James Lankford

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I ask unanimous consent that all time during quorum calls between 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. today be equally divided in the usual form.

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, on February 13, 2016, the Supreme Court lost one of its Justices, our Nation lost a true legal giant. Justice Scalia was described by colleagues as ``extraordinary,'' ``treasured,'' and ``a stylistic genius.'' Beyond his unwavering dedication to upholding the originalist viewpoint of the Constitution, Justice Scalia was also wholeheartedly committed to his family. He was a husband, father of 9, and grandfather to 36 grandchildren. His son Paul said of him during his homily: God blessed Dad with a love for his family. . . . He was the father that God gave us for the great adventure of family life. . . . He loved us, and sought to show that love. And sought to share the blessing of the faith he treasured. And he gave us one another, to have each other for support. That's the greatest wealth parents can bestow, and right now we are particularly grateful for it. Justice Antonin Scalia was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1986 by President Reagan and was confirmed by the Senate in a unanimous vote. While his time on the Court often led to some criticism of his legal opinions and his very colorful dissents, he remained respected by his colleagues, even those of the opposite end of the judicial spectrum. This is a sign of true character--to have an open, honest debate about a particular issue while respecting the individual person holding an opinion different from your own. Justice Scalia said: I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you gotta get another day job. The sentiment was best portrayed through his friendship with Justice Ginsburg. As one of his friends, she said: We are different, but we are one. Different in our interpretation of written texts. One in our reverence for the Constitution and the institution we serve. From our years together on the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies. We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. Justice Scalia was known for his wit and his sarcasm in his writings, famously referring to legal interpretations of his colleagues as ``jiggery-pokery,'' ``pure applesauce,'' and ``a ghoul in a late horror movie.'' Yet it was these same criticisms that Justice Ginsburg said nailed the weak spots in her opinions and gave her what she needed to strengthen her writings. Justice Scalia represented a consistent, constitutional voice on the Supreme Court. Just as the Constitution is the pillar of our legal system, so too is his affirmation to this foundational document of our Nation. He said: It is an enduring Constitution that I want to defend. . . . It's what did the words mean to the people who ratified the Bill of Rights or who ratified the Constitution, as opposed to what people today would like. Justice Kennedy said: In years to come any history of the Supreme Court will, and must, recount the wisdom, scholarship, and technical brilliance that Justice Scalia brought to the Court. His insistence on demanding standards shaped the work of the Court in its private discussions, its oral arguments, and its written opinions. Yet these historic achievements are all the more impressive and compelling because the foundations of Justice Scalia's jurisprudence, the driving force in all his work, and his powerful personality were shaped by an unyielding commitment to the Constitution of the United States and to the highest ethical and moral standards. Filling the Supreme Court Vacancy Mr. President, with Justice Scalia's passing, we have a vacancy on the Court to fill. The question is, When? I would submit, with only months left until the Presidential election, that we should let the people decide. I have heard over and over for the past 7 years that elections have consequences, but apparently some people seem to only think elections have consequences on Presidential elections. The American people elected a brand new Senate in 2014 because of their incredible frustration with the operation of the previous Senate and because of the direction that we are now heading under this President. I have heard this argument for years: The President should be able to do what he wants. He is the President. But may I remind everyone of a document in our National Archives called the U.S. Constitution, which gives divided power to our Nation. The President is not over the Senate, not over the House, and not over the Supreme Court. Hyperbole of this has been overwhelming to me in the debate of the past few weeks. I have heard that unless we replace Justice Scalia right now, we will ``shut down the court.'' I have heard on this floor people say that if we don't replace Justice Scalia immediately, it is ``dangerous,'' it is ``unprecedented,'' it is unheard of. I have heard: ``Do your job''--a failure to do your duty. I even heard one Senator say: ``The Constitution says the President shall appoint and the Senate shall consent.'' Well, let me show you article II, section 2 of the Constitution where that comes up. It says that the President ``shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate''--the President shall nominate. That is his constitutional responsibility. But it is not the constitutional responsibility--it never says the Senate shall give consent to the President. Why? Because the Constitution gives the role of selecting a Supreme Court nominee in a 50-50 responsibility between the Senate and the President of the United States. The President shall nominate; that is his responsibility. But that only moves forward with the advice and consent of the Senate. There is no ``shall give consent.'' There is no requirement how it moves. In fact, Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers, on this very issue, said that the ``ordinary power of appointment is confided to the President and Senate jointly.'' This is a 50-50 agreement. What we are facing right now are incredible attacks on the chairman of the Judiciary Committee because he dares to do what Vice President Biden, Senator Schumer, and Senator Reid recommended years ago. I even heard that we shouldn't listen to the words of Vice President Biden. I would understand why people would say that, because when you go back to Vice President Biden's words, when he was a Senator and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in the same spot Chairman Grassley is in now, this is what, at that time, Senator Biden said. Senator Biden, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, arguing on this same issue, said: ``Arguing from constitutional history and Senate precedent, I want to address one question and one question only: What are the rights and duties of the Senate in considering nominees to the Supreme Court?'' This is from Vice President Biden--then Senator Biden: Some argue that the Senate should defer to the President in the selection process. They argue that any nominee who meets the narrow standards of legal distinction, high moral character, and judicial temperament is entitled to be confirmed in the Senate without further question. . . . Apparently, there are some in this body and outside this body who share that view. I stand here today to argue that opposite proposition. This is from Vice President Biden. He stated at that time: We have quashed the myth that the Senate must defer to a President's choice of a Supreme Court Justice, the men and women at the apex of the independent third branch of Government. Can our Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process, so wracked by discord and bitterness, be repaired in a Presidential election year? Vice President Biden, as Senator Biden, said: History teaches us that this is extremely unlikely. Some of our Nation's most bitter and heated confirmation fights have come in Presidential election years. The Senate too, Mr. President, must consider how it would respond to a Supreme Court vacancy that would occur in the full throes of an election year. Vice President Biden at that time said this: It is my view that if the President goes the way of Presidents Fillmore and Johnson and presses an election-year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over. He said, instead: It would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is under way, and it is, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over. That is what is fair to the nominee and is central to the process. Otherwise, it seems to me, Mr. President, we will be in deep trouble as an institution. This past week Senator Reid came to the floor to discuss Senator Grassley and what he is doing, which is exactly what then-Senator Biden recommended to be done, and he made this statement. Senator Reid said this past week: Last Thursday, the senior Senator from Iowa addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, which took place here in Washington. In his speech to them, here is what Senator Grassley said: ``I feel it's about time that we have a national debate on the Supreme Court and how it fits in with our constitutional system of government.'' Then Senator Reid continued: The chairman of the Judiciary Committee is suggesting that we reevaluate the Founding Fathers' work, reevaluate the Constitution of the United States, and change the Constitution of the United States. Why is Senator Grassley debating what the Constitution makes clear? The Senate must provide its advice and consent on nominees appointed by the President to the Supreme Court. Think of the irony. Justice Scalia was a strict constitutionalist. Yet now, in the weeks following his death, Senator Grassley wants to throw out the Constitution just because President Obama gets to pick Scalia's replacement. That is what Senator Reid said this week. Let's look at what Senator Reid said in 2005 on this exact same issue. In 2005, on this floor, Senator Reid said: ``The President of the United States has joined the fray to become the latest to rewrite the Constitution and reinvent reality.'' This is speaking of President Bush at the time. Senator Reid continued, ``Speaking to fellow Republicans Tuesday night, two days ago. He said that the Senate `has a duty to promptly