George Voinovich

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a bill my colleague Senator Carper and I introduced today, the Electronic Personal Health Records Act. The purpose of this legislation is to provide for the establishment and maintenance of electronic personal health records for individuals and family members enrolled in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, FEHBP. The widespread adoption of health information technology, such as electronic health record, (EHR), will revolutionize the health care profession. In fact, the Institute of Medicine, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, and other expert panels have identified information technology as one of the most powerful tools in reducing medical errors and improving the quality of care. Unfortunately, our country's health care industry lags far behind other sectors of the economy in its investment in IT. The Institute of Medicine estimates that there are nearly 98,000 deaths each year resulting from medical errors. Many of these deaths can be directly attributed to the inherent imperfections of our current paper-based health care system. This statistic is startling and one that I hope will motivate my colleagues to take a close look at the goals of our legislation. The voluntary EHRs that would be established through the Electronic Personal Health Records Act will provide clinicians with real-time access to their patient's health history. Each EHR would contain claims data, contact information for providers of health care services, and other useful information for diagnosis and treatment. The records will be available cost-free to FEHBP participants and will maintain strict adherence to HIPAA. Under the bill, the Office of Personnel Management, OPM, would be required to ensure that all carriers who participate in FEHBP educate their members about the implementation of the EHR, as well as give timely notice of the establishment of the record and an opportunity for each individual to elect not to participate in the program. OPM, through their carriers, would also have to ensure that all records would be available for electronic access through Internet, fax, or printed method for the use of the individual, and that to the extent possible, records could be transferred from one plan to another. The bill would require EHRs to be made available two years after the passage of the legislation or earlier at the discretion of OPM in consultation with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology within HHS. Not only can EHRs save lives and improve the quality of health care, they also have the potential to reduce the cost of the delivery of health care. According to Rand Corporation, the health care delivery system in the United States could save approximately $160 billion annually with the widespread use of electronic medical records. As a result, the private market is already moving toward implementing electronic medical records. This bill, simply encourages the health care industry to continue in that direction and take their use of technology in the delivery of care to the next step. I urge my colleagues to consider not only the benefit it will provide to the eight million individuals who receive their health care through the FEHBP, but also to our Nation's overall health care system.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. I certainly endorse the comments of the Senator from Texas. The airline industry is very competitive with thin profit margins. The costs of labor and benefits are two of the few variables that affect a company's bottom line. The bill that came over to the Senate from the House, and which we are unable to amend today, puts several of the airlines at a severe competitive disadvantage because it does not apply the same rules to each airline's pension fund. Recognizing the importance of the other reform measures in this legislation, I understand the need to pass it and send it to the President for his signature. But before we do that, I would like to hear from the majority leader if he believes that he will be in a position before the year ends to revisit this question and help us reach a more equitable resolution.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I would like to second the remarks of Senator Inhofe about Senator Jeffords. I have had an opportunity to work with Senator Jeffords now for 8 years. We have had our good days and bad days, but we never had good days and bad days between us. I consider him to be an outstanding Senator and a gentleman. I appreciate the courtesies which he has extended me over the years of his distinguished career.

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Water Resources Development Act of 2006. I commend Senators Inhofe, Jeffords, and Bond--and their staffs--for their hard work and strong leadership in putting together a bipartisan bill. As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I am pleased to have been a part of this effort. But I want to make it clear that Senator Inhofe is the driving force and Senator Bond kept pushing us. If it wasn't for their unbelievable commitment to this, we wouldn't be here today. It has been 6 years since the Congress last passed a Water Resources and Development reauthorization bill. I remember it because I was chairman of the subcommittee that handled the bill. The time has come to finally pass this legislation. America's infrastructure and waterways system is the foundation of our economy. For too long, we have been ignoring our infrastructure, but Katrina was a wake-up call for all of us. In the wake of this disaster, we saw firsthand the devastating impact of a weak infrastructure on our people and our economy. The more we continue to fail to fund our water infrastructure, the more we are putting our Nation's competitiveness at risk in this global marketplace. It has a new dimension to it because if we are going to compete in the global marketplace, we need to build the infrastructure for competitiveness, and we have had our heads in the sand in terms of the condition of that infrastructure. It is a critical piece of America's competitiveness. Our infinite needs are overwhelming and being squeezed. We should be rebuilding an infrastructure so that the new generation has at least the same opportunity to enjoy our standard of living and quality of life. Right now, our infrastructure is collapsing due to insufficient funding. Congress desperately needs to provide increased funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, including funding for levees and funding for additional engineers. I have been concerned about the backlog of unfunded Corps projects since I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure in 1999. When I arrived in the Senate in 1999, the backlog of unfunded Corps operation and maintenance projects was $250 million. Today, it is $1.2 billion. At that time, there was a backlog of $38 billion active water resource projects waiting for Federal funding. I want to emphasize that. Today, according to the administration, there are about $50 billion in Army Corps construction projects that are in need of Federal funding. Despite these needs, the Corps is currently able to function only at 50-percent capacity at the rate of funding proposed by the budget. It is hard to believe when you consider what we have had with Katrina. Annual appropriations for the Corps' construction accounts has fallen from a $4 billion average in the mid-1960s to a $1.5 billion average for 1996 through 2005. The stark reality is at the current levels of construction appropriations, the Corps' water resource projects, we already have more water resource projects authorized for construction than we can complete. At the current low levels of construction, it would take 25 years to complete the active projects in the backlog without even considering additional project authorizations that are in this bill. That is why I am supporting the prioritization amendment offered by Senator McCain and Senator Feingold. I tried to get this kind of amendment back 5 or 6 years ago, but it was rebuffed. We don't want to do that. We don't want to prioritize anything. It might be someone's special project, and it may not get on the list where they would like it to be. So let's not do that. Unfortunately, appropriations for the Corps program have not been adequate to meet the needs that have been identified in our Nation. We have also been asking the Corps to do more with less. I am all for trimming fat from the Federal budget and practicing fiscal discipline, but the Corps of Engineers budget is not fat--it is the bread and butter of our economy and our infrastructure. I believe this amendment will reduce this backlog. This amendment would allow the Water Resources Coordinating Committee, an interagency task force that has been established in the underlying bill, to establish transparent, project-specific national priority criteria, classify projects either currently under construction or authorized into a tier system based on that criteria, and then issue a nonbinding prioritization report to the authorizing and appropriations committees. I will bet you that a lot of what they have against this is because they do not want anyone to tinker with what they do. The fact is, I think we owe it to them to make sure they have some priority list as to the importance of these projects as well as the Office of Management and Budget to help guild them in their funding decisions. This report would also be made available to the public. I believe this report would ensure that the most critical projects in the Nation are receiving adequate funding. Katrina showed us the importance of prioritization. We need a comprehensive prioriti- zation system to ensure that Congress has the information it needs to direct limited Federal resources to the most urgent projects. When I was Governor of the State of Ohio, the State had hundreds of highway projects that every preceding Governor had promised each municipality would be built. It is whatever you want, you got it. The list was unbelievable. The projects would have cost the State of Ohio between $5 billion and $6 billion to build, whereas the State typically only received between $100 million and $300 million a year. At the time, it would have taken decades to build all the projects my constituents asked for, even if another new project was not added to the list for years. In order to deal with the imbalance between demand and available revenue, I created an objective, criteria-driven project selection process called the Transportation Review Advisory Council, or TRAC. This process gives paramount consideration to effective management of the backlog to assure that it only includes needed projects that are economically justified, environmentally acceptable, and supported by willing and financially capable, nonfederal sponsors. The State is required to balance this project list with the State's revenue projections. The TRAC also is required to issue a 4-year fiscal forecast after Congress passes each highway bill to get an idea of how much money we are going to get. It made no sense for the State of Ohio to continue project development on projects worth millions of dollars that had no realistic hope of ever being built. I think my constituents are much better served by this system because the State is investing its resources in projects that will become a reality in the near future. I am sure the President would understand this. When you have a highway bill, a lot of the Congressmen would put in earmarks on projects. And today when they are earmarking, they earmark it for projects that are on that list because they know that the money will be spent for the project. We need to take similar steps in the Senate in addressing our water resource needs. It is long overdue with the limited resources that we have. Hopefully, one day we will face up to those limited resources in terms of our infrastructure. We need a prioritization. I think Senator McCain and Senator Feingold have put together a very good amendment. Again, I know it may be controversial for some of the authorizers, but it is time that we do this. The passage of another WRDA bill cannot be delayed any further. It is simply too important to our Nation in terms of its benefits to our economy and environment and for the speedy recovery for the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. I call on President Bush and my colleagues in both the House and the Senate to work expeditiously to get this bill enacted into law as soon as possible. Really from the bottom of my heart, I urge my colleagues to support this bill and this amendment. Thank you, Mr. President. Amendment No. 4683

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today in support of legislation to expand the Federal investment in adult and umbilical cord blood stem cell research, as well as scientific ways to create embryonic stem cell lines without destroying human embryos. It is important to point out that there are two very important categories of stem cells. I know that my colleagues are going to have a little difficulty with this because I have had difficulty with this. This is medical terminology. The first, embryonic stem cells, as their name suggests, are derived from human embryos developed from eggs that have been fertilized in an in vitro fertilization clinic. Removing stem cells from these embryos destroys their potential life, making their use very controversial and something I cannot morally support. On the other hand, adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells found among differentiated cells in tissues or organs. Adult stem cells can renew themselves and will eventually differentiate into a special cell. However, before this occurs, the undifferentiated stem cells can be gathered by scientists without any harm to the individual. Also included in this ethical category of stem cells are those from umbilical cord blood derived from the placenta of a newborn baby. With the birth of my seventh grandchild last summer, I learned a great deal about the benefits of preserving cord blood stem cells. Once considered medical waste and discarded after birth, science has determined that cord blood has the potential to save thousands of lives. And that is exactly why I came to the floor today, to explain these differences and to highlight the unmatched value of adult and cord blood stem cells. By the way, when I found out about the umbilical cord blood coming from the placenta, we are now freezing that umbilical cord, and each year we will pay some money to maintain it. But that umbilical cord can be used to help my seventh grandchild or, for that matter, the whole family. It is something more people should find out about. I am concerned that the vast majority of Americans are unaware that some of the most promising advances in medical research and treatment today are not attributed to embryonic stem cells; rather, they are the result of noncontroversial, nonlife-ending use of adult and umbilical blood cord cells. Unfortunately, many of the individuals who support embryonic stem cell research have been kept in the dark about the advances of umbilical and adult stem cell treatments and have been oversold on embryonic stem cell research, which is still in its infancy. While embryonic cells have never been successfully used to treat even one disease--not used to treat one disease to date--adult stem cells have been used to treat 72 diseases, such as breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, sickle cell anemia, spinal cord injuries, and many others. I have read reports that adult stem cells from a young girl's own fat cells were used to repair or regenerate a 19-square-inch section of her skull. I have also learned of a Parkinson's patient who has been without the vast majority of the disease's symptoms for 6 years after being treated with his own adult stem cells. Even more encouraging, the potential use of adult and umbilical cord therapies continues to expand. In fact, there is a real possibility that these types of stem cells will be able to