Claire McCaskill

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. I listened with interest to the questions and the conversations concerning Senator Feingold's amendment. I rise to strongly support this amendment. You know, one of the fantasies around here--and I yield to the long experience of my two colleagues on fighting this battle on earmarks--is this fantasy that the money for earmarks is created out of nothing; that somehow the money for earmarks just lands on everyone's desk and no programs are hurt by the earmarking process; that no money is taken from worthy projects for earmarking. Truth be known, I can give example after example in the budget that over the years good competitive programs have been cut while earmarking has skyrocketed. The Byrne grants are a good example. Byrne grants are a competitive process in every State where they can compete for law enforcement based on need, decided at the local basis. What has happened to the funding for Byrne grants over the years? It has dwindled, while in that very same budget earmarks have steadily and continually grown over the last decade. This is a perfect example of robbing Peter to pay Paul. This amendment will say: You must compete for these dollars based on need. Is that not how we should be spending the public money? Last year FEMA received a total of 675 individual emergency operations center project applications; 675 applications they received for this funding last year. They were only able to select 22 of them for funding. You know why? Because 64 percent of the funding went to earmarks. So because of the earmarking, there was less money for worthy projects that, maybe on merit and need, were much more important to protect people than the earmarking process. This is a textbook example of taking a pot of money and deciding through some waving of a magic wand that it goes individually to 10 States without any discussion as to whether those are the 10 most needy projects or 10 most needy States--no discussion whatsoever. In my State there have been years where we have been under a constant emergency declaration: flooding, ice storms, tornados. We have floodplains. In fact, the National Association of Floodplain Managers supports Senator Feingold's amendment. Do you know why they support Senator Feingold's amendment? They say it is causing floodplain managers around the country to quit planning to mitigate because they can short-circuit the process and just go for an earmark. Why do the work and plan and compete as 1 of 22 out of 675 if you know the easiest way and the best way to do it is to hope and pray your Member is on the right committee? Just say it like it is. Just hope and pray your Member is on the right committee. So this is a great opportunity for everyone who believes we need to be careful with the way we spend our money to be counted. This is a great opportunity because this is very clear this money is being taken from projects and being earmarked for projects. As a result, 40 States are going to have less than a 50-percent chance to participate in this kind of emergency funding. I strongly support Senator Feingold's amendment. I urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, today I am here to talk about a simple bill that would correct a serious injustice. In 1992, land belonging to over 100 south St. Louis County homeowners was converted into a recreational trail under the National Trails System Act, which allows rights-of-way abandoned by railroads to be made into trails. I have nothing against the National Trails System Act. It is a good program; it improves communities and preserves rights-of-way. In 1990, the Supreme Court upheld the program as a rightful use of eminent domain, but made it absolutely clear that, in accordance with the Fifth Amendment, property owners must be justly compensated for their losses. Only this did not happen in the case of my constituents back in Missouri. These homeowners--modest, hardworking people--were never compensated for the loss of their land. These Missouri homeowners did everything right. First, in December 1998, they filed their claim. Federal Judge Bruggink ruled the claim to be filed in timely manner, and the Department of Justice later agreed. Then, on two separate occasions, Judge Bruggink ruled that the federal government was liable for taking the Missouri homeowners' land. After 6 years of litigation, the Department of Justice finally agreed on the amount of just compensation owed to each homeowner. On December 17, 2004, Judge Bruggink found the settlement to be fair and prepared to enter a final order. However, just days before Judge Bruggink was to issue the final order, a separate court--considering an unrelated case--changed the rule on how to calculate the 6-year statute of limitations in which property owners have to file a claim for compensation. This new rule determined that the clock on the statute of limitations starts to run at the time negotiations for a possible trail begin, instead of when a trail is actually established. Frankly, this is a little ridiculous because the negotiations are between the railroad company and the trail operator, not the actual property owners who must file the claim. Frequently property owners are not even notified of the negotiations until a trail is established! In the Missouri homeowners' case, negotiations began in March 1992, 6 years and 9 months before they filed their claim. Under the new rule, they filed their claim 9 months too late. As a result, the Court of Claims no longer had jurisdiction to approve the settlement and Judge Bruggink was forced to dismiss the case. To this day the government is still using these citizens' land for a recreational trail, the Grant's Trail, but the citizens have never been extended their constitutional right to just compensation. Today, along with my distinguished colleague from Missouri, Senator Bond, I am introducing legislation to correct this injustice. The Fair Compensation Act of 2009 would simply confer jurisdiction upon the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to hear the Missouri homeowners' claim. We are doing this for people like Gale and Sarah Illig, a retired couple who had a 50-foot wide strip of land taken from their yard. Then there is Betty Mea Steinhans, who lived in her home for 51 years. The recreational trail took out a sizable chunk of Betty's prized garden. A government appraiser and the DOJ determined that the Federal Government owed Betty $31,000. That is almost 25 percent of the value of her home! These Missourians, and dozens like them, have worked hard to purchase their homes, and they will likely rely on their home's value to provide for them into retirement. They deserve their day in court. Let me make this clear: our legislation does not award a monetary amount to Missouri landowners. While I certainly think the homeowners are entitled to just compensation, that is not Congress' decision. It is the Court of Federal Claim's job to make that decision. This legislation would only allow the Court the opportunity to hear this case on its merits and would not require any additional appropriations from Congress. Congress has the authority to enact special jurisdiction legislation; we have exercised it multiple times and the Supreme Court has upheld this right. In the late 1800s, Congress used it to give the Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction to hear the case of a businessman who had several hundred bales of cotton captured by General Sherman during the Civil War. More recently, Congress used it to give the Court jurisdiction to hear the case of the Pueblo of Isleta Indian Tribe, who had a sizable portion of their land taken by the Federal Government. I want to thank Senator Whitehouse and his staff for working with us to draft this legislation. I will continue to work with the Judiciary Committee on this issue, and I urge them to give this important legislation the consideration it deserves. I am confident that Congress will do what is right, and allow these hardworking Missouri homeowners their day in court.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, today I am here to talk about a simple bill that would correct a serious injustice. In 1992, land belonging to over 100 south St. Louis County homeowners was converted into a recreational trail under the National Trails System Act, which allows rights-of-way abandoned by railroads to be made into trails. I have nothing against the National Trails System Act. It is a good program; it improves communities and preserves rights-of-way. In 1990, the Supreme Court upheld the program as a rightful use of eminent domain, but made it absolutely clear that, in accordance with the Fifth Amendment, property owners must be justly compensated for their losses. Only this did not happen in the case of my constituents back in Missouri. These homeowners--modest, hardworking people--were never compensated for the loss of their land. These Missouri homeowners did everything right. First, in December 1998, they filed their claim. Federal Judge Bruggink ruled the claim to be filed in timely manner, and the Department of Justice later agreed. Then, on two separate occasions, Judge Bruggink ruled that the federal government was liable for taking the Missouri homeowners' land. After 6 years of litigation, the Department of Justice finally agreed on the amount of just compensation owed to each homeowner. On December 17, 2004, Judge Bruggink found the settlement to be fair and prepared to enter a final order. However, just days before Judge Bruggink was to issue the final order, a separate