September 12, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6243 

I yield the floor. 

f 

RESERVATION OF LEADER TIME 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 

leadership time is reserved. 

f 

VETERANS JOBS CORPS ACT OF 

2012—MOTION TO PROCEED 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 

Senate will resume consideration of 

the motion to proceed to S. 3457, which 

the clerk will report. 

The assistant legislative clerk read 

as follows: 

Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 476, S. 

3457, a bill to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a veterans job 

corps, and for other purposes. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 

next 70 minutes will be evenly divided 

and controlled between the two leaders, with Republicans controlling the 

first half. 

The Senator from Tennessee. 

MAKING TOUGH CHOICES

Mr. CORKER. Madam President, this 

is a great Nation. 

I was interested to hear the comments of our two leaders today, and I 

am saddened, as are all of us here, regarding the news of Ambassador Stevens and three other hard-working public servants who represent us. We are a 

great Nation. This is a great Nation. 

People such as those individuals demonstrate the exceptionalism of Americans all around the world. 

That is why it saddens me to come to 

the floor today, on the eve of hearing 

about whether the Federal Reserve, 

which will decide tomorrow, is going to 

print more money. Our markets are 

volatile each day, trying to figure out 

and read the minds of what our central 

bankers are going to do. Two days ago 

I spoke with one of our leading administration officials—someone whom I respect greatly—who had just attended a 

meeting in the Asian area where Christine Legarde was speaking to a small 

group of folks. She is the head of the 

International Monetary Fund. She 

stated that the real difference in how 

the world is going to evolve over the 

next short term and how the economies 

of the world are going to react is based 

upon whether people in Europe and 

people in the United States of America 

are going to rise up and deal with the 

problems they have internally. 

I look at what is happening on both 

sides of the Atlantic, with central 

bankers printing money to buy debt of 

great nations—nations that have 

evolved, that are sophisticated, that 

are democracies. They pave the way for 

other cultures to evolve and develop 

economically themselves. Yet we wake 

up in a world where because politicians 

in Europe and politicians here in the 

United States of America have not 

risen to deal with the fiscal issues 

within their own countries, the central 

bankers are left in a situation where 

they are printing money and buying 

debt in order to move a crisis further 

away from the day we now live in. 

I know the majority leader talked 

about negotiations that are taking 

place regarding sequester and I know 

everybody in this body has been involved in some meeting of some kind 

to deal with the fiscal issues our Nation faces. I realize that over the next 

60 days there is likely nothing that we 

as a body are going to do. I understand 

that. I don’t think anyone in America 

expects that is going to happen over 

the next week and a half. We will figure out a way to move out of here and 

hopefully not do any damage to our 

country. 

What I hope will happen is when we 

come back after the election, during a 

lameduck session or shortly thereafter, 

all of us will get serious about dealing 

with our Nation’s fiscal issues. The majority leader spoke to the economy. I 

want our economy to do well. I want 

citizens in Tennessee and New York 

and all across our country to do well. 

Yet what we have done over the course 

of the last year and a half or so is 

passed silly little bills that have nothing whatsoever to do with sustaining a 

long-term economy, and we find ourselves again waking up on the eve of 

finding out whether the Chairman of 

our Federal Reserve is going to print 

more money to buy our debt to make it 

less painful for us and cause us to be in 

a position where we put off making the 

tough decisions. I hope the Federal Reserve Chairman tomorrow is going to 

show the humility he needs to show, 

that monetary policy has its limits, 

and it is up to us now to do our job. 

So I am saddened today about the 

news of some wonderful public servants 

having lost their lives. I wake up every 

day with a tremendous sense of privilege to serve in this body and to represent people such as those who died, 

who are living in tough circumstances 

around the world, to make sure that all 

of us here are safe. I hope what will 

happen in this body is that Republicans 

and Democrats alike will honor the 

sacrifices, as we honored them yesterday and we today solemnly think 

about, that people make around this 

world on our behalf to keep us free and 

safe, and that we as a body, Republicans and Democrats, are going to rise 

and do the things we need to do to put 

in place a real fiscal reform package 

that will not rely upon the sugar of the 

Federal Reserve, but that we will do 

the things we need to do to create a 

sustained economy. 

I believe—and I think most people in 

this body know it when they think 

about it—we are one fiscal reform 

package away from being able to focus 

on being a great Nation—we are a great 

Nation—but to be able to focus on that. 

When we look at where we are as a 

country, with the tremendous energy 

resources that 2 years ago we didn’t 

even realize we had in this continent; 

when we look at the technology breakthroughs that are happening in this 

great country; when we look at the 

pharmaceutical breakthroughs that are 

happening and saving lives around the 

world, we are one reform package away 

from putting this problem in our rearview mirror and focusing on the greatness of this Nation. 

So, again, I know we are not going to 

do anything over the next week and a 

half and we are not going to do anything over the next 60 days. But I hope 

Senators from all around this country 

and House Members from all around 

this country will come back after this 

election and have the courage that has 

been demonstrated so often by so many 

Americans to make the tough choices 

that are necessary to put our fiscal 

woes behind us, to cause this economy 

to grow, to allow the standard of living 

of Americans to rise and, candidly, to 

help lift hundreds of millions of people 

around this world out of poverty. That 

is what people are depending on. It is 

an embarrassment to find ourselves in 

this position where we are being diminished around the world, because people 

are looking at us—the great example to 

the world of free enterprise and limited 

government and democracy—and 

knowing that we don’t have that courage today. 

So I am hopeful we are going to come 

back and deal with these issues, we are 

going to do it in a bipartisan way, and 

then as a Nation we can continue to 

focus on our greatness and we can help 

not only uplift our own citizens 

through economic growth but help continue to be a beacon to the world. 

I yield the floor and note the absence 

of a quorum. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam 

President, I ask unanimous consent 

that the order for the quorum call be 

rescinded. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. 

HONORING OUR FOREIGN SERVANTS

Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam 

President, I have been coming to the 

Senate floor on a daily basis to talk 

about the importance of the wind production tax credit, and I intend to do 

so today. But before I bring up that important topic I want to speak to a situation, an incident, that is on 

everybody’s mind; that is, what happened in Libya earlier today. 

I think all of us in the Senate adhere, 

or should adhere, to the concept that 

politics should cease at the water’s 

edge. I hope in this terrible tragedy 

that philosophy will hold fast. I, along 

with all Coloradans, absolutely condemn the murders—and that is what 

they were—of Ambassador Stevens and 

other U.S. State Department personnel 

today in Libya. 

I am a member of the Senate Committees on Armed Services and Intelligence, and I know the men and 

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S6244 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 12, 2012 

women of our diplomatic corps do absolutely vital work under difficult conditions every single day. Ambassador 

Stevens was a dedicated public servant 

who was working in Libya to advance 

freedom and democracy, and we will 

continue undeterred in our pursuit of 

those goals. 

We salute the service and sacrifice of 

all those who were taken from us 

today, and their families are in our 

thoughts and prayers. 

WIND PRODUCTION TAX CREDIT

Madam President, as I mentioned 

when I first rose, I am here again on 

the floor of the Senate to urge all of us 

to take action on an issue that already 

has broad bipartisan support; that is, 

the renewal of the production tax credit for wind energy. 

I was back in my home State of Colorado for the August work period, as I 

know the Presiding Officer and all my 

colleagues were, and I saw firsthand 

the very positive effects wind energy 

has had on my State of Colorado. I also 

saw the sobering effects of congressional inaction, which only strengthened my resolve to have extended the 

production tax credit. 

I want to share some specific insights 

and developments in Colorado and then 

move to the State I am going to discuss today in a little bit. 

Xcel Energy operates in my home 

State. It has a wide area in the upper 

Midwest as well, but it announced it 

had set a record for the amount of electricity generated from wind resources. 

At one point Xcel’s Colorado customers 

got over half—to be precise, 57 percent—of their electricity generated 

from wind power. This is a huge success, and it highlights in so many ways 

the potential that wind energy has to 

fill a larger and larger portion of our 

energy portfolio as this industry fully 

matures. 

Sadly, though, I also saw the negative effects of our failure to renew the 

wind PTC. Vestas Wind systems, which 

the Presiding Officer is familiar with, 

does business in Colorado. It announced layoffs last month affecting 

2,300 workers worldwide who are manufacturing the turbines themselves, including about 100 workers at Vestas’ 

facilities in Pueblo and Brighton, CO. 

This was both predictable and predicted, and it is time for us to act to 

protect American workers in the wind 

energy industry. Each day we fail to 

act to extend the production tax credit, 

more American jobs are put at risk, 

and we further cede more of our clean 

energy leadership to foreign competition. Look no further than Colorado for 

both the promise of wind energy but 

also the peril of congressional inaction. 

Of course, these effects are not limited to my State. I am biased. I think 

I represent the best State in the Nation, but every day I come to the floor 

and I highlight a different State and 

the positive impacts wind energy has 

had there. Literally every State in the 

Nation has a stake in this crucial wind 

industry space. Today, therefore, I 

would like to talk about the great 

State of North Carolina where wind energy has literally boomed in recent 

years. 

North Carolina—as have a lot of 

States—has seen a tremendous growth 

in its wind manufacturing sector. What 

are the numbers? Well, as of 2012, there 

are at least 17 wind manufacturing facilities in North Carolina that provide 

jobs to their local communities, and at 

least one more facility is scheduled to 

come online soon. The facilities 

produce everything from steel to lubricants and bearings. 

We can see all the green circles which 

designate where these facilities are all 

across the great State of North Carolina. Let me focus on one manufacturer 

in North Carolina. It is PPG Industries. 

PPG is a major supplier of fiberglass to 

the wind industry, and there are hundreds of jobs linked to its activities. 

Their fiberglass facilities are in Shelby 

and Lexington, which are outside of 

Charlotte and Greensboro, respectively. Their growing role has been 

good for not only the company but for 

North Carolina. In 2010 PPG expanded 

its presence and brought online an additional furnace and created another 

1,800 jobs. In sum, across North Carolina there are over 2,000 good-paying 

jobs, and those jobs then create a ripple effect. 

If we want to look more broadly at 

North Carolina, they are manufacturing but they also have very significant wind energy potential in the State 

itself. Offshore wind resources are 

abundant. The American Wind Energy 

Association estimates that wind energy could provide enough electricity 

to power some 800,000 homes. That is 

not all: Onshore wind resources could 

also provide a substantial amount of 

power for the State. 

If we look at these numbers, this is 

an important industry in North Carolina. It certainly has made a difference. 

But if we do not extend the wind production tax credit, this strong growth 

in the manufacturing sector plus the 

potential to harvest the wind in North 

Carolina is at risk and the years of 

strong progress we have seen here toward a clean energy future in North 

Carolina could be literally dashed if 

the wind production tax credit expires 

at the end of the year. 

Here is the bad news. The wind industry in North Carolina, because they are 

anticipating the expiration of PTC, is 

beginning to downsize and shelve expansion plans, predictably. This story 

is being repeated potentially all over 

the country. It is heartbreaking. I remain hopeful, however. I am dedicated 

to extending the PTC. I know the Presiding Officer has been very helpful and 

very supportive and understands its 

importance. 

A little bit of good news. The Senate 

Finance Committee passed a bipartisan 

tax extenders package as we left for 

our August State work period and it 

did include an extension of PTC. I want 

to stress an important point about that 

effort: The package was bipartisan. I 

want to see the Senate take up the Finance Committee’s legislation immediately and pass it immediately. 

In a few hours the House is going to 

see an interesting discussion. The Presiding Officer served in the House. So 

did I. They are an equal partner of ours 

in the Senate. Over a dozen Members in 

the House are going to take the floor 

today and express their strong support 

for American jobs and the extension of 

the PTC. I am pleased these members 

of the House Sustainable Energy and 

Environmental Coalition will be adding 

their voices to what has become a bipartisan and now bicameral push to extend the PTC. 

As I begin to close, let me also talk 

about the support that is out there in 

the country. It is a broad array of 

groups that have stood and said we 

think the PTC ought to be extended. 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the 

National Governors Association, the 

Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, the 

American Farm Bureau Federation and 

many major national newspapers have 

all weighed in saying this is important 

to our country’s future. 

Members on both sides of the aisle, as 

I have mentioned, have said the PTC 

should be extended because they know 

and they have seen the positive effects 

of the PTC on their communities and 

across the country. They also know 

that wind energy—and renewable energy more generally—is the future. It 

is the wave of the future. There is no 

question. All you have to do is look at 

the rest of the world—look at China, 

look at Spain, look at Denmark, look 

at every developed country and the developing countries in Asia and India. 

They are all investing in clean energy. 

This is not something they are doing 

just to feel good. It is where economic 

growth will occur. 

In sum, extending the PTC is a nobrainer. It is common sense. We ought 

to be doing the job we were sent here 

to do. We ought to be extending the 

PTC as soon as possible. PTC equals 

jobs. We ought to pass it as soon as 

possible. I am going to continue coming to the floor every day until we finish the job. I will not stop until we 

vote to protect American jobs. Failure 

to act has already hurt this vital industry. Continued inaction will result 

in the loss of thousands of American 

jobs which then has a ripple effect on 

the rest of the Nation’s economy. 

Colleagues, stand with me, stand 

with the Presiding Officer, stand with 

American workers. Let’s extend the 

production tax credit now, as soon as 

possible. 

I thank the Chair for her support and 

her interest. 

I yield the floor. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland. 

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I 

ask unanimous consent for 10 minutes 

to address the Senate. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. 

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September 12, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6245 

HONORING OUR FOREIGN SERVANTS

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, 

last night when I went to sleep I was 

going over in my mind the speech I 

wanted to give here today—which is an 

important day in the history of the 

American space program. It is the day 

that President Kennedy challenged us 

to go to the Moon, to land safely on the 

Moon and to return safely as well. 

