[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 161 (Thursday, December 15, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13600-S13608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006--CONFERENCE REPORT
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will
proceed to the consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R.
3010, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R.
3010) ``making appropriations for the Departments of Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education, and related
agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and
for other purposes,'' having met, have agreed that the House
recede from its disagreement to the amendment of the Senate,
and agree to the same with an amendment, and the Senate agree
to the same, signed by a majority of the conferees on the
part of both houses.
(The conference report is printed in the House proceedings of the
Record of December 14, 2005.)
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there will be 90
minutes under the control of the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin.
Who yields time?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coburn). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, under the rule, I have 90 minutes--some of
it has already been used up in the quorum call--to speak on the Labor,
Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies
appropriations bill that is now before the Senate.
I again ask any Senator who wants to come over and speak on this time
to try to be here before 10:30. I would be glad to yield time to
Senators who want to come over and talk about this bill and why this
bill should not be passed.
At this time of the year when we are seeing all the festive holiday
decorations, Christmas trees, all the lights around, there is a certain
mood about Christmas. It is a mood of being generous and understanding
that it is the season for giving. It is the season for thinking about
those who may be less fortunate than ourselves. It is also the time of
the year when most families of means get together and think about their
giving, how they are going to support charities or charitable giving
toward the end of the year. It is true in churches all over the country
and many nonprofit organizations. This is the time of year when people
decide to give money to the churches, to everything, the Salvation
Army, to all kinds of nonprofits. It is the time of the year when we
remember ``A Christmas Carol'' by Charles Dickens, the wonderful
stories about ``A Christmas Carol'' played in high school plays and
theaters all over the country every year at this time.
Charles Dickens ``A Christmas Carol,'' the story of Ebenezer Scrooge.
``Bah humbug,'' remember that? That is his familiar saying about
Christmas, ``bah humbug''--this tight man, ungenerous, miserly, stingy,
with no feelings of compassion whatsoever to those less fortunate.
We all know what happened in ``A Christmas Carol.'' He is visited by
the ghosts of Christmas past and the Christmas future. He then begins
to see clearly that who he has been and what he has stood for is wrong.
The wonderful thing about Charles Dickens and ``A Christmas Carol''
is, at the end, Scrooge becomes compassionate and generous and changes
his ways.
It is a wonderful story for this time of the year. If only life in
Congress imitated that, if only Congress could follow the example of
Ebenezer Scrooge in the final act of the play. I am sorry to say, in
terms of the appropriations bill before us, the bill that funds those
things that lift people up, that help the poorest in our society these
days, to reach down, to give everyone hope, and try to make our society
a little bit more fair and more just--that is what is in this bill.
That is what this bill is about. But, sad to say, in this bill, as it
is before us, Ebenezer Scrooge--the first Ebenezer Scrooge, the one
before he changed in the final act--is in this bill. Scrooge reigns in
this bill.
My friend and distinguished senior member of the Appropriations
Committee, the Senator from Hawaii, Dan Inouye, once said of the
Defense appropriations bill that it defends America. The Labor, Health
and Human Services, and Education bill, he said, is the bill that
defines America. I have thought about that over the years. He said that
a long time ago. I have thought about that over the years, as I have
been chairman of the subcommittee and ranking member, and chairman and
ranking member. Both Senator Specter and I have changed places on this
subcommittee now I think going back over 15 years. I have thought about
that, that this is really the bill that defines America.
So how do we want to define America? As the haves with the beautiful
Christmas tree, with all the lights, nice cars, warm clothes, good
food, who send their kids to the best schools, live in the best
neighborhoods? That is America? That is it, that is America? And then
down below we have people barely scraping to get by, who don't know how
they are going to pay the heating bills in the winter, the elderly,
disabled, the poor, those who want to get job training, they have lost
their job, but they want to work and are looking for job training
assistance; families with meager means who want their kids to get a
head start in life so they want to send their kids to a Head Start
Program so that their kids, too, will have a decent shot at the
American dream; or families who are low income and have poor schools to
go to and so they want to at least have good teachers and good
facilities and good programs and textbooks and things for their kids so
that their kids, too, can get up on that ladder of success; or families
who live in low-income areas who have no health care insurance, have no
health care, and the only thing they have to go to is the community
health center for their health needs, and that is there for them.
I don't know. What kind of America do we want? Do we want an America
where at least at this time of the year we think generously? In this
beautiful country that we have, all of the riches that we have, can we
not find it in our hearts to pass an appropriations bill that at least,
at least, does not back down from where we were before? You would think
that would sort of be the minimum. You would think at least at this
time of the year we would say, well, we are not going to do any more
for low-income people, but we are not going to cut them back any more
either. You would sort of think that would be the bottom line.
Sad to say, of all of the appropriations bills that this Congress has
passed this year, this is the only appropriations bill that is cut
below last year's level. This bill, the one that funds education and
health, the one that reaches down to help low-income people, this is
the one that is cut, the only one, the only one that is cut.
Please, someone explain this to me. Interior appropriations,
Transportation appropriations, Agriculture appropriations, Military
Construction and Veterans, Foreign Operations, Commerce-State-Justice
appropriations, Homeland Security, Energy and
[[Page S13601]]
Water appropriations, Legislative Branch appropriations--all above last
year's level. Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education? Cut
below last year's level.
Ten days before Christmas, Congress is poised to deliver a cruel blow
to the most disadvantaged members of our society. Sadly, unlike in the
Dickens tale, there is no sign of remorse, no nagging conscience, no
change of heart at the end of the day.
