Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly today about some broken promises related to the health care bill, specifically, President Obama's promise that if Americans liked their current coverage, they would be able to keep it. Remember that promise. Last June, the President promised on national television that: Government is not going to make you change plans under health reform. In his September address to Congress, he reassured Americans: If you have health insurance through your job, nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have. Well, those two statements are true as far as they go. The law does not require. The problem is, everything written into the law will, nevertheless, result in that happening. What we are seeing is new developments every week that prove that what we had said would happen will, in fact, happen. Many Americans are not going to be able to keep the coverage they have, even though they like it. That includes many who have employer-based coverage in addition to many seniors who rely on private Medicare plans known as Medicare Advantage. So how does this happen? First, with regard to the 170 million Americans who have employer-based coverage, regulations are being written right now by the administration, specifically by the Labor and Health and Human Services Departments and the IRS that will have a direct impact on people not being able to keep their plans. These regulations deal with existing plans called ``grandfathered plans.'' Grandfathered status was supposed to allow employers to continue offering their current plans even if they did not meet all of the government's new cost-increasing mandates and requirements, such as minimum standards for what a plan must offer. That was the whole point of grandfathering. It was also intended to protect Americans enrolled in their plans from ``rate shock'' or significant premium increases as a result of the new government mandates. But according to the administration's own report, new regulations could mean that two-thirds of all workers at small businesses would have to relinquish their grandfathered status, exposing them to these new mandates and requirements. The worst-case scenario, according to the report, is that a whopping 80 percent of small firms' plans would lose their grandfathered status. By 2013, the report concludes, more than half of all workers' plans, 51 percent, will be subject to new Federal requirements. So much for the idea that if you like your plan you get to keep it. These requirements drive up the cost of insurance, impede an employer's ability to adjust to rising health care costs, and ultimately provide an incentive to employers to drop their coverage altogether and instead pay a fine or, to put it another way, it creates a disincentive to keeping your coverage and an incentive to dropping their coverage and forcing them to buy the coverage through the so- called exchange. The individual mandate provision in the bill would then require these workers whose coverage has been dropped to purchase the government- approved insurance from the new government-dictated exchange, replete with the highest costs, more mandates, and so on. Of the new regulations, James Gelfand, who is health policy director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said: These rules are extremely strict. Almost no plan is going to be able to maintain grandfathered status. So what has happened? The President said: If you like your plan, you get to keep it. We will grandfather it in. Now the rules and regulations are being written in such a way that virtually none of the plans will be grandfathered so that the employers all have an incentive to send their employees to the new health exchange and therefore to drop the coverage they currently have and like. This frankly validates concerns that we voiced throughout the debate, that despite the President's claims, his health care bill will force Americans to accept unwanted health care coverage changes and that, in fact, therefore it amounts to a government takeover of health care. I mentioned American seniors. This is the second area in which they will not get to keep their plans even though they like them. The White House recently sent out a promotional mailer to seniors, saying: Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won't change--whether you get them through original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan. Instead, you will see new benefits and cost savings. Wrong. Seniors are normally skeptical about such a claim, given the President's bill is funded by $\1/2\ trillion in Medicare cuts. Republicans brought this up repeatedly during the health care debate. Democrats assured seniors not to worry, that if they liked their plan they could keep it. They were promised the law would strengthen Medicare. Yet now we are seeing and hearing from the experts that millions of seniors too will lose their Medicare Advantage benefits. In fact, the White House's claims to the contrary are flatly contradicted by the administration's own expert, Richard Foster. He is the CMS Actuary, and he says: The new provisions [in the health care law] will generally reduce [Medicare Advantage] rebates to plans and thereby result in less generous benefits packages. That is the administration's own actuary telling us that seniors who have Medicare Advantage will not get to keep what they have. Here is how a Wall Street Journal op-ed summed up the expert's conclusions: In an April memo, Richard Foster estimated that the $206 billion hole in Advantage will reduce benefits, cause insurers to withdraw from the program, and reduce overall enrollment by half. Doug Elmendorf and his team at the Congressional Budget Office came to the same conclusion, as did every other honest expert. In conclusion, we have a number of experts, not partisans, on the record saying that seniors who use Medicare Advantage will see their benefits eliminated and their coverage changed. The administration is trying to soften the blow by sending some seniors a $250 rebate check. I am sure people are happy to get the check. But it is not much of a gain for those seniors who face skyrocketing premiums and may not have access to the same Medicare Advantage plans they now enjoy. These developments are consistent with a pattern. It is a pattern ever since the bill was passed and signed into law by the President of broken promises. Americans never liked or wanted this bill, and they are continually reminded why they opposed it in the first place. The fact is, it turns out they will not get to keep what they have even if they like it. That is just one of the reasons why a strong majority of Americans want to see it repealed.