Johnny Isakson

Mr. ISAKSON

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I rise to acknowledge the second anniversary of a tragic event that happened on March 11, 2009, in the nation of Benin in Africa. On that tragic day, a young lady by the name of Kate Puzey was tragically murdered in her sleep in her house at night. Kate Puzey was a Peace Corps volunteer from Georgia, who went to Benin with all the dreams, hopes and aspirations of the program John F. Kennedy created over a half century ago. She had served there for months. She was teaching young African children. She was sharing wisdom. She was sharing knowledge. She was sharing her love of mankind. She was representing the United States in the way the Peace Corps intended it. Unfortunately, her life was lost. I did not know Kate Puzey before her death. I only know her after her death. But I know her through her parents, through her schoolmates, and through her fellow Peace Corps volunteers in Africa who told me the story of Kate Puzey, and also, tragically, stories of other Peace Corps volunteers who have lost their lives or have sacrificed in the service of our country. Tomorrow night, at 6:30, on the steps of the Capitol, there will be a candlelight vigil, acknowledging the second year anniversary of the death of Kate Puzey. Kate's mother will be here, as well as Peace Corps volunteers, as well as people from the Peace Corps organization. It will be a solemn moment, but it will also be a very sacred moment. As the ranking member of the Africa Subcommittee, I have traveled to Africa on a number of occasions, and I have been in a number of African countries. On each visit, I arrange either a breakfast or a lunch, where I host the Peace Corps volunteers from the United States in that country. Without exception, and in every case, these are the finest of Americans. Just 2 years ago, when I was in Tanzania, I met a couple--73 and 72 years old--who in their retirement decided they wanted to give back and help their country and serve their mankind. They volunteered to go to Tanzania and build a library where there was not even a library, a book or a school, and they built it. In Kenya, I visited with young people who went to Kenya to help carry the message of democracy, to help share, in the terrible slum of Kibera, the promise and hope of education, of good nutrition, of knowledge, of hard work, and of democracy. We as a country are blessed to have men and women who serve us in many capacities--those who may serve in the House or the Senate, those who serve in the branches of the military overseas in harm's way--but equal to their service is the service of our Peace Corps volunteers. Kate Puzey is an example of what those Peace Corps volunteers do--at its height. When I attended her funeral, I sat and listened, for over 2 hours, to her fellow volunteers, her former classmates tell about the Kate Puzey they knew: the academic genius, the committed volunteer, the person who loved life and loved people and wanted to share that love wherever she could. The volunteers in Benin told of her countless sacrifices to help young people and children in their troubled land, in their difficult country, to understand better their life's future and to not look to poverty as a lifetime of shackles but to look to opportunity as a lifetime of hope. Tomorrow night, when the vigil takes place on the steps of the Capitol, I will not be here, unfortunately, but I will be saying a special prayer for the life of Kate Puzey, for her family, and for what she and all volunteers who have sacrificed in the Peace Corps have done for the United States of America, and, better than that, for mankind. We have many great people to be thankful for in this world, but tomorrow, at 6:30 p.m., on the steps of the Capitol, there will be a pause to recognize the life, the legacy, and the sacrifice of Kate Puzey and I will be there in spirit and I will be with her in prayer. I yield back and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, on June 27, 2010, President Obama made the following statement: I hope some of those folks who are hollering about deficits and debt will step up, because I'm calling their bluff. I am stepping up. At the same time, I also want to call the President's bluff. I think we are at a serious point in time in our history, and we need to be realistic about what confronts us ahead of time. The biggest bluff this year in the Congress was the 2012 budget presented by the President which did not take any of the recommendations from his own deficit commission--by the way, I was one of the Republicans who supported that--and instead locked in a 25.4- percent increase in spending over the last 2 years and made it permanent by calling it a freeze. It raises taxes in the outyears and dedicates a higher regulatory environment in the United States of America. None of that does anything to reduce the debt or the deficit. In fact, the President's budget actually makes it worse. But it is fair to ask people to step up. The American people are asking us to step up. They want us to do what they have been doing in the last 3 years: sit around their kitchen table, reorganize their priorities, spend within their means, and reduce their debt and the deficit. The very least they should ask of their country is their country to do the same thing they have had to do. In large measure, we have been the contributor to the protracted nature of the current recession. Now, everybody knows there are two ways to reduce the deficit in the short run and the debt in the long run. One way is to cut spending. But that is not the only way. Another way is to raise revenue and increase income. And that is not just by raising a tax, that is by improving business opportunity and the expansion of opportunity in America. There is a third way: by changing the processes by which we regulate and make decisions, by looking at reforms that in the outyears make a difference for all of us. On the spending side, the spending cuts are going to be difficult. They are going to be modest compared to what our deficit really is. But they are going to send a signal to the world that we are finally going to get serious about our spending level, and the majority of the rest of the world already has--whether it is Great Britain or many of the other countries in the European Union. So spending cuts are important. But spending cuts in and of themselves will not solve the entire problem. In fact, H.R. 1, in the House, which made reductions of $61 billion, was a modest start at a long-term process. But it sent us in the right direction, and it called the bluff the President was talking about by making real, significant proposals. Secondly, in terms of raising revenue, we raise revenue by expanding opportunity, not by raising the rate of tax, but, as his deficit commission said, by lowering the rate of tax, doing away with deductions that are specialized and targeted in nature and giving business the encouragement to expand. A funny thing happened to me on January 3 of this year in Atlanta, GA, right after the first of January. I went to the OK Cafe in downtown Buckhead, GA, for a breakfast. That is the gathering place for most Atlanta businesspeople on the north side of town. I was going to have a business meeting, and Steve Hennessy walked in, one of the largest automobile dealers in the United States. He happened to come up to me. He rushed toward me. He had his arms open. I thought I was going to get a good luck hug, a ``go to Washington and do a good job'' type speech. Instead, he put his finger right on my nose and said: Johnny, I just had to hire two compliance officers to comply with Dodd-Frank, and I lost a salesman. I am spending more money complying and less money producing. That is one of the things this administration has done in tremendous quantity to put us in a very difficult situation. Every agency is promulgating rules and regulations at a rapid rate--regulations that to comply with cost new employees, more expense in operating a business, and less capital investment in what that business does. It is very important that the President understand what happens; that is, regulation has consequences. Right now the regulatory volume of the United States being proposed by this administration is unsustainable. It is costly, and it increases the debt and the deficit of the United States of America. Quite frankly, it is a reach far beyond where government should go. I am the first person to support occupational safety, the first person to support financial security, the first person to support transparency. I will always fight to see that our government is transparent and our rules are fair and our occupational safety is good. But to overreach, to go beyond our reach, is just wrong. I will give you a couple of examples. Georgia is a large agricultural State. Yesterday I was with some cotton farmers who were bemoaning the fact of the most recent proposal to regulate agricultural dust. The EPA actually wants to regulate the dust created by a plow or a tractor or a truck on a dirt road on a farm, to say that the farmer must make sure that dust stays within the confines of his hedge row or his fence line--meaning we are going to try to control nature? Well, how is he going to do it? By hiring water trucks to follow behind his tractor to tamp down the dust? That is a reach too far. To categorize milk as oil and to say farmers who run dairies have to have storage tanks for milk that are equivalent to storage tanks for petroleum, that is just crazy. It is a reach too far, and it makes the ability to do business tougher, the ability to make a profit more impossible, the amount of revenue produced less because it is less profitable, and it protracts our debt and our deficit problem. So when the President talks about calling bluffs, I am willing to do it. I am willing to sit down and talk about the hard issues. In fact, I am willing to