court--considering an unrelated case--changed the rule on how to calculate the 6-year statute of limitations in which property owners have to file a claim for compensation. This new rule determined that the clock on the statute of limitations starts to run at the time negotiations for a possible trail begin, instead of when a trail is actually established. Frankly, this is a little ridiculous because the negotiations are between the railroad company and the trail operator, not the actual property owners who must file the claim. Frequently property owners are not even notified of the negotiations until a trail is established! In the Missouri homeowners' case, negotiations began in March 1992, 6 years and 9 months before they filed their claim. Under the new rule, they filed their claim 9 months too late. As a result, the Court of Claims no longer had jurisdiction to approve the settlement and Judge Bruggink was forced to dismiss the case. To this day the government is still using these citizens' land for a recreational trail, the Grant's Trail, but the citizens have never been extended their constitutional right to just compensation. Today, along with my distinguished colleague from Missouri, Senator Bond, I am introducing legislation to correct this injustice. The Fair Compensation Act of 2009 would simply confer jurisdiction upon the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to hear the Missouri homeowners' claim. We are doing this for people like Gale and Sarah Illig, a retired couple who had a 50-foot wide strip of land taken from their yard. Then there is Betty Mea Steinhans, who lived in her home for 51 years. The recreational trail took out a sizable chunk of Betty's prized garden. A government appraiser and the DOJ determined that the Federal Government owed Betty $31,000. That is almost 25 percent of the value of her home! These Missourians, and dozens like them, have worked hard to purchase their homes, and they will likely rely on their home's value to provide for them into retirement. They deserve their day in court. Let me make this clear: our legislation does not award a monetary amount to Missouri landowners. While I certainly think the homeowners are entitled to just compensation, that is not Congress' decision. It is the Court of Federal Claim's job to make that decision. This legislation would only allow the Court the opportunity to hear this case on its merits and would not require any additional appropriations from Congress. Congress has the authority to enact special jurisdiction legislation; we have exercised it multiple times and the Supreme Court has upheld this right. In the late 1800s, Congress used it to give the Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction to hear the case of a businessman who had several hundred bales of cotton captured by General Sherman during the Civil War. More recently, Congress used it to give the Court jurisdiction to hear the case of the Pueblo of Isleta Indian Tribe, who had a sizable portion of their land taken by the Federal Government. I want to thank Senator Whitehouse and his staff for working with us to draft this legislation. I will continue to work with the Judiciary Committee on this issue, and I urge them to give this important legislation the consideration it deserves. I am confident that Congress will do what is right, and allow these hardworking Missouri homeowners their day in court.

Ms. McCASKILL

Ms. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Impeachment Trial Committee on the Articles Against Judge Samuel B. Kent will meet on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 4:30 p.m., to conduct its organization meeting. For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Peg Gustafson on 202-224-6154.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I thank my friend, the Senator from Minnesota, for helping to get us organized this afternoon to spend a little time talking about an outstanding Federal judge. I also thank my colleague from Kansas for giving us a few minutes to make these remarks. I will confess that I wasn't familiar with Judge Sotomayor before she was nominated. I started looking at her resume, and there are so many things in her resume that are, frankly, amazing that you can get distracted by--where she went to school, where she got her law degree, and the fact that she has been at several levels of the Federal bench; and also, of course, that she had a very big job with complex litigation in a law firm. But the part of her resume that spoke to me was her time as an assistant district attorney in New York. I don't know that most Americans truly understand the difference between a State prosecuting attorney and a Federal prosecuting attorney. Those of us who have spent time in the State courtrooms like to explain that we are the ones who answer the 911 calls. When you are a State prosecutor, you don't get to pick which cases you try. You try all of the cases. When you are a State prosecutor, you don't have the luxury of a large investigative staff or maybe a very light caseload. It would be unheard of for a Federal prosecutor to have a caseload of 100 felonies at any given time, but that is the caseload Judge Sotomayor handled as an assistant district attorney during her time in the District Attorney's Office in New York. When she came to the prosecutor's office, ironically it was almost exactly the same year I came to the prosecutor's office as a young woman out of law school. I was in Kansas City; she was in New York. I know what the environment is in these prosecutors' offices. There are a lot of aggressive type A personalities, and it is very difficult to begin to handle serious felony cases because everybody wants to handle the serious felony cases. In only 6 months, Judge Sotomayor was promoted to handle serious felony cases in the courtroom. She prosecuted every type of crime imaginable, including the most serious crimes that are committed in our country. She had many famous cases. One was the Tarzan murderer, where she joined law enforcement officers in scouring dangerous drug houses for evidence and witnesses. After a month of trial, she convicted Richard Maddicks on three different murders and he was sentenced to 67 years to life in prison. A New York detective had a hard time finding a New York prosecutor willing to take his child pornography case. Judge Sotomayor stepped up, winning convictions against two men for distributing films depicting children engaged in pornographic activities. These were the first child pornography convictions after the Supreme Court had upheld New York's law that barred the sale of sexually explicit films using children. After her time as a prosecutor, she eventually became a trial judge. A trial judge is an unusual kind of experience for a Supreme Court Justice. But keep in mind what the Supreme Court Justices do: They look at the record of the trial. They are trying to pass on matters of law that emanate from the courtroom. What a wonderful nominee we have, one who has not only stood at the bar as a prosecutor but also sat on the bench ruling on matters of evidence, ruling on matters of law. I am proud of the fact that she has this experience. If she is confirmed, or when she is confirmed, she will be the only Supreme Court Justice with that trial judge experience, because she is replacing the only Supreme Court Justice with that experience--Judge Souter. This is a meat-and-potatoes moderate judge. This is a judge who has agreed with Republicans on her panels 95 percent of the time. This is a judge who has the kind of experience that will allow her to make knowing and wise decisions on the most important matters that come in front of our courts in this country. We have a ``gotcha'' mentality around here. We all engage in it at one time or another. It is gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. It is an outgrowth of the political system of this grand and glorious democracy we all participate in. It is not my favorite part, but it is real. Justice Sotomayor will become a Supreme Court Justice, after having gone through a gotcha process. We are going to hear a lot of gotchas over the coming weeks. But at the end of the day, this is a smart, proud woman who has fought her way through a system against tremendous odds to show that she has integrity, grit, intellect, and the ability to pass judgment in the most difficult intellectual challenges that face a Supreme Court Justice. I am proud to support her nomination, and I look forward to the day-- and I am confident that the day will come--she will take her place on the highest Court in the land. Mr. President, I again thank the Senator from Kansas for his indulgence, and I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, I congratulate the chairman of the Banking Committee for daring to go where no one was willing to go for a long time; that is, regulating the credit card industry. I have learned about some of the tricks of the credit card industry the hard way. My father had a significant and serious and protracted illness, and mom was trying to get through it without burdening any of us. Without any of us realizing it, she got in a hole with credit card companies. Once I figured out that she had gotten into the hole, I set about the business of trying to help. I have a law degree. I am not a shy person. I am someone who is willing to say what I think. I helped write law at the State level, and I think I understand contract law. As I began to get through all the fine print and deal with the credit card companies that she was indebted to, I became more and more frustrated. I began to realize