When I woke up this morning I woke 

up to terrible news, to learn that our 

Ambassador in Libya had been killed 

by a mob. We’ve lost Ambassador Chris 

Stevens. We lost three others at the 

American Embassy in Libya. It is a 

terrible tragedy. 

At the same time yesterday our Embassy in Cairo was stormed. Thanks to 

the vigilance of its leadership and our 

wonderful Marine Corps defending the 

Embassy, we lost no one in Cairo. 

Madam President, I first want to extend to all of the families who lost 

someone in Libya overnight my extreme and definite condolences and 

sympathy. I am a little bit at a loss for 

words because these tragedies that 

happen to our men and women who 

serve at our Embassies happen all too 

frequently and then we say: A grateful 

nation never forgets; and then we go on 

to bash our Federal employees and our 

State Department people, saying: Oh, 

they have these cushy jobs in exotic 

places and they must be out eating brie 

somewhere. 

We lost, at the Nairobi bombing, Consul General Bartley, head of our consulate service, who was serving there, 

one of the highest serving African 

Americans in our Foreign Service. His 

son interned there that summer, wanted to be like his dad. They died there. 

They died there. But he was at his duty 

station. 

It has been almost 15 years. These 

men and women were serving the 

United States of America. They were 

at their duty station. They were trying 

to help Libya to rise up now to be able 

to create a government and be able to 

create opportunity for its own people, 

and they gave their lives. Ambassador 

Chris Stevens had already served two 

tours in Libya but wanted to go back 

again at this new moment in history, 

to stand up, to help Libya stand up a 

true government that was free and 

would give their people a chance at democracy and participating in a new 

Middle East. 

And then there was Sean Smith, who 

was a 10-year veteran of the Foreign 

Service. He was an information management officer. He had served in Iraq. 

He is a father of two children, a devoted husband. We know what happened to them. 

So we must continue our strong partnership with Libya after the fall of 

Qadaffi. But I call upon the new leadership: Call for calm, call for tolerance. 

If you are angry, there are ways to do 

protests and so on. You don’t have to 

go around killing the American Ambassador when our Air Force flew over 

Libya and our President and our Congress worked to support this new government coming up. 

And then there is Cairo. Because of 

anger over a video—I do not know 

about this video. I don’t know its content but I do know the outcome—that 

our Embassy in Cairo was stormed. 

They tore down our American flag. 

They replaced it with another flag. But 

it is the flag of the United States of 

America and our flag is in Egypt. Our 

flag is in Egypt because we are great 

allies to the Egyptian Government and 

great supporters of the Egyptian people 

as they come through the Arab 

spring—again, trying to create a new 

day and a new way. 

I say to Ambassador Patterson and 

the entire staff, again: Our thoughts 

and prayers are with you. I was in 

Cairo. I know what they do every day. 

I know how, during the Arab spring 

many of them were locked in the Embassy, trying to keep our government 

functioning while their own families 

had to be evacuated. Some did not see 

their families for 3 weeks because they 

were inside, they couldn’t leave, and 

we had the most massive evacuation of 

civilian employees in our history since, 

really, the beginning of some other 

armed conflicts. 

So I say to those embassy staff, both 

our wonderful Ambassador, Anne Patterson, but to a lot of the little people 

who work at the Embassy, the people 

who keep the commercial commerce office open, the people who are doing the 

wonderful work with NGOs to show 

them how to build a free and new kind 

of society, and also to the foreign nationals who work in our Embassy—we 

think about you. 

I say to the leadership in both countries again: Call for calm, call for tolerance. But I say to my colleagues 

here, we have to call for calm and tolerance right in this institution. We 

have to support our men and women in 

the State Department, our men and 

women in the military. All who serve 

overseas are representatives of the 

United States of America. Whether you 

are the Peace Corps or the Marine 

Corps; whether you are the Foreign 

Service or the commercial service or 

whatever—you are in the service of the 

United States of America, promoting 

our values, trying to help promote democracy and also trying to have economic and strategic cooperation. 

I thank our Foreign Service staff. 

Many of them live in Maryland but 

that is not the point. They live in the 

United States of America. So I say to 

all, when you point your finger and say 

we don’t need a government—I think 

we do need a government. And when we 

talk about standing up for our military 

now, in these tough budget times, absolutely we should. But remember there 

are others overseas who also carry our 

flag in very dangerous areas. 

Let’s start respecting the people who 

work for our government. Let’s make 

sure they have the right resources to 

do their job and then let our President, 

our talented Secretary of State, help 

work with the other world leaders to 

do something to bring about stability. 

I feel very strongly about this. I 

guess what you are hearing from Senator MIKULSKI is grief for what has 

happened in Libya, worry about what 

has happened in Cairo, tension about 

what continues to happen in the Middle 

East, and then frustration about what 

goes on here. When all is said and 

done—more gets said than gets done 

and what is said is often not very good. 

The world is watching us here. We 

are supposed to be the greatest democracy in the world. Not only are we supposed to be, I believe that we are. But 

democracy begins with us. Democracy 

is not only something written on a 

piece of paper which are our founding 

documents but we have to live what is 

in those founding documents. We have 

to, first of all, start with civility, start 

with respect, start with conversations 

among ourselves about how we could 

truly work together to help our country and to help our country help the 

world. 

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S

SPACE FLIGHT SPEECH

This is what it was all about 50 years 

ago when a young President went to 

Rice University. The Russians were 

pounding their chests. They put something up in the air called Sputnik. 

President Eisenhower had responded. 

We were going to do something called 

the National Defense Act. We were promoting math and science to catch up 

with the world. Does it sound familiar? 

Then, also, though, our President 

wanted to do more and he went to Rice 

University. During that speech he rallied the Nation on why, as part of his 

vision of the New Frontier, why we 

should travel into space. That historic 

day he said: 

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to 

go to the moon in this decade, and do other 

things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will 

serve to organize and measure the best of our 

energies and our skills. 

That is how in a robust way we took 

a nascent space program and transformed it into a space superpower. It 

literally took us to the frontier of 

space and took us to a new frontier. 

For those 50 years, America continued to lead the way in space and to 

keep space a peaceful area. Not to militarize space, not to colonize it for a 

single country, but to explore and 

along the way in exploring the universe 

to get to invent science and technology 

that would help transform our lives 

here. 

America continues to lead the way in 

space. As an appropriator for the space 

program I am so proud of what we continue to do—what we continue to do in 

the area of space exploration, space 

and space science. 

Look at where we are now. We are 

right up there in the space station. We 

have completed its development. We 

are going to do new research that has 

never been done before and we are part 

of our wonderful, gallant astronaut 

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S6246 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 12, 2012 

program. At the same time, we have invented new technologies to explore the 

universe. The work for the Hubble Telescope is located in Maryland both at 

Goddard and the Space Telescope 

Science Institute. 

Most recently, we landed Curiosity 

on Mars, a robot the size of a Mini Cooper, that will tell us so much about our 

nearest neighbor. As President Kennedy might have said, I sent Curiosity 

to Mars not because it is easy but because it is hard and we are very curious. 

Over the summer, we lost two of our 

great people—two of our great astronauts. We lost Dr. Sally Ride, the first 

woman to go into space, whom we so 

admired, and then we lost astronaut 

Neil Armstrong, who on July 20, 1969, 

took that giant step for mankind. 

Tomorrow at the National Cathedral 

we will honor Astronaut Neil Armstrong, and later this year at the National Space Museum we will honor Dr. 

Sally Ride. We not only want to respect our astronauts of the past, we 

want to respect the astronauts of today 

and our astronauts of tomorrow. We 

want to respect all those wonderful 

young men and women who want to 

study space and aeronautics, who want 

to explore the new frontiers of today 

and will come up with new ideas that 

will lead to new jobs tomorrow. 

We keep asking NASA to do the hard 

jobs, such as explore the universe, protect the planet, make airplanes safer 

and more reliable, look beyond the 

reach of Earth, develop those new technologies, and search for extraterrestrial life out there. Maybe it is 

out there, maybe it isn’t—study Earth 

as if it were a distant planet. Maybe 

there is intelligent life on Earth. Let’s 

look for that, and let’s look for it right 

here. We need to continue to broaden 

our reach, to go beyond low-Earth 

orbit and also continue our research. 

This year, there was a unique, bold 

partnership when a private company, 

SpaceX, sent cargo to dock at the 

International Space Station. No private company and few nations have accomplished that. This year, SpaceX 

will be joined by another private company, Orbital Science, which will 

launch from the east coast Spaceport 

Wallops. They are located in Virginia. 

It is a Maryland-Virginia cooperation. 

How exciting. 

Our future in space will be built on 

innovation and discovery, whether it is 

the commercial rocket industry, the 

James Webb Space Telescope that will 

take us well beyond the work of the 

Hubble, new technologies, including 

fixing satellites or, again, that mission 

to planet Earth. New technologies 

don’t just happen; they come from 

American ingenuity, but they are built 

through investments. They made 

America great and they made the missions of the United States worth imitating. 

In the last couple weeks the Presiding Officer talked about an exceptional America. America is exceptional 

because of the daring and the do of people such as our astronauts, because of 

talented people who think and study 

and come up with new ideas and because their government backed them. 

I wish to conclude by saying I am 

proud of what President Kennedy announced. Right here in this body two 

people teamed up. Actually, it was one 

person in this body and the other was a 

Vice President. It was an odd couple. 

Their names were Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Margaret Chase 

Smith. Margaret Chase Smith was once 

the longest serving woman in Congress. 

I now hold that record. Margaret Chase 

Smith, from Maine, was a devotee of 

the space program. President Kennedy 

set the goal. He gave it to Lyndon, his 

Vice President, to make the goal into a 

reality. The Vice President turned to 

Congress, and Margaret Chase Smith 

helped carry the weight of the Congress 

to put in the right policies and the 

right funding. Isn’t that a wonderful 

story? It is a wonderful story we need 

to take with us, that when we work together with our President and both 

parties work across the aisle, that is 

the new frontier which takes and keeps 

America an exceptional Nation. 

God bless our President Kennedy, all 

the astronauts who risked their lives, 

and everyone who worked to create 

these new frontiers. 

I yield the floor and note the absence 

of a quorum. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I 

ask unanimous consent that the order 

for the quorum call be rescinded. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I 

rise today to express my strong support 

for the Veterans Jobs Corps Act. I am 

proud to be a cosponsor of the bill. I 

would like to thank Senator NELSON

for introducing the bill, and I would 

like to thank Senator MURRAY, chair of 

the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, for bringing this bill to the 

Senate and for all she has done for our 

Nation’s veterans. 

Veterans have done so much for our 

country, serving courageously in the 

military, and they have been tested so 

profoundly and so many times over the 

last decade. These men and women 

have done everything for us. We owe 

them. That means they deserve the 

best health care and other benefits 

they have earned from the Department 

of Veterans Affairs. 

And that means a home. Last weekend I was back in Minnesota for Habitat for Humanity, making critical 

home repairs for a Minnesota Guard 

veteran, SGT Brian Neill, and his family. Brian is a 23-year veteran of the 

National Guard, is part of the Minnesota National Guard unit, the legendary Red Bulls, who had their deployment in Iraq extended so that it 

was one of the longest, if not the longest, deployment in U.S. history. 

While Brian was in Iraq, his son was 

hit by a drunk driver while returning 

home from his junior ROTC training. 

He sustained a severe brain injury and 

is severely disabled. 

In Iraq, Brian, who mentored younger soldiers, saved the life of one of 

those solders. Brian, being a 23-year 

vet, mentored these young kids. They 

were in a convoy, and he saw one of 

them get out and collapse. He recognized the heatstroke and saved his life. 

Sergeant Neill himself returned from 

Iraq suffering from very serious physical and psychological wounds that 

leave his wife Jane as a caregiver for 

both Brian and their son. I have to tell 

you, they are the most wonderful people. It was an amazing experience to 

help them with home repairs to make 

sure they will have the home that 

meets their needs. 

But when I talk to veterans in Minnesota these days, the thing I hear 

most about is jobs, about employment. 

Jobs mean money, of course, but it 

means much more. It means a new mission. Without a job, you really cannot 

reintegrate into your community and 

start a new phase of your life. 

Veterans unemployment in Minnesota, as I am sure it is in the Presiding Officer’s State of New York, is 

way too high. My message to employers in Minnesota is simple: These are 

the people you want to hire. They have 

skills. They have discipline. We all 

have a role to play in making sure veterans have jobs—employers in the private sector, State government, colleges 

and universities, municipalities, and 

also the Federal Government. 

This is how we do it in Minnesota. 

Let me give an example. We had several thousand Red Bulls deployed to 

Kuwait. The Minnesota National Guard 

recognized that a large number of them 

were not going to have jobs when they 

came back, so the Guard and Minnesota’s outstanding Department of 

Employment and Economic Development went upstream, as they say, to 

Kuwait to get ahead of the problem. 

They brought corporate leaders from 

Minnesota, businesses such as Target 

and Best Buy, and they also brought 

folks from MNSCU, which is the Minnesota State Colleges and University 

System, to Kuwait to provide training 

for the Guard members on entering or 

reentering the workforce. They were 

able to share valuable information 

with the Red Bulls on writing resumes, 

getting ready for an interview, and 

doing it well. 

One of the problems is that very 

often soldiers coming back from Afghanistan, coming back from Iraq, 

from Kuwait, very often in a job interview will say: We did that, we did this, 

we did that. That is how you think in 

the military. Employers want to know 

what you yourself individually did. So 

it was simple. The employment guys 

from Target said: Say ‘‘I’’—you know, 

little tips like that. And it has been 

very helpful. 

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September 12, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6247 

So we all have a role to play. At the 

Federal level, last year we passed the 

VOW to Hire Heroes Act that expanded 

and created new tax credits for businesses that hire veterans. I have been 

spreading the word in Minnesota—I 

know the Presiding Officer has been 

spreading the word in New York—so 

our businesses know that for every unemployed veteran they hire, they can 

get a tax credit for up to $9,600. That is 

$9,600 for hiring a veteran who has a 

service-related disability and then 

ratchets down a little bit. But this is a 

good incentive for businesses to be hiring our veterans. 