tell the story about how in certain measure myself and everybody else born after 1943 in America is an example of some of the things we need to do. In 1983, I was 39 years old. Social Security sent out their annual report on the stability of the Social Security fund and said it was going broke; that if we did not do something we were going to run out of Social Security benefits in the early 2000s. Well, that worried everybody. But Tip O'Neill, a great Speaker and a Democrat, and Ronald Reagan got together at the White House, and they said: We have a problem. Ronald Reagan said: Well, I don't want to raise the payroll tax. Tip O'Neill said: I don't want to lower the amount of the benefit. They looked at the actuary and said: What do we do? And he said: Recast the eligibility. Push it into the outyears, and that will get the system calibrated and back to actuarial soundness. So they sat down with the actuaries at the table and said: I tell you what we are going to do. We are going to preserve everybody's Social Security eligibility today. But for those people born after 1943 and before 1947, we are pushing them out from age 65 to age 66. I was born in 1944. With a stroke of a pen, Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill changed my eligibility by 1 year. But they changed mine and millions of other Americans at the lead of the baby boomers, recalibrated the system, and put Social Security in actuarial soundness until 2050. Then they added 2-month increments for eligibility beyond, where eventually the law now takes Social Security eligibility to 67. The President's commission recommended doing a similar thing over the next 50 to 75 years to push eligibility out so that benefits are not cut. Eligibility is changed but taxes do not go up. Eligibility is only changed, and when you become eligible to collect. We already know that when Social Security was formed originally, most people did not live to the eligibility age of 65, and today most everybody does. Our lifespans are a longer time, and that is what has gotten the system actuarially unsound. So I do not think it is right to say that nobody has answered the call on debt and deficit reduction. I do not think it is right to say that our bluff--we have not been bluffing anybody, neither did the President's debt and deficit commission. They called our hand by giving us consequential recommendations that work and in the long term make the future of America bright. This problem is not a partisan problem; it is a bipartisan problem. The parties have contributed each to the other to cause the problem. We need to sit down together and begin solving it but not making it a political issue for the 2012 election with no solutions. Instead of bluffs, we ought to make constructive proposals. Instead of speeches on the floor that run time, we ought to be offering amendments on the floor that make a difference in terms of the debt and the deficit of the United States of America. This is the greatest country on the face of this Earth, and it is because people trust it. But if we continue to look the other way as our debt and our deficit increases, that trust will dissipate and our interest rates will go up, the cost of goods and services will be inflated, and America will be in trouble. I close by telling a brief story about a speech I made in Albany, GA, last year in November, when I was talking about the debt and the deficit, talking about some of the solutions we have talked about. I kept talking about a trillion this and trillion that, and saying one day soon we are going to owe $14 trillion. A farmer at the back of the room at the rotary club raised his hand and said: Senator, I only went to Dougherty County High School. I don't know how much $1 trillion is. How much is it? Well, I stumbled and I stammered, and finally, I said: Well, it is a lot. I could not think of how to quantify it. I got home that night, and my wife said: What is wrong? I said: Well, I got stumped today. She said: What was the question? I said: The question was, how much is a trillion? She said: What did you say? I said: Well, it is a lot. She said: Well, that was stupid. I said: Well, give me a suggestion. And she is always right. She said: Well, why don't you just figure out how many years have to go by for 1 trillion seconds to pass. Then people will understand how much $1 trillion is. So I did the math. I multiplied 60 seconds times 60 minutes times 24 hours times 365 days. I got on the calculator, and the calculator only went to 12 digits. So I had to go to the computer to get something that would go to 13 digits, which is a trillion. I divided that product into 1 trillion. Do you know how many years have to pass for 1 trillion seconds to go by? Madam President, 31,709. And we owe $14 trillion. At a dollar a second, for over 400,000 years, we could solve our problem. That is a huge problem. But we have the benefit of the time value of money and the hope and opportunity of the greatest country on the face of this Earth. So I call the President's bluff. Let's sit down together and talk about the tough things. Let's talk about the shared sacrifice. Let's talk about the benefit that comes from responsibility, frugality, and a commitment to the principles of our Founding Fathers and always remember the principle that less debt is better, and we should never be a country controlled by those we owe. Instead, we ought to be a country loved by those we protect. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I come at the end of a long day for all of us to talk about a subject that is off the subject from the bill on the floor but is one of tremendous importance to the United States and the recovery of our economy. I want to also point out for the record--and hopefully also for the right people--that we are at a critical point in terms of housing in America, with Dodd-Frank having been passed and newly promulgated rules. It is essential that we don't make the mistakes that led us to the last collapse that caused the tragedy in the housing market in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In the Dodd-Frank bill, there was an amendment called the qualified residential mortgage, which was offered by Senators Landrieu, Hagan, and myself to ensure that the risk retention provisions of Dodd-Frank would not apply to a well-underwritten, well-qualified loan. Risk retention, as the Chair remembers, is the 5-percent retention requirement of any lender who made a residential mortgage that was not qualified, but they were not specific in their definition of what a qualified mortgage would be. So we took the point to take the historical underwriting standards that have proven to work so well in this country and write them into the Dodd-Frank bill, which were that a mortgage that may be exempted from a risk retention would have to have 20 percent down, and if there was more than 80 percent loan to value, that amount above 80 percent would have to be covered by private mortgage insurance. We required third-party verification of bank deposits, third-party verification of employment, third-party verification of an individual's ability to make the payments and service the debt, credit records, and all the underwriting standards. As the Chair remembers, what got us into so much trouble from 2000 to 2007 is that we made subprime loans, used stated income, didn't do debt checks or anything else we should have done. We made bad mortgages. My point is this. There is a committee that has been formed--made up of very distinguished Americans--that is promulgating the rules to carry out the intent of Dodd-Frank. That committee includes Sean Donovan from HUD; Ben Bernanke; Edward DeMarco, Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency; John Walsh, Acting Comptroller of the Currency; Mary Shapiro, head of the SEC; and Sheila Bair, head of FDIC. That is a very august group. They are in the process of promulgating rules to carry out the intent of Dodd-Frank. The rumors coming out of those negotiations--and I say rumors because I cannot verify it because I am not there. But I know the articles I have read in the papers in the last couple of days send a troubling signal to me. Just for a few minutes, I wish to make the points that I think are so critical. No. 1, it is my understanding they are considering memorializing 80 percent as the maximum amount of loan to value for a loan that would fall as a qualified residential mortgage and do not address private mortgage insurance for coverage above 80 percent. Without getting technical, what that would mean is the only qualified residential mortgage that could be made and not require risk retention would have to have a minimum of a 20-percent downpayment. In the olden days of standard lending in the eighties, seventies, and sixties, when you borrowed more than 80 percent but not over 95 percent, you had private mortgage insurance to insure the top 30 percent of the loan made so the investors had the insurance of knowing, if there was a default, the top portion of that loan, which was the most in terms of loan to value, would be insured and would be paid. If it is, in fact, correct that this committee is going to recommend a qualified residential mortgage require a 20-percent downpayment and not make provisions for PMI, we will be making a serious mistake because two things will happen. One, very few people will be able to get a home loan in the entry-level market or even in the move-up market because a 20-percent downpayment is significant. Second, by not utilizing PMI, we will be turning our back on 50 years of history in America, where PMI has been used to satisfactorily insure risk and insure qualified lending. We must remember what happened in terms of the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. What happened was Congress directed they buy a certain percentage of their portfolio in what were called affordable loans, which became subprime