Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. Mr. President, I send my amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SANTORUM. If I may continue, Mr. President. The Government would spend $1.89 trillion more over the next 5 years and borrow $738 billion more. In other words, the deficit would be $738 billion more under the proposals put forth by Senator Kerry. When asked about that, his campaign said they have more refinements to do. The bottom line is what we have proposed is a responsible budget to cut the deficit in half over the next 3 years, and what the Senator from Massachusetts is offering around the country is a budget that would increase the deficit by $738 billion, increase taxes on the American people by $350 billion, and increase spending in Washington, DC, by almost $1.1 trillion. Amendment No. 2853, Withdrawn I would love to have had a vote on the amendment. But in the spirit of comity that we have here at quarter of 1 in the morning, I will withdraw my amendment.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, what I sent to the desk was a budget as proposed by Senator Kerry. This is a combination of the documentation from the L.A. Times, Washington Post, and other sources, of the proposals he has made with respect to this year's budget. For the information of Members, the proposal reflects 129 different line items in the budget, of which 124 are increases and 5 are decreases. As a result of the proposals put forth by Senator Kerry, taxes would be raised on the American people $351 billion over the next 5 years.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I send this documentation in support of the amendment to the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. So basically the contrast about who is talking up or talking down the economy, which is my point, is the Bush administration was reflecting the reality of what was going on in trying to be honest with the American public as to the state of the economy at the time, and what is going on now, as you have clearly illustrated, is the economy is on an upswing and we have a group of people who are trying to drive that economy back down where we hoped, we thought all of us did not want it to be?

Mr. SANTORUM. So what they were doing was reflecting the reality of an economy that was in trouble when they took office. I just want to, again--Senator Conrad is here. I don't want to pick him out as being the only one who was accusing the President and Vice President of talking down the economy because Senator Daschle was doing the same thing: I think we're talking down the economy, and in talking down the economy, I think we're beginning to see the results in the market. The Bush administration has been talking down the economy now for some time . . . but look at what's happened. I say to the Senator from Kentucky, at the time the administration was ``talking down the economy,'' the economy was, in fact, in trouble. At the time the Democrats are talking down this economy, is this economy in the same shape it was in January, February, and March of 2001?

Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator yield for an additional question?

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask, when the administration in March of 2001 was talking about their concerns about the economy, does the Senator from Kentucky recall whether the economy was growing in January and February and March of 2001?

Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator from Kentucky yield for a question?

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, the Senator from Kentucky makes a very persuasive case about how up is down, right is left, that the other side is doing an incredibly masterful job of trying to spin the economy. I want him to comment on something that has concerned me. Over the last 7, 8 months we have seen and heard talk about how bad the economy is, how difficult. I want him to recall from 3 years ago the discussion in the Senate. I want to see if the Senator from Kentucky sees what was claimed at that time by Senator Conrad and others as potentially occurring again in the year 2004. Senator Conrad said in March of 2001, almost 3 years ago to this date: I don't think there's any question but the President is talking down the economy, and the Vice President has hurt confidence. . . . It hurts the economy because it puts doubt in people's minds about the underlying strength of the American economy. And any economy is in part based on confidence. So when the Vice President was talking about recession back in December, that set off a string of newspaper headlines-- By the way, the newspaper headlines: ``Support for Bush Falls on Economy . . . '' after a whole day of speeches on the part of Democrats belittling this economy. It says: Newspaper headlines led to a string of additional emphasis on the negative. When you consistently emphasize the negative, you contribute to a climate that loses and lacks confidence. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Kentucky, does he think over the last 7 or 8 months Democrats railing on the negative aspects of this economy has hurt economic growth and, in fact, may have caused people to lose their jobs as a result?

Mr. SANTORUM. I did not talk about the deficit starting in the Clinton administration. I am talking about when the recession started.

Mr. SANTORUM. Again, Mr. President, I think I said it started when the President was taking the oath of office in January of 2001.

Mr. SANTORUM. If the Senator will yield?

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I will pick up where the Senator from North Dakota left off. I suggest historically the lesson we learn from the conversation he had with Lloyd Bentsen: Lloyd Bentsen was wrong. The bottom line is there are a lot of other factors that go into the calculation of interest rates other than the deficit. That is obvious from the fact that we have a relatively high deficit right now and interest rates remain low. It is a very complex economy. I think the idea we are going to focus in on one thing or another that is going to create jobs or not create jobs is folly. What we need to do is try to put a grand strategy together, including keeping inflation low, working to keep interest rates low, keeping tax rates low, trying to reduce litigation costs, trying to reduce the costs of regulation. All of those are a complex series of factors, and there are a whole lot of others, frankly, beyond the control of the Senate that we need to look at as to creating an environment in which jobs can be created and wealth can be created. Our job in the Senate comes down to a few simple things. We have been debating this year trying to reduce the cost of litigation. This side of the aisle, generally speaking, has been on the side of reducing that transaction cost to the economy, and it is a huge cost to this economy. We have a couple of other bills coming up such as asbestos litigation that I am hopeful will be scheduled in the next couple of months so we will get a date certain to have a vote in the Senate. I would argue we can do more to help the manufacturing economy in this country by taking away the burden of asbestos litigation which is crippling dozens upon dozens of large manufacturers who employ hundreds of thousands of people who make this economy go. It is crippling them, having to defend tens of thousands of lawsuits. Most of them are frivolous. Most are filed by people who are not sick. They are filed by lawyers who are looking for big fees and big settlements and tying up enormous resources and clogging up our courts. We have an opportunity to solve that problem and, more importantly, get the money to the people who are truly sick and injured as a result of exposure to asbestos. We have an opportunity to do that right here. If you want to help the manufacturing economy, if you want to create better jobs, if you want to loosen up the burden of frivolous lawsuits on a whole sector of our society, the manufacturing economy, let's pass this asbestos litigation. I don't hear any of you talking about that. How about class action reform? That is another abuse of the legal process by a handful of trial lawyers who, again, put together these massive suits, with people getting very little benefit except, of course, the lawyers who are suing on ``behalf'' of this class of people. We have an opportunity to do something there that will dramatically help this economy, help the manufacturing economy, help the economy in general. So the idea there is just one aspect we need to focus on is false. There are a lot of things we can do in the Senate. I can tell you another aspect we need to focus on in the Senate, and that is spending. There is a big concern in our markets today, in the economy today, about the appetite for spending in Washington, DC, and the potential impact that will have on our economy because it will lead to further spending. Growing the Government will lead to higher deficits and, as we will see over the next 4 days, calls to increase taxes to pay for more Government spending. What do increased taxes mean? That means less money in the private sector out there creating jobs and more money in Washington--well, maybe creating a few jobs in town. So the idea of more spending and higher taxes is what the Senate is going to be dealing with in the next few days. That is an important topic to discuss, and one that will have profound consequences on this economy-- beyond the talking down of the economy that I illustrated before that has been going on for months during the Democratic primary, and the chorus in the Senate talking about how terrible things are. To pull out a chart, as the Senator from North Dakota pulls out, saying that we have a percentage of the population that is working which is lower now than it has been in 10 years, the percentage--does that matter? The question is, How about the percentage