Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Akaka for his comments about the Senate and Senator Byrd, and I would share those. Certainly it is a good lead-in, I think, to the remarks and thoughts I wish to share right now. In the Senate, individual Senators have traditionally had substantial powers to participate in the debate and to offer amendments to improve legislation. The Senate has been described as the saucer which allows the hot coffee to cool, and I think that is a good description. I have been very concerned that Senator Coburn of Oklahoma, who has desired to offer just one or two amendments to legislation that is pending in the Senate before it becomes automatically passed into law, has systematically been denied that right and has been held up as someone who does not respect the body and is doing something wrong. I think that is a very bad analysis of the principled stands he takes. I think he is one of the finest Members of this Senate. He has the odd belief that a Senator should actually read the legislation, and if it can be improved and should be improved, a Senator has an obligation to offer an amendment to fix that, and he has done so. However, as we know, Senators have gotten into the habit of believing that if they have produced a piece of legislation and it is essentially a piece of legislation that a lot of people would agree ought to be passed without any debate and/or without, certainly, any amendments--and the majority leader, who I have to say is going to have to watch this and is going to lead continued activity in this area--to deny the fundamental right of Senators to debate and vote to improve legislation cannot continue without causing very serious disruption of the body because it changes the historical nature of it. I participated in a bankruptcy bill. It was my subcommittee. We passed the bankruptcy bill. It took several weeks. It was an important piece of legislation. We had 39 votes asked for by the Democrats, who were in the minority. They got those votes, and eventually the bill passed with 83 or 87 votes, I have forgotten which. That is what this body is capable of doing and should do much more often. Let me go back to what has happened here. Senator Coburn has objected to various pieces of legislation. They asked unanimous consent that the bill be passed without amendment and basically without debate. That is what the request is. Senator Coburn has said: Well, I have an amendment. I don't like section such-and-such. I don't approve of provisions in this bill that will restrict further our already restricted ability to produce oil and gas in America, for example or I don't want to see that become law or I think that expenditure in the bill is unacceptable and it ought to be eliminated or cut substantially or my constituents think this is not good policy for America, and I wish to at least be able to offer an amendment to it. Well, the powers that be are not comfortable with that. It has been done during Republican times, but it has gotten to the high-water mark now, where the leadership of the Senate systematically denies people the right to vote. I was really taken aback that Senator Coburn has announced that not a single amendment has been voted on in this Senate since July. How can that be? It is unthinkable to me that that has been the case, but I can't remember any. I know they were able to ram through a $700 billion TARP financial bailout without an amendment. Unthinkable. So I think the history, the integrity, the traditional role of the Senate is being eroded because leadership does not want votes. They don't want their members to have to take tough votes. That is what you hear. They want to pass bills quickly--let you have a little say and then pass the bill, but nobody really gets to try to offer amendments to make the bill better and anybody who insists on that is obstructing. So basically what has happened in this body is that we now have a public lands bill that has attached to it some of what Senator Coburn has objected to, and they want to move the bill without any amendments. I don't think that is right. Let me just say this about Senator Coburn: He is a medical doctor. He works extraordinarily hard. He is highly intelligent. He has been a successful businessman, an inventor, and one of the smartest Members of this body. He campaigned in his State that he was going to read the legislation that comes before this Senate and he would work to make it better. He committed to his people that he would work to control wasteful Washington spending. I think almost every Member of the Senate has said the same; the only difference is he does it with a tenacity and a courage and an analytical ability that few of us possess. He is willing to come down here and ruffle feathers by saying: I know, Senator, you love this bill and you think it is perfect, but I have a different view. I think this part of it ought to be fixed. I have an amendment, and I want a vote on it to see if my colleagues agree with me. We have gotten in the habit of denying this opportunity. If anybody thinks this is such an insignificant matter--when we passed last fall, over my objection, the financial bailout, the $700 billion bailout, I think I can say without fear of contradiction it was the greatest expenditure in the history of the Republic or allocation of Federal money in the history of the Republic. Not one amendment was allowed. Blame it on President Bush. Blame it on President Bush, but the Democrats had the majority in the Senate. I didn't support it. I would have been delighted to stand with them to object to the breadth of this bill, the lack of control that was exercised over $700 billion in taxpayers' money. But Senator Reid brought it up in a fashion that allowed no amendments, and they rammed it right through the great Senate of the United States, and we committed this country to $700 billion in expenditures and guarantees. Well, how did it work out? Most economists now tell us that using that money to buy stock in banks, private banks, to buy stock--$100 billion-plus--in a big insurance company with taxpayers' money has not helped the economy. Had the money been spent on buying toxic assets, as promised, it might have worked. At least we would have been further along in the game. Why did that happen? Secretary Paulson told us he wanted to buy toxic assets. He told us he didn't want to buy stock. He was asked about that in the House committee. He said: No, I don't think we should buy stock. But one thing Secretary Paulson told the Congress--and I was stunned by it, really--he said it publicly and repeatedly: I want maximum flexibility to do what I think is necessary to fix this economy. That is what this Senate gave him. Within a week of getting $700 billion to buy toxic mortgages to try to stabilize the housing market, he was spending the money to buy stock in banks and insurance companies--directly contrary to what he said. All I am saying to my colleagues is that the Senate is a great body. I am just commencing my third term. I remember when I first came up here and I attended a luncheon and they asked me to say something briefly. The words I recall saying were that I can think of no greater honor than to represent the people of Alabama in the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world. That is this Senate. But we are eroding that tradition, that heritage. If we can't have amendments, it can no longer be called the great U.S. Senate. I think Senator Byrd can't help but be uneasy about these trends in the Senate he has so loved and served for so long. We ought to be appreciative of Senator Coburn from Oklahoma for taking the time to study this legislation, to offer amendments to fix it and to make it better, and to serve in the classical manner of ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' to serve the American people. We ought not create a freight train designed to run over him and to silence and muzzle him and to deny him the ability to offer amendments. That is what we are about. There is no reason for us having to vote on Sunday except the majority leader has insisted on it and tried to blame Senator Coburn. If we are going to stay in session until Sunday, why are we not voting? Why don't we have some votes? What are they afraid of to have a vote? I am serious. What could be so fearful about casting votes? Isn't that what we were sent here to do? We know on every vote, we are going to make somebody unhappy. The Senate, since the founding of the Republic, has found it acceptable to vote. Why are we stopping voting now? I want to be counted in his favor. I know the legislation before us today has a number of good provisions in it. I support some of them, and some of them I have worked hard to support and see they are in the legislation. I don't think it is a horrible piece of legislation. But just as a matter of procedure, we ought not to deny good Senators the right to offer amendments. I object to that procedure. I believe we will have to confront this change in the procedures of the Senate because we are going to wake up and find it is not the same Senate we used to know. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask to have printed in the Record an article about Senator Elizabeth Dole, who will be departing the Senate this year. She has been my seatmate, and, I must say, she is my favorite in the entire Senate. A brilliant thinker, an incredibly hard worker, gracious, a person of sincere faith who lives it every day, she has lifted the Senate to a higher level throughout her tenure and through many difficult times. Her record of service, as Paul Weyrich notes, is truly extraordinary. Throughout her long and distinguished career, her commitment to America has never been questioned. Her decency, experience, and leadership qualities have blessed us all. She grew up in small town North Carolina and the values instilled in her by family, church, and school were never lost. I wish her every success in her future endeavors and am confident that in this next stage of her life she will continue to contribute to the betterment of our nation. The article follows. [Townhall.com. Dec. 11, 2008] A Tribute to Senator Elizabeth H. Dole (By Paul Weyrich) A good lady is about to leave Washington, D.C. after decades of public service. I refer to Senator Elizabeth Hanford Dole (R-NC), who was defeated in her bid for re- election in the 2008 election. Dole married Senator Robert J. ``Bob'' Dole in 1975. President Gerald R. Ford named him his running mate after dumping the unpopular Vice President, Nelson A. Rockefeller. Dole was Majority Leader of the Senate from 1985 to 1987, when Democrats regained control of the Senate and he became Minority Leader. Dole remained the leader of the Senate Republicans until he resigned his post to be the GOP Presidential nominee in 1996. All this time Elizabeth Dole was at his side. But she became an important figure in her own right. When Ronald W. Reagan was elected President in 1980 Dole became Reagan's liaison to conservatives, veterans and others. Soon Reagan named her Secretary of Transportation. By all accounts she did an admirable job. In the Administration of George H.W. Bush, Dole became Secretary of Labor. She and Bob Dole became a power couple in D.C. When Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) retired after 40 years in the Senate, Elizabeth Dole ran for his seat. He campaigned for her. She suggested she would vote like Helms and indeed she did. However, some North Carolinians suggested that her constituent services left much to be desired. And by all accounts she ran an inadequate re-election campaign. I watched with sadness as she questioned automobile manufacturers in the lame duck session of Congress. Soon she will have to pack up her office and head home. Her husband is now all but retired. This once-powerful couple is out of power. Dole is gracious about her loss. One would hardly know she had been defeated. Yet she leaves Washington having accomplished much in her service in the White House, the Transportation and Labor Departments and the United States Senate. This is one fine lady, the likes of whom we probably will not see in this town for many years.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, one of the great privileges of my tenure in the Senate has been to serve with my colleague Wayne Allard from Colorado. He and his wonderful wife and partner Joan have contributed greatly to the life of the Senate. Wayne has been a leading advocate for a strong space and missile defense program, an important issue when he chaired the Strategic Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Armed Services. I was honored to follow him in that position when he moved to the prestigious Appropriations Committee. Wayne has also been a firm and consistent voice for a sound economic policy based on the free market, lower taxes, free trade, and restraint in spending. Day after day--year after year--he never wavered in those principles. I deeply regret that Wayne took a pledge to not seek a third term in the Senate. His unqualified commitment to principle will be sorely missed. Wayne is a man of integrity, and he never hesitated to keep the promise he made to the voters of Colorado. Wayne and I came to the Senate together. We have been good friends throughout our time here. We have stood together in the Armed Services Committee in support of our men and women in uniform. We were thrilled to see the child tax credit become law, providing relief to hard- working American families. We witnessed many other important pieces of legislation be enacted into law. And we were able to stop quite a few bad pieces also. Mary and I send our best and most sincere wishes to Wayne and Joan. I know that he will continue to contribute to the good of Colorado and to the Nation.