securities, which became 13 percent of their portfolio, which brought them down when subprime securities collapsed. If we all of a sudden, through fiat, decide to pass regulations to define a qualified residential mortgage that is so prohibitive we run everybody to FHA, which is exempt, then we will be putting a burden on FHA that is unsustainable and create a situation of another collapse or another inability of the United States to meet housing needs through the private sector and through well underwritten loans. My reason for coming to the floor tonight is, hopefully, to send a message, before the decisions are made, to be thoughtful in determining what the parameters will be on a qualified residential mortgage. Yes, I do think an 80-percent or less loan should be qualified and avoid risk retention. But a well-paid, well-verified, well-credit-evaluated individual who borrows more than 80 percent but less than 75 should be able to do so and be excluded from the risk retention as long as they have private mortgage insurance covering that top 30 percent of the debt created by that loan. If you do that, you protect the equity provisions, you protect the investor, you make the qualified loan, you do not put the country at risk, but most important of all, you do not force everybody to FHA. That is what we are about to do because FHA is, by definition under Dodd-Frank, exempt from risk retention. All other loans are not, except those that will fall under the QRM, qualified residential mortgage. It would be a disaster for the recovery of American housing to force Americans to only one source of money to finance their home and put so much stress on the Federal Housing Administration that it collapses under the burden. We need to be pragmatic when we look at issues facing housing. We need to be practical in taking Dodd-Frank and making it work for the American people. We need to recognize the value of private mortgage insurance, the value of good, solid underwriting and not put a risk retention in that is so high that we take most American mortgage lenders out of the business, isolated only for a few who dictate and write the parameters they want to write for housing. We are at a critical time in our recovery. Housing has hit the bottom, and it has bounced along the bottom, but it is showing some signs of coming back. Now would be the worst time to send a signal that mortgage money is going to be harder to get, the banks are going to have to hold 5 percent risk retention on even the best of loans and, worst of all, it would give the American people only one alternative for lending; that is, the Federal Housing Administration which, in and of itself, is already under a burden and stressed. I appreciate the time tonight to bring this message to the floor that as we write the rules to promulgate the intent of the Dodd-Frank bill in terms of residential housing and finance, we be sure we do so in such a way that we meet the demands of a vibrant marketplace rather than restricting it, putting a burden on FHA, and protracting what has already been a long and difficult housing recession. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized as in morning business.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my DOD fellow, Julius Spain, Francie Powers, and Michael McLaughlin, be allowed to have floor privileges during the reading of Washington's Farewell Address.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I rise to second the statements made by Senator Chambliss on these two nominees to the northern district of Georgia court, Amy Totenberg and Steve Jones. Amy Totenberg is an attorney, in practice for many years, a judge, an arbitrator, a mediator, and an educator. She brings a wealth of experience to the bench in many areas, not the least of which is personnel law. In fact, during her term of service to the Atlanta Board of Education in the mid-1990s, I was chairman of the State Board of Education and dealt with the major litigation pieces that went through the system of education in Georgia. I know of her competence, her ability, and the trust her colleagues have in her, and I think she will be an excellent appointee to the northern district of Georgia bench. Steve Jones is the real deal. He is a terrific individual, one of those people who is so active in trying to make the community better. One example is Clark County in Athens where Steve has been a superior court judge for many years, which is one of the leading and founding drug courts in America, an intervention court that intervenes in those first drug cases when young people are caught for the first time, works with them as an advocate and as a mentor to see to it they never return to drugs and therefore never return to crime. That is just one example of his intensity in trying to make his community better. He is respected by lawyers throughout the circuit, he is respected by his fellow judges, and he is deeply respected by me as an individual who brings great credit to the State and great credit to the bench. I urge all our colleagues tonight on the vote for Steve Jones and Amy Totenberg to unanimously support both of those nominees to the northern district of Georgia bench. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, in just a moment, I will ask the body for unanimous consent to adopt S. Res. 60. Before I do, I wish to talk about the significance of this agreement we have come to on this important resolution. Fifty years ago last September, President Eisenhower signed into law legislation that established real estate investment trusts, or REITs, as an investment opportunity for all investors. Prior to 1960, access to the highly desirable investment returns of commercial real estate assets was limited to institutions and wealthy individuals that had the financial wealth to make direct real estate investments. By creating REITs, Congress recognized that small investors should be afforded the same opportunity to invest in portfolios of large-scale commercial properties and achieve the same investment benefits--diversification, liquidity, performance, transparency--as those able to make direct investments in real estate. Some of my colleagues may not be familiar with each REIT property in their States, but they should be aware that these properties are making a significant contribution to the economic vitality of their State and our Nation. REITs are companies dedicated to the ownership and development of income producing real estate, such as apartments, regional malls, shopping centers, office buildings, self storage facilities and industrial warehouses. They operate under an intricate set of tax rules that require them to, among other things, meet specific tests regarding the composition of their gross income and assets, in order to stay in business. For example, Federal tax law requires that 95 percent of a REIT's annual gross income must be from specified sources such as dividends, interests and rents, and 75 percent of the gross income must be from real estate related sources. Similarly, at the end of each calendar quarter, 75 percent of a REIT's assets must consist of specified ``real estate'' assets. Consequently, REITs must derive a majority of their gross income from commercial real estate. And, the REIT rules require that at least 90 percent of a REIT's total income must be returned to the company's shareholders in the form of dividends. While REITs have played a major role in the U.S. economy since 1960, their mark in the investing world has primarily been achieved since passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a time period many refer to as the ``Modern REIT Era.'' This law removed most of the tax-sheltering capability of real estate and emphasized income producing transactions, allowing REITs to operate and manage real estate as well as own it. I am pleased that over the years, Congress has adopted legislation to perfect the REIT method of investing in real estate. Among many proposals, these include the REIT Simplification Act of 1997, the REIT Modernization Act of 1999, the REIT Improvement Act of 2004, and the REIT Investment Diversification and Empowerment Act passed in 2008. REIT executives are hard-working business men and women who are singularly focused on bringing increased value to their shareholders. According to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, NAREIT, which is also celebrating its golden anniversary, these executives have proven to be successful in this objective, especially in the past two years in the wake of the financial downturn. Indeed, the vision of Congress has come to fruition: the equity market capitalization of REITs at the end of 2010 was $389 billion, up from only $1.5 billion at the end of 1971, and listed REITs distributed $13.5 billion to shareholders in 2009. I am pleased to be joined by my colleague, Senator Mikulski, who is a cosponsor of this legislation, and I am pleased that my home state of Georgia is headquarters to several REIT companies that are engaged in the daily business of creating wealth and employment for many investors across the country and my constituents. These companies include Cousins Properties Incorporated, Gables Residential Trust, Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Incorporated, Post Properties, Incorporated, and Wells Real Estate Investment Trust. In total, there are more than 1400 REIT properties located in Georgia, with an estimated historical cost in the billions of dollars. Commercial real estate represents more than 6 percent of this country's gross domestic product and is a key generator of jobs and other economic activities. Today, because of the foresight that Congress had 5 decades ago, anyone can purchase shares of real estate operating companies, and do so in a manner that meets their investments needs by focusing on a particular sector in the commercial real estate world and a specific region of the country. That is the