of the people who are looking for work? That is really what we are interested in. The fact that the percentage of seniors has grown in America over the last 10 years will mean by definition that probably fewer people as a percentage of the population are going to be working. That is sort of a natural thing to assume. This idea that we are going to pull out all these incredible sort of arcane statistics to make a point when the overwhelming body of evidence is that this is an economy that is growing, unemployment rates are at historically low levels, and wealth is growing in this country, household income is growing in this country, the idea that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression is folly. It is the kind of talking down of this economy that the President and the Vice President were accused of 3 years ago when the economy was in bad shape. The idea that somehow or another this administration has lost all these jobs when this administration entered office during a recession, which, I assume, the Democrats at least will admit the President had nothing to do with when he was sworn in in January of 2001--we were in a recession--that somehow or another we are going to blame the President for the resulting job loss of that and the events of 9/11, or the corporate scandals which ran amok during the Clinton administration, which, again, this President had to patch together-- this idea that because the economy was in terrible shape when the President rose his hand and said I take this oath is now the President's fault, again, just doesn't, thankfully, make a whole lot of sense to the American public. The American public isn't buying a lot of this snake oil salesmanship that is going on about how bad things are in America. I think the more we get the information out about what really is happening in this economy, and the things this administration is doing now and which we are trying to do in the Senate to make it better, the better this economy will do--even more than it is doing today. But our job in the Senate over the next 4 days is to ask whether we want to see this economy grow. No. 1, how much are we going to resist the call to increase spending? That is a big concern out there in the private sector. Will Washington try to live within its budget? And, No. 2, how much are we going to try to take from the American public in the form of higher taxes? I have decided to resurrect a couple of charts I have used over the last year. One is the Democratic spendometer. For every amendment that is offered which increases spending, we will put that amendment here. We will put the number of Democrats who voted for this amendment, the 1-year cost, and the 5-year cost over this budget. Just to recollect, I heard the Senator from Nevada, who is a very persuasive and articulate spokesman for the other side, talk about this horrible deficit we have. I remind all who are listening that last year at this time the Democrats proposed adding $1.3 trillion in new spending over the next 10 years to last year's budget. Let me repeat that: $1.3 trillion in new spending not offset by other spending cuts added to this deficit over the next 10 years. Had we done what they wanted to do last year, this deficit would be in much worse shape than what it is today. That was just in the budget. The first time I brought out this chart was during last January's discussion of the appropriations bills which the Democrats failed to pass when they controlled the Senate in 2002. That was the omnibus bill of January of 2003. During that debate on Democrat appropriations bills that passed out of their committee, they sought to add a half trillion dollars in new spending to the fiscal year 2003 budget--the omnibus spending, the appropriations bill in 2003--and $1.3 trillion over 10 years to last year's budget, which again, thankfully, was defeated. Then, after the budget passed and we had to deal with last year's appropriations bill to which they again attempted to add, the spend o meter was brought out--$800 billion in new spending to those bills. I just remind everybody who will come to the floor and bemoan budgets and deficits and how irresponsible the President and those of us who are in the majority are, they attempted to add $800 billion to last year's appropriations bills, and $1.3 trillion to last year's budget, all of which was not offset with any other spending reductions. I will again put up this chart. There is a clever thing, I suspect, that many on the other side will do this time; that is, they will pay for these amendments. They will say they are concerned about the deficit. Last year, they were not. Last year, we did not offset these expenditures. Last year, they simply ran up the tab. But all of a sudden, we are awash with fiscal conservatism. We have this great concern now about the Federal budget deficit. What is going to happen with a lot of the amendments that will be offered by the other side is that they will be paid for. How will they be paid for? That brings me to my second chart, the Democrat taxometer. What they are going to do is not only increase spending with more money flowing to the bureaucrats in Washington, DC, but they are going to do so on the backs of taxpayers in America. They will say: Oh, all we want to do is tax the richest of the rich, and our amendments are designed only to go after those wealthy people who can afford to pay taxes. But, of course, we know that is not what their amendments do. What their amendments do is instruct the Finance Committee to come up with revenue raising. That is all this amendment does. It is all it can do. It cannot specify what the Finance Committee will do nor what this Congress will do. So all it will do, and will do repeatedly, is instruct the Finance Committee to raise taxes. For every amendment that is offered that is ``paid for,'' we will have, again, the amendment, the number of Democrats who voted for this tax increase, the 1-year cost to the taxpayers in increased taxes, and the 5-year cost to taxpayers in increased taxes. When we hear this debate, what we are back to again is sort of a typical saw that we hear in Washington, DC, tax and spend, tax and spend, all in the name of trying to have fiscal accountability. In reality, it is growing the size of government. It is growing the power and influence of the Federal Government over your life and taking your money so we can have more power over you, and you can have less freedom to do what you believe is in your best interests and the best interests of your family. Of course, we know, if you listen to the other side, that we can spend your money better than you can; that the money we have to spend is for great and wondrous causes which will have a tremendous benefit to the American public; and, of course, if we let you keep this money, you would use it on frivolous things that have no great benefit to you or to your family or to the community and to the country. The same kind of cynicism that we have seen pervade on the other side of the aisle for decades, nothing has changed. It is the same old saw. We know what to do better with your money than you do, and we are going to prove it time and time again over the next 4 days as hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases will be voted on on the floor of the Senate. Hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes will be voted on in the Senate, with hundreds of billions of dollars of wonderful new Government programs that will solve all the problems we have in America that, of course, if that money were left to you, you would not have any idea what to do, that would be of any benefit to the American public or to these great causes we announce in the Senate. This is the debate. There is lots of talk about deficits and fiscal responsibility, but in the end this comes down to more Government, bigger Government, more Government control, less freedom. The late Paul Coverdell used to say his basic understanding of taxes was it is an issue of freedom. The more money we take from you, the less free you are to take care of yourself and to provide for yourself and your family. The less money we take, the more freedom you have. So this is an issue of basic freedom, economic freedom in this country. We will see over the next 4 days what party sides with the American public, what party trusts you, and what party believes they can do better with your money than you can, that they know what is best for America than the millions of Americans across this country whose money will be taken and sent to Washington for new programs that will better solve American problems than leaving the money at home with Americans to solve it for themselves. I am looking forward to this debate. I could be wrong, but I suspect I will need more than one of these charts. I suspect I will need several of these charts about where the Democrats and how much the Democrats are going to try to increase taxes over the next several days. We will need several charts of how Democrats will try to increase spending and grow the size of Government. It will be hundreds of billions of dollars. It may even be, over 5 years, $1 trillion, and they will do so all by maintaining a straight face that they are the protectors of fiscal discipline in Washington, DC; they are the ones who are for lower deficits, who are for Government control--of controlling Government spending; they are the fiscal watchdogs on guard to the American taxpayer. Let's see what happens over the next 4 days. Let's see who calls for spending increases. Let's see who calls for tax increases. And let's find out who really is on your side. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM. In fact, I believe that quarter of 2001 in which the Vice President and the President were talking about their concerns with the economy was, in fact, the first quarter of a recession that was actually in place at the time; correct?

