Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the chairman of the Budget Committee because I know he has tried very hard to do something better than the budget delivered by President Obama and tried to cut back on the deficit. In fact, they have cut back on the deficit. But they have only cut back on the deficit because they made it a 5-year bill instead of a 10-year bill. That is a problem. Because if you take this 5-year bill and extend it 10 years, it is still going to have the same impact. The impact is, this budget is going to double the national debt in 5 years, and it will triple the national debt when it is taken out to its 10- year maximum. In fact, I am hoping we can do some amending on this bill. I am hoping there will be enough time for us to talk about the principles in this bill. This is going to set our country on a course, the likes of which we haven't seen since World War II. In fact, the Obama budget creates more debt than under every President from George Washington to George W. Bush combined. That is the 100-year budget put forward by the administration. By 2019, under this proposal, the public debt would exceed 80 percent of GDP. That is more than twice the historic average and the highest since World War II. We have looked, since we have been in this financial crisis, at the models of the past, when we have been in recessions and even looking at the Depression. There are people who have taken the Roosevelt model. When we have looked at historians' viewpoints of the New Deal, in 1941, Federal debt was only about 40 percent of the GDP. Today the national debt is at 57 percent of GDP. I think we are looking at a very slippery slope. In fact, it was said on March 20 by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the dimensions of the debt problem in the President's budget are that it is one-third more--actually, it would add $9.3 trillion, about a trillion every year--than the Obama administration had estimated when it sent the budget over. We need to look at some of the bipartisan, nonpartisan economists and organizations looking at this budget. I hope we can have a reality check. We are getting ready to take a step that is continuing what has happened in the last 2 months. We passed a $1 trillion stimulus package and then a $1 trillion Omnibus appropriations bill within a 2-week period. Now we are looking at a $1 trillion deficit, adding to the debt every single year. On Sunday, March 29, David Broder said in his column: The Democratic Congress is about to perform a cover-up on the most serious threat to America's economic future. The real threat is the monstrous debt resulting from the slump in revenue and the staggering sums being committed by Washington to rescuing embattled banks and homeowners in the absence of any serious strategy for paying it back. In 10 years, the President's budget will spend more on interest payments than on education, energy, and transportation combined. Under the President's budget, the debt per household for fiscal year 2010 would be $78,000. Every household in America would have a debt of $78,000. This ever-growing national debt is going to require larger annual interest payments, with much of that money going overseas, as we know, because foreign entities own 25 percent of our public debt. The Chinese Government already owns about $1 trillion in U.S. debt. What is going to be their answer when they see this debt continuing to go up? Many of us are concerned that they are going to either say: We are not going to buy any more debt. Then we would be in a downward spiral from which I don't see a recovery plan. Or they may say: The risk is greater and, therefore, we are going to charge a higher interest rate. What is that going to do in these very fragile economic times? I appreciate the time given by the majority. There will be amendments offered and there will be substitutes. I hope we can have some bipartisanship so we could have a budget that maybe all of us would agree is the right path for the future. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

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

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mrs. Hutchison pertaining to the introduction of S. 717 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I rise to talk about legislation that has been introduced today. My colleague and friend, Senator Ted Kennedy, and I and Senator Feinstein are introducing a bill that we hope will help advance America's efforts to find cures for cancer. We all know that cancer is a relentless disease. It does not discriminate between men and women, wealthy or poor, elderly or young. In 2008, over 1.4 million Americans were diagnosed with some form of cancer. It may have been you, it may have been a friend, it may have been a coworker, a parent, a sibling, a spouse or even a child. More than half a million Americans lost their battle with cancer last year. During the last session of Congress, Senator Kennedy and I began working on what we would say would be the next generation of the war on cancer. Senator Feinstein has been a leader in this area as well. She is vice chairman of C-Change, which is an organization that is led by President George Bush--the 41st--and his wife Barbara. Dianne has been very active in the cancer cause for a long time, having lost her husband to cancer. All of us have been touched by it. We know very poignantly what happened in our body last year; that Senator Kennedy himself was diagnosed with a brain tumor. We have watched him valiantly fight off the scourge of this disease. I know in my own family my mother died from a brain tumor, and my brothers have also had cancer. It is such a reminder to all of us, especially when we see one of our own family members or one of our beloved colleagues fighting this disease. Arlen Specter has had amazing feats of living through brain tumors, and he has been so valiant. He, too, is one of the leaders in the cause we are trying to fight today, and that is to win against cancer. After Senator Kennedy's diagnosis was announced, I stood on the floor and said I would have an absolute commitment to introduce legislation with him, which we had already been working on for months. We were working with many of the groups that have come together to fight cancer. There are so many in our country that are banding together to try to put all our resources and all our experiences and all of what we have learned to work to do that magic thing that will finally bring about a cure for this disease. Today, we are keeping the promise we made. We waited, of course, for Senator Kennedy to go through surgery and to be in treatment before we introduced it, and he is back with us today. He is part of introducing this bill today. So we are calling the bill the 21st Century Cancer ALERT Act. Here is why we must start again and renew our efforts. Since the war on cancer was declared in 1971, we have amassed a wealth of knowledge, but our success in battling the disease has not been as great as with some of the other health concerns we have faced in our country, such as heart disease. When we adjust the mortality rate of cancer by age, it is still extraordinarily high when compared to mortality from other chronic diseases. The impact that cancer has on all lives cannot and should not be underestimated. Today, one out of every two men and one out of every three women in our country will develop cancer in their lifetimes. That is an incredible statistic, and it shows how important it is that we get a handle on how we can either find the cure or, the next best thing, to be able to treat it and be able to live with the disease. Let me tell you about some of the women who have fought with this disease. A woman named Elayne in Corinth, TX, is 44 years old and fighting cancer for the second time in her life. She says: I would like to see more research and options, especially for people like me who tend to have few options left as a stage 4 cancer patient. I think there is great hope in targeted therapies, and this should be a continued area of research and development. The Kennedy-Hutchison-Feinstein bill will do several things: It will, first of all, promote cancer diagnosis at an early and more curable stage. We must encourage the discovery and advancement of early recognition and treatment. One promising research method is the use of biomarkers. Biomarkers leave evidence within the body that alert clinicians to the hidden activity that indicates cancer may be developing. Identifying biomarkers could represent the earliest possible detection of cancer in patients where it might otherwise be a long time before the person would see or feel any symptoms. However, even if we strengthen our ability to diagnose cancer, impediments remain that prevent many Americans from undergoing routine screening for cancer. With early screening, the chances of catching the disease at a treatable stage are greater and improve the rate of survival. No. 2, our bill will adopt a cooperative, coordinated approach to cancer research. By establishing a network of biorepositories, we will enable investigators to share information and samples. An integrated approach will accelerate the progress of lifesaving research. Furthermore, finding cures should be a collaborative goal. Great research is being done by so many researchers who are not aware of advancements in the trials. We have the research that might be concentrated in one area, but people don't have the communication they need to know what is going on in another area that might be helpful in furthering the research going on in a different area. The culture of isolated career research must shift toward cooperative strides to achieve breakthroughs. We must encourage all the stakeholders in the war on cancer to work in concert. This is perhaps going to be a difficult hurdle, but we must do it. If our researchers are just involved in their own microscope, they are not going to be able to have the full body of knowledge that might contain that one thing that triggers the end to cancer as we know it. Next, our bill will increase enrollment in clinical trials. Clinical trials expand treatment options for patients while enabling researchers to explore new methods in prevention, diagnosis, and therapy. This is so valuable because these are the experimental stages of treatment where people who sign up--who know there are risks here but are willing to try--can help us learn what works and what might not work. This is essential for us to make real strides in this war on cancer. One woman who understands the importance of clinical trials is Maria from El Paso. She is participating in a clinical trial, but she says: Every day we encounter women who are either unaware of the option for clinical trials or who want to participate but do not have access to them. It's not right that some of us have access to the most cutting-edge treatments, while others are shut out and left mired in a web of confusion. Less than 5 percent of the 10 million adults with cancer in the United States participate in clinical trials. We need to raise awareness about clinical trials so more cancer patients will know they are available and have the full information of what they could do. Disincentives in the health insurance market to enrolling in clinical trials must be eliminated. Last, as our knowledge of cancer advances and survivors live longer, we must move toward establishing a process of providing comprehensive care planning services. There is great value in arming patients with a treatment plan and a summary of their care once they enter remission. This can help ensure continuity of therapy and prevent costly duplicative or unnecessary services. Together, Senator Kennedy, Senator Feinstein, and I hope this will be a bipartisan effort to reinvigorate this fight by enacting these necessary changes through legislation. One of the people who will benefit from our bill is Suzanne. After 10 years of treatment for cancer, at a cost of over $3 million, Suzanne came to my office this week to show her support for this bill. She said: I don't want my two daughters to go through what I went through. Screening saves lives and money. She is right. Another woman who has been in touch with my office is Jodie. At the age of 36, she was diagnosed with cancer. After 5 years of treatment, she said: ``It is a gift to be here.'' The Kennedy-Hutchison-Feinstein bill, through screening programs, research, and clinical trials, will give people such as Suzanne, Maria, Elayne, Jodie, and many others in our country more time to spend with their loved ones. This bill we are introducing today is not a finished product. There may need to be changes to this bill. It is not perfect. I already have had some point out the need for us to sit down and try to come up with the absolute right approach. The HELP Committee will be looking at this bill. They will be marking it up. We have already had hearings last year, but there will be more of a look and it will be important that this happen. We want a bipartisan and resounding victory. We want this to be a victory for all of our country--a victory over this disease. It is the kind of bill that can be bipartisan, that should be bipartisan, and