beauty of the REIT method of investing, whose influence has now spread abroad to more than 2 dozen countries that have adopted a similar model encouraging real estate investment. I again congratulate the REIT industry on this momentous occasion of their 50 years of leadership in the real estate investing market. REITs have fulfilled Congress' vision by making investments in large scale, capital intensive commercial real estate available to all investors. I thank my colleagues for supporting this resolution, and I look forward to continuing to work with them on issues of importance to REIT investors. With that, I ask unanimous consent the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 60, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. ISAKSON. I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I rise to speak for a few minutes about a gentleman whose 70th birthday will be celebrated next Monday night in Atlanta, GA. He is a gentleman who has deep ties to the Senate. His name is T. Rogers Wade. He came to the Senate in 1973 as an administrative assistant and later chief of staff to Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge. During those years, Senator Talmadge was chairman of the powerful Agriculture Committee which, in my State of Georgia, is instrumental. Rogers Wade is one of those unique people whom all of us, such as the Presiding Officer and myself, are lucky enough to have in our offices, somebody who supports us, keeps us moving in the right direction, helps us back home with our people--in other words, kind of drives our ship of State. My chief of staff does. Rogers Wade did it for Herman Talmadge. He took those talents and brought them back to Georgia after 1980 to do a number of memorable and tremendous things. For example, when he first came back he founded a firm called Edington Wade & Associates, a public affairs firm that represented many Fortune 500 companies throughout the State of Georgia and their locations. Following that, he did many other things in Georgia. He founded Leadership Georgia, a program today celebrating over 40 years in our State, generating new leaders for our State. It is a great program. He came to the Fanning Institute of Leadership at the University of Georgia and serves on its board. He serves on the board of the Richard Russell Foundation. Most importantly, he is a can-do guy who became president of something known as the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an organization that is nonpartisan and dedicates itself to opine on legislation going through the Georgia Legislature or initiatives coming before the people on the ballot to give them an unvarnished, nonpolitical, straight-talk expression of what that law or what that issue would be. It has become one of the most respected foundations in our State and, in fact, around the country. He served as president of that foundation from 1997 to 2009 and today is a trustee of the foundation. One of the interesting things T. Rogers Wade did--a lot of people talk about what they want to do to reform education and help kids in need. T. Rogers Wade did it. He founded something called Tech High in Atlanta, GA, a school in an old dilapidated building that he raised the money to rehabilitate. He brought in excellent faculty in STEM math and science and opened it as a charter school approved by the State of Georgia for the most in need, free-and-reduced-lunch kids in the metropolitan city of Atlanta public school system. He began attracting those kids to that charter school. So successful has Tech High been that Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, chose it to be one of his first visits after he became Secretary of Education under President Obama. It still is a guiding light today of what can be done, with a focus on excellence and helping kids in need to brighten their future. Just recently, with the election of Nathan Deal as the new Governor of Georgia, he picked one person out of our State to guide him in his transition team. It was T. Rogers Wade. T. Rogers Wade has touched the lives of American servicemen by being on the board of the USO, Georgia businesses by being on the board of the chamber of commerce, and citizens around our State by being the president of the Public Policy Foundation. Next Monday night, I am going to have dinner with a great Georgian and great American. And I rise at this moment on the floor of the Senate to pay tribute to T. Rogers Wade on the occasion of his 70th birthday. I yield back the remainder of my time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

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

Mr. ISAKSON

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

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I rise for a moment to join my colleagues in paying tribute to the late Ronald Reagan, President of the United States--a great conservative leader of our country and an inspiration to many, many Americans. I want to dedicate my remarks to a lady named Kathie Miller. Kathie works for me here in Washington. She has loved Ronald Reagan since the day he came on the scene and can probably quote him verbatim much better than I can. He had a meaningful impact on her life, and so I dedicate these remarks to her today. My speech will be about two events I happened to attend where Ronald Reagan was speaking and the impact of those events not only on me but on everybody else who was there, and actually on the future of our country. One took place in 1975, when he was beginning his pursuit of the nomination for the Presidency of the United States. Gerald Ford was still President at that time and Ronald Reagan was running for the nomination for a full term. Ronald Reagan came to Cobb County, GA. Cobb County, GA, is where I live. It is a very Republican county right now, but in 1975 it was not a very Republican county. In fact, there was only one elected official in the entire county who was a Republican, out of literally 100 or more who were Democratic officials. Ronald Reagan came to the civic center in Cobb County, and an unanticipated thing happened, not by plan, certainly, not by the generation of politicians, but a crowd so large came to hear him that the fire marshals shut the building down. This is a very good-sized, 4,000-seat auditorium. People came to hear a positive message about America. I was fortunate enough, because I had been in politics a little bit, to be able to get in that room and listen to his speech. In 1975, for America, it was not the most prosperous of times. In fact, a lot of the things we have been suffering through these last couple of years we went through in 1974 and 1975. We had a difficult housing market, higher interest rates, higher unemployment, and things of that nature. So this former actor came to Cobb County and he lit a fire under everybody, and not necessarily about him but about ourselves. He uplifted people who needed uplifting and he did it with a message of a belief in ourselves, a belief in our country, pride in America, and defense through strength. Those messages were so clearly Ronald Reagan. It inspired me. And it inspired me so much that I hoped he would get that nomination and be elected President of the United States. But he failed. He did not get the nomination. Ultimately, Gerald Ford got it, not Ronald Reagan. But Ronald Reagan didn't go home and pout. He did not stop participating. He didn't drop out. He set his sights on the 1980 Republican nomination for President of the United States, and history reflects that he achieved it. He won it, and it was 8 great years for our country, 8 great years with a man who could inspire and who could lead. I have oftentimes said that two of the truly great Presidents we have had--John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan--had something in common. They were from different parties, but they could stand before a group of people and make a speech about a subject they didn't agree with and, by the time they finished, they got a standing ovation. So, first, they were great communicators. Second, they were committed to a safe and prosperous America. They were hawks on defense. They confronted our enemies straight up, as Kennedy did with Khrushchev and President Reagan did. Third, and most important, they reduced taxes and brought prosperity to the economy of the United States. The second occasion I met Ronald Reagan was an interesting one. It was in the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, where professional basketball was played at the time. The coliseum seats 16,000 people. I was then the minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives and was elected to be the MC of a program that featured Senator Mack Mattingly, running for reelection from Georgia, but the keynote speaker was Ronald Reagan. In fact, he flew from Washington to Atlanta to make that speech and then went to Reykjavik, Iceland where he confronted Gorbachev and Brezhnev and the Russians and he stood for peace through strength, and a strong buildup of forces in America so we could be a strong country that could defend ourselves, not a weak country subservient to anybody else. In that auditorium of 16,000 people, he stood up before them and did the same thing he did in the auditorium in 1975. He inspired them to believe in their country, inspired them to believe in what was right, and inspired them to believe in peace through strength. And when he left, everybody was uplifted. I think when Ronald Reagan left the Presidency in 1988, we would all agree our country was uplifted. It was a period of prosperity and a period of strength, and it was a renaissance of the American spirit. That is the test of true leadership. So I am honored and privileged to join many of my colleagues on the floor today to pay tribute to the memory and the commitment of Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, first of all, I commend