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I will offer an amendment to extend for 2 years the work opportunity and welfare to work tax credits, and to make certain improvements to these programs that will make them even more effective in helping Americans' transition from welfare to work along with other tax extenders. These credits clearly belong in a bill whose name is JOBS; I can think of few programs that have created jobs and provided basic workplace skills to a segment of the population that is badly in need of these resources with the efficiency and low cost of WOTC and W-t-W. I can also think of few jobs programs that have as positive an impact as these have on scarce state welfare resources. I am also pleased that Senator Bayh is joining me as a cosponsor of this bipartisan amendment. I would also like to thank Chairman Grassley and Senator Baucus for their support of this important initiative. WOTC and W-t-W are also key elements of welfare reform. Employers in the retail, health care, hotel, financial services, and food industries have incorporated this program into their hiring practices and through these programs, more than 2,700,000 previously dependent persons have found work. A recent report issued by the New York State Department of Labor bears this out in economic terms. Comparing the cost of WOTC credits taken by New York State employers during the period 1996-2003, for a total of $192.59 million, with savings achieved through closed welfare cases and reductions in vocational rehabilitation programs and jail spending, for a total of $199.89 million, the State of New York concluded that WOTC provided net benefits to the taxpayers even without taking into account the additional economic benefits resulting from the addition of new wage to the GDP or reductions in other social spending such as Medicaid. In that regard, the New York State analysis concluded that the roughly $90 million in wages paid to WOTC workers since 1996 generated roughly $225 million in increased economic activity. Perhaps even more importantly, the study found that roughly 58 percent of the TANF recipients who entered private sector employment with the assistance of WOTC stayed off welfare. I mentioned the New York State study because it is the first of its kind; however, I am certain that similar conclusions would be reached in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or any of the other 48 states and the District of Columbia. These programs work and do so at a net savings to taxpayers. In fact, over a 7-year period there were more than 110,000 certifications for both WOTC and W-t-W in Pennsylvania alone enabling many to leave welfare and find private sector work. The legislation is supported by hundreds of employers throughout Pennsylvania and around the country. WOTC and W-t-W have received high praise as well from the Federal Government. A 2001 GAO study concluded that employers have significantly changed their hiring practice because of WOTC by providing job mentors, longer training periods, and significant recruiting outreach efforts. Mr. President, WOTC and W-t-W are not traditional government jobs programs. Instead, they are precisely the type of program that we should champion in a time when we need to be fiscally responsible. These are efficient and low cost public-private partnerships that have as their goal to provide a means by which individuals can transition from welfare to a lifetime of work and dignity. Under present law, WOTC provides a 40 percent tax credit on the first $6,000 of wages for those working at least 400 hours, or a partial credit of 25 percent for those working 120-399 hours. W-t-W provides a 35 percent tax credit on the first $10,000 of wages for those working 400 hours in the first year. In the second year, the W-t-W credit is 50 percent of the first $10,000 of wages earned. WOTC and W-t-W are key elements of welfare reform. A growing number of employers use these programs in the retail, health care, hotel, financial services, food, and other industries. These programs have helped over 2,200,000 previously dependent persons to find jobs. Eligibility for WOTC is currently limited to: (1) recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, TANF, in 9 of the 18 months ending on the hiring date; (2) individuals receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits; (3) disabled individuals with vocational rehabilitation referrals; (4) veterans on food stamps; (5) individuals aged 18-24 in households receiving food stamp benefits; (6) qualified summer youth employees; (7) low-income ex-felons; and (8) individuals ages 18-24 living in empowerment zones or renewal communities. Eligibility for W-t-W is limited to individuals receiving welfare benefits for 18 consecutive months ending on the hiring date. More than 80 percent of WOTC and W-t-W hires were previously depending on public assistance programs. These credits are both a hiring incentive, offsetting some of the higher costs of recruiting, hiring, and retaining public assistance recipients and other low-skilled individuals, and retention incentive, providing a higher reward for those who stay longer on the job. Program Renewal and Improvement. Despite the considerable success of WOTC and W-t-W many vulnerable individuals still need a boost in finding employment. This is particularly true during periods of high unemployment. There are several legislative changes that would strengthen these programs, expand employment opportunities for needy individuals, and make the programs more attractive to employers. These changes are reflected in legislation which I introduced along with Senator Baucus, S. 1180, and these changes are as follows: one combine WOTC and W-t-W. The administration's budget proposes to simplify these important employment incentives by combining them into one credit and making the rules for computing the combined credits simpler. The credits would be combined by creating a new welfare-to-work target group under WOTC. The minimum employment periods and credit rates for the first year of employment under the present work opportunity tax credit would apply to W-t-W employees. The maximum amount of eligible wages would continue to be $10,000 for W-t-W employees and $6,000 for other target groups $3,000 for summer youth. I addition, the second year 50-percent credit under W-t-W would continue to be available for W-t-W employees under the modified WOTC; two, eliminate requirement to determine family income for ex-felons. Under current law, only those ex-felons whose annual family income is 70 percent or less than the Bureau of Labor Statistics lower living standard during the six months preceding the hiring date are eligible for WOTC. The administration's budget also proposes to eliminate the family income attribution rule; three, raise the WOTC age eligibility ceiling from 24 to 39 years of age for members of food stamp households and ``high-risk youth'' living in enterprise zones for renewal communities. Current WOTC eligibility rules heavily favor the hiring of women because single mothers are much more likely to be on welfare or food stamps. Women constitute about 80 percent of those hired under the WOTC program, but men from welfare households face the same or even greater barriers to finding work. Increasing the age ceiling in the ``food stamp category'' would greatly improve the job prospects for many absentee fathers and other ``at risk'' males. This change would be completely consistent with program objectives because many food stamp households include adults who are not working, and more than 90 percent of those on food stamps live below the poverty line. I am very pleased that President Bush proposed a 2-year extension for these programs in his budget, as well as some useful modifications and improvements. The administration along with all of us in Congress are eager to continue our efforts to create jobs in America. The amendment would provide for a 1-year extension of current law to facilitate a transition period and then in the second year implement these important changes. I would prefer a permanent extension which would provide these important programs with greater stability, thereby encouraging more employers to participate, make investments in expanding outreach to identify potential workers from the targeted groups, and avoid the wasteful disruption of termination and renewal. A permanent extension would also encourage the state job services to invest the resources needed to make the certification process more efficient and employer- friendly. Yet the cost is a significant consideration in the current budget environment even though this is an excellent use of tax incentives which ultimately saves government resources while expanding opportunity for Americans. Finally, I would urge the Senate to act quickly on this amendment and on the underlying vehicle. WOTC and W-t-W expired at the end of last year, and even though the extension we propose is retroactive, these programs will not be fully effective until they become law. The individuals who enter the workforce under these programs, and our states, that benefit greatly from the reduction in welfare that these programs generate, deserve quick action by the Senate on this amendment. I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from South Carolina on his comments. I, too, will be voting no on this motion to waive. As a member of the Finance Committee who worked on this legislation, I just want to say that the reports about this bill not being paid for are accurate. There are games clearly being played to try to move money from one year to the next, to cover up money by moving money from the year 2010 to 2009 and pretending this is new money. In fact, this increases the deficit in 2010 because it is outside the window of what this bill deals with; it is only a 6-year bill. We have provisions that increase taxes in areas that have nothing to do with transportation in order to fund transportation dollars. I know a lot of people don't care about that. Most people in this Chamber, obviously, by their votes are not going to care about that. We increasingly care less and less how things are funded around here. At one time around here we were actually concerned about that. I admit, I am guilty on my own account having voted for this Medicare bill we just passed where we increasingly, over time--it took us a while--increasingly over time we separated the funding taxes and stream for Medicare from the money we actually spent on Medicare because the demand was so great to provide Medicare services that we decided just to fudge and lose a little general fund revenues, then a little more, a little more, and then a lot more and a lot more, and all of a sudden now the Medicare Program has grown and the vast majority of it is now funded, in large part, by general fund revenues. It has no relation to the Medicare tax that we pay. That