George LeMieux

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Madam President, I come to the floor of the Senate today to talk about the issue of financial regulatory reform, an issue that is consuming the good efforts and time of many of our colleagues in the Senate. It is an issue that is very important to the future economic health and viability of this country. As we go about our lives, even in this difficult economy, I think it is easy to forget how bad things were just a couple of years ago, how bad things were in the fall of 2008. It is important for us to remember the situation that we were put in, where our stock market fell precipitously, where our financial institutions were on the verge of collapse, where the Congress was forced to step in to give billions of dollars of taxpayer money to save the financial institutions, to avoid what was perceived at the time to be a situation as dire as that which happened in the late 1920s when the Great Depression started. It is important for us to remember that terrible, challenging time as we evaluate what we should do now to prevent that time from happening again. We should be looking back to the causes of that crisis in order to figure out the solutions we should impose today. There has been good work done among Members of both sides of the aisle. Senators Dodd, Shelby, Corker, and others on the Banking and Finance Committee have been working overtime to come forward with a piece of legislation that will help put us in a situation where we will no longer have companies too big to fail which could have us going back to the American taxpayer to bail out Wall Street to save our financial institutions. We should never be put in that position again, so I commend the work that is being done. I am hopeful we will have a bipartisan product. There are pieces of this legislation as it is currently constructed which give me concern; that they would cause a bailout to again be a situation that the Congress has to address gives me great concern. There is particular legislation as part of this package which would set up a fund of $50 billion with certain companies designated as too big to fail. I think that is a wrong strategy. I think, therefore, we are guaranteeing future bailouts. We are saying to these companies: You are too big to fail. The Federal Government is giving you its stamp of approval. We will come in and rescue you with taxpayer dollars--or shareholder dollars, for that case. I think that creates the wrong incentive. I think it promotes risky behavior and at the same time creates an unfair playing field for those institutions which have played by the rules, which have had sound financial management. We should not forget in this debate and discussion that the way business is supposed to work in this country is you put together a venture to sell a product or a service. If you succeed, you have a profit. If you fail, you go out of business. The failures of the American economic system are in many ways just as important as the successes. Where would we be if technologies that proved to be failures were subsidized and preventing better technologies from coming forward? That doesn't make any sense for consumers. It doesn't make any sense for the American way of life. We need to make sure businesses can fail if they do not succeed. We have a system of bankruptcy in this country that is admired around the world that, in an orderly way, takes companies into its procedures and either reorganizes them or liquidates them. That should be the way the process works. We do not want to continue to support bad businesses with bad practices and bad ideas. We want the good businesses to succeed, and we certainly do not want to create a playing field where the businesses that run the right way are at a disadvantage. So I have problems with that portion of the bill. There are other portions of the bill with which I have trouble. Certainly, we should not be in a situation of more taxpayer bailouts or even shareholder bailouts. I wish to talk today about the causes of the prior crisis and what this bill needs to do to make sure that crisis does not happen again. If we go back to 2007-2008, we can see in hindsight what led to this financial meltdown. In a State such as mine, Florida, we have been particularly impacted by the meltdown that occurred because the basis of this meltdown was residential property and the mortgages that went along with that property. In a State such as mine, in Florida, we have been very fortunate over the past 30 years or so because as we have had slowdowns in our real estate economy--which is a main driver of the economy in Florida, construction of real estate--other parts of the market have been able to step in and succeed when real estate construction fell back. Never before, until this most recent crisis, was the financial market wedded with the real estate market. Let's look back at the circumstances that occurred. Sometime during the early 2000s, a process started whereby banks and lending institutions would give mortgages to people who did not have the ability, in all honesty, to afford the home they were purchasing. There was a type of loan in Florida, and I am sure in other parts of the country, called the Ninja loan--no income, no job. Why would any lending institution give you a loan if you were not creditworthy in order to obtain that loan. I had the opportunity to purchase my first home back in 1995. When I did, I could only put down 15 percent. My bank required me to get mortgage insurance in order to make it to the 20 percent deposit requirement. That was the way it was in this country. There was a time when you tried to obtain a mortgage where the bank was very vested in you being able to pay because they were holding the note. Sometime in the early 2000s, the process started whereby mortgage brokers and banks could sell off your mortgage into the marketplace because we started to securitize mortgages, make mortgages trading instruments. When that happened and when now the mortgage broker or the bank that generates a fee from the writing of the mortgage of itself can take that mortgage and send it off, sell it off to somebody else, we created a bad incentive. The bad incentive was, I don't care about the creditworthiness of the person to whom I am loaning the money because I no longer have to hold the mortgage. So the creation of these instruments, these securitized instruments to trade mortgages created that bad incentive, and all of a sudden mortgages were being written to people who otherwise did not have the credit and didn't have the likelihood of repaying them. What did that do? Easier money meant prices became inflated. Most folks in Florida and all around this country did not look at the price of the home they were purchasing, they looked at their monthly payment. Interest rates were extremely low, money was easy to get, a downpayment was no longer a requirement. This helped the building business, the home construction business to take off--more homes, more mortgages. The financial markets on Wall Street found that putting together these mortgage-backed securities, these large trading instruments with thousands, tens of thousands of mortgages, was very profitable for them. They could trade these back and forth and they, too, could receive a commission on the sale of these products. That made them money. Guess what. They were not responsible if they went under either. In order for all of this to work, someone had to vouch for the worthiness of these large mortgage-backed securities, these trading instruments of mortgages. Wall Street looked, as it always has looked, to these rating agencies such as S&P, Moody's, Fitch--and guess what. They came along and allegedly looked at these products and stamped them as being AAA, the highest level of creditworthiness, very unlikely to have any problems with them where the person who purchased some kind of instrument on them would not get paid let alone lose their investment. The challenge was that the rating agencies did not understand the mortgages that were in these products. They didn't do the due diligence, and we protect them by Federal law from any recourse. They didn't have any skin in the game either. So now we have the borrower with no skin in the game because they didn't have to put anything down on their house--they are basically renting. We have the bank and mortgage broker with no skin in the game because they don't have to hold the mortgage on their books. We have the financial firms with no skin in the game because they are just trading these large securitized instruments, and worse still they create what they call synthetic agreements where you do not have to hold any of these mortgages yourself. You are just creating sort of a shadow trading instrument that trades off of the same underlying mortgage when, in fact, it doesn't hold them. It is like me betting that your house will burn down without me having an interest in your house. We created this long chain of people in the marketplace, from the borrower to the mortgage broker bank to the financial institution to the rating agency, who had no skin in the game on these transactions. The sale of these market-backed securities, and later the credit default swaps which was the insurance policies against them, created huge fees for the financial firms. We did, for the first time in this history, something we had never done before. We put the prime asset of most Americans--their home--in play on Wall Street. Year after year the demand for these mortgages drove the excess. More and more, poorer and poorer mortgages went to feed the beast on Wall Street. At the end of the day, the housing market couldn't sustain itself, and when the mortgages started to fail, when people started to not be able to make their payments, when the increase in property prices could not increase any more because gravity affects everything after a while, the whole system in 2007 and then 2008 began to fall apart, and we found out that companies such as AIG were all entangled in buying and selling insurance products on these products; that they had huge exposures, that Wall Street banks had $5, $10, $15 billion or more in exposure and some of the biggest institutions that we know from Wall Street failed--at first bought up by other companies and then ultimately bailed out by you, the taxpayer. I go through this history and explain it in the best way I know how. It is a very complicated topic, because what we do in this reform bill has to address the skin-in-the-game problem. So to my friends, Senator Dodd, Senator Shelby, Senator Corker, Senator Warner, and others, who are in the midst of negotiating the bill that will come to this floor, I have made three suggestions as to what we need to do to make sure we do not replicate this problem again. First, these rating agencies, which are captive to the investment banks whose products they rate, can no longer be held harmless to not do the due diligence required and stamp AAA on products they do not investigate and do not understand. But for these rating agencies, this crisis probably would not have happened. But for them, but for the imprimatur of their AAA stamp, people would not have slept well at night buying a product they did not understand. It is like Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports says, this is a great car. It is safe. You as a consumer do not understand the modern workings of a car with all of its computer technology, but you buy Consumer Reports, and you read it. It tells you this is the safest car in America, so you feel safe putting your wife and your kids in that car. But you did not know under this circumstance that the very rating agencies that were rating these products, one, were not doing any due diligence, and, two, were being paid by the investment banks whose products they were rating. That has got to change. Suggestion No. 2. In terms of residential mortgage underwriting, if a broker or bank is going to write some exotic-type mortgage where there is little to nothing down, then they should be required to maintain a portion of those mortgages on their books. Let them bear the risk. Do not let the bank shift it off so it can become securitized in the marketplace, entangle all of our financial institutions, and put us, the taxpayer, at risk. If we make those banks hold some of these nontraditional mortgages, I guarantee you they will do a better job of making sure the people they are lending money to are good creditworthy investments for them. The third suggestion is this: The issuers of securitization, including these synthetic--which basically means manufactured, not real--collateralized debt obligations also should be required to retain a substantial stake of the instruments they market. They have to have skin in the game as well, so that if these instruments fail, they are going to lose money. We have got to understand, not only in this discussion but throughout the problems we address, the incentives we are creating. We cannot have a financial market system whereby there is no exposure to me in any part of the equation, because that is going to encourage bad behavior. It is the same reason why we got it wrong on health care reform. Because as long as we have third-party payers, Medicare and Medicaid insurance companies, we, the consumers, have little interest in the cost we are paying. Therefore, costs do not go down. It is the same brewing problem we are going to have when a recent statistic says that 47 percent of Americans do not pay taxes. If 47 percent of Americans do not pay taxes, do they actually care if the U.S. Government does a good job of spending money effectively and efficiently? The incentive