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, it has been one of my great honors to serve with one of the most distinguished Senators in our body, Senator John Warner of Virginia. A man of great wisdom, a man committed to the country that he has served for many decades in a host of important positions. John Warner has never failed his Nation. In addition to his knowledge and judgment which I so deeply respect and have so often followed, he is a true delight to be with and has the rare collegial skills to bring highly intelligent and committed Senators together for the common good. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, as its ranking member and in the last 2 years as its de facto ranking member he has continued his record of superb service. We have gone through many difficult times and without his leadership I don't see how we could have worked our way through some of our Nation's great challenges. John Warner is a product of the heart of Virginia. Our affectionate title of ``squire'' reflects the recognition of his Virginia heritage and style. Among other good qualities no one is more delightful to travel with than John Warner. I cherish the opportunity to have listened to many of his stories both humorous and insightful. He is a walking student of American history. I urged him to seek reelection but he chose not to. He will be greatly missed. My best wishes go with him and his wife Jeanne.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. So the President is constitutionally empowered to do the pardon. So in the instance of Marc Rich, this was a major fraud case. He was indicted--one of the largest fraud cases in the country. He was a fugitive. He never reported and answered the indictment against him, as I understand. He was a fugitive, at least, and did not come and show up for trial. For some reason, over the strong objections of the prosecutor involved in the case, the President of the United States, with a positive recommendation from then-Deputy Attorney General Holder, granted that pardon. Of course, we know that through some method, Marc Rich--he, or people close to him, had been a very substantial contributor to matters of importance to the Clintons, to President Clinton personally. It was not a good deal. That was not a good deal. It was wrong. And every little person who has asked for a pardon and did not get it and deserved it 99 times more than Marc Rich did has a right to be offended. The rule of law and the respect for the Department of Justice was definitely lowered by that act. I wish Deputy Attorney General Holder had done the right thing, which was tell President Clinton: President Clinton, you cannot do this, and if you do this, my resignation will be on your desk. I cannot serve in an administration that would issue this pardon.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will share a few remarks on the matter before us. I was pleased to support Mr. Holder when he was nominated to be the Deputy Attorney General. He came as a Superior Court Judge in DC, and as a U.S. attorney. I thought he had many of the gifts and graces that would be appropriate for a Clinton deputy. He might not have been my top choice, but I thought he had a good background and I supported that. I have considered him a friend. I tried to be supportive of him throughout his tenure. But I have to say there are some problems that are going to have to be dealt with. I went through the very painful process of Attorney General Gonzales and the difficulties he had. It was very painful for me. I am not sure he was treated fairly, to tell you the truth. But it came to a point where I think he concluded, and maybe everybody concluded, it was best for him to step down as Attorney General. He wanted to do the right thing, I believe, but made some errors. It damaged the Department. I spent 15 years in the Department of Justice. I was an Assistant U.S. attorney for 2\1/2\ years and U.S. attorney for 12. That is a pretty long time; the biggest part of my professional career, for sure. I love the Department of Justice. I believe it is very important that we have leaders committed to following the law regardless of position or power or influence; that the Attorney General should set the example. When I was there they did and there was no doubt about it. We were encouraged to do the right thing. If you took political heat, if you were right, the Attorney General would back you up, no matter what politician might call or what influential contributor or friend might try to intervene. You were expected to do your duty. That is the way I trained my assistants and that is the way I was expected to perform. So I have no more grim prospect in mind, in the beginning of next year, than to have to go through a contentious hearing for the Attorney General of the United States. As I said, I have had nothing but personal affection for Eric Holder. I want to make a couple of points. First, I believe Senator Specter is justified in asking that this hearing not start so soon. President- elect Obama is not in office. He will not be President. President-elect Obama will not be President at that time. He is talking about starting it on January 8 and that is very early. Members of the committee have sought a bunch of documents. I am not sure they are entitled to all of those documents, but many of them are public record documents that are quite appropriate to be requested. These members have requested those documents and they need to be looked at because there are some questions here that are going to have to be examined. I note Attorney General Griffin Bell, who is one of the great Attorney Generals ever to serve in this country, serving under President Carter, that his hearings lasted 6 days. John Ashcroft, a member of the Judiciary Committee, one of our own, and I believe a man of great integrity and commitment to the law, had 4 days and my colleagues on the other side had 23 outside witnesses testify in an effort to try and find something to complain about. Basically, they did not have anything to say of importance, and he was confirmed. But a confirmation hearing is not a coronation, particularly when there are questions out there that need to be conducted in the right way. I think, first, that Senator Specter is well within propriety and collegiality to ask that we not start this hearing so soon. Second, we need to be sure there is enough time set aside that it can be fairly discussed. And I will not go into the allegations that are out there, but I wish to say that not rushing this nomination through is not some sort of partisan attack, but instead a duty that must be performed. Let me say that commentators and newspapers across the spectrum have raised questions about the nominee. The Senate has been called upon to do its job and ask the kinds of questions that need to be asked and clear the air on some of these allegations. And I hope Mr. Holder is able to do so. The New York Times, a strong supporter of President-elect Obama, more and more known to be a liberal newspaper, said this recently: Mr. Holder . . . must answer serious questions before the Senate votes on his confirmation. They had an editorial on this subject and seemed to be troubled by the nomination and flatly stated that we should look at that seriously. The Wall Street Journal said this: For a politicized Justice Department, none can compare to the Clinton Administration's, and the role that Mr. Holder played in it deserves the fullest airing before he is given the opportunity to return. To return--he was Deputy Attorney General under President Clinton, the second in command in the Department of Justice. Richard Cohen from Mr. Holder's hometown paper, the Washington Post. Mr. Cohen, who I think it is fair to say is a liberal columnist, certainly not a conservative, I think probably recognized as a Democrat, had some strong words. This is what Mr. Cohen, a longtime columnist, wrote in the Washington Post: Holder was involved, passively or not, in just the sort of inside-the-Beltway influence peddling that Barack Obama was elected to end. He is not one of Obama's loathed lobbyists; was merely their instrument--a good man, certainly, who just as certainly did a bad thing. Maybe he deserves an administration job, just not the one he's getting. Well, in October of last year, before the election and after Attorney General Gonzales was forced to resign because really he did not manage his Department well--I think little has shown that he had a malicious intent, but he was forced to resign, and the chairman and the ranking member, Chairman Leahy, the Democrat, and the ranking Republican, Senator Specter, published a joint op-ed in the Politico newspaper. They made clear that they expected the next nominee to be independent of political influence and loyal to the rule of law, and the Department of Justice personnel. They said this: The attorney general must hold everyone, no matter how powerful, accountable to the law. Any nominee must have a visceral commitment to pursuing and achieving justice, and a record of doing just that. They went on to say: Finally, the attorney general must be someone who deeply appreciates and respects the work and commitment of the thousands of men and women who work in the branches and divisions of the Department of Justice day in and day out, without regard to politics or ideology, doing their best to enforce the law and promote justice. Well, I agree with that. So I would hope that in the process going forward, that we do take the time to analyze some of these allegations and dig into why Mr. Cohen, or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal has expressed serious reservations about this most important nominee. The Marc Rich pardon--let me tell you why that is troubling to me as a longtime U.S. attorney. Very few people obtain pardons. That is just the way it is. Thousands apply. I have a bunch of them who write me right now, and they want me to help them get their pardon. Little people, who committed small drug crimes; maybe forged a check; maybe did something that violated Federal law in some fashion, are convicted and charged, and they do not get pardons. In fact, the process is set up with a pardon attorney. They have to complete their time in prison, they have to complete their parole, and only after a period of time of good behavior, only after that does a pardon attorney even consider their application for a pardon. But the President of the United States is constitutionally empowered

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, earlier in the week I pointed out that I believe the best way for the big three automakers to reorganize, come out lean and aggressive and competitive, was through the reorganization procedures in chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. So many companies have taken advantage of it over the years. It is the regular order, as we say in the Senate. It is what happens when companies are not able to meet all of their debt obligations and payments. When this happens they seek protection under chapter 11. The bankruptcy court has a desire that those companies be successful; that they continue to operate; that people are not laid off; and that the business is not liquidated as it would be if it had filed under chapter 7 of bankruptcy code. In chapter 11, every effort is made to help the company to survive; to eliminate the burdens and legacy costs or other problems they have that are pulling them down, making them noncompetitive. This week, on December 9, 2008, the Heritage Foundation published a document called ``Bankruptcy Is Best: Responding to Automakers' Arguments Against Chapter 11 Restructuring.'' Mr. Andrew Grossman, a senior legal policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, writes: Though a bailout-- That is the Federal Government just giving money to the corporations-- may be better for the automakers' current executives and shareholders, restructuring in bankruptcy remains the best choice for the automakers' continued viability and future success. In other words, a bankruptcy restructuring and reorganization will be in the best interest for American workers, employees and people who want to buy American automobiles. We have two cars in my home in Mobile, both of them are pushing 100,000 miles, and both of them are American big three automobiles. I am very happy with them. A lot of people want these automobiles. But the best way to keep the company going, experts say, is through this established legal procedure of bankruptcy, not some special bailout. We have heard this argument: Bankruptcy would lead to failure and millions of jobs lost. The Heritage Foundation responds: ``Bankruptcy protection actually prevents failure.'' Mr. Grossman notes that when a person files bankruptcy, ``it does not mean that the business and its assets will `fail'--that is, cease operations. Many companies, including the bulk of the airline industry following 9/11, have entered bankruptcy, reorganized under its protection, and then emerged as stronger, sustainable businesses.'' That is so true and it is so important to say. Grossman and the Heritage Foundation went on to note: Once a company has filed