what has happened with unsecured debt in America through credit card companies. There is a lot of bait and switch that goes on. There is a desire to get hold of the credit card customer who never pays the principal. My mom was a dream customer. She paid like clockwork, in terms of the minimum payment, but never quite had enough to get around to the principal. The saddest part of the story is how hard it was for me to pay off the cards. They didn't want me to pay them off. I remember being on a phone call for 3 hours, and I had been to several countries by the time the call was concluded. I was told that it was impossible for me to send a payment to pay off the card the same month. It had to be sent in a separate payment. We were trying to pay off the card. They didn't want it. One of my favorites is that she made a payment on a card, and I paid off the balance. Then a bill came, and it was a negative balance. They owed us money. But you are not going to believe it, but, again, they owed us money, and guess what they had done. They charged us interest. I called this person on the phone and said, ``I am trying to figure this out. You owe us money and there is a charge for interest on the bill.'' That is when I began to learn the reality of ``trailing'' interest. It was mind boggling to me, the tricks and the traps that were embedded in these credit card agreements. We got an e-mail from a constituent. Actually, we have gotten thousands of them, especially in the last 6 months. This letter says the following: The reason I am contacting you is because of a problem with Bank Corp. I received several emails from Bank Corp [asking me] to apply for a credit card. I eventually did. The credit card interest rate was to be a fixed 7.99 percent. . . . After the card was approved, the interest rate was 7.99 percent for several months. Then the rate was raised to 23 percent and, as of the July, 2008 statement, the interest rate was raised to 35.49 percent. I called Bank Corp and spoke with Erin, the representative that answered the phone. After being put on hold for [a long period of time], I was told that my account was in good standing. The payments had been made on time. She said Bank Corp had changed their lending practices and that was the reason for the interest hike. I was told there was no lower rates available, even though my account was in good standing. I was also told there was nothing I could do to change this and there was no way to protest the interest hike. This man asked me, ``Is this legal?'' Sadly, we had to tell him that it was every bit legal. I understand the risk of unsecured debt. I understand that these banks are trying to get credit to people. But one of my favorite parts of the hearing we had on this subject was in Senator Levin's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, when I asked one of the credit card executives about the fact that they want to give these cards to college students. I am not lying about this; this was actual testimony given in this hearing. I asked him about the fact that they were sending cards to college students. I was trying to get to the bottom of the practice where they were doing kickbacks to colleges in return for their lists so that they could solicit the students, give them credit cards. My favorite response was when I asked, with as much sincerity as I could muster, ``I guess you find these college students a good risk for all these insecure debt.'' He said, ``Yes, they are very good risks.'' I was thinking: what planet is he on? I have college students. They are no more a good risk than someone who has a horrible credit rating. They send these cards to kids because they know their parents, if they are in college, don't want them to get into trouble and they will bail them out if they get in too deep. They want to hook them into the pattern, charging big, paying interest only, and being on line to them for the principal for the rest of their lives. We have work to do on this bill. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle join us quickly in getting to a point where we can bring it to a final vote. It will stop many of these abusive behaviors--the ability to raise the interest rate because maybe you missed a utility bill by accident 1 month, or the practice of the trailing interest, where you find the credit card company owes you money and they still charge you interest. There are 3 amendments that I worked on with Senators Levin and Collins. One is no over-the-limit fee. If they let you go over the limit, they should not charge you a fee. And no interest on fees. And a very important amendment that we can do on credit card data collection so we have more information about what the interest rates are we are paying in America. The irony of these spikes in interest rates for good credit customers is that this has occurred at a time when interest rates in our country are at a historic low. Ben Bernanke used about all the leverage he could to help our economy by lowering the interest rate, and lower the interest rate, and lowering the interest rate, and these companies can borrow money at very low rates. Yet, to the consumer right now, those interest rates are getting hiked and hiked and hiked--even when the person with the credit card has no indication that they present any kind of financial risk to that credit card company. We wring our hands here about what we can do to help the people we work for. We know people are hurting now. I am not sure there is any piece of legislation that is more important to the people at home than this credit card bill, bringing to heel these companies who are taking advantage of an unlevel playing field, which is strewn with all kinds of information that is too difficult to even understand. Let's keep it simple and straightforward and make sure the rules are available for all people to understand, and let's make sure they are not engaged in the kind of practices that caused my mother so many sleepless nights. I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

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

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I rise to thank Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain on a good bill to address a serious and expensive problem in our military. We have costs that have ballooned. As Senator Levin explained earlier today, in 2008 alone the portfolio of DOD's 97 major defense acquisition programs was nearly $300 billion over cost and the average delay in terms of delivering these capabilities to the warfighter was 22 months. That is unacceptable to our warfighters and unacceptable to taxpayers. There are obviously many examples of these systems that have been underestimated both on time of delivery and costs, but a good one is the Joint Strike Fighter. Right now, the JSF continues to rely on immature technologies and unrealistic cost schedules. We have a situation where DOD might actually procure these aircraft, these F-35s, costing $57 billion, before we have even completed the developmental flight testing. That is just one, but it is a very good example of a program that is underperforming for the warfighter and for the taxpayer. There are three amendments that have been added to this bill at my request, and I thank the Armed Services staff and particularly Senator Levin and Senator McCain for accepting these three amendments. I would like to briefly explain the three amendments we have added. The first is one that will provide some more teeth in a very critical area that is of huge importance in this process; that is, tightening up the process and procedures at JROC. JROC is the military's Joint Requirements Oversight Council. Now, that sounds pretty good. JROC sounds like a place where you are going to get oversight. But unfortunately, invariably, JROC has become a place where one branch of the military gets what it wants, and in return the other branch of the military gets what it wants, and in return the other branch of the military gets what it wants. It has been kind of a murky process. Based on hearings we have had and testimony and questions I have asked, it is clear to me that JROC has not been providing a lot of oversight--maybe a little too much back-scratching and not enough oversight. So two of these amendments are to deal with the JROC situation and hopefully improve it. One is going to bring more input from combatant commands to the JROC process. The warfighter's perspective is very important, as this council makes decisions about requirements on systems the U.S. taxpayer is going to purchase. It is very important that the warfighters have input because they are the end user. Maybe what they are saying in that room is what is needed or it turns out that maybe it is not what is needed. We have had examples of where we have failed our warfighters in not anticipating what the needs actually are on the ground. The Iraq war is full of examples where we underestimated what we needed in some regards and overestimated what we needed in others. The warfighter being in the process is very important. The other amendment that deals with the JROC--the Joint Requirements Oversight Council--is bringing another voice to this process. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics will now be required to concur on the JROC requirements with an eye toward cost, utility, and policy considerations. So we have now added a referee of sorts--another voice. So it isn't just going to be about the Air Force or the Navy or the Army keeping each other happy but, rather, someone in a responsible position to look and concur that what they are doing is in the best interest of cost, utility, and overall policy considerations. That critical layer of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics will also bring into the process the Secretary of Defense, if necessary, because if there is not an agreement, then the Secretary of Defense will have to come in and provide that ultimate decisionmaking with an eye toward cost, utility, and policy. This will allow the kind of leadership from the top to make sure these decisions are in the best interests of all of the military as opposed to everybody getting what they want. The final amendment that has been accepted that I believe will help is a little bit of looking over the shoulder on cost waivers. We have put into this bill a number of situations where certain safeguards can be waived if they are going to be too expensive. The best example is the prototype. There is going to be no need for them to do a competitive prototype if they decide they need to waive that requirement based on the cost of producing that prototype. I don't disagree that there may be some circumstances where costs are going to be too high to do a prototype, but what I want to make sure is that we don't abuse the cost waiver. In order to avoid abusing the cost waiver, we need an auditor looking over their shoulders. So this amendment mandates the reporting of cost waivers to GAO--the Government Accountability Office, the overall auditor in the Federal Government-- and it requires the GAO to provide a written review to the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee within 60 days of the receipt of that waiver. This will allow the GAO to look over the shoulder and make sure the cost waiver is one based on reliable, objective, and reasonable information. I don't think it is going to be necessary for GAO to do a lot of these analyses if the military knows that it can. Sometimes, just knowing somebody is looking over your shoulder brings about better behavior. That is the goal of this amendment, to make sure we don't abuse cost waivers because this bill is not going to do a lot of good if the military has the opportunity to drive in, around, and through it without appropriate oversight. So I believe these amendments improve the bill. They are going to be helpful as we try to get a handle on the acquisition process. I will continue to work with the chairman and the ranking member in any way I can, particularly on the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, which I chair, which is now part of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. We on that subcommittee are going to continue to look at contracting in DOD, particularly keeping an eye not just on the weapons acquisition but the acquisition of services at DOD. That has also has been a huge growth industry as we have entered into contracting for support services such as never before in the American military, with, frankly, boxes and boxes of examples of waste, abuse, and fraud. So I am pleased this bill is moving as quickly as it has, and I am particularly pleased there has been such a bipartisan effort in this body. It is refreshing when we can all come together and do the right thing, as we are doing on this bill. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes in morning business.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, sometimes change comes quietly. Sometimes it comes with a big bang. Today change came quietly. I want to make sure everyone realizes the change that occurred. For 3 years I have been talking about the problem of illegal immigration and what has caused this problem to flourish. I have been talking about the problem of the magnet of jobs that has drawn people over the border without documentation because they are trying to feed their families and the fact that no one was doing anything about employer enforcement. When I got to Washington and I asked the head of immigration enforcement how many employers have been held accountable for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, how many have been arrested, she could not even tell me. They didn't even keep the statistics. Think about that for a minute. They didn't keep the statistics of how many employers were held accountable for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. I began pounding on immigration and customs enforcement about this, talking to them about basic investigative techniques. In Missouri right now there are hundreds of employers that are breaking the rules knowingly. They are hiring people, paying them under the table, cash on Fridays. They are bringing pickup trucks from Mexico full of people, stuffing them all in an apartment. The vast majority of the business people are doing it right. They are trying to play by the rules, doing the very best job they can. But there is a chunk of employers out there that knew they were not going to get caught, knew nobody cared if they did, and they knowingly violated the law. I asked the new head of immigration enforcement if that was going to change. I asked the new Secretary of Homeland Security if that was going to change. Today they announced a new policy. Finally, they have a set of guidelines going to everyone in the country about how we are going to prioritize going after those employers that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. We finally are going to get to the magnet. This is a crime we can deter. If you think somebody is going to put you in jail for saying: Hey, I didn't care if you have papers or not, I can pay you cheaper; work you harder. I don't care if you are illegal or not; I don't want to know. In fact, bring your friends--if you don't think those people being held accountable is going to make a difference, then you don't understand law enforcement. Today I am proud to say change came. The new guidelines require that, in fact, instead of working off tips, they are now going to embrace basic investigation. They will use undercover. They will use informants. They will use all kinds of documentation they can look at in terms of paper documentation. They will enlist the support and cooperation, ahead of workplace enforcement, of local law enforcement agencies, including the Justice Department. They have decided it is a new day in immigration enforcement and that we will get at the root of the problem. I support E-Verify and I support giving employers all the tools we can to do the best job they can in hiring legal workers. But for those employers that don't care, that are doing it on purpose and knowingly doing it, we need to come down on them and come down hard. This administration has figured it out. I congratulate the Secretary of Homeland Security for these new policies. I stand in full support, and I know most of my colleagues do also. We finally will do something about illegal immigration when we shut down the magnet. I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon in support of an incredibly gifted public servant. I don't normally stand up and sing the praises of Kansas. I am not a huge fan of Kansas. I am a Missourian, and we have issues between Kansas and Missouri--usually between our basketball teams and our football teams. During the last decade, I have had an opportunity to get to know Kathleen Sebelius as a person, as a mother, as a wife, as a Governor, and as a friend. I want my colleagues to know that they are voting to confirm an extraordinary individual who will do an excellent job as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the United States. Kathleen Sebelius has shown courage and guts many times in her career. Frankly, running for Kansas's Governor as a Democrat shows guts and courage. We are talking about a State that is not warm and fuzzy about Democrats. We are talking about a State that is as red as Dorothy's ruby slippers. But she ran for Governor after she had served as commissioner of insurance in Kansas. So why was it that all these Republicans got excited about voting for Kathleen Sebelius? It was because she demonstrated, when she was commissioner of insurance in Kansas, that she was about fighting for them. It happened over an insurance company. Everyone needs to realize this is an experience she has had that relates directly to what we need right now as Secretary of Health and Human Services as we embark upon the most aggressive and ambitious health care reform agenda this country has ever faced. When the largest health insurance company in Kansas wanted to sell-- this was a mutual company owned by the policyholders of Kansas and covered 70 percent of Kansans--all Kathleen Sebelius, the insurance commissioner, had to do under the law was sign off on it and say no harm would be done. But she took a look at it and said, wait a minute, I don't think the test should be that no harm is going to be done. I want to know what this sale is going to do to make things better for Kansans. She took on a titan--a big, huge insurance company. That is what we need right now, someone willing to take on the calcified silos of profit in our health care system and blow them up in order to deliver a better product. She said: I want to make sure this sale is going to reflect a better environment for health insurance for the people of Kansas. She fought them all the way to the Supreme Court of Kansas and eventually she won and was able to block the sale of this company. She said at the time that bigger is not always better, and unless they could show how this was going to be better for the people of Kansas, she would continue to fight them toe to toe. It was that kind of fighting spirit on behalf of regular people who don't have the tools to fight big