is only a small part of the program, as it turns out. Highways and transit have always been funded historically by user fees. Most of it is gasoline taxes, but there are other excise taxes and special taxes that are put on transportation. Why? Because the concept was we were going to create a Federal gas tax and collect money from the users. One of the points we hear over and over is this is a user fee. It is not a general tax, but we are going to tie the amount of money we collect to the people who use it, and that makes sense. Those who use the roads should pay for the roads, and the costs should be passed along to those who benefit from the use of the roads, from the businesses that pay the taxes and individuals, for that matter. There was always this nexus, and that stood us in stead. The argument was made for years around here that we were paying more taxes than we needed to pay because we weren't spending all the money that was coming in, and that was a legitimate complaint we had two transportation bills ago to spend all the money that was coming in and not use some of these gas taxes to pay for other Government spending to hide the real cost of Government. I supported that because I supported the concept that when someone is being taxed on gasoline and other excise taxes, that money should be used to improve the roads on which they are driving. We were able to accomplish that 12 years ago. Six years ago we said we not only are going to take all that money, but the money that accumulated over time, we are going to spend that down. I thought: That is really a general fund transfer, but legitimately that money was put in there for that purpose. OK, I will support that. Now we are saying there is no more money left in the trust fund, there are no more revenues coming, but we still want to spend more. Why? Well, I have developed an axiom in Washington and that is: Never get between a Congressman and asphalt because you are destined to get run over. And that is exactly what is happening in the Senate and the Congress. There are a few of us who will soon be roadkill on the Senate floor, who are going to try to get between a Congressman and a Senator and the ability to go back home and say look what wonderful road projects I am delivering. I am for road projects. I am for transit projects. I believe we need to improve our infrastructure. I just think we need to be honest how we are paying for it. So let's be honest about it. We are not paying for it. Now, if any of my colleagues went home, as I did, over the break, one of the things they probably heard over and over again was the profligate spending that is going on in Washington, DC. Republicans and Democrats alike, there is no difference between us, we are all just spending money like there is no tomorrow and there is no deficit. So many of us came back saying there is a point where we need to rein this in. We have huge deficits that go off in the future. It is time for us to start drawing the line, and it is important not just because we have huge deficits but it is important to signal to the markets, it is important to signal to those who value our currency, that we are not going to allow this fiscal irresponsibility to continue; that we are not going to continue spending at outrageous rates of growth like the 45 percent increases that are in this bill. I think it is unfortunate that the highway bill is in the crosshairs because this is a bill that is very important. I understand that. But let's be honest about it. The signal we are sending is; the throttle is still wide open; we are going to spend, spend, spend. Of course, we will justify it by saying a whole host of things about how important this is to our economy and all the other things, but the bottom line is we are spending a ton of money and we are not paying for it. We are adding to the deficit and we are doing something very dangerous, which is taking money from the general fund to fund highway programs. I think it is wrong. That is why there is a budget point of order against this bill. Now, I understand we are not going to succeed because this amendment or this point of order gets between a Congressman and asphalt. Most amendments will fail when that is the case. The bottom line is, somebody somewhere in this Senate is going to have to start getting between Members of the Senate and House and the projects they want to deliver back home. Otherwise, this deficit is just the beginning of problems. I had an opportunity to spend a little time with the President up in Pennsylvania this morning. I had a chance to chat with him just briefly about this legislation. Let me assure my colleagues, any Member of this Senate who thinks they are going to go back home and get a bill that is $290 billion or $318 billion or $375 billion, which is what the House was talking about, they may be able to do it but they are going to have to do it by overriding a veto. Again, that is the old axiom that maybe the President is going to try to stand between a Congressman and asphalt. The President has a pretty big roadblock that has to be gotten through, and I am one Senator who is going to support that roadblock because I believe we have to at some point start to say fiscal responsibility matters and we are not doing it. I would rather have us have a vote on the floor of the Senate right now about gas taxes. If my colleagues want to fund this program, fund it by putting a gas tax in place. Where is the courage of the people who say we need more roads to pay for the roads? That is the problem we have. We always want to spend more money, do more things, and we do not want anybody to pay for it today. Whether it is Medicare, highways, or whatever the case may be, it is spend more now, get the political benefit, and pass on the bill to that future generation that, by the way, I do not have to worry about because I am not going to be running when they are voting; I can always give them something and pass it on to the next generation and they will not be mad at me. At some point, this Ponzi scheme is going to come up. In my mind, this is a Ponzi scheme. It is wrong. Now, I admit--and I am going to talk about this later, not now, because this is a debate on the budget point of order--this is a bad bill for a lot of reasons. One is because it uses general fund revenues. No. 2, it raises the deficit. It is not paid for. There is also a reason I will talk about later, which is what it does to my State, which is a grave injustice. It is counter to everything. This entire area of funding transportation projects from Washington, DC, which is a fairly recent phenomenon, the whole idea was to facilitate national security and defense but also interstate commerce. What does that mean? That means States that shoulder the burden of carrying cross traffic should get paid by other States that do not have that burden but get the benefits of it. I daresay there is no State in the Union that carries more cross traffic than Pennsylvania. Yet we become a donor State under this bill, which is an outrage. That is a parochial interest about which I will talk at another time. The philosophical and, I believe, fiscal reasons to oppose this bill have been laid out clearly by several people in the Chamber. It is wrong. We will lose, but ultimately the American economy will lose. The impact and ripple effect of this bill, which will send a signal to those who are looking at the Congress of the United States to see whether we are going to constrain spending, will be profound and will multiply innumerable times the number of job losses versus the job creation in this bill. This is a bad jobs bill, and we need to put an end to it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I do not wish to speak on the amendment. I wish to speak on the bill. First, I have great respect for the chairman of the committee and the ranking member. I understand this is one of the toughest jobs we have, trying to draft a highway bill which everybody thinks is fair. I suggest it is an impossible task because someone is going to benefit and someone is not. All we can do as Members is try to make our case as to why our respective States should be treated in a manner that befits its condition. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we have historically benefited from the Federal highway program. We have benefited in the sense that more money comes to our State than we have paid in taxes to the Federal highway fund. I would make the argument that is as it should be. Of course, every Senator will stand up and say that is as it should be, everyone should be a donee State and, of course, that is impossible to do. The question is, Why should States be donor States and why should States be donee States? I will give my rationale, which I think is the rationale underpinning the whole reason the Federal Government gets involved with highway programs. Of course, all of our States have highway departments. All of our States have departments of transportation. All of them have gas taxes, excise taxes that raise money for the purpose of providing roads. The question is, Why does the Federal Government do what is already being done by the States? There is one overriding reason. Originally, the Interstate System was designed for moving defense items around in times of war. That was the Interstate System. The reason for the Federal Government's involvement has to do with interstate commerce. And the reason for a Federal gas tax is to make sure there is a network of highways that facilitates interstate commerce. For example--and I use the example of Florida--you want to make sure, if you are an orange grower in Florida, that you get your products before they perish to market over a system of roads. So you are willing in Florida, which has virtually no interstate traffic, to pay a little bit more for Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to have good roads so you can get your products up to New York, Boston, and places such as that. The idea is that States that may not have a lot of cross-traffic are willing to pay other States that do to facilitate commerce on behalf of that State. That, to me, is a very logical reason for there to be a Federal gas tax. That being the premise of my discussion, I want to get to my State. One additional premise. What causes a lot of trouble for roads? There are two major causes that I can think of--there may be more and I will be happy to hear them. The two major causes are weather--and I challenge anybody to go out in the DC area and drive around, now that we have had a lot of freezing, thawing, snow, and ice, and look at all the potholes. It is not a common occurrence in this area because we don't have a lot of thawing and freezing generally. We do now. We are having weather like Pennsylvania. A lot of freezing and thawing beats up the roads in combination with what? Really the biggest thing that beats up roads is weight, heavy