Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I thank the chairman of the Banking Committee for his offer. With this understanding, I will agree to withhold on my amendment on this particular piece of legislation. I believe we need to look at broader interest rate reform, and I appreciate the commitment of the distinguished Banking Committee chairman to look at the Marquette issue in that context. I also wish to applaud the chairman for developing the legislation we are debating. This is one of those areas where wisdom accrued over years of legislative experience allows us to expand the realm of the possible, and of course legislation is the art of the possible. Through his wisdom, through his experience, he has been able to get to the very outermost bounds of the possible on this legislation and perhaps even move those outermost bounds out a little bit. So I applaud the chairman for this extraordinary accomplishment. The Credit Card Act will go a long way in cleaning up the practices of unscrupulous credit card lenders, and the Senators from Connecticut and Alabama deserve high praise for their hard work in bringing us to this point. I thank both my colleagues and I yield the floor.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I gladly yield to the distinguished chairman of the Banking Committee.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, we face a grave economic crisis, and it is our responsibility, our duty as representatives of the American people, to give them every tool they need to weather this economic storm. There is much we have already done to help. Working with President Obama, we cut taxes for middle-class families--because in times like this, every little bit helps. We gave an extra $250 payment to seniors on Social Security and disabled veterans to help them make ends meet when their household budgets are stretched to the breaking point. Preserving jobs means preserving our families' livelihoods, so we are investing billions of dollars in new infrastructure to create and support jobs all across America. Today, Madam President, we want to take on one piece of America's unfinished economic business. Many families in this country--too many-- have found that making ends meet is impossible, and they are in the process of filing for bankruptcy. Four years ago, when Congress overhauled the Bankruptcy Code, our Republican colleagues suggested that those who file for bankruptcy had carelessly lived beyond their means and were trying to game the system--at best, irresponsible; at worst, engaged in fraud. But in the years since, we have seen that was not true. Families don't enter bankruptcy casually to save a few dollars. Bankruptcy is a last resort for individuals and families on the brink of financial collapse. The vast majority of those who seek bankruptcy are struggling, working families. With the economy in its weakest condition in decades, bankruptcy filings are soaring. Tragically, the most common reason for bankruptcy has been health care costs-- compounding the heartbreak of illness or injury with the strain of financial distress--but a lost job or ruined pension can be just as devastating. And many families file for bankruptcy because the mortgages on their homes have gone through the roof and they simply can't afford them any longer. Too many homeowners were coaxed into bad mortgages--with the promise that values would keep going up and up and up--in many cases, without even understanding the hazards built into the small print of the mortgages they assumed. Well, the bubble has burst, and now these homeowners are stuck with mortgages that are larger than the home itself is worth. Ordinarily in a bankruptcy, judges can modify the terms of debts or obligations, including loans on vacation homes and on family farms. These modifications help prevent foreclosure and permit people to keep making payments on their reset loans. That is good because when a house is foreclosed, neighboring property values decline, tax collections decrease, and schools and communities suffer. Helping prevent foreclosures, as this amendment would do, will help rescue falling home prices and get the housing market back on track--and that will help all homeowners, not just those who are facing bankruptcy. Under current law, Americans looking to bankruptcy to escape unbearable financial strains cannot modify the terms of the very contract most dear to any family facing bankruptcy--their principal residence, the place they call home, where they raise their children, where they know their neighbors, where they live their lives. They can face foreclosure, even homelessness. The neighborhood erodes, and a cascade of dire consequences ensues. To remedy this, the distinguished Assistant Majority Leader, Senator Durbin of Illinois, has offered an amendment that would temporarily, and with conditions, give primary residence mortgages the same treatment in bankruptcy as other types of secured debts. Like any secured creditor, the mortgage holder would be entitled to adequate protection of his or her property interest during the bankruptcy. The modification of the mortgage would be limited to a market rate and a term of no longer than 30 years. Given the cost of foreclosures, which average $60,000 per incidence-- setting aside the harm to the family of losing their home, or the neighborhood of having another shuttered, plywood-covered building on the block--it would seem that this amendment to the code would ultimately benefit all of the parties to the mortgage. But on this question, the big banks seem to be inured to suffering and deaf to common sense. Despite requirements protecting banks that families give their lender 45 days' notice before filing for bankruptcy--that allow lenders to prevent forced modifications if they offer voluntary modifications as part of President Obama's Housing Affordability and Stability Plan; that sunsets the program at the end of 2012--the big banks are still opposed. They gorge on taxpayer funds and support, but they will not help these customers. I would note this is not a problem with the small banks, the community banks that held their loans and work with their distressed customers in their community every day. This is a problem with the big banks that sold families' mortgages off in strips to investors far away, leaving the homeowner no one to talk to, no one who can make a decision about modifying the mortgage. What is the homeowner supposed to do? Call an investor in Switzerland, in Japan? Ring up the hedge fund in New York that owns a strip of their mortgage and get them to all come together and agree on a workout? It is impossible. When we allowed mortgage securitization, we created this hole, and we are obliged to fill it. Only a judge can cut through the nightmare of bureaucracy that a homeowner faces trying to sort through this mess. Securitized mortgages caused it, and there is only one practical way to clear it up, and that is the Durbin amendment. I am very proud to have cosponsored this amendment, as well as the Helping Families Save their Homes in Bankruptcy Act, the bill on which this amendment is based. I thank my colleague from Illinois for his passionate and tireless work on this legislation. I share his belief that this is the most direct and effective way to mitigate the foreclosure crisis. I also share Senator Durbin's frustration that although he and others--Senator Schumer in particular--have worked tirelessly to negotiate in the interest of all parties, this powerful banking lobby has been greedy, stubborn, and unreasonable. It refuses to recognize the human problem that poor homeowners have when they have to try to reassemble a mortgage that got sold in strips around the world and try to get those people together to reach an agreement. It is asking ridiculous