[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 3 (Thursday, January 20, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S95-S97]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              INAUGURATION

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I will speak for a moment about the 
inauguration we just attended. First, I address an issue of style which 
was brought to my attention earlier this week in Chicago. One of my 
acquaintances is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. His name is 
Neil Steinberg. Mr. Steinberg recently wrote ``Hatless Jack.'' It is 
the story about men wearing hats in America. It was a good conversation 
we had about his book.
  It starts with the premise that some 44 years ago today with the 
inauguration of John Kennedy, there was a change in fashion in America 
and men stopped wearing hats. Mr. Steinberg debunks that notion but 
goes into a very interesting history of not only John Kennedy wearing a 
hat but also hats in America.
  People remember that inauguration 44 years ago. Seven inches of snow 
fell the day before. Some 3,000 soldiers were on the street overnight 
shoveling the snow, using flamethrowers to try to melt the snow to make 
way for the inauguration the next day.
  The inauguration started an hour late. Senator Kennedy, of course, 
became the President and gave his famous speech: Ask not what America 
can do for you but what you can do for your country. Robert Frost was 
at that occasion. People seem to remember there were no hats there, 
that John Kennedy did not wear a hat. They mistakenly blame him for 
killing an industry.
  I wish those same people could have been out today for the 
inauguration and seen my colleagues in the House and Senate. There were 
some amazing hats being worn. There are very few other times my 
colleagues would wear one. We had Senator Baucus and Senator Hatch in 
cowboy hats, Senator DeWine in his bowler, Alan Greenspan with his 
Yankees baseball hat--quite an array, not to mention Justice Scalia's 
hat, which I cannot describe.
  I say this by way of introduction. There is a style issue here that 
someone should report. I thank Mr. Steinberg for bringing this 
historical notion to our attention, that the inauguration today raises 
questions which I am sure an enterprising journalist will follow up on.

  Let's go to the substance of the speech and what happened today. 
Clearly, there were disappointments on the Democratic side of the 
aisle. Many Members worked long and hard for our colleagues John Kerry 
and Senator John Edwards on their candidacy. I served as vice chairman 
of the Democratic National Committee and traveled to many of the 
battleground States on their behalf. I saw an outpouring of volunteer 
support for that campaign that I had never seen before in any previous 
campaign. There was also an outpouring of small donations, an 
indication of the interest the American people had in that campaign.
  Of course, there was a bitter disappointment among those on the 
Democratic side with the outcome on November 2. I am glad Senator Kerry 
came forward on November 3 and said, clearly, that he was conceding the 
election and that America should move on with its new President, 
President George Bush, who was then reelected.
  Many people contacted me and expressed the sadness and bitterness and 
disappointment, as you might expect, after a hotly contested election. 
It is a fact of life that America is very closely divided politically. 
Had one State, the State of Ohio, gone the other way and the electors 
pledged to John Kerry rather than to President Bush, we would have 
sworn in John Kerry today as President of the United States. The margin 
in Ohio was 118,000 votes. So still we see our Nation divided, blue 
States and red States, though there is a lot of commonality within 
those States on issues of importance.
  I listened to the President's speech today. It was a good one. Many 
people mistakenly believe the inaugural address is the State of the 
Union. It is not. Most Presidents use the inaugural address to make a 
statement that will stand the test of time, that will last through 
history. It does not address the morning paper so much as the summation 
of what has happened in America over the last year, two, three, or 
four. That is what President Bush did in his speech today.
  I thought the direction of that speech toward freedom was an 
important point. It is one that every American and every American 
President would share--not only that we value our own

[[Page S96]]

