Bob Menendez

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Andi Lipstein Fristedt, a detailee to the Senate HELP Committee, be granted floor privileges for the duration of Senate floor business today.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to pursue a unanimous consent request on something that is critical to families in my home State of New Jersey, which has the highest rate of autism, but is also critical to families across the country who have a loved one who faces--in the spectrum of autism and other developmental issues-- the need to get the help, so their child, their loved one, can fulfill their God-given capabilities. Last Tuesday morning, a full week ago from today, I sent this bill before the Senate for unanimous consent, and that unanimous consent was cleared on the Democratic side, but it has not been cleared on the Republican side, which has prevented this bill from passing. This legislation was reported out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on September 7 without amendment and with unanimous support, Republicans and Democrats together. This result, the result of a bipartisan effort with Senator Enzi, who is the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, is vital to ensuring that the programs created under the landmark Combating Autism Act of 2006 continue. That bill was signed into law by President George W. Bush after passing the Senate on a unanimous consent. This long history of bipartisan support only adds to my confusion as to why there are colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are currently preventing the bill from passing. This legislation has unanimous support from Democrats and strong bipartisan support throughout the Senate, including nine Republican cosponsors. Without Senate approval, the Combating Autism Act will sunset at the end of next week, leaving countless families across our Nation without the support they need in caring for their children with autism. This bill provides an additional 3 years of guarantees simply in the context of an authorization. Obviously, we would have to go through the appropriations process and there would have to be debate and it would be voted on the floor, but that authorization for 3 years at the fiscal year 2011 appropriated levels for the programs for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Health Resources and Services Administration is vital to continuing our efforts on diagnosing autism spectrum disorder, advancing behavioral therapies to improve social abilities with those with autism, providing families with education and support services to better understand autism, and to coordinating Federal efforts on researching autism. I have worked closely with Senator Enzi, who has been a cochampion in regard to this legislation and addressing all concerns. Since it cleared the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee with full bipartisan and unanimous support, I thought we had succeeded in addressing those concerns. I have not been approached or heard a single objection from any Republican as to why they might hold this bill, and I have been open in my willingness to work with the other side in addressing their policy concerns. Having not heard a single objection to the merits of this legislation--which, by the way, is an exact replica of what is being offered by the Republican majority in the House--I have to assume this is for reasons other than policy. We have had a week to bring this forward. It has caused incredible uncertainty and unnecessary worry for the parents of children with autism as they wait anxiously to learn if the government is going to continue to reauthorize the very essence of the programs that have helped their children be able to fulfill their God-given potential to the maximum ability they can. I have met family after family who tell me this legislation has made an enormous difference in their lives. So I don't understand any reason, considering all the work that has been done, considering the bipartisan support, considering the House Republican majority is offering the same legislation, why we have not been able to pursue this. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 163, S. 1094, the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act; that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I want to address a very important issue that is currently before the Senate. This past Tuesday I submitted a bill to the Senate--the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act, S. 1094-- for a unanimous consent agreement. Since then, the Republicans have blocked this bi-partisan bill from passing. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee reported this legislation unanimously on September 7, 2011. My legislation is a simple 3-year extension of the Combating Autism Act, CAA, of 2006. This original legislation was passed out of the Senate by unanimous consent on December 7, 2006, and signed into law shortly thereafter. This landmark legislation included provisions relating to the diagnosis and treatment of persons with autism spectrum disorders, ASD, and expanded and intensified biomedical research on autism, including a focus on possible environmental causes. Additionally, it provides for detailed surveillance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, of the increasing prevalence of autism spectrum disorders, ASD. The Act also reconstitutes the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee to advise the Secretary, coordinate the federal response to autism and develop the annual strategic plan for autism research. I am greatly disappointed that my colleagues on the other side are playing politics with this bill. On September 30, just a couple of short weeks from now, the programs authorized under the CAA sunset, and with them the myriad programs which have helped families better understand, treat and live with ASD. Now is not the time for politics. Now is the time to reauthorize the Combating Autism Act so families living with ASD can continue receiving the care and support they deserve.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I appreciate the passion of the Senator from Louisiana and her personal experience from Louisiana on the consequences of disaster. She speaks from firsthand knowledge and speaks for all of us in this respect. I rise today because we as a nation have always come together to help each other in times of crisis without question, without politics. In my 20 years between the House and the Senate, I never questioned, in the midst of a disaster somewhere in the country--which, fortunately, for the most part has not been New Jersey--casting my vote to support those fellow Americans who found themselves in urgent need because of natural disasters having nothing to do with any control they had whatsoever. This is not the time to politicize disaster aid. It is not who we are or what we expect this Nation to be. Our goal when disaster strikes is to unleash the full force of the Federal Government to help families in trouble and communities in ruin, not to score some political points by slowing relief and calling it responsible fiscal policy. In the wake of a storm, when the floodwaters rise, when the winds blow, when the storm surge rushes in, we should not be rallying our political base; we should be rallying the full force of emergency responders to help. In the last few weeks, the east coast has suffered an earthquake, a hurricane, and some of the worst flooding my State has seen in years--a 100-year flood. I received a letter from a constituent in Moors Landing, in Monmouth County, who wrote: Dear Senator Menendez, I live in Moors Landing, a development of homes in Howell Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Our community is in great need of assistance. One section of our community was devastated by flooding from an overflow of the Manasquan inlet on August 20 and 21. Homes and property were destroyed, and the families and lives of those homeowners were terribly disrupted. Then, after the first calamity, Hurricane Irene brought further destruction to this same section of our community. But in addition to that repeated damage, Irene brought damage to a second section of our community. Hurricane Irene, in addition to the added homes and property damage, forced many of our residents to be evacuated in order to avoid drowning in the rushing flood waters. This second catastrophe added to the misery and hardship suffered from our affected homeowners who lost their furniture, their carpets and flooring and everything in the first floor of their homes, their furnaces and air conditioning units, and all of them have to tear down their water damaged walls to avoid mold and dry out their homes. All of this devastation and loss comes at a time when our people already are finding it difficult to make ends meet. These people have no money to take on the added costs of repair; and now there is no one who would even buy their homes. So they are stuck with a true nightmare scenario--no money to fix things and no way to sell the homes. We need your help. I understand Federal funding from FEMA is available, and we urgently need your assistance in securing these funds for our neighbors so that these people can move on with their lives. That constituent, a fellow American, deserves to know that her government will be there to help, that relief is on the way, not held up in Congress to satisfy some ideology or political agenda. When disaster strikes, Americans come together. We do not hesitate. We do not ask why. We do not wait. We rush to our neighbors and do all we can to help them rebuild. After the damage and flooding Irene caused, we came together as we always do--as a community, each of us working together to help others. I had the opportunity to tour the flooded areas of New Jersey with the Army Corps of Engineers. Then we went to Patterson. This is a picture of Patterson, NJ, and these responders are on a boat, with the President and Governor Christie of my State, to assess that damage. After 5 days of flooding, there were still those who were homeless, trying to put the pieces of their lives back together. As we flew over the area with the President that day, we could see mud lines on homes indicating how high the floodwaters had reached. Then, tragically, we saw home after home where everything, up and down some streets--all the personal belongings of residents had been put out as trash, cherished pieces of their lives lost, ruined. Paterson was particularly hard hit. Ironically, the river that once fueled the economy of Paterson washed out bridges, dams along the river were badly damaged, and power was knocked out for days. With the latest rains, flooding again took place even after Hurricane Irene. So the water may have receded, but the consequences have not. We have been very pleased with the Federal response so far, a response that should have nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with political budget debates in Washington, and everything to do with the real needs of families in Paterson, in Lincoln Park, in Wayne, and in so many other places in New Jersey and across this country. Some of these people have to start over, start their lives over. FEMA, along with other Federal, State, and local officials, needs the resources necessary not only to move in as quickly as possible to deal with the crisis but the resources necessary to deal with the aftermath--politics notwithstanding--because when one community is in trouble, we are all in trouble, and we pull together. Frankly, I cannot believe there are those in this Chamber and in the other body who see this as a political opportunity, those who would focus on the politics of relief even in the face of families who have watched their lives wash away, their property in ruins, and their communities devastated. New Jersey suffered severe damages and left families, already struggling, with another challenge. It is up to all of us to help them. Irene was a powerful storm, but what we have learned is that there is nothing more powerful than what unites us as a community. It is in times such as these, when families and small businesses are trying to recover, that we appreciate the role of professional, well-equipped, well-trained local, State, and Federal boots on the ground. In