Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, today as I have done for days since we have been in session since we returned from our August break, I have been talking about the impact of the Ryan budget, which is now the Romney-Ryan budget, on America and what it would mean for our future. I take the floor today as I have in the past to talk about one aspect of it. In the past I have talked about impact on health care, on education, on the social safety net. Today I wish to talk about what the Romney-Ryan budget does to our infrastructure, to job training, to avenues to the middle class for people. The real question the American people face this coming election is: Are we going to restore and rebuild the middle class or are we going to continue to shift even more and more of our wealth to just a few at the top at the expense of the middle class? My Republican friends have made clear where they stand on this. They have done so when nearly every Republican in Congress voted in favor of the Ryan budget plan which Governor Romney embraced as ``marvelous.'' The very centerpiece of the Ryan budget is a dramatic shift of even more wealth to those at the top, huge tax cuts for the richest 2 percent. Those making more than $1 million a year would get an extra $394,000 a year in tax breaks under the Ryan budget. That is on top of the $265,000 they already have. That brings it up to well over $400,000, almost $500,000 a year they would get. We keep hearing a lot of talk about entitlements for the poor. Governor Romney, when he talks about entitlements, always focuses on the poor. How about this. If you make over $1 million you are entitled to it. You will not hear him talk about that entitlement. How do the Republicans in the Ryan budget pay for these huge tax cuts that total over $4.5 trillion over 10 years? The Romney-Ryan budget would partially offset the tax cuts by making deep, Draconian tax cuts that undergird the middle class and that are essential to the quality of life in this country--everything from education, student grants, loans, to highways, bridges, other infrastructure projects. Last, the Romney-Ryan budget offsets big new tax cuts for those at the top by actually raising taxes on the middle class. Yes, you heard me, that is exactly right. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that under the Ryan plan, middle-class families with children would see their taxes go up on average by more than $2,000. The bottom line is that the Ryan budget does not reduce the deficit. The savings they gain by slashing spending and raising taxes on the middle class basically go to offsetting the $4.5 trillion in new tax cuts, which, I just pointed out, go to the wealthiest Americans. I think this shows you right here what would happen to the deficit. We always hear the talk about balancing the budget. The truth is Representative Ryan and Mr. Romney are not interested in balancing the budget. Their plan would not balance the budget until 2040--28 years from now. As I said earlier, Mr. Ryan is a true acolyte of former Vice President Cheney who, in an unguarded moment, said that deficits don't matter. That was Vice President Cheney. If you look at the debt piled up under the Bush years, you will see they didn't think deficits matter. Look at this. Here is the debt held by the public under the Ryan budget from 2013 to just 2022, in the next 10 years. Look at the debt. The debt does not go down, it goes up. Where does this debt go? Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, that is where it goes. Representative Ryan doubles down on the theory that if we give an even greater share of wealth to those at the top, it will magically trickle down, a theory that was tried under President George W. Bush. But in the years after those Bush tax cuts we know what happened to jobs in America--they plummeted in the years after George Bush and those tax cuts went into effect. Today I want to focus specifically on the impact of the Romney-Ryan budget on our Nation's infrastructure and job training. Both, I believe, are crucial for the creation of middle-class jobs in a competitive global economy. Regrettably, the Ryan budget would be a devastating one-two punch to our Nation's economy and slash investment in infrastructure which would slash hundreds of thousands of well- paying jobs. It would radically reduce funding for job training, reducing opportunities for the unemployed to get retooled for jobs in sectors of the economy that are doing well, where they are needed. The United States now competes in a global marketplace. To improve our competitiveness and to give our workers the education and skills they need to compete, both our public and private sectors must make a robust investment in infrastructure, education, and job training. Overcrowded and crumbling roads, outdated waterways, other means of transportation and transport have a profoundly damaging effect on our economy. This increases the time and expense of moving goods, it hurts our global competitiveness, as I said, especially at a time when our rivals in the global marketplace are investing heavily in both infrastructure and job training. Even maintaining our current levels of infrastructure investment will have negative consequences for our economy. That is if we just maintain what we have. The American Society of Civil Engineers predicts that, if current trends continue, by 2020 our continuing infrastructure will result in 900,000 fewer jobs and $900 billion in lost economic growth. This was the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2011. They said: The deficiencies in America's roads, bridges and transit systems cost American households and businesses roughly $130 billion, including approximately $97 billion in vehicle operating costs, You can read that to mean potholes and things that bang your car up. --$32 billion in delays and travel time, If you have been stuck in a lot of traffic. --$1.2 billion in safety costs and $590 million in environmental costs. That is the Society of Civil Engineers. That is not part of the Democratic Party or any party. This is a nonpartisan economic look at what is happening in our infrastructure. By slashing these investments to even lower levels, the Ryan budget will only make these problems worse, not better. In fact, the Ryan budget cuts transportation spending by one-third in the first year. We are not talking about a little nip and a tuck on infrastructure. Here is the fiscal year 2012--enacted--transportation budget: $89 billion. The Ryan-Romney budget for next year, $57 billion. It is almost a one-third cut. Think what that would mean to the jobs in America. Think what it means to our crumbling infrastructure. Then you have to compare how much we are investing in our infrastructure to what one of our biggest competitors, China, is doing. Here is China. As a percent of their gross domestic product, they are spending 9 percent of their GDP on infrastructure. Here is the United States. In 1960, when I was a college student working summer jobs, laying pavement and building bridges on the Interstate Highway System, we were spending 4 percent of our GDP on infrastructure. We are now down to 2.4 percent. And the Romney-Ryan budget would take that even lower. So already our Federal investments in infrastructure are inadequate. For example, we have failed to bring the half-century-old Interstate Highway System into the 21st century. Again, the Romney-Ryan budget would make that even worse. The Romney budget would make deep cuts to funding for the Corps of Engineers which is already grossly underfunded and struggling to maintain a deteriorating waterway system so crucial for the movement of bulk goods, and, I might add, also crucial for flood control. The Ryan budget would also take a meat axe to Federal funding for job training and education, America's pathway to the middle class. It would jeopardize vital job services for millions of Americans. Thirty-one million Americans got Federal help with their job searches last year-- help to write their resumes, prepare for interviews, information about the best jobs available in their local area, referrals to job openings. Several hundred thousand were also able to participate in job training under Federal programs. This gave these American workers the opportunity to compete for good jobs so they have a shot at the middle class. It created a steady supply of skilled workers for U.S. businesses, made their operations more productive, and it helped them to grow. Think about it; several hundred thousand people out of work were able to participate in job training because of Federal programs. That is part of Mr. Romney's 47 percent that he says he doesn't care about, who are the takers in our society. No, no, Mr. Romney, they are not takers. These are people struggling to make a better life for themselves and their families. They want job training. They want better education. They want to upgrade their skills. They want to work. The Romney-Ryan budget would pull the rug out from underneath them and say: Tough luck, you are on your own. I don't think they should be on their own; they should be part of our American family. Without sustained robust investments in quality infrastructure and well-trained workers, America will fall behind and job creation will suffer. This is a critical threat to the future of the middle class in our country. In essence, the Ryan budget essentially rejects the very possibility that the Federal Government can act to spur economic growth, boost competitiveness, and create good middle-class jobs. But this flies in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. At critical junctures going back to the beginning of our Republic, the Federal Government has stepped up to the plate, acting decisively to spur economic growth, foster innovation, and help create jobs. In 1791, Alexander Hamilton presented to Congress his landmark Report on Manufactures, a set of Federal policies designed to strengthen the new Republic's economy by creating a network of roads and canals. The most visionary 19th century advocate of Federal investments to spur economic growth was the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. In 1862 he signed the Pacific Railway Act to finance construction of the transcontinental railroad, one of the great technological feats, by the way, of the 19th century. But Lincoln did more; he created the Department of Agriculture to modernize agriculture and distribute free land to farmers. As a proud graduate of Iowa State University, I also note Lincoln dramatically expanded access to higher education across the United States by signing into law the Land Grant College system. Taken together, these initiatives had a transformative impact on the U.S. economy. It is humorous to imagine how today's Republicans would have reacted to Lincoln's agenda. What if Abraham Lincoln were to present this today to the tea party? He would not get anywhere. Later, in the 1950s, there was another Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, who championed one of the greatest public works projects in our national history, construction of the national highway system. A 1996 study concluded that the Interstate Highway System is an engine that has driven 40 years of unprecedented prosperity in America. In recent times, the Federal Government has funded and spearheaded scientific discovery and innovation. The Department of Defense invented the Internet. It was Federal research that led to the invention of the global positioning satellite system. Any discussion of the Federal Government's