasi-public areas, such as health care, where it will give us a return on our investment; the military--and we have the chairman of the Armed Services Committee sitting in the Chair--we have to obviously retool our military. These are investments which give us a long-term return. So I hope as we get to the stimulus package and we send this money out to the States, primarily--I suspect that is where it is going to go, States and communities--there will be some entry-level tests they have to meet before they can spend the money so that we get a return on those dollars in the way of making our Nation more competitive and more productive. I would hate to see us just give it to the States with very little limitation on how they spend it because a lot of the money will, unfortunately, be wasted. I know in my State every community is pulling together their wish lists, and I have seen things like putting in alarm systems in dorms. You know, maybe that is a good idea, but it is not the responsibility of the Federal Government to do that. Our responsibility would be to replace a bridge or build a bridge that is a bottleneck from the standpoint of transportation or put broadband into a region of the State which couldn't get it otherwise because of density issues or give our health communities a better way to do their IT so they are more efficient. So we do need these tests. In addition, everything needs a hard sunset. Everything in this stimulus package needs a hard sunset so that when we get to the end of this recession, which we are going to get to because we are inherently a resilient nation, we don't continue these programs into the future. By hard sunset my view would be that for a program to continue under this it would have to have a two-thirds vote. Another major initiative in the stimulus package, it appears, will be tax initiatives. I respect, and first off I admire, the energy and the focus of the Obama team on this issue. I think he has put together an extraordinarily talented group of people in many areas but especially in the fiscal area--with Secretary-designate Gardener and Larry Summers and Paul Volcker--and it is my view that as we look at the tax part of this component--and I understand it is going to be fairly big--it should be again focused on where we create jobs because this is the issue: How are we going to create more jobs? It is pretty obvious that in our economy jobs aren't created by big business or by government. Jobs are created by individual entrepreneurs who go out and start something small and it builds. So the majority of the tax initiatives, in my opinion, should be focused on job creation and assisting people who are willing to take risks in the small business community. There is a lot of discussion about a major employment tax credit; that if you hire people, you get a credit for employment. I tend to think that is probably not going to generate a whole lot of economic activity. If somebody is going to hire someone, they are going to hire them. And they will take advantage of it, obviously, but the odds of people actually adding people because they have a credit for adding people is slim, I suspect. It is not human nature to do that, even for a tax credit. I suspect it will just be money put out the door and not produce much in the way of results. We have a pretty good and pretty recent example of how this works in the area of tax policy because we did a stimulus package which was keyed off a tax rebate last spring, and $80 billion of a $160 billion package was a tax rebate and it generated virtually no greater consumption. So there are some pretty good statistics which have shown consumption was not increased significantly at all by that tax rebate initiative. So a tax rebate approach is probably not going to get you a lot in the area of the big bang for the buck. We want to come out of this slowdown a stronger, more productive nation by making capital investments and using tax policy to generate those investments so we can compete better in the world economy. I would hope that would be the approach that is taken. There is another proposal which addresses the issue of States, and this one is the most problematic of all the initiatives in the stimulus package for me. There are a lot of States that have been fiscally responsible and actually have surpluses, and some States have said they do not even need this sort of support. There are other States with revenues that have dropped precipitously because of this economic slowdown which they didn't have any control over, and they have a legitimate claim. They are in dire straits. There are other States, however, that have simply during the recession spent a lot of money which was out of proportion with what good fiscal policy allows. So I would hope that as we are talking about assisting States--and I understand it is probably going to come in through the FMAP for the Medicaid Programs--that we have some conditionality that says if the State's financial distress is caused by a drop in revenues, then we will be supportive. But if the financial distress is caused by the fact they have simply been excessive in their programmatic activity, beyond profligate--profligate is probably too strong a term--but excessive in their programmatic activities, beyond what is reasonable in these slow times, then we should not be underwriting that sort of activity that is inappropriate from the standpoint of fiscal restraint. We should rather be focused on assisting States that have seen a significant drop in their revenue. It is difficult to do, but I believe it can be done, and I believe it should be done. It is obvious we need a robust stimulus package right now, and it is very obvious we need to have it sooner rather than later. From my standpoint, as a member of the Republican Party, which is in opposition here arguably, I want to work with the other side of the aisle and with the President-elect to accomplish it because I don't think we can afford partisan politics at this time. We need to govern. These issues are so huge and are going to have such a devastating impact on our Nation if they are not aggressively and boldly addressed that we can't afford this to be a party-line event. We need to have cooperation. We have a template for that. When we took up the TARP bill, which was an extraordinary piece of legislation, it was done because we recognized the crisis was upon us and action had to be taken, and it was done in a totally bipartisan and, I thought, a very effective way, and that is a good template for moving forward. So I just lay these ideas out as an approach to take, and I say, from my standpoint, to the extent I can participate--and I hope I can--I am willing to listen to any ideas, and I want to see us make progress. I want to see it be prompt because in this area, it is absolutely critical for the President-elect to succeed for the Nation's good. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, a large number of very special and extraordinary individuals will be leaving the Senate at the end of this session, many friends and many people I have admired for a number of years and had the privilege to serve with. I wished to speak specifically to one, and that is my colleague from New Hampshire, John Sununu. John is the youngest Member of the Senate. He came here as the youngest Member, and he is still the youngest Member after 6 years, but he is one of the most accomplished and capable people in the Senate, one of the brightest, as we all know, and also one of the people who brings the most common sense to issues. Time and time again, I would come to the floor, and this was throughout his term but especially during the last few months when he was in a very challenging election, and there would be votes being cast that were very difficult political votes, votes which, when you cast these votes, most people knew they were not going to be understood and, in many instances, they were going to be misinterpreted or subject to misrepresentation but votes which were necessary to cast in order to preserve especially the fiscal responsibility of this Government. John Sununu never backed away from any of those votes. He always cast the difficult vote, knowing in many instances that politically it was going to be characterized in a way which might hurt him; votes, the basic purpose of which, in most instances, were to protect the taxpayer, keep the size of Government under control, and be a force for a better country and for more individual rights. He understands as well as anyone in this body the basic values of making Government live within its means, of having a government which people can afford but is still compassionate and accomplishes the goals of delivering adequate services. He has worked very hard in order to pursue those goals. He also brought to the body a unique sense of humor, New Hampshire humor, quiet, witty, and comfortable with himself but also willing to make fun of himself, and an essential common sense, which I like to think is characteristic of New Hampshire, and also an integrity, a commitment to public service for the purposes of public service--the fact that he was here not to benefit himself in any way but simply to do what he felt was right in order to make our Nation better and make New Hampshire better. He served New Hampshire for 12 years, both in Congress and in the Senate. As I mentioned, he is the youngest Member of the Senate and his service is hardly completed, I hope. His opportunities are virtually limitless because his abilities are limitless. He has talent and capability, intelligence, drive, the personality to pretty much do whatever he wants as he moves forward. He also has one other resource which is very special and that is his wife and family. Kitty is an exceptional individual. Kathy and I have come to enjoy not only working with John and Kitty but getting to know them as friends, as fellow travelers. Kathy has been through many years being a political wife, and she has put up with a lot of ups and downs. She and Kitty naturally bonded, as they understood the importance of what we do. Kitty is an individual who brings a smile whenever you see her because she is a person filled with good will to everyone. Their children, Grace and Charlie, John Hayes, great kids, very enthusiastic people, a wonderful family. That family is a tremendous support to John, and he is a tremendous support to them. That unit, as it moves forward, will always be successful. It is obviously with great regret that I look on John's leaving the Senate. His talent will be lost here, and it will be a loss to the body. He is a special individual who had a special group of skills that uniquely worked for the benefit of New Hampshire and the people of New Hampshire. I hope he will stay engaged. Kathy and I wish him and Kitty and their children the best of luck as they go forward and that the road always rises to meet them. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Cpl Scott Dimond of Franklin, NH. On Monday, October 13, 2008, Corporal Dimond was tragically taken from us when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device and his patrol was engaged in small-arms attack in Kandahar, Afghanistan. My deepest sympathy, condolences, and prayers go out to Scott's family and loved ones who have suffered this grievous loss. At 39 nine years old, Scott will always be remembered as a dedicated citizen who consistently put others before himself. Scott enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps during his senior year in high school but was medically discharged after a serious football injury. Still determined to serve his fellow citizens, Scott began a career in law enforcement. He served 18 years with the Franklin Police Department, retiring in 2006 as a sergeant. Upon his retirement, Scott's unwavering determination to serve others remained. He enlisted in the New Hampshire National Guard while working toward a degree as a registered nurse, enabling Scott to assist others in a new way--the health care profession. To any observer, Scott's professional pursuits will forever echo selflessness, sacrifice, and patriotism, and for that, we are eternally grateful. As a member of an embedded tactical training team, there is no doubt that Scott's law enforcement background and his willingness to help others successfully contributed to the mentoring and strengthening of the Afghan army and police force, accelerating the eventual return of American military personnel from the battlefield. Consistent with the rest of his life, Scott routinely put his country and his fellow soldiers before himself. Because of his devotion and sense of duty, the safety and liberty of countless Americans is more secure. Unquestionably, Scott is a shining example of the highest caliber of person that New Hampshire, and this country, can produce. We are honored to speak of his contributions, spirit, and dedication. In the words of Daniel Webster--``what a man does for others, not what they do for him, gives him immortality.'' May God bless Cpl Scott Dimond, his family, and all those who are currently serving in uniform.