for bankruptcy, it receives an automatic stay and may suspend payment of all debts, giving it breathing room to take stock of its assets and situation. Once you file bankruptcy, everybody knows about bankruptcy. I am not an expert, but I have been involved with it off and on. I helped write the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill. But in bankruptcy, every lawsuit, every claim against your money is stayed. You don't have to pay them off. The judge takes over and makes sure that payments are done in a way that is fair to everyone concerned. The next argument: Automobile makers are too complex for bankruptcy. The Heritage Foundation report says: Fact: The bankruptcy process is designed to confront and resolve complex problems and has successfully done so many times in the past. By chance, one of Alabama's best bankruptcy lawyers was in my office just yesterday. I have known him and respected him. He is totally independent of the circumstance. I asked him: What do you think? He said: Chapter 11 is perfect for these companies. It is exactly what is needed. It is set up to handle these kind of circumstances. People keep confusing reorganization under chapter 11, like Delta Airlines went through, with liquidation under chapter 7 bankruptcy where there is no hope of saving the company. They are saying: If you go into bankruptcy, it means the company is doomed. That is not so. As to the complexity of the matter, the Heritage Foundation report says: ``It is a universal feature of bankruptcy law that creditors and other stakeholders''--that is, creditors, people who are claiming money from GM, Ford, or Chrysler--that they can ``be forced to accept concessions that are necessary to maximize the common pool. Thus some debtors may see their claims transformed into equities stakes''--that is, stock in the company--``so that a business, free of debt, can operate profitably and sustainably. Others may receive pennies on the dollar. Collective bargaining agreements may, as described further below, be modified to put costs in line with industry norms, and other contracts may be rejected. In contrast, a bailout''--that is what we are talking about, giving the automakers money--``fails entirely to address the complexity of the automakers' problems. Unlike the finely honed tools of bankruptcy reorganization, a bailout fails to provide any mechanism (other than money) to restructure debt, repudiate contracts, or renegotiate labor agreements. In short, bankruptcy is a solution to the complexity.'' The report goes on to say: And these features are most valuable in large and complex cases that would be impossible otherwise. The Heritage report goes on to note that chapter 11 organizations have included energy and finance giant Conseco; Delta Airlines; the parent corporation of United Airlines; telecom giant WorldCom, now MCI; Texaco; Adelphia Communications; and Global Crossing. All those have been in bankruptcy and have come out reorganized. The report continues: Despite this enormous complexity, all of these businesses were able to reorganize under the protection of the bankruptcy process and emerge as viable, competitive businesses. And these companies did all of this without, let me add, a penny of Government money being put into them. What about the argument that you could not renegotiate labor agreements in bankruptcy? The Heritage Foundation and Mr. Grossman found this: Chapter 11 provides a straightforward mechanism, unavailable outside of bankruptcy, to modify collective bargaining agreements to adapt to economic realities. The report sets forth some of the additional protections that labor has and additional proofs that have to be made to modify a labor contract, but the evidence is taken, and labor contracts can be modified to help make the business viable. But do not miss the fact that the law provides workers a very fair chance to defend their legitimate interests. The report concludes on this question: Thus, the bankruptcy judge has significant discretion and power to push the parties toward an agreement that is mutually acceptable, conforms to economic realities, and ensures that the business is able to return to profitability. They go on and note about the bailout, however: A bailout, in contrast, would likely provide no new legal authority to achieve this result. Now, there is an argument being made that restructuring in bankruptcy would not work because sufficient debtor-in-possession financing is not available for an automaker in the current economic climate. Let me explain how debtor-in-possession financing works. If a company were to file for chapter 11 protection, then a judge takes control, has hearings and listens to testimony, keep in mind there is a stay in place that holds off the debtors making claims for money, that judge then may find that for the company to survive, it may need to borrow more money. The court can induce a private lender to loan the corporation money, that is, financing a debtor who remains in possession. That lender then gets a priority over every other claim to the company because it is the money that keeps the company surviving. I would say that were this scenario to play out, as I just described, I would be quite willing to consider legitimate assistance from the Federal Government in a way that would provide maximum protection to the taxpayer and would also provide a maximum opportunity for the company to be successful. That is the way the law provides for. That is the way every corporation I know of that gets in trouble has to be handled. I do not see the advantage of providing one special industry billions and billions of dollars bailout when we know this $14 billion is just the first installment. One economist has predicted it would be $75 billion to $125 billion before we are through. So this minimal, legitimate government assistance as a provider of debtor-in-possession financing would be a better way to do it. Proponents of chapter 11 for automobile companies include Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago and Edward Altman of New York University's Stern School of Business. They explain how this government supported debtor-in-possession mechanism operates. They note that: This option would be superior to a nonbankruptcy bailout because it would provide greater protection (bankruptcy's ``super-priority'')-- To the person who puts in the money at the end to make the company viable-- to taxpayers, would do more to force the automakers to reform their operations while providing them greater flexibility to do so, and would be more likely to succeed. I know some ideas have been floated recently; that our distinguished colleague, Senator Corker from Tennessee, has proposed that we may well be able to accomplish most of these things without going into bankruptcy. We are studying that. But his proposal has the hammer that if agreements are reached to modify and protect the companies from claimants, then they would be required to go into bankruptcy. One of the problems of Congress trying to fix the problem and the automakers not going into bankruptcy is a constitutional problem. Bankruptcy courts modify in part and sometimes invalidate in part, and entirely, portions of contracts. That is a great power and the Constitution provides for this use of bankruptcy. I am not sure we in Congress can pass a law that could invalidate contracts. I have argued we should go in that direction always, I hope my colleagues understand, under the belief that this is the regular order; this is the proper legal way for a company to reorganize itself and survive if it is in financial difficulties. We need to quit giving special privileges where they are not needed. Such behavior ought to be kept to the most narrow, special benefits outside of the traditional free market principles that have made this country great. If we have to go around them or violate them or bend a bit because of the size and the number of people who might be involved, well, let's do so within our heritage as much as possible, within the rule of law as much as possible. I think that is the best way to do it. So I wished to share my thoughts with my colleagues. I would urge them, if they are interested in the details, to look into the Web site of the Heritage Foundation to examine what this bankruptcy report study shows and why, according to their report: ``Bankruptcy Is Best.'' I believe it is. I thank the Chair and also express my appreciation for what I understand to be some progress toward reaching a proposal we could vote on in this body that would be much better than the one that has originally been put forward by the Democratic leader and the White House. I do not think the President or the Democratic leader has it right. I think a lot of other Members of this body do not feel like they have it right. What we need to do is to do what we can to assist these companies through a very difficult period of time, to give them an opportunity to eliminate some of the excessive burden they have been carrying so that when they enter into the race to the competitive marketplace, they will be leaner and more efficient and more capable of being successful, more able to be competitive, and can restore their vigor and vitality. We have to do that, and they have to get out from under some of these burdens. I personally think the best way to do that is through bankruptcy. It may be that some of the work Senator Corker and others have worked on can get us there in a slightly different way. I am open to that thought and certainly am desirous of a conclusion that could gain bipartisan support. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am worried about the process we have been undergoing here in the Senate in recent weeks, and I expressed that concern. I know Senator Dorgan indicated he voted against the $700 billion bailout, and I did, too, for a lot of reasons, one of which was I thought it was unthinkable that the Senate, the one body in this Government that is supposed to look at the long-term effect of a piece of legislation on America, was stampeded. I think my colleague from Alabama, Senator Shelby, said we panicked and we threw $700 billion at one man, the Secretary of the Treasury, and basically allowed him to utilize it in any way he chose, although he told us explicitly that he desired to use it to purchase toxic assets--that is, bad mortgages-- from banks so those banks would not have the economic threat of a bad mortgage on their books and could be able to lend money and this would fix the financial crisis. There was a superhighway and a big truck laying across it, and all we had to do was get this truck off and the financial markets would be open again. Within a week or 2 weeks, Secretary Paulson had changed his mind. Directly contrary to what he told us he wanted to do, he bought stock in 10 banks at hundreds of millions of dollars, the likes of which this country had never seen before, and we never talked about that one bit in the Senate. Mr. President, $700 billion is an incredibly large sum to commit this country to. I hope we will get most of it back. I do not believe we will get all of it back. I hope we at least get some of it back. But I would note to my colleagues that 5 years of the Iraq war cost this country $500 billion. In a few days, we authorized $700 billion. But it really was not just $700 billion because they had added in there a lot of pork items. This followed appropriations for $25 billion in loans for the automobile companies that was included in the Continuing Resolution in September, which was hardly even discussed. It was put in the bill, to my knowledge, with virtually no real discussion in the Senate about how to help them transition their plants to make more energy-efficient automobiles--just tacked it in there. But you remember the fear if we didn't pass the bill the first day they brought it up. It had to be passed before the Asian markets opened the next day. It didn't happen. We went a week or 10 days later, and the world didn't collapse. We finally passed the thing, and a lot of people have doubts whether it has helped much at all. Regardless, I just would say that this Senate has responsibilities to the taxpayers of America. When we are talking about tens of billions of dollars or hundreds of billions of dollars--the largest expenditure of funds on any one project in the history of this Republic, $700 billion--we need to ask ourselves what this means. One of the things it means is that everybody else will want to get into the act. Before the ink was dry on that, here come the automobile companies. Let me say briefly, Americans are going to have to think about this. After 9/11, we had a little stimulus package--it was little compared to the one we have now--but we sent out checks then. The economy was in a state of nervous exhaustion and a spasm of economic disturbance. Our deficit hit about $412 billion in 2002. I think that was the highest deficit in dollar terms this Nation had ever had. In the ensuing years, through fiscal year 2007, the deficit fell to $161 billion. Then, earlier this year, it was decided it would be a good idea to have another stimulus package, and we sent out these hundreds of dollars in checks to all Americans. It was about $100 billion, a little over $100 billion. We just sent out the checks, and that was supposed to help fix the economy. In that economic slowdown, this September 30, when the fiscal year for 2008 budget was ended, the fiscal year, the debt was $455 billion--the deficit, for one