historic role in discovery and innovation and job creation must acknowledge the staggering achievements of the National Institutes of Health. More than 80 Nobel Prizes have been awarded for NIH- supported research. So it is absurd to claim that the Federal Government cannot serve a positive and even profound role in boosting the economy and spurring innovation. But the Romney-Ryan budget demands that we permanently hobble the Federal Government. That is the Romney- Ryan budget. This negative, defeatist viewpoint is dead wrong, and the disinvestment it advocates will only send our country into a death spiral of stagnation and decline. Going back to the 1930s, the American people have supported and strengthened a kind of unique American social contract. The social contract says a cardinal rule of government is to provide a ladder of opportunity so that every American can realistically aspire to the American dream. The Ryan budget would rip up that social contract. Don't take my word for it. Former Reagan economic adviser Bruce Bartlett on the Ryan budget said this: Distributionally, the Ryan plan is a monstrosity. The rich would receive huge tax cuts while the social safety net would be shredded to pay for them. The Ryan budget rips up the social safety net, disinvests in our infrastructure, cuts funding for job training, cuts money for education, cuts money for health care. As I said, it is a negative, defeatist viewpoint that will set our country into a death spiral of stagnation and decline. The Romney-Ryan budget would replace the unique American social contract that we have with a survival-of-the-fittest, winner-take-all philosophy that tells struggling, aspiring Americans and their communities: Tough luck, you are on your own. I agree with former President Bill Clinton. We have two philosophies: the Romney Ryan budget--tough luck, you are on your own--or the other philosophy that we are all Americans and we are all in this together. We are all mutually supportive. We believe in a ladder, a ramp of opportunity, and, yes, we believe the Federal Government has a powerful role to play in making sure all Americans can aspire to the American dream. They can reach the middle class. They can achieve the highest of their potentialities and their abilities. That is the difference. I think the American people need to know what is in the Ryan budget. One might say: Well, a budget is a budget. A budget is a blueprint. Just as we build a building, we have to have a blueprint; a budget is a blueprint for the future of where we want to go. Communities have budgets, families have budgets, schools have budgets. We have a budget so we can plan. It represents where we want to be in the future. The Ryan budget is a blueprint for defeat and a death spiral into stagnation for America. I believe the more the American people understand and know what is in that Ryan budget, the more they are going to turn it aside and say: No, we can do better than that in America. We need a budget that reflects our hopes and aspirations and our abilities as Americans to work together to achieve the American dream for all. Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, for the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Records on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in on Thursday, September 20, 2012, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Roundtable Discussion: Pension Modernization for a 21st Century Workforce.'' For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Michael Kreps of the committee staff on (202) 224-6572.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Michael Mederos and Alexis Florczak of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's proceedings.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I said earlier this week when we came in on Monday that every day I would come to the floor--and other Senators I know are coming to the floor--to let the American people know what Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are trying to hide from them. What they are trying to hide is what their blueprint is for America, where they want to take the country. People listen to all of their speeches on the campaign trail, but show me your budget and I will show you what your priorities are. A budget is a blueprint, and we have from Mr. Ryan, our colleague in the House, his budget. I think, if I am not mistaken, it has been passed twice in the House and I think almost every Republican voted for it; the same as here in the Senate. So if Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney were to be elected to the Presidency and Vice Presidency, they would then be able to move their budget through under a little-known procedure called reconciliation. It is a fancy word, but all it means is that it would go through with 51 votes. I think it is important for the American people to know what is in that budget, what is in that blueprint for America. That is why this week I have taken the time to talk about the impact of the budget on health care and on education. Today I wish to talk about the impact of this budget on where I live--rural America, in the Midwest, where the occupant of the Chair lives. What is the impact of the Ryan budget on those of us who live in small towns, in rural communities, those who live on farms, and ranchers in the West? What is the impact? First of all, I think it is important to step back and take a look at the Ryan budget blueprint overall. What it does is it further decimates the middle class in America. The very centerpiece of the Ryan budget is a dramatic shift of even more wealth to those at the top, targeting huge new tax cuts for the richest 2 percent. For those making over $1 million a year--I have used this chart before and I will continue to use it--for those making over $1 million, they would get $265,000 more in tax breaks. That is added on to $129,000 that they already get from the Bush tax cuts. So under the Ryan plan, if a person makes over $1 million a year, they will get $394,000 in tax cuts. They are entitled to that. That is an entitlement. If a person makes that much money, they are entitled to get that tax cut. So when we hear people talking about entitlements, remember, it is not just the poor, it is the rich too. They get a lot of entitlements. They are going to have all of these new tax cuts. The total is $4.5 trillion over 10 years. Where do they get that money? They don't want to say how they would pay for it, but we have to look at the budget. The Ryan Republican budget would partially offset the tax cuts by making deep, Draconian cuts to programs that protect the middle class and are essential to quality of life in our country--everything from education, student grants and loans, law enforcement, clean air and clean water, food safety, medical research, highways, bridges and other infrastructure, agriculture, and energy. As I said before, the Republican plan would end Medicare. The Ryan budget ends Medicare. They keep saying: Well, it ends it as we know it. Well, as we know it, that is what it is. It replaces Medicare with voucher care. Voucher care, not Medicare; voucher care. It would completely destroy Medicare. They say: Well, people can take their vouchers and keep Medicare, if they like, or they can go out and get a private plan. If one is a healthy elderly person, they might be able to get a cheap plan out there someplace. So all of the healthy elderly leave Medicare, which leaves only the sickest and the poorest in Medicare, so the costs skyrocket and it becomes unsupportable. That is the way to destroy Medicare. Again, they talk a lot--Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney--about reducing the deficit and balancing the budget. Even under the most rosy assumptions, the Ryan budget does not balance the budget until the year 2040--28 years from now. Mr. Ryan is a true acolyte of former Vice President Cheney who, in a very unguarded moment, said deficits don't matter. Well, they obviously didn't, because we see how much the deficits went up under the Bush-Cheney administration. I always say Mr. Ryan has also--he won't say it but his budget shows it--they don't think deficits matter either because they have deficits for the next 28 years. Again, when I tell people this, when I outline the budget for folks back home, they say, You must be kidding; nothing could be that extreme. Well, the Ryan plan is extreme and unbalanced, and I am not making it up. Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized the Ryan budget. He called it rightwing social engineering. Well, all I can say is Newt got that one right. But that is Newt. Let's listen to the economic adviser to the icon of the modern day Republican Party, President Ronald Reagan. This is what he said. Let's hear what Mr. Bartlett said. He said: ``Distributionally, the Ryan plan is a monstrosity. The rich would receive huge tax cuts while the social safety net would be shredded to pay for them. . . .'' A monstrosity. This is the economic adviser to President Reagan. President Reagan wouldn't have a chance in today's Republican Party, not with the Ryan budget. Again, the Ryan budget is radical--radical--in shrinking the size of government to what it was more than a half a century ago. Today I wish to focus specifically on the devastating impact of the Romney-Ryan budget on American agriculture and on our quest for clean renewable energy and energy independence. The Ryan budget would make deep reductions in our Federal commitment to America's farmers and ranchers, to rural communities, and to consumers, especially consumer safety. The Ryan budget calls for reducing funding for agriculture conservation over 10 fiscal years by $16 billion below the funding levels that we have now in the present farm bill. That amounts to about a 24.5-percent reduction in conservation of soil and water. Our Nation cannot afford to back off on our commitment to agricultural conservation, not at a time when climate and weather are becoming more variable and damaging to the land and when farmers and ranchers need to keep increasing production to meet demands from a growing population. More and more demands are being put on our land with a changing climate and that is why conservation funding is so critically important. Farmers and ranchers have made tremendous progress on conservation. Yet about a quarter--one-fourth--of U.S. cropland is still deteriorating from excess soil erosion. Concerning water quality, nitrates in the Mississippi River and its tributaries were 10 percent higher in 2008 than they were 20 years ago. There have been no consistent nitrate declines in the past 30 years. Here are a couple of photographs to illustrate what I am talking about. This is a nice, pastoral view looking over some rolling cropland. This is a gully. We can see they put up some plastic here to stop it, but this is where the rain comes down, hits it, washes it off, down into the ditches. That is sort of the ``before'' photo. That is before conservation practices. Let's take a look at the same picture after we have used Federal conservation plans and the farmer's own money. Look what we have now--a nice, grassy waterway that absorbs all of that rain. That is what conservation does. Concerning water quality, here is another picture. It is a picture of a gully washer, and we see the land being eroded there, the stream bank being eroded. That was before. This is what it looks like afterward--a nice stream with clean water, a lot of bank protection, a lot of trees. In fact, the farmhouse we saw in the last picture we can barely see