mr. coburn: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. burn porn what the senator from maine -- mr. coburn: what the senator just said, $2.8 million might be successful. with ads 15 trillion debt, we can't continue to do this no matter how great it sounds when it fails 70% of the time. i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote: ro ?reet vote: the presiding officer: has every member voted? does any member wish to change his or her vote? on this amendment the ayes are 41, the nays are 57. the amendment is not agreed to. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: i have a motion to recommit at the table. the presiding officer: the motion is pending and the senator has one minute. mr. lee: mr. president, i filed this motion to recommit h.r. 2112 with instructions to send this minibecause bust back to the committee on appropriations for one simple reason. i spends more for the same set of expenditures in fiscal year 2012 than i

mr. coburn: if the gentleman would yield just for one moment. one of the reasons our cancer cure rates are a third better than england is because we don't have an ipab board and they do. and the number-one reason survival rates from cancer in england are lower is because treatment's denied by their ipab board for the best treatment that will save the most people's lives at the best price. that's something that should not be discounted. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. barrasso: and, madam president, i would just say that this health care law continues to be bad for patients, bad for providers, the nurses and doctors who take care of those patients and bad for the taxpayers. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. harkin: i'd like to take the opportunity to talk about a bill passed out of the health committee which i chair, and which senator mike enzi of wyoming is the ranking member. this bipartisan bill reauthorizes the education act of 1965 and would replace its current it ration which everyone knows by the title o

coburn: burn i'd a it be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: it is my understanding i have until 11:00? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. coburn: our country is at a crossroads, as anybody who's watching europe, what they will find is they have been very slow to address the real underlying problems of debt and deficits there, and they have a much more difficult time than what we should because w they have a monetary union but without a political union. we have a monetary and a political union. the fact is over the next ten years we're going to have debt, including borrowing money for student loans, including borrowing money to pay back social security, what has been stolen, we're going to have a true debt of about $27 trillion, $28 trillion. absolutely unsustain afpblt as a matter of fact, it won't happen, according to ben bernanke, because his statement is the world won't loan us the money. what is going on in europe today? what is going on in europe today is the markets are punishing the countries who have excessive d

mr. shear, can you express a general opinion about top-flight comments under the rubric which commenced three south four and commercial oppression? in their own words, what are those professions operate in the moment? cannot i believe it is a business model that has become almost dependent and infatuated with sensation is sent to stories to the point where the facility and this is just my opinion as they say, that phone hacking or unlawful surveillance provided allowed those that were utilizing a and reviewing information to not only build their stories, but to pack them out with detail. i miss co-infected with the financial benefits in a newspaper could have firm providing a dieted easily digested or sensationalist code on a regular basis. and therefore it's been a progression of sort of fairly supportive i suppose privity impeding but interesting to a section of the public intrusion into the private lives of the rich and famous, powerful or others that has kind of created a sort of self

mr. coburn: i ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: i have cleared with senator levin to be able to speak about a topic but not offer an amendment. i understand we're working on a unanimous consent. i do have an amendment that at the appropriate time hopefully will be brought up, but i want to discuss it now, and i think it's a -- it's a way for us to save $1.1 billion over the next five years in the defense department, give children of on-base military schools a better education, help the local school districts through impact aid by $12,000 per student per year and actually do what we're intending to do in terms of the education. we have 64 schools right now on 18 military bases within the united states. there is 26,000 students taught by 2,300 teachers. that's one teacher for every 11 students. the average cost per student per year is $51,000 per year in a military school. $51,000. that's 250% higher than the highest cost district anywhere in the united states. two and a half times. and what this amendment does is say let's u

senator coburn. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd just like to make a couple comments and then i would like to defer my first amendment and allow senator mccain to take a position. you-all worked really hard on this and there's some good things. but i remember five years ago. >> tom, is your microphone on? >> it's on. i'm not close enough. and i remember what we said then. this is fixes it. i mean that's what we said. the chairman said it, the ranking member said it. you were chairman then, by the way. and we were going to fix it. and the one thing we didn't do in that bill was give the post office the flexibility to run as a business. and we are making the same mistake again. we are telling them what they can and can't do. there's a lot of positives in this bill. hopefully it will get better as we move through the amendment process. i will predict to you the bill as it's writ yield back the balance of my time now won't fix the postal service. we'll do this again. we don't have the luxury of not fixing it this time. and i have co

mr. levin: i just have a question, if the senator would yield, of the senator from illinois. is the senator aware of the fact that section 1031 in the bill that we adopted months ago in the committee had exactly the language that you think should be in this section 1031 which would make an exception for u.s. citizens in lawful residence? this was in our bill. i'm wondering if the senator is aware that the administration asked us to strike that language from section 1031 so the bill in front of us now doing not have the very exception that the senator from illinois would like to see. mr. durbin: i have the greatest respect for you and the administration but i think i'm entitled to my own conclusions. mr. levin: i'm asking is the senator aware it was the administration that asked us to strike that language, the exception for u.s. citizens? mr. durbin: not being a member of your committee, i didn't follow it as closely as you do did. i respect your word and take it. the presiding officer: th

senator coburn. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to make a couple of comments and then allow senator came to take the position at the mike. you all worked very hard on this and there are some very good things in here, but i remember five years ago. >> that tom, is your microphone on? >> it is on, just not close enough. i remember five years ago. we were going to fix it. and the one thing we did not do in that bill is give the post office the flexibility to run as a business. we are making the same mistake again. we are telling them what they cannot -- can and cannot do. there are a lot of positives in this bill. and hopefully they will improve as we move through the amendment process. but i will predict to you that the bill as written now is not going to fix the post office. we will have this back again, and we do not have the luxury of not fixing at this time. i co-sponsored senator mccain's bill not because it is the best solution, but because i think it is better than the one that has been negotiated. i do not like a

>> mr. chairman, on the vote of those present, the yays are 4, the nays are 5. on this vote, the amendment is agreed to. >> ok. thank you, senator akaka. congratulations. let's see. no one else here on the republican side has an additional amendment. you are retiring undefeated. if it is ok, after the senator, we will break for lunch. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the committee for passing the amendment. senator mccain talked about the fact that when he has public meetings people talk about the post office. if you are in a small town and you have a public meeting, i guarantee you it will be the first issue that comes up. with the 10-mile issues that the senator brought up, it is an issue that people have talked to me about. post office closures are really going to close a lot of communities. i want to express my appreciation to senator moran for offering the amendment. the amendment i want to take up now has to do with executive compensation. i want to thank the senators for joining me in offering this amendment. it restricts the pay of the postmas

mr. sharpe, if i may ask you, your company basically does this aftermarket, right? [inaudible] >> are you knowingly or do you know of any companies other than yourself or other companies like yourself that are unable to produce quality products that are needed for our service people? >> we don't make products over absentee but we reproduced products that have been inspected properly. >> right. >> yes, there are other companies in industries like us. >> so we would have to go to china if we didn't want to because of price? >> we absolutely do not need to go to china. >> who writes the specs? who in the world in our government writes the specs for these products and doesn't follow up on the specifications for what we're going to purchase? is it strange enough that it should basically do not need the specs, then your band like in any other purchasing from state purchasing or federal purchasing, you should be banned if you are found to be, you know, neglected of doing what was supposed to be