should have overwhelming support from this Congress and from the American people. I am wearing today the ``Live Strong'' bracelet. This is from the Lance Armstrong Foundation. We all know Lance Armstrong is a cancer survivor. He is also a hero to many of us because of his wins of the Tour de France. He is the premier bicyclist in the world. Unfortunately, Lance is in the hospital right now--or he might be just getting out. He doesn't have cancer. That is the good news. He broke his collar bone--in about six places, apparently--and because he has insisted he is going back into cycling, he is recovering from that injury. But we know the grit and determination of this man. After his Tour de France wins, and setting the ``straight record'' for Tour de France wins, he came home and decided to take on cancer for everyone. He has been a role model in showing us it can be defeated, because after his bout with cancer, he went on to win these grueling bicycle races all over the world. So he has been a role model in that regard, but he has also, through his foundation, been a champion of making sure other people have the same chance for survival that he has had. So while we wish him well on the mending of his collar bone, we already owe him a debt of gratitude, and I am going to wear his bracelet as we introduce the bill today to show what one person can do to defeat cancer. We can all come together to help Lance get the message out throughout the world that we can defeat cancer, and no one is a better leader in this cause on the Senate floor today than Senator Edward Kennedy. He not only helped craft the legislation--even as he was in treatment he was making edits to this bill--but he also is another person who has shown courage, as Lance Armstrong has, by not giving up, by coming right back to the Senate after his cancer treatments and showing us that he, too, is joining with Lance Armstrong to make sure everyone has the same chance he has for early detection and for a chance to live a full life. That is what we want for every American. I am very proud to be standing here for Senator Kennedy to say we are going to fight for this together. We are going to work together, and we are going to try to have a resounding bipartisan victory on this bill. Working with the HELP Committee and utilizing their input, we will win a victory for all Americans. Maybe we will make Americans see that we can work together here in Washington. Maybe that will be the change in how things are done in Washington that we have all been looking for. It would be a change for the better.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I rise to talk about legislation that has been introduced today. My colleague and friend, Senator Ted Kennedy, and I and Senator Feinstein are introducing a bill that we hope will help advance America's efforts to find cures for cancer. We all know that cancer is a relentless disease. It does not discriminate between men and women, wealthy or poor, elderly or young. In 2008, over 1.4 million Americans were diagnosed with some form of cancer. It may have been you, it may have been a friend, it may have been a coworker, a parent, a sibling, a spouse or even a child. More than half a million Americans lost their battle with cancer last year. During the last session of Congress, Senator Kennedy and I began working on what we would say would be the next generation of the war on cancer. Senator Feinstein has been a leader in this area as well. She is vice chairman of C-Change, which is an organization that is led by President George Bush--the 41st--and his wife Barbara. Dianne has been very active in the cancer cause for a long time, having lost her husband to cancer. All of us have been touched by it. We know very poignantly what happened in our body last year; that Senator Kennedy himself was diagnosed with a brain tumor. We have watched him valiantly fight off the scourge of this disease. I know in my own family my mother died from a brain tumor, and my brothers have also had cancer. It is such a reminder to all of us, especially when we see one of our own family members or one of our beloved colleagues fighting this disease. Arlen Specter has had amazing feats of living through brain tumors, and he has been so valiant. He, too, is one of the leaders in the cause we are trying to fight today, and that is to win against cancer. After Senator Kennedy's diagnosis was announced, I stood on the floor and said I would have an absolute commitment to introduce legislation with him, which we had already been working on for months. We were working with many of the groups that have come together to fight cancer. There are so many in our country that are banding together to try to put all our resources and all our experiences and all of what we have learned to work to do that magic thing that will finally bring about a cure for this disease. Today, we are keeping the promise we made. We waited, of course, for Senator Kennedy to go through surgery and to be in treatment before we introduced it, and he is back with us today. He is part of introducing this bill today. So we are calling the bill the 21st Century Cancer ALERT Act. Here is why we must start again and renew our efforts. Since the war on cancer was declared in 1971, we have amassed a wealth of knowledge, but our success in battling the disease has not been as great as with some of the other health concerns we have faced in our country, such as heart disease. When we adjust the mortality rate of cancer by age, it is still extraordinarily high when compared to mortality from other chronic diseases. The impact that cancer has on all lives cannot and should not be underestimated. Today, one out of every two men and one out of every three women in our country will develop cancer in their lifetimes. That is an incredible statistic, and it shows how important it is that we get a handle on how we can either find the cure or, the next best thing, to be able to treat it and be able to live with the disease. Let me tell you about some of the women who have fought with this disease. A woman named Elayne in Corinth, TX, is 44 years old and fighting cancer for the second time in her life. She says: I would like to see more research and options, especially for people like me who tend to have few options left as a stage 4 cancer patient. I think there is great hope in targeted therapies, and this should be a continued area of research and development. The Kennedy-Hutchison-Feinstein bill will do several things: It will, first of all, promote cancer diagnosis at an early and more curable stage. We must encourage the discovery and advancement of early recognition and treatment. One promising research method is the use of biomarkers. Biomarkers leave evidence within the body that alert clinicians to the hidden activity that indicates cancer may be developing. Identifying biomarkers could represent the earliest possible detection of cancer in patients where it might otherwise be a long time before the person would see or feel any symptoms. However, even if we strengthen our ability to diagnose cancer, impediments remain that prevent many Americans from undergoing routine screening for cancer. With early screening, the chances of catching the disease at a treatable stage are greater and improve the rate of survival. No. 2, our bill will adopt a cooperative, coordinated approach to cancer research. By establishing a network of biorepositories, we will enable investigators to share information and samples. An integrated approach will accelerate the progress of lifesaving research. Furthermore, finding cures should be a collaborative goal. Great research is being done by so many researchers who are not aware of advancements in the trials. We have the research that might be concentrated in one area, but people don't have the communication they need to know what is going on in another area that might be helpful in furthering the research going on in a different area. The culture of isolated career research must shift toward cooperative strides to achieve breakthroughs. We must encourage all the stakeholders in the war on cancer to work in concert. This is perhaps going to be a difficult hurdle, but we must do it. If our researchers are just involved in their own microscope, they are not going to be able to have the full body of knowledge that might contain that one thing that triggers the end to cancer as we know it. Next, our bill will increase enrollment in clinical trials. Clinical trials expand treatment options for patients while enabling researchers to explore new methods in prevention, diagnosis, and therapy. This is so valuable because these are the experimental stages of treatment where people who sign up--who know there are risks here but are willing to try--can help us learn what works and what might not work. This is essential for us to make real strides in this war on cancer. One woman who understands the importance of clinical trials is Maria from El Paso. She is participating in a clinical trial, but she says: Every day we encounter women who are either unaware of the option for clinical trials or who want to participate but do not have access to them. It's not right that some of us have access to the most cutting-edge treatments, while others are shut out and left mired in a web of confusion. Less than 5 percent of the 10 million adults with cancer in the United States participate in clinical trials. We need to raise awareness about clinical trials so more cancer patients will know they are available and have the full information of what they could do. Disincentives in the health insurance market to enrolling in clinical trials must be eliminated. Last, as our knowledge of cancer advances and survivors live longer, we must move toward establishing a process of providing comprehensive care planning services. There is great value in arming patients with a treatment plan and a summary of their care once they enter remission. This can help ensure continuity of therapy and prevent costly duplicative or unnecessary services. Together, Senator Kennedy, Senator Feinstein, and I hope this will be a bipartisan effort to reinvigorate this fight by enacting these necessary changes through legislation. One of the people who will benefit from our bill is Suzanne. After 10 years of treatment for cancer, at a cost of over $3 million, Suzanne came to my office this week to show her support for this bill. She said: I don't want my two daughters to go through what I went through. Screening saves lives and money. She is right. Another woman who has been in touch with my office is Jodie. At the age of 36, she was diagnosed with cancer. After 5 years of treatment, she said: ``It is a gift to be here.'' The Kennedy-Hutchison-Feinstein bill, through screening programs, research, and clinical trials, will give people such as Suzanne, Maria, Elayne, Jodie, and many others in our country more time to spend with their loved ones. This bill we are introducing today is not a finished product. There may need to be changes to this bill. It is not perfect. I already have had some point out the need for us to sit down and try to come up with the absolute right approach. The HELP Committee will be looking at this bill. They will be marking it up. We have already had hearings last year, but there will be more of a look and it will be important that this happen. We want a bipartisan and resounding victory. We want this to be a victory for all of our country--a victory over this disease. It is the kind of bill that can be bipartisan, that should be bipartisan, and should have overwhelming support from this Congress and from the American people. I am wearing today the ``Live Strong'' bracelet. This is from the Lance Armstrong Foundation. We all know Lance Armstrong is a cancer survivor. He is also a hero to many of us because of his wins of the Tour de France. He is the premier bicyclist in the world. Unfortunately, Lance is in the hospital right now--or he might be just getting out. He doesn't have cancer. That is the good news. He broke his collar bone--in about six places, apparently--and because he has insisted he is going back into cycling, he is recovering from that injury. But we know the grit and determination of this man. After his Tour de France wins, and setting the ``straight record'' for Tour de France wins, he came home and decided to take on cancer for everyone. He has been a role model in showing us it can be defeated, because after his bout with cancer, he went on to win these grueling bicycle races all over the world. So he has been a role model in that regard, but he has also, through his foundation, been a champion of making sure other people have the same chance for survival that he has had. So while we wish him well on the mending of his collar bone, we already owe him a debt of gratitude, and I am going to wear his bracelet as we introduce the bill today to show what one person can do to defeat cancer. We can all come together to help Lance get the message out throughout the world that we can defeat cancer, and no one is a better leader in this cause on the Senate floor today than Senator Edward Kennedy. He not only helped craft the legislation--even as he was in treatment he was making edits to this bill--but he also is another person who has shown courage, as Lance Armstrong has, by not giving up, by coming right back to the Senate after his cancer treatments and showing us that he, too, is joining with Lance Armstrong to make sure everyone has the same chance he has for early detection and for a chance to live a full life. That is what we want for every American. I am very proud to be standing here for Senator Kennedy to say we are going to fight for this together. We are going to work together, and we are going to try to have a resounding bipartisan victory on this bill. Working with the HELP Committee and utilizing their input, we will win a victory for all Americans. Maybe we will make Americans see that we can work together here in Washington. Maybe that will be the change in how things are done in Washington that we have all been looking for. It would be a change for the better.