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`Congressional Record
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`United States
`of America
`
`PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 112th
`
` CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION
`
`Vol. 157
`
`WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2011
`
`No. 132
`
`The Senate met at 9:30 a.m. and was
`called to order by the Honorable TOM
`UDALL, a Senator from the State of
`New Mexico.
`
`PRAYER
`
`The Chaplain, Dr. Barry C. Black, of-
`fered the following prayer:
`Let us pray.
`Lord God, through whom we find lib-
`erty and peace, lead us in Your right-
`eousness and make the way straight
`before our lawmakers. As they grapple
`with complex issues and feel the need
`for guidance, lead them to the deci-
`sions that will best glorify You. Look-
`ing to You to guide them, may they
`not be overwhelmed, remembering that
`in everything You are working for the
`good of those who love You.
`May Your good blessings continue to
`be with us, and may we, in response to
`Your abiding love, ever seek to do jus-
`tice, love mercy, and walk humbly
`with You.
`We pray in Your sacred Name. Amen.
`
`f
`
`PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
`
`The Honorable TOM UDALL led the
`Pledge of Allegiance, as follows:
`I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the
`United States of America, and to the Repub-
`lic for which it stands, one nation under God,
`indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
`
`f
`
`APPOINTMENT OF ACTING
`PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE
`
`The PRESIDING OFFICER. The
`clerk will please read a communication
`to the Senate from the President pro
`tempore (Mr. INOUYE).
`The legislative clerk read the fol-
`lowing letter:
`
`U.S. SENATE,
`PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE,
`Washington, DC, September 8, 2011.
`To the Senate:
`Under the provisions of rule I, paragraph 3,
`of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby
`appoint the Honorable TOM UDALL, a Senator
`
`Senate
`
`from the State of New Mexico, to perform
`the duties of the Chair.
`DANIEL K. INOUYE,
`President pro tempore.
`Mr. UDALL of New Mexico thereupon
`assumed the chair as Acting President
`pro tempore.
`
`f
`
`RECOGNITION OF THE MAJORITY
`LEADER
`
`The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
`pore. The majority leader is recog-
`nized.
`
`f
`
`SCHEDULE
`
`Mr. REID. Mr. President, following
`any leader remarks, there will be 1
`hour of morning business, with the Re-
`publicans controlling the first half and
`the majority controlling the final half.
`Following morning business, the Sen-
`ate will resume consideration of the
`America Invents Act. There will be
`four rollcall votes starting about 4 p.m.
`That time could move a little bit but
`not much. We are doing that in order
`to complete action on this patent bill
`that is so important for the country. It
`will be the first revision of this law in
`more than six decades.
`Senators should gather in the Senate
`Chamber about 6:30 this evening to pro-
`ceed as a body to the House for the
`joint session with President Obama.
`When we return this evening, there will
`be an additional rollcall vote on the
`motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 25,
`which is a joint resolution of dis-
`approval regarding the debt limit in-
`crease. As I indicated to everyone last
`night, if the motion to proceed pre-
`vails, we will be back tomorrow to
`complete that work, and that could
`take as much as 10 hours tomorrow. If
`the motion to proceed fails, then we
`will have other things to do tomorrow
`but there will be no votes.
`
`MEASURE PLACED ON THE
`CALENDAR—S.J. RES 26
`
`Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am told
`that S.J. Res. 26 is due for a second
`reading.
`The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
`pore. The clerk will report the joint
`resolution by title for the second time.
`The assistant legislative read as fol-
`lows:
`A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 26) expressing
`the sense of Congress that Secretary of the
`Treasury Timothy Geithner no longer holds
`the confidence of Congress or of the people of
`the United States.
`Mr. REID. Mr. President, I object to
`any further proceedings with respect to
`this resolution.
`The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
`pore. Objection is heard. The bill will
`be placed on the calendar under rule
`XIV.
`
`f
`
`JOBS AGENDA
`
`Mr. REID. Mr. President, tonight, be-
`fore a joint session of Congress, Presi-
`dent Obama will address the Nation on
`the single most important issue facing
`our country: the unemployment crisis
`we have before us. I look forward to
`hearing the specifics of his plan. I have
`spoken to him, and I have a pretty
`good idea of what he is going to talk
`about.
