Johnny Isakson

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, today is America's lucky day. And we all know what the definition of ``luck'' is--luck is when opportunity meets preparation. We are very lucky as a country and we are very lucky as a Senate that our majority leader, Mitch McConnell, was where he is and is where he is at the time he is. It was his vision a few years ago that the tax issue was going to emerge as the central issue in the growth and development of our country and that unless we met the challenges of our Tax Code, opened up opportunity for our public, and expanded opportunity for our businesses, the American people could succumb to a high-tax system without productivity. We also got lucky because Senator McConnell picked a man to be chairman of this committee--Orrin Hatch--who brought years of experience in the U.S. Senate and the compassion that Orrin Hatch has as a Mormon and as an American to a tax code that is by no means simple--it was always complex--to make it simpler and fairer, pro- family and pro-jobs. Let me tell you something. There are a lot of disappointed people overseas right now because those who have been picking our pockets by inverting American corporations to foreign systems because their taxes were lower than ours are out of luck. Now those people are going to be incentivized to come to America, to make investments in our country, to expand opportunities and jobs in our country. No longer will companies want to leave America; companies will invest and be more American. That is fantastic, and that is why this is a pro-jobs tax bill. It is going to create a lot of opportunity, and opportunity is what Americans want and what Americans need. For the average American family--and let me talk about my family for a second. I think I am pretty average. My wife and I are fortunate. We have three great children and nine great grandchildren. I was lucky enough to have worked in a small LLC--limited liability partnership-- real estate brokerage company, mom-and-pop brokerage company. My wife taught in public schools. Our children went to the University of Georgia and to the public schools of our community. We saved for their education. We did everything we could to invest in hope for them in the future, and today they are all gainfully employed. They are all happy, but they are all struggling, as everybody else is, with a burdensome tax system, with less opportunity than we would like for them to have. By simplifying the tax system, by making it fairer, as we have done here, we have given more opportunity to my grandchildren, my children, and more opportunity to America. Lastly, I want to make this point: There are only two ways to raise taxes or raise revenue. One is to charge more. That means you raise somebody's taxes. The other way to do it is to create opportunity. So people create companies and jobs because the opportunity is there. When you create opportunity and when jobs are created, revenues increase. When people do better in their jobs, their incomes go up. When companies have people who do better in their jobs, they expand. When they expand, they produce more revenue that becomes taxable. So we raise our revenue not by lowering expectations but by raising opportunity for our people and for our children. We are very lucky as Americans today. I am very lucky to be in this U.S. Senate today. We are lucky to have had leaders in place at a time that was right to address our country's biggest challenge and do it the right way. When I was in the Georgia Legislature, I sat next to an oldtime rural-hat politician who ran the Ways and Means Committee of the Georgia Legislature. I will never forget that one day he and I were sitting side by side as we were listening to a gentleman make a speech in the well. The gentleman in the well paused a minute to try to make a point, and he said: Ladies and gentlemen, let me tax your memory. And my old friend, the rural-hat politician, said: Damn, I wish I had thought of that. That is the way we have done taxes in this country for a long time-- just taxed people's memory, tried to look for an opportunity to tax something for us. What we are doing here is we are creating opportunity. We are raising revenue through prosperity. Americans will raise revenue for their pockets first before the country gets the revenue second. So it is our lucky day--lucky to have good leaders, lucky to live in the greatest country on the face of this Earth. And if we do our job-- if we pass this bill before the end of this year and change the Tax Code of the United States of America to a fairer, pro- jobs, pro-family tax code--then we will have made our contribution to history at a time when it was our opportunity. I hope it will never be said that we let our country down when that opportunity was available to us. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator Blunt, the distinguished Senator from Missouri, for his eloquent remarks on veterans and in support of all the things the Presiding Officer and I have tried to do on the Veterans' Affairs Committee and for pointing out the many reasons we in America are so proud of the veterans in service, who allow you and I to be here today. Were it not for our veterans, this Republic would not exist. I was wondering how I would start out this speech. I did an interview with a reporter who wanted to ask me a number of questions about the current administration and what we were doing for veterans. It turned out to be a 35- or 40-minute interview. I said I had to go, and he said: I have one more question for you. This was by phone. So I couldn't look him in the eye, and he couldn't see me. He said: I have one more question for you. When you hear that from a reporter, that means the zinger is coming. He said: Don't you think we could save a lot of money if we didn't fight in any more wars? I thought for a minute. I said: We probably could, but there wouldn't be any reason for you and me to exist if we didn't fight any more wars, because America is the place where everybody wants to be because we are safe and we are free and we are independent, because we fight and defend what we have as a country. I thought I would bring that up in my speech today because that is the reason we celebrate veterans today. So we give thanks to the men and women who volunteer, who served our country in the wars overseas, in the battles overseas, and, sometimes, in the challenges domestically to protect us and keep us free. America is a great country. We don't find anybody trying to break out of the United States of America. They are all trying to break in and for a very good reason. It is a safe and free place to raise a family, to start a business, and to serve in many other ways. So this year, on the 11th day, at the 11th hour and the 11th minute of November, when we celebrate Veterans Day, pause for a minute to say thanks for those who have come and gone and for those who are still here who fight to serve and protect us. Always remember that the Congress, shortly after the end of World War I, decided that the 11th day--the day the armistice was signed--of the 11th month, November, with the 11th hour being 11 o'clock in the morning, would be the time the bell would toll to celebrate and pay tribute to those veterans. So at 11:11:11 this November 11, we are all going to toll that bell one more time to give thanks for our veterans for all they have done for us and for all they will do for us in the future. It is best, when you talk about veterans, to talk about them as the people they were and the people they are, whether they are alive or whether they have passed on. I want to talk about two veterans whose paths have crossed my life to point out why we owe them so much and why we have so much to be thankful for. One of them is Jackson Elliott Cox, III of Burke County, GA, which is the Bird Dog Capital of North America. It has raised and trained more bird dogs than anywhere else in the country. It is the home of a nuclear power plant, the Plant Vogtle. It is a beautiful rural county in Georgia. Jack was my best friend in college. We met in 1962; we graduated in 1966. I will never forget that the last time I saw Jack was when he was shipping out to go to OCS in the Marine Corps. Jack had decided when he graduated that it was more important for him to volunteer and fight for our country because of what was going on in Vietnam than do anything else, so he voluntarily joined the Marine Corps, went to OCS, got his commission as an officer, and became a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. He fought and he died in Vietnam. I will never forget the last words he told me when we put him on the bus from Waynesboro, GA, to Atlanta, ultimately, to be shipped out. What he said is: Johnny, I am sure I am coming back. Don't worry about me. Just pray for me. But in case I don't, make sure people remember who Jackson Elliott Cox III was. I said: Jack, I will do that. Sure enough, 2 years later he was shot and killed by a sniper in Vietnam. He lost his life at the age of 24. He was the finest human being I had ever known, the nicest guy I had ever met, and my favorite friend in all of my life. He was taken from me because he volunteered to serve and fight for our country. I am going to keep today on the floor of the U.S. Senate the promise I made to him at the bus station. I want you to know who Jackson Elliott Cox III was. He was a good old country boy from South Georgia who volunteered to serve his country and risked his life and gave his life so that you and I could be here today. There are thousands of Jackson Elliott Coxes all over the world. In fact, there are millions all over the country. There are hundreds of thousands of