year. What is going to happen next year? Without counting the $700 billion as a loss to the Government, experts are now telling us the deficit will exceed $455 billion. It will exceed $1,000 billion--$1 trillion. But we have to pass another $34 billion or $15 billion, or whatever the number is, right now because we have to act. We cannot ask too many questions, we cannot have too much debate because things might happen fast, and if we do not act you will be blamed for a company failing. I wish to say that somewhere along the line this Senate is the body that is supposed to ask the questions and slow this train down and actually go through the details and figure out what to do. But I know my good friend Senator Reid, who has the toughest job in Washington--they have all been meeting with the Banking Committee and the automobile industry and the White House and special interests and labor unions--all through the weekend, they say. They didn't invite me. They didn't invite a lot of other Members of this Senate. So today they plopped down a bill that is supposed to move forward with a temporary fix of $15 billion, and we are supposed to say thanks for saving us so much. One of our Members has said we have to do something in a hurry; we have 48 to 72 hours. Why 48 to 72 hours? We have plenty of time, if we want to, to work at this thing. I know you have heard this statement, that bankruptcy is not a good way for the companies to go. Most people, when they think of bankruptcy, think of chapter 7 in bankruptcy, which is a liquidation of a company and its assets. All the people to whom that company owes money come in and line up, and the bankruptcy judge sells all the assets and parcels out what money is left--usually not very much--to those claimants. But there is another very common bankruptcy procedure called chapter 11; it is called reorganization in chapter 11. You have heard the phrase ``They sought protection in bankruptcy.'' If you file for bankruptcy under chapter 11, your company continues to operate. Delta Airlines--I flew them yesterday--Delta Airlines in 2005 was in bankruptcy for over a year. They came out of bankruptcy leaner, having confronted many of their difficulties. They actually bought Northwest Airlines. They are doing very well today. They didn't disappear. They didn't lay off all their workers. They didn't shut the airline down, they continued to operate. The automobile companies, if they seek reorganization and protection under chapter 11, will then be in a position to confront their excessive legacy costs to deal with contracts that are pulling them down. I think it was Mitt Romney whose father, in Michigan, was active in the automobile industry. He wrote an op-ed, and he calculated--others have used a similar figure, but I remember his--that an average American automobile is carrying a $2,000 legacy cost, the cost that is a burden on them and keeps them from being competitive in the marketplace. How do you get out of that? They say we will meet and we will talk about it and we will appoint a czar and that czar will make these companies concede these contractual provisions. But contracts are not something you have to concede. A contract is a binding document against the company or against an individual. An individual doesn't have to concede that contract, and many of them may not. Many of them will say: You guys can concede. You can cut your salaries, unions, but I am not cutting my health care benefits because I retired 10 years ago, and I still expect a health care benefit that exceeds 95 percent of the American workers' health care benefits today; I want mine kept. Who is going to make them give that up? It cannot be done voluntarily. What about a dealer and other groups, leaseholders who have claims against these companies? Why should they give up? But in bankruptcy, the whole purpose is to create an environment in which a judge can make some decisions about what it is going to take to save the company, to save the jobs. The judge has the power to amend these contracts and to say: The only way this company is going to survive is you health care guys are going to have to give some; you salaried people are going to have to give some; you executives are going to have to give some; the dealers are going to have to give some. Otherwise, this company is going under. They have witnesses, they take testimony, and they all have the right to have their lawyer there and to present evidence. It is under oath, in detail, subject to cross- examination. Certified financial statements have to be produced. All of these things happen in bankruptcy. At the end, a bankruptcy judge, after hearing all of these arguments, will have as his or her goal the creation of a bankruptcy order that will allow the company to operate and to keep operating, keep making cars. They will not have to stop making cars during this whole process. They will continue. But if people cannot make claims against them, they can't file lawsuits. All the lawsuits against the companies, if they can't pay their debts, are stayed. It all stops. Nobody can levy against any of the property until the bankruptcy judge says so. I am amazed we are not going in that direction. For some reason, it seems that certain interests are objecting to the normal course of how a company should go about dealing with financial problems. I also believe a responsible Senate should be taken aback about the way this has all come about. First, $25 billion was slipped in to help these companies move to more fuel-efficient automobiles--that program. But the automobile executives came back a couple of weeks ago, about 2 weeks ago, and they asked for $25 billion on top of that--$25 billion more. They say: Just take it out of the $700 billion. We are not able to access this $25 billion you have already set aside for us. We have to do certain things on environmental issues, and we are not able to access that now. So if we want to do that--and we need $25 billion. They flew in in their big jets. They didn't have any kind of coherent plan. Congress and the American people were aghast. They couldn't imagine this $25 billion. My State of Alabama is about an average size State--4 million people; we have 7 Congressmen. As I recall, our basic budget for the State is $6 billion or so a year, and that includes education and everything else a State needs. So I would say to you, $25 billion or $34 billion is a lot of money. These executives go home chastened, and their advisers whispered in their ears: You guys have to be humble. Don't you understand? You were too arrogant. You have to go up there--you can't fly. You have to drive up in your fuel-efficient automobile before you go back to Congress, and grovel a little bit, tell them you did something wrong. If you tell them you did something wrong and grovel and act humble, maybe you can get the money. So what did they do? They came back and they groveled and they say they made mistakes and they are so sorry. They want $34 billion. How humble is that? What the problem is--President-elect Obama said it: We want to make sure the money we are putting into this company is worth something. It is not supposed to be a gift, it is supposed to be a loan. Once you start putting money in a sinking company, as any banker will tell you--they refer to it as putting good money after bad--the more money you put into a corporation, the deeper they have you. You are the one who is hooked. You are the one who is stuck now because you are in $25, $34, $50, $100. What about if we just have another $50 after this $100, and maybe we will make it. If you don't help us with another $50, you are going to lose the hundred--right? That is how these things go. That is the way bankers look at this situation, and they will not loan them the money. Bankers are not going to loan them the money because they are too worried about it. The numbers don't add up. Since the bankers will not loan them the money, they want to come to us and get us to loan them the money and take risks a reasonable banker would not take. Somebody says: Maybe it will not be a lot more than that; maybe this will be enough. It is pretty clear that nobody says the $15 billion would be enough, what we are apparently going to be asked to look at with the bill that was just plopped down a little while ago. But at the Banking hearing last week, an independent analyst predicted that it would be $75 billion to $125 billion to avoid them going into bankruptcy. So if they are going to go into bankruptcy, how much money do we need to help them avoid that? Well, this analyst said it would be $75 to $125 billion. That is a lot of money. Maybe they should go into bankruptcy first, and then maybe we could see what the real facts are and have a judge and a hearing and evidence taken and decisions made. Maybe tough decisions could be made and maybe the Government can help a little bit and help them come out of there and keep these companies going at a reasonable price. So I would certainly like the competition. We certainly want these companies to be successful. But it has to be done consistent with the value and principles of America. There is no reason for us not to assume that we are going to be asked for more and more money to keep these companies alive under the circumstances we are in today. I would ask a couple questions then. First, what certainty do we have that they will not be asking for many times the amount of money that is being asked for today? I think we are virtually certain. We know there is more. Within the bill, I would note, is a statement that we are authorizing--it is not putting up the money yet, it is a big step toward it--we are authorizing the full replenishment of the $25 billion fuel efficiency loan program. So the $15 billion that comes out, we are authorizing it, to put in more. The way the language is written, it is pretty clear that it goes further than that. What it does is it authorizes, on page 3, excuse me on page 11, the Secretary of Treasury--``is authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of Treasury sums as being necessary for the purpose of replenishing the funds available to the President's designee under this section.'' So first of all it says: Yes, we take the $15 billion out of the existing loan program, but we are putting it back in immediately. The $700 billion is not reduced, neither is the $25 billion we have already appropriated. Both of those have already been authorized and appropriated. We take this money out and we put every penny of it back in this same bill. A little slight of hand there; is it not? Sounds like it to me. Then it goes on to have other language that indicates, the way it is written, it authorizes up to another $25 billion. So authorized in this bill, I think it is fair to say, based on our reading of it a few moments ago, since it just now appeared, that we are talking about $49.5 billion being authorized for this problem. That is a lot of money. It is somewhat different than the pitch that all we are doing is putting up $25 billion or $15 billion. And they are at least honest about this. They say the $15 billion is just a bridge loan, and that at least by March they will be back asking for more. How much more, $75, $125 billion, without once having to submit themselves to the rigors of a reorganization process that current law provides for big corporations and little ones in America under chapter 11. Now, the legislation calls for the appointment of a car czar. That is what they are calling it. It says this about the car czar. The guy is supposed to be able to meet with these executives, many of whom have spent their lives in the automobile industry, and it is going to tell them that: This is not a good idea. This is a good idea. Yes, you can do that. No, you cannot do that. We will not give you money unless you do such and so and tell them how to run their business. This is what it says on page 3, section 3: The President will designate one or more officers of the Executive Branch, [a Federal Government bureaucrat] having appropriate expertise in such areas as economic stabilization, financial aid to commerce and industry, financial restructuring, energy efficiency, and environmental protection, to carry out the purposes of this Act, including the facilitation of restructuring to achieve long-term financial viability of the domestic automobile manufacturing industry, and who shall serve at the pleasure of the President. Which means the new President will remove the one President Bush puts in, I presume, and put another one, or certainly have the authority to do so. This designee shall direct the disbursement of the bridge loans or enter into commitments for lines of credit for each automobile manufacturer that has submitted a request. Well, does it say anything about the person that is going to tell these companies, you know, we are going to tell them how to do this right? What would you tell them? Would you tell them: We are never going to make anymore big pickups, cancel all SUVs, put all your money into hybrid cars. We do not know how well they are going to sell and how people are going to continue to buy them, but you can only use the money for these kinds of things. That is a dangerous action for a politician to do. It is odd to me that the provisions of the act call for expertise in financial aid to commerce and industry, environmental protection and energy efficiency and not one requirement that the person knows anything about the automobile industry. I know I do not know much