yield the same results as embryonic, or what they call pluripotent stem cells, without the need to destroy human life. The American Journal of Pathology recently reported that a group of scientists have isolated a novel population of multipotent adult stem cells from human hair follicles--think of that, human hair follicles-- which, like embryonic stem cells, express neural crest and neuron stem cell markers, as well as the embryonic stem cell transcription factors. In other words, what we are saying is that they produce the same thing we would get if we were using the embryos that so many are anxious to use. I was introduced to the promise of adult and umbilical stem cell research by experts at the National Center of Regenerative Medicine in my hometown of Cleveland, OH. The individual institutions involved in this partnership--Case Western Reserve University, University Hospital, and the Cleveland Clinic--each bring an expertise to the center that is leading the Nation in the use of nonembryonic stem cells to regenerate new tissue and diseased organs rather than using drugs or devices to improve the function of the organ. The National Center for Regenerative Medicine team has told me that they are interested in the rapid translation of adult and umbilical cord stem cell technology into patients that is not possible today with embryonic stem cells. Since 1976, investigators at the center have studied nonembryonic stem cells and performed their first stem cell transplant as early as 1980. That is back in 1980. Investigators at the center are now able to cure leukemias and lymphomas with nonembryonic stem cell transplantation, as well as to fix unstable bone fractures and treat genetic disorders. In the next several years, investigators at the center believe they will be able to address cancer, bone, heart, and neurological disorders with nonembryonic stem cell treatments. They are hopeful that the new advances will lead to treatment of degenerative arthritis, will decrease the severity of graft versus host disease after stem cell transplantation, and allow physicians to use a patient's own stem cells to repair heart damage following congestive heart failure, as well as use their own neural stem cells to improve function after spinal cord damage. All of the things that folks are talking about because we have to have these embryonic stem cells because this is what we have to do-- we are already on our way. We are making progress with adult and with umbilical cord stem cells. The center has 10 ongoing or planned clinical trials to further explore the use of stem cell therapies to reduce the risks of chemotherapy, treat certain heart conditions, and improve umbilical stem cell treatment for leukemia. I recently had the privilege to personally hear two young Ohioans discuss the successful adult stem cell treatment received at the center for an aggressive form of leukemia and a severely broken bone that would not heal with traditional treatment. I will never forget this young woman who was there. It was a meeting at the regenerative center. She talked about the fact that she was in this terrible motorcycle accident. She was a mountain climber, she was a skier, she was a runner. She was told by all of her doctors that she wouldn't be able to run again, that she would have to hobble around. She went to the Cleveland Clinic, to the regenerative center, and as a result of using her stem cells, they were able to repair the problem that she had in her leg. Today she is running. I am getting goosebumps right now. I will never forget it. She started to cry. She hugged her doctor. We all started to cry. It was a miraculous thing using adult stem cells. As a result, I support the legislation introduced by my colleagues from Pennsylvania, the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act. The bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop techniques for the isolation, derivation, protection or testing of stem cells not derived from a human embryo. The bill would also require the Secretary to prioritize stem cell research that will reap near-term clinical benefits. It is my hope that this type of progress will help eliminate the controversy surrounding embryonic stem cell research without any compromise of scientific advancement. I have the greatest sympathy for patients and their families who continue to struggle with a wide range of painful, life-ending diseases. Further, I understand what it is like to watch a loved one suffer and the tragedy of losing a member of your family, even a young child, to a life-ending disease. I personally lost my father to diabetes and my nephew C.T. to bone cancer. I have been a witness to the devastating effects of Alzheimer's, arthritis, and many other diseases. One can hardly take issue with these individual efforts to seek out a potential cure, but too often, I fear, proponents of embryonic stem cell research provide patients with false promises from unproven, unexplored embryonic stem cells, while ignoring the real substantial progress that has been made with adult and blood cord treatments. I am gravely concerned about the possible implication of spending taxpayers' dollars on an issue such as embryonic stem cell research that divides Americans on moral and ethical grounds, and I believe it is my moral responsibility to direct the Federal Government's dollars toward the areas of research that have the greatest near-term potential to help the largest number of Americans. Since I have been a Member of the Senate, we have doubled the funding for the National Institutes of Health, NIH, and greatly increased the amount of medical research the Federal Government is able to fund, including increasing the amount of money available for research on all stem cells from $226 million in 1999 to $568 million this year. However, as you know, Mr. President, in recent years with the cost of the war, the need to protect our homeland, and natural disasters such as Katrina, the amount the Federal budget has available for these priorities is getting smaller and smaller. We are seeing that now with the appropriations bills in the Senate. I meet with groups all the time, and they ask me for increases in funding for research for diseases that personally impact on their families. I am sure they visit your office, Mr. President, every couple of weeks: We want more money for NIH to take care of this, to take care of that. Just within my own family, I met recently with my former brother-in-law in support of childhood cancer, and through my son I have heard a very emotional presentation by a group of my constituents on behalf of juvenile diabetes research. Again, if everyone in the Senate had been at that meeting, I think they would have said: Look, we have to do more, spend more money on juvenile diabetes. There is a tremendous need to pursue treatments for these and many other diseases, but we face a reality of limited funding. That is the real world. We have to be smart about spending our money, and in the current budget environment, I have concerns that increasing funding for research on embryonic stem cell will take away opportunities for research in areas such as adult and umbilical cord blood research, or even research for treatment of specific diseases such as cancer, juvenile diabetes, and others that have proven their usefulness. Consequently, and in light of all the advances and results science has provided with adult and umbilical blood cord stem cells, I urge my colleagues to continue to direct Federal funding toward the noncontroversial areas of adult and umbilical cord blood stem cell research. I urge my colleagues to do that. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak on amendment No. 4594 to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007. I thank Senator Gregg and Senator Byrd for accepting this amendment by unanimous consent. Before I describe this amendment, I would like to acknowledge the hard work and leadership of Senator Gregg and Senator Byrd, and thank them for their diligence in coming to a consensus on this crucial piece of legislation. The balance between enhanced security and strong stewardship of the taxpayers' hard-earned dollar is a fine one. I applaud your attention to both, and I support this legislation. The Emergency Management Performance Grant, EMPG, program is designed to provide State and local emergency management agencies with the necessary funds to expand the development, maintenance, and improvement of their programs. It is the only source of Federal assistance that provides vital emergency management, coordination, and planning support to State and local governments and first responders. It funds personnel, training, and exercises. The program requires that States match 50 percent of the Federal contribution. According to the Department of Homeland Security, EMPG funds are spent rapidly compared to other programs; in other words, if Congress appropriates additional EMPG funding, it will be used expeditiously, efficiently, and effectively. Last year the EMPG program was funded at $185 million. In an effort to increase the sound management of homeland security funds, earlier this year I asked the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security to increase funding for the EMPG program. I am pleased that 41 Senators joined me on this request. The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007 funds the program at $205 million. While I am heartened by and thankful for the $20 million increase in funding over last year's level, I feel strongly that the program should be further increased. Accordingly, this amendment would increase the funding of the EMPG program by an additional $15 million. I am joined on this amendment by Senators Baucus, Biden, Burns, Cantwell, Collins, Feingold, Harkin, Kennedy, Kerry, Lieberman, Murray, Pryor, Roberts, Snowe, Stabenow, and Warner. I thank them all for their support. It is my strong belief that an additional $15 million for the EMPG program will enhance the effectiveness of every disaster relief fund dollar directed toward response and recovery. Since 9/11, the responsibilities of our first responders have increased. They must now be prepared to respond to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and malicious acts of terrorism. We must support them. With the enhanced responsibilities, and the tight budget constraints currently faced by State and local governments, the flexibility provided by the EMPG program is vital. I would like to describe some of the ways that EMPG funds help State and local governments. In Ohio and across the Nation, the emergency preparedness requirements have increased significantly since 9/11. For example, according to a 2003 study conducted by the Emergency Management Association of Ohio, approximately 10 percent of all emergency management employee time was spent on antiterrorism and homeland security activities prior to September 11, 2001. By 2003, that figure had shot up to 50 percent. In addition, State and local emergency management agencies now are responsible for the coordination and implementation of national initiatives, such as integration of the National Response Plan into existing emergency operations plans and implementing the National Incident Management System. The EMPG funds the extra manpower and management support to help State and local governments meet these increased responsibilities. Furthermore, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many States have identified the requirement to be to carry out mass evacuations in the event of catastrophic disasters. Increased EMPG funding will help State and local governments prepare these contingency plans. According to the National Emergency Management Association, EMPG funds are used for a wide variety of purposes which vary State by State. In Alabama, EMPG funds play a critical role in helping the State develop its plans to respond to natural disasters, particularly hurricanes; grants are used for contingency planning, including evacuation plans, debris removal plans, and plans for postdisaster distribution of critical assistance to those affected by the storms. In Oregon, EMPG funds are used to upgrade key emergency operations centers for counties that face large hazards such as wild land fires, annual flooding, and earthquakes. Increasing the funding for EMPG would help some States do even more. In Alaska, additional resources would be used to increase levels of emergency management personnel, which for some communities are currently only part-time positions. In New Hampshire, increased EMPG funds would be used to address the areas identified in the National Plan Review as either ``insufficient'' or ``partially sufficient.'' This would include statewide evacuation planning, surge planning and capability, as well as further development of the State emergency operations plan. In response to Hurricane Katrina, the EMPG program more than proved its worth. In a statement submitted to the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Bruce Baughman, the president of the National Emergency Management Agency, gave the following description of the mutual assistance provided by the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, EMAC, which is funded by the EMPG: EMAC enabled 48 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico to provide assistance in the form of more than 2,100 missions of human, military and equipment assets and over 65,000 civilian and military personnel and equipment assets to support the impacted states. The nature of the nation's mutual aid system vividly shows the need for all states to have appropriate capabilities for all disasters and EMPG allows states and local governments to build this capability both for their own use and to share in through EMAC. The Appropriations Committee conference report for 2006 concurred with this assessment, noting that ``EMPGs are vital to state and local emergency management agencies.'' This year, the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee report concluded that ``EMPG is an essential source of funding for state and local emergency management,'' and that ``state and local governments currently have productive relationships with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's regional emergency managers that are critical to maintain an all-hazards response capability,'' and that the committee ``expects these relationships to continue.'' The subcommittee further noted that: Additional federal funding is necessary to properly support state and local responsibilities and coordinate with federal emergency management during national disasters. In closing, Mr. President, State and local governments must be prepared. The EMPG program is a proven method of accomplishing this goal. This amendment is both fiscally responsible and strategically sound. I thank Senator Gregg for working with me to identify an appropriate offset for this increased funding. Once again, I applaud the efforts of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, especially in light of the tight fiscal environment.