them, and we have so much to thank them for because less than 1 percent of our population has worn the uniform, been in the battle, and fought to save us and protect us as Jackson Elliott Cox did. When you have your chance to meet and become friends with a veteran-- and all of you will--remember you owe them a debt of gratitude. At some time, when you get the chance to pay that debt back, do what I am doing today. Don't let their memory ever be lost or forgotten no matter where you go or where life takes you because you wouldn't get to where you are going, had they not allowed you to be safe and free to travel that route. The second name I am going to mention is Noah Harris. Noah was from Ellijay, GA. Noah was a cheerleader at the University of Georgia. On September 11, 2001, he turned on his television to see 3,000 innocent citizens, most of them Americans, die in the Twin Towers when al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden and the axis of evil attacked our country, took our innocence, killed our people, and changed the world forever. Noah was a cheerleader. We don't have a mandatory draft anymore. You don't have to serve, and he was not serving. He was going to graduate in a year and a half. He wanted to be an architect. The next morning, after 9/11, when he left his dorm, he went to the Army ROTC building at the University of Georgia campus. He walked in and said: I want to go to OCS. I want to go. After what I saw on TV last night, I want to go fight and get the people who did that to my country and my friends. They said: No, Mr. Harris you can't do that. OCS is a 2-year program at the university, and you are graduating next year. You don't have enough time to do it. He said: I will double up on my studies. I will do whatever. I want to go. I want to fight for my country and fight the axis of evil. They let him in, and he did. He graduated with honors. A few months later, he graduated as second lieutenant from the U.S. Army at Fort Benning in Georgia. Before too long, he was in Gazaria in Iraq, a suburb of Baghdad, handing Beanie Babies out of one pocket while the other pocket of his field jacket had his ammunition. He was trying to win over the hearts of the Iraqi children while he was fighting to preserve freedom for them and return their country to some form of a democracy or republic, away from the captives of Saddam Hussein. I knew Noah casually. I know his parents well--Rick and Lucy Harris. I know they have mourned every day since they lost Noah in Baghdad when he died in an IED accident, but I know how proud they are of what he did and why he did it. I am proud he was my friend, and I am proud to have known him as well. I am proud to be able to stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate today and talk about Noah Harris and talk about Jackson Elliott Cox, who were exemplary of all the others who have served in the military--men and women, rich and poor, Black and White, who have gone and fought the battle and borne the battle for us so that we could be where we are today. It kind of reminds me of the person who went to Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia shortly after the Constitution was adopted in Constitution Hall and said: Mr. Franklin, what have you given us? He paused for a minute and said: ``A republic, if you can keep it.'' We have kept it. We have kept it because we have subscribed to the Constitution but also because we have a militia and a military. We are willing to fight for what we believe in, protect our citizens, and keep our country free. The country that our Founding Fathers gave to us, that was nurtured in the early days of this Republic, which now is hundreds of years old, is still there today for lots of reasons but, principally, the undergirding foundation is a strong and vibrant military. When Veterans Day comes, give thanks for the veterans you know. Mention a couple of them, as I have done here, so their memory and their names never die, but also so we can lift them up at a time when we pause for just a minute to say thank you for the greatest country on the face of this Earth. Senator Blunt talked about our committee and what we have done this year. I want to take just a minute to reiterate some of the things he said. There are no Democratic veterans and no Republican veterans; there are only American veterans. They don't go to the battlefield as a partisan; they go to the battlefield as an American, and they fight for us whether we are Republicans or Democrats. They risk their own life and sometimes sacrifice it so that we can do what Ben Franklin said: Keep that republic. We owe them a lot. In fact, in many cases, we owe them everything. We have had a mess at the VA in the last 10 years. They have been the lead story on USA Today more than any other agency in the government for failures of the VA to do the job that should have been done. Under David Shulkin, the Secretary of the VA appointed by President Trump, under the leadership of our committees in the House and the Senate, and under a commitment to bipartisan service by all our Members--which means we do almost everything unanimously and, if not unanimously, almost unanimously because it is not about getting Republican credit or Democratic credit; it is about doing the right thing for the right people who have done so much for us--we passed the Whistleblower Protection Act this year to give whistleblowers in the VA the protection they need to go and turn in to the authorities those employees in the Veterans Administration who are not doing their job. We have given them the safe harbor they need to encourage them to help us root out problems, and we are doing that. We passed the accountability bill to shine the light of sunshine on the employees of the VA and to give the authorities in the VA the ability to terminate and fire, if you will, for cause an employee who is not doing the job they should be doing for our veterans. So we hold a standard of accountability up a little higher for our employees in the Veterans Administration. We are magnifying choice so that our veterans can have more choice in their healthcare. We can use the private sector as a force multiplier so that the government doesn't have to hire all the doctors and physicians and assistants to service the VA. We can get them in the private sector as well. In the 21st century GI bill, we finally made sure that the GI bill applies to everyone, not just World War II or Vietnam war-era veterans but veterans of all conflicts and of all times. We have done everything we can to see to it that the benefits, which we promised them would be there when they left the military, are there for them in retirement and in their later life. The sacrifices they make are great, and the sacrifices we have made to save our veterans are great. Today veterans come home from the battlefield 90 percent of the time when they are wounded. They come home, whereas, in World War I, 10 percent came home, and 90 percent died on the battlefield. But because of the advancements we have made in armor and protection and healthcare services, a lot of veterans today live when they would not have lived just 25 or 30 years ago. The injuries they sustain are far greater than any injuries we have known in warfare before. The signature illnesses are PTSD, post- traumatic stress syndrome, or traumatic brain injury or a prosthesis for an arm or a leg or an eye or some part of the body that is lost in battle. But the trunk of the body is protected by new Kevlar vests that are impenetrable by a bullet, so most of them succumb to IEDs and explosives and things of that nature. We have the healthcare to provide them with the best possible rehabilitation we can, but you can never really replace a leg or an eye or a body part. Once somebody has sacrificed it forever, they wear the burden of the battle and of war. We have an obligation, as the Veterans Administration, as the Congress of the United States in the House and the Senate, to see to it that we back up those promises our recruiters made when they came to join the military, to see to it that they get those services from their Veterans Administration. Dr. David Shulkin is doing a phenomenal job. My ranking member, Jon Tester, Democrat from Montana, is doing a fantastic job. The House committee is doing a great job. The Members of the Senate are doing a great job. In a week and a half, we are going to have our final bill of the year which, when we pass it, will make us 8 for 8. We will have totally reformed the VA and worked with the VA to reform it in such a way that our veterans get better service, our taxpayers get more accountability for the dollars we spend, and America remains the great country it has always been--safe and free because of those who volunteer to fight and are willing to die on behalf our country. So sometime on the 11th day and, hopefully, at the 11th hour and the 11th minute of that hour on November 11, you will pause for a minute and remember I told you that is when we celebrate Veterans Day because, at the time the armistice was signed in World War I, our country decided that would be the perfect time to remember all those who have fought in the past. Let's look around, and every time we see a man or woman in uniform, stop and say ``Thank you for your service'' because those are the people who are risking their lives so that you and I can do whatever it is we choose to do in this land of the free and home of the brave. There are lots of things to be thankful for but nothing more important than the men and women of the U.S. military. May God bless our country, may God bless our veterans, may God bless the United States of America. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