above the tree line in this picture. That is what conservation does. The Ryan budget decimates that. It would cut 24.5 percent, almost 25 percent, of all of the funding for conservation in America at a time when we know what is happening in the Mississippi River, with all of the nitrates going down the Mississippi River, with the land erosion. As I said, at a time when our farmers are being asked to produce even more and more to meet a growing population. Also, this doesn't just affect farmers, it affects all of us. Some people might say: Conservation, sure, that looks nice, saving the water and soil, but what does that have to do with me, because I live in Los Angeles or San Francisco or some place such as that. It has to do with the quality of life in America and it has to do with whether we are going to preserve the bountiful land that we have for future generations and whether we are going to commit ourselves to having clean water and cleaning up our rivers and our streams and to prevent our soil from flowing down the river. That is conservation. Another troubling feature of the Ryan budget is that it would impose new tighter limits on money appropriated for rural housing, rural water and wastewater systems, and economic development, as well as other vital Department of Agriculture functions such as food safety and agricultural research, education, and extension. The Ryan budget adopted by the House would overall cut the funding for, as we said, nondefense domestic appropriations by about 18.9 percent, compared to the current appropriations levels, and that is for next year, that is for 2014 and for years thereafter. Let's consider rural development programs at the Department of Agriculture. For fiscal year 2012, we appropriated $2.4 billion. That is for rural development. That money provides assistance to rural housing, rural cooperatives and other small businesses, and rural water and wastewater systems. That figure for fiscal year 2012 that I gave you--$2.4 billion--was already 9 percent below the 2011 appropriation for rural development. The 2011 appropriation was 11 percent below the fiscal year 2010 funding. What would the Ryan budget do? Slash another 19 percent--18.9 percent--from rural development funding. That would amount to a cut of roughly $454 million in 2014--$\1/2\ billion in cuts to wastewater systems, rural cooperatives, and rural housing. Consider the food and agricultural research, education, and extension sponsored by the Department of Agriculture. The fiscal year 2012 appropriation for this was $2.3 billion. Again, that was a slight reduction from appropriations in recent years. It was $2.3 billion in fiscal year 2012, and in fiscal year 2010 it was $2.59 billion. So we have already taken some reductions. We already know our current levels of investment in Federal food and agricultural research are falling far behind what is needed to meet the challenges I just spoke about, the challenges of producing food, more food to meet a growing world population, the need for exports, but to do it in an environmentally benign way, which saves soil and water for future generations. Well, the Ryan budget, again, lops off another 18.9 percent. That would be about $435 million in 2014--$\1/2\ billion from these vital programs. Again, these do not just affect farmers, these affect all of us. Take food safety--just food safety. People like to know when they buy food someplace--they have a high expectation it is not going to make them sick. Well, the fiscal year 2012 appropriation was $2.5 billion for the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, and $1 billion for the Food Safety and Inspection Service. That is the Department of Agriculture. That is FSIS, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, that deals with Federal meat and poultry inspection. The FDA handles everything else. Now, if the Ryan budget were adopted, again, there would be an 18.9- percent cut to both the FDA and the Food Safety and Inspection Service. Listen to this. That would be a cut of about $472 million from the Food and Drug Administration--to inspect our food and our drugs to make sure they are safe--and a cut of about $189 million from the Food Safety and Inspection Service that inspects meat and poultry. So consumers would have much less assurance in the safety of their food. Need I remind people that the Senate and the House just passed this year a proposal to reauthorize the Food and Drug Administration, to give them more duties, more responsibilities, to do more inspections of food coming into this country from overseas. President Obama signed that into law. It was supported by Republicans and Democrats, consumers, pharmaceutical companies, and food companies. Everybody supported it--a great bill. Now, here is the Ryan budget. They are going to take about $\1/2\ billion out of that per year. So we might have given them the authority in the authorization bill, but then we are going to cripple it and cut them off at the knees. We are going to cut them off--if we adopt the Ryan budget--by taking about $\1/2\ billion a year from the FDA. Let's take a look at what it would do about energy because this not only means a lot to Iowa, it means a lot to our country in terms of moving ahead to develop renewable, safe, domestically grown energy. The Ryan budget claims that President Obama has stifled domestic energy production by blocking or delaying the production of oil--both onshore and offshore--and gas. But what he fails to acknowledge is that under President Obama we have already opened vast expanses of public lands for oil and gas exploration, and production of both has increased--by 13 percent for domestic oil; 12 percent for natural gas-- since 2008. But most egregious about the Ryan budget is that it completely ignores and, again, hinders our development of renewable energy. Wind power. Wind power in America has now provided over 35 percent of the new electricity generation capacity installed in the United States over the last 5 years. In the last 5 years, wind energy accounts for 35 percent of all of that. The wind power industry has doubled its electricity contribution four times just since 2000. Shown on this chart I have in the Chamber has been the growth of wind power capacity in the United States since 2000. It has doubled it four times and is continuing to grow. The wind power industry now accounts for 75,000 American jobs--75,000 American jobs--heavily concentrated in California, Colorado, Texas, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Well, Mr. Romney has said he wants to do away with the production tax credit, wipe all that out. I wonder how the people of California and Texas and Colorado and Iowa and Illinois and Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania might feel about that--not to mention the other States where they are just now beginning to develop their wind energy potential? So the Ryan budget does away with the production tax credit, and Mr. Romney has given his stamp of approval on that. Now, likewise, with liquid fuels. Americans clearly want to increase production and use of domestic renewable fuels. We have responded in the past with tax credits and renewable fuel use requirements, the renewable fuels mandate. Small business entrepreneurs have built ethanol and biodiesel biorefineries all across the country. They now supply about 10 percent of the fuel used in our gasoline-powered autos and trucks. That is 10 percent that no longer comes from outside our borders. And here is the expansion, as shown on this chart, of all of the biorefineries in the United States just in the last few years. Look how they have grown. There are a lot of jobs there--a lot of jobs, a lot of liquid fuels. In fact, if you look at the chart showing the expansion of liquid fuels and the decrease of imports of oil, they just about match. Just take a look. Going back to 2000, this line shows the increase in ethanol production and this line shows the decrease in oil imports. Boy, they just about match. As ethanol production has gone up, oil imports have gone down. Well, the Ryan budget basically says we should roll back all this Federal intervention--just roll it back. But they say it is OK for the oil companies to go offshore and drill offshore, drill in very fragile areas of our country. I would not be surprised if they wanted to open up Yellowstone Park to oil and gas exploration pretty soon. I just want to share the Iowa experience, if I might, about renewable energy because I think it speaks to the potential that we have nationwide. Up until a decade ago--10 years ago--my State of Iowa was nearly 100 percent dependent on energy imports. All of our gasoline and diesel came from out of State. Most of our electricity came from out of State--coal. By contrast, today Iowa generates about 20 percent of its electricity from instate wind power facilities. We now have about 7,000 jobs in the wind power industry. We build the turbines, we build the blades, we build the towers--everything--there. We are teaching a whole new generation of young Americans at our community colleges how to fix, repair, replace, and maintain our wind generators. So instead of paying others for imported coal or for coal-based electricity from other States, Iowans are using their money to build and install and operate their own wind turbines and generating electricity from our own instate renewable wind resources. For liquid fuels it is the same. It is remarkable. As I said, remember, Iowa imported all of its oil and gas 10 years ago--gasoline. Iowa now has 54 biorefineries producing about 4 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel a year. That is 50 percent more than the total amount of liquid fuels that we consume in a year. So Iowa, in 10 years, has gone from a total importer of liquid fuels to a net exporter. We make more than 50 percent more than we actually use, so we get to export to other States. Again, that is good-paying jobs. It is a renewable resource, with higher incomes for farmers. It helps Iowa's economy better than the economies of the Mideast oil states. So America can follow in Iowa's footsteps but only if we continue the energy policies that have enabled these achievements. We need to extend the production tax credit to expand wind power and other renewable electric systems across the country, such as solar electric. The Ryan budget does not account for that. The Ryan budget drops all of these investments, in renewable biofuels also. So, again, as I said, each day we have looked at the Ryan budget and how it affects health, how it affects education. Senator Boxer from California and others have come out and talked about how it affects our transportation infrastructure in America. But I also wanted to point out what it does to our renewable energy sector and what it does to agriculture, especially conservation, and how it would decimate our efforts to ensure clean water and stop soil erosion in all of our States. So before I close, I just want to provide a broader context so we understand the consequences of the Romney-Ryan budget. Going back to the 1930s, the American people have supported and strengthened a kind of unique American social contract. That social contract says we will prepare our young and we will care for our elderly. That contract says: If you work hard and play by the rules, you will be able to rise to the middle class or even beyond. That social contract says a cardinal role of government is to provide a ladder or ramp of opportunity so that every American can realistically--realistically-- aspire to the