Our lawmakers to advance your providential purposes. May they think your thoughts striving always to do your will. Lord, lead them together to find solutions to the problems that beset our nation and world. Calm their fears and strengthen their faith, as you use them to accomplish your will. Let your peace guard their hearts. We pray in your strong name. Amen. The president pro tempore please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Mcconnell mr. President . The president pro tempore the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell today the senate is continuing to consider s. 1 a bill to approve the keystone x. L. Pipeline. Chairman murkowski and senator cantwell are here this morning to manage debate and there are several amendments pending. Well begin voting on those and any other amendments in the queue shortly after lunch today. Senators also should begin gathering in the chamber at 8 20 this evening so that we can proceed as a body to the house for the state of the Union Address. Now, mr. President i understand there is a bill at the desk that is due for second reading. The presiding officer the clerk will read the bill for the second time, the title of the bill for the second time. The clerk h. R. 240 an act making appropriations for the department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2015, and for other purposes. Mr. Mcconnell in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would object to further proceeding. The presiding officer the objection is heard. The bill will be placed on the calendar. Mr. Mcconnell now mr. President , well welcome president obama to the capitol. We look forward to hearing what he has to say. Were looking forward to senator ernsts address as well. Joni ernst understands the concerns of hardworking families in a way much of washington hasnt. Thats why the people of her state sent her here, to fight for them. Shell explain the commitment of this new congress to work for policies aimed at the good jobs and better wages that americans deserve. Tonight is a big moment for the president and for our country. The tone he strikes and the issues he highlights will tell us a lot about what to expect in his presidencys final act. Theres a lot riding on it, and well be listening closely. One option is the path hes been on for so many years. I sincerely hope he makes a different choice. The American People just spoke in clear terms about this direction. They called for a new one. We should Work Together to make washington focus on their concerns. Working with the new congress for positive change, thats the second option for president obama. Its the one struggling families and serious policymakers urge him to choose. The new congress has already started to take up smart bipartisan ideas focused on jobs and reform. But when weve asked the white house for constructive engagement what weve seen at least so far has been pretty discouraging. We need to change this dynamic. We need to turn the page. The state of the union offers that opportunity. The American People arent demanding talking point proposals designed to excite the base but not designed to pass. What they said theyre hungry for is substance and accomplishment. They want washington to get back to work and focus on the serious jobs and reform agenda. They said theyre ready to see more constructive cooperation especially on bipartisan jobs initiatives. Bipartisan jobs initiatives like the keystone infrastructure bill. Keystone has support in both parties. Its an important piece of infrastructure for our country. And according to what the obamas own state department has said previously, constructing the pipeline would support literally thousands of jobs. Its already passed the house. Were currently working to pass it through the senate. It will be on the president s desk before long. We see no reason for him to veto these jobs. But whatever he decides were going to keep working for positive middleclass jobs ideas here in congress. As ive said before, were not here to protect the president from a good idea, and if the president is willing to work for us theres much we can get accomplished for the American People. Weve already identified several areas of potential cooperation like tearing down trade barriers in places like europe and the pacific bainlding jobs and building jobs with progrowth simplification and working to prevent cyber attacks. On these issues the president previously sent positive signals. Now we need constructive engagement. Well be looking for signs of that in the speech he delivers tonight. What i hope is that he presents some positive bipartisan ideas of his own that can pass the Congress Americans just voted for. Give us new ideas to prevent iran from becoming a country with Nuclear Weapons or to confront the threats posed by terrorism, or to remove regulations that hurt struggling coal families. Challenge us with truly serious realistic reforms that focus on growth and raising milk middleclass incomes reforms that dont just spend more money we dont have. And if the president is ready for a new beginning beyond canceled Health Plans Work with us to pursue an achievement that history will actually remember. Reach across the aisle to allow us to save and strengthen medicare tell america your plan for responsible reforms aimed to balance the budget, not just more tired tax hikes. Achieving important reforms like these would represent a win for hardworking families. It would deliver the kind of commonsense progress americans deserve. So we welcome the president tonight. We look to his address with interest. And if the president is ready to play offense we urge him to join the new congress and play offense on behalf of the American People. Mr. Durbin mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from illinois. Mr. Durbin mr. President tonight president obama will deliver his state of the