Johnny Isakson

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I rise for a minute to talk about trade between the United States and our trading partners around the world. To make the point of my remarks, I ask rhetorically for everybody in the auditorium and the Senate Chamber to answer these questions: Are you willing to cut American sales of goods and services by over $2 trillion? I think the answer would be a resounding no. Secondly, are you ready to diminish or lose 39.8 million jobs? Nobody in here wants to give up $2.3 trillion in American business, and everybody wants more jobs in the middle class, and nobody wants to cost America 39 million jobs. But that is exactly what is going to happen if we don't pass TPA, if we don't enter into trade agreements and aggressively work to make the three pending trade agreements the United States has workable for our country. Yesterday I listened as Members of this body came to the floor to talk against trade and talk against the trade promotion authority. For the benefit of our new Members, trade promotion authority is our authorization to give the President the parameters, the limitations, and the prerogative to negotiate trade agreements, which come back to us for a final ratification up or down. That is a good way to do business. The world recognizes that if our President has trade promotion authority, he can sit down across the table from them and he can make a deal, and it is only subject to one vote of the U.S. Senate. If we leave it as it is now, where there is no trade promotion authority, then we can vote on every amendment, every prerogative, every limitation, every opportunity, and make negotiations for the administration and our country impossible. We have three pending agreements before the United States of America: first, the trade promotion authority for the President; second, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which expires in September of this year; next is the trade and investment partnership with Europe; and lastly is the transpacific trade agreement with the Pacific Rim. All three of those agreements are important for us to negotiate and close the deal on. Yet, without passing TPA, we can do none. Ambassador Froman and the administration are doing an outstanding job of representing the United States. I have traveled with him to the African Union in Africa to work on the goal. I was with him yesterday afternoon. I talked with him about some of the obstacles we have in terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and I have talked to him about the transatlantic trade and promotion act--all of which we need to pass and all of which he needs to be able to negotiate. But without TPA, the United States of America is sitting at the table but they can't make a deal, and the President doesn't have the authority that he needs and that he says he wants. Most of the opposition I have heard on the floor of the Senate comes from the people in the President's own party. In the last two State of the Union Addresses, the President of the United States has underlined the importance of TPA. He said it again this year. But yesterday seven Members of his party came to the floor to talk against trade promotion authority. It is time for us to sit around the table and talk about $2.3 trillion in business for our country and 39.8 million jobs in our country. Let's talk about how we can increase those jobs. In my State of Georgia, 1.2 million jobs are directly export-related. The Congress of the United States appropriated $706 million over the next 6 years for the deepening and expansion of the Savannah Harbor in Savannah, GA. The Panama Canal is being widened and next year will open to the ships of the 21st century. Are they going to go somewhere else if we don't do trade promotion authority? Probably so. We all saw what happened last week when the west coast shut down because of the longshoremen's strike and what an impact it had on our economy. That is the kind of impact we are going to have if we don't do trade promotion authority for the President. It is ironic that almost unanimously the Republican Members of the Senate are for trade promotion authority, and it appears, after yesterday's speeches, that a significant majority of the Democratic Party is against it. Yet their President is for it. All of us are for jobs. All of us are for business. All of us are for economic activity. It is time we put our differences aside and delineate for the President of the United States the negotiating parameters, the negotiating authority, and the ability we grant to him to make deals in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the African Growth and Opportunity Act. All three will mean jobs not just for my State of Georgia but for our country. All three will be good for our national defense and our security. People don't tend to fight with or bomb people with whom they do business. The more trade agreements we have, the more business we share, the more exchanges of our currency and economic prosperity, the better off our country is, the better off our security is, and the better off are jobs for those in the middle class. I thank the Presiding Officer for the opportunity to speak from the floor, and I encourage all my Members in the Senate, Republican and Democrat alike, to dedicate themselves when we come back to expeditiously bringing up trade promotion authority, delineating our differences, negotiating those differences, and giving our President the opportunity to create more jobs for America, more jobs for Georgia, more jobs for West Virginia, and more jobs for our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, in accordance with rule XXVI, paragraph 2 of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I ask unanimous consent for myself as chairman of the Select Committee on Ethics and for Senator Boxer as vice chairman of the committee that the Rules of Procedure of the Select Committee on Ethics, which were adopted February 23, 1978, and revised November 1999, be printed in the Congressional Record for the 114th Congress.