Pat Roberts

Mr. ROBERTS

Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, I ask for an additional 5 minutes if I may have it.

Mr. ROBERTS. Thank you, Madam President. I will try to wrap up. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator who wishes to speak. I will try to get this done. We were meeting with the President. I was bringing up the issue of regulations, but the rest of the people were talking about a grand bargain and what could happen. The President said on tax reform: Why can't we start with a clean page? Basically everybody agreed. And then he said we could also take mortgage interest, charitable giving, retirement, and we can means-test those and start from there. I thought, oh boy, here we go again--income redistribution. That is not the answer. I would just say that before we enter into any negotiations, we ought to make sure that the Budget Control Act and the fiscal cliff bill, which were negotiated in good faith with the Vice President and which have resulted in lower spending, in the first actual decreases in spending by the Federal Government since the Korean War. That is unbelievable. So in going to negotiate, I don't want to give up in regards to those decreases, and I don't want a situation where the President has said: I gave to you on CPI so I need $800 billion in revenue. The distinguished majority leader has said it is $1 trillion. So if we are going to raise $1 trillion in revenue, then here we go again and whatever negotiations come down the pike are going to be more spending and more taxes. People are just figuring out what their tax bill is going to be with ObamaCare. We don't need a situation where we sit down and negotiate simply for more taxes and spending. Without going into the constitutional implications of granting any authority on autopilot to the President, I would say I am adamantly opposed to giving any President that much control over the budget. Why does all of this matter? Why am I making this speech? Why is my friend across the aisle going to make her speech? The debt limit is currently $16.7 trillion. The debt has increased about $6 trillion since the President took office--more than any other President in our history. The main source of this tremendous growth in our debt is entitlement spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Paul Ryan has a plan to fix that. It ought to at least be on the table, and that way we can see a path for where we can go with it. Without changes, spending on these programs is expected to grow by 79 percent over the next 10 years. In fact, by law, there is no upper limit on how much we spend on these programs. This spending--added to interest payments on the debt--will make up close to 65 percent of the budget in 10 years. By then we won't have any discretionary spending. The Congressional Budget Office reports that we remain on an unsustainable path. All we are asking--prudently, I hope--is that any increase in the Federal debt limit needs to be coupled with real, tangible cuts in discretionary spending and meaningful, structural reform to entitlement spending. We need to get this done to rein in our unsustainable debt and to ensure that these programs are there for our children and our grandchildren. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that an article by Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution from Stanford University be printed in the Record at this time.

Mr. ROBERTS. I yield back any time I may have.

Mr. ROBERTS

Mr. ROBERTS. Would the courageous Senator from Texas yield for a question?

Mr. ROBERTS. Let me ask the Senator a question to cut to the chase. Let's get to the bottom line. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, our respected leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, because of his position, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and President Barack Obama have all said publicly that the Affordable Care Act is the first step to a single-payer system. Listen to the folks on the other side of the aisle, and many of them say the same thing. We can call it a single-payer system, we can call it national health insurance, but is this not the first step toward socialized health care--socialized health care--and is stopping socialized health care worth pulling out all of the stops and fighting the fight?

Mr. ROBERTS

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, would the distinguished Senator from Texas yield for a question?

Mr. ROBERTS. How is the Senator doing?

Mr. ROBERTS. I saw a black car down there in the parking lot with a Texas license plate, and I figured that was the Senator's. Didn't see him in it. Everybody was wondering as they got up this morning, after listening to the Senator last night, whether he would still be standing, but here he is. I appreciate this. I think the thing I appreciate the most--and the question will follow, Mr. President--is how the Senator has conducted himself because throughout the night he has had some folks at least making their point of view, which is obviously very different from his. Sometimes folks in this body get a little critical--arrows and slings--and although not necessary, those wounds heal. But in each and every case of a person who has brought a different point of view, the Senator has very deftly and very skillfully, acting like a Senator, respected their point of view. Not once did I see him do anything else. I gave up about midnight, by the way, my wife about 11. She fell asleep. But I thank the Senator for that. I thank him for being truly senatorial and basically doing what Senators do; that is, respect everybody's point of view. I especially liked the comment of Bernie Sanders, whom I also like. You wouldn't know it, but he does have quite a sense of humor. A different point of view but very honest about it. So I thank the Senator for that. If the Senator wants breakfast, if he is about ready to sit down, I will be happy to buy him breakfast. But we will let that go. The other thing I want to ask is how does the Senator feel coming here as a new Senator and knowing how the Senate used to operate and knowing that in the Senate I came to, every Senator, on an important issue, had the opportunity to offer an amendment. It could be germane or it could not be germane. But for the last 5 years that has not been the case. There have been a few exceptions when we have had what is called regular order. Folks back home don't know what regular order is, but it is the way the Senate used to operate. It is the difference between the Senate and the House. It is the reason I left the House and ran for the Senate, because I wanted to have that opportunity to be an individual Senator. Last year I made a reference to the farm bill, which has somewhat something to do with what the Senator is talking about because it involves the ability of America to feed not only us but a very troubled and hungry world. Of course, food helps your health, obviously, but you show me a country that cannot feed itself and I will show you a country that is in chaos. So we do farm bills. They are much maligned. Right now not too many people even care about them, but they are terribly important. And farmers and ranchers now see no certainty out there because, like the health care law, at the end of this fiscal year the farm bill is going to expire, and they wonder what on Earth we are doing. We are in a perfect storm. In the last farm bill--not this one, in the last farm bill--in talking to the majority leader--whom I affectionately call Smoking Joe because he is a fan of boxing and Joe Frazier--I said: We can do this in 2\1/2\ days. And the chairperson of the committee, Senator Stabenow, also obviously weighed in, but we did the farm bill in 2\1/2\ days. That was a record. The first amendment on the farm bill was the amendment of the Senator from Kentucky dealing with Pakistan and saying no more aid to Pakistan until they freed that doctor who was very helpful to our intelligence community with regard to what happened with Osama bin Laden. What did that have to do with the farm bill? Nothing. Rand Paul came to me and said: Do you think we can get this amendment? I said: Yes. We have an open rule. There were 73 amendments considered--73; this last farm bill, only about 10, probably less than that. Senator Thune had very key amendments, Senator Johanns had very key amendments, Senator Grassley had key amendments, and I, the former chairman of the House agriculture committee, the former ranking member, had some key amendments. All of the senior members on the agriculture committee, all of us who had contributed to that process were locked out--sorry, it is over, no amendments. What is that all about? We have a one-person rules committee in this Senate. And if there is anything I am upset about, it is the lack of ability and the lack of opportunity for the Senator from Texas or Kentucky or Kansas or anybody else in this body to offer an amendment. So here we are--what is it--5 days away from the law that says: Prescribed by law, these exchanges and everything that has anything to do with the unaffordable health care act is going to take place. And the Senator has demonstrated time and time again, with every allegory one can possibly come up with, how this is a train wreck. Yesterday afternoon, when the Senator started--well, it was in the evening--I came to the floor and said: Look, isn't it worth the fight, isn't it worth the effort--and the Senator is making the effort, and I appreciate that so much--knowing this is the first, second, and third step--skip to my Lou, my darlin'--going right into socialized medicine? And who says that? Well, let's start with the President; then the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius; then Nancy Pelosi in the House; and then the distinguished majority leader here saying: Yes, we want a single-payer system. A single-payer system means national health care; it means socialized medicine; it means, as the Senator has pointed out during all of this rather unique and incredible time he has taken before the Senate, the government pays for it, which means we all pay for it and premiums go up and the insurance companies have a heck of a time and there will be exactly what the Senator has described in Cuba. I am hoping it won't be that bad, but at least he has pointed it out. So my question to the Senator is, after all of that rambling rose, wouldn't it be nice, wouldn't it be in the best interests of this body, wouldn't it be in the best interests of Americans to open this Senate, go back to regular order, and at least have an opportunity to offer amendments? Some of the folks who were somewhat critical of the Senator said: Well, what are you going to offer? There are about five amendments I would like to offer. I don't know what the Senator thinks the key amendments are that he would like to offer as a positive answer as opposed to shutting down the Affordable Health Care Act with a lack of funding. We could only do that partially because a lot of it gets in with taxes, and that is the mandated funds we allegedly can't touch. But would the Senator please list about two or three amendments he would like to offer. I think I would like to see the medical device tax repealed, but, again, that is one of those mandatory things we have to deal with in the Finance Committee, of which I am a member. But let's get on the positive side of this and say: OK, if the Senator had the opportunity to offer amendments and everybody else had an opportunity to offer amendments--and the Senator has spent a great deal of time here overnight. What was it--2:40 in the afternoon? That is what they keep flashing on the news. Quite frankly, I was listening to Ray Price singing ``For the Good Times,'' and I flipped over to FOX News, and there you were again. I thought, my Lord, there he is, still standing and still talking. So give me just about three amendments the Senator might offer. We shouldn't do more than three things because people forget about it after three. There is one other thing I want to mention. I got a lot of derision and a lot of criticism when this bill was first passed. I serve on the HELP Committee--Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. We spent a great deal of time on this bill. I had three amendments to prevent rationing by the rationing board. Everybody says they are not rationing, but they are. So those decisions are not being made by the patient and doctor, they are being made by appointed bodies or we can use the term ``bureaucrats.'' That is usually a pejorative term. At any rate, I was upset, and I said: We are riding hell for leather into a box canyon, and there are a lot of cactuses in the world. We don't have to sit on every one of them, but, by golly, we are. We are about to do that. And I had some other allegories we use in Dodge City, KS, and I had a few marine stories to tell, and then I got derided even on national news: Oh my gosh, here is this cowboy from Dodge City. I am not. I am an old newspaper person. At any rate, I am in here saying we are going into a box canyon only to find out four or five other people now have referred to it as a box canyon. We are in it. Everybody understands what a box canyon is, and we have to ride out. So when we are riding out, what are we going to do, I would ask the Senator from Texas. Give me three amendments.

Mr. ROBERTS. Will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, the question is, some people are funny and some people are humorous. I may be one of the most humorous, but Senator Graham is truly funny.

Mr. ROBERTS. On that point, would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. ROBERTS. There are six Federal agencies in the meta database that are involved in it. When I kept inquiring, when the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus, asked the representative from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services--CMS, referred to in the health provider community as ``It's a Mess''--and said, Who is the navigator? This is before we understood that it was pretty much all community organizers. There are three basic organizations in Kansas, 1.5 million, and so they are out there knocking on doors. The problem is we don't know what people are signing up for, or they don't know and I don't know, and we have made all sorts of inquiries. Finally I got the 16 pages that you have to fill out to be eligible to sign up and the 61 pages that you had to fill out then to be a member of the exchange. That got a lot of news. So they reduced the number by simply reducing the font size from about 16-point or 12-point down to 8-point. They said, Just read more carefully. I got to page 3. I would not put down the information they wanted to know. There have been stories about scammers who are looking at these regulations or these signup sheets--no matter how big they are--saying, Aha, if they have to give their Social Security number, I can call them and say it is the law and you are going to have a lot of fraud and abuse. Maybe the IRS can take a look at that. One other thing about the IRS. The Finance Committee in a bipartisan effort--we haven't held many hearings, but we are getting closer and closer to what happened with the IRS denying people First Amendment rights. I would give a lot of credit to Senator Hatch and Senator Baucus working in a bipartisan effort. Along about November there is going to be quite a story. There is a V, and we have Lois Lerner here, and it goes up here to the Justice Department and it goes wider. We are getting a lot of communications. We are not making a lot of hearings about it, not standing in front of the mirrors. So we will get there. But the Senator makes an excellent point about the IRS. With all the problems they have had over this denial of First Amendment--not only to the tea party groups, conservative groups, but pro-Israel groups and a whole bunch of other groups, and they are still doing it. Consequently, the Senator has made an excellent point. Why on Earth would we want the IRS to be in charge of your health care, not to mention five other agencies, in a huge database? That information should be between you and your doctor, and you should have to break down the doggone doors in the dead of night in order to get that kind of information, as opposed to giving it to the Federal Government with all those different agencies with all sorts of opportunity for fraud, abuse, and virtually everything else. I am sorry to get wound up on that, but the Senator made an excellent point and I am trying to think of a question to make this legal. Doesn't the Senator think this is a trail we don't want to go down?

Mr. ROBERTS

Mr. ROBERTS. Reserving the right to object, my remarks will only take 4 minutes to identify myself with Senator Cruz's effort on Benghazi. I know Senator Inhofe would like to say a few words. So perhaps I could start?

Mr. ROBERTS. I think it was 15 minutes.

Mr. ROBERTS. I am not going to take all of the 15 minutes.

Mr. ROBERTS. Reserving the right to object, it is a 15-minute slot that we had intended, and I am sure the Senators will arrive.

Mr. ROBERTS. I withdraw any objection.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, Senator Cruz is now on the floor, and he will be speaking right after me. I thank Senator Cruz for his efforts to keep the focus on the Benghazi terrorist attacks. It seems to me to be a great shame that 1 year after the heinous attacks on our consulate in Benghazi and four Americans being murdered and--this is tremendously important--shaking the confidence of our men and women deployed in service to this Nation that the United States would never leave one of their own behind--I was told that when I joined the Marine Corps a long time ago--it is a great shame that we are still in the same place. Justice has yet to be seen or done. The families of those killed at the consulate in Benghazi are waiting for answers about what happened that night, and they simply want to know that this President and this administration are working to seek justice for what actually happened. Yet it appears that what is happening is that the administration is doing everything but seek justice. Quite frankly, I think Americans-- and I share their concern and frustration and anger--are sick and tired of hearing excuses, delays, and even silence. The President and his administration have stonewalled us on this case, in my personal view. This should have been called a terrorist attack a long time ago. The Intelligence Committee should be handling this, but that is not the case. Today the FBI continues to seek tips from Libyans. The FBI has even posted an entire page on their Web site dedicated to finding suspects. There are photos of 29 suspects on that page. Twenty-nine. No arrests have been made. CNN and The New York Times have even had access to one of the chief suspects, Ahmed Abu Khattala, to interview him while he mocks the U.S. investigation. This is unbelievable. The administration refuses to answer simple questions: Who told the military to stand down? Who is responsible for misleading the American public and the victims' families? What actionable intelligence did our government have? I know that there was actionable intelligence. People asked for that security. Why was it ignored? This is why we need a joint select committee. At the very least, this deserves a vote. So I urge my colleagues, please drop your hold. Let us at least have a vote. If you want to defeat it, defeat it. But at least allow the Senator from Texas to have an opportunity to debate this bill. I thank Senator Cruz for introducing this legislation. I believe this should be a top priority for our government. I yield back any remaining time I have to the distinguished Senator.

Mr. ROBERTS

Mr. ROBERTS. Would the distinguished ranking member yield for one quick question? I know the Senator has prepared remarks, and I know he is not feeling well, but I am stunned by this. I am a member of the committee, as the Senator well knows.

Mr. ROBERTS. You have been promised full cooperation by the Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Werfel. I have been present when he has tried to inform the committee of full cooperation. Now we find out what full cooperation is, more especially as the President has indicated these scandals are so-called phony scandals and repeated by Mr. Lew. The Senator stated there are 65 million pages that should be available to the committee, which is stunning--stunning--in the job we would have to do. But out of those requested, only 21,500 documents have been presented. Of the 21,500, only 15,000--well, 15,000 pages, but those are nonpriority documents. Thereby, if you try to figure out when this would be done, it would be in 2016; is that correct?

Mr. ROBERTS. I am stunned by this.

Mr. ROBERTS. I would imagine, if you do the math--and if you know how much time we have to actually do this--but I am stunned. This isn't what we were promised. This wasn't the understanding of the full committee and the bipartisan effort. I don't know what we are going to have to do. We are going to have to do some drastic action if this is any indication of what we are taking. The Senator pointed out that we have been thorough, we have been bipartisan, and we have kept absolute integrity with this. The key word was ``painstaking.'' If we have this information, there is a lot of pain, but there is no take.

Mr. ROBERTS. I am extremely upset about it. I thank my colleague for bringing this to the attention of the Senate.

Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, I would like to again thank the distinguished ranking member of the Finance Committee for his presentation and asking very pertinent questions with what I thought was going to be not an easy task but at least a task where we would receive cooperation from the IRS and, for that matter, the administration. Nobody likes to be audited, and surely nobody likes to say they have been audited, as the distinguished ranking member pointed out about all the conservative groups. But let me point out that this has gone on not only with regard to them but to individuals as well. We are getting reports from the senatorial campaign committee indicating that people are hesitant to give, that people who have given in the past significantly to the Republican cause have been audited, and audited for the first time in their lives, to pro-Israel groups--and I can go on and on with a list of the organizations. This is a very serious situation. This really surprises me, that having said we were going to do this in a painstaking, bipartisan way, that this is simply not the case. I am going to be joining the distinguished ranking member. I am very interested in the further questions we feel we can boil down that simply have to be answered first, and then obviously there are many more. Affordable Health Care Act This really goes to the subject I want to talk about. The American people now, as a result of this, do not trust the IRS, and they sure as heck do not trust the IRS to be in charge of their health care. That is the subject I want to touch on, and I will try to make it very brief. It has been more than 3 years since the Affordable Care Act--referred to by some or most in the press as ``ObamaCare''--was signed into law. At the time, I can recall, after months of markup in both the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Finance Committees, I had many concerns. I remember I was very frustrated with my amendments being defeated on partisan votes, most of them having dealt with rationing. I remember distinctly comparing this rush to government health care to a western or Kansas analogy of riding hell for leather into a box canyon to eventually finding the only alternative would be to turn around and ride back out to a more realistic market-oriented health care reform trade. As it turned out, we never even saw the bill before we voted on it. I voted no, and so did every other Republican Senator and Member of Congress. And I regret to say to my colleagues that I told you so. Premiums are going up. Taxes are going up. Overall health care costs continue to rise. Burdensome, costly, and, I might add, difficult-to- understand regulations are confusing and confounding health care providers. Many of these folks will not even know about a particular regulation until they are fined by outside contractors. The results have been terribly counterproductive to any economic recovery. Regulations such as these this have a way of dampening anything we are trying to do. The current and growing problems are so large and complicated with this government takeover of health care that it has been difficult, if not impossible, for the administration to get ObamaCare off the ground. I mentioned what happened 3 years ago at the beginning of my remarks. Let's now talk about what is coming down the pike in just a matter of weeks. October 1 is the deadline when, according to the Affordable Care Act, according to the law, according to promise, millions of Americans who do not receive insurance through an employer will be forced to purchase health insurance in an exchange overseen by the States and the Federal Government--except for Georgia. Yesterday, Georgia was the first to announce that they will not be ready by the October 1 deadline and have asked for a delay. I am going to make a prediction that what Georgia did, others will do, including the Federal Government. In fact, as we all know, the administration--in a weekend blog, no less--announced they would delay the employer mandate due to take place January 1, 2014, by a year, to January of 2015. I might add, that just happens to be after the midterm elections. This just means another delay for businesses that complained about the redtape and costly burdens the mandate placed on their operations. Many are already laying off employees or moving them to part-time status to avoid the costly mandate. And all of this follows the thousands of waivers granted to corporations, unions, and other groups. Again, my question is, Where is the waiver for the average family in Kansas and around the Nation? Where is the permanent delay for the taxes that will affect individuals? As we warned, things are starting to crumble and get worse, which is why we need to sunset the exchanges and the individual mandate-- literally, a tax on families. This evening or tomorrow those of us privileged to serve in the Senate will leave Washington for the month of August, and we are going to get an earful regarding all of the problems associated with ObamaCare and the impending deadline. Will exchanges be ready? If they say they are ready, will they really be ready? Many Kansans who will be forced into a Federal exchange or see another last-minute delay--a Federal exchange, by the way, that doesn't exist as of my remarks--will ask how much the new plan will cost. They will say: What will it cover? Will they be able to see their family doctor? Will their personal health information remain private and safe or end up in a six-agency database? Some people call it seven agencies. Will they be losing the health insurance they like? Will the high costs force their employer to make them a part-time employee, change their plan, or just drop their coverage altogether? Right now Kansans and everyone else in the country cannot answer these questions--and neither can the administration. And when we get back, we will have only 4 weeks until the October 1 deadline. That means, really, if we are going to do something about this, we are only going to have 3 weeks in which something can be done to sunset, delay, defund, or repeal the law and replace it with real health care reform that works and to restore the all-important relationship between patients and doctors. Well, I do have an answer. Some time ago, when the ObamaCare storm clouds were first forming, I introduced legislation to sunset the exchanges and the individual mandate if they are not, as promised, up and running and ready to enroll by October 1 so that the exchanges can meet the requirements prescribed by law. Simply named the ``Exchange Sunset Act of 2013,'' S. 1272, my bill aims to make sure that if the exchanges are not ready, they go away and so does the mandate. I realize, as we travel down this road to the October 1 deadline at ever-increasing speed, there will be those who support continued advertising and encouraging thousands to sign up in the exchanges. The question is, Sign up for what? The chances of the exchanges, State and Federal, being ready--and I mean ready and accessible to all that the advertising is trying to bring in--are remote at best. Obviously, there will be some kind of a delay, and once again we will have the administration rewriting laws which they had a direct hand in writing and which were passed exclusively by the Democratic majority. I submit, changing the law by the Executive--the Office of the President--without approval by the Congress is unconstitutional. Three weeks, three weeks before the ObamaCare train wreck. When this body comes back, let's talk about it, and I urge immediate consideration and hopefully passage of S. 1272, the Exchange Sunset Act of 2013. It is a train wreck, folks, and we have to get America off the track. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ROBERTS

Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, thank you for being able to maintain order in this very crowded Chamber. It should be a crowded Chamber. It is not. I say it should be because this should be a required debate. As a matter of fact, we should have had the debate. I am the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee. The distinguished Senator from Texas just pointed out if we went to regular order, we would be having a meeting of the Rules Committee, having a very interesting debate, a very educational debate. I think especially for the class of 2010 and the class of 2012 on the majority side, who did not have the advantage of listening to Bob Byrd's lecture to every class that came in, his sermon to every class that came in--we all became born again to our responsibilities as Senators, seeing the light with only his advantage of being both in the majority and the minority. I regret that is not the case. I regret we are not in the Rules Committee. I rise, like the distinguished Senator from Texas and others who have spoken about this, our leader, Senator Alexander in particular, giving us a real history on what is going on here or what is not going on. We are trying to discuss the so-called nuclear option that the majority leader reportedly wishes to employ. We are apparently brought to this point as a result of the leader's frustration. I was here when, obviously, he was simply frustrated with the pace of the Senate and how the Senate operates. This really comes down to the NLRB and the appointments to the NLRB and the fact that two courts found these appointments were illegal. That is what our side objects to. It is not especially to the appointments. Apparently, we are going to have a cloture vote on it, and apparently the nuclear gun is cocked and ready to be pulled. There is a country western song, ``Don't take your guns to town, son. Leave your guns at home.'' Harry, don't take that nuclear gun to this body. Take it back to Searchlight, NV. Put it back in its holster if in fact the nuclear gun has a holster. That would be my advice. I would say this about the majority leader. I have known him for a long time. We worked together on the Ethics Committee--and I mean we worked together. As majority leader I have had a good relationship with him. He has a good sense of humor. Sometimes that doesn't show, but he actually does. I remember one time he was conducting a mini-filibuster. I don't remember the issue. I was the Acting Presiding Officer. I was listening to him talking about how rabbits were eating the cactus in front of his home in Searchlight, NV; whereupon I took the floor and we engaged in quite a colloquy about rabbits and cactus and not to sit on cactus. There are a lot of cactus in the world. This is probably the biggest one we are attempting to sit on, and I just don't think it is a good idea. The majority leader was a boxer. He was a good one. His hero is Smokin' Joe, Smokin' Joe Frazier. So when I talk to him, I call him Smokin' Joe. My appeal to him, if he is listening--he probably isn't, but if he reads about this, or if his staff tells him, tell him your old friend from the Ethics Committee had some advice. Smokin' Joe used to wait until the late rounds. He was in better shape. But he knew when to hold them and when to fold them. He was a great champion. We do not need to go down this road. We really don't need to go down this road. Apparently, the majority leader has determined that--and this is my view--he will have to destroy the Senate in order to save it. Those are pretty strong words. Those are harsh words, but I intend them to be. We should not be confused about this. By breaking the rules to change the rules the majority seeks to destroy what has made the Senate great, unique in the history of the world. I am repeating the advice we all got from Senator Byrd, the institutional flame of the Senate. Again, every time a new class came in, he would give his sermon or his lecture or his advice or his counsel, and we all took it, regardless of whether we were Democrat or Republican. The Senate has always been the one place where all Americans could be assured they would have a voice. Every American, no matter what State they happened to live in or what political party they belonged to, knew they would be represented here. Kansas, Massachusetts, wherever; they knew they would be represented. Minority views were respected. Even if your party was not in power, you still had a voice. Unfortunately, if you pull that trigger on that nuclear gun, the majority will abolish that. If you take that step, that is surely going to lead to complete control of this institution by the majority. That has been predicted by virtually everybody who has spoken, and I intend to quote a lot of majority leaders and a lot of people in the Senate on the Democratic side who have pointed this out. I know some on the other side, especially those who have never been in the minority, will seek to minimize the import of what they are doing. Oh, it is just a small change. They will claim what they are trying to do is very limited, applying only to executive nominations. I wish I had a chart. But if you look at the difference of 68 percent on civilian nominations that were confirmed in past administrations in the 106th Congress, and you are talking, 68, 72, in that neighborhood, and then you move clear up here to the 112th Congress, and President Obama is 82 percent, 86 percent--what is the deal? Other than being upset about the NLRB. Make no mistake. The change itself will be less important than the manner in which it is imposed. Let me repeat that. The change itself will be less important than the manner in which it is imposed. If the majority decides to write new rules with a simple majority vote, regardless of the issue, ignoring the existing rules that require a supermajority to achieve such a change, it will put us on a path that will surely lead to total control of this body by the majority. As of today there is only one House of Congress where the majority has total control. The majority wishes, apparently, now, there were two--or there will be two. We do not have to wonder what the Senate will become if they get their wish. We only need to look to the House of Representatives. We will become the Senior House. I don't know about the Upper House or the Lower House--perhaps we will be the Upper House--but we will become the House. I know that doesn't mean much to many of my colleagues who have never been in the minority or served in the House. I served as an administrative assistant to a wonderful House Member for 12 years and was in the House for 16 years. I have the privilege of now serving my third term in the Senate. I have been in the majority and I have been in the minority. The Senator from Texas is surely right, the majority is better. Many of you folks who should be here have never served in the House. Many of you have never served in the minority. I have done both, as I have indicated. Let me explain what it means to serve in the minority in the House to those who have never had this wonderful privilege. In the House, no bill comes to the floor without a rule. The rule governs the length of debate and the amendments that will be considered. If you want to even speak on the bill, you have to get the bill manager to give you some of the very limited time available under the rule. If there is not enough time, you will not be able to even speak on it. The majority in the House writes the rule, and they decide how much time they will allow. The rule also determines what amendments will be considered. If the rule does not allow for consideration of your amendment it will not be considered, it will not be debated, and it will not be voted on. The majority in the House decides what amendments will be considered. If you are a member of the majority, they might allow consideration of your amendment--if you are in good standing with the Rules Committee. If you are a member of the minority, you can forget about getting a vote on your amendment. If the majority does not want to allow it, it will not happen. As a member of the minority there is nothing that you can do about it. I know about this. I remember when I first went to the House Rules Committee under a very determined, aggressive chairman of the Rules Committee. I had an amendment that I thought was well placed, well taken, pertinent. It was on agriculture. It was on something that dealt with the farm bill or agricultural program policy. But I was a Republican. I went in and I thought this amendment would be considered under parliamentary procedure whether it would be germane or not. Guess what. It was just a rehash of a partisan debate because it was not bipartisan. We had a lot of bipartisan support for it. So my amendment was not allowed. Then I figured it out. Charlie Stenholm was from Texas--well, he still is from Texas and he is still active in the agriculture community. Very active, very respected. Charlie wanted the same amendment. So I finally figured out, let Stenholm introduce my amendment, but don't tell them it is my amendment. So Stenholm introduced my amendment and then as soon as it was approved by the House Rules Committee, then it became the Stenholm- Roberts amendment. If it passed, obviously, it became the Roberts- Stenholm amendment in Kansas and the Stenholm-Roberts amendment in Texas, and that is how we got things done. So we had the Stenholm- Roberts for quite a few years. I never went into the Rules Committee because if I did I knew I would lose. Boy, talk about one-party rule. We don't want to do that. Guess what. We had a revolution back in 1994. I became chairman of the Agriculture Committee. All of a sudden the Stenholm-Roberts amendment became the Roberts-Stenholm amendment, and that is how it worked in the House of Representatives. I don't think we want to do that. It is precisely for this reason that many Members of the House choose to run for the Senate. That is why I did it. The Senate is supposed to be different. Here, if you want to be heard on a bill, it will happen. We haven't been living up to that recently, but that is how the place is supposed to work. In the Senate the Senator's right to speak is not supposed to depend on the whim of the majority. Now it is on a whim and a prayer. That is why people run for the Senate. That is what has distinguished this body from the House since we first convened in 1789. The majority, unfortunately, wants to erase that distinction. It wants to assure that Members do not have any rights beyond those which the majority is willing to grant. You don't have to take my word for it. The distinguished majority leader-- whom I affectionately call Smokin' Joe--himself has recognized this. As my colleague, Senator Alexander, from that desk right over there, has previously noted, Senator Reid addressed this topic in his book--how appropriate--``The Good Fight,'' from a boxer and now our majority leader. Senator Reid wrote about the battle over the nuclear option in 2005. Things were a little different. This is what he wrote: Once you opened that Pandora's box, it was just a matter of time before a Senate leader who couldn't get his way on something moved to eliminate the filibuster for regular business as well. And that, simply put, would be the end of the United States Senate. The end of the United States Senate. The distinguished majority leader said: It is the genius of the Founders that they conceived the Senate as a solution to the small state/big state problem. And central to that solution was the protection of the rights of the minority. A filibuster is the minority's way of not allowing the majority to shut off debate, and without robust debate, the Senate is crippled. Senator Reid went on to say: Such a move would transform the body into an institution that looked just like the House of Representatives where everything passes with a simple majority. Senator Reid also wrote: there will come a time when we will all be gone, and the institutions that we now serve will be run by men and women not yet living, and those institutions will either function well because we've taken care of them, or they will be in disarray and someone else's problem to solve. Boy, that is pretty heavy stuff; that is meaningful. That is something everybody here should consider. He described the nuclear option this way at that time: In a fit of partisan fury-- I am not quite sure we are there yet. I would say it is more of a partisan frustration. they were trying to blow up the Senate. Senate rules can only be changed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, or sixty-seven Senators. The Republicans were going to do it illegally with a simple majority, or fifty-one. Vice President Cheney was prepared to overrule the Senate parliamentarian. Future generations be damned. Do you think the Senator was upset then? He was upset then a heck of a lot more than he was this morning. If only the majority leader would recall his own words. The Vice President also recognized the damage this would do. This is what Vice President Biden said on the floor when he was still a Member of this body. This is important stuff. We all know Joe Biden. We are all a friend of Joe Biden. He is the Vice President of the United States. When he was a Senator he said something very important: Put simply, the nuclear option would transform the Senate from the so-called cooling saucer our Founding Fathers talked about to cool the passions of the day to a pure majoritarian body like a Parliament. Republicans control the Senate, and they have decided they are going to change the rule. At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill, it is about compromise and moderation. That is why the Founders put unlimited debate in. When you have to--and I never conducted a filibuster--but if I did, the purpose would be that you have to deal with me as one Senator. It does not mean I get my way. It means you may have to compromise. You may have to see my side of the argument. That is what it is it about, engendering compromise in moderation. Joe Biden went on to say: If there is one thing I have learned in my years here, once you change the rules and surrender the Senate's institutional power, you never get it back. Folks, we are about to break the rules to change the rules. He went on to say: The nuclear option abandons America's sense of fair play. It is the one thing this country stands for: Not tilting the playing field on the side of those who control and own the field. Then he said to the Republican side of the aisle, which was then in the majority: I say to my friends on the Republican side: You may own the field right now, but you won't own it forever. I pray God when the Democrats take back control, we don't make the kind of naked power grab you are doing. But I am afraid you will teach my new colleagues the wrong lessons. We are only in the Senate as temporary custodians of the Senate. The Senate will go on. Mark my words, history will judge this Republican majority harshly, if it makes this catastrophic move. I hope the Vice President will listen to his own prayers. We don't need any divine intervention here, but maybe he can share his concerns with the majority leader. It could help us avert a real catastrophe. The majority leader and the Vice President are not the only people who recognize the damage that would be done by triggering the so-called nuclear option. Our former Parliamentarian, named Bob Dove--a man whose advice I sought when I had the privilege of being the acting Presiding Officer--and Richard Arenberg, a professor and one-time aide to former majority leader George Mitchell, wrote a book on the subject, ``Defending the Filibuster.'' I know I am quoting a lot, but these are important issues. I hope they stick like a burr under your saddle so they make you stop and think about this. They wrote-- If a 51-vote majority is empowered to rewrite the Senate's rules, the day will come, as it did in the House of Representatives, when a majority will construct rules that give it near absolute control over amendments and debate. And there is no going back from that. No majority in the House of Representatives has or ever will voluntarily relinquish that power in order to give the minority a greater voice in crafting legislation. Do not be fooled by those who would try to minimize the impact of what the majority is actually contemplating. The rule changes themselves are less important than the manner in which they will be imposed. Once the majority has decided it can set the rules, there is no limit to what the majority might do in the future. I hope you understand that. There are no constraints. The majority claims these changes are necessary to make the Senate function. If it decides further changes are needed, it will make them. The minority will have no voice, no say, no power, and that has never been the case in the Senate. Tragically, what the majority contemplates is at once both calamitous and totally unnecessary. The filibuster is a product of our dysfunction, not the source. I know many Members--and I have harped on this--do not even know what it is like to serve in a functioning Senate. They hardly know what it is like to operate under regular order where bills are referred to committee, amended, brought to the floor, debated, amended, and passed. This matter should be before the Rules Committee. We should have a complete hearing and then bring it to the floor. We averted this at the first of this year. I know people think the filibuster is to blame for this breakdown, but they are wrong. We don't operate under regular order here because the majority leadership doesn't want to. They have an agenda. I understand that. They have been trying to operate this place like the House of Representatives for years. They want to control debate and to control the amendments. I know a little bit about this. When we were talking about the farm bill last year, Senator Reid said: We can't do a farm bill in less than 3 weeks. I said: We will do it in 3 days. Senator Stabenow and I worked very hard to get common agreement on the farm bill, but we did it. We needed regular order. We needed to open it up. We needed to give Senators here on our side a chance to at least offer amendments, and we did it. We had 73 amendments. We did it in 2\1/2\ days. We had regular order and people said: Gee, is this what the Senate used to be all about? And that was the case. So it can work. I know there are folks over there who think the filibuster is to blame for this breakdown, but they are wrong. Rather than give up that control, they have decided during the past 4 years--with the exception of a few bills I have just mentioned--I think they want to make it official. I think they would rather blow up the Senate rather than let it work its will. It will be a tragedy. They think it will save the Senate, but it will destroy it. That threat of destruction may not be obvious to some today, but it is real. If the nuclear option is deployed, one day it will become clear to all. And when that day comes and people wonder: What happened to the Senate? When did it die? We will know the answer. It died the day the nuclear option was triggered. That is what nuclear devices do--they destroy. This is not just a minor shot across the bow to be used only once. This is a mushroom cloud over the Capitol. Again, I urge the distinguished majority leader: Don't take your nuclear gun to town. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have the remarks by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd at the orientation of new Senators, December 3, 1996, printed in the Record. I also ask unanimous consent that Senator Byrd's final speech before the Rules Committee called ``The Filibuster And Its Consequences'' be printed in the Record.