`I support his goal to create good jobs
`for the 14 million people who have no
`jobs. This is a time of dark economic
`times, and it is important that we do
`this. I applaud the commonsense, bi-
`partisan approach the President will
`unveil tonight to invest in badly need-
`ed infrastructure and to cut taxes for
`working families and small businesses
`to spur job creation.
`These are ideas around which Mem-
`bers of both parties should rally. Re-
`publicans have always supported tax
`cuts. They have done it in the past, and
`they agree we must bring America’s in-
`frastructure up to 21st-century stand-
`ards. I hope that in fact is the case. But
`
`∑ This ‘‘bullet’’ symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the Senate on the floor.
`
`S5395
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`

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`S5396
`
`CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE
`
`September 8, 2011
`
`if my Republican friends oppose these
`proposals now—proposals they have
`supported in the past—the reason will
`be very clear: partisan politics. Repub-
`licans seem convinced that a failing
`economy is good for their politics.
`They think that if they kill every jobs
`bill and stall every effort to revive the
`economy, President Obama will lose.
`My good friend the Republican leader
`has said so. He has said the Republican
`Party’s No. 1 goal in this Congress is to
`defeat the President. But Republicans
`aiming at the President have caught
`innocent Americans in the crossfire.
`This week, Republican leaders have
`said they want to work with the Presi-
`dent and Democrats in Congress. They
`want to work on job creation in a bi-
`partisan way, they say. I hope that in
`fact is the case, but their actions over
`the last 8 months speak much louder
`than their words of the last few days.
`For example, Republicans opposed
`the reauthorization of the Small Busi-
`ness Innovation Research Program and
`the Economic Development Adminis-
`tration. Both have proven
`track
`records of spurring innovation, encour-
`aging entrepreneurship, and creating
`jobs. Republicans were willing to put
`more than 1⁄2 million Americans’ jobs
`at risk and, in fact, eliminate those
`jobs rather than work with us to pass
`that legislation.
`The Senate passed much needed pat-
`ent reform in March. Yet House Repub-
`licans stalled for months before send-
`ing us back their version of the bill,
`which we will vote on today. I am
`hopeful we can send it back to the
`House untouched.
`Republicans wasted weeks threat-
`ening to shut down the economy this
`spring. They held our economy hostage
`for months this summer over a routine
`vote on whether to pay the Nation’s
`bills. Congress took the same vote 18
`times while President Reagan was
`President and 7 times while George W.
`Bush was President and never was the
`vote time-consuming or contentious.
`Through it all, Republicans hacked
`away at funding for the very programs
`that were helping to get this Nation’s
`economy back on its feet.
`The results of their stall tactics, ob-
`structionism, and mindless budget cuts
`are beginning to show. Although the
`private sector created jobs for the 18th
`month in a row, August saw no change
`in the national unemployment rate.
`Unemployment in Nevada is still the
`highest in the Nation. But in spite of
`all this, the Republicans have refused
`to allow us to focus on unemployment.
`As Democrats introduced jobs bill after
`jobs bill, Republicans made it clear
`they were more interested in pursuing
`a political agenda than a jobs agenda.
`We will no longer allow our Repub-
`lican colleagues to put politics ahead
`of the American people. There are two
`things we must get done this work pe-
`riod and both will create and save jobs
`immediately. We need to reauthorize
`the Federal Aviation Administration
`to protect both air travelers and air-
`
`line workers—that is 80,000 jobs—and
`we must pass a highway bill to fund
`construction projects across the Na-
`tion. These two bills combined will
`save about 2 million jobs, including
`many jobs in the struggling construc-
`tion industry, and it will do it now. But
`we need Republican help. We can’t get
`it done without them. This is their
`chance to prove they remember the
`meaning of the word ‘‘bipartisan.’’ It is
`time for necessity to trump ideology.
`Senator Robert Byrd once said, ‘‘Pot-
`holes know no parties.’’ The challenges
`this Nation faces today are greater
`than any speed bump, but the road to
`recovery is the same: cooperation. Par-
`tisanship will not solve our jobs crisis,
`but setting aside politics in service to
`our country certainly will.