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I wish to commemorate a Georgia first responder, public servant and leader, Chief Henry Lee Fields, who passed away on December 28, 2014. Chief Fields was born to Eddie Lee and Dorothea Johnson Fields on July 13, 1944, in Dougherty County, GA. He worked hard to graduate from Monroe High School in 1963, and attended Newark Community College before returning home in 1964 and working as an auto mechanic. He and his wife Dorothy Fields had two daughters, Rosalind and Wynne, and he was in the automotive field when he applied for a job at the fire department and found his true calling. Chief Fields worked his way up the ladder and, in 1991, became the first African-American to serve as chief of the Albany Fire Department in Albany, GA. During that time, Chief Fields also served in the role of emergency management director, and was confronted with two major floods that devastated the area in 1994 and 1998. Chief Fields retired in 2000 after touching many lives through his fire safety efforts and through his church, Jordan Grove Missionary Baptist, where he served in many roles. The Albany Fire Department headquarters appropriately lowered their flags to half-mast during the memorial service for Chief Fields. Henry Fields was an inspirational leader and his years of service to his community will not be forgotten.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I find it tragically ironic that on the same day the Islamic State tragically took the life and murdered a Jordanian pilot that the U.S. Senate failed to get a 60-vote majority to move to a motion to proceed to debate the most important issue facing the United States of America. I agree with my colleagues who have talked about the dangers of Islamic terrorism, the dangers of porous borders, and all the other dangers we have spoken about, but we can't solve those problems unless we get the bill to the floor and debate it. I was elected in 2004. The No. 1 issue in my campaign and in the general election was immigration policy in the United States of America. Eleven years later, it is still the biggest domestic issue in the State of Georgia. We still have a porous border and we know how vulnerable we are. It is time we move this bill to the floor and fully debate it. I know there are differences of opinion. I know each one of us would do it differently. But we are part of a constitutional government to make decisions for our people. We don't need Executive orders dictating what we should do. We need a House and a Senate to come to common ground, we need a President who will sign a bill, and we need a bill to be upheld. We are not going to get there until we have debate on the floor and move forward on a motion to proceed to debate funding for the Department of Homeland Security. I just left a Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on human trafficking. We talked about the terrors of what is happening in terms of sexual abuse, sexual trafficking, child labor, minority labor--all of those horrors that are taking place. Do my colleagues know where they are taking place in our country? They are taking place on the border of the Southwest, in the Presiding Officer's home State of Arizona, where our border is porous. And because of that, drugs and human beings are trafficked every single day. That should stop. The No. 1 issue when we debated the Department of Homeland Security bill in 2005 was to put in a trigger to ensure that no changes in immigration law took place until we first secured the border. The border is still not secure. We are trying. I commend our brave soldiers and the State of Arizona, as well as Fort Huachuca, one of the beacons of the drones that are flying on the border with Mexico to try to identify people coming in, but we haven't done enough. We should bring the Department of Homeland Security bill to the floor. We should make sure the funding for the Department of Homeland Security is sufficient to secure our border. We will find our differences and we will debate our differences and we will come to common ground. But we can't come to common ground--we can't resolve our Nation's No. 1 domestic problem--unless we agree to bring to the floor the motion to proceed and bring a robust debate to the floor of the U.S. Senate. I, as one Member of the Senate, ran for this job to be a part of the solution, not someone who would throw up my arms and say we can't solve the problems so I am going to sit on the sidelines. Let's get off of the sidelines. Let's come to the floor of the Senate. Let's vote on the motion to proceed. Let's fully amend and debate the bill. Let's send the President a bill from a unified Congress that says we want a secure border, we want an immigration policy that works, and we want to once again be a government of checks and balances, not a government of Executive orders. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 3, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Fixing No Child Left Behind: Innovation to Better Meet the Needs of Students.''

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 3, 2015, at 10:30 a.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Internal Revenue Service Operations and the President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2016.''

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 3, 2015, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 3, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 3, 2015, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Understanding the Impact of U.S. Policy Changes on Human Rights and Democracy in Cuba.''