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Workforce Performance Appraisal and Management Improvement Act. Before I describe for my colleagues the details of this legislation, I would like to provide background on why I believe it is important for Congress to consider legislation reforming the performance appraisal processes of the government. My interest in the federal workforce began after working with the Federal Government for 18 years as an outside force, 10 years as mayor of Cleveland and 8 years as Governor of Ohio. Through my work as chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia, I continue to observe that investing in personnel and workforce management; in fact, management in general, struggles to be a priority in the Federal Government. My own experience as county auditor, county commissioner, mayor, and governor has taught me that, of all the things in which government can invest, resources dedicated to human capital bring the greatest return. I continue to applaud the current administration for its systematic approach to improving and scrutinizing the management practices of the Federal Government through the President's Management Agenda and its related scorecard. Each year, the administration raises the bar as to what earns an agency a green, or successful, rating. One of the criteria used to evaluate a department or agency for strategic management of human capital this year is demonstrating a strong performance appraisal system for the Senior Executive Service, agency managers, and 60 percent of the workforce. I believe that an effective performance management system is fundamental to building a results-oriented organization. By developing a system where employees have regular discussions with their supervisors about expectations for their performance, both employees and supervisors will be more effective in achieving their agency's mission. The primary goal of the Federal Workforce Performance Appraisal and Management Improvement Act of 2006 is to build and maintain this environment. This legislation would strengthen and improve the employee performance appraisal system, which now is vague in its requirements. While some organizations have taken steps to modernize their performance management systems and tools such as the President's Management Agenda have moved agencies in that direction, there is no comprehensive governmentwide mandate to do so. This legislation would begin the reform process by layering a modern performance management system over the existing General Schedule system. This legislation would require that every Federal employee receive annually a written performance appraisal. That appraisal must align with the agency's strategic goals, be developed with the employee, make meaningful distinctions among employee performance, and use the results in making decisions for training, rewarding, promoting, reassigning, and removing employees. This legislation would require the Office of Personnel Management to provide technical assistance to agencies and approve the system. The government must utilize the Office of Personnel Management's institutional expertise. This legislation would require that managers receive the appropriate training to judge the performance of their subordinates, make expectations clear to employees, and give constructive feedback. This legislation would stipulate that if an employee does not achieve a successful rating under the new appraisal system, then that employee would be ineligible for the annual pay increase or a within grade increase. This legislation would provide individuals hired as senior level or senior technical to access level II of the Executive Schedule with an OPM certified performance appraisal system, consistent with statute for the Senior Executive Service. I am introducing this legislation because I believe that employees should receive a rigorous evaluation each year and that their pay should be determined based upon their performance. I agree with the observation that has been made repeatedly by Comptroller General David Walker, that the passage of time should not be the single most important factor in determining an employee's pay. Instead, it should be determined by productivity, effectiveness, and contributions of that employee. I have implemented pay for performance before, and it can work. However, it requires a significant commitment on behalf of managers and leaders. Instead of taking one giant bite at the apple, I believe it will be easier for Federal agencies to implement enhanced employee appraisals first. By instituting a more rigorous performance management standard on top of the current general schedule, I am optimistic this will create less anxiety among Federal employees. I also would like to stress that I intend this effort to be completely bipartisan. The proposal I have outlined here today is not set in stone, and I imagine that it will undergo many changes. I would like to transform the culture of the Federal workforce into a high-performing, continually improving organization that focuses on achieving results for the American people. The Federal workforce must be as agile, nimble, and intellectually energetic as the leading nongovernmental organizations or dot-com companies, capable of addressing the wide ranging challenges facing the U.S., from national security to global economic competitiveness to providing vital social services. We must discuss the challenges before us and ask if the rules and culture of today's Federal workforce get the job done. We must engage in a dialogue about the future of the public service and ask the difficult questions about what we want it to achieve and how do we make it happen. This conversation will make many people uncomfortable, but it must take place. For as all of us who work on Federal workforce issues know, there is great disagreement about the types of reforms and changes that should be made going forward. We must ask, what should the Federal workforce be doing for America to meet the challenges of the 21st century? Once we have answered that question, we can begin to discuss how we build that workforce. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the life and achievements of Howard E. LeFevre, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and the founder of The Works: Ohio Center for History Art & Technology in Newark, Ohio. Founded in 1996, The Works is a remarkable center of discovery that helped introduce an appreciation for industry, innovation, and the creative process for students and learners of all ages, including the 45,000 who visited the facilities last year alone. Through a unique blend of traditional museum programs, computer labs, art galleries, craft demonstration areas, and interactive classrooms, The Works strives to stimulate analytical thinking and enhance the quality life in Licking County and beyond. Through Mr. LeFevre's leadership, The Works has been a catalyst for restoration of downtown Newark, rescuing in its first decade four historic buildings that formed the heart of Newark's oldest manufacturing area. The Works has been an invaluable resource for students of Licking County and the community as a whole. Mr. LeFevre has been an exemplary leader in his community. He is a past president of Newark Area and Licking County Chamber of Commerce, past president of the Newark Rotary Club, past chairman of the United Way Annual Campaign, and past president of the board of directors of the Licking County United Way. Mr. LeFevre is trustee emeritus of and past chairman of Governing Committee of Licking County Foundation. He is director of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and a former member of the Ohio State Development Advisory Council. He was honored by a Distinguished Service Award at the Ohio State university in 1976 for his efforts in connection with establishing the Newark campus of the university. He was also honored by Licking Memorial Hospital with their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990. In 2002, Mr. LeFevre was awarded the ``Man of the Century'' by the city of Newark during its 2002-2003 bicentennial summer festivities. Mr. President, thanks to LeFevre's dedication, The Works will celebrate its 10th anniversary on June 17, 2006. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing and commending Howard E. LeFevre on his lifetime of commitment to the residents of Licking County as well as people all over the State of Ohio.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the Securing America's Future Economy Commission Act, which I am introducing today. I ask unanimous consent that my statement and bill be printed in the Record. This legislation stems from the need to address our Nation's current and future fiscal health. The fact is, we are in dire straits. In the simplest terms, the Federal Government continues to spend more than it takes in. In case anyone has forgotten, the deficit for fiscal year 2005 was $318 billion--the third largest deficit in our Nation's history. If we were to take out the Social Security surplus, the deficit would be nearly $500 billion. And if we were to use accrual accounting, the accounting method used by American businesses, the deficit would be approximately $760 billion. These deficits only continue to add to our national debt. When I came to the Senate in 1999, the national debt stood at $5.6 trillion. Since then, it has increased 50 percent to $8.4 trillion. As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, our national debt has grown from being 58 percent of GDP at the end of 2000 to an estimated 66.1 percent of GDP by the end of 2006. In fact, the debt continues to grow so quickly that the House of Representative's fiscal year 2007 budget resolution raises the Federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion. This is only a few months after Congress was forced to raise the debt ceiling. These ongoing deficits, coupled with the expected tidal wave of entitlement spending, will soon put our Nation in a very unenviable position if thoughtful action is not taken. Moreover, the trust funds for Medicare and Social Security will be exhausted even earlier than previously thought. According to the most recent trustees' report, the cost of Social Security and Medicare will grow from nearly 7.4 percent of the economy today to 12.7 percent by 2030, consuming approximately 70 percent of all Federal revenues, crowding out all other discretionary spending and some other mandatory programs. While entitlements are a major component of our Nation's future fiscal health, it is not the only portion. Just as we must look at how we must reform our entitlement programs to maintain our nation's competitiveness, we must also review our arcane Tax Code. What we should be doing is spending our time on tax reform. We all know that fundamental tax reform is critical. Just as we know the entitlement tidal wave is coming, we know that more and more middle class American families are being swept up in the AMT. So I simply cannot understand why some of my colleagues want to make so many provisions of the current Tax Code permanent or add new tax cuts when we very well may be eliminating precisely the same provisions as part of fundamental tax reform. No homeowner would remodel their kitchen and bathroom right before tearing down the house to build a newer and better one. Simplifying the code to make it more fair and honest could, by some estimates, save taxpayers over $265 billion in costs associated with preparing their taxes. That would be a real tax reduction, and it would not cost the Treasury one dime. It would be a tax cut that would guarantee that people are paying their fair share and would bring more money into the Federal Treasury. Anyone in the know who is watching us has got to wonder about our character, our intellectual honesty, our concern about our national security, our Nation's competitiveness in the global marketplace now and in the future, and last but not least, our ``don't-give-a-dam'' attitude about the standard of living and quality of life of our children and grandchildren. We know the long-term fiscal challenges that are facing our nation. We know that if we continue to move forward blindly, we will walk off a cliff. The simple fact is that we can't have it all--we need to set priorities and make hard choices--otherwise our children will end up paying for it. Last week I voted against the repeal of the estate tax and called on Congress to heed Americans' demand for fundamental tax and entitlement reform. The SAFE Act shows that I am serious about making this a priority for Congress. The legislation will establish a commission comprised of 15 voting members, 3 of which will be appointed by the President, 3 by the Senate majority leader, 3 by the Senate minority leader, 3 by the Speaker of the House and 3 by the House minority leader. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office and the Comptroller General of the United States will be appointed as nonvoting ex-officio members of the Commission to lend their expertise. The Commission will bring together the best minds associated with budget and economic policies to examine the long-term fiscal challenges facing the United States and recommend reforms. A minimum of six public town hall meetings will be held throughout the country within year to determine the scope of the problem and consider solutions. At the conclusion of the town meetings, the Commission will present a report to Congress detailing the fiscal problems facing future generations as well as a framework of long-term solutions. Within 60 days of the presentation of their report to Congress, the Commission will transmit to Congress a legislative proposal designed to: address the imbalance between long-term Federal spending commitments and projected revenues; increase net national savings to spur domestic investment and economic growth; and improve the budget process to place greater emphasis on long-term fiscal issues. The administration and Congress will each have 120 days to review the proposal and develop equivalent proposals if they deem necessary. Congress would then be required to vote on the proposals. America's fiscal situation is dire. Nothing is off the table when it comes to ensuring our longterm prosperity and increasing our competitiveness in the global marketplace. The task is daunting, but now is the time to act. I am thinking not only about the present, but about our children and grandchildren and the legacy--or burden--we will leave them.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the Securing America's Future Economy Commission Act, which I am introducing today. I ask unanimous consent that my statement and bill be printed in the Record. This legislation stems from the need to address our Nation's current and future fiscal health. The fact is, we are in dire straits. In the simplest terms, the Federal Government continues to spend more than it takes in. In case anyone has forgotten, the deficit for fiscal year 2005 was $318 billion--the third largest deficit in our Nation's history. If we were to take out the Social Security surplus, the deficit would be nearly $500 billion. And if we were to use accrual accounting, the accounting method used by American businesses, the deficit would be approximately $760 billion. These deficits only continue to add to our national debt. When I came to the Senate in 1999, the national debt stood at $5.6 trillion. Since then, it has increased 50 percent to $8.4 trillion. As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, our national debt has grown from being 58 percent of GDP at the end of 2000 to an estimated 66.1 percent of GDP by the end of 2006. In fact, the debt continues to grow so quickly that the House of Representative's fiscal year 2007 budget resolution raises the Federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion. This is only a few months after Congress was forced to raise the debt ceiling. These ongoing deficits, coupled with the expected tidal wave of entitlement spending, will soon put our Nation in a very unenviable position if thoughtful action is not taken. Moreover, the trust funds for Medicare and Social Security will be exhausted even earlier than previously thought. According to the most recent trustees' report, the cost of Social Security and Medicare will grow from nearly 7.4 percent of the economy today to 12.7 percent by 2030, consuming approximately 70 percent of all Federal revenues, crowding out all other discretionary spending and some other mandatory programs. While entitlements are a major component of our Nation's future fiscal health, it is not the only portion. Just as we must look at how we must reform our entitlement programs to maintain our nation's competitiveness, we must also review our arcane Tax Code. What we should be doing is spending our time on tax reform. We all know that fundamental tax reform is critical. Just as we know the entitlement tidal wave is coming, we know that more and more middle class American families are being swept up in the AMT. So I simply cannot understand why some of my colleagues want to make so many provisions of the current Tax Code permanent or add new tax cuts when we very well may be eliminating precisely the same provisions as part of fundamental tax reform. No homeowner would remodel their kitchen and bathroom right before tearing down the house to build a newer and better one. Simplifying the code to make it more fair and honest could, by some estimates, save taxpayers over $265 billion in costs associated with preparing their taxes. That would be a real tax reduction, and it would not cost the Treasury one dime. It would be a tax cut that would guarantee that people are paying their fair share and would bring more money into the Federal Treasury. Anyone in the know who is watching us has got to wonder about our character, our intellectual honesty, our concern about our national security, our Nation's competitiveness in the global marketplace now and in the future, and last but not least, our ``don't-give-a-dam'' attitude about the standard of living and quality of life of our children and grandchildren. We know the long-term fiscal challenges that are facing our nation. We know that if we continue to move forward blindly, we will walk off a cliff. The simple fact is that we can't have it all--we need to set priorities and make hard choices--otherwise our children will end up paying for it. Last week I voted against the repeal of the estate tax and called on Congress to heed Americans' demand for fundamental tax and entitlement reform. The SAFE Act shows that I am serious about making this a priority for Congress. The legislation will establish a commission comprised of 15 voting members, 3 of which will be appointed by the President, 3 by the Senate majority leader, 3 by the Senate minority leader, 3 by the Speaker of the House and 3 by the House minority leader. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office and the Comptroller General of the United States will be appointed as nonvoting ex-officio members of the Commission to lend their expertise. The Commission will bring together the best minds associated with budget and economic policies to examine the long-term fiscal challenges facing the United States and recommend reforms. A minimum of six public town hall meetings will be held throughout the country within year to determine the scope of the problem and consider solutions. At the conclusion of the town meetings, the Commission will present a report to Congress detailing the fiscal problems facing future generations as well as a framework of long-term solutions. Within 60 days of the presentation of their report to Congress, the Commission will transmit to Congress a legislative proposal designed to: address the imbalance between long-term Federal spending commitments and projected revenues; increase net national savings to spur domestic investment and economic growth; and improve the budget process to place greater emphasis on long-term fiscal issues. The administration and Congress will each have 120 days to review the proposal and develop equivalent proposals if they deem necessary. Congress would then be required to vote on the proposals. America's fiscal situation is dire. Nothing is off the table when it comes to ensuring our longterm prosperity and increasing our competitiveness in the global marketplace. The task is daunting, but now is the time to act. I am thinking not only about the present, but about our children and grandchildren and the legacy--or burden--we will leave them.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the reconciliation bill that is before the Senate. There are three reasons we should oppose the tax cuts that are currently before the Senate, as well as tax cuts that may come before the Senate in the near future: No. 1, we do not need these tax cuts; No. 2, we cannot afford these tax cuts; and No. 3, we should be working on tax reform rather than enacting tax cuts in a piece-meal fashion. Mr. President, we do not need these tax cuts now. In short, the economy is already growing. The Nation's gross domestic product grew by over 4 percent in both 2003 and 2004 and 3.5 percent in 2005. In the first quarter of 2006, it was reported that the economy grew at 4.8 percent. Additionally, unemployment has dropped from 6.6 percent to the current 4.7 percent. The stock markets have regained their strength over time. In fact, proponents of tax cuts point to the stock market as an indicator of the Nation's economic growth and have stated that if tax cuts are not made permanent, we threaten to send our stock market, and consequently the economy, into a tailspin. The growth in the stock market may have coincided with the enactment of certain tax cuts, but as the Wall Street Journal reported, ``A group of Federal Reserve Board economists concludes that the tax cut, which slashed the dividend-income tax on stocks to 15 percent from about 30-38 percent, was a dud when it came to boosting the stock market when it was announced and passed in 2003.'' Moreover, I would argue there are other factors, arguably much larger in scope and importance, which played into the market's, as well as the Nation's economic growth. A rational individual would conclude that the historic lows in interest rates played a large role not only in providing cheap capital for business expansion but also to spur the housing market. As former-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan indicated, there are factors outside the control of the Federal Government that have led to long-term growth, including the boon in productivity fueled by technology as well as the relative strength of the world economy. I do not doubt that tax cuts have some effect on the economy. In fact, some may point out that I supported two of the largest tax cuts to be enacted in American history, the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. In both of these instances I looked at the facts that were before me and came to the conclusion that supporting these tax cuts was the right policy decision. But they were the right policy decision for two distinctly different reasons. In 2001, our Nation was facing a starkly different fiscal picture than what we have today. At that time, the 10-year surplus was estimated to be $5.6 trillion. There was a surplus on the table, and Congress was faced with two choices: spend the money or give it back to the taxpayer. I chose to get that money off the table and out of Washington so it could not be spent, but I made this decision based on the premise of using the surplus as a three-legged stool: providing tax cuts, paying down the debt, and controlling spending. On June 7, 2001, the President signed the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. I voted for this bill, which reduced the individual income tax rates that apply to taxable income, increased the child tax credit to $1,000 and extended it to smaller families, addressed the ``marriage penalty,'' phased out the Federal estate tax over the period 2002-2010, provided a temporary reduction in the alternative minimum tax, and provided some savings incentives and child care credits. In 2003, our Nation faced a very different scenario. The country was still reeling from September 11, fighting the war against terror and trying to rebound from corporate accounting scandals. We needed stimulative medicine to ensure that the economy did not sink further into the doldrums. While I supported these tax cuts, I fought to ensure that the amount was the right balance between needed stimulus and taking the deficit into consideration. I joined Senators Olympia Snowe, John Breau, and Max Baucus to get the $350 billion that was eventually enacted. On May 28, 2003, the President signed the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act into law. We accelerated the cuts from the 2001 tax bill such as the individual income tax cuts, the child tax credit and the marriage penalty relief. We also extended the alternative minimum tax, AMT, again and reduce the rate on both dividends and capital gains to 15 percent for higher tax brackets and 5 percent for those in the lower tax brackets. Mr. President, the world has changed again. Just as the decisions I made in 2001 and 2003 were not made in a static environment, I now look at the economic outlook facing our Nation, as well as the ongoing needs I know this government will have to fund. The second reason we should not move forward on tax cuts is that we cannot afford them. Our fiscal health is in dire straits. In the simplest terms, the Federal Government continues to spend more than it takes in. In case anyone has forgotten, the deficit for Fiscal Year 2005 was $318 billion. This was the third highest deficit in our Nation's history. The first and second largest deficits occurred Fiscal Year 2003 and Fiscal Year 2004. When I came to the Senate in 1999, the national debt stood at $5.6 trillion. The national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion, an increase of about 50 percent. As a percentage of gross domestic product, GDP, our national debt has grown from being 58 percent of GDP at the end of 2000 to an estimated 66.1 percent of GDP by the end of 2006. In fact, the debt continues to grow so quickly that the House of Representative's Fiscal Year 2007 budget resolution is reported to contain a provision that would raise the Federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion. This is less than 2 months after Congress was forced to raise the debt ceiling from the previous ceiling. According to the reports from Medicare and Social Security trustees, the trust funds for these programs will be exhausted even earlier than previously thought. According to the most recent trustees' report, the cost of Social Security and Medicare will grow from nearly 7.4 percent of the economy today to 12.7 percent by 2030, consuming approximately not just 60 percent as predicted by the administration but 70 percent of all Federal revenues, crowding out all other discretionary spending and some other mandatory programs. I am for entitlement reform. Senator Gregg took the first step last year with the deficit reduction bill of 2005. I voted for that bill. We need to do more to reform entitlements. No matter which way you look at it, entitlement programs coupled with an ever increasing national debt are staring down on our children and grandchildren. Some Members believe that the solution is to grow the economy out of the problem, that by cutting taxes permanently the economy will eventually raise enough revenue to offset any current losses to the U.S. Treasury. I respectfully disagree with that assertion. I do not believe that in the current situation our country faces, we can continue to spend more than we take in. In November 2005, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified before the Joint Economic Committee and told Congress: We should not be cutting taxes by borrowing. We do not have the capability of having both productive tax cuts, and large expenditure increases, and presume that the deficit doesn't matter. That is exactly what we have been doing the last several years. I have said many times on this floor that our major problem is we are unwilling to pay for or go without what we want to get done. We have been willing, time and time again, to put the cost of our current spending on the credit cards of our children and grandchildren. To be candid and fair, we have had no choice in much of the spending since September 11. The Federal Government had to rebuild after September 11. We have made the decision to increase security for the homeland. We have to fund the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we have to rebuild after the devastation of dealing with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. What we should be doing is spending our time on tax reform. The Tax Code has nearly universal disapproval for its complexity and magnitude. As the one who amended and pushed for the creation of the task force on tax reform in 2003 and 2004, I was delighted when the President said, in his 2004 convention acceptance speech, he would move forward with tax reform. We all know that fundamental tax reform is critical, and as we consider these and future tax provisions, it becomes more and more clear we need to overhaul our tax code. I simply cannot understand why some of my colleagues want to make so many provisions of the current tax code permanent or add new tax cuts when we very well may be eliminating precisely the same provisions as part of fundamental tax reform. No homeowner would remodel their kitchen and bathroom right before tearing down the house to build a newer and better one. Frankly, one of the measures in the reconciliation bill I do have sympathy for and that is the patch for the AMT. Like the Sword of Damocles, it hangs over Congress's head nearly annually as it threatens to swallow more middle-class taxpayers. We do need to fix the AMT. Unfortunately, every year we move forward with a piece-meal tax policy, we delay action on permanently fixing the AMT, which will cost over $500 billion. When will we wake up and face the music on AMT? Additionally, simplifying the code to make it more fair and honest could, by some estimates, save taxpayers over $265 billion in costs associated with preparing their taxes. That would be a real tax reduction, and it would not cost the Treasury one darn dime. It would be a tax cut that would guarantee that people are paying their fair share and would bring more money into the Federal Treasury. According to the Tax Foundation, we lose about 22 cents of every dollar of income tax collected in compliance costs. That amount adds up to the combined budgets of the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, Labor, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and NASA. Mr. President, the bottom line is we do not need less revenue, we need more revenue. As a recent Wall Street Journal article states, ``federal taxes amounted to 17.5 percent of gross domestic product, up from a modern low of 16.3 percent in 2004, but well below the high of nearly 21 percent in 2000 . . . keeping the tax burden low will be difficult. Last year, the federal government's spending exceeded its tax take by about $318 billion. And the retirement of the baby-boom generation starting in 2011 could cause spending on big-ticket federal retirement programs to jump.'' I could not have stated it better myself except I would utilize the on-budget deficit. In other words, if you exclude the Social Security surplus, money that I believe should be utilized for its intended purpose rather than funding the government, the deficit was actually almost $492 billion. This number is even worse if we took the Department of Treasury's accrual number for FY2005, which was a deficit of $760 billion. I know this is controversial to state, but if you look at the extraordinary and unexpected costs that we have with the war on terror, homeland security costs, and rebuilding after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the logical thing that one would think about is to ask for a temporary tax increase to pay for them today. Instead, we are saying we will let our children and grandchildren take care of these costs. The people who are sacrificing today in this country are those who have lost men and women in the war against terror. The people who have sacrificed today are the ones who have come back without their arms and legs, thousands of them. They are making the sacrifice. The question I ask is, what sacrifice are we making? The simple fact is that we can not have it all--we need to set priorities and make hard choices--otherwise our children will end up paying for it. Anyone in the know who is watching us has got to wonder about our character, our intellectual honesty, our concern about our national security, our Nation's competitiveness in the global marketplace now and in the future, and last but not least, our ``don't- give-a-darn'' attitude about the standard of living and quality of life of our children and grandchildren. The simple fact is we cannot have it all. We need to set priorities and make hard choices; otherwise, our children will end up paying for it.