`Mr. President, we have been able to
`move forward this week and get some
`work done. I especially appreciate very
`much the work of Senator KYL, who is
`the Republican whip. His work to put
`the patent bill in the position it is in
`so we can finish that bill today—we
`certainly hope to be able to do that—
`has been very exemplary, and I appre-
`ciate it very much.
`Next week, likely, our first vote will
`be to do something about FEMA—the
`Federal Emergency Management Agen-
`cy—which is broke. We have had a
`string of natural catastrophes that
`have been just awful—Irene, Lee, and
`tornadoes that don’t have names, but
`the one that struck Joplin, MO, killed
`almost 200 people and devastated that
`town.
`I went down to S–120 last night, and
`they had a number of scientists show-
`ing some of the things they have devel-
`oped. One of the things they have de-
`veloped—and these are things they
`have done at universities, handmade
`pieces of magnificent equipment that
`do many things—is something they can
`place in the path of a storm—they have
`never been able to do that before—to
`determine from which direction the
`wind is coming and how hard it blows.
`Without belaboring the point, one of
`the instruments there recorded the
`strongest winds ever recorded in the
`history of the world—more than 300
`miles an hour. That is basically what
`we had in Joplin, MO. There is no
`building that can withstand that. It is
`devastating.
`The pictures you see of Joplin, MO,
`look like a series of bombs hit. Every
`building was affected, most of them
`knocked down. The reason I mention
`that is that FEMA has stopped work in
`Joplin, MO. People were there working
`for $9 an hour, just putting things back
`into some semblance of order, but that
`work has stopped. FEMA has had to
`look at the places that are impacted
`right now. They are still trying to get
`the water out of some places because of
`Lee and to restore some of the imme-
`diate damage done by Irene. We have to
`do something to replenish that money.
`I was happy to see some of the state-
`ments from one of the Republican lead-
`ers in the House yesterday in effect
`
`changing his position on how all this
`has to be paid for. As we speak, we are
`spending billions of dollars every week
`in Iraq and Afghanistan. I understand
`that. But that is all unpaid for—unpaid
`for.
`Certainly, we have to do something
`to help the American people in an
`emergency and figure out some other
`way in the future to look at how to
`handle other disasters. We try to
`prefund what we think will happen as a
`result of disasters, but these are acts of
`God—that is what we learn in law
`school—these hurricanes and tornadoes
`and floods. Along the Mississippi River,
`we have more than 3 million acres un-
`derwater. This is farmland. It is not
`just vacant land, it is farmland under-
`water. These people need help, and the
`Federal Government can help them. So
`we need to do that, and that is why we
`will have a vote, as soon as I can ar-
`range it next week, on funding FEMA
`so they can continue doing the work
`that is so important for our country.
`Mr. President, I suggest the absence
`of a quorum.
`The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
`pore. The clerk will call the roll.
`The assistant legislative clerk pro-
`ceeded to call the roll.
`Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, I
`ask unanimous consent that the order
`for the quorum call be rescinded.
`The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
`pore. Without objection, it is so or-
`dered.
`
`f
`
`RECOGNITION OF THE MINORITY
`LEADER
`
`The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
`pore. The minority leader is recog-
`nized.
`
`f
`
`ECONOMIC CLIMATE
`
`Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President,
`later today both Houses of Congress
`will welcome President Obama to
`speak about a very serious crisis we
`face as a nation, namely, an economic
`climate that is making it impossible
`for millions of Americans to find the
`work they need to support themselves
`and their families.
`In a two-party system such as ours,
`it shouldn’t be surprising that there
`would be two very different points of
`view about how to solve this particular
`crisis. What is surprising is the Presi-
`dent’s apparent determination to apply
`the same government-driven policies
`that have already been tried and failed.
`The definition of insanity, as Albert
`Einstein once famously put it, is to do
`the same thing over and over again and
`to expect a different result. Frankly, I
`can’t think of a better description of
`anyone who thinks the solution to this
`problem is another stimulus. The first
`stimulus didn’t do it. Why would an-
`other?