is for them not to care, because it is not their money. We have got to address this issue today in the financial markets, and tomorrow in all of the legislation we pass. Americans, banks, consumers, in all forms, whether we are buying health care services or financial products, whether we are buying a home or trading on Wall Street, we have to have skin in the game, or we create bad incentives that harm our country. With that, I conclude my remarks and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, today is April 15. It is the day Americans are required by law to file their tax returns to pay their fair share to the Internal Revenue Service so that we can operate the Federal Government. I think it is appropriate on a day such as this to talk about the taxes and the efforts of Americans over the past months to put together their financial information to pay what they must pay to the government. Leading up to today, Americans have been involved in that effort of carefully preparing their income tax returns. It is estimated that 7.6 billion hours of time and more than 1 million accountants were required to file this year's returns. Our Tax Code has become so complicated that it takes 7.6 billion hours for Americans to file and figure out those complicated returns, and more than 1 million accountants to help us in our efforts. I know my wife Meike last night was up late making sure we got everything in on time. We do our own taxes, and it is not easy to understand, even for someone like my wife who is an accountant and who is trained in it. It begs the question--why? Every time we do something in this government that does not necessarily help the folks we represent, it is our obligation to question those practices. Need the Tax Code be as difficult as it is? Need it take so many billions of hours of Americans' time, time that could be spent working, time that could be spent with their families? Need we employ 1 million service providers in the form of accountants to help us fill out all these taxes? Of course, the answer is no. There are good proposals in this Chamber and in the House to simplify the Tax Code, to make it so one can put it on one piece of paper. My colleagues, Senator Gregg and Senator Wyden, have such a proposal. There is a proposal in the House that offers the same type of clarity and simplicity to allow Americans, if they choose, to file taxes quickly and easily. Certainly, that is something we should undertake and be about. But let's also ask this question: Is the amount of money that Americans pay in tax actually going to something that is effectively and efficiently administered by the Federal Government? Let's think about all of the money that Washington is taking from Americans every day--and not just Washington, our State and local authorities. In fact, when you think about the number of taxes that people pay, it is quite amazing. First, they go to their jobs in the morning and they make a salary and they pay tax on their income. Then, if they choose to spend that money, they are taxed in a variety of different ways because, if not every State, virtually every State has a sales tax. So they are taxed on the money they make and then they are taxed on the money they spend. Of course, if they do not want to spend that money and save it, we are going to tax them on that too. Think about that. What kind of incentive should we be creating for Americans? Should we be saying they should save their money or should we be saying they should spend it? We tax them, albeit at a lower rate, even to save their money. Any interest they receive on money they put in the bank, or if they invest in a mutual fund or a stock and they receive returns on that investment--they sell that stock, they pay tax again. Of course, we know when they die they pay death taxes. But that is not all. Do you have a phone? You are paying a tax on that. Do you have a cell phone? You pay tax on that. Do you have cable television? You pay tax on that. Do you want to buy property in the State of Florida where I am from? You pay tax on that. Do you want to own and hold property? You pay tax on that. For some Americans, more than 50 percent of what they make, more than half is paid in taxes. I contend that it is immoral to take from anybody more than half of what they make in taxes, especially if how that money is being spent is not being spent wisely. Here in Washington we are very good at taxing. Now we have become very good at spending. This year we are figuring the 2011 budget. We are going to take in an estimated $2.2 trillion, but we are going to spend $3.8 trillion--$1.6 trillion more than we are going to take in. We are not looking at the money we are taking in in taxes and trying to figure out how much we should spend based upon that baseline. We spend based upon what this Congress decides it needs. We have a Budget Committee in the Senate. There is one in the House, too. But the truth of it is we do not operate under a budget. American families sit down at the kitchen table and figure out how much they make and therefore how much they can spend. American businesses do the same thing. So do State governments, by the way. State governments that have balanced budget requirements like my home State of Florida right now are in their legislative session, and they are evaluating how much they can spend based upon how much they are going to have from tax receipts. Guess what. They only spend what they take in. They have three choices: They can cut spending, they can raise taxes, or find new sources of revenue. Here in Washington it is like it is a different conversation, if there is a conversation even at all, because we do not talk about spending based upon what we take in. We talk about spending based upon what people in this Chamber want to spend money on. That system, unfortunately, threatens the very viability of this country. We know right now that we have a nearly $13 trillion national debt. Remember, 1 trillion is 1,000 billion. These numbers are so staggering, it is hard to comprehend them. We know if we continue to spend the way we are projected to spend, this administration has told us that by 2020 we will be $22 trillion in debt. Why is that important? It is important because it hurts investment in our country, and it is important because more and more of what we spend each year goes to paying interest on the debt. This year, we are going to spend more than $200 billion just paying interest on money we should not have spent in the past. If we keep going, by 2020 we will spend $900 billion a year on interest. And, my friends, by the time we get to that point, the system will have failed because, with mandatory spending, spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, plus $900 billion in interest payments, there will not be any money left for anything else. There will not be any money left for defense. There will not be any money left for homeland security. There will not be any money left for commerce or agriculture or any of the other programs, and the system will have failed. So do we wait until 2020 when the system fails or do we do something about it now? We do not have a problem on the revenue side. We are taxing people plenty, and today is a day when most Americans realize that. There is a real problem in this country that we do not think about taxes more because they are sort of hidden from us. We have something called withholding. Most people work for somebody else, they are employees, and they get their check every week, every 2 weeks, once a month. And what do they look at? They want to know what the bottom-line number is. They think that is what they make. They think that is what their employer is paying them, in effect. They do not realize--and none of us do--that they make the top-line number. What is in our check is after everything else has been paid. Imagine if we got rid of withholding. Imagine if every American was required, at the end of the month or at the end of a quarter, as small businesspeople have to do, to write a check to the Federal Government to actually pay their taxes, to take that affirmative act instead of having it withheld out of their check. I think Americans would be in the streets. I think they would be protesting because they would finally realize how much money they are actually paying in taxes. Our problem in this country isn't not enough tax. We do not need to, as members of this administration have suggested, add a value added tax or the equivalent of a national sales tax to help get us out of our deficit and debt problems. What we need to do is stop spending money we do not have. By the way, this body and the body down the hall--you would think we would be focused on oversight, trying to figure out how the money is being spent in these agencies. Sadly, I tell you that is a topic of little interest to many of the people in either of these two bodies. My colleagues for the most part--and there are notable exceptions--care more about creating new programs than focusing on the programs we have. So what we need is a construct. We need something that is going to focus us on spending--spending less. Legislation comes to the floor, and we have a Member of the Senate champion and shepherd that legislation through to spend money. What we do not have is a procedure to focus us on spending less. All the mechanisms here, all the directions flow toward spending money. They never flow toward saving money. We have to change the structure around here, even if just a little. We have to change the focus. What we need to focus on is not spending as much money so that we can have a balanced budget. Yesterday, I proposed a solution called the 2007 solution and filed legislation to this end, that we would freeze spending at the 2007 spending levels because if we did that, we could balance the budget by 2013 and by 2020 we could cut our national debt in half--not the $22 trillion that is estimated but $6 trillion, half of the $12 trillion debt we have now--and we could save America for our children because if we continue down the path we are on, they are not going to have the opportunities we have. We have been able to enjoy an America where anything is possible, where you are not limited by anything but your hopes and dreams. But for our children--I have four little ones: Max, Taylor, Chase, and Madeleine. Madeleine is 2 weeks old. They are not going to have the same opportunities I have enjoyed if their country cannot afford to meet its obligations; if investors from around the world no longer come here because we are no longer a good investment; if we have to raise taxes to such an incredibly high level that it stifles innovation and entrepreneurship, where my kids come to me, when they are 18 or 22, when they are done with school, and say: Dad, I am going to Ireland or India or Brazil or some other country because the promise of that country is greater than that of the United States of America. So it is incumbent upon us in this time--not tomorrow, not next week, not next year, not when we think the economy is doing better, but today--to start getting our spending under control. Why can't we live off of what we lived off of in 2007? When I go back to Florida--and I talked to some folks today from Florida who are here from Bartow, which is in central Florida, in Polk County, and I said to these business leaders: Could you live off what you had in 2007? They all shook their heads affirmatively because they had more money in 2007 than they have today. So now that we have gotten past the stimulus and that big bulge in our spending, hopefully, is over, why can't we go back to 2007 levels, before the economy declined? Remember, it was not until December of 2007 that the recession started. Why can't we go back to that robust year and say: This is our baseline. We took in $2.7 trillion that year. That is more than we expect to take in this year by $\1/2\ trillion. Why can't we live on that level? Guess what. Then we would have to come to the floor of the Senate--and our colleagues would have to do it in the House of Representatives--and have a discussion about priorities: Do we need to spend as much money as we are spending today in our various agencies? Are we getting bang for the buck? When is the last time a Cabinet Secretary, an agency head went inside their department and said: I want you to find cuts of 10 percent, 20 percent. I want you to use technology to create efficiencies. Let's impose a hiring freeze until we can figure out whether we can do more with less. American businesses have been doing this for the past 3 years during this recession. They have been cutting in order to make ends meet. Government is going to have to do the same. And I guarantee you that there are hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and inefficiency and fraud in the system; that if we spent as much money and attention and time focusing on that as we do on creating new programs, we could right our fiscal house. So I have offered this legislation to bring us back to 2007, really just to have a debate, have a focus and a structure to talk about it every year for 50 hours on the floor of this Chamber and in the House so that we can begin to focus on what matters; that is, putting our fiscal house in order so that our children have the same opportunities we have because, frankly, that is our solemn obligation in this country. Our obligation is to make sure our children have equal or greater opportunities than we had. Everything else that we do, by comparison, will not measure up if we fail to meet that solemn and sacred vow. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen.) The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. LeMIEUX