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

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back on both sides.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri. I make the point that I have enjoyed the last 19 years serving with him in the Congress of the United States. He was elected 2 years before me to the House of Representatives. I came a little bit later, but I preceded him in the Senate in 2004. He has been great to work with. The Show Me State of Missouri is an awful lot like my State of Georgia. They are proud of their country. They are proud to be Americans. They are proud of the chance to have an opportunity to make an honest living and want to be a part of a country that continues to grow and have prosperity for the future. We had a hearing in the Finance Committee yesterday where there was an interesting study I had not seen before. It had been done by a Harvard student, who I assume was correct. Ninety percent of the people born in the 1940s ended up making more than their parents did when they went to work. But only about 40 percent of the people born in the 1980s will end up making more than their parents did, meaning that as we have gone along the way since World War II, we have taken more and more away from the opportunity in the earning level and more money has gone to different places, like taxation. Personally, I think the Finance Committee and the leadership of the Big 6, so to speak, have done us a great favor to open the debate on tax reform in America. Unlike some of the debates we have had recently, this debate is open-ended. We are starting with a framework, not an absolute dictate but a framework. We are talking about an opportunity we have to see if we can lower the burden of taxes on the American people, while incentivizing the American people to work more, to make more, and to earn more. There are two ways to increase revenue to the government. First, you can increase the rate of taxation. But then you are not necessarily taking in any more money. You might incentivize somebody to go somewhere else. The other way is to improve the opportunity to make money and the atmosphere in which people make money so they invest their time and effort and they grow their revenue, which grows the revenue of the United States of America. The proposal in the framework before us has any number of outlines and any number of targets. The four things I want to focus on are these. One is the middle class. I have gotten tired of hearing this reference to dividing us as Americans by class. We are all Americans. Regardless of our station in life, we are all important. The code ought to be important to every single person who is an American and, if they can come to this country, to improve their life, raise their children, and live a good life. I am not into a class society. I am into an opportunity society. If you take a look at this proposal, for those people you put in the middle class today, it proposes lower rates, less brackets, and more opportunity to gain wealth in the future through work, through investment, and through earnings. Second, this framework encourages job creation. I know that people are always demonizing the rich. Most people who are rich are people providing people who aren't rich with jobs. I don't think it is bad to provide people with jobs. I think it is good to provide them with jobs. We need a Tax Code that incentivizes the creation of jobs. The focus on the passthrough rate, which is talked about by the Big 6, may lower the passthrough rate to 25 percent. It is a job-creating proposal that works. I have run a sub-S corporation. I have been a partner in limited partnerships. I have known people who have had sole proprietorships. I have known people who have had independent operations. They all pay their taxes at the regular, ordinary tax rate on the individual. They don't pay at the corporate rate. They pay at what is called the passthrough rate, where the profits at the end of the year of the partnership or the LLC or the sub-S corporation flow in a K-1 to the individual and are taxed at the ordinary income tax rate; whereas, corporations in C-corps, or stock-held companies, pay a top rate of 35 percent. That rate is being proposed to go to 25 percent conceptually. If that goes to 20 percent and the 25 percent rate is applied to passthroughs, we will have a good environment in which companies can form investments, form new companies, make investments of those companies, build opportunity, and, in turn, build jobs. So it motivates America to create more jobs. With jobs come income. With income comes money. With money comes investment. At the end of that comes profit, which ends up being taxed, which is revenue to our country, and it increases. We also need to recognize that we are not as competitive as we used to be, in large measure because of the code we have, not because we are not competitive people. America is the most competitive environment in the world in which to do business. Americans by themselves were explorers to get here. Americans by themselves are investors and inventors. Americans by themselves are risk-takers. We want to improve in every competitive opportunity we have, but the current code we have suppresses competitiveness. This proposal by the Big 6 takes us to a territorial tax system. We are one of the few countries in the world that taxes the old-fashioned way. The territorial system is the way in which most of the world competes, and we are the biggest competitor within the rest of the world. It is time we put an end to a company making a dollar in Delhi, India, on a product they made there and sold there, pays the Indian tax, and then brings it back into America and has to pay the differential on the American tax as well. It is time we did what the territorial tax does, which is to tax the money where it is earned; therefore, you will never have to do repatriation again, and you will never have to talk about offshore tax havens again because the Tax Code will not induce those things to happen. Instead, people will pay the tax where it is earned, bring the money back here to hire people, invest, build new products, and then take them overseas and sell them. There is nothing more important than going to the territorial tax system. I am excited about this. Have you ever thought about this? If you were the president of a major American corporation and it was coming to the end of the year and you were getting ready to have your stockholders' meeting for the year and you were looking at ways to show how the stock could grow and how, next year, you were going to improve the profits of the company and, in turn, the net of the company and, in turn, the dividends to the stockholders--right now, if you have a home office in America, that is your principal office, and you are taxed at 35 percent in America. If you have a competitive company that is in Ireland and it is taxed at 12\1/2\, it just might cross your mind: If I move my headquarters from America to Ireland, I could take my stockholders and put 18 percent or 20 percent--or whatever the differential is--on the bottom line for them. When your Tax Code causes people to think about things like that, you are predicting a future for a country that is not as bright, as rich, or as important as it should be. Lastly, everybody thinks I am a city slicker because I am from Atlanta, but I did grow up working on a farm in Fitzgerald, GA, and Ocilla, GA. I love farmers and I love farms. I know one of the proposals of the Big 6 is to do away with the remainder of the estate tax that is still with us. A few years ago, we exempted all estates at $5 million or less