`This is one question the White House
`and a number of Democrats clearly
`don’t want to answer. That is why
`some of them are out there coaching
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`September 8, 2011
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`CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE
`
`S5397
`
`people not to use the word ‘‘stimulus’’
`when describing the President’s plan.
`Others are accusing anybody who criti-
`cizes it of being unpatriotic or playing
`politics. Well, as I have said before,
`there is a much simpler reason to op-
`pose the President’s economic policies
`that has nothing whatsoever to do with
`politics: They simply don’t work. Yet,
`by all accounts, the President’s so-
`called jobs plan is to try those very
`same policies again and then accuse
`anyone who doesn’t support them this
`time around of being political or overly
`partisan, of not doing what is needed in
`this moment of crisis.
`This isn’t a jobs plan. It is a reelec-
`tion plan. That is why Republicans
`have continued to press for policies,
`policies that empower job creators, not
`Washington.
`According to the Wall Street Jour-
`nal, nearly a third of the unemployed
`have been out of work for more than a
`year. The average length of unemploy-
`ment is now greater than 40 weeks,
`higher than it was even during the
`Great Depression. As we know, the
`longer you are out of a job, the harder
`it is to find one. That means, for mil-
`lions of Americans, this crisis is get-
`ting harder every day. It is getting
`worse and worse.
`We also know this: The economic
`policies this President has tried have
`not alleviated the problem. In many
`ways, in fact, they have made things
`worse. Gas prices are up. The national
`debt is up. Health insurance premiums
`are up. Home values in most places
`continue to fall. And, 21⁄2 years after
`the President’s signature jobs bill was
`signed into law, 1.7 million fewer
`Americans have jobs. So I would say
`Americans have 1.7 million reasons to
`oppose another stimulus. That is why
`many of us have been calling on the
`President to propose something en-
`tirely different tonight—not because of
`politics but because the kind of poli-
`cies he has proposed in the past haven’t
`worked. The problem here isn’t poli-
`tics. The problem is the policy. It is
`time the President start thinking less
`about how to describe his policies dif-
`ferently and more time thinking about
`devising new policies. And he might
`start by working with Congress instead
`of writing in secret, without any con-
`sultation with Republicans, a plan that
`the White House is calling bipartisan.
`With 14 million Americans out of
`work, job creation should be a no-poli-
`tics zone. Republicans stand ready to
`act on policies that get the private sec-
`tor moving again. What we are reluc-
`tant to do, however, is to allow the
`President to put us deeper in debt to fi-
`nance a collection of short-term fixes
`or shots in the arm that might move
`the needle today but which deny Amer-
`ica’s job creators the things they need
`to solve this crisis—predictability, sta-
`bility, fewer government burdens, and
`less redtape. Because while this crisis
`may have persisted for far too long and
`caused far too much hardship, one
`thing we do have right now is the ben-
`
`efit of hindsight. We know what
`doesn’t work.
`So tonight the President should take
`a different approach. He should ac-
`knowledge the failures of an economic
`agenda that centers on government and
`spending and debt, and work across the
`aisle on a plan that puts people and
`businesses at the forefront of job cre-
`ation.
`If the American people are going to
`have control over their own destiny,
`they need to have more control over
`their economy. That means shifting
`the center of gravity away from Wash-
`ington and toward those who create
`jobs. It means putting an end to the
`regulatory overreach that is holding
`job creators back. It means being as
`bold about liberating job creators as
`the administration has been about
`shackling them. It means reforming an
`outdated Tax Code and getting out of
`the business of picking winners and
`losers. It means lowering the U.S. cor-
`porate tax rate, which is currently the
`second highest in the world. And it
`means leveling the playing field with
`our competitors overseas by approving
`free trade agreements with Colombia,
`Panama, and South Korea that have
`been languishing on the President’s
`desk literally for years.
`Contrary to the President’s claims,
`this economic approach isn’t aimed at
`pleasing any one party or constitu-
`ency. It is aimed at giving back to the
`American people the tools they need to
`do the work Washington has not been
`able to do on its own, despite its best
`efforts over the past few years.