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, first let me thank Senator Baucus for yielding time that he has for me to speak. I appreciate that very much. I want to support the Thune amendment. The Thune amendment is a responsible approach both to the things we need to do but also that need to be offset in ways that do not add to our deficit or raise taxes. It includes all of the major priorities that have been accepted by both sides here--by the Democratic Party's version of the extender bill as well as the things Republicans wish to do--but it is fully paid for. It cuts wasteful spending and doesn't raise a dime in taxes. The underlying proposal that the chairman of the committee has presented to us would increase spending by $126 billion. It includes over $70 billion in new taxes. That, by the way, is a net tax increase of $48 billion. It increases the deficit by $79 billion over the next 10 years. That is the approach that we think is wrong. That is why Senator Thune has proposed an alternative that we will be voting on here in about 25 minutes, that I think takes the correct approach. It cuts taxes by $26 billion by extending current law. It cuts spending by over $100 billion. It actually reduces the deficit by $55 billion, all according to the Congressional Budget Office, which of course is nonpartisan. I want to add a point about the notion of offsetting spending increases or so-called paying for those increases. There are a couple of things that are done in the Baucus substitute that I think need to be pointed out because they are not an appropriate way to offset the costs of spending under the bill. In one of them, we take the oilspill trust fund that is supposed to contain money in it to take care of oilspills when the company's money--for example, British Petroleum's money--runs out and have the Government assist in cleaning up an oilspill when that fund is supposed to exist for that purpose, to clean up the oilspill. Today this is a tax--it is 8 cents per barrel--for the companies to pay into that fund. Under the Baucus substitute that would be raised to 49 cents per barrel. It may well be that we need to raise the tax on the oil companies for the trust fund to pay for oilspills but that is what it should be raised for, to pay for the oilspills, not to pay for something totally unrelated in this legislation. Because if we do that then when it comes time to tap the trust fund to pay for the oilspill, the money has already been spent on things other than what we raised the money for in the first place. So that is not an appropriate way to pay for part of this legislation. The second thing is, this is putting off the problem to the future in order to take care of a more immediate need. It has to do with the fact that we have to pay for physicians who take care of Medicare patients. This was a problem that should have been addressed in the health care legislation. It was not. As a result, all of the payment for physicians in Medicare was put off to be dealt with at a later time. Now is the later time except we do not want to do it now either, apparently. The payment for Medicare has already expired. There is not enough money and has not been enough money for the last couple of weeks to pay doctors to take care of Medicare patients. We are simply holding their bills. But within the next few days we are going to have to pass something that allows payment of those doctor fees to take care of Medicare patients. The idea here was to try to get that to at least a 2- or 3-year period. The last version coming from the Democratic side was, I think, 18 months or so. The idea is to try to deal with that problem so we do not have to come back and keep dealing with it every couple of months or so. As I understand the latest proposal, we are now only going to deal with that to November of this year. Clearly right after the election we are going to have to come back in a lame duck session. That will make certain we will have a lame duck session because we will have to act on this yet again. Why would we do it that way? It is not the responsible way to do it, obviously. It is to reduce the cost of the legislation here so we do not have to have as much in the way of offsets. I appreciate the fact we are trying to reduce the size of the bill, but we are only fooling ourselves by reducing this particular element of the bill. We ought to be reducing other elements of this legislation rather than the physician payments because we know those bills are going to come due and we are simply putting off the inevitable. The final point of criticism of the chairman's bill is the way it deals with something called S corps. These are generally small businesses run by an individual--a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant who has a couple of employees. We are trying to raise--not we, not we, the majority is trying to raise money by changing the tax treatment for these particular legal entities. In order to do what? To raise $11 billion. I submit that rather than trying to find a way to raise $11 billion, and in this particular case it does not work, we ought to be reducing the cost of the legislation by $11 billion or finding offsets, such as Senator Thune has found in his legislation, that do not result in bad tax policy. The net result is that, with