about it. I do know this. My father ran an International Harvester, a little town dealership, hardly made a living for us. I worked in his shop. I was a parts person in his office. He only had four or five employees. They squeezed him out because he was too small, lucky to get out with his shirt. I was in high school. I remember that vividly. Well, certain things are not financially doable. He was not able to continue to operate an International Harvester truck and tractor dealership when he could only sell to so few customers, that he could not maintain the parts and the mechanics and the equipment necessary to maintain a viable business. Things change. He did not ask for a bailout. So the person who is supposed to be working on this is not required to have any knowledge whatsoever of the automobile business but is going to tell them how to run it, apparently. It looks like, does it not, that this would give another unelected official the ``maximum flexibility'' to appropriate taxpayers' money as they see fit. Is this not the same mistake we made with the Secretary of the Treasury when we gave him $700 billion to parcel it out to his friends on Wall Street, however he felt like giving it. Now, the jobs bank, which is a very perverse problem the automobile industry has. It was an agreement they made that would pay employees up to 95 percent of their pay not to work. If they have been laid off, they get 95 percent of their pay. It defers health insurance payments. Unions have said they would make concessions. That has been touted about. But they were only temporary concessions that the union has made on this. I am not sure what power a union has to tell a company that you no longer have to pay an employee who agreed by contract to pay him 95 percent of his salary. How can they abrogate that contract? You can do it in bankruptcy. You cannot do it by voluntary agreement. So I have my doubts about how this can be fixed short of a bankruptcy. So I would ask: How can we reach an agreement that would bind the union or any other group that has contracts with the automobile industry to follow those agreements? I ask this question, even supporters of the deal admit that a bankruptcy may still be needed in the end. So does not this multibillion dollar bailout just delay actual productive restructuring? Is it not just a delay? I am afraid it is. It absolutely is unless we put more than $15 billion in, because with $15 billion, everybody knows that is not going to be enough to keep them liquid throughout the next year. It is pretty well conceded. So are not we delaying the inevitable? I would also add, experts agree that to be successful, everyone makes concessions, must make concessions. So what concrete steps does this legislation require of creditors, suppliers, unions or automobile dealers? It does not require any. I will answer that. Also, the legislation calls for the development of a long-term structuring plan by the end of March. Doing so would require that various groups agree. Why do we think they will be able to accomplish this 3 months from now, when they have not been able to accomplish it in the last 3 months? How can these parties be forced to agree when they hold valid contracts for the automobile companies? Now, as I indicated earlier, we are taking a big risk without ensuring that reform is going to occur that would make these companies viable. Everyone knows major restructuring needs to be done, that they need to emerge from this process, as I say, as Delta did from bankruptcy, chapter 11 reorganization, leaner, more competitive, keeping their employees, giving them a future, providing for their retirement and health care as they committed to do but to be able to shed unnecessary costs that had the danger of sinking the entire ship. So we know that a banker today would not make a loan to these companies under these conditions of vague promises of improvement in the future. You think they are not telling their bankers: Oh, we are going to make progress, if you just loan us money. Companies know more than that. They want some assurance. We represent the taxpayers of America. Should we not be more concerned about the assurances too? So we do have a regular order--I will conclude with this remark--a regular order in America. If a company gets to the point where they cannot meet their payroll, and they cannot pay all their debts, because they have a liquidity, a financial cash flow problem, the procedure is perfectly simply, you seek reorganization, you seek protection under chapter 11 in bankruptcy. The company continues to operate, the employees continue to be paid, and, in fact, one of the highest, I believe the highest, priority of a bankruptcy judge is to see that the employees are paid. That is the first thing that comes with the limited money in a company that is in financial problems, is to pay the workers for their work, and throughout that process the company can be reorganized. Witnesses are under oath, can testify to the real facts that we in Congress have no capability of ascertaining, and they will be able to present evidence that sheds light on some of these matters. The unions would have their lawyers, the dealers would have their lawyers, the suppliers would have their lawyers and argue a case and a judge is going to have to say: Mr. Supplier, you are going to have to take 75 percent of what they owe; they cannot pay you the whole amount. We have to keep this country going. Mr. Union, you are going to have to accept less. Mr. Dealer, you are going to have to accept less. Then we will try to pay this back once we pare this company down and get it leaner and more efficient and more competitive and we are going to send it out there and we believe we can make this work. But if you liquidate the company today, you are not going to get half of what you are owed. You are not going to get a fraction of what you are owed. That is not the right thing. The whole motivation for a reorganization of procedure under chapter 11 would be to save the company, to save the jobs and save the industry. This Senate has no business trying to act as some sort of super bankruptcy judge in a reorganization. Our action in sending out money enables the continuation of bad behavior. It pretty closely approximates that psychological syndrome called enabler where the person who is drinking too heavily, instead of confronting the problem, the person's problem, you give them more money which allows them to continue to drink and they don't confront their problem and the problem continues to get worse. It is time to confront the problem. Let's save this industry, and let's do so within the legal procedures the Nation has. And at some point if we can help them financially, let's do so. But we need to be sure, on behalf of the taxpayers, that we know exactly what the circumstance is, that a full examination of these companies has been undertaken. The idea of giving them billions of dollars based on a very poor statement of need is not acceptable to the people of the United States. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I was in error earlier in saying that there was a $15 billion line item in this legislation that we saw. In looking at it with my staff, basically this legislation, if it were to pass, would authorize the expenditure of $25 billion--really $24.5 billion--to the car companies. It also at the same time states that even though that money is coming out of the energy efficiency $25 billion, it also says that $25 billion will be available for expenditure in addition. So that is how I would say that as we read the legislation, it is an authorization of over $49 billion, in reality, to the automobile companies. It would take an additional appropriation for $25 billion, but that would be a single step instead of the normal legislative process. It enhances the ability for that to be expended. I think that is a correct statement. There is no reference, as has been discussed in the papers, about $15 billion. But it authorizes the full 25. It says: There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of Energy sums as may be necessary for the purpose of replenishing the funds made available to the President's designee under this section. It also says: No provision shall be construed to prohibit or limit the Secretary of Energy from processing applications for loans under the section. That is the existing $25 billion. So they still will get the loans under the $25 billion plus the other. I think in all fairness, the way we read this is a $49 billion authorization, not 25, and certainly not 15. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. So I am afraid of inflating the currency, reducing the value of currency so that when the government has to pay back debts, it pays back in dollars less valuable than the ones it borrowed, and we basically cheat the people who loaned money. When that happens, they are going to demand a higher rate of interest on the trillions of dollars of debt we have today. Let me briefly share with my colleagues some thoughts about the bailout and why I cannot support the plan that is being proposed and offered by Senator Reid, the Democratic leader. I commend to my colleagues the article by Michael E. Levine entitled, ``Why Bankruptcy Is The Best Option For GM.'' He is a former airline executive and is a distinguished research scholar and senior lecturer at NYU School of Law. He just points out this fact--and as a lawyer, I think he is absolutely correct. Regarding contracts and ways that would really reform and streamline and make these companies competitive, he said this: Contracts would have to be bought out. The company would have to shed many of its fixed obligations. Some obligations will be impossible to cut by voluntary agreement. Why would somebody agree to have you not pay them what you have been paying? Then he said: ``GM will run out of cash and out of time.'' That is even if we give them $25 billion. They cannot fix themselves until they confront their costs that are pulling them down. Mitt Romney, whose father was a CEO at American Motors, in his recent op-ed estimates that the average American automobile is carrying a $2,000-per-car excess cost. If you wonder why foreign automobiles are better, it is because they can put 2,000 more dollars in it. So how do you get out of that? You have to get out of these contracts. Mr. Levine fundamentally points out that through the process of reorganization--not chapter VII liquidation but the process that Delta Airlines used to reorganize itself--is the one way you can get out of these contracts and restructure the company, reduce some of its burdens, and come back again as a fighting, competitive company, producing automobiles that people will buy in large numbers. I think that is very possible. So in bankruptcy, those kinds of things can occur that can occur outside. Mitt Romney, in his editorial, said: A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the company to shed excess labor, pension, and real estate costs. The Federal Government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk. Now, those are the kinds of suggestions that come close to making sense to me. He talked about his father, George Romney, the Governor of Michigan, who also ran for President at one point. This is what he said his father did when he saved American Motors at the time: My dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock at his company-- To show faith in it-- and he went out to the factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms--all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat. I think that is the right way to do it. I think we can do that. I really would urge my colleagues to look for ways for this to happen. Now, you cannot trust the automobile dealers when they come forward and say: Well, we are doing all of these things. They don't have the power to do these things. I know they don't want to go into reorganization and bankruptcy as Delta Airlines did. But it is not going to be a horrible thing. Delta went in and emerged about a year and a half later. They reorganized, reduced expenses, altered and amended contracts and obligations, and they recently bought Northwest. They went bankrupt in 2005, and they came out leaner and more competitive and are now a viable company. But these CEOs--if you give them money, they are going to have less leverage with the unions, less leverage with their 7,000 automobile dealers, when Toyota has 1,500 automobile dealers. They are going to have less leverage with the lease agreements and health care agreements they entered into years ago, in a different situation, to deal with people's health care requests and demands at that time. They are stuck with that until they can break loose from it. A bankruptcy judge whose motive would be to help them become leaner and more effective and sends them out as a viable entity so that jobs are saved and debts are fundamentally repaid--that would be the goal of reorganization and bankruptcy. I don't think we ought to be putting a lot of money into this company until we see it in a position that would actually break the chains of $2,000 per car that is slowing them down, actually pulling them down hopelessly. I thank the Chair for the opportunity to share some of my thoughts. I believe when we violate the principles of intervening in the free market and picking winners and losers, we are taking a great risk. If we do so, it ought to be done with the greatest of care, the least exposure to the taxpayer, and with the greatest potential for creating a successful company in the end. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for the opportunity to speak. I appreciate the eloquent remarks of my colleague, Senator Mikulski. She is a passionate advocate for Middle America, and it is a pleasure to serve with her in the Senate. I have to say, it is a historic day that Senator Obama has resigned and will be on the road now to inauguration as the President of the United States. People are happy about it. For so many people, you can feel their excitement about the possibilities. The country wanted change, and we have some change out there. I think we need to ask ourselves pretty clearly what kind of change it is they were demanding of Congress. We may well have some disagreements about that. The day after the election, I was doing a little exercise at the park back home in Alabama, and I met an African-American with an Army hat on. He and his friends were talking happily, and there was an excitement about this election. He said: You know, this is the first time I know my sacrifice in Vietnam meant something. He was sincere about that. There is a good feeling out there. I would say that one of the things the American people did not vote for, however, was wasteful Washington spending. It is just not so. One of the things they rejected in the Bush administration was reckless spending, unprincipled spending. That is something that has worried them. So in interpreting the results of the election, I think we need to take care. I noticed a recent Rasmussen Poll showed that 80 percent of Americans think the Government is too involved in the economy, that the Government is getting its nose too much in this and taking their money they sent here and spending it on somebody the Government wants to favor with Federal largess. I do not think that is what the election meant: that we ought to spend more. Also, on the question of the bailout, less than one-third of the American people in the Rasmussen Poll said they favored an automobile company bailout. This is contrary to our fundamental principles. We may have to, at certain times, do things that are a violation of principle. We ought to be very cautious about doing so. These are things that have served this country well for over 200 years. We need to be careful about it. So I do not think the change people voted for was to authorize Congress to go on a wild spending spree, throwing money at every problem. We have already had, this year, a $150 billion stimulus that was supposed to ward off the recession--sending out checks to everybody, and this was going to fix it. I hated to vote against that, but I could not vote for that $150 billion, every penny of which went to the debt. We were already in deficit, so we added another $150 billion to the deficit in one fell swoop. What did we tell people to do? We told them to go out and spend. I know the Acting President pro tempore is from Nebraska. I know he was raised right. We have had a talk about families and how families work. When you have a financial problem, you do not tell your children to go out and see how much they can spend. You ask them to get smart about what they have been doing. When the economy goes into a recessionary period, people start watching their spending. They decide they do not eat out as much. They decide they cannot buy as fancy clothes. They decide they cannot afford a big, expensive house that has also been going up in price, and maybe it is not going up now, so they wisely decide to stay renting or stay in the house they have, which depresses the price of housing. This is the business cycle, I will just say. I feel like we work our way through that. As people get their debt paid down, they start buying more. In the meantime, certain companies get hurt. Companies that are selling big gas-guzzling vehicles and are committed to that product are going to be one of the groups that gets hit the hardest. I wish it were not so. I know this is not a matter of insignificance that domestic automobile companies are in financial trouble. But they have been promoting a product the American people do not want right now and they are committed to that product and it is troubling as to how we work our way out of it. But I think rewarding misbehavior is not the way to do it. So it is pretty clear now that we are in a recession and that credit had been too cheap in the years leading up to this. We had a bubble in housing. People thought prices would never go down, and they bought houses larger than they could afford, made payments that stressed them to the very limit to afford those big houses, pretty much on the theory that the housing prices were going to continue to go up and would never go down. Those of us who have been around a while should have known that is not a good way to go. We have known, and we have seen it in our very neighborhoods, the young couple buying huge automobiles, borrowing money to do so--$40,000, $50,000, $60,000--that they could not afford. It also guzzled fuel, cost them more at the pump, and each month they ran up debts on their credit card, including gasoline. When you get to the maximum limit, you have to cut back. So what do you do? You do not buy as many of these things, you do not add as much, you do not buy the big cars, some people cannot afford to hold on to their big houses, and you go through a recessionary period. It is not a matter we ought to treat lightly. I certainly recognize that. But as USA Today said a month or so ago, an economy founded on excessive personal debt, excessive Government debt, and huge trade deficits, is not sound. That is just it. We have to change our ways. We cannot buy our way out of this situation. There is no free lunch. For anything that somebody puts in front of you to eat, somebody has had to pay for it to get it there. Debts have to be repaid. We have to be honest about it. We cannot continue to throw money at this problem. We are going to have to take our lumps now and come out of it stronger rather than trying to postpone the problem, kicking the can down the road in some desperate attempt at stimulus to avoid any pain in a normal recessionary cycle. So I worry about it. Let me tell my colleagues about the deficit. The deficit surged after 9/11. We had increased spending at airports and we did all kinds of things and the deficit went up to almost $420 billion--one of the biggest deficits in dollar terms we have ever had, not as a percentage of GDP, but a huge deficit and a reversal of the situation prior to that. That deficit has gone down. A year ago September 30, our deficit for the year was $161 billion; still large, too large, but going in the right direction. As of September 30 of this year, after we popped $150 billion earlier this year directly into the deficit to fund the stimulus that was supposed to avoid a recession, now the deficit this year was $455 billion. And the one we are in today, I saw an article recently that said the deficit will clearly be in excess of $750 billion, the largest deficit in the history of our country and, probably, as a percentage of GDP, one of the largest we have ever had. Now we are talking about more spending, more spending, more, more, more; we have to bail out this industry, that industry, the other industry. Alabama was heavily reliant on textiles. Now, seventy percent of our textile industry is gone. You can go to town after town where sewing plants existed--no longer there. Should the Federal Government have stopped that? The little community in which I grew up, the original community was on the river where steamboats plied the river. After railroads came, the community sort of moved a few miles over to the railroad. That is where I grew up, in a little railroad community. Then the passenger trains stopped, and the freight trains stopped and people had interstates and other ways to communicate and travel and airplanes came along. Should we have passed--we had a railroad depot there, and my friend's dad ran it. Well, it is closed. Should we have passed a law to keep the railroads just as they always were and all the depots out there? Years ago you remember the debate over whether the union should require a fireman, who used to shovel coal into the steam engines, to sit on a diesel train. That was part of the union contract. For decades after we ended steam engines, the union contracts required a person named a fireman to sit on a diesel train with the engineer. This is not sound. Change is inevitable. We have to adjust to it. That is what we need to do. Maybe there are ways we can help the automobile industry--I assume there are, and I would be prepared to discuss that--but we have to be realistic and honest. When we start throwing money at private corporations to save them from the forces that are at work in our economy, we are taking on a big challenge. This is a metaphor I have in my mind. Do my colleagues remember the story of the folks who flew airplanes over the hurricanes and threw out dry ice and they believed if they could just throw out enough dry ice, they could stop the hurricane? Well, we can't throw money into this financial hurricane and stop it either. We have to hunker down and do what we have always done to work through difficult financial circumstances. We can be sophisticated and come up with some good ideas that can help--and I am certainly for that--but I would tell my colleagues as a matter of principle we need to be very cautious about picking and choosing who we are going to reward with Federal taxpayer money. In a meeting yesterday, Secretary Paulson was quite correct. He said: Look, any time you take Federal money and insert it into the marketplace--and he was talking about the automobile industry and the banking industry at the time--you distort the market. You help some companies and industries and you hurt others. I would just add, you do so with taxpayer money, you are taking sides in the process. That is dangerous, and we need to be as careful about it as we possibly can. So I would just raise those points. Do my colleagues know our savings rate in America fell below zero at the height of this boom, at the height of this housing bubble, this automobile bubble? Gasoline prices were through the roof, commodity prices through the roof, farm prices surging, gold and other metals going up at incredible rates. They are all falling now, but during that time we didn't have any savings. Our savings rates fell below zero. Now that we are going into a recessionary period--and we are in a recession--people are saving. The savings rate I saw recently was about 3 percent. So people are not consuming as much. Is that all bad? When people don't consume as much and don't travel as much, the hotels are not as full, the restaurants are not as full, the automobile companies can't sell as many automobiles, and they are going through tough times. But when you have an excessive boom, this is the kind of thing that is bound to happen. One observer of the scene made this comment in 2006 about the housing market. He said: Housing prices cannot continue to increase at twice the rate of the growth of GDP, and they cannot continue to increase at this rate when wages are basically flat. Now, doesn't that make sense? Didn't we know people who couldn't afford a house because the prices were outrageous? There are some benefits from the collapse and the boom on housing prices. An average person now may be able to buy a house at a more reasonable price than they were before. So these are the cycles we go through. The timber industry in my State depends on home building. When construction is down, our saw mills are shutting down in small towns, and that is the only business they have. Are we going to bail out the saw mills today? Is anybody proposing that? Then, the people who work in the woods to harvest the timber--good, honest, hard-working Americans--if the saw mills can't buy the lumber--are they getting an hourly wage? Are they being laid off? Yes, they are, as part of this tough cycle that we are going through. I wish to ask this fundamental question: Who is going to bail out the American Government? Who is going to bail out the American taxpayers for the expenditures that we are increasing? I ask this: Isn't it true there are three basic ways to deal with money we are borrowing today, perhaps $1 trillion this fiscal year? When I say $750 billion to $1 trillion, I am not counting the $700 billion bailout. That has not been scored yet. I am talking about other spending, including some of these bailout proposals. So there are three ways we could do it. We could cut spending. Our Democratic colleagues were pretty hard on Republicans for, they said, spending too much, and they were right more than I would like to admit. I would just say this: Are we getting any better now? The talk we are hearing today, is it spend more, more, more, more, or is it a discussion about a contained spending? No. What we are hearing from the change group, I am afraid, is spend more. Well, that is one way to pay off your debts. Another way would be to raise taxes. None of us want to see taxes raised, for heaven's sake, especially not in a time of economic slowdown, so taxes is not a likely way to pay off the debt. What has happened throughout history? Fundamentally, the way debts are paid off is by debasing the currency.