American dream. Well, in one document, the Romney-Ryan budget would rip up that social contract, shred it. Do not take my word. Let's go back to Mr. Bartlett's quote again that I had right at the beginning. Do not take my word for it. It is right here. This is Ronald Reagan's economic adviser. He says: Distributionally, the Ryan plan is a monstrosity. The rich would receive huge tax cuts while the social safety net would be shredded to pay for them. How far do you think Ronald Reagan would get today with this Republican Party with that kind of statement? So, again, the Ryan budget would rip up that sort of contract, replace it with a sort of survival-of-the-fittest, winner-take-all. It is sort of ``tough luck; you are on your own.'' If you were born wealthy, if you live in the right circumstances, you are OK, or if you win the lottery, God bless you. You are OK if you win the lottery, but otherwise, tough luck, you are on your own. I agree with what President Clinton said last week when he said there are two competing philosophies here. One is the Romney-Ryan budget philosophy of ``you are on your own.'' The other philosophy is what I think we have been proposing; that is, we are all better off when it is a ``we are all in it together'' philosophy. Again, the Ryan budget, the Romney-Ryan budget is a blueprint for where they want to take America. This is not just some phony liberal thing thrown out here. This is their budget. This tells you where they want to go. It is a blueprint for a building. It is a blueprint for what they want America to become. Well, I do not think that is the kind of America my neighbors and I would find acceptable, certainly not one they find acceptable for their kids. Mr. Ryan said that he had developed his views on his budget--they were formed by Catholic social teaching. Well, I don't know; I went to Catholic schools most of my life, and that is not what I was taught. I was not taught that you are on your own, that government has no responsibility whatsoever to ensure that you have decent health, safety, education, that you have a decent retirement so that you do not get put in the poorhouse. I was taught that we are all in this together. I see the bishops say the same. The Catholic bishops say the Ryan budget fails the moral test--fails the moral test. They reiterated their demand that the Federal budget protect the poor, and I said the GOP measures fail to meet this moral criteria. So, again, I have taken this floor every day. I intend to take it every day from now until whenever we adjourn to keep pointing out, along with other Senators, what is in this Romney-Ryan budget. It is really scary. A lot of times when we go out campaigning, we tell people: This is the most important election ever. How many times have you heard that one? This is the most important election ever. You hear both sides saying that. Well, I have been through a lot of elections. I have said that a lot of times. I will not say that. I am not going to tell anyone this is the most important election ever, but I will say this: This is the scariest election I have seen in my lifetime--the scariest. Oh, sure, we have had our differences before with Republicans and Democrats. That is OK. That is fine. That is the political give-and- take. And even under President Reagan, who was more conservative than any President we have had since probably Herbert Hoover or before, you know, sure they moved the country in a more conservative direction, but it wasn't like this. It wasn't anything close to what this Ryan budget is doing. Even Presidents who have run in the past, maybe with the exception of Barry Goldwater, but I do not know much about his budget-- I daresay I bet it was not this bad. I bet it was not anything close to this. This is why this is scary. This is turning America back to where we were before Roosevelt. I do not mean Franklin Roosevelt, I mean Theodore Roosevelt. That is how far back they would turn this country. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk again on the devastating so-called Ryan budget--which, of course, is now the Romney- Ryan budget. I will speak about that very shortly, but I also want to focus some attention on how the Ryan budget is preventing us from getting a farm bill this year. We have a farm bill we passed in the Senate, but the House can't get it done. Earlier this year the Senate passed a bipartisan farm bill. It had broad support from Republicans and Democrats, all the farm groups, consumer groups, and environmental groups. With all of that support, one would think it would be easy for the House, but the House has not followed suit. Unable or perhaps unwilling to bring the farm bill to the House floor, they similarly refuse to take up the Senate bill. As a result, our farm policy has languished at a time when farm country is literally burning up because of a drought. As I understand it, the House is going to adjourn this week and go home without taking any action on a farm bill and leave our farmers and ranchers in the lurch when all the House needs to do is take up the Senate-passed bill, pass it, send it to the President, and he will sign it. Again, we passed the bill here with Republicans, Democrats, all the farm groups, consumer groups, and environmental groups supporting it. We even made a $23 billion contribution to reducing the deficit in the farm bill. Well, it seems worth noting that one of the reasons the House can't act is seemingly because of the Ryan budget, which, of course, we know is just a proposal. The House has passed it. I think they voted on it 34 times, if I am not mistaken. The Ryan budget calls for draconian cuts to our Federal nutrition programs; that is, the SNAP program, otherwise known as food stamps. It helps low-income families and families with maybe a modest income. Maybe they lost a job and are in transition and need support for 1 or 2 months before they get back on their feet. It helps with summer feeding programs for kids, feeding programs for low-income elderly, and feeding programs that go to daycare centers. In other words, we have an abundance, and we are going to use this abundance to help make sure no one goes to bed hungry and people have adequate nutrition in our society. Well, the Ryan budget made a draconian cut in the nutrition programs. Many of the House Republicans are saying they will not support a farm bill that doesn't have those draconian cuts, which I am proud to say the Senate bill does not have. I hasten to add, as the former chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, I long advocated cutting wasteful agricultural spending. For years I led the effort to get rid of direct payments, which the Senate bill does finally, and contributes, as I said, $23 billion in deficit reduction. So I think this situation shows what the Ryan budget is. It is emblematic of the Ryan budget. Not only is the Ryan budget devastating for working and low-income Americans, but its insistence on cutting benefits for low-income Americans is getting in the way of setting commonsense policy for our farmers and ranchers as well. It is remarkable that so many people in the House in the middle of a drought would say: I am not going to vote for a farm bill that is important to our farmers and ranchers; I will not vote for it unless I can cut nutrition benefits for tens of millions of struggling Americans. That is what the House Republicans are saying: They will not vote for a farm bill that will help our farmers and ranchers and is supported by every major farm group, all the consumer groups, the environmental groups, and it is supported in the Senate by a lot of Republicans. It is a bipartisan bill supported by the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Roberts of Kansas, former chair of the Agriculture Committee in the House. We passed that bill and yet the Republicans in the House are saying unless we have these draconian cuts to nutrition programs they will not pass the farm bill. That is the kind of ``my way or the highway'' attitude of the tea party Republicans in the House. If they can't have it their very narrow way, they will not let the rest of the House act. They will not take up a bipartisan bill passed by the Senate. Well, it is stunning what the House is refusing to do in refusing to pass a farm bill. All I can hope is that someone over there comes to their senses and gets that farm bill through before they adjourn and go home. Now, since we recessed around the 1st of August and just came back yesterday, our colleague on the House side, Congressman Paul Ryan, has become the Vice Presidential nominee for the Republican ticket under, of course, Governor Romney, who has the nomination for President. Congressman Paul Ryan is not an unknown entity and not an unknown quantity. He has been around a long time. He has been chairman of the House Budget Committee, and he has put forward the so-called Ryan budget twice. Well, what is a budget? A budget is a blueprint. It is like in order to build a house, one has to have a blueprint. Well, a budget for a city council is a blueprint for what they want to do for the city. A State budget talks about how the State is going to move. It is forward looking. What are we going to do in the future? The Federal budget is the same way. It is our blueprint. It is a blueprint for how we are going to move our country forward. We have the Ryan budget. I think it is fair for us to take a look at that blueprint and let the American people know just what is in that budget. We face a fundamental choice in this year's election: Are we going to restore, rescue, and rebuild a struggling middle class or are we going to ship even more of our wealth and advantages to those at the top at the expense of the middle class? Well, Republicans made it clear where they stand. They did so when nearly every Republican in Congress voted for the Ryan budget plan, and Governor Romney embraced the Ryan budget as ``marvelous.'' As I said yesterday, that is not exactly a word I think most Americans would use to describe something they liked, but I suppose if one is having tea at the Ritz and they are in that class of Americans, well, they might use the word to describe it as ``marvelous.'' At the very centerpiece of the Ryan budget is a dramatic shift of more wealth to those at the top. It targets huge new tax cuts for those at the top. Here is what it would do: $265,000 more per year for someone making over $1 million a year in income. That is on top of the $129,000 they are already getting from the Bush tax cuts. The Ryan budget would extend the Bush tax cuts and put $265,000 on top of that $129,000, which comes to around $400,000 a year if someone is making over $1 million a year. We are going to hear a lot this fall about entitlements and cutting entitlements. Oh, we have to get a handle on entitlements. When they talk about entitlements, mostly Republicans talk about those programs that go to help people who are at the bottom rung of the ladder. They are talking about things such as the SNAP program, the nutrition assistance program or they are talking about job training programs or maybe title I. I will talk about education in a minute. What about this entitlement? This is an entitlement: If a person is making over $1 million a year, under the Ryan budget they will be entitled to over $400,000 a year in tax cuts. What about that entitlement? No one wants to talk about taking away that entitlement, but that is an entitlement. The Republican tax cuts would total $4.5 trillion over 10 years. Well, how do they pay for it? They don't want to say, but budget and