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask for a vote to be called, and I ask that it be a rollcall vote on the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act. I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

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

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I know we are close to a vote on the Clay Hunt suicide prevention bill. As chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, who has just left the Veterans' Administration this morning after a 3-hour meeting with employees, I want to tell all of the Members of the Senate how much I appreciate their commitment to this bill, how much I would appreciate their vote in favor of this bill. Every day in America, 22 veterans commit suicide. Every year in America, 8,000 veterans commit suicide. Eight thousand is more than all who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 13 years. Suicide is a critical problem in the VA. The Clay Hunt bill focuses and targets on what we need: more psychiatric care, more accountability in the VA, and an investment in the future of our soldiers who have come home after defending our country for ourselves. As chairman of the committee, I want to thank Senator McCain, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Boozman, and Senator Burr for their tremendous effort and work to bring this about. I want to thank the members of the committee who unanimously passed this out, including the Presiding Officer, in the very first meeting of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. I encourage every Member of the Senate to vote for the Clay Hunt suicide prevention bill and make an investment in the future of the lives we will save of our veterans who return with mental health problems. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I want to give you a stark fact and figure. Every year 8,000 American veterans take their own lives and commit suicide. That is more people, more veterans than were killed in all the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have a major epidemic in America's Armed Forces because of soft tissue issues of PTSD and TBI. This Congress, both Committees on Veterans' Affairs--in the House and Senate--have acted, and tomorrow this Senate will vote on the Clay Hunt suicide prevention bill. I want to talk about it for a few minutes because it is critically important. When these men and women go overseas and volunteer to serve America and lay their lives on the line for us, many come back with terrible injuries, prosthesis, an inability to walk, some in wheelchairs. But the stealth disease, the one that hurts the most, the one that permeates the most, is PTSD and TBI. We have been doing as much as we could but not enough within veterans health care. Secretary McDonald has committed himself to improving the services of mental health to our veterans. I have committed myself. Senator Blumenthal has committed himself. Senator Boozman from Arkansas, Senator McCain from Arizona, who will speak later--all are committed to see to it that we have a better program for our veterans. What the Clay Hunt suicide prevention bill does is create incentives for more psychiatric professionals to come into the VA health care system because psychiatry is the best physician expertise you need to deal with PTSD and TBI. But it also has external audits of the VA to make sure they are doing what needs to take place in terms of veterans health care and in terms of mental health for our veterans. The tragedies are daily, the tragedies are compounding, and we must find an end to it. A lot of people think these tragedies are with veterans of the gulf war, our Operation Iraqi Freedom, or our battle in Afghanistan. But, quite frankly, a lot of them are our Vietnam veterans. We looked the other way and did not recognize PTSD and TBI for a long time, but now we have recognized it front and center, and it is the major injury from the battles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other conflicts in the history of the United States of America. We owe it to our veterans to have the best mental health available to them. In my hometown of Atlanta, on August 21, 2013, I called a field hearing at Georgia State University and brought in all the VA experts on suicide prevention because, quite frankly, we had had three suicides in the Atlanta VA within a very short period of time that got high- profile headlines in our newspaper. As it turned out, we found that we really did not have the followup, the follow-through, and the continuum of care that mental health needs and deserves, and we had some veterans who had fallen through the cracks--not just in Atlanta but around the United States of America. In fact, as recently as last week there was a tragic death in Atlanta. We do not know yet the root cause of it, but we know the individual may have had mental health problems and was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and took their life and the life of their children. We do not know whether PTSD or TBI was the contributing cause or whether we had done anything wrong in terms of veterans health care. But we know this: Four more lives were taken from the stealth disease called tragic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder. So I am very pleased as the chairman of the Veterans Affairs' Committee to tell you that the House unanimously passed this bill 3 weeks ago on the floor of the House, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee unanimously passed it 2 weeks ago in committee, and the bill we will vote on tomorrow can go directly from the floor of the Senate to the desk of the President of the United States and be signed. Very quickly, I want to make two points for anybody who is listening that remembers last year. This bill failed last year. It failed for two reasons: One, Members questioned whether we could afford it because it had a price tag of $24 million. We have fixed the price problem by taking internally generated funds of the VA to pay the $24 million. That is done. Secondly, some said: Well, this is a duplicative service. We already have mental health services and suicide prevention at the VA. We have some, and we do not have enough. It is not duplicative. It is absolutely necessary and essential that we do what we are doing. Mr. President, I am proud to come to the floor of the Senate on behalf of all of our veterans and tell them: Washington is watching. We are listening. We feel your pain. We understand the problems you have. And we are going to do everything we can to see to it that the Clay Hunt suicide prevention bill becomes the law of the land, that the VA is held accountable for its policies and procedure in mental health, and that we put an end and stem the tide of the tragic number of veteran suicides that take place every single day. I would like to now yield to my ranking member on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, the Senator from Connecticut, who has done an overwhelmingly great job to see this through from beginning to end, Mr. Blumenthal.