Mr. SESSIONS. Is that 10 minutes, I believe?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today I wish to tell you about the small town of Belk located in Fayette County, AL. While having a relatively small population--205 in 2007--Belt has an abundance of community spirit and people willing to give of their time and energy to make it a better place to live. They exemplify the ``can-do, cooperative attitude which made America great. I visited Belk in August and was inspired by their attitude and approach. They feel greatly blessed to obtain any assistance, and use it along with their own efforts to maximize the benefits to Belk. They have a Volunteer Fire Department with 15 active members that purchased a new fire truck in 2001 with a grant and have since purchased 2 additional pumper-service trucks. In 2004, they built a fine new Community Center using a grant from the State of Alabama and a loan of $48,000. Holding a number of fundraising activities, including a gospel singing, silent, auction, golf tournament, and bluegrass festival, they have reduced that loan balance to $15,230. Every second Friday night they have a bluegrass festival at the center and volunteers donate food to be served in the kitchen. All revenues go to pay on the center's debt and everyone has a wonderful time. In addition, in 2005 they constructed a community storm shelter using a small grant of $52,000 from FEMA. The design work was donated by a local contractor, and local tradesmen donated their time to do plumbing, electrical and water line work. This past spring they built a new outdoor stage using donations from corporations and local businesses for the design and materials, and the labor of local volunteers for the construction. This is the kind of volunteer effort, self-help, and love of community that I grew up knowing. It is still a common trait of small communities in Alabama, but, frankly, is being lost too often today. Belk has taken on the task of making their piece of America a better place to live. I would like to commend Mayor Ronald Waldrop, who sets the example, and every citizen who has volunteered their efforts to the greater good. I am truly honored to represent such people. They are men, women, and youth of faith, integrity, and hard work. Such are the people who have made America great.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to James Herman ``Jimmy'' Faulkner, Sr., a friend, who passed away last month. ``Mr. jimmy'' to the scores who knew and admired him, was a great Alabamian who, during his life, served as a mayor, State senator, candidate for governor, newspaper publisher, businessman, and philanthropist. Born in Lamar County, AL, the son of a schoolteacher and a farmer, he lost his father at the age of 12. He attended college in Tennessee and the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. At age 20, he purchased The Baldwin Times newspaper and moved to Baldwin County, AL, where he lived his life and became one of, if not the most, well known of its citizens. Mr. Jimmy served as the Mayor of Bay Minette, AL, from 1941 to 1943, when he was called to serve in World War II as a first lieutenant, pilot, and flight instructor. Following that service, he represented Baldwin County in the Alabama State Senate, where he became an advocate for education and the State's teachers. He served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Alabama Christian College in Montgomery, and as a testament to his success in putting that institution in a position of financial stability and his personal generosity, it was renamed Faulkner University in his honor in 1985. Remarkably, because he was instrumental in bringing Faulkner State University, a community college, to Baldwin County, that State university is also named for him. Few persons, if any, have had both a private and State university named in their honor. Mr. Jimmy believed in Baldwin County. He brought business to the county. A friend of his, Scott Hunter, told me that Jimmy told him in 1990 to buy all the real estate he could in Baldwin County because it would double in population by 2010. And it has. Jimmy was able to predict economic, demographic, and political changes with uncanny accuracy. He lived to know 14 Alabama governors and he wrote, ``We have had some good ones and some not so good. Because of my longevity, it has been my privilege, and usually my pleasure, to have known personally, and been on friendly terms, with every governor back to Bibb Graves.'' During his lifetime, he served as president and founder of two insurance businesses, and owner and publisher of three newspapers in Baldwin County. He was the recipient of more than 35 awards including 8 honorary doctorate degrees. Jimmy Faulkner was a great man, and a world traveler who visited over 100 countries during his lifetime. He had a unique view of the entire world and the part of it he occupied, and he used that view and his knowledge to make Alabama and our Nation a better place. Those of us who knew him are all better for having shared his interesting life and benefitted from his brilliant mind.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today I honor a great American, a native of Birmingham, AL, LTG Henry A. ``Trey'' Obering III, on the occasion of his retirement after 35 years of dedicated service to our country. His passion for progressing missile defense has been imperative to its success and critical to our national security and the safety of our allies. General Obering entered the Air Force in 1973 and received his pilot's wings in 1975. From there he went on to become a skilled air- to-air Top Gun-trained F-4E pilot and lead a very distinguished career. As an Air Force captain, General Obering was assigned to the Space Shuttle Program the year before the first orbiter flew into space. General Obering became an important part of this pioneering endeavor and participated in 15 space shuttle launches as a NASA orbiter project engineer. I want to highlight the critical role General Obering played in developing, testing, and fielding this Nation's ballistic missile defense system. General Obering joined the Missile Defense Agency in December of 2001, the very month the United States announced its withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which had seriously impeded the development and deployment of missile defenses. He deserves credit for the tremendous progress our Nation has made in recent years in the field of missile defense. The advancement of all approaches to ballistic missile defense, BMD, including kinetic energy interceptor, KEI, ground-based midcourse defense, GMD, Aegis ballistic missile defense, and terminal high altitude area defense system, THAAD, can be attributed to the hard work of General Obering and those he has led. Under General Obering's leadership, the Agency addressed current and emerging ballistic missile threats by fielding missile defenses at an unprecedented pace to defend the United States, our deployed troops, and U.S. allies and friends around the world. During his tenure as director, the Agency emplaced ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, developed and deployed missile defenses to defeat shorter- range threats to our troops and our allies, and successfully modified 18 U.S. Navy Aegis warships to give U.S. military commanders a highly effective regional ballistic missile defense capability. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our missile defense to our friends, our allies, and, importantly, those that would mean us harm, General Obering presided over a series of historic flight tests of our ballistic missile defense system and spearheaded efforts to train the warfighters employing the system. These tests proved to our allies that we are prepared to defend ourselves and our allies and will pursue technologies to further reduce and eventually eliminate the threat of attack by ballistic missiles. General Obering has pursued an aggressive development program to address future threats, such as boost phase defenses, space tracking and surveillance, and technologies to destroy multiple threat objects using a single interceptor. General Obering recognized early on the importance of working with our international partners and he led the expansion of the Department's missile defense cooperative activities. He pursued bilateral programs with Japan, Israel, the Czech Republic, and Poland, among others, as well as multilateral programs with NATO. Working closely with the State Department and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, General Obering's vision and personal engagement resulted in a broad consensus among international leaders, combatant commanders, and the international communities on the growing need to establish long-range missile defenses in Europe. General Obering has overseen the expansion of the Missile Defense Agency. During his tenure, while executing all of the activities in one of the most important programs in the Department of Defense, the Agency successfully underwent unprecedented organizational changes. Thanks to his guidance, this transition is proceeding smoothly. General Obering's leadership proved critical during two real-world crises. During North Korea's provocative missile launches in July 2006, General Obering oversaw the Agency's input to the Nation's strategic response and provided situational awareness to the President, combatant commanders, and the missile defense community. His assurances that the Nation had the option of a responsive missile defense capability, had it been necessary, contributed greatly to the maintenance of international stability. And in February 2008, General Obering also led the Agency's participation in a successful national joint mission to destroy an out-of-control U.S. satellite laden with toxic hydrazine fuel. General Obering has consistently exemplified a true dedication to our Nation and its ideals. His vision and drive enabled the Missile Defense Agency to field a truly worldwide ballistic missile defense capability that will be a part of this Nation's defensive infrastructure for decades to come. Our Nation owes a debt of gratitude to General Obering for his outstanding leadership and service. I am proud to express my appreciation for his service.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I believe I am to be recognized for 10 minutes, but I ask that I be notified after 5.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to say to Senator Sanders a couple things. First, I think it is indeed breathtaking that this Senate would authorize basically one person with very little real oversight, a Wall Street maven himself, and allocate $700 billion in America's wealth, which I would have to say would be the largest single authorization of expenditure in the history of the Republic. So I have to say, fundamentally, I think we have not done a good enough job in creating an oversight mechanism that will work, so I am not going to vote for the bill; I am not. I would say, however, and note this point, that my colleague, Senator Shelby from Alabama, chaired the Banking Committee in 2005. He held hearings on the problems at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Alan Greenspan, the then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve, wrote a letter saying that if we did not fix Freddie and Fannie this very kind of calamity would occur. He put that in writing. Senator Shelby pushed through legislation to regulate it. It came through the committee on a straight party-line vote; all Republicans, as I recall, voted for additional oversight and reform of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and all Democrats voted against additional regulation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. So I wish to say, I am prepared to support good regulation, sound regulation, and I reject the idea that this problem all arose because Republicans opposed regulation. Amtrak In a few minutes we are going to have a vote on Amtrak reauthorization and appropriations as a standalone bill. The majority leader, Senator Reid, has filled the tree. That means we cannot offer any amendments. In the late 1990s, we directed that, after 2002, Amtrak would no longer receive funding from the Federal Government. We ordered that. And yet, we are again appropriating, for 5 years, almost $2 billion a year to fund this entity. We do not stand by our decision. Why is Amtrak losing money? Primarily it is because long-distance trains account for 80 percent of its cash operating losses, while carrying only 15 percent of the passengers. Now, I know people have romantic views about trains. They would like to see everybody ride in trains. But people are not riding trains for long distances. And as a result, the taxpayers are eating huge losses. I would say, fundamentally, we can do better about that, and we need to quit mandating, for political reasons, routes that might pass through our States but are dead losers. The Heritage Foundation did a study on a predecessor bill that was very similar to the one we are considering. They found that the bill would only disrupt the necessary reform process and perpetuate low- quality service at a much higher cost to the taxpayers. This bill lacks any substantive reform proposal, it is replete with directives, alterations, restructurings, subsidies, reports, 5-year plans, and other forms of top-down micromanagement techniques that are designed to create the impression that Amtrak is making improvements. In fact, Heritage said, instead of reforming and improving Amtrak, the legislation may actually make it worse.