consider each nominee on the Senate floor, discuss and debate their qualifications and then give them the up-or-down vote that they deserve.' Referring to the President's words--duty to whom? The duties of the Senate.'' This is from Senator Reid in 2005: The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give Presidential appointees a vote. The fact was even acknowledged by the majority leader that a vote is not required. Senator Byrd asked the majority leader if the Constitution accorded each nominee an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. The answer was no. Senator Frist was candid. The answer was no. The language was not there, Senator Frist said. He is correct. Senators should read the same copy of the Constitution Senator Frist had memorized. Continuing with what Senator Reid said: It is clear that the President misunderstands the meaning of the advice and consent clause. That is not how America works. The Senate is not a rubber stamp for the executive branch. So earlier this week, Senator Reid chastised Senator Grassley, saying he wants to rewrite the Constitution. In 2005 Senator Reid stood on this floor and encouraged all Members to read the Constitution--that it nowhere requires that we take an up-or-down vote. So I don't know which one to take on this--the current statements from Senator Reid or the previous statements from Senator Reid--because they are in direct contradiction. Senator Schumer, on July 27, 2007, speaking about the last 18 months of President Bush's term as President, said: For the rest of this President's term and if there is another Republican elected with the same selection criteria let me say this: We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts; or Justice Ginsburg replaced by another Alito. Given the track record of this President and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings, with respect to the Supreme Court, at least: I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances. I have also heard: Don't look at the words but the actions. Senator Reid, Senator Schumer, and, when they were here, Senator Obama and Senator Biden have all filibustered Supreme Court nominees when they were Senators--all four of them have. Suddenly, now this is a dangerous idea that will shut down justice and is completely unconstitutional, and there are shouts of ``Do your job'' that come from the same Senate leaders who blocked untold nominations from untold Republican Presidents and didn't allow amendments on basic bills. There is a lot of emotion in this body. I get that. There are a lot of politics in this process. I would hope to bring some facts to light and to turn down the hyperbole and all the rhetoric. So let me bring some basic facts to this. The last time a Supreme Court vacancy arose in an election year and the Senate approved a new appointee to the Court in that same year was 1932. Since there is no nominee right now, it would not be possible to fill the vacancy in time for that individual to hear cases in the spring session of the Supreme Court. That means any nomination selected now would only be able to serve--in our colleagues' arguments--in the fall, which is a much shorter session of the Supreme Court, before this President actually leaves. So we are talking about the final session at the end of this fall--a very few number of cases. Justice Stephen Breyer, just a few weeks ago, stated this about the passing of Justice Scalia: We'll miss him, but we'll do our work. For the most part, it will not change. The Supreme Court is open and is working this week. In fact, the Court hasn't halted at all. The Court has heard 10 cases already since Justice Scalia's passing, and they are continuing to release decisions. It is a myth that there needs to be an uneven number of Justices for the Supreme Court to actually work. In the past 6 years, 80 percent of the cases were decided 6 to 3 or greater. So it is a small minority of the cases that ever get to a 5-to-4 decision. And we don't know that a 5-to-4 would end up not being a 5-to-3 at this point. Eight members can operate the Court. In fact, the Constitution doesn't even give a specific number to the Justices. How many Justices are on the Supreme Court has always been a decision of the President and the Congress together. The first Congress, for example, enacted the Judiciary Act of 1789, which stated the Supreme Court consists of ``a chief justice and five associate justices.'' If you are counting right, that is six Justices on the early Supreme Court. The size of the Court varied during the 19th century, with the Court shrinking to 5 Justices for a while, following the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1801, growing to as large as 10 Justices in 1863. Then in 1869, Congress changed the number to nine, where it has remained. But the Court doesn't need nine Justices to actually decide a case. In fact, Congress has established the quorum requirements to be only six. If the Court ends in a tie decision, 4 to 4, or in the case of six justices, 3 to 3, the Court will not write an opinion but will affirm the lower court, or it will ask for a reargument of the case. In other words, the Court is already set up to function and is functioning, and it will continue to function with eight people. I would say what is really happening is that the Democrats, who implemented the nuclear option while they were leading the Senate and packed all the lower courts, urgently want to be able to pack the Supreme Court as well. That will not happen. We will also not allow a recess appointment, as has been floated multiple times in the media--the President will just do a recess appointment and go around us. The Senate chooses when the Senate is in recess, not the President. So we can do this: We can remain in continuous session without recess to prevent a recess appointment by this President through the rest of this year. Many of my Republican colleagues and I have already agreed to be in Washington every 3 days for the rest of this year to gavel in this body in pro forma session so this President cannot put in a recess appointment judge. Ironically enough, this right of the Senate was approved by the Supreme Court just a few years ago by a 9-to-0 ruling when this President tried to force in new members on the National Labor Relations Board through a recess appointment, and this Supreme Court kicked those out, saying the President cannot choose when the Senate is in recess. Our Nation faces really big issues: accelerating debt, threats from terrorism, a struggling economy, major education, and health care reform issues. This is a moment when the people of the United States should speak about the direction of our Nation. We are still a nation of the people, by the people, for the people. And for the next President and for the next Supreme Court nomination, we should let the people decide. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, on February 13, 2016, the Supreme Court not only lost one of its Justices, our Nation lost a true legal giant. Justice Antonin Scalia was described by his colleagues as ``extraordinary,'' ``treasured,'' and ``a stylistic genius.'' Beyond his unwavering dedication to upholding the originalist viewpoint of the Constitution, Justice Scalia was also whole-heartedly committed to his family. He was a husband, father of nine, and grandfather to 36 grandchildren. His son Paul said of him during his homily that ``God blessed Dad with a love for his family . . . He was the father that God gave us for the great adventure of family life . . . He loved us, and sought to show that love. And sought to share the blessing of the faith he treasured. And he gave us one another, to have each other for support. That's the greatest wealth parents can bestow, and right now we are particularly grateful for it.'' Justice Scalia was nominated to the United States Supreme Court in 1986 by President Reagan and was confirmed by the Senate in a unanimous vote. While his time on the Court often led to criticism of his legal opinions and colorful dissents, he remained respected by his colleagues, even those at the opposite end of the judicial spectrum. This is a sign of true character--to have the ability to have an open, honest debate about a particular issue, while respecting the individual person holding an opinion different from your own. Justice Scalia said, ``I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you gotta get another day job.'' This sentiment was best portrayed through his friendship with Justice Ginsburg. Of her friend, she said, ``We are different, we are one. Different in our interpretation of written texts, one in our reverence for the Constitution and the institution we serve. From our years together at the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies. We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation.'' Justice Scalia was known for his wit and sarcasm in his writings, famously referring to the legal interpretations of his colleagues as ``jiggery-pokery,'' ``pure applesauce,'' and ``a ghoul in a late horror movie.'' Yet it was these same criticisms that Justice Ginsburg said nailed the weak spots in her opinions and gave her what she needed to strengthen her writings. Justice Scalia represented a consistent, constitutional voice on the Court. Just as the Constitution is a pillar of our legal system, so too was his affirmation to this foundational document of our Nation. He said, ``It is an enduring Constitution that I want to defend...It's what did the words mean to the people who ratified the Bill of Rights or who ratified the Constitution, as opposed to what people today would like.'' As Justice Kennedy said, ``In years to come any history of the Supreme Court will, and must, recount the wisdom, scholarship, and technical brilliance that Justice Scalia brought to the Court. His insistence on demanding standards shaped the work of the Court in its private discussions, its oral arguments, and its written opinions. Yet these historic achievements are all the more impressive and compelling because the foundations of Justice Scalia's jurisprudence, the driving force in all his work, and his powerful personality were shaped by an unyielding commitment to the Constitution of the United States and to the highest ethical and moral standards.''

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess as under the previous order.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we have witnessed in this administration Executive overreach with increasing boldness. One manifestation of Executive overreach is the shocking indifference with which departmental agencies spurn the congressionally mandated rulemaking processes in favor of regulating under the guise of ``guidance documents.'' Guidance documents in their proper form advise the public of their obligations under existing law and, therefore, merely interpret the law without imposing any additional obligation. Agencies are quick to echo that guidance documents do not have the force and effect of law; yet governmentwide, agencies increasingly have used guidance as an end-run around the rulemaking process in violation of Federal law. The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is such an offender. Their guidance documents, including Dear Colleague letters on harassment and bullying, issued October 23, 2010, and sexual violence, issued April 4, 2011, purport to merely interpret title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, yet advance troublesome policies not contemplated by the text of title IX or its implementing regulations. I appreciate the fact that these guidance documents predated Mr. King's service at the Department of Education, and I do not assert that he had any role in developing or issuing the letters. However, in a letter dated January 7, 2016, I asked him to clarify his role as Acting Secretary, in no uncertain terms, that the policies expounded in the 2010 and 2011 letters not required by the terms of title IX cannot be grounds for any adverse action. To my disappointment, his response failed to do so. Mr. King should commit to use the office of the Secretary to rein in the regulatory abuses within the Department of Education and encourage his Cabinet counterparts to do the same. Until such time as such commitments are made, I intend to object to his nomination.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, today the President of the United States unveiled the last budget of his Presidency: $4.1 trillion. Of that, $1.1 trillion is discretionary spending, which is the amount Congress will discuss over the next few months. It is no big secret that Presidential budgets typically are dead on arrival--this one especially so, obviously, as it is the last one of the President's term. It is a requirement of the 1974 Budget Act. The President turns in his budget by the first Monday of February. It is actually now into the second week. It is a week late, but it is closer to on time than the budgets of other Presidents have been in the last few years. There are a lot of wish list items in the President's budget. It also includes about $3.4 trillion in new taxes over the next 10 years. It increases spending by $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years, including next year. The challenge in the President's spending plan is that he increases spending so much that we also continue to increase the deficit, the debt, and our interest payments. This body should realize that on the current track, the Congressional Budget Office and the President's budget that he released today forecast that within the next 10 years, the United States of America will spend more on interest on our debt than we spend on national defense. I want everyone to soak that in. Within 10 years, the Federal taxpayer will spend more on interest on our debt--our debt payments-- than we spend on national defense. When the President came into office, there was $10.6 trillion in total debt. The President's budget lays out a plan that by the end of his budget, there will be $27.4 trillion in total debt. This is an issue for us, and it continues to accelerate. And until this body and until the House and until the White House agree this is a problem, it will not be solved. I don't want to say this flippantly; the President and I have had this conversation. He does not believe that increasing deficits--that is, overspending what we bring in--is a problem. He believes, as he has shared with me and with the American people publicly, that if the government overspends a little bit, that stimulates the economy. Well, that might be true in some economic formula, but when our interest payments are larger than total what we spend for defense, we are in a spiral that we cannot sustain. We cannot keep saying we will add more debt every year and there is no reckoning for that. Our total debt right now exceeds our gross domestic product. Literally, if we took from every single American in the entire country all of their income for the entire year we could not pay off our debt. We are very much at a tipping point. The problem Congress faces is Congress never seems to act until we have to, and, in this time, in an economic crisis, when we have to, it is too late. How do we get on top of that? How do we stop bragging about how much the deficit has been cut and actually start reducing our debt? Many Americans don't hear the difference between the debt and the deficit because they don't live in this world of all of these different terms. Deficit is how much we overspend in any one year; debt is the accumulation of all of those deficits. Washington continues to talk about how in the last 6 years we have cut the deficit by $1 trillion. And that is a good thing, but the problem is that in the last 10 years, the debt has also doubled as deficits are still so large every single year, and that is a problem. So what do we do with this? I would say there are multiple things. No. 1, we are not going to get out of this in any one time period. This body needs to understand that this is not a car payment we are paying off. This is a really big jumbo mortgage. We are not going to pay this off in 1 year, and we are not going to fix it in one stroke. This is going to take multiple years of picking away at this. I have reminded several of my colleagues of one sobering fact: If we were to balance our budget and set this 10-year time period to actually balance the budget, if the next year after the balanced budget we had a $50 billion surplus as a nation, it would take 460 years in a row of $50 billion surpluses to pay off our debt. For twice as long as we have been a country, if we had a $50 billion surplus every year, we could pay off our debt. At some point we have to admit this is a really big issue. CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, as all of us know in this room, continues to rattle us and remind us that this debt is continuing to grow and we do not have the resources to do it. For the first time since 2009, our deficit will rise again next year to $544 billion. That is up 24 percent from just this last fiscal year. As we continue to have more individuals who retire and use Medicare and Social Security, which they have set aside their entire life to go into, and as that number continues to rise and as discretionary spending continues to stay fairly capped, we are not getting on top of the big issues that we face. Where do we go from here? In 1974 this Congress created the Congressional Budget Act, which set up the process of how we would actually do our budget every year. It is a very interesting process with the House and Senate passing budgets, putting them together, going through the process and getting everything to the President. All the timing and everything was set up with appropriations bills and how they would be done with all the deadlines. Interestingly, since 1979, the Congressional Budget Act, in the way that it was set up, has only worked two times--twice since 1979. Would anyone else admit that there is a problem with that setup? Coming out of Watergate in 1974, they wanted more transparency and an open process doing the budget. So they created this process that is so cumbersome that since 1979 it has only worked twice. To give more up-to-date details, in the last 10 years we should have passed 118 appropriations bills. Of the 118 appropriations bills, only 7 of those individual bills were passed on time. We have a problem just in basic process. So allow this Senator to just throw out a few ideas to recommend to this body that we consider. If we are going to fix our debt and deficit, we have to look at the process of executing our budget to fix it. Here are a few thoughts. A biennial budget--if we don't do a budget every year, we should do a budget every 2 years. We are dealing with trillions of dollars. We should do a little bit of advanced planning. We should be able to do that at least 2 years in advance to be able to lay out how we are actually going to do the spending. We could do appropriations every single year to be able to provide the accountability, but at least the major budget process we should do every 2 years. We should get rid of the budget gimmicks that dominate this body in how we ``balance our budget.'' Budget gimmicks such as pension smoothing, corporate timing shifts, and all of our favorites--CHIMPS, or changes in mandatory programs, which everyone outside of this city thinks is a monkey, and everyone inside this city knows it is a great budgeting technique. Here is how some of these work. Here is an example from October's budget agreement. A pension payment acceleration in section 502 changed the due date for pension premiums from October 15, 2025, to September 15, 2025, in order to get $2.3 billion into the ten-year window. Now what just changed there? They moved the payment time 30 days forward and so that is when it is due. Since they moved it 30 days forward 10 years from now, suddenly that is another $2 billion into the Federal budget. If our Federal budget was not 10 years, but 10 years and 2 weeks, it would have been $2 billion short. Because they moved the payment over a month and made it earlier, suddenly the budget picked up $2 billion. It is not real. It is a gimmick. There are the changes in mandatory programs that go out, such as the Crime Victims Fund. That is a fund of money that is expected to be spent, but should we actually not spend part of it, they will say: Great, we can take that part we were ``expected to spend'' and actually spend it this year. Then guess what; next year you spend it again, and next year you spend it again. It is a gimmick. That should be struck. We shouldn't have gimmicks like that. Those things make Congress look good but don't actually deal with our deficit and debt. There are rules that are internal that need to be fixed. We need to get real numbers and be able to have agreeable real numbers. Right now there is a big argument all the time saying: How does the budget balance against the President's budget--this particular baseline and that particular baseline? How about this: We have a lot of programs that have not been authorized--some of them for more than a decade-- though we continue to allocate money for them every single year. Authorizing programs as we do for national defense every single year is important, and we should actually do the work with that to be able to bring bills to the floor and to be able to get it done. We have reports from the GAO and from the IG that come out every year showing waste, yet many of those no one ever acts on. Three folks I see on the floor right now--Senator Flake and Senator McCain from Arizona and my office--have all put out waste reports in the past 5 months detailing billions of dollars in waste. We can identify these areas, and the inspector general's office and the GAO can identify these areas. We need to set a process in place to actually solve those issues. Then we can do more