`The President is free to blame his po-
`litical adversaries, his predecessor, or
`even natural disasters for America’s
`economic challenges. Tonight, he may
`blame any future challenges on those
`who choose not to rubberstamp his lat-
`est proposals. But it should be noted
`that this is precisely what Democratic
`majorities did during the President’s
`first 2 years in office, and look where
`that got us. But here is the bottom
`line: By the President’s own standards,
`his jobs agenda has been a failure, and
`we can’t afford to make the same mis-
`take twice.
`After the President’s speech tonight
`calling for more stimulus spending, the
`Senate will vote on his request for an
`additional $500 billion increase in the
`debt limit, so Senators will have an op-
`portunity to vote for or against this
`type of approach right away.
`Mr. President, I yield the floor.
`
`f
`
`RESERVATION OF LEADER TIME
`
`The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
`pore. Under the previous order, the
`leadership time is reserved.
`
`f
`
`MORNING BUSINESS
`
`The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
`pore. Under the previous order, the
`Senate will be in a period of morning
`business for 1 hour, with Senators per-
`mitted to speak therein for up to 10
`
`minutes each, with the time equally di-
`vided and controlled between the two
`leaders or their designees, with the Re-
`publicans controlling the first half and
`the majority controlling the final half.
`The Senator from Nebraska is recog-
`nized.
`(The remarks of Mr. JOHANNS and Mr.
`ALEXANDER pertaining to the introduc-
`tion of S. 1528 are printed in today’s
`RECORD under Statements on Intro-
`duced Bills and Joint Resolutions.)
`Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I
`believe I have up to 20 minutes?
`The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is
`161⁄2 minutes remaining on the Repub-
`lican side.
`Mr. ALEXANDER. Will the Chair
`please let me know when 5 minutes is
`remaining.
`The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
`
`f
`
`PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
`
`Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, to-
`night we welcome President Obama to
`the Congress to deliver a jobs address.
`The President will be coming at a time
`when we have had persistent unem-
`ployment at a greater rate than at any
`time since the Great Depression. No
`one should blame our President for
`problems with an economy that he in-
`herited, but the President should take
`responsibility for making the economy
`worse.
`Unemployment is up. The debt is up.
`Housing values are down. The morning
`paper reports we may be on our way—
`at least the chances are 50–50, the
`newspaper says this morning—to a dou-
`ble-dip recession. The number of unem-
`ployed Americans is up about 2 million
`since the President took office. The
`amount of Federal debt is up about $4
`trillion.
`As I mentioned in discussing the pro-
`posals of the Senator from Nebraska,
`the President’s policies, rather than
`helping over the last 21⁄2 years, have
`thrown a big wet blanket over private
`sector job creation. They have made it
`more expensive and more difficult for
`the private sector to create jobs for
`Americans.
`Let me be specific about that. The
`President chose, 2 years ago, rather
`than to focus exclusively on jobs, to
`focus on health care. His proposal was
`to expand a health care delivery sys-
`tem that already cost too much, that
`was already too expensive. So we have
`new health care taxes and mandates
`that make the economy worse.
`Why do I say that? I met, for exam-
`ple, with the chief executive officers of
`several of the nation’s largest res-
`taurant companies. They reminded me
`that restaurants and hospitality orga-
`nizations in the United States are the
`largest employers, outside of govern-
`ment, and that their employees are
`mostly young and mostly low income.
`One of the chief executives said be-
`cause of the mandates of the health
`care law it would take all of his profits
`from last year to pay the costs, when it
`is fully implemented, so he will not be
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`CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE
`
`September 8, 2011
`
`investing in any new restaurants in the
`United States. Another said they oper-
`ate with 90 employees per store, but as
`a result of the mandates and taxes in
`the health care law, their goal will be
`to operate with 70 employees per store.
`One of the largest employers is saying
`instead of having 90 employees per
`store, we are going to have 70. That
`doesn’t help create new jobs in the
`United States.
`Let’s take the debt. The President in-
`herited the debt but he has made it
`worse. The economists who look at
`debt say we are heading toward a level
`that will cost us, in the United States,
`1 million jobs every year.