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I would like to add that we are glad to have Senator Reid back. I know he has had a difficult time the last few weeks, and we are proud he is back on his feet. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized to address the Clay Hunt suicide prevention bill, followed by Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, for myself as chairman of the Select Committee on Ethics and for Senator Boxer as vice chairman of the committee, that the following ``Annual Report for 2014-Select Committee on Ethics'' be printed in the Record. The committee issues this report today as required by the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I wish to commemorate in the Record the anniversary of the release of the Iran hostages on this date in 1981. Soon the Senate will be consumed by a great debate regarding the proper strategic approach our Nation must take to ensure that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tomorrow, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hear testimony from both State Department and the U.S. Treasury about the current state of play in negotiations with Iran. Next week, the Senate Banking Committee is meeting to consider perspectives on the strategic necessity of Iran sanctions that will further the debate. I, for one, welcome that important discussion, although I recognize that some of my colleagues hold views that are different from my own on how best to contain Iran. There is, however, yet another important policy matter related to Iran that not only deserves but also demands the unified, bipartisan support of every Senator. Thirty-four years ago today, January 20, 1981, 52 of our fellow American citizens returned home after a harrowing 444-day ordeal of being illegally held hostage in Iran. We sent these diplomats, Foreign Service personnel, along with officers and enlisted members of our Armed Forces, to Iran in service to our Nation as they were seeking only to strengthen ties between our two countries. There was even an American businessman involved. Nevertheless, they all paid dearly for this service by being forced to endure humiliating treatment, brutal interrogations, mental and physical torture, and even mock firing squad executions while their families suffered endless waiting and genuine fear of their loved ones' imminent demise. Although their return was a joyous occasion for our entire Nation and we celebrated as one people honoring our heroes, those 444 days took a toll not only on the hostages but also on their family members--a toll that continues for many to this day. Unfortunately, we failed to recognize both the long-term impact their incarceration experience and ill treatment would have on many of them and the support they would need. In many instances, the results have been tragic. Among the former hostages and their families, there have been suicides, advanced PTSD- type depression, divorces, alcoholism, and drug dependency. Unfortunately, Phil Ward, a communications officer from Virginia who committed suicide in the fall of 2012, was one who never fully recovered from the cruelty of those events. We must help to ease this burden and provide these brave Americans with the same measure of justice and healing our courts have already awarded to other hostage victims and their families. While the Algiers Accords, the document which secured the release, bars the former hostages and their families from legal action against Iran for the brutality they endured, to this day they remain not only the first victims of modern hostage-taking but the only Americans barred from seeking justice from Iran. The former hostages and their families have already waited more than three decades to experience the full support of the government they so heroically served and to see some accountability by their captors. Therefore, I will soon introduce legislation to compensate the hostages and their families by assessing penalties on those who continue to do business with Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions policy. This legislation, however, represents but one solution to an issue that is three decades overdue. Another or perhaps an additional option would be to strongly recommend that as a condition of the ongoing nuclear negotiations, such compensation come directly from ``frozen'' assets that for more than a year now have been released to Iran at the rate of $700 million a month. Accordingly, I look forward to righting this injustice by working with any or all of my colleagues as we stand united in support of the former hostages and their families.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs has adopted rules governing its procedures for the 114th Congress. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 2, of the Standing Rules of the Senate, on behalf of myself and Senator Blumenthal, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the Committee rules be printed in the Record.