Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. An inquiry. I will not object. Does that mean 60 votes are required under the current order and continue to be required?

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, more than 14 million Americans are without work. The American Jobs Act would help up to 2 million Americans get work or keep their jobs. It would prevent the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, police, firefighters, and other first responders. The jobs bill would give tax cuts to millions of small businesses. It would give incentives to those businesses to hire new workers. The American Jobs Act would provide a payroll tax cut to millions of American families. It would help our returning veterans find jobs. The American Jobs Act would put thousands of construction workers on the job repairing crumbling schools, building and repairing roads and bridges. The chief economist for Moody's, Mark Zandi, estimates that this legislation would add 2 percentage points to economic growth and would reduce the unemployment rate by up to 1 full percentage point. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg believe this bill ``would help avoid a return to recession.'' Those are their words. That is what the majority of our economists say from both sides of the aisle, across the political spectrum. How does it do this? The bill uses ideas that both Democrats and Republicans have supported in the past. It would not add a dime to the Federal deficit, and its provisions are overwhelmingly popular with the American people, according to all of the public opinion polls. We should be debating this bill. We should be offering amendments, as the majority leader said we would be doing. We should be improving it. We should be preparing to vote on it so millions of American working families can get the relief they need. We should do this so we can demonstrate to our constituents and to the world that we will come together to act in the face of crisis. Yet here we are roadblocked again. Why are we roadblocked? Because our Republican colleagues last night voted not to allow us to even begin to debate legislation that has ideas so many of them have supported in the past. Senate Republicans are once again walking down the filibuster road. The vote last night was not a vote on the American Jobs Act. Because the filibuster rules of the Senate require 60 votes, Senate Republicans last night were able to prevent the Senate from proceeding to a bill addressing the jobs crisis. We all know the rules of the Senate give the minority the power to stop us from holding this debate, but exercising that power, as they did last night, is profoundly mistaken. What they are doing when they do that is they are using a filibuster to prevent the Senate from even debating this bill. What that does in turn is elevate partisan interests over the good of the country. A number of us are going to be speaking today because we are deeply concerned--concerned that Republicans once again have signaled to an anxious and skeptical nation that we cannot address a great challenge of the day. We are deeply concerned that the single most important need in this country--jobs--will not be debated and remedies will not be sought because the Republicans once again are walking down the filibuster road. If Republicans oppose this bill, which is their right, vote against it. Better yet, if Republicans oppose this approach, for heaven's sake, offer an alternative jobs bill, offer a substitute, an alternative, something where the American public can compare what is in our jobs bill with what Republicans presumably favor. They oppose ours without saying what they favor, except vague references to less regulation. Everybody is in favor of eliminating wasteful regulations, but nobody believes you can do serious deficit reduction or create serious numbers of jobs by just freezing regulation. By the way, the small business community does not believe that. The surveys which were taken of small businesspeople by their own organizations say the biggest problem small business has is not regulation, and it is not taxes; it is a lack of demand. This bill helps to create demand by putting dollars into the pockets of our workers. There is a tax cut here which is very important to help stimulate that demand. So what is coming across to the American public loudly and clearly these days is that the Democrats here in the Senate have an alternative. The Republicans are filibustering that alternative without offering one of their own. Now, the majority could seek to break this filibuster by forcing the Republicans to sustain the filibuster and to try to wear them down. That process, however, at this time in this Congress is not a practical approach because it takes weeks or even months to break a filibuster. It is just simply too late in the session for us to practically be able to do that. And, by the way, the American people should not have to wait that long in any event for us to act. But there is another way to overcome a filibuster. It is not just forcing the filibusterers to filibuster--that is one way to do it; it takes usually months in order to succeed, but it would dramatize where the obstruction is--but the other way to overcome a filibuster is for public opinion to wear down the Republican wall of obstruction. That is probably the only practical path available for overcoming this filibuster at this time of this Congress. I hope the President will use his bully pulpit to make clear to the American people that it is the obstructionism of filibustering Republicans that prevents us from taking action on a jobs bill. The President has very effectively gone around the country supporting his jobs bill. I commend him for doing that. But what we need him now to do is to take that bully pulpit, which is unique to the President and to the Presidency, and use that bully pulpit to make it clear to the American people that filibustering Republicans are obstructing us from even taking up a jobs bill. The majority leader has made it clear that this is open to amendment. If the Republicans have a better idea, they can offer a substitute. But what is going on here now is that, without any alternative of their own, they are preventing us from addressing the major issue of this country. The Republican leader last night repeatedly asked unanimous consent to send this bill back to the calendar if we did not get 60 votes to proceed. The Republican leader wants this bill to go away. Well, this jobs bill is not going to go away. It should not go away. And the Republican leader is engaging in wishful thinking if he believes that because he and his colleagues on that side of the aisle are filibustering a jobs bill, that means the filibuster is going to succeed and this bill is simply going to be returned to the calendar. The majority leader has said he is going to try again. Senator Reid said specifically he is going to bring this bill back again by using his rights, after he made it clear last night he is going to reconsider this bill. He has the right to do that because of the way in which he voted last night. He voted with the prevailing side at the end in order that he could reconsider this bill--a technical way that he could. He already had expressed his view very strongly supporting cloture, but he also, in order to bring this bill back under the same cloture motion, then filed a motion to reconsider as a Member of the prevailing side at the end, after he switched his vote so he could do so. I commend the majority leader. I commend him for taking that action. I commend him for signaling to the American people, to the media, to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle that he is going to try again. We are not simply going to fold our tent and go away. The majority leader is going to move to reconsider at a time he believes is appropriate, and then there will be another effort to break a Republican filibuster so we can at least debate this critically important legislation. Madam President, I am going to read from an analysis on the jobs plan by Mark Zandi that I ask unanimous consent be printed in the Record. Mark Zandi is an economist at Moody's. [From Economy.com, Sept. 9, 2011] An Analysis of the Obama Jobs Plan (By Mark Zandi) President Obama's jobs proposal would help stabilize confidence and keep the U.S. from sliding back into recession. The plan would add 2 percentage points to GDP growth next year, add 1.9 million jobs, and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point. The plan would cost abut $450 billion, about $250 billion in tax cuts and $200 billion in spending increases. Many of the president's proposals are unlikely to pass Congress, but the most important have a chance of winning bipartisan support. President Obama's much-anticipated jobs plan is a laudable effort to support the struggling economy. The plan would go a long way toward stabilizing confidence, forestalling another recession, and jump-starting a self-sustaining economic expansion. If fully implemented, the Obama jobs plan would increase real GDP growth in 2012 by 2 percentage points, add 1.9 million jobs, and reduce the unemployment rate by a full percentage point, compared with current fiscal policy. The president's plan includes a wide range of temporary tax cuts and spending increases. Among its widely anticipated provisions are one-year extensions of this year's employee payroll tax holiday and the full expensing of business investment. Surprisingly, the plan would also increase the size of the temporary payroll tax cut and creatively expand it to employers. The president would also help state and local governments pay teacher and first-responder salaries, boost funding for unemployment insurance while meaningfully reforming the Ul system, and launch several infrastructure initiatives. The plan has its drawbacks. It isn't cheap, costing taxpayers an estimated $450 billion. Of that, approximately $250 billion takes the form of tax cuts, while another $200 billion comes through spending increases. The president proposes paying for his plan with additional deficit reduction beginning in fiscal 2014, but he does not explicitly say how this is to be accomplished. The plan also results in weaker growth in 2013, as most of the tax cuts and spending increases are temporary and fade during the year. Presumably the economy will be strong enough to handle it by then, but that is far from certain. Moreover, the plan fails to address the ongoing foreclosure crisis and housing slump, major impediments to the recovery. In the current political environment, it is less than likely that most of the president's plan will pass Congress. Our current baseline outlook assumes that the payroll tax holiday for employees is extended for only one more year. There is a fighting chance that broader payroll tax cuts for employees and employers could become law, but the odds aren't high enough at this time to change our baseline assumptions. Why more support is critical There are compelling reasons why the Obama administration and Congress should provide more fiscal support to the economy. Most obviously, the U.S. is struggling to avoid recession as confidence flags. To complicate matters, federal fiscal policy is quickly becoming a significant drag on growth; state and local governments are already a weight. The Federal Reserve has resumed easing monetary policy, but with interest rates near zero, the Fed cannot lift the economy by itself. Moreover, with the government's borrowing costs as low as they have ever been and no indication that public borrowing is crowding out private activity, there is ample room to fund more near-term fiscal support, particularly if it is paid for with additional long-term deficit reduction. The U.S. economy is on the cusp of another recession. Businesses have stopped hiring and households are spending more tentatively. Bankers are re-evaluating whether it makes sense to continue easing credit standards and wondering if instead they should be battening down the hatches again. Declining stock prices and widening credit spreads suggest investors are also losing faith. Crisis of confidence Recession risks are uncomfortably high largely because confidence is low. The economy has fundamental problems, including the foreclosure crisis, a surfeit of residential and commercial real estate, and yawning government deficits. But even more serious is that investors, consumers and businesses appear shell-shocked by recent events. Confidence normally reflects economic conditions; it does not shape them. Consumer sentiment falls when unemployment, gasoline prices or inflation rises, but this has little impact on consumer spending. Yet at times, particularly during economic turning points, cause and effect can shift. Sentiment can be so harmed that businesses, consumers and investors freeze up, turning a gloomy outlook into a self- fulfilling prophecy. This is one of those times. The collective psyche was already very fragile coming out of the Great Recession. The dramatic loss of millions of jobs and double-digit unemployment have been extraordinarily difficult to bear. Businesses have also struggled with a flood of major policy initiatives from Washington, led by healthcare and financial regulatory reform. The lengthy political battle over raising the nation's debt ceiling and Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. debt eviscerated what confidence remained. While the loss of S&P's AAA rating has little real significance--Treasury yields have fallen since the downgrade--it unnerved investors, judging by the plunge in stock prices. Consumer and small-business confidence gauges are as low as they have been since the Great Recession. Consumers and businesses appear frozen in place. They are not yet pulling back--that would mean recession--but a loss of faith in