insurance companies that uniquely qualifies her to be at the head of this important agency as we embark on the health care reform agenda. Not only did she have the guts to run for Governor--she won, which was remarkable. Here is an even more remarkable part. She went to Topeka, the capital, and began working with the Republicans. As President Obama has said over and over again, she said: I want to work with you. And she did. She wrestled with a senate and a house that was dominated by the Republican party in Kansas and, at the end of 4 years, what did the people of Kansas do? Did they say they were sick of the gridlock and didn't want this liberal Kansas woman anymore from the Democratic party as Governor? Oh, no, they did not; they reelected her by a wide margin. It is a remarkable thing, when you think about it, because this is a State that our former President won by 20, 30 points. Yet the people of Kansas realized they had a fighter. They looked past the party label to her courage, integrity, intelligence, and her willingness to go toe to toe with the big guys for them. I am proud she has been nominated. I know there have been some distortions about her record. I can assure my colleagues that she will make us all proud in this job. She will work with every one of us to try to find that common ground. She will leave no opinion behind as they consider the best way to move forward on this health care reform agenda. I am pleased to be able to stand for a few minutes and tell everyone in America to celebrate today, because we are about to confirm a fighter--someone who will fight for you and deliver the kind of health care in America that we deserve, at a price we can afford. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, once upon a time, someone had a good idea about trying to open the mortgage market to as many people as possible. Between that moment and now, we have seen a giant economic crisis that has mushroomed out of control. We have sat around for months now trying to figure out how did it happen and why did it happen. One of the reasons it happened is, using common sense, we said to people: You can go make money by talking people into borrowing money, and you do not have to worry about whether they pay it back. Let me go through that one more time. We said to a market, the mortgage market: If you go talk people into borrowing more money than they can afford, it does not matter if they can pay it back, you do not need to worry about that because you are going to make your money anyway. In other words, the people closing their loans had no skin in the game. They were not a partner to the risk. So that is how we got people qualifying for loans by wearing a special costume and photograph. That is how you got these ``liars loans.'' They were called ``liars loans.'' Everybody knew people were lying to get these loans, but no one was doing anything about it because the people who were making the loans were making the money and had no risk. You would think with this occurring, we would now be on hyper alert for the exact same set of circumstances, but we are not. Because it is going on today as we speak. If you turn on any cable channel almost anywhere in America, before midnight you are going to see an ad that says to seniors: You need to take advantage of a great Government program, a Government benefit. You can be paid cash for the value of your house without any risk. They are called reverse mortgages. It is a type of home loan that converts the value in your home you have acquired over a lifetime and converts it to cash. Now, in and of itself, this is not a bad concept. People ought to be able to borrow against the value of their homes. We do it with home equity loans. Here is the problem. We have the people closing these loans who have no skin in the game. Guess who is insuring all these loans. We are. The taxpayers. There is no risk to those people paying for those ads on cable TV, no risk. Reward. No risk. We are taking the risk. If, in fact, the housing markets go down and the value of someone's property goes down and it is time for that loan, the value of that loan to be recovered when the house is sold, if it does not sell for enough money, guess who is left holding the bag. Hello. Subprime mortgages chapter two. We are back. We have the same issue we had with the subprime. Since we began this program in 1990, HUD has endorsed and insured 500,000 loans. But, wait, we took the cap off it recently. We anticipate that HUD will, in fact, insure 200,000 of these loans this year alone. We have done 500,000 loans since 1990, and we are going to do 200,000 loans this year. We are talking about a huge growth in the potential liability to the American taxpayer. These are complex and expensive loans. For many elderly, the equity they have in their home is it. With the economic circumstances we have right now, there is going to be a lot of pressure on the elderly to enter into one of these reverse mortgages, maybe to help other family members who have lost a job. It is important we fix this program. It is embarrassing that we let the subprime mess go for as long as we did, without anybody saying: Whoa, hold on. It will be doubly embarrassing if we allow this reverse mortgage situation to go down the exact same path. With these loans, as they increase dramatically in number and value, we are also seeing an increase in fraud. The HUD inspector general has been working in the reverse mortgage field, and all the other inspectors general in our country have done a great job of beginning to find problems of a specific nature as it relates to fraud. Some of it is where we have inflated appraisals. Some of it is where you have shoddy repairs being done, which decrease the value of the home, which increase the risk to the taxpayer. Some of it is people continuing to collect the proceeds on the home past the time they should, past perhaps the death or the moving out of the senior who did the loan in the first place. Why is the fraud increasing? I have a theory why the fraud is increasing. All the bad actors over there in subprime, they are looking for a new stream of money so they are all sliding over and saying: Hey, let us start making these reverse mortgages to seniors. OK. We have to do something about this now. I filed an amendment to the legislation that is in front of the Senate that will do some important things in terms of fraud prevention and detection and enforcement provisions: We are going to require the borrower to certify they reside in the property; to report the termination of the residence to HUD; require that in the case of a property that is purchased with the proceeds of a reverse mortgage, the property is owned and occupied for at least 180 days, so we do not have the flipping we have seen in the subprime market; require these properties be appraised by certified appraisers, HUD-certified appraisers; we have to verify the purchase price to ensure the appraised value is not inflated and make sure the appraised value is not too high in relation to comparable properties-- you can imagine how important this is right now since our housing market values are in such flux--to require the counselors to report suspected fraud or abuse to HUD's inspector general and to inform prospective borrowers how they can report suspected fraud and consumer abuse; require that the lenders and consumers maintain a system to ensure compliance; explicitly state that the HUD inspector general has the authority to conduct independent audits and inspections of the lender. Would it not have been nice had we done that back when we started having the problems with subprimes? Conduct independent audits and inspections of reverse mortgage lenders to make sure they are in compliance with the requirements; and to compare the reverse borrower's record against the Social Security's death master file for early indications for when payouts should end because payouts under these reverse mortgages stop at the death of the recipient of the reverse mortgage; provide that any limitation on when criminal charges can be brought against fraud perpetrators in this area be calculated on when we find out about the criminal activity, not when it occurred. Because, in many instances, we may not find out about the fraud until the elderly person dies, and then they find out that maybe they thought they still had value in their home, but they were lied to. This is an important one: Provide that advertising for reverse mortgages cannot be false or misleading and must present a fair and balanced portrayal of the risks and the benefits of the product. The fraud is the first step. Going after fraud is the first step, but we have to do more. It is very important that we protect our seniors from predatory lenders. When you see these ads on TV, it sounds too good to be true. ``Government benefit,'' ``No risk.'' But there is a huge risk. There is a risk of a senior paying more than they should for a product that does not work for them and a very big risk for the taxpayers of this country. I look forward to working with the Senate Judiciary and Banking Committees as well as HUD and the HUD inspector general and GAO to get the things done we must do to clean up this problem. If we do not learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. I urge all my colleagues to become knowledgeable about this reverse mortgage area, get word to their constituents to be careful about these reverse mortgages. They are very dangerous. At the end of the day, if someone is making money off you and they do not care whether you can pay it back, it is a dangerous combination.