tax experts understand this game very well. The Republican budget would partially offset these tax cuts by making deep and Draconian cuts that undergird the middle class and essentially the quality of life in the country--everything from education, student grants and loans, law enforcement, clean air and clean water, food safety, medical research, highways, bridges, and other infrastructures. Lastly, the Republicans offset these new big tax cuts for those at the top by actually raising taxes on the middle class. You heard me right. The Ryan budget would actually raise taxes on the middle class. The Nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that under the Republican plan middle-class families with children would see their taxes go up on an average of more than $2,000 a year. The bottom line is the Ryan budget does not reduce the deficit. The Ryan budget has a deficit for the next 28 years. The savings they gain is by cutting all of these programs that undergird the middle class and by raising taxes on the middle class. Basically, the lion's share of that is going to go into tax cuts for the top wealthiest Americans. The truth is Representative Ryan is not interested in balancing the budget. Even under the best assumptions his budget would not balance until 2040, 28 years from now. As I have said, Mr. Ryan is obviously an acolyte of former Vice President Cheney who once said in a kind of unguarded moment that deficits don't matter. Remember that? Vice President Cheney said that. Obviously, George W. Bush and his administration took that to heart because we had the biggest deficit in history for the 8 years George W. Bush was President. Ryan doesn't care about deficits. He only cares about tax cuts for the wealthy. They just believe if we give more and more to the top, it will magically trickle down on everyone else. We know that doesn't work. The Romney-Ryan Republican plan is extreme and unbalanced. I am not making this up. You don't have to take it from me. Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized the House budget. He called it ``rightwing social engineering.'' That is what Newt Gingrich called it, ``rightwing social engineering.'' Newt got that one right. The aim of Representative Ryan is to use the deficit crisis as a pretext for degrading and dismantling everything from Medicare and Medicaid to education, environmental protection, workplace safety, medical and scientific research, and on and on. Again, he doubles down on the theory that if only we give more to those at the top, it will magically trickle down. Today I would like to focus specifically on the devastating impact of the Romney-Ryan budget on education. It is an unprecedented assault on education funding and a grave threat that this poses to school reform efforts across the United States. I have the unusual perspective on this issue as both the chair of the appropriations subcommittee that funds our Federal education programs-- and I might point out that for the last 23 years I have either been the chair of that appropriations subcommittee or a ranking member; I have been on that subcommittee since 1985--and I am also now the chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which authorizes the education programs, and I have been on that committee since 1987. I have served under distinguished chairmen such as, Senator Kennedy, Senator Kassebaum, Senator Jeffords, Senator Gregg from New Hampshire, and Senator Enzi. Now I chair it. So for all of these years I have been on both the authorizing committee and on the appropriations subcommittee. I must say I have been heartened by the exciting work being done in schools across the country to improve the quality of instruction for our students to close the achievement gap and graduate more students who are both college and career ready. Forty-five States and the District of Columbia have collaborated to create high-quality, common education standards, common core standards. The Obama administration's Race to the Top initiative has jump-started ambitious State-level reforms to turn around the Nation's lowest performing schools. In the HELP Committee, which I chair, working with Senator Enzi this year, we reauthorized on a bipartisan basis the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Positive changes are happening in America's schools. However, it is wishful thinking to continue to expect improvements if we continue to lay off tens of thousands of teachers, increase class sizes, and reduce instructional time. As I said, Senator Enzi and I worked very hard to get a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act through our committee on a bipartisan basis, but we have been unable to get it on the floor, so we will have to do it again next year. But if we look to the Ryan budget, we will be laying off tens of thousands of teachers and we will increase class sizes and reduce instructional time. Is that where we want to go as a country? As I said, this plan, which has been embraced by Governor Romney, would cut nondefense discretionary spending by 18.9 percent in fiscal year 2014--not this upcoming fiscal year but the next fiscal year. Let's take a look at what a cut that size would mean for Federal education programs. Let's take a look at title I. People ask: What is title I? It is the cornerstone of the Federal Government's support for elementary and secondary education in this country. The purpose of title I--and, by the way, it has been in the law since 1965; a great society program, I might add, which has done a world of good for our schools all across America. The purpose of title I is to help all students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, meet high academic standards. Title I money goes to more than 90 percent of the Nation's school districts. Schools have a lot of flexibility with title I funds, but they use the money mostly to pay the salaries of teachers and teachers' aides who are helping students in danger of falling behind. Under the Romney-Ryan budget, more than 10,000 schools across the country could lose their title I funding in fiscal year 2014. More than 37,000 teachers could lose their jobs. Not only would this hurt students, it is going to put more people out of work. This title I program is about $14.5 billion a year. It is a national program. What we basically said in 1965 and we have said every year since is that elementary and secondary education is basically a local and State function. But we want to come in and help those areas that have low tax bases, a high proportion of underprivileged kids and low- income families. We want to come in and help them because there is one thing we know: A poorly educated child in one State will not necessarily grow up to be a burden in that State; that child can move to another State. So as a national policy, we said in 1965 and we have every year since, under Republican Presidents and under Democratic Presidents, Republican Congresses and Democratic Congresses, we have said title I is an important national program. Under the Ryan budget, if enacted, more than 10,000 schools would lose their title I funding. Let's take a look at another important education program--one particularly close to me--and that is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Again, this has been in the law since 1975. The funding for this is about $11.6 billion a year. Again, under the Romney-Ryan budget, States could lose funding for approximately 25,000 special education teachers, aides, and other staff serving children with disabilities, again, in the year 2014--25,000 just in 1 year, the year 2014. This is special education teachers. Again, I wish to remind everyone, and I have said many times here before, that States are required to provide a free and appropriate public education to students with disabilities. A lot of people say this is a Federal mandate. This is not a Federal mandate; it is a constitutional mandate. Even if the Federal Government didn't provide one nickel to any State for IDEA, the State would still have to provide a free, appropriate public education because the courts have decided that if a State provides a free public education for its students, it cannot discriminate. Before they said they couldn't discriminate on the basis of sex, national origin, race--Brown v. Board of Education--and under PARC v. Pennsylvania, another case, they said we can't discriminate on the basis of disability. We can't say we are going to collect taxes from all these people, but this family with the kid with a disability, they are out, and that kid doesn't get an education. We said that is unconstitutional, and I think all would recognize that. So States have a constitutional requirement, if they provide a free public education, to provide that free, appropriate public education to kids with disabilities. Even if Federal funding was cut, the States would still have to pay for it. They have to educate their students with disabilities. If the Romney-Ryan budget were to pass, then what would happen is we would offload this cost of education to the States. What would happen? State and local taxes would go sky high. States and communities would still have to pay their special education teachers. If they are not getting enough from the Federal Government, they will have to find their own tax revenues to make up the difference. Just keep in mind, under the Romney-Ryan budget, approximately 25,000 special education teachers would not be funded under IDEA in 2014. Think about that. Let's turn to higher education. Since 1972, we have provided what has been known as Pell grants, named after former Senator Claiborne Pell. Pell grants are for students who want to go to college. They qualify for these grants because of low income. Another one of those terrible entitlements, right? If a person is low income and they want to go to college, they get a Pell grant. It has been a lifesaver for so many families who otherwise could not afford to send their kids to college. As we all know, a college education now is more important than ever. New jobs in every industry from manufacturing, construction, health care, and public health administration require workers who have the skill and the education. Look what happened in the recent recession. Workers with a college education have led the economic recovery. People with a bachelor's degree or better have gained 2 million jobs since the end of the recession. Meanwhile, workers with only a high school diploma or less have lost more than 230,000 jobs. There are over--I just saw it printed today--about 2 million jobs in America that are there but are not being filled because of lack of qualification for workers. That is education. So one would hope the Romney-Ryan budget, which they tout as being for creating jobs, would put a high priority on getting people into college, but it does just the opposite. In fiscal year 2014, nearly 10 million students could see their Pell grants fall, on average, by more than $1,000. Again, under the Romney- Ryan budget--this is an average, the current average award is $3,831. Under the Romney-Ryan budget in 2014, in one fell swoop it would go down to $2,599. For some students, that cut could mean the difference between whether they pursue higher education or not. Let's go to the other end of the education spectrum. I started out talking about elementary and secondary and high school and then I talked about college Pell grants. Let's look at preschool. Back in 1992, the Council on Education Funding, consisting of mostly CEOs from large corporations, came out with a study and a report on education as to what did business in America need in the future looking at education. They spent 2 or 3 years having hearings, investigating, and doing all that kind of stuff. This is a report from the business leaders of America. What did they say in that report? They said education begins at birth and the preparation for education begins before birth. The whole finding was we need to put more into preschool education. That was 20 years ago. Last year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--20 years later--came out with another study. This is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These are not social scientists; these are businesspeople. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce report said we have to put more money into preschool education. We, at the Federal level, have been doing that through a program called Head Start. We have had Head Start, I think, if I am not mistaken, since about 1968. High-quality, early childhood education has been proven to save taxpayer dollars in the long run by reducing the cost for welfare, special education and, might I add, criminal justice--read that ``jail time.'' One of the highest correlating factors--in fact, if I am not mistaken, the highest correlating factor for people who are incarcerated in our prisons is the lack of a high school education. Under the Romney-Ryan budget, up to 200,000 low-income children and their families could lose access to Head Start--again, in fiscal year 2014. I am not talking about over the next 10 years, I am talking about in 1 year. We have about 970,000 children in Head Start today. In 2014, 200,000 would leave if the Romney-Ryan budget were to happen. That is their blueprint. I have to keep reminding folks, that is their blueprint for where they want America to go. This is where they want America to go. Let me talk about a related topic, and it has a lot to do with education; that is, childcare funding. The Child Care and Development block grant provides subsidies to low-income families to help pay for childcare. These are families who are working, who are looking for work, and they depend on these subsidies to do so; otherwise, they wouldn't be able to work. By this point, it will come as no surprise that the Romney-Ryan budget would force approximately 95,000 low-income children across the country to lose access to high-quality childcare in fiscal year 2014. I think we get the picture. The Romney-Ryan budget is a devastating assault on education at all levels. Childcare--and a lot of these components have education--Head Start, elementary education, secondary education, title I, IDEA, special education, Pell grants for college, all devastatingly reduced--again, not over 10 years, in year 2014. I am struck by the fact that this budget of Mr. Ryan's is being proposed at a time when America's competitors are surging forward. China has tripled its investment in education and is building hundreds of new universities. Even in times of austerity and shrinking budgets, smart countries don't turn a chainsaw on themselves. They continue to invest in the future. And the most important investment in the future is an investment in education. In the months ahead, Congress will likely focus on reducing the deficit, and this is appropriate. Certainly any strategy for solving our fiscal crisis must include sensible spending cuts, but we should not jeopardize our long-term economic growth and recovery by slashing education. We have a saying out in farm country: You don't eat your seed corn. Our children today, they are our seed corn for the future. You do not throw them on the trash heap. On their own, the Romney-Ryan budget cuts to education defy common sense, but put in the broader context of their budget plan in its entirety, these cuts are not just ill-considered, they really smack of class warfare. The Romney-Ryan budget demands nothing whatsoever--not one dollar--from the wealthiest and most privileged people in America. Essentially, the Romney-Ryan budget is Robin Hood in reverse: It robs from the poor and gives it to the rich. So let's get this straight. The American people need to know this. This is their blueprint. Under the Romney-Ryan budget, we have devastating assaults on education. Last night I covered health care. Others will cover other topics. The Senator from California covered transportation and infrastructure. So again, under this plan, the United States--under Romney-Ryan-- should set aside $4.5 trillion over the next decade for tax cuts, with most of it going to the wealthiest 2 percent, but under the Romney-Ryan budget we cannot afford to sustain funding for public education. In addition, congressional Republicans specifically want to take away the $2,500 American opportunity tax credit used by so many middle-class and modest-income families to help cover college costs. Again, because of Republicans' determination to further lower tax rates for the wealthy, many other middle-class college tax benefits are at risk. This is outrageous. This approach does not remotely reflect the priorities and values of the American people. We cannot--we cannot--be dragged backward into a winner-take-all society where the privileged and powerful seize an even greater share of the wealth even as our middle class is struggling and declining. For nearly half a century, robust Federal investments in quality public schools and access to higher education have been a critical pillar undergirding the American middle class. The Romney-Ryan budget takes a jackhammer to that pillar. Going back to the 1930s, the American people have supported and strengthened a uniquely American social contract. That social contract says that we will prepare our young and care for our elderly. That contract says that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will be able to rise to the middle class and even beyond. That social contract says that a cardinal role of government is to provide a ladder of opportunity so that every American can realistically aspire to the American dream. In one fell swoop, the Romney-Ryan blueprint budget would rip up that social contract. It would replace it with a survival- of-the-fittest, winner-take-all philosophy that tells struggling, aspiring Americans and their communities: Tough luck, you are on your own. As President Clinton said in his speech last week: There are two philosophies at work here--the Romney-Ryan blueprint budget, which says: Tough luck, you are on your own; if you win the lottery, you are OK; if you do not, too bad, or the philosophy being proposed by President Obama and so many of us here: that we are all in this together, the rising tide lifts all boats, that we have a social contract that we have adhered to for nearly 80 years now. We will invest in our young and care for our elderly. We will make sure there is a ladder, a ramp of opportunity for the middle class. The ``tough luck, you are on your own'' philosophy of the Romney-Ryan budget is not the kind of America that my parents wanted or that they built for their children. It is not the kind of America that my neighbors in Iowa and across this country want to see. So in the weeks ahead, our Nation faces an absolutely fundamental choice. I repeat: Are we going to rescue, restore, and rebuild the middle class or are we going to continue to shift even more wealth and advantages to those at the top, at the expense of the middle class? Accumulation of riches by the wealthiest in our society is not the same as wealth creation by a society. If we are truly interested in creating wealth in our society, we should be investing in education, making sure there is a ladder or ramp of opportunity by making sure the benefits of our society go to those with new ideas and new information, and those people may be kids from very low income families, they may be kids with disabilities. That is true wealth creation of a society--not just giving more to people at the top. So, again, the Romney-Ryan budget makes exactly the wrong choice. I disagree with that budget. America remains a tremendously wealthy and resourceful nation. Again, when you listen to what the Romney-Ryan budget is, when you look at it, it is sort of premised on the fact that we are busted, we are broke, we cannot afford childcare, we cannot afford title I, we cannot afford Pell grants, we cannot afford it, we are broke, but we can find tax breaks for the wealthiest. We are not broke. America remains the wealthiest society, the wealthiest country the world has ever seen. We have the highest per capita income of any major nation. So it kind of begs the question, does it not: If we are so rich, why are we so poor, why are we so broke? Because there has been a misallocation of capital, more and more going to fewer and fewer, not enough being used to educate our kids, provide a good college education, make sure we have the highest qualified teachers in all of our schools, that we have the best principals, that we can have a school system that is second to none in the world. That is the kind of America that we should have and that we can afford to do. We can afford to do this if we have the right blueprint. The Romney-Ryan budget takes us down the wrong road. The middle class is the backbone of this country. We have to rescue, restore, and rebuild it, and we need leaders who have the backbone to do that for our middle class. It is not the Romney-Ryan budget. Last night I spoke about the devastation on health care. I discussed what would happen in education. Next I am going to come to the floor and talk about what is going to happen to working families, what is going to happen to people in America when we take away some of the protections they have so they do not get injured, they do not get sick, so they can show up for work every day healthy. So we are going to look again at that devastation. Others will come to the floor and talk about the infrastructure and what that means for America. Well, I do not often agree with Newt Gingrich, as people know, but he was right. This is rightwing social engineering. We do not need that in America. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have put their stamp of approval on it. The American people need to know what is in that budget, and we intend to tell them between now and the time we adjourn and go home. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Rebecca Sadwick and Jessica Flannery of my staff be granted privileges of the floor for the duration of today's session.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, September 13, 2012, at 10:30 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Improving College Affordability: A View From the States.'' For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Leanne Hotek of the committee staff on (202) 224-9243.