Executive Session

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, this morning our Democratic leader, Senator Reid, and the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and talked about sequestration. Sequestration had an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 74 to 26. What it said was if Congress, on a bipartisan basis, could not reach an agreement on budget reduction, then automatic spending cuts would go into place.

Unfortunately, we did not reach that agreement. The spending cuts, known as sequestration, went into place, and for the last month or so there has been speculation as to whether anybody would notice.

People are starting to notice because across this country changes are taking place. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to cut about 5 percent from their operating budget, such as salaries for employees. Because it is being done in a 6-month period, it turns out to be a 10-percent cut.

What that means, for example, is one of the largest groups of employees in the FAA, the air traffic controllers, is going to go without pay 1 day out of every 10 working days. So with fewer air traffic controllers on the job and fewer people able to direct flights, we have noticed this week that flights are starting to slow down across the country. The FAA estimates that some 6,800 flights a day will be delayed. We have already started feeling that because air traffic controllers are being laid off due to the sequestration plan.

Putting that into perspective, on the worst day of last year, because of weather, 3,000 flights were delayed. Now, on a regular daily basis more than twice that number will be delayed because of the reduction in force of air traffic controllers due to the sequestration passed by Congress.

Senators are coming to the floor and looking for relief from that. Some on the other side are arguing if the Secretary of Transportation just had the power to pick and choose within his Department, he might be able to avoid these layoffs. I don't know if that is true, but I will say that making these cuts at the end of a fiscal year is going to create hardship in a lot of different departments and agencies.

I heard one of my colleagues from Indiana come to the floor and say families face this all the time, and they have to make cutbacks. That is true. I have had that happen with my own family. They also want to make certain, if they can, to get through tough periods without cutting into the essentials of life, such as prescription drugs, paying the mortgage, and paying the utility bills. We need to make this a thoughtful effort to avoid sequestration.

The Democratic leader, Senator Reid, has proposed that we, in fact, defer this sequestration through the remainder of this fiscal year, until October 1. To make up the costs, he uses the overseas contingency fund. This was a fund created to pay for our wars overseas, and thank goodness Iraq has been closed down as an act of war and Afghanistan is in the process. So there will be a surplus of money in this fund--some $600 billion--that otherwise had been anticipated to be spent.

What the majority leader suggested is that we take a small part of that and use it so we can avoid the impact of sequestration and go back to business as usual for the remainder of this year.

I happen to think sequestration is not a good policy. We need a better approach and more thoughtful approach, and this will give us a chance. We can take the funds that otherwise would be spent overseas--on a war that, thank goodness, will not be there--and instead use them at home to avoid some hardships which have just been described.

So now we hear from the Republican side that they don't think this is a viable alternative. They question whether there is an overseas contingency account. The irony is that Congressman Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, included the same money in his Republican budget. Senator McConnell, who was critical of it today, said back in April 2011:

Today, the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Paul Ryan, is releasing a serious and detailed plan for getting our nation's fiscal house in order.

That serious plan, I might remind Senator McConnell, included just the funding that Senator Reid is asking for. So we are not asking for something the Republicans have not already stood up and embraced. Instead, we are saying let's deal with the national challenges and national emergencies and let's deal with them with the money that would otherwise be spent overseas.

MARKETPLACE FAIRNESS ACT

After we have finished the vote on the judge, I am hoping this important issue will leave us in a position to move to proceed to the underlying bill, the Marketplace Fairness Act. This is a bill that Senator Enzi of Wyoming and I have introduced in an effort to bring some equity and fairness when it comes to the collection of sales tax.

Currently, in the United States, Internet retailers are not required by law to collect sales tax from sales in States that have a sales tax, and that is about 45 or 46 States. The Supreme Court told us 20 years ago if remote sales--catalog sales and Internet sales--are to collect sales tax, Congress has to pass the law to do it. That is what this is. We have been waiting 20 years. In the meantime, it has created some serious problems.