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I have been listening to Senator Crapo's remarks, and I think he has made some excellent points. The Senator is pointing out the long-term consequences of this incredible spending proposal that has been put before us on top of two incredible spending proposals that we have passed in the last month in this Congress. So I do hope the people of America start looking at the long- term effects of this spending increase at a time when our economy is seriously in jeopardy. I hope we can stop it at the budget and start showing the American people that we know everyone is concerned about their future. Everyone is concerned about their jobs, their retirement. We need to act accordingly in Congress; and that is, to spend taxpayer dollars wisely and not continue to borrow as we have been just in the last 2 months. It is going to be a spiral that I don't know how we overcome. So we have to start overcoming it right now, and that is with the budget proposal that has been put before us.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about Ron Kirk, the nominee for whom we will vote in the next few minutes for U.S. Trade Representative. I wish to speak in strong support of Ron Kirk to serve as U.S. Trade Representative. I would have been here sooner, but as ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, I was holding a hearing with the chairman, Jay Rockefeller, on Governor Locke to be Secretary of Commerce, and that was my responsibility that I certainly had to meet. I will say that Governor Locke did a very good job before our Commerce Committee. We just, within the last hour, concluded that hearing. But I wanted to make sure that I am able to speak about Ron Kirk because, certainly, I know him. I have known him for many years. We both live in Dallas, and he and I enjoy a great relationship. I was in the Senate when Ron Kirk was the mayor of Dallas, and he did a wonderful job as mayor of our city. I worked with him as a Senator. I know he can get things done. He is very bright, very affable, really funny. He is the kind of person you want to sit next to in a very dull speech because he can make you laugh no matter how bad the summit or the speech or whatever the business of the day. He is a very rare, wonderful person. During his time in office, Mayor Kirk expanded Dallas's reach to the world through a range of trade missions, trying to show that Dallas was open for business, and he traveled on trade missions to assure that would happen. While he was mayor he sponsored a competition every year for small businesses to highlight those competing in foreign markets and invited the winner to go on his trade mission trips. I think it is important as a former small business owner myself that we show how you can export to foreign countries, no matter how small your business is, if you just know how to pursue it. Mayor Kirk tried to ensure that small businesses in Dallas, as well as our big businesses, were able to have a place at the table when he was on trade missions, showing what could be done with trade. Before becoming mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk was secretary of state of Texas. He was an appointee of Gov. Ann Richards. He attended Austin College, graduating with a degree in political science and sociology in 1976 and then went to the University of Texas Law School, which is also my alma mater. Upon receiving his J.D. in 1979, he practiced law until 1981 when he went to work in the office of then Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen who was my immediate predecessor in this Senate seat. On a personal note, Ron is married to Matrice Ellis Kirk. She, in her own right, is a professional woman, a leader in Dallas, another very bright, affable person who has made her own impression in Dallas as well. They have two daughters, Elizabeth Alexandria and Catherine Victoria. I know that Mayor Kirk's leadership and experience will make him a strong ambassador for U.S. trade policy. Last week in his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Mayor Kirk pledged that as U.S. Trade Representative, ``I will work to increase opportunities for American entrepreneurs in the global marketplace.'' These economic opportunities are critical to America's prosperity. In 2007, exports accounted for 40 percent of our economic growth. The next U.S. Trade Representative will face a series of challenges, including revitalizing the stalled WTO talks and managing the Doha Round, which is preoccupied with topics such as export subsidies, tariffs, copyright issues, and keeping markets open to U.S. goods. Equally important, the next U.S. Trade Representative will face the worst economic downturn in decades in America and in the world. As we face economic hardships, trade presents a tremendous opportunity to sustain and create jobs, expand economies, and stimulate growth. We must resist the temptation to close our borders and engage in protectionism, which always ends up harming our economy. History is not kind to those who raise trade barriers during a recession. In 1930, President Hoover made the mistake of signing the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which dramatically increased the cost of imports and turned a serious recession into the Great Depression. We can't allow that to happen again. My heavens, if we know anything, it is that we should learn from history. The past is prologue. I believe trade policy can play a leading role in getting the U.S. economy and the global economy back on track. Currently, the United States has free-trade agreements in effect with 14 countries: Canada, Mexico, Israel, Jordan, Chile, Singapore, Australia, Morocco, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Bahrain. However, we still have free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea that await congressional approval. The next U.S. Trade Representative must work with Congress to implement those trade agreements and ensure that American exports enter the global market on a level playing field. I am pleased that in his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Mayor Kirk committed to work with Congress to develop ``benchmarks'' that will allow these accords to move forward. The Colombian Free Trade Agreement in particular will be tremendously beneficial to the United States, both economically and diplomatically. This accord would remove tariffs on the $8.6 billion of U.S. agricultural exports to Colombia every year. While America's economic growth is a primary objective of free-trade agreements, they also serve the broader purpose of bolstering our foreign policy. At a time when Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is trying to undermine U.S. security interests in Latin America, we must seek trade partnerships with allies such as Colombia. As the Washington Post said in an editorial: ``A vote for the Colombia deal would show Latin America that a staunch U.S. ally will be rewarded for improving its human rights record and resisting the anti- American populism of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.'' By helping Colombia and other countries thrive under the free market, we will help them become less vulnerable to Chavez's petrodollars. I am hopeful that Mayor Kirk will take the necessary steps to ensure that the Colombian Free Trade Agreement is approved. Let me say that I think probably the first issue the U.S. Trade Representative will have to focus on and solve is with Mexico. This week Mexico threw up tariffs on 90 products that are imported to Mexico from the United States. Most of these are agricultural products. It will hurt our agriculture businesses if we have a trade war with Mexico; if we have tariffs that increase the price of American goods into Mexico. We all know this must be solved. I will say that the person who understands this best is Ron Kirk. Ron Kirk, obviously, lives in Texas. He knows how important free trade is with Mexico. Mexico is Texas's largest trading partner. We export to Mexico, and he has been there. So he understands that this is a high priority for all of our States exporting into Mexico and that we must solve the trucking issue so that Mexico understands that there will be parity across the border and that Mexican trucks, like American trucks, will have the same safety standards and that they will have an ability to be inspected. He can solve this if we will confirm him today and let him start on this very important problem. Throughout his career, Mayor Kirk has shown the character and leadership skills to bring people together on behalf of a good cause. For that reason, I am very confident he will make a great U.S. Trade Representative. He will seek exports of American goods all over the world. He will seek free and fair trade. That is very important--we don't want other countries to throw up barriers to our entry into their country--and he will do the right thing. I know he is a good negotiator. I know he will be a good representative of the United States in this very important position. I urge my colleagues to support his nomination. I am pleased we are voting on him soon so that he can hit the ground running on the Doha Round and the many issues that are facing our country in this time of economic stress--when the last thing we should be doing is throwing up barriers to trade and exports from our country into other countries, where good trade makes good neighbors and partners.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mrs. Hutchison pertaining to the introduction of S. 614 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill that is sponsored by every woman in the Senate. All 17 of us have come together to introduce legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots, called the WASP. Senator Mikulski and I are taking the lead on this with the other 15 women Senators to finally honor over 1,000 of the bravest, most courageous women in U.S. military history. This is a picture of those brave World War II pilots. They were the first women in history to fly America's military aircraft. Between 1942 and 1944, they were recruited to fly non-combat missions so every available male pilot could be deployed in combat. The women pilots who graduated from Army Air Force flight training earned their silver WASP wings in Texas. The first class graduated at Ellington Field in Houston and the remaining classes from Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX. Throughout their service, these courageous women flew over 60 million miles in every type of aircraft and on every type of mission flown by Army Air Force male pilots except direct combat missions. Although they took the military oath and were promised military status when they entered training, they were never afforded Active-Duty military status, were never commissioned, and were not granted veteran status until 1977, over 30 years after they had served. All these women volunteered to serve their country in wartime. They paid their own way to Texas for training, and when victory seemed certain and the program was shut down, they paid their own way back home. Over 25,000 women applied for the program, but only 1,830 qualified women pilots were accepted. Unlike the males, females were required to be qualified pilots before they could even apply for the Army Air Force's military flight training program. By the time the war ended, 38 women pilots had lost their lives while flying for their country. Their families were not allowed to have an American flag placed on their coffins. I wrote about the WASP in my 2004 book, ``American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country.'' I wanted to raise public awareness about these military pioneers who have had a tremendous impact on the role of women in the military today. Their examples paved the way for the Armed Forces to lift the ban on women attending military flight training in the 1970s and opened the door for women to be fully integrated as pilots in the Armed Forces. Today, women fly every type of aircraft, from combat fighter aircraft to the space shuttle. However, despite their cultural impact, the WASP have never received honors, nor have they been formally recognized by Congress for their wartime military service--until now. We, the women of the Senate, are introducing legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the courageous WASP of World War II. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest and most distinguished award this body can award to a civilian. These women are certainly worthy. There are precedents for this action. In 2000 and 2006, this body awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the Navajo Code Talkers and the Tuskegee Airmen, respectively. Those heroes deserved the same type of distinction, and they, too, served in World War II and were finally appropriately honored by their Government. Now it is time for Congress to celebrate the courage of another group of remarkable Americans who served with courage and honor and whose example brought historic change to our Nation. Of the 1,102 WASP, approximately 300 are still alive today and are living in almost every State of our Nation. They have earned this honor, and the time to bestow the honor is now before any of them are away from us and not able to come to the ceremony which I hope we will have. I am so pleased that every female Senator, all 17 of us, are cosponsors of this bill, and I hope the rest of our colleagues will also join and that we can pass this bill expeditiously. I would like to take a moment, with this wonderful picture in the background, to read from the bill that we have just introduced today: Congress finds that-- (1) the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII, known as the ``WASP'', were the first women in history to fly American military aircraft; (2) more than 60 years ago, they flew fighter, bomber, transport, and training aircraft in defense of America's freedom; (3) they faced overwhelming cultural and gender bias against women in nontraditional roles and overcame multiple injustices and inequities in order to serve their country; (4) through their actions, the WASP eventually were the catalyst for revolutionary reform in the integration of women pilots into the Armed Services; (5) during the early months of World War II, there was a severe shortage of combat pilots; (6) Jacqueline Cochran, America's leading woman pilot of the time, convinced General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, that women, if given the same training as men, would be equally capable of flying military aircraft and could then take over some of the stateside military flying jobs, thereby releasing hundreds of male pilots for combat duty; (7) the severe loss of male combat pilots made the necessity of utilizing women pilots to help in the war effort clear to General Arnold, and a women's pilot training program was soon approved; (8) it was not until August, 1943, that the women aviators would receive their official name; (9) General Arnold ordered that all women pilots flying military aircraft, including 28 civilian women ferry pilots, would be named ``WASP'', Women Airforce Service Pilots; (10) more than 25,000 American women applied for training, but only 1,830 were accepted and took the oath; (11) exactly 1,074 of those trainees successfully completed the 21 to 27 weeks of Army Air Force flight training, graduated, and received their Army Air Force orders to report to their assigned air base; (12) on November 16, 1942, the first class of 29 women pilots reported to the Houston, Texas Municipal Airport and began the same military flight training as the male Army Air Force cadets were taking; (13) due to a lack of adequate facilities at the airport, 3 months later the training program was moved to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas; (14) WASP were eventually stationed at 120 Army air bases all across America; (15) they flew more than 60,000,000 miles for their country in every type of aircraft and on every type of assignment flown by the male Army Air Force pilots, except combat; (16) WASP assignments included test piloting, instructor piloting, towing targets for air-to-air gunnery practice, ground-to-air anti-aircraft practice, ferrying, transporting personnel and cargo (including parts for the atomic bomb), simulated strafing, smoke laying, night tracking, and flying drones; In October 1943, male pilots were refusing to fly the B-26 Martin Marauder, known as the Widowmaker, because of its fatality record. General Arnold ordered WASP director Jacqueline Cochran to collect 25 WASP to be trained to fly the B-26 to prove to the male pilots that it was safe to fly. During the existence of the WASP, 38 women lost their lives while serving their country. Their bodies were sent home in poorly crafted pine boxes. Their burial was at the expense of their families or classmates. There were no gold stars allowed in their parent's windows, and because they were not considered military, no American flags were allowed on their coffins. In 1944, General Arnold made a personal request to Congress to militarize the WASP, and it was denied. On December 7, 1944, in a speech to the last graduating class of WASP, General Arnold said: You and more than 900 of your sisters have shown you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. I salute you . . . We of the Army Air Force are proud of you. We will never forget our debt to you. With victory in World War II almost certain, on December 2, 1944, the WASP were quietly and unceremoniously disbanded. There were no honors, no benefits, and very few thank-yous. Just as they had paid their own way to enter training, they paid their way back home. After their honorable service in the military, the WASP military records were immediately sealed, stamped ``classified'' or ``secret,'' and filed away in Government archives unavailable to the historians who wrote the history of World War II or the scholars who compiled the history textbooks used today, with many of the records not being declassified until the 1980s. Consequently, the WASP story is a missing chapter in the history of the Air Force, the history of aviation, and the history of the United States of America. In 1977, 33 years after the WASP were disbanded, the Congress finally voted to give the WASP the veteran status they had earned, but these heroic pilots were not invited to the signing ceremony at the White House, and it was not until 7 years later that their medals were delivered in the mail in plain brown envelopes. In the late 1970s, more than 30 years after the WASP flew in World War II, women were finally permitted to attend military pilot training in the U.S. Armed Forces. Thousands of women aviators flying support aircraft had benefited from the service of the WASP and followed in their footsteps. In 1993, the WASP were once again referenced during congressional hearings regarding the contributions women could make to the military, which eventually led to women being able to fly military fighter, bomber, and attack aircraft in combat. Hundreds of U.S. servicewomen combat pilots have seized the opportunity to fly fighter aircraft in recent conflicts, all thanks to the pioneering steps taken by the WASP. The WASP have maintained a tight-knit community, forged by the common experiences of serving their country during war. As part of their desire to educate America on the WASP history, WASP have assisted Wings Across America, an organization dedicated to educating the American public, with much effort aimed at children, about the remarkable accomplishments of these World War II veterans, and they have been honored with exhibits at museums throughout our country. Now it is time to give these incredible women pioneers the Congressional Gold Medal, who, along with the Tuskegee Airmen and the Navajo Code Talkers, are people who have served with courage and valor to our country, and they are people who really have not complained. They are people who did their duty, even with some discrimination in the Armed Forces. But they were never bitter, and they always knew what a service they had given. We have now honored the Navajo Code Talkers and the great Tuskegee Airmen, and I hope we will also accord the greatest honor we can bestow as a Congress to the WASP of World War II.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill that is sponsored by every woman in the Senate. All 17 of us have come together to introduce legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots, called the WASP. Senator Mikulski and I are taking the lead on this with the other 15 women Senators to finally honor over 1,000 of the bravest, most courageous women in U.S. military history. This is a picture of those brave World War II pilots. They were the first women in history to fly America's military aircraft. Between 1942 and 1944, they were recruited to fly non-combat missions so every available male pilot could be deployed in combat. The women pilots who graduated from Army Air Force flight training earned their silver WASP wings in Texas. The first class graduated at Ellington Field in Houston and the remaining classes from Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX. Throughout their service, these courageous women flew over 60 million miles in every type of aircraft and on every type of mission flown by Army Air Force male pilots except direct combat missions. Although they took the military oath and were promised military status when they entered training, they were never afforded Active-Duty military status, were never commissioned, and were not granted veteran status until 1977, over 30 years after they had served. All these women volunteered to serve their country in wartime. They paid their own way to Texas for training, and when victory seemed certain and the program was shut down, they paid their own way back home. Over 25,000 women applied for the program, but only 1,830 qualified women pilots were accepted. Unlike the males, females were required to be qualified pilots before they could even apply for the Army Air Force's military flight training program. By the time the war ended, 38 women pilots had lost their lives while flying for their country. Their families were not allowed to have an American flag placed on their coffins. I wrote about the WASP in my 2004 book, ``American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country.'' I wanted to raise public awareness about these military pioneers who have had a tremendous impact on the role of women in the military today. Their examples paved the way for the Armed Forces to lift the ban on women attending military flight training in the 1970s and opened the door for women to be fully integrated as pilots in the Armed Forces. Today, women fly every type of aircraft, from combat fighter aircraft to the space shuttle. However, despite their cultural impact, the WASP have never received honors, nor have they been formally recognized by Congress for their wartime military service--until now. We, the women of the Senate, are introducing legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the courageous WASP of World War II. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest and most distinguished award this body can award to a civilian. These women are certainly worthy. There are precedents for this action. In 2000 and 2006, this body awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the Navajo Code Talkers and the Tuskegee Airmen, respectively. Those heroes deserved the same type of distinction, and they, too, served in World War II and were finally appropriately honored by their Government. Now it is time for Congress to celebrate the courage of another group of remarkable Americans who served with courage and honor and whose example brought historic change to our Nation. Of the 1,102 WASP, approximately 300 are still alive today and are living in almost every State of our Nation. They have earned this honor, and the time to bestow the honor is now before any of them are away from us and not able to come to the ceremony which I hope we will have. I am so pleased that every female Senator, all 17 of us, are cosponsors of this bill, and I hope the rest of our colleagues will also join and that we can pass this bill expeditiously. I would like to take a moment, with this wonderful picture in the background, to read from the bill that we have just introduced today: Congress finds that-- (1) the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII, known as the ``WASP'', were the first women in history to fly American military aircraft; (2) more than 60 years ago, they flew fighter, bomber, transport, and training aircraft in defense of America's freedom; (3) they faced overwhelming cultural and gender bias against women in nontraditional roles and overcame multiple injustices and inequities in order to serve their country; (4) through their actions, the WASP eventually were the catalyst for revolutionary reform in the integration of women pilots into the Armed Services; (5) during the early months of World War II, there was a severe shortage of combat pilots; (6) Jacqueline Cochran, America's leading woman pilot of the time, convinced General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, that women, if given the same training as men, would be equally capable of flying military aircraft and could then take over some of the stateside military flying jobs, thereby releasing hundreds of male pilots for combat duty; (7) the severe loss