Elizabeth Warren

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, before I start, I want to recognize the Boston Red Sox team for an outstanding historic season and to congratulate Red Sox Nation on their third World Series Championship in 10 years. Go Sox. The Red Sox mean so much to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to our communities throughout New England, particularly this year. They have been a symbol of Boston's strength and resilience. From their historic one-season turnaround to their win in front of the Fenway faithful for the first time since 1918, to their scruffy beards, this team will be remembered forever for its heart and for its success. Like all of us in Massachusetts, they have shown what it means to be Boston strong. I also want to congratulate the St. Louis Cardinals on their 97-win season and their extraordinary achievement for winning 4 pennants in 10 years. Really amazing. I am honored every day to represent the people of Massachusetts and the values we stand for. I am especially proud to congratulate the Red Sox today. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of Congressman Mel Watt's nomination to serve as the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. In many areas of Massachusetts and around the country, housing markets have recovered, but in too many other areas the housing market is plagued by underwater mortgages and foreclosures. A wounded housing market continues to drag down our economy and it leaves millions of families struggling to rebuild economic security. One of the people who can make an important difference in helping the housing market back to full health is the Director of FHFA. The FHFA oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Between them, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back the vast majority of mortgages in the country, which means right now the FHFA has enormous influence over the American housing market. The FHFA has the tools to help homeowners who continue to struggle following the 2008 financial crisis. It has the tools to help accelerate our economic recovery. For 4 years now, the FHFA has been led by an acting director. The time has come for some permanence and for some certainty. It is time for the FHFA to have a director, and Congressman Mel Watt is the right man for the job. He has decades of relevant experience. He spent 22 years as a practicing lawyer, working with middle-income and lower income families on real estate closings and other housing issues. He then spent the next 21 years in Congress as a member of the House Financial Services Committee where he dealt firsthand with housing finance as a policymaker. When it comes to housing, Congressman Watt has seen it all. Congressman Watt has shown good judgment throughout it all. Several years before the housing market collapse in 2008, Congressman Watt introduced the Prohibit Predatory Lending Act in an effort to stop mortgage lenders from taking advantage of homebuyers. The act would have helped Congress address the underlying cause of the financial crisis by making it harder for lenders to push families toward mortgages they could not repay and too often did not understand. After that crisis hit, Mel built on his earlier legislation to craft laws that reduced risky mortgage lending and gave homeowners additional protection. Congressman Watt has worked hard to level the playing field for consumers. But he is no ideologue. I have worked with him for many years now. I have seen firsthand that he is a thoughtful policymaker. He can see problems coming, and when he does he seeks common ground and works hard to develop real solutions. As Congress looks at ways to fix Freddie and Fannie to steady the housing market, Congressman Watt's practical approach is exactly what FHFA needs. The people who know him best, the Senators from his home State of North Carolina, the business leaders in his congressional district in Charlotte, support his nomination without reservation. So what I want to know is this: Why would anyone in Congress try to block Mel from receiving a simple up-or-down vote? Why would they not want strong leadership in an agency that has been thrust into such a critical role in the economy? It does not make sense, not to the people who know Mel and not to the people who want to put this economy back on track. Mel's work will help restore the housing market, help lift the economy, and most of all, help strengthen America's families. It is time for obstruction for obstruction's sake to end, and it is time for the Senate to move forward with an up-or-down vote to confirm Congressman Watt so that he can get to work at the FHFA serving the American people. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, the U.S. Treasury says that in exactly 8 days it will not have enough money to pay the government's bills. We are not in this position because the Secretary of the Treasury or the President spent more than they were supposed to. The Constitution allows them to spend only what Congress tells them to spend, and that is exactly what they have done. We are not in this position because investors refused to buy our bonds. Investors are lining up around the block to buy those. We are in this position for one reason and one reason only: Congress told the government to spend more money than we have. Congress told the Treasury to run up our debt to pay for it, but now Congress is threatening to run out on the bill. If that strikes you as bizarre, you are not alone. The United States is the only democracy in the world where the legislature debates whether it should pay the bills it has already incurred. The United States is the only democracy that regularly considers whether to run out on its bills; that is, to voluntarily default on its debt. Congress exercises direct control over the amount the Federal Government spends and the amount the Federal Government brings in through taxes and fees. Our national debt is simply a function of those two things--the money coming in and the money going out--and so Congress exercises direct control over the amount of debt we have. If Congress is unhappy with the size of the debt, it should change how much it spends or how much it brings in. There is no other option. The idea that we can somehow renege on our debts without paying a huge price is a fantasy, a dangerous fantasy. Consider what happened in 2011, the last time the government came up to the edge of a voluntary default. Even the possibility that the government would not make good on its debts spooked investors and pushed up interest rates. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the interest rate increase from the last time the United States even talked about default will cost the government $19 billion over 10 years. That is $19 billion that could have brought back funding for Head Start, Meals On Wheels or our military. That is $19 billion that could have eased the interest rates on student loans or been invested in medical research. That is $19 billion that could have been used to pay down the debt. Instead, that is $19 billion that was just flushed down the drain. Does anyone here care about wasteful government? Well, then, that is it. The last time the government came to the edge of a voluntary default, consumers and businesses got spooked too. The S&P dropped by more than 17 percent, $800 billion in retirement assets vanished, mortgage rates went up nearly three-quarters of a point, costing every new homeowner real money. The net result was less consumer spending, fewer business investments, lower home ownership rates, and slower job growth. That is what happened the last time Congress came to the edge of a voluntary default. What happens if Congress actually defaults? If that happens, there is widespread concern among economists of every political persuasion that we would plunge into another recession. Government debt may seem to be an abstract and complicated thing, but, in fact, it is pretty simple. The government owes money to two main groups of people. It owes payments on U.S. bonds, which are mostly owned by foreign governments, and it owes money to the American people for things such as Social Security payments and Medicare reimbursements for hospitals and physicians. It owes paychecks to the military and retirement checks to veterans. If the Treasury does not have enough money to make all of its payments, then it will likely try to minimize the damage to America's credit rating, and that means making payments on the bonds held by foreign investors, leaving others to absorb the losses. Who will not get paid? Will it be seniors who rely on Social Security to live? Will it be hospitals that rely on Medicare to operate? Will it be our servicemembers who rely on paychecks to help their families back home? Will it be Federal contractors, large and small, who support millions of jobs nationwide? The Treasury makes 80 million payments a month and many of them will be delayed. As more time passes, unpaid bills will pile up. From there, it just gets worse. The Federal Government's inability to pay its bills could set off a chain reaction of defaults, sending the financial system into turmoil. Millions of people who rely on Federal payments might not have the money they need to keep current on their student loans or their mortgages or their small business loans. That could cause interest rates to spike, leading to a wave of further defaults, while the financial markets would be faced with the very real possibility that the United States would not have enough money to make payments on its bonds. American Treasury bonds are considered safe investments. They are considered so safe that they are used as collateral in millions of financial transactions around the world. If the United States does not have enough money to pay its bills, parties to these transactions will demand more collateral or different forms of collateral. That has a domino