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as many of my colleagues know, I am a strong and enthusiastic advocate of Stephanie Rose to serve as a district court judge in Iowa's southern judicial district. I was honored to recommend to the President that he nominate this outstanding attorney. I encourage my colleagues to vote for her confirmation when the vote occurs later this afternoon. Let me begin by first thanking Senator Leahy and his staff for their hard work in advancing Ms. Rose's nomination. I also want to thank my senior colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, for his invaluable support and assistance. For all the years we have served together here in the Senate, which now goes on, I think, 27 years, Senator Grassley and I have cooperated in a spirit of good will on judicial nominations in our State. I am proud we are continuing Iowa's tradition regarding judicial selections. I can honestly say that Senator Grassley has never opposed one of my selectees, I have never opposed one of his, even when there has been a different President in the White House, depending upon the party that is in control of the Congress. I think we have both been very judicious, if I might use that word, in our selection of people for the bench. I say that both on behalf of Senator Grassley and myself. So therefore we have worked together in this very close spirit of cooperation. I also want to thank Senator Grassley's staff, in particular Jeremy Paris, Ted Lehman, and Senator Grassley's Chief of Staff, David Young, for their support and their help in advancing the nomination. On my staff, I want to thank my Chief of Staff, Brian Ahlberg, Dan Goldberg, Derek Miller, and Pam Smith, all of whom have worked very hard to make sure we had a thorough interview process, a thorough vetting of the candidates, and to make sure that we got to the point where her vote will be coming up later this afternoon. Stephanie Rose possesses in abundance the personal and professional qualities we expect from those we consider to take on the profound responsibilities of a Federal judge. She is a superb attorney. Among jurists, prosecutors, and the defense bar, she has a reputation as someone who is unfailingly fair and ethical and who possesses exceptional legal ability, intellect, integrity, and judgment. As Charles Larson, the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa under President George W. Bush, wrote to the Judiciary Committee, Ms. Rose ``has all the requisite abilities and traits to serve all litigants of the Southern District of Iowa in the manner expected of a federal judge. Ms. Rose would be a distinguished member of the judiciary.'' Ms. Rose was born in Topeka, KS, and moved to Mason City, IA, when she was 4. Both of her parents were public schoolteachers. She and her husband Rob have two children, Kyl and Missy. Ms. Rose has two sisters, one of whom was adopted after coming to the family as a foster child, one of five foster children her parents welcomed into their home. After graduating from Mason City High School, Ms. Rose earned her bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Iowa in just 3 years. Then she earned her doctorate of jurisprudence from the University of Iowa College of Law in just 2 years, graduating in the top 5 percent of her class. She could easily have commanded a big salary from a top law firm. Instead she opted for public service and long hours as a Federal prosecutor, working to uphold the rule of law, making our neighborhoods safer, and advancing the cause of justice. I might add that she served as a Federal prosecutor under district attorneys appointed both by Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents. In 2009, the Senate unanimously confirmed Ms. Rose to become U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Iowa, having previously served 12 years as an assistant U.S. attorney. Even before becoming U.S. attorney, she was lead counsel in 260 felony cases and made 34 oral arguments before the eighth circuit. She received a national award from the Department of Justice for her work in prosecuting the largest unlawful Internet pharmacy case in the United States. As U.S. attorney, Ms. Rose has helped make Iowa and our Nation safer, reduced violent crime and gang violence, and promoted civil rights. In addition, she has the distinction of serving on the Attorney General's Advisory Committee. It is no surprise that the American Bar Association gave Ms. Rose a unanimous ``well qualified'' rating, the highest rating by the American Bar Association. Finally, I wanted to comment on the historic nature of her confirmation. Ms. Rose was the first woman to be confirmed as U.S. attorney in Iowa's Northern District, and when confirmed later today, she will be the first woman confirmed as a U.S. district court judge in Iowa's Southern District. Ms. Rose is a person of truly outstanding intellect, integrity, and character. She is exceptionally well qualified to serve as a United States district judge for the Southern District of Iowa. I urge all of my colleagues to support her nomination. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. It had all that support?

Mr. HARKIN. Conservation groups supported the bill?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I would like to compliment the Senator from Michigan for her great leadership on agriculture policy, food policy. A big part of this bill is making sure that our kids in America get adequate nutrition, that our elderly get good nutrition. Our summer and afterschool feeding programs and feeding programs for our seniors are all wrapped up in this bill too. I was in Iowa in August and met with a lot of farmers, and they were a little perplexed. They said: Wait a minute. You passed a bill in the Senate? I said: Yes. So I ask the Senator from Michigan, did not that bill have the support of all the major farm organizations?

Mr. HARKIN. I ask the Senator from Michigan, did not her bill, the bill she engineered and got through here, have the support of consumer groups and parent groups?

Mr. HARKIN. Well, what farmers asked me was this: If you had a bill that passed the Senate, a bipartisan bill supported by all the major farm groups, supported by consumer and conservation groups, why didn't the House just pick it up and pass it? I didn't have an answer. Does the Senator from Michigan have an answer? Because I don't understand why the House can't take a bill that is so widely supported and is such a bipartisan bill and just pass it.

Mr. HARKIN. I say to my friend from Michigan, my leader on agricultural policy, she knows there is enough anxiety in farm country now because of the terrible droughts we are having around the country, the shortages that are looming, that now is not the time to add more anxiety to farmers and to farm families and our rural communities across America. So I thank the Senator for her great leadership and for pointing out that as well as acting. Our committee has acted, the Senate has acted, and what the House is doing I just can't figure out. Again, I compliment the chairwoman of our committee for pointing out that we have 20 days left and we are counting down. I am hopeful the House will hear the voices of our farm country and the bipartisan voices here in the Senate and get a bill passed--or agree to the bill passed in the Senate. I thank the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator for yielding, and I thank the Senator for her keen eye on the Ryan budget and what it does. I listened to the Senator's explanation of President Obama's goal to cut down overpayments, fraud and abuse, and to put that money back into helping beneficiaries. I ask the Senator, isn't it true that both Ryan budgets incorporate those very same cuts President Obama wants to do?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, let me thank my colleague Senator Boxer for always being on point and for always being very eloquent in her focus and explanation of the fallacies of the Ryan-Romney budget and how it is going to affect our middle-class families in the future. Since we recessed around the 1st of August and have been out of session, Congressman Paul Ryan--our colleague in the House--has become the Vice Presidential nominee of the Republican Party, and, of course, Mr. Romney has accepted the nomination to be President. Congressman Ryan is not an unknown quantity. He has been here quite a few years, and as the head of the Budget Committee he has put forward a couple budgets. Budgets are blueprints. If one is going to build a building or a house, they need a blueprint. If you are going to try to move the country in a certain direction, you need a blueprint, and that blueprint is a budget. A budget sort of tells us where it is that the proponent of that budget wants to take us as a country--a Federal budget. If it was a State budget, we would say that is where they want to take the State. So we on this side intend, over the next several days, couple weeks-- however long we are in session--to let the American people know what is in the Ryan budget and where it would take America: What is the blueprint they have for America? Our Nation faces an absolutely fundamental choice in November: Are we going to rescue, restore, and rebuild the struggling middle class in this country or are we going to continue to shift even more wealth and advantage to those at the top at the expense of the middle class? Republicans have made it very clear where they stand on this critical choice. They did so when nearly every Republican in Congress voted in favor of the Ryan budget plan, and Governor Romney embraced that plan as marvelous--not exactly a word most average Americans would use to describe something they like. But if you are having tea at the Ritz, I guess ``marvelous'' kind of fits for some people. Anyway, he embraced the plan as marvelous. The very centerpiece of the Ryan budget is a dramatic shift of even more wealth to those at the top, huge new tax cuts for the richest 2 percent. As the Senator from California pointed out, if we take the Bush tax cuts and extend those--which Mr. Romney would do and Mr. Ryan's budget does--then add on to it the tax cuts in the Ryan budget-- which Mr. Romney supports, so I can call it the Romney-Ryan budget or the Ryan-Romney budget. If we do that and you make over $1 million a year, you are going to get nearly $400,000 a year in new tax cuts. Think about it. It takes your breath away--$129,000 in the Bush tax cuts would be extended, plus an additional $265,000 that would be in the Ryan budget. We hear a lot about entitlements; we are going to cut entitlements. But this is an entitlement. Think about it. If someone makes over $1 million a year, they are entitled to that. They don't have to do anything else. They don't have to jump through any hoops. They don't have to show any hurt or anything else. Just if someone makes over $1 million, they are entitled to it. How about this entitlement? Republicans always want to make it seem as though entitlements only go to poor people or the elderly or children. They talk about Medicaid as an entitlement. What about this? This is an entitlement to those who are rich. How do the Republicans pay for this? They don't want to say how, but all we have to do is look at the Ryan budget and that will tell us how they pay for it. They pay for it by massive Draconian cuts to programs that undergird the middle class and essential to the quality of life in this country, such as education cuts, student grants and loan cuts, law enforcement, clean air and clean water, food safety, medical research, highways, bridges and other infrastructure that was focused on by the Senator from California--all those would be cut. The Republican plan would end Medicare, period. It would turn it into voucher care. So now we have a new word, not Medicare but voucher care, that would force seniors to pay nearly $6,000 more per year out of pocket for their health care in future years. We don't get Medicare; we get a voucher. That plan would strip tens of millions of Americans of their health care coverage and cut millions of poor kids from nutrition programs. Their plan would leave America with a less-skilled workforce, a deteriorating infrastructure, making us less competitive in the global marketplace. Lastly, Republicans offset these big new tax cuts by actually raising taxes on the middle class. That is a dirty little secret you won't find unless you dig into the Ryan budget. It is true. Here is why: Under the Republican plan, under the Ryan-Romney budget, middle-class families are net losers, paying significantly higher taxes. The wealthy are huge net winners. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that under the Romney-Ryan budget, middle-class families with children would see their taxes go up, on average, by more than $2,000 a year. The bottom line is that the Romney-Ryan budget does not reduce the deficit. I hear Congressman Ryan and Mr. Romney out there talking on the stump about the budget and the deficit, and they go on and on. Why don't they own up to it? The Ryan budget keeps us in a deficit for 28 more years. Yes, you heard me right. The Ryan budget keeps us in the red for 28 more years. When President Clinton was inaugurated in January of 1993 and we put through the Clinton budget--which, I might point out, not one Republican supported--it turned those deficits right around, and within 5 or 6 years we were in a surplus. It doesn't take 28 years. It only took a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress passing the legislation in 1993 to end the slide into deficits and turn it into a surplus in only 5 or 6 years. The Ryan budget keeps us in a deficit for 28 years. Again, the savings they gain by slashing spending and raising taxes on the middle class go to partially offsetting the $4.5 trillion in new tax cuts, most of which goes to the wealthiest Americans. The truth is Representative Ryan is not interested in balancing the budget. That is not his interest. Even under his most rosy assumptions, the budget would not balance until 2040. The reality is the Ryan budget's overriding goal is not to balance the budget but to reduce taxes on those at the top. Congressman Ryan has turned out to be a true acolyte of former Vice President Cheney, who famously said in an unguarded moment: ``Deficits don't matter.'' Do you remember that? Vice President Cheney, ``Deficits don't matter.'' I guess they didn't to him and President George W. Bush because look at the deficits they plunged us into. Now Congressman Ryan is basically, with his budget--he will not say it publicly, but with his budget he is saying the same thing: Deficits just don't matter. What matters are tax cuts for the wealthy. Never in our history have we seen a deficit proposal so radical and extreme. I was here. I was in the House and then later in the Senate when President Reagan was President. He was conservative, but he was not radical and as extreme as this budget. When I tell people back in Iowa about the Ryan budget, they say: Come on. That approach is so extreme and unbalanced you must be making it up. The Romney-Ryan plan is extreme and unbalanced, and I am not making it up. Don't take my word for it. Listen to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He criticized the Ryan budget. He called it ``rightwing social engineering.'' All I can say is, Newt, you got that one right. Representative Ryan believes in radically shrinking the size of government to what it was over a half century ago. His aim is to use the deficit crisis as a pretext for degrading and dismantling everything from Medicare and Medicaid to education, environmental protection, workplace safety, medical and scientific research, and on and on. It doubles down, as President Clinton said--it doubles down on the theory that if we just give more and more of our national wealth to those at the top, it will magically trickle down. We have tried that before. It sure does not work. I would like to focus some more of my remarks this evening on the devastating impact of the Romney-Ryan budget on Medicare and Medicaid, but health care more generally. Since he first arrived in Congress, Representative Ryan has consistently pushed a very radical health care program--to end Medicare. End Medicare, as we say, ``as we know it'' but to go to voucher care. Give everybody a voucher. Under his proposal, seniors would no longer have the guaranteed medical benefits they have enjoyed for decades. Instead, they would get a voucher from the Federal Government and they can go out and buy individual private insurance or Medicare. That is the catchy little thing. We will hear Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney say they can buy Medicare if they would like to or they can buy private insurance. Let's look at that. They say this is a tough-minded solution to our debt problem, but it is just a scheme, a scheme to shift costs onto America's seniors rather than making debt reduction a shared sacrifice for all of us. Again, let's look at this voucher system. They would get a voucher program. A senior could buy traditional Medicare or health insurance. So what is the catch? The voucher will not be enough to cover health care costs. So seniors' out-of-pocket health care costs will steadily increase. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that the Ryan budget proposal could increase annual out-of-pocket costs for seniors by more than $1,200 in 2030 and $6,000 in 2050. What this chart shows is the increase in health care costs in today's dollars, constant dollars, that elderly persons will have to pay for during their expected lifetime, their average life expectancy from the time they retire. In 2023 the average senior living an average lifespan would pay $59,500 more. Senator Boxer rounded that off and said $60,000 more. But look what happens when we get to 2030. The average senior will pay $124,600 more over their expected lifespan; in 2040, $216,000 more. By 2050, $331,000 more for their retirement years they would have to pay in health care costs. That is in constant 2012 dollars. They say: But a senior can go out and buy traditional Medicare or private health insurance. Here is the catch on that. What they do is put Medicare in a death spiral. Here is how. If a person is a very healthy senior they can go out in the private insurance market and probably get a pretty good deal. If they have no preexisting conditions, if they have never had cancer, no one in their family has had it, if they are very healthy, they have never smoked, they are just in great physical shape, they can probably go out and get a private, cheap private insurance policy with their voucher. So who stays in Medicare then? The oldest and the sickest, and therefore the costs of Medicare spiral up and spiral up and it becomes untenable. It is a death spiral. That is Mr. Ryan's way of killing Medicare. Yes, he says people will get a voucher, and they can buy Medicare or they can buy private insurance, but it puts Medicare into a death spiral. The Ryan budget turns this successful, reliable, comprehensive source of health care that seniors have relied on for decades--and have paid into, I might add, during their years of hard work--into some unproven, unpredictable, rightwing, conservative experiment. I do not want to experiment with the elderly. I want them to have good health care they can afford, that is universal, and that they can count on. President Obama has fought to strengthen Medicare, and he believes, as we do, it is a sacred contract. He has made a commitment to strengthen Medicare in the Affordable Care Act. For example, by eliminating the gaps in coverage, closing the doughnut hole--which we have already started to do--elderly Iowans, I think, received over $600 back this year just from closing the doughnut hole. Reducing the cost of prescription drugs. According to Medicare's own actuaries, the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, extends the program solvency from 2016 to 2024. Again, how? As the Senator from California said, by fighting waste, fraud, abuse and by getting rid of wasteful subsidies to insurance companies. Our plan for Medicare is basically summed up: Mend it but don't end it. I was taken a little aback yesterday. Over the weekend Governor Romney stated he would keep some of the popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Like what? Well, like kids staying on their parents' insurance plans until they are 26 and ensuring coverage for folks with preexisting conditions. I said: Wait a second. I thought he said on the first day he was going to repeal ObamaCare? But now he says he wants to keep those. I was a little confused, but my confusion was short-lived because his campaign then came out with a clarifying statement. They clarified what Governor Romney said, and this is the quote: Governor Romney will ensure that discrimination against individuals with preexisting conditions who maintain continuous coverage is prohibited. The Washington Post reports that 89 million Americans would be left out of Romney's preexisting condition plan. Why? They were working and they had a health plan. They were out of work for a month or two--maybe went someplace else to work and got a different plan: Sorry, you didn't have continuous coverage. You don't get covered. These are the little games that Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan are playing with the American people.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I spoke earlier in greater detail about the nomination of Stephanie Rose to serve as a district court judge in Iowa's Southern District. That is the vote that is coming up at 5:30. As the Senate begins to vote, I want to reiterate what an outstanding nominee she is. It is no surprise the American Bar Association rated her ``unanimously well qualified,'' which is their highest rating. After graduating from law school in just 2 years in the top 5 percent of her class, she served for 12 years as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Iowa under attorneys who were appointed by both Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents. She was lead counsel in 260 felony cases and made 34 oral arguments before the Eighth Circuit. Most notably, she received a national award from the Department of Justice for prosecuting the largest unlawful Internet pharmacy case in the United States. Her work was so impressive that in 2009 I recommended her to the President to serve as U.S. attorney. In 2009 the Senate unanimously confirmed her, and she has been outstanding in her work as U.S. attorney since then. Throughout her career of public service Ms. Rose has worked to uphold the rule of law, made our neighborhoods safer, promoted civil rights, and advanced the cause of justice. She possesses all the qualifications necessary to be a remarkably good Federal judge. She is a superb attorney and among jurists, prosecutors, and the defense bar she has a reputation of someone who is unfailingly fair and ethical and one who possesses exceptional legal ability, intellect, and judgment. Finally, let me reiterate my appreciation to Senator Leahy, the chairman, but also, again, to Senator Grassley, my senior Senator from the State of Iowa, and to their staffs, especially Jeremy Paris and Ted Lehman, and Senator Grassley's chief of staff, David Young, for their support and all their assistance in getting this nomination through. I also thank my chief of staff Brian Albert, and Dan Goldberg, Derek Miller, and Pam Smith on my staff and my committee staff. In essence, Ms. Rose is a person of truly outstanding intellect and character. She is exceptionally qualified to serve as U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Iowa. I urge my colleagues to support her confirmation when the vote occurs in just a few minutes. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Mac LeBuhn and Ladimir Geake of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.