the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Paul, for his remarks and particularly his reference to the Constitution. When I read the decision of Judge Vinson in Florida, it read a lot like the Congressional Record of December 23 of last year when we were on the floor right before Christmas Eve debating whether to pass the Affordable Care Act. Judge Vinson was clear and precise both on his ruling on the commerce clause as well as recognizing the necessary and proper clause nor the general welfare clause can substantiate requiring people to make the decisions that the health care bill requires. I am going to vote for the amendment by Senator McConnell to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I wish to repeat the reasons I stated a year and a half ago on the floor of the Senate as to why I believe that. First of all, it has little or nothing to do with affordable care, in my judgment, and we have seen in the 13 months since its passage and the 9 months since its signing increase after increase in costs, both in terms of insurance premiums as well as the application of the law to the practice of medicine. So it is not about affordable care; it is about care going up in its costs. Secondly, if you look at the way in which the bill ostensibly claimed it paid for itself, it shot big holes in America's health care future, taking $500 billion out of Medicare to begin with, reducing the reimbursement almost in its entirety for home health care which, in a State such as Georgia with many rural people, is the primary way in which health care is delivered to them, and the assessment of taxes, whether it be on hearing aids and medical devices or the 3.8-percent surtax placed on earned income for those people making more than $200,000 or families making $250,000. It is appropriate to start over, but by starting over it doesn't mean we delay dealing with the problems Americans face with their health care. It may mean we, in fact, accelerate it beyond what this bill would have done if it is carried out to its entirety. When we had the meeting at the Blair House a year and a half ago in the middle of the health care debate, when the President and the Democratic leadership sat down across the table from the Republican leadership and for 4 hours engaged in a discourse over the differences in the two ideas, it became quite clear what the majority wanted to do. They wanted to change the paradigm and put the government in charge of health care in America. That is why every provision in the bill, from the fines for not buying insurance to the provisions of reimbursement, drives government to be the decisionmaker and the controller, just as the distinguished Senator from Kentucky talked about the price of health care today. The price of health care begins and ends with the assessment of reimbursement made in Washington, DC. So, No. 1, we do need to change the paradigm and get back to a capitalistic-type system and a competitive system. For example, repealing the barrier on interstate sales of health insurance and having a national marketplace. Allow affiliated groups or similar groups to join together and compete across State lines as a larger risk pool like independent contractors, like the profession I came from, real estate agents, who are not employees, who don't have the benefits of ERISA coverage but bound together could compete with IBM or any other company in buying insurance as a group with a large enough risk pool to reduce the cost of their premiums and raise their coverage. It is very important to realize that the real solution to health care, both in terms of its costs as well as a healthy America in the future, is the way we practice wellness and disease management. Those are the types of programs we can then begin to incentivize now to raise them in their practice and lowering in the outyears the cost of health care and begin to get our arms around what is right now a spiraling contributor to the deficit and to the debt. But most importantly of all, the fact that over 70 waivers have been issued by Health and Human Services already is proof the bill is flawed, and it is proof its continuation up until its beginning in 2014 is going to be nothing more than making other exceptions for other groups for trying to make a bill that is designed to fail work. It won't happen. It should be repealed. I commend the leader on his amendment, and I will vote for it this afternoon. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, today I honor in the Record the 50th anniversary of the Center for Family Resources in Marietta, GA. In 1960, three community leaders--Fred Bentley, Sr., Howard Ector, and Harry Holliday--envisioned a better way to combine six existing emergency assistance organizations in the county under one roof to be more effective and efficient. After working with the United Way for funding, they founded the Cobb County Emergency Aid Association, Inc.-- CCEAA. For a decade, the organization worked tirelessly to help meet the emergency needs of the citizens of Cobb County, GA, through financial assistance, furniture, clothing, medical supplies, food and a Christmas program. As the organization grew, it began to look for ways to become more effective in helping families become independent and self-sufficient. Families repeatedly faced limited access to affordable transportation, childcare and housing, as well as a lack of education and training to secure and maintain employment. The organization determined the removal of those barriers was the real key to breaking the cycle of poverty. In 2004, the agency changed its name to the Center for Family Resources. The Center for Family Resources has grown from a small emergency aid agency to a multifunction human services organization, serving both generations of the family to develop personal responsibility and a self-sufficient lifestyle. The center develops and maintains collaborative partnerships with organizations to improve services for local families. Today, the Center for Family Resources serves an average of 10,000 individuals each year and has served more than 400,000 individuals since 1960. It gives me a great deal of pleasure and it is a privilege to recognize the Center for Family Resources and its contributions to Cobb County. I congratulate Jeri Barr, the Board of Directors, the staff and volunteers of the Center for Family Resources on their many accomplishments.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I rise briefly to address a few remarks made by the senior Senator from Iowa and to compliment my colleague from Tennessee. But first, regarding all of these talks about our Founding Fathers and our Constitution, if our Founding Fathers had not intended for supermajorities to determine certain acts of this Congress, why would two-thirds of us have to vote to pass a constitutional amendment and three-fourths of the States have to vote to ratify one? I think that showed the intent. If our Founding Fathers had not intended for minority representation to exist, I wouldn't have two Senators like California; everybody would have a proportionate number of Senators. Finally and most importantly, with regard to the notion that we are the only democracy in the world to have a rule where majority rules, the fact is, that may be true. We are also the richest, safest, most prosperous democracy in the world, and that has a lot to do with the way we govern ourselves. So I wanted to make those three points. I wish to congratulate Senators Wyden, McCaskill, and Grassley on what I think is a very appropriate amendment to make sure we have total transparency in our process of holds in the Senate. I think that is right, and I think that is exactly what the American people would express. Lastly, I wish to thank the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from New York. In the last few weeks, they have done a lot of good work--yeoman's work, as a matter of fact--to make sure this Senate doesn't rush to judgment and make a mistake that would not be in the interests of the institution or the American people. The Senate in the end is all about Senators putting their shoulders to the grindstone and making things work, and I think in this case the Senator from Tennessee has done exactly that, and I wish to compliment him on his work. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I wish to take an additional minute, if I might--the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is on the floor--to say, in addition to my statement I made 2 days ago in a speech on the floor with regard to the START treaty, that I wish to thank the chairman and the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee for the accommodating process from day one in April until today, where the treaty will ultimately pass on the floor of the Senate. Legislation is about improving ideas and making sure the interest of the American people and the United States of America is protected. Through the work of Senators Lugar and Kerry, we have been able to craft amendments to the resolution of ratification on the START treaty that ensure missile defense and modernization--the two contentious points on this legislation which came from the committee--are not only taken care of, but they are buttoned down and they are clear. And I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their willingness to do so. I want to let everyone who is listening and those who will read the reports of this debate know that this has been a 7-month process, not a 9-day process, and it has been a detailed process. It has been the work of the will of the people of the United States of America, and the U.S. Senate has worked its will. When it is ratified today, it will be a step forward in the future for my children and grandchildren. During my campaign when I ran for reelection this year, I made the following statement: The rest of my life is about doing everything I can do to see to it that the lives of my children and grandchildren are safer, more secure, and as affluent as my life has been because of my parents and grandparents. Today, in this ratification, we are ensuring that we will be strong in our strength, we will trust but we will verify. We will make sure we can fight, if necessary, but we will also make sure we are accountable. And most important of all, with regard to the biggest threats we face--terrorism and loose nuclear materials falling into the hands of a rogue nation--we will be a safer country because of this, and I thank the chairman and ranking member because of it. I thank the chairman for his time, and I yield back.