The legislation we are considering 

today, the Veterans Jobs Corps Act, is 

the next step that we can and should 

take at the Federal level. The bill creates a Veterans Job Corps through the 

Department of Veterans Affairs, in cooperation with other departments, 

where thousands of veterans will be 

able to work on conservation and resource management in our Nation’s 

public lands. Under this bill, veterans 

will have the opportunity to restore 

and protect parks, forests, and other 

public lands, whether they be national, 

State or tribal. Veterans will be hired 

to maintain the infrastructure and facilities on these public lands. It will 

also provide funding for veterans to become firefighters and law enforcement 

officers. It will also provide licensing 

and certification for certain skills veterans had when they were deployed— 

emergency medical, nursing assistants, 

and also drivers. Many men and women 

drive in these theaters, and to ease 

their getting certification, this bill 

does that as well so they can work in 

our Nation’s parks and these national 

lands that are so treasured. 

This is really based on the Civilian 

Conservation Corps, the CCC from the 

New Deal, which was created through a 

combination of actions by Franklin 

Roosevelt and legislation, of course, by 

Congress. It was very successful. It was 

the most popular program of the New 

Deal. In fact, at that time veterans 

were specifically included among those 

who could be enrolled in the CCC. As I 

said, the CCC was one of the most successful programs to help us get through 

the Depression. 

My wife Franni’s uncle James, who 

died not long ago at the age of 96, 

worked for the post office, the Postal 

Service, and served with the U.S. Army 

postal service in England, France, and 

Germany during World War II—a 

‘‘greatest generation’’ guy. But before 

that, during the Depression, he joined 

the Civilian Conservation Corps. He 

was part of the crew that built the road 

through Evans Notch, a beautiful, 

mountainous area at the border of 

Maine and New Hampshire. My wife is 

from Maine. This was one of James’ 

proudest achievements in life. If you 

read his obituary, it was one of the 

most prominent parts, along with his 

service during World War II. 

That is the kind of thing the Veterans Job Corps can be. We have to do 

this work on our public lands, our 

parks, our forests. Our public lands 

need to be maintained and preserved 

and improved. Why not put our veterans to work doing it? They have the 

skills, they have the experience, and 

they have the discipline. For instance, 

if you spent a lot of time on duty outside and you work in teams, which is 

obviously true of a huge number of 

those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, you are going to be very well 

suited for this work. If you built roads 

in Iraq or Afghanistan, you are well 

prepared to maintain or manage resources in Minnesota’s beautiful parks, 

forests, trails, and other public lands— 

under a little less pressure, by the way. 

Minnesota has over 227,000 acres of 

land in 73 State and national park and 

recreation areas. That does not count 

our innumerable public lands under 

more local jurisdiction. Those are some 

of the most beautiful places in the 

country—the Boundary Waters Canoe 

Area, Voyageurs National Park, Superior and Chippewa National Forests, or 

the trail along the Mississippi and St. 

Croix Rivers, just to name a few. Those 

need to be protected, maintained, improved, and restored too. This is important work, and it is dignified work. If 

you are making sure it is in your obituary 70 years later, you know it is very 

important, dignified work. What better 

way to preserve the beauty of these 

places than having veterans do it, for 

our heroes to do it. 

The bill also incorporates a number 

of other veterans job provisions from 

other bills sponsored by my colleagues 

from both sides of the aisle. The one I 

started to mention before is the certification-licensure requirements for becoming a nursing assistant or emergency medical technician—I knew I 

was looking for a word; it was ‘‘technician’’—and for getting a commercial 

driver’s license. This is also an issue on 

which my colleague, my senior Senator 

from Minnesota, Ms. KLOBUCHAR, has 

spent a lot of time. 

The provision in this bill authored by 

Senator PRYOR also states that they 

have to take military training into 

consideration in issuing licenses for 

those jobs if they want to continue getting Federal funds for some important 

veteran employment programs that 

States administer. This will provide an 

additional incentive for States to make 

sure that servicemembers’ highly relevant training and experience in these 

fields can be translated into civilian 

qualifications, eliminating the need for 

duplicative training and opening the 

door to many more jobs for highly 

trained veterans. 

I can tell you, after seven USO tours, 

our men and women in the military are 

magnificent. They are highly trained 

and, man, are they disciplined and, 

man, are they great. They deserve this. 

The Veterans Job Corps is a great idea 

for employing our Nation’s veterans 

doing the important work of preserving, protecting, and improving our 

Nation’s public lands and serving as 

first responders, police, and firefighters. 

It is my strong hope that we will be 

able to bring debate on this bill to a 

close, pass it, and have it enacted into 

law. Our Nation’s veterans deserve 

nothing less. 

I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll. 

The bill clerk proceeded to call the 

roll. 

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

FRANKEN). Without objection, it is so 

ordered. 

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I come 

to the floor today to talk about the bill 

that is pending, and I must say: Here 

we go again. And let me say that what 

we are doing today, under the auspices 

of helping returning veterans get jobs— 

and there is nothing wrong with wanting to do that and there is nothing 

wrong with trying to pay for that—is 

really passing a bill for political reasons so we can say we did things, because this is not going anywhere in the 

House of Representatives. 

A couple of points I would make are 

that, first, yesterday, on the anniversary of 9/11, we started the consideration of this bill, but this bill has had 

no hearings, no committee work, and 

essentially no debate until today, despite the fact that it will affect six different Federal agencies, at a minimum. 

Before I discuss the bill itself, 

though, I want to mention another anniversary. One year ago yesterday, SPC 

Christopher D. Horton, Army SPC Bret 

D. Isenhower, and Army PVT Tony J. 

Potter, Jr. were killed in Afghanistan. 

They were 1 of 13 Oklahomans from the 

Oklahoma National Guard serving in 

Afghanistan who paid the ultimate sacrifice—a pure and noble sacrifice. As 

we debate a bill that will largely benefit those who have safely returned 

home after serving their country, it is 

important that we not forget those who 

gave the ultimate sacrifice, this pure 

and noble sacrifice for the benefit of 

the rest of us. 

The bill before the Senate provides $1 

billion—$1 billion—in mandatory 

spending. For the folks at home that 

means it is not subject to appropriations; it will be spent, period, regardless of what we do if we pass this bill 

and the President signs it—over 5 years 

for the creation of a new mandatory 

program called the Veterans Jobs 

Corps. 

One point I will make is that we already have six veterans jobs programs 

and not one of them has a metric on it 

to see if it is working. There hasn’t 

been one hearing to see what the jobs 

programs we are running now are 

doing, to measure their effectiveness or 

their cost effectiveness and see if they 

are actually performing for veterans 

what we say we want them to do. Yet 

we have a bill on the floor that didn’t 

go through that committee, where no 

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S6248 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 12, 2012 

hearings were held, and we are going to 

do the same thing again. Because there 

is not a metric in this bill. 

So what is happening here is we are 

playing the political election card to 

say, How could anybody oppose a veterans jobs corps bill? The real question 

to be asked is: How callous is it to put 

forth a political bill when we have no 

idea whether it may or may not work, 

for the pure political purpose of an 

election, without looking at the whole 

of the veterans jobs programs? There is 

not going to be any congressional oversight on this. 

Just 2 weeks ago I released a report 

on job training in my own State. I was 

highly effective in looking at every 

Federal Government job training program, veterans and nonveterans alike, 

in my State. I looked at every State 

job training program and then published a report. Here is what the report 

found. 

And, by the way, we have 47 other job 

training programs, of which 90 percent 

don’t have metrics on them, and we 

spend $19 billion a year on those job 

training programs. 

What we found is that State-run, 

State-financed, State-supported job 

training programs work in Oklahoma. 

We actually take our own money, with 

our own institutions, with our own individuals and our own employees, 

knowing what businesses and industry 

and service industries and institutions 

need, and we match job training to 

what those needs are and actually put 

people to work. Consequently, Oklahoma has a 4.7-percent unemployment 

rate. So we are highly effective at 

training people for the jobs that are 

available. But we are not very effective 

with the Federal programs. 

The assessment in Oklahoma—and I 

am not sure it applies across the country, but it certainly does in Oklahoma—is that we are very good at employing people in the job training industry but not very good with Federal 

dollars when it comes to training people a life skill to keep them employed. 

This legislation is going to provide $1 

billion for the Federal Government to 

hire veterans on a temporary basis. 

I understand that Senator BURR’s 

recommendations are going to be incorporated. That is a marked improvement to the bill. His puts them in line 

for a career, not a temporary job— 

which shows the lack of thinking because Senator BURR, the ranking member on VA, couldn’t get a hearing. We 

didn’t have a markup, didn’t have a 

chance for ideas to flow through. I am 

not certain we are going to have 

amendments. I have four I would like 

to offer to the bill that are better payfors and will actually improve the bill. 

I am not sure we are going to do that 

either. 

So we didn’t have a hearing, and we 

didn’t have a markup. We come to the 

floor, and we are not going to have 

amendments. What is this really all 

about? Is this about veterans or is this 

about politicians? I suspect it is about 

politicians. I suspect it is about elections and not veterans. 

The legislation grants broad authority to the Department of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of 

Labor, Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of 

Homeland Security, the Interior Department, and the Army Corps of Engineers to hire veterans in jobs such as 

conservation and first responders. 

However, to comply with the pay-go 

rules, we manipulate the system again. 

We include revenue increases to equal 

the cost of the bill. We do that by requiring a continuous levy on payments 

to Medicare providers and suppliers— 

which is not a bad idea—and also by denying or revoking passports in cases of 

seriously delinquent taxes. I have 

heard that is going to be pulled, but 

nobody knows. Nobody has seen it. 

That is why we have committees, so we 

don’t have to play with things before 

we have a base bill and we know what 

it will do. 

The bill already violates the Budget 

Control Act’s allocation for Veterans 

Affairs funding. It is subject to a 302(f) 

point of order because it is outside the 

bounds of their appropriations. 

The bill also states a distinct preference for veterans of the current war 

in Afghanistan and the most recent 

war in Iraq by stating that these jobs 

are primarily for veterans who have 

served since September 11, 2001. 

As with the veterans caregiver bill in 

2009, this is blatant discrimination 

against our other veterans. One class of 

veterans is better than another class of 

veterans? Tell me how. Is somebody 

who died in the Vietnam war less honorable than somebody who has given 

their life in Afghanistan? Yet we are 

making that distinction in terms of the 

benefits available to those who served 

our country honorably. 

So we are blatantly discriminating 

against veterans who served before 9/11. 

I would also remind us that those veterans didn’t have the post-9/11 GI bill. 

They didn’t have the other significant 

benefits that have come along and been 

passed down, both paid benefits, family 

transfer of the post-9/11 bill, or the educational benefits for in-service that the 

present veterans have. 

Another thing I would remind my 

colleagues is that right now there is a 

preference in every branch of the Federal Government for hiring veterans. It 

is already written into law. Since 1944 

the Federal Government has stated 

that veterans with honorable or general discharges are preferred for hiring 

in competitive positions and may also 

be hired without competition in many 

cases. In other words, they get an absolute preference. Disabled veterans get 

even a higher preference over nondisabled veterans. Veterans also have 

priority in retention in terms of government downsizing: If you were a veteran, you don’t get downsized; if you 

are not a veteran, you will. 

Senator BURR’s bill—which it appears 

the majority will take and add to their 

bill rather than replace their bill—will 

direct the Office of Personnel Management to require that each of the 10,000 

job vacancies presently in the Federal 

Government today should be filled by 

veterans. This would actually provide a 

real career path for veterans, not a 

temporary make-work job slot that 

will go away as soon as the $1 billion 

runs out. 

According to a 2011 GAO report, there 

are six job training programs, which I 

have outlined, already on the books. 

They are not working, but they are on 

the books, and we are spending money 

on them. We have no metrics to know 

whether they are working. We have had 

no oversight hearings to know whether 

they are working. None has ever been 

held. 

There is the Labor Department’s Disabled Veterans Outreach Program. It 

does job readiness, skills training, retention training, and employment 

counseling. 

The Labor Department’s Homeless 

Veterans Reintegration Project does 

everything the first one I mentioned 

does. 

The Labor Department’s Veterans 

Employment Representative Program 

does exactly the same thing as the first 

two. 

The Labor Department’s Transition 

Assistance Program does job search 

and job readiness training. 

The Labor Department’s Veterans 

Affairs Workforce Investment, again, 

does all the same tasks as the first two 

I mentioned. 

The Veterans Affairs’ Rehabilitation 

for Disabled Veterans Program does 

nearly everything from job training to 

employment counseling to job referral 

to on-the-job training to basic adult 

literacy. 

This bill and those training programs 

are in addition to the post-9/11 GI bill 

and the Tuition Assistance Program, 

which provides 100 percent tuition assistance plus expenses, plus a monthly 

stipend salary for unemployed or any 

other veterans to attend college, vocational training, pursue licensure, with 

fees paid for by the Federal Government, and allows them to transfer this 

benefit to their spouses. 

The question I have, with that benefit—and we are doing another one now 

for political purposes, not because we 

really care about veterans—why isn’t 

this one working? We are going to 

spend billions on the post-9/11 GI bill, 

and we are going to pay them at the 

rate of a noncommissioned officer all 

the time they are going to college. Why 

isn’t that working? Where is the oversight hearing to see why what we just 

did 2 years ago isn’t working? 

Instead, what we are going to do is— 

which the Congress has done under 

both Democrats and Republicans—we 

are going to throw in more money and 

do another one. Instead of measuring 

what works and measuring what we are 

doing, we are going to create another 

program. Granted, supposedly it is only 

5 years. 

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September 12, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6249 

When it comes to 5 years, what will 

happen whether it works or not? Nobody will vote against extending the 

veterans program, will they? How can 

anyone be against veterans? 