things of that family to expect them to handle that problem, and they have no other mechanism, except a court, which can settle it once, and quickly, for all. I have been here only a short time, Madam President, but this is one of the most extreme examples I have seen of a special interest wielding its power for the special interest of a few against the general benefit of millions of homeowners and thousands of communities now being devastated by foreclosure. Bear in mind that the big banks opposing this legislation can reset their own obligations in a receivership or bankruptcy, but what's fine for them is obviously too good for their long-suffering customers, who--uniquely--don't get the same rights for their home mortgage. The scale of this is immense. Senator Durbin's commonsense measure would help as many as 1.7 million American families stay in their homes and preserve $300 billion--nearly one-third of a trillion dollars--in home equity for the neighboring homeowners whose home values get knocked down when a bank will not negotiate with an owner and comes in and forecloses, hammers up the plywood over the windows, lets the lawn grow out, and often lets the property be looted. In my home State of Rhode Island alone, 6,600 homes and over $1.4 billion in home equity could be preserved. Homeowners are up against an impossible situation. It was one that was created by the big banks and the investment world when they securitized these mortgages and spread them to the four winds. This is their only hope to redeem it, their only hope to have somebody sensible to talk to, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee for his kind words. I congratulate him on having brought this budget successfully to the floor for a vote at this point. The procedures the budget must go through are very complex. The consequences for this body, if the budget should fail, are dire, and the economic catastrophe the country and our new President have been presented with have made this a particularly challenging budget substantively to work with. Through all that, the distinguished chairman has persevered and succeeded with his customary diligence, grace, and good will; and it is customary on our part to rely on his expertise. He made a remarkable contribution. It would not be right to not acknowledge what a spectacular achievement, under the circumstances, this has been. What is particularly useful about this budget is the emphasis on the pressing priorities that our country faces--particularly clean energy technology and energy efficiencies, the education of our young people, and I think most important, as the distinguished chairman has suggested, it lays the groundwork for a vitally necessary, far-reaching reform of our health care system in the coming months and years. This reform cannot come soon enough. Our health care system is a mess. The number of uninsured Americans continues to climb and will soon hit 50 million. The annual cost of the system is over $2 trillion a year, and that will shortly double. We spend 16 percent of our Nation's gross domestic product on health care--more than any other industrialized country in the world, and double the average of our European Union economic competitors. There is more health care than steel in the cost of Ford cars. There is more health care than coffee beans in the cost of Starbucks coffee. Unless we act quickly, the recession we are living through now will seem like nothing compared to what will happen when $35 trillion in unfunded Medicare liability-- against which we have set not one nickel--comes due. Even more important, however, is the extraordinary price that hardworking Americans pay every day for this dysfunctional system. In America, we have the best doctors, the best nurses, the best procedures, the best hospitals, and the best equipment in the world. Yet our broken health care system grinds that up and produces mediocre results. More than 100,000 Americans are killed every year by unnecessary and avoidable medical errors. Many more are faced with longer health care stays and higher costs. Life expectancy, obesity rates, and child mortality are much worse than they should be in a country such as ours. More families in America experience bankruptcy because of medical expenses for that family than any other cause. Fundamentally, the system itself doesn't work. Hospitals are going broke, doctors are furious, and paperwork chokes the system. Quarrels between providers and payers drive up the cost, while potential savings in billions of dollars for improved quality and prevention lie there on the table. It is a system in crisis, and it threatens our Nation's fiscal security. It must be repaired, and we have to see this as an urgent task. Mr. President, a few months ago, I added a new feature to my Web site, which is a Health Care Storyboard, to give Rhode Islanders a chance to share personal experiences in the health care system and their ideas for how to fix it. Since we launched the Storyboard, more than 300 people, from 45 different communities, have sent me their stories. While I was in Rhode Island over the recess, I had the chance to meet with some of the people who sent in stories, so I could talk to them firsthand. Joyce from Warwick told me she is supposed to take two medications every day, but her insurance will pay for only one. There is no generic for the one she must pay for out of pocket. She would love to retire, but she simply cannot because her medical coverage would cost too much. She is trapped at work by health care. Judith and Scott from Cranston have been struggling ever since he needed a liver transplant in 2006. Their family incurred $60,000 in medical bills that weren't covered by insurance as a result. Scott has been unable to work since 2004 due to his illness, which meant the family was relying on Judith's insurance. But 18 months ago, Judith lost her job, which meant her family had to go on COBRA. To make matters worse, their COBRA is about to run out, and Judith still cannot find a job. Like hundreds of thousands of American families, Judith and Scott had to file chapter 7 bankruptcy on February 12, 2008, because of the medical costs of Scott's illness. Claudia from Providence is self-employed and pays for her own health insurance. She recently did a few precautionary tests at her annual doctor visit when the doctor suggested they were a good idea. However, she found out her health coverage only covers 80 percent of her visit, and she had to pay an extra $176. At the time, she didn't realize how much these tests would cost her. She told me she might have skipped them had she known it was not included in her premium. She, like so many Americans, would have bypassed necessary health care in order to save money. Claudia told me calling what we have a ``health care system'' is too kind. It is more like a trap that people fall into. Marie from Wakefield told me she had been healthy her entire life until extreme pelvic pain sent her to the emergency room twice in 2006. She was eventually diagnosed with endometrial cancer, which was treated with a hysterectomy and six sessions of chemotherapy. Fortunately, Marie had excellent coverage and paid very little for the countless doctor visits, blood work, hospitalizations, scans, and specialists. But now her employer will be changing her coverage dramatically. She may not have post-retirement health care options, and her copay may rise considerably. She has no idea what her future health care needs will be. All she knows is she was once promised one thing, when her career began, and now as she looks toward retirement, she is faced with very different options. Finally Barbara from Exeter, a registered nurse since 1983 and works in hospice care. She told me about her experience ``watching our health care