Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) would have voted: ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) would have voted: ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) would have voted: ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) would have voted: ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am very disappointed in this request. Senator McCain has been asking that the leader take up the Defense authorization bill for weeks. This evening he tried very hard to get agreement from the Senator from Michigan, the chairman of the committee, and others to try to work out a way that we could take up this bill right after we come back or at some point after we come back after the election. After he leaves the Chamber, and after virtually everybody is gone, at 1:40 in the morning the majority leader asks unanimous consent to take up the bill limited to relevant amendments. Now that would be fine with me, and I am sure it is fine with Senator McCain, but everybody knows you can't get unanimous consent of your colleagues when they are all gone at 1:40 a.m. in the morning without any advanced notice that the request was going to be made. As a result--though I would be happy personally to agree to the request--we don't know what our Members would agree to and whether they would agree to limiting this to relevant amendments. To me that is the only thing that seems to be out of order, but obviously we can't agree to it because we can't hotline this at this time of the evening and get consent from our Members. What mostly bothers me is the implication, therefore, that the leader is all for taking it up and it is the Republicans who are objecting. I hope anyone who is aware of what has been going on here appreciates the fact that no one wants to go to the Defense authorization bill more than my colleague from Arizona, John McCain, and our leader, Mitch McConnell. With great regret and only because at this time of morning there is no way to survey our Members to see whether they would agree to the request, we have no option but to object. I would certainly hope the leader would contact Senator McCain. He left the Chamber now, but perhaps he could contact him tomorrow or the next day and ask if we can begin to work this out and allow us to talk to our Members so when we come back we can take up the Defense authorization bill. We should. The Republican Members of this body want to do so, and I would hope we could work that out so it could be dealt with in the very early days after the election.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I said I object.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, would the majority leader yield for one question from me?

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, my question is, Is the Senator saying that Senator McCain was aware the Senator was going to make this request tonight in the form it was made?

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the American people are asking two big questions: Why has the Senate not acted to stop the $4\1/2\ trillion tax hike that will occur on January 12 unless we act; and, second, why has the Senate not voted to replace the across-the-board defense cuts that will devastate our national security? The unfortunate answer is because Senate Democrats and the Obama administration are too afraid to tackle, let alone vote on, the tough issues in an election year. For Americans outside the Beltway, the consequences are very serious. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that failure to avoid this fiscal cliff will shrink the economy next year and push unemployment above 9 percent. That means 2 million jobs will be lost and we will be back in recession. The House has acted. Election year or not, there is no excuse for the Senate to not follow the House's action, its lead, to avoid the job- killing consequence of this fiscal cliff.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I appreciate the majority leader's attempt to put several of these items together. I would note that our side has only had a little over an hour to try to work this through our membership. I know there is one objection that I will need to interpose, but I would encourage the majority leader to meet with Senator McConnell when he is available so they can continue to work on this as a potential way to proceed. But at this time, on behalf of Senator John McCain, I will interpose an objection.

Mr. KYL. And the leader is right with regard to intentions. His intention was to object to my request; mine is to object to his request. That is correct.

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe,) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) would have voted: ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I had asked the distinguished majority leader if I requested an amendment to his request to add a piece of legislation that he and I both support whether he would have to object to that, and I am presuming his answer is he would have to object. As a result, rather than doing that and forcing him to object, I will simply pose my objection at this time.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent the agreement be modified so that rather than amending H.R. 8, that bill--namely H.R. 8--would be considered read a third time and passed. This request would let that bill go directly to the President's desk.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it is our view that the extension of many provisions of the Tax Code, which is the subject of the leader's request, makes some sense if we extend all of the provisions of the Tax Code we can. With that in mind, I ask that the consent be modified so that the text of House-passed bill H.R. 8 be added to the substitute referred to by the leader; further, that the bill then be read a third time and passed as amended.

Mr. KYL. We would also then object to the original request.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, might I make a response to the leader?

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, if I might continue, I think the point is this unanimous consent was made before everyone had been fully consulted. I appreciate the leader is trying to move things along, but it does illustrate the proposition that everyone needs to be consulted so the question of time and potential other considerations could be dealt with. I suspect, through the leader's good offices, that will be done this evening and tomorrow morning. Perhaps something can be worked out, as I said when I interposed my objection. But one point I wanted to make is this. The objection I interposed on behalf of Senator McCain tonight has nothing whatsoever to do with the Romney campaign against President Obama. We just heard my colleague, Senator McCain, talking about the concerns he has cutting off aid cold turkey to some very important countries in the world in the middle of a crisis. Who will be another speaker raising those same concerns tomorrow? Our Democratic colleague, Senator Kerry. This is a bipartisan question of whether this is the right policy for our country. I suspect the Obama administration and the President himself would generally be supportive of the position expressed by Senator McCain and Senator Kerry. I wish we could have a conversation around here, just once, without having it portrayed as some kind of partisan political exercise. This is not a partisan political exercise. It is a question of reasonable people having different views about what the best policy is, and the lives of Americans are on the line so it needs to be considered carefully, thoroughly, and with other options possibly being raised. That is what my colleague Senator McCain is saying. That is why I interposed the objection on his behalf. I do think, if the parties can get together tonight, tomorrow, potentially work out a way to approach the issue so it can be debated for the appropriate length of time and any alternatives presented, then we could move on with things. But let's do it in the context of the issue before us, not suggesting it has something to do with the Presidential campaign because that would be incorrect.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).