So we would not do the hard work of 

having committee hearings; we would 

not do the oversight. We would not 

even change this bill to make sure it 

has absolute metrics on what it is 

doing. So we are continuing down the 

road to bankruptcy, all in the name of 

putting a bill—that isn’t going to pass 

the House—on the Senate floor so two 

or three Members of the Senate can go 

home and claim they did something. 

I think it is hypocritical. I don’t 

think it matches the pure valor of the 

three individuals I mentioned. It 

doesn’t come close. It doesn’t measure 

up. Those 13 Oklahomans who died in 

Afghanistan this last year from the 

Oklahoma National Guard, the Thunderbirds, represented the real value of 

America. This bill doesn’t. 

The post-9/11 GI bill pays 100 percent 

of the highest cost public school in any 

State. So veterans can go to the best 

public school paid for completely by 

the government if they are a post-9/11 

veteran. They can get the same equivalent pay as a noncommissioned officer 

the time they are going. That is what 

we have already got out there. 

Without this legislation, today any 

unemployed veteran who can get into a 

community college can go for free, receive 3 years’ of pay, all their expenses 

paid, their housing paid—all of those 

things paid. 

Well, if that isn’t working, why isn’t 

it working? Where is the hearing to 

find out why that isn’t working? No, 

we are just going to pass another bill 

without a hearing, without a committee markup, for politically expedient purposes. Oh, it is just $1 billion. 

Where is our honor? Where is our 

valor? Where is our sacrifice? 

The Department of Defense Tuition 

Assistance Program, another program, 

while you are in the military, is paid 

for. All you have to do is make a C or 

better—online, off line, whatever way 

you want to go. 

So let me summarize: We have the 

Tuition Assistance Program, we have 

the post-9/11 GI bill, we have the GI 

bill, we have six separate VA job programs. We have a bill on the floor to do 

another one, and nobody is asking the 

question: What is wrong with what we 

are doing now, and why aren’t we fixing it? 

If what we are doing now isn’t working, why aren’t we fixing that? Why 

aren’t we going to allow amendments 

to fix things? Why are we going to fill 

the tree and not allow the process that 

our Founders for designed the Senate 

to work so that all ideas could be considered? 

No, this is a political exercise. I am 

going to call it what it is. This isn’t 

about veterans; this is about politicians. My hope is that we wake up before our country fails. 

When I came to the Senate, the average family’s responsibility for public 

debt per individual was $26,000. Within 

the 8 years I have been here, it is now 

51,400 and some-odd dollars. We are 

playing a game. We are thinking short 

term. We are worried about political 

careers and elections, but we are not 

worried about the country. This is 

about the greatest example of the incompetence of the Congress of United 

States I have ever seen. 

I am for helping veterans, I am for 

paying for it, and I am for making sure 

they get rewarded for their service and 

their sacrifice. This bill isn’t it. This is 

a charade. That is exactly what it is. 

To call it anything else dishonors the 

service of those who have defended and 

protected our country. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. 

HONORING OUR FOREIGN SERVANTS

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, 

like many of my colleagues, before I 

begin my remarks on the subject that 

brings me to the floor today, which is 

the DREAM Act, I wish to take a moment to reflect on the brutal, unconscionable attacks that occurred on our 

diplomatic posts in Libya and Egypt. 

Like many of my colleagues, I am outraged and saddened by the brutal murder of four courageous Americans in a 

cowardly, unconscionable attack on 

the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. 

Their families are in the thoughts and 

prayers of my family as they are for 

many others of my colleagues. 

These great diplomats were patriots 

and professionals, putting their lives 

on the line to advance American ideals 

and interests. Their vital work is done 

daily by countless Americans, diplomats abroad who serve in every corner of the world. 

In my own visit to Libya last year 

with a number of my colleagues, including Senator MCCAIN and Senator 

GRAHAM, I saw the vital work and the 

accomplishments of such brave Americans on the ground as well as the great 

peril and severe danger they constantly 

face. I also saw their sense of satisfaction and patriotism in the work they 

are doing. I add my voice to that of my 

colleagues asking for more support for 

security, enhanced safeguards, and protection for our diplomats in these 

kinds of situations. They go about 

their work with understated perseverance and determination as well as constant courage in the face of often chaotic and unpredictable dangers. 

The cowardly attacks on these patriots should not deter the people of 

Libya from moving forward. Neither 

should it deter us from working together with others abroad who have a 

common interest in tolerance, freedom 

of speech, and democracy. 

I commend President Obama and 

Secretary Clinton for their immediate 

response to this situation, their words 

of encouragement. I wish Godspeed to 

the Marine Corps Fleet Anti-terrorism 

Security Team en route to Libya. 

The diplomats who were killed in 

this tragic and brutal action embodied 

American values and the highest traditions, not only of the professionals 

among our career diplomats, but all 

who serve and sacrifice for this country 

in uniform in very similar situations of 

danger—the marines who guard our 

embassies as well as the other marines 

and troops who are fighting on foreign 

soil to uphold our freedoms. 

THE DREAM ACT

Those American values in some sense 

bring me also to the floor today to talk 

about the DREAM Act and about a 

young generation of people in our communities across America and across 

the country who would benefit from 

this important legislation. Our immigration system right now is broken and 

is in dire need of comprehensive reform. Any comprehensive immigration 

reform legislation must include the 

DREAM Act. I believe the DREAM Act 

is worthy of adoption without that 

comprehensive overarching reform because these young Americans in our 

communities deserve the opportunity 

to earn their citizenship by contributing to our Nation. That is exactly 

the opportunity the DREAM Act seeks 

to afford them. 

Over this last recess I was pleased to 

talk to many of those DREAMers. I 

was particularly proud to talk to them 

about the work a number of us are 

doing here, to try to achieve and make 

possible this legislation that would enable and empower them to contribute 

further. I am grateful to Senator DURBIN and others who have championed 

this measure at the Federal level, 

much as I have done in the State of 

Connecticut as attorney general. I was 

also proud to talk about the Department of Homeland Security’s Deferred 

Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. 

This policy took effect on August 15 

when DHS started to accept applications for deferred action. 

Under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DREAMers will have a 

temporary reprieve—and I emphasize 

temporary reprieve—from deportation. 

This policy step is a good one. It is in 

the right direction. But it affords only 

a temporary reprieve. 

The DREAM Act would afford a permanent path to individuals who qualify: individuals who have entered the 

United States before the age of 16; they 

have been brought here by parents who 

may be undocumented—but young children, many of them much younger 

than 16, most of them in fact younger 

than 5 or 6 years old and who have been 

present in the United States for at 

least 5 consecutive years prior to enactment of the bill; are here through 

no fault or action of their own but who 

want to be here permanently and contribute and give back. They must have 

graduated from a U.S. high school or 

have obtained a GED or have been accepted into an institution of higher 

education. They must be between the 

ages of 12 and 35 at the time of application and be of good moral character. 

These requirements establish a path 

for people who want to contribute, 

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S6250 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 12, 2012 

have come here through no fault of 

their own, know the United States as 

the only country where they have ever 

lived. They usually speak no other language. Their life and their friends and 

their future are here. 

I want to talk, as I hope to do literally every week that I am able, about 

an individual who embodies the 

DREAM Act. Her name is Zuly Molina. 

Her full name, actually, is Zuleyma 

Molina, but she goes by ‘‘Zuly.’’ She is 

a proud member of our Connecticut 

community, one of 11,000 to 20,000 

young people living in Connecticut who 

would benefit from the DREAM Act. 

Zuly is here with us today through her 

picture. I want to talk about her life, 

which has been full of hardships and 

challenges, but also her future. 

She was born in Mexico and brought 

to America when she was 6 years old. 

Her family settled in Connecticut—in 

fact, in New Britain. She had to learn 

English, which was not easy for her. In 

fact, she was taunted and bullied because of her lack of language skills. 

But she was up to the challenge. She 

learned English. She speaks it absolutely fluently. She decided to go to 

the library and translate books on her 

own so that she would have a command 

of English. She went through the New 

Britain public schools and graduated 

from New Britain High School in 2008, 

but at that point there were additional 

challenges. 

Zuly wanted to stay in Connecticut 

and perhaps attend 2 years of community college before going to a 4-year institution. But she was not eligible at 

that point for in-State tuition and the 

option of staying in Connecticut was 

simply too expensive. 

What did she do? Endlessly resourceful and determined, she decided to 

commute every day to Bay Path College in Massachusetts. There she 

worked in many leadership positions 

outside the classroom. She was president of Rotaract, which is Rotary’s 

youth service club for young people. 

She was vice president of the Bay Path 

Christian Fellowship. She was cocaptain of the cross-country team. And 

she graduated with a bachelor’s degree 

in biology, becoming the first college 

graduate in her family. 

She felt discouraged even after graduation because she knew she could not 

apply for many jobs that require documentation. She decided to pursue further education, a master’s degree from 

Bay Path College in occupational therapy. She understands now life will not 

be easy, but her goals of working for a 

hospital’s feeding program and pursuing an MD are realistic. She hopes 

she can pursue that profession so she 

can work for nonprofits that help families with low income—not altogether 

different from the one where she grew 

up. 

It has taken many years for Zuly to 

accept and thank her mother for sending her to America. She would be 

upset—more than upset—if the land of 

her life, the land that she loves—America—refuses to give her the opportunity to stay here. She has that opportunity temporarily with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals 

Program. It is an administrative program. It could be ended with a new administration. It could be ended by any 

administration virtually overnight. 

She has applied for deferred action and 

she is undergoing the process, but she 

deserves more than a temporary reprieve. That is why I stand here urging 

my colleagues to enable Zuly to come 

out of the shadows, to seek a career 

that will enable her to contribute 

mightily and monumentally to all of us 

as a doctor, and to raise a family of her 

own here, as a proud United States citizen. 

To these young people who identify 

as Americans and who were brought to 

this Nation at young ages as children 

or infants and who are here through no 

fault of their own, I urge my colleagues 

to offer one of the greatest gifts, one of 

the greatest privileges one can have, 

which is United States citizenship, so 

that we can say to the DREAMers on 

some day soon, ‘‘my fellow American.’’ 

Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I 

ask unanimous consent that the order 

for the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

CARDIN). Without objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I 

ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as if in morning business. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

THE RYAN BUDGET

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, 

we are at a moment in time when 

Americans across the country are confused by what they are hearing; it is 

hard to discern truth from fiction. 

One of the proposals that is being 

talked about is from the Republican 

nominee for Vice President, PAUL

RYAN, who is known for his budget proposals. We have to look at them 

squarely and decide what is reliable, 

what is true, and what is, as I said earlier, fiction. 

Those proposals cut taxes for the 

rich, raise taxes on the middle class, 

while abandoning the sick, the poor, 

and our children. The Ryan budget can 

only be good for one very small group 

of Americans: the wealthiest among us. 

Now, I was fortunate to succeed in 

business—succeed in a way that would 

have been impossible to dream about 

when I was growing up in a poor family. But I was helped by our country’s 

government for my service in the military during the big war. 

But in our democracy, each person 

gets one vote. So what do you do as a 

candidate for national office when your 

vision for the country is good for the 

few and bad for the many? You can pretend it is good for everybody. You can 

say it will benefit all Americans. In 

short, you can substitute fiction for 

truth. This approach was on brilliant 

display at the Republican Convention 

when PAUL RYAN claimed the Republican plan would help the middle 

class—help that, frankly, we believe 

would take us downhill instead of Operation Uplift. 

An article on Fox News’ Web site described his convention speech as, ‘‘an 

apparent attempt to set the world 

record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations 

slipped into a single political speech.’’ 

Fox News, a conservative communications organization. Maybe that is 

why they call him ‘‘Lyin’ Ryan.’’ His 

speech in Tampa was the most public 

and extreme example of the smokescreen he has been blowing around here 

for a long time. So today I want to 

look at the numbers in PAUL RYAN’s 

budget because numbers don’t lie, even 

if some politicians do. 

It is obvious PAUL RYAN doesn’t want 

us to see the specific programs he 

would cut, but let’s look at the devastating consequences if his cuts were 

distributed evenly. 

Under the Ryan budget, 200,000 preschool children would be kicked off of 

Head Start rolls in 2014. We have a 

chart that clearly shows that. Imagine 

slashing funding for a program designed to help children learn how to 

learn. In our country today there are 

many situations where children don’t 

have parental advice or the encouragement of parents to learn. Head Start is 

a terrific program because Head Start 

teaches these children that learning is 

fun, so that when they enter school 

they are ready to accept learning and 

they look at it as something that will 

be interesting and pleasant and worth 

doing. RYAN’s cuts are shortsighted and 

they are cruel and they will only harm 

America’s future. 

As much as $115 billion could be cut 

from education funding over the next 

decade if we follow the Ryan budget. 

With less support and rising costs for 

higher education, young people would 

be forced to take on more debt in order 

to attend college. If we were to talk to 

college students today, we would learn 

how tough it is, so that when they 

graduate from college they may have a 

debt of $50,000 to $100,000. And here 

they want the average college student 

to take on more. It is an outrage. 

Why would anyone put obstacles in 

front of young people seeking an education? They are not concerned about 

those who want to learn or how they 

merge into our society. 

I never would have been able to attend Columbia University without help 

from the government and the GI bill. 

When we came home from World War 

II, this country invested in us—and 

that investment helped create the 

‘‘greatest generation’’ and decades of 

prosperity. The GI bill enabled me to 

cofound one of America’s most successful companies, ADP. That company 

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September 12, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6251 

today employs over 50,000 people in 

more than 23 countries. But instead of 

offering a helping hand to this generation’s students, the Ryan proposal 

closes the door in their face. 

Under the Ryan budget, government 

investments in science, technology, 

and medical research could also be 

shortchanged—cut by more than $100 

billion over the next 10 years. Medical 

research funding alone could take a hit 

of nearly $6 billion by 2014. This would 

delay research on new treatments for 

diseases such as cancer, childhood 

asthma, and juvenile diabetes. All of 

these would start to fall by the wayside. 