system fall apart at the seams, while insurance giants have gotten out of control.'' Barbara said she had witnessed providers who no longer determine what the best care is for patients based on clinical excellence, but rather on what the insurance company demands and will pay for. She has seen patients forgoing needed medical care because of costs, and ultimately spending more because when they finally seek treatment, their illnesses have become more severe. ``The whole concept of insurance is not what people expect it to be,'' she said. These are just stories of six Rhode Islanders. In them we see a loss of dignity, a loss of security, a loss of confidence and comfort, a loss that is shared by millions of Americans. Their stories remind us that health care reform isn't just an abstract Washington problem--that underneath the awful numbers we see coming out of our health care system are even more awful human tragedies. As we work to reform our health care system, two goals loom large: One, ensuring that health care is available for all, and that it is affordable. But the stories I have heard from these and hundreds of Rhode Islanders remind us it is not just enough to solve the problem of coverage. When the boat is sinking, it is not enough to get everybody out of the water and into the boat. Instead, we must also reform the health care system itself, making it more intelligent, more sensible, more helpful, more efficient, better supported by information technology, and better grounded in quality and prevention. We need an information technology infrastructure so every American can count on his or her own secure electronic health record. We need improvements in the quality of health care so care is both cheaper and more effective. We need to reform our misaligned payment and reimbursement system so the health care we want is the health care we are paying for. This budget begins the process of making that possible, and I am proud to support it. These delivery system reforms in health care cannot be just flipped on like a light switch. They will require complex workforce, regulatory, and infrastructure changes, and then those changes will have to be implemented and administered. It will take time. It could take years. It is all the more reason we need to start now. This budget launches us on that journey. We made good progress yesterday by confirming Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, an experienced and determined leader who will be an enormous asset in this fight. I am encouraged by her confirmation, and I look forward to her leadership at the helm of this effort. Reforming our health care system will be more than a financial problem, more than a policy puzzle, and more than a political fight. This is a landscape of human tragedy, and families all across this country are struggling every single day that we fail to act. This budget does that. It is a good thing. Before I leave the floor, I have to add this because I have been listening across the internal television network to the speeches of my colleagues--in particular, Republican colleagues. From their speeches, you would never know that during the Bush administration the difference between the budget that President Bush inherited and the budget projections he was given the day he took office and the actual budget outcomes that the Bush administration produced, the difference was nearly $9 trillion--$9 trillion of debt. During that time, there was not a peep from our Republican friends about this carnival of debt, this orgy of fair weather debt in which George Bush and the Republican party engaged. Now something has changed. We have a different President, and suddenly we are hearing a whole different message from the Republicans. Now that we have a serious recession, the one time when families are contracting their budgets, businesses are contracting their budgets, and State and local governments are contracting their budgets, and the Federal Government has an economic obligation to spend counter cyclically to keep the budget from melting down, now at this time we hear the most intense caterwauling about debt and deficit. I ask my colleagues, where were you when the Bush administration was running up nearly $9 trillion, putting a war in Iraq on the credit card, and giving tax relief to America's billionaires? Where was the economic urgency of putting those things on the American debt tab? This is the one time when it makes sense to countercyclically spend, to deficit spend through a recession. Yet we hear these complaints. I am a lawyer, as is the Presiding Officer, formerly a distinguished attorney general of New Mexico. We both know that when you are arguing in a court of law, if you intend to make a point, it is usually helpful if the point you are making is consistent with what you have done in the past. It is called the clean hands doctrine. You cannot come into court and argue for a position when you have acted counter to it in the past. You don't have clean hands, and the court will take that into account. I submit that our friends on the other side, the party of no, is now the party of no consistency and the party of no clean hands on this subject. It is impossible to ignore the Bush debt of nearly $9 trillion and come to the floor and claim that this President, in this emergency he inherited from the previous administration, should not do the one thing economists say makes sense in this timeframe, which is in a recession to have the Government spend countercyclically. It makes no sense. I think we need to do what President Obama does: Look to the future, look to the pressing priorities of our time, look to the urgent demands, such as health care, and support this budget. I will conclude, again, with my very great appreciation for the extraordinary work my chairman on the Budget Committee has done to bring us to this day. I think we can look forward to this budget passing, although there will be a certain amount of back and forth until we get there. I think we are doing the American people a service by passing this budget and it is thanks to the chairman's leadership. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I rise in strong support of S. 386, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, and I congratulate Chairman Leahy for introducing this important piece of legislation. If enacted, this bill will enhance our ability to combat fraud and help bring justice to those injured by misconduct that contributed to our current financial crisis. The bill has several important aims. First, it provides badly needed additional funds for fraud-fighting efforts at the FBI, the Department of Justice, and other agencies. It also makes critical changes to our existing criminal fraud statutes, so they capture the malfeasance in the mortgage and financial markets that we hear about every day. Last, certainly not least, it strengthens the False Claims Act to facilitate actions against Government contractors or their subcontractors for wasting Government money. First, I want to say a few words about the additional resources authorized by this bill. In recent years, the number of fraud cases has ballooned. Last month, the Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, told the Judiciary Committee that his agency's caseload of active mortgage fraud cases, for example, has almost tripled in the past 3 years. The FBI, along with Department of Justice and other agencies, has struggled with allocating their scarce resources. As Director Mueller testified, ``these cases are straining the FBI's resources. . . . [W]e have had to shift resources from other criminal programs to address the current financial crisis.'' The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act provides essential money for investigating and prosecuting fraud. Both