`Undermining the right-to-work law—
`the President’s appointees to the Na-
`tional Labor Relations Board have told
`the Nation’s largest manufacturer of
`large airplanes that they cannot build
`a plant in South Carolina. It is the
`first new plant to build large airplanes
`in 40 years in this country. The Boeing
`Company sells those airplanes every-
`where in the world. It could build them
`anywhere in the world. We want them
`to build them in the United States.
`Those kinds of actions by the National
`Labor Relations Board make it worse.
`Regulations that put a big wet blan-
`ket over job creation, such as the one
`the Senator
`from Nebraska talks
`about, make it worse. The President’s
`refusal to send trade agreements to
`Congress makes it worse. Let’s be clear
`about this. Since the day the President
`took office, he has had on his desk
`three trade agreements, already signed
`by both countries. They simply need
`approval by Congress—one with Pan-
`ama, one with South Korea, one with
`Colombia. We are ready to approve
`them in a bipartisan way if he will send
`them here. What will that mean in
`Tennessee? We make a lot of auto parts
`in Tennessee. We can sell them to
`South Korea. At the present time, Eu-
`ropeans sell them to South Korea at a
`lower price because of the tariff situa-
`tion, because the President has not
`sent the three trade agreements to
`Congress. So all these steps have made
`the economy worse. Of course, with a
`bad economy home values have stayed
`down. That is making it worse, too.
`So what can we do about this? What
`are the kinds of things the President
`could talk about tonight and that we
`could work on together to make it
`easier and cheaper to create private
`sector jobs? We could change the tax
`structure in a permanent way, not
`short-term fixes but long-term low-
`ering of tax rates for everyone, closing
`loopholes, creating a situation where
`our businesses are more competitive in
`the world marketplace. That is one
`thing we could do.
`We could stop the avalanche of regu-
`lations that is throwing the big wet
`blanket over job growth. The Senator
`from Nebraska suggested a few—a mor-
`atorium on new regulations; avoiding
`guidance, as he suggested, that cir-
`cumvents the rules or regulations;
`stopping wacky ideas such as regu-
`
`lating farm dust, as if everybody did
`not know that all farms create dust.
`More exports—the President could
`send, today, the three trade agree-
`ments to Congress. We could ratify
`them and then crops grown in Ten-
`nessee and Nebraska and every other
`State in this country, and auto parts,
`and medical devices, could be sold
`around the world. Our State alone has
`$23 billion and tens of thousands of jobs
`tied up in exports. This could add to
`that.
`In addition to that, we could agree on
`advanced research. The President’s rec-
`ommendations have been good on that.
`But we should agree on that and move
`ahead with appropriations bills and a
`fiscal situation that permits us to do
`the kind of advanced research we need
`to do to create jobs.
`We need to fix No Child Left Behind.
`Better schools mean better jobs. We
`need a long-term highway bill. We need
`roads and bridges in order to have the
`kind of country we want. We need to
`find more American energy and use
`less. We should be able to agree on
`that.
`There is an agenda, not of more
`spending, not of more taxes, not of
`more regulation, but an agenda that
`would make it easier and cheaper to
`create private sector jobs and get the
`economy moving again.
`In another time a President named
`Eisenhower said ‘‘I should go to Korea’’
`and he was elected President. He went
`to Korea before he was inaugurated and
`then he said ‘‘I shall focus my time on
`this single objective until I see it all
`the way through to the end.’’ The coun-
`try felt good about that, they had con-
`fidence in him, he did that, and the Ko-
`rean war was ended.
`President Obama chose, instead of fo-
`cusing on jobs 21⁄2 years ago in the
`same sort of Presidential way, to ex-
`pand a health care delivery system
`that already was too expensive and in
`fact makes the problem worse. Tonight
`is an opportunity to make it better and
`we are ready to join with him in doing
`that, especially if he were to rec-
`ommend lower tax rates, fewer loop-
`holes on a permanent basis, fewer regu-
`lations, and if he were to send the
`three trade agreements to us to ratify.
`I wish to turn my attention to a dif-
`ferent subject. September 11 is Sunday.