Union Address around and outline his plan to make life better for middleclass families. Ive heard from both sides democrats and republicans the lament that even though many hardworking families are doing their best and businesses are more profitable because their workers are more productive, a lot of families dont see it in their paychecks. They struggle from paycheck to paycheck to pay for the basics in life. And so we have to ask ourselves what will we do about this. Will we do anything . I worry that the comments just made by the majority leader suggest that he is relying on faith alone. Faith in our free market system, faith in the belief that if we have an expanding economy which we do if we have profitability in corporations which we do that it will translate into a better standard of living for working families. Well it may be an article of faith, but its one that can be challenged because thats exactly whats been happening in america for years. You see the economy has been growing. Weve seen an increase in jobs for 58 straight months. But at the same time weve noted that the families, the working families across america dont see any change in their lives. They dont see any income change. Then we look at the reality and the reality shows that the gap between the rich and poor in america just grows larger and larger. We could talk separately about the compensation for c. E. O. s of corporations. Its reaching record levels, far beyond the excesses of previous moments in American Economic history. What were finding is that people at the very top of the corporate ladder are taking out more money from the economy than the workers who are generating the profits that they are gleaning. Thats not right. The president is going to challenge us to get beyond faith in our free market system to good works by congress. And hes going to talk about specifics, things that the average family can understand and appreciate. The earnedincome tax credit, heres an effort to say if you are working, we will make sure that your tax burden gives you a break so that you have additional money for your family to pay for day care for your kids to make certain that you can pay for utility bills and the basics of life. Ive joined with senator Sherrod Brown of ohio. We want to try to make the earnedincome tax credit available to more and more working americans so that we can supplement their income as they struggle to get by paycheck to paycheck. Thats one of the first things we can do. The second thing the president will address is college affordability. There are plenty of critics of the president s plan but i think hes put his finger on reality. We can no longer be satisfied by saying it is the responsibility of our society to provide education from kindergarten through the 12th grade. That doesnt reflect the reality of work today. In just a few years, more than a third of the jobs across america will require a college degree. What are we doing to prepare that workforce in america for the 21st century requirements when it comes to education . We know whats happening. More and more students are getting deeper and deeper in debt and many are dropping out because of it. Those who finish and earn a diploma are saddled with a debt which changes their lives. President obama has said let us start moving forward to make two years of Community College a commitment in america for those students who are in need, number one. And, number two are willing to meet the standards. And the standards are graduation within three years. I look at some of the comments that have been made in criticism of this, and they overlook the second part of the president s proposal, that part which demands that those students perform in order to receive assistance from our government in paying for Community College. We have to look at a new model in america. In arkansas, in illinois across america there is a k14 model. That is reality. Certain we have to improve the 212 performance when it twothirds in many states come to Community Colleges not performing at the 12th grade level there is work to be done at the lower grades. But lets assume the obvious. If you want a goodpaying job in the future, you need additional training. The affordable place to go is a Community College and we ought to make that a pathway that is affordable for every dedicated hardworking student and their family. That isnt all. The president also acknowledges and will acknowledge tonight the reality of the Housing Market. Since 2009, our Housing Market in america has been recovering from a recession. Home building has more than doubled. A lot of jobs for construction workers. Home prices are going back up. Millions of families whose home value was less than what they owed on their mortgage are now turning the corner. But for Many Americans buying a home is just still out of reach. The president plans to reduce the f. H. A. Mortgage insurance premiums, which is going to help responsible americans afford a home. Faith in our free market, but good works by congress when it comes to these essentials. And the president s also going to propose a healthy familys Healthy Families act. Here is something that gets to the reality of life for working americans. It would provide in businesses with 15 or more employees up to seven paid sick days each year. You might say to yourself, well, what is a business going to do with people taking seven days off in sick leave . What we found is if the employer will stand behind the employees when it comes to the basics like sick leave theyll get more loyalty and more performance from those employees. That is a fair trade and its one the president is going to propose this evening. So i would say to the majority leader and those who share his position faith in the free market is a good thing but not enough. We need to step in and make sure we have faith in working families faith in the belief