in the last Congress and earlier this Congress, Senator Snowe and I had introduced legislation, which also would have temporarily increased resources at the FBI to fight white-collar crime because we recognized that our law enforcers do not have the resources they need to fight the ever-growing caseload of fraud cases. S. 386 serves the same important end by providing $245 million a year to the Justice Department, the FBI, and other investigative agencies. S. 386 does more than just provide money, though; it aims to fight fraud in a comprehensive, far-reaching manner by amending criminal laws. The changes in the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act will give Federal law enforcement agencies the tools they need to address some of the most nefarious criminal activity in the financial world. As we have seen in recent years, many of our vulnerabilities in the financial sector originated from bad mortgages and dangerous derivatives. The companies in the center of the storm are the names you hear every night on the news. Of course, not every person in those companies has acted criminally. But some have. These the actors who were able to exploit holes in the regulatory system or identify problems with oversight--often with intentional disregard for the health of the economy. Unfortunately, our present laws don't neatly capture some the criminal acts that are at the heart of financial crisis. To that end, this bill will amend the definition of ``financial institution'' to extend the fraud laws to private mortgage-lending businesses that were not directly regulated or insured by the Federal Government. It will also amend the law to cover mortgage-backed derivatives--so intentional, fraudulent acts related to those instruments can be prosecuted. The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act also changes the law to better capture Ponzi schemes. As it stands now, courts have held that the perpetrators of those schemes are liable only for ``profits'' they earned--rather than being liable for all the ``proceeds'' they received over the course of time. Furthermore, the bill puts the money expended through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and other stimulus bills under the ambit of the fraud statutes. By making this change now, we hopefully will deter the type of intentional, criminal activity that has contributed to the present financial crisis. There is also another way we can protect the TARP and ARRA money--by strengthening civil fraud enforcement. The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act makes overdue changes to the False Claims Act, so that the Federal Government can recover money lost due to contractor abuse and fraud. Through Senator Grassley's efforts since the 1980s, the False Claims Act has become the powerful tool that it is today. Individuals, on behalf of the Government, or the Government itself can sue to recover money from contractors who have abused their access to Government funds. We have seen in the Iraq war context that when contractors have access to large tranches of Government money, fraud and abuse will often follow. Yet some of the False Claims Act cases decided by courts in the last decade have made the False Claims Act less effective. One line of cases determined that fraudulent actions by subcontractors are not subject to the False Claims Act. A change in the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act plugs this hole in the existing law. It is too late to turn back the clock and prevent today's financial crisis from happening. But we can hold the bad actors accountable now by prosecuting the perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law. The provisions of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act will help ensure that our enforcement resources match the gravity of the situation before us.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Mr. President, this amendment requires the Senate to balance, on the one hand, the newfound concern of our Republican colleagues about the reconciliation procedure they have used no less than 14 times for purposes such as raising the national debt to give America's suffering billionaires a tax cut against, on the other hand, jeopardy to the economy, to the public health or to the national security of the United States. It allows the reconciliation procedure to be considered if the Senate finds that inaction on climate change will jeopardize the public health, the economy or the national security of the United States. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the economy, the national security, and the public health of the United States. I call up the amendment.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I want to respond very briefly before I yield to the distinguished chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee on this question of reconciliation and climate change. One really has to have had their sense of irony surgically removed to keep a straight face on the Senate floor today as the party of reconciliation comes to the floor, over and over again, to complain about the use of reconciliation. The party of reconciliation is the Republican Party. They have used it 13 times. They used it for George Bush's tax cuts for billionaires. If you have bloody hands from reconciliation, the Republican Party has blood above the elbows from reconciliation. Yet they come to the floor, as innocent as lambs, to say: Oh, my gosh, what a terrible thing it would be if we used reconciliation for something important like protecting the planet from climate change as opposed to just something like, say, our favorite: tax cuts for billionaires. I think climate change is a little bit too serious for that quality of rhetoric and debate. If the Republican Party in the Senate is willing to stand and say that climate change is not real, then we can have that discussion. But the Senator from Wyoming and the Senator from Idaho and Senators across the other side of the aisle have all had their health directors from their home States come to the Environment and Public Works Committee to say that climate change is real, and it is dangerous for the health of their constituents. I think it is incumbent on us to do something about it. I don't think it is helpful to call it a bailout or to call it a tax. You could unwind the most vigorous rhetoric you like, but it doesn't change the point that we have to do something about climate change. The fundamental fact that they are defending and the fundamental point that is lurking behind this rhetoric about bailout, rhetoric about a tax, is they want to continue to make it free for industry to pollute our atmosphere with carbon and greenhouse gases. Behind it all, that is the proposition for which opposition to cap and trade stands. If you are opposed to cap and trade, then what you are saying is, it should be free, it should continue to be free for industry to pollute our atmosphere and warm our planet and compromise the quality of lives of our children. And we, as a party, the Republicans are going to stand and defend that proposition. Well, of course, they cannot say that. So they instead talk about bailouts and taxes. But I very much hope we will look behind that screen, that we will treat this problem as a serious one, as it should be treated, and if we need to go to reconciliation to solve it, well, by gosh, this would be a far better use of it than the tax rates for billionaires that was the Republican's favorite use for reconciliation. I yield the floor to my distinguished Chairman.