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

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, as we look around at the problems we are facing in this country now when it comes to our economy, all of us are trying to figure out what caused this mess, what is the root cause of this incredible meltdown in the financial sector of our economy, in our housing sector. It comes back to one simple concept: greed. It is just about a bunch of really greedy people, brought to you by the current executive pay structure we have on Wall Street and in some parts of corporate America. It is the largest part of the problem. These potential payouts under this corporate structure of pay we have right now are so large that executives at financial institutions, including institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that were supposed to have a public purpose, had incentives to create rules that would reward them no matter what happens. Why did all these exotic derivatives and swaps start happening? Pay. Pay. And greed. Performance, not so much. It didn't matter whether you failed, you got paid anyway. That is the culture that caused the problem. Failure and you walk with huge money. These AIG bonuses are just one symptom of this very serious illness that is gripping our economy and harming our competitiveness. The Merrill Lynch bonuses, which I stood on the floor and railed about a few short weeks ago, were exhibit B. Those guys failed, and they made sure they got the money and walked with it before Bank of America took over. They moved up their bonuses. Retention? Not so much. It doesn't have much to do with that. These AIG bonuses--52 of the people had already walked out the door when they got the money. We weren't paying them to stay; they had already left. Our competitive disadvantage in this regard is real. Two of the most productive competitors to our country, Germany and Japan--their trade surplus per capita is the highest. Do you know what their average corporate pay is? It is 10 or 11 times the average worker's. What is it in the United States of America? It is 400 times the average worker's. We need to get back to our American values of hard work equals success, equals financial reward--not failure and you get paid anyway. It is most insulting on the American taxpayer's dime when it comes to Merrill Lynch and AIG. There is a great column in the New York Times today by David Leonhardt. I recommend it to my colleagues. In that column, he makes the following statement, and I paraphrase: Stop the deference to this culture. Stop the deference to Wall Street. Treasury, can you hear me? Stop the deference to the culture of Wall Street. Be bold, stand up to them. That deference has now created a cold anger of populism that is going to make it very politically difficult for us to do anything else to free up our credit markets that are so essential for our economy to survive. America's economy has a hangover from the drunken greed of high pay and bonuses for failure. Sober up. Sober up, folks, because the American people are paying too high a price. I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I disagree with earmarks. I disagree with the process. Although we have made great strides in reforming earmarks, I do think there are further steps we need to take. Today, I have introduced a resolution, a Senate resolution, with the senior Senator from Colorado, Mr. Udall, to bring even more transparency to this process. Basically, this resolution requires all requests to be posted on committee Web sites and the Member's Web site within 48 hours of request. It requires all information in the request letter be listed online, including location, purpose, and cost. This is not presently required. It requires electronically searchable text of all bills and conference reports, and it strengthens the ability to remove earmarks by a point of order. There are some loopholes that we, I think inadvertently, created when we did S. 1 early in my first year as a Senator. This resolution will require earmarks to be in the bill text. I discovered that there were some airdropped earmarks in a bill. Because they were in a managers' statement, the point of order was not possible. So this requires all the earmarks to be in the bill text, which will subject them to the rules. It applies the airdrop point of order to the authorization bills in addition to the appropriations bills, and it further limits earmarks to public projects only. In this time, I do not believe we can afford to be earmarking in the private sector or anywhere other than the public sector as we struggle with our deficits and our spending. But I really rose today not to speak so much about the resolution I have introduced today but more to speak a little bit about how confused I have been over the last few weeks by many of my friends on the other side of the aisle. While we have a lot of work to do in regard to earmarks, I congratulate my party because we have created transparency. We now know who is earmarking, and because of that we now know that earmarking has nothing to do with party. Yes, there are thousands of earmarks in this bill by Democrats, but there are thousand of earmarks in this bill by Republicans. Earmarking is not about party. Earmarking is about power. This is about whether you have the power to get an earmark, and power depends on various things when it comes to earmarking. It depends on what committee you are on. It depends on whether you are an appropriator. It depends on your seniority. It depends on whether you have a tough election fight. It depends, to some extent, on whether you are in the minority party or in the majority party because the split is 60-40 right now. Sixty percent of the earmarks--it is kind of an unwritten rule--go to the majority party and 40 percent go to the minority party. It was the other way around when the Democrats were not in power. That doesn't seem to me to be a very logical way to spend public money. It should be about the merit of the project. It should be about cost- benefit. There are many people making the argument that we should not let bureaucrats decide. Congress has had the power of the purse for over 200 years. Congress has been directing spending in this country for over 200 years. Earmarks are a new creation. The first earmarking started in the 1970s, that ability to make a solitary, lonely decision as to where money is going to be directed. In fact, in 1991, there were only 541 earmarks, and at the height of earmarking, under President Bush and under a Republican-controlled Congress, there was $27 billion in earmarks. In fact, the number of earmarks has been cut in half under the leadership of my party. This notion that bureaucrats are doing the decisionmaking is wrong-- we have the power to tell the bureaucrats how to spend the money. We can tell them it is formula grants. We can tell them it is competitive grants. In fact, that is what we do for 99 percent of the budget. We tell the executive branch how to spend the money. It is now only for 1 percent that we decided we cannot tell the bureaucrats how to spend the money, so this notion that somehow we need to do earmarks because the bureaucrats are going to run amok--I don't get it. In fact, most earmarks skim money off other programs. You can look at the history of the Byrne grants. They have gone down over the last 8 or 9 years. Now we are increasing them--which is great. Byrne grants are competitive at the local level. But what happened while the Byrne grants were going down? In the same time, earmarks were going up. There is a connection. When money is skimmed off the formula for highways, that is just more local projects that the local people want to build that are not built because a Senator or Congressman knows better. Now, here is the weird part about this. This is what I want to focus on today: my friends on the other side of the aisle. I listened while podiums were pounded about wasteful spending during the debate on the stimulus bill, during the debate on the economic recovery bill. I watched as my friends across the aisle took to the airwaves and gave many different speeches about wasteful spending in the stimulus bill. Let me quote some of the things they said: Pet programs. Honey pot for whatever you need. A porkulus bill. Wasteful spending. Pet projects. Earmarks. Earmarks. Earmarks. An orgy of spending. That was what they said about the stimulus bill, when, in reality, there were no earmarks in the stimulus bill. Everything that was spent in the stimulus bill was either competitive grants or formula funding. Now, here is the weird part. They went on and on and on during the stimulus bill about earmarking. No fewer than 17 different Senators stood, and with absolute righteous indignation, talked about the pet projects in the stimulus bill. Guess what? Every single one of them has earmarks in this bill. One member of Republican leadership said: That is the problem with earmarks. All Senators are equal, except some Senators are more equal than others when it comes to slipping things in bills. Every single member of the Republican leadership has earmarks in this bill. Every single one of them. Every single one of those people rejected the stimulus that was one of the largest tax cuts in American history, but had no earmarks, because supposedly they were so upset about wasteful spending. Those very same Senators have earmarks in this bill, such as the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference. The Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference, beaver management, parking lots, all brought to you by the very same people who called out wasteful spending in the President's economic recovery bill. If you do not take my word for it, check out the Taxpayers For Common Sense Web site. According to their statistics, 6 of the top 10 earmarkers in this bill are my friends on the other side of the aisle. In fact, the Republican leader has twice as many solo earmark dollars in this bill than the Democratic leader. America, do not be fooled. Earmarking is an equal opportunity activity. It is a bad habit. The minority party is taking full advantage of it. Do not take anyone seriously who says one thing and does another. That is the worst sin of all. Any parent knows one basic rule: The example you set is way more important than anything you say.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, there was an omission of money for the inspector general at the IRS. The modification adds the money for the inspector general at the IRS.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I would ask my colleague, it is almost like what a famous baseball player once said: ``It is deja vu all over again.'' Because what I am hearing, if I am correct--and I would certainly ask him this question--I am hearing the same thing now on the economic recovery bill, that we need to shelve it. I heard one of our colleagues, who I believe is the ranking member on Senator Dodd's committee, actually today on TV and the last couple of days saying: We need to shelve this thing. I would ask the Senator from Connecticut, through the Presiding Officer, I have this feeling that if we shelve it, we will be back here next year and, as with the housing crisis, the economic crisis in this country will do nothing but get demonstrably worse and more painful for the American people.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I would like to talk about a few of the amendments I will be offering to this very important piece of legislation. Let me say this again: This is a very important piece of legislation. I think everyone needs to take a moment, take a deep breath, and consider what the alternatives are. Either we come together in the Senate over the next few days and pass this bill or we do nothing--or we do nothing. I will tell you, where I live in Missouri, ``nothing'' is not an option. If people think we can do nothing and this problem will begin to take care of itself, they do not understand the economic situation we are facing. So I have no problem with a full debate. I have no problem with us looking at every line and figuring out whether there is money we can take out that is wasteful or not stimulative. But at the end of the day, this notion that we are going to put this on the shelf--are you kidding me? Put it on a shelf. We have a crisis in this country. We are in a dramatic recession. The Government must act to stimulate job creation. If we do not, then we are going to have some explaining to do. Being brave and bold enough to do something is always harder than finding something wrong with something. And we will always be able to find something wrong in everything we do around here. So buck up. Be strong. Move forward for the American people because that is what they said to us last November. That is what they want. They wanted it to be a new day. I am glad we are talking with each other. I am glad we are debating amendments. I am glad we are working in a bipartisan fashion to try to pull some of the things out of this bill that have distracted the conversation about the Economic Recovery Act. They have distracted us. They put us on defense. Excuse me, we are on offense. We are trying to help our economy. Sitting back and shooting that thing is not going to get us there. There are some things I think we can do to make it better, and several of the amendments I have offered have to do with our ability to make this process transparent and to make sure we are accountable for the money. First, I have submitted an amendment to strengthen the whistleblower protection. We have to make sure our whistleblowers are well taken care of. Some of the best information we get in cleaning up Government comes from inside the companies that work for the Federal Government. We gave these protections to defense contractors in last year's Defense Authorization Act. We need to give it to every Federal contractor so that we can get the best information possible about what is going on internally in these companies as they spend public money. Another amendment improves the transparency requirements for the public database Web site. We need this public database to work, because it is a new tool to allow us to track all the money to make sure the money is going where it was intended to go, to make sure we don't have fraud, waste, and abuse in these contracts and programs, as we fund the various infrastructure needs of the country, whether it is building a school, a bridge, or an electric grid. Another amendment I have will boost the resources for the inspectors general. Those are our cops in terms of accountability. We cannot do this kind of government spending without giving the same kind of increase to the inspector general community for them to do their jobs. Also additional funding for acquisition personnel is included. Acquisition personnel are going to be called to this cause in a dramatic fashion. As we spend this money, we have to make sure we have enough folks that we can monitor the contracts, make sure the contracts are drafted in a way that protects taxpayer money. So we need to increase both acquisition personnel and inspector general resources. There is also another technical amendment I will be offering that has to do with a vagary in Missouri law and another State's laws as it relates to the ability of my State and another State to use water and sewer funding. Let me say this before yielding the floor. I compliment the President today on the dramatic steps he took on curbing executive pay in the various companies that have received Federal money. The proposal he laid out today is aggressive. It is broad in scope. It is just what the doctor ordered. I am so pleased that not only the President but Senator Wyden and Senator Snowe offered another amendment in the area of taxing some of the excessive bonuses that have occurred. We are watching Wall Street. We are paying attention. Please behave as you should, if you have taken this kind of public money. Please understand it is not business as usual. It is not luxury retreats and fancy parties and big- time bonuses. It is a new day. Please start behaving as if you get it. Because if we cannot convince the American people that we are looking after them, we will never get the recovery we must have so that everyone has the opportunity to succeed. That is all it is about, that opportunity that is unique to America--that everyone can have a chance to succeed. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, through the Presiding Officer, I wish to ask my colleague from Connecticut whether, when we were trying to deal with the foreclosure crisis last year, there were many people in the Chamber who said: Well, let's just shelve that for awhile. Let's forget about that problem right now. We don't need to do anything right now. My recollection is that is what a lot of the response was from some of our friends.