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Oregon. This is very important work, and we are in our late hour. Sometimes we do our best in the late hour. The unintended consequence of the Dodd-Frank legislation with regard to IOLTA is it not being extended and we are going to literally have thousands of escrow accounts held by law firms and attorneys, real estate transactions, dispute resolution transactions, and beneficial programs that will have to be spread among many more banks because the insurance level, which is now limited, drops to $250,000. It would force the transfer of escrow account money out of any number of banks. At a time when capital is critical in small community banks, the unintended consequence might have been to take them below tier one capital requirements and put them in a stress situation. I commend the distinguished Senator from Oregon for his work on this legislation. I thank the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Vitter, for his consent for us to bring this forward. I give wholehearted support to the unanimous consent request. I yield back to the Senator.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I commend the Senator from Oregon and thank him for his help on this important issue for people all over the United States, not just in Oregon and Georgia but around the country. This is a great effort, and I commend him on it.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, on the 8th day of November of this year, I, along with Senator Hagan from North Carolina and Senator Landrieu from Louisiana, sent a letter to Secretary Donovan, Chairman Bernanke, Acting Director DeMarco, Chairman Sheila Blair, Chairman Schapiro, and Acting Comptroller Walsh, asking them to look closely at the 941(b) requirements of the Dodd-Frank bill relating to risk retention and to urge them to complete their work on carrying out the intent of that legislation through the amendment that the three of us cosponsored to create the exemption for risk retention requirements by the definition of a qualified mortgage. I rise today, on one of the final days in this Congress, to raise the importance of this issue because of the current fragile condition of the U.S. housing economy and, most importantly, to underscore what a handful of Senators in this body did last summer in the financial reform bill to begin to improve and strengthen the eroding lending standards that got us into this position in the first place. I ran a business for 22 years in residential housing in Atlanta. During that time, the average default rate, or delinquent rate, was about 3 percent on mortgages. The foreclosure rate was less than 1\1/ 2\. Things have changed dramatically in the last few years because of sloppy underwriting, no credit, and no documentation. We have seen some unbelievable new numbers. To give you some perspective, according to FDIC, in the third quarter of 2010, total mortgage delinquencies across the country were about 10 percent of the market, or 1 in 10. In Georgia, that number exceeded 12. In the 100-percent government- guaranteed FHA market, the delinquency rate is just above 13 percent and, sadly, in Georgia, in the third quarter that rose above 20 percent--1 in every 5. We have mounting problems with growing housing inventory--problems that are only made worse with excessive fees currently charged by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, frankly, keeping many from being able to refinance into a more affordable mortgage, therefore, becoming delinquent and being foreclosed on. I am extremely proud of the bipartisan provision that Senator Hagan, Senator Landrieu, and myself added to the financial reform bill. Earlier this year, I began working with Senators Landrieu and Hagan to develop the concept of a qualified residential mortgage, QRM or, as I call it, a ``new gold standard'' for residential mortgages, which ultimately was included in the credit risk retention title of 941(b) in the financial reform bill. While risk retention can serve as a strong deterrent to excessive risk taken by lenders, it also imposes the potential of a constriction of credit in the mortgage market. I want to make this point clear. The risk retention provision of the Dodd-Frank bill would require an originator of a mortgage to retain 5 percent of that mortgage as risk retention. As we all know, tier one capital requirements by the banking system is only 8 percent for the solid footing for the entire bank, and we were going to add another 5 to it just because they make mortgages. What is going to happen is that very few mortgages will be made, and those that will be made will be only the most pristine ones, not necessarily the ones that meet the needs of middle America. Likewise, our standard makes sure venturesome lending practice can never become qualified residential mortgages. We specifically delineate in the amendment that things such as balloon mortgages, no-doc loans, drive-by appraisals, and interest-only loans, loans with huge prepayment penalties, and negative amortization mortgages would never be considered a qualified mortgage. Against those loans, you should require risk retention and additional security on the part of the lenders. But in terms of mainstream America, we need to go back to the good old days of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, where if you got a residential mortgage, you had to get a letter from your boss saying that you had a job, your bank had to certify that you had the money in the bank account to pay the downpayment, your credit report had to be a good one saying you could pay your mortgage, the appraiser had to use legitimate information to appraise the house, and the underwriters had to match your debt against your income to ensure that they weren't at too high a risk. That is why in those wonderful days we only had 1.5 percent in foreclosures and less than 3 percent in defaults. But the easy underwriting that started in 2006, and then accelerated, caused us lots of problems. That is what we are here to try to stop today. I am optimistic that our amendment will be the first step to correct the lending practices of the past and will set on a better path in the future. In the law, we instructed the regulators to use specific criteria in conjunction with loan performance data to define the contours of the quality residential mortgage exemption. As we said in our November 8 letter to the regulators responsible for writing these rules: It was our clear legislative intent that, underwriting and product features that data indicate a lower risk of default must be considered. Prior to sponsoring the Amendment, we were provided with analyses of loan level data that demonstrated that loans that satisfy the elements set out in our Amendment default less frequently and cure more often than riskier loans. We understand that each of your agencies have been provided with this analysis, updated to reflect loan performance in 2010. In particular this analysis demonstrates that historically tested standards, including full documentation of borrower income and assets, reasonable total debt-to-income ratios and restrictions on riskier loan features, such as negative amortization and balloon payments, significantly reduce the risk of default. In addition, for loans with lower down payments that have combined loan-to- value ratios greater than 80 percent, the protections provided by mortgage insurance result in lower losses for lenders and investors and fewer foreclosures for borrowers than similar loans that lack insurance. The mortgage insurance provision ensures that the qualified residential mortgage exemption can serve those consumers that cannot afford a 20 percent down payment while putting substantial private capital at risk to drive underwriting discipline. I am aware these agencies are actively engaged and meeting. I recently received a response from the regulators assuring me that they will be implementing our QRM legislation ``in a manner consistent with the language and purposes of that section.'' It is my hope that these regulators will follow the intent of the legislation, by ensuring a broad spectrum of qualified borrowers will fit under the umbrella of protection under the qualified residential mortgage safety and soundness provisions. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the other side in the new Congress to help to continue to improve our system of housing finance. It is with great anticipation that we await the administration's plans to do with Freddie and Fannie. I have my own ideas, which I have expressed on this floor. I look forward to working with Chairman Tim Johnson and Ranking Member Shelby in the months ahead. The crisis we have experienced in large foreclosures and defaults, the declines in housing values, and a protracted housing recession, will only be cured in time when we return to a strong and vibrant lending market, where qualified loans and borrowers come together to fuel the housing market once again. Until that happens, I fear that the recession and the recovery we are in will be protracted and will be slow, and the American dream will still be out of reach of too many Americans. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. May I inquire if there is a scheduled recess at 12:30?