freedom but want to see other nations reach that same goal. I agree 
with the President completely.
  He also spoke about what the freedoms would mean to Americans. He is 
not the first President to address that issue, of course. We can all 
remember the famous speech by Franklin Roosevelt, the ``Four Freedoms'' 
speech, in his address to Congress on January 6, 1941.
  Franklin Roosevelt, in that speech, laid out what he considered to be 
the four essential human freedoms: first, freedom of speech and 
expression everywhere in the world; second, freedom of every person to 
worship God in his own way, everywhere in the world; third, freedom 
from want, which translated into world terms means economic 
understandings, which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime 
life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world; and the fourth, 
freedom from fear, which translated into world terms means a worldwide 
reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion 
that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical 
aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world.
  That speech of the Four Freedoms was given about 12 months before the 
attack on Pearl Harbor. As we read about the freedom from fear, we put 
it in the context of what followed: one of the bloodiest wars in the 
world. What President Bush spoke to was the freedom from fear from 
terrorism, recounting our tragic national experience on September 11. 
He also talked about the freedom from want, which President Roosevelt 
raised, as well. We all want the people of this country to have the 
best. We all want to do our part to make that happen.
  We just heard an extraordinary exchange between Democrats and 
Republicans in the Senate on the issue of education. What struck me in 
listening to Senator Alexander of Tennessee, Senator Enzi of Wyoming, 
Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Senator Wyden of Oregon was the 
commonality, so many things they agreed on, the importance of 
education. We will see in a few weeks how important education really 
is. This administration will present to Congress its budget resolution. 
We can give a lot of speeches in the Senate, we can pledge that we have 
great interest in issues, but the real test is if we put our resources 
and our energy behind those interests.
  The budget resolution is the first test. We can look to that budget 
resolution to see if the values of the inaugural address are expressed 
in the budget of the President. It is one thing to speak of those 
values on January 20; it is quite another to present a budget 
resolution which meets that test.
  We can look to several items. First, will there be more money for No 
Child Left Behind? This is a program I voted for, a program of 
accountability in schools to make certain that the kids are 
progressing. But there has been a real complaint from local school 
administrators, Governors, that we have created a Federal mandate for 
testing and accountability but no resources to take care of the 
problems. When we identify special ed students or students from 
struggling families or disadvantaged households who are not doing well 
on tests, what do we do as a Federal Government to help the school 
district?
  In my home State of Illinois, we are in a desperate situation. School 
districts are bankrupt all over the State. We have had a terrible time 
because of the turn down in the economy. Our Governor is struggling to 
balance his budget. The amount of money for education certainly should 
be increased. Instead, the Federal Government identifies problems, 
creates this category of so-called failing schools, and then does not 
provide the resources to take care of the problem.
  In a few weeks we are going to see a budget resolution from this 
administration. When it comes to education and all that we have heard 
on the Senate floor and the President's speech, the real test is, will 
we put the resources there? Will we put the money there?
  Secondly, there is the whole question of health care. If you want to 
talk about what most families and individuals need in America, it comes 
down to basic health care. Ask any Governor in this Nation the 
importance of Medicaid. That is the program, of course, the Federal and 
State program, to provide health care to people who are disabled or in 
lower income categories. Ask them what their concern is. Their concern 
is that the cost of Medicaid is going up substantially and that the 
Federal Government is not providing the resources. As a result, many of 
these Governors worry that people today depending on Medicaid will not 
have the Federal funds to match the State funds to make certain that 
Medicaid is viable.
  Seventy percent of all Americans in nursing homes today depend on 
Medicaid--70 percent. A substantial number of our children depend on 
Medicaid for their health care, and a substantial number of pregnant 
mothers about to deliver depend on that same Medicaid program.
  Watch carefully when the President's budget comes forward. See what 
the funding for Medicaid is. See if the President's budget will also 
address this aspiration of freedom from want when it comes to health 
care.
  Another issue that is very timely in the news is the future of Social 
Security. We are still waiting. We have heard some generalities from 
the President, his general goals, his general aspirations when it comes 
to Social Security reform. There is an ad playing on Washington, DC, 
television that shows Franklin Roosevelt signing the bill into law to 
create Social Security in the 1930s and then quickly switches to a 
color photo of President Bush working at his desk saying we need his 
leadership to make certain Social Security will last into the future.
  Well, that is a good thing. Each President should address that. But 
we need to see the particulars, and we need to ask ourselves, is this 
President proposing a privatization, even a partial privatization, of 
Social Security which will in fact cause a cut in benefits to Social 
Security recipients? If that is the President's proposal, I think he is 
in for a struggle.
  Many of us view Social Security differently than some on the other 
side of the aisle. We understand there is a challenge in Social 
Security. But keep this in mind: If we do nothing on Capitol Hill in 
Congress about Social Security, absolutely nothing, Social Security 
will continue to make every single payment every year with a cost of 
living adjustment until at least 2042, 37 years from now, and perhaps 
2052, 47 years from now. Those are the estimates from the experts. So 
we have between 40 and 50 years of Social Security making every payment 
if we do nothing today.
  I believe, and many share it, that we can do something today. We can 
make commonsense changes in Social Security that are modest, which 
would, when played out over 40 or 50 years, much like the miracle of 
compound interest, make Social Security strong, not just for 40 or 50 
years but 60 or 70 years or beyond. That is what I believe we should 
do.
  The reason I believe it will work is I have seen it work. I served in 
the House of Representatives in the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan, a 
Republican, came to Tip O'Neill, the quintessential Democratic leader, 
and said: We have a problem. All of the babies born after World War II, 
the baby boomer generation, will show up for Social Security, and we 
will not have the resources. We need to make changes today in the mid-
1980s to take care of a problem we can foresee in 2010, far into the 
future. And we did it on a bipartisan basis. We made changes, some 
popular, some not, some very modest in nature, and look what happened: 
Social Security bought more longevity and more stability because of 
those changes.

  If President Bush is coming to us and saying, make the modest changes 
so that Social Security can be strong in the future, then I will sign 
up for that. On a bipartisan basis, we owe that not only to those who 
are to retire, working today, but to future generations. But if the 
goal here is to privatize Social Security, is to take from the Social 
Security trust fund resources we are already counting on to pay to 
retirees and to put it into the stock market, which some are 
suggesting, I think the President is in for a battle because if we are 
going to privatize Social Security at the expense of cutting benefits 
to Social Security recipients, then I am afraid there is going to be a 
great resistance on both sides of the aisle.

[[Page S97]]

  Wait for the President's State of the Union, wait for his budget 
resolution, wait to see if the promise in values that were articulated 
in the inaugural address will be played out in the actual budget 
presented to Congress in the future. That is what we have to do.
  There are a lot of hungry people in America today. There are a lot of 
families anxious to find work. There are a lot of people who have jobs 
today that are not quite what they were a year ago. We have lost 
manufacturing jobs across this country. We have health insurance costs 
going up dramatically, not only hurting businesses but labor unions as 
well. Schools are struggling to do their job. We are in a much more 
competitive world.
  But I think what the President said today was a message of hope; that 
if we can come together as a nation, regardless of our political 
persuasion, that if we can be honest about the challenges, and if we 
can give a little on both sides to work out compromises, the country 
can, in the future, as it has in the past, rise to the occasion. I look 
forward to being a part of that process.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and 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. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________