trucks--heavy trucks pounding and beating up roads. Heavy trucks, in combination with freezing and thawing, really kick a lot out of the roads. A premise of my discussion is, No. 1, what is the purpose of this bill? The purpose of a Federal tax is to facilitate interstate commerce in those States that benefit from the cross-traffic that occurs in other States that don't get an economic benefit. I remind my colleagues, if a heavy shipment is going from Florida to New York and it goes through the State of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania gets all of the aggrieved road problems and none of the economic benefit. Weather and heavy truck traffic. Let's look at the situation in my State. Why do I bring up my State? Because my State historically has been a donee State. Historically, we have benefited from the Federal program. Why? The reason we benefited, based on the premises I laid out before, is because we get a heck of a lot of cross-State traffic, heavy truck traffic that neither originates nor is destined for our State. In other words, our State gets no economic benefit from heavy trucks in large numbers rolling through our State. Let me give you the numbers. As far as ton miles--what am I talking about here? Heavy trucks, weight that hurts highways weight that destroys highways, disproportionately to car traffic. As far as ton miles, we are fifth in the country in ton miles--fifth in the country in ton miles in our State. Now, that does not necessarily say Pennsylvania deserves more money because we get all of this heavy traffic. Let's look at an additional factor which I think is vitally important--in fact, more important when it comes to this formula--and that is how much of that heavy traffic is just going through our State and does not stop, how much of that traffic gives no economic benefit to our State. We are third in the percentage of heavy truck traffic going through our State that does not stop. Forty-seven percent of the heavy truck traffic going through our State does not stop in my State. Our State gets no benefit from these heavy trucks beating up our roads and rolling through our State. There are only two States that have a higher percentage, and that is Indiana and Ohio. Which States have more heavy truck traffic than Pennsylvania? Well, Texas does. They are No. 1. Texas, obviously, is a much bigger State than Pennsylvania, but only 15 percent of the traffic going through Texas is not originating or destined for Texas. So they do not get near the amount of cross-traffic that we do. So most of the heavy truck traffic is to some economic benefit either to someone who is getting shipped the goods or shipping the goods. What is the second one? California. Only 2 percent of the heavy truck traffic going through California is just going through California and not stopping there. So my colleagues can see what I am talking about. It is not just that we get heavy truck traffic. What is the point of this tax? What is the point of this formula? To compensate States that are what we call in the airline business fly- over States. Well, we are a crossover State. Vermont happens to send a lot of stuff through our State--ice cream and milk and all that kind of good stuff. But the fact is, the reason I have not been happy with this bill and have been critical of it and have voted to try to change it is because I believe if we look at the numbers and look at the weather factors we have to deal with, which a lot of the country does not have to deal with, particularly the South, and look at the number of vehicle miles--I mean, look at this. Here is Pennsylvania. These are all the interstates that go through Pennsylvania: I-70, I-76, I-78, I-79, I-80, I-81, I-83, I-84, I-90, I-95, I-476. I-99 is an interstate--but it is not interstate--that is just in Pennsylvania. Look at all of these interstates where heavy truck traffic is trundling through, beating up our highways, with no economic benefit to our State. What is this Federal tax intended to do? It is to say to States that get no economic benefit from having that traffic go through those States that we are going to compensate them. But what happens in this bill? We actually contribute to other States that do not have near the traffic we do coming through our State for no benefit. One of those States--and I do not want to pick on a particular State, but to me it is the most dramatic example because a lot of traffic for that State goes through Pennsylvania--is Florida. How many interstates does Florida have? Really three: I-95, I-10, and I-75. I-4 is an interstate but it goes from Daytona to Tampa, so it is not really an interstate. The fact is, there are three. And by the way, less than 3 percent of the traffic that goes through Florida is originating somewhere else and destined somewhere else--3 percent of all the traffic. In our State, 47 percent of the truck traffic is neither originating in our State nor is destined for our State; Florida, 3 percent. Yet look at what happens. Florida--yes, it is a bigger State. It has more people. I understand that. Do they have ice, snow, and freezing rain in Florida? Do they have heavy trucks running over their roads? Do they service other economies and do other States benefit from the traffic going through Florida? The answer is, no, no, and no. Yet over the 6 years of this bill they are going to get a billion dollars more than a State that is shouldering the burden of trying to keep this economy up and going by carrying truck traffic, heavy destructive truck traffic, through our State. So one might ask, and I know several have: Senator, why are you so upset about the way this bill is put together? Again, I am not being critical of the chairman or the ranking member. They have a tough job. I am focusing on one aspect. I happen to believe it is a very important aspect of why highway formulas are put together. I am sure the Senator from Oklahoma will tell me, well, there are other factors where Pennsylvania does not stack up. Pennsylvania is a State that does not have as many people as Florida, or is not as big geographically as California or Montana. I understand those are all factors. Again, if we look at the central premise of why we are here, why do we have a Federal tax program for highways, we have to ask that question. It is not because we want to raise money and just turn it back to the States. I hear it said on this issue that every State deserves 95 cents on the dollar. Let me just say something very clear. Why? Why does every State deserve 95 cents back on the dollar? Why does the State of Florida, with only 3 percent of its traffic is cross- traffic, deserve money from a Federal program that is designed to help facilitate interstate commerce? They are the beneficiary of all of the other States when a truck runs from Florida or to Florida, and the roads get the heck beat out of them. They do not originate in my State. So I am not picking on Florida, but that is the most dramatic example. The fact is, if this program is designed to help States that are carrying the burden of other States and getting no economic benefit, if that is the reason we have a Federal highway program--and I would argue that is the principal reason we should have a Federal highway program-- then States such as Pennsylvania and Ohio--and my sympathy goes to Ohio. I know Senators DeWine and Voinovich are enthusiastic about the improvements in this bill, and they should be improved. They have been on the short end of the stick for a long time. Indiana and Illinois, the States that are sort of the freeway of the heavy trucks and the bad weather, those are the States that the rest of the States in this country, particularly in the region, should be helping out because they benefit economically by having good roads going through those States. I think I have a valid complaint. That complaint will go on deaf ears today because this bill will pass and instead of Pennsylvania being a donee State to help compensate us for the 47 percent of heavy truck traffic that goes through our State, for which we get no economic benefit, now we are going to contribute to other States and have the blessing of carrying their truck traffic on top of it. To me, that is unfair. It is an injustice to the people of Pennsylvania who are going to be driving on those pothole-filled roads that are going to be pothole filled because of heavy trucks going through our State, beating them up, and providing no jobs except crews running around trying to fill potholes with tax dollars from Pennsylvania residents. That is not what interstate commerce is all about. That is not what this tax was designed to do. It is an outrage that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is being treated in this fashion. I am hopeful that after my explanation those who are in authority, who can look at this and hopefully fix this problem, will see that we have a legitimate complaint, and we will have an opportunity in conference to try to address an issue which I think is going to hurt interstate commerce and job creation because we are not going to have the quality of roads in Pennsylvania to shoulder that 47 percent of the truck traffic that goes through our State of which we get no economic benefit. It will hurt my State because in my State the quality of roads will decline. I understand some will say the money goes up in this bill. Yes, the money goes up. That is assuming we get a bill at this level, which is looking increasingly uncertain given the President's comments. So the money probably is not going to go up as much as this bill suggests it will. So keeping the same formula, our increases are going to look less and less, as will every other State. This bill spends about a 45-percent increase in highway funding. We get a 19-percent increase. Finally, I make the argument that this premise that every State is entitled to 95 cents back on the dollar is what happens in Washington all the time. We set forth a goal and purpose for legislation which is we are putting this bill forward, and we are putting this system forward to help facilitate the interstate commerce of America. That is what it was designed to do. But what we turn it into is: No, this is money coming from my State and I deserve it back. If that is the case, if that is what this is for, I am for repealing the whole thing and just letting the States raise the money. If that is what we are going to do, let's not bother. If this is all just about raising the level on the Federal level and giving it back in the percentage which they raised it, why are we here? We are here because we wanted to help those States that carry the disproportionate burden of making the economy of the rest of the country work and getting no economic benefit from it. That is what originally, I would argue, the highway formulas have accomplished, at least for my State. I can stand up and say for Ohio it didn't work that way, and it should have. I don't know what happened that it didn't. I understand for other States it didn't work that way. At least it did for mine, and I hope we can have it work more equitably for the purpose for which this legislation was originally intended.