from the estate tax. Now it is $5.49 million because the index has been used on inflation. The tax rate used to be 55 percent, and it is now 40. Yet, in my State of Georgia, with the effective application of the income tax, the tax is about 46 percent. So, for round figures and argumentative figures, for someone who dies in our State, after the first $5 million, he pays a tax closer to 50 percent. A lot of people say that is rich people taking a benefit of the Tax Code. I don't call being dead in order to collect a tax benefit a good idea. I do not think that that is a benefit to me at all because the estate tax is on somebody's estate who passes away, who pays that tax for the people who would inherit the assets. Those are normally the children or the spouses or maybe the employees with whom they work in their companies. Have you ever thought about this? If somebody were taxing you at 50 percent or close thereto and you file your first estate tax return after you are dead, then if this were the value of your estate, you would be telling the government: OK, you get this half, while my children, my wife, my family get the other half. A year later, when you go back to the well--or a generation later--those kids who inherited the business will have to go back and pay taxes, and a quarter of it will be gone. So, in two generations, you took an asset that was worth a lot and reduced it to 25 percent of what it was worth. You are incentivizing people to liquidate something that was paying taxes on an ongoing basis and pay a onetime exit in terms of an estate tax. That is backward thinking. What we should do is take those things people have worked for and striven for and tried their best to build and have an incentive for them to take that and leave it to their heirs and leave that company in a tax-paying mode or that farm in a tax-paying mode so America benefits and they benefit as well. Just because you are not taxing something does not mean you are not taking advantage of your company or the benefit of that item. By abolishing the estate tax, you will actually put more money, over time, in the Treasury of the United States of America in taxes than you ever will by taxing the one-time 50 percent. So as we enter this debate--and I have been joined on the floor by a number of my colleagues who, I know, want to talk--let's talk about what benefits the American people, what incentivizes innovation and competition, what puts more money in the pockets of middle-class Americans today but also creates more people in the middle and upper classes in the future, not because we gave them anything except an opportunity, a fair place to compete, and that competitive drive that only people in the United States of America have, possess, and will always use to the benefit of our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I rise for two purposes--principally, to support this legislation and to thank Ranking Member Reed and Chairman McCain and the other Members of the Senate for the contributions they have made in the reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act. In particular, I want to thank our men and women in uniform, our command and control, our military intelligence, our weather systems in the military, for the tremendous aid they have provided to us in Georgia, to the people of Florida, the people of Alabama, the people of Texas, the people of Louisiana, and the people of Mississippi during two tragic hurricanes that have taken place in the last weeks. We think of our men and women in uniform every day for what they have sacrificed for us to defend our country and to keep us safe, but sometimes we forget all of the things they do to help us when we have times of trouble. If there were ever times of trouble, Hurricane Harvey in Texas and what happened in Florida with Hurricane Irma are certainly that. Some of those assets are based in my State of Georgia, like the search and rescue mission that works out of Moody Air Force Base in South Georgia, which has been invaluable in rescue efforts in the State of Florida. So as I come to support the NDAA reauthorization, I come also to pay tribute to our men and women in uniform for all they do for us in so many ways, not just to keep us safe but also in seeing to it that, in times of trouble, they are there for us. I want to thank my Governor, Nathan Deal, for the advanced planning they did to lead up to the recovery from the hurricane. In Georgia we lost three lives, which is tragic. We are sorry for each one, and our hearts go out to those families. Preparation by our leader, Nathan Deal, and others in the State saw to it that our reaction and our timeliness was excellent. I thank Governor Deal for doing that, as well as Georgia Emergency Management, in coordination with FEMA. Everywhere in Georgia where we had danger, we also had response for our people and for our State. I also want to talk for a second about something called JSTARS. JSTARS is an asset of our U.S. military and our intelligence agencies and a capability that is second to none in the world. JSTARS stands for Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, and it is headquartered in Warner Robins, GA, at Robins Air Force Base. In particular, since the Gulf war and everything that has happened in the Middle East and ensued since then, it has been invaluable in command and control capabilities on the ground. It is an intelligence system that is unmatched by any other military of our adversaries in the world. We were informed a couple of years ago, when we started the effort to recapitalize the JSTARS, that there may be some movement to move away from JSTARS as a system to protect ourselves and have at our disposal for risk reconnaissance and recovery and battle management and battle control. I had a visit today, as a matter of fact, from the Secretary of the Air Force, Heather Wilson, a great lady and former Member of the House of Representatives, with whom I served, as well as an outstanding soldier and an outstanding person serving as the Secretary of the Air Force and part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She told me that the Air Force was looking at different ways that they might deploy recapitalization for JSTARS and other ways to deliver those services to our military personnel, which sends a signal to me that our JSTARS may be in trouble. The reasons for this are inexplicable when talking to anybody who is talking about doing it and inexplicable to me as an individual who knows that system well. Our country and our soldiers and our warfighters have benefited greatly on the ground and in the air from JSTARS surveillance capabilities. It is an aging system, but it is a great system. It is a system that has coordinated and delivered the coordinated messages that we can get nowhere else. I would submit that, if the Air Force were to decide that, rather than recapitalizing the existing JSTARS program, as we have been working toward over the last few years, they go to an alternative delivery system, it is probably giving up security for our country, intel for our men and women on the ground, battlefield coordination you cannot replace in any other way, and an asset that we have taken for granted for far too long in this country. So for Chairman McCain, whose service I appreciate, as well as his commitment to NDAA, I come to the floor to say I am with you and I will support you, but I want to make sure we do everything we can to ensure that the JSTARS and the capabilities of that mission are recapitalized and are there for our soldiers in the future and our military in the future. For us to fail to do so, to my way of thinking, would be bad for our soldiers, bad for our security, and bad for our country. I thank Ranking Member Reed and Chairman McCain for the effort they have put into this. I thank members of the committee for all the efforts they have made. I thank our men and women in uniform. I am glad we got a pay raise. It is not as much as I would have liked to see, but I am glad we got one. I am glad we are making a bigger investment in our military, but no investment that we give in money can match the investment of spirit, capabilities, and commitment of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States of America. I commend them today, praise them for their effort, and tell them: I am with you all the way. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my Defense fellow, CPT Douglas Hill, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the legislative session today.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute and honor the distinguished service of one of my former Defense fellows, Marine Corps MGySgt William T. Mahoney. Will and his family have faithfully served our Nation for 30 years, and for that, we are forever grateful. Will's service has always been exemplary, and he will be sorely missed as he moves on to enjoy his well-deserved retirement. Will enlisted in the Marine Corps on January 7, 1987, and attended basic training in Parris Island, SC. His occupational specialty training as a ground-to-air missile systems operator took place at Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX. Tours in Yuma, AZ, and Okinawa, Japan, followed, with deployments to San Clemente Island, CA, and South Korea. Will was selected for Marine security guard duty while in Japan and, after graduating, went to school in Quantico, VA, and served at the U.S. Embassy security detachments in Vienna, Austria, and Lusaka, Zambia. Upon his return to the United States, he was assigned to Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, NC. Following this tour, Will was assigned to 8th Marine Corps District Recruiting Headquarters in New Orleans, LA. Selected for Marine security guard duty for a second time while serving in New Orleans, Will returned to Quantico for training as a security detachment commander. After completing his training as the class honor graduate, Will assumed command of the Marine detachment at the American Embassy in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He later served as command of the security detachment in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, where he was meritoriously promoted to the rank of gunnery sergeant and selected for instructor duty in Quantico. Will served as an instructor-adviser and the operations chief for Marine Corps Embassy Security Guard School, where he was responsible for training the men and women who guard America's embassies and consulates around the world. Upon completion of that tour, Will was assigned to Marine Corps Air Station, New River, NC. He deployed to Anbar Province, Iraq, in late 2008. While serving in Iraq, Will was selected for the prestigious congressional fellowship program, one of only four enlisted servicemembers to have been selected for this program at that time. After returning stateside in August 2009 and completing several months of familiarization training and education in Washington, DC, he was assigned to serve as a member of my legislative staff. Will provided invaluable insight on matters ranging from the New START Nuclear Disarmament Treaty to veterans' affairs issues to weapons procurement programs for the Department of Defense. Following his fellowship in my office, Will was assigned as the senior enlisted adviser to the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. In this position, he advised senior Department of Defense officials on all matters pertaining to the enlisted members of the Armed Forces, their families, and retirees. Additionally, Will assumed the additional duty of senior enlisted adviser to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs for more than 2 years, providing senior military medical leadership with a line perspective on many initiatives and policies. After completing his time in the Pentagon, Will was selected to serve as the senior enlisted adviser to the director of the White House Military Office, WHMO. In this position, he advised the director and other senior White House officials on all matters pertaining to the members of the Armed Forces assigned to support the office of the Presidency. Will's humble character rarely does justice to his accomplishments and accolades. However, he does speak very proudly of his wife, Claire, and their three daughters, Katrina, Shannon, and Sophie. Military families are true testaments of both strength and pride. They are constantly challenged by deployments, changes in duty stations, and uncertainties. These hurdles create resiliency, which the Mahoney family patriotically embodies. Will's family is his pride and joy and will be equally missed by all they have served with. While we will miss seeing Will in uniform, his future endeavors will continue to make us proud. I want to again thank Will and his family for their service to our great Nation and congratulate him on his retirement.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I rise for a moment to reflect on what was a great night for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Government, for the population of our country but most importantly for those who served as veterans in the military. Last night, the Senate agreed to significant legislation on three fronts to make the VA better and more responsive to our veterans. Ranking Member Tester and I have spent the entire year working toward making sure we dealt with the needs the VA has so all these stories we see on the front page of papers, stories about there being unsafe conditions, stories about people being mistreated, stories of people having to wait so long for their appointments--we want to put an end to all this, and we have given the Secretary the tools to do exactly that. I was telling the ranking member this is called ``no excuses day.'' Secretary Shulkin will have no excuses for any mistakes to be made. Every tool he needs in his toolbox to see that the Veterans' Administration is responsible to the veterans of the United States of America passed in this Senate, passed in the House. There were six major bills the first 7 months of this year, a remarkable achievement, a testimony to teamwork, to staff, and to the leadership of the Republican and the Democratic Parties. The majority and minority leaders of this Senate made it possible for that to happen last night. I am eternally grateful to both of them for their support and help. I am not going to read all the names of the staff now because we are in limited time. I ask unanimous consent that the names of every staff member who worked with the VA Committee to make it the best year ever be printed in the Record. Credit is given to captains, Presidents, and people with titles. Senator Tester and I have the titles, when it comes to the VA Committee, but the reason the VA Committee was successful in accomplishing every single goal, was because of every ranking file member, Republican or Democratic. We took our labels off, we put our armor on, and we plowed ahead. We didn't say no to problems that looked like they were too hard. We said yes to solutions that looked like they made sense. Veterans of the United States of America have better healthcare, better educational benefits, and a modern VA to deal with in the years ahead. I am proud to have been a part of it. I want to commend Senator Tester for his contribution.