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman very much for those very kind and gracious remarks, and I am indeed here to discuss the budget, and particularly the health care aspects of the budget. This is the season. Here we go again, into the annual budget process, and as we have seen today on the Senate floor, our friends across the aisle are doing a great deal of complaining and not a great deal of contributing. Are their complaints sincere? Well, perhaps. I am sure some are sincere. But in evaluating them, we should bear this in mind: Under George Bush, the difference between the budget projections he inherited from President Clinton and the budget performance he left for President Obama was a negative nearly $9 trillion--a massive, reckless landslide of fair-weather debt.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I understand perfectly, and I appreciate the chairman's diligence in ensuring a smooth flow of this important legislation. So we have this litany of complaints from the side that is responsible for the Bush debt of nearly $9 trillion. Now that President Obama has to dig out from under the Bush economic collapse, now that we are in a deep economic recession, now, in the one time when Government spending and borrowing is justified to get us through the economic trough we are going through, we are treated to lectures about debt from our free-borrowing friends. The party of ``deficits don't matter'' wakes up to this concern just in time, coincidently, to thwart our new President. The grotesque folly of the Bush debt was that it addressed things such as lowering tax rates for America's billionaires, not the core American priorities we need to address, in a country that is failing to educate its children as well as international competitors do, a country whose energy policy hurts everyone except oil-producing nations and the oil and coal industry, and a country mired in a disastrous health care system. President Obama's budget addresses these priorities. Indeed, one of the highest priorities in our budget proposal for fiscal year 2010 is a badly needed and long-overdue reform of that broken and dysfunctional health care system. I have spoken on this subject in the Chamber many times because unless something is done soon, health care's massive costs will overwhelm us. Already, the system costs well over $2 trillion a year, and as our population ages, we face $35 trillion in unfunded Medicare liabilities, with not a nickel set aside against those liabilities. No one seriously now questions the need for fundamental health care reform, and it is time to come together to determine what that reform will look like and how we can get it done. That would be a productive thing to talk about with regard to this budget. An event last Thursday marked an important step forward on health care reform. The American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, and Consumers Union came together to issue a joint statement on the vital importance of including health care delivery system reform as part of any comprehensive health care legislation that Congress should move this year. I was proud to join them at their announcement, together with Senator Schumer and Senator Rockefeller. These organizations represent tens of millions of Americans-- Americans living with chronic illness, with cancer, with diabetes, with heart disease, and millions more who are consumers of health care in this country. These organizations and their members understand the failures and the tragedies of our health care system. Separate and together, their voices are powerful, and I would like to share some of what they said. The number of uninsured Americans exceeds 45 million. Health care costs are rising faster than incomes. We spend at least twice as much per capita on health care as our major trading partners, and we rank 37th in the World Health Organization's evaluation of health systems worldwide. The major chronic diseases--cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and stroke--account for three out of every four deaths in the United States, and the estimated total direct and indirect health care costs for these chronic diseases exceeds $700 billion each year. Much of America's chronic disease burden could be avoided through better coordination of care and by applying known best practices to prevent the onset and progression of these conditions at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. While insurance coverage for all Americans is an important goal, we must give equal weight in the health care reform debate to changes that improve the quality of care, increase and improve the delivery of preventive services, and ensure that individuals always receive care that is safe, efficient, and without unnecessary interventions, tests, and treatment. To achieve these goals we must make structural changes: Improve our health information technology infrastructure; align financial incentives with evidence-based and cost- effective decision making; and develop a reliable process for assessing the health value of new technologies. That is a part of the joint statement the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, and Consumers Union issued last Thursday. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the full text of the joint statement I have just referred to.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Also, on Thursday, Mr. President, Consumers Union presented new polling data about Americans' experiences with the health care delivery system that confirms the urgent need for delivery system reform. In the poll, 18 percent of respondents reported that either they or an immediate family member contracted an infection following a medical procedure, and more than 60 percent of those reported that the infection was severe or life-threatening. Mr. President, 13 percent of respondents have had their medical record misplaced, and 9 percent have received the wrong prescription from the pharmacist. Only half of adults--only half of adults--receive routine preventive medical tests, and for adults 35 years and younger, only 30 percent even visit a doctor for routine testing. At our event last week, these organizations emphasized the importance of preventive care. As is so often the case in our health care system, no data or information is as compelling as a personal story, and we were fortunate on Thursday to hear an extraordinary one. Gina Gavlak is a diabetes center and emergency department nurse and the vice chair of the American Diabetes Association's advocacy committee. Gina was diagnosed with diabetes at age 10, and has been living with the disease for the last 29 years. She has worn an insulin pump 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the past 12 years. Before using the pump, Gina took over 21,000 insulin injections, an average of 6 times a day. Gina has battled pre-existing condition rules and outrageously high insurance premiums, but her biggest battle has been the daily management of her disease. She has taken on this battle with extraordinary determination and diligence, and with exemplary results. Through extremely careful monitoring and management, she has had only two hospitalizations and one emergency department visit due to diabetes. She has never missed a day of work because of diabetes. She has had two uncomplicated pregnancies resulting in the birth of her two healthy children. Gina's story is both poignant and important. It shows the tremendous benefits that come from comprehensive management of chronic disease-- both in quality of life and in reduced cost of care. But not everyone has Gina's unique drive and commitment. Many patients will need an interactive, organized, and prevention-focused health care system to effectively manage their care. Unfortunately, this is not the health care system we have. The Cancer Society, the Diabetes Association, the Heart Association, and Consumers Union wrote: The promise of . . . delivery system reform measures to lower costs is the most