than talk about it. We can move it from just a messaging moment to solutions on our debt and our deficit. I recommend a measure such as the Government Shutdown Prevention Act that says we don't have a government shutdown. I understand some are very romantic about government shutdowns and what they would accomplish. Government shutdowns always cost more money for the taxpayer than they save. They cost a tremendous amount of turmoil in the Federal workforce and multiple places. There is an easier way for us to handle this. Congress only acts when we have to. When we have a government shutdown, we suddenly have to act. How about if we do something simple and straightforward, and we put in place something that at the end of the budget year, if we do not have a budget in place and do not have proper appropriations done, we have a short-term continuing resolution for 30 days that automatically puts into place in all legislative offices and the Executive Office of the White House a funding haircut to create the incentive that we need to act? If 30 days later we still don't have the appropriations done, the Executive Office of the White House, the House, and the Senate get another haircut, and we continue to press. There are ways that we can add pressure to ourselves that won't actually damage what is happening in the rest of the Nation. Why don't we pass a balanced budget amendment, which we have talked about forever and which we voted on in 2011 and has not come up again? We will never get to some of these measures until Congress is compelled to do the right thing. Let's put some processes in place beginning with our budget process, with real reform in how we do the budget and real structural changes to actually push this body to do what everyone outside of this body says needs to be done. In the days ahead when we are spending more on interest than we are on national defense, this body should hang its head in shame. But before that occurs, we should fix it so that never happens and we get on top of our debt and deficit with a straightforward process that actually gets us back to work. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I have two different amendments that are coming to the floor. One deals with the Energy bill. One of them deals with the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This bill does a permanent extension of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. My question on that has been this: The money that is being allocated for the Land and Water Conservation Fund to be able to purchase properties--are we also allocating money to be able to actually maintain those properties? Currently, in the current existence of this bill, there is some money allocated to it in some future way, but I have a simple request: As much money as we allocate to dealing with purchasing new properties, we should also focus in on maintaining what we already have because we have billions of dollars in maintenance backlog. Right now one of the worst conservation things that can happen in many parts of the country to land is actually put it into Federal trusts because it is not being taken care of once it actually goes into the Federal trust. But that is not the prime issue I want to talk about right now. Oklahoma is truly an ``all of the above'' energy State. Oil, gas, coal, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar--we actually use all of those platforms in a very diverse energy economy. A tremendous amount of wind energy is produced in Oklahoma, used in Oklahoma, and exported to other States around us. It is a very important energy source for us. It has been incredibly beneficial, and it is an important part of our portfolio of a diverse energy platform. We have a challenge to deal with our tax policy. Just a few weeks ago, this Congress--the House and the Senate--passed a change in the way the wind production tax credit will be handled. As a quick review for this body, the wind production tax credit was put in place in 1992. It was a short-term tax credit to give a little bit of help to a brandnew wind energy and several other diverse energy portfolios, but it was especially targeted at wind to help a brandnew energy source get started. Twenty-four years later, this temporary tax credit is still sitting there. As of a few weeks ago, it was changed. It was changed so that in 2015 and 2016 the full tax credit will still be there, but starting in 2017 that tax credit will drop to 80 percent of what it is now, in 2018 it will drop to 60 percent, in 2019 it will drop to 40 percent, and in 2020 it is left undefined. I heard multiple individuals say this is a phaseout of the production tax credit--a phaseout. That is something many of us have pursued for many years--how do we get out of this perpetual cycle? The problem is it wasn't a phaseout, it was a phasedown of the production tax credit because in 2020 the PTC is left undefined. Most people would say that is not a problem. It will just go away. It is left undefined. The problem is 10 times in the past 24 years the production tax credit has been undefined for a future year assuming it would go to zero, and 10 times this Congress has gone back and retroactively put it back into place--10 times. So to say in 2020 we are going to leave it undefined and it will go away is not a true phaseout. That is a phasedown, and it leaves it in the Tax Code. My amendment is simple. A few weeks ago this body agreed that we would phase out the production tax credit. The best way to do that is to remove that part from the Tax Code in year 2020 and then it would be eliminated and would actually go away. Why would I encourage that? I would encourage that for several reasons. It provides certainty in the industry. Several individuals I talked to in the industry say they need certainty in their planning. This would help with certainty in planning. It is assumed right now that it goes away in 2020. I would like to make sure everyone understands it really does go away in 2020. It is eliminated from the Tax Code. This is keeping everyone honest based on what they said they wanted to do, and we actually eliminate that production tax credit that year. It provides that great certainty that industry needs to know for their own planning, for their investment, and for outside capital resources and how that money comes in. It is also because these extensions are extremely costly. The extension that was just done in December by this Congress will cost $17 billion over the window--$17 billion. May I remind everyone that we just had an extended argument over how we were going to fund the Transportation bill last year when we needed to find $13 billion a year to fund transportation, and we just did a production tax credit for wind that is $17 billion. If we are going to deal with a lot of our national priorities, I am great with having wind in our portfolio, but this is not a new industry that continues to need support and provide the clarity that is needed to make sure we actually end this tax credit when we said we were going to end this tax credit. Let's remove it from the Tax Code in 2020 and make sure it goes away, and the only way it can be renewed at that point is to go through the normal tax process, create a new tax, and actually do it in the full sunlight rather than just say: Well, we are going to do another tiny extension again. Wind has increased generation dramatically over the past 24 years, and I am glad. It is a good source. In our Nation, since 1992, wind generation has increased 3,000 percent. It is well developed, it is economically stable, it is pulling its own weight in the system, and we should allow it to continue to fly on its own. It is not as if wind goes away if we don't provide a tax credit. It is interesting to note that in 2014 we faced something very similar to this. In 2014 it was one of those years that the tax credit was to go away and not exist anymore. It had expired. The problem was that at the very end of 2014, Congress did a retroactive renewal of the production tax credit for the year 2014 in the last days of December. So the whole year had gone by without the tax credit, and during the very last days of 2014 Congress once again renewed the production tax credit and did it retroactively. That year, 2014, the wind association noted that there was $12 billion of private investment into wind that year. The tax credit was only applied in the final days. Wind is a good energy source, but it does not need additional Federal dollars to be able to compete in this market. We have made that decision. Now it is time that we actually both trust and verify and that we reach out to this last year, when we said as a body that wind energy would not get a production tax credit anymore, and remove it from the tax credit and verify for ourselves that, no, it is not going to happen. One last thing. I came into this body 5 years ago and served in the House of Representatives. For the 4 years I served in the House of Representatives, I distinctly remember the first year, in 2011, when I sat down with some folks from wind energy and I asked: How much more time do you need for the production tax credit because wind continues to increase its efficiency. They said: It is becoming much more efficient. If we had 3 more years, we could make it. Again, this was in 2011. The discussion was that by doing a phasedown in 2011 they would need just 3 more years and it would go away. In 2014 I was in a hearing in the House of Representatives, and I asked those same individuals: How much more time do you need for a phasedown and phaseout of the production tax credit? The same person said to me: If I just had 4 more years, we could phase this out. I am concerned, and I believe rightfully so, that in 2019 this body will have lobbyists come into it and say: If we just have a few more years of the PTC extension, we could make it just fine. I would argue they are doing very well as an industry--and I am glad they are. Let's make it clear the PTC ends in 2020 and does not return. With that, I yield back my time.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, in 1992, the House and Senate joined together to pass a resolution designating January 16 as Religious Freedom Day to celebrate one of the most powerful and unique freedoms within our Nation's founding and fabric. This day is significant because it marks the passage of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom originally authored by Thomas Jefferson. 2016 marks the 230th anniversary of the passage of this statute that, as Congress recognized, ``inspired and shaped the guarantees of religious freedom in the First Amendment.'' It reads in part: ``. . . no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced . . . in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.'' The Founders understood that there is a direct connection between the prosperity and health of a nation and its respect for human rights and religious freedom. Individual faith grows when people live free of government coercion and control. In America, individuals can practice any faith or no faith. This is true religious freedom--having the freedom to practice a faith or to have no faith at all and to have that choice not only be respected, but protected. Respecting and protecting this fundamental human right means that we cannot diminish it. The constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion means that people have a right to live their faith in public. Saying someone has the right to worship freely at the place of their choosing is not the same thing. Additionally, while one faith group should not be favored over another, so too should we not err on the side of removing faith from the public sphere and opting for no religion at all. Thomas Jefferson left explicit instructions that his authorship of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom be included on his gravestone as one of only three things for which he wanted ``most to be remembered.'' As we celebrate the 230th anniversary of the passage of this statute, what will we be most remembered for? I hope that we can be remembered for not only honoring this legacy of Thomas Jefferson, but for upholding a right that is fundamental to the core of this nation and to human dignity--religious freedom.