Mr. VOINOVICH

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

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a bill my colleague Senator Bingaman and I introduced today, the Health Care Partnership Act. For too many years, I have listened to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle talk about the rising cost of health care and the growing number of uninsured Americans. Yet, we have not been able to make much progress here at the Federal level to find a meaningful solution for the dilemma this Nation is facing regarding access to quality, affordable health care. Next to the economy, it is the greatest domestic challenge facing our Nation. In fact, the rising cost of health care is a major part of what is hurting our competitiveness in the global marketplace. While surveys have indicated that health insurance premiums have stabilized--a 9.2 percent increase in 2006 and 2005 and compared with a 12.3 percent in 2004; 14.7 percent in 2003; and 15.2 percent in 2002-- health insurance costs continue to be a significant factor impacting American competitiveness. In addition, the share of costs that individuals have paid for employer sponsored insurance has risen roughly 2 percent each year, from 31.4 percent of health care costs in 2001 to 38.4 percent this year. In fact, spending on health care in the United States reached $1.9 trillion in 2004--almost 16.5 percent of our GDP--the largest share ever. Yet, despite all the increases in health care spending some 46 million Americans--15 percent of the population--had no health insurance at some point last year. This number has increased steadily. In 2000, that number was 39.8 million. In 2002 it was 43.6 million. These statistics are startling and it is time that we do something about them. The bill Senator Bingaman and I are introducing today aims to break the log-jam here in Washington and allow states the freedom to explore with health care reform options. This bill would support state-based efforts to reduce the uninsured and the cost of health care, improve quality, improve access to care, and expand information technology. I have been in this situation before. As Governor of Ohio, I had to work creatively to expand coverage and deal with increasing health care costs for a growing number of uninsured Ohioans. I am happy to report that we were able to make some progress toward reducing the number of uninsured Ohioans during my time as the head of the state by negotiating with the state unions to move to managed care; by controlling Medicaid costs to the point where from 1995 to 1998, due to good stewardship and management, Ohio ended up under-spending on Medicaid without harming families; and implementing the S-CHIP program to provide coverage for uninsured children. Like we did in Ohio, a number of states are already actively pursuing efforts to reduce the number of their residents who lack adequate health care coverage. The Health Care Partnership Act will build on what states like Massachusetts and others are doing, while providing a mechanism to analyze results and make recommendations for future action at the Federal level. Under the Health Partnership Act, Congress would authorize grants to individual states, groups of states, and Indian tribes and local governments to carry out any of a broad range of strategies to improve our Nation's health care delivery. The bill creates a mechanism for states to apply for grants to a bipartisan ``State Health Innovation Commission'' housed at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). After reviewing the state proposals, the Commission would submit to Congress a list of recommended state applications. The Commission would also recommend the amount of Federal grant money each state should receive to carry out the actions described in their plan. Most importantly, at the end of the five-year period, the Commission would be required to report to Congress whether the states are meeting the goals of the Act. The Commission would then recommend future action Congress should take concerning overall reform, including whether or not to extend the state program. I believe it is important that we pass this legislation to provide a platform from which we can have a thoughtful conversation about health care reform here in Washington. Since I have been in the Senate, Congress has made some progress toward improving health care, most notably for our 43 million seniors who now have access to affordable prescription medication through the Medicare Modernization Act. We have also increased funding for community health centers and safety net hospitals that provide health care for the uninsured and under insured; increased the use of technology in our health care delivery system; and improved the safety of medical care by passing a medical errors reporting bill. Yet, these incremental steps are not enough, and we have been at this too long here in Washington without comprehensive, meaningful results. I ask for my colleagues' support for this bipartisan bill that I hope will move us closer toward a solution to the uninsured. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a bill my colleague Senator Bingaman and I introduced today, the Health Care Partnership Act. For too many years, I have listened to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle talk about the rising cost of health care and the growing number of uninsured Americans. Yet, we have not been able to make much progress here at the Federal level to find a meaningful solution for the dilemma this Nation is facing regarding access to quality, affordable health care. Next to the economy, it is the greatest domestic challenge facing our Nation. In fact, the rising cost of health care is a major part of what is hurting our competitiveness in the global marketplace. While surveys have indicated that health insurance premiums have stabilized--a 9.2 percent increase in 2006 and 2005 and compared with a 12.3 percent in 2004; 14.7 percent in 2003; and 15.2 percent in 2002-- health insurance costs continue to be a significant factor impacting American competitiveness. In addition, the share of costs that individuals have paid for employer sponsored insurance has risen roughly 2 percent each year, from 31.4 percent of health care costs in 2001 to 38.4 percent this year. In fact, spending on health care in the United States reached $1.9 trillion in 2004--almost 16.5 percent of our GDP--the largest share ever. Yet, despite all the increases in health care spending some 46 million Americans--15 percent of the population--had no health insurance at some point last year. This number has increased steadily. In 2000, that number was 39.8 million. In 2002 it was 43.6 million. These statistics are startling and it is time that we do something about them. The bill Senator Bingaman and I are introducing today aims to break the log-jam here in Washington and allow states the freedom to explore with health care reform options. This bill would support state-based efforts to reduce the uninsured and the cost of health care, improve quality, improve access to care, and expand information technology. I have been in this situation before. As Governor of Ohio, I had to work creatively to expand coverage and deal with increasing health care costs for a growing number of uninsured Ohioans. I am happy to report that we were able to make some progress toward reducing the number of uninsured Ohioans during my time as the head of the state by negotiating with the state unions to move to managed care; by controlling Medicaid costs to the point where from 1995 to 1998, due to good stewardship and management, Ohio ended up under-spending on Medicaid without harming families; and implementing the S-CHIP program to provide coverage for uninsured children. Like we did in Ohio, a number of states are already actively pursuing efforts to reduce the number of their residents who lack adequate health care coverage. The Health Care Partnership Act will build on what states like Massachusetts and others are doing, while providing a mechanism to analyze results and make recommendations for future action at the Federal level. Under the Health Partnership Act, Congress would authorize grants to individual states, groups of states, and Indian tribes and local governments to carry out any of a broad range of strategies to improve our Nation's health care delivery. The bill creates a mechanism for states to apply for grants to a bipartisan ``State Health Innovation Commission'' housed at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). After reviewing the state proposals, the Commission would submit to Congress a list of recommended state applications. The Commission would also recommend the amount of Federal grant money each state should receive to carry out the actions described in their plan. Most importantly, at the end of the five-year period, the Commission would be required to report to Congress whether the states are meeting the goals of the Act. The Commission would then recommend future action Congress should take concerning overall reform, including whether or not to extend the state program. I believe it is important that we pass this legislation to provide a platform from which we can have a thoughtful conversation about health care reform here in Washington. Since I have been in the Senate, Congress has made some progress toward improving health care, most notably for our 43 million seniors who now have access to affordable prescription medication through the Medicare Modernization Act. We have also increased funding for community health centers and safety net hospitals that provide health care for the uninsured and under insured; increased the use of technology in our health care delivery system; and improved the safety of medical care by passing a medical errors reporting bill. Yet, these incremental steps are not enough, and we have been at this too long here in Washington without comprehensive, meaningful results. I ask for my colleagues' support for this bipartisan bill that I hope will move us closer toward a solution to the uninsured. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 471 which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, today cloture was invoked on the motion to proceed to the small business health plans bill by a vote of 96 to 2. Tomorrow morning, we will begin consideration of the bill. Chairman Enzi will be here and will be available to discuss relevant amendments that Senators may want to offer during tomorrow's session. Therefore, rollcall votes are possible during Wednesday's session on the small business health plans-related amendments.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 10. I further ask that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to dare, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate proceed to a period of morning business for up to 60 minutes, with the first 30 minutes under the control of the majority leader or his designee and the final 30 minutes under the control of the Democratic leader or his designee; further, that the Senate then begin consideration of S. 1955, the small business health plans bill.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak today about the dilemma this Nation is facing regarding access to quality, affordable health care. Next to the economy, it is the greatest domestic challenge facing our Nation. In fact, the rising cost of health care is a major part of what is hurting our competitiveness in the global marketplace. One of the biggest factors driving health care costs through the roof is medical lawsuit abuse. I have been concerned about this issue for quite some time--in fact, since my days as Governor of Ohio. I wish we had the outpouring of support for medical liability reform back then that I see now. In 1996, I essentially had to pull teeth in the Ohio Legislature to pass my tort reform bill. I signed it into law in October 1996. Three years later, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional, and if that law had withstood the supreme court's scrutiny, Ohioans wouldn't be facing the medical access problems they are facing today. While things are getting marginally better in some communities in Ohio thanks to the California MICRA-like reform initiatives that were passed in Ohio in 2002 and 2003, doctors are still leaving their practice, and in too many towns, patients are not able to receive the care they need. In fact, too many physicians in northeast Ohio are still feeling the strain of skyrocketing premiums. For example, thoracic surgeons in Ohio are paying as much as $181,000 annually, and OB/GYNs in the area are paying $200,000 annually for liability coverage. The past 5 years have been especially tough on physicians. Back in 2002, The Medical Liability Monitor ranked Ohio among the top five States for premium increases, and no one felt the impact of this increase more than the Schwieterman family in Ohio's rural west-central Mercer County. I have mentioned brothers, Doctors Jim and Tom Schwieterman, along with their father, retired Dr. Don Schwieterman, before here on the floor, but their story is worth repeating. Together, these 3 doctors have delivered about 5,700 babies over the years. This family has a 113-year history of bringing babies into the world--their great-grandfather started their current medical practice in 1896. Most importantly, they have never been sued for a delivery. Yet, as of September 27, 2004, this family gave up delivering babies because of escalating malpractice insurance costs. Their insurance rates rose from $25,000 annually to over $80,000 in just 4 years--a threefold increase. Dr. Jim Schwieterman has stated that he would continue to deliver babies if he could just break even; unfortunately, he can't. This situation becomes even more devastating when you learn that Dr. Jim Schwieterman was one of only a handful of obstetricians providing obstetrical care in Mercer County. Now, pregnant mothers must travel, in many cases, outside of the county to get obstetrical care. Women in Morrow County, OH, are faced with a similar situation. As of January 2003, the only remaining physician in the county still delivering babies, Dr. Bachedler, was forced to stop after his liability costs more than doubled in one year. Sadly, obstetricians are not the only physicians in my State who are being forced out of practicing medicine. Dr. Romeo Diaz, an oncologist from my hometown of Cleveland, saw his liability premiums rise $60,000 annually. Despite his patients attempt to help him raise the money he needed to remain in practice, Dr. Diaz closed his doors in 2003. The decision to limit or close their practice does not come easily to these physicians. Some time ago, a good friend of mine brought to my attention a letter from an OB/GYN in Dublin, OH, who had decided to retire from his practice. He wrote the following to his patients: On June 17, 2003, I received my professional liability insurance rate quote for the upcoming year, and it is 64 percent higher than last year's rate. I have seen my premiums almost triple during the past two years, despite never having had a single penny paid out on my behalf in twenty-seven years as a physician. Even worse, during this time the insurance company has reduced the amount of coverage that I can purchase from $5 million to only $1 million, while jury verdicts have skyrocketed, often exceeding $3-4 million. If I were to purchase this policy, I would be putting all of my family's personal assets at risk every time that I delivered a baby or performed surgery. I refuse to do that. I have therefore decided to retire from private practice on July 31, 2003, the final day of my current liability insurance policy. This is not a decision that I take lightly, but unfortunately it has become necessary. For many of you, I have been part of your life for years. I have delivered your babies, and helped you through some of life's most difficult challenges. It has truly been an honor. Like these doctors, in 2004, a survey by the Ohio State Medical Association, OSMA, indicated that 34 percent of Ohio physicians expect to close their practices within the next 2 years without a reversal in medical liability rates. And whether they are ultimately forced to close their doors, a majority of physicians in Ohio agree that rising medical liability rates have directly impacted the way they practice medicine. Fifty-six percent of them believe they have increased the number of tests they have ordered for patients in order to protect themselves from potential lawsuits. In fact, a March 3, 2003, report by the Department of Health and Human Services calculated the practice of defensive medicine costs the United States a total of between $70 and 126 billion a year and estimates that the cost for the Federal Government alone is between $35 and $56 billion. This is costing you and me real money. Nevertheless, I am very hopeful when I now hear from physicians back home that thanks to the latest packages of tort reform measure that passed the Ohio State Legislature, medical liability rates are finally beginning to stabilize. In fact, a January 2006 Ohio Department of Insurance report found that overall rate increases pursued by the five largest insurers were significantly less in 2005 than in previous years--6.7 percent in 2005, compared to 20 percent in 2004 and approximately 30 percent in 2003. For 2006, one insurer has even lowered its rates by 5 percent. Good, balanced legislation can make all the difference. Just like we are beginning to see in Ohio, medical liability reform efforts in States like Texas are providing real results. We have been hearing a great deal about the good news coming out of Texas this week on the Senate floor, and it is for good reason. In 2003, the Texas Legislature enacted comprehensive sweeping medical liability reforms, with reasonable limits on noneconomic damages. Texas voters also understood the importance of this reform and approved proposition 12 amending the State constitution to specifically allow the legislature to enact the reasonable caps. In just 3 short years, the results have been tremendous. It is hard to believe, but Texas physicians are once again able to competitively shop for medical liability coverage according to the Texas insurance commissioner. While this is great news, in many places across the Nation, the situation is not the same, and the need for Federal medical liability reform is still very real. Since the 107th Congress, I have been coming to the floor to speak in support of numerous medical liability bills: The HEALTH Act, the Patients First Act, The Healthy Mothers and Babies Access to Care Act, and the Pregnancy and Trauma Care Access Protection Act, and others. Unfortunately, none of these pieces of legislation garnered the 60 votes needed here in the Senate to achieve cloture. Frustrated by this, several years ago, I spent countless hours along with the American Medical Association, AMA, going door to door to meet with my colleagues to examine other possible approaches for reform. I met with a number of my colleagues to explore those approaches and generate the kind of support needed to get to 60 votes. The biggest complaint I heard from my colleagues is that the cap on noneconomic damages in these earlier bills was too low. For this reason, I am especially hopeful about the legislation before us today and proud to be a cosponsor of both the Medical Care Access Protection Act and the Healthy Mothers and Healthy Babies Access to Care Act. These bills provide the Senate with a new approach to reforming our medical liability system. Like past bills, this legislation provides for unlimited payments on economic damages, but it would also mimic the State of Texas' approach to capping noneconomic damages. This legislation would limit noneconomic damage awards to $250,000 for each claimant, a healthcare provider, or each of two health care institutions. In total, this legislation creates a $750,000 cap on noneconomic damages. I also heard concerns from my colleagues that past versions of medical liability reform bills would preempt State laws when some States already have laws that are working. The bill before us preserves States' rights by keeping medical liability statutes in place and by allowing future State laws to supersede Federal limits on damages. Further, the bill protects patients by placing reasonable limits on attorney fees, provides a review of expert witnesses to provide greater creditability to cases, and maximizes patients' recovery for damages by limiting the amount of payment attorneys are able to claim from awards. I have been so passionate about the need for liability reform over my public service career because the issue is very personal to me. When I was young, I suffered from osteomyelitis, a disease in the bone marrow. During my 6-month hospital stay, I had two physicians who approached my parents with treatment options for me. One physician wanted to go with the ``gold standard'' treatment at the time, which would more than likely have saved my life but also had the potential to leave me without use of my right leg. The second physician, Dr. Holoway, offered my parents a more experimental option, one that was less invasive and posed less of a risk to my leg. I am thankful my parents chose the more experimental treatment, which left me with full mobility. I wonder whether a physician in Dr. Holoway's shoes today would have taken the same approach with all the potential legal implications. I fear in today's environment that doctor would not. For this reason, I urge my colleagues to support both the Medical Care Access Protection Act and the Healthy Mothers and Healthy Babies Access to Care Act. I am confident these bills strike a delicate balance between the rights of aggrieved parties to bring lawsuits and receive rapid and fair compensation and the rights of society to be protected against frivolous lawsuits and outrageous rewards for noneconomic damages--damages that are disproportionate to compensating the injured and made at the expense of society as a whole.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues and the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture for providing this colloquy. As my colleagues know, the Emerald Ash Borer poses an enormous threat, and I wish to be associated with their remarks. This is important for this Senator from Ohio because nearly 4 billion ash trees are threatened in my State alone. The Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources call the Emerald Ash Borer the most serious forest health issue facing Ohio's forests today. They remain highly concerned and vigilant, but we must provide them with sufficient resources to eradicate this problem. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the potential economic impact of EAB to Ohio citizens over the next 10 years could possibly reach $3 billion. Again, I thank my friend from Michigan for his leadership on this issue, as well as the Senator from Utah, Senator Bennett, for his indulgence in entering into this colloquy.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on our Nation's fiscal situation. Today, the Senate is considering about a $100 billion supplemental funding bill that our Federal Government requires to fulfill its domestic and foreign obligations. While I acknowledge this funding is needed in many areas at home and abroad, most notably with our commitments to fight the war on terror, rebuild after the devastations of Katrina and Rita and protecting our borders, the occasion of passing a $100 billion supplemental bill is an opportunity that I cannot pass up to remind the Senate of where our Nation's overall fiscal health lies. In a nutshell, our fiscal health is in dire straits. In the most simple terms, the Federal Government continues to spend more than it takes in. I hope my colleagues agree that the running the charge cards for today's needs and leaving the bill for our children and grandchildren should not be the policy that this body pursues. When I came to the Senate in 1999, the national debt stood at $5.6 trillion. Today, as the chart shows, the national debt stands at $8.4 trillion. Since I came to the Senate in 1999, we have had an increase in the national debt of about 50 percent. The chart shows the last 4 years how we have climbed the ladder, and the Treasury will be back asking us to raise the debt limit. As a percentage of gross domestic product, our national debt has grown from being 58 percent of gross domestic production at the end of 2000 to an estimated 66.1 percent of gross domestic production by the end of 2006. Undoubtedly, the United States has undergone unprecedented challenges that have spurred these fiscal issues. The tragedy of September 11 to fighting the war on terror at home and abroad, to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, to the rollout of the new Medicare prescription drug plan, the largest expansion of Medicare Programs since its creation, our Nation has had to respond to challenges of tremendous magnitude. In responding to those challenges, the Federal Government has had the responsibility to provide the resources so that the country could confront these challenges head on. The Federal Government rightly appropriated $20 billion to help New York, hundreds of billions to provide our war fighters with the necessary equipment to provide for our national security and now well over $100 billion to help rebuild the gulf coast. We are dealing with all of these expenses, but we are ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room, the impending tidal wave of entitlements coming due. I was pleased this President in the State of the Union Address acknowledged that: The retirement of the baby boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal government. By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget. And that will present future Congresses with impossible choices staggering tax increases, immense deficits, or deep cuts in every category of spending. I am pleased the President decided to focus on what some call the demographic tsunami coming our way and the necessity to reform entitlement programs before it hits. The 77 million baby boomers coming into the Social Security and Medicare Program will put the Federal budget under unprecedented pressure. Chairman Gregg took the courageous steps to take on entitlement spending through the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. I supported his efforts. However, this was just the tip of the iceberg. The truth is, we have not been serious about entitlement reform. The President called for a bipartisan commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in his State of the Union Address. It is imperative we move on this quickly. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for the commission to be appointed. Time is of the essence, and I hope that Secretary Snow and the administration will move quickly on creating that commission. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, make up a significant portion of mandatory spending and mandatory spending is crowding out other parts of the budget. This chart shows in the year 1965 mandatory spending was 27 percent of our budget. In 1985, now we see mandatory spending makes up 42 percent, 44 percent is discretionary, and 14 percent is the interest on our debt. Now, in the year 2005, from 1985 to 2005, mandatory spending has jumped from 42 percent to 53 percent, and defense is 20 percent, nondefense is 19 percent, interest is 7 percent, and we have been lucky in terms of the interest costs because of the fact that our interest rates are very low today. If we ever see an uptake in interest costs, we can go back to what percentage went toward interest. When I came to the Senate in 1999, our interest costs were about 13 percent, so they have gone down, but the fact of the matter is we need to be realistic about the fact that they are not always going to be as low as they are today, and if they go up, they will just gobble up more of the Federal budget. According to the reports from Medicare and Social Security trustees, the trust funds for these programs will be exhausted even earlier than previously thought. According to the trustees report that came back last week, the cost of Social Security and Medicare will grow from nearly 7.4 percent of the economy today to 12.7 percent by 2030, consuming approximately not just 60 percent as predicted by the administration but 70 percent of all Federal revenues, crowding out all other discretionary spending. No matter which way you look at it, if we leave reform of entitlement programs for future Congresses to solve, as well as a mountain of national debt to pay off, it will have devastating consequences on the economy and on our children and grandchildren. Some Members believe that the solution is to grow the economy out of the problem, that by cutting taxes permanently the economy will eventually raise enough revenue to offset any current losses to the U.S. Treasury. I respectfully disagree with that assertion. I do not believe that in the current situation our country faces, we can continue to spend more than we take in. By the General Accounting Office's own estimates, about 35 years from now, that is when my grandchildren have their own children to care for, balancing the budget would require actions as large as cutting total Federal spending by 60 percent or raising taxes 2.5 times what they are at today's level. Our friends overseas and Europe are experiencing what we will experience if we do not get a hold of our finances. In November 2005, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified before the Joint Economic Committee and told Congress: We should not be cutting taxes by borrowing. We do not have the capability of having both productive tax cuts and large expenditure increases, and presume that the deficit doesn't matter. That is exactly what we have been doing the last several years. I have said many times on this floor that our major problem is we are unwilling to pay for or go without what we want to get done. We have been willing, time and time again, to put the cost of our current spending on the credit cards of our children and grandchildren. To be candid and fair, we had no choice in much of the spending since 9/11. The Federal Government had to rebuild after 9/11. We have made the decision to increase security for the homeland. We have to fund the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we have to rebuild after the devastation of dealing with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In other words, our costs are something we have not been able to control because of the war abroad, securing our homeland, and these hurricanes which were unprecedented in our country's history. While we have had to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on these events, the Senate has made the decision to squeeze the nondefense discretionary budget. In fact, the pendulum has swung from the Senate spending money like drunken sailors during the first years I was here to now cutting these nondefense discretionary accounts to the bone in the name of fiscal responsibility. Unfortunately, fiscal responsibility cannot be defined solely by restraining and cutting nondefense discretionary spending. These accounts are only one-fifth of the budget and, frankly, with some of the cuts to these accounts, I believe we are eating our seed corn in the name of fiscal responsibility. I would be the first to cut the excess out of the budgets. I only have to think back to my mayoral days and my Governor days. As mayor of Cleveland, we inherited the first major city in the United States to default on its loans since the Great Depression. By making tough choices, we turned the city around. As Governor, we faced a no less daunting challenge. We came into office in a $1.5 billion hole. We scoured through line by line and went through four rounds of cuts in the State budget. After the fourth cut, the math still did not add up. We had to raise revenues to meet the responsibilities of the State--a solution that was not easy. But at the end of the day, it was necessary because--do you know what--we had to balance our State budget. I had to balance my budgets when I was the mayor of the city of Cleveland. Unfortunately, we do not have to balance our budgets here in Washington. After getting back on even keel, we were able to reduce taxes in each of the last 3 years of my administration. But we had to get back on even keel. I view the situation our Nation faces today in a very similar light. We are in a heck of a spot. Our Nation has faced extraordinary costs that could not be foreseen. And at the same time, we are talking about reducing revenues. We have cut nondefense discretionary spending, and I am sure there are those who believe we can cut more. I think we have come to the point where we need to face reality. These numbers just do not add up. Now, I want to say that I am not against tax cuts. In other words, I have been for it. I supported tax cuts in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004. In 2001, we were facing a starkly different fiscal picture than we have today. I think it is really important to understand that. The fiscal picture today is entirely different than when we started the tax cuts in 2001. The surplus over 10 years was estimated to be $5.6 trillion--a lot of money. Congress, as I mentioned, spent more money in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 than they should have. This led most of us to want to get that money off the table so it could not be spent. I supported this because of what I referred to as the three- legged stool: pay down the debt, fiscal responsibility, and tax cuts-- the three of them. On June 7, 2001, the President signed the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. I voted for this bill which reduced the individual income tax rates that apply to taxable income, increased the child tax credit to $1,000, and extended it to smaller families, addressed the marriage penalty, phased out the Federal estate tax over the period 2002 to 2010, provided a temporary reduction in the alternative minimum tax, and provided some savings incentives and childcare credits. After 9/11, I joined the Centrist Coalition to accelerate these cuts to provide a short-term stimulus to our economy. The House passed this bill, but it stalled in the Senate because of partisan politics. In 2003, our country was still reeling from September 11, the war against terror, and corporate accounting scandals. We were in recession. We needed additional stimulative medicine. But I fought to ensure that the tax cuts were the right amount. I joined with Senators Olympia Snowe, John Breaux, and Max Baucus to get the $350 billion that we passed in 2003. On May 28, 2003, the President signed the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act into law. We accelerated the cuts from the 2001 tax bill, such as the individual income tax cuts, the marginal rates, the child tax credit, the marriage penalty relief, extended the AMT again, and reduced the rate on both dividends and capital gains to 15 percent for higher tax brackets and 5 percent for those in the lower tax brackets for 2003 to 2008. One of the reasons we said only $350 billion was that we were concerned about the cost of the war and homeland security. And we were right. Our national defense and homeland security costs have added up to $2.3 trillion since then. Since 2003, when we decided to provide accelerated tax cuts, our national defense and homeland security costs have added up to $2.3 trillion. Can you imagine where we would have been if the $1.57 trillion the administration initially proposed or even the $725 billion tax cut that was being considered at the time by the House of Representatives was actually passed? Just think what our deficit and national debt would be today. The negative consequences of such cuts adding to our national debt would have outweighed any positive stimulus effect. I said that $350 billion in tax cuts would be enough to get the economy and the stock market moving then and now, and it worked. In other words, what we did is we front-end loaded that $350 billion tax cut to really give us some oomph so we would kick this economy into gear. And it worked. The economy and the stock market have moved. I can still remember people saying: The market is never going to recover. I heard, several years ago: It is never going to get back to where it was. And the fact is, it has. The Nation's GDP grew by over 4 percent in both 2003 and 2004, and 3.5 percent in 2005, and unemployment has dropped since we enacted tax cuts from 6.6 percent to the current 4.7 percent. And we just announced that in the first quarter of this year, our GDP growth is over 4 percent and more Americans are working. Unfortunately, we are not seeing this in the State of Ohio. We are still under a great deal of duress because of the loss of our manufacturing jobs. However, the world does not stand still, and we now face different challenges. While this tax cut stimulation worked, making these tax cuts permanent should be subject to pay-go, as Alan Greenspan said, or ``serious economic disruptions'' will result. We need to cut expenses or pay for them with other tax increases. Now, let's look at the costs of some of the tax cuts we passed. These are all going to be under consideration, and we will have people saying: We have to extend all of them. The credit for research and experimentation, that is $81.2 billion; deduction of State and local sales taxes is $41.5 billion; increased AMT exemption amount, $437.5 billion; hurricane relief--I will leave that one alone; subpart F for active financing income, $45.2 billion; reduced tax rate on repatriated dividends, $57 billion; section 179 expensing, $15.9 billion; reduced tax rates on capital gains, $63.4 billion; empowerment and renewal zones, $11.7 billion; child tax credit, $184.8 billion. Let's see. I won't hit them all. Estate and gift tax changes--estate and gift tax changes. Do you hear that? We are talking about killing the death tax? We are talking about $357 billion--$357 billion. And the income tax rates of 25, 28, 33, and 35 percent, if we keep those, will cost us $384.8 billion. All I am saying is, if you add up all of the things that are going to come to us during the next couple of years, we are talking about--what is that--$2.353 trillion. Do you hear that? It is $2.353 trillion. It just does not make sense. As we see on the chart, according to CBO, the dividend and capital gains tax cuts will result in roughly about $193.1 billion in revenue loss to the Treasury. If we were to permanently repeal the estate tax-- I have already mentioned that. Consider that the alternative minimum tax will cost us $511 billion. I support recent statements from the White House that AMT should be considered as part of tax reform, but until that happens, we are forced to confront this issue every year. Everybody is complaining about the AMT. They want the AMT. They want the dividend tax reduction to continue, the capital gains. You name it. They want it all. And just these tax items on this chart--to repeat-- $2.35 trillion over 10 years. Are we willing to add to our deficit and debt to continue these cuts? Let's list the numbers again, look at them again: unbalanced budgets since 2001 last year's deficit was $318 billion; a rising national debt of $8.4 trillion--and that has increased, as I have said, by 50 percent since 1999--the war on terror has cost us $450 billion, plus $160 billion on homeland security since 9/11. One of the things people do not understand is that Homeland Security has 22 agencies, 180,000 employees. They have doubled the budget of those 22 agencies since 9/11. As a matter of fact, if you look at other money we spent on homeland security, they have actually tripled the budget since that time. Katrina has cost us over $100 billion and continues to rise, and the Medicare Part D plan is now projected to cost over $1 trillion from 2006 to 2015. With significant unmet domestic needs and the looming cost to the Treasury of the baby boomers' retirement programs--which by conservative estimates from the administration will consume 70 percent of the entire Federal budget by 2030--what kind of economy is lurking around the corner in 2011? Instead of making the tax cuts permanent, we should be leveling with the American people about the fiscally shaky ground we are on. What we should be doing is spending our time on tax reform. We all know that fundamental tax reform is critical, and as we consider the tax provisions, such as the AMT, as I just mentioned, it becomes clearer and clearer we need to overhaul our Tax Code. So I simply cannot understand why some of my colleagues want to make so many provisions of the current Tax Code permanent or add new tax cuts when we very well may be eliminating precisely the same provisions as part of fundamental tax reform. No homeowner would remodel their kitchen and bathroom right before tearing down the house to build a newer and better one. As the one who amended and pushed for the creation of the task force on tax reform in 2003 and 2004, I was delighted when the President, in his convention acceptance speech, said he would move forward with tax reform. In fact, 2 days after the convention--Ohio was sitting right in front of the President when he was giving his acceptance speech. He said: When I mentioned tax reform, I watched you, Voinovich. He said: You jumped out of your seat, and I thought you were going to run up and hug me because you were so happy we were going to do the tax reform. I have to say that I am disappointed. I feel bad that the administration has backed away from tax reform as a priority, since simplifying the Code to make it more fair and honest could, by some estimates, save taxpayers over $265 billion in costs associated with preparing their taxes. That would be a real tax reduction. And do you know what. It would not cost the Treasury one darn dime. It would be a tax cut that would guarantee that people are paying their fair share and would bring more money into the Federal Treasury. According to the Tax Foundation, we lose about 22 cents of every dollar of income tax collected in compliance costs. It adds up to the combined budgets of the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, Labor, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and NASA. In a recent conversation with Rob Portman, a longtime friend of mine, who is our new OMB Director, I communicated my call for Tax Code reformation. I said if the President wanted to leave a real lasting legacy, a real lasting legacy to the American people, something he could point back to and be very proud of, he would keep his promise to the American people to undertake tax reform. If we keep going the way we are, his legacy may be a big tax increase in 2009 or 2010 or 2011, one like his father was forced to make in 1991. I believe--and I have the greatest respect for the President and his father--his father was a profile in courage. He bit the bullet and did what was right for the country and, in the process, probably lost an election. If we are going to provide the American people a clear picture of the shape of our fiscal house, we should be honest about the long-term problems underneath the facade of our fiscal house. Currently, we