humane avenue to a financially sustainable health care system . . . Although coverage for all Americans is a vital component of this change--a simultaneous effort aimed at securing high- quality, cost-effective preventive care is equally important . . . the time for comprehensive health care reform has arrived and our organizations will work together to help create a health care system capable of consistently delivering the most effective, patient-centered care. These efforts will improve the quality of life and health outcomes for millions of people who suffer from a chronic disease, and lead to more efficient use of our nation's health resources. The time has indeed come, not only for coverage reforms that will bring all Americans the security and stability that health insurance provides, but also for a fundamental overhaul of the way our delivery system provides care. That is a necessary investment this budget makes. We have to be smart about this. We know how bad the system is; we see its looming catastrophic costs; we must invest the time, the money and the effort to transition to a modern, safe, efficient and healing health care system. That is why this President's budget matters. That is why President Obama's budget is worth passing; it looks beyond the sorry politics of today and addresses the real problems Americans have to cope with day to day, in their regular lives. I ask unanimous consent that statements by Dr. Timothy J. Gardner and Dan Smith, and a Consumer's Union Release be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Of course, I will yield.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to urge my colleagues to support the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the Solicitor General. In doing so, I will make four brief points. First, Dean Kagan is extraordinarily qualified as a lawyer with a profound understanding of the issues that dominate the Supreme Court's docket. She has received enormous praise for her leadership of Harvard Law School as dean, in which position she reinvigorated one of the premier legal institutions in our country. And of course Dean Kagan is a scholar of the highest order on questions of administrative and constitutional law. She clearly has the intellectual background and sharp intelligence necessary to represent the interests of the United States with the utmost skill and clarity. She testified in her hearing and in numerous followup questions that she will put the interests of the United States ahead of any of her own beliefs and defend congressional statutes with the vigor and force we expect of the office. She has worked in private practice, as a clerk to the Supreme Court, and as a counsel in the White House. I applaud her willingness to return to Government service. Now, some critics have pointed out that she has not argued before the Supreme Court before. As an attorney who has argued before that Court, I can attest that appearing before the Court indeed is a daunting experience. But Solicitors General Ken Starr, Charles Fried, Robert Bork, and Wade McCree similarly had not argued before the Court. This fact leaves me with no doubt that Dean Kagan will meet the highest expectations of her and that she will excel as Solicitor General. Second, I would point out that a very large number of leading lawyers have joined me in concluding that Dean Kagan will be an excellent Solicitor General. Dean Kagan's nomination to be Solicitor General has been endorsed by every Solicitor General who served from 1985 to 2009-- Charles Fried, Ken Starr, Drew Days, Walter Dellinger, Seth Waxman, Ted Olson, Paul Clement, and Greg Garre. That is not the Solicitors General from every Democratic administration--that is every Solicitor General over the last 24 years, including conservatives Ted Olson and Ken Starr. Surely their expert opinions should provide a strong indication that Dean Kagan will be an excellent Solicitor General. Third, it is worth noting the historic nature of this nomination. If confirmed, Dean Kagan would become the first woman confirmed by the Senate to hold the Office of Solicitor General of the United States. Dean Kagan has spent her lifetime breaking glass ceilings, and she is poised to break another for the benefit of generations of women to come. Finally, I would like to commend Chairman Leahy for his continuing determination to confirm as many Department of Justice nominees as quickly as possible. The United States deserves the best advocate possible before the Supreme Court. We should confirm Dean Kagan and let her get to work. And we should swiftly confirm the remaining nominees to the Department of Justice. I look forward to continuing to work with Chairman Leahy in that effort.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee for her passionate defense of our natural resources. She is a constant ally of the very best we cull forth from each other as Senators where our most precious environmental concerns are engaged. It is an honor to follow her. Before I yield the floor to the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, who has already made an impact here, I wanted to say a few words about the President's new budget. Across the country, families sit at their kitchen tables and talk and make tough choices about their own family budget, about what they can afford to spend, about what they have to save. What will they do when it is time for the kids to go to college? What will they do if the car breaks down? What will they do if an elderly parent becomes ill? How will they use their finances wisely to plan for the future? This year, those choices are more difficult than ever. We have families in Rhode Island, as I am sure we have across the country, trying to save their homes, to save their jobs, to save their health care. The bills pile up, and all too often there is not enough to pay them. Well, our country is in a deep hole too. But I would like to remind my colleagues that it was not always this way. In January 2001, when George Bush became President, the Congressional Budget Office, which is the non-partisan accounting arm of Congress that does our budget outlook on a regular basis, projected that we would see surpluses straight through the decade. These budget surpluses, the product of President Clinton's responsible governing, were projected to be enough to completely wipe out our national debt by 2009, this very year. Imagine, a debt-free America this year. Well, President Bush fixed that. Usually when American families have a surplus, they use it responsibly, they pay down credit card debt or make an extra mortgage payment. They put it away in retirement savings. They set it aside for college for the kids. Or they spend it on something they need, such as a downpayment on a car or a house. Well, President Bush chose tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, a misguided war he would not pay for--an irresponsible economic policy, leaving a mountain of debt to the next administration. He, of course, had the enthusiastic support of a Republican Congress which was with him every step of the way into this debt. Today, the difference between the expected surpluses left by President Clinton and the actual deficit run up by President Bush is a staggering $8.9 trillion--$8.9 trillion on America from the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress. So that is what President Obama inherited--a legacy of reckless borrowing, bad decisions, compounded by skyrocketing unemployment and now a deepening recession that only adds to our country's fiscal woes. President Obama is trying to help us dig our way out of this mess by focusing his budget on the policies and programs that will repair our economy and create the foundation for long-term economic growth and success. He proposed, and we passed, an