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

Mr. LeMIEUX. I ask to speak as in morning business.

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on a topic I have addressed many times since I came to the Senate in the fall of last year. Having come from running a business and having worked in State government, every day it is still alarming to me the way Washington spends money. In no other place in America and perhaps no other place in the world is money spent by an organization without any reference to how much money is being taken in. Unfortunately, the situation has gotten to a point where it is completely unsustainable for this country. We open our newspapers today and we read stories about Greece having to borrow money from the European Union, being so far in debt that the forecast of the country's viability is in question. Yet our country is headed on the same path, but few come to the floor of this Chamber and sound the alarm. I will continue to do that for the remainder of the time I have here in this body because the future of this country is at peril. While we have spent too much for many years, the rate and pace of that spending now is beyond control. But it need not be. We need not continue in the ways of spending more money than we can possibly pay back. Let me set the table, if I may, of the financial situation we are in. Here in 2010, we are about the business of setting up the budget for 2011. You would think the first question we would ask would be, How much money do we expect to take in in 2011? Well, the number is about $2.2 trillion. Yet the projected budget of how much we are going to spend is $3.8 trillion. We will run a deficit in this year alone of $1.6 trillion. Now, these numbers are so big. Well, $1 trillion--what is $1 trillion? Well, $1 trillion is $1,000 billion--$1,000 billion. A billion is 1,000 million. The numbers are so hard to fathom, but let me explain, if I can, in a way I have often talked about here on the floor. If you put dollar bills side to side, you could cover two football fields with $1 million. If one laid $1 billion on the ground in one-dollar bills side by side, they could cover Key West, FL, which has a square area of more than 3 miles. They would blanket the city with one-dollar bills with $1 billion. Mr. President, $1 trillion will cover the State of Rhode Island twice. Every one of these dollars is a dollar taken from the American taxpayer, a dollar they could spend on families, on children's education, on homes, on needed repairs. We take those dollars and spend them. Now we spend them beyond an ability to pay them back. Right now, because of the money we borrow, more than $200 billion a year goes to interest payments alone, paying for the money we should not have spent in the past. At our current rate of spending, according to this administration, by the end of this decade, we will have another almost $10 trillion in debt, making our total debt $22 trillion. At that point, our interest payment each year will be $900 billion. At that point, the budget breaks. At that point, what we call mandatory spending on entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, will be all of the budget plus the interest. There will be no money for defense, no money for homeland security, for any of the other programs in government. If we have this impending crisis, if we are driving the car toward the wall, why aren't we making any changes? Today I am filing legislation to enact a change, enact a mechanism, an architecture to have a discussion on the floor in this Chamber and in the House to find a solution to put America back on a stable financial path. The bill is what I call the 2007 solution. In 2007, the economy was still going strong. It was not until December of that year that we found ourselves beginning the recession. If I go home to Florida, as I did this past weekend, and talk to Floridians and ask: Could you live on what you had in 2007? Based on these difficult times, my constituents had more money in 2007 than they do in 2010. Why shouldn't the Federal Government be able to live on what we spent in 2007? Why can't that be enough? If we did that, if we froze spending across the board at 2007 levels, when the economy was still going strong, before we injected all this stimulus money, if we go back to a place of normalcy--and, trust me, there was plenty of redundant and wasteful spending in 2007--let's go back to that as a framework. If we were to cap our spending at 2007 levels, by 2013, we would balance the budget and start running a surplus. By 2020, instead of having a $22 trillion national debt that is unsustainable, we would have a $6 trillion national debt. We would have cut it in half. We would have preserved the American dream for our children and grandchildren. I have four small kids--we just had a baby 2 weeks ago--Max, Taylor, Chase, and Madeleine, 6, 4, 2, and 2 weeks. My greatest fear is, someday one of my kids is going to come to me, when they are an adult, after they have gone to school, and say: Dad, we are going to move to India or Brazil or Ireland or some other country. The opportunities in those countries are better than the ones in the United States. Dad, your generation and the generation before so mismanaged this government that you ruined the American dream. Our taxes now are so high to pay for the debt for things you spent in the past. Our entitlements are so weighty we can't afford them. We are going to leave. The 2007 solution would solve that problem. How does it work? Every year under this bill, the majority leader of the Senate and the majority leader in the House would have to come to the floor and file a procedure to allow for 50 hours of debate on this floor and on the floor of the House of Representatives to decide how we are going to make cuts to stay within 2007 levels. If the majority leader doesn't do it, the minority leader has the opportunity. If the minority leader doesn't do it, any Senator can do it. Then we will have to, for the first time, have an adult conversation about priorities. Maybe then we would call in the agency heads of the different agencies of government who have had 10, 15, 20 percent-plus increases year after year in their budgets for more than a decade, and we would say: Can you make some cuts? Can you do things more efficiently? American businesses for the past 3 years have been making tremendous cuts because they have to. We don't make cuts in our agencies. Our agency heads don't meet with the members of their organizations, the tens and thousands of workers who work in the different agencies, and say: Can we do things differently? Can we do things more efficiently? This morning I had the opportunity to speak to a friend of mine who is about to become speaker of the house of the Florida House of Representatives, a man named Dean Cannon. Right now the Florida legislature is in session. They have to balance their budget, a very unfamiliar notion in Washington, DC. They are cutting billions of dollars from the Florida budget, as they did last year and the year before, because revenues are down because the economy is hurting. They have three choices. They can make cuts, raise taxes, or find new sources of revenue. Right now they are going through the process of cutting because they have to. They are making responsible leadership decisions. That process does not happen in Washington, DC. Under this bill, a framework would be provided that would require that debate. It would require that focus. The majority of my colleagues are more interested in new programs than making the programs we have run more efficiently and effectively. We cannot afford new programs. We cannot afford the programs we have now. If we keep blindly looking off and pretending we don't have this crisis, the car is going to hit the wall. Our children are going to be in a situation where they can't fulfill the American dream. The 2007 solution says we are going to have a debate for 50 hours on the floor of this Chamber every year about how we can get back to 2007 levels. It doesn't specify where the cuts should be. Shall we make cuts in the Defense Department? Do we need to reform our entitlement programs? Is there waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare? We would have those discussions. It would be our governing, focusing principle for at least 50 hours. Do we not have 50 hours to figure out whether we can run government more efficiently and effectively? There are hundreds of billions of dollars we could cut out of the Federal Government and not impact our constituents back home. I am convinced of it. Do we not think there is 10 percent waste in Federal agencies that have not made cuts for more than a decade? If we cut 10 percent across the board in Federal agencies, we would save more than $100 billion a year; 20 percent gets us close to $300 billion. Businesses, families, State governments are doing this right now and have been doing it for years. The 2007 solution, which I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will embrace, says: Let's have a discussion. Let's have the architecture in place to get back to a level of sustainable spending. If we did that, if we were principled about it, we could save this country. It is to that point. The debt is cascading out of control. I came to this body in September of last year. I stand on the floor of the Senate in April, and we have gone $1 trillion more in debt since I arrived, $1 trillion in a 6- or 7-month period. It took us until 1980, from 1789 to 1980, to go $1 trillion in debt. We did it in 6 or 7 months. Our spending is out of control. We need a solution. We need a framework for a governing leadership discussion. I believe the 2007 solution bill can do that. I hope my colleagues will embrace this provision. I hope we can create an architecture to put America back on the right path. I know there are people of good conscience on both sides of the aisle, including the man who sits in the chair today, who care about this spending problem. If we could get past partisanship, if we could get past rhetoric and focus on this issue, we could save America. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I rise to speak today on this extenders bill that we will vote on here on a point of order that I will make in just a few minutes. The purpose of this point of order is this: Not too long ago in this Congress, we passed legislation called pay-go, and what pay-go is supposed to mean is that we will pay as we go in this Congress; that when we create a new program, we extend a current program, we will pay for it; that we will not continue to borrow against our children's future. I was here in the Senate when we had that debate. It was a debate that came down to a purely party-line decision. I am new to this body, and I wanted to vote for this because I believe pay-go might actually be something that limits the out-of- control spending of Washington. I talked to my colleagues, and some of my colleagues who have been around longer than I said: Look, Senator, it is not really going to do anything. They are just going to move to waive it every time it comes into effect. They are not going to play by the rules. They are not going to pay for things as you go. It is just cover. I wanted to vote for it. I struggled with it. In the end, I did not vote for it. And here we are just a few months--2 months past February 12 when the President signed this pay-as-you-go legislation--only 19 days after that, we waived it on a bill very similar to this, and now we are going to seek to waive this legislation again to spend $19 billion and put it on the tab of our children and our grandchildren. Let's talk about what this bill is. It would extend unemployment compensation and it would extend COBRA, which is health care benefits for people who lose their jobs. If we were to vote on this and pay for it, I think 100 Senators would vote for it. Shortly before the recess for the holiday break, there was an agreement in this Chamber between Republicans and Democrats that we would find the money to pay for this so that we wouldn't have to put it on the backs of our children, so that we would not have to borrow the money from China, so that we wouldn't have to increase our growing debt and deficit. Our national debt is now nearly $13 trillion. It has gone up $1 trillion in the short time I have been here in the Senate. To give you reference on that, it took until 1980, from the founding of this country until 1980 for us to amass our first trillion dollars in debt. The system of spending is unsustainable. I spoke on the floor this morning about it. But don't just take my word for it; take Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who testified today before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and said this government must begin to make difficult choices to address its deficits and warned that postponing them will only make them more difficult. So here today we are going to spend another $19 billion and put it off on our children, and they will have to pay for it because we are going to have to borrow this money. We are not supposed to be able to waive this rule, this legislation, unless it is an emergency. This is no emergency, and that is the basis of my point of order I will make here in just a few minutes. What is an emergency? Well, most of us think it is what Merriam- Webster says it is: an unforeseen combination of circumstances resulting in a state that calls for immediate action--an unforeseen combination of circumstances. Has it been unforeseen that we were going to have to extend unemployment compensation? Was it unforeseen that we were going to have to extend COBRA? Of course, it is not. We knew we were going to have to do this, but there is an unwillingness in this Congress to pay for things. There is a willingness to put the debt upon our children and our grandchildren. The Budget Act of 1974 that we operate under says that an emergency is necessary, essential or vital, sudden, quick coming into being and not building up over time, urgent, pressing, compelling, unforeseen, unpredictable, not permanent, temporary in nature. None of those requirements are met by this attempt to waive the pay-as-you-go requirements. Why do we have pay-go if we are just going to waive it every time we think we need to spend more money? This is no emergency. This is just part and parcel of the problem we have in Washington of continuing to spend in an unsustainable way. And when, 5 years or 10 years from now, we are in the same situation Greece is in; when we have failed this country for our children; when we have $900 billion in interest payments alone in 2020 on our current course, which will not allow us to spend money on anything else because that plus mandatory spending will be all there is in the budget; when our economic system fails because we have failed to make the decisions to control our spending, you will know why--because of the decisions that are being made today, in 2010, in April, decisions to add another $19 billion to our national debt. I yield the floor. I reserve my right to speak shortly before the vote is called at 12:30.

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

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the chairman of the Finance Committee. I appreciate his comments about the need for this body to enter into a discussion about fiscal discipline. I offered legislation today to have a requirement that we would have a debate every year to talk about bringing spending back to 2007 levels, prior to the stimulus, prior to the recession, certainly a time when this country had a much better economy than now. If I asked Floridians if they could live off of what they had in 2007, they would be happy to have that much money. Whatever the architecture is, we need to get into that. Our budget deficit and the debt are cascading out of control. I disagree with my colleague that we can wait until the recession is over. While I am optimistic that we will soon be turning the corner, times are very tough in my State. I don't know if it is going to be next year or the year after that we are out of this recession. We have the worst unemployment we have had since we have been keeping records in Florida, 12.2 percent. I don't know that we can wait, especially when we hear the Chairman of the Federal Reserve say we must act now. Recently, we were in a situation where bonds went out to issue, and the Wall Street Journal reported that the yield rate the Federal Government had to offer on those bonds, the interest rate was more than Warren Buffett had to offer. Warren Buffett was a better investment than the United States. Why is that? It is because the world is beginning to believe the United States can't manage its debt. Places such as Brazil have had their stock market increase 100 percent in the last year because they are now seen as a better investment than this country. We can't wait. We can't wait for 6 months or a year from now. Perhaps the time has already gone too far. I raise a point of order pursuant to section 4(g) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.

Mr. LeMIEUX. I raise a point of order against the emergency designation in the pending substitute amendment and note this is not a budget point of order. It doesn't kill this provision. It only requires that it be paid for by the end of the year. Everybody is for extending unemployment compensation. Everyone is for paying for COBRA. The point is, pay for it.

Mr. LeMIEUX. I have raised a point of order. I repeat, pursuant to section 4(g) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, I raise a point of order against the emergency designation provision in the pending substitute amendment.