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I was on the floor last night and addressed my significant concerns with the omnibus and the dual-track process we are on right now. That statement has been made. I come this morning to address the START treaty, the New START treaty. I voted for it to come out of the Foreign Relations Committee to the floor. I want to go through my reasons for having done so. I wanted to talk about what the New START treaty is, not what it is not. First, I want to pay tribute to Dick Lugar. He has been a bastion of strength on nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation issues for years. I thank Senator Kerry for the time he gave us to go through hour after hour after hour of hearings and hour after hour after hour of secure briefing in the bowels of the new Visitor Center, where we read the summary of the notes of negotiations on the treaty, where we read the threat initiative and the estimate of the terrorism threat initiative and all the classified documentation about which we cannot speak on this floor. These things are critical to our consideration as we debate this treaty. I wish to talk about two Senators, one a Democrat and one a Republican. With all due respect to the chairman, it is not he. It is a Democrat by the same of Sam Nunn from Georgia, who chaired the Armed Services Committee, who, along with Senator Lugar, put together Nunn- Lugar and the cooperative threat initiative. I sought out Senator Nunn and Senator Lugar in my deliberations during the committee debate and my consideration of what I would do in terms of that committee vote and later a vote on the floor. I wish to make a couple notes about the success of the Nunn-Lugar initiative. Nunn-Lugar is a commitment to see to it that nuclear materials are secure. It is a commitment to see to it that loose nukes around the world don't fall in the hands of those who would kill my grandchildren, your grandchildren or all of us in the United States. I don't think it has been mentioned, but as a result of the Nunn-Lugar initiative, since 1991, since its formation, they have reduced the number of loose nukes in the world by 7,599. Belarus, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan no longer have nuclear arsenals. Through that comprehensive threat initiative, they have destroyed the weapons, and they have turned weapons of mass destruction into plowshares that are powering powerplants. The nuclear threat initiative does not mean we get out of the business of having a nuclear arsenal. It means we get in the business of security for the nukes that are there and establish goals toward nonproliferation which to all of us is critically important. My history as far as this goes back to the 1950s. It goes back to Ms. Hamberger's first grade class, when I remember getting under the school desk once a week to practice what we would do if a nuclear attack hit the United States. My history with this goes back to October of 1962 when, as a freshman at the University of Georgia, I stood in fear with all my colleagues and watched what was happening in Cuba, watched the blockade, watched the strength of John Kennedy, who faced the Russians down and ultimately prevented what would have been a nuclear strike against the United States and ultimately our strike against them in Cuba as well as in Russia. Then I remember the night in October of 1986, when I had the honor to introduce Ronald Reagan in Atlanta the night before he flew to Iceland to begin negotiations on nuclear treaties at that time. In one speech made today, it has been referenced that Reagan rejected what Gorbachev offered at Reykjavik. That is correct. Reagan rejected not doing research and development and building a nuclear arsenal. But what he did insist on was verification of what both countries were doing so we could never have a situation of not having transparency, not having intelligence, and not knowing what the right and left hand were doing. It was out of that rejection and at his insistence that the beginning of the negotiations for the START treaty began. They were ultimately signed in 1991, under the administration of George H.W. Bush. Until December 5 of last year, that START treaty had been in place. For those years, the United States had transparency. It had verification. It had cooperative communication back and forth between the two countries that controlled 90 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world. My history with this goes all the way back to climbing under a school desk, to introducing President Ronald Reagan, to 1 year serving on the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate. My decision to support the treaty coming out of the committee were based on four principles. The first is inspections. It has been said the inspections have been reduced. What has not been said is the number of sites to inspect have also been greatly reduced. The number of inspections correspond with what is necessary to inspect the Russian arsenal and know whether they are complying with the treaty. Inspections are very important. We learned on 9/11 what happens when we don't have human intelligence on the ground where we need it. What happens is we get surprised. What happened to us on 9/11 is almost 3,000 citizens died at the hands of a heinous attack by radical terrorists because we didn't have as good intelligence as we needed to have. That is why I don't want to turn my back on the opportunity to have human intelligence on the ground in the Russian Federation verifying that they are complying with a mutual pact we have made with them and, correspondingly, the transparency they have to inspect our nuclear arsenal in the United States. The second point I wish to make that caused me to come to the conclusion it was the right thing to do to support the treaty in committee was the verification process. I have heard some people say this verification process is not as good as the old verification process. I am not going to get into that argument, but this verification process is a heck of a lot better than no verification process at all, which is exactly what we have today. Since December 5 of last year, we haven't had the human intelligence. We couldn't verify. Verification is critically important because with verification comes communication. With communication comes understanding, and from that understanding and communication comes intelligence. While our inspections are to make sure the quantity of the nuclear arsenal and the warheads and the delivery systems are within compliance, it also gives us interaction to learn what others may know about nuclear weapons around the world that are not covered by this treaty. That brings me to one other point. It has been said by some that bilateral treaties are no longer useful in terms of nuclear power; we need multilateral treaties. I have to ask this question: If we reject the one bilateral treaty over nuclear power, how will we ever get to a multilateral treaty? We will not do it. I think it is important to have a bilateral treaty between the two countries that controls 90 percent of the weapons so we see to it, as other countries gain nuclear power, we can bring them into a regimen that requires transparency and accountability too. You will never be able to do that if you reject it between yourself and the Russian Federation. Now, the third thing I want to talk about for a second--I mentioned Senator Nunn before. He served as Armed Services chairman, and so did John Warner, who is a distinguish retired Republican Member of this Senate. They released a joint statement not too long ago and raised a point I had not thought of. If you will beg my doing this, I will read on the floor of the Senate one of the points they made that was supportive of this treaty. I quote from Senator Nunn and Senator Warner: . . . Washington and Moscow should expand use of existing Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers--which we-- Meaning Warner and Nunn-- and other members of Congress-- Meaning Dick Lugar-- established with President Ronald Reagan to further reduce nuclear threats. For example, to improve both nations' early warning capabilities, the centers could exchange data on global missile launchers. Other nations could be integrated into this system. It could provide the basis for a joint initiative involving Russia, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on a missile defense architecture for Europe that would help address other key issues, like tactical nuclear weapons vulnerable to theft by terrorists. Indeed, when the centers were proposed, they were envisioned to help prevent catastrophic nuclear terrorism. These initiatives can go forward with a New START Treaty. I thought that observation was very telling and looking prospectively into the future about, again, having the two nations--the Russian Federation and the United States--bring in other people, such as NATO, to be a part of a treaty and a missile defense system that is agreeable with all parties. The absence of negotiation, the absence of transparency, the absence of cooperation ensures that cannot happen. My fourth point is this: The thing I fear the most as a citizen, the thing I fear the most as a Senator, and the thing I fear the most, quite frankly, as the father of three and grandfather of nine is a nuclear fissionable material getting into the hands