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would say one more thing. I checked the price of a train ticket from Birmingham, AL, to Washington, DC. I found that the train makes 18 stops and takes 18 hours. The Amtrak ticket is $445. What happens if you take a one-stop flight from Alabama to Washington? It costs a little over $300, and makes only one stop. So this is why people are making these choices. They have multiple choices on when they leave Birmingham and what time they want to leave on a flight to Washington. But a person on a train can only leave one time a day; it takes them 18 hours, and they have to eat on the train at high cost. That is why we are having problems. We should have had reform in this Amtrak bill, and I do not like that it is brought up at the very last minute, and the majority leader has fixed it so there can be no real debate or amendments offered.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, Madam President, we certainly need to confront the challenges we are facing now with this banking situation. I know Senator Domenici is so eloquent and speaks with such conviction on it and believes strongly that we need to get busy. The underlying business, however, at this time does remain the Amtrak bill, the reauthorization. That is the legislation the majority leader, Senator Reid, has brought up. I would assume that the leadership is trying to figure out what to do in light of the House vote. If they want to proceed and discuss that legislation, I will certainly be glad to yield the floor to them. But I do think we need to talk about this reauthorization of Amtrak. I have watched this issue for a number of years and have drawn increasingly concerned. The legislation provides $9.7 billion for Amtrak and passenger rails through 2013 for operating and capital grants and debt repayment. Operating--that means in simple language they are losing money, so we are going to make up their losses. Capital grants means they want more money to help them expand the system. Instead of the Amtrak system itself paying for this on a normal basis, they want the taxpayer to pay for it. Debt repayment--we have seen a lot of people having debt and not being able to pay their debt. It appears Amtrak needs a bailout because they cannot pay their debts. I wish we were in better shape, but the fact is, we're not. It also includes an amount of $1.5 billion for the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority--this is another $1.5 billion on top of the money that has been put in that program for some time. What is it for? For capital and preventative maintenance. I guess that means keeping the system running. I will talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But I would note that in 1997, a little over a decade ago, Congress had a big discussion about Amtrak and what to do about it, and there was a consensus that the system be fundamentally reformed and that there be new accountability for Amtrak. It provided, in 1997, that by 2002 there would be no more Federal subsidies to Amtrak. I tell you, we do not have accountability in this Government of ours. It is not functioning sufficiently in my view, and one reason is we make assertions, and when things do not work out the people who did not succeed at whatever task they were given--we just give them more money, and they know that. They expect that to happen, so they do not make the tough decisions necessary to be successful. Kenneth Mead, the former Department of Transportation inspector general who dealt with accountability, succinctly stated it this way: The mismatch between the public resources made available to fund inner city passenger rail service, the total cost to maintain the system that Amtrak continues to operate, and the proposals to restructure the system comprise a dysfunction that must be resolved in the reauthorization process of the Nation's inner city rail system. Now, the Heritage Foundation, an exceptionally fine think tank, has looked at this, and they have concluded that we do not have the reform that Inspector General Mead said was necessary. In fact, they say that fundamentally this reauthorization makes little reform at all of significance, and this request for money may be the biggest Amtrak has ever asked for. I say we have a problem. Let me share a few thoughts. I know many people have a romantic attraction to rail systems and want to see them successful and think we could do well if we could have more rails and people would ride the rails and it would save energy and we would all be happy and we could just, I guess, like the Orient Express, play cards and eat meals on white table cloths. Well, let's look at the reality of what we are dealing with. I do not think Amtrak is going to work in Alabama. Our population is too diverse, and the routes it runs do not seem to fit the traffic patterns of people. I wish it could. I do not want to be a person to say don't send Amtrak through my State. Few people probably benefit from it. Few people might have a job depending on it. But sometimes we as a nation have to ask ourselves what is the proper utilization of our money, and are we making any progress. I do not think you can justify many, perhaps most, of the routes Amtrak is running, but some of them could be. Some more of them could perhaps become viable if the losses they were taking in this system on bad routes were put into some of the marginal routes, where they upgraded them and they could run the system better, cleaner, and more timely, with fewer delays, and that kind of thing. But fundamentally the romantic view that we are going to have some sort of major international rail system does not seem to be realistic. I remember as a child growing up in the country we used to say--I grew up on the railroad tracks. It was not but a couple hundred yards from my house to the railroad track. My daddy had a country store there. There were three country stores in that neighborhood and one railroad depot. So we had a passenger train. When I was a young kid, a passenger train came through there. But there has not been a passenger train through Hybart, AL, in 40, 50 years. Now there is only one store left in the community and no railroad depot. It has been closed for many years. Things happen. This country changes. People change. Let me ask this question to my colleagues. Would the Nation be better off if somebody in Washington, DC, said: Oh, that is such a shame. This little town of Hybart might lose their three stores, and they might have the depot closed. Maybe we ought to fund the railroad, give them enough money, bail them out, so they can continue to operate their passenger train through there. Would we be better off if we had done that? I do not think so. I hate to see it happen. We also had a little post office attached to the house of my neighbor, and they closed that a number of years ago. That was heartbreaking. Mrs. Hybart from Hybart ran the post office. When she retired, they closed it. We hated to see that, but maybe the Postal Service was right. Maybe it was such a small operation it couldn't be justified to be continued. Somebody has to make decisions somewhere. So let me point this out to my colleagues. Using my home State as an example, we have a train that goes through Birmingham and on up to Washington. Birmingham is our largest city. What are your options if you are in Birmingham and want to come to Washington, DC, our Nation's Capital? If you want to go on a commercial airline, which most people do, frankly, there are several flights every day, direct flights from Birmingham to Washington. If you take your personal vehicle you can leave anytime that you desire. You can leave early in the morning or you can leave midday, whatever. If you take the train, though, there is only one train a day leaving, and you have to leave at precisely that time or you don't get on the train. So that limits options at the beginning. When people are deciding when and how to make a trip, they ask themselves these questions: What about the time it takes to make a trip from Birmingham to Washington, DC? Well, the air time is about 2 hours 12 minutes. The personal vehicle, if you drive by car, we calculate 11 hours. It may be 10 or 11 hours. By train, it is 18 hours. How many stops would you make? If you take an airline, of course, a direct flight, there is only one stop--at Washington. If you take your vehicle, maybe you make four or five stops, three or four stops. Let's assume you make four. But Amtrak, Amtrak makes 18 stops, and it does not take the shortest route to the Nation's Capital. What about cost? How much does it cost? I was surprised, actually, when we looked at these numbers. I questioned my staff. Could it be an error? This is what they told me: The primary cost of a round-trip airline ticket from Birmingham to Washington is $328. It has gone up some. That is what they tell me is the recent fare for this trip. If you look at your automobile, and there is only one person in the car-- you may have four--but if one person is driving to Washington, it is about $200 for the gasoline at the current high prices; $4 or so a gallon. What about the Amtrak train ticket that is going to take 18 hours instead of 2, what does it cost? Four hundred and forty-five dollars. So you think this may have something to do with why people are choosing to fly or drive, rather than take the train? I kind of wish it wasn't so. I wish there was some way we could make this different than it is, but those are the facts and that is why many of the Amtrak routes are not practical. People say: Well, why don't we make more routes, more trips, more trains, more often every day, and maybe more people would use it. I don't think so. I think the losses would swell even larger. You can't make this happen, in my view. I wish we had a different statement I could say about it, but that is it. One reason we maintain these routes around the country that are losing money substantially is because Congress maintains them because politics gets into it. Nobody wants to stand, as I am doing right now, and suggest it is not going to be the end of the world for the State of Alabama if we don't have an Amtrak running through there, if it is costing the taxpayers billions of dollars every year to keep it running. I wish to mention, briefly, the Washington Metro earmark of $1.5 billion. This includes Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs--some of the richest, most prosperous areas in the country. But they want us to send huge amounts of money here to fund the extension of their subway, their train system. I think we have a right--the people outside this area need to ask why they should do that. Let me share this. My home county that I have been talking about has double-digit unemployment. It is reported by the New York Times that in my county--Wilcox County, where I grew up and went to school--the average citizen spends a larger percentage of their income on gasoline than any other county in America. So I guess what we are talking about now is we are going to ask people in my county who are struggling to get by with high unemployment rates and low wages and long distances to work, to subsidize a big, fancy subway system extension and operation that goes beyond, what I think is fair. What principle is being utilized to decide this is a good allocation of limited wealth in America? So this is a huge mark. It is a huge item. Let me tell my colleagues how huge it is. Our State, as I recall, under the formula for highway distribution moneys, with every State in America, is about average. Alabama is about an average size State in population and probably in size. The tax revenue from gasoline comes to the Federal Government and we allocate it out by complex formulas that we have fought over for years. Alabama and Mississippi felt as though we weren't being fairly treated, but we are doing a little better now under the formula. But the amount of money Alabama gets, as I recall, it is not much over $500 million a year for the entire interstate highway system in Alabama to be utilized with the State highway money: $500 million per year. Whereas, they who are pushing this Metro system--$1.5 billion payment-- would, in one project alone, be three times the annual funds that my State gets for highways. I don't think that is fair. I know it is a huge project. But, it is not a project I think can be justified. I wish we could do this and that would be good. Somebody said: Well, Government employees like it. Many of them live out that way. Well, I have to tell my colleagues that Government employees are treated pretty well. You may not know this, but one reason they take subways is most of the agencies subsidize their ticket. If you take the Metro, the Government agency gives you a transportation allowance. So they have tried everything they can to incentivize riding the subway, but the Metro is still losing money. This is an additional subsidy from the Federal Government to the Washington Metro. So I have to tell my colleagues I believe this is an important matter. I do not believe this legislation is sound. I don't think it is good for the taxpayers. I believe it is, in many ways, including this very large, one appropriation of $1.5 billion, that is clearly unfair to the rest of the country. We shouldn't pass it. I am sorry the majority leader seems determined to move forward with this bill. But as I said, I would not object if he sets it aside temporarily, to discuss what we are going to do about the financial crisis. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield?