Harry Reid

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Murray, I call up the substitute amendment, No. 2789.

Mr. REID. I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have an amendment to the instructions at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a cloture motion to the bill, which is at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a first-degree perfecting amendment which is at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a cloture motion on the substitute amendment which is at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk to the language proposed to be stricken.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a motion to commit the bill with instructions which is at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived on the cloture motion just filed.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Madam President, the Senate will now consider the motion to proceed to S. 3547, the Veterans Jobs Corps Act. Seventy minutes will be equally divided this morning between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half. We will begin consideration of the Veterans Jobs Corps bill today. It is unfortunate that we are having to go through another couple of filibusters on this bill, but that is what we have been through. I mentioned yesterday on the floor that for the 6 years we have had a Democratic majority, there have been 380--this makes now 381-- filibusters. During the time of Lyndon Johnson, 6 years, the same period of time, there was 1 filibuster--381 to 1. That is the kind of obstruction that has taken place in this body by the Republicans, and it is untoward by any stretch of the imagination. There has never been anything close to this.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I was disturbed and saddened to learn late last night of the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other personnel in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. I would be happy to talk by name about them, but their names have not been released at this stage. It doesn't take away from how important the jobs are of these Foreign Service officers. I join President Obama in condemning these senseless acts of violence. My thoughts are with the families of those who were killed in this horrible attack. It is too often forgotten that American diplomats risk their lives on a daily basis. I had the good fortune in my days on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House to travel the world. I always make sure, wherever I go, to visit with the Foreign Service personnel. They are everyplace. There is no group of people--and I tell them this every time I have the opportunity to visit with them--who do more for our country in a positive sense than these Foreign Service officers. They work so hard, and most of the time their duty stations are very difficult. For example, take this good man, Ambassador Stevens, who was just confirmed a few months ago. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. He taught English there. He was fluent in Arabic, French, and English. He served in the Foreign Service in Jerusalem, Cairo, and Saudi Arabia. He was the Staff Assistant of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He had an education that was really unbelievably strong and powerful. He graduated from Berkeley. He had a law degree from Hastings, one of the premier law schools in the country. He had a master's degree from the National War College. What a loss to our country.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Very quickly, Madam President, I was very disappointed to hear Speaker Boehner say yesterday that he was giving up on reaching a bipartisan agreement to avoid huge cuts to both domestic and defense programs. I don't feel that way. I can assure everyone within the sound of my voice that I have not given up on finding a reasonable and balanced approach to reducing our debt and avoiding these difficult cuts. Democrats agree that across-the-board cuts are not the best way to solve the problems. Sequestration is a bitter pill, but we did that on purpose. That was no accident. That is why there was overwhelming support for the budget deficit reduction act to have sequestration. The sequestration was engineered to be hard to take, so it forced us to compromise. It was designed to be tough enough to force the two sides to reach a balanced deal. That is why there was widespread bipartisan support for this. I hope Speaker Boehner will reconsider. I believe it is much too early to give up. I urge my Republican colleagues not to give up on themselves because I am not going to give up on them. It is time for them to stop rooting for the economy to fail and root for Congress to succeed and reach common ground. Remember, the markets are watching our every move, with Moody's saying yesterday that they were thinking of downgrading our debt standing credit rating. This is not the right time to say there is no hope in getting things done. I disagree. I say that the glass is half full, not half empty. The Speaker's statement came an hour after that reminder from Moody's came forward. We are willing to work. I say that to my friend John Boehner and to everyone else. We are willing to negotiate, we are willing to cooperate, we are willing to consider the difficult cuts to programs we hold dear, and I think the Republicans should do the same. So far they have refused. Due to the orders of their leader Grover Norquist, they have refused to raise even a penny of new revenue. They have refused to ask millionaires to contribute their fair share to help reduce the debt and the deficit. And Democrats won't agree to a one- sided solution that lets the superwealthy off the hook while forcing the middle class and those in greatest need to bear all the hardship. I repeat, we are willing to consider difficult cuts to programs we believe are extremely important. The sequestration is not a perfect legislative tool, but rarely do we do anything legislatively that is perfect. That is the way it has been for generations. But at least it has the benefit of being a balanced approach, and it has the power of law. Republicans, including Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, would do well to remember that they voted for the sequestration.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Madam President, Henry Ward Beecher, the famous abolitionist, once said, ``A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life.'' I agree. Our Founding Fathers also agreed, and that is why we have the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress was initially the library of Thomas Jefferson. That is what started the Library of Congress. It was established in 1800. It was this country's first Federal cultural institution. It is the largest library in the world. There are 35 million books and 838 miles of bookshelves. The numbers are staggering. Almost 10,000 new items are added every day. For 25 years the Librarian of Congress has been Dr. James Billington. He has been a faithful and effective leader. I first got to know Dr. Billington in 1986 when I came to the Senate. There was a little squabble between a couple of the more senior Senators, which was a wonderful opportunity for me because one of the very senior Senators thought that maybe he deserved more than being the chair of the Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch. I grabbed that. I was happy to do that. I loved that experience. I learned a lot about what goes on here and how we pay for things. At that time it was an effort to really hurt the Library