We have a chart that says the Republican budget plan would take $5.8 billion that would otherwise be used for 

asthma, juvenile diabetes, cancer, autism, and more. Who would want to deliver a message to a parent in America 

that says: Your country cannot provide 

the funds to cure your child’s illness? 

The Ryan budget also wants to add 

pain to those dependent on health care 

programs. Instead of reassuring seniors 

that they can look forward to retirement in good health, he adds anxiety 

with cuts. He has proposed to end 

Medicare as we know it, giving seniors 

a voucher instead of a guarantee. If 

that voucher can’t cover the cost of 

needed medical services, this is the Republicans’ attitude: Too bad. You are 

on your own. If RYAN succeeds, tell the 

Medicare beneficiaries that their costs 

for medical services can be increased at 

the will of insurance companies. 

RYAN’s plan says: All right, cut Medicaid—that is a program for the impoverished—cut Medicaid by more than 

$800 billion over a 10-year period. Medicaid is there to provide vital resources 

for expectant mothers and nursing 

home care for seniors. We created 

Medicare and Medicaid to be there for 

seniors and the poor when they get 

sick. RYAN, with that sharp knife of 

his, wants to cut funding and break 

that promise. It is shameful. 

A budget isn’t just a collection of 

numbers; it is an expression of principles and priorities, and we shouldn’t 

look at a budget like an auditor. We 

should see it as a way to fulfill the obligations of our democracy and to be 

there for those who need help. A budget 

sets forth a vision for our Nation’s future and makes a statement about 

what counts in America and what are 

our values. 

So when we see the budget authored 

by PAUL RYAN called ‘‘marvelous’’ by 

Mitt Romney—Mitt Romney, candidate 

for President of the United States 

called this budget by PAUL RYAN and 

the budget passed by the House Republicans ‘‘marvelous’’—we should be 

deeply disturbed. It is an outrage for 

Republicans to say we should give the 

wealthiest Americans more tax breaks 

as they increase the burden on a middle class already struggling to afford 

the essentials. Who are we going to 

fight for, middle-class families or the 

multimillionaires? 

In our country last year, 400 people 

made over $200 million on average. 

Should they carry their fair share of 

the country’s opportunities and continue to invest in the country rather 

than shepherd the funds for their own 

personal use? 

Everybody knows we cannot build a 

house from the chimney down and we 

cannot build a balanced society by 

soaking the poor to feed the rich. At a 

time when our economy is fighting 

strong headwinds, when too many 

Americans are out of work, PAUL RYAN

and his running mate offer the same 

old prescription: tax cuts for the rich 

and austerity for everybody else. We 

will not hear this from him. PAUL

RYAN likes to distract and distort. He 

has been hiding the truth about his 

budget so the American people do not 

truly know what is going on. 

The bottom line is this: PAUL RYAN

knows very well he cannot afford to 

tell the American people what his real 

agenda is because he knows what would 

happen. There would be no more buyers 

for what he is selling. Americans are 

now seeing the values the Republican 

Party and their new leader PAUL RYAN

are fighting for. 

We let the Republicans have their 

way for 8 years, and it led to the worst 

economic crisis since the Great Depression. 

Very often we will hear them say: 

Obama has not done what he should 

have done. There are 4 million more 

people working now in the private sector than there were just two years ago 

and people are excited about the health 

care plan because they know this 

health plan is going to help them be 

better, have wellness in their lives. It 

ultimately will reduce costs substantially. 

It goes that way. But rather than 

help those who could use a boost, could 

use some support—could use it to make 

sure their kids get educated or to help 

their parents, the people who built the 

strength of this country over the years, 

past generations—rather than help 

them, let’s protect those, the wealthiest, who do not need the help. 

During World War II, there was an 

excess profits tax. That tax was there, 

designed to take some of the excess 

profits that companies were making. 

Now we ought to apply the same logic. 

We have people fighting for their lives 

in Afghanistan and other places. Instead of saying let’s make sure everybody feels like they are included in this 

great democracy of ours, they are saying: No, let them take care of themselves. As a matter of fact, it was suggested by Mitt Romney, the candidate 

for President—he said these college 

students ought to borrow from their 

parents. In many cases, the parents are 

struggling to keep food on the table or 

pay the rent or the mortgage. 

Enough is enough. There is too much 

at stake to let ourselves be fooled by 

their tricks once again. We have to 

support the programs that have been 

working. Perfectly? Not yet, but they 

are getting better all the time. More 

people are going to work and more people view America as an opportunity for 

them to succeed in life. 

HONORING OUR FOREIGN SERVANTS

While I have the floor, I wish to pay 

my respects to Ambassador Chris Stevens’ family and to note that four 

American heroes were murdered yesterday at the American embassy in 

Benghazi, Libya, people who had an assignment to make sure their country, 

America, was working in Libya to try 

to bridge the gaps that might exist. It 

is a terrible tragedy that happened. We 

all have to note our sorrow. 

My deepest condolences are with 

their families, their friends and loved 

ones as they mourn the loss of these 

patriots. This is a tragedy about which 

all Americans are deeply saddened. 

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The bill clerk proceeded to call the 

roll. 

Mr. MCCAIN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. MCCAIN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that I be allowed to 

engage in a colloquy with the Senator 

from Connecticut, Mr. LIEBERMAN, and 

Senator GRAHAM from South Carolina. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

The Senator from Arizona is recognized. 

HONORING OUR FOREIGN SERVANTS

Mr. MCCAIN. Mr. President, it is 

with a heavy heart that I rise today to 

speak about the horrific attack yesterday on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi 

that killed four American citizens. The 

two confirmed thus far to be among the 

dead are Sean Smith, an Air Force veteran turned State Department information management officer, and Ambassador Chris Stevens, one of America’s finest and bravest Foreign Service 

officers. 

I did not know Sean Smith—I know 

he was a great American who served 

his country—but I had gotten to know 

Chris Stevens quite well. In Ambassador Chris Stevens’ death, the Libyan 

people have lost a great champion and 

believer in the peaceful aspirations of 

their democratic revolution; the American people have lost a selfless and 

dedicated servant of our interests and 

our values, and I have lost a friend. 

My thoughts and prayers today are 

with Chris’s family and the loved ones 

of his fallen colleagues. May God grant 

them comfort in their time of grief. 

Our most urgent order of business 

now is to make sure our citizens still 

living and serving in Libya and Egypt 

and elsewhere across the region and 

the world are safe. Americans look to 

the governments in Libya and Egypt 

and elsewhere to meet their responsibilities in this regard. We also look to 

the Libyan Government to ensure that 

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S6252 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 12, 2012 

those responsible for yesterday’s attack in Benghazi are swiftly brought to 

justice. In all of these critical tasks, 

we are confident that our government 

will provide all necessary assistance 

and support. 

Yesterday’s attacks are an important 

reminder that so many of America’s civilians and diplomats and development 

professionals are risking everything— 

everything—to advance our Nation’s 

interests and values abroad. We must 

do everything in our power to ensure 

their security. 

At the same time, our thoughts turn 

to broader concerns: the mourning of 

our fallen friends, and how we as a Nation should respond to these tragic 

events. 

One of my most memorable meetings 

with Chris Stevens was last April in 

Benghazi. As U.S. Envoy to the Libyan 

opposition, Chris had traveled to 

Benghazi at great personal risk to represent the country he loved so much 

while Libya was still gripped in a brutal fight for freedom. It was clear there 

was nowhere that Chris would rather 

have been than Libya. We spent the 

day together, meeting Libyan opposition leaders and many ordinary citizens, who spoke movingly about how 

much the opportunity to finally live in 

freedom meant to them, and how grateful they were for America’s support. 

Chris Stevens embodied that support, 

and his passion for his mission was infectious. 

I kept in touch with him often and 

frequently after my visit. I was very 

happy when President Obama nominated him to be America’s Ambassador 

to the new Libya. The last time I saw 

Chris Stevens was shortly after he had 

taken his post, during my most recent 

visit to Tripoli. I especially remember 

the lighter moments we spent together, 

including when Chris insisted on personally making me a cappuccino, a 

task that he carried out with as much 

pride and proficiency as his diplomatic 

mission. 

That was on the morning of July 7— 

the day Libyans voted in their first 

election in half a century. Chris Stevens and I spent the day together 

again, traveling around Tripoli, visiting polling places, and speaking with 

Libyan voters. We met a man whose father had been murdered by Qadhafi’s 

henchmen. We met a woman whose 

brothers had recently given their lives 

fighting for their country’s liberation. 

We met countless others, including 

many older Libyans, who were voting 

for the first time in their lives. And everywhere we went, we were greeted by 

crowds of cheering Libyans, bursting 

with pride and eager to shake our 

hands and express their gratitude for 

America’s support. It was one of the 

most moving experiences of my life, 

and it was only made better by the fact 

that I got to share it with our outstanding Ambassador, Chris Stevens. 

What we saw together on that day 

was the real Libya—the peaceful desire 

of millions of people to live in freedom 

and democracy, the immense gratitude 

they felt for America’s support for 

them, and their strong desire to build a 

new partnership between our nations. 

That is why I am not surprised that 

senior Libyan leaders were among the 

first to condemn the horrific attack 

that killed Chris and his colleagues. 

And that is why I was not surprised to 

learn from our Secretary of State that 

many Libyans fought to defend our 

people and our consulate in Benghazi 

when they came under attack, that 

some were wounded while doing so, and 

that it was Libyans who sought to get 

Chris and his colleagues to the hospital. And that is why we cannot afford 

to view the despicable acts of violence 

perpetrated yesterday by a small group 

of fanatics as in any way representative of the country and the people of 

Libya. That is not the real Libya, the 

Libya Chris Stevens knew and learned 

to love so well. 

After such a heartbreaking loss for 

our Nation, I know many Americans 

are asking whether the United States 

was naive or mistaken to support the 

vast movement for change that is 

known as the Arab spring. I know 

many Americans may feel a temptation, especially with so many domestic 

and economic challenges facing us here 

at home, to distance ourselves from 

people and events in Libya and Egypt 

and elsewhere in the Middle East. We 

cannot afford to go down that path. 

Yesterday’s attack in Benghazi was 

the work of a small group of violent extremists, whose goals and actions could 

not be more at odds with those of the 

people and government of Libya. The 

Libyan revolution began peacefully 

and was dedicated throughout to the 

ideals of freedom and justice and democratic change. When Libyans turned 

out by the millions to elect a new government in July, they gave the plurality of their vote not to religious fanatics but to a political party led by a 

moderate technocrat and committed to 

friendship with the United States. 

Libyans arose last year to free themselves from exactly the kinds of murderers and terrorists who killed our 

American citizens yesterday in 

Benghazi. Their enemies are our enemies, and they remain as committed 

as ever to imposing their evil ideology 

through violence on people in Libya 

and the Middle East, and ultimately on 

us. They want to hijack the Arab 

spring for their own insidious purposes. 

If we turn our backs now on the millions of people in Libya and Egypt and 

Syria and other countries across the 

Middle East—people who share so 

many of our values and interests, people who are the true authors of the 

Arab spring—we will hand our common 

enemies—the terrorists and extremists—the very victory they seek. 

We were right to take the side of the 

Libyan people and others in the region 

who share their peaceful aspirations. 

We would be gravely mistaken to walk 

away from them now. To do so would 

not only be a betrayal of everything 

Chris Stevens and his colleagues believed in and ultimately gave their 

lives for, it would be a betrayal of 

America’s highest values and our own 

enduring national interest in supporting people in the Middle East and 

the world who want to live in peace 

and freedom. 

Mr. President, I am pleased to be 

joined by my friend from Connecticut. 

I know he shares with me the sorrow 

that we and all Americans feel at the 

loss of a brave and dedicated American. 

But it will be a long time before we forget Chris Stevens because he will stand 

as a shining example of patriotism and 

love of country. 

Chris Stevens was not unaware of the 

danger he faced. He was privy to intelligence information, and others. But he 

went forward and did his job with a 

smile, with love of his country, and 

love of the country where he was serving. I cannot be more proud of Ambassador Chris Stevens. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

MERKLEY). The Senator from Connecticut. 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I 

thank my friend from Arizona for his 

very eloquent statement. I associate 

myself with it. 

It strikes me, as I listen, that it was 

no accident that these violent extremists launched this attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on 9/ 

11, on September 11—a day of infamy in 

our history, a day when people across 

our country and around the world were 

commemorating the worst terrorist attack in our history, which was September 11, 2001. 

Those who perpetrated the attack on 

the consulate in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of our Ambassador 

Chris Stevens carried out an act of terrorism and barbarism that they hope 

will sow fear and hatred between Americans and Muslims, just as Osama bin 

Laden and his followers hoped that attack of 9/11, 2001, would do 11 years ago. 

But we did not let bin Laden succeed 

then, and we will not let these violent 

extremists who killed Chris Stevens 

yesterday in Benghazi succeed in dividing America and the West from Muslims and the Arab world. Good, well-intentioned people in both great communities will rise and join together to renounce these extremists and killers. 

I want to speak for a moment about 

Ambassador Stevens. 

Simply put, Chris Stevens was one of 

the finest, bravest, most spirited, most 

talented diplomats in our Nation’s 

service. 

As a volunteer in the Peace Corps, he 

served in Morocco, where he was inspired to pursue a lifetime of service in 

the Middle East. When the uprising 

against Muammar Qadhafi began in 

February of last year, Chris was the 

deputy chief of mission at our Embassy 

in Tripoli, Libya. 

He was evacuated, along with other 

American personnel, from the country, 

but returned to Libya within weeks as 

the Special Envoy of the United States 

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September 12, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6253 

of America to the opposition there— 

courageously slipping into rebel-held 

Benghazi onboard a cargo freighter. It 

was an act of bravery that typified 

Chris Stevens’ service to our country 

and his devotion to our Nation’s ideals 

and his commitment to build bridges 

between Americans and Arabs, Americans and Muslims. 