effect throughout the economy. The end result could be the kind of freeze of the credit markets that we saw after the failure of Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, the freeze that triggered the financial crisis. The idea that we can renege on our debts and not pay a huge price is a dangerous fantasy. I have heard some extremists in Congress argue that even if the United States runs out of money to pay all its bills, it will not be so bad because the Treasury will be able to keep current on its bond payments and avoid a technical default. That is a heck of a best case scenario, making bond payments to foreign governments, mostly China and Japan, while holding up Social Security payments, hospital payments, and military payments here at home. It is a terrible idea. People count on those payments to live. It is also a terrible idea that would not work. Just ask top Wall Street executives, including the CEO of Goldman Sachs who said publicly and unequivocally that prioritizing bond payments would still create ``insurmountable uncertainty for investors,'' causing a spike in interest rates that would immediately increase monthly payments on student loans, mortgages, other personal debt, and would cripple job growth. Like it or not, the threat of default will cause this country a lot of pain. I want to make this absolutely clear: If we run out of money to pay our bills, the world will view this as the first default in the history of the United States. Wall Street and the global financial markets will view this as the first default in the history of the United States. This fight is about financial responsibility. Financially responsible people don't charge thousands of dollars on their credit cards and then tear up the bill when it arrives. Financially responsible Nations don't do that either. When we put our name on the line saying that a debt is backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States, we follow through. We protect our good name. We protect our good credit. For many things that we do in Congress, we can make a mistake and then back up and fix it. A default on our national debt is not one of those things. If we default and pay late, the damage could be irreversible. The first time we flirted with default was the first time in history that America's credit rating fell. If we actually default, some economists estimate we will add $75 billion a year to the debt in additional interest payments. That is three-quarters of $1 trillion over the next 10 years. There are a lot of good things to do with that money. Flushing it down the drain is not one of them. If we default on our debt, we could bring on a worldwide recession, a recession that would pummel hard-working middle-class people, people who lost their homes and jobs and retirement savings and who are barely getting back on their feet. Maybe we can escape a recession--maybe--but we are playing with the lives of every American, and it is not what the American people sent us to do. This is no time to act out dangerous fantasies. We must raise the debt ceiling. We must raise it now. A bedrock financial principle of government is to tell the world that the United States always pays its debts in full and on time. That is who we are. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, we are now 3 days into a completely unnecessary, completely avoidable Republican shutdown, and there is more talk than ever about the inability of our leaders to find common ground on central, economic, and fiscal issues of our time. This government shutdown is throwing a major wrench into a fragile economic recovery. Nearly 1 million Federal employees are sitting at home for no reason, and other public servants are working but not earning a paycheck. Cancer patients are being turned away from clinical trials at the NIH. Veterans' benefits are at risk. Basic nutrition services for pregnant women and new moms will be disrupted. Small businesses won't be able to get Federal loan guarantees. And all this is happening on top of the idiotic sequester--drastic, across-the-board spending cuts that have crippled Meals On Wheels, Head Start, and investments in medical research. We all know how we got here. For years now we have heard a small minority in this country rail against government. When I hear the latest tirades from some of the extremists in the House, I am struck by how vague these complaints are. From their rhetoric, one would think they believed that anytime we, the people, come together to improve our lives, the Nation is committing some terrible wrong. From their rhetoric, one would think they believe that the government that functions best is a government that doesn't function at all. So far, they haven't ended government, but they have achieved the next best thing--shutting the government down. But behind all the slogans of the tea party and all the thinly veiled calls for anarchy in Washington, behind all that there is a reality. The American people don't want the extremist Republicans' bizarre vision of a future without government. They don't support it. Why? Because the American people know that without government, we would no longer be a great nation with a bright future. The American people know that government matters. The anarchy gang is quick to malign government, but when was the last time anyone called for regulators to go easier on companies that put lead in children's toys or for food inspectors to stop checking whether the meat in our grocery stores is crawling with deadly bacteria or for the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause horrible deformities in little babies? We never hear that--not from political leaders in Washington and not from the American people. In fact, whenever the anarchy gang makes headway in their efforts to damage our government, the opposite happens. After the sequester kicked in, Republicans immediately turned around and called on the technical funding for our national defense and to keep the air traffic controllers on the job. Now that the House Republicans have shut down the government, holding the country hostage because of some imaginary health care bogeyman, Republicans almost immediately turned around and called on us to start reopening parts of our government. Why did they do this? Because the bogeyman ``government'' is like the bogeyman under the bed. It is not real. It doesn't exist. What is real and what does exist are all the important work we as Americans have chosen to do together through our government. In our democracy, government is not some make-believe thing that has an independent will of its own. In our democracy, government is just how we describe what we, the people, have already decided to do together. It is not complicated. Our government has three basic functions: provide for the national defense; put in place rules of the road, such as speed limits, and bank regulations that are fair and transparent; and build that which none of us can build alone--roads, power grids, schools--that which gives everyone a chance to succeed. We are a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs, growing small businesses and thriving big businesses. But our people succeed, our country succeeds because we have all come together to put public institutions and infrastructure together. We all decided to pass laws and put cops on the beat so that no one steals a purse on Main Street or a pension on Wall Street. We all decided to invest in public education so that businesses have skilled workers and a kid with an idea can create the next breakthrough company. We all decided to invest in basic science so there is a great pipeline of ideas to create our future. These achievements aren't magic. They didn't simply occur on their own or through dumb luck. In each instance we made a choice as a people to come together. The Food and Drug Administration makes sure the white pills we take are antibiotics and not baking soda. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees crash tests to make sure all new cars have effective brakes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes sure babies' car seats don't collapse in a crash and toasters don't explode. We don't know who they are, but there is no question that there are Americans alive today, Americans who are healthier, Americans who are stronger, because of these and countless other government efforts--alive, healthier, stronger because of what we did together. The anarchy gang in the House can dump on their make-believe version of government all they want, but when the real government fails to live up to the high expectations we have all set for it, politicians in both parties rush to outrage. Why? Because the American people know government can work and believe government should work. Today--that is right, today--marks the fifth anniversary of President Bush signing the bank bailout into law. That financial crisis cost us upwards of $14 trillion--that is trillion with a ``t.'' That is $120,000 for every American household--more than 2 years' worth of income for the average family. Billions of dollars in retirement savings have disappeared, millions of workers lost their jobs, and millions more families lost their homes. In April 2011, after a 2-year bipartisan inquiry, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 635-page report that made it plain: Regulators could have and should have used their existing tools to prevent the crisis. Republicans and Democrats, a bipartisan group, found strong agreement that--we better believe it-- government matters. The attacks on government are abstract, but the consequences of this shutdown are real: less accountability for cheaters and rule-breakers, less opportunity for our children, cracks in the foundations that businesses need to succeed, and a tilted playing field that limits opportunities for all of our people. We know that government doesn't always work. We know no institution is