of male combat pilots made the necessity of utilizing women pilots to help in the war effort clear to General Arnold, and a women's pilot training program was soon approved; (8) it was not until August, 1943, that the women aviators would receive their official name; (9) General Arnold ordered that all women pilots flying military aircraft, including 28 civilian women ferry pilots, would be named ``WASP'', Women Airforce Service Pilots; (10) more than 25,000 American women applied for training, but only 1,830 were accepted and took the oath; (11) exactly 1,074 of those trainees successfully completed the 21 to 27 weeks of Army Air Force flight training, graduated, and received their Army Air Force orders to report to their assigned air base; (12) on November 16, 1942, the first class of 29 women pilots reported to the Houston, Texas Municipal Airport and began the same military flight training as the male Army Air Force cadets were taking; (13) due to a lack of adequate facilities at the airport, 3 months later the training program was moved to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas; (14) WASP were eventually stationed at 120 Army air bases all across America; (15) they flew more than 60,000,000 miles for their country in every type of aircraft and on every type of assignment flown by the male Army Air Force pilots, except combat; (16) WASP assignments included test piloting, instructor piloting, towing targets for air-to-air gunnery practice, ground-to-air anti-aircraft practice, ferrying, transporting personnel and cargo (including parts for the atomic bomb), simulated strafing, smoke laying, night tracking, and flying drones; In October 1943, male pilots were refusing to fly the B-26 Martin Marauder, known as the Widowmaker, because of its fatality record. General Arnold ordered WASP director Jacqueline Cochran to collect 25 WASP to be trained to fly the B-26 to prove to the male pilots that it was safe to fly. During the existence of the WASP, 38 women lost their lives while serving their country. Their bodies were sent home in poorly crafted pine boxes. Their burial was at the expense of their families or classmates. There were no gold stars allowed in their parent's windows, and because they were not considered military, no American flags were allowed on their coffins. In 1944, General Arnold made a personal request to Congress to militarize the WASP, and it was denied. On December 7, 1944, in a speech to the last graduating class of WASP, General Arnold said: You and more than 900 of your sisters have shown you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. I salute you . . . We of the Army Air Force are proud of you. We will never forget our debt to you. With victory in World War II almost certain, on December 2, 1944, the WASP were quietly and unceremoniously disbanded. There were no honors, no benefits, and very few thank-yous. Just as they had paid their own way to enter training, they paid their way back home. After their honorable service in the military, the WASP military records were immediately sealed, stamped ``classified'' or ``secret,'' and filed away in Government archives unavailable to the historians who wrote the history of World War II or the scholars who compiled the history textbooks used today, with many of the records not being declassified until the 1980s. Consequently, the WASP story is a missing chapter in the history of the Air Force, the history of aviation, and the history of the United States of America. In 1977, 33 years after the WASP were disbanded, the Congress finally voted to give the WASP the veteran status they had earned, but these heroic pilots were not invited to the signing ceremony at the White House, and it was not until 7 years later that their medals were delivered in the mail in plain brown envelopes. In the late 1970s, more than 30 years after the WASP flew in World War II, women were finally permitted to attend military pilot training in the U.S. Armed Forces. Thousands of women aviators flying support aircraft had benefited from the service of the WASP and followed in their footsteps. In 1993, the WASP were once again referenced during congressional hearings regarding the contributions women could make to the military, which eventually led to women being able to fly military fighter, bomber, and attack aircraft in combat. Hundreds of U.S. servicewomen combat pilots have seized the opportunity to fly fighter aircraft in recent conflicts, all thanks to the pioneering steps taken by the WASP. The WASP have maintained a tight-knit community, forged by the common experiences of serving their country during war. As part of their desire to educate America on the WASP history, WASP have assisted Wings Across America, an organization dedicated to educating the American public, with much effort aimed at children, about the remarkable accomplishments of these World War II veterans, and they have been honored with exhibits at museums throughout our country. Now it is time to give these incredible women pioneers the Congressional Gold Medal, who, along with the Tuskegee Airmen and the Navajo Code Talkers, are people who have served with courage and valor to our country, and they are people who really have not complained. They are people who did their duty, even with some discrimination in the Armed Forces. But they were never bitter, and they always knew what a service they had given. We have now honored the Navajo Code Talkers and the great Tuskegee Airmen, and I hope we will also accord the greatest honor we can bestow as a Congress to the WASP of World War II.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, what is the pending order?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in opposition to the Omnibus appropriations bill that is before us. I think this debate has been good. We have had amendments. I thank the majority leader for allowing amendments to be offered. I note that not one amendment has been agreed to, but nevertheless we have had the debate and I think the American people do deserve to know more about this bill and why there are so many objections to it. I am speaking against it today because of its sheer size. It is a $408 billion bill. But when you account for the previous bills that have already passed appropriations this fiscal year for defense, military construction, veterans affairs, and homeland security, the bottom line is for fiscal year 2009 we are going to spend $1 trillion. Passage of this bill will mark the first time in U.S. history that our regular appropriations process, funding Government in the routine and regular order, will surpass $1 trillion. Last week I offered an amendment. Senator McCain offered an amendment, Senator Coburn offered several amendments, Senator DeMint, Senator Vitter, Senator Kyl--so many amendments have been offered but they were basically different ways to bring down the cost of this bill to some kind of responsible, agreed-upon area so we can say we are doing the people's bidding by taking care of taxpayer dollars. That is what we tried to do. First, Senator McCain offered an amendment to say let's do a continuing resolution that funds Government at 2008 levels until October 1, the end of the fiscal year. Next, an amendment was offered by Senator Ensign that basically said 2008 spending levels, but with the new bill, with the new authorizations. It will have all of the congressional imprint but it will be 2008 levels. That failed. My amendment was 2008 levels with the rate of inflation, so instead of an 8-percent increase in spending in a 1-year period, double the rate of inflation, it would have been a 3.8 percent increase from 2008, which I thought was quite reasonable. Furthermore, I said let's decide that we will only take it from the accounts in the bill before us that duplicate what we passed in the stimulus bill weeks ago. In that way, we would say to the American people we are going to fund the Government at 2008 levels plus the rate of inflation, and the way we are going to cut it back is to let the Appropriations Committee decide which of the duplicated accounts that were passed in the stimulus bill 2 weeks ago would be taken out--either the stimulus bill or the bill before us. That was my amendment and it too failed. We have tried everything we know how to do in a reasonable and responsible way to say to the American people: Everyone is hurting right now and we should not be spending in the regular order on regular Government business, 8 percent above last year's rate. My amendment would have been a 1-percent cut from this bill and the Appropriations Committee could have chosen where that went. I also suggested that we take it out of the duplicate measures that we passed within 1 month of each other. The American people expect more responsible actions from Congress than spending without restraint. I hear from my constituents all the time. A lot of common sense is coming out of my constituents. I wish we could export the good old Texas common sense to the Congress because what we are saying is why don't we look at the big picture here? Instead of a $1 trillion stimulus spending package on top of $1 trillion to fund Government for the next 9 months, and furthermore we have not even dealt with the financial institutions yet, why don't we step back and look at the problem we have, which is that our financial institutions are not working, our small businesses are not getting credit so they are not able to borrow to stay in business, and the housing market is in the tank? We have not addressed those issues yet and here we are, spending as if there is no restraint, adding to the debt because we do not have the money in the bank. I cannot think of anything more irresponsible than what we are doing in these last couple of months in the Congress. Actually, the stimulus packages from last year were also erroneous. But couldn't we have learned from the mistakes? Couldn't we have learned from what did not work in the first stimulus package? But, no, we do not seem to have learned, even though it was less than a year ago. I think the American people are showing the concern they have because the stock market is low, and is not getting stabilized. Now we have coming on the heels of this omnibus bill, which we are not accounting for, a $3.6 trillion budget proposed by the President with a deficit for 2010 projected at $1.75 trillion. The cumulative debt of America today is $11 trillion. The proposed budget plan recently suggested a doubling of this debt over the long term. Mr. President, 25 percent of the national debt that we are accumulating is owned by foreigners. The Chinese Government owns almost $700 billion of our debt. This is the same Chinese Government that last weekend took a rather hostile action toward one of our naval vessels in the South China Sea. I think we should be looking at the national security implications of having so much of our country's debt in the hands of any foreign country or any foreign national. In addition to the concerns about whether the borrowers are going to buy our debt--what if they say: $10 trillion, $11 trillion, you know, maybe we will buy your debt, but the risk is too great and we will have to jack up the interest rate? What is that going to do to an economy that is teetering so badly? I do not think we can turn a blind eye to the long-term consequences of this debt burden. It is not only irresponsible but it borders on being reckless. When are we going to stop it? If not today, then when? We have a chance today to say to the American people we will go back to the drawing boards and we will put reasonable limits on the amount of debt we are accumulating. We will put limits on the deficits that are being created. I think we should go back to 2008 levels because we passed a $1 trillion spending plan. Why not go back to 2008 levels and take out the duplication from the stimulus bill and what is in the bill before us today? That would be a responsible action that might start giving confidence to the American people that the Congress and the President will be able to work together in a bipartisan way to act responsibly, with the big picture in mind. I urge the President of the United States not to go forward with the budget that he has put forward, not to go forward with an energy plan that is going to start increasing taxes on every electric bill that every consumer in this country will have, but instead to step back and say let's fix the financial industries. Let's fix the financial institutions. The idea has been propounded is that the FDIC is going to start putting an assessment on every bank deposit to pay for these other schemes that have no impact whatsoever. There are a lot of things coming out of here that do not make sense. I think it is time for us to begin to show the American people we are going to step back. We are going to fix the financial markets so people can borrow to make payroll and keep people working, so people can stay in their homes and not get foreclosed, and to shore up the housing industry and help them start building and selling homes again. If we can start there, then we will know what kind of stimulus we need, or what kind of further spending would be in the best interest of this country to get our economy going again. But until then, we should not pass the bill before us today. We should go back to the drawing board and begin responsible, bipartisan leadership from Congress and the President on behalf of the American people. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have a motion at the desk which I would like to call up for consideration.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, the amendment that was just defeated was to hold us to the 2008 spending levels after the $1 trillion of stimulus spending that has already been passed and signed by the President. My amendment would be for the nonsecurity spending for 2008, plus the rate of inflation at 3.8 percent. Basically, what I am doing is asking that we commit the bill to the Appropriations Committee to amend and find the places in the omnibus bill that is before us or the stimulus bill from 2 weeks ago where we would take out the amount of spending that is duplicative or nonessential in the amount of approximately $12 billion. This is a very modest cut, but it would begin to put us on the road toward some fiscal responsibility. We have just passed a $1 trillion stimulus package. It is in all of the areas that we could spend money on, and many of those are duplicated in what we are taking up on the floor right now. So if you take the nonsecurity spending of 2008 and you add the regular inflation at 3.8, the Congressional Budget Office says that it would be about $12 billion in cuts that the Appropriations Committee would be able to find. So we are not saying here to slash across the board. We are certainly holding harmless defense and veterans. But we are saying that the Appropriations Committee should look at what we have passed and see where there is duplication and cut $12 billion out of this spending bill, and then we will be setting the precedent that we are going back to fiscal responsibility, which is setting the budget and having a reasonable increase--the rate of inflation--which has been the normal procedure here until this year. When you look at the bill that is before us, it would cost about $408 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. When you account for the previous continuing resolution, which provided funding for defense, military construction, veterans affairs, and homeland security, the top line fiscal year 2009 spending level would exceed $1 trillion. This does not include last year's supplemental nor the stimulus which we have just passed, which, when you combine those bills, would be another total of $1.4 trillion. That is a 49-percent increase over a 1-year period. If we want to exclude the emergency or one-time actions, such as supplementals or the stimulus, then you would have an increase over last year's spending by $83 billion, which would be an 8.8-percent increase over last year's spending. That is more than twice the rate of inflation, at 3.8 percent. Let's take some examples. I will look at my committee, Commerce Committee, and the areas of my jurisdiction. We authorize broadband grants. We share this jurisdiction with the Agriculture Committee. We provided a total of $7.2 billion for broadband grants and loans in the stimulus package, $4.7 billion for the NTIA, and $2.5 billion for rural utility service. Yet in this bill we are adding another $400 million. That totals, for the fiscal year 2009 spending, a 4,500- percent increase. Why do we need another $400 million when we haven't even begun to spend the $7.2 billion from the stimulus yet? How about the National Institute of Standards and Technology? This is a program I support. It is a valid program, just as the previous one. But here we are increasing the NIST funding by $31 million over last year's funding level and we just gave NIST $220 million not 2 weeks ago. So the Institute of Standards and Technology would be increased not by $31 million, but $251 million over a 1-year period. These are only some of the items in my own committee's jurisdiction. There are 122 accounts in this bill that received stimulus funding, and I support most of what is in this bill because the Appropriations Committee took up these spending bills last year. We had the ability to amend, in most cases, and we know what is in those bills. However, they were increased on the House side since we took them up last year, and now we have, between now and October 1 of this year, this spending bill for all of the accounts except the security accounts. Why don't we show the American people that we are going to exercise fiscal restraint; that we know we have just passed $1 trillion in stimulus spending--some of which arguably is stimulus and some of which arguably is not, but we passed that stimulus bill--and it is going to cost our taxpayers $1 trillion. We hope it will increase the revenue, because we hope it will increase jobs and it will keep people in their jobs. That is what we want it to do. But now we are in the regular appropriations cycle, from today until October 1, and we are talking about $408 billion more in spending, some of which has already been provided for in the stimulus package we passed. The American people, some of whom have lost their jobs, some of whom have received notice that their mortgages are going to be foreclosed and their homes are going to be taken, are saying: What are they doing up there? How can they spend money like that without any regard to what is fiscally responsible? And how we are going to pay it off? Because this is more debt, and we are going to increase, and increase again, and everyone who owns something or who has a mortgage understands this. We don't have to do this. We can say today, in a bipartisan way, that we are going to turn a new page; we are going to turn a new page in this Congress and the Appropriations Committee is going to do its work. The Appropriations Committee is going to, in a bipartisan way, start looking at this $408 billion bill and compare it to the 122 accounts in this bill that got stimulus 2 weeks ago and we are going to find $12 billion in cuts--$12 billion out of $408 billion. It could come out of the stimulus. If that were the preferred way to go, we could go back into the stimulus in the outyears. It doesn't have to be in the next 2 years, it can be in the outyears of the stimulus. The Appropriations Committee would be authorized to go into either bill and shrink $12 billion. It seems almost unthinkable that we would not be able to cut $12 billion out of $1.408 trillion of taxpayer money that is coming out of Washington and which is debt because we don't have the money to pay for it. I urge my colleagues to pass this amendment. Let us show the American people that we do understand we should have fiscal responsibility and restraint, as every household in this country is experiencing right now; and that from now forward our appropriations bills are going to be in the regular order; that we are going to have a budget, and we are going to live within that budget, and we are not going to add 5 percent or 8 percent and then bring it over here and pass it with no amendments. That is business as usual. That is not change, it is not bipartisanship, and it is not acceptable. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to speak against the bill coming from the House shortly. We have had a chance to look at this bill for the last few hours. There is much in it that is different from what passed the Senate. Some of it is different from what passed the House as well. I wish to address a few points that have been made. It is somewhat misleading to talk about the Republican input in the way it is being described. First, the bill was written without any Republican input. It was written in the House of Representatives by Democrats. There were no amendments allowed. The committees were not allowed to exercise their jurisdiction on the bill there. It came to the Senate. I was on the Appropriations Committee which passed the spending part of the bill. Amendments were discouraged. The meeting lasted a couple hours. The same thing happened on the Finance Committee, which is the tax part of the bill. There were no amendments that were hammered out. There was not an amendment process where we gave and took. To say Republicans had a chance to have input is disingenuous. I respect the President of the United States for coming and talking to Republicans. He talked to the Republican Senators and House Members. That is good. There is nothing bad about that because he is a smart and civilized man whom we all respect. We want the President to work with Congress as we go forward. But talking should include taking ideas and shaping them into something on which we could all say we had a part. If I could support half this bill, I would be inclined to look at it in a way that maybe I would be able to support. But let's look at what this bill is. It has a total cost of $787 billion. The spending portion is $580 billion. With interest, the cost of the bill is going to be about a trillion dollars. I take the cost of a trillion dollars, and borrowing that money from the future, very seriously. We ought to spend some time before we spend $1 trillion in a bill that is going to be off the budget and is not in any projected budget we have seen. It is going to add almost $1 trillion to the deficit. Is it going to succeed? I hope it does. But let's talk about what is in the bill. Eleven percent of the spending in this bill will occur this year. The purpose of a stimulus bill is to stimulate the economy quickly. We are talking about almost $1 trillion and 11 percent is spent this year. A stimulus bill should inject money into the economy that will cause jobs to be either produced or kept, that will produce spending so there will be something for people to make and retailers to sell. After we have that stimulus, which we hope would be in the private sector and therefore permanent, then we are going to have to deal with the deficit in years 3 through 10, so we don't have an upside down situation where we have so much debt that either our foreign investors will not buy our debt or, if they do, the risk is so high that they increase the interest rate, which then becomes an inflationary problem. This is not a stimulus package when 11 percent is spent in the first year. Eighteen percent of this conference report is dedicated to tax relief. I believe tax relief has been proven again and again to spur the economy. President Kennedy gave tax relief, and it spurred the economy and increased revenue. President Reagan, tax relief, and it increased revenue. President Bush, in 2001 and 2003, when we were having a rough time in the economy, the tax cuts gave us the largest increase in revenue in the history of America. People scoff at tax relief as part of a stimulus package. How can they scoff, when it has been proven again and again to work? In this conference report, 18 percent is tax relief. It is not even tax relief that will spur the economy. The tax relief is the Making Work Pay Credit which is going to be approximately $7.65 per week in tax relief for a worker. That is going to be limited to $400 a worker. Speaking of what has been tested, last year, when we became concerned that the economy was beginning to lag, we passed a $600 tax credit. Every economist I have read says it did nothing. It did not spur the economy. It did not help our financial situation at all. That was $600 per person last year. This is going to be $400 per person, and it is going to be strung out in such small amounts in a person's paycheck, they are not going to go out and spend money which is what you want in a stimulus package. The stimulus provides $1.10 a day in tax relief to workers, while saddling every American family with $9,400 in added debt. The home buyer credit the Senate added, which tries to correct the fundamental problem that started this whole economic downturn-- housing--is all but eliminated from the conference committee report. We have an $8,000 credit for first-time home buyers. Now, I support this because it will be some credit for a first-time home buyer to go out and buy a home. But the Senate provision was $15,000 for any home buyer. So we had the capability to give every home buyer that $15,000 tax credit so we would move inventory and allow homebuilders to start building again, which would create jobs. That was changed in the conference report. The conference drastically reduced the auto purchase deduction which would have spurred our struggling auto industry and provided relief to dealers all across the country. I have a great sympathy for auto dealers. When we were taking up the automobile manufacturing bailout, I was very concerned about not only the manufacturers but also the dealers because the dealers could not help what was happening in the auto manufacturing industry. They had nothing to do with the manufacturing, but the dealers and the families who are supported by dealers were being hit again and again and again because their buyers could not get credit and they could not buy cars. So we should have dealt in this bill with housing and credit. Those are the two things that caused this financial downturn, and so I hoped the first things we would deal with in this package would be housing and credit, and I hope eventually we will.