Chris remained in Benghazi throughout the war, standing with the people 

of Libya during some of the darkest 

and most difficult hours in their struggle for freedom. 

He became, in fact, the bright symbol 

of America, a heroic and inspiring figure to many Libyans, as Senator 

MCCAIN and Senator GRAHAM and I 

heard during our visits, and was thus 

the natural choice of President Obama 

to become our Ambassador to Tripoli 

after the Qadhafi regime fell. This is 

also why his death at the hands of violent extremists in Benghazi, which was 

the seat of the revolution against Qadhafi, is so tragic and infuriating. Of 

course, we still do not know what happened at our consulate in Benghazi yesterday, but what is clear is that these 

attackers have to be apprehended and 

must be punished. 

I am encouraged but not surprised by 

the statements of Libya’s leaders condemning this attack. I say I am not 

surprised because these statements of 

condemnation of those who killed Chris 

Stevens are consistent with what I 

know the leaders of the new Libya to 

be, what I know to be their profound 

admiration and love for Chris Stevens 

and their respect and gratitude for the 

United States of America. We look now 

to the Libyan Government to act swiftly and decisively and to our own government to provide the Libyans whatever support they need to find the 

attackers and killers. 

While a specific group of individuals 

was responsible for this evil act and 

their target immediately was the 

Americans in that consulate—but really their target was the new order in 

Libya, and they were animated in this 

by an ideology that is now all too familiar to us that we cannot ignore or 

excuse. This hateful and violent ideology is a threat not just to the lives of 

Americans like Chris Stevens and the 

three others who died yesterday in 

Benghazi but to the future of Libya 

and the future of the Muslim world. It 

is the exact opposite of the ideals that 

inspired millions of Libyans to rise up 

last year against Qadhafi to realize 

their dreams of a life of dignity, democracy, and human rights. For that 

reason, it is imperative now for those 

Libyan people themselves to echo their 

leaders and condemn this violence and 

take on the extremists who have taken 

shelter in their midst and who threaten 

to hijack their revolution and imperil 

the future of their country, returning 

them to days as dark as under Qadhafi. 

I know the overwhelming majority of 

Libyans reject this violent extremist 

agenda. They want a good education 

for their children. They want foreign 

investment that will create jobs and 

raise their standard of living. After 42 

years of despair and oppression under 

Qadhafi, they badly want again to be 

part of the world, part of the modern 

world. The United States should stand 

ready and willing to help them on that 

path. 

The fact is that the people who killed 

Chris Stevens yesterday in Benghazi do 

not represent the people of Libya or 

their elected leadership. But these 

killings require confronting the extremist minority that imperils this future, the fanatics who want a clash of 

civilizations between the Muslims and 

the West and who will try to justify 

their violence in the name of Islam. 

They are wrong. They are mistaken. 

They are on the wrong side of history. 

Finally, let me come back home and 

say—to echo what Senator MCCAIN just 

said—that I know there will be some 

here in our country who in the wake of 

this attack will be tempted to argue 

that it shows that America’s support 

for the Libyan revolution was naive or 

mistaken, that the Arab spring will ultimately be defined not by a desire for 

democracy and freedom among the people of the Middle East and Arab world 

but by the dark fanaticism of al-Qaida 

and its associates and that the United 

States should give up trying to support 

people in this part of the world and instead retrench back here at home. That 

would be terribly wrong. That would 

misunderstand the motivations of the 

people who have risen in the Arab 

world to overthrow the totalitarian 

governments that dominated their 

lives. They do not want the fanaticism 

of al-Qaida. They want the bright light 

of a democratic future. 

We cannot allow what happened yesterday to be a victory for the extremists and the terrorists because to do so 

would be a betrayal of everything Ambassador Chris Stevens stood for, which 

is to say a betrayal of America’s best 

ideals. 

I note the presence on the floor of the 

Senator from South Carolina. I would 

yield to him at this time. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina. 

Mr. GRAHAM. I will be brief. There 

is not a whole lot to be added to the eloquent statements of my two friends 

other than to be here and to let the 

family of Chris Stevens know that we 

saw in their loved one what you saw— 

a wonderful man who did great things 

with a life cut way too short. 

I do not think most Americans can 

ever appreciate the leadership Chris 

provided in Libya and throughout the 

world at a time when we needed it the 

most. So America has lost one of her 

greatest diplomats, the Libyans have 

lost one of their best friends, and the 

family has lost their dear loved one. 

The one thing I can say for sure— 

Senator LIEBERMAN just mentioned it— 

do not compound this tragedy. The 

worst possible outcome is to take the 

death of this wonderful, noble man and 

use it as an excuse to withdraw from 

Libya and the region and turn it over 

to the thugs who killed him. Chris 

would not want that, it is not in our 

national security interest, and Republicans and Democrats do not want that. 

To the American people who are warweary and frustrated, I totally get it. 

But the Arab spring—call it what you 

like—is a historic opportunity to 

change things in the Middle East. It 

will not come without a fight. 

What we are trying to do in the Mideast and what the people in the Mideast are trying to do is have a better 

life for themselves. If you are a young 

person, you have been exposed to life 

outside of the corrupt country in which 

you live and you see it can be better 

and, quite frankly, you are demanding 

it can be better. You are demanding a 

better say if you are a young woman. 

You are demanding economic opportunity if you come from a certain 

class, not available to you today. And 

Chris Stevens risked his life because he 

understood that those demands were 

just and in our best interests. The people whom we are fighting and the people the Libyan people are fighting are 

the ones who have no interest in this 

agenda of being able to choose a better 

path for young women, being able to be 

tolerant, open, accept free markets, 

and to have a place where people can 

live their own dreams. 

The world which we are fighting— 

your dreams are defined by the Ayatollah. Your aspirations are defined by 

someone else’s view of where you 

should go and what you should be 

based on their interpretation of God’s 

plan for you. That, to me, is so unacceptable that it compels people like 

Chris Stevens to risk their lives. That 

is what is at stake. 

The good news is that we will beat 

these folks. The ace in the hole is that 

the people in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, 

Afghanistan, and Iraq now have been 

exposed to a different way of life. Given 

the capacity, they have the will to 

fight back. But if we think this is 

going to be done without a struggle, we 

are kidding ourselves. Chris knew that. 

He knew the fight that was going on 

for the heart and soul of the Arab 

spring in Libya was a fight worth engaging in and, yes, risking one’s life 

for. What more can you say about a fellow human being, an American, than 

the fact that they realized their time 

on Earth could be best spent in service 

of a cause, as Senator MCCAIN said, 

greater than themselves. Chris understood what was at stake. He went to a 

place he did not have to go. He accepted risks he could have avoided. He did 

it for all the right reasons. 

The one thing we should all unite 

around is that what compelled Chris 

Stevens to risk his life is absolutely in 

our national security interest; that is, 

to get the Mideast right, have a second 

opportunity never known before in the 

Mideast to live in peace with people 

who in the past wanted to kill us all. I 

am convinced that if we stick with it 

and we learn the lessons of Chris Stevens’ life, we will eventually prevail 

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S6254 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 12, 2012 

because the ones who want to kill us 

all are really a minority. The ones who 

would live with us in peace if they 

could just need our help. Let it be said 

that Chris Stevens was there to help. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona. 

Mr. MCCAIN. I thank my friend for 

his eloquent words. I would also like to 

again emphasize that there were four 

brave Americans—four. Sean Smith 

was one of them, a truly great American. There are two others—we do not 

even know their identity. So I hope the 

families who have suffered this loss appreciate that we grieve for all. We had 

the opportunity of knowing Chris Stevens. I did meet Sean Smith and the 

others. We mourn for them, and we 

thank them for their service to this 

Nation. 

I ask my friend from Connecticut, 

wouldn’t the worst legacy of Chris Stevens’ service to this country be a 

movement of the United States to 

withdraw, to fortress America, to renounce our service to the world in 

helping these countries achieve the 

same democracy and freedom for which 

our forefathers strived? I do not mean 

to use his death as any kind of political 

agenda, but I remember him well 

enough to know that the worst outcome of this tragedy would be for the 

United States to withdraw. In fact, I 

am confident that if he were here, he 

would be urging us to get right back in, 

bring these extremists to justice, and 

press on with the democracy and freedom the people of Libya deserve and 

have earned at great loss of blood and 

treasure. 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I 

could not agree more with my friend 

from Arizona. It would really dishonor 

the service of Chris Stevens and the 

other three Americans who served us in 

Libya if their murders by these extremists led us to retrench and pull out 

of Libya and stop supporting the new 

Libyan Government, democratically 

elected, pull out of other parts of the 

Arab world. That would be exactly the 

opposite of what Ambassador Stevens 

devoted his life to. As I mentioned, inspired by his experience as a Peace 

Corps volunteer in Morocco, he devoted 

the rest of his life to service on America’s behalf in the Middle East. The 

last thing he would want this murder 

to do is to lead us to pull out, leave the 

area. 

It would also be the fondest hope of 

the attackers, the extremists. Why do 

they attack? They attack to kill individual people, but they really attack 

to, as I said before, push America out 

and create a war between the Western 

world, America, and Islam. It is not 

natural. It is not the direction in which 

history is going. History is going much 

more toward integration. In fact, the 

revolution in Libya, which has gone so 

successfully when you consider the 40 

years of dictatorship under which they 

lived—they held a free election. They 

elected what I would describe as a moderate rule-of-law slate to run the country. But those uprisings in Libya, 

Egypt, Tunisia, and now in Syria are 

the most profound rejection and defeat 

for the extremism of al-Qaida and its 

allies and presumably this group who 

attacked the American consulate in 

Benghazi yesterday. I understand that 

the results of some of the first elections are unclear, in some sense unsettled to some people here, but the fact is 

they have chosen democracy. People 

are self-governing, and they are looking for a better life. That is exactly the 

opposite of what bin Laden, al-Qaida, 

and I would guess the people who killed 

Chris Stevens yesterday desire. 

Senator MCCAIN is absolutely right. I 

can almost hear Chris Stevens saying: 

Come on. Get up. Stay in the fight. Do 

not surrender to the crazies, to the fanatics, to the violent extremists. Stand 

with the overwhelming majority, with 

the people of Libya, who want what we 

want—a better future for themselves 

and their families. 

Mr. MCCAIN. I wish to say in conclusion that I thank my old and dear 

friend from Connecticut and the Senator from South Carolina. 

Finally, I would share with my colleagues that on last July 7 I was in 

Tripoli with Chris Stevens and it was 

the first free and fair election the Libyan people ever experienced. As we went 

from polling place to polling place, we 

met people who had lost brothers, husbands, fathers, mothers, and sisters at 

the hands of one of the more brutal 

butchers who has ever been on Earth, 

Muammar Qadhafi. 

That night we went to the square, 

where some 200,000 people were driving 

around, honking horns, celebrating, 

and waving Libyan flags. It was a really auspicious start. And as Senator 

LIEBERMAN pointed out, it was a moderate group who were elected to govern 

Libya by the people of Libya. Chris 

Stevens was recognized by all of them. 

They knew Chris Stevens and they 

knew what he represented—the United 

States of America. 

So those are memories I will never 

forget, and I hope his family will appreciate the magnificent service he provided to this Nation. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor. 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I 

would suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I 

ask unanimous consent that the order 

for the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, 

before I say what I originally came 

down here to say, I want to join my 

colleagues in condemning the senseless, horrible attack at the U.S. Consulate in Libya and pay tribute to the 

four Americans, including our Ambassador there, Chris Stevens, who were 

killed. I think all of us hope the killers 

will be brought to justice quickly, and 

I suspect that will be the case. 

Our country has lost four true public 

servants in the part of public service 

which is the least known and sometimes the most important. It is a high 

calling, public service in general, but 

especially in dangerous places around 

the world. Ambassador Stevens was a 

serious, dedicated, and highly experienced diplomat with a tremendous 

depth of expertise in Libya and the region. He and his colleagues spent their 

lives working on behalf of the United 

States of America and I hope their 

proud families and the entire diplomatic corps know we are deeply grateful as a people. 

This cowardly attack is a setback, 

but it will not stop us from our mission 

of promoting freedom and democracy 

for the people of Libya, and it should 

not. It will not keep our diplomats 

from their important work overseas. 

I remember when I was a student in 

Japan, the Ambassador there at the 

time, back in the early 1960s, was a fellow named Dr. Edwin Reischauer, who 

was probably at that time the preeminent Japanologist in America. He 

was a gentle, wonderful, marvelous person whom the Japanese loved. He was 

stabbed in one of those senseless things 

that happen. It can happen on American streets, but it can happen on the 

streets of other countries, even with 

security. Some mad person got in and 

stabbed him in a traditional Japanese 

manner with a Japanese sword. It was 

a horrible event, but he survived and it 

enlarged his legend. There was no bitterness from his family or his wife, and 

it didn’t set anything back. The person 

was brought to justice. 

Now I wish to speak also about other 

ways we must join together to help 

those who serve our country, and that 

is in creating job opportunities for our 

unemployed veterans. We have many 

veterans, and too many of them are unemployed or homeless. I am now talking about the Veterans Jobs Corps Act. 

This is a responsible investment and 

we should do it promptly. 

Standing for our veterans has been 

one of my top priorities since I began 

public service. You can’t help but be 

that way if you live in West Virginia. I 

suspect it is true in Oregon and lots of 

places all over the country. By definition it is true, but it is always personal, and in the Senate it has never 

waned. 

Before I was a Senator, the person 

who held my seat for a long time was 

Senator Jennings Randolph. I took his 

place on the Veterans Committee and I 

have been on it now for 28 years. It is 

a glorious committee, brilliantly led 

now by Senator PATTY MURRAY. I was 

chairman once myself, perhaps not 

quite so brilliantly. 