infallible. People make mistakes, ideas fail, and sometimes we get it wrong. But our response isn't to give up. Our response isn't to sit back and say: I told you so. We are not a nation of quitters. Our response, the American response, is to fix it, to make government work better. Our democracy is an experiment, and it is always evolving. We constantly redesign and reimagine and improve on what we do together. But time and time again throughout our history we have reaffirmed the simple truth that government matters. Right now, right at this moment, if we look closely, we will see that we are reaffirming it once again. It is not an accident that the desire to shut down government is confined to one extremist faction of one political party of one Chamber of Congress of one branch of government. It is not an accident that this extremist faction must resort to absurd hostage tactics--threats to turn off the government, threats to default on our debt, threats to tank the economy--to force their views on everyone else. It is not an accident that this faction is doing everything in its power to make government appear dysfunctional. In a democracy, these hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can't win their fights through elections, can't win their fights through Congress, can't win their fights for the Presidency, and can't win their fights in courts. But these threats are not working and they will never work because this is a democracy, and for more than 200 years our democracy has defeated extremists and rejected the idea that government does not matter. So to those who have forced us to the brink, to those who rail against a make-believe government, to those who seem to rejoice in anarchy, to those who have salivated at the chance to shut down our government because their extremist views have left them disconnected from the experiences of the American people, it is time to hear a simple message: You can do your best to make government look like it does not work when you stop it from working, you can do your best to make government look paralyzed when you paralyze it, you can do your best to make government look incompetent through your incompetence and through your ineffectiveness, but sooner or later the government will reopen because this is a democracy and this democracy has already rejected your views. We have already chosen to work together because we all know we are stronger when we come together. And when this government reopens, when our markets are safe again, when our scientists can return to their research, when our small businesses can borrow, when our veterans can be respected for their service, when our flu shots resume and our Head Start programs get back to teaching our kids, we will have rejected your views once again. We are not a country of anarchists. We are not a country of pessimists and ideologues whose motto is ``I got mine. The rest of you are on your own.'' We are not a country that tolerates dangerous drugs, unsafe meat, dirty air, or toxic mortgages. We are not that nation, we have never been that nation, and we will never be that nation. Today, a political minority in the House that condemns government and begged for this shutdown has had its day. But like all the reckless and extremist factions that have come before it, their day will pass and our democracy will return to the important work we have already chosen to do together. I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I come to the floor today in a state of disbelief. With millions of people out of work, with an economic recovery still far too fragile, with students and families being crushed by student loan debt, with millions of seniors denied their chance at one hot meal a day, with Meals On Wheels, and millions of little children pushed out of Head Start because of a sequester, with the country hours away from a government shutdown and days away from a potential default on the Nation's debt, the Republicans have decided that the single most important issue facing our Nation is to change the law so employers can deny women access to birth control coverage. In fact, letting employers decide whether women can get birth control covered on their insurance plans is so important that the Republicans are willing to shutter the government and potentially tank the economy, over whether women can get access to birth control in the year 2013,-- not the year 1913, the year 2013. I have a daughter and I have granddaughters, and I will never vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women's access to birth control. We have lived in that world and we are not going back--not ever. This assault on birth control is just one more piece of an ongoing Republican assault on the orderly functioning of our government and the orderly functioning of our economy. In effect, the Republicans are trying to take the government and the economy hostage, threatening serious damage to both unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act. This assault is utterly bizarre. Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to solve real, honest-to-God problems. Our health care system is broken. Forty-eight million people in this country had no health insurance. Women couldn't get access to cancer screenings. People with diabetes were denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition. People with cancer hit the caps on health insurance spending. Health care spending in this country was growing way too fast. So we worked hard. We compromised. We came up with a solution--a solution that will substantially improve the lives of millions of Americans--because that is the way democracy works. It is time to end the debate about whether the Affordable Care Act should exist and whether it should be funded. Congress voted for this law. President Obama signed this law. The Supreme Court upheld this law. The President ran for reelection on this law. In fact, his opponent said he would repeal it and his opponent lost by 5 million votes. I see things such as this and I wonder what alternate reality some of my colleagues are living in. So let me be very clear about what is happening in the real world. The ACA is the law of the land. Millions of people are counting on it--people who need health care coverage, people who need insurance policies that do not disappear just when they are their sickest. Women will get insurance coverage for birth control. The law is here to stay, and it will stay. Earlier today the Senate emphasized that reality by flatly rejecting the Republicans' newest ransom note, just as we did last week. We should be having a real debate about our budget because we have real problems to solve. Earlier this year automatic across-the-board cuts went into effect throughout the Federal Government. That is the sequester. The sequester hits American families where they live. During my visits to cities and towns across Massachusetts, I have heard from families, small business owners, and community development organizations--from the Berkshires to the Cape. They tell me what it is like trying to stay afloat with mindless, across-the-board spending cuts weighing them down. More than a thousand employees at Westover Air Force Base and Barnes Air National Guard Base in western Massachusetts are facing furloughs. This fall, more than 2,000 Massachusetts kids could not get into Head Start because of cuts, and the Head Start Program in Billerica will close completely at the end of this year. Federal workers across our State stand to lose as much as 30 percent of their salaries. Every one of those losses will tighten family budgets. And when families make less money, they have less to spend with local merchants and less money to pay off bills and less money to save and less money to do all that keeps our economy humming. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says ending the sequester would add 900,000 jobs to the economy by the end of next year. Next time you think about someone you know who is looking for a job or who is working part time but hoping to get full-time work, think about the 900,000 jobs the sequester has destroyed. Scientists and medical researchers in Massachusetts are also getting pounded by the sequester. They are working hard to expand our medical knowledge and develop new cures for devastating diseases. They are working on discoveries that will help us in ways we cannot even imagine. Yet here we are, bluntly hacking away at their funding, delaying their research, and cutting off promising new work before it even starts--not because we have to, not because it is inevitable, but because Washington has its priorities all wrong, and it is making some truly terrible decisions. Consider the Framingham Heart Study. It is a generations-long study of the causes of heart disease, a study that has helped create groundbreaking advancements in medical knowledge. There are people across this country who are alive today in part because of the work that began with this study. This study continues to yield extraordinary results, but it is scheduled to lose 40 percent of its funding--40 percent. Next time you think of someone you love who has heart trouble, think about the sequester cutting one of the world premier heart research programs. Senate Democrats have put forward alternatives that would adequately fund the government while also addressing our budget deficits. Back in March the Senate passed a budget that would have ended the sequester. It was not easy. We had to make some compromises. No one loved everything in the final bill, but we debated it and we passed it. This is what Congress is supposed to do. But after we did all of that, Senate Republicans decided to filibuster the budget again and blocked us from going to conference with the House on the final bill. That is just pure obstruction, plain and simple. In July the Senate attempted to pass the first of several appropriations bills to keep the government