my view, one of the most legitimate and nondebatable roles of government--clearly, I have heard many of my colleagues refer to this in a different context--is the security of our people. If you are homeless as a result of a disaster, you have a security problem. In my view, one of the most legitimate and nondebatable roles of government is to provide a helping hand to a citizen when there is nowhere else to turn. Yes, we have to do all we can to keep our economy moving, create jobs, and reduce the deficit. We have to make cuts where we can. But in the face of disasters, we cannot say no to families who have lost everything. We cannot say no when floodwaters are rising, homes are lost, possessions are piled in the streets, and families are picking through the mud to put whatever pieces of their lives they can find together once again. We are not a nation that ties helping them recover to the politics of the moment. We are not a nation that leaves our neighbors alone in the time of tragedy. We do not stand down in times of crisis, we step up. We in New Jersey are grateful to the President for coming to Paterson and to Wayne and for the rapid and effective response of FEMA and State and local officials, after Irene, to families who have lost so much. But any attempt to slow relief to these families is, in my view and in the view of Governor Christie of my State--any attempt to politicize this disaster to advance an ideology at the expense of all we stand for as a nation is not acceptable. The President said we will do what is necessary to respond. Senator Lautenberg and I took the same view, and Governor Christie took the same view. We don't want to get into the politics of budget debates or whether this should be offset later on. That is a question for later on. The question right now for people who find themselves without a home so we can knock on that door is, Is the Federal Government--the one I pay my taxes to, the one I swear an oath of allegiance to every day--is it going to respond to me now? I did not question the need to respond to tornadoes in Joplin, floods in the Dakotas, or the terrible consequences of the hurricane in Louisiana or any other place in this country, and I do not expect that my colleagues now will say no to their fellow Americans who need help now in New Jersey and in other States along the east coast. It is simply not the American way to not support the funds necessary and deal with the challenges these families have now. Let's keep our eye on the ball. There are families in real need, really struggling in ways we cannot imagine. We have a real ability to put politics aside and do what is right. We will have that opportunity very shortly. Let's do what is right. Let's get this money to the Federal agencies that can help turn around these people's lives. That is the American way. That is the vote we will have later today. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor to talk about the deal the Senate will vote on sometime later tonight or tomorrow. Before I do, I want to say to my distinguished colleague from North Dakota, the chairman of the Budget Committee, as always, what an exceptional job he has done in laying out fact from fiction, the realities of the choices before us. I only hope that the revenue possibilities he clearly expressed exist as part of an equation to a solution could be invoked, but I am concerned based upon what the other side says. We have a deal before us that is a result of a manufactured crisis. The debt limit has historically been raised as a matter of course by both Republicans and Democrats, both sides, without conditions. Ronald Reagan did it 18 times without conditions. George W. Bush did it 7 times without conditions. But, no, not this time. For days, for weeks, this Congress has been held hostage by a radical few--a band of tea party tyrants--who believe their opinions, their values, their view of the world, their vision of government must be America's vision. It is not. In their world, there is no room for reasonable compromise, there is no room for fair and balanced budget approaches, the kinds of approaches to budgets I and many on this side have worked for and voted for throughout our careers in Congress. I have voted for balance going in, and I was looking for balance in the final agreement or the hope of balance that the American people themselves have expressed clearly they wanted to see: spending cuts but also ending those tax loopholes and creating revenue. I have voted for $2.4 trillion in cuts in the Reid amendment, with the inclusion of a joint committee process--Senator Conrad was talking about that--that could include revenues, a balanced approach. I have supported increasing the debt limit in a responsible way, a balanced, responsible, fair approach that implements significant but responsible deductions. I voted in 2010 to establish the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action--the precursor to the Bowles-Simpson Commission--to review all aspects of the financial conditions of our government, including tax policy and entitlement spending. I voted to protect Social Security from being used to balance the budget when it hasn't contributed to our debt. I voted in favor of the Pryor amendment to reduce the budget deficit by at least $154 billion with a balanced approach to cutting our deficits that included discretionary spending, entitlements, and revenues. I have supported budget enforcement measures, such as the statutory pay-go, to pay as you go when you come up with a new idea for spending or a tax break, to control both spending and revenues. I led the effort in this Chamber to cut $21 billion in unwarranted Big Oil subsidies and supported saving almost $6 billion this year alone by cutting ethanol subsidies. I have voted five times in the past to increase the debt limit in a responsible way. But this eleventh-hour deal, with so many strings attached that it has become a tangled web of conservative social values, is nothing more than a concession to the radical right of one party, and it flies in the face of our values as a nation. It would mean drastic and dramatic cuts to one side of the ledger, overwhelmingly from nondefense spending, and no balance--I repeat, no balance--on the revenue side. I know their suggestion is that the commission can look at revenue. Yes, it can look at revenue, but that commission which is going to be appointed with an equal number of Republicans and Democrats and appointed by the leadership in both Houses pretty much tells you where it is going to end up. Speaker Boehner has said he won't appoint anyone to the committee who would accept revenue as part of the mix. Senator McConnell has said there will be no new revenue. They get appointments to that commission. That is half of the commission. Even Gene Sperling, the President's economic adviser, said there will be no new revenues for the next 18 months, which is a clear reflection of what Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell have said. Since they won't accept revenue except maybe in the context of tax reform, which the joint committee has said it can't do by the end of the year, which is when this commission is called upon--by Thanksgiving--to come forth and make a presentation, and we Democrats will have members on the commission who will be responsible and want to strike a deal, we will end up either having to accept the commission's spending cuts without revenue, leaving us with trillions of dollars in nondefense and entitlement cuts, or automatic sequestered cuts that are even more Draconian. Does anyone in this Chamber really believe that the Bush tax cuts for the top-tier, the richest, the wealthiest people--millionaires and billionaires--which will expire in 2012, will be on the table in an election year, that the President will issue a veto threat for those tax cuts and make them the hallmark of his reelection campaign? I don't think so. While I know that if we go to the automatic sequestered cuts, nearly $1 trillion of those automatic cuts will come supposedly from defense, what guarantees are there that we won't use the overseas contingency fund of $1 trillion to meet the defense side of the cuts--the very fund which Republicans, in the budget passed in the House, put in their budget and which virtually all of my Republican colleagues here in the Senate voted on, and they voted on it as cuts. If that isn't the case, what makes us think that supplemental emergency appropriations won't be offered on the defense side while warfighters are in the field, leaving us with no real defense cuts but a hard $1 trillion in cuts on domestic programs such as education, student loans, health care, renewable energy, research and development? And the list goes on. For those who suggest that this commission and the threat, the sword of those automatic cuts will make people act responsibly, what makes us think that the old paradigm, which I long for, that people will be responsible will take place given what we have seen in which we have a manufactured crisis that has brought us to the verge of an economic crisis that is not only national but international in proportion? If people have been willing to bring us to that point, what makes us think this negotiation as proposed by the legislation will work? They will continue to look for deeper and deeper cuts to those basic services we as a party and as a nation have fought for. We will spend the next year headed into the national decisionmaking that will take place next November forced to debate deeper cuts, refight old battles, debate a balanced budget amendment and the Bush tax cuts, instead of talking about creating jobs, which is what Americans want to see again, and helping middle-class families who are struggling to make ends meet. But don't listen to me on that. Listen to Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who wrote today that this deal is a disaster-- his words--for the economy. He said: Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond. The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn't work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record. Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won't even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse. On one side, interest rates on Federal borrowing are currently very low, so spending cuts now will do little to reduce future interest costs. On the other side, making the economy weaker now will also hurt its long-run prospects, which will in turn reduce future revenue. So those demanding spending cuts now are like medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them and thereby making them even sicker. And then there are the reported terms of the deal, which amount to an abject surrender on the part of the president. First, there will be big spending cuts, with no increase in revenue. Then a panel will make recommendations for further deficit reduction--and if these recommendations aren't accepted, there will be more spending cuts. I described before the possibility of getting revenue in that equation with the appointments being made by the authorities making them, saying they will appoint no one who will consider revenues. There will be, therefore, even more spending cuts. That is a Nobel Prize economist. No, there is no balance in this agreement, no real compromise. It simply does not force the shared sacrifice the American people have demanded. Oil companies will make $143 billion in profits this year, the Big Five. They will keep picking the pockets of American taxpayers with a ridiculous handout while they earn those billions in profits. Ethanol millionaires will be off the hook with this deal. There is no balance in this deal. There is no fairness. There is nothing but concessions to the radical rightwing of the Republican Party that is holding the American economy hostage, with a gun to its head, threatening to pull the trigger if they don't get their way. Yet no one on the right seems to be happy. They want more. They believe they have not gotten enough. When is enough, enough? How far do we have to bend before we break? How much do we have to give of our values, our beliefs, our vision of America? How much do we have to give of the promises we have made as a nation to hard-working, middle-class families struggling to make ends