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill to designate the United States courthouse and post office building at 93 Atocha Street in Ponce, Puerto Rico as the ``Luis A. Ferre Courthouse and Post Office Building.'' This legislation is meant to honor the distinguished life and career of Mr. Luis A. Ferre, a dedicated statesman and humanitarian of Puerto Rico. Luis A. Ferre was born in 1904 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. During his remarkable career, Mr. Ferre was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Puerto Rico in 1951, a member of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico from 1953-1956, Governor of Puerto Rico from 1969-1972, as well as the President of the Senate of Puerto Rico from 1977-1980. Perhaps most remarkable, however, was his commitment to humanitarian and philanthropic activities, which included the founding of the Ponce Public Library and the Ponce Museum of Art. In addition to serving the people of Puerto Rico, this building will stand as a reminder of the dedicated service Luis A. Ferre provided to all Puerto Ricans. I am hopeful that my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill and that it will be enacted in the near future.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill to designate the United States courthouse and post office building at 93 Atocha Street in Ponce, Puerto Rico as the ``Luis A. Ferre Courthouse and Post Office Building.'' This legislation is meant to honor the distinguished life and career of Mr. Luis A. Ferre, a dedicated statesman and humanitarian of Puerto Rico. Luis A. Ferre was born in 1904 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. During his remarkable career, Mr. Ferre was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Puerto Rico in 1951, a member of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico from 1953-1956, Governor of Puerto Rico from 1969-1972, as well as the President of the Senate of Puerto Rico from 1977-1980. Perhaps most remarkable, however, was his commitment to humanitarian and philanthropic activities, which included the founding of the Ponce Public Library and the Ponce Museum of Art. In addition to serving the people of Puerto Rico, this building will stand as a reminder of the dedicated service Luis A. Ferre provided to all Puerto Ricans. I am hopeful that my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill and that it will be enacted in the near future.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, thank you for the clarification regarding the purpose and use of these funds for a state-of-the-art marine cargo terminal in Philadelphia. I reiterate, this is an important project not only for the economic activity that will be generated for the Port of Philadelphia but also for the advancements in fast sealift in support of our national security interests.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to join the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter, to reinforce the importance of this program. The development of high-speed sealift capacity is critical to national security and efforts like the one you have described are key to attaining this important objective. I would inquire of the Senator if my understanding of the use of these funds is correct and that the reallocation of these previously appropriated funds specifically for infrastructure at the FastShip marine cargo terminal is to be directed through the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority to ensure that these funds are made available for this purpose.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I won't read the whereases, but I will read the resolved clause: . . . it is the sense of the Senate-- (1) That marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman; and that same-sex marriage is not a right, fundamental or otherwise, recognized in this country; and that neither the United States Constitution nor any federal law shall be construed to require that marital status or legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups. . . . Second, because we already passed a statute in the Congress that accomplishes pretty much what I just read--it was the Defense of Marriage Act, supported by 90-some Senators and signed by President Clinton. The resolution says: (2) The Defense of Marriage Act is a proper and constitutional exercise of Congress's powers under the Effects Clause of Article IV Section 1 and that no state, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other state, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such state, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship. In other words, we are going to go back on record in the sense of the Senate--as a precursor, hopefully, to a more full debate--that no State should be forced to adopt the marriage laws of another State such as Massachusetts. It should be, as this constitutional amendment which I will advocate will be, the people's decision. If the people decide, by constitutional amendment or otherwise, we are going to change what marriage is, I will fight against that, but I will respect that decision because that is the way we decide issues in America. What I am concerned about is that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and their courts are going to create a new constitutional right; they are going to change the Constitution without going through the rigors of what the Constitution demands for change, and that is a constitutional amendment. So we will take up that mantle. We will do it the right way. We will try to change the Constitution in the way the Framers intended, not the way it has been practiced recently with the courts taking on that mantle themselves and changing it without the benefit of having any public input on the process. We will offer an amendment to get the constitutional majority that is necessary to pass it, which is two-thirds of the Members of this body and of the House, and then three-quarters of the States through their legislature, representing the people in those States, to ratify this amendment. I believe this is a fundamentally important issue, one I guarantee we will be discussing at length next year, and I hope the American public will begin to engage in this debate, not as an attempt to stop anybody from doing anything but as an attempt to solidify what is the basic building block of our society. This is not being done as against anybody. It is being done for something that we know has intrinsic value and good and is a stabilizing and important element of any successful society, and that is healthy stable families in which children can be raised in that environment, so we can raise the leaders of the next generation. This is an important debate. I hope we will not be obstructed. I hope we will have an opportunity to have a full and fair debate on this issue, that the public will have an opportunity to see the Senate at its finest on an issue that I believe is at the core of who we are as Americans. I thank the Senator from Idaho for his indulgence in listening to me go on for a while, as well as the Senator from Delaware, although he had to indulge less than the Senator from Idaho. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM. That is exactly what they said. He is all of the things I talked about--highly qualified, very bright, and a great story of integrity and overcoming obstacles. It is a compelling story. As a result of his ethnicity, he would be a threat because he might be elevated to a higher court someday. This is the kind of activity I think really does debase this institution. We should not be involved in blocking people who, 10 years ago, would have probably not even required a vote on the floor of the Senate to be confirmed. We have gotten to the point where the special interests--you hear so much on the Medicare bill about the special interests that were involved in the Medicare bill. I cannot think of any area where special interests have had more impact that has been contrary to the interests of ordinary citizens in America than what we have seen by the special interests on this judge debate. These organizations support the things the Senator from Alabama just talked about. But they were also the ones supporting the complete removal of God, or any hint of God, in the public square, whether it is in Alabama or in the Pledge of Allegiance out in the Ninth Circuit. The people who made this decision in the Ninth Circuit to strike ``under God'' from the Pledge of Allegiance--do you think they were nominees who would be considered to be out of the mainstream that President Bush supported or nominated? No. They are nominees of, primarily, President Clinton, who views the Constitution as a document to be ignored, a nice little piece of antiquity that they might want to look to see if it suits their purpose. But if it doesn't, we will set it aside and do what we think is right. That is what they do on a regular basis. It is called activist judges who believe we are a government of men, not laws. That is what many on the other side-- particularly members of the Judiciary Committee--would love to see. They don't want judges who take the Constitution and the words in it seriously and feel bound by them. So we had a huge debate. I think it was an important debate for the Senate on that important issue, and a related issue. There are several issues percolating in the Senate to do something about the huge cost of litigation to our economy--whether it is asbestos litigation, on which there have been tens of thousands of cases filed by people who have been ``exposed'' to asbestos. In the vast majority of the cases, the people who have filed the case, the plaintiffs, are not sick and have no indication that they ever will be sick. But they have been ``exposed.'' They are clogging the courts, consuming huge amounts of resources. I hear colleagues on both sides of the aisle complain about manufacturing and the problems with manufacturing. Well, look at the asbestos liability issue, in light of what we are doing to our manufacturers. Manufacturers are going bankrupt--I won't say every day, but every week or two--because of this litigation going on. It is frivolous. The worst part is, I have people in my State who were infected and have asbestosis, mesothelioma. It is a disease that comes with exposure to asbestos, and a respiratory disease. These people are sick and they are dying and they are not able to get a proper jury award. In fact, they have gotten their awards and it is pennies. The money was eaten up by the trial lawyers. It is a horrible situation. We need to get the people who are sick the compensation for