economic recovery plan to create jobs and support struggling families and make badly needed investments in our infrastructure during this recession. It wasn't perfect. It probably will not be enough. But it was a good start. Now, the same Republican Party that thought tax cuts for the rich and an unnecessary war in Iraq were good uses of President Clinton's budget surpluses, the same Republican Party that ran up an $8.9 trillion debt on the country now has its leaders calling President Obama's plans ``the fleecing of America's children.'' It is hard to imagine that this irony eludes them. President Obama wants to cut taxes for working families, invest in renewable energy, help more young people get a college education, and reform our broken health care system--key priorities for the future of America. But some Republicans who stood by while our country became more and more dependent on foreign oil, while the cost of a college education went through the roof, and while a crisis brewed in our health care system are calling these investments in our future ``a remarkable spending binge.'' Once again, the ``department of irony'' appears to be open late on the other side of the aisle. Families in America know we will not get out of this mess with the same failed policies that got us into it--that it is time for new priorities. That is what President Obama's budget offers. Perhaps our greatest challenge, certainly one of our greatest challenges and opportunities, is presented by our broken and dysfunctional health care system. Unless we take serious remedial action and soon, right away, this recession we are living through now will seem like an economic speed bump compared to what will happen when that $35 trillion in unfunded Medicare liabilities, against which we have set not one nickel, comes bearing down on us. We had a lot of fighting in this body about that Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act was nearly $800 billion. Compare that to the Bush debt I talked about that they ran up of $8.9 trillion. Where was the complaining then? Compare that to the $35 trillion in unfunded liabilities we face for Medicare. Where are the serious ideas about how we address this problem? When you put these problems to scale, you will see that wave of cost, that tsunami of health care cost coming at us is something we have to address. We are facing truly the financial ruin of our health care system and, if nothing is done, the financial ruin of our country. Every one of us should share the goal of making sure health insurance coverage reaches every American. President Obama's budget makes a downpayment on that badly needed reform. But it is not enough just to give coverage to everybody. It is not enough just to get everybody on board, if the boat itself is sinking. We have two toolboxes out of which we can fix our health care mess. One reduces coverage, cuts benefits, pays providers less, and raises taxes. That is the old-fashioned toolbox. It will work, but it will be brutal. It will be wrong, and we should do everything we can to prevent it. The other toolbox reforms the health care system itself, making it more intelligent, sensible, helpful, and efficient; with an information technology infrastructure so every American can count on their own secure electronic health record, with improvements in the quality of health care so we maximize the effectiveness while reducing the cost; and with reform of having paid for health care so the health care we want is the health care we are paying for. The President sees that all of this is doable--and that we need to start now. His economic recovery legislation put nearly $20 billion into health information infrastructure. But the President knows there is much more to be done, that these delivery system reforms in health care cannot be flipped on like a light switch. It will require complex workforce, regulatory, and infrastructure changes. Then those changes will have to be implemented and administered. It will take some years, and we need to start now. The Obama budget starts us on that course to fix our broken health care system. I find it unfortunate that our Republican colleagues don't seem to appreciate the seriousness of these problems and have become a chorus of naysayers with no solutions. It is time to pass a budget that lives up to the expectations of the American people. I hope we will. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about the question of executive compensation triggered in particular by the recent round of bonuses paid to executives at AIG who had such a significant role in putting America into the economic distress we are in now. I have vented probably 50 times over this already, so I have calmed down a bit, but it is truly infuriating. I believe all my colleagues share how frustrating and infuriating it is. What is it about these people? They don't seem to get it. At long last have they no sense of humility? Have they no sense that their wretched corporation would not even exist today if it were not for the good will of millions of American taxpayers whose own economic future is being put at risk to prop up this corporation? Then they turn and do this? It is not only I. I was in Rhode Island over the weekend. I stopped at Coffey's service station to have the oil changed. It was the one thing the mechanics were furious about. People don't come up to me and talk about issues all the time. I am a pretty normal person. We bump into each other, and we talk about various things. They were all over this. I stopped at Amenities Deli in Providence to pick up coffee and a muffin. Rosie, who runs it, all over this. I went to a meeting with the police chief and some community organizers in Olneyville. There was the local media, the radio stations, all over it. People are so angry. What has happened is, the view has appeared that there isn't anything we can do about this. What I would like to say is, I believe that view is wrong. I am pleased President Obama has directed Treasury Secretary Geithner to use the Treasury's leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole. It is not just these bonuses. There is more out there. The Wall Street Journal reported weeks ago that there is $40 billion in deferred executive compensation waiting to be paid to recipients of the TARP plan of Federal taxpayer generosity. We are not doing anything about that either. The problem is fairly simple. In the ordinary course, these companies which have wrecked themselves would ordinarily be insolvent and would ordinarily go into bankruptcy. In bankruptcy, you would have a judicial forum. The court would make determinations about who gets paid under a regular schedule. These executive compensation schemes--deferred compensation is a tax dodge, so how wonderful that that should be favored now--these compensation schemes come at the very end. You line up at the back of the line with the unsecured creditors and you may get paid only pennies on the dollar. But because of their importance, because they were too big to fail, because we had to keep our financial system going, we could not allow them to go into bankruptcy. That was the decision. That took away that judicial forum. Because we haven't replaced it under American law, where you can't undo a contractual obligation, you can't willy-nilly take it away, not without providing due process of law, all the way back to that case that all of us learned in the first year of law school, Fuentes v. Shevin. When the sheriff came to take away Mrs. Fuentes' stove because she hadn't paid for it, the Supreme Court said: You can't take Mrs. Fuentes' stove away, even if she hasn't paid for it, not without giving her a chance to be heard. So we have to create a place where the Government can go to contest these executive compensation schemes