open and to end the sequester. We had a bipartisan Transportation and Housing bill that would have helped repair crumbling roads and bridges in our communities. It would have created more jobs, and it would have rolled back sequestration in these programs. But, once again, Senate Republicans filibustered and blocked that bill. Now we are just hours from the government running out of money. We have not fixed the sequester because of all the obstruction. We have not finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We have not even passed a single appropriations bill because of all the obstruction. The least we can do--the bare minimum we can do--would be to pass a continuing resolution to keep the doors open and the lights on. We can ensure that over a million Federal workers are not simply sent home for no reason. We can avoid a government shutdown. But the Republicans have refused to do even that. They have continued to threaten to shutter the government unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act. The Senate rejected that position twice. Yet the Republican response has been to continue to threaten to shut down the government. These threats may continue, but they are not working, and they will never work because this is democracy, and in a democracy hostage tactics are the last resort for those who cannot win their fights through elections, cannot win their fights in Congress, cannot win their fights for the Presidency, and cannot win their fights in the courts. For this rightwing minority, hostage taking is all they have left--a last gasp for those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy. The time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the reality of our democracy to get out of the way so that those of us in both parties who understand the American people sent us here to work for them can get back to work solving real problems faced by the American people. We have real work to do, and that is what we should be doing. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for morning business with debate only be extended until 8 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, and that the majority leader be recognized at 8 p.m.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I am proud to come to the floor today to welcome my colleague Ed Markey on giving his first speech on the floor of the Senate. Long before I became a U.S. Senator, Ed Markey was in the House of Representatives, became the dean of the Massachusetts delegation, and has been out there working for the families of Massachusetts and the families of this country. He has been a leader on issues ranging from energy and the environment to technology and telecommunications, and he knows how to get things done. That is very inspiring. I just wanted to come by today to listen to his first speech, congratulate him on his first speech, and to say how much I am looking forward to working with my partner Ed Markey in the Senate. We are going to do our best to get something done. Congratulations.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I want to start by saying to Senator Reed how much I appreciate his leadership in putting forth this amendment that takes a bad bill and turns it into something that will be helpful for our students and for our families struggling with student loan debt. I also want to say how much I appreciate the leadership of Senator Harkin, Senator Durbin, Senator Manchin, Senator King, Leader Reid, all of whom have worked very hard and made best efforts under very difficult circumstances. We had a better bill that passed the Senate, but it was filibustered by Republicans and, as a result, we are where we are now. Today the Senate will vote on a plan that would fundamentally change the way government sets interest rates on student loans. My colleagues who support this proposal say it will lower interest rates on loans for this year, and that is all that matters. That is the same thing credit card companies said when they sold zero-interest credit cards, and it is the same thing subprime mortgage lenders said when they sold teaser- rate mortgages. In all these cases, the bill comes due. Nobody disputes the fact that within a few years, according to our best estimates, all students will end up paying far higher interest rates on their loans than they do right now. I want lower interest rates for students. With more than $1 trillion in existing student loans, our students are drowning in debt. We must find a way to address this crisis by lowering the interest rates, refinancing existing student loan debt, and bringing down the cost of college. But I cannot support a plan that asks tomorrow's students to pay more in order to finance lower rates today. And I cannot support a plan that raises interest rates on students in the long term while the government continues to make a profit off of them. According to official government estimates, the Federal Government will make $184 billion in profits off student loans over the next 10 years under current law. This is obscene. Students should not be used to generate profits for the government. We should be doing everything we can to invest in students and to offer them the best deal we can on student loans, not find more ways to make money off them. I am a realist about this. I know that eliminating those $184 billion in profits is going to be hard. The government and our Republican friends liked having that money to spend. I know that it will take time to wring the profits out of the system, and I know it will take compromise. But the plan before the Senate today is not a compromise, and it doesn't remove a single dime of profits from the student loan program. That is not an accident. It was designed that way, on purpose, with the high interest rates in the future, to preserve every penny of that $184 billion in profits. I want a compromise that actually saves some money for our students. In fact, the plan we will vote on makes even more money off the backs of our students--an additional $715 million over the next 10 years. That is right; the total profits of the plan we will vote on are nearly $185 billion. Some have sought to minimize these profits. They say this money is only a fraction of what students will borrow in the next decade. But I have spent months talking to families in Massachusetts, and it doesn't look small to them--families who are already squeezed by the economy and who are fighting to put kids through college, young graduates who are struggling to buy a home, buy a car, or to put away a little bit of savings in the future. That money should stay in their pockets, not go to the government. These students don't think that $184 billion in profits is small change. These students don't think adding another $715 million on top of these already huge profits can be ignored as rounding errors. These numbers are not abstractions, they are real dollars coming out of the pockets of hard-working Americans. Middle-class families work hard and pay their taxes, and now they have to pay an extra tax--an extra $184 billion tax to put their kids through college. Meanwhile, this plan asks for nothing from our biggest corporations which take advantage of loopholes in the Tax Code to avoid paying their fair share. It asks for nothing from millionaires and billionaires who get away with paying less taxes than their secretaries. It asks for nothing from the enormously profitable companies that get billions of dollars in subsidies from the government every year. It is our kids-- our kids who are trying to get an education--who will pay more. Senator Jack Reed has introduced an amendment that would change this. His amendment would substantially improve the plan before us today. His idea is a simple one: It would cap interest rates on all Federal loans at their current levels. These caps would allow students to get a good deal right now while the interest rates are low. But the caps would also ensure that when interest rates go up in a few years, as we all expect them to, our students will still be protected. The Reed amendment is the only way to ensure that no students will be worse off under the new plan than if Congress did nothing at all. It makes sure we don't pit our students against each other, making tomorrow's students pay more so today's students can get a break. Senator Reed's amendment creates these protections for students by taking a chunk of profit out of the student loan system and replacing it with 55/100th of 1 percent--about one-half of 1 percent--surtax on people whose annual income is more than $1 million. This amendment would turn this bill into a true compromise. It does not come close to taking all the profits out of the student loan system, as I would like to see, but it is a very good first step in that direction. Like most of the things we do around here, this is a choice. Anyone who says we can't afford this amendment is in effect saying it is more important to keep making profits off the backs of our kids than to ask millionaires to pay a tiny bit more. These dollars have to come from somewhere--college kids or millionaires. A vote against this amendment is a vote in favor of higher interest rates for our students. A vote against this amendment is a vote in favor of making profits off the backs of our students. I don't believe that is how we build a future. I believe we build it together. I support Senator Reed's amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, it has been 18 days since the interest rate on new direct student loans doubled from 3.4 percent to nearly 7 percent. Students will head off to college in a few weeks and Congress still has not found a way to keep their interest rates low. In Massachusetts, our kids, our parents, our schools are worried. I want to go over the history so we are all clear about how we got here. For months Democrats have argued we need to keep interest rates low. We have made at least