all due respect to the chairman--again I thank him for yielding his time so that I could speak against his legislation--I do not think it is the right approach. I think we are going to have to go back and get this right or we are not going to be able to move forward or to proceed to the consideration of his proposal. I think a better approach is the Thune proposal. As I said, we will have a chance to vote on that here in a minute and I hope my colleagues will support the Thune proposal as more fiscally prudent, as not adding to the deficit, not increasing taxes, and not making bad tax policy. Again, I thank my colleague for yielding his time and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, on June 14, Ephraim Sneh, a former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister, wrote a column in the Huffington Post, titled ``Tickling Sanctions for Iran From the UN--It's Now Up to Congress,'' explaining that the United Nations Security Council's recent sanctions on Iran are insufficient. Dr. Sneh wrote that the Security Council's new sanctions are merely ``recommendations, not binding orders'' because they do not address the Iranian regime's greatest vulnerability, its oil and gas industry. He urges Congress to pass the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which he believes is ``the last option left to promote peace, to free the Iranian people and to prevent war.'' I agree with Dr. Sneh. Further, I believe it is imperative, in view of the feckless action by the Security Council, and the timid actions by the administration on unilateral designations yesterday, that Congress act without further delay to pass this new legislation to impose crippling sanctions on Iran. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have Dr. Sneh's column printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. LeMieux) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. LeMieux) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. LeMieux) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. LeMieux) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. LeMieux) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I might note to my colleague from New Mexico that there is a different point of view about this particular nominee. I would venture to say that since his hearing has not been scheduled yet, it may be a while before we are able to take up that nomination. In any event, there are many on our side of the aisle who have significant concerns about whether he should be put in charge of the CMS. But I appreciate the comments of my colleague, and I will turn to a different subject at this point.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, about the time I think Washington is beginning to get the message that the American people are fed up with runaway spending, my hopes are dashed by proposals to spend even more. I would like to refer to one here in just a moment. First, there is no question that the American people are unhappy about the spending binge and soaring debt that have occurred under this administration and this Congress. In the last year and a half, there has been trillions in new spending, program after program, bailout after bailout. We are about to see another one. Every time I return home to Arizona from Washington, my constituents remind me of their frustration with Washington's lack of restraint. They know the reckless spending and borrowing cannot go on forever. They are worried about how their kids and their grandkids will pay for all of President Obama's spending priorities and associated debt. Now, $260 of new debt has been added to each household every week of the Obama administration. Let me repeat. For every week of this administration, every household has another $260 of debt. Our national debt has now reached $13 trillion, much of which is held by countries such as China. More than $1 trillion has been added to the debt since the majority adopted legislation they called pay-go. These are so- called budget controls which require Congress to pay for what it spends. But, unfortunately for the taxpayers, the emergency designations and other budget gimmicks have been a convenient way for the majority to circumvent these pay-go rules. Now the President is asking for some more money to spend for yet another bailout. This time it is $23 billion for teachers' salaries and a total of $50 billion to defray the cost of State employees' and local employees' salaries. No guarantee that the funding would be used in the case of the teachers necessarily to save jobs, or firefighters, the same. And this comes just 16 months after Congress poured $100 billion for education into the so-called stimulus legislation, including $48 billion in direct aid to the States. As for total Federal education spending, it has doubled since the year 2000 to 15 percent of the Federal budget now--not an inconsequential amount. Besides more spending and debt, I see the continuation of two troubling patterns here. One is the refusal of this administration and the majority in this Congress to encourage State and local governments to economize to live within their means, just as families and private sector businesses must do. The President's latest proposal for this $50 billion in so-called emergency funding simply bails the States out, the State and local governments that have obligations to their employees. With regard to education, the Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, says the $23 billion for teachers is an emergency. But, as George Will pointed out in a recent column, the private sector has lost 8.5 million jobs during the recession or 7.4 percent of workers, while local governments have only lost 141,000 workers or less than 1 percent of their workers. Will writes, ``Now this supposed emergency, and states' dependency, may be becoming routine and perpetual.'' In other words, the Federal Government just becomes the payor for the salaries of people who work for State and local governments. Spending $23 billion is not going to help unemployed private sector workers find jobs; it may actually hurt them. And spending billions of stimulus dollars on State and local governments hasn't helped them to solve their financial problems thus far. How will spending billions remedy their underlying budget problems? It is just a temporary reprieve. But if they don't do anything to address the underlying cause of the problem, we will not have helped them at all. Education spending has not been neglected during the recession, and at some point local governments have to figure out a way to make do with what they have. The debt and out-of-control spending are the real emergencies we should be dealing with. The second pattern I would like to note is the administration's habit of supporting legislation that designates winners and losers, especially when it comes to labor unions. They were the beneficiaries of $85 billion in bailouts to the car companies and special tax treatment of the President's health spending law. Teachers unions are the winners if the President convinces Congress to spend another $23 billion on teacher salaries. This is not the kind of change Americans had in mind when President Obama took office; that is, political allies getting special status and treatment. President Obama pays lipservice to fiscal responsibility but does so as long as his own priorities do not have to be put on hold; otherwise, he would not talk in the same breath about fiscal restraint on the one hand and another $50 billion in Federal taxpayer money or borrowing from other countries in order to pay teachers' salaries, firefighters' salaries, and the like. At some point, I believe the President will have to match his rhetoric with action; otherwise, the United States will not be able to avoid unprecedented budgetary and economic crises. Is this really the legacy this administration and this Congress want to leave behind? I think not. I think when I go home this week and I visit with constituents of mine, including another tea party group, I am going to hear an earful about how they thought Washington was beginning to get the message that we were not supposed to spend so much money we did not have; that they are tired of us going to borrow money from other countries such as China and putting it on the credit card for our kids and our grandkids to pay. I think I am going to have to tell them: Well, I thought folks were beginning to get the message, but now, with the President's new request, it appears we are going to have to deal with the problem again. I hope that when the President's proposed legislation comes to the Congress, we are able to say to him: No, not this time, just as we are with the legislation that is on the floor of the Senate this week, the so-called emergency that continues certain tax policies in force, extends certain benefits such as unemployment insurance, but does a lot of other things that are not paid for, that are not offset by cuts in other spending. I don't think we can continue to just keep piling on more and more spending without finding a way to offset it with savings elsewhere. It is not as if those savings can't be found, but we will never get there if we decide to take on the obligations of State and local governments to pay for all of the governmental workers who are on their payrolls. We have to start looking at the private sector and how to encourage the private sector to begin to put more of their folks back to work instead of taking money out of the private sector in order to keep these government workers employed. I hope my colleagues will take the message I have heard loudly and clearly from home to heart and begin to apply some fiscal discipline to the spending policies this administration is proposing and will for once say: No, we can't afford this, and so we are not going to spend the money. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I too support strongly the Murkowski amendment. There has been a lot of misinformation spread about this. Let me clear up a couple of things. First, this resolution is not about the science of climate change. It has nothing to do whatsoever with greenhouse gases or the Earth's temperature. It would not prevent the Senate from considering climate legislation if that is what the Senate chooses to do. Nor does this resolution have anything to do with the spill in the gulf coast, although some have tried to make it appear that way. Let's remember this resolution was introduced months before that spill even began. It has nothing to do with the disaster. We should not exploit this serious crisis for political gain, as the White House has tried to do. So what is the resolution about? Well, it boils down to a simple question: Should the Environmental Protection Agency be allowed to act unilaterally to set climate and energy policy through new Clean Air Act regulations without the delegation or approval of Congress. And the answer is no. It is wrong for the administration to try to achieve its goals by any means possible, in this case by going around the legislative branch and by using the EPA to enact sweeping economic and energy regulation. In order to stop that, we need to approve this resolution. Let me provide a bit of context for how we got to this point. In December of 2009, the EPA finalized so-called endangerment findings for six greenhouse gases, allowing it to establish greenhouse gas emission standards for a few new motor vehicles. Once those standards go into effect, under the law EPA has no choice but to follow through and issue regulations for stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the EPA has estimated that about 6 million of these stationary sources: buildings, and facilities, including hospitals, nursing homes, schools, farms, and so on, will be subject to regulation. There will also be a new regulation of homes and RVs and cars and tractors and so on. The new regulation will touch every corner of our economy and necessarily lead to higher energy costs, increasing