and have a proper due process hearing and air it out before the people. The legislation I have proposed is called the Economic Recovery Adjustment Act of 2009. It would permit the Government, after notice and a hearing, consistent with due process principles, to reduce excessive executive compensation obligations at financial institutions that have received Federal bailout funds. It would also create an office of the taxpayer advocate in the Department of Justice to take the other side in the contest between the executives and the public, the Department of Justice would represent the public. Finally, you would set up a temporary court, a temporary recovery oversight panel of sitting bankruptcy judges. You don't have to create new positions. You take sitting bankruptcy judges and create a temporary panel and you can get this heard. I don't wish to speak long. I know the distinguished Senator from Vermont is waiting. I do wish to assure my colleagues that if we want to ventilate about this, if we want to wring our hands about it, if we want to give speeches about how it is outrageous, we can do that. But if we actually want to do something about it, within the constitutional restrictions of the United States, I believe the bill I have proposed will allow us to do it. Frankly, I don't see another way. I invite colleagues to discuss it further with me. I don't think I have an exclusive piece of wisdom here. I do think there may be ways the bill could be improved. I am willing to listen to anybody. I can't tolerate a situation in which we do nothing, in which we unilaterally disarm the U.S. Government from doing anything about this compensation by failing to set up the basic judicial method through which we could take a look at this and try to make things right. Again, I invite my colleagues to be in touch on this, if they are interested in pursuing it. I think it is necessary. I appreciate the indulgence of the Chair. I appreciate the indulgence of the distinguished Senator from Vermont. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 5 minutes and, at the conclusion of my remarks, the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Sanders, be recognized.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to urge my colleagues to support the nomination of David Ogden to be our Deputy Attorney General. In doing so, I will make a few brief points. First, Mr. Ogden is extraordinarily qualified as a lawyer. He has served as the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division, as the Chief of Staff to Attorney General Janet Reno, as the Associate Deputy Attorney General, and as Deputy General Counsel over at the Department of Defense. He has a distinguished government record. He has also been a distinguished lawyer in the private sector, as evidenced by his position as cochair of the Government and Regulatory Litigation Group at the law firm of WilmerHale. His qualifications for this important position as Deputy Attorney General are exemplified by the support of former Deputy Attorneys General of both parties. Republican Larry Thompson said: David is a person of honor who will, at all times, do the right thing for the Department of Justice and our great country. As a citizen, I am extremely grateful that a lawyer of David's caliber again offers himself for public service. Democrat Jamie Gorelick wrote that David Ogden ``is a man of unusual breadth and depth who is as well prepared to help lead the Department as anyone who has come in at the outset of a new administration can possibly be.'' Second, now more than ever, the Department needs a competent Deputy Attorney General. I will not go back and review the long sad litany of problems--to put it mildly--we saw in the Bush Justice Department. But the incompetence and politicization that ran rampant through that building must never be repeated. The Deputy Attorney General is the second ranking member at the Department, and some have compared the position to a chief operating officer. We need in that office a person who understands what makes the Department of Justice such an important and unique institution, who is committed to restoring the Department's honor and integrity, who will act independent of political pressure, and who understands the levers within the building that need to be pulled to get things done. Based on my review of his background and based on his confirmation hearings and based on my personal conversations with David, I believe him to be such a man. I commend Chairman Leahy for his determination to confirm as many Department nominees as quickly as possible. The Department has more than 100,000 employees and a budget exceeding $25 billion. It is also tasked with confronting the most complex and difficult legal challenges of our day. The Attorney General must have his leadership team in place as quickly as possible. It is March 12 and the Attorney General does not have his Deputy confirmed by this body. Despite some very unfortunate delay tactics that have taken place, Chairman Leahy is doing all he can to move these nominees in a careful, deliberate, and expeditious manner. I commend him for that effort and I look forward to supporting him in that effort. I would also add that as a Senator I have found some of the comments that have been made about Mr. Ogden to be very troubling, and certainly not the sort of debate I had in mind when I ran to be a Senator. Everybody here who is a lawyer knows that a lawyer in private practice has a duty--a duty--to zealously advocate--to zealously advocate--the position of his client. What makes our system great is that you don't have to win a popularity contest as a client before you can get a zealous advocate for your position. Every lawyer is under a duty to zealously advocate their client's position. So to take a lawyer who has served in private practice with great distinction and attribute to him personally the views of clients is plain dead wrong and strikes at the heart of the attorney-client relationship that is the basis of our system of justice. It is a terrible mistake to do that, and particularly to exaggerate those positions to the point where he has been accused of supporting things such as child pornography. It is an appalling misstatement. The major organizations that concern themselves with the welfare of children in this country support David Ogden. That should put these false claims to rest. However, I do very much regret that the level of debate over someone such as David Ogden in this historic body has come to a point where those sorts of charges are being thrown out, completely without factual basis and, in many respects, in violation of what we should as Senators understand to be a core principle, which is that a lawyer is bound to advocate for his client and to do so does not confer upon the lawyer the necessity of agreeing to those views. As somebody who spent a good deal of time in public service as a lawyer and who has spent some time in private practice as a lawyer as well, I can tell my colleagues that one of the reasons people come to public service is so they can vindicate the public interest. David, as Deputy Attorney General, I have no doubt whatsoever will serve in a way that vindicates the public interest, that protects children, that protects our country, and that serves the law. I appreciate the opportunity to say this, and I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my time be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 39 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record. The bill (S. 39) was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, was read the third time, and passed, as follows:

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of Senate Resolution 60, and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.