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 10 minutes.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, 17 percent of the discretionary spending in this package is for infrastructure items. Now, infrastructure is what we should be spending money on because infrastructure is jobs. Infrastructure is American jobs. In this bill, we do not have enough in infrastructure spending. Mr. President, we should keep in mind that the money in this bill isn't temporary. There are concerns that it will be permanent. It is likely that those funds will be extended well beyond the short window that we claim to be acting in. And in that case, according to The Heritage Foundation, the total cost of the bill comes to $3.27 trillion over 10 years. This is not the bill we should be passing right now. This bill did not even have the signature of one Republican on the conference committee. We do not expect to have dominated the conference committee or the Senate or the House production of a bill, but to have no Republican support cannot under any circumstances be declared bipartisan. Mr. President, 3 Republicans out of the Republican contingent is just not bipartisan. Let me add, in a couple of minutes, what we are for. I am for stimulus. We all know we need stimulus. I would like tax cuts that would spur spending, not tax cuts that would be dribbled out in such small amounts that no one would feel they could go out and buy something. Tax cuts that would spur spending would be in the form of a card, such as the converter box cards that were sent in the mail, that would be for specific purposes--maybe it would be home improvements, maybe it would be weatherization. Specific purposes would require spending. It would be a card that people would know they could spend, and it would make a difference in jump-starting the economy. Tax cuts that would spur hiring. It was sort of said on the other side that we do not need corporate rate deductions because no one is making a profit. Well, let's do something that would allow corporations to make a profit because that is when they hire people, when they are making a profit. How about a tax credit for hiring people? That might make a difference. How about spending on infrastructure? How about more than 17 percent of $1 trillion going for infrastructure? That would be jobs today for people building bridges, building highways, building things that would clearly be job creation. I had an amendment which never made it to the floor that said that military construction should be moved up from the Department of Defense 5-year plan to 3 years. Military construction is money we know we are going to spend. The Department of Defense has a 5-year plan. They know exactly what their priorities are. We normally take it 1 year at a time. Why not take the 5-year plan and bring it up and do it in 2 or 3 years? Because we know it would be American jobs. We know it is money we are going to spend anyway. It would be stimulative, and it would be the right kind of spending. Instead, the conference cut the military spending in this bill from what passed in the Senate. The conference cut our military spending for hospitals and for Veterans' Administration hospitals to increase the quality and access to health care for our veterans. What kind of priority is that? And they are increasing spending to save a mouse in San Francisco that might be endangered. This is not a package we can be proud to give to the American people and say: It is worth tightening our belts to do this because it will make a difference. But we can be for something. We do not say we should have everything we propose. There are other good ideas on the other side. We acknowledge that. But this is not the right bill for the American people, and I urge my colleagues to please consider their positions and let us do this right: tax cuts to spur spending, tax cuts to spur the opportunity for corporations and businesses to hire people, spending on infrastructure, more in military construction. That would be a bill we could support. Mr. President, I thank you and yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I rise with hope that my colleagues will not waive the Budget Act point of order on this bill and to speak against passage of the legislation. Sometimes one has to talk about process when dealing with something as important and as large as the bill before us. A fair process would have allowed input from both Republicans and Democrats, and would have written the bill in committee rather than trying to write the bill on the Senate floor. I am still concerned about a $1 trillion expenditure. When we have an 800-page bill, we are spending about $1 billion per page. Yet I don't believe we have a consensus about the right way to be spending $1 trillion; $1 billion per page in this bill. The important thing we must do for the future is to look at all of the expenditures we are making. It is important for us to look at the trillion dollars we spent on stimulation last year which did nothing to help the economy. Now we have another trillion dollars coming down the pike to shore up financial institutions. We have $1 trillion in spending before us. We already have a $10.6 trillion debt. It is time to step back and say: a trillion dollars here and a trillion dollars there, we are talking about real money. The great Everett Dirksen talked about the ``real money'' of a billion dollars, and now we are at a trillion. It is time to pause and say to the American people: We are going to look at what needs to be done before we spend another dollar, much less $1 trillion. I believe 100 of us would say we need a stimulus package. It is how we spend the money that is in disagreement. Right now the bill before us is one-third tax cuts and two-thirds spending. Even the tax cuts are not going to help create jobs or keep people in their homes, which should be our major focus. The tax cuts are similar to the ones we did last year, which every economist agrees did not work because we didn't see a stimulus. We didn't see an increase in buying. Instead, the economy continued to go steadily downhill. The payroll tax that is dribbled out at $20 or $30 per paycheck is not going to make people feel confident to spend money which, in turn, creates the jobs. I believe we should have tax cuts that are targeted to making people spend their money. We have had the converter box coupons that will go to offset the cost of the digital transition. You get a coupon in the mail. You take it into a dealer that is selling the boxes. It offsets the cost immediately. How about a tax cut that is in the form of a coupon that can only be redeemed if you spend money in certain areas, such as home improvement, weatherization, where you buy things that create a market so we won't see retailers or manufacturers having to lay people off, as we have seen in the last few weeks? Why not a coupon for expenditures that will ensure that the money is spent for job- creating activities? Why not a tax cut to employers for hiring people? That would be direct. That would say: If you will hire people, we will give you a tax credit. Employers would understand that. That is an incentive. Five hundred dollars in payroll taxes dribbled out will not give that confidence. We have the history of last year to show it. Let's talk about the spending. I think we can spend wisely to create jobs. The Republicans are not against spending. We just want to separate spending that is going to create jobs versus spending that people might like that might be good programs but are not going to create jobs. That is the division we have now. The spending in this new amendment is better than the original bill. They said they cut about $100 billion, but when you add in the amendments already in the bill, it is about $50 billion. And some of what they cut out was the right amount they should have cut out. It was the right types of projects to cut out. I will give them that. I think if we had had a more collaborative process from the beginning, we could cut out about $200 billion that would not be creating jobs, and we could put it into a stimulus that would. The kind of stimulus we should be targeting is money that we are going to have to spend anyway, say, over the next 5 years. Let me take, for example, military construction. In military construction, the Department of Defense has a 5-year plan. We know what the 5-year plan is. In normal times, we would take 1 year at a time. The Department of Defense will put its highest priorities in the first year and then the second year will be next and then the third and fourth and fifth. But if we had a stimulative package, we would take that 5-year plan, and we would put it into 3 years so the spending would be upfront, and I have an amendment that will do that. It would create jobs in America, and it would be spending we know we are going to do anyway. That spending would create jobs from money we are going to spend anyway. So in the last 2 years, we can start going back to normal, if the economy has picked up and people are spending and we have a lower unemployment rate. We would be able to say: Well, we have already done our military construction spending. We do not need to spend that money in those last 2 years and we can start trying to come toward a balanced budget again. We have to start whittling down that $10.6 trillion debt. But, instead, we are going in the opposite direction, adding to that $10.6 trillion debt already on the books. So I think there are some things we could agree to do. But this bill has not gone through the processes that would allow that input. My amendment has been pending since last week. It has been filed. But no action has been taken on it because we are not allowed to have the action, and we did not have the action in committee that would have allowed amendments. I believe we could have made some headway on military construction. The same for highways. I agree with the highway spending in the bill. I think we should have more in that direction because it is money we are going to have to spend eventually; move it up to the front. They are American jobs. That meets the test. I am very concerned that some of the spending in this bill--in the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars--is the kind of spending that is going to increase. It is going to increase payments the people are then going to come to expect, and we are not going to be able to come back to normalization, even when we have normalization, and we are going to keep adding to this debt. I hope my colleagues will pause and realize that for $1 trillion, we ought to do better for the future generations of our country because if our foreign investors in U.S. start beginning to think it is a risk to invest in the United States because we have no means to pay them back, two things can happen, and both of them are bad. One is they stop buying the debt. Then what are we going to do? The second is, they buy the debt but at what rate? They start raising the interest rates because the risk is greater. That will increase the economic woes we are now experiencing. Neither of those scenarios is a good one. I hope our colleagues will see we are on a road that in the long term is not the right road for our country. I respect that everyone is trying to do what is right. I know my colleagues on the Democratic side are trying to do what they think is right. I know the President is. I know the Republicans are too. We are in disagreement because we have not had the ability to fully come together in a way that will allow give and take, not just to have a bill that is laid before us where we are trying to amend here, amend there, without any cohesion in what we want to be the final result that would be a collaborative process. But what we have done is not, and at $1 trillion I think we need to do it right. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, is there time allocated to each side?