that if they can improve their life if their struggle paycheck to paycheck is somehow lessened, were all going to be better off for it. I support the president s message this evening and look forward to hearing it delivered. Mr. President , on a separate topic, late last night i returned from havana, cuba, with senator Patrick Leahy senator stabenow senator whitehouse, congressman van hollen and congressman welsh of vermont. It was a whirlwind trip. In a matter of two days, we had a number of visits with a variety of different people in havana. They included government officials. Bruno rodriguez who is the foreign minister of the cuban government. Had a lengthy meeting with him yesterday. We had a meeting with about ten different ambassadors from Foreign Countries to cuba. We met as well with about a dozen reformers or dissidents, opponents of the current castro regime in cuba and had individual meetings with ministries. This was a productive and important delegation trip, important because starting tomorrow, we are going to have facetoface negotiations in havana between the United States and cuba pursuant to president obamas december 17 announcement. We are setting out to change the Foreign Policy of the United States as it regards cuba. Its time for a change. For over 50 years, we have been committed to a policy of exclusion, believing that if we had embargoes and blockades we could force internal change in cuba. The policy failed. The castro brothers still reign and life in cuba is not what we want to see. What the president has said, lets engage them at a different level, a constructive level where we try to find ways to open up the cuban economy and Cuban Society. That to me, is the best course, and it isnt just a theory that its the best course. Its been proven. When the soviet empire came to an end, what happened to the warsaw pact nations allied with the soviet union . They opened their doors to the west. They saw what they could anticipate to be part of their life in the future, and they made the conscious choice to move forward democracy to move toward free market economy. I think the same can happen in cuba. One young man came to speak to us he had gotten in trouble because he challenged the cuban government. They put him back on a pig farm to work but he was still determined to aspire to a better place in cuba in the future. He said to us what president obamas announcement has done is to pull the blanket off the caged bird in cuba. Those of us who live in cuba are still in the cage of communism but we can see out now about opportunities and a future. That, i believe is part of what the president s new policy is all about. When we were discussing our current blockade with cuba, with their leadership, we learned that powdered milk comes to cuban citizens from new zealand. Halfway around the world. When this is ample supply here in the United States. What we are trying to do is to not only open up the cuban economy to powdered milk, but to the power of ideas the exchange of values, the belief that if the cuban people see a better model for their future, that they will gravitate toward that model. This negotiation which opens this week is the beginning of this conversation. The president is moving in areas of trade and travel, as we hope he will do, to expand these opportunities, but we have to do our part in congress, and as contentious and spirited as the debate may be about changing our policy in cuba, it wasnt that long ago that we stood on the floor of the United States senate and considered establishing diplomatic relations with vietnam and there were some with fresh memories of all that we had lost over 40,000 american lives in vietnam who said we shouldnt have a normal relationship with what is a repressive regime in a country that we just concluded a war with. Others with cooler minds prevailed, and we established diplomatic relations and i think to the betterment of both nations. Let us move forward not forsaking our principles, not turning our back on our belief that the Cuban Society should be more open, fair and legitimatized by the voters at the polls but believing that we can work with this country as we have with others around the world, even when we disagree with their form of government and their practices to try to strive to reach that democratic ideal. Mr. President , the last point i would like to make relates to a motion that was made this morning by the majority leader. It was related to the appropriation bill for the department of Homeland Security. Why are we bringing up this appropriation bill at this moment . Because when we agreed last december to fund our government, the republicans in the house insisted that we carve out the department of Homeland Security and not give it its regular budget. Instead give it emergency spending a continuing resolution. This is not the way to run any department of government, certainly not the department of Homeland Security. Why is it important to fund this department . You need only look to whats happened in the last few days in paris to understand that the threat of terrorism to the world is still very real. Our first one of our first lines of defense when it comes to terrorism is our department of Homeland Security. There is no excuse for us to be dealing with this continuing resolution to fund this department. They should have the resources they need to keep america safe, but instead what has happened is this the house of representatives last week said we will only agree to fund this department properly if we can provide certain writers and changes in the law as part of it. I would tell you that the change that has been proposed by the house of representatives is unacceptable. The president has said he is going to veto it if its sent to his desk and i totally support his position, because here is what they have come up with in the house of representativ