of a radical terrorist. That is the fear that all of us dread. It is critical, when we look at what the Nunn-Lugar initiative has done in the destruction of loose nukes--7,599--what the original START treaty, the foundation it gave us, to begin to reduce nuclear weapon proliferation without reducing our ability to defend ourselves and to launch strikes that are necessary to protect the people of the United States of America. But I worry about one of the radical terrorists getting hold of one of these materials, and I fear in the absence of transparency, verification, and inspection, we run the risk, unwittingly, of playing into their hands and making that type of a material more and more available. What is known as the Lugar Doctrine is very important to understand at this stage of the debate. In doing my research on the treaty, and the work that Dick Lugar and others have done on nonproliferation, I came upon what is known as the Lugar Doctrine. I would like to read it because it answers the question I just raised about a loose nuke getting into the hands of a rogue terrorist: Every nation that has weapons and materials of mass destruction must account for what it has, spend its own money or obtain international technical and financial resources to safely secure what it has, and pledge that no other nation, cell, or cause will be allowed access or use. That is as clearly and as succinctly as you can state the future fear that all of us have for this country and what might happen with nuclear weapons. So in closing my remarks, I went through interviews with Sam Nunn, listened to the chairman and the ranking member, listened to the testimony, Ms. Gottemoeller, and all the others, read the documentation, which everybody else can read in the secure briefing room, and I came to the conclusion that verification is better than no verification at all; that inspections and transparency are what prohibit things like what happened on 9/11 from ever happening again, and that you can never expect multilateral negotiations with other countries that have some degree of nuclear power if the two greatest powers refuse to sit down and negotiate and extend the understanding they have had since 1991. Only through setting the example, without giving in or capitulating a thing, do we hopefully give hope to the future that my grandchildren and yours can live in a world that will not be free of nukes but will be secure; that loose nukes are not in the hands of bad people; and we have transparency and accountability while still having the capability to defend ourselves and execute the security of the people of the United States of America. It is for those reasons I supported the New START treaty in the committee, and I submit it for the consideration of the Members of the Senate. I yield back my time.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from California on her remarks. As a member of Foreign Relations, I voted to bring the treaty to the floor. However, there is another pressing matter I wish to discuss this evening. The Senate now has before it the START treaty, but on a parallel track we have before us the question of financing the government through the end of the fiscal year next year. There are three alternatives available to us. One of them is a continuing resolution through the end of next year. One of them is a continuing resolution that is modified with an Omnibus appropriations that is put on top of it which I understand is the plan. There is a third option which is the short-term CR. It is that question I rise to address for a few moments. Forty-three days ago, I ran for reelection to the Senate. For 2 years, I traveled the State of Georgia campaigning for my reelection. Throughout that campaign, there were three guiding issues on which I focused. One was tax policy. At a time of economic recession and high unemployment, the worst thing for us to do is to raise taxes of the American people and, in particular, small business, which hires the majority of the people. That is No. 1. No. 2, I campaigned on the fact that we didn't have a revenue problem nearly as much as we had a spending problem; that we needed to ask of ourselves, as Senators, what every American family has had to ask of themselves at home. They have sat around the kitchen table, looked at what their income was, looked at what it now is, looked at priorities and reprioritized. Times have been tough, and they have been difficult. They did that because they had to. They don't have the luxury of credit and borrowing as our government has, which takes me to the third point I ran on in the campaign; that is, that unsustainable debt will make this democracy an unsustainable country. One of the things I understand a little bit about from having been in the real estate business is leverage. Leverage is a powerful thing to be able to do things, but too much can destroy even the best of people or the best of ideas. We are rapidly approaching a time where we owe entirely too much money. I love to tell the story about a lesson I learned in good politics. I know the Presiding Officer has had the same kind of lessons he has learned. I was in Albany, GA, making a speech in November of 2009. I kept talking about 1 trillion this and 1 trillion that. This farmer at the back of the room said: Senator, I only graduated from Dougherty County High School. I don't understand how much 1 trillion is. Can you explain. I oohed and aahed and I babbled. I finally said: Well, it is a lot. I couldn't think of a way to quantify 1 trillion. I got home that night. My wife took one look at me and said: What in the world is wrong with you? I said: I got stumped today. She said: What was the question? I said: The question was, How much is 1 trillion? She said: What did you say? I said: I said it is a lot. She said: That was a bad answer. I said: I know that, but I just couldn't think of anything. She knows better than I a lot of times. She said: Why don't you just figure out how many years have to go by for 1 trillion seconds to pass. I said: That is a terrific idea. So I pulled my calculator out and multiplied 60 seconds times 60 minutes to get the number of seconds in an hour. I multiplied that 24 times for the number of seconds in 1 day. I multiplied that times 365 for the number of seconds in 1 year. Do you know how many years have to go by for 1 trillion seconds to pass? It is 31,709 years. I put an asterisk by that because I didn't count leap years and every fourth year has an extra day. I know that will throw the number off a little bit. We owe $13 trillion of those dollars, not just $1 trillion. It is an astronomical amount of money. It is an amount we must quantify and begin to lower over time in two ways. One is expanding the prosperity of the American people, because as their prosperity goes up, revenues come back to the government. First and most important, we have to get our arms around spending. I am deeply opposed to putting an Omnibus appropriations bill on the CR that is coming to the Senate and passing 12 appropriations bills in a short-time debate without the transparency we need. I am not a Johnny-come-lately to this particular position. In the House of Representatives, when President Bush brought an omnibus budget to the House, I voted against it. I voted against it last fall on a number of occasions when we had Omnibus appropriations bills matched up coming to the Senate floor under President Obama. It is a bad way to do business. By rolling all those things together, you don't have the scrutiny, the oversight or the understanding of where the money is going, and the tendency to push spending beyond your limits actually becomes a reality. I am one who subscribes to the fact that we have to change the way we do business. We have to make hard decisions. We have to execute some tough love. We have to have some shared sacrifice, and we to have do it quickly. Time has run out on the American Government and our American budget process without substantial reform, which is why it would be a tragic mistake for us sometime this week or this weekend to pass an Omnibus appropriations bill. There is an underlying reason why I don't support that, and it is because I think a short-term CR makes a lot more sense. A short-term CR will put the Senate in the position of debating the rest of next year's spending or this fiscal year's spending under the cloud of the debt ceiling which is going to confront us in April or May or maybe as soon as the middle of March. If we pass a CR or an omnibus that goes beyond that date to the end of next year, September 30, we have no leverage to address the subject of raising the debt ceiling. It is time we stopped borrowing to spend more money we do not have. I come at a time when I know the pending business is the START treaty, which I will address on another occasion, but to point out why I am so deeply disappointed that we are rushing to judgment on an Omnibus appropriations spending bill at a time when the American people want us focusing on spending, on the deficit, and on improving the way we do business. I will vote against an Omnibus appropriations bill. I will vote against cloture on the bill. I will support a short-term CR. That is the best way for us to set up an occasion next year where we address our priorities in the right order and at the right time. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.