the cost of nearly everything, and in the process killing jobs. President Obama himself said that under the plan he favors, electricity prices ``would necessarily skyrocket.'' Well, the Murkowski disapproval resolution would nullify the legal effect and force of the EPA's endangerment finding. It would prevent the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to set up a regulatory regime to impose backdoor climate regulations that would lead to a job-killing national energy tax. Americans have made it very clear that they do not like the idea of legislation that will increase their energy bills and raise their taxes. They want Congress and the administration to focus on strengthening the economy and providing incentives to job creators rather than burdening them with new regulations. They deserve to be heard. If they say through their representatives they do not want a national energy tax in the form of cap-and-trade legislation to pass Congress, then the administration should not be able to circumvent their will by simply having the EPA do it. This is a clear up-or-down vote to stop a power grab by unelected officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, and to force any climate and energy regulation to go through a democratic process conducted by Congress. I urge my colleagues to support the Murkowski resolution.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. KYL

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

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I rise to speak to the pending bill and a potential amendment Senator Vitter is preparing and hopes to offer, an amendment which would make sure that any increase in the trust fund for oilspills would be spent on cleaning up oilspills. That might seem rather obvious, but it turns out that the bill before us increases the required contribution of oil companies to this trust fund to clean up oilspills from 8 cents to 41 cents per barrel and then spends the money not to clean up oilspills but, rather, to pay for other items in the underlying legislation, the so-called extenders bill. That is not right. If we are going to increase the money to pay for oilspills, we ought to spend the money to clean up oilspills. What the Vitter amendment does is very simple. It says if that is what we are raising the money to do, then that is what we should spend it on. I will quote from the amendment: The revenue resulting from any increase in the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund financing rate under section 4611 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 shall-- (1) not be counted for purposes of offsetting revenues, receipts, or discretionary spending under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 or the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010; and (2) shall only be used for the purposes of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. It is fairly straightforward. Why do we have to have this amendment? Because the underlying bill, the extenders bill, raises the required contribution to the trust fund and then spends that money not on cleaning up oilspills but to pay for the extension of benefits under the so-called extenders bill. It doesn't pay for anything in particular; it is simply used to offset the $100-plus billion expenses in this legislation. The particular provision in the underlying bill that raises the contribution of the oil companies from 8 cents a barrel excise oil tax to 41 cents is section 431. The House-passed extenders package increased it to 34 cents a barrel, and then, under the provisions of this legislation, it is increased to 41 cents a barrel. Why is this being done? The reason this is being done is to offset part of the expense of the $100-plus billion of this extenders bill. It doesn't offset all of the expenses, obviously. If we are going to raid the oil trust fund, which otherwise would be used to clean up the oilspill, we better have a very good reason for doing so, especially since all attention is focused right now on the very difficult job of dealing with this big disaster. In fact, it has been described as the biggest disaster of its kind in all of history for the United States. We are going to need every dime we can get in order to pay for the oilspill. What happens? About the time we seek to get the money to deal with this disaster, whoever is in charge of the money says: We are sorry. It is all gone. We spent it on the tax extenders bill. We ask: What does the tax extenders bill have to do with the 41 cents per barrel collected from the oil companies? Nothing. But we needed the money, so we spent it instead. That reminds me of two other examples. We pay into the Social Security trust fund so that when we retire, the funds are there to pay us. It turns out that each year more money is paid into the fund than is necessary to pay out in benefits. As a result, we take that money and we put it away so we will have it in the future, right? Wrong. Congress spends it. So when Social Security needs that money to pay seniors' retirement, it goes to the bank and says: We need some of that money now. The bank says: We are sorry. Congress has already spent it all. You will have to raise taxes on the American public so there is enough money to pay seniors their retirement. But didn't seniors already pay into the retirement? Yes, they did. What happened to the money? Congress spent it. A more recent example is the health care legislation. We decided--not we; the other side--it would be a good idea to save $500 billion from Medicare; in other words, to reduce the expenses of Medicare by $\1/2\ trillion over 10 years. Some of us thought it is certainly the case that the Medicare trust fund is in trouble. There isn't enough money in the Medicare trust fund to continue to pay benefits for seniors' health care. At least what they are trying to do will extend the life of Medicare. In fact, the claim was made by many on this side of the aisle: This is going to extend the