their disease and the treatment for their disease, and those who are not sick, they need to be set aside. If they get sick, they will be compensated, but we are all exposed to lots of dangerous things in our lives. That doesn't mean you can sue for them. Only if it causes you harm should you be able to sue. That is another area again being blocked. Class action: I see the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper, here, who is one of the leaders in trying to get a bipartisan bill together. I give him a lot of credit. It is another attempt like we did with Medicare, on which he was involved, trying to bring the sides together. So far, we have not been able to get to that 60-vote threshold. We need to get that bill done to try to help our economy move forward. Medical liability, frivolous lawsuits: Again, this is plaguing the system when it comes to health care, driving up our cost of pharmaceuticals and of health care. In Pennsylvania, our doctors are moving to Delaware, moving to other places where the laws are more beneficial, where the legislatures have put caps in place to try to limit the amount of cases where runaway juries end up bankrupting the health care system. That is another area where we have been blocked over and over. Another area we have been blocked, something on which I have been working, is assistance to the poor. We are trying to pass a charitable giving bill, a bill in which I have been involved. We are talking about giving $10 billion over the next 2 years in incentives for people to give more money to charities at a time when we are still not completely out of the recession that hit us in 2001 and 2002. Again, we have not been able to get the cooperation necessary to get a bipartisan bill to help social service providers, to help nonprofit groups meet the humanitarian needs of people. I can go on. The bioshield bill is being blocked. There are a lot of other issues on which we are being obstructed. I wanted to balance the accomplishments we have been able to achieve in the Senate and this Congress, and they have been substantial. We have a lot to go back home and talk about as to what we have been able to work out in a bipartisan way in the Senate, but there is still a lot of work to be done that the House has accomplished and that is sitting in the Senate not being done. It is very important to our economy and very important to the future of our country. One further comment. The Senator from Idaho has been very patient. I don't know if the Senator from Idaho or the leader is going to propound momentarily a unanimous consent request to vote on a resolution. This is a resolution having to do with marriage. As my colleagues know, the Massachusetts Supreme Court handed down a 4-to-3 decision that said there is now a constitutional right in the State of Massachusetts to same-sex marriage, which is a remarkable turn of events, within a few months of a case in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Lawrence v. Texas case, which took an act--which for 214 years in many States has been seen as an illegal act and in the vast majority of the American public's mind certainly not a moral act--an act of sodomy and turned that act into a constitutional right. That is what the Court did. It turned this act that is considered by many to be illegal in States and, by most Americans, immoral with no tradition of acceptance of the history of the United States since our Constitution was written. They have taken that act and turned that into a constitutionally protected act. Many of us said there would be consequences for doing so. When we said that, we thought it would be years down the line. It has not taken years; it has taken a matter of a few months for the Massachusetts Supreme Court to cite Lawrence v. Texas and say now that this is a constitutionally protected right to engage in this behavior, how can we discriminate two people who engage in this behavior under the equal protection clause, to protect everybody equally, how can we discriminate against these people who are practicing a constitutional right under the rights and privileges of marriage? It would be unequal treatment if we didn't treat these constitutionally protected actions the same way as we treat traditional marriage. I suggested before Lawrence v. Texas was decided that if it was decided in the way it was, we would be heading down a slippery slope. I was wrong. We are heading off a cliff. This is not a slippery slope; it is a cliff. If we do not respond to this decision, other States will be forced to accept the dictates of the Massachusetts Supreme Court--the court of appeals in this case. A couple can go to Massachusetts, get married, come back to Pennsylvania, Idaho, Alabama, or Delaware, and say: I demand under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution that you recognize this marriage. What is the State to do, because the Constitution demands it. So we are in a situation where de facto, we could have that policy of Massachusetts by an unelected group of judges, by a vote of 4 to 3 being forced on the entire country unless we do something in the Senate to act. That is a constitutional amendment which defines marriage and describes it in the Constitution. I happen to think we put a lot in the Constitution that are building blocks of society, certain freedoms, certain truths that we establish in the Constitution. I cannot imagine anything more fundamentally important to the stability of our society than having stable families in which to raise stable children, and anything that undermines that, to me, undermines the core of who we are as Americans. We will ask for a vote on the resolution. I ask unanimous consent to print the resolution in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I commend the chairman of the Energy Committee and the Senator from Idaho for their fine work on the Energy bill. While we are not going to get that bill passed before we leave for the holiday break, it is something that I know the Senator from New Mexico and the Senator from Idaho and others are going to work on and diligently try to accomplish for the reasons they outlined. Mr. President, I wanted to run down and put into the Record a summary of some of the things we have been able to accomplish this year. We go out on the accomplishment of delivering to the American people what has been asked now for several years by our seniors, and not just by seniors but by the children of seniors and the grandchildren of seniors, who see the fiscal strains that have been put on their parents and grandparents as a result of, in many cases, not having prescription drug coverage or having prescription drug coverage that is very expensive. Particularly for lower-income individuals, it can be quite a drain on their resources, as well as diminishing their quality of life in their senior years. So we go out on somewhat of a high here. And as it should be, because we have accomplished a lot this year. If you go back to when this session started, and the Senator from Tennessee became the majority leader in the transfer of power, if you will, here in the Senate, the first thing he said we would do was clean up the mess that did not get accomplished last year. We had no budget last year, which meant we could not really pass any of our appropriations bills. The Government spending was locked into last year's level, and we did not have a whole lot of new initiatives at the time, when we were looking at a whole new Department of Homeland Security, a war on terror, and a war on the horizon in Iraq. There was a lot of uncertainty going on here, and we did not have the fiscal discipline in place to be able to get our fiscal house in order here in Washington, DC. So the first thing we said we would do was we would clean up that mess and pass the spending bills, and fight off repeated attempts, in almost $1 trillion in amendments on the other side, of adding spending to these appropriations bills and then subsequently to the budget that we passed after we passed the appropriations bills from the prior year. So we passed the appropriations bills from the prior year. On top of that, we put a new budget in place, and we passed a budget. We thought that was important. Many here thought another budget could never pass in the Senate because of the practice of last year and the difficulty in trying to get a budget into the framework of seeing really slow growth compared to what we have seen in the past 7 or 8 years. That was accomplished. It was tough, and a lot of tough votes. We were able to stand tall and fight back amendments from many on the other side of the aisle. And some on the other side of the aisle joined us. I thank those Members who have stood up, just as many did today, to what appears to be, from the Democratic leadership point of view, obstructionist tactics that are used here in the Senate on almost--I almost want to go back and maybe reconsider the term ``almost''--I will say almost everything, but it is almost everything to the point where you think it is everything. But we have had some cooperation from many Democrats, and certainly enough to get some of the more important bills that we considered here done. I thank those who participated in that bipartisan cooperation. We were able to accomplish a budget. We were able to accomplish, as a result of the budget, a tax plan, again, done in a bipartisan way, here on the floor of the Senate. And the effects of that tax plan have been really some of the most startling economic news we have seen in a long time. Just today, it was announced for the last quarter growth--which was really the first full quarter that was able to get the impact of the President's tax reduction and jobs growth proposal--we saw it now not at 7.2 percent growth but 8.2 percent growth, the best in 20 years in this country. That is an enormous feather in the cap of this administration's policy of stimulating growth in the economy by reducing taxes, particularly targeted at investors and small- and medium-sized businesses. We were able to accomplish that because we had a budget we passed in the Senate that allowed for a tax reduction that has been put in place. As a result of that tax reduction, which in part was reducing capital gains tax, but also reducing the double taxation of dividends, it has caused a $2 trillion increase--a $2 trillion increase--in valuations of equities in this country. That is an enormous turnaround. I was watching the news this morning, and someone was talking about their retirement savings having been eroded, and the impact on seniors, and the impact on those who are approaching those seniors years and their ability to have a stable retirement. When you add $2 trillion back to the value of those equities, you do a lot to stabilize people's retirement and give them the peace of mind they are going to be able to get through their retirement years with a fair--hopefully, good-- standard