Mr. ISAKSON. I yield to Senator Tester.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, as my colleague Senator Menendez indicated, the intent of the language in the FDA Reauthorization Act is this: so long as the submission process for a given product is begun by the sponsor on or before September 30, 2017, the product would qualify for a priority review voucher under the neglected tropical disease priority review voucher program.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I have a rare privilege and honor right now. A lot of times, the Presiding Officer and I come to the well to make speeches that we have to, that we ought to, or that somebody wanted us to. Rarely do we have the opportunity to come to the well of the Senate and speak about an individual from our own State whom we know personally who is impeccable in their reputation, has served America in many ways, and has now been appointed to a job that is essential to the health, safety, and welfare of the American people. I speak of Christopher Wray of Georgia. Christopher Wray is my friend. Christopher Wray worked for the law firm of King & Spalding, the same one Griffin Bell, Larry Thompson, and Sam Nunn worked for--a great law firm with a tie to our government and our country. At a time for an appointment to be the great one, this is the time. We know there have been issues from time to time with the FBI. We all know we are looking for somebody who can do the job and do it well, in a fair and impartial way, without any question of impropriety. Christopher Wray is exactly that type of person. He is the person who helped convict Zacarias Moussaoui and coordinated with local law enforcement in the prosecution of the Washington, DC, snipers who terrorized our city for so long. He is a dedicated and committed prosecutor. He has been selected many times to work for the Department of Justice. He went to the Department of Justice under Larry Thompson as an assistant. He worked there at the same time as Griffin Bell. He also worked during many of the investigations into the terrorists who attacked America. He is the right man at the right time in the right place. So if ever there were a time----

Mr. ISAKSON. I am happy to yield to the minority leader.

Mr. ISAKSON. Put an exclamation point after that.

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I know when it is a good time for me to shut up. When the minority leader has come to the floor to endorse the guy I am talking about, the last thing I want to do is wear it out. Let me end my remarks by saying that Christopher Wray is the type of person Chuck Schumer wants, the type of person I want, and the type of person we are looking for as the chief law enforcement officer of our country. He will make himself proud, he will make our State proud, and he will do the right thing at the right time in all places for the people of the United States of America. I urge every Member of the Senate to heartily vote in support of Christopher Wray to be Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the United States of America. I yield back.

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

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

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I yield back all time on our side and their side as well.