First, Internet retailers have an advantage over the brick-and-mortar businesses in communities. They have an advantage because the Internet retailers don't collect sales tax, so there is an automatic discount on whatever the State sales tax might be--6, 8, 9, or 10 percent. This has caused many of the stores on Main Street and in shopping malls to face competition that is unfair and sometimes forces them into closing their businesses.

We are trying to level the playing field and say: If you sell into a State such as Illinois, you will collect our sales tax on the sales to Illinoisans buying your products, period.

The debate has come up over the States which have no sales tax. Let me make it clear: There is nothing in the Marketplace Fairness bill which will impose any new Federal tax or any sales tax beyond what is currently in the law in every State in the union.

If a State, such as Oregon, Montana, New Hampshire, Delaware, even Alaska, has no State sales tax, this bill will not change it. The

residents of those States will not be compelled to pay a sales tax either over the counter or over the Internet. If a retailer that happens to be located in one of those States sells into a State with a sales tax, we will provide, free of charge, the software for them to collect the sales tax and remit it to the State where the purchase was made.

There have been arguments that this is too complicated; that there are 9,000 different taxing districts. I just have to say that with software available today, what we are suggesting is something that is easily done without great cost. In fact, in this bill we are requiring the States to provide software to the Internet retailers free of charge so they can collect the sales tax as it is charged on each Internet purchase.

There have been suggestions by some that we ought to carve out some States; that we ought to say this new law will apply to some States but not to other States. The States and their businesses have to volunteer to collect a sales tax for another State.

I cannot accept that. It is worse than the current situation.

In the current situation, the store on Main Street is competing with an Internet retailer that doesn't collect a sales tax. This carve-out approach would say not only will we discriminate against those shops on Main Street, other Internet retailers which are not in the State that is carved out have to collect sales tax, but those in the carve-out State don't. So it makes for an even more inequitable situation. I could not accept it.

I might say the Presiding Officer, who has quite a history on this issue, having been one of the parties to the Quill Supreme Court decision, also made the point that we ought to take care; the standard we set for the collection of sales tax is likely to be used in the next trade negotiation with a country that is trying to establish their rules when it comes to competition on Internet commerce.

So if the collection of sales tax is required across the board in America, the same can be asked in our trade agreements with other countries. If we don't do that, we run the risk that the carve-out becomes the exception that makes the rule in the next trade agreement, which is something that would be totally unfair to American companies.

So that is where we stand. What I said yesterday, I will repeat now. At noon today we will move to proceed to this bill. I have urged my colleagues to come forward with amendments if they have them. If they don't, that is fine. But if they do, bring them forward. Let's not delay this issue.

We are in the last week before a recess. Members have plans back in their States for the weekend, and we want to make sure they can keep those plans. Those Members who have an amendment to this bill should step forward with their suggestions immediately after the vote on the motion to proceed.

Members should bring their amendments to the Senate floor. Don't wait. It is important that we do this on a regular basis so we can debate those amendments which need to be debated and vote on them, which is almost how a Senate is supposed to do it. That is what we face.

I urge those who are holding back their amendments and want to wait until Thursday or Friday--if anybody does that, we are likely to be here beyond Thursday and Friday, and that is not fair to our colleagues. If anybody has a good amendment--or any amendment for that matter--bring it to the floor.

Senator Enzi, Senator Alexander, Senator Heitkamp, and I will work to try to find a way to accommodate amendments that are consistent with the bill--or at least debate them and have a vote on them if they are not. I think that is the best thing we can do. As I said, I think that is why we were elected--to debate these issues, resolve them, and vote.

So this is a fair warning to everyone. There are no excuses left. This bill has been on the calendar and available for amendment since last week, which gave everyone plenty of time to craft their amendment. Bring it to the floor immediately after the vote on the motion to proceed, and let's get down to business. Let's do what we were elected to do and pass this bill--or at least vote on this bill, and I hope pass it--before we break for this recess.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source