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess as under the previous order.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, it is a basic American value: Families. America has gotten particular about our families. We love our families and we love our kids. It is one of the struggles we have had recently as a nation because we have seen this collapse of the American family, this basic value. We see that unit struggling. Families begin, a husband and a wife, in that incredible moment when a lady looks at a pregnancy test, sees that little line, and realizes there is a baby on the way. Forty-three years ago as a country there was a decision made by the Supreme Court. That decision forever changed the structure of our families, forever changed the values within the country, because the values shifted 43 years ago, and it changed from there is a baby on the way to that family gets to choose if that is a baby or not. To literally be able to say, based on the preference of the mom, it is tissue or it is a baby, we should handle those two things very differently. I can remember distinctly in my family 19 years-plus ago now, when we saw that little line on the pregnancy test and we started getting a house ready and getting things organized and we started trying to figure out how to get our finances in order and everything ready to go because there was a baby on the way. In those first moments, before my wife could even feel that she was pregnant, we found out that she was. That was a child coming to our family. She has a name now. Her name is Hannah. With the first of our two daughters--Hannah and Jordan--we understand full well how things started and what things were like in those earliest days. It is remarkable to me that so much of the conversation now circles around preference. At that moment we knew that if we didn't do something right away to actually reach into the womb and take that child out of the womb--Planned Parenthood and other folks would say ``just to remove the tissue''--that if something wasn't done from that moment on, there was a baby coming, a baby who would look up into our face and would smile and would have a name. Americans have lost track of this basic principle. That is not tissue in the womb. When that pregnancy test comes up positive, that is a baby. Regardless of the preference of any individual, that is a baby on the way. Cells are dividing. For many they don't find out for maybe a couple of months even and begin to figure out something is really changing and they do a quick test. Sometimes by the time they even do a test there is a beating heart there. They look in with a sonogram and count 10 fingers, 10 toes. If you were to reach in and do a DNA test, you would find out that lump of tissue that is in there is not tissue. It has DNA different than the mom, different than the dad. That is a child. It is a unique life. That life is not determined based on a preference. That life is determined based on that dividing cell as a child with 10 fingers and toes. I can't think of anything else we have in America where anyone can say, based on their preference, I choose for that to be alive or I choose for that not to be alive. I can't just look at this desk and say I choose to call that a life because we know life has basic criteria. It has dividing cells. It can function on its own. It can reproduce. It is life. We know what life is. We can't casually say one thing is life and one thing is not, just like we casually don't just try to fight off the destruction of tissue in other ways. I always smile when I hear some folks on the other side of this argument say they want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. I hear it all the time--safe, legal, and rare. When someone says that to me, I always ask the question: Why rare? I understand safe and legal. Why would you care if it is rare? If it is just tissue, why does it matter if you remove it? No one has a big national movement to fight individuals from taking warts off their hands because everyone knows, if you have a wart on your hand, it is just tissue and no one cares if you take that off. They understand that really is your body. It is a wart on your hand and it doesn't look good, so take it off. Everyone is fine with that. For some reason there is a push to say safe, legal, and rare when it comes to abortion because I believe inherently even the individuals who say safe, legal, and rare understand it is not just tissue or you wouldn't say it has to be rare. You understand it is an incredibly painful, difficult decision that a mom is making because she knows in her gut that is not tissue. That is a child, a child who would one day have a name and a smile. That is a child. In China the government gets to decide whether it is just tissue or a child because the government will step in and say: If you have a second child, you can't have that one. You have to destroy the second child. Now, in their benevolence, China has shifted to say you can have up to two children in certain areas and in certain regions, but if you have a third one, you have to destroy that child. In America, for whatever reason, we have individuals with the freedom to be able to say: I prefer for this not to be a child. Suddenly, somehow our culture says: OK. You can pick. The Supreme Court in 1973 looked at this issue, and they argued a lot about viability, what they call quickening. This conversation about viability really circled around whether States could actually make laws protecting the lives of children once they reach viability. In 1973, viability was very different than what it is today. In the NICU units-- neonatal intensive care units--you will find a very large area in most hospitals. You ought to go by and visit and walk into an NICU area because you will find many rooms and many beds there. Decades ago that wasn't true because children at 22 weeks and 24 weeks didn't survive before. Now a higher and higher percentage are. There are children who are in Oklahoma City right now in NICU who weigh just a tiny bit more than two iPhones. That is their weight when they are born--just a tiny bit more than two iPhones in weight. Yet they are growing up to be healthy, productive kids. They are children. We are getting better at NICU as well, learning how to provide oxygen so their lungs develop. I visited some of the physicians in the NICU at OU Children's Hospital over the Christmas break and said: What have we learned? What have we gained? Is this getting better? They talked about how we feed differently now than we did decades ago. At NICU, we understand how they are developing and receive food, and we want their digestive systems to develop. Things are very different now in science. It is forcing the country to rethink an issue again: When is a child a child? And in our basic American values, should we stand up for them? I believe we should. I am amazed at the number of moms who--if they will get a sonogram and see the picture of their child in their womb, they understand clearly that is not tissue; that is a face looking back at them. Those are fingers and toes that they can count. There is a beating heart there. That is not random tissue. In fact, I don't know if you knew this, but they can now do 3-D sonograms and then send the sonogram to a 3-D printer and actually print out a model of what the child looks like in the womb in that exact position. Not only is that cool as a parent, to be able to say that I can actually hold a model of what my child looks like right now at 20 weeks of development, 28 weeks of development and to be able to see and look at their face, but it is revolutionary for physicians that at 20 weeks they are reaching into the womb, giving anesthetic to the child, and they can actually see exactly what the imperfections are so when they go in to do surgery, they can practice on the outside before they reach into the inside. The technology continues to advance. I say to my colleagues, at what point will our laws catch up with our science? How long will we deny clear science and not understand that is a child? I think in the decades ahead, our Nation will catch up to the science and will look back on a season in our country when we ignored the obvious: When a pregnancy test says positive, that is not positive for tissue; that is positive for a baby. I also want to affirm thousands of volunteers around the country-- many of them coming this week to the March for Life--who serve every single week in crisis pregnancy centers around the country, who lovingly walk with moms through some of the most difficult days of their lives as they make hard decisions. With great compassion, they walk them through a tough pregnancy. Then they are with them in the days after delivery, bringing diapers to them, bringing formula to them, helping them in those early moments. Thousands of volunteers around the country do that every single week. Good for them. Good for our country. Good for our value for life. I am always proud when Americans stand up for other Americans no matter how weak they are. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, 240 years ago, the Navy Chaplain Corps was established. Chaplains serve our Nation by serving the members of our military--providing prayer, comfort, support, healing and restoration. Chaplains go into the darkest places on earth to serve those who risk their lives for our Nation. They have seen the worst, but still provide hope for something greater. Over the course of their ministry, 16 Navy chaplains have given the ultimate sacrifice. Additionally, two chaplains have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their devoted service. After over a decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, chaplains today continue to bring support and hope to those affected by war. Protecting and advancing the religious liberty of both chaplains and servicemembers is essential to preserve our honored heritage. On the 240th anniversary of the Navy Chaplain Corps, we recognize their dedication and devotion, their service to a cause greater than themselves, and their selfless sacrifice for our nation. We also recognize the importance of protecting their right and the right of every servicemember to practice their religious beliefs. On this day, we recognize all Navy chaplains who have answered the call to serve where it matters, when it matters, with what matters since 1775.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, Senator Collins, who is my friend and colleague from Maine, would strike a provision in this bill defunding Planned Parenthood and would continue directing Federal funds to that organization. Earlier this year, I joined Senator Ernst, Senator Paul, and other colleagues, and we introduced legislation that prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding Planned Parenthood and reasserts Congress's support for directing those funds to current providers of women's health care. We absolutely should support health care choices for women. But Planned Parenthood is the single largest provider of abortions in the country. Directing increased taxpayer dollars to community health centers provides quality health care options to women without supporting the largest provider of abortions in the country. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I yield back.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. President. That was actually the first thing I was going to say, that we refer back to Senate rules that we are to address the Presiding Officer rather than each other, and I appreciate the Presiding Officer acknowledging that, according to Senate rules. My simple statement today was not intended to be offensive. In fact, I think if I went back through the transcript of what I said--I am looking for what was offensive rhetoric that was stated multiple times by the Senator from California. As I try to think back through what was offensive rhetoric, my saying that children have ten fingers and ten toes, unique DNA, and a unique fingerprint doesn't seem to be offensive. I think also if I went through the legislative record, I never talked about criminalizing anything. I heard multiple times through a conversation on the floor that I was criminalizing, criminalizing, criminalizing. I was actually speaking out for millions of children each year that die and saying: Would we not want to reconsider the new science that has been available in America for decades now, to look inside the womb and see ten fingers and ten toes and unique DNA and a fingerprint that is different from the mom or the dad, and to understand that we have a basic principle as Americans to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? That is a unique value. Even the Supreme Court, when they ruled on Roe v. Wade, talked about viability. Current science continues to press on what is viable. A friend of mine delivered last year a little girl that was 14 ounces. That little girl is a healthy little girl now over 1 year old, continuing and doing fine. In 1973 that child would not have been viable. She is very much a child. She is beautiful. As for this whole conversation about millions of people losing insurance if ObamaCare goes away and don't I care about millions of people and insurance, the issue is not millions of people being covered. There are other ways to be able to help millions of Americans. As I acknowledged when I spoke, there are real issues in health care delivery in America and there are significant issues that continue to this day. My simple statement was that those issues get larger and larger, and my concern is that while individuals would stand up and say we have millions of people covered, they ignore a 35-percent increase of premiums in my State. They ignore the reality of a growing copay in my State and that people are forced by law to buy a product they cannot actually afford to use. My simple statement is this: Can we not acknowledge--not that there are not millions of people not newly covered--that we have millions of people now that have a coverage that they cannot use and cannot afford to keep yet they are compelled by law to do it. In fact, they become criminals if they don't buy the health care coverage required by law. These are real issues and they really do need dialogue. Good civil dialogue will help us work these things out--and centering in on the facts. With that, I yield back.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I have been able to sit in and listen to the debate today about bringing forward a bill that will do two simple things: remove funding from the single largest provider of abortions in the country, an organization that has recently sold the body parts of children to the highest bidder. Also, we would deal with one of the main issues that I face every single day in my State, as people struggle under the harmful effects every day of the Affordable Care Act, which has proven to be neither affordable nor caring to many people in my State. Let me say some of the things that I have heard recently--that this is all about going after women's health. As a very proud husband of a very beautiful lady and a proud dad of two beautiful daughters and as a son of a breast cancer survivor, this has nothing to do with going after women's health, nor demonizing women, nor the war on women, nor all the other accusations that I have recently heard. This is not about protecting what I have heard called a lifesaving health care organization where 325,000 children died in it last year. This is about a simple thing: children. In the past, back in the old days, they used to identify tissue as just tissue. The wart on your skin and other tissues in your body were expendable, and it was just tissue, so why does it matter? In the past people used to think that way, but now science is able to look inside the womb and is able to count 10 fingers and 10 toes on a child and watch a child suck its thumb. Scientists can look inside and take a sample and see that that child has different DNA than the mom and dad. We are now able to look inside the womb and see a unique fingerprint that is different from the mom and dad's fingerprint. We understand something different now because in the past there was a belief that it was just tissue, but now we understand it is not tissue. It is a child. As Americans we believe in a simple thing: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It has been what we have been all about from the beginning. This is not some attack on women's health. These are millions of voices rising up around the Nation and saying: We are better than this as a nation. Why would we continue to supplement the death of children? Why would we do that? Can we be better than that? In the days ahead, I firmly believe we are on the right side of history, those of us who stand up for children and for those who cannot speak for themselves. The most innocent and vulnerable in our society need our protection. Just because they are small and just because you can't see them doesn't mean they are not valuable and can be thrown away. These are children we are talking about--little girls, little boys--and we think it is important that someone in this country speaks out for them. I have heard of late that those of us who speak for life should be quieter because there are irrational people in the country who would attack a Planned Parenthood clinic. I just have to reinforce this point: No one who speaks for life goes and takes a life. No one who speaks for the lives of children runs out and takes the life of an adult and says that is justifiable. It is not justifiable. It is horrific. But just like those individuals who speak tenaciously against religion shouldn't be silenced because there was a shooting in a church, saying people who are anti-faith should suddenly have no voice in America because some irrational person shoots someone in a church, the same is true that individuals who speak out for the lives of children shouldn't suddenly be silenced by being screamed down because an insane person does a shooting in a clinic. Both of them are wrong. It is reasonable for us to ask a simple question: Can we, as a nation, start a conversation again about children with 10 fingers and 10 toes and unique DNA with life and promise? Can someone speak out for them? I think we can. This conversation today is also about the Affordable Care Act, its promises, and what has actually occurred. There is no question we have major health care delivery issues in America. There is no question we have major insurance issues in America. It has been that way for a while, and it needs desperate resolution. My State, like many other States, started stepping into this. A Democratic Governor from my State led the way with our legislature in 2004 to pass something called Insure Oklahoma and start the process in our State, asking: What can we do to try to help the most vulnerable in our State? How can we help provide some supplement to another plan? We received waivers around Medicaid and started working through a process both for those who are employed and not employed to help provide that safety net for those individuals. It was a very successful plan until the Affordable Care Act was passed, and then the waivers were removed from our State and those individuals under that plan lost their plan and had to change to another one. In fact, I had some of those individuals approach me and say: I know this is a plan that is provided by our State so it will be grandfathered into the Affordable Care Act, won't it? I had to tell them: No, it will not. We have been denied on that. It is remarkable to me, as we deal with these two topics side by side, how some of the opponents of life can say: We want freedom of choice and Big Government out of our lives, but when we get to health care delivery, the bigger the government, the better. We want less choice. We don't want States to have the option to do that. We don't want businesses to be able to choose how they are going to do that. We don't want individuals to be able to have that choice. We want Big Government to step into people's lives and their health care delivery and tell them how it is going to be done. It is fascinating to me to be able to see those two issues juxtaposed all of a sudden--get government out of our lives but get more government into our health care. Now what do we do? In 2010, President Obama made this statement in his State of the Union Address: By the time I'm finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. Millions will lose it this year. Our deficit will grow. Premiums will go up. Co- pays will go up. Patients will be denied the care they need. Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans and neither should the people in this Chamber. It is an interesting statement based on what actually occurred then after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was actually passed, which is another issue to me. It is interesting to me how now this is really called ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act. Almost no one calls it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, when that was originally its name, and now for some reason patient protection has been dropped from our vernacular when this bill is discussed. So he made the statement that more Americans will have lost their health insurance. I have already referenced how we had thousands of Oklahomans lose their health care coverage as soon as the Affordable Care Act went into place because they were on Insure Oklahoma. That coverage was lost for them. We now have fewer options in Oklahoma for health care. Blue Cross Blue Shield began notifying 40,000 Oklahomans it will no longer offer the Blue Choice provider network to individuals. CommunityCare of Oklahoma, a Tulsa-based company offering health maintenance organization plans, has notified the Federal Government it plans to drop out of the Affordable Care Act market. GlobalHealth, another Tulsa-based HMO insurer, said it has already notified Oklahomans it is leaving the Affordable Care Act market. Assurant Health, a Wisconsin company that has also covered Oklahomans, has now notified the government it is leaving the health care coverage area. UnitedHealthcare, the new participant in Oklahoma's Affordable Care Act market, has not announced the details of the plans it will offer, but State officials said its rates will be competitive. That will be interesting because next year the rates in Oklahoma will go up, on average, 35 percent. That is not some projected number. That is the actual number that rates will increase in my State--35 percent. It is interesting to me that