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, today I rise to make a few comments about a longtime staffer in my office, Tim Litvin. A native of Manchester and a graduate of Central High School, Tim came to work for me first as an intern from Colgate University and then joined the office full time in 2001. Through his 7 years of service, Tim rose through the ranks from manning the front desk to becoming a legislative aide on critical defense and military issues, as well as on other matters. From making sure our veterans and soldiers received the highest level care and attention, to his work with the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Tim gained respect from all those who crossed his path. In my office, Tim always came to work with a smile, a willingness to help, and a good sense of humor. At office functions in the conference room or on the softball field, Tim would always crack a few jokes among his coworkers, sometimes at his own expense to add a bit of levity. This low-key, low-ego approach helped keep things in the office light and upbeat. Where there was laughter in my office, Tim was usually there and we all appreciated it. But humor aside, Tim's passion for public service and military matters, especially defense appropriations, has been his strongest attribute. While working full time in my office, Tim attended evening classes at the Naval War College and obtained a master's degree. When Granite State servicemembers were recuperating at Walter Reed, Tim would often drive out there, visit them, and make sure that they received the best care possible. Time and again, he went above and beyond the call of duty. Although Tim's new job will not be taking him too far from the Hill, he will be missed. Whether it be his good cheer, his expertise, or his dedication to service, Tim will be hard to replace. Fortunately, it is good to know that the Federal Government will still benefit from his talents as he works for our men and women in the Armed Forces at the Pentagon. I am sure Tim will make us all proud there and I wish Tim best of luck on this new chapter in his life.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are here at a very significant time relative to the Congress's responsibility to act and try to avoid a significant crisis for our Nation. I listened to Ranking Member Shelby, former Chairman Shelby, whom I have the most tremendous respect for. And you know, when you think about how we got here, had this Nation listened to Richard Shelby, we probably wouldn't be here. If there had been adequate capital formation of these institutions, if there had been adequate oversight, if there had been proper underwriting, we wouldn't be here. Unfortunately, we are here, and the hand we have been dealt is a pretty bad hand, and the options are few. Our situation as a Congress is this: If we fail to act, we will fail the Nation. We will fail our constituents, we will fail the people on Main Street, and we will fail future generations. The problem has been outlined here eloquently by a number of speakers. The Senator from Massachusetts, the Senator from South Carolina, and the Senator from Florida, since I have been on the floor. I know earlier today a number of Members spoke brilliantly about the problem. But let me simply restate it because we need to understand it clearly. This isn't so much about the problem of Wall Street. This is about the problem that is coming at Main Street. America runs on credit-- credit that is easily available and reasonably priced. There are very few Americans who haven't borrowed money to buy their car, to send their children to college or to expand their home. There are very few small businesses in this Nation--whether it is a restaurant on Main Street or a shoe store on Main Street or the local person who is taking a risk in the software industry--very few businesses in this Nation, small, medium or large but especially small that don't depend on their line of credit from the bank which finances them through difficult times and allows them to buy the things they use to resell. What we are seeing today is a closing down of that credit so the person on Main Street would not be able to buy a car, would not be able to send their child to college, and the people who pay them would not be able to finance their payroll, would not be able to buy the inventory they need in order to be financially successful, and the contraction feeds on itself and grows and expands. It has been described here a number of times by the example of a four- or eight-lane highway--in New Hampshire, it would be a four-lane highway-- where you had a crash that blocked the highway. And behind that crash you had trucks carrying the checks that pay the people who work in town; you have trucks carrying the checks that maintain the hospitals, maintain the school system, allow the kids in the town to go to college, and allow the city to pick up the garbage, pave the streets, patrol the streets, and protect the people against fire. Those trucks are all stuck in that traffic jam and they can't move. What the Federal Government is suggesting we do, what the Treasury Department has suggested we do, and what we have worked out as a program to do is to come in, as a government, and take that crash off the highway so commerce can occur again in a reasonable manner. Now, we have heard a lot about the cost of this program. There has been an immense amount of misrepresentation and theater and hyperbole and I am afraid some people in our society have decided to demagogue this issue for their own personal aggrandizement and benefit. They say it is $700 billion thrown at Wall Street to protect the fat cats of Wall Street. Well, that simply is inaccurate. We are going to put $700 billion into the process, but with that $700 billion we are going to buy assets, assets that have real value. We are not throwing it out the window. What we are going to do is take nonperforming loans, mortgage-backed securities off the books of banks and allow those banks to replace those loans with assets they can lend against. What does that do? It creates credit. It allows those banks to start lending again. They can't lend today because they have, as their base, nonperforming assets. They can't