Mr. ISAKSON. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Oregon, Senator Merkley, for allowing me a few extra minutes of his time ahead of his speech. I appreciate his courtesy, and I will pay him back. Ironically, I am thanking him for giving me time to make a speech I have never wanted to make. In fact, I have three times canceled the time I had asked for to make this speech in the last month because when it came time to make it and I opened those doors to come down here, I couldn't quite do it. I couldn't quite do it because, every once in a while, something happens in your career with a loved one or friend or cohort who is so close to you and so meaningful to you that to talk about it is an emotional thing to do. Such is the occasion tonight for me to pay tribute to Stefanie Mohler, who is my scheduler and has been for years. She came to work for me when I was a Member of the Senate. She has worked for me time and again in the U.S. Senate, except for the one time she left me to go work for George Bush--and I understand that. That was a higher pay grade than mine. Stefanie was a young lady working for a Congressman from her hometown in Florida when I came to Washington. She wasn't married. She had a wonderful family and lived at home with her folks. She applied for a job as a scheduler for me and came to work for us. I ran a pretty large company. I had about 1,000 independent contractors and 250 employees. I know a good worker when I see one. Stefanie was the best. But she had that quality beyond just being the best. She cared about every single thing she did and every single person whom she helped and every single person whom she couldn't help. She grew in the job, and she made me a better Congressman and, later, a better Senator. She came to me about 18 months ago and said: I have some news for you. I am pregnant. I am pregnant with identical twins. I was so excited for her and her husband because she wanted more than anything else in the world to have a family. My wife and I had a party for her at Christmas in December, and the two babies came in the early part of this year. They are beautiful. She is a wonderful mother. But she has stayed, and she has worked. Her mom has come in and helped her do the chores at home as she continued to fulfill her commitment to me. I thank her so much on the floor of the Senate today for that. She is married to a great guy named Chase Mohler. Let me tell you a little bit about Chase. All of us at one time or another in our lives have fallen in love. You know what it feels like to fall in love. You also know what it looks like to see somebody who is in love. You can't describe it, but there is a glow. It is just something that is there. I was in Jacksonville, FL, with Saxby Chambliss, waiting to come back to Washington when Stefanie was coming back from taking Chase to meet her family in Florida. When she turned the corner in an airport concourse coming toward the planes, I could tell from the glow on her face and the look on her face that something special had happened in her life. I said: Stefanie, what are you so happy about? She said: I have found a husband. I am going to marry him. He asked me to marry him. I was so happy for her and so happy for Chase because I had met him. They had dated while she was working in my office and later married. Chase works for the State Department and has been serving here in Washington. But he got a promotion, and he is going to the North Carolina coast, and he is going to take Stefanie with him. I am losing the best person I have ever had doing what Stefanie has done for me. He married the best person I have ever seen, and she is doing everything in the world for him. So I thought I would come to the floor tonight, not to list the accolades--which I could in the thousands--not to say all those platitudes we always love to hear said about ourselves or about somebody important, but to make a confession. I am in love. I am in love with Stefanie Mohler because for most of her adult life she gave her time and her effort to make me a better Member of the U.S. Senate. She supported my wife when she needed it, and I couldn't help. She supported our office when they needed it, and they couldn't help. She did all of the little things that you never ask someone to do because you think it is too little, but it is so important to make a difference in every day that goes by. When she leaves in about 3 months, I am going to be sad. I will shed a tear or two. I will probably shed one for her before the night is over. But when she leaves, I want her to know and I want the whole Senate document to record that once in a while--every once in a while-- somebody special comes along and makes a difference in your life, your effort, and your ability. Stefanie Mohler has been that for me. I will never forget her for all that she has done for me, and I will always be there for her if she ever needs me. May God bless Stefanie Mohler, and may God bless the United States of America. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished President pro tempore of the Senate, the chairman of the committee. I am honored to take that 5 minutes.

Mr. ISAKSON

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

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank Senator Rubio, who has been a steadfast leader on this issue for years. People have heard the term ``years'' mentioned. It is plural. We have worked on this thing for a long time. It started coming together last year, but it fell apart at the last minute. Thanks to the Senator's work and the work of the committee and the staffs on both committees and the leadership on the Democratic side--Mr. Tester's and mine--we found a way to do what, as I said in my opening remarks earlier--3 hours ago--is an act of Divine Providence. None of us really ever planned that this bill would come to the floor on the 73rd anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. It was a great day in American history and world history when the evil German empire--Adolf Hitler--was destroyed by the Allied Forces and the United States of America. It is only appropriate that on the anniversary of that date 73 years later, we say to those who have worn the uniform and who wear the uniform, who represent us every day and fight for us and ask nothing in return: We will see to it that you get what you were promised in terms of healthcare and benefits, and we will be sure you have a mechanism to hold it accountable in order to give you the type of service as a veteran that you gave to us when you fought for our country. I will repeat what has been said by the others in thanking the staff members who have worked so hard. This has not been an easy battle. It has appeared easy because nobody has been down here, arguing. All of the arguments are over. The veterans won. Doing the right thing won. It all would not have happened had it not been for a lot of hard-working staff. I thank Jon Tester and his staff, on the Democratic side, for all of their work on this. I want to particularly thank the Republican staffers who worked countless, tireless hours in order to make this take place: Staff Director Tom Bowman, Amanda Meredith, Adam Reece, Gretchan Blum, Kristen Hines, Maureen O'Neill, Leslie Campbell, David Shearman, Jillian Workman, Thomas Coleman, John Ashley, Mitchell Sylvest, and Heather Vachon. We could not have done what we did nor would we have been here today without their help. Yet, as has always been true, we would not as a country have been here today nor would we have ever existed had it not been for the brave men and women who bore the battle--who fought the battle--who defended our country and made sure we had the opportunity to become what is now acknowledged around the world--the greatest government on the face of this Earth. On this day, the anniversary of the invasion of Normandy on D-day, we are guaranteeing our veterans the type of service that they fought for and deserve. God bless America, and God bless the veterans who proudly serve America day in and day out in every uniform around the world. In the absence of another speaker, I yield back the remaining time.

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today on the 73rd anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, Omaha Beach, and Sword Beach by 156,000 brave Americans who saved our freedom and liberty, for the American people as well as all of Europe, who put an end to the reign of Adolph Hitler, and remind me every day as chairman of the Veterans' Committee why I am here in the U.S. Senate--and that is to see to it that we take care of those who have taken care of us. Somebody asked me this morning: Is it coincidence that D-day was 73 years ago today? I said: It is Divine providence that we are on the floor today paying back those brave 156,000 who invaded those beaches to make the Veterans' Administration a more favorable agency than it is already. I am proud to be on the floor to lead a part of the debate with Senator Tester--my ranking member on the committee and my dear friend-- on a bill that I think is of great significance. It is the Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act. The best quote is not one I could come up with or I doubt that Jon could come up with. The best quote really was come up with by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the IAVA. When asked, they said: ``This is the strongest VA accountability measure that can be signed into law.'' I want to reiterate that: the strongest accountability measure of the VA that can be signed into law. Which means we are reaching into every corner of problems in the VA which have existed over the last years. We are making sure we make the corrections necessary to make the VA an accountable organization, and we are doing it in a bipartisan fashion together, Democrats and Republicans alike. As I have said very often, there aren't Republican casualties and Democratic casualties on the battlefield. They are American citizens who have fought and died for this country. So there is no room for partisanship when it comes to providing them with the benefits that are necessary and seeing to it that they get what they deserve. I thank all the members of the committee; in particular, Ranking Member Tester for his work; Senator Moran, who did such great work for us on the accountability measure; Senator Rubio, who is not a member of the committee but did a great job in terms of accountability, and he will speak later on the floor--as I am sure others will--about this. We have had a great committee working for a long period of time. We passed a bill--almost--last year and then failed at the last few moments of the session to get it done. So we are back a second time, but we are back with a bill that has come unanimously from the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and I hope will leave this Senate floor unanimously so we send a clear signal to our veterans: We will hold ourselves accountable to you. What specifically does the legislation do that is important? One, it makes what President Trump referred to in an Executive order about 3 weeks ago, the veterans whistleblower protection act, a reality and codifies it into law. Second, it removes many of the bureaucratic hurdles currently in place, making it easier for the VA Secretary to remove employees of all departments in the VA who are found guilty of wrongdoing or misconduct, and I underscore found guilty of wrongdoing or misconduct. The bill shortens the removal process for employees of the VA and ensures an individual appealing removal from the VA is not kept on VA's payroll indefinitely while they appeal. The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act also prohibits the VA from awarding bonuses to employees found guilty of misconduct. The bill would remove the bureaucratic Merit System Protection Board from appeals by the senior management--top management--of the Veterans' Administration. The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act establishes the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection to make it permanent in the United States of America. In essence, and very simply, this bill ensures and codifies into law the accountability of this agency and its operation to the American people and to the veterans of the United States of America for all they have done for each and every one of us. It is very important to appreciate that this does not come to us by some Senator or some Representative coming up with a bunch of crazy ideas at the last minute. This is a response to what we have seen happen over and over again over the past few years. Most, if not all, of the employees in the Veterans' Administration are hard-working, dedicated, committed individuals, but there have been, from time to time, questions that have arisen about the handling of certain situations: the situation that took place in Phoenix, AZ, in terms of appointments; the rash number of suicides and mishandling of pharmaceuticals in the Atlanta office of Clairmont, near where I am in my office in Atlanta, GA; the situation of transfers in Philadelphia, PA, where people were transferred rather than disciplined and were paid their moving expenses and cost-of-living adjustments upward--all to get rid of somebody in one office but move them to another, instead of handling them in the way in which they should have been, which holds them accountable, rather than making sure they work somewhere else. We took instances where people themselves were breaking the law and violating the law, and we are now holding them accountable because of what is written into the VA accountability and whistleblower act. Simply put, we have taken the worst performance, in isolated cases in the past few years, and did what was right. We have corrected it where it needed to be corrected, we have eliminated it where it needed to be eliminated, and we have given the authority to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and employees under the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to discipline people who work for them and hold them accountable for doing the wrong thing and encourage them to do the right thing. I reiterate, though, that we are not singling out an agency which has a large number of people who are not performing. We are singling out an agency which has had some situations where a few employees have done some egregious things that need to be addressed. They were addressed but couldn't be addressed under the current status of the law, which now will be able to be addressed under the status of the new law and held accountable for their actions. Nothing happens when one person does it. Everything happens when people come together as a team. It has been a pleasure for me to have a great teammate in this effort; that is, Jon Tester from Montana. I have been on the committee 12 years, and I think Jon has been on the committee 8 or 9 years. You are on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, first of all, because you want to be on it. It is what we refer to as a B committee, which means it is a second tier. A lot of times it is a fill-in committee for Members of the Senate or the House, but for me and for Jon, it is our principal and primary responsibility. We know to whom we owe everything, and that is our veterans to whom we owe everything. Jon Tester has been a great teammate. He has been great to work with. He has helped us get through some times of difficulty and some good times of common understanding and settlement, and I appreciate that very much. I want Jon to tell me what the people of Montana are telling him about our Veterans' Administration and the need for stronger accountability in the VA of Montana. Tell us what they are saying in Montana, Jon.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.