life of Medicare, extend the trust fund's viability for 17 years. It was either 17 years or until the year 2017--I cannot remember. Then the Actuary of CMS issued a report and said: Not so fast. It turns out that money is not going to be used to extend the viability of Medicare. We are going to spend it on new entitlements in the health care legislation. I remember talking to the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee at the time in the Chamber. Since the Actuary of CMS says we can't spend this money twice, we can't spend it both on the new entitlement in the health care legislation and still count it as preserving the viability of Medicare, which is it going to be? We never got an answer. In truth, I suspect it is going to be spent on the new entitlement and we will not be extending the viability of Medicare. You can't spend the same dollar twice. That is what the CMS Actuary pointed out. Time and time again, when Congress is deceiving the American people by raising funds for something, a specific purpose--to clean up the oilspill, to save Medicare, to fund Social Security--we steal that money from the fund that was created for a specific purpose and spend it on other things. We should be honest with the American people. The Vitter amendment will at least make clear that to the extent we raise money by raising the price per barrel oil companies must pay into the trust fund, to the extent we collect money from that, we have to spend it on cleaning up the oilspill, not on the other things in the bill that is pending. I hope when the time comes we will be able to consider the Vitter amendment and we will be honest with the American people and say that one of the first things we have to do is to make sure we can clean up the oilspill. And if we think it is a good idea to make the oil companies spend more money in order to do that, then that is where we ought to be spending the money, not taking that money and using it to pay for other things in this legislation. We have already done it with Social Security. We have already done it with health care. We have done it with a lot of other things. The American people are getting sick and tired of this duplicity on the part of the Congress. All we do is spend around here. Then when it comes time to pay for it, we say: We are going to pay for it. We are not going to increase the deficit. We will pay for it by taking it from some other fund. The money was raised for some other purpose. That is how we will pay for it. That is as dishonest as not paying for it in the first instance and instead sending the bill to our kids and grandkids. At some point, Congress has to start paying for what we are spending money on. If we really want to continue to increase spending--and this bill spends over $100 billion--let's be honest and find sources of revenue that really reduce spending in some case so that we can then apply that funding here, or if the other side would like to raise taxes--and there are certainly a lot of taxes in this legislation, which I oppose--the other way we can do it is to raise taxes and hurt businesses so that we don't create as many jobs. That is a great thing to do in the middle of a recession, but that is another way to do it. Either reduce spending somewhere else or generate more revenue through taxes. But don't generate revenue for the oilspill trust fund and then immediately take that revenue and spend it on this bill. That is not an honest way to offset spending in the underlying legislation. This is another example of why the American people are upset with the Congress. I would hope that before this legislation is finally disposed of, we would either drop this provision from the bill, this section 431, or we would adopt the Vitter amendment which would ensure whatever funds are collected under that provision are used for the purposes for which they were collected; namely, to clean up the oilspill, and not to offset spending in other parts of the bill.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from South Carolina ( Mr. DeMint), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from S. Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise to speak about an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. I ask unanimous consent that this June 4 editorial titled ``Employers on Strike'' be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. KYL. It begins with this comment which caught my eye: It's too bad we can't do the Census every year, because maybe the U.S. economy would then show some jobs growth. That is pretty interesting. The reason is because of the news last week that was greeted with some degree of concern by folks on Wall Street and elsewhere. Despite the fact that we created a net total of 431,000 jobs in May, 411,000 of those were temporary Census hires. Yes, we created a lot of jobs by hiring temporary Census workers, but those are not private-sector, permanent jobs. That is what we should be doing. This article notes that: The private economy--that is, the wealth creation part, not the wealth redistribution part--gained only 41,000 jobs, down sharply from the encouraging 218,000 in April, and 158,000 in March. The point being that these temporary Census jobs are not our ticket to economic recovery. These are temporary, government, and they do not add to the employment base that produces wealth. It is interesting that those who supported the stimulus package, which cost $862 billion, said there was an economic factor here called the Keynesian multiplier effect, that somehow a dollar in government spending was supposed to produce a dollar and a half in economic output. This is truly the creation of something out of nothing or, more accurately, taking a dollar out of the private sector and somehow creating a dollar and a half worth of value. It turns out it didn't happen. It never does. This is very fuzzy thinking. We cannot take money out of the private sector and expect that it is going to somehow multiply an economic output or job