three attempts to do this. For example, I introduced a bill that would have dropped interest rates on direct loans for 1 year to the same level at which banks borrow from the Federal Government, which is currently less than 1 percent. I introduced that proposal because I believe the Federal Government should invest in our students, not just in our biggest banks. We also proposed to extend the current interest rates at 3.4 percent for 2 years, paid for by closing tax loopholes, and Senator Reed and Senator Hagan offered a bill to keep rates low for 1 year. All three proposals had two features in common: They cut costs for students, and they gave us some short-term breathing room to take on bigger problems, including how to refinance $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, and how to reduce the overall costs of college for all our students. When we brought the last two proposals to a vote, they won by a majority, but they didn't pass because the Republicans filibustered both bills. We could have kept rates low, but the Republicans, every single one of them, voted to block that. Instead, Republicans put together their own long-term plan. It was an amazing plan. According to official government accounting, it would have generated $184 billion in profit that the government is already projected to make by doubling interest rates on student loans over the next 10 years; and then the Republicans would have added another $16 billion in new profits. That is billions in pure profit--profit after we have accounted for the cost of money, after the cost of administering the loan, and after the cost for bad debt losses. All those profits would be made off the backs of our kids who are trying to get an education. So here we are, 18 days past the July 1 deadline, and students are being hurt because Republicans filibustered these reasonable plans, even though the plans had support from a majority of Senators. Chairman Harkin, who has been a leader on this issue from the very start, has been doing his absolute best to find a solution that Republicans would not filibuster so when students start taking out loans in a few weeks they won't be the ones to pay for Republican obstruction. Others, such as Senator Jack Reed, Senator Stabenow, and the majority leader, have also worked very hard to find a solution. But here is the problem: From the very beginning, Republicans have dug in their heels and insisted that any new student loan proposal maintain the same $184 billion in profit the government will make on new student loans over the next 10 years. They insist that whatever we do, the government must make the same profits off the students they will make now by doubling the interest rate to 6.8 percent. They say: Whatever you do, make sure the government makes $184 billion off our students. Many Senators who care deeply about this issue, such as Chairman Harkin, Senator Durbin, Senator Manchin, and Senator King, have been doing their best under these circumstances to help the students, and I applaud their commitment to our students. They have succeeded in getting at least some Republicans to support a proposal that will result in lower interest rates for some students for a couple of years. But in the end, this is a simple math problem. If Republicans insist we continue to make the same amount of profit in the student loan program, that means students in future years will have to pay even higher rates to make up the difference. In other words, kids who are sophomores in high school right now will end up paying even more so students who are sophomores in college today can pay a little less. I don't believe in pitting our kids against each other. I don't think high school sophomores should pay more so college sophomores can get a little break. In fact, I think this whole system stinks. We should not go along with any plan that demands our students continue to produce huge profits for the government. This is wrong. Making billions and billions in profits off the backs of our students is obscene. The Republican position is that they refuse to give up a single dime of these profits. In fact, the latest proposal adds another $715 million in additional profits. The Republican position is we don't need to close tax loopholes or to ask wealthy Americans to pay their fair share because we have a ready-made profit center for funding the Federal Government--middle-class families who are struggling to pay for college. I have the deepest respect for the Senators who have tried so hard to come up with a deal for our students under these Republican conditions, and I have no doubt their intentions are honorable. But I can't support this proposal. I have fought hard for working families and middle-class families for nearly all of my grownup life. I fought back against credit card companies that put out zero-interest cards planning to make all their profits in the fine print. I fought back against teaser-rate mortgages that promised low rates in the first 2 years but then shot up to rates that pushed millions of people into foreclosure. And now the Senate is offering its own teaser-rate loan program? A great deal for students this year and next, but every kid who borrows after that gets slammed. That is not the business the U.S. Government should be in. I understand compromise isn't always pretty, but there is no compromise in this bill. With the student loan rates now at 6.8 percent, if Congress does nothing, the government will make $184 billion in profits. Under the new proposal, the government will make the same $184 billion in profits plus another $715 million in additional profits. And that all comes directly off the backs of our students. I want to see these profits go down. I know we may not be able to do it all at once, but we need to take a step now to lower the profits we make off the backs of our kids, not lock them in for the next 10 years. At a minimum, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment of Senator Jack Reed to cap the interest rate under this plan at current law. That amendment is the only way to ensure no student ever ends up paying more than they would if Congress did nothing. Long term, we need to do three things: First, eliminate government profits from new student loan programs, period. Second, refinance existing student loan debt to reduce the profits that are crushing our people. And third, reduce college costs so that American families can pay for college without burying themselves in debt. That is what we need to do. And no matter what happens with this current proposal, that is exactly for what I am going to keep fighting. I appreciate the hard work my colleagues have done to try to defeat the Republican filibuster on keeping student loan rates low, but our students are drowning under $1 trillion in student loan debt, and I cannot support a compromise proposal that squeezes even more profits off our kids. Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the renomination of Rich Cordray to serve as its Director. Several years ago I began working on the idea for a consumer finance agency because our consumer credit system was badly broken. The laws were inconsistent, they were often arbitrary, and the basic rules changed for the same kind of product, such as a mortgage, depending on what kind of company sold it. People got cheated. And, as we know, in 2008, reckless and dangerous mortgage lenders and Wall Street traders who made money off those mortgages nearly brought our entire economy to its knees. In 2010 Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The consumer protection part of that was the new consumer agency--the CFPB--which was designed as a watchdog to keep credit card issuers, mortgage lenders, and student loan marketers from cheating people. Now, there was a lot of negotiation over the structure of this new agency. Hearing after hearing, markup after markup, floor vote after floor vote. But now the same big bank lobbyists are fighting the same fight and using the same tired old talking points about the consumer agency they were using years ago. You know, you really have to wonder just how much money they are making fighting this fight over and over. But now let's go ahead one more time and talk about the facts. Congress built in many features to the consumer agency so that it would have strong oversight. Let me share just a few examples. The CFPB is the only agency in government that is subject to a veto from other agencies over its rules--the only one. The CFPB is the only banking regulator that is subject to a statutory cap on its funding-- the only one. The CFPB Director is legally obligated to produce regular reports to Congress, to testify before Congress regularly, and to comply with audits. The CFPB also has now testified more than 30 times before Congress--30 times. In addition, the CFPB is subject to all the regular constraints in our system of government that constrain every agency--the Administrative Procedures Act, judicial review, and so on. And, of course, there is the ultimate oversight: Congress can overrule any CFPB regulation. Since the agency became law in 2010, there have been two major developments. The first is that Director Cordray has done an excellent job. He has won praise from consumer and industry groups and from Republicans and Democrats for his balanced rulemaking and his measured approach. Small institutions such as community banks and credit unions--the ones that didn't cause this crisis--think he has been fair and effective. Other institutions that want a fair marketplace, those that don't want to make a profit by cheating their customers, like Rich too. The agency is working. It has already forced credit card companies to refund nearly $\1/2\ billion they tricked consumers out of, and the complaint center is giving tens of thousands of people a chance to fight back when they are cheated. The agency has helped out military families, seniors, and students. It