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Alabama. Senator Sessions has been an outstanding leader on many issues but specifically on this issue of fighting against this debt. He and I often talk about these concerns. He comes to the floor, and he articulates these concerns so the American people can understand how dangerous this situation is. But he does not just come and talk about the problem; he offers real solutions to cap our spending, to find mechanisms to get this Congress on the right course. As my friend mentioned, I am new to the Senate. I was appointed and came here in September of last year. My experience is in business and my experience is in State government back home in Florida. The comparisons to how Congress manages its money--your money--versus how a family does or a business does or even a State government does, those comparisons are striking because this is the only institution I have ever been a part of where we do not have to make ends meet, where we just spend money we do not have, where we never have a discussion about, well, if we raise this budget for this particular part of the money we spend, how much are we going to have to lower this budget. That discussion does not happen in the U.S. Congress. In 2011, we are going to take in an estimated $2.2 trillion in revenue from taxes--money that is coming from you, the American people--but we are going to spend $3.8 trillion. That is like a family in my home State, say, in Ocala, who makes $22,000 a year and they are going to spend $38,000. Oh, by the way, they have $1 million in debt. It is unsustainable. The way the American people run their families, the way businesses have to run their budgets, the way State governments that are constitutionally required to balance their budgets have to cut spending in tough times--we do not have those mechanisms in this body, and we do not have enough people, such as Senator Sessions, Senator Chambliss, my friend from Georgia, and Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, who come to the floor and bring forth good ideas to talk about this spending problem. This current bill to extend unemployment insurance and add money for doctors who give Medicare services--a lot of those folks in my State in Florida--and for money for COBRA, which is health care when you are unemployed, so government can put in that portion your employer would normally pay for--these are all good things. Every Member of this body, all 100 Senators, all 41 Members of the Republican side want to vote for this bill. Last night, as my friend from Alabama said, we had a deal worked out with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to pay for this. What a novel idea: We are going to spend new money, and we are actually going to cut money from someplace else in the budget so we do not add to the deficit and the debt--shockingly good idea in Washington. But the deal fell apart because our friends in the House of Representatives, the Democratic leadership, would not agree to it. Let me tell you, there is probably no State in the Union that needs this money more than Florida. I want to vote for it, but I cannot vote for it because it is not paid for. My friend from Georgia just talked about the unemployment number that came out--more than 10 percent unemployment in Georgia. He has a new number coming out today. The number came out in Florida. We are at 12.2 percent unemployment announced today--12.2 percent, the worst unemployment in the history of keeping records in Florida. The second worst time was in 1973 to 1975, during that recession. There are 1,126,000 Floridians out of work. By the way, that is just the unemployed number. We know those who are underemployed--people who lost their jobs and now have to work part time and cannot get full-time employment--we know that number, if you add it with those who are unemployed, is probably 17, 18, 19 percent of the people. When I go home to Florida and I am walking down the street, one out of every five people I see of working age and ability either does not have a job or does not have enough work. That is the issue on which we should be focused. But we cannot continue to pay for things here that we cannot afford. We cannot continue to burden our kids and the next generation with debt they will not be able to pay. The hour of awakening and the hour we will be responsible and feel the impact for this spending is not just 5 or 10 years from now; it is now, it is today. Let me give an example. Today in the Wall Street Journal, there is an article by Tom Lauricella. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this article in the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, the article talks about the fact that when we are selling our debt, which is what the Federal Government does when we do not have enough money to pay for our expenditures, when we spend more than we have, we borrow and we issue debt instruments-- bonds, Treasury notes. Now we find out in today's Wall Street Journal that the demand for our debt is falling. As my friend, Senator Sessions from Alabama, said, Warren Buffett now is a better investment than the U.S. Treasury. What an important statement that is for us to think about, that we no longer are the best investment, that an individual in this country is a more worthy investment. Now Treasury note demand is down. What happens when less people want to buy our debt? When they turn their nose up at our Treasury offerings, the bond prices go down and the yield goes higher. The interest rate goes up. That does a couple things. One is that we have to spend more money on interest payments. That means more of our spending in the year will go to pay for our debt. The third or fourth-- depending on how you count it--biggest expenditure every year in our budget is our interest payments. There is more than $200 billion a year in interest payments alone. That is money that could be sent back to you, the taxpayer, or could be used to pave roads or hire teachers or send kids to college, and we are sending it to finance bad decisions we have already made. But now, with the interest rates, the yield rates going higher on the debt we are offering, guess what it is going to do. It is going to increase the cost of borrowing money, which is going to increase the cost of mortgages. So here I am from Florida, and I sure want to extend unemployment insurance to folks who are suffering, but I also don't want to do any more damage to our real estate market. We have some of the worst foreclosure rates in the country. So what is going to happen when that family of four in Naples, FL, who has been struggling through this economy, has a problem keeping a job? Maybe mom lost a job and now she is underemployed and dad is unemployed, and they are trying to make their mortgage payments. They have an adjustable rate mortgage and their interest rates are going to go up. What happens if someone wants to buy a new house in our struggling real estate economy? They can't go buy that house because that house is now more expensive because the interest rates have gone up. So the problems of our debt and our deficit are not just going to be visited on our kids, they are being visited now. Other countries around the world, their economies are booming. Their growth is coming back-- places such as Brazil are on fire. Their stock market is up incredibly because the world is finding it a better place to invest than the United States. Our debt is making us a bad investment. So not just for our kids or our grandkids, right now this economy is going to have problems recovering because of the debt we have now. But let's talk a second about the future. Sometime between now and Monday my wife and I are going to have our fourth child. I have the cell phone in my pocket. If it rings, I have to go. That baby is going to be born in a country where he or she will be responsible for about $40,000 in debt. What is the future of our baby, along with our other three sons who are 6, 4 and 2, going to be like in this country with all of this crushing debt, with $10 trillion more in debt expected by the end of this decade? We are going to pay $800 billion in interest payments by the end of this decade if this spending continues. That is more than we spend on the defense of the United States, more than our Defense Department budget. More and more will go to interest; less and less will go to spending. Then what will happen? Taxes are going to have to go up, and by the way, 70 million people are going to retire and they are going to go into Medicare. Those two programs right now don't have enough money in them. So while I am high on the American people, and I am optimistic this country can do anything, I am seriously worried about this government. I am seriously worried about the fact that we spend money we don't have, and I am seriously worried about the fact that there are too few Members of this body and the body down the hall who want to make the tough decisions to start cutting our spending now to save our future. By the way, it wouldn't be that hard to do. It wouldn't be that hard to do for us to come together, Democrats and Republicans alike. The American people should know we have colleagues on the other side of the aisle who want to do this. We talk to them. They are concerned too. But we have to come together and address this, and we are going to have to make, as the President would say, grownup decisions about the future of this country. Some things are going to have to get cut, and we are going to have to spend less. Let me give an example of the framework--for when we come back from the break--of a piece of legislation I will introduce to give us the mechanism for doing this. If we went back to the spending that we had in 2007, which is just 3 years ago, and we froze spending at that level for the next 10 years--until 2020--we would balance the budget in 2013, and we would cut the deficit of $12 trillion in half by 2020. Now, the question I ask when I am back in Florida talking to constituents is--as my friend from Georgia said--whether at a supermarket, at a townhall meeting, or at a church--would you be able to live off the money you made in 2007? Well, the answer unanimously is, yes; it is more than I am making now. The economy didn't go into recession until December of 2007. So why can't government go back to what we spent in 2007 and cap it? Then we could do something we don't do in this Congress: We could look at the money we are spending now as opposed to trying to spend new money and find out whether we are doing it efficiently. We could cut the wasteful programs. My colleague from Oklahoma has already been identifying hundreds of duplicative programs in government. We could go and find ways to combat waste, fraud, and abuse. For example, we know there is $60 billion to $100 billion a year in Medicare fraud--health care for seniors. My State, unfortunately, is the leading place for health care fraud in the country. I have a proposal I have talked to my friend, the chairman of the Finance Committee, about--Chairman Baucus--and other Democrats, and I think we are going to get some bipartisan support to pass that this year, and that may save us $20 billion by stopping waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. Does anyone think there is not waste and fraud and abuse throughout the spending of government? When is the last time someone went and looked under the hood of one of these agencies and said: Could we do the same work with less? Do we need to spend as much money as we spent last year? Businesses do this every year. They are doing it right now, just as families are doing it. They are saying: Do we really need to do what we did last year? We have less money; what do we cut? Government doesn't do that. Our friends on the other side are more interested in new programs. We should all spend a year or two focusing on the programs we have. My friend from Oklahoma, Senator Coburn, is a champion at oversight and gets under the hood of these agencies and looks at the spending. It is not just in the social services agencies, it is in all the agencies--in the Defense Department and everywhere. We have a duty to the American people to make sure that every dollar we spend, we spend wisely. Let's spend a couple of years questioning the money we are spending now. Let's have our agency heads, our Secretaries, our Cabinet members, instead of devising new programs, go into the programs they have and see whether they are helping the American people. If they are not, let's cut them. Let's freeze hiring across the Federal Government. A lot of folks are going to retire out of the Federal Government when the baby boomers retire. It is an easy way to shrink the size of government, to let those folks retire and not replace them. Technology in the private sector gives us great opportunities to do more with less. In government, we do less with more. So I am appreciative of my friend from Oklahoma for bringing up this point and objecting. It is not politically popular to do. None of us wants to stand in the way of unemployment compensation. I need it in Florida for my folks who are out of work. But we are impacting our way of life now, and we are going to impact our children's lives. When my baby is born this weekend, or on Monday, I am going to be extremely happy--and I know my wife is--about bringing a fourth child into the world, but it will still be in the back of my mind: Is he or she going to inherit the same America I have, with all the same opportunities I was able to enjoy? I hope so. With that, I yield the floor to my friend from Oklahoma.