creation factor, when the government spends the money. That is $862 billion that has been taken out of the productive private sector. What happens? We either have to borrow it, which makes it harder for the private sector to borrow money, or we have to tax the private sector, thereby reducing the private sector's ability to create jobs in the future. The bottom line, as this editorial notes: Almost everything Congress has done in recent months has made private businesses less inclined to hire new workers. That problem is exacerbated by the bill which we take up tomorrow. This is the so-called jobs bill. It is a bill which will cost $116 billion. It will add $54 billion to our national debt. It will further weaken the private sector's ability to create jobs. As this Wall Street Journal editorial notes: It's too bad we can't do the Census every year, because maybe the U.S. economy would then show some job growth. That is being facetious, obviously. Those are not the kind of jobs that will productively create economic growth, because they are not in the private sector. They are simply temporary. I hope as we debate the bill over the course of the next several days, the so-called stimulus, we can get away from this notion that somehow or other if we take money out of the productive part of our economy and have the government spend it, that somehow or other, magically, that is going to help engineer economic recovery. It doesn't. Instead what we have is an economic recovery that is exceedingly slow and will be more so, the more regulation and taxation we impose on our private sector. Exhibit 1 [From the Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2010] Employers on Strike It's too bad we can't do the Census every year, because maybe the U.S. economy would then show some jobs growth. That quip was one of the rueful asides we heard yesterday as Americans learned that the economy created a net total of 431,000 new jobs in May, including 411,000 temporary Census hires. The private economy--that is, the wealth creation part, not the wealth redistribution part--gained only 41,000 jobs, down sharply from the encouraging 218,000 in April, and 158,000 in March. The unemployment rate did fall to 9.7% from 9.9%, but that was mainly because the labor force contracted by 322,000. Millions of Americans, beyond the 15 million Americans officially counted as unemployed, have given up looking for work. Worst of all, nearly half of all unemployed workers in America today (a record 46%) have been out of work for six months or more. Normally job growth accelerates during the early stages of an economic rebound, but this dismal report suggests that the recovery remains well short of becoming a typical expansion. There were some slivers of good news in the May jobs report. For those who have jobs, the average work week rose by 0.1 hours to 34.2 hours and earnings nudged upward by 0.3%. Manufacturers added 29,000 workers, and their hours worked jumped 5.1%, the best since 1983. Perhaps this is what White House chief economist Christina Romer was looking at yesterday when she cited ``encouraging developments'' in the jobs market and ``continuing signs of labor market recovery.'' We doubt this was the private reaction in the Oval Office, whose occupant was told by Ms. Romer and economic co-religionist Jared Bernstein that the February 2009 stimulus would kick start a recovery in growth and jobs. Whatever happened to the great neo-Keynesian ``multiplier,'' in which $1 in government spending was supposed to produce 1.5 times that in economic output? Imagine if Ms. Romer had instead promised in 2009 that Congress could spend nearly $1 trillion, and 16 months later the unemployment rate would be nearly 10% and that more than 2.5 million additional Americans would be without jobs. Would Congress have still spent the cash? Well, sure, Congress will always spend what it can get away with, but the American public would have turned against the stimulus even faster than it has. The multiplier is an illusion because that Keynesian $1 has to come from somewhere in the private economy, either in higher taxes or borrowing. Its net economic impact was probably negative because so much of the stimulus was handed out in transfer payments (jobless benefits, Medicaid expansions, welfare) that did nothing to change incentives to invest or take risks. Meanwhile, that $862 billion was taken out of the more productive private economy. Almost everything Congress has done in recent months has made private businesses less inclined to hire new workers. ObamaCare imposes new taxes and mandates on private employers. Even with record unemployment, Congress raised the minimum wage to $7.25, pricing more workers out of jobs. The teen unemployment rate rose to 26.4% in May, and for those between the ages of 25 and 34 it rose to 10.5%. These should be some of the first to be hired in an expansion because they are relatively cheap and have the potential for large productivity gains as they add skills. The ``jobs'' bill that the House passed last week expands jobless insurance to 99 weeks, while raising taxes by $80 billion on small employers and U.S-based corporations. On January 1, Congress is set to let taxes rise on capital gains, dividends and small businesses. None of these are incentives to hire more Americans. Ms. Romer said yesterday that to ``ensure a more rapid, widespread recovery,'' the White House supports ``tax incentives for clean energy,'' and ``extensions of unemployment insurance and other key income support programs, a fund to encourage small business lending, and fiscal relief for state and local governments.'' Hello? This is the failed 2009 stimulus in miniature. It's always a mistake to read too much into one month's jobs data, and we still think the recovery will lumber on. But if Ms. Romer wants this to be more than a jobless recovery, she and her boss should drop their government- creates-wealth illusions and start asking why so many private employers remain on strike.

Mr. KYL

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

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise to speak on a subject that has certainly had a lot of press coverage, and that is the trip by the Arizona Governor to Washington to speak with the President about the immigration issue in Arizona, recent legislation that was passed, and what we can do to secure the border. Something caught my eye in the Congress Daily which I want to quote and discuss. The article is entitled ``Arizona Gov. Pushes for Obama's Help.'' It was dated Thursday, June 3, and it talked about the meeting between the Governor and the President. It says they didn't appear to come to any agreements, and then it reads: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that both sides expressed their viewpoints, with Obama stressing that border security must be coupled with comprehensive immigration reform. Why is that? Why is securing the border being held hostage to comprehensive immigration reform? The President has a responsibility and we have a responsibility to enforce our laws. That includes securing our border. So why does the President insist we are not going to secure the border until we have comprehensive immigration reform? The reality is, if we do secure the border, it will be easier for Congress to pass comprehensive reform, because people will then understand that the Federal Government is serious about securing the border. They don't believe that today. With articles such as this, why should they? In effect, the President is saying: We are not going to secure the border until we have comprehensive reform. We don't need comprehensive reform to secure the border, and I submit we do need to secure the border for comprehensive immigration reform. I have talked a lot on this floor--and so has Senator McCain--about efforts to secure the border and the different segments of the border. In the State of Arizona, there are two segments. One is called the Yuma sector and the other is called the Tucson sector. The Yuma sector has basically been secured in terms of illegal immigration. There is still a lot of illegal drugs crossing in that sector. They are working on that. The Tucson sector is not secure in terms of illegal immigration or drug smuggling. In fact, about half of all illegal immigration comes through the Tucson sector. Why is the Yuma sector pretty well secured and the Tucson sector not? There are a variety of reasons. First, the Yuma sector pretty much completed the fencing, particularly in the urban area there, the double fencing that has enabled the Border Patrol to apprehend illegal immigrants who try to cross. Secondly, there is an adequate number of Border Patrol agents. Third, in the Yuma sector, there is a program called Operation Streamline, the essence of which is, instead of catch and release, where illegal immigrants are apprehended and then returned to the border in a bus, these illegal immigrants are taken to court and provided a lawyer. But the reality is, almost all of them end up pleading to having crossed the border illegally, and they spend at least 2 weeks in jail. About 17 percent of the people are criminals. Obviously, they don't want to do this so they don't cross in that area anymore. The rest want to come work and make money so they can send it back to their families. They obviously can't do that while they are serving time in jail. The net result is that there is a big deterrent to crossing in the Yuma sector. If they cross there, they go to jail. So they cross somewhere else. If we had a similar operation in other segments of the border, it appears to me we could go a long way toward having operational control of the border. The reality is, we can secure the border. I know there are some on the other side who believe if we secured the border, then there would be less incentive for Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform. Think of that. That is holding national security, border security, hostage to passing a bill in Congress. That should not be. We have a job to secure the border. We should do that irrespective of whether Congress then passes comprehensive reform. I remind my colleagues that in 2007, I helped to draft, along with Senator Kennedy, the legislation we brought to the floor. Unfortunately, it was not successful. It was opposed by both Republicans and Democrats. It was supported by both Republicans and Democrats. In the end, it didn't have the votes to pass. The point is, there were many on our side of the aisle as well as the other side who were willing to draft and support legislation for comprehensive reform. It is not true to say that if we secure the border, many of us will, therefore, not have an incentive to support comprehensive reform. The American people don't believe the Federal Government is serious about securing the border. They are not going to support comprehensive reform until they see some seriousness on the part of the Federal Government. When we hear comments such as those from Robert Gibbs, who says the President stressed that border security must be coupled with comprehensive immigration reform, I say the American people are apparently right. The Federal Government--at least the President--does not appear to be serious about enforcing the laws at the border and securing the border. Otherwise, he wouldn't couple that with a requirement that we have to pass comprehensive reform. We are not going to pass comprehensive reform this year for a variety of reasons. That is a fact. But that doesn't mean we can't secure the border. Indeed, we should.