has helped a lot of people. The agency has become the watchdog so many of us fought for, and Rich has surpassed even the high expectations I had for him 2 years ago when I stood next to him in the Rose Garden as the President nominated him for the first time to the CFPB. There has been a second development since. The need for certainty has been intensified. It has been nearly 5 years since the crisis and 3 years since the passage of Dodd-Frank. The banks need to know for sure who is in charge and what rules apply. They need to know that everyone will be playing by the same rules and exactly what those rules will be. Here is an example. Both lenders and consumer groups have praised the CFPB's new mortgage rules. Now it is time for everyone to know that these rules--not the unpopular default rule in Dodd-Frank that the new rules replaced--are the law. That helps everyone. The American people deserve a government that will hammer out good rules, that will enforce those rules, and then will get out of the way so the markets can work. They do not deserve endless relitigation of stale political disputes and the uncertainty caused by repeated filibusters of qualified and proven nominees. I am new to the Senate, but I don't understand why this body accepts a system where this kind of political stalemate will not end in more government or less government but just in bad government--government that lacks the consistency, clarity, and predictability that honest businesses and hard-working families need to plan for the future. I don't understand why we would let an honorable public servant such as Rich Cordray get stuck in this nonsense. I don't understand why, when everyone says Rich is terrific, we can't just vote on his appointment. I know some Republicans and some lobbyists think if they filibuster Rich's appointment they are somehow going to be able to shut down the agency and protect the big banks from any meaningful consumer protection rules. They can use all the slogans they want and talk about things such as accountability, but outside the Halls of this Congress and the fancy lobbyist offices around Washington no one wants more fine print and more tricks and traps. No one thinks it is OK to cheat regular people and cut special deals for giant banks. No one wants to take cops off the beat so big banks can break the rules without being held accountable. So let me be clear to those who think this filibuster will shut down the work of the new agency. Let me be crystal clear. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the law, and it is here to stay. Do your dirtiest with obstructing the confirmation of the new Director, but the agency will keep on doing what it does best: fighting for the American people. We fought to get this consumer agency. We fought big banks and their army of lobbyists. We fought hard and we won. Now we have a strong and independent watchdog to stop the banks from cheating families. We are not giving up now. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the senior Senator from Arizona and to support the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. I am honored to join Senators McCain, Cantwell, and King in introducing this bill. I particularly commend Senator McCain for his hard work and his long-time dedication on this issue. Senator McCain is a real leader in the Senate. While we do not agree on every issue, he is a fighter who stands for what he believes. Senator McCain has worked hard to shed light on the too-big-to-fail problem. He has been thinking about how to bring back elements of Glass-Steagall for years. I am proud to join with him to speak about the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. I am glad to be his partner in this endeavor. Washington is a partisan place. This Congress has its share of partisan bills. But we have all joined together today because we want a safe future for our kids and for our grandkids. We know that 5 years ago Wall Streets's high-risk bets nearly brought our economy to its knees, disrupting the lives and livelihoods of hard-working Americans. We know the economic downturn did not affect just Democrats or just Republicans or just Independents, it affected everyone. Over the past 5 years we have made some real progress in dialing back the risk of future crises. But despite the progress that has been made, the biggest banks continue to threaten the economy. The four biggest banks are now 30 percent larger than they were just 5 years ago. They have continued to engage in dangerous high-risk practices that could once again put our economy at risk. The big banks were not always allowed to take on big risk while enjoying the benefits of both explicit and implicit taxpayer guarantees. Four years after the 1929 crash, Congress passed the Banking Act, or the Glass-Steagall Act as it is known, which is best known for separating the risky activities of investment banks from the core depository functions such as savings accounts and checking accounts that consumers rely on every day. For years, Glass-Steagall played a central role in keeping our country safe. Traditional banking stayed separate from high-risk Wall Street banking. But big banks wanted the higher profits they could get from taking on more risk. Investors wanted access to the insured deposits of traditional banks. So Wall Street investors combined with the big banks to try to weaken and repeal Glass-Steagall. Starting in the 1980s, regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency responded, reinterpreting longstanding legal terms in ways that slowly broke down the wall between investment banking and depository banking. Finally, after 12 attempts to repeal, Congress eliminated the core provisions of Glass-Steagall in 1999. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will reestablish the wall between commercial and investment banking, make our financial system more stable and more secure, and protect American families. Like its 1933 predecessor, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will separate traditional banks that offer checking and savings accounts and are insured by the FDIC from the riskier financial services. It will return banking--basic banking--to the basics. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act also puts in place some important improvements over the original Glass-Steagall. It reverses the interpretations the regulators used to weaken the original Glass- Steagall. Our bill also recognizes that financial markets have become more complicated since the 1930s, and it separates depository institutions from products that did not exist when Glass-Steagall was originally passed, such as structured and synthetic financial products, including complex derivatives and swaps. The idea behind the bill is simple: Banking should be boring. Anyone who wants to take big risks should go to Wall Street, and they should stay away from the basic banking system. I wish to be clear--the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will not by itself end too big to fail and implicit government subsidies, but it will make financial institutions smaller, safer, and move us in the right direction. By separating depository institutions from riskier activities, large financial institutions will shrink in size and won't be able to rely on Federal depository insurance as a safety net for their high-risk activities. It will stop the game these banks have played for too long. Heads, the big banks win and take all the profits and, tails, the taxpayer gets stuck with all the losses. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation to reduce the risk in the financial system and to dial back the likelihood of future crises. Exactly 70 years ago the halls of the Senate filled with excitement and history when it passed the original Glass-Steagall. The financial industry at that time experienced some big immediate changes, but despite all kinds of claims to the contrary, Wall Street survived and the sky did not fall. In fact, the American people enjoyed a half century of financial stability and a strong, growing middle class. The regular financial crises that had occurred over and over before Glass- Steagall faded away, and our economy became stronger and more stable. Few in Congress have been around long enough to have lived through the Great Depression that led to the first Glass-Steagall, but we were all around during the 2008 financial crisis. It has been 5 years since then, but our economy still has not fully recovered, and the downturn has had an impact everywhere--on our families, businesses, retirees, workers, schoolchildren, and college students. We need a banking system that serves the best interests of the American people, not just the few at the top. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act is an important step in the right direction. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this measure.