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Madam President, I rise to commemorate Red Cross Month. The American Red Cross is an exceptional organization, dedicated to helping people in time of need and providing a level of services that no other agencies provide. Led by volunteers and guided by its Congressional Charter and the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross Movement, this group provides relief to victims of disaster and helps people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies. The American Red Cross has an expansive and influential reach around the globe and in our neighborhoods at home. From assisting victims of house fires or catastrophic storms here in my home State of Florida to helping those affected by the devastating earthquake that took place in Haiti a couple of months ago, the American Red Cross is there, mobilizing our fellow Floridians in its mission to alleviate human suffering and to assist us in disaster preparedness, lifesaving training and addressing an array of emergencies. Locally, the American Red Cross is also a leader in providing aquatic safety programs-- something of great importance to the State of Florida. Every day the Red Cross trains our friends and neighbors in lifesaving CPR, first aid, swimming lessons, drowning prevention and water safety instruction. Globally, the American Red Cross International Services Program reestablishes communication with loved ones separated by armed conflicts or natural disaster. Recently, the Red Cross provided family linkages from Haiti earthquake survivors to family members living abroad. In addition, our American Red Cross is unique in its mission to use archives located around the world to trace missing Holocaust family members. A community-funded and supported organization, the American Red Cross provides around-the-clock emergency services, every day, 24/7. When the American Red Cross arrives on the scene, its staff and volunteers are armed with compassion and support. As we saw during the response to the earthquake in Haiti, you can always count on our Florida chapters of the American Red Cross to be in the forefront when our community needs them, time and time again. I am proud to join with my colleagues in recognizing the Red Cross and thanking the staff and volunteers for their many contributions to our neighborhoods, communities and State.

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending motions and amendments so that I may offer an amendment which is at the desk.

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment I am offering today. I wish to thank my colleague from Virginia who asked us to think about the practical aspects of this health care reform. I just listened to my freshman colleagues on the Democratic side talk about all of the good things, in their opinion, this bill is going to do. There is one thing I didn't hear them speak about. I didn't hear them speak about the fact that half of the new people who are going to be covered by health care in this country--some 16 million of the 30-some million who have the opportunity for health care under this law--are going into Medicaid. The practical impact my friend from Virginia asked us to think about is that our States right now are finding themselves in bankruptcy, realistically, because of the obligations of Medicaid. Our States, unlike the Federal Government, have to balance their budgets. Medicaid is a program that the States pay some 50 percent of, and they can't make it work. We are finding out in Florida right now that this program--this new law--will cost Florida $1 billion in the next 10 years. Because they balance their budget and because they can't print money, that means the dollars will go away from teachers, away from students, and away from police. The point I wish to make today and the amendment I am offering is this: Several times, as I have been on the floor and heard from my Democratic colleagues, they have made this point: Why shouldn't the American people have the same health care that we in the Congress enjoy? Why shouldn't they, as do all Federal employees, be able to pick from a comprehensive and rich plan of benefits in order to take care of their health and the health of their families? That is a good point, but what is going to happen to these 16 million new Americans? They are going to go on Medicaid. That is not the plan we have. That is not the rich benefits the Members of Congress enjoy. Medicaid--health care for the poor, which will now have some 50 million Americans in it after these 16 million join it--is a program in crisis. It is a program that is failing. Let me give my colleagues some real examples. Right now we know patients on Medicaid can't find doctors who will treat them. We know in California, for example, 49 percent of family physicians do not participate in Medicaid. I entered this document into the Record last week. On March 17 the Seattle Times reported that Walgreens will no longer take new Medicaid patients in the city of Seattle. On March 15, the New York Times reported about Mrs. Vliet. She is in Flint, MI. She has cancer. For 2 years she has been receiving treatment, but now her doctor is dropping her from Medicaid. He says: But after a while you realize that we're really losing money on seeing those patients, not even breaking even. We are starting to lose more and more money, month after month. All across America, health care providers are dumping Medicaid, and we are about to add 16 million new people. So I wish to take a page from my friends on the other side because they say the American people should have the same rich benefits we have. What I am proposing today with this amendment is that 535 Members of Congress should have the same benefits as these 16 million new people and these 50 million Americans. Under this amendment, the Members of Congress will go into Medicaid. If it is good enough for 50 million Americans, it should be good enough for us. So I have offered amendment No. 3586. It will require that the benefits that are paid for health care by the Federal Government for the 535 Members of Congress go to the State Medicaid agencies, and then we can all enjoy this program that 50 million people in America are struggling with. If it is good enough for 50 million Americans, it is good enough for Members of Congress. I wish to call upon my distinguished colleague from Arizona whom I know wishes to speak on this issue as well.

Mr. LeMIEUX. I thank my friend and colleague from Oklahoma. How could anyone in this body not vote for this amendment? Why should we have better health care than the 16 million people whom we are going to put into Medicaid, and now will be 50 million Americans? Why should we have it better? Why should we have a gold-plated premium health care plan? Look, I have a family of five. We are going to have a baby any day-- could be today--so it will be a family of six. I pay $400 a month on the government program--$5,000 a year. Could I get that in the marketplace? Of course I couldn't. There is a doctor here in the Capitol, a whole staff of them, anytime I want to see a doctor. I get fantastic health care as a Member of Congress. Why shouldn't we have the same health care we are subjecting 15 million new Americans to and 50 million Americans in total? As my friend from Oklahoma says, certainly won't that make the point to us that this health care system is failing? What will happen when a Member of Congress tries to find a doctor and can't find a doctor who will take him? What is going to happen when he tries to find a specialist and no specialist will take him? You don't hear our friends on the other side talking about the fact that half of the people getting coverage under this legislation are going into a failing system. That is not one of their talking points, but it is the truth. So I challenge my friends who say that they should walk among the least of us to vote for this amendment. I want to turn again to my colleague from Arizona. He and I have expressed our distress about this bill for lots of reasons, but a specific reason is that we both represent States with lots of seniors. We have this Medicare Advantage Program that is going to get $200 billion cut out of it. That will really affect our two States. So I wonder--and I would ask my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Arizona, to speak on this issue--how is this going to affect seniors in Arizona when we are raiding Medicare to start this new program?

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I have heard my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about 30 million new people in America having health care. What they are not talking about is 16 million of those folks are going into Medicaid. Medicaid is a program that doesn't work. Forty percent of physicians according to MedPac no longer will see Medicaid patients. Pharmacies will not fill prescriptions. You cannot find a specialist. I have also heard our friends on the other side of the aisle come to the Senate floor and say the people of America should have the same great health care that we have in this body. The corollary should be true as well. We should have the same health care that we are willing to put 16 million new Americans in and 50 million Americans in total. We should all be on Medicaid. My amendment says 535 Members of Congress, as well as the Vice President of the United States, will go into Medicaid. If it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for us. We talk the talk around here a lot, now let's see if we will walk the walk.

Mr. LeMIEUX. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and section 4(G)(3) of the statutory pay-as-you-go act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of those acts for purposes of my amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I am here to speak on this FAA bill and on an amendment that I filed on this bill concerning the space program. For decades, the space shuttle has been a symbol for American innovation and ingenuity and the pioneering spirit that has made our Nation the most technologically advanced country in the world. Today, our space program, however, stands at a crossroads, between one project and the next. For years, we have had soaring aspirations about space without funding. Now we have a plan that includes the money but lacks the vision. In our Nation's space program, we cannot have money without ambition. The result will be directionless spending. As sure as winter follows fall, that directionless spending will lead to cuts in spending and eventually, I believe, the demise of our space program. In 2004, the Constellation Program was announced as a followup to the space shuttle program. That vision was endorsed by Congress in 2005 and in 2008. In both years, we directed NASA to focus its efforts on returning to the Moon by 2020 and someday sending Americans to Mars and worlds beyond. In fact, I have here the public law that was passed just about a year and a half ago, October 15 of 2008. It is Public Law 110-422. If I may read from it, it says: The Congress finds, on this, the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the following: It goes on to say that one of the points they find is: Developing United States human space flight capabilities to allow independent American access to the International Space Station, and to explore beyond low Earth orbit, is a strategically important national imperative, and all prudent steps should thus be taken to bring the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and Aries I Crew Launch Vehicle to full operational capability as soon as possible and to ensure the effective development of a United States heavy lift launch capability as soon as possible and to ensure the effective development of a United States heavy lift launch capability for missions beyond low Earth orbit. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have that portion of the public law printed in the Record.

Mr. LeMIEUX. That was a year and a half ago. This is now. The President's 2011 budget cancels this program, the Constellation Program, and what it does, in effect, is put our efforts for space exploration in severe jeopardy, potentially risking the jobs of more than 7,000 rocket scientists in Florida as well as jobs throughout this country in more than 20 States. I understand there are many private conversations going on between Members of this body and the administration concerning this topic. But I think it is important to reflect back upon what then-Senator Obama, then-candidate Obama said about space exploration and compare it to what his administration has proposed in his budget. In August of 2008, Senator Obama was campaigning in Florida, in Titusville, FL, on our space coast. He said this: One of the areas where we are in danger of losing our competitive edge is our space program. When I was growing up, NASA inspired the world with achievements we are still proud of. Today, we have an administration-- He is referring to the Bush administration-- that has set ambitious goals for NASA without giving NASA the support it needs to reach them. As a result, they've had to cut back on research, and trim their programs, which means that after the Space Shuttle shuts down in 2010, we're going to have to rely on Russian spacecraft to keep us in orbit. He goes on to say: More broadly, we need a real vision for space exploration. To help formulate this vision, I'll reestablish the National Aeronautics and Space Council so that we can develop a plan to explore the solar system--a plan that involves both human and robotic missions, and enlists both international partners and the private sector. And as America leads the world to long-term exploration of the moon, Mars, and beyond . . . . And he goes on to say a few more things. So we know the Congress passed a law that was reaffirmed in 2008, on October 15, that said we were going to go into low-Earth orbit with the Constellation Program. We know the President of the United States, when campaigning for this office, said we must be exceptional in the space program, continue with our vision, properly funded, go to the Moon and Mars and planets beyond. But today the President's budget scraps that plan. We have no plan to get into low-Earth orbit after the Space Shuttle is retired. We are going to rely upon the Russians to take us to the International Space Station--exactly what candidate-Obama said we should be worried about. So to this end, I have filed an amendment, an amendment to the FAA Reauthorization Act, to prohibit NASA from terminating the Constellation Program. It is the prerogative of this institution, the Congress--that our Founders put forth--it is our prerogative to deem how money is spent, how programs are funded. This Congress twice has said we will fund the Constellation Program, that we will fund these programs for the next generation of spacecraft to take us into low- Earth orbit. This amendment reiterates the Federal law prohibiting NASA from using funds in fiscal year 2010 to cancel Constellation contracts. Several of my colleagues have joined me in this amendment: Senator Wicker from Mississippi, Senator Shelby from Alabama, Senator Sessions from Alabama, Senator Hatch from Utah, and Senator Bennett from Utah. The problem is, NASA is ignoring the will of Congress in already beginning to cancel the Constellation Program. That is not their right. They must follow the law, and this amendment intends to hold them to that. The amendment sends a clear message that there are no loopholes, exclusions, or other routes the agency can use to kill the program. I say publicly here on the floor of the Senate, whether this amendment passes on this bill, whether this amendment passes in the coming weeks, the law of the land is this: fund the Constellation Program. NASA is on notice that it is their legal requirement to do so, that they should not cancel contracts, they should not tell contractors to stop working. They cannot do that until the Congress makes a change in the law, and to do so would be unlawful. The ultimate determination on the future of the space program rests with Congress, not a budget proposal submitted by this administration or, in fact, any administration. As candidate-Obama agreed, without Constellation, the United States will be relying on Russia for any manned space missions. The United States has led the world in space exploration since the early 1960s. We cannot, and we should not, cede this leadership to any other country. We must summon the same vision that guided President Kennedy whose vision put a man on the Moon at the end of the 1960s. He said: Why should we settle for anything less? To quote him: We choose to go to the moon . . . because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. . . . It is my sincere hope we will adopt this amendment, if not on this bill, on another bill soon. I hope my colleagues and our President will also come to say we choose to continue to be the leader in space exploration to the Moon, to Mars, and planets beyond because the challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LeMIEUX

Mr. LeMIEUX. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. LeMIEUX. Madam President, I have come to the floor to again talk about the health care bill that is being worked on over in the House that will potentially be voted on--we are hearing this weekend--and to talk about the myths around this bill, what is being told to the American people and what the facts are, so the American people can know what this Congress is trying to get them into. In this past week, I came to the floor and spoke about 10 myths about this health care bill. I do not wish to go through in detail all those myths today, but we have some new information about a couple of them that I wished to focus on and go over the list of those myths. Myth 1 was: You get to keep your health insurance if you like what you have. The President has been saying this all around the country. We know that is not true because, according to the Congressional Budget Office, between 9 and 17 million people are going to lose their health insurance from their employer when their employer is going to drop that insurance and make their employees go into the new public system. So you are not going to get to keep it. We know folks on Medicare Advantage are not necessarily going to get to keep their Medicare Advantage because we are going to cut Medicare Advantage by $120 billion. To the more than 1 million people in Florida who have Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part C, which offers them wellness benefits, hearing benefits, eyesight benefits, programs they like, we know over time they are not going to get to keep that in the way they have it now. We also know health insurance premiums are not going to go down. That is myth No. 2. The very reason why this country wanted health care reform, the No.1 reason: to lower the cost of health insurance. We know health insurance has gone up more than 130 percent in the last 10 years. Yet this bill does little or nothing to lower the cost of health insurance for the 159 million Americans who have health insurance. Some may see their rates go down 3 percent--that is the best it gets--while those in the individual market may see their rates go up 10 to 12 percent in the next 10 years. We are supposed to be about the business of health care reform, and we are not going to lower the cost of health insurance. We talked about whether this would just lower the overall cost of health care itself. That was the third myth we discussed. But we know that Federal outlays for health care are going to increase by more than $200 billion in the next 10 years. This idea that this health care plan is going to reduce the deficit, that is just funny math. We know this bill has 6 years of spending, 6 years of benefits, if you will, and 10 years of taxes. Only in Washington could someone try to say you were going to spend $1 trillion and save $100 billion. We know it does not even take into account the fact that we have to give doctors more money in the Medicare system. The Democrats put that in a separate bill, so we do not score that $300 billion cost because, if you did, there would be no deficit reduction. We also know emergency rooms are not going to be less burdened. If we look at the example of Massachusetts that instituted health care reform, they are seeing just as many people crowd their emergency rooms because the folks there tell them it is more convenient than to wait in line to see their doctor. See, when you push more people into the system and do not provide adequate funding for more health care providers, you do not change and make the system more user friendly, so the folks still show up at the emergency room. Another myth we busted is that this plan takes on the insurance companies, when, in fact, it is going to put millions of more people into an insurance program. That is why the insurance companies like it. We also busted the myth that this health care reform is going to improve the doctor-patient relationship. It is not. There is still going to be a third-party payer. We still fundamentally miss the opportunity of getting you, the patient, back involved in the consumer decision. If we would have taken a page from what we proposed on our side of the aisle and given you a tax credit to let you go in the market and buy insurance yourself, we know that would have driven costs down because you would have been a consumer. Right now, my wife and I are about to have our fourth child any day now. I remember getting those bills from the hospital on our previous boys when they were born. Similar to most folks, you do not read it, you just look at the bottom and see what you owe. You do not look at all the line-by-line items. You would have to hire someone to help make sense of all that. We have to put consumers back in the health care game. We have to know what we are buying and what we are paying for because we know as consumers we will make a good decision. We do it in the car insurance market and guess what. The companies that compete nationally, unlike health care companies that compete only within certain States, they are advertising to us on TV: ``So easy a caveman can do it.'' ``Do you have 15 minutes? You can save 15 percent on your car insurance.'' We know all these slogans because the market is working. The market does not work in health care, and this legislation does nothing to fix it. We know that eventually under this program, the taxes will go up not down because every government program we put together, certainly entitlement programs, always cost more than we think. They always cost our children and our grandchildren more as we have this ever-increasing national debt, now $12 trillion, a debt our kids are going to have to pay and our grandchildren, a debt that could make this country not the same place of opportunity that we all have experienced and we all enjoy. But I wished to specifically talk about a couple of the myths that there has been some recent information about. One thing I talked about earlier this week is this idea about premiums. The President of the United States, this week when he was campaigning, said that health care overall, lower premiums will be achieved by this legislation and that those premiums will go down double digits. The fact is, that is not true. As we talked about before, the fact is, the best it is--and I put this chart from the Congressional Budget Office into the Congressional Record earlier this week--the best it is, is 3 percent down. I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Associated Press called: ``Fact Check: Premiums would rise under Obama plan,'' by Mr. Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, be printed in the Record.

Mr. LeMIEUX. This article goes through specifically these points. The President of the United States campaigned this week saying that: You'll be able to buy in, or a small business will be able to buy into this pool. And that will lower rates, it's estimated by up to 14 to 20 percent over what you're currently getting. That's money out of pocket. Then he says: Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent, which means they could give you a raise. They later corrected the record to mean $3,000, your premiums could fall $3,000. Well, with all due respect, there is no evidence of this in an analysis of this bill. That is what the Associated Press says in their fact check. In fact, for those in the individual marketplace--and this is not the Senator from Florida speaking, this is the Congressional Budget Office--increases of up to 10 to 13 percent; for everybody else, either stays the same, goes up a little or maybe goes down 3 percent, and that is if they got it right. So it is important to bust this myth. Your insurance is not going down under this plan. If you thought we were going to enact health care reform and you were going to have a lower cost of health insurance, you, unfortunately, similar to many millions of Americans, were given the wrong impression because this bill does nothing of the sort. Let me talk a minute also, if I may, about what this is going to mean and what sort of the future of health care is. The system does not work now for the point I made a moment ago, which is that we as consumers are not involved in the equation. I can't think of anything else in our life where we have so little knowledge of what we are buying, and we have so little knowledge of what the cost is. Do we know what the cost of these procedures are that we undertake? If we have to get an MRI or a CAT scan or a stent put in our heart, do we know what the market price for that is? We do not. The reason why is because the system has become so complex with a third-party payer. What that means is either your insurance company pays or your government pays through Medicare, Medicaid or the VA, and we as consumers do not pay. Because of that, we have broken what we know works in the marketplace. You want to control costs, you have to put the consumer back in the driver's seat. That is why our proposal on this side of the aisle to give consumers who cannot afford health insurance now a tax credit to let them go in the marketplace and to shop around and get involved in their health care decisions, we know that would lower costs. This plan is not going to lower costs. In fact, it is going to raise costs. But let me tell you where we are going with this new government plan. I am an optimist about this country, so I hate to talk about something that is pessimistic. But it is my responsibility to tell you facts. We have three major health care programs in this country: Veterans, Medicare, and Medicaid. Medicare is health care for seniors. Medicaid is health care for the poor. I wish to talk about the latter two. Those systems are not working, and they are increasingly not working for more and more Americans. The reason why is, they are not properly funded. There is no way to control costs. So what are we finding? We are finding that doctors are not taking Medicare and Medicaid anymore. If you want to know what the future of Medicare is, which is health care for seniors, take a look at Medicaid, which is in worse shape than Medicare. We know both these programs are huge entitlement programs that, under their current form, we cannot afford. We know there is going to be this huge debt that our children are going to have to pay. It may not be our children, it may be here in the next few years because we have not properly funded these programs and we have not controlled costs. I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record. It is from the March 17, 2010, Seattle Times, an article by Janet Tu, which is entitled: ``Walgreens: no new Medicaid patients as of April 16.''

Mr. LeMIEUX. So here we are. Walgreens, a major pharmacy in Seattle, is not going to take Medicaid anymore. Why are they not going to take Medicaid? They are not going to take Medicaid because the Federal Government is not reimbursing enough for them to make any money. Medicaid is a Federal-State match. But more and more we are seeing the health care providers will not take Medicaid. We know that in major metropolitan areas, if you are a new Medicaid patient and you are looking for a specialist, that 50 percent of the doctors will not see you. There is another article here that came out this week in the New York Times, March 15, 2010. It is an article by Kevin Sack: ``With Medicaid Cuts, Doctors and Patients Drop Out.'' It is a story from Flint, MI. It talks about a lady by the name of Carol Vliet, about her cancer. She has tumors metastasizing to her brain, her liver, her kidneys, and her heart. The President of the United States and my colleague on the other side of the aisle like to give individual examples about people who are suffering without health insurance. Here is a lady who has Medicaid, a government-run program. The only solace she has is she has found a doctor she likes, Dr. Sahouri. He has given her a regimen of chemotherapy and radiation for the past 2 years that is giving her some relief, but she was devastated when she found out from Dr. Sahouri a couple months ago that he could no longer see her because, like a growing number of doctors, he had stopped taking patients with Medicaid. It is not just Medicaid; it is also now Medicare. We know that if you are trying to get into Medicare, only about 78 percent of providers are taking Medicare. Here we are, we are about to create a huge new government entitlement program to put 31 million more Americans into a health care system funded by the government. In the programs we have now, doctors and health care providers are dropping the patients. These programs are broken. Yet we are going to create a new one. We are going to create a new one by taking money out of Medicare, a program where the health care providers are increasingly more and more not seeing patients. We are going to take more than $500 billion out of Medicare. In fact, we have found out, from this new bill that came from the House today, that the number has gone up, that it is now more than $500 billion that is going to be taken out of Medicare. We are going to take money out of a program already having problems to start a new one. It makes no sense. This is why the American people are extremely upset with this health care proposal. There isn't a Senator who doesn't want health care reform. There isn't a Member of Congress today who doesn't want to provide more access and lower the cost of health care insurance for those who have it. But this plan does not do that, and it creates a huge new entitlement program by robbing Peter to pay Paul. We are going to jeopardize health care for seniors and turn Medicare into Medicaid, a program where pharmacies and doctors are dropping patients. I am new to the Senate. My experience is in State government and business. There are men and women of good will in this body. I believe if we could get together and work in a good faith fashion, we could figure out how to do this in a step-by-step approach, to lower cost and increase access without breaking the bank and putting a huge burden on the children in a world where we already have a $12 trillion debt. But the people of this Chamber and the one down the hall have to get about the business of doing the people's work and remember they are the boss and that we work for them. The time for partisanship is over. The time for getting things done and being problem solvers is here. I am one Senator--and I know there are many--who is willing to work with anyone on the other side on any important issues facing the country who is willing to work with me. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.