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am very pleased to announce today that the biennial budget proposal introduced by Senators Isakson and Shaheen has been dropped. There are 21 cosponsors, 15 Republicans, 6 Democrats, and 1 Independent, and the number is growing as we speak. Senator Shaheen and I started this initiative 2 years ago and it received 68 votes and a test vote on the budget in 2013. We believe it will receive the necessary votes to become the law of the land in the United States of America. You might ask why a biennial budget or you might ask yourself why an $18 trillion debt and why hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit. We don't have the oversight necessary with the spending that we do now to keep us from wasting money. It is time we ran our country like we run our home. It is time we held our agencies accountable. It is time our appropriations weren't just idle promises but our oversight was the rule of law in the United States Senate. Twenty States out of fifty in the United States have biennial budgets. Countries around the world have biennial budgets. This Congress 3 years ago did a biennial budget for the Veterans' Administration just to ensure we wouldn't have a break in funding if the government shut down. Predictability of funding of government is critical, but the oversight of that funding is more critical. Picture this. You get elected in an even-numbered year, 2014. Your first order of business in 2015 is to pass a 2-year appropriations act and a 2-year budget. But then in the even-numbered year that comes up when you are running for reelection, your job is not spending, your job is oversight. Wouldn't it be nice, instead of going home and promising you are bringing home the bacon, instead you are bringing home the savings to see to it that taxpayers' money is better spent? The biennial budget is an idea whose time has come. It is the only way we are going to measurably and sustainably reduce the deficits and reduce the debt in the United States of America and hold our spending more accountable. Just last night on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Clay bill was passed on suicide prevention, a new program in the VA, and the funding mechanism was existing funds and fungibility. We already know there is existing money in the appropriations to our agencies to pay for new ideas if we charge them to go find them. Some of the measures we have been funding for 40 or 50 years probably don't need to be done anymore and some of the things we are not doing probably need to be done. But the way to do it is not to spend more money and throw more money at the problem, but the way to do it is to do it the way the American taxpayers do it back home--sit around the kitchen table, set their priorities, make their funding predictable, and from time to time go back and look at where they are spending money and see if they can't improve it. This is an idea that will make America great. Senator Shaheen is a former Governor of the State of New Hampshire. She had a biennial budget process in her State, and I wish to yield to her to describe her cosponsorship of this bill.

Mr. ISAKSON. I thank the Senator for her support, and I urge the other Members of the Senate to join us in this reform effort for the spending of the taxpayer's dollars.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am very pleased to announce today that the biennial budget proposal introduced by Senators Isakson and Shaheen has been dropped. There are 21 cosponsors, 15 Republicans, 6 Democrats, and 1 Independent, and the number is growing as we speak. Senator Shaheen and I started this initiative 2 years ago and it received 68 votes and a test vote on the budget in 2013. We believe it will receive the necessary votes to become the law of the land in the United States of America. You might ask why a biennial budget or you might ask yourself why an $18 trillion debt and why hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit. We don't have the oversight necessary with the spending that we do now to keep us from wasting money. It is time we ran our country like we run our home. It is time we held our agencies accountable. It is time our appropriations weren't just idle promises but our oversight was the rule of law in the United States Senate. Twenty States out of fifty in the United States have biennial budgets. Countries around the world have biennial budgets. This Congress 3 years ago did a biennial budget for the Veterans' Administration just to ensure we wouldn't have a break in funding if the government shut down. Predictability of funding of government is critical, but the oversight of that funding is more critical. Picture this. You get elected in an even-numbered year, 2014. Your first order of business in 2015 is to pass a 2-year appropriations act and a 2-year budget. But then in the even-numbered year that comes up when you are running for reelection, your job is not spending, your job is oversight. Wouldn't it be nice, instead of going home and promising you are bringing home the bacon, instead you are bringing home the savings to see to it that taxpayers' money is better spent? The biennial budget is an idea whose time has come. It is the only way we are going to measurably and sustainably reduce the deficits and reduce the debt in the United States of America and hold our spending more accountable. Just last night on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Clay bill was passed on suicide prevention, a new program in the VA, and the funding mechanism was existing funds and fungibility. We already know there is existing money in the appropriations to our agencies to pay for new ideas if we charge them to go find them. Some of the measures we have been funding for 40 or 50 years probably don't need to be done anymore and some of the things we are not doing probably need to be done. But the way to do it is not to spend more money and throw more money at the problem, but the way to do it is to do it the way the American taxpayers do it back home--sit around the kitchen table, set their priorities, make their funding predictable, and from time to time go back and look at where they are spending money and see if they can't improve it. This is an idea that will make America great. Senator Shaheen is a former Governor of the State of New Hampshire. She had a biennial budget process in her State, and I wish to yield to her to describe her cosponsorship of this bill.