of Congress, so I had that opportunity to stand for the Library of Congress. Every time we had a vote, we won and they were not able to damage the Library of Congress. I got to know Dr. Billington. I had the good fortune to travel once with him to Russia. Dr. Billington, before coming to the Library of Congress, was one of the foremost scholars on the former Soviet Union. He knew everything about that land. He still writes about the new Russia. He is a very stalwart academic. When he took over the Library of Congress in 1987, computers were a scarcity, but he had a vision of what the future should be, and he thought it would be important to digitize the Library's collections and make them available on the Internet. There was a little pushback at first, but, of course, now that is history. That is what happened. I have such admiration for him as a person. He is a good person not only from an academic standing but as an administrator. I am glad they were unable to slash the Library's budget as they tried, and as a result, people came to a better understanding of what the Library of Congress was all about. I am glad I was able to play a part in that. He has always ensured that the Library of Congress would remain an unmatched resource for knowledge and enlightenment. So it is with pleasure that I congratulate my friend Dr. Billington on 25 years--a quarter of a century--of dedicated service at the Library of Congress.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 499, S. 3521.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, now that the Senate has finally adopted the motion to proceed to the veterans jobs bill, we have brought to a close the 380th filibuster during my time as majority leader--less than 6 years. And just now, to start to bring debate to close on the veterans jobs bill itself, I have had to file the 381st cloture motion during my 5\1/2\ years as leader. That is 381 cloture motions filed in just 6 years. Actually, it is less than that. For comparison, in the 6 years that Lyndon Johnson was majority leader, he had to file one cloture motion. This has become outrageous. The peoples' time is being wasted. We just finished 30 hours of nothing. We are now starting our next 30 hours of nothing, just standing around looking at each other. Filibusters have increased in recent years, but this is really unbelievable what has happened. The level of Republican obstruction has increased dramatically. It has increased dramatically just in the last few years. We do not have to fight over everything. A veterans jobs bill, does that deserve a fight? When we were in recess subject to the call of the Chair, an Afghan veteran was brought out here. He is missing one leg. He is 25 years old. He is an Army veteran. He is trying to hang on to his other leg. The pages who are in here, I called them up and introduced them to this young man. I wanted them to see what all of this talk is about, of people who sacrifice for our country. Hopefully this man will be well enough after some more rehabilitation time that he can go out and look for a job. He will have at least one artificial limb. This is a veterans jobs bill that is being held up for what reason? I do not know--or do I know? The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there are about 200,000 unemployed post-9/11 veterans, approaching a quarter of a million. And as our Nation appropriately winds down our military commitments abroad, we can expect increased numbers of newly separated veterans to enter the workforce. The veterans jobs bill is a $1 billion investment in our veterans. This bill would increase training and hiring opportunities for veterans. It would help to create jobs for veterans. I commend Senator Nelson of Florida and the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Murray, for their hard work on this bill. Unfortunately, I have already received word that the Republican Senators are simply unwilling to pass this measure. One Republican Senator, for example, is insisting on a vote on something related to Pakistan. Another Senator has filed a right-to-work amendment. Yet another Republican Senator has filed the Department of Defense authorization bill as an amendment to this bill. As important as Pakistan and many other issues are, the Senate ought to be able to focus on this young man who was here in the well this evening. We ought to be focusing on creating jobs for veterans. Now, we all know what is happening over here. The Republican leader, you have to admire him, he stuck to it. His No. 1 goal is to defeat President Obama, and that is why we have not been able to legislate. Everything has been stopped. Everything. We have been able to push through a few things but not many. As always, I will do everything I can to work with Senators to get consent agreements to provide for consideration of this legislation. Hopefully we can reach such agreement. I do not have much hope, but I am always, I guess, hopeful. But in the meantime, I will do what I need to do to ensure that the Senate can vote on this important measure. I will do what I can to help create jobs for America's veterans. We need to do it for everyone, but could we just not agree on veterans? I know we are now 30 hours postcloture. We all know the drill. Scores and scores of times--the Presiding Officer is a new Member of this Senate, relatively new. He has served going on two Congresses. But he is an expert at watching this. The Senator from Oregon has watched this, and he understands what is going on, and it is not very good. So the time will run out on this 30 hours from whenever the vote was turned in. First of all, we just--it is easy to get--especially when I am used to the Ryan math mixed up on numbers a little bit. So let's go back where we were. We just completed and wasted 30 hours. I had to file cloture now on the underlying bill. I have done that. Now we have to wait 2 days for this to ripen. The 2 days is going to expire on Friday. Now, we are going to vote on Friday, but it is not going to be at a time convenient to everybody. We are going to come in shortly after midnight tomorrow night, and we are going to vote on this. Then the 30 hours can start running, and then we will vote Saturday generally. If people cannot work together to help veterans, then we are going to make sure the American public knows what is going on here. So we will not vote tomorrow night, but we will vote--it has to be anytime 2 days from now. We can do that tomorrow night or actually Friday morning early, a little after midnight. I am sorry I got a little mixed up on 30 hours, 2 days for something to ripen. Then, as I said, I have been very confused because of the Ryan math. It has been difficult for me to accept all of that.

Mr. REID. I object.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Senator from Kentucky says there is no input from the minority, but, in fact, the substitute amendment we are going to vote on in the next day or two which is now pending before us has numerous provisions authored by Senate Republicans. I respect the interest of the Senator from Kentucky in relation to Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, but every now and then the Senate should be able to focus on a small good thing. To veterans this is a big thing. I like helping them. So I understand my friend's tenacity. But I also understand how the Senate operates. I just think my friend from Kentucky maybe should have run for Secretary of State rather than the Senate. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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