meet, struggling to pay the bills, the mortgage, pay for health care, tuition to put their children through college, and give them a chance at a better life? How about those whose lives would be shattered except for the government's protection? We are their voice. I speak for them when I say this is not a fair deal, but it is the deal before us. What is fair is fair, but this plan is not fair to the American people. I cannot in good conscience support a plan where soldiers, seniors, students, and working families must endure trillions in cuts while oil companies, billionaires, corporate jet owners are not asked to pay one cent toward shared sacrifice. The Republicans turned a relatively routine vote to meet America's obligations into a crisis threatening the world's economy. In response, the Reid plan met them 80 percent of the way by proposing $2.4 trillion in cuts, creating a process where a bipartisan commission could find a balanced approach to deficit reductions that would go beyond that and that would meet the American people's call for shared sacrifice from those who have not only the greatest wealth in the country but also those who seem to have the privilege and the power to fashion the Tax Code in a way that benefits them but doesn't benefit working-class families in our country. No, that was not enough for the tea party, nor for the party they now control. No, instead they have insisted on a process where oil companies, billionaires, offshore tax havens, and the corporate elite are completely protected from making shared sacrifices. That is simply not fair. I cannot support it. The thought that because our soldiers will join seniors, students, and working-class families on the chopping block that Democrats should flock to this plan is wrongheaded. Eliminating troubled DOD weapons systems is one thing, but across-the- board cuts will punish those who are bravely serving our country in a time of war. Adding these cuts just makes what was a painful plan a totally unfair, unbalanced, and unacceptable plan. I supported the majority leader's plan. I have shown I am serious about deficit reduction. I have supported a fair deal as described by people in New Jersey and across our country, a reasonable deficit- reduction plan that truly represents compromise, a deal that fulfills the commonsense idea of shared sacrifice. I know shared sacrifice. This is not shared sacrifice. This is capitulation to a radical fringe of the Republican Party that will not bend until they break this economy or get their own way. I have been for deficit reduction. I have voted for fair approaches to deficit reduction. I know fairness, but this deal is not fair, and I will not support it. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

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

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, there are no easy answers to our current dilemma. The majority leader's proposal is the best option we have to overcome the bipartisan impasse. Failure to increase the debt limit is not an option. Working families cannot afford the increased costs associated with default, and seniors cannot afford not to have their Social Security payments. In my time as a mayor, as a State legislator, as a Member of the House of Representatives, and now as a Senator, I have learned there are times when one needs to stand and fight, and there are other times when one needs to reach a compromise. I am not excited about the decisions we are being forced to make, but I think the majority leader has crafted a proposal that can bring the two parties together and avoid economic disaster without destroying Medicare, Social Security, and other priorities of working families. If you compare that to Speaker Boehner's proposal, that is just more of the partisan gamesmanship, and the path we have to take becomes clear. So I rise today in favor of the majority leader's plan in the hope that reason will prevail on the other side, and that our Republican colleagues will finally agree to help govern and not make irrational demands that drive us down the road to default. Having said that, these debt negotiations have left America longing for a better time and a better government, a time when public service was, as Robert Kennedy said, a noble profession, when public servants served the public's interests, when they came together and found common ground and respected the opinions of those on the other side. My generation has always viewed public service as a noble profession and the fight for what we believe is right as a noble cause. But none of us should expect to win every battle. None of us should dismiss the valid beliefs of those whose politics we oppose but who have been duly elected and sworn in to represent their State or their district. The tea party Republicans in the House seem to have forgotten that we live in a democracy, and in a democracy people hold different views, contrary but equally valid opinions. They approach problems differently, from a different perspective, a different background, a different political view, and have differing views on the best solution. The art of governing is bridging those differences. Governing is finding common ground. Governing is what Ronald Reagan talked about in his autobiography, ``An American Life,'' when he spoke about the importance of political compromise. He understood that in a representative democracy each of us has a right to our opinion but not a right to our own way. President Reagan said: When I began entering into the give and take of the legislative bargaining-- This is in Sacramento. This is when he was Governor-- a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election did not like it. Compromise was a dirty word to them, and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing, and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said don't take anything. Sound familiar? It should. It is the view of today's radical tea party--the same view Ronald Reagan confronted. Reagan went on to say: I learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom get everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said, in 1933, ``I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.'' If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it. Ronald Reagan in his own words--a lesson from a conservative hero for those modern-day radical conservatives who have watched us walk 90 yards down the field, but would rather move the goal posts than meet us at the 10-yard line. Ronald Reagan would tell them to grow up, step up and govern. But they have reiterated the mantra of the radical conservatives Reagan faced: ``If you don't get it all, don't take anything.'' Edmund Burke, another conservative icon, once said something today's House Republicans today would label as ``weakness'' or ``too liberal.'' He said: Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. House Republicans have chosen to do nothing. Edmund Burke understood the art of governing and the art of compromise. Ronald Reagan knew how radical conservatives think, how they negotiate, and now we are seeing how they stand in the way of governance and governing to maintain the purity of their ideology. Clearly, Democrats have offered much. We have offered the other side an opportunity to govern, and they have rejected it on ideological grounds. We have lived up to our duty to govern. They have lived up to Ronald Reagan's own view of radical conservative tactics and philosophy. I say to my friends, it is time to compromise and time to govern. I was shocked to witness the audacity of the House Republicans who stepped to the microphone this week, one by one, each claiming that, if this Nation defaults on its obligations, it will be the President's fault. It will be the Democrats who caused us to default. Democrats have come a long way and the Republicans know it--they just won't accept it, and they can't sell it to the American people because the American people know the truth. Everyone knows the House tea party Republicans have rejected every proposal. They have even rejected the Republican Speaker's original proposal. They claim to love democracy and freedom of speech only when it is their speech, only when it expresses their ideas and their beliefs. They claim to love our system of government, but clearly are at war with the idea of governing, and with all those on this side who--I would respectfully remind them--have also been elected to serve, just as they have. They claim to embrace constitutional notions of tolerance and majority rule, but clearly see such notions as an inconvenient obstacle to getting their own way. They have the audacity to blame us for offering them what they want, and then to claim we haven't offered enough--that we are the problem. The fact is, with the plan the majority leader has put forth, Democrats are now offering exactly what the Republicans have asked for, and yet they still will not take yes for an answer. They even claim that they are willing to compromise as long as it is within their framework--the framework of their original demands--that they will compromise on the kind of a balanced budget amendment we pass. They will only compromise on how deep the cuts to entitlements are, but they will not compromise on subsidies to big oil companies or billionaire tax cuts that wealthy Americans have, themselves, told us they don't need. In effect their only compromise is getting their own way and calling it compromise. Well there is a difference between compromise and total capitulation. There must be a common ground that simply doesn't call for surrender. There's an Old Scottish proverb that says: ``Better bend than break.'' I say to my colleagues: We have done all the bending. Now it is time to govern. I say to my colleagues: ``Better bend than break,'' because in this case it is our economic integrity that stands to break. It is time for the truth. It is time we look at the real impact on real people's lives if Republicans continue to stand firm--unwilling to bend, unwilling to compromise, unwilling to govern--but clearly willing to take America down the road to default. According to Secretary Geithner, the consequences for the Nation--and for millions in my State of New Jersey--would be deep and far-reaching. Failure to raise the debt limit--failure to allow Treasury to meet the obligations of the United States that we have already incurred-- would be the ultimate tax increase on every American. As such, surely it would violate the radical right's pledge to Grover Norquist. And, make no mistake, it would be a tax increase. The no-compromise-Republican tax-increase would come in the form of increased interest rates--driving up the costs for every American family: the cost of mortgage payments would increase over $1,000 annually; equity prices and home values would decline which, in turn, would reduce retirement savings and affect the long-term and short-term economic security of every American. There would be reductions in spending and investments, jobs would be lost, businesses would fail, credit card interest would increase by about $250 annually, families would be paying $100 more for gas, $182 for utilities, and $318 more for groceries. Based on J.P. Morgan's financial analysis during the debt ceiling and government shutdown debate in 1995 and the crisis in 2008, interest rates on Treasury bonds could conceivably rise 75 or even 100 basis points. Between mortgages and credit cards alone, an increase of 75 basis points would translate into an additional $10 billion in consumer borrowing costs every year at a time when middle class families can ill afford any increase at all in expenditures. From an international perspective, default would have prolonged and disastrous negative consequences on the safe-haven status of Treasuries and the dollar's dominant role in the international financial system. It would reduce the willingness of investors here and abroad to invest in the United States. In my State of New Jersey, the impact of default would be immediate and all too real. Payments on a broad range of benefits--on other obligations--would be either postponed, limited, or discontinued. That includes military salaries and retirement benefits for 1,219 troops currently deployed from New Jersey, both active and reservists and almost 500,000 