`I listened carefully, as most of us in
`the Senate do, to words that seem to
`resonate with my audiences. I have
`consistently found there is one sen-
`tence that I usually cannot finish with-
`out the audience interrupting me be-
`fore breaking into applause, and it is
`this: ‘‘It is time to put the teaching of
`American history and civics back into
`its rightful place in our schools so our
`children can grow up learning what it
`means to be an American.’’ The terror-
`ists who attacked us on September 11
`were not just lashing out at buildings
`and people. They were attacking who
`we are as Americans. Most Americans
`know this, and that is why there has
`been a national hunger for leadership
`
`and discussion about our values. Par-
`ents know our children are not being
`taught our common culture and our
`shared values.
`National tests show that three-
`fourths of the Nation’s 4th, 8th, and
`12th graders are not proficient in civics
`knowledge, and one-third don’t even
`have basic knowledge, making them
`civic illiterates. That is why I made
`making American history and civics
`the subject of my maiden speech when
`I first came to the Senate in 2003, and
`by a vote of 90 to 0 the Senate passed
`my bill to create summer residential
`academies for outstanding teachers of
`American history and civics. Every
`year I bring them on the Senate floor,
`and those teachers from all over our
`country have a moment to think about
`this Senate. They usually go find a
`desk of the Senator from Alaska, if
`they are an Alaskan teacher, or the
`Senator from Tennessee, or Daniel
`Webster’s desk, or Jefferson Davis’s
`desk, and they stop and think about
`our country in a special way.
`The purpose of those teachers is bet-
`ter teaching, and the purpose of the
`academy is more learning of key
`events, key persons, key ideas, and key
`documents that shape the institutions
`of the democratic heritage of the
`United States.
`If I were teaching about September
`11, these are some of the issues I would
`ask my students to consider. No. 1, is
`September 11 the worst thing that ever
`happened to the United States? Of
`course the answer is no, but I am sur-
`prised by the number of people who say
`yes. It saddens me to realize that those
`who make such statements were never
`properly taught about American his-
`tory. Many doubted that we would win
`the Revolutionary War. The British
`sacked Washington and burned the
`White House to the ground in the War
`of 1812. In the Civil War we lost more
`Americans than in any other conflict,
`with brother fighting against brother.
`The list goes on. Children should know
`why we made those sacrifices and
`fought for the values that make us ex-
`ceptional.
`The second question I would talk
`about is, What makes America excep-
`tional? I began the first session of a
`course I taught at Harvard’s Kennedy
`School of Government 10 or 11 years
`ago by making a list of 100 ways Amer-
`ica is exceptional, unique—not always
`better
`but
`unique.
`America’s
`exceptionalism has been a source of
`fascination ever since Tocqueville’s
`trip across America in 1830 when he
`met Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie on
`the Mississippi River. His book, ‘‘De-
`mocracy in America,’’ is the best de-
`scription of America’s unique ideals in
`action. Another outstanding text is
`‘‘American Exceptionalism’’ by Sey-
`mour Martin Lipset.
`A third question I ask my students
`is, Why is it you cannot become Japa-
`nese or French, but you must become
`an American? If I were to immigrate to
`Japan, I could not become Japanese. I
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`September 8, 2011
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`CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE
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`S5399
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`would always be an American living in
`Japan. But if a Japanese citizen came
`here, they could become an American,
`and we would welcome that person
`with open arms. Why? It is because our
`identity is not based on ethnicity but
`on a creed of ideas and values in which
`most of us believe.
`The story Richard Hofstadter wrote:
`It is our fate as a nation not to have
`ideologies, but to be one.
`To become American citizens immi-
`grants must take a test demonstrating
`their knowledge of American history
`and civics.
`Fourth, what are the principles that
`unite us as Americans? In Thanks-
`giving remarks after the September 11
`attacks, President George W. Bush
`praised our Nation’s response to terror.
`‘‘I call it the American character,’’ he
`said.
`Former Vice President Gore, in his
`speech after the attacks, said:
`We should fight for the values that bind us
`together as a country.
`In my Harvard course that I men-
`tioned, we put together a list of some
`of those values: liberty, e. pluribus
`unum, equal opportunity,
`individ-
`ualism, rule of law, free exercise of re-
`ligion, separation of church and state,
`laissez-faire, and the belief in progress,
`the idea that anyone can do anything