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I know the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee has spoken, and we are working very hard on an amendment that would be an infrastructure amendment. It would be money that we want to spend now, but it will be spent in the future. I think if we have infrastructure requirements that we know we are going to need in the future and we can push them up for 2 years, that is a policy all of us can agree to. That is exactly what the distinguished chairman and I are working on. Senator Rockefeller and I know that modernization of our air traffic control system is certainly something we would like to be ahead of Mongolia in doing. But in addition to that, we want to make sure we have the efficiencies in the system. Not only will it create jobs in the next 2 years, but it will streamline the system, it will make it more efficient. Prices can come down for consumers and that will also help jump start our economy. I thank the chairman and I wish to talk now about the McCain amendment. I am so pleased Senator McCain has come up with an alternative. It will be a substitute for the bill before us. It strikes the balance. It is tax relief and increased Government investment in our economy so we will be able to jump start our economy in a fiscally responsible way. The bill before us is not the right approach. I could not possibly support the underlying bill. I do hope we can come together, though. Having the debate and hearing what people are saying on the outside, I think has made people realize, when we are talking about $1 trillion, we are not talking about a vacuum. We are talking about $1 trillion on this bill, we are talking about another $1 trillion of deficit this year, not counting the bill we are discussing today. The U.S. debt is $10.6 trillion already. We are approaching a tipping point whereby creditors are going to be increasingly unwilling to lend to our Government because they are going to be concerned about our ability to pay them back. Much of our debt, 25 percent of our U.S. national debt, is held by foreigners. The Chinese Government, in particular, owns over $500 billion. We must consider having this much of our debt in foreign hands and whether borrowers will continue to buy our debt. What happens to our economy if they do not? What happens if they do? What would the interest rate be if all of a sudden they decide it is going to be more risky? Interest rates go up. What would inflation do to the economy we are in right now? If we are going to do this, we must spend every dollar so carefully. We must make sure every dollar we spend is stimulative. In fact, the bill before us, the underlying bill, one-third of it that is supposed to be stimulative is not going to be spent in the next 2 years. That means we would be spending money down the road to solve a problem that may not even exist down the road, and we will be increasing the size of debt without the stimulative effect. I refer to Alice Rivlin, who was the Budget Director in President Clinton's White House. She recommended we split the plan. She said implement the immediate stimulus now. As she acknowledged, we talk about the plans which may or may not have value at a later time. It doesn't have to happen right now. The McCain alternative has a better way to stimulate the economy, put money into the economy immediately, and it is a balanced approach. The McCain proposal will lower the 10- percent bracket to 5 percent for 1 year; lower the 15-percent bracket to 10 percent for 1 year; eliminate the payroll tax for all employees for 1 year. It would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent for 1 year. Recognizing that we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the entire industrialized world, we want to encourage our corporations to hire people in America today. We need to look at tax cuts and the history we have had with tax cuts. Every time we have had big tax cuts in a depressed situation, they have stimulated the economy. They have worked. President Kennedy, President Reagan, and President Bush. Assisting Americans in need--the McCain alternative extends unemployment insurance benefits, extension of food stamps, extension of unemployment insurance benefits that are tax free until 12-31-2009; training services for dislocated workers. Certainly, we all will agree that is important. The McCain alternative goes to the heart of the problem, which is housing. The underlying bill doesn't address what caused this in the first place and that is the problem in the housing market. The McCain alternative provides a loan modification program, tax incentives for home purchases of up to $15,000, making the GSA-conforming loan limits extended at the higher levels to get more help for people who are struggling to make loans. This is a very important component. Last but not least, the spending part goes to infrastructure. It does not have all the programs in it that the underlying bill does, that we will be able to debate in the future. They may be good programs, but they are not going to create jobs. The McCain spending portion is on infrastructure and defense. I am the ranking member on the military construction subcommittee of Appropriations. We have a 5-year plan for the Department of Defense. They know what they are going to spend and what they are going to need. We have just had a ramp-up of troop strength to 90,000 more in our armed services, the Army and the Marines. We have to accommodate them. We have to build the housing, we have to build the training facilities. All those things are in a 5-year plan that normally we would take 1 year at a time to build out. Why not take the 5-year plan and move it up to 2 years or 3 years? I have an amendment that will do that. But the McCain alternative puts $9 billion into those exact types of military construction projects. That is a very important component because it will be jobs in America, it will be jobs that will benefit Americans, and of course it will be for the training and care of our military who are out there on the frontlines, protecting our freedom. What better kind of infrastructure building would we want? The McCain substitute has transportation infrastructure. We all know there are shovel-ready transportation projects ready to go all over our country--bridges, roads, public transit--something I certainly support, airport infrastructure improvements. Senator Rockefeller and I are going to try to increase that in amendments later on. These are the components of the McCain substitute I hope our colleagues will consider. The tax cuts have a history--if they are big enough and they can be felt--of stimulating our economy through the worst of times. All through history, they have done this. I hope we can support the McCain substitute. Or I will look down the road, and I will say, if the McCain substitute is not accepted by the majority of our colleagues, let's let that be the benchmark from which we will go. I do not think the majority of America believes that what is in the underlying bill is good for the short term nor is it good for the long term. I cannot even imagine putting so much debt into our system without the underlying stimulative effect that would bring in revenue to pay for that debt and thereby, perhaps, cause a much worse problem in our financial markets than we see today. I hope, during this debate we have had this week, we now will be able to see what the good parts of all the different plans are. I hope we can adopt the McCain substitute. If we do not, I hope it will be one of the components of a bill that will be written, that will have the support of many Republicans and many Democrats. It will be the best thing that could happen in our country if this bill passed on a true bipartisan basis. It does not give the confidence to our country, to have a plan that is passed just by the Democratic side of the aisle. Yes, Democrats won the election. No one argues with that. But 46 percent of the people of our country did vote for Republicans, so if we have a balance here and America sees we are working together, I think that would be a good thing for the overall spirit in our country that is searching for bipartisanship. If we can come to a bill that would have tax cuts for every individual and businesses to be able to hire people, if we can fix the housing market by encouraging people to buy, if we can give spending plans for our infrastructure to the States so they would be able to hire people for bridges and roads and mass transit, if we can put our money into the Department of Defense, I know we could spend $75 billion in 3 years instead of 5 years, and I know the jobs would be in America and they would be for Americans. I think we have an opportunity. I hope we can come to some agreement that we can all be proud would be the best for our country. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the nomination of Eric Holder for the position of Attorney General of the United States. We place enormous trust in the nominee for this position to not only enforce the laws of our land but also to advise the President on legal and constitutional matters. One of the important freedoms that we have in the Constitution is the right to keep and bear arms, guaranteed to us in the second amendment of the Constitution. Many jurisdictions around our country do not have the ability to own a gun, and there are restrictions in jurisdictions all over our country for the use of a gun. Nowhere is it more strict than in Washington, DC. In 1976, in Washington, DC, the City Council passed the toughest gun control laws in the Nation, banning handguns and requiring rifles and shotguns to be registered, stored unloaded, and either locked or disassembled. These were the most restrictive laws in our Nation regarding gun ownership. I thought they were not only incomprehensible but certainly unconstitutional. I introduced a bill with a number of my colleagues to repeal these prohibitive measures. This prohibition, however, was challenged in court before my bill could get through Congress, and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the District's ban was unconstitutional. When the District appealed to the Supreme Court, I filed an amicus brief with our colleague Jon Tester that was supported by 53 Senators and 250 Members of the House of Representatives. This was on the interpretation of the second amendment as preserving an individual right to keep and bear firearms. Our brief contained the most congressional signatures on any amicus brief ever in the history of our country. In another amicus brief in this same district court opinion that was appealed to the Supreme Court, the nominee before us, Mr. Holder, along with 12 other former Justice Department officials, argued in favor of the gun ban in Washington, DC. His brief stated: The second amendment does not protect firearms possession or use that is unrelated to participation in a well-regulated militia. Fortunately, on June 2, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed the intent of the Founders: that the right to bear arms is an individual right protected by the Constitution. This was a major ruling on the second amendment because local governments that seek gun control measures have made the argument that Mr. Holder made in his brief. That is the basis for gun control ordinances and laws around our country. The ruling in the DC case was a victory for the rights of all Americans to protect themselves and their families. The Supreme Court sent a clear message that the law of the land, the individual right to keep and bear arms, cannot be unreasonably infringed. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they put the right to keep and bear arms in the Constitution. They knew from their experience in the Revolutionary War that a free people must have the right to possess and bear arms. In 1775, the American Revolution started because ordinary farmers decided to fight back against foreign tyranny. Many in George Washington's regiments used their own guns. I was alarmed to learn that while serving as Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration, Mr. Holder said in an appearance on ABC's ``This Week'' that the second amendment ``talks about bearing guns in a well-regulated militia. And I don't think anywhere it talks about an individual.'' This interpretation, while interesting in academic circles, is not mainstream, nor is it reflective of public opinion. Indeed, in our brief that we filed, we cited every congressional action that has happened throughout the history of our country that affirmed that Congress believes the second amendment is an individual right. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, the Framers did not intend for this right to be collective. If that was their purpose, it would have been satisfied with article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power ``to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel Invasions.'' The Framers went further than that. They wanted to ensure that gun ownership was recognized by posterity as an individual right. They put it in the Bill of Rights for that purpose. It is a compilation of individual rights of free speech, freedom of religion, a fair trial, and the right to keep and bear arms. The Framers looked at the governments of Europe. James Madison said: The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. Later on, President Madison explained: The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed, which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. The right to bear arms should not be an issue in the United States. The Constitution is clear, and the Supreme Court has spoken. Our Second Amendment right ensures that our people have the ability to secure all of our rights and defend them, if necessary, from government suppression. It is this right that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people must never extinguish. I believe that Eric Holder, from everything I have read, is an intelligent, experienced, and thoughtful candidate to be the U.S. Attorney General. But after examination of Mr. Holder's public statements and positions on gun rights, I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for the office of Attorney General, and I, therefore, will vote no. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I call up amendment 93 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield for 30 seconds to the Senator from Florida.