veterans; benefits for almost 1.5 million Social Security beneficiaries and 1.3 million Medicare enrollees would be interrupted; student loan payments; Medicaid payments to States for seniors and the disabled in nursing homes, and payments needed to keep government facilities operating and providing the services people need. The total for all these expenditures for New Jersey alone is $80 billion. That averages out to be about $26,000 per household in my State, putting a significant portion of the Federal Government's investment in New Jersey and its people at risk. And yet the Republicans in the House and many in this Chamber will not bend, will not compromise, refuse to step up and govern. Their ideology demands that they protect entitlements for the most entitled Americans--big oil, corporate jet owners, and those who hold a majority of the wealth in this Nation. In my view, in my life, in my work, I have come to understand how wrong they are. When the 400 richest Americans at the top hold more wealth than the 150 million Americans at the bottom, we cannot simply put the burden on those who can afford it the least and need our help the most. Let's be clear. The Republican protection of the entitled class has nothing to do with balancing the budget or reducing the deficit, nothing to do with values, nothing to do with faith or cultural conservatism, nothing to do with community responsibility, and everything to do with an extreme antigovernment political agenda that is, in fact, anticommunity. I believe we can do better for families, better for every American if we live and govern by the values we preach. During this process, those of us on this side of the aisle have held to what the sociologist Max Weber once called the ``ethic of responsibility.'' House Republicans are pursuing what he called the ``ethic of ultimate ends.'' George Packer in a recent New Yorker article said: These ethics are tragically opposed, but the true calling of politics requires a union of the two. We, on this side, believe in ethical responsibility, in doing what is right for the Nation. Republicans have shown that they believe in one thing and one thing only--achieving their ultimate political end and, in this case, achieving that end means standing in the way of any compromise--even if it threatens to paralyze this Nation's economy, even if it means rejecting the wisdom of their own hero who understood the importance of compromise in the art of governance. I repeat what Reagan said: Compromise was a dirty word to them, and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said don't take anything. Well, it is time to realize that governing is not about getting it all, it's about getting it right for the American people. Let America understand that Reagan himself stood against those radical conservatives whose rigid adherence to ideology at the expense of reason is now taking us down the road to default. It is on them, and it is up to them to grow up, step up, and compromise. As the American people have said in every poll, they want a balanced approach. That means a combination of significant spending cuts but also revenues. If they accepted that, we could govern. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I came to the floor. I heard an interesting colloquy going on between my colleagues, my friend from Utah and my friend from Alabama, and I saw that my name was invoked, so I thought I would come to the floor and maybe elucidate for them and set the record a little bit straight. No. 1 is I am no longer the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, so my focus in ending the tax breaks that the big five oil companies in this country get to the tune of $21 billion that the taxpayers of this country give in essence to big five oil companies that will make $144 billion in profits this year I simply think don't need it in order to be able to achieve what the marketplace has allowed them to do. And I am happy for them. I am happy for all their stockholders and shareholders and everyone else, but they don't need $21 billion of the taxpayers' money and tax break--which, by the way, they describe them as these poor oil companies that, wow, we are going to stop domestic production. One of the breaks I want to finish actually says you can't be doing what you are doing. Here in the United States, when you get access to the lands and waters to drill for oil and gas, you pay a royalty. Basically, a royalty is a license fee. The oil companies figured out, Well, when I do this in other countries in the world, instead of paying a license fee, let me ask them to pay a tax for the same amount that it would have cost to pay a license fee. Because then I get the tax and I get to deduct it totally against my obligations here in the United States, which means that for those poor oil companies that I just heard about, we are, in essence, as taxpayers, subsidizing the exploration of foreign oil which goes on a world marketplace--does not come back to the United States--to the tune of $21 billion. If we want to talk about the poor, I want to talk about poor people whom Republicans, it seems, want to go after. They want to go after in their budget the things people need to get through every day. It is called Medicare for seniors and the disabled. I know it from my mother's own life. She worked in the factories of New Jersey, worked a lifetime to help build family and community. She had a terrible disease, Alzheimer's, and she would not have lived with the dignity she deserved in the twilight of her life but for what my sister and I were able to do for her and Medicare as her baseline of retirement security. That is what I call poor. I call poor, young children who, under Medicaid, are getting money for specific health care that through no fault of their own they desperately need in order to have the quality of life--to even be able to breathe, children with respiratory ailments--so they can fulfill their God-given potential in school. That is poor. But oil companies that are going to make $144 billion in profits, they are poor? Give me a break. I know we belittle the fact that it is only $21 billion that we would put directly to deficit reduction, but if we start putting in those $21 billion and then put in the billions in ethanol subsidies and then the horse racing industry and the corporate jets and we start adding it all up, maybe if, instead of working-class and middle-class working families whom our Republican colleagues in the Congress seem to want to put all the emphasis on, if we talked about the wealthiest people in the country and said to them: We need you to help the country get out of this difficult time, they, I think, would be incredibly patriotic. I have talked to a lot of wealthy people who told me if it is to help the country and if we are going to get our house in order, I am willing to help the country. I am willing to pay a little bit more. But, no, that is not possible to even talk about. It is not possible to talk about big oil companies that are going to make record profits. It is not possible to talk about ethanol. It is not possible to talk about the wealthiest in the country, millionaires, multimillionaires, and billionaires. Yet I did not hear any of these voices when Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling 17 times for the equivalent of $4 trillion in today's money. I never heard any of these voices say how irresponsible it was when George Bush raised it seven times, for $5 trillion--basically, the same amount of money he used to give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country but which became the collective debt of the United States. No, I did not hear any of it then. I had no intention of coming to the floor. But when the facts are wrong and my name is invoked, I intend to come and set the record straight. I am happy to debate my colleagues. We need to make sure working-class, middle-class families in this country do not bear the overwhelming consequences of our effort to end our deficits and meet our obligations. We cannot continue to hear we cannot close the loopholes in the Tax Code for the poor oil companies, poor corporate jets, poor multimillionaires and billionaires, all because that would somehow be a tax increase, but we can take it right out of the pockets of middle-class and poor families by virtue of the services we deny them--so they will not have the money to be able to produce or scrounge or keep what little they have been able to acquire--and say that somehow is not a tax increase. I hear about entitlements all the time. I have a new sense of what my Republican colleagues mean by entitlements. The oil companies are entitled to their $21 billion. Those are just two provisions. I could come up with a whole bunch of others for which they get tax breaks. The oil companies are entitled. The ethanol producers, they are entitled. The large agribusinesses in the country, they are entitled. But families who struggle every day to make ends meet? No, they are not entitled. We have to cut their entitlements. Something is wrong with that equation. A nation, at the end of the day, in its budget, talks about its values as a country. We all have a budget. We may not think about it as a budget in our personal lives, but it is income, however we derive it, through gainful employment, the job we have, maybe some investments we make, maybe some interests we get from our savings. That is our revenue. Then there are our expenditures. The house we keep for our family, the insurance we provide for their health care, the education, the tuition we pay for the education we want them to achieve, the church or synagogue we tithe to, the charitable contribution we make to an organization that we believe is worthy of the work we do, that is an expression of our personal values. The Nation's budget, which is both revenues and expenditures, is an expression of our collective values as a country. I cannot understand, in that expression of collective values, how it is that the very wealthy, that the very influential, that Big Oil is entitled but working-class families and the poorest among us are not entitled to realize their hopes, dreams, and aspirations in the greatest country on the face of the Earth. Anyhow, I wanted to come, since I heard my name invoked before. I think the facts were not quite up to par. There is, obviously, a different view. Having had the opportunity to set the record straight, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, on July 20, 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus. Thirty-seven years later, Turkish troops continue to occupy 37 percent of the island. The invasion and occupation resulted in the deaths of more than 5,000 Cypriots and made some 200,000 Cypriots refugees in their own land. Since 1974, more than 75 resolutions have been adopted by the U.N. Security Council and more than 13 by the U.N. General Assembly, calling for the return of the refugees to their homes and properties and for the withdrawal of the Turkish troops from Cyprus. In addition to these Resolutions, the European Court of Human Rights has in various judgments held Turkey responsible for the violation of the basic human rights and fundamental freedoms of Greek Cypriots, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and security, the right to respect for family life, the right to the protection of property and the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment. Building on past meetings in November 2010 and January 2011, President Christofias again this month met with Turkish Cypriot leader Mr. Eroglu in the presence of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Geneva, where they agreed to intensify discussions on the difficult ``core issues'' of the negotiations, including the sharing of power and authority between the two communities of Cyprus, territorial adjustments, property issues, and the issue of the withdrawal of foreign troops, security and guarantees. The Cypriot government is working in good faith to achieve a viable agreement and I remain supportive of the Cypriot government's insistence that this process remain a Cypriot-led process, with any solution agreed upon by the Cypriots and for the Cypriots, without any external arbitration or timeframes, while recognizing that a solution cannot be reached without the full and constructive cooperation of Turkey. As Cypriot-Americans join with Cypriots from throughout the world in this effort to unify their homeland, and as they seek to secure an economically prosperous state free of illegal occupation, I will stand by them. I will work to ensure that the Turkish occupation comes to an end. This week, we remember those who perished in the invasion of Cyprus, and honor those who survived and who continue to live under Turkish occupation. We have not forgotten and our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families. Remembering together the events of July 20, 1974, in solidarity gives reverence to historical events we cannot afford to forget as we move forward to a peaceful, just solution and a hopeful tomorrow.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I know we are on the MILCON appropriations bill, but I did not want to lose the opportunity to talk about a pressing issue before the country today; that is, how we will work to resolve the Nation's obligations to its creditors and what the failure of doing that means to the Nation and to each and every American. I rise to ask a simple question of my Republican colleagues: When is an entitlement not an entitlement? Apparently, given the rhetoric and actions of some of our friends on the other side of the aisle, the answer would be that an entitlement is not an entitlement when it benefits an entitled class of wealthy Americans. In the Republicans' ideological haze that is swirling around Washington these days, it is only an entitlement when it goes to the middle-class families, to students, to seniors, to the disabled, to the downtrodden, and the dispossessed. Those entitlements, according to the Republicans, should be on the chopping block. But entitlements to the wealthy can never be on the table, despite the fact that our current Tax Code allows the wealthiest 400 taxpayers in America to pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the average New Jersey family--less than the average New Jersey family. What Republicans will ultimately do, their goal in this debt negotiation, is outlined in the House-passed budget that ends Medicare as we know it, the baseline of retirement security for our seniors, what was the retirement security of my mother in the twilight of her life as she struggled against Alzheimer's, after having worked a lifetime to help build a family and be part of contributing to a community. She would not have lived in the dignity she deserved in the twilight of her life but for Medicare as we know it--and it makes a middle-class life in America more expensive and less accessible. It seems to me the policies of our Republican friends would make sure the rich get even more rich at the expense of the middle class. They think the rich are entitled to all the tax loopholes they get but seniors and the disabled, they do not need the health benefits they are getting. We call this leadership? Do they call it leadership, to stand on ideology and send this Nation into default? Default basically means being a deadbeat. I think average Americans understand what being a deadbeat is all about. We teach our children to meet their responsibilities. We say do not incur a debt, but if you incur that debt, meet your responsibility--pay it. But now we have leaders in this Nation who say let's have this Nation be a deadbeat, and we would leave a senior citizen who lives--I know some of our friends here who may not have an appreciation of this--who lives month to month only on Social Security, standing hopelessly on the front porch waiting for a check that may not come. You call that leadership? We call it leadership to risk increasing interest rates on mortgages when families are struggling to pay at the current rates on student loans, on car payments, on credit cards that middle-class families can ill-afford now? They call it leadership to risk leaving a wounded veteran without a benefit check or active military men and women, their families, without a paycheck? They call it leadership to risk a spike in prices that increases the cost of groceries and gas and potentially costs a middle-class family in New Jersey an additional $1,500? They call it leadership to risk an end to unemployment benefits to States, leaving those already struggling in this economy at risk of losing what little they have? They call it leadership to risk Medicaid payments to States for disabled seniors in nursing homes who have no other options but amazingly allow a millionaire who owns a stable of racehorses a depreciation allowance on the Tax Code on those racehorses? That is an entitlement we should not touch? That is leadership? Bottom line, it is estimated that about $125 billion worth of bills, on average, may have to be put off if we don't deal with meeting the Nation's obligations. It is not leadership if the dollar plummets and America loses. It is not leadership if no one follows but the far rightwing of the Republican Party. If we are going to balance the budget by limiting entitlements and subsidies and earmarks, perhaps we should begin with those entitlements in the Tax Code that benefit those who are the wealthiest in the country. Perhaps we should look at ending entitlements for rich oil companies that receive $2 billion a year. They receive in just two tax breaks that the code gives them $21 billion over the next 10 years. Yet, oh, no, we can't touch that, but we can tell some senior that, in fact, they have to be on the chopping block; that Medicare has to end as we know it. How about $6 billion for ethanol producers or how about the racehorse depreciation allowance or the billions year after year that defense contractors think they are entitled to? How about investing in new bridges and tunnels and a new state-of-the-art transportation system in New Jersey instead of Kandahar? Our friends on the other side who believe we should balance the budget by spending cuts alone are more than willing to bargain away student loans, bargain away prescription drug coverage, even bargain away nursing home care for the elderly parents to protect entitlements for big oil companies, billionaire corporate executives who travel the world in private jets, and millionaires who believe they are entitled to all of the tax loopholes they are getting now after the biggest tax cut in history--entitled to tax cuts but not obligated to create American jobs, contrary to the false rhetoric we hear from the other side about a correlation between entitlements for the wealthy and job creation. The hard rightwing of the Republican Party has come to the table willing to give up nothing--unwilling to accept an offer by the President and Democrats of trillions of dollars in spending cuts, potential savings in entitlement programs, and tax reform options, all of which they have been demanding, unless we agree to protect the entitlements that exist for the wealthy. Not even a single penny on the revenue side of the option. Don't touch those entitlements for the big five oil companies. Don't touch the entitlements for the corporate jets. Don't touch the entitlements for the racehorses. Don't touch any of those entitlements giving the tax breaks and having a code where an incredible universe of corporations in America don't even pay at the end of the day by using all of the provisions of the code, anything toward the common good. They come to the table with nothing. They look America in the eye and tell us we cannot cut subsidies to big oil companies. We cannot put entitlements to the wealthy on the table because in their ideological haze, they conveniently, through this political sleight of hand, label any attempt to end those tax breaks, those entitlements, as a tax increase on what they like to call the job creators. Their excuse for such an irresponsible bargaining position: trickle-down economics. I have heard this so many times over the time I have been in Congress. But the problem is nothing has ever trickled down. Yet those same entitlements for the entitled, the $5 trillion entitlement the Bush tax cuts would cost going forward over the next decade that we are told at the outset would create jobs, would turn out to be the greatest failed jobs program in American history. I look at how those tax breaks are skewed to the wealthiest. I understand the opportunity to help middle-class families, and I promote that because they are the ones who spend in this economy and create demands. But the way those tax cuts are skewed to the wealthiest, $5 trillion, I ask my friends: Where are all the jobs that were supposedly going to be created as a result of that? Where are all the jobs these Republican entitlements to the wealthy are supposed to produce? Where are they? When middle-class Americans are struggling to make ends meet, pay the bills, keep their jobs, their health care, their homes, entitlements to the entitled are the most reckless kind of spending. This is the irresponsible Republican entitlement spending that should be on the table, the very entitlement spending that contributed to our current debt, and yet our friends on the other side continue to protect these entitlements. They will not vote to raise the debt limit unless we cut entitlements for the working middle-class families of this country, but they protect entitlements for the wealthiest Americans. They are holding a gun to our heads at a critical time in our economic history, but we need only to look back at how often Republicans, themselves, have raised the debt limit. As we can see from this chart, to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, George W. Bush had seven increases of the debt ceiling, increasing it by 90 percent for the largest increase in history, a total of over $5 trillion that includes the entitlements for the wealthy that they will not put on the table in the name of shared sacrifice even if it means America defaults on its debt and becomes a deadbeat and sends a ripple-effect throughout the world and its economies that come back crashing on our shores in the United States. So it is amazing me. Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times. Mr. President, 18 times in 8 years, a total percentage increase of 199 percent, amounting to $1.8 trillion, which in today's dollars would be $4 trillion. Mr. President, 18 times, Ronald Reagan. George Bush, 7 times, for $5.3 trillion. That amount, by the way, under the Bush years, ends up being, what. What is it equal to? The Bush tax cuts, $5 trillion. They will not raise the debt limit to protect the good faith of the American financial system, to protect middle-class families who have already lost so much under Republican economic policies that led us to the brink of economic disaster. The whole confluence of what happened in September of 2008 where we had these Bush tax cuts totally unpaid for, denying the Federal Treasury those moneys, at a time in which we had two wars raging abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new entitlement program unpaid for, and a marketplace that instead of being a free market--which I support--became a free-for-all market in which investor decisions ended up becoming a collective risk to the entire country, and that is what we have been facing. Instead of meeting this responsibility, they favor cuts in entitlements to the seniors, to the disabled, to families struggling to make ends meet, to students seeking to get the college education that could help fuel America's prosperity. That is what we saw in the House Republican budget that passed but are willing to decimate our Nation's economy to protect entitlements for the rich. They have dug in their heels and walled off irresponsible, unnecessary tax breaks for big oil companies. They have walled off entitlements to multibillion-dollar corporations and millionaires who need no entitlements because they believe--blinded by their ideological haze--the rich are entitled to their outrageous giveaways even if it means ballooning the deficit and sending the Nation into default on its debt. Entitlements for these special interests, cuts for everyone else. Republicans prefer to talk about cutting entitlements rather than what it really means--rather than cutting Social Security, rather than cutting Medicare, rather than cutting Medicaid--because cutting entitlements seems so esoteric. It is not very personal. But we all know our families, our mothers and fathers who may be getting their health care on Medicare or one of them who may be sitting in a nursing home on Medicaid or a poor child who is getting their health care being taken care of on Medicaid, we know our friends and neighbors with disabilities, and we understand what those challenges are. Let's be clear. The only entitled people Republicans are talking about in this debate are those who already enjoy enormous benefits under the Tax Code, both individually and corporations that feel entitled to these pretty outrageous tax breaks. Oil companies, as I heard from the executives who appeared before the Senate Finance Committee, clearly feel entitled to $21 billion in subsidies. Millionaires and billionaires think they are entitled to the Bush tax cuts. Corporate titans think they are entitled to tax breaks for their private corporate jets, and Republicans think these are the only entitlements worth protecting. It is time to stop trying to balance the budget on the backs of seniors and middle-class working families. It is time to stop protecting government handouts to the entitled class at the expense of the middle class and telling America in good economic times that it stimulates the economy and in bad times that it is a job creation policy. The truth is, it is neither. It is simply an entitlement program for an entitled small class of Americans who are not struggling to make ends meet or pay the mortgage or afford health care or find another minimum wage job to put food on the table. This stark contrast of wealth in the Nation is in the numbers. The 400 wealthiest taxpayers--those who get the most out of Republican entitlements--had an average income in 2008 of $270 million, almost $300 million. That amounts to an hourly wage of about $31,000 an hour. Their average tax rate was about 18 percent. In contrast, the median New Jersey household earned about $64,777 the entire year as opposed to just 2 hours. That equated to 2 hours for the richest 400 people, and yet they paid an average of 21.2 percent. They paid a higher percentage of less of their wages than those 400 top earners in the country. A first lieutenant at Fort Dix, NJ, earned about $52,000. He paid an average tax rate of 18.9 percent. So I ask, looking at these numbers, what should be on the table and what should not? The fact is, we are offering solutions. We are simply asking for fairness and for our friends on the other side to bring something to the table other than a political ideology and an unrealistic ultimatum, all in order to protect an entitled class that needs no protections. I don't usually agree with the conservative columnist David Brooks, but as I have said on this floor before, I agree with him when he says, ``The members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their Nation's honor . . . They are willing to stain their Nation's honor. I agree when he wrote that ``if the debt talks fail independent voters will see Democrats as willing to compromise but Republicans were not.'' Although this is not even about that. At the end of the day, this is about the Nation. This is about our economy. This is about trying to get people back to work. This is about trying to ensure families can realize their hopes and dreams and aspirations. This is about the United States of America, a beacon of light to the rest of the world, the gold standard in terms of credit and meeting its obligations, continuing to be that gold standard and that beacon of light or becoming a deadbeat in the world. I would go even further and say the American public will see right through these efforts to protect entitlements for a privileged class while those Americans who struggle every day to build the foundation of America, the cuts go on their backs. They come to the table with nothing other than an ideological fixation that prevents them from negotiating in good faith, prevents them from putting the interests of the country ahead of their narrow political interests. I have read some of the comments about this issue as it relates to: Well, you know, do we end up giving President Obama the ability to get reelected? This is not about President Obama. This is about the United States of America. This is about our country. This is about being responsible at one of its most critical times. This is about getting the country back on track. It is about giving the private sector faith and confidence that we are not going to default on our debt, that we are going to meet our obligations. It is about telling investors in the world the United States is still a good place to invest. And when those investments are made, jobs are created, people go to work, once again they have the dignity of work taking place; they are able to spend in the economy, the economy grows, that creates other jobs, other opportunities, and we move toward fulfillment once again of the great American opportunity. That is what this debate is all about. It is a debate about each and every one of us. The sooner our friends realize it is not about a political equation, it is not about who wins and loses in a political context, it is about the Nation, the better. If we can fix our attention to the needs of the Nation, then I have to believe we can meet this challenge in a balanced way. Clearly, if Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times and if George Bush raised it 7 times, then this time, the first time under President Obama it needs to be raised, which is merely to pay the obligations we already have, I have to believe responsible people will come forward and say yes and do it in a way that isn't on the backs of middle-class working families. Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Leahy, I ask unanimous consent that a law clerk on his staff, Brendan Forbes, be granted floor privileges for the week of July 18, 2011.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise today deeply concerned that our Republican colleagues, in their ideological haze, have lost sight of the facts and the real people at home whose lives will be affected by the choices we make. They are lost in an ideological haze, a political dust storm that is distorting the facts and confusing process and policy with political propaganda. As the conservative columnist David Brooks has said, ``A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing.'' He calls it ``the mother of no-brainers.'' But it is true, as many have said, that this Republican Party is not your grandfather's Republican Party. It is not even Ronald Reagan's Republican Party. This Republican Party is so far to the right that it cannot even see the center, where ideologies converge and good governance begins. This Republican Party sees the processes governing as one-sided--their side and no other. Today, those on the far right wave the Constitution that established a form of government to protect us from tyranny yet see any form of compromise as defeat and the only clear victory is total surrender to their position. Here we are, working to try to ensure that reason prevails. We have offered the largest spending cuts in a generation, asking that those cuts be accompanied by closing tax loopholes and ending tax giveaways and unreasonable subsidies to those who need them the least. But because almost every Republican has signed Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform pledge to never ever raise any tax, and because they define closing tax loopholes as a tax increase even when the recipients themselves have said they do not need those tax breaks, we are forced into this position, hoping that logical, moderate voices on the other side will rise up, demanding that we do what is right for the American people. In my view, ending subsidies to big oil companies does not fall under that pledge. Only in Washington would Republicans call ending $21 billion in tax breaks for big oil companies that will make $144 billion in profits a tax increase. It is not. It is not a tax increase; it is a measure of fairness. It is exactly what we need to do under the circumstances, and it is a reasonable offer by those of us on this side of the aisle. Our job, in a representative democracy, is to represent the values of those who sent us here to do what is right for them, not wave a pledge and conveniently interpret the elimination of oil subsidies for multibillion-dollar profitable corporations or ethanol subsidies to the tune of $2 billion as a tax increase. That is nonsense. We are offering a reasonable compromise, as that conservative columnist David Brooks says, ``the mother of no-brainers.'' Even USA Today said in their editorial: Compromise is an essential part of democracy, but negotiating with Republicans over taxes has become as futile as trying to bargain with the Taliban over whether girls should be allowed to attend school. That is a pretty stark comparison, I admit, and I may not have gone that far. But, frankly, our Republican brethren seem to hold to their ideology almost as religiously. They see all things in black and white. They act as though they believe those who disagree with that ideology are unpatriotic or heretics, and that the only truth is their truth. What they have forgotten is that negotiating with those with whom we disagree and reaching a compromise is what good governance is all about. There is another falsehood. Spending is not a Democratic value, as our friends on the other side of the aisle would have us believe, but a Republican reality. It was the reckless spending of Republicans combined with a reckless tax policy and an ideology that let Wall Street run wild, turning a free market into a free-for-all market, that brought us to where we are today. Let's remember, it was not long ago that the budget was, in fact, balanced during another Democratic administration when we had budget surpluses as far out as the eye could see. The day President Clinton left office he handed the incoming President a $236 billion surplus with a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion over the following 10 years. When President Bush left office he had turned a $236 billion budget surplus into a $1.3 trillion budget deficit with projected shortfalls of $8 trillion over the next decade. He handed the new President an economy that was headed off the cliff into a near depression. We have spent $786 billion, unpaid for, on President Bush's ill- advised, wrongheaded war of choice in Iraq because of some false allegations of weapons of mass destruction, a political experiment that distracted us from a war of necessity in Afghanistan, keeping us there far longer than necessary at an additional cost of $430 billion, unpaid for. The total cost for both wars, unpaid for, was $1.2 trillion. The Republican Party that will not now agree to one penny in revenue and demands only more spending cuts has fought to make tax breaks for the wealthy permanent that would cost this Nation another $5 trillion. They have favored big business and Wall Street in a Tax Code that has resulted in major multibillion-dollar corporations paying no taxes-- yes, no taxes at all. In fact, a detailed Government Accountability Office study of corporate income taxes from 1998 to 2005 showed that 55 percent of large U.S. corporations reported no tax liability for at least 1 of those 8 years. Yet those same Republicans will look us in the eye in defense of their defenseless position and tell us that most individuals do not pay taxes either. What they will not say is that those individuals who do not pay taxes do not pay taxes for a reason: They do not earn enough to pay income tax, and many of them are among the poorest of the poor. Only in Washington could such an indefensible position be accepted as defensible and logical. Only in Washington could Republicans support policies that benefit the wealthiest at the expense of the middle class. Only in Washington could Republicans tell a construction worker in New Jersey, who has cut his budget to the bone and needs to work another job to pay the bills, that we do not need to end tax loopholes and tax breaks to help pay the Nation's bills; that we only have to cut more spending and give more money to the top 1 percent of the wealthiest in the country who control 45 percent of all of the wealth in America and that they will create more jobs--notwithstanding the fact that 12 years of tax cuts for the wealthiest created virtually no jobs at all. When Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton increased the revenue side of the equation, it brought the greatest economic progress in the last half century. But our Republican colleagues do not let the facts get in the way of their ideology. The fact is, if Joe the construction worker in New Jersey cut his budget and his spending and has made the difficult choices about what he can afford and what he can't and still can't meet the bills he has to pay with the money he earns, then he has to get a second job or work more hours or find a way to increase his income. Yet our Republican colleagues will look that construction worker in the eye and tell him he doesn't need to earn more, he needs to cut more and then cut again. Cut to the bone, if necessary, but never, never do what needs to be done to increase the revenue side. Only in Washington does such an argument seem reasonable. Only in this Republican Party does such an absurd argument try to make sense. Never before has America waged two wars at the same time, struggled to invest in our infrastructure to create new jobs--and done so at a time of decreased revenue--and not seen the need at least to discuss the idea of closing tax loopholes and tax breaks for Big Oil and multibillion-dollar corporations. Never before has any party claimed we can do all of that and at the same time balance the budget on the backs of seniors, students, middle-class families, and not even consider the shared sacrifice--a sacrifice that would end tax breaks for multibillion-dollar corporations that in many cases don't even pay taxes. Never before has such illogic passed for logic. But our Republican colleagues will not take yes for an answer. We have said yes to spending cuts, more spending cuts than we have seen in a generation. Now they must say yes to common sense, fair increases in revenue, and choose good governance over political ideology. David Brooks, the conservative columnist to whom I referred, said, ``The members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their Nation's honor,'' meaning that the country will not meet its obligations. We teach our children that you have to meet your obligations, but this movement tells the country you don't have to meet your obligations. He goes on to say: If debt ceiling talks fail, independent voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don't take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern. I would very rarely agree with Mr. Brooks, but I would agree his observations in this case are absolutely right. This is about not only standing up for the Nation's honor, it is about standing up for the Nation's obligations. It is about standing up to make sure there is a fair and shared sacrifice, not just on the backs of middle-class working families in this country and those who have the least among us. That is the choice Republicans would have us make. It is a wrong choice for the Nation, and I hope we get to some sense of reality in this Chamber that can help us move forward, have the Nation be upheld in its obligations both here and abroad and not start a ripple effect that will cause an enormous consequence to this Nation's economy. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I regret that our colleagues have objected to a consent request to go to some of the most critical issues the country is facing--to have the Finance Committee meet on trade agreements that could expand markets and ultimately create jobs in America, and that is what we need in America--to create jobs. On the question of whether there should be a limited use of force, the Congress, and particularly the Senate, should speak, and not being able to do that is pretty amazing to me. So I hear a lot about wanting to get the people's work done, but then I hear objections to trying to move to get it done. It is pretty outrageous. I came originally to the floor after this vote to thank President Obama for, yesterday, calling and echoing my call to end subsidies for Big Oil. It is a call that received a bipartisan vote in the Senate, a bipartisan majority vote in the Senate, but, of course, it did not pass because of our colleagues' insistence on a filibuster or a supermajority amount. But it is time that our friends on the other side of the aisle put the interests of taxpayers ahead of Big Oil and allow these wasteful subsidies to finally end. As the President said, we have strategies to reduce the deficit, such as my legislation to cut oil subsidies, that are already introduced and ready to go. All we have to do is pass it. A vote to allow that to happen is a simple choice for everyone in this Chamber: Are you on the side of working-class families and seniors or are you on the side of Big Oil? There are lots of ways to cut the deficit, but saving taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil while ending Medicare as we know it and cutting student loans is not, in my mind, a solution. It makes no sense to give a taxpayer-funded subsidy to the big five oil companies, which are earning $12 billion in profits a month--they are going to earn about $144 billion in profits this year alone--and say to families: Oh, no, you have to sacrifice even more. Those on the other side of the aisle would tell a middle-class student whose family earns a median family income of about a little over $50,000 that, no, you cannot go to college, you cannot get a Pell grant from the Federal Government, but ExxonMobil, a company that will earn $42.6 billion in profits this year, needs government assistance. And they will continue to come to the floor and look Americans in the eye and say that somehow is commonsense deficit reduction. There simply is no commonsense explanation for balancing the budget on the backs of working families and letting multibillion-dollar oil companies keep billions in taxpayer dollars. We have this debate about the deficit and how we deal with the debt ceiling, but we don't seem to want to have the shared sacrifice of having the special interests in this country, whether it is Big Oil or ethanol, which had a huge bipartisan vote here in the Senate--that they should not face any consequences but that, in fact, middle-class working families should. We all know oil companies are among the largest, most profitable companies in the world, but it is hard to understand the scale of their wealth. This chart shows it clearly. This is the median income for families in this country, and this is Big Oil's profit. Whose side are you on? This is about closing loopholes and, given the current budget climate, you would think we would all be for closing those loopholes. Let me give an example of what one of those loopholes is. Under the law as it exists today, we allow the big five oil companies to go to other countries in the world and say to them: You know, tax us in a way that we can ultimately reduce our obligations in the United States. U.S. taxpayers are taxed on their income worldwide but are entitled to a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for any income they pay to a foreign government, which makes sense because we don't want to tax our companies twice. But U.S. oil and gas companies have very smart lawyers and accountants. They figured out that if they go to a foreign government, such as Indonesia, and say: Don't charge me a license fee or a royalty, which is what we do in the United States to permit these companies to explore on Federal lands and waters for oil and gas--no, they say to Indonesia and other countries: Charge me a tax. Why? Because then I can take all of that tax--which really is a license fee but is now paid as a tax--and I can deduct it back here in the United States. What does that mean? That means American taxpayers are subsidizing foreign oil production. That is not in the national interest of the United States, it is not in the interest of taxpayers in the United States, and it is not about shared sacrifice when we are talking about how to deal with the deficit and debt in this country. Just closing that loophole would mean $6.5 trillion to the Treasury that could be applied directly to deficit reduction. As a matter of fact, I am only talking about closing two loopholes for the big five oil companies, which are going to make $144 billion in profit. Just closing those two loopholes would save the U.S. taxpayer $21 billion over the next 10 years. Now, some of my friends on the other side of the aisle say: Oh, if you do that to those poor oil companies, they are just going to raise the price of gasoline. That is simply not true. First of all, we are talking about $21 billion over 10 years or roughly $2 billion a year. So those poor oil companies, if they would only make $142 billion in profits this year instead of $144 billion in profits this year, would not have to raise gas prices. They are making $142 billion a year, so they certainly don't need to raise gas prices. And we certainly don't need to incentivize their exploration because they are making record profits in this country and in the world. They don't need us to incentivize them when they are making $144 billion in profits. So let's save the taxpayers that $21 billion and put it directly to deficit reduction. Only in Washington would my Republican friends suggest that stopping those subsidies to Big Oil is somehow going to be a tax increase. Only in Washington could ending $21 billion in subsidies to the big five oil companies--we are not even talking about the independents--that are going to make $144 billion in profits this year--somehow be a tax increase. Yet we can take away Pell grants or cut seniors under Medicare or the poor under Medicaid, and that is OK. Well, something is wrong with that vision of America. To back up my point that the argument is simply fallacious, you need to look no further than the definitive report by the CRS that explains that my proposal to end oil subsidies will not lower the production of oil and will not raise gasoline prices. So, Mr. President, you drive up to the pump, you pay nearly $4 a gallon already, which has a real impact on your family and on your income, and it has a real impact on your choices and has a real impact on food prices and has a real impact in so many areas, and yet we are still supposed to give the oil companies another $21 billion in tax breaks from the American taxpayers. It is time to stand for the people's interests, not the special interests. It is time to end these tax breaks. It is time to put it as a revenue source into our challenges in terms of meeting our debt and dealing with our deficit, and our proposal would do exactly that. I don't know how you can look the American people in the eye and say: We are going to cut so many things that are going to affect your life, but on this issue we are going to keep Big Oil whole. We will not touch a penny from their pockets. That is fundamentally wrong, and the American people know it. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, first of all, I didn't come to the floor for this purpose, but I would be remiss if I didn't thank the distinguished Senator from Illinois, the Democratic whip, for his incredible commitment and passion to this issue. I have seen him just about every session take time out of every day to both dramatize and put a human face on this opportunity to turn some of America's greatest prospects into opportunity and prosperity for this entire country. I am thrilled he has adopted various of my lines, and I am honored by it. It is true; these young people came to this country through no choice of their own. The only country they have ever known is the United States of America. They put their hands on their hearts and pledge allegiance to the United States, and the only National Anthem they have ever learned to sing or believe in is ``The Star-Spangled Banner.'' We have a tremendous opportunity. I wish to thank the distinguished Senator for his incredible commitment to this issue. I appreciate it very much.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it recess under the previous order.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be considered, the Conrad amendment to the preamble, which is at the desk, be agreed to, the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; the resolution be considered, the Conrad amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to, and the resolution, as amended, be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements relating to the matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 141 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to speak about something that I very passionately believe in, and that is my view in support of a significant and sustained reduction of American combat forces in Afghanistan beginning this July. In short, I believe the time has come to move from a strategy of counterinsurgency to one of counterterrorism--a strategy that would rely on our specialized military forces to continue to engage those who present a real and continued threat to the national security of the United States and one that would allow us to bring home a majority of troops serving in Afghanistan. After September 11, almost a decade ago, we were clearly justified in intervening in Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaida and bring bin Laden to justice for the atrocities they committed against Americans on our own soil. I supported President Bush at that time in that effort. I have a standard that if I am willing to send my son and daughter to fight for America on behalf of the Nation's national security interests, I will vote to send anyone else's sons and daughters. Not so in Iraq where I did not believe it was in the national security interests of the United States; and if I won't send my son and daughter, I won't vote to send anyone else's sons or daughters. But in Afghanistan nearly a decade ago, that is where the perpetrators of September 11 were, and it was the right engagement. Our original goals have largely been met in that respect. Today, even according to the Director of the CIA, fewer than 100 members of al-Qaida remain in Afghanistan. Since September 11, we are painfully aware that the world is a different place, and we will always have to be vigilant. But the current threat simply does not justify the presence of 100,000 American troops on the ground. Bin Laden is dead, having hidden for years in Pakistan in plain view of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence force, and the Pakistani military. Clearly, the issue at hand is about terrorism not insurgency. Terrorism is a borderless issue represented by the unimpeded movement of the Taliban into Pakistan and a safe haven in Abbottabad for al-Qaida's leader. In finding bin Laden and bringing him to justice, we have struck a serious blow to al-Qaida's network that permits us to now reconsider our mission and the wisdom of pursuing a broad and open-ended strategy of nation building in Afghanistan because, make no mistake about it, what we are doing in Afghanistan is nation building. This is interesting. I have heard speeches on the Senate floor and in my previous service in the House by many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about how we should not be nation building, as though that is not a vital national interest. Well, that is exactly what we are doing. The costs of our current strategy are too high in lives lost, in futures unraveled by injury, and in taxpayer dollars spent. Mr. President, 1,500 brave men and women have lost their lives in Afghanistan. Almost 12,000 have been wounded in action, at a cost--a continuing cost--of $10 billion a month--a month. Nonmilitary contributions to Afghan reconstruction and development from 2002 to 2010 have reached $19 billion--a number which is expected to surge as we transition to a civilian mission. But at the same time, reports from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which I sit, and from the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan place our billions of dollars in investment at risk of falling into disrepair because of inadequate planning to pay for the ongoing operations and maintenance; not to mention that from my own perspective, $19 billion later, I don't know what we have achieved in Afghanistan. In my mind not only are the costs and lives and treasure far too high, but there is a growing consensus that absent a very long and sustained commitment involving many troops on the ground, we can't win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people or, for that matter, even President Karzai who, in my view, has not proven to be a good partner. Karzai most recently suggested that the U.S. and NATO forces risk becoming an occupying force that would be, in his words, ousted from the country--all of these lives later of American troops lost. To do what? To have a counterinsurgency effort. Which is what? Fighting insurgents to give the Afghan Government the opportunity to sustain itself, to defend itself, to govern itself, and we are an occupying force? We are an occupying force? We have to ask, even if we are willing to make the enormous economic commitment required to build a democracy and to fund the necessary security elements at the cost of tens of billions of dollars per year, what is the likelihood of our success? The Afghan Government is corrupt. Our working relationship with President Karzai continues to be challenged. Today I believe he made some other comments--either today or yesterday--again, that malign the very Nation that is there defending them with the sons and daughters of America, with the National Treasury of America--in a country that, by the way, has $1 trillion of precious deposits of various minerals that, if properly pursued, would be able to fund the Afghan Nation for years to come. When they gave out their first contract, who did they give it to? Not the Nation that has defended them but the Chinese who have done nothing to stand up for the Afghan people. So I look at a government that is corrupt, our working relationship with Karzai crumbling, our focus on building security forces challenged because its membership largely excludes Pashtuns in the south, which is the base for the Taliban. I am not certain there is any amount of money or a plan that can work under those circumstances. It seems to me for every Taliban fighter we kill, buy off, or convert another one will take his place, and more and more will stand up to fight an enemy that is perceived as infidels. I am not certain a counterinsurgency strategy is anything but counterproductive. It is clear to me the present course is unsustainable, creates dependency, breeds corruption, and ignores the fact that at some point Afghanistan will have to stand on its own--on its trillions of dollars in mineral deposits--and build its own future. We are spending $10 billion a month on a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan that does not have a clear path to a definable victory. I am not certain a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan does anything but feed and grow the insurgency. In short, I am not certain a counterinsurgency strategy is a winnable strategy. Therefore, it is my belief we need a tailored counterterrorism strategy to achieve and protect our national security interests and meet our broader fiduciary responsibilities. Since 2001 we have invested over $50 billion to help stand up a central government in Kabul and fund reconstruction projects across Afghanistan. So $26 billion has gone to standing up the Afghan security forces, including an additional $11 billion this year. To date, the Afghan National Army now stands at 164,000 men, and the Afghan National Police Force at 126,000. So combined, the Afghan National Security Forces now stand at 290,000 men strong. We can't forever be the overprotective parent. The time has come to allow Afghans to secure their own future, to draw on the 290,000 men who have committed to securing their country's future, and to allow them the opportunity to defend their Nation and their people. The fact is, Afghanistan is a rugged, multifaceted country with a long history of complex tribal relationships. It faces almost unprecedented challenges in building a vibrant, independent, and, hopefully, democratic nation from the rubble of more than a quarter century of war. We can guide a process to provide necessary, achievable, and sustainable assistance to bolster their efforts--and we should--but it is up to the Afghan people to stand up a government and a security force and to develop their own counterinsurgency effort. Our primary goal--the goal that was crystal clear on September 12, 2001--was to address the imminent terrorist threat to America and America's interests. The phrase was ``to drain the swamp and address the new threats we face.'' The Taliban is a threat, but they are not the threat we rallied to address. Any counterterrorism strategy we employ now can necessarily deal with any Taliban issues that would be a threat to American security. But the primary threat to America and to American interests is posed by al-Qaida. It is a threat that is stateless, borderless. The notion that if we deploy enough forces in Afghanistan we will somehow lessen that threat, in my view, is farcical and falls on the conventional Washington wisdom that more is better. In my view, better is better--a mission better focused on the threats, with specialized troops better trained to better locate and better destroy terrorist hideouts; a mission with resources better spent on projects that are necessary, achievable, and sustainable. In short, we need a better, not a bigger, mission. In my view, we must accelerate the transfer of nation building and nation protecting to the Afghan people and their government. We must remain ever vigilant and ever prepared to protect our national security interests and eliminate any new terrorist threats that emerge. We should continue to identify areas where our advice and assistance can strengthen the Afghan Government and the institutions of democracy. But our mission should be one of counterterrorism, not counterinsurgency. We need to concentrate our resources on the real threats in the region--threats to U.S. citizens and U.S. interests and threats that could destabilize Pakistan and place nuclear materials at risk, which would be a very real and present threat to national security and the security of the region--a threat we cannot abide. We entered Afghanistan to address a threat vital to the national security of our country. By reforming our mission, targeting our unique military resources, and refining our assistance mission to focus on sustainable and achievable outcomes, we can achieve that goal with fewer troops and less money. For those reasons, last week I joined with my distinguished colleague Senator Merkley of Oregon and many other Members in urging the President to begin a sizable and sustained reduction in U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan this summer. It is time to bring our men and women home. It is my belief this is the best and most responsible policy for America--a policy that seeks to protect our national security while meeting our fiduciary responsibilities, and serving the interests of the service men and women and their families who have sacrificed so much on behalf of a grateful Nation. It is time. It is time. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, June 21, when the Senate resumes consideration of S. 782, the Economic Development Revitalization Act, there be up to 10 minutes of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on S. 782.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it recess until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 21; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m. with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; that following morning business the Senate proceed to executive session under the previous order; further, that the filing deadline for second-degree amendments to S. 782, the Economic Development Revitalization Act, be 11 a.m. on Tuesday.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, the first rollcall vote of the week will begin at approximately noon tomorrow on confirmation of the Simon nomination. Senators should expect up to three additional rollcall votes at 4:15 p.m. on confirmation of the Panetta nomination, cloture on the Economic Development Revitalization Act, and cloture on the motion to proceed to the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act.