are distorting our Federal financial statements by borrowing from hundreds of Federal trust funds. In addition to the $1.6 trillion we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, we have borrowed over $660 billion from the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, $177 billion from the military retirement fund, and smaller amounts from almost 130 Federal trust funds. In all, we have borrowed almost $3.3 trillion of funds intended for other purposes. All of this has added to our $8.4 trillion national debt. I believe we should keep the shrinking Social Security surplus separate. It is important to set these funds so that the Federal Government will have real assets that can be used to redeem existing special issue Treasury bills when Social Security stops generating surpluses in 2017. When we were looking at Social Security reform, it occurred to some of us that it would be useless to reform the program if the surplus money still went to general revenues. If we shore up the system without keeping the funding for it separate, the benefit of Social Security reform could simply be spent on other related programs. In other words, if we bite the bullet, reform Social Security, take in more money and don't put it aside so we can't touch it, we will just use it. We will be back where we were before. So we have to figure out, if we are going to do this, how we put the money aside. One of the things I have worked on--and I have introduced a bill with Senator Conrad--is that we would stop the raid on Government trust funds. It not only holds revenues designated for Social Security programs separate from general revenues, it also would make Federal financing more transparent. People would know what the public debt is. In other words, we would fundamentally borrow from the public the money that we have been taking from the trust funds, and we would know that the money in the trust funds would be there because it would not be in Federal investments. At this time we need reliable financial and performance information to make sound policy decisions. If we were in business, we would be in subchapter 11, absolutely. We need to bring transparency to our budget so that all the American people have a better understanding of the hard choices we have to make. Typically the American people have not tolerated a tax level of any more than 20 percent of GDP. We reached that level of almost 21 percent when the tax cuts we enacted made revenues decrease quickly. The real danger is the divide between our revenue and spending once the baby boomers start to retire. This dotted line is going to rise to levels not given on this chart. In other words, this dotted line is going to go way up in terms of dealing with our outlays. The revenues, as you can see, they were up pretty high. This is 1980. They went up. Then we got over here when we were flush, and they went up to here. Now the revenues are down here and then coming here. This line of spending is going to go right off the chart, as I mentioned before, because of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The American people should understand what this is about. We are really in trouble. The question is, if we don't have enough revenue to pay our current bills, how in the world are we going to prepare to cover much larger future promises? How are we going to take care of this? In the big picture of where the United States stands, it is clear to me that the economic framework of our Nation needs to be refurbished. There are certain investments and responsibilities that this Senator believes we can no longer ignore and must address. We should be rebuilding an infrastructure of competitiveness so that future generations at least have the same opportunity that we had for the standard of living and quality of life we have. We need to build what I referred to earlier. We are in a competitive global marketplace. What we have to understand is, if we don't build the infrastructure of competitiveness to compete in that marketplace, our children's standard of living is going to be less than what ours is today. One of the things I also think we need to understand is the fact that our infrastructure has been ignored for too long. It is a critical piece to making America more competitive. I have introduced the National Infrastructure Improvement Act with Senators Clinton and Cochran. The bill establishes the National Commission on the Infrastructure of the United States which would study infrastructure throughout the Nation, including surface transportation facilities such as roads, bridges, mass transit facilities, freight and passenger rail, airports, wastewater collection, and treatment facilities, waterways and levees. I was a cosponsor of the highway bill, but I thought the legislation was modest given the need. Frankly, it falls far short of the level that would improve or even maintain our Nation's highway system. According to the Federal Highway Administration, $107 billion is needed annually to maintain and improve our highways and bridges. The enacted highway bill provides $70.4 billion below what is needed to improve and $38.8 billion below what is needed to maintain our highway system. We also desperately need to provide increased funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, including funding for levees and funding for additional civil engineers. This Nation has an aging national water resources infrastructure. We saw it with Katrina. If we continue to ignore the upkeep, the deterioration of our locks and dams, flood control projects and navigation channels, we risk destruction of waterborne commerce, decreased protection against floods, as we saw in Katrina, and other environmental damage. I have been concerned about the backlog of unfunded Corps projects since I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure in 1999. When I arrived in the Senate in 1999, I was chairman of that committee. The backlog of unfunded corps projects for operation and maintenance was $250 million. Today the backlog is $1.2 billion. In 2001, there was $38 billion in active water resource projects waiting for Federal funding. Today it is $41 billion in active construction and general projects that need Federal funding. This budget is only going to increase this backlog. Our budget proposes a 33-percent cut in the Corps construction budget. Can you imagine? After Katrina and what we saw in New Orleans in terms of not spending the money to maintain the levees and build them the right way, we are cutting the construction budget 33 percent, and a 42-percent cut in the Corps investigations budget. Currently, the Corps is able to function only at 50 percent capacity at the rate of funding proposed by the budget. Can you believe this? It is incredible. We also cannot remain competitive without a workforce full of educated and motivated young Americans. As a Nation, we have to invest in our children and enable them to fully develop their God-given talents in order to compete in a knowledge-based global economy. We have to have knowledge-based jobs if our people are going to work. This means we have to place more emphasis on careers in science, engineering, and math. Right now we are not getting the job done. Globally, the United States ranks 17th in the proportion of the college-age population earning science and engineering degrees, down from third place several decades ago. In fact, the percentage of 24- year-olds with science or engineering degrees is now higher in many industrialized nations. Countries such as England, South Korea, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Japan, and Canada all produce a higher percentage of science and engineering graduates than we. The National Academy of Sciences released a report this fall, entitled ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' that recommends action the Federal Government should take to enhance our ability to compete in a global marketplace. The recommendations range from those that will improve our Nation's math and science course work and establish a workforce of qualified teachers who will prepare our students for futures in highly innovative careers to the critical need for energy independence and investment in research. It is hard for me to believe the statistics that came out of the report. Half the teachers who teach math and science today are not qualified to teach the subjects. I did a survey of our State universities to find out how many people graduated to teach physics. Thirteen was the number. How in the world can we keep going with that kind of record? I am encouraged that the President recognized that America needs to wake up and build a new infrastructure for competitiveness, and I applaud his American competitiveness agenda. Also, I joined a number of my colleagues as an original cosponsor of the Protecting America's Competitive Edge Act, or PACE. This legislation is aimed at improving our Nation's competitiveness through advancement and emphasis on math and science education. Like the President's initiative, this legislation is comprehensive and it is aimed to increase our Nation's research capacities and emphasize strong science and math education. However, it will require a larger national commitment to reengage our Nation's youth in science and math, similar to our response in the late 1950s to Russia's launch of Sputnik and the ensuing space race. Here the President's budget falls far short of what is necessary to fulfill the recommendations of the report. In other words, if we are going to really do something about this crisis that we have in terms of math and science, we are going to have to fund the recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences. The only thing that is being funded right now in the President's competitiveness agenda is retraining of teachers in high school, making the research and development credit permanent, and doing some work in research that will help us deal with our energy crisis. The portion of the report that talks about scholarships from the Department of Energy is not funded. The report calls for 25,000 scholarships out of the Department of Energy at $20,000 a year to encourage people to study engineering. It also provides out of the Department of Education $20,000 a year for students to take math, science, information technology, and education courses. And they commit that after 5 years they will teach for 5 years. In other words, they will get their undergraduate degree and teach for 5 years. During those 5 years, the National Science Foundation will pay them $10,000 more than what the local school district pays them. So it is a real comprehensive effort to deal with the crisis that we have today in terms of providing the scientists we need to get the job done. The bottom line is, we don't need less revenue; we need more revenue. As a Wall Street Journal article states: Federal taxes amounted to 17.5 percent of gross domestic product, up from a modern low of 16.3 percent in 2004. That is one of the reasons the debt has gone up so much, like a rocket. It is because in 2004, we were only taking in 16.3 percent of our GDP in revenue. But it was well below the high of 21 percent that we had in 2000. That was too much. Continuing from the Wall Street Journal: Keeping the tax burden low is going to be difficult. Last year, the federal government's spending exceeded its tax take by about $318 billion. And the retirement of the baby-boom generation starting in 2011 could cause spending on big- ticket federal retirement programs to jump. That is the quote from the Wall Street Journal. The only thing that bothers me about the quote is that they reported the debt last year of $318 billion. That is what they reported. The fact is, from an accrual basis--it comes out of the Department of the Treasury--we increased the debt by $740 billion. But we only report to the American people $318 billion. Several weeks ago, we were talking about the fact that the Treasury announced that on an accrual basis we increased our debt by that amount of money. Someone said, why don't we keep our books on the accrual basis? Somebody said, for goodness sakes, we cannot do that because they will find out how much in debt we are and how much our budgets are not balanced. So I think that with the baby boom generation starting to retire in 2011, we will have some real problems. The simple fact is we cannot have it all. We need to set priorities and make hard choices; otherwise, our children will end up paying for it. Our forefathers recognized the inequity of passing on debt to future generations. George Washington in his Farewell Address stated: [Avoid] the accumulation of debt, not only by shutting occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. Again, he said ``not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.'' I have to say this, and I know it is controversial, but if you look at the extraordinary costs that we had with the war and homeland security and Katrina, the logical thing that one would think about is to ask for a temporary tax increase to pay for them. Did you hear that? Ask for a temporary tax to pay for it, instead of saying we will let our kids take care of it; we will let our grandchildren take care of it. No, we are not doing it. The people who are sacrificing today in this country are the ones who have lost men and women in our wars. The people who have sacrificed today are the ones who have come back without their arms and legs--thousands of them. They are making the sacrifice. The question I ask is, what sacrifice are we making? Anyone in the know who is watching us has to wonder about our character, our intellectual honesty, our concern about our national security, our Nation's competitiveness in the global marketplace now and in the future and, last but not least, our don't-give-a-darn attitude about the standard of living and quality of life of our children and grandchildren. The question is, are we willing to be honest with ourselves and the American people and make these tough decisions? My two models when I was mayor and Governor were ``together we can do it,'' and our State motto, ``With God All Things Are Possible.'' I am prayerful that the Holy Spirit will inspire us to make those tough decisions and do what is right for our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there now be a period for morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. VOINOVICH. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 35 minutes.