the economy can quickly become self-fulfilling. Whether the current crisis of confidence produces a double- dip recession depends critically on how policymakers respond. Washington must act aggressively to stabilize sentiment and lift flagging expectations. If no changes are made to current federal fiscal policy, the economic impact of that policy will shift from acting as a small drag this year to subtracting 1.7 percentage points from real GDP growth in 2012. For context, at the peak of the federal fiscal stimulus in 2009, federal policy added 2.6 percentage points to real GDP growth. Yet as the impact of federal policy shifts from a stimulus to restraint, the private sector must grow faster for the economy to simply grow at its potential. In 2012 that potential is estimated at 2.7%; to reach it, private sector GDP would need to grow well above 4%. That seems unlikely given the weak pace of recovery. The biggest drag next year under current federal policy comes from the scheduled expiration of two stimulus measures at the end of 2011: the current 2% employee payroll tax holiday and the emergency unemployment insurance program. Not extending the programs will shave 0.9 percentage point off 2012 real GDP growth and cost the economy some 750,000 jobs. The end of other fiscal stimulus measures enacted in 2009 will further reduce economic growth. State and local government actions are already producing serious drags on the economy. Spending cuts and tax increases will shave an estimated 0.5 percentage point from real GDP growth this year and almost as much in 2012. The impact can be seen clearly in the job market. State and local governments have cut close to 700,000 jobs since their employment peaked three years ago and are continuing to shed workers at a stunning rate, averaging nearly 40,000 per month. Many of those losing their jobs are middle-income teachers, police, and other first responders. The need for more federal fiscal support is increasing as the Federal Reserve's ability to respond to the weak economy diminishes. The Fed recently took a bold step by stating its intention to keep short-term interest rates near zero until mid-2013. This has brought down long-term interest rates and provided some support to stock prices. The Fed can provide even more help by extending the maturity of the Treasury bonds it owns and by purchasing more long-term bonds through another round of quantitative easing. But these ideas are not without problems, chiefly that they are becoming less effective in stimulating the economy. The Fed can't do it alone Acknowledging this in his recent Jackson Hole speech, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke focused attention on fiscal policymakers. Bernanke explained that Congress and the Obama administration must follow through on plans for long-term deficit reduction but also must provide additional near-term support to the economy. Monetary policy alone may not be able to prevent another recession. Additional fiscal help for the economy wouldn't be desirable or even possible if the federal government's debt costs were rising or if government borrowing were tightening credit for households and businesses. But there is no evidence that such crowding out is occurring. Ten-year Treasury yields have fallen below 2%, a near record. This is in part because of the Fed's actions, but the U.S. also remains the global economy's safe haven. Whenever there is a problem anywhere, the investment of choice is a Treasury bond--witness the current flight to Treasuries sparked by financial turmoil in Europe. Borrowing costs for households and businesses also remain extraordinarily low, with fixed mortgage rates closing in on a record low of 4% and Baa corporate bond yields (the lowest investment grade) nearing a 50-year low below 5.5%. Assessing the plan's components The president's jobs plan includes a wide range of temporary tax cuts and spending increases. The plan would cost close to $450 billion over 10 years, with slightly more than $250 billion coming from tax cuts and $200 billion from spending increases. For context, the plan's cost is equal to about 3% of current GDP and just over half the $825 billion ultimate price tag for the 2009 Recovery Act. The largest tax cuts include an extension and expansion of the payroll tax holiday for employees and a creative new payroll tax holiday for employers. Employers would be able to cut their payroll taxes in half on up to $5 million in taxable wages annually. Small businesses, many of whom are cash-strapped, would enjoy a sizable albeit temporary boost in their cashflow. Businesses will also pay no additional taxes on any wages that rise from the year before, up to $50 million. This would give firms a substantive incentive to increase hiring and should result in a larger economic bang for the buck--additional GDP per tax dollar--than previous job tax credits such as last year's HIRE Act. The president has also proposed a tax credit for businesses that hire people unemployed longer than six months--a group that, astonishingly, includes half the jobless. The longer these workers remain unemployed, the harder finding work becomes as their skills and marketability erode. Structural unemployment thus rises as a long-term threat; it appears to have already risen from around 5% before the Great Recession to closer to 5.5% currently. Doing infrastructure the right way The Obama plan's most significant spending increases, totaling more than $100 billion, are for infrastructure. Such development has a large bang for the buck, particularly now, when there are so many unemployed construction workers. It can also help remote and hard-pressed regional economies and produces long-lasting economic benefits. Such projects are difficult to start quickly--``shovel ready'' is in most cases a misnomer--but since unemployment is sure to be a problem for years, this does not seem a significant drawback in the current context. More serious concerns are the expense of infrastructure projects and their often political rather than economic motivation. A creative way to address these concerns is through an infrastructure bank--a government entity with a federal endowment, able to provide loans and guarantees to jump-start private projects. These might include toll roads or user-supported energy facilities or airports. Private investors and developers would determine which projects to pursue based on what works financially rather than politically. The infrastructure bank would take time to launch, however, and thus would not produce quick benefits. Unemployment insurance reforms The president also proposes more funding for unemployment insurance, but in combination with some much-needed reforms to the UI system. One idea involves scaling up a Georgia program that places unemployed workers at companies voluntarily for up to eight weeks at no charge to the businesses. Along with their unemployment benefits, workers receive a small stipend for transportation and other expenses, training, and a tryout with the employer that could lead to a permanent job. Employers can potentially abuse the program by recycling unemployed workers, but the program seems to have had some success since it began in 2003. Another idea to reform UI is to more broadly adopt ``work share'' as an alternative to temporary layoffs and furloughs. Instead of laying off workers in response to a temporary slowdown in demand, employers reduce workers' hours and wages across a department, business unit, or the entire company. The government then provides partial unemployment insurance benefits to make up for a portion of the lost wages. Work share exists in 17 states and several countries overseas, including Germany, where it is credited for contributing to a relatively strong recovery. Saving vital public jobs Like the temporary extension of unemployment insurance benefits, work share has a large bang for the buck, since distressed workers are likely to quickly spend any aid they receive. Work share's economic effectiveness even exceeds that of straight UI benefits, because it reduces both the financial and psychological costs of layoffs. Work share can particularly help firms that expect reductions to be temporary, by reducing their costs for severance, rehiring and training. Hard-pressed state and local governments would also receive additional relief under the president's plan. While state governments appear to be working through their near-term budget problems, local governments are still struggling with flagging property tax revenues. The biggest casualties are teachers and first responders, and Obama's plan would help with their salaries through the end of the 2013 school year. From a headwind to a tailwind The president's plan would provide a meaningful boost to the economy and job market in 2012. Compared with current fiscal policy, the plan adds 2 percentage points to real GDP growth, adds 1.9 million payroll jobs, and reduces unemployment by a percentage point. Federal fiscal policy would go from being a powerful headwind next year to a modest tailwind. Of the 1.9 million jobs added in 2012 under the president's plan, the largest contributor would be the extended payroll tax holiday for employees, which adds approximately 750,000 jobs. The payroll tax holiday for employers is responsible for adding 300,000 jobs, although this may be understated; quantifying the impact of this proposal is difficult. Infrastructure spending adds 400,000 jobs--275,000 jobs are due to additional unemployment insurance funding and 135,000 jobs result from more aid to state and local governments. One potential pitfall of the president's plan is that the boost to growth and jobs fades quickly in 2013. Additional infrastructure spending and aid to state and local governments continue to support growth, but the benefits of the tax cuts peter out. The hopeful assumption is that the private sector will be able to hold up as government support abates. While reasonable, it is important to acknowledge that policymakers hoped for the same thing last year when they passed the one-year payroll tax holiday and extended emergency unemployment insurance through 2011. Also needed: Help for housing The president's plan is large, but in some key respects it is not complete. Most notably, it does not directly address the foreclosure crisis and housing slump, save for some added funding for neighborhood stabilization. The President did mention in his speech that he would be working with the FHFA (Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's regulator) to facilitate more mortgage refinancing; this would be a significant plus for housing and the broader economy if he is able to break the logjam in refinancing activity. With some 3.5 million first-mortgage loans in or near foreclosure and more house price declines likely, it is hard to be enthusiastic about the recovery's prospects. A house is most Americans' most important asset; many small-business owners use their homes as collateral for business credit, and local governments rely on property tax revenues tied to housing values. Most worrisome is the risk that housing will resume the vicious cycle seen at the depths of the last recession, when falling prices pushed more homeowners under water--their loans exceeded their homes' market values--causing more defaults, more distress sales, and even lower prices. That cycle was broken only by unprecedented monetary and fiscal policy support. Other criticisms The president's plan will be criticized for many other reasons. Some will argue that he should have proposed massive public works, like the Depression-era WPA. Others will say the plan should have included broader reforms to corporate taxes or even immigration. While these suggestions may have merit as policies, they seem like steps too far given what lawmakers need to do and how quickly they need to do it. Given the current political environment, it is unlikely that much of what the president has proposed will become law, but nearly all the proposals have some bipartisan support. An extension of the current payroll tax holiday for employees seems most likely to pass and is included in the Moody's Analytics baseline economic outlook. The proposed expansion of the employee tax holiday and the new payroll tax holiday for employers are also possible. The president's spending initiatives, while worthwhile, seem like longer shots. Policymakers need to work fast The risk of a new economic downturn is as high as it has been since the Great Recession ended more than two years ago. A string of unfortunate shocks and a crisis of confidence are to blame. Surging gasoline and food prices and fallout from the Japanese earthquake hurt badly in the spring; more recently, the debt-ceiling drama, a revived European debt crisis, and the S&P downgrade have been especially disconcerting. Confidence, already fragile after the nightmare of the Great Recession and Washington's heated policy debates, was severely undermined. Whether the loss of faith in our economy results in another recession critically depends on how policymakers respond. Whether they will succeed in shoring up confidence is a difficult call. The odds of a renewed recession over the next 12 months are 40%, and they could go higher given the current turmoil in financial markets. The old adage that the stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions is apt, but the recent free fall is disconcerting. Markets and the economy seem one shock away from dangerously unraveling. Policymakers must work quickly and decisively.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Senator from Louisiana. I ask unanimous consent that immediately after Senator Vitter has completed his statement I be recognized for up to 30 minutes, and that I may yield time during that 30-minute period to Senators on this side as we control the 30 minutes.

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

Mr. LEVIN. This is what Mark Zandi said about the President's job proposal: [It] would help stabilize confidence and keep the U.S. from sliding back into recession. [It] would add 2 percentage points to GDP growth next year, add 1.9 million jobs, and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point. The plan would cost about $450 billion, about $250 billion in tax cuts and $200 billion in spending increases. Many of the president's proposals [may be] unlikely to pass Congress, but the most important have a chance of winning bipartisan support. They deserve bipartisan support. Again, most of these proposals have been made by Republicans, not just by Democrats. But even if we cannot get the Republicans to support the proposal--because at least on the spending side it is the President's proposal; on the revenue side, it is now a Democratic Senate proposal in terms of the millionaires' surcharge--but if the Republicans will not vote for it, if they will not offer a substitute, an alternative of their own, if they will not seek to amend it to improve it, for heaven's sake, allow us to take up this bill.

Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, Colombia remains the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists and workers seeking to exercise their internationally recognized right to organize and bargain collectively. The International Trade Union Confederation reported that in 2010 Colombia had 49 union worker assassinations. That is more than the rest of the world combined. To make matters worse, a 2011 ILO report found that the majority of the cases of violence against workers in Colombia had not been investigated nor had the perpetrators been brought to justice. That is simply unacceptable and the United States should not enter into a free trade agreement with a country with such an atrocious human rights record. The Colombian government has failed to enforce its laws, adhere to its international commitment on worker rights, or to prosecute those who commit acts of violence against workers. This repression of fundamental labor rights presents a threat to the lives of the workers in Colombia and a threat to the livelihoods of the workers in the United States who are forced to compete against a country that doesn't play by the rules. I have written several letters to the administration expressing concerns about entering into a free trade agreement with Colombia until these worker rights abuse concerns are adequately addressed. The agreement before us does not adequately address them, and as a result I will oppose H.R. 3078, the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. The Obama administration recognized the need to address these concerns before the free trade agreement could be submitted to Congress and reopened the Bush administration- negotiated U.S.-Colombia FTA to try to address them. That resulted in the action plan related to labor rights agreement reached between the U.S. and Colombia on April 7, 2011. The action plan lists steps Colombia must take to improve its record on antilabor violence and, if rigorously implemented and enforced, could protect Colombian workers' internationally recognized rights. Unfortunately, we gave up any leverage we had to ensure this outcome would occur when we failed to link the action plan to the FTA or its implementing legislation. Both House and Senate Democrats during committee mark up of the bill proposed an amendment that would have created a link between the two, but Republicans blocked any reference to the labor action plan in the Colombia FTA. I disagree with the administration's conclusion that Colombia has made enough progress on implementing the Action Plan to send the U.S.- Colombia FTA implementation act to Congress. Because this free trade agreement is being considered under fast-track procedures, Members of Congress like me, who would like to amend it to make improvements such as linking entry into force of the Colombian FTA to Colombia meeting its obligations under the action plan, cannot do so. Yes, Colombia may so far have technically met its commitments under the action plan. But it has done this only in the narrowest sense, and not in a way that really tries to address the labor problem. For instance, in Colombia, only workers who are directly employed by a company or business can form a union and collectively bargain. To get around allowing workers to form unions and collectively bargain, Colombian employers have formed cooperatives, or made other arrangements to hire their employees as contractors rather than as direct employees. The action plan addressed these abuses by requiring Colombia to pass legislation and regulations to prohibit such misuse of cooperatives and contract employees. Colombia did pass legislation and regulations that looked good on paper, but they were undermined when Colombia decided to narrowly interpreted the new law and regulations as applying only to cooperatives. This is leaves plenty of ways for employers to continue the same practice under a different guise. Given the lack of full implementation of the action plan to date, and without a provision explicitly inking implementation of the FTA to Colombia addressing anti-union violence, impunity and fundamentally deficient labor laws under the action plan, the legislation is fundamentally flawed and I cannot support it. I recognize that we currently do not have two-way trade with Colombia because most Colombian exports enter the U.S. duty free under the Andean Trade Preferences Act. Some might say we should adopt the U.S.- Colombia FTA so U.S. exports can face lower tariffs in Colombia. But Colombia's market is small compared to the U.S. economy and as a result the ITC estimates the overall effect of the U.S. Colombia FTA on the U.S. economy is likely to be small. To me it is more important to insist that any country to which we enter a free trade agreement abide by internationally recognized labor standards and that plans to implement compliance actions be enforceable. Mr. President, I will vote in favor of H.R. 3080, the United States- Korea Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. I will do so because the Obama administration has succeeded in improving the automotive provisions in the Bush administration-negotiated original agreement. The result is that U.S. made vehicles now have a better opportunity to gain access to the historically closed South Korean market. For too long, trade with South Korea has been a one-way street. The American market has been open and South Korea's market persistently closed by using a combination of tariff and nontariff barriers constructed to keep U.S. products out. This was most pronounced in the automotive sector, which makes up the majority of our trade deficit with South Korea. For instance, in 2010 South Korea shipped 515,000 cars to the United States while U.S. automakers exported fewer than 14,000 cars to South Korea. In 2010, we ran a $10 billion trade deficit with South Korea. Our trade deficit with South Korea in the automotive sector accounted for all of that $10 billion. Correcting our deficit in the automotive sector would go a long way to fixing our overall trade deficit with South Korea. The original 2007 U.S.-Korea FTA negotiated by the Bush administration was fundamentally flawed. The agreement called for significant concessions from the United States but would have perpetuated a skewed playing field that unfairly disadvantages U.S. automotive exports. It would have left in place the ever-shifting regulatory regime South Korea has used to effectively bar U.S. autos from the South Korean market. For example, South Korea has imposed so- called auto safety regulations that are unique to Korea and don't have anything to do with safety such as the location of towing devices or headlights or the color of turn-signal lamps. This means that no vehicle built outside of Korea can be sold in Korea without special and expensive modifications and testing to meet these Korean requirements. The failure to address these and other arbitrary, ever-changing regulations was one of the main reasons the agreement was not brought before the Congress for approval for so long. I was opposed to that agreement and as cochairman of the Senate Auto Caucus I spoke out against it. I am pleased that President Obama recognized the importance of the U.S. automotive industry and reopened the agreement to negotiate significantly improved terms for U.S. auto exports to South Korea. Importantly, the revised agreement will prevent South Korea from relying on discriminatory, rotating safety regulations as it has in the past to keep out U.S. auto imports. It does this by requiring South Korea to recognize 25,000 vehicles built to meet U.S. safety standards per automaker per year as meeting South Korean safety standards. This is an increase from 6,500 in the 2007 agreement. The revised agreement also includes an auto-specific safeguard designed to protect against potential surges of South Korean cars and trucks once the applicable tariffs are eliminated. Under the original 2007 agreement, almost 90 percent of South Korea's auto exports to the United States would have received duty-free access. But why should we have reduced our few remaining tariffs to South Korean auto exports unless we were assured greater access to the South Korean markets for our auto exports? For instance, the U.S. auto tariff is only 2.5 percent compared to the South Korean auto tariff of 8 percent. The revised agreement corrected this inequity by reducing Korea's 8 percent duty to 4 percent immediately and to zero in year 5 while delaying elimination of the duty on South Korea's auto exports until year 5, giving U.S. automakers the time to build a brand and distribution presence that will reverse decades of South Korean protectionism. The 2007 agreement was flawed also in how it dealt with the growing field of electric vehicles. The 2007 agreement would have allowed for a 10-year phase-out of the 8 percent South Korean tariff on hybrid electric passenger vehicles and the 2.5 percent U.S. tariff. That was not a fair deal for U.S. electric car exports. It's bad enough that the current South Korean electric car tariff is more than three times the U.S. tariff. The 2007 agreement would have locked in place for 10 years South Korea's electric car tariff advantage. Why in the world would we agree to that? Thankfully the Obama administration did not. Under the revised agreement, the South Korean tariff on electric cars immediately drops from 8 percent to 4 percent. Then the 4 percent South Korean tariff and the 2.5 percent U.S. tariff are phased out over 5 years. Though the tariffs are still not completely symmetrical, it's a big improvement over the original deal. And importantly, this phase-out now tracks the EU-Korean FTA, so U.S. automakers will now not be disadvantaged compared to European auto makers in the South Korean market as they would have been under the 2007 agreement. Stakeholders, including Members of Congress, the United Auto Workers and U.S. auto companies, pushed hard for improved market access in the U.S.-Korea FTA. Thanks to the improvements the Obama administration has negotiated, the UAW, Ford, GM and Chrysler as well as the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, MEMA, among others, support the agreement. They think it will result in their being able to sell more U.S.-made vehicles in South Korea. Specifically, Chrysler has stated that as a result of the FTA it expects to sell 20,000 units per year in South Korea by the end 2014 compared to the paltry 2,638 passenger vehicles it sold there in 2010, and that the company plans to expand its dealer network to 30 outlets from the current 16. These additional U.S. auto exports translate into badly needed American jobs. The 2007 ITC report on the expected impact of the U.S.- Korean FTA estimated U.S. exports to South Korea would increase by $10- $11 billion annually. The administration estimates that an additional $11 billion in exports would mean around 70,000 more jobs annually. In an updated ITC report requested by Senator Wyden to assess the impact on American jobs of the FTA tariff and tariff rate quota reductions on goods based on current economic conditions, the ITC concluded that the agreement has the potential to create about 280,000 American jobs. The agreement also has strong labor and environmental provisions that were agreed to in May 2007 at the insistence of Democratic Members of Congress, led by my brother, Congressman Sandy Levin, the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee. They include the enforcement of a commitment to adopt and enforce internationally recognized labor and environmental standards and agreements. It is high time we insisted on a different trade model that fights for a level playing field for American exports and American workers. I believe the revised U.S.-Korea FTA moves significantly toward that model and I will vote in favor of the legislation to implement it. Mr. President, I will support legislation to implement the U.S.- Panama Free Trade Agreement. The Obama administration has taken important steps to address concerns about worker rights and environmental protections in Panama that represent a significant improvement over the original agreement negotiated by the Bush administration. And, after years of pressure from those of us concerned about the abuse of offshore tax shelters, Panama has finally removed a major impediment to this free trade agreement by agreeing to and beginning to implement a tax information exchange agreement. For 6 years, the Bush administration failed to conclude a tax information exchange agreement with Panama. In 2009, I joined with Congressman Doggett in a letter to President Obama making clear that we could not support a free trade agreement with Panama unless that country upheld its international obligations under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's standards for transparency. The OECD found in September 2010 that Panama has ``potentially serious deficiencies'' in its laws on tax transparency. Thanks to pressure from the OECD, the Obama administration and those of us in Congress who oppose offshore tax haven abuse, Panama negotiated an information exchange agreement that took effect earlier this year. Panama also agreed in negotiations with the Obama administration to uphold internationally recognized labor rights, making changes in its laws to protect collective bargaining rights. These changes have removed a major obstacle to approval of this free trade agreement. With Panama's agreement to meet international standards for tax transparency and labor rights, I believe the agreement before us will protect workers in both countries, and the interests of U.S. taxpayers who are tired of seeing others dodge their tax obligations using offshore tax havens.

Mr. LEVIN. I wish there was an explanation which was satisfactory or an answer which was satisfactory to Senator Brown's question. I am afraid the only answer I can come up with is because this started off as President Obama's job bill. It has been changed. Now we have a different source of funding for it. We have a millionaire's surcharge in there which will fund these critically important programs, these job-creation programs. I cannot think of any other reason, other than they think it will simply go away. What is an explanation? Maybe it was in the unanimous consent request of the Republican leader last night: I ask unanimous consent that this bill not be amendable--no amendments would be in order under his unanimous consent proposal--and then when it does not get 60 votes, which he knew it would not get, that it be immediately returned to the calendar. That is what he asked twice last night--immediately be returned to the calendar. The Republican leader wants this bill to go away. It cannot go away. It should not go away. It will not go away. The majority leader has already said he is going to move to reconsider the vote last night. I expressed the hope, in my remarks, that the President use his bully pulpit not just to support the jobs bill, which is critically important--he is doing a good job as he goes around the country--but to make it clear where the obstruction is; that the Republicans will not allow us to consider a jobs bill, amend it if they want to try, substitute their own if they have one, which so far they do not. But let us debate this bill. I hope the bully pulpit of the President is used, not just to support a jobs bill, which is so critically important, but to point out where the obstruction is. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken.) The Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, I commend the Senator from Ohio for his leadership on this bill. This has been a long time in coming. It is a long battle that is being fought over Chinese unfair trade practices. One of the most significant and damaging unfair trade practices is the manipulation of currency by the Chinese. Senator Brown is taking the lead in getting this finally rectified. I commend him for it. I know the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Pennsylvania, is also a real fighter in this area, trying to correct the unfairness that has been allowed to exist when the Chinese currency is manipulated. Senator Casey, I believe, has been a leader and is an original cosponsor. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the bill. I have long supported the effort to take action against unfair currency manipulation by our trading partners. I think for at least the last 8 years we have had bills that have been introduced to address the issue of unfair currency manipulation. This is an unfair trade practice that contributes to large U.S. trade deficits and to job loss. The reality is that when American companies do business in the global marketplace, they are not competing against companies overseas; they are competing against foreign governments that support those companies. That is especially true with foreign governments such as China and, in the past, Japan and other countries that manipulate the value of their currency to keep its value artificially low. Currency manipulation makes Chinese exports unfairly cheap and U.S. products more expensive in China, displacing U.S. production and jobs. This is nothing short, as Senator Brown has said, of a Chinese Government subsidy, and we should be fighting against it--hard. Trade creates new jobs when we export. Trade results in the loss of jobs when imports replace goods that were once produced here. When trade deficits rise, we are losing jobs to imports. The reality is, we have been running massive, unsustainable trade deficits with China. Just in the first 7 months of this year, we had a trade deficit of more than $160 billion with China. That is four times larger than our deficit with any other trading partner. Last year, we exported $92 billion of goods to China, and we imported an astounding $365 billion from China. So there is a growing trade surplus, as illustrated by the charts Senator Brown has presented to us. China's growing trade surplus with the United States and the rest of the world has been fueled by massive currency manipulation, subsidies, and other unfair trade practices. Estimates are, the Chinese currency is undervalued by up to 40 percent, which makes U.S. goods that much more expensive for Chinese consumers and makes Chinese goods artificially cheap in the United States and around the world. As a result, U.S. imports from China have increased, and U.S. exports to China have been suppressed. Senator Brown has gone through some of the numbers, and I will repeat them because I think it is important that every American focus on these numbers and the growth of this trade deficit with China. In 2001, our trade deficit with China was $84 billion. It grew to $278 billion in 2010. According to an Economic Policy Institute study, released in September, this deficit resulted in the loss or displacement of nearly 2.8 million U.S. jobs over that period. The report blamed part of our deficit with China on their manipulation of its currency, and it is simply long overdue that we enact legislation to end that unfair advantage because the tools we have to combat the problem have been, so far, unequal to the task. The International Monetary Fund has what it calls articles of agreement. Those articles prohibit countries from manipulating their currency for the purpose of gaining unfair trade advantage. But the words are hollow because the IMF has no means to enforce that prohibition. Our current laws give the administration, on paper, the power to act to combat currency manipulation. But those laws are easily bypassed and too easily ignored. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have failed to take action. The Treasury Department is required to issue a semiannual report on international economic and exchange rate policies, in which it could conclude--as almost every independent observer concludes--that China is manipulating its currency. To date, the Treasury Department has never made such a finding since the 1988 Trade Act mandated the report. Instead, what it does--the Treasury Department--is hint, suggests, and sometimes threatens, but it doesn't act. A couple examples. The Bush administration's 2006 exchange rate report said the following: China needs to move quickly to introduce exchange rate flexibility at a far faster pace than it has done to date. Given our strong disappointment [5 years ago] and the importance of China to the world economy, the Treasury Department will closely monitor China's progress in implementing its economic rebalancing strategy, remain fully engaged at every opportunity with China, and continue actively and frankly to press China to quicken the pace of renminbi flexibility. That was the Bush administration 6 years ago. In May of 2011, under the Obama administration, here is what the exchange rate report states: Treasury's view, however, is that progress thus far is insufficient and that more rapid progress is needed. Treasury will continue to closely monitor-- Those were the same words used 5 years ago. Maybe they took this from the computer and moved it from 2006 to 2011. the pace of appreciation of the renminbi by China. It is a high priority for Treasury-- Really? That is good news. The trouble is, the facts don't support the statement. working through the G-20, the IMF, and through direct bilateral discussions to encourage policies that will produce greater exchange rate flexibility. The failure of administration after administration to do more than closely monitor rather than take action is why Congress must act to pass legislation to require action against foreign countries that are unfairly manipulating their currency. So the bill before us, S. 1619, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Act, which is a bipartisan bill, combines several earlier currency manipulation bills. It clarifies that U.S. countervailing duty laws can address currency undervaluation, giving American companies and manufacturers stronger tools to fight back against these unfair trade practices. It would also replace the weak and flawed currency provisions in current law with a new framework, based on objective criteria that will require Treasury to identify misaligned currencies and require action by the administration if countries fail to correct the misalignment. Under this bill, the administration would be required to take specific action if a country with a priority currency designation does not adopt policies to eliminate the misalignment within specified periods of time. For instance, if no policies are adopted after 90 days, the legislation directs the administration to, among other things, prohibit Federal procurement of goods and services from the designated country, unless that country is a member of the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, of which China is not. After 360 days of failure to adopt appropriate policies, the USTR--the Trade Representative--is required to request a dispute settlement in the WTO with the government responsible for the misaligned currency. Congress is on record in support of fighting currency manipulation. In 2007, a majority of Senators went on record supporting a currency manipulation bill that was brought up as an amendment to a State Department reauthorization bill. That bill would have imposed tariffs on Chinese imports to compensate for currency manipulation by China. But it was withdrawn by its sponsors in exchange for a promise to develop and vote on a WTO-compliant bill. The pending bill is a WTO- compliant bill. Last Congress, the House of Representatives passed a bill, H.R. 2378, the Currency Reform For Fair Trade Act. That narrower currency manipulation bill made it clear that the Department of Commerce is to fight the illegal subsidization of foreign currencies by using U.S. countervailing duty laws. Unfortunately, the Senate ran out of time at the end of the session and we did not take up the bill. So the bill before us, S. 1619, will allow us to deal with any country that is found to be manipulating its currency, not just China, which is at the moment the worst offender. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Japan manipulated its currency, and this was a major problem for our manufacturers and put them at an unfair competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis Japanese manufacturers. For instance, when the Japanese Government was intervening in currency markets to hold the yen at 116 yen to the dollar, that translated into an $8,000 subsidy for every large vehicle imported into the United States from Japan. The market share gained by Japanese auto manufacturers was to a significant degree the result of the currency manipulation undertaken by the Japanese Government on behalf of its exporters. Because today the Japanese yen is at historic highs, Japanese currency is not an immediate concern. This could change at any time because Japan has recently indicated it is willing to intervene again in currency markets. So, Mr. President, with both Chambers now on record supporting currency manipulation legislation, there is no reason we should not pass this legislation quickly and send it to the President for his signature. I hope our colleagues will support this bipartisan legislation because it will finally--finally, long overdue, years too late--address the very problematic and costly practice of our trade competitors who manipulate their currencies to create jobs in their countries at the expense of jobs here in the United States. I again thank Senator Brown of Ohio for his great work on this bill. I know he and the Presiding Officer, Senator Casey, and others, including my colleague from Michigan, have been working hard on this bill, and hopefully in the next couple of days it will come to a fruitful conclusion. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, there are thousands of small and medium size counties across our country that form the backbone of our shared history and cultural heritage. These communities shape our political, economic, and social structure. Each has a unique history that defines its region and its citizens. Delta County, MI, set along Lake Michigan in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is one such place, and since its inception 150 years ago, has contributed much to the rich and proud history of my home State. While human life in this region dates back to at least 500 A.D. as evidenced by cliff paintings found in the area, the area was first surveyed in 1843, and in 1861, a triangle shaped section of this land was incorporated as Delta County. At one point in the early 1850s, the mouth of the Escanaba River was home to the largest timber producer in the world; built by one of the county's founding fathers, Nelson Ludington. Two years after the county's incorporation, the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad constructed Delta County's first iron ore dock. Over the ensuing decade, the residents of Delta County witnessed the construction of the first frame houses and a hotel, in addition to the Sand Point Lighthouse in Escanaba. The Delta County Historical Society restored this lighthouse in 1987, and it still stands today along Delta County's majestic coastline. The years following Escanaba's establishment were prosperous, as Delta County grew as a transportation hub for iron in the north, powering the growth of the Great Lakes region's manufacturing prowess. In 1877, the city of Gladstone was incorporated at the end of the Soo Line railroad. Twenty-one years after its founding, Delta County constructed its first courthouse, and a year later, in 1883, the village of Escanaba, the county seat, incorporated as a city. Today, the county takes pride in its continued role in transporting ore, partnered with a diversified paper industry and its popularity as a destination for tourists visiting one of our Nation's most pristine regions. The Hiawatha National Forest accounts for more than half of Delta County's land area. This beautiful natural resource stretches across Michigan's Upper Peninsula, touching three of the five Great Lakes and contains 413 inland lakes, making it a popular destination for campers and outdoor enthusiasts. A respect for the environment is a central part of the culture of Delta County residents, and in 1991, Delta County was awarded one of six statewide ``model'' program grants for a recycling and composting program. Delta County's sesquicentennial marks a great moment for the countless citizens who have contributed much to the success of this region and have helped shape the cultural fabric of this area over the last century and a half. On June 22, Delta County held a ceremony reminiscent of its 100th anniversary celebration, raising a flag and exploring in depth the long, rich history of the county. I know my colleagues in the Senate join me and thousands of citizens across Michigan in wishing the residents of Delta County the best as they chart a course for another century of accomplishment.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has scheduled a hearing entitled, ``Excessive Speculation and Compliance with the Dodd-Frank Act.'' The Subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on speculation in the commodities markets and implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act's provisions on speculative position limits for futures, options, and swap contracts for oil and other commodities. Hearing witnesses will include a panel of experts and the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Subcommittee hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, October 6, 2011, at 9:30 a.m., in room 342 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. For further information, please contact Elise Bean of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations at (202) 224-9505.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, over the last week or so I have outlined, here and in a letter to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, a seven-part plan to reduce the deficit in ways that do not overburden American working families or damage economic growth. In my letter and in three previous speeches on the Senate floor, I have pointed out that revenues, and not just spending cuts, are necessary if we are to achieve significant deficit reduction. And I have discussed four proposals for restoring revenues: combating offshore tax havens; ending the corporate stock option loophole; and ending loopholes for hedge fund managers and derivatives traders. Today I want to discuss three additional changes to our tax system that will make it more efficient and more equitable. We should make two tax rate changes: ending the unsustainable Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and restoring capital gains tax rates to something approaching the rates in place under President Reagan. Also, we should replace the IRS's antiquated tax lien system. These proposals, combined with the other points of my plan, could reduce the deficit on the order of $1 trillion over the next 10 years. Now, some of my colleagues may balk at the notion of reversing years of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. But I believe if we take off our ideological blinders, if we look at facts--hard, stubborn facts--the need for these reforms is clear. First, we should allow Bush-era tax cuts to end for those making more than $250,000. The case for this change is straightforward: It would restore a measure of fairness to the tax code that has been sadly lacking for more than a decade, and it would reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. Supporters of the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 made a number of promises. President Bush said his cuts ``will bring real and immediate benefits to middle-income Americans.'' And yet in the decade since they began, the incomes of middle-class Americans have stagnated. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the typical American household's income, when adjusted for inflation, actually fell more than 8 percent from 2001 to 2010. President Bush said his tax cuts would increase the pace of job creation. And yet during the Bush years, jobs grew at roughly one-third the rate that we enjoyed during the Clinton administration. President Bush said ``we can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget deficits, even if the economy softens.'' And yet just those tax cuts going to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans have added hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit since 2001. So, these tax cuts have failed to deliver the promised benefits, and they have driven us deeper and deeper into debt. Ending them will bring down the deficit; President Obama's proposal to end the cuts for high-income earners would reduce the deficit by an estimated $866 billion over 10 years. What these tax cuts did deliver is a striking and continuing rise in income inequality. It's no coincidence that as we passed a series of tax cuts whose benefits overwhelmingly flow to the wealthiest Americans, those wealthy individuals have seen their fortunes rise. A few decades ago, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans took home 10 percent of all income. Today, they get 24 percent of all income. As those at the top have prospered greatly, middle-class wages have stagnated--again, down more than 8 percent, for the median American household, since the Bush tax cuts took effect. A second proposal also would bring down the deficit and bring more fairness to the tax code: restoring capital gains tax rates closer to those in place during the Reagan administration. Capital gains are income from the increase in value of an asset, such as a stock. Today, thanks to the Bush-era tax cuts, the top rate on capital gains is 15 percent. That's substantially lower than the 28 percent rate included in President Reagan's Tax Reform Act of 1986. The theory in slashing capital gains tax rates was that lower rates would encourage investment, job creation and economic growth. But as has been the case with slashing ordinary income tax rates for the wealthy, cutting capital gains taxes simply has not delivered what supporters promised. Given the stagnation in middle-class living standards that we have seen since the 1980s, it is difficult to argue to middle-class Americans that reducing capital gains rates made them better off. Instead, this is another benefit that flows overwhelmingly to the wealthiest among us. According to the Tax Policy Center, more than 75 percent of the benefit from lower capital gains taxes goes to those with incomes over $1 million a year, and 94 percent of the benefit to those above $200,000. This tax break for the most fortunate of our citizens also adds tens of billions of dollars each year to the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office earlier this year estimated that raising the capital gains rate by just 2 percentage points would reduce the deficit by about $50 billion over 10 years. Raising the top rate closer to Reagan- era levels would bring far more deficit reduction. Those who fight to preserve these high-income tax cuts call attempts to end them ``class warfare.'' Ending these tax breaks won't start a class war. It will help end one--a war that, for more than a decade, has taken a devastating and immediate toll on the middle class, and created huge new deficits that damage their future prospects as well. The simple fact is that if we are to ensure that the burden of deficit reduction falls equitably, and that all our citizens are asked to contribute toward this goal, we must address these upper income tax cuts that have helped balloon the deficit. Deficit reduction will require spending cuts, and some of those cuts will fall hard on working families. But we can't ask them to carry the entire burden. That would be contrary to common sense, because spending cuts alone cannot achieve real deficit reduction. And it would be contrary to any sense of fairness. We all have to contribute. Our constituents are speaking, and speaking loudly, on this topic. And they are speaking eloquently. Let me tell you about an email I received from a constituent a few weeks ago about our deficit. This Michigan resident and her husband consider themselves upper middle class--though she wrote that ``many would call us wealthy.'' She wrote to me that we need to cut spending, and to compromise to do it. ``I will like some cuts and hate others and that is OK with me!'' she wrote. But she also wrote: ``I also strongly urge you to consider passing what many would call tax hikes. . . . We are willing to pay a bit more to help our country and safeguard our children's futures.'' Upper income Americans, she wrote, ``aren't paying taxes at a fair and just rate. Fix this.'' And we should fix it. This constituent of mine said she was part of a ``silent majority'' in favor of increasing revenue. I am not sure how silent they are, but she is certainly part of a majority. In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 72 percent of Americans--and 54 percent of Republicans--said they favored increasing taxes on those who make more than $250,000 a year as part of our deficit reduction strategy. Americans are strongly in favor of a balanced approach to deficit reduction that protects working families. They are asking us to fight for the middle class, and it is time we did so. Let me discuss briefly the tax lien proposal. Tax liens are a basic tool to collect unpaid taxes. Today, Federal law requires liens to be filed on paper in more than 4,000 locations around the country, determined by the location of the lien. The IRS maintains a service center that does nothing but monitor dozens of varying local requirements for lien filings, track filings, and release liens once they are paid. I have introduced legislation, S. 1390, along with Senator Begich, to replace this antiquated system with an electronic federal tax lien registry available to the public on the Internet at no cost. The IRS estimates that this change would not only save millions of dollars in administrative costs, but also enable the IRS to release liens more quickly once they have been paid and free up employees and resources for other work. Equally important, a public electronic registry could help encourage those who owe taxes to settle their bills and take enormous pressure off taxpayers who have paid what they owe. Let me come back to where I started last week. Congress faces a difficult task in the weeks ahead. We must agree to $1.2 trillion or more in deficit reduction over the next decade. Failure to agree on a plan means automatic budget cuts through the sequestration process-- including greatly damaging cuts to defense and other important Federal programs. In my letter to the Joint Select Committee and here on the floor, I have outlined ways to avoid that outcome, proposing commonsense changes that bring equity to our Tax Code and restore lost revenue. If we reject that course, it almost certainly means damaging cuts in important programs--programs that keep our nation safe, that keep our faith with senior citizens and veterans, and that prepare our children for the future. Rejecting that course almost certainly means a failure to significantly reduce the deficit, because spending cuts alone are not enough to accomplish the deficit reduction we need. The choice is ours. I hope we will not allow ideology to blind us to the reality of our budget situation, to the needs of middle-class families, or to the strong and consistent message from Americans who are demanding a balanced approach to reducing the deficit.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I will vote in support of the amendment to renew and extend both the General System of Preferences and trade adjustment assistance. It is the correct approach for Congress to extend trade adjustment assistance, TAA, including an extension of the 2009 bipartisan reforms, before considering the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. TAA is not a substitute for fighting to keep jobs here in the United States. However, given the realities of a global economy we must provide a safety net so workers who lose their jobs as a result of expanded trade and globalization are able to transition to new jobs through retraining and that they have access to affordable health care coverage. The 2002 TAA law covered only manufacturing workers who lost jobs as a result of imports or if those jobs shifted to FTA partner countries. In 2009, as part of the Recovery Act, the TAA Program was expanded through bipartisan efforts to increase training funding. It also expanded eligibility to include the service sector and farmers and to cover workers whose jobs were been moved anywhere offshore, not just to a FTA partner country. Finally, it expanded access to TAA's health coverage tax credit, which helps certified workers purchase private health insurance. Those 2009 expansions expired on February 13, 2011 and are overdue for reauthorization. The bill the Senate is considering today is a bipartisan agreement to restore most of the 2009 provisions through December 31, 2013. It will also apply the benefits retroactively from February 12, 2011. There is clearly a need for an expanded TAA Program. Since the 2009 reforms, almost 450,000 workers have been certified for TAA assistance: over 40 percent of whom were certified under the expanded provisions and coming from every state in the union. As a leading manufacturing state and a significant contributor to global trade, Michigan has relied on the TAA Program to retrain workers for new careers and certified nearly 50,000 workers since the 2009 reforms. Michigan also houses the Great Lakes Trade Adjustment Assistance Center. The Great Lakes TAA Center helps hundreds of firms in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio compete in the global economy. The TAA for firms program assists mostly small and medium-sized companies that experience loss of jobs and sales because of foreign imports. TAA for firms has helped to retain or create tens of thousands of jobs by saving companies and jobs imperiled by import competition. This TAA extension includes $16 million for this important program--TAA for firms.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, our Nation's veterans made enormous sacrifices in defense of our Nation through their military service. One of the many ways we recognize their service is through essential government programs that form the foundation of our Nation's promise to care for veterans. These programs are made stronger by the valuable contributions of volunteers. Volunteers who freely offer their time to improve the quality of life of American veterans provide a personal reminder that a grateful nation will always remember and value their sacrifice. This spirit of generosity and compassion is embodied at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans in west Michigan. A banquet to honor the positive impact these volunteers have had over the past year will take place on September 27, 2011. In operation since 1886, the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans is a 758- bed home for veterans in need of long-term care. Residents are cared for by a professional staff of doctors, nurses and social workers, all of whom tirelessly work to fulfill the home's mission of providing quality interdisciplinary care and helping residents ``achieve their highest potential of independence, self worth, wellness and dignity.'' Supporting the professional staff in these efforts is a capable and compassionate army of volunteers. In 2010 alone, almost 900 different volunteers served at the home, with approximately 200 volunteers putting in at least 100 hours of service. Some volunteers are veterans themselves; some are family members of current or past residents; others have no personal connection to the home other than the desire to help American heroes. Volunteers provide a host of services for the veterans and hold events that improve the residents' quality of life. Perhaps the most essential service volunteers provide is something that most people take for granted: visiting with veterans individually, offering human companionship. For veterans in homes, especially the elderly or disabled, having someone read or play cards with them, or simply have a conversation with them can provide great comfort. In addition to providing a simple yet powerful human connection, volunteers ensure that veterans at the home live active lives by helping to run the home's woodshop, bowling alley and library, as well as escorting residents to painting and ceramics classes. Residents also enjoy the animal therapy program where volunteers bring in their own pet dogs and cats. Last year, volunteers organized a number of special events, including a Super Bowl Party, a Las Vegas Day, three fishing tournaments, a carnival, a fall harvest festival, and a Christmas celebration called the Veterans Star Christmas Project. As part of the project, volunteers distributed more than 700 donated gifts to residents on Christmas Day. According to one resident, the celebration was especially meaningful because ``this kind of brightens our year, to know that there are people thinking about you, that care about you.'' Surely, that kind of reaction is all the reward volunteers want for their efforts. Every day, these generous and dedicated men and women show the residents of the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans that the American people have not forgotten them or their service to our Nation. It is in this spirit of generosity that I know my colleagues will join me in recognizing and thanking all those who volunteered at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. The positive impact they have had on the lives of Michigan veterans is tremendous, and I extend my deepest appreciation for their service.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Records on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wish today to discuss two more ways to reduce the budget deficit by eliminating tax loopholes and special tax breaks and restoring fairness to the Tax Code while protecting essential programs for American families. Last week I sent a letter to members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction outlining a 7-point plan that could lower the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years through some restored revenues. I spoke last week on the floor about the necessity of addressing revenue, not just spending cuts, to achieve real deficit reduction. I discussed in some detail two of the proposals in my plan, which are combating offshore tax haven abuse and eliminating the tax loophole that forces taxpayers to subsidize stock option compensation for corporate executives. Since I spoke last week, President Obama has outlined his ideas for deficit reduction. Significantly, the President has embraced the need to restore significant revenues to reduce the deficit. I believe the President's proposals are an important step toward serious deficit reduction. Indeed, some of his ideas parallel the proposals which I have made to the joint select committee. Today I wish to outline and describe two more of my proposals, each dealing with a tax loophole that benefits Wall Street at the expense of working families and our fiscal well-being. One would end the carried interest loophole that allows hedge fund managers to pay the lower capital gains tax rate on their pay for managing investments. The second would end the blended rate loophole that gives preferential status to income from derivatives trading even in the case of derivatives held for seconds or minutes. That preferred status is given over the kinds of long-term investments that are more important in helping put capital to work, growing the economy, and creating jobs. Each of these two loopholes amounts to a subsidy. Working American families who pay their taxes every year end up carrying an extra burden because these provisions allowed Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate and the rate applied to average workers. I cannot see how anybody can explain to working Americans that they must bear a greater tax burden so hedge fund managers get a tax break on pay that often amounts to millions of dollars a year or so that speculative traders can pay a lower tax rate on so-called investments they might hold for just a few seconds. Let's first talk about the carried interest loophole. Hedge fund managers generally make their money by charging their clients two fees. First, the manager gets a management fee, typically 2 percent of the assets. Second, the manager typically gets 20 percent of the profits from those investments above a certain level. That 20 percent is known as carried interest and, under current law, hedge fund managers can treat that income as a long-term capital gain taxed at a maximum rate of 15 percent and not at the higher ordinary income rates. What is the blended rate loophole? Since 1981, those who trade in some financial products such as futures contracts and options have enjoyed a specially created tax loophole that allows them to pay a lower rate than, for example, traders who buy and sell stock. No matter how long a speculator holds on to a futures or options contract--again, even if it is a few seconds--their gains and losses are taxed at a lower so-called blended rate; that is, part at the capital gains rate and part as ordinary income. So a dealer who buys a stock and sells it within a year must pay taxes at the ordinary income rate, while that same dealer who buys an option and sells it 30 seconds later gets to pay the lower capital gains rate on most of that income. These special tax breaks impose an unfair burden on American taxpayers, and they contribute significantly to the budget deficit. Based on estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation, eliminating the carried interest loophole could reduce the deficit by $20 billion or more over 10 years. The Joint Committee has made no estimates of the cost to the Treasury of the blended rate loophole, but it is reasonable to assume that ending it would reduce the deficit by billions of dollars. Beyond their fiscal impact, these proposals would help restore fairness to the Tax Code. These tax subsidies give preference to activities that do not contribute much to economic growth or job creation the way other activities that don't enjoy the same subsidies do. Instead, they subsidize hedge fund managers and derivative dealers. Take the carried interest loophole again for a moment. We tax income that investors receive from hedge funds and other investments at the lower capital gains rate because, in theory at least, those investments help put capital to work, creating jobs and growing the economy. But the hedge fund manager isn't putting his own capital at risk; he is just doing his job, the same as his employees or the janitor who cleans his office at night. This tax break doesn't reward risk taking or job creation; it rewards what is already an extremely lucrative profession. According to a survey by a magazine covering the hedge fund industry, the top 10 hedge fund managers last year each made at least $440 million. Six made more than $1 billion in 1 year. It is hard to imagine that we need to offer a tax break to encourage people to become hedge fund managers. Similarly, the derivatives blended-rate loophole doesn't just add to the deficit, it is plainly unfair. It is unfair not only to working Americans who have to pay higher tax rates than these derivative traders, it is also unfair to investors who risk their capital and long-term stock and other investments that are more important to job creation but don't enjoy that same tax break. This loophole gives preferential treatment to short-term, speculative trades over long- term, patient capital, and that is exactly the wrong message to send. We should end these Wall Street loopholes. I have encouraged the members of the joint select committee to end them. We should end them because they add to the deficit, because they subsidize activity that does not need a subsidy and that does not add much to economic growth, and because they are unfair to the millions of American taxpayers who do not enjoy the same tax breaks and have to pay more in taxes to make up for these unfair subsidies. Eliminating them would be good for our economy. It would enable us to reduce the deficit by billions of dollars a year. It would help us fund important programs that protect seniors and children, programs that make our Nation stronger. So I hope the joint select committee will look hard at these and other proposals in my plan as they carry out their difficult task. I will be back again in the next few days to discuss three more ideas that can reduce the deficit, protect the middle class, and avoid Draconian cuts in vital programs. I thank the Acting President pro tempore and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

Mr. LEVIN

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

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, yesterday I spoke on the floor about the need to restore revenue as part of our deficit reduction efforts. I explained that I have sent a letter to the members of the Joint Select Committee, now crafting a deficit reduction plan, with seven ideas on how to address our revenue shortfall in ways that reduce the deficit, protect economic growth, and ensure that the sacrifices which are necessary to achieve our budget goals are shared broadly among the American people. Together, these proposals would reduce deficits on the order of $1 trillion over 10 years. Today I want to go into greater detail on two of those ideas to address loopholes and tax breaks that are as damaging to our budget as they are unfair to working families. One proposal would stop corporations and individuals from using offshore tax gimmicks to dodge the taxes they owe. The other proposal would close a loophole that gives corporations a huge tax break when they award stock options to their executives, effectively using the hard-earned tax dollars of American families to subsidize the paychecks of CEOs and other top executives. Let's begin with the goal here, deficit reduction. Budget experts tell us we cannot close our budget gap with spending cuts alone. Revenue must play a role. These two proposals can help. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, has estimated that the use of offshore tax havens by wealthy U.S. taxpayers costs our Treasury around $100 billion a year. I believe the legislation to address that issue can recover a significant portion of that loss. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that a previous version of the legislation would recover nearly $30 billion over 10 years, but new provisions that we have included should raise that figure significantly. Closing the stock option loophole would save $25 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. This revenue would help the Joint Committee in its difficult task of achieving at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction and it would help restore fairness to the Tax Code without penalizing activities that contribute to economic growth or raising taxes on middle-income Americans. Our work on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has, for more than a decade, exposed the ugly truths of tax haven abuse. A single building in the Cayman Islands called the Ugland House serves as the mail drop for nearly 19,000 companies incorporated there for tax- dodging purposes. Of the 100 largest publicly traded corporations in America, 83 have subsidiaries in tax havens. Hedge funds, whose employees live right here in the United States, pretend to be based in tax havens to dodge U.S. taxes. An army of lawyers, bankers, and accountants helps U.S. taxpayers use offshore abuses to avoid taxes. All of this shifts the tax burden of these tax dodgers onto the backs of honest taxpayers. Yesterday, the Internal Revenue Service announced that they have recently completed an offshore program where they give a degree of amnesty to people who are willing to come in and pay their taxes. Thirty thousand such people have come in since 2009, and that is the tip of the iceberg, as our Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations disclosed. How do we combat this? Several colleagues and I have introduced legislation called the ``Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act,'' S. 1346. Our bill will authorize the Treasury Secretary to take special measures against foreign jurisdictions or foreign financial institutions that impede U.S. tax enforcement by prohibiting U.S. financial institutions from doing business with those foreign financial institutions in uncooperative jurisdictions. It will help the IRS identify ownership and control of offshore entities. It would stop corporations whose management and control are located primarily in the United States from claiming foreign status to dodge taxes. It would prevent businesses from dodging taxes by claiming that assets physically held in the United States should be treated as offshore assets for tax purposes. And it would treat derivatives payments sent from the United States to offshore entities as taxable income. Enacting this legislation and ending these offshore abuses would penalize tax dodging, not legitimate economic activity, and it will help to bring down the deficit. Similarly, closing the stock option loophole would not penalize productive economic activity. It would, instead, end an unaffordable Federal subsidy for corporate executive pay. Today, under tax rules for reporting stock options, corporations report stock option expenses on their books when those stock options are granted, but they use another method to claim a different--and usually a much higher--expense on their tax returns when the stock options are exercised. The result is that corporations can usually claim far larger tax deductions for stock options pay on their tax returns than the actual expense they show on their books for those same options. They get a much bigger tax deduction for exactly the same tax option expense as they show on their books. Stock options are the only type of compensation for which the Tax Code allows a corporation to deduct as an expense for tax purposes more than what they show on their books for that same expense. IRS data shows that from 2005 to 2009, this loophole allowed companies to claim between $11 billion and $52 billion each year in excess tax deductions. Legislation I have introduced with Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator McCaskill would end these excess deductions by requiring corporate stock option tax deductions to equal the stock option expense shown on the corporate books for those same options. It would not affect the taxes paid by individuals who receive the stock options--their taxes would not be affected, as now they pay for the actual sales price minus their cost. It would not affect so-called incentive stock options, often used by startup companies. It would make stock option pay subject to the same $1 million cap on corporate tax deductions that applies to other forms of executive pay. These proposals alone will put a major dent in the deficit. They would ensure that multinational corporations and wealthy individuals pay the taxes they owe, just like working Americans. If we are to seriously reduce the deficit, these kinds of tax reforms and the resulting added tax revenues must be part of the discussion. I urge my colleagues, especially those on the Joint Select Committee, to embrace these ideas. Again, I sent a letter yesterday to the members of the joint committee, all the members, laying out these seven ideas which together will raise over $1 trillion in 10 years. I am going to return to the floor in the days ahead to discuss additional reforms, with the resulting revenues, that were set out in my letter to the Joint Select Committee. These changes, these reforms, this loophole closing, will help to close the gap between spending and revenues that all of us I know want to close. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN

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

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I understand that a couple of our colleagues are on their way, and I will yield to them if they get here as expected. In the meantime, I wish to share some thoughts with the Senate about the very complex and difficult duty we all now face, which is to agree to legislation that will reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 billion over the next decade. And, if we fail to do that, by the end of the year, huge automatic budgets in vital national programs, including in security, will take effect to meet the deficit reduction goal. Those automatic cuts would take an unacceptable toll on vital programs. I believe every Member of Congress must do their best to avoid that outcome, and that begins with the 12 members of the Joint Select Committee who have been given the assignment of crafting a plan for us to consider. Despite the difficulty, the task is achievable. We can reach our deficit reduction targets and help ensure fiscal stability while avoiding not only the damaging automatic cuts but also avoiding devastating cuts to defense, health, education, and other programs vital to America and to its families. Achieving this goal will require sacrifices. Everyone is going to have to contribute. But if all of us, every American, will make the sacrifices necessary, we can get this done. How can we do it? Well, we could pretend we can resolve this problem by ignoring why we got here to try to balance the budget by simply cutting more spending or we can take a realistic look at both spending and revenues. We need to take a realistic look at both spending and revenue. A little historical perspective might be helpful. Federal revenues today are at the lowest share of gross domestic product in generations, just 14.9 percent. For the past 60 years, that number has averaged about 18 percent, and during that period we have balanced the budget five times, and each time revenues totaled 19 percent of gross domestic product or higher. Past efforts to reduce high deficits have made new revenue a significant part of the equation. President Reagan presided over three deficit reduction plans that achieved more than three-quarters of their deficit reduction through revenue increases. That was President Reagan. Revenue increases were a major part of his deficit reduction plan. The deficit reduction legislation that we passed in 1990 under the first President Bush achieved about one-third of its deficit cuts through added revenue. President Clinton's 1993 deficit reduction plan was roughly 55 percent new revenue and 45 percent spending cuts and yielded our most recent balanced budgets. Apart from history, the mathematical reality simply is that we must generate additional revenues. If we are going to reduce the deficit and do so while avoiding unacceptable cuts to programs that provide for the common defense and general welfare, revenue must be part of the discussion. Many of our Republican colleagues have focused solely on nondefense discretionary programs for deficit reduction. The simple fact is those programs are not big enough to allow real deficit reduction. They make up only about 12 percent of the Federal budget. If we eliminated all those programs, zeroed them out, we would have done grave harm to millions of American families, but we still would have huge deficits as far as the eye can see. So as the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group, said: For a grand bargain on deficit reduction, finding a way to bring in some revenue is a crucial piece of the puzzle. The nonpartisan Committee for Responsible Federal Budget said that putting the deficit on a downward path requires looking at ways to generate additional revenues. In the balance of my remarks I set out seven different loopholes which need to be closed. It is only fair that these loopholes be closed. They are loopholes which cannot be justified. They are loopholes which I think almost every American would say should not be in our Tax Code. If we simply will change our Tax Code and reform it and close these loopholes, we can raise about $1 trillion over 10 years. That is a huge part of what this Joint Select Committee is required to do. We have to protect middle-class families from tax increases. We have to protect them from losing critically important programs, such as education. We can do that. I have sent a letter to the members-- including my dear friend from Massachusetts--of our select committee laying out the seven loopholes which can, and should, be closed which will have an equitable impact. It is only fair these loopholes be closed, and I have laid out including the use of offshore tax havens to avoid paying taxes. In this letter that went to all the members of this Joint Select Committee, I have set forth what these loopholes are. So revenue needs to be part of the joint select committee's agenda. Our deficit reduction plans will require sacrifice not just from middle-class families but from the corporations and upper income Americans who have done very well in recent years even as middle-class incomes have stagnated. In fact, from 1980 to 2008, the share of all U.S. income going to the top 1 percent of Americans more than doubled, from 10 percent to 24 percent. I make my proposals with that troubling fact in mind. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my letter to the members of the Joint Special Committee be included in the Record after my remarks. The letter identifies seven possible steps to eliminate wasteful tax expenditures and loopholes so as to share the burden of deficit reduction more broadly. As I say in the letter, ``Those measures would not only reduce the deficit, but also render the federal tax system more fair to the millions of honest Americans who pay their taxes.'' Each is practical and doable, each achieves real deficit reduction, and each protects the programs that defend our nation and support middle- class families without increasing the tax burden on the investments that help our economy grow. I plan in the coming days to lay out these ideas in more detail, but to explain them briefly. The first two proposals would close two kinds of unjustified loopholes that benefit corporations and wealthy individuals at the expense of working families: offshore tax shelter abuses that cost American taxpayers billions of dollars a year and a loophole that forces American taxpayers to subsidize the stock options that corporations grant to their executives. The third and fourth would close two Wall Street tax loopholes, the ``carried interest'' loophole that forces Americans to subsidize the paychecks of hedge fund managers, and a derivatives blended tax rate loophole that promotes speculation in futures and options, favoring derivatives over long-term investments that boost economic growth. The fifth and six would promote tax fairness and ensure shared sacrifice in reducing the deficit by restoring upper bracket income tax rates and capital gains tax rates to rates closer to historic norms. The seventh is an administrative change, eliminating the use of paper tax liens and creating an electronic database of those liens. I will discuss these changes in more detail in the days ahead, but let me emphasize today the role they can play in deficit reduction. Combined, these common-sense changes could reduce our deficits by $1 trillion over the next 10 years--a sum that would make the committee's difficult goal, one the Congress and the entire government share, much more achievable. For Republicans, adopting some of these ideas will be difficult. I would say, in empathy and not in anger: Welcome to the club. The spending cuts that will be necessary for significant deficit reduction will be difficult as well. They will hurt real American families, in real ways, and they will damage programs that are at the core of my own party's philosophy about the important role of government in helping to create shared prosperity. Democrats will have to compromise on these cuts. Republicans will also have to compromise, and accept the reality that revenue must be part of the equation, if we are to do our duty. The ideas I have proposed, and will discuss in more detail in the days ahead, outline a path toward such a compromise. It is a fair path. If Republicans are willing to embrace compromise, we can reduce our deficit while helping to protect middle-class families from further economic harm. If Republicans are not willing to compromise, the automatic cuts involved in sequestration that would be forced upon the American people will make our country less safe and the livelihoods of our families less secure. I hope my proposals will help us work together to avoid that tragic outcome. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the letter which I sent to the members of that Joint Committee.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank my friend. Amendment No. 613

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, we soon will vote on a measure that includes two significant pieces of legislation. I support passage of both--one that upholds our duty to assist Americans coping with natural disasters, and one that upholds our duty as Americans to speak out against oppression and abuse around the world. The first measure provides emergency supplemental funding for disaster relief and recovery efforts. Congress must do its job to appropriate emergency funding for disaster response and recovery quickly and thoughtfully, as we have done numerous times in the past. I will vote for this measure because the $6.9 billion in emergency supplemental funding for disaster relief and recovery is necessary to help families and businesses bounce back from catastrophic loss, to rebuild damaged infrastructure, to respond to emergencies, to restore forests and watersheds damaged by disaster, and to improve flood control structures. Importantly, this legislation does not set the bad precedent of requiring an offset in order to help communities and families when disaster strikes. The second measure would renew sanctions against Burma by extending the import restrictions put in place under the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003. While the Burmese government has shown some recent signs of a willingness to implement meaningful reforms, legitimate questions regarding its commitment to these reforms as well as continuing concerns about the ongoing detention of political prisoners and about serious human rights violations justify the renewal of these sanctions. I urge my colleagues to approve this important measure as a reaffirmation of our concern for those here at home who are struck by disaster, and for those abroad who suffer under oppression. Amendment No. 602

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I will vote for passage of H.R. 2887, a combined FAA and surface transportation extension bill. This legislation averts a damaging shutdown of either program. If we fail to extend these programs, it will mean layoffs and the loss of significant revenue to fund airport and road programs. The current FAA extension expires tomorrow and the current surface transportation extension expires at the end of the month, along with the authority to collect the Federal gas taxes that fund the Highway Trust Fund. Passing this bill quickly and extending the FAA reauthorization for 4 months and the surface transportation bill for 6 months allows Congress more time to work out the issues that are holding up completing long-term reauthorizations. Just as important, it keeps thousands of workers on the job, supporting their families.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, today, I honor a son of Michigan, Mr. Wolfgang ``Wolf'' Mattes, a loving husband, dedicated father, caring friend, and stalwart patriot. Mr. Mattes will celebrate his 80th birthday on Sunday, September 18. Mr. Mattes is a dedicated public servant who has selflessly served his country, State and community in various capacities for nearly six decades. Known as an honest, warm, and generous man, Mr. Mattes chose a career as a public servant and worked for the city of Detroit for many years, where he retired as the supervising naturalist at the Belle Isle Nature Center. Wolf is a wildlife conservationist at heart and spent countless hours rehabilitating wild animals and protecting their habitat. Additionally, when his country called, he did not hesitate to respond and proudly served in the U.S. Army during the Korean war. An avid sports fan and athlete, Wolf worked as an usher at Tiger and Olympia Stadiums. At Olympia Stadium, he was the guard for the Red Wing's locker room and bench and was known as ``Wolfie on the bench'' by the players. After Olympia Stadium closed, the Detroit Red Wings brought him with them to Joe Louis Arena, where he worked in the press box. Mr. Mattes understands the value and importance of community service, and his many efforts have been fittingly honored through his selection as a volunteer and firefighter of the year, Kiwanis volunteer of the year, and Elk volunteer of the year. On Sunday, we will all look back and see the hallmarks of a life well lived. He is beloved not for a litany of accomplishments, but simply for who he is. Beneath a humble exterior lies a generous and kind soul. His quiet determination, unfailing kindness, and unyielding spirit have made him a pillar not only of a proud and loving family, but of all who have come to know him. He remains the dedicated husband to his lovely bride Barb, whom he met at Michigan State on a blind date over 52 years ago, and he has been a wonderful father to his adoring daughters Erika Lynn Mattes Rebbe, Heidi Leigh Mattes Mason, Brigitte Beth Mattes Cooper, and Inger Ann Mattes Griffin. Today, we offer heartfelt congratulations to Wolf as he celebrates his 80th birthday. This is truly a joyous occasion. His unending love of family, friends, and country, as well as his devotion to those who have had the privilege of knowing him serve as inspiration to all. Happy birthday, Wolf. May you enjoy happiness, good fortune, and good health for many years to come.