So many brave servicemembers, men 

and women, have fought to defend our 

way of life. People say that, and it is 

true, and they protect us each and 

every day. After such courageous and 

selfless actions, the least we can do is 

make sure when they return home they 

get good jobs, because they deserve 

those good jobs. 

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September 12, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6255 

Military experience builds leadership, dedication, bravery, and teamwork, and these traits are learned from 

working on the frontlines. Not everything in the military happens on the 

frontlines, but I just happen to be talking about that particular aspect in my 

short remarks. No experience could 

prepare these workers better for the 

jobs they hope to do after they leave 

their military service. 

I have a nephew who has just come 

back from Afghanistan. He may be 23, 

maybe 25, but he is almost unreachable 

in his strength, his patriotism, and 

what has happened to him as a human 

being internally, intellectually, and in 

broad vision. He has grown so large and 

so great. He has a job, so I am not talking about him, but with so many brave 

servicemembers—men and women—we 

need to pay attention to them when 

they come home. 

Political rhetoric and partisanship 

have no business delaying efforts to 

help our veterans. Everybody likes to 

talk about veterans—actually, a lot of 

bills do pass but not as many bills as 

should. Veterans did not delay or decline when we called them for deployment, so we should not delay now. 

It is tragic that the unemployment 

rate for younger returning veterans is 

so much higher than the national unemployment rate. In 2011, the unemployment rate for young male veterans 

was over 29 percent, more than 11 percent higher than nonveterans of precisely the same age. It is heartbreaking 

that those who bravely served face unemployment or homelessness. This bill 

will not solve all problems, but it will 

solve many of them. 

West Virginians understand the importance of military service. With 

nearly 170,000 West Virginian veterans, 

we need to be sure they have our full 

support: getting a job, getting health 

care, and getting their pensions. These 

words come out of one’s mouth easily; 

getting the job done is harder. 

The Veterans Job Corps Act invests 

in our veterans and in our communities. Veterans would have a new opportunity to serve and protect America 

by gaining priority placement in first 

responder positions, such as police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians. That makes sense, 

doesn’t it? Our veterans have the experience and the instinct to do these 

jobs—they did it while they served— 

and our communities need their help. 

I don’t know what is going to happen 

to the budget, but it is not going to be 

rosy and happy, and we need to have 

those jobs which help protect us and 

keep us safe in play, for our veterans 

and for others too. It would create conservation and resource management 

jobs for veterans, enlisting them in efforts to rebuild America through restoration of our forests, parks, coasts, 

and public lands. I think the Presiding 

Officer would agree that is important. 

The Veterans Job Corps Act would 

establish a pilot program to provide 

veterans with access to the Internet 

and computers to assist in job searches 

and would offer the military’s Transition Assistance Program to eligible 

veterans—and their spouses—at sites 

outside military installations in order 

to make it easier to relocate and pursue job opportunities. 

The legislation would also provide 

veterans in rural areas, such as West 

Virginia and Oregon, with greater access to career specialists to help them 

write resumes and prepare for interviews and therefore to find jobs. The 

programs in the Veterans Job Corps 

Act are supported by a fully paid-for $1 

billion investment in our veterans’ futures. It is a responsible effort to support our veterans and provide help for 

communities across America. 

In closing, I would like to especially 

thank Leader REID and Chairman MURRAY for working with me to protect 

West Virginian jobs as part of this bill. 

The Veterans Job Corps Act is an important investment in our Nation’s 

veterans and our economy, and I hope 

we can quickly move this bill through 

the Congress. 

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. KLOBUCHAR). The clerk will call the roll. 

The bill clerk proceeded to call the 

roll. 

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I 

ask unanimous consent the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I 

want to first join with the many Senators today who have strongly condemned the violent attacks against the 

men and women serving bravely in our 

diplomatic corps. The senseless murders in Libya are a reminder of the 

dangers these public servants take on 

every day and the courage they show in 

furthering our diplomatic goals all 

across the globe. We are all so grateful 

to them. My thoughts and prayers go 

out to Ambassador Chris Stevens and 

the other victims of the attack, and I 

stand with the President, as we all do, 

in supporting efforts to secure those 

who continue to serve us abroad. 

I have come to the floor today to respond to the statements that were 

made here earlier, that are completely 

inaccurate, about the bill we are currently considering on the floor, the 

Veterans Job Corps bill. In particular, 

I want to respond to the baseless and 

frankly offensive charges the Senator 

from Oklahoma made, insinuating that 

supporters of this bill don’t ‘‘really 

care about veterans’’ and that this bill 

‘‘isn’t about veterans.’’ 

I have been working on veterans 

issues in the Senate for nearly two decades and in all of that time, under 

Democratic and Republican-controlled 

Senates, under administrations of both 

parties and in times of war and peace, 

if there was one issue I have seen that 

rises above the day-to-day bomb throwing that often characterizes the debate 

here, it has been the care and benefits 

for our veterans. 

We can certainly disagree about policy, of course. We can fight with all of 

our hearts for what we think is right. 

But never—never—have I seen accusations that one party or one group was 

not fighting for what they believed to 

be right for our veterans. In fact, the 

accusations leveled on the floor here 

earlier today were one of the biggest 

departures from the spirit of cooperation around veterans issues I have seen 

in my time in the Senate. So I am here 

today to set the record straight about 

the steps this bill takes to put our veterans back to work. 

In doing so, I will not question the 

motives or the degree to which those 

who may oppose this legislation care 

for our veterans because, as chairman 

of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee myself, I see Republicans’ commitment every single day. I will not 

level allegations designed to make our 

veterans political pawns and I certainly will not mislead anyone about 

what we have set out to do. I will not 

because honestly I believe our veterans 

deserve far better. What they and the 

American people deserve is the truth. 

The truth is that caring for our veterans and helping to provide them with 

the training they need to find jobs 

when they return home is a cost of the 

wars we have fought for the last decade. The truth is that less than 1 percent of U.S. citizens serve and sacrifice 

for the well-being of the other 99 percent. The truth is that what the Senator from Oklahoma calls a charade is 

an effort to give those veterans as 

many avenues as possible to find work. 

It is an effort to give them the economic security and self-esteem that 

only a job can provide and that is so essential to their return home. 

I understand it has taken some in the 

Senate a long time to come to grips 

with the fact that our fiscal commitment we owe to those who wear the 

uniform does not end the day they are 

discharged. The truth is, it is not 

enough to give our veterans a pat on 

the back for their military service. We 

also have to give them a helping hand 

in the job market today. As the jobs report that was released last month reminds us, we have over 720,000 unemployed veterans across the Nation, including over 225,000 veterans who 

served since September 11. Despite 

what the Senator from Oklahoma may 

have said, this bill makes the resources 

available to all of them. In fact, that is 

exactly why we brought this bill forward. 

What we need right now is an ‘‘all 

hands on deck,’’ ‘‘all of the above’’ 

strategy. That is why in fact this bill 

includes both Democratic and Republican ideas. This is a bill that will increase training and hiring opportunities for all veterans, using proven job 

training programs from across the 

country. For instance, it increases 

grants under the COPS and SAFER 

Programs that we have seen work to 

train and hire qualified veterans to 

work as police officers, firefighters, 

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S6256 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 12, 2012 

and other first responders. This is at a 

time when 85 percent of law enforcement agencies were forced to reduce 

their budgets last year. It comes at a 

time when we face a $10 billion maintenance backlog for our public lands. 

This bill will help training and hire 

veterans to restore and protect our national, State, and tribal forests, our 

parks, and our other public lands. 

Because training and hiring veterans 

has never been and should never be an 

effort that divides us, we have included 

a host of Republican ideas into this 

bill. We included a bill from Senator 

TOOMEY that gives veterans increased 

access to computers and Internet tools 

to help them find jobs in in-demand 

areas in their own communities. We included a bill sponsored by Senator 

BOOZMAN that will increase transition 

assistance programs for eligible veterans and their spouses. And we included a very important provision from 

Senators on both sides of the aisle that 

will help force our States to consider 

the military experience of our veterans 

when they issue licenses and certifications—something we have all heard 

when we go home. 

We figured this comprehensive bipartisan approach would certainly be 

enough to gain Republican support, 

even if it did come as we are, of course, 

inching closer to an election. But over 

the course of the last 48 hours or so we 

have heard that Republicans, including 

Senator BURR, who is the ranking 

member of my committee, had an alternative version of the bill that Republicans wanted to push forward. The 

bill of Senator BURR includes a system 

to have States certify military experience for jobs skills and helps veterans 

get hired into the Federal workforce, 

among a number of other provisions. It 

appeared to all of us that this late alternative might derail what I believe 

can be and ought to be a bipartisan effort. But again, we are committed to 

making this a bipartisan effort. So, instead of showing our veterans that we 

are just about gridlock and partisanship, here is what we have done. 

Because, as I said before, this has to 

be an ‘‘all of the above’’ approach, we 

have, therefore, added every one of the 

provisions in the alternative offered by 

Senator BURR to our bill. Now I believe 

we have an even more bipartisan, more 

inclusive bill on the floor right now 

awaiting action. This is a bill that is 

paid for with offsets that both Republicans and Democrats have supported. 

It is a bill unquestionably that represents ideas from both sides of the 

aisle, including now from the chairman 

and the ranking member of the Senate 

Veterans’ Affairs Committee. 

There is no reason now that Republicans should not join us in passing this 

bill and passing it quickly, because this 

does not have to be an either/or situation. Neither party has the magic bullet to solve these problems, so we have 

to open as many proven opportunities 

to employment as we can. 

You know, veterans are out there 

watching and waiting. They are tired 

of excuses and they certainly have no 

stomach for the kind of political posturing they saw earlier today, that 

comes only at their expense. 

I know some Republicans have pointed to the calendar as the reason for 

their opposition to this bill. Honestly, 

I wish it were not September and we 

did not have to deal with the silly season here in Washington, DC. But who 

could care less about what month it is 

or how many days out from an election 

we are? Here is the issue: Nearly 1 million unemployed veterans are looking 

for work today. They are concerned 

about what jobs are available in their 

communities. Their concern is what 

training program they can take advantage of and what is being done to honor 

their two or three tours overseas. 

This is a bill now that offers them 

new resources to answer those questions. It is a bill that will help them 

serve their community and help them 

provide honorably for their families. I 

truly hope now, with the change we 

have added to the alternative bill offered by Senator BURR, we will have 

overcome our last hurdle before passage. 

I come to the floor today to urge Republicans to join us now in rising above 

politics as we have done time and time 

again for our veterans. Ignore the calendar and the never-ending chatter 

about who is up and who is down. That 

is not what this is about. This is about 

making sure our veterans come first 

this and every week and that we intend 

to keep our commitment to them for 

their services. 

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The bill clerk proceeded to call the 

roll. 

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I 

ask unanimous consent that the order 

for the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

WHITEHOUSE). Without objection, it is 

so ordered. 

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I 

am here to talk about the important 

Veterans Job Corps Act of 2012 that is 

on the floor of the Senate. But I did 

wish to first express my thoughts, as so 

many of my colleagues have done on 

both sides of the aisle, that I strongly 

condemn the attacks in Egypt and 

Libya. I have been deeply saddened by 

the death of our Ambassador there as 

well as several other American citizens, and I join all Americas in not 

only condemning these attacks but 

also in sending my prayers and 

thoughts to the families of those killed 

by those senseless and horrific acts of 

violence. 

On to the Veterans Corps Job Act. As 

we all know, as we have seen by this 

horrific violence and by what we have 

seen overseas and in the Mideast, our 

troops face that every single day when 

they are there, as do our diplomats. 

They face that kind of threat. When 

they come home to this country, we 

must treat them with great dignity 

and respect. 

I have always believed that when we 

ask our young men and women to fight 

in defense of our Nation, we make a 

promise that we will give them the resources they need to complete their 

mission. We also promise to take care 

of them when they come home to this 

country. When they signed up to serve, 

there was no waiting line, and when 

they come home to the United States 

of America and they need a job or they 

need health care or need an education, 

there should never be a waiting line. 

As a Senator from Minnesota, fighting for our veterans has been a major 

focus. While we do not have an ActiveDuty base, we have the fifth largest 

National Guard in the country. Given 

that our population is only 22nd in the 

country, we can see we have a lot of 

people who want to serve our country 

and sign up to serve on the frontline. 

We have worked to cut through the 

redtape and streamline credentialing 

to help servicemembers transition 

their military skills into good-paying 

jobs at home. To give just one example, 

right now returning paramedics are too 

often unable to count the medical 

training they receive in the military 

toward receiving a license to become a 

civilian emergency medical technician. 

That is why I introduced the Veterans to Paramedics Act to fix that 

problem by encouraging States to give 

paramedics credit for the medical 

training they have already received in 

the military. Not only does this help 

our veterans, it also helps relieve the 

shortage of emergency medical personnel, especially in our rural areas, 

where we have seen those shortages. 

With commonsense solutions such as 

these, we cannot only fulfill our commitment to our veterans but we can 

also help lift our economy and make 

sure people who have the skills fill the 

jobs we have available. This is what 

the Veterans Job Corps Act is all 

about, fulfilling our promise to our veterans, ensuring training and the opportunities they need to find good-paying 

jobs and strengthening our Nation in 

the process. 

To list just a few of the important 

provisions in this bill, first, the Veterans Jobs Corps Act gives veterans a 

new opportunity to serve and protect 

America by granting them prioritized 

placement in first responder positions 

such as police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians. 

Second, this bill would create conservation and resource management 

jobs for veterans, enlisting their help 

in building a stronger and more beautiful America through the restoration 

of our forests, parks, coasts, and public 

lands. 

Third, the Veterans Jobs Corps Act 

would establish a pilot program to provide veterans with access to the Internet and computers to assist in job 

searches, a key bipartisan provision 

first introduced by my colleagues 

across the aisle. 