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the senior Senator from Arizona and to support the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. I am honored to join Senators McCain, Cantwell, and King in introducing this bill. I particularly commend Senator McCain for his hard work and his long-time dedication on this issue. Senator McCain is a real leader in the Senate. While we do not agree on every issue, he is a fighter who stands for what he believes. Senator McCain has worked hard to shed light on the too-big-to-fail problem. He has been thinking about how to bring back elements of Glass-Steagall for years. I am proud to join with him to speak about the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. I am glad to be his partner in this endeavor. Washington is a partisan place. This Congress has its share of partisan bills. But we have all joined together today because we want a safe future for our kids and for our grandkids. We know that 5 years ago Wall Streets's high-risk bets nearly brought our economy to its knees, disrupting the lives and livelihoods of hard-working Americans. We know the economic downturn did not affect just Democrats or just Republicans or just Independents, it affected everyone. Over the past 5 years we have made some real progress in dialing back the risk of future crises. But despite the progress that has been made, the biggest banks continue to threaten the economy. The four biggest banks are now 30 percent larger than they were just 5 years ago. They have continued to engage in dangerous high-risk practices that could once again put our economy at risk. The big banks were not always allowed to take on big risk while enjoying the benefits of both explicit and implicit taxpayer guarantees. Four years after the 1929 crash, Congress passed the Banking Act, or the Glass-Steagall Act as it is known, which is best known for separating the risky activities of investment banks from the core depository functions such as savings accounts and checking accounts that consumers rely on every day. For years, Glass-Steagall played a central role in keeping our country safe. Traditional banking stayed separate from high-risk Wall Street banking. But big banks wanted the higher profits they could get from taking on more risk. Investors wanted access to the insured deposits of traditional banks. So Wall Street investors combined with the big banks to try to weaken and repeal Glass-Steagall. Starting in the 1980s, regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency responded, reinterpreting longstanding legal terms in ways that slowly broke down the wall between investment banking and depository banking. Finally, after 12 attempts to repeal, Congress eliminated the core provisions of Glass-Steagall in 1999. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will reestablish the wall between commercial and investment banking, make our financial system more stable and more secure, and protect American families. Like its 1933 predecessor, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will separate traditional banks that offer checking and savings accounts and are insured by the FDIC from the riskier financial services. It will return banking--basic banking--to the basics. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act also puts in place some important improvements over the original Glass-Steagall. It reverses the interpretations the regulators used to weaken the original Glass- Steagall. Our bill also recognizes that financial markets have become more complicated since the 1930s, and it separates depository institutions from products that did not exist when Glass-Steagall was originally passed, such as structured and synthetic financial products, including complex derivatives and swaps. The idea behind the bill is simple: Banking should be boring. Anyone who wants to take big risks should go to Wall Street, and they should stay away from the basic banking system. I wish to be clear--the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will not by itself end too big to fail and implicit government subsidies, but it will make financial institutions smaller, safer, and move us in the right direction. By separating depository institutions from riskier activities, large financial institutions will shrink in size and won't be able to rely on Federal depository insurance as a safety net for their high-risk activities. It will stop the game these banks have played for too long. Heads, the big banks win and take all the profits and, tails, the taxpayer gets stuck with all the losses. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation to reduce the risk in the financial system and to dial back the likelihood of future crises. Exactly 70 years ago the halls of the Senate filled with excitement and history when it passed the original Glass-Steagall. The financial industry at that time experienced some big immediate changes, but despite all kinds of claims to the contrary, Wall Street survived and the sky did not fall. In fact, the American people enjoyed a half century of financial stability and a strong, growing middle class. The regular financial crises that had occurred over and over before Glass- Steagall faded away, and our economy became stronger and more stable. Few in Congress have been around long enough to have lived through the Great Depression that led to the first Glass-Steagall, but we were all around during the 2008 financial crisis. It has been 5 years since then, but our economy still has not fully recovered, and the downturn has had an impact everywhere--on our families, businesses, retirees, workers, schoolchildren, and college students. We need a banking system that serves the best interests of the American people, not just the few at the top. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act is an important step in the right direction. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this measure.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 192, 193, 194; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent it adjourn under the previous order.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. At noon tomorrow, there will be a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the student loan bill.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. I further ask that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to; the resolution, as amended, be agreed to; the committee-reported amendment to the preamble be agreed to; the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 94, S. Res. 151.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise this evening in support of Keep Student Loans Affordable, the bill that has been introduced by Senators Reed and Hagan. We have been talking a lot in the last few hours about student loans, about the cost of student loans, and we have talked particularly about subsidized loans. I just want to start this by pointing out that ``subsidized loans'' is not the right term. No one is subsidizing any of our students. The lowest cost loans the U.S. Government issues today produce a profit for the government. In other words, who is doing the subsidizing? Our students are doing the subsidizing. They are the ones who are creating the profits for the U.S. Government. Let's talk about those profits. This year those profits, as the Presiding Officer rightly pointed out, will be more than $50 billion. Those are profits made on the student loans that are already outstanding and the profits we are going to start making off the new loans when the interest rate doubles at 6.8 percent. Under this bill, Keep Student Loans Affordable Act, we are talking about how to prevent making even more profits off our students--a short-term patch to hold interest rates steady for all of our students while we try to attack the core problems. The problem we have as we deal with this, and the problem with the Republican proposal, is right now the new loans are scheduled to produce $184 billion in profits for the U.S. Government over the next 10 years. Let me say that again. At the current interest rate of 6.8 percent, which is where it went as of July 1 since Congress didn't act, the U.S. Government will make $184 billion in profits off our students over the next 10 years. The Republicans have put forward a plan, and they have said in their plan that they want to be ``budget neutral'' or ``deficit neutral.'' They have used both terms. But understand what that means. The proposal they are putting forward, in fact, produces $184 billion in profits for the U.S. Government. In fact, the Republican plan goes just a little beyond that and produces an extra $1 billion in profits for the U.S. Government. That is what the Republicans are putting forward. How can you sell something that says we are going to make $185 billion off the backs of our students? The answer is, according to the Republicans, to offer them a teaser rate. Tell them that just next year we are going to keep that interest rate low. The year after that, well, it might be a little bit higher, and the year after that it might just be a little higher than that, and don't ask any questions about the years going forward. But understand this: Senator Alexander, for whom I have deep respect, made the point he just wanted to use the CBO's scoring numbers. That is the neutral arbiter of what things cost. What does the CBO say about the Republican plan? The answer is it will produce more--that is just a little bit more--than the same $184 billion in profits that come from doubling the student loan interest rate to 6.8 percent. In other words, what the Republicans are proposing is the same thing you got in the mail when you got this zero percent interest teaser rate credit card. Boy, we will give you something cheap up front, but don't read the fine print, and don't see what is going to happen on down the line--or the same thing that happened with the teaser-rate mortgages. They were nice low payments at the beginning, until the whole thing exploded later on. That is the Republican plan. It is not a fix, it is just a different way to make $184 billion in profits off the backs of our students. What the Democrats are proposing is a plan that says: Don't raise the interest rates on anybody. Just keep them where they are, including 3.4 percent on our Stafford loans. Let's keep it there. Here is a point I want to make that I haven't heard anybody talking about. What the Democratic proposal has in it is an acknowledgement that the U.S. Government is going to make less money doing that because there is no back end to make this up. Because the U.S. Government is going to lose money--it is not going to make as much money by doing that--this plan has something in it to pay for it, to offset the cost to the budget. We have proposed closing a tax loophole, raising about $4 billion in new revenues so we don't make that $4 billion in revenues off our kids immediately. In other words, if we are going to reduce the profits we are trying to make from our kids, there has to be a way to pay for it. The plan proposed by the Democrats is short term. It is a 1-year fix, and it has a proposal to pay for it because it actually proposes reducing the profits the U.S. Government makes. Take a look at the Republican plan. There is no pay in the Republican plan because it proposes to continue to make that $184 billion over the next 10 years. So that is what this is about. We know what we need in the long term is to solve two big problems: The first is the $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt. We have to find a better way to deal with it, a way that is not continuing to produce profits for the U.S. government. The second is the rising cost of college. We have to address that, and it is going to be a hard problem to tackle. We can't solve it in a matter of a few days. It takes time to do it. So the Democrats propose: Don't raise interest rates on anyone. Don't double my rate. Keep them where they are, and let's buy a year with a short-term patch in order to address the systemic problems we need to address--the outstanding student loan debt and the rising cost of college for all of our students. This is our chance to help our students. This is a small downpayment. It is a small help for some of our students and a real commitment that we are going to make a difference in the future. It is not a proposal that says we are going to try to fool them, that we are going to reduce prices just for a little while and then sock somebody else on the back end. That is not what this should be about. That is not what the U.S. Government should be doing. It is our responsibility, it is our opportunity to invest in our students. The Democrats propose we get started on that and we get started on it tomorrow. I support the Keep Student Loans Affordable Act, and I commend Senator Reed and Senator Hagan for their work. I hope tomorrow this body will come together and pass it for our students and for our country. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 10, 2013; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the majority leader be recognized and that following the remarks of the two leaders, the time until 12 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; further, that at 12 p.m. the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1238, the student loan bill.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. The interest rate on student loans doubled on July 1. Because Congress failed to act, our lowest income students are now paying twice as much on these new loans. While students are paying more, the Federal Government is boosting its own profits--$51 billion in profits from the student loan programs in 2013 alone. This is just plain wrong. The government is making obscene profits on these loans--profits we can and should cut back on to help our kids who are struggling to pay for college. But Republicans have repeatedly blocked our efforts to pass a short-term fix that would save students from higher interest rates. This week the Senate will vote to fix this problem. The bill, Keep Student Loans Affordable Act, was introduced by Senators Jack Reed and Kay Hagan. It would drop the rate on direct student loans back down to 3.4 percent for 1 year, retroactively as of July 1, and give Congress time to develop a plan to do the three things we need to do: Reform student loan interest rates on new loans, refinance $1 trillion in existing debt, and lower college costs for all of our kids. Republicans have a different approach. Despite the obscene profits of the current program, they propose to make even more money from students. Their current proposal would bring in an extra $1 billion in profits off the backs of our students. Listen to the numbers. New loans will produce $184 billion in profits for the U.S. Government over the next 10 years. That includes the 6.8 percent interest on direct loans, all the borrowing costs, all the administrative costs, and all the bad debt losses for the program. Let me say that again: The new student loans, including direct loans at 6.8 percent, will make $184 billion in profits for the government over the next 10 years--and the Republican solution is to increase those profits for the U.S. Government. In other words, their solution to the rising interest rate problem is to make students pay even more. Some of my colleagues are telling students the plan they have is a great deal. But their argument is the same argument that was used by the slick operators who sold teaser rate mortgages and the ones who sold zero interest rate credit cards. Sure, the first couple of years will be cheaper, but they don't want anyone to look at what happens after that. Fortunately, our students are smarter than that. They read the fine print. They know in the end this debate boils down to simple math--math that our students understand, even if some people in Congress wish they didn't. Our students sent a letter to Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell with a clear message: A bad deal is worse than no deal at all. Our students need a plan that costs them less money, not a plan that costs them more. I talk a lot about math, but the Senate's decision about student loans is a decision about our values and a decision about how we build a future. Investing in our students will allow them to get good jobs and give them a shot to make it in America, but that same investment will also create new industries and grow the economy for everyone. We shouldn't treat our students like a profit center. We shouldn't ask them to pay an extra tax to go to school. And we shouldn't try to trick them by shuffling numbers around, hitting them with teaser rates, and declaring a problem is solved while the students just keep paying more and more. There are real problems in higher education today: Skyrocketing college costs, historic levels of student debt, and high borrowing rates. It is going to take time to develop a solution that works, and there is no magic math that will make student loan profits disappear or make college tuition shrink without some sacrifice. But right now, students are the only ones who are sacrificing. They are giving up the dream of owning a home or being able to retire just so they can keep paying for college. Congress can ease the burden on our students, and we should be committed to doing just that because this is how we build a stronger middle class. This is how we build a better future for our entire country. It is a first step, but it is a good one. Congress can pass the Keep Student Loans Affordable Act. It is a short-term patch to keep interest rates on new loans from doubling for 1 year while Congress develops a plan to reform student loans and to make college more affordable. I support the measure, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I want to start by commending Senator Whitehouse for his extraordinary leadership. For 5 years he has worked on this issue. He proved from the very beginning that he was open to consumer groups that came to talk to him about a problem, and he has been committed to helping working families and that has been his central goal. It is a great honor to stand this afternoon with Senator Whitehouse and to talk about a bill that can advance that goal--helping working families. For more than two centuries a State could pass a usury law and enforce it against anyone who was lending money in the State. Congress and Federal agencies played a central role in our banking policies, but our system allowed States to play an important role too. The States decided locally what were the highest interest rates they wanted their citizens to be charged. We honored the traditions of federalism, and things worked pretty well. The States protected their citizens. Consumer financial products, such as credit cards, were easy to understand and they were safe for consumers. They were not loaded with tricks and traps. That changed starting in 1978, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in Marquette National Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp. In that decision, the Court interpreted a banking law that Congress had passed back in 1863, and they decided the statute meant the States could not keep an out-of-State lender from charging high rates within the State. That all sounds pretty technical, but the result was that credit card companies flocked to move their headquarters to States that had little consumer protection. Then other States raced to the bottom, repealing their consumer protection laws, hoping to attract more business to their State. The basic idea that States could protect their citizens from whatever tricks or traps the banks wanted to try simply disappeared. So I rise today to join my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse, to introduce the Empowering States' Rights to Protect Consumers Act. This bill will restore the ability of States to enforce their own rules against all lenders that do business within the State. It does not tell States what rules to put in place, it lets States decide for themselves. The Credit CARD Act, enacted in 2009, and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by the Dodd-Frank act in 2010, were critical steps in the right direction, and they are doing a good deal to help protect consumers. But we need to recognize the value of State partnerships by empowering our States to play a role too and by restoring their ability to serve as a laboratory of democracy. If and when credit card companies develop the next generation of tricks and traps, buried in fine print and legalese, States ought to be able to respond with their own rules and protections if they deem it necessary. I ask my colleagues to carefully consider this bill. I again thank Senator Whitehouse for his extraordinary leadership on this. It is a great honor to stand today and cosponsor this bill with him.