Mr. KYL

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

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would like to speak about two claims that were made at the recent Democratic Convention that I believe require a response. Obviously, the Republican Convention went first and they did not have an opportunity to respond to everything that was said, but I think there are two things, as I said, that were claimed that just are not true. The first is that Republican policies caused the economic recession, so that in the Democrats' view electing Governor Romney would simply return us to those same, allegedly, failed policies. Second, it was said by several spokesmen on the Democratic side that there were no new or big ideas coming out of the Republican Convention, so you might as well give President Obama another 4 years in office. I would like to respond to both of those claims. First, President Obama and his supporters would like Americans to believe that the so-called Bush tax cuts, deficits, and deregulation caused the great recession. Those are the Republican policies that got us into the mess, they say. The facts show this is not true. As James Pethakoukis of the American Enterprise Institute asks, if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts caused the great recession, then why does President Obama want to keep most of them? And why did he sign a 2-year extension of those tax cuts a year and a half ago? That is a good question. Obama supporters also claim that huge deficits resulting from these 2001 and 2003 bills caused the recession. But here are the facts. According to the Congressional Budget Office--nonpartisan--the 2001 and 2003 tax relief has only been responsible for 16 percent of the swing from surplus to deficit that they had estimated. If you look at the upper income tax relief only, that relief makes up just 4 percent of the swing. So it is impossible to say the tax cuts on the rich caused the recession. The maximum that the Congressional Budget Office can identify is potentially 4 percent. It is also important to note that since the CBO does not take into account the progrowth effects of marginal tax rate reductions--which all economists agree with--these numbers are even likely smaller than 4 percent. Over that same period of time, new spending--this is the real problem--and interest on that spending were 12 times as responsible as the upper income tax reductions. So the real culprit here is not reducing the tax rate on Americans and especially those who are in the wealthier brackets but, rather, the new spending in which the Federal Government engaged. That is the cause of the deficits, and that did have an impact eventually on our ability to recover from the great recession. One other note on this. The rich people, even though their tax rates were cut, ended up paying a far bigger percentage of taxes after the Bush tax cuts. The upper bracket earners paid--according to CBO again, in 2008 and 2009, the years for which they have figures, the top 20 percent of taxpayers paid 90 percent of income taxes--94 percent of income taxes. Before the Bush tax cuts, before 2001, that same top 20 percent paid only 81 percent. So the tax cuts in the upper income tax brackets resulted in an increase in the total dollar amount of taxes paid by the upper income people from 81 percent to 94 percent. So you cannot even make the argument that it was less fair. If anything, the upper income folks obviously paid a lot more--94 percent of all the income taxes paid. Now, if deficits are the problem the Democrats are talking about, then President Obama would clearly make the problem worse. Pethakoukis notes: The most recent Obama budget, according to CBO, would add $6.4 trillion more to the federal budget deficit over the next decade, leaving debt as a share of the economy stuck at around 76 percent of GDP versus 37 percent pre-recession. Think about it. The Obama budget leaves us with 76 percent debt as a share of GDP as opposed to 37 percent before the recession. So if debt and deficits are a problem, it is far worse under President Obama's budget than before. But, again, it turns out that is not really what caused the great recession, nor was it the third item that has been pointed to; that is, deregulation. Deregulation under President Bush did not cause the problem. Pethakoukis writes: Glass-Steagall ended during the Clinton administration, and studies have found no evidence that any rule changes by the Bush SEC contributed to the financial crisis. Glass-Steagall is the law that used to regulate how banks made investments. That law was eventually repealed during the Clinton administration. The Bush SEC--that stands for Securities and Exchange Commission, and there are rules changes in every administration for the SEC--he is making the point that there is no evidence that any particular rule change in the SEC had anything to do with the financial crisis. So it was not the tax cuts, it was not the deficit, and it was not deregulation. What did cause the recession? AEI's Peter Wallison has put it simply this way: The financial crisis was a result of government housing policy. . . . Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the implementers of a substantial portion of the government housing policy. Now, I would note that Republicans in Congress tried to reform Fannie and Freddie, but we were opposed by Democratic Members both in the House and in the Senate, including then-Senator Barack Obama. Most experts, I believe, will agree that the biggest reason for the collapse that occurred after 2006 was the housing market--the sale of all of these mortgages that were not worth the paper on which they were written. When that paper was all added together, bundled together and sold in big chunks to investors, and they found out their investment was not worth what they had paid for it, you had a crash and you had several people on Wall Street who went bankrupt as a result of that crash. That is the reality. The bottom line is that there is no Republican policy that caused the recession, so it is bogus for the President to keep saying Governor Romney would just return us to the ``same failed policies.'' The second claim is that there were no new big Republican ideas to come out of the GOP convention. I submit that claim reveals just how radical the Obama team's economic policies are. It is true that Governor Romney's ideas for economic recovery are not new. But they are big. In fact, his faith in the American people and the free enterprise system is a very big idea--not new but tried and tested as the basis for creating the wealthiest Nation ever on Earth. Capitalism and free markets have lifted the standard of living for more people around the world than any government program or any other system. Planned economies compare very poorly to the free enterprise system of America. Margaret Thatcher once famously observed: The problem with socialism is that, eventually, you run out of other people's money. Yes, a key theme of the Republican Convention was freedom, opportunity, and earned success. Americans did build our own success. To the extent that government provided any infrastructure along the way, it was paid for by taxes that Americans paid on what they earned because of their success. And, yes, this is in contrast to the theme of the Democratic Convention that our success comes from the collective, embodied mostly in government, so the bigger the government the better. The bottom line is this: Returning to free market principles and progrowth policies will move us forward. Continued reliance on more spending, higher taxes, and bigger government will not solve our problems. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).