lend against those assets. Their capital isn't adequate. So we are going to take those assets, and we are going to hold them as a Federal government. We are going to take them at a fairly big discount from their face value. If it is a mortgage note, we might take it at 20 or 30 percent below what the original note was issued at. Then we are going to work with the people who have those mortgages, those people in homes who have those mortgages, if they are the principal residents of those homes and they have a job, and we are going to try to make it so there is no foreclosure against them, so they can stay in their home and so they can pay that mortgage. By doing that, we are going to make those mortgages valuable again. As the economy starts to recover, we are going to take those mortgages and we will resell them into the market or hold them until they are paid off. In either instance, it is very likely the taxpayers' dollars will be recovered; that there will be no loss to the taxpayer. So when we hear these people in the public market, these talking heads, so to say, claim we are about to spend $700 billion to benefit Wall Street, they are totally inaccurate. Actually, what we are doing is we are trying to spend money to free up credit on Main Street so people can keep their jobs and at the same time do it in a way that protects the taxpayers of America by getting value back. Now, after the original proposal came up here from the Treasury, at the request of the Congress, through the negotiation process with House and Senate Democrats and House and Senate Republicans at the table, we also did a few other things which I think were very good. No. 1, we said any revenues we get from this--and we are going to get a lot of revenues. If we spend $700 billion, we may get $600 billion back, maybe $700 billion or we may get $800 billion back. All those revenues will go to reduce the Federal debt. It is not going to go to new programs. It goes to reduce the Federal debt. We intend to protect the taxpayer. In addition, we said that if somebody participates in this program, we are not going to allow them to get a windfall. We are going to put a strict limit on their ability to get excess compensation if they are senior members of the company that participates. We are going to limit golden parachutes. We are going to make it clear that there can't be that type of gaming of the system. In addition, we are going to take something called warrants on behalf of the American taxpayer. That says if there is an upside--beyond just getting the money back from the notes we take--if there is an upside to that company, we may benefit in it. If we buy the nonperforming debt off the books of the company at too high a price and there is a downside, the company will have to give us some equity to cover that. So the taxpayer, again, is protected, and we don't have excessive compensation. As I mentioned earlier, we put in language, under the leadership of the chairman of the committee, Senator Dodd, which we said that for people in their homes the stress will be to keep them in their homes. The prejudice will be to keep them in their homes. We don't want foreclosures. Equally importantly, we put in place tremendous regulatory oversight so there will be absolute transparency and so the American people can look at what is happening and know what is happening and know what is being done. It will be reviewed. We have an oversight board headed up by the Federal Reserve Chairman, we have an oversight board for the Congress, and we have a special prosecutor and a special GAO team. In addition, we have a number of reports which are necessary to go forward. Now, if we do all this, will it solve the problem? Is the economy suddenly going to turn around? No. No, it is not. We are in a very difficult economic time. There will be other failures, there is no question about it. There will be financial failures, and the economy will probably continue to slow. But if we fail to do this, we will confront catastrophic events which will affect every American in the area of their income and their savings. People will lose their jobs if we don't do this, literally hundreds of thousands of people, potentially. Tens of thousands anyway. Their assets will be reduced and their ability to have a normal commercial life on Main Street, to have a normal activity, will be dramatically harmed. We saw a little glimmer of what is out there if we fail to act on Monday, when the stock market fell 777 points, which represented losing $1.2 trillion of American assets. That meant pension funds, 401(k)s, IRAs, and things people depend on were dramatically reduced. People close to retirement were shocked by that, and all of us were stunned. It was a statement by the markets of what they think would happen if we do not act and act aggressively and boldly, as this proposal is both aggressive and bold. Some will say: Well, the markets have come back so it doesn't matter. Look at that. The markets have come back because they presume the Congress will act in a commonsense way and that we will actually pass this piece of legislation. There is no question but that this is a time that tries the political soul of this institution. A ``yes'' vote here, as the Senator from Connecticut has mentioned a number of times, doesn't get you a whole lot of accolades anywhere. But there are times when, as Members of this body, we have a responsibility to act in a mature, thoughtful, and appropriate way, with our fundamental purpose being to avert a clear and present crisis that is going to confront this Nation. This is one of those times. To do nothing would neither be logical nor responsible. So we need to act. We need to pass this proposal. I wish I could say that when we pass this the Nation will suddenly fire up and be reenergized and we will not see a further slowdown. That is not going to happen. But if we fail to pass this bill, I am fairly confident, as has been said by a number of people, including both Presidential candidates, the results will be a great period of trauma for our Nation, especially for everyday Americans who do not deserve it. They don't deserve it. That is why it is our responsibility to act at this time. This is the vehicle before us. This is the opportunity that presents itself, to take action to try to mitigate what will be an overwhelmingly damaging event. Therefore, we should be voting for this piece of legislation. I reserve the remainder of my time.