Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute today to one of Alabama's most admired and successful prosecutors, Joseph D. ``Joe'' Hubbard, who passed last month. I got to know him when I was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and later when we worked together during the time I served as attorney general of Alabama. Joe was a native of Calhoun County and graduated from Oxford High School. He received a bachelor's degree with honor from Auburn University and graduated from the fine Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, cum laude. He was elected district attorney in 1992 and reelected, without opposition, in 1998, 2004 and 2010. Prior to being elected district attorney, Joe was an assistant district attorney for the 7th Judicial Circuit from 1978-1985 and chief assistant district attorney 1985-1993. Joe was named Elected Official of the Year in 2004 by the National Association of Social Workers, District Attorney of the Year for the State of Alabama, and awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Outstanding Law Enforcement. Joe was dedicated to the law and always did what was right. As a career prosecutor he was most known for two successful prosecutions: That of Donald Ray Wheat, who was convicted of the 2002 murder of four people in a Blockbuster video store, and the prosecution of Marie Hilley which was the subject of two books and a television movie. He also published a novel entitled ``Blood Secrets,'' a thriller about a trial lawyer who wrestles with inner demons as he pursues the seat of the world's most powerful figure--the presidency of the United States. Proceeds from the sale of that book have been donated to the American Cancer Society. Joe was a role model for prosecutors. He was greatly admired by his fellow prosecutors throughout the State. I shared that view. He was smart, hard working, and deeply experienced. He knew his business and was a ``hands on'' leader of his office. Frequently, he was called on to provide leadership and otherwise help with tough issues throughout the State. Prosecutors have a demanding job, but one that is quite fulfilling. It requires strength, tenacity, integrity and, importantly, good judgment. Joe possessed all these qualities and more. He could have left public service for a very successful private practice many times but he didn't. He stayed and served the public interest. He retired from that service on March 15, 2011. He will be greatly missed by family, friends and colleagues.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to speak on the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act, S. 1619, on which I believe we will be voting. I support it, as I expect my colleague from Arizona does with his principal commitment to trade and vibrant competitive commerce in the world. I acknowledge that our commitment to commerce and trade is fundamental to our Nation. America has always been a country with open ports and open markets. When trade is conducted properly, I am convinced it creates a rising tide of prosperity in America and around the world. I am not against trade. More than that, I think the voluntary exchange of goods does promote the free exchange of ideas. Trade helped us to export our values of a free democratic society, but, like democracy itself, trade must operate under a set of rules and values. Jobs have been lost as a result of unfair trade practices. Perhaps the most dramatic unfair trade practice existing in the world today is China's very substantial manipulation of its currency--a 30-percent, 40-percent, 25-percent alteration in the value of its currency--and it has created an extraordinary deficit that has cost jobs in this country. Whether it is 2 million or fewer, it has cost jobs of decent, hard-working Americans. It has occurred because of manipulation of the currency. It is a very real matter. We need to fight for and aggressively defend every single job this country has, and we need to say no to unfair trade practices. We are going to insist that the trade rules apply both ways, that we don't unilaterally accept virtually anything while some of our trading partners--particularly China--can systematically violate them. I think fairness is the right thing, and we must refuse to acquiesce and accept this existing trade practice. Look, nations whose economies have historically struggled are those that have failed to uphold the rule of law. In my view, that is a fundamental part of America's greatness--our commitment to law--and it has made us economically powerful, as well as free. Many nations that have been unable to ensure contracts are honored and protect the integrity of financial agreements can't be successful in a commercially competitive world. When companies form a business partnership, they sign a contract to ensure that each party meets its obligations. The principle is the same with free trade. A trading partnership with China or other countries must be founded on principles upon which both parties can agree, principles and agreements which are to the mutual benefit of both parties. It is the job of our leaders to negotiate these agreements on behalf of the American workers, not to stand against them. This is even more crucial with a nation such as China, which relentlessly, through its political apparatus, seeks to advance its own national interests. China's currency manipulation clearly puts American workers and U.S.-based businesses at a huge disadvantage, particularly in this time of economic hardship. This unfairness has to be confronted. We have talked about it but have not confronted it. Almost all economists agree that China intentionally undervalues its currency--RMB--by as much as 30 percent. The Employment Policy Institute argues this: This intervention makes the RMB artificially cheap relative to the dollar, effectively subsidizing Chinese exports. Where? Mostly to the United States. So I believe the devaluation of the currency clearly subsidizes exports of Chinese goods to the United States. They go on to say this: Currency intervention also artificially raises the cost of U.S. exports to China. . . . So our goods that go there are higher in China than they would be, making the Chinese less able to buy them than otherwise would be the case. The goods they ship to the United States come in cheaper than they otherwise would be, making them more attractive to American consumers. This is a big factor in the surging and huge trade deficit between our countries. I think it is indisputable that is so. In other words, the Chinese give their products a 30-percent discount in the United States and make our exports cost 30 percent more in China. I think few economists would argue with that. China's currency manipulation has been a major factor in the erosion of our Nation's manufacturing base and left millions of U.S. workers without jobs. It is a factor in job loss in America. In Alabama, the EPI estimates--and I don't know whether this is an accurate number. I am sure we have lost jobs as a result of this currency manipulation, but this is the estimate the EPI had: It has put more than 44,000 people out of work in Alabama since 2001--44,000. We just celebrated a number of economic developments in my State. We have been having some success over the years. We have 3 automobile plants, with investment from abroad, and each one has added about 4,000 jobs. According to this study, we have lost 44,000 jobs to China as a result of this currency. Again, there are disputes about how much and how large the impact is. I don't think there is any doubt it is substantial. We have been feeling it for years. Another recent study reached a similar conclusion. It was written up in the Wall Street Journal. It found that regions exposed to trade within the United States from China lose more manufacturing jobs and see an overall decline in unemployment than other areas. They also found that exposure to Chinese imports led to larger increases--and this is common sense--in unemployment; it cost jobs in certain areas in the United States; it led to larger increases in unemployment insurance, government payments, food stamps, disability payments, and other government benefits. Based on data in the study, the $300 billion increase in Chinese imports since 1992 has cost the Federal Government more than $20 billion in such expenditures. They calculated $20 billion simply based on the increases in food stamps, unemployment insurance, and the like. The irony behind this is that we borrow much of the money we use to pay these Federal benefits from the Chinese, which they then use to continue manipulating their currency. So we are being outmaneuvered and outnegotiated in the process. Last year, Dan DiMicco, chairman, president, and CEO of Nucor Corporation, which has five steel mills in Alabama, my State--smaller steel mills--testified about modern steel mills. Mr. DiMicco is a national leader in American competitiveness and ideas. He testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, and this is what he said: Passing this legislation will help because this is a jobs bill, pure and simple. It will do more to stimulate the economy and create jobs than just about anything else Congress can do. And it will not add to our national debt-- just the opposite. Ending China's currency manipulation will reinvigorate our manufacturing sector and our economy, reducing our budget deficit. By failing to take the lead and combat China's mercantilist trade practices, we are serving up our jobs, future economic well-being, and national security on a platter. That is a serious charge. This is a man who is dealing in the real world of steel production around the United States, with plants all over the United States. I think he knows a lot about what goes on in the world and how this system works. I believe the bill on which I have joined my colleagues is a thoughtful, commonsense approach. It doesn't place an immediate tariff on all Chinese goods that enter the United States. It does, however, explicitly direct the Commerce Department and International Trade Commission to take currency manipulation into account when estimating countervailing and dumping duties. Under current law, the Commerce Department can take currency manipulation into account when calculating countervailing duties, but it does not take currency manipulation into account. It could, but it does not. The Obama administration has not instructed them to do so, and neither did his predecessor. Moreover, neither agency currently has the authority to include currency manipulation in its calculation of antidumping duties. The practical effect of this legislation would be to charge a duty on some imported products only after the International Trade Commission and Commerce Department conduct an investigation that determines dumping is taking place or a subsidy is being provided and that a U.S. company has been injured. So a duty would only be applied if it can be proved that the exporting country violated WTO rules. In other words, this measure upholds the rule of law. This has nothing to do with protectionism; rather, it is about protecting the principles that make free trade work. You can't have a free-trade relationship if your trading partners aren't complying with the fundamental expectations of fair trading partners. We don't live in a perfect world. Other nations, such as China, are more than willing to exploit our good will to gain political, strategic, and economic advantage. The time has come to defend our core economic interests. American workers are the best in the world. They are not asking us for a handout or a subsidy. What they are asking for are leaders who will defend their legitimate interests on the world stage. So far, this has not been done. I salute Senators Schumer, Brown, Graham, Burr, Snowe, Stabenow, and others who have supported the legislation. I think it is time for us to act, and I ask my colleagues to support the legislation as we move forward. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, yesterday, the President provided a fiscal plan on paper that he said reflects his latest fiscal vision for the country. It seems to be about the fourth vision we have had this year, and he has said we need to be honest with the American people and talk straight to them. I certainly believe that is correct, and I would share some thoughts about the President's plan and express disappointment that he has not been honest and direct with the American people, has not discussed in sufficient depth, in my opinion, the Nation's need to reduce spending because our debt is surging larger than it ever has in our history and presents a danger today and in the future. The President needs to talk more about that. If we are going to ask the American people to reduce their spending, to take less from the government, to tighten belts, then we need to know why. I do believe he has not been sufficiently informative in his conversations because many of them emphasize increasing investments in various programs, in spending programs he has advocated, but with regard to the plan that was introduced yesterday he claims it would increase the fiscal year 2012 deficit by $300 billion; that is, next year it would increase the debt by $300 billion, but he says it would reduce deficits over the next 10 years, in the outyears, by $3.2 trillion. We know what happens now happens. Spending that occurs today--the money is out the door--and promises to raise revenue in the future become less certain as each year passes by. But assuming this is true, assuming we would actually do in the next 10 years the kind of things that would pay for this short-term spending, I would advise my colleagues that the fundamental claim the President is making--assuming his numbers are correct, and we do the things he suggests--it overstates by $1.8 trillion the amount of the savings. Mr. President, $3.2 trillion, no. Mr. President, $1.8 trillion reduced from that, and we are looking at about $1.4 trillion in savings and not $3.2 trillion. That is the fact. I will share with my colleagues the sad, grim fact of that. How did it happen? Well, the bill, as the Washington Post said, is being criticized because of gimmicks that are in it. First gimmick: The war-funding gimmick. The plan shows $1.1 trillion over 10 years in savings from putting a cap on war-spending costs. But those costs are going to decrease as the war effort unwinds whether or not this proposal is in place. They have been long been planned. The President's proposed caps on war spending manipulate baseline concepts to show the savings that have been long planned and new-- something he came up with this week, I suppose--new choices which inflate the spending cuts in his plan. In other words, it inflates the amount of spending he has cut by $1.1 trillion. The Congress has dealt with this little gimmick in the budgetary process. I serve as ranking member on the Budget Committee, and we wrestled with these baselines and scoring possibilities. But that gimmick--the $1.1 trillion gimmick--was rejected during the recent debt ceiling debate, raising the debt limit. We talked about that and we didn't do it because it is not an accurate explanation of the cutting of spending. We don't have any plan to continue to spend in Iraq and Afghanistan the $158 billion we spend this year. And for 10 years? Give me a break. That has never been our plan and shouldn't be assumed as a baseline for spending. Claiming credit for not continuing that is not a legitimate way to analyze how much you have cut spending. Some have said Paul Ryan and the House Republicans, when they passed their budget, included the $1.1 trillion when they said they reduced spending by $6.2 trillion. They proposed a budget to cut $6.2 trillion. They also proposed a growth-oriented tax reduction and simplification plan that would create economic growth, netting out $4 trillion in actual savings. But Paul Ryan and his committee did not--I have checked the numbers--consider $1.1 trillion in war savings--which no one has disputed should occur--off the present amount we are spending. He did not include that in the $6.2 trillion. He did have an alternative analysis that showed that, and people have seized upon that to say his fundamental proposal of a $6.2 trillion spending reduction included it. It did not. Another big gimmick--one used too often in this body--is what we call the doc fix of Medicare. The Balanced Budget Act, in the late 1990s, proposed substantial reductions in physician fees. As the years have gone by, it has become more and more plain that doctors cannot sustain a 20-percent reduction or more in their fees for doing Medicare work. So each year we put that money back in. But it is part of the plan of a long-term budget. The statute itself has not been changed. So every year we have this little problem: Are we going to cut the doctors 22 percent or are we going to avoid cutting the doctors 22 percent? Well, we don't want to cut the doctors that much. They can't function. That is too big a cut for them. So we find the money some way every year. Mostly, we have borrowed it. The President's plan assumes that money will be found for the doc fix and they will do it over 10 years to the tune of $293 billion. This trick counts the higher spending as a given rather than as a policy choice that needs to be offset. Without this gimmick, the President's health care savings of $320 billion the plan suggests will occur becomes health care savings of only $27 billion. You don't save $293 billion because of this gimmick because it is unpaid for. There is no source of income to pay for the President's assumption. We will pay $293 billion, which means he only saves $27 billion in health care, not $320 billion. I believe this is a truly honest and fair analysis of the President's proposal. It is incorrect, putting it kindly. There is another little gimmick. When the President talks about cutting spending--when he says we are cutting spending--what does he include in that? He is counting as spending reductions the net interest effects of his proposed policy changes, even though interest costs are the secondary effect of his proposed tax hikes. For example, if you raise taxes and don't cut spending--and spending has not been cut in this plan--you raise taxes and you reduce projected deficits, we think about $1.4 trillion under the plan, less than half of what was projected, then you don't pay as much interest because you don't accrue as much debt. And you don't pay as much interest on a debt that is not accrued. They are scoring that as if they cut spending, when it is a natural by-product of increased taxes. So when you remove the accounting tricks and the Washington gimmicks that have contributed to this country being in the fiscal condition we are in, you are left with only half of the $3 trillion in deficit reduction the White House promised. The White House also claims the President's plan has $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes--$2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. Indeed, early in the year he suggested we should have a plan that would have $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. But is this accurate? Is it true we are achieving $2 in spending cuts for $1 in tax hikes? If you eliminate the gimmicks, you will see it is absolutely not true. Under the plan, total Federal spending--including the jobs plan's stimulus bill--the new stimulus bill--will increase. The President's plan will not decrease total Federal spending. It will increase, not decrease. There is no cut in spending. On balance, there is not a penny of net spending that is cut--on net. In a speech, the President said: I'm proposing real serious cuts in spending. When you include the $1 trillion in cuts that I've already signed into law, these would be among the biggest cuts in spending in our history. Well, that is not true. It is not accurate. I don't think it bodes well for us to be able to reach an agreement on these very serious issues if the President is pretending his plan cuts war costs or counts interest that shouldn't be counted or proposes we have a doc fix without any money with which to fix it. Those are the kinds of things that get us into trouble. Despite the substantial increase in taxation under the President's plan, deficits would not be tamed. At no point over the next 10 years would deficits be smaller in nominal terms than the $459 billion recorded before he became President. That is the highest deficit in history. President Bush was roundly criticized for the $459 billion during his time. The lowest deficit under today's plan--the lowest over 10 years--would be $476 billion in the outyears, and it would start going back up again under the plan they propose, leading to a $565 billion deficit in 2021. And by the way, the last 3 years of deficits have been $1.3 trillion, $1.2 trillion, and this year will be $1.4 trillion in debt. So next year's deficit will actually surge beyond the current projections. We had hoped they would come down. But because of the new spending in this plan, $350 billion will be added to the deficit next year, putting us well over $1 trillion in deficit again next year. At a time when we should be reducing deficit spending, the immediate impact of the plan will be to increase spending, fostering more fear and uncertainty in our economy and the conclusion among the financial investors here and worldwide that we still haven't gotten the message and we are still out of control. Over the next 10 years, deficits would total $6.4 trillion, and gross Federal debt would grow by $9.7 trillion. Gross Federal debt would grow by $9.7 trillion, exceeding $24 trillion in 2021, when last year we had about a $13 trillion debt. That would put our debt over 100 percent of GDP. Properly accounting for the effect of the President's proposed policy changes, the actual amount of debt reduction proposed by the President is $1.4 trillion, consisting of $146 billion in spending increases that would increase the debt and $1.5 trillion in tax increases. So we may have raised a few weeks ago our legal debt limit, allowing us to run up more debt, but we have breached our economic debt limit. America's $14.5 trillion gross debt we have today is 100 percent of our economy. A prominent study from economists Rogoff and Reinhart--praised by Secretary Geithner as ``excellent''--shows when a nation's gross debt reaches 90 percent of GDP it loses, on average, a percentage point or more in GDP growth that year. Our debt is depressing growth. Our debt is now 100 percent of GDP, and our growth is unexpectedly slow this year. Could that be a part of the cause? Some economists say no, but it certainly is consistent with the projections in their plan. So the plan that was presented, I have to say, is gimmick piled upon gimmick, adding up to little more than a tax hike camouflaged as fiscal restraint. Promised spending control is nowhere to be found. When you are in a crisis, you must deal honestly with the American people. You must present the facts, along with a credible solution, and call on the people to respond and sacrifice together. Americans are good, decent, hard-working people who will accept a difficult choice if given to them in honest terms. But the White House is trying to be clever at the expense of being credible. The debt is destroying jobs today, I believe. If we are going to restore confidence in growth, credibility in the President and in Congress is one asset we cannot afford to borrow against. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, can I ask unanimous consent to have 1 additional minute?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to congratulate my colleague Senator Wyden on his work on this legislation, and also would thank him for his efforts to reach an agreement to improve our Tax Code. It is a big deal. A lot of expert witnesses have appeared before the Budget Committee. Senator Wyden is a member of the Budget Committee. Those witnesses have told us that properly improving our Tax Code could improve growth, create jobs, and make America stronger. I appreciate the Senator's hard work and am looking at his proposal and thank him for contributing positively to the debate. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for his hard work on this bill. I have supported him so many times in the past and hoped over the last several years as we have discussed my little problem in Haleyville, AL, that maybe some agreement could be reached. But the U.S. Trade Representative, who talks sympathetically and does nothing, and the congressional committee seem to be of the view that any change, even though that is what they are empowered to do, is somehow not possible and we should not make changes in our trade law. So I objected today to going to this bill because I wish to see modest changes made in it. We are facing job losses in America. As my colleague has said, more than 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. The unemployment rate remains above 9 percent. In Alabama, unemployment is now higher than the national average. A few years ago, we were below the national average. In times such as these, Congress ought to consider options that create a favorable environment for businesses without adding more to the debt by spending money to try to stimulate the economy. One such measure would be a small change in the generalized system of preferences--the GSP--which the Senate is considering this week. Some background: The GSP was enacted in 1974 to give developing countries duty-free access to our markets, while still protecting American industries. Importantly, a key concept of the whole plan of GSP was if a product is made in America, that type of good is not allowed duty-free access to GSP. They would not be allowed to be imported duty free if we have an ongoing market. In some instances, we did not have ongoing production, so we allowed poorer countries to import duty free because it didn't lay off American jobs. Importers are not allowed the preference of a lower rate under those circumstances. Unfortunately, the U.S. Trade Representative concluded otherwise a number of years ago and made an exception, straying from the original, fundamental purpose and principle. And that exception threatens the American sleeping bag textile industry and those industries that support it. In 1992, the U.S. Trade Representative added sleeping bags to the list of GSP-eligible products in a special effort to support--it appears, at that time--the textile industry in Czechoslovakia. But, apparently, Czechoslovakia never produced a sleeping bag. Apparently, this was a political deal. They wanted to help Czechoslovakia after the fall of the wall. I can understand that, but do you see what is happening? Some political part of the government worrying about foreign policy decides we don't care too much about American sleeping bags, or whatever, because we want to make friends with this country. So we forego American jobs for foreign jobs as a way to win favor with those countries. Now, I am not saying that is never good, but I am saying when we do that time and time again we begin to concede too much of American wealth and jobs. So GSP was in effect in 1974 to help those countries, and I don't think it should have been changed. But a few years ago, a Chinese company began to produce sleeping bags and import them into the United States. They are not eligible to be a GSP low-cost, duty-free shipper because they are not a poorer nation that qualifies under the GSP. But they began to import into the United States, and when it became clear we had a good American company that could compete effectively against them, they realized there was a loophole and that Bangladesh could qualify for this loophole. So they moved their plant over to Bangladesh--at least in name they moved it--and continued to supply the materials to Bangladesh where the sleeping bags are produced and then imported duty free under this loophole that should never have been created because it has put Americans out of work. So with regard to China, I just have to note it is not a principled free-trade country. They are out aggressively to advance their interest and the interests of their companies and to sell everything they can sell abroad to advance their interests regardless of how many Americans are placed out of work. So I think our leaders have to begin to be sensitive to these practices. When will we start tough negotiations on behalf of our workers instead of resisting efforts to help our workers be competitive? Instead of standing up and being tough with Jeff Sessions, the Senator from Alabama, they need to stand up and be tough with people in Beijing, it seems to me. I believe in free trade. My voting record proves this. I have supported virtually every free-trade agreement. But free trade is not free if we allow ourselves to be exploited, if we hand unfair advantage to other nations. Haleyville is a small town. It is in the county of Winston--known as the Free State of Winston. Winston County claims and, I think, in effect did secede from Alabama when Alabama seceded from the Union. There are people in Winston County named Ulysses right now, after Grant. It is a remarkable county. It is an hour and a half from Birmingham, the closest center. It is very rural--15,000, 20,000, 25,000 people. Also, Marion County is in the same area, and they have high unemployment--about 12 percent unemployment in that area. These 100 or so jobs are important. I went there a few months ago. The local high school band played, and they welcomed me. All the employees were there. They pleaded with me to do what I could to help them save their jobs, and I promised to do so. But I am afraid we are in a mood, and the bill is moving, and we will just move it through and people will forget those people back home in Haleyville. But I am not forgetting them. I believe they have a legitimate request to make of their government to adhere to the true principles of GSP--that they don't get to import textiles into the United States if there is a domestic manufacturer that would be adversely affected. They can import, but they have to pay the 9-percent tariff that other countries pay on textiles. So I am afraid what is happening in Haleyville, sadly, is a symbol of our broken system. This trade loophole contradicts GSP principles. I believe it is indefensible. It is a benefit to China paid for directly by American workers. It just is. This company in Alabama pays taxes, obeys the regulations, plays by the rules, and they ask for nothing more than a fair shake. But how do our laws reward them? Out of the blue, they find they have competition from a foreign import. So we give Bangladesh the ability to skip all the taxes other importers pay, and primarily to the benefit of a Chinese company so they can undersell the plant in Alabama. What happened to the President's pledge of just last week when he said he wanted to make sure more products are stamped with three words: ``Made in America?'' The GSP is supposed to exclude benefits to American-made textiles and import-sensitive products. Yet through a loophole and a ruling by the USTR, sleeping bags are not even considered a textile. If sleeping bags are not a textile, what are they? They are not food, they are not a water pump, they are not a piece of machinery, they are not a bench. They are made of fabric and fibers. They are clearly a textile. For this reason, some sections of the United States Code--including the Berry amendment--designates sleeping bags as textiles explicitly. It makes no sense for the government to recognize sleeping bags as textiles under some sections but not others. So all I am proposing is to bring uniformity to the law and following the intent of the GSP as initially passed. The fast-growing exports from Bangladesh are threatening American sleeping bags throughout the United States. It is an industry that has grown throughout the United States. Exxel Outdoors--really a California company--employs nearly 100 people in a county with unemployment at 12 percent. But already Exxel has seen a 20-percent decrease in its sales. If the appropriate changes are not made, this factory will close and 100 American workers in Alabama will lose their jobs, and others around the country will lose their jobs. Let me tell you a little more about Exxel. They came under new ownership in 2000. The new owner had planned to close the factory and send the jobs to Mexico to try to build a plant in Mexico. Instead, he realized the competitiveness of being in Alabama at this plant. He met and liked the people in Haleyville. They surprised him. He thought he would try it, he would give it a shot. He brought jobs back from Mexico and China. Since then they have prospered, creating quality sleeping bags right here in the United States. Exxel uses suppliers in New York State, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi. This is how a manufacturing system works in a country such as the United States. It has ripple effects far beyond what some people might think. I met one of the great industrialists in Germany recently who is investing in Alabama. He told me we have to have a Renaissance in manufacturing in the industrialized first world, and he was very sincere about this. He is a highly intelligent, accomplished man. As you can see from this map, this little plant in Alabama is supporting people in Mississippi; Cullman, AL; Atlanta, GA; Volunteer Thread in Nashville; Wiggy's in Clinton, TN. They make sleeping bags. I have a letter from them saying their business will be threatened too. Martex Fiber in Spartanburg; Consolidated Fibers in Charlotte; Royal Slide in New Jersey; Polartec in Lawrence, MA; Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Colorado, and California. So these things have ramifications. Indeed, recently, by chance, I was talking to a person with deep experience in the textile industry, and he told me they are becoming more competitive. He says we are actually gaining back jobs from abroad. That is exactly what was happening here. This man gambled. He bet on the United States. He didn't know they would figure out a way to go to Bangladesh and undercut him. So this carve-out created for Czechoslovakia, discovered and used by a Chinese company, is creating jobs abroad and not in the United States. So the proposed fix I have suggested is not some sort of corporate welfare. It would not lower taxes for any business. Indeed, it would ensure we collect a little tariff duty on products coming in from Bangladesh. They can ship them in, but they have to pay the normal tariff of 9 percent on imported textiles. It would not add one cent to the deficit of the United States. It would give no loan guarantees, no subsidies, no handouts. The fix simply declares sleeping bags are what they are--textiles--and subject to the rules of textiles under GSP. Really, it would ensure Exxel and other companies in the United States have the same competitive position they had before this plant was moved to Bangladesh. Some are calling this an earmark. I don't believe that is true or fair to say. Earmarks give direct financial benefit to an entity through tax benefits or government grants. This is not a grant. It does not eliminate tariffs so Exxel will pay less taxes. It doesn't give a direct benefit to Exxel. It does not cost the United States one cent. It eliminates an unfair earmark that already allows a Chinese-run company to purchase raw materials worldwide, manufacture sleeping bags at a Bangladesh factory, and then import them into the United States duty free. I repeat: I am trying to strip an earmark. I am trying to actually strip an earmark for China from the bill that is before us. I am asking that we uphold the values and rules we have put into law. I don't know how this was changed after Congress passed it in 1974, stating if you import textiles you have to pay a tariff unless there is no domestic manufacturer of that textile against whom you are competing. How that got changed, I am not sure. So I ask that we eliminate the special benefit that has been provided to this country and this one textile. Exxel is just one company that is currently being hammered by this unfair loophole. They are indeed in financial threat. They were supplying 30 percent of the sleeping bags in the United States. They saw a decline of 20 percent already in that product. Mr. President, I will offer for the Record letters written by other businesses in support of Exxel's efforts. Stein Fibers of Charlotte says: Exxel Outdoors has been a solid customer of Stein Fibers, Ltd for many years. We supply synthetic fiberfill for sleeping bags made at their Haleyville, Alabama factory. Wiggy's Inc. says: Bangladesh recently entered the U.S. market and supplied over 700,000 sleeping bags last year. Wiggy's makes sleeping bags in Grand Junction, CO. They have copied their Senators, and they ask that we support my effort. Rusken corrugated containers in Cullman, AL, supplies the shipping packages for these products as they are shipped. Dunlap Industries in Chattanooga, TN, says they are one of the largest suppliers of thread in the United States, and Exxel is a customer of theirs. Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation in Tupelo, MS, is also a supplier of Exxel. Royal Slide Sales Company, Inc., of Garfield, NJ, says: As Royal Slide provides sleeping bag carry cases to Exxel's Haleyville, Alabama factory, the resulting decrease in their business from this surge in duty-free importation of synthetic fill sleeping bags is directly leading to a decrease in our business. They support reform. Martex Fiber says: We are a major supplier of fiberfill to Exxel Outdoors. We have been proud to watch one of the last-- Listen to this-- We have been proud to watch one of the last remaining American sleeping bag factories keep going steadily, even as virtually all its competitors moved their facilities to other countries. They go on to say that Exxel is entitled to relief. Consolidated Fibers of Charlotte, NC, says: The impact on our company will be great if the Exxel Outdoors factory is forced out of business by these foreign imports without duty. We supply a great deal of fiberfill to Exxel on an ongoing basis. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these letters be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS. Companies in North Carolina, New Jersey, Tennessee, Colorado, and Mississippi are asking for help on this matter. I support the GSP. I believe in trade. I will continue to support it. But I only ask that when we have a problem, either the USTR or the Congress listen to somebody and fix it every now and then, not just consider we have a big train here and we are not going to stop to listen to anybody with a suggestion for improvement. A small change will prevent an unfair benefit from accruing to a Chinese company and will prevent more Americans from losing their jobs. This will ensure that trade is free and principled and plentiful. Senator Baucus and I have talked about this, and he has looked at me sadly and listened patiently. But we are down at the licklog, and no relief has been obtained, and that is why I am here today. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to share a few thoughts on the passing of Senator Chuck Percy. Among other things he did in his remarkable life--successful in business and politics--he had a connection to Mobile, AL, my hometown. I believe he was born in Pensacola, FL, and was connected to Thomas Hord Herndon, who was a Congressman from Alabama and resided in Mobile and was well known. I am a distant descendent of Congressman Herndon, and I can always remember, as a young person, particularly my great- aunts talking about him. They followed his career, and I began to follow his career. Maybe it was a factor in my becoming a Republican at a time in Alabama when most were not. He was successful and young and vibrant and created a great image for public service, and it filtered down to this young guy in rural Alabama in a positive way. So I would just say, Senator Rockefeller, we have lost a great American. He had a tremendously successful career in business and politics. He was a man of integrity and drive and commitment and good spirit. I think we are wise in this body to pause a moment and to be appreciative and to remember people who serve their country in that fashion. My sympathies are with the Percy family and the Rockefeller family. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are looking at a FEMA emergency supplemental. There is no doubt this country has sustained a series of disasters that will require Federal support and funding. We have seen them in Alabama, my home State, where we had the worst series of tornadoes in history, and some of the most powerful, that completely demolished two-story brick homes with nothing but foundations left. Lives were lost to an extraordinary degree, and people were injured. We have had floods. We have had fires and droughts around the country. We have some of that every year, and some of this is unusual. So it is incumbent upon us in Congress to wrestle with that and to try to figure out what should be done and how we can best supplement the insurance and State actions and local people's abilities to respond and share a bit of the pain throughout the country. Since I have been interested in the emergency bill and I have some ideas, I was surprised we were told it was going to be added to the Burma sanctions bill, and it was going to be $6.9 billion. I hadn't had a chance to know and review and see what those numbers were and whether they were justified. But Majority Leader Reid said we want to move to that. That is what we want to do. Some said--and surely it is not true--that Senator Reid was setting a trap for the Republicans; that he would offer this bill, throw it out there, and he would have extra money in it and we would complain. Then he would say: The Republicans don't love people who have suffered with a disaster as I love people who have suffered with a disaster. You don't care. You don't want to help people who are hurting. You are not good people. I am a good person. I love them more than you do. I hope that is not true. I do not believe it is true. Surely, it is not true. But I will just point this out: that President Obama's funding request for this supplemental that we have seen was for $500 million in 2011, $4.6 billion for next year, totaling $5.1 billion. That is what the President proposed. But the Senate Democrats' proposal that Senator Reid has moved forward has $804 million in 2011, $6.1 billion in 2012, for a total of $6.9 billion. That is about almost a $2 billion difference. You know they say: That is not much money, just $2 billion. We spend a lot more money than that around here on all kinds of things, and we shouldn't worry about it, Sessions. You are just slowing down the emergency bill. It has to go through right now. I just pointed out previously that $2 billion is a lot of money. We have an education budget in my State that is pretty sizable, but the basic general fund budget of Alabama is about $2 billion. We are an average-sized State. We are about one-fiftieth--4 million people--of the United States. So $2 billion is $2 billion. A billion here and a billion there, you are talking about real money. I am just raising a question. I suggest that this kind of rapid spending, emotional, political movement of money through this body is why this country has gotten into financial trouble. We just increase the pricetag for a bill by $2 billion and rush it through and attack anybody who has the gumption to stand, such as Senator Tom Coburn, and raise some real questions about it. How much of this can we pay for? Can we pay for it all--we probably could and probably should--or pay for part of it so it is not borrowed? You see, an emergency in general is debt. When we declare something an emergency, we are adding to the debt. It means it is not under the budget. We have a budget limit, and all spending is supposed to be under our budgetary limit, although we have not had a budget in 2 years. But when we do a supplemental, it does not count that way. I have seen the Presiding Officer be pretty sophisticated in these things. I remember, I was talking to a senior Congressman about an emergency bill years ago that was not truly an emergency, and he said: Well, Jeff, we need to put it on the emergency supplemental. I said: Why? He said: It doesn't count against the deficit. I said: Why? He said: I don't know. It just doesn't count. What he meant was it was not part of the budgetary numbers. It was on top of it. It added to the debt in general. We have to be careful about that. We are borrowing now 40 cents of every $1 we spend. That is not a misprint. I am not speaking erroneously. Forty cents of every $1 that is spent this year is borrowed. Responsible senatorial management requires us to examine the legislation. When we have a bill that is about 40 percent more than the President asked for, maybe that ought to throw up a red flag around here. Maybe we ought to examine it more closely because every single penny that is spent should be spent wisely. There are two areas: Are we spending money that is not needed at all--and we have had some of that under emergency spending--or are we spending money that could be spent better on other problems that arose from the emergency than the problems we are spending it on? I have been to hurricane damages, I have been to flood damages, I have been to tornado damages, drought damages. It is hard to get the money to the people who truly need it and whom you can justify. This is not just throwing money at something. So we can do a better job of that. Congress needs to be more involved. I think $2 billion is a lot. We ought to be careful before we do that. Most of the money is not going to get spent until next year, by far. Overwhelmingly, 80 percent of it is to be spent next year. I believe we ought to be taking time to do this right. I would also like to take the opportunity, while I have the floor, to address this morning's hearing in the Budget Committee, on which I am the ranking member. At today's hearing, I emphasized the economic danger our country is facing as a result of the increasing deficit. We had three economists testify. Two of them were selected by our Democratic majority colleagues. We asked whether they agreed that it would be wise to pursue policies that create jobs without creating debt. They all acknowledge that increasing debt is a dangerous thing. We discussed whether we should seek ways to create jobs and growth in America without adding to the debt. Wouldn't that be smart? They all agreed it would--things such as producing more American energy, reducing costly bureaucratic regulations, and instituting growth- oriented tax reform. All three witnesses said those are good things to do for America. I would say, if we are going to spend $7 billion or $5 billion on an emergency, it helps Americans' growth, productivity, and competitiveness if that money is spent the best possible way, every penny of it to help people truly in need and to help increase our national productivity. Those are some of the concerns I have. I just wanted to share those thoughts because I think we would have been better off had this bill come through the regular process, we had full testimony from the administration witnesses, from FEMA, which will be handling the money, setting forth in detail where they expect to spend the money, how it is needed, and how they are going to do it in a way that is fair and helps the people in the right way. I do not believe the way this bill is moving is careful enough, and I believe it places at risk the treasury of the United States. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, in recent days the President has repeatedly told Congress to pass the stimulus package immediately. This began during his joint address to Congress last week when he said at one point: I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. You should pass this jobs plan right away. Pass this jobs bill--pass this jobs bill. Immediately following the President's joint address to the Congress, Press Secretary Jay Carney declared: The President will submit a bill early next week, the American Jobs Act, which will specify how he proposes paying for the American Jobs Act. As ranking Republican on the Budget Committee and wrestling with these difficult issues--I know Senator Cardin is a member of the committee--we tried to figure out what this means and how much money the spending will be. But the bill that was transmitted to Congress Monday afternoon does not contain any fiscal tables, costs for any of his provisions, actually how those provisions will be paid for and when the pay-for will occur, or even an overall pricetag for the bill. How can the President call on Congress to ``pass this bill immediately'' when no one even knows how much it will cost or where the money is coming from? I sent a letter yesterday to the President's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jack Lew, asking that this information be provided to the Congress at once. But so far we have had no response. Part of the reason we need this information is that the total cost of the President's bill may be much higher than advertised. That has been the pattern around here. No one should be surprised. When the President said his plan would be ``paid for,'' he did not specify if he meant the total cost--to include increased interest resulting from the borrowed money to be spent immediately--or just the cost of the jobs provisions alone, actually how much goes out the door. Depending on whether the money is spent out and when it is paid back--assuming it is ever paid back--interest costs resulting from just this bill's borrowing could top $100 billion. In other words, the interest on the money over the 10-year window, the 10-year budget we are talking about--if we spend $450 billion now, we pay interest on that money. It is borrowed money. People loan us the money and we pay interest. Interest rates alone now--CBO projects them to go up, our Congressional Budget Office. Certainly they will. They are extraordinarily low today. But, at any rate, we could easily see the interest on this money over 10 years reaching $100 billion. The problem with looking at it as a 10-year scenario is that the debt is probably not going to be paid off in 10 years. Most of the debts we run up will be part of our deficit. If we want to raise taxes to fund a new program, maybe we ought to raise taxes to pay off the debt we have instead of spending it on a new program. The debt we have distributes American wealth to people who hold our debt all over the world. In my letter to OMB, I request tables showing the year-by-year data for this bill's budgetary impact, including projected changes to the deficit for each of the next 10 years. In other words, how will it play out? If we spend $450 billion in 1, 2, or 3 years, how much does that run up the debt? When does the repayment begin? How will it be paid, and at what rate? If the President wants to advocate for a sharp, near- term increase in the deficit in exchange for the possibility of some undefined economic future, with the possibility of a stimulus, he ought to make that argument clearly to the American people. I believe the President also needs to be honest in admitting that the bill's short-term costs would wipe out--obliterate--the $7 billion in savings next year resulting from the debt limit deal. In other words, we went through this long, painful exercise that resulted in an agreement in the eleventh hour and the 59th minute to save $900 billion, and then, hopefully, form a committee that would save another $1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, only a fraction of this $2.1 billion in savings, of the $13 trillion the Congressional Budget Office tells us will be added to the debt in the next 10 years. So it would save a little over $2 trillion over 10 years but, at the same time, we are running up over $10 trillion in debt. So it is not a big enough step. It is a step. There is progress. I certainly respect that, but it wasn't much. To show us how small it is, next year we are projected, under the agreement Congress ratified, to reduce spending by $7 billion. That is all. That is all it would be reduced from this year to next year in actual spending levels. So I ask my colleagues: Don't we need to be careful? After all the effort we took to achieve that much savings, shouldn't we think very carefully about a new stimulus plan that would spend $450 billion, obliterating that savings? I think we should. But, at any rate, we do need to know precisely how much it is going to cost and precisely how the money would be spent. Let's flash back to February. The Office of Management and Budget Director, Jack Lew, said this. This was when the President submitted his budget for the next 10 years. It was brought up here on the floor of the Senate. In fact, I brought it up. It was voted down 97 to nothing. But this is what Mr. Lew said about that budget: Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we're not adding to the debt anymore; we're spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down the national debt. We all know there is a certain amount of political license people get to utilize in the political world, and exaggeration sometimes is forgiven. But let me tell my colleagues, this is the Office of Management and Budget talking about the President's budget that he had just submitted to Congress. He said: Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we're not adding to the debt anymore; we're spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our national debt. What is the truth? The Congressional Budget Office scored this budgetary plan and this is what they concluded: that over a 10-year period there would be huge deficits every single year. In about year 6 or 7, the lowest deficit would occur--$750 billion would be the lowest annual deficit that would occur--and by the 10th year we would be back up to $1 trillion. President Bush's largest deficit he ever had was $450 billion and he was criticized for that. So we are going to have the lowest--and he says this is going to pay down the debt and wouldn't be adding more to the debt if we passed his budget, when his budget spent more, taxed more, and ran up more debt. I believe this is the most irresponsible budget ever submitted to the Congress of the United States, at a time of national crisis, when all experts are telling us the greatest threat to our national security is our debt. Forgive me if I want to see the fine print on this legislation, when an administration tells us that--and the President said very similar things; the President himself said very similar things--we would not be adding more to the debt. We in Congress raised the legal debt limit--I did not vote for that particular bill--but we have breached, I am afraid, our economic debt limit. America's $14.5 trillion gross debt is now 100 percent of our GDP, our economy. Experts tell us we have already crossed a dangerous threshold. Our debt is pulling down growth and putting a damper on job creation right now. We have to ask ourselves: Can we continue to borrow, running up even more debt in the hope that we can spend it today in a sugar-high type stimulus to create jobs in the short run? The Congressional Budget Office scored the first stimulus package 2 years ago that has come nowhere near achieving what was promised for it. They said, OK, if you spend $825 billion now, you will get some short-term economic benefit, but scored over a decade, we would have an economic decline. The net growth of the United States would be less over 10 years than if we didn't pass a stimulus package at all. When we get up to 100 percent of GDP, I submit it is even more dangerous to keep running up debt. This is a dilemma. We are in a fix. The economy is not growing the way we wish it to grow. CBO was projecting in January of this year that economic growth for the first 6 months would be about 2.9 percent. We were hoping that would be true. But what happened? The first quarter of this fiscal year it was .4 percent--not 2 percent, not 2.9 percent--and the second quarter was extremely low also. We have averaged about 1 percent growth the first half of this year. We want to do something to help this economy grow. I submit we should do everything we can that would help our economy grow now that does not run up the debt. What are some of those things? Producing more energy at home, creating jobs here; pumping more energy supply which could bring down the cost of energy. We can bring down the cost of energy, create jobs, create tax revenue, and create growth that way. We should eliminate every regulation that is not beneficial to this economy, and there are a lot of them. Some regulations are good. Many of them add costs to the entire economy for little or no benefit. We need to have the kind of tax reform of a permanent nature that creates confidence in our economy--the kind of tax reform that advances economic growth rather than increasing taxes to give Washington more money. Those are my suggestions about how to deal with this. First and foremost, we are going to look at this proposal. We certainly are worried about the status of the economy today. We are deeply disappointed in the job numbers that continue to fall and, hopefully, we will find the key to changing that. But fundamentally the economy will come back and jobs will come back when growth occurs and growth will occur not in the public sector but in the private sector. We need to ask ourselves what it is we can do to create a better climate for growth and job creation. We need to be rigorous in analyzing the President's proposal, and to look at the details of it and how much it is going to cost and how we plan to pay it back. I think at a very minimum, we are entitled to that. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, our country is in a very serious economic crisis. We are told by Mr. Erskine Bowles and Senator Alan Simpson--Erskine Bowles was chosen by President Obama to head his debt commission. They gave a statement to the Budget Committee, on which I am ranking member, that this Nation has never faced a more predictable economic crisis based on the size of our debt. All of us know that. The American people are angry with us. They cannot believe it is possible we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. We are spending $3.7 trillion this fiscal year ending September 30. We will take in $2.2 trillion, give or take a few hundred billion. This is not acceptable. We cannot continue. How did it happen? How is it possible we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that goes out the door, increasing the permanent debt of the United States? Well, one way is what is happening now before us on the bill that is being moved today by Majority Leader Reid. It would add $6.9 billion to the FEMA account for emergencies. We just saw the legislation less than an hour ago, maybe 30 minutes ago. Has anybody given any serious thought to that? Seven billion dollars? The general fund budget of the State of Alabama is $2 billion. Mr. President, $7 billion is a lot of money, and we have not looked at it, we have not thought about it. It is above the budget, I guess above our budget numbers. We do not have a budget. Senator Reid said earlier this year it would be foolish to have a budget--foolish to have a budget. We are now well over 860 days in this Senate without having passed a budget. Is that another reason we are spending the country into bankruptcy? Well, I do not think this is an appropriate thing. I strongly oppose adding another emergency debt spending bill where we have not carefully examined every penny of it to make sure it is all necessary and appropriate. No one has seen those numbers and the analysis that would justify it. I come from a State that was hammered with the worst series of tornadoes we have ever suffered in Alabama. I have been to those communities and towns and seen those families who have lost all they had, who have lost loved ones and have injured family members. I know we are going to need to have emergency spending for those programs. We have fires in Texas and we also have flooding. We know that. We have certain money set aside for emergencies already. How much more do we need to spend? I do not know yet. I wish to have some very careful expert analysis done before we announce another $7 billion. Forgive me if I am frustrated. I think the American people are frustrated. We went through a continual battle for weeks, months, really, over the debt ceiling. I did not like the way that bill was written. I know we had to face up to it, though, and do some things. So we finally reached an agreement. I did not vote for it in the end. But it was supposed to save $2.1 trillion to $2.5 trillion--$2,500 billion, $2,000 billion--over 10 years. Next year--the fiscal year beginning October 1--it would reduce the spending for next year by $7 billion--the very same amount now the majority leader wants us to throw in on top of that as emergency spending, not within our spending limits, not controlled by our spending limits, wiping out that entire saving for next year. Add on top of that, the President has now announced he wants to spend $450 billion more. And do not worry, it will be paid for, he told us in the speech Thursday night. How would it be paid for? Well, we will have this debt committee--I will send them a note and say: You cut another $450 billion over 10 years. Just promise that you will cut another $450 billion over 10 years, and I will spend $450 billion now. That is the way we are heading down the road to uncontrollable debt. I understand the President has announced he wants to raise taxes on businesses and all by $450 billion, and we may get a proposal on how to do that today. I do not know. We will see how it turns out. I expect to read it. I would expect the President, if he is serious, would tell us precisely what taxes he intends to increase and how much they will bring in. We have to pass it now, we are told, but we have not seen the legislation, to my knowledge, yet. They promised it today. This is not, in my humble opinion, sound management. The President of the United States has an Office of Management and Budget. Four hundred, five hundred people work there. He is the superintendent of every Cabinet department in our country. They all work at his pleasure. The subcabinet people work for him. He has the entire agencies he can call on to help produce proposals--the Commerce Department, the Treasury Department--on what taxes to raise and what taxes not to, how much should be brought in. We have opportunities. The President has the staff to send us a detailed proposal about what kind of emergency spending we ought to be undertaking. I do not know if Senator Reid conjured this up among his staff or whether he has gotten a detailed proposal from the House, from the President. Suffice it to say, I hope my colleagues will not move forward to a bill that contains $7 billion in new spending above our statutory limits that were passed in this debt ceiling--why? Basically to obviate the need of having a budget. We need not to be moving to legislation and rushing through that kind of new spending program because that is precisely how it is that day after day, week after week, we have increased spending in this country to the point that it cannot be sustained. Every witness before the Budget Committee has told us we are on an unsustainable path. I just had occasion to go over the food stamp numbers. I knew the food stamp numbers had been going up. When President Bush left office, we were spending $31 billion, I believe it was, on food stamps. This year we will spend $79 billion. President Obama will have doubled spending on food stamps--doubled it--in 3 years, not 4. His first year in office, food stamp spending increased 46 percent. We need to look under the hood of the engine of this program. We want to be sure poor people have food. We are willing to do that. Everybody is. But at a time of fiscal challenge for our Nation, a time of the largest debt we have ever seen, we have to examine all of our programs. Can we justify those kinds of increases? Can we justify emergency spending that is unthought out and not carefully accounted for? I do not think so. I think we should not go to legislation that seeks to do that, and I would oppose cloture on this legislation if that is what is happening, as I believe it is.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 600, which is at the desk.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the amendment that I have offered is a very important amendment. It is one that I believe is important to the integrity of the U.S. legal system and to the integrity of the Senate. It is a matter that I have been wrestling with and objecting to for over a decade. I thought the matter had been settled, frankly, but it has not because it has been driven by one of the most ferocious lobbying efforts the Congress maybe has seen. The House patent bill as originally passed out of committee and taken to the floor of the House did not include a bailout for Medco, the WilmerHale law firm, or the insurance carrier for that firm, all of whom were in financial jeopardy as a result of a failure to file a patent appeal timely. I have practiced law hard in my life. I have been in court many times. I spent 12 years as a U.S. Attorney and tried cases. I am well aware of how the system works. The way the system works in America, you file lawsuits and you are entitled to your day in court. But if you do not file your lawsuit in time, within the statute of limitations, you are out. When a defendant raises a legal point of order--a motion to dismiss-- based on the failure of the complaining party to file their lawsuit timely, they are out. That happens every day to poor people, widow ladies. And it does not make any difference what your excuse is, why you think you have a good lawsuit, why you had this idea or that idea. Everyone is required to meet the same deadlines. In Alabama they had a situation in which a lady asked a probate judge when she had to file her appeal by, and the judge said: You can file it on Monday. As it turned out, Monday was too late. They went to the Alabama Supreme Court, and who ruled: The probate judge--who does not have to be a lawyer--does not have the power to amend the statute of limitations. Sorry, lady. You are out. Nobody filed a bill in the Congress to give her relief, or the thousands of others like her every day. So Medco and WilmerHale seeking this kind of relief is a big deal. To whom much has been given, much is required. This is a big-time law firm, one of the biggest law firms in America. Medco is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the country. And presumably the law firm has insurance that they pay to insure them if they make an error. So it appears that they are not willing to accept the court's ruling. One time an individual was asking me: Oh, Jeff, you let this go. Give in and let this go. I sort of as a joke said to the individual: Well, if WilmerHale will agree not to raise the statute of limitations against anybody who sues their clients if they file a lawsuit late, maybe I will reconsider. He thought I was serious. Of course WilmerHale is not going to do that. If some poor person files a lawsuit against someone they are representing, and they file it one hour late, WilmerHale will file a motion to dismiss it. And they will not ask why they filed it late. This is law. It has to be objective. It has to be fair. You are not entitled to waltz into the U.S. Congress--well connected--and start lobbying for special relief. There is nothing more complicated about that than this. So a couple of things have been raised. Well, they suggest, we should not amend the House patent bill, and that if we do, it somehow will kill the legislation. That is not so. Chairman Leahy has said he supports the amendment, but he doesn't want to vote for it because it would keep the bill from being passed somehow. It would not keep it from being passed. Indeed, the bill that was brought to the House floor didn't have this language in it. The first vote rejected the attempt to put this language in it. It failed. For some reason, in some way, a second vote was held, and it was passed by a few votes. So they are not going to reject the legislation if we were to amend it. What kind of system are we now involved in in the Senate if we can't undo an amendment? What kind of argument is it to say: Jeff, I agree with your amendment, and I agree it is right that they should not get this special relief, but I can't vote for it because it might cause a problem? It will not cause a problem. The bill will pass. It should never have been put in there in the first place. Another point of great significance is the fact that this issue is on appeal. The law firm asserted they thought--and it is a bit unusual-- that because it came in late Friday they had until Monday. We can count the days to Monday--the 60 days or whatever they had to file the answer. I don't know if that is good law, but they won. The district court has ruled for them. It is on appeal now to the court of appeals. This Congress has no business interfering in a lawsuit that is ongoing and is before an appeals court. If they are so confident their district court ruling is correct, why are they continuing to push for this special relief bill, when the court of appeals will soon, within a matter of months, rule? Another point: We have in the Congress a procedure to deal with special relief. If this relief is necessary at all, it should go through as a special relief bill. I can tell you one reason it is not going there now: you can't ask for special relief while the matter is still in litigation, it is still on appeal. Special relief also has procedures that one has to go through and justify in an objective way, which I believe would be very healthy in this situation. For a decade, virtually--I think it has been 10 years--I have been objecting to this amendment. Now we are here, I thought it was out, and all of a sudden it is slipped in by a second vote in the House, and we are told we just can't make an amendment to the bill. Why? The Senate set up the legislation to be brought forward, and we can offer amendments and people can vote for them or not. This matter has gotten a lot of attention. The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times both wrote about it in editorials today. This is what the New York Times said today about it: But critics who have labeled the provision ``The Dog Ate My Homework Act'' say it is really a special fix for one drug manufacturer, the Medicines Company, and its powerful law firm, WilmerHale. The company and its law firm, with hundreds of millions of dollars in drug sales at stake, lobbied Congress heavily for several years to get the patent laws changed. That is what the Wall Street Journal said in their editorial. The Wall Street Journal understands business reality and litigation reality. They are a critic of the legal system at times and a supporter at times. I think they take a principled position in this instance. The Wall Street Journal editorial stated: We take no pleasure in seeing the Medicine Company and WilmerHale suffer for their mistakes, but they are run by highly paid professionals who know the rules and know that consistency of enforcement is critical to their businesses. Asking Congress to break the rules as a special favor corrupts the law. I think that is exactly right. It is exactly right. Businesses, when they are sued by somebody, use the statute of limitations every day. This law firm makes hundreds of millions of dollars in income a year. Their partners average over $1 million a year, according to the New York Times. That is pretty good. They ought to be able to pay a decent malpractice insurance premium. The New York Times said WilmerHale reported revenues of $962 million in 2010, with a profit of $1.33 million per partner. Average people have to suffer when they miss the statute of limitations. Poor people suffer when they miss the statute of limitations. But we are undertaking, at great expense to the taxpayers, to move a special interest piece of legislation that I don't believe can be justified as a matter of principle. I agree with the Wall Street Journal that the adoption of it corrupts the system. We ought not be a part of that. I love the American legal system. It is a great system, I know. I have seen judges time and time again enter rulings based on law and fact even if they didn't like it. That is the genius and reliability and integrity of the American legal system. I do not believe we can justify, while this matter is still in litigation, passing a special act to give a wealthy law firm, an insurance company, and a health care company special relief. I just don't believe we should do that. I oppose it, and I hope my colleagues will join us. I think we have a real chance to turn this back. Our Congress and our Senate will be better for it; we really will. The Citizens Against Government Waste have taken an interest in this matter for some time. They said: Congress has no right to rescue a company from its own mistakes. Companies have a right to assert the law. Companies have a right to assert the law against individuals. But when the time comes for the hammer to fall on them for their mistake, they want Congress to pass a special relief bill. I don't think it is the right thing to do. Mr. President, let's boil it down to several things. First, if the company is right and the law firm is right that they did not miss the statute of limitations, I am confident the court of appeals will rule in their favor, and it will not be necessary for this Senate to act. If they do not prevail in the court of appeals and don't win their argument, then there is a provision for private relief in the Congress, and they ought to pursue that. There are special procedures. The litigation will be over, and they can bring that action at that time. That is the basic position we ought to be in. A bill that comes out of the Judiciary Committee ought to be sensitive to the legal system, to the importance of ensuring that the poor are treated as well as the rich. The oath judges take is to do equal justice to the poor and the rich. How many other people in this country are getting special attention today on the floor of the Senate? How many? I truly believe this is not good policy. I have had to spend far more hours fighting this than I have ever wanted to when I decided 10 years ago that this was not a good way to go forward. Many battle this issue, and I hope and trust that the Members of the Senate who will be voting on this will allow it to follow the legitimate process. Let the litigation work its way through the system. If they do not prevail in the litigation, let a private relief bill be sought and debated openly and publicly to see if it is justified. That would be the right way to do it--not slipping through this amendment and then not voting to remove it on the basis that we should not be amending a bill before us. We have every right to amend the bill, and we should amend the bill. I know Senator Grassley, years ago, was on my side. I think it was just the two of us who took this position. I guess I have more than expressed my opinion. I thank the chairman for his leadership. I thank him and Senator Grassley for their great work on this important patent bill. I support that bill. I believe they have moved it forward in a fair way. The chairman did not put this language into the bill; it was put in over in the House. I know he would like to see the bill go forward without amendments. I urge him to think it through and see if he cannot be willing to support this amendment. I am confident it will not block final passage of the legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, the oath that judges take is to do equal justice, and it says for the poor and the rich. Every day statutes of limitations require that a litigant file a lawsuit within so many days and file petitions in so many days. I see Senator Cornyn, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court and attorney general of Texas. He fully understands that. I know he supports my view of this issue; that is, that the rules have to be equally applied. It is just not right to the little widow lady, it is not right that somebody with a poor lawyer, or whatever, misses a deadline and a judge throws the case out. And they do. Big law firms such as WilmerHale file motions every day to dismiss cases based on delay in filing those cases. Big insurance companies file lawsuits, file motions to dismiss every day against individuals who file their claims too late--and they win. So when this big one has a good bit of risk, presumably they have a good errors and omissions policy--that is what they are supposed to do. One reason they get paid the big bucks--and the average partner makes $1 million-plus a year--is because they have high responsibilities, and they are required to meet those responsibilities and be responsible. So I believe it is improper for us, while this matter is on appeal and in litigation, to take action driven by this continual lobbying pressure that would exempt one company. They can say it is others involved, but, look, this is always about one company. I have been here for 10 years. I know how it is played out. I have seen it. I have talked to the advocates on their behalf. I just haven't been able to agree to it because I see the average person not getting the benefit they are due. So I urge my colleagues to join in support of this amendment. The Wall Street Journal and others have editorialized in favor of it, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, the debt crisis has become a jobs crisis. There is no doubt in my mind that the debt we have now incurred is already weakening our economy. The gross Federal debt has increased by almost $5 trillion since President Obama took office, surging past 100 percent of our gross domestic product--100 percent of the size of the economy. Academic research shows this level of debt is already costing us 1 million jobs a year. Our debt is destroying growth and confidence in the economy. More borrowing--more borrowing--will only make matters worse. But according to the Associated Press in an article today, the President's job plan will add another $300 billion to the debt. This is the article by David Espo: The economy weak and the public seething, President Obama is expected to propose $300 billion in tax cuts and Federal spending Thursday night to get Americans working again. I would say that is what he says will get the American people working again. But we have already borrowed all we can borrow without damaging the economy. It has come to a point where we can't keep borrowing in a futile attempt to stimulate the economy when the increased debt itself is weakening the economy. The article goes on to say this: According to people familiar with White House deliberations, two of the biggest measures in the proposal for 2012-- that begins October 1 of this year, fiscal year 2012-- are expected to be a one-year extension of the payroll tax for workers and an extension of expiring jobless benefits. Together those two would total about $170 billion. It goes on: The White House is also considering a tax credit for businesses that hire the unemployed. That could cost about $30 billion. Obama has also called for public works projects, such as school construction. Advocates of that plan have called for spending of $50 billion . . . on school construction. I don't think school buildings are the problem with our education right now, and when we don't have any money, we have to be careful about borrowing more to spend. It goes on to say--and this is significant: Though Obama has said he intends to propose long-term deficit reduction measures to cover the up-front costs of his jobs plan, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would not lay out a wholesale deficit reduction plan in his speech. In other words, he won't lay out a plan that would pay for it. So this is where we are heading, it seems to me. Remember the big debate we had over the debt ceiling that ended just before our August recess at the eleventh hour and the 59th minute. We remember how much spending reductions it would call for in the next fiscal year: $7 billion. That is how much we would actually cut spending next fiscal year: $7 billion. And this plan has called for over $300 billion in spending anew, not paid for. We are already in debt. We are already borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend, and we are going to add another $300 billion in spending, not paid for, borrowed, every penny of it. At some point, this country gets to a position where we cannot continue to borrow without damaging the economy. It is that simple. Americans understand it. As one man told me in Evergreen, AL: you can't borrow your way out of debt. You cannot borrow your way out of debt. We have reached and gone past that limit, in my opinion. In order to have the kind of robust growth we desperately need, we must remove the looming threat of a Greek-like debt crisis. We must do so. This debt has a chilling effect throughout our economy. Indeed, a European banker just a few days ago said this feels like 2008, and that gained quite a bit of traction because people were feeling that, but nobody was saying it, and he was quoted all over the business channels about 2008 and the crisis we might be facing. But the President has refused to do anything to actually reduce the surge in spending that he has engineered, nor have our Senate Democratic colleagues here in the Senate. The House proposed a sound budget plan that would reduce spending over the next 10 years and change the debt trajectory of America, but we spent almost $8 trillion here in the Congress since the Senate Democratic majority has passed a budget--861 days. In fact, the Lewis and Clark expedition lasted 860 days. We have passed that now, without having a budget. That is a do- nothing record. It just is. At a time of national crisis, we have a failure of leadership in the Senate and in the Presidency, in my opinion. President Obama has never once looked the American people in the eye and told them the bitter truth about the economic dangers we are facing and how much work must be done to get us back on a sound, secure path. It is hard to ask a people to sacrifice. It is hard to ask the American public to make tough choices if the President, our leader, will not affirm that we need to make these choices because it is a serious threat to America. Admiral Mullen, who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has stated that the greatest threat to our security is the national debt. Every expert tells us that the greatest threat to our country is the debt. In my opinion, it dwarfs any other threat this Nation faces. Yet according to the Associated Press, the President's speech is going to talk about spending and nothing about how to deal with the debt, or nothing significant about that. So the rhetoric needs to confront reality. The President has given a number of speeches about creating jobs and reducing the deficit. But a speech is no substitute for a budget or for a detailed plan. The only plan the President has ever put on paper--the only plan that can be reviewed by the press, the public, and Congress--is his February budget. He reaffirmed that plan last week, sending Congress a midsession review that made no policy changes in his budget he submitted earlier. He had the 500-person Office of Management and Budget staff working for him. Is it too much to ask for a real plan? Whatever he may say on Thursday night, on paper--officially--he remains committed to this budget plan that grows the debt by about $12 trillion and raises taxes by about $2 trillion. What it does is it increases spending and increases taxes significantly, but the increase in spending is greater than the increase in taxes. So the net result is that the President's plan makes the budget projections we have from the Congressional Budget Office worse than they would be if we didn't have this budget plan. America needs the confidence that only a concrete plan can provide. The constant threat of more Federal taxing, borrowing, and regulating undermines confidence, certainty, and predictability in our economy, that which our economy so desperately needs. This isn't a question simply of ideology; it is a question of leadership. We need and have to grow the economy, not the government. We need to grow the economy. America needs a budget plan that recognizes a core truth. Our Nation's strength does not lie in the size of our government, but in the scope of our freedoms and in the creativity of our people. We need to focus on policies that unleash the enormous productive potential of the private sector. We need to focus on policies that remove instability fostered by the President's refusal to put forward a coherent economic plan that will actually reduce debt, not make it worse, and that would end the threat of high taxes and improve conditions for our job creators. Instead of the failed tax-and- spend approach the voters rejected in the last election, we need to focus on policies that create jobs--not more bureaucracy--helping to steady the economy in these difficult, uncertain times. That would include such things as energy production. We have definitely damaged and delayed significantly the production of energy in the gulf far beyond what was necessary. Only now is it beginning to come back. We are having incredibly increased regulations of every kind on our economy, and we have failed to undertake the kind of serious tax reform that could help create growth and productivity. So these are very dangerous things. I wish to remind our colleagues that the debt problem can't all be blamed on President Bush. I was a critic of some of his spending programs. But, for example, in the last 3 years of President Bush's plans compared to the first 3 years of President Obama's, he has increased spending for education 67 percent. His budget for the next fiscal year beginning October 1, which was defended a few weeks ago in the Appropriations Committee, calls for a 13.5-percent increase in the Education Department. His budget plan calls for a 10.5-percent increase in the Energy Department. I affectionately call them the Department of Anti-Energy, the Anti-Energy Department. The State Department is looking at a 10.5-percent increase. At a time when we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend, how can this be reality? Now we are talking about $300 billion which will be thrown in on top of this to stimulate the economy again. I hope and trust there are some things the government can do to improve the economy, but I am afraid we are at a point where borrowing more money is not one of them. Look what the Europeans have done. They are facing a similar crisis. Do they think they should borrow more and spend more? Is that what they are doing? No. They are taking their medicine. Italy is attempting to pass a $65 billion austerity plan that would balance their budget by 2013. The budget the President submitted to us does not even come close to balancing in 10 years. In fact, the projected annual 1-year deficit under the President's plan for the tenth year of his 10-year budget is $1 trillion plus. The highest budget deficit President Bush ever had was $450 billion. He will average almost $1 trillion a year--$1,000 billion average--over 10 years. The interest payment last year was $240 billion. The CBO projects in the tenth year after President Obama has doubled the deficit based on his budget, interest in 1 year will be $840 billion, crowding out things such as aid to education, which is $100 billion, Federal aid to highways, $40 billion. We cannot continue on this path. Italy is making a change. What about Spain? These are three of the so-called ``PIGS'' in Europe, the ones that are in financial trouble. Spain is planning a constitutional amendment and complementary law that will require close to balanced budgets at the Federal and State levels and to limit Federal debt to 60 percent of their economy. The enacted austerity plan reduces salaries of public sector workers and cuts public sector spending. Portugal has a 4-year consolidation plan that will reduce Federal spending by 7 percent of GDP and would balance the budget by 2015. We have no plan to balance the budget, nothing close to it. Indeed, the plan the President has submitted to us--and I am not exaggerating. This is in the record books. We have the two-volume budget he sent to us, and it has been analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office. It will average $1 trillion a year in deficits, which I suppose is why, when I brought it up, the Senate voted 97 to 0 to reject the budget. We do not have one. That is the only one that is pending. Our Democratic colleagues cancelled the budget markup in the Budget Committee in which I am the ranking Republican--we never even pretended to produce a budget this year. Senator Reid, the majority leader, said it would be ``foolish'' to do so. So we are now looking at a crisis that involves millions of Americans, the jobs they, hopefully, have now and hope to continue, and those who have lost their jobs. Unemployment has almost doubled. So we are facing a difficult time. I know the pressure is on to just do something so we can politically say we did something. But that is not sufficient now. We need mature, strong, detailed leadership, a detailed plan that will put us on a path to a sound economy.

Mr. SESSIONS. We need a plan. I hope the President will do more than the article in the newspaper says and provide the kind of specific leadership that can help us move forward from the economic difficulties we face. I yield the floor.