Mr. ISAKSON. I thank the Senator for her support, and I urge the other Members of the Senate to join us in this reform effort for the spending of the taxpayer's dollars.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for up to 4 minutes, followed by Senator Shaheen.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I have the greatest of regard for my two colleagues from the State of Maryland, and I respect their passion for this nominee, but I rise to support delaying the advancement of Carolyn Colvin for the Social Security Administration, and I wish to explain why. In fact, my reasons somewhat address some of the reasons for my urgency. I interviewed Carolyn Colvin on July 29 as a nominee to come before the Finance Committee in my office, as I do with every nominee who will talk to me. It was 2 days after the 2014 trustee's report of the Social Security Administration--a report that talked about the disability trust fund being in danger by 2016 and Social Security being in danger in 22 years. I asked her questions about what she would recommend to us to fix the unfunded mandates that would be coming up with Social Security. Her answers were at best glib and at worst nonexistent. I was one of the two votes against her nomination that Senator Cardin referred to in the committee because I didn't feel I got the kind of passionate answer I needed from her as someone who was going to run the Social Security Administration. Subsequent to that vote, and before today's debate, the issue came up arising from the disability technology problem and the investigation that is taking place at the Social Security Administration. I recognize this implementation took place before she was in the position she is now in, but she is in a position of responsibility at the Administration. So until that investigation is complete, I think it would be a rush to judgment to confirm her for the position. I don't get up and oppose many people on the floor of the Senate. I take my job very seriously, but I do represent the people of my State-- those who are Social Security beneficiaries today and those who will be beneficiaries in the future. I was reading an announcement today about the chief counsel, who is also the State director in my office in Georgia, Edward Tate. He and his wife recently had a baby, Whitaker McMillan Tate, born 4 months ago. Seventy years from now he will probably be a beneficiary in the Social Security Administration. We have to fix it in some way so it is there for him in the future. I want to make sure the appointees we approve in this Senate are appointees--while they have the Social Security Administration under their care--who will do the things I would want them to do so when I am long gone, those children who will be beneficiaries in the future will have the funds and the money and the Administration to see to it that they are paid. Reluctantly, but for reasons of commitment, I object to the advancement of the nomination of Carolyn Colvin to the Social Security Administration. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. I was elected in a special election 16 years ago. I was No. 435 in the House of Representatives, so I did what my father told me to do when I went into business. He said: Son, sit in the back of the room, listen to people who are smart, pay attention to them, and do what the smart people do. After 2 weeks of listening to Tom Coburn, I said no human being could know as much about everything as this guy named Coburn. In 16 years, I have come to believe, yes, there is one who knows about everything he speaks of, and that is Tom Coburn. Senator Coburn has been a great role model for me. The Senator from Oklahoma has taught me many great lessons, and I have learned a lot from him. The greatest evangelists in life are those who witness their faith, and Tom Coburn is a true witness for his faith and has changed the lives of many people. I have enjoyed, as much as anything, our walk with faith at the Prayer Breakfasts, in private meetings, and what we have shared together. Lastly, every Christmas I try to give my grandchildren who can read something to read as a little treasury to put in their book to save so that when they grow up, they can refer to great things and great historical statements that have been made. I doubt if there has ever been a better statement made on the floor of the Senate about our heritage, our country, our future, and our hopes than Tom Coburn has said today. It will be required reading for my grandchildren this Christmas, and I can assure you that I am a better man for having served with Tom Coburn, the great Senator from the State of Oklahoma. God bless you, Tom.