yesterday on this same floor I heard arguments back and forth about the cost-of-living increase and the need for individuals who are in a vulnerable position and are receiving Social Security--need that help for a cost-of-living increase. I completely understand the dynamic of that, but at the same time individuals who would support a cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients don't seem to bat an eye when people in my State have health insurance increases of 35 percent next year. Do you know how difficult it is to cover a 35-percent health care premium increase? While the President was speaking in 2010, he said that the premiums will go up. Under the plan he put into place, the premiums will dramatically go up in my State in 2016. The President said while speaking in 2010: ``The copays will go up unless we don't do something.'' The editorial board of the great Oklahoma newspaper, The Oklahoman, on November 30, said: Numerous reports have noted that policies sold through ObamaCare exchanges increasingly rely on very high deductibles with limited provider networks. For someone with a major illness such as cancer, these policies are still beneficial. But for relatively healthy people, the deductibles are so high that there's little functional difference between being uninsured and insured when it comes to an impact on one's personal finances. I cannot tell you the number of Oklahomans I have talked to who have said this one thing to me: I have insurance because the law requires me to do it, but it is so expensive I cannot use it. So I literally pay for something because I am forced to, but I can't actually use it on a day-to-day basis because the copays are so high. I hear the same thing from doctors and hospitals. Hospitals were told that their charity care would go down because everyone will be forced to have insurance. Here is what I actually hear from the hospitals in Oklahoma: Their charity care has gone up, all of them. Their charity care and their writeoff have gone up because now those individuals walk into those hospitals and say: I have insurance. But when they get the bill and realize how high their payment will be, they say: I cannot pay it. So the charity care at hospitals has actually gone up. This is from a statement President Obama made in 2010: ``Patients will be denied the care that they need.'' Well, let me give you an example. On June 4 of this year, there was a highlight of Kaylen Richter, a 4-year-old who was denied coverage under the marketplace for a prescription she needed for her asthma. We have a loss of choice and a loss of competition in my State. Instead of more options, we have fewer options. Doctors' offices are selling out because physicians can't seem to make ends meet. There are so many requirements on them, they are selling their private practice and going into larger hospital practices. Hospitals are actually having to take in diagnostic facilities. Hospitals are taking care of individual physician practices. Hospitals are combining with other hospitals. Instead of greater competition, we see a smaller number of hospitals and a smaller number of entities. Instead, hospitals and entities are becoming larger and larger to be able to sustain that. We have even seen that nationally in the insurance market. Because of what is happening in the Affordable Care Act, it is pushing out insurance around the country. Remember the great statement: It is not government- controlled health care, it is insurance. Right now, Anthem, Cigna, Aetna, and Humana are all going through a combining process, where those four insurance companies that are national, large-scale companies realize they cannot make it under the Affordable Care Act and are merging into one giant company to see if they can make it as a giant company, resulting in fewer options, fewer choices, and centrally controlled health care. How do we turn this back? I will tell you in some ways, you can't. The Democrats and President, who have passed this, have succeeded in permanently changing health care in America. Those individual physicians who used to practice individual medicine all over the country and have now merged into larger hospitals, you don't undo that. Those individuals who were going to go into medical school but chose not to now, you don't undo that for a generation. These insurance companies that combined into large groups, you don't undo that. The diagnostic facilities that are going out of business and merging with large hospitals, you don't just quickly undo that. They have succeeded at permanently changing health care delivery in America. The challenge now is, How do we help in the days ahead? What do we do? I will say that some things can be done. We can continue to provide greater options, but the first thing we can do is stop the hemorrhaging. First, do no harm. First, engage and try to help the people who are affected by this. I have offered an amendment in this bill that deals with something called the health care compact. It allows individual States that want to be able to manage their health care to be able to manage the health care in their State. This may seem like a crazy idea except it is already done in every single State right now. Every single State already has a Medicaid process, has a health care authority, and has already made decisions which are severely limited by Federal regulations, but that structure is already in place to take care of the most vulnerable in our Nation. The health care compact would allow States to be able to broaden their authorities and to be able to do what needs to be done in order to take care of the individuals in their State, as my State has tried so hard to do with Insure Oklahoma and other options to be made available to people in my State that are being forbidden by the Federal Government. This would open that back up and would allow that competition. I can assure you that every time I speak to smaller rural hospitals in my State, they cannot get the attention of CMS and the Federal Government because they are small and rural and people in DC don't know where they are located and they don't have a big enough lobbying voice. They are just another one of those community hospitals out there. That doesn't happen if they are interacting with people in my State. Because those health care parameters are being set by people in Oklahoma City and our State capitol, they know every small rural hospital and the dynamics and difficulties there. They are not last in line. They are a part of the family. Allowing individual States to be able to make health care decisions through a health care compact that actually allows that State to be able to manage health care in their State is a tremendous asset. My State, along with eight other States, has asked for that. It is not an unfair request. It is something we should make available to States that choose to do that. Will every State choose to do that? No. Some States will probably want the Federal Government to be able to manage their health care. Those States are free to do that, but for States that want to be able to have that choice, allow them to have the freedom to do that. If they have the structure in place to fulfill the needs within their State, why would we forbid it? Why in the world would we say that those of us in Washington, DC, know and care more for Oklahomans than Oklahomans? When the folks in Washington, DC, say: No, we care more about that State and those people in that State rather than the people of that State, I think they are misguided. This can be done differently. What are we up against? We are up against real people who face real issues. It has been incredibly difficult for them to be able to walk through the ObamaCare transition. This is not about patient protection, and it has been far from affordable as prices continue to go up. Let me read one story from my State. It is from a lady who lives in a rural area in my State, which has been one of the toughest areas. The Affordable Care Act assumes everyone lives in New York City or some metropolitan area. Welcome to the rest of America. Not everyone lives in big, urban settings. This is one of those folks. She lives in a rural area, not too far, but a good distance, from Oklahoma City. She said she sold some land recently--and by the way, she is on a health care exchange. She sold some land recently, which we do in rural America. That made her income go up significantly for that 1 year--one land sale. She said the marketplace doesn't see it as a 1-year thing, so they take all the information about her subsidies on that before taxes. So it raised her premium from $43 to $400. She said she is going to try to figure out a way to be able to manage that. Then she says this: Why does she have to pay so much for a plan that is not even usable in her area? No one will take her insurance, and providers are dropping it because they are not getting paid. She has to travel now all the way to Oklahoma City so she can find care at all. All she is looking for is an affordable option and providers in her area that will actually take it. It is one thing to say it provides an option. It is another thing to say people can actually access that option. We can do better as Americans. This is a conversation we should have. Let's have it. Let's talk about a better way to be able to do this. This is not about fixing something. This is about a transition that is happening in health care in America that needs to be corrected. We can never go back to where we were. There has been too much permanent damage in the system. Now it is a matter of what can be done that is best for people--not what is best for the Federal Government but what is best for the people of our States. Let's do it. I encourage the adoption of my amendment, and I encourage the adoption of this reconciliation package that is before our Nation and this body in the days ahead. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I would have objection to that request if I am not able to respond to the comments she makes.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Let me mention just a couple more. I have a real concern that our Social Security Administration is not sharing what is called the death master file. That may seem like a macabre comment, but what happens is, if we don't share the death master file, then we literally don't know in other agencies when to be able to pull a Social Security number off the record. The Social Security Administration recognizes that someone has passed away, but the IRS doesn't, so that is still a live Social Security number to them, meaning someone could get that Social Security number, file, get a work permit, even register and vote--all sorts of things can be done--under that number. We have 6.5 million people, according to our government, who are over 112 years old--6.5 million people. That is quite a few. Actually, in the world, there are less than 100, but according to our government we have 6.5 million and those numbers are being abused. I can't even get into multiple issues, but let me just mention one more on this list of waste. We identified what many Americans already know. Social Security numbers are being stolen and used to file fraudulent tax forms. Many Americans in the coming months will file their taxes only to get notification from the IRS that someone has already filed under this number. It is infuriating to them, and it is billions of dollars of loss to the Federal taxpayer. The IRS knows how to fix this. We list out the solutions. We have to actually implement the fixes. We have to be able to protect the taxpayer and to protect individuals from identify theft. That is a fumble, but it is fixable and we need to do it. I haven't even gotten into some simple things such as school lunches--ask any teenager what they think of school lunches at this point with the new regulations--or waters of the United States and how even the Corps of Engineers doesn't want to implement the new EPA rule. The fiduciary standard is causing chaos among retirees and individuals wanting to get retirement advice or rural banks in how they want to be able to give out loans for mortgages but can't in many rural areas of America. There are solutions to these problems, and it is our responsibility to be able to work through the process to solve them. With $450 billion in deficit spending and an economy that continues to slow down, this body needs to determine what our job is and do it. It would be my encouragement in the days ahead that we actually achieve that; that in the days ahead we speak of what we have solved for the American people rather than pretending, as we are eating breakfast back home with some friends who are complaining about the problems. It is time for us to fix the problems. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, when you are home and the television is on, the phone starts to ring, your dog is at the back door barking, and the kids need help doing their homework, occasionally you can forget that dinner is on the stove, but if you forget about it too long, your house will catch on fire, and that is going to be a problem. You can get distracted by a lot of things and suddenly miss out on something that is very important. Our Nation is dealing with a lot of issues right now, such as terrorism, immigration, banking issues, our economy, education, transportation, and I do have a concern that we have forgotten this year we still have $450 billion in deficit and a total debt of $19 trillion hanging over our heads. If we were in any State in America and faced with that, the legislative branch would work, make hard decisions, and then balance their budget. Every single State, at the end of the legislative session, comes to a balanced budget, but we don't. We just overspend, and it has happened consecutively so many times now, our debt has built up to $19 trillion. I don't have an easy way to articulate $19 trillion of debt, but let me give you a picture of that. Earlier this year we passed a 10-year budget plan that would get rid of our $450 billion of deficit and would slowly work down, within 10 years, back to a balance. Good. Let's do a hypothetical. Let's say we finish out that path, and we have to get back to a balance within 10 years, and then in year 11 we do very well and we have a $50 billion surplus. It is a good surplus. Here is my question: How many years in a row would we have to have that $50 billion surplus before we paid off our debt? If you are doing the math in your head, the correct answer is 460 years in a row. If we had a $50 billion surplus for 460 years in a row, we could pay off our debt. That is not going to happen, is it? We are in a bad spot, and my fear is that we are distracted and we are not focusing on something that will come back and bite us. What do we do about that? I ask if we can do the first thing: Can we at least agree that this is a problem and that we should actually work to balance our budget? At least have that as the common ground that we can agree on in this body and say we need to get back to a balanced budget, and then we need to begin to pay this down and start that process--to approach this issue in a way that I think can develop real solutions. We need to find common-ground areas, but first we need to begin with that one simple principle. Our office has come up with a list which we affectionally call the Federal Fumbles List--100 ways the Federal Government has dropped the ball. We are identifying areas of waste, duplication, and, quite frankly, regulations that are well outside the purview of the Federal Government, many of which slow down the economy and drive up the costs to consumers. These Federal fumbles are not an exhaustive list. This is not everything; This is just our list. We took some from multiple agencies and entities. As we pulled this list together, we encouraged this. This is our to-do list. We encourage other offices to start their to-do list so at least we can have a common-ground sense of, let's get back to a balance and work together to identify something within our own office to find out ways we can deal with some simple things, such as, how are we wasting taxpayer dollars? What programs are ripe with fraud? What duplication and inefficiency is out there? Where are we overregulating, which in turn raises the costs of goods and services for consumers? And how does the government actually have processes in place that deceive taxpayers and add debt to their families? When we walked through this, we had a common agreement on our team: We are not just going to identify problems; we are going to actually work together to find a solution. Our issues and conversations have been simple. If I am back home in Oklahoma, I can sit in the coffeehouse with other folks eating breakfast and talk about all the problems, but when I get back in this room, we can't just complain about the issues, we have to fix those issues. That is our job. We spend a tremendous amount of time just complaining about the issues as if fixing it comes from somewhere else. So we take all 100 of these issues and say: Here is the problem, and here is the solution we have proposed. If people have different ideas and different solutions, bring them, but let's at least agree that these things should be resolved. Some of them are small, some of them are large, but we simply asked the question: How do we fix this? I have several things to say on that issue. One is that we have to fix our budgeting process and the way we make decisions about it. We have these cute little terms in our budgeting process, such as CHIMPS, changes in mandatory programs. It is a cute term, but the problem is that adds $11 billion to the debt every year and everyone just pretends that it is not there, that it is not real. There is a fund called the Crime Victims Fund. This fund is supposed to go directly to what it says--to crime victims--but it is actually not used for crime victims. Eleven billion dollars each year--in fact, this is the same $11 billion that is used each year as an offset for additional spending, but the money never actually moves out of that account, it just stays there. We pretend we are going to spend it and then actually spend it somewhere else and then the next year do the same thing again. It is deceptive. We have to stop that. That adds deficit and debt onto families by a deceptive tactic. We have a thing called the corporate payment shift. This one is fun as well. The corporate payment shift assumes that money is going to come in or be spent, and we have a 10-year budgeting window and move it in the very last month to year 10 plus 1 month. We move it just slightly out of the budget window, but we say we are going to spend it and actually go ahead and spend it anyway. If we had a budget that was 10 years and 1 month, it would be out of balance, but if we put that little corporate payment shift in there, it looks fine on paper, but in reality it doesn't work. So we identify that as one of the fumbles that we have as a government. It is something that we obviously have to fix. Basic oversight will help that, but it is also this body making a decision on how we are going to budget it. We also walked through a lot of areas where we just identified things that the Federal Government spends money on that we thought were rather unique to spend money on and we thought may need some oversight. How about a $43 million natural gas filling station built in Afghanistan? It cost $43 million for one natural gas filling station. Now that that station is in place, it is not being used at all and it is a $43 million waste. How about the Academy Awards. It is a pretty ritzy event. The Academy Awards are choosing to build a $250 million museum, and the Federal taxpayers are kicking in $25,000 to that museum. Why in the world are we kicking in $25,000? Did we believe at some point that they couldn't raise the last $25,000, and so we had to kick in a Federal connection to it? I would disagree. One of my favorites is the fact that we just spent almost $50,000 to study the history of tobacco use in Russia. I am still looking for the national security implications of why we just spent $50,000 to study cigarette use in Russia. The National Park Service spent $65,000 doing a study on what happens to bugs when you turn on a light in dark areas. I can tell anyone in this Chamber what bugs do if you turn on a light in a rural area. They fly at the light. But we spent $65,000 trying to investigate that. The VA in Arkansas installed solar panels to show that they have green energy in this area. Many VA centers around the country are doing this project. The particular one in Arkansas put them on in the wrong spot, relocated them, and spent $8 million in total just for the installation for their solar panels. Any guess on how long those solar panels will have to run continuously to before they pay off the cost of installation? They will have to run continuously for 40 years just to pay for the cost of installation. That is not green energy, that is just waste. How about a challenge like this. The Social Security Administration-- the definition for Social Security disability is that you cannot work in any job in the economy. You are only eligible for Social Security disability if you cannot work in any job in the economy. But there are individuals who receive both Social Security disability, which by definition means you cannot work, and unemployment insurance, which by definition means you are looking for a job. You should not be able to get unemployment insurance and Social Security disability insurance at the same time. They violate the definitions between the two. Even the President of the United States agrees with that. Yet we have not been able to get that done. That is a fumble. As American taxpayers, we spent $374,000 studying the dating habits of senior adults. Can someone help me understand what the national security implications are for that and why we spent $374,000 studying the dating habits of senior adults? We also created what is called the Ambassador Slush Fund. The Ambassador's Cultural Fund from the State Department, $5 million--almost $6 million--is designed to be able to help us give away money to do construction in other areas. We have done projects like building a welcome grotto into a Buddhist temple in China, which I find the ultimate irony. If any church in America said we wanted to be able to add on a welcome center onto our church, we would forbid the use of taxpayer dollars for that, but in China we literally borrowed money from them, gave it to our State Department so they could build a welcome grotto into a Buddhist temple back in China. I am not sure that is a great idea. The State Department also has a Twitter account called ThinkAgainTurnAway. It is to discourage people from joining the jihadi movement. Any guess on how much Americans spend for a Twitter account? For that one Twitter account with 23,000 followers, we spent $5 million--$5 million to maintain a Twitter account. I am very confident there are multiple teenagers at home who could help us run that for a lot less than the price. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend my remarks for a couple more moments.

Mr. LANKFORD

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