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September 12, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6257 

Fourth, the Veterans Jobs Corps Act 

would especially help rural veterans 

find employment by granting them 

greater access to career specialists who 

can help them write re ́sume ́s, prepare 

for interviews, and find jobs. We know 

all too often the amazing experience 

and leadership experience they have 

had overseas fighting for our country 

does not always translate the terms 

and the words and the ways described 

by the re ́sume ́ into truly explaining 

what it is to a potential employer. 

That is why this skill training is so important. 

This would also allow eligible veterans and spouses to enroll in the military’s innovative Transition Assistance Program at sites outside military 

installations so they can relocate or return home in pursuit of job opportunities. This is a key benefit in my State 

of Minnesota, as I noted, which is very 

rural and also has no military bases. 

The fact is, our returning veterans 

have battle-tested skills that are available to employers in all kinds of fields. 

This is something companies in my 

State have recognized. In fact, our 

business community, small and large, 

is already leading the way in reaching 

out to servicemembers before they 

have even begun the process of 

transitioning home. In April of this 

year, when Minnesota’s 34th Infantry 

Division, known as the Red Bulls, was 

still deployed in Kuwait, representatives from several major companies in 

Minnesota actually flew into Kuwait to 

help the soldiers spruce up their 

re ́sume ́s and prepare them for job 

interviews. All across Minnesota, large 

and small companies are targeting 

their recruitment efforts on returning 

servicemembers. This is the type of initiative we need. 

In recent months, the unemployment 

rate for Minnesota veterans who have 

served since 9/11 has hit nearly 23 percent, almost double the national average for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war. An unemployment rate 

that high among the men and women 

who have served and sacrificed for our 

Nation is unacceptable, especially 

when our State’s unemployment rate 

is, in fact, at 5.8 percent. 

I truly believe that with initiatives 

such as those launched by private sector companies in our State, with training programs such as those created by 

this critical legislation, we are going 

to turn this situation around. That is 

why I am calling on all my colleagues 

to support the Veterans Jobs Corps 

Act. This important bill, which is fully 

paid for, goes a long way in providing 

our returning veterans the leg up they 

need in transitioning to the civilian 

workforce. 

Minnesota has always been a State 

that understands the debt we owe to 

men and women who have served and 

sacrificed for us. I call on all my colleagues to vote for this bill and to take 

a step toward fulfilling that debt. This 

is the least we can do for the people 

who have fought and died to protect 

our values, freedoms, democracy, and 

human rights. 

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the 

Veterans Jobs Corps bill, properly written, could be a positive piece of legislation. And I am not speaking about the 

intent of the bill, whether it can be 

done effectively, but as ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, I have 

to point out that this bill violates the 

budget. It violates the principles of 

common sense and good management, 

and it is the typical reason this government is on an unsustainable financial 

path. It is the typical reason of why we 

are going broke. 

This bill will cost $1 billion over 5 

years in spending on a new program. It 

claims to be offset by new taxes and 

new revenue sources, but my staff has 

worked on it and has confirmed there 

is a 302(f) Budget Act point of order 

against this Veterans Jobs Corps Act 

and the managers’ amendment, and I 

am confident that if and when it is 

raised, the Parliamentarian will agree. 

There is a budget point of order against 

this bill because it violates the Veterans Affairs Committee’s allocation 

for budget authority and outlays for 

what was agreed to in the Budget Control Act. 

There was a limit to how much we 

would spend on the Veterans Affairs 

Committee. They had a limit on the 

number of dollars they got. It was part 

of the August agreement—the Budget 

Control Act—of a little over a year ago 

this past August. This is serious. We 

told the American people we would 

raise the debt ceiling by about $2.1 trillion but we were going to cut spending. 

We would immediately raise the debt 

ceiling and allow $2.1 trillion more in 

spending, but we promised we would reduce spending over the next 10 years by 

that same amount. That was the agreement. The President signed it, our 

Democratic colleagues supported it, 

and it passed. The debt ceiling was 

raised, so the government continued to 

go forward. We were borrowing 40 cents 

of every dollar we spent in the U.S. 

Government. If we had not raised the 

amount of money we could borrow in 

this country, the entirety of government expenditures would have been reduced immediately by 40 percent. So 

that is how big a hole we are in. 

What this new bill does, with good 

purpose, is it spends $1 billion more 

than we agreed to spend. So then what 

occurs? What occurs is, if a person objects to that and raises the budget 

point of order, the Senate has to waive 

it openly, publicly, before the American people. We have to say we can’t 

find money within our budget to spend 

$1 billion more, but we are going to 

spend it anyway, and every penny of it 

either has to be borrowed or will be 

paid for by increased revenues somewhere. So that’s what we are going to 

vote on. I intend to raise the Budget 

Point of Order. 

But it is even worse than that. Some 

say, ‘‘Well, over 10 years we promise to 

raise enough money to pay for this, 

that over the 10-year period we will 

raise the $1 billion. Don’t worry about 

it. These tax increases and revenue enhancements will pay for it. Count on 

us.’’ 

I hate to say it, but it is not so. We 

have in this bill at least one-third the 

amount of money that would be spent 

by the jobs corps bill coming from a 

well-known gimmick, a manipulation 

of an accounting system around here 

that allows us to spend more money 

than we have, and it scores not as an 

expenditure but as being a proper, valid 

pay-for. And it is as bogus as a threedollar bill. I say without danger of contradiction that this is a gimmick. If a 

private company were to do this and 

utilize this method to manipulate and 

mislead stockholders, they would have 

a lawsuit against the officers of the 

corporation. They would. It is totally 

bogus. 

Let me explain how this is done. This 

has been done before. I have offered a 

bill called the Honest Budget Act. Senator OLYMPIA SNOWE joined me in that, 

and that would have eliminated a number of misleading gimmicks and fraudulent activities, including this one. 

Now, to explain, there is a certain corporate tax revenue we get from corporations, and the drafters of this bill 

cleverly got the idea that they could 

just accelerate the amount of money 

from fiscal year 2014 into fiscal year 

2013. They would bring that money 

back into 2013 and collect it just a little bit earlier, and they could then say: 

We have another $135 million in revenue in 2013, so we can spend that 

money, and it doesn’t cost anything because we have this new money and it is 

paid for. 

So this new Veterans Jobs Corps bill 

will be partially paid for. About onethird of its total cost will be paid for 

by collecting corporate revenue taxes 

sooner. But think about that, if the 

corporation pays its taxes a few 

months earlier—it pays it in fiscal year 

2013—then it won’t owe them in 2014, 

will it? If they were planning on paying 

them in 2014, now, they don’t have to 

pay them in 2014. So the hole has 

moved from 2013 to 2014. We moved the 

money over here, but we won’t have 

the revenue the next year that we 

would normally have had. And that is 

to be done over 5 years. 

In the fifth year—which is where our 

colleagues wanted the number to fall— 

it shows as if we had a $392 million 

total increase in revenue. The money, 

added up each year over 5 years, plus 

increases, totals $392 million. Isn’t that 

great? We didn’t raise taxes. All we did 

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S6258 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 12, 2012 

is call in a little money a little earlier, 

and we have netted $392 million, right? 

Wrong. Year 6 is where the revenue 

doesn’t come in, and in year 6 it shows 

that we will bring into the U.S. Treasury $392 million less because that 

money was collected early in the previous year—$392 million less in year 6. 

It never is a net increase to the U.S. 

Treasury, although it might appear to 

be, according to the conventions of accounting the CBO uses around here. 

And CBO knows this is true. They 

would tell anyone the same thing if 

they were to ask about this. They 

know exactly what this system is. But 

they follow their rules, and in the fifth 

year it suggests we have a $392 million 

surplus from this advance collection of 

corporate taxes, and that is not so. 

So, my colleagues, this is a problem 

for us. We do not need to continue 

down this pathway. We need to be honest with the American people. The 

President of the United States should 

be objecting to this kind of stuff. He 

should say: No, you can’t play that 

game. The majority leader, Senator 

REID, should be saying: No, that is a 

manipulation. The budget chairman, 

Senator CONRAD, ought to say: No, it 

violates the Budget Act. This isn’t the 

way to do it. 

Now, the alternative bill authored by 

Senator BURR is an honest piece of legislation and would do much of the same 

thing; however, it does not violate the 

Budget Act and is therefore not subject 

to a budget point of order. 

This legislation could have been 

crafted that way, too. But being as 

greedy as I guess we are, rather than 

having to face up to a little bit of the 

difficulty of finding a couple of hundred million dollars, out of $3.7 trillion 

we will spend next year, we would rather manipulate it this way. 

So what did we mean in August a 

year ago when we said we were going to 

cut spending by $2.1 trillion over 10 

years? Was that just a joke? Is this the 

kind of thing we are going to do every 

time a bill comes along that has some 

appeal to it and we wish to support? 

Are we not willing to stand up and pay 

for the legislation? Is there no waste, 

fraud, and abuse in this government 

that we couldn’t work on? There certainly is. 

This government is mismanaged, it is 

out of control, and the Chief Executive 

spends his days getting on an airplane 

going somewhere to make a speech. 

What we need is somebody in the shop 

managing the taxpayers’ money. And 

when Congress tries to play these gimmicks, we need a President that says, 

No. That is what this country needs. 

Until we get that, we are never going 

to bring spending under control. 

What do my President and my Democratic colleagues in the Senate say? 

Send more money. We can’t cut anything. We have no ability to find savings. We need more money, American 

people. Send more to Washington, private sector. It doesn’t make a whole 

lot of difference in an economic sense 

where it comes from. It is all a further 

drain out of the private sector, so the 

public sector can spread the money 

around and maybe solicit some votes in 

the process. 

This is how we got into this fix. I am 

concerned about it. I do not think we 

should go forward with the legislation 

as drafted. Perhaps some compromise 

can be reached. Senator BURR has 

worked hard on it. Maybe our Democratic colleagues can get together and 

put up a veterans jobs bill that is honestly paid for. I know they could. And 

if it is worth it and we can find ways to 

make the tough choices that we are 

paid to do and set priorities, and help 

veterans find jobs through some sort of 

mechanism such as this, then let’s do 

it. But let’s pay for it, and let’s don’t 

use these gimmicks. Let’s don’t go 

about it in a way that misleads the 

American people about how much the 

legislation is truly costing. 

I feel strongly about it. I am getting 

frustrated about it. It is always: Well, 

it is just a few hundred million here 

and a few hundred million there, and 

the bill needs to pass, and don’t raise 

these problems now, we are slowing 

down the machine, we have a lot of 

things to do. It doesn’t look as if we 

are so busy right now, but people think 

we have things to do and they don’t 

want to have to wrestle with the minutiae of a few hundred million dollars a 

year. But we should do that. If we do 

that every day and if we stay within 

the budget amount we agreed to last 

August, we will have made some improvement in the overall debt course of 

America. 

To make clear, the Budget Control 

Act agreement called for a reduction of 

$2.1 trillion in spending over 10 years. 

During that time, we were projected to 

spend $47 trillion. So the net reduction 

would be from $47 trillion to $45 trillion. Surely the Republic is not going 

to sink into the ocean if we reduce our 

spending from $47 trillion to $45 trillion. Surely we can find that. It is not 

enough. We need to do about three 

times that much at a minimum, and we 

can do that, too. This is still a substantial increase in spending. This is not a 

cut in spending over 10 years. At the 

current rate of spending, we spend 

about $37 trillion. So we are going from 

$47 trillion to $45 trillion over 10 years 

instead of $37 trillion over 10 years. It 

is still a major increase in spending 

over 10 years, but we are told that is 

impossible; all we can possibly do is 

$2.1 trillion in reductions. 

The President was claiming credit for 

reaching this agreement, but the budget he submitted this year wiped out the 

entire $2.1 trillion. It wiped out the entire sequester and raised taxes by $1.5 

trillion in increased spending and 

about $1.8 trillion in increased taxes; 

no cuts at all under his budget; actually a spending increase over the trajectory we were already on, which is an 

unsustainable trajectory. 

I know I am being frank about this. 

Some can say this is a political argument. Well, we are in a political season, and I believe what I have said is 

accurate. I believe what I have said is 

true. I believe a budget point of order 

lies against this bill because it spends 

more than the Veterans’ Affairs is allocated to spend, and we need to vote on 

it. It is this kind of breaking the budget and spending more than we agreed 

that has helped put us in this fix, and 

we need somebody to help bring order 

out of chaos. 

We are on an unsustainable path. 

This Nation is on the wrong track. We 

are on the track to decline and debt 

and financial crisis, not the road to 

prosperity. We cannot continue in this 

path. 

Erskine Bowles and Senator Simpson 

before the Budget Committee told us 

that we have never faced in this country a more predictable debt crisis. That 

was their joint statement, ‘‘never faced 

a more predictable financial crisis.’’ 

What they told us was: We are on an 

unsustainable path. If we stay on this 

path, we will have some sort of debt 

crisis, another 2008 or 2007 recession 

caused by a financial bubble. And for 

the U.S. Government, what a disaster 

that would be if, as we are struggling 

to get people back to work and get the 

economy on the rise, we have a financial crisis again putting us back into 

recession. We need to avoid that. We 

have got to be mature and honest 

about our money. We have got to get 

our debt under control. 

This bill violates the deemed allocations included in the Budget Control 

Act. It violates sound principles of financial policy. It contains a major 

gimmick, really a bogus allocation of 

over $300 million that claims to exist 

that does not exist at all. We need to 

fix that. 

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to share these remarks. 

I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent the order for the 

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

RECESS 

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent the Senate stand in 

recess subject to the call of the Chair. 

There being no objection, the Senate, 

at 5:54 p.m., recessed until 8:46 p.m., 

and reassembled when called to order 

by the Presiding Officer (Mr. 

MERKLEY). 

f 

VETERANS JOBS CORPS ACT OF 

2012—MOTION TO PROCEED 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time 

having expired, the question is on 

agreeing to the motion. 

Mr. REID. I ask for the yeas and 

nays. 

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