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I could not agree more with my colleague from Rhode Island. There are a lot of things we need in this country right now. We need jobs. We need something to stimulate our economy. We need certainty in the credit market. But probably more than anything what we need in this country right now is confidence, confidence that we can face down these problems and move forward like America has always done. What do we have instead of confidence? Raw anger. I am mad. Everyone I work for is mad. Anger can be constructive. It can be channeling. I am here today to say it is time we channel this anger and change the law. We do not need anger. We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street who are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. My colleague talked about some of them. Let me review. These financial institutions, on the brink of extinction, come to the American taxpayer for hundreds of billions of dollars at the very same time they think they are going to buy a $50 million corporate jet. They are going to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. They paid an average of $2.6 million to every executive at the first 116 banks that got taxpayer money under TARP. Let me say that again: An average of $2.6 million in executive pay to the folks at the first 116 banks that got money from the taxpayers. They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. Merrill Lynch is unbelievable. They saved $3 billion to $4 billion from the pot of money that was going to Bank of America, the sale that was going to close the first week in January. They always gave bonuses in January. Do you know what these sneaky guys did? They decided to give their bonuses in December before the Bank of America took over. They paid out $3 billion to $4 billion in bonuses in December, and that quarter, Merrill Lynch lost $21 billion. What planet are these people on? What could they be thinking about? So here is what this bill is going to do. This is called the Cap Executive Officer Pay Act of 2009, and it is very simple. Going forward, you want taxpayers to help you survive? You want the people at your financial institution to have a job tomorrow? Then you are going to have to limit everyone's pay at your company to the same salary the President of the United States makes. Is that so unreasonable? It is eight times the median household income in the United States of America--$400,000 a year. I don't think that sounds like a bad deal. Should these people be making more than the President of the United States? Now, really, should they? They should not be making more than the President of the United States. So every executive going forward could not make more than $400,000 a year, and they have to limit that executive compensation for everyone in their company until they pay back every dime to the taxpayers. Now, once they are off the public dole, once the taxpayers aren't footing the bill, then it is not as much our business what they get paid. But right now, they are on the hook to us, and they owe us something other than a fancy wastebasket and a $50 million jet. They owe us some common sense. If any of them think it is a hardship to take the salary of the President of the United States, I dare them to say so out loud right now because that is not going to instill confidence. What is going to instill confidence is for the men and women in these companies to realize it is time for everyone in this country to tighten their belt. It is time for everyone to realize we must have our financial institutions survive but not with a culture that thinks it is OK to kick the taxpayer in the shins while they drink champagne and fly in fancy jets. It doesn't work; not in the United States of America. I ask my colleagues to sign on to this bill. I think it makes sense. We should have done it in the first place, but I don't think any of us thought these guys were this stupid. I don't think any of us believed they would take billions of dollars of bonuses while their institutions were literally days from being wiped out, but they did, and we have learned our lesson. So I hope all my colleagues will sign on this bill. I hope we can get it passed quickly so that from this day forward, the President of the United States will make the same amount of money as the executives of these companies who owe the taxpayers hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I could not agree more with my colleague from Rhode Island. There are a lot of things we need in this country right now. We need jobs. We need something to stimulate our economy. We need certainty in the credit market. But probably more than anything what we need in this country right now is confidence, confidence that we can face down these problems and move forward like America has always done. What do we have instead of confidence? Raw anger. I am mad. Everyone I work for is mad. Anger can be constructive. It can be channeling. I am here today to say it is time we channel this anger and change the law. We do not need anger. We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street who are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. My colleague talked about some of them. Let me review. These financial institutions, on the brink of extinction, come to the American taxpayer for hundreds of billions of dollars at the very same time they think they are going to buy a $50 million corporate jet. They are going to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. They paid an average of $2.6 million to every executive at the first 116 banks that got taxpayer money under TARP. Let me say that again: An average of $2.6 million in executive pay to the folks at the first 116 banks that got money from the taxpayers. They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. Merrill Lynch is unbelievable. They saved $3 billion to $4 billion from the pot of money that was going to Bank of America, the sale that was going to close the first week in January. They always gave bonuses in January. Do you know what these sneaky guys did? They decided to give their bonuses in December before the Bank of America took over. They paid out $3 billion to $4 billion in bonuses in December, and that quarter, Merrill Lynch lost $21 billion. What planet are these people on? What could they be thinking about? So here is what this bill is going to do. This is called the Cap Executive Officer Pay Act of 2009, and it is very simple. Going forward, you want taxpayers to help you survive? You want the people at your financial institution to have a job tomorrow? Then you are going to have to limit everyone's pay at your company to the same salary the President of the United States makes. Is that so unreasonable? It is eight times the median household income in the United States of America--$400,000 a year. I don't think that sounds like a bad deal. Should these people be making more than the President of the United States? Now, really, should they? They should not be making more than the President of the United States. So every executive going forward could not make more than $400,000 a year, and they have to limit that executive compensation for everyone in their company until they pay back every dime to the taxpayers. Now, once they are off the public dole, once the taxpayers aren't footing the bill, then it is not as much our business what they get paid. But right now, they are on the hook to us, and they owe us something other than a fancy wastebasket and a $50 million jet. They owe us some common sense. If any of them think it is a hardship to take the salary of the President of the United States, I dare them to say so out loud right now because that is not going to instill confidence. What is going to instill confidence is for the men and women in these companies to realize it is time for everyone in this country to tighten their belt. It is time for everyone to realize we must have our financial institutions survive but not with a culture that thinks it is OK to kick the taxpayer in the shins while they drink champagne and fly in fancy jets. It doesn't work; not in the United States of America. I ask my colleagues to sign on to this bill. I think it makes sense. We should have done it in the first place, but I don't think any of us thought these guys were this stupid. I don't think any of us believed they would take billions of dollars of bonuses while their institutions were literally days from being wiped out, but they did, and we have learned our lesson. So I hope all my colleagues will sign on this bill. I hope we can get it passed quickly so that from this day forward, the President of the United States will make the same amount of money as the executives of these companies who owe the taxpayers hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.