of living. That was as a result of the budget, the leadership here in the Senate and of the Senate Republicans, and ultimately the tax reduction that was passed as a result of the great leadership of our President. We were able to provide resources for, obviously, the war on terrorism and homeland security, which is a new appropriation. The Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, who chairs that subcommittee, was just in the Chamber. We passed that bill in a timely fashion so those increased resources would go out to help fight the war on terrorism here at home, as well as, obviously, provide resources we need for our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan and in Iraq to fight the battle on terrorism on the front line over in the Middle East. Another historic accomplishment of this Congress, which is yet to be fully realized is the AIDS bill. We were able to pass a bill that authorized money for AIDS. And now we are talking about fulfilling that promise to come up with the money that was in the authorization to fund AIDS in Africa and several countries in the Caribbean that are faced with outrageous, just absolutely incredible suffering and the destruction of the family unit in those countries, with infection rates of double digits in the country, with literally millions of people infected with this disease, and transmitting it, in some cases, to their children. We need to do something about prevention, and we need to do something about the transmission of AIDS. We also need to do something about treatment. With the appropriations bill that is now going to be filed in the House in about an hour and 20 minutes, we will have the President's AIDS proposal fully funded: $2 billion in bilateral aid and $400 million to meet our obligations under the Global Fund--for every $1 we put up, $2 of international funds. And $400 million will meet that obligation as of this time. We will have in place the commitment we made to those less fortunate in Africa and in the Caribbean for the needed help on prevention, transmission, and treatment of those who are suffering with AIDS or hopefully will not get AIDS. That is a huge accomplishment for this Senate. Candidly, it is probably one of most important things we can do for humanitarian relief. If you look back in history, there really isn't a humanitarian crisis, a health crisis that will match what is going on today in Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. I am glad to be part of a Senate which on a bipartisan fashion stood up and made a huge financial commitment. It is not an easy thing to do in a country that feels a lot of suffering here at home and wants more resources directed here at home, to be able to set that money aside for those who are literally dying by the thousands each day from this pandemic that has struck sub-Saharan Africa. The commitment of the President, followed up by the commitment here in the Congress, is something of which we should all be very proud. We passed the partial-birth abortion act. We are stopping this horrendous procedure from occurring anymore. There are those who are taking that bill to court. We expected that, but the Senate, with the President's leadership, has been able to pass this bill that is overwhelmingly supported by the American public and is a real step in the right direction. We haven't had very many steps in the right direction with respect to this culture in America. This is a step in the right direction to put some humanity back in the treatment of those innocent children in the womb. We passed some antispam legislation. As someone who has young kids and is bombarded daily with e-mails of not the most wholesome nature, pop-up ads and the like, this is a tool we can give to authorities to try to limit the amount of that kind of information falling into the homes of families. It is a very serious problem to have this wonderful tool of the Internet be infected by this disease of pornography and violence and other things that are marketed to our children through e- mails and through other types of advertising. The Senate has begun the slow process. It will be a slow process, as maybe it should be, because we have to balance the rights of free speech. Freedom is something that needs to be used responsibly. No one who wrote the founding documents of this country believed freedom to be an absolute. With rights come responsibilities. That freedom, more properly defined as liberty, is a balancing of those rights and responsibilities. We need to seek to do that in the case of the Internet, which I find to be a wonderful tool but at the same time a very dangerous vehicle for information to flow to people who may not handle it well and may be scarred or changed for life as a result of some of this activity. As I went down that list, I think you can see it is a list of great accomplishment. Yet at the same time there is so much left to be done and so much that was blocked by the other side. So when you hear, as you will hear, the term ``obstructionism'' about things that could have been--the Senator from Idaho is here and talked eloquently about the Energy bill--could have been, should have been, but for the procedural tactics of raising the requirement to pass this bill by 60 votes instead of an up-or-down vote of 51. That is their right to do. But as the Senator from Idaho and the Senator from New Mexico said earlier, it is going to have severe consequences for the long-term future of our economy. Energy is not something you turn off and on like we do the stove or the thermostat. It is something that takes a long time to be developed. It takes investment, a lot of people, a lot of steps in the process, as it should, even environmental steps in the process to be able to extract the resources we need. We are not moving in that direction. We are not moving toward energy independence. For a country that is as much dependent upon cheap energy as this country and this economy are, to continue to turn a blind eye towards the needs of our economy and the impact on the quality of life here is a very dangerous thing. Again, I suggest while I understand the rights of the minority, we need to find a way to get the 60 votes necessary to get this piece of legislation moved forward for our children and for our future economy. We have the omnibus appropriations bill. One of the victories was the AIDS authorization bill we were able to pass. But more candidly, the most important thing is funding that program. There are a whole host of things: An increase in VA health care, which is in the omnibus appropriations bill, an increase in NIH funding is in the Labor-HHS. There are so many important priorities in this bill. Yet we have been told we are just not going to be able to get to it until January. I know the leader later is going to ask unanimous consent to bring up this bill when the House passes it. The House will pass it first, as it does customarily with appropriations bills. They are coming back December 8. We hope to reconvene the Senate shortly thereafter to bring up this legislation so we can pass it here. Why? Well, because if we don't pass it, those increases in VA health care funding, those increases in AIDS funding, those increases in NIH, and a whole host of other things in this bill simply will not go into effect until at the earliest the end of January. If you are for those increases and you are for the realignment of budget priorities in these appropriations bills, we should take a little time out of our break, come back here for a day. We will have had several weeks to look at this. The bill will be filed in an hour and 10 minutes. Take a look at it. If you have problems with it, you certainly have the opportunity to voice that opposition and vote no. But that is going to be the up-or-down vote we are going to have. We should take the opportunity to come back and do it in a timely fashion. We have been told by the other side they will object to us coming back. So this bill will sit there for roughly 2 months with a variety of different spending priorities many people in this Chamber agree with and that the American public has asked us for, including increased funding for education, DC choice, allowing students in the District of Columbia to have the opportunity to go to the schools of their choosing. All of those things will be in this bill, and we will not be able to have a vote because of the power--it is a wonderful thing when you are the minority--of individual Senators to stop things from happening. That is another obstruction. We spent 3 days here on the floor of the Senate 10 days ago, 12 days ago, debating the issue of judges. Here we are again. We have six qualified, terrific nominees--not turkeys, not lemons, not neanderthals. Those were words used here in the Senate to refer to distinguished people who are judges in their own right today, justices of supreme courts today, reelected by overwhelming numbers in their home States, gone through the ABA approval process and were considered to be either qualified or unanimously well qualified. These folks were referred to by the people here in the Senate as neanderthals, as lemons, and in some respects as turkeys. I can understand where there may be a difference as to the qualifications of these judges. They have every right to suggest their deficiencies. But to use that kind of terminology to describe people of distinguished legal records and careers calls into question the propriety of the Senators' remarks and whether they don't in fact meet the standard of what is referred to as rule XIX. Rule IX refers to a Senator. I don't think we should be able to refer to nominees, who put themselves out to serve the public, in a way that is as callous and cavalier and disrespectful as that. So I suggest that there is another area of obstructionism--changing the rules. For 214 years, the rule was that every judicial nomination that came to the Senate floor got an up-or-down vote. Since we put the filibuster in place in the early 1930s, 2,370 nominees have come to the floor of the Senate, and zero were filibustered. None. None were blocked. Now, there are several on that side of the aisle who have taken to putting a chart up that shows 168 to 6, as if 6 is somehow a good number out of 174, when zero out of 2,370 was the norm. I think the Senator from Georgia, Saxby Chambliss, suggested the right answer to that. They said they were doing a great job in approving them 95 percent of the time. The Senator from Georgia suggested that if he went home to his wife and said he was faithful to her 95 percent of the time, that would not be adequate in her eyes. It is not adequate, when the Constitution requires an up-or-down vote, for those people who believe in the sanctity of that Constitution to say we are upholding it 95 percent of the time. But that is what is happening on judicial nominations, and it is another case of obstruction.