This bill that we passed--and here I want to just, again, pay my
respects and my esteem for our distinguished chairman, Senator Specter.
He had a tough job. We worked it out. We passed a good bill, a decent
bill in the Senate. I think it was unanimous, if I am not mistaken--I
am sorry, it was 97 to 3. Well, that is almost unanimous, 97 votes.
Both sides voted for the bill that Senator Specter crafted and that we
worked together on. But then it went to conference, and the House came
in and insisted on their position. Again, I just remind Senators and
others that what happened is that it came out of conference--I didn't
sign the conference report. Many of us would not sign the conference
report because of these massive cuts. The bill went to the House last
month, and the House rejected it. Then they reappointed conferees, as
we did, and we met in conference on Monday evening, this last Monday
evening, 3 days ago, for 44 minutes--44 minutes, with very little
debate. The gavel was pounded, and we adjourned subject to the call of
the Chair. Of course, the Chair never called us back, the Chair being
the House Member. The House ran the conference this year. So they never
called us back.
Now they jiggled a few things around, I guess, dealing with rural
health--I will have more to say about that in a second--to get the
votes in the House. Well, the House passed this bill yesterday by two
votes. I think it was 215 to 213, if I am not mistaken. Two votes. A
very contentious bill, two votes. Now we have it before the Senate.
That is sort of the history.
Now it is up to us whether we are going to step back and say: No, we
will not accept this bill. We will not accept cuts to these vital
programs that I am about to go through here. But we will at least go on
a continuing resolution until January. In January, when we come back,
maybe there will be a little bit of change of heart and we can do a
little better on this bill.
This appropriations bill, as I said, funds things such as the Head
Start Program, community health centers, special education, job
training, programs that help the neediest in our communities. As I
said, most people who are watching today would probably expect these
programs to get an increase this year because we know the poverty rate
has gone up in this country, or at least you would expect that we would
not cut it below last year's level. As I said, this is the only
appropriations bill cut below last year's level, and that is about $1.4
billion less than last year. This bill cuts education for the first
time in a decade, the first time since 1996 has education been cut. No
Child Left Behind, all of us here, I am sure, hear a lot about that
when we go back to our States, the comments about No Child Left Behind.
The biggest complaint about No Child Left Behind is that they are not
getting the money by which to meet the mandate. In other words, it is
like an unfunded mandate on our schools.
Now, I voted for No Child Left Behind. I was at the table when we met
with President Bush in 2001 to get this bill through. At that time, it
was agreed upon--at least I thought it was agreed upon--that we would
have a funding stream to meet the mandate.
The President agreed to that. His people agreed to it. The President
himself agreed to that. Yet we are now $13 billion less than what we
said we were going to be at 3, 4 years ago. So it is no surprise that
people in our communities are upset about No Child Left Behind. They
are being told to do certain things, but they are not being funded to
do them.
Well, here we are. We are cutting it again in this bill with a 3-
percent cut, so there will be $780 million this year less than last
year. That now puts us at $13.1 billion below the authorized level. It
leaves 120,000 children behind.
Now, what do I say about that? That is title I. In my opening
comments, I mentioned the fact that people who live in low-income areas
and go to schools that do not have a lot of money need help. They need
what we call title I services, the low-income children. It is $9.9
billion below the authorized level. That means that title I services to
120,000 children, who are currently eligible to receive them, will not
receive them next year. Think about that: 120,000 children who are now
eligible for title I services in our public schools will no longer
receive those services next year.
What is the American dream for those kids? What about it? What about
the American dream for them? And because of the programs we had in the
past--Head Start, title I, all the other programs--we have been able to
get kids of low income through secondary school. Now they want to go to
college. Well, back in the 1960s we passed a program called the Pell
grants, after our distinguished Senator, Claiborne Pell. It was grants
to low-income students so they, too, could go to college.
Under this bill, the maximum Pell grant award is frozen for the
fourth year in a row. For the fourth year in a row, we have frozen Pell
grants. That means the purchasing power of a Pell grant today is about
one-fifth of what it was 20 years ago. So if you are low income, and
you want to go to college, it would be better if you had gotten it 20
years ago because your Pell grant would have gotten you a lot further
then. Today it is worth about one-fifth of what it was then.
And special education: 28 years ago, this Congress passed the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to meet a constitutional
requirement that we had to provide equal and appropriate education for
children with disabilities--a constitutional mandate. At the time we
passed that, we said our goal was to have the Federal Government
provide at least 40 percent of the additional cost of educating kids
with disabilities. That was our goal: We would provide 40 percent of
that additional cost to our local school districts. That was 27 years
ago.
Last year, we had reached 18 percent. In other words, by last year,
the Federal Government was providing 18 percent of the additional cost
of special education. Under this bill, you would think we would be
going forward to 40 percent. This bill goes backward. We are now at 17
percent. We are going in the wrong direction.
How many times have we voted on this floor to fully fund special
education? We keep voting to have special education fully funded. We
have all these meaningless votes. When it comes down to paying for it,
we are going in the wrong direction. We are going in the wrong
direction, down to 17 percent this year.
Well, that is the story in education. The story in education is very
simple. If you come from a well-to-do family, and you live in a good
neighborhood, and you have great schools and high property taxes, don't
worry, the American dream is there for you. But if you live in a low-
income area, with low property values, low property taxes, you have
poor schools, tough luck, you were not born to the right parents. Tough
luck. That is what this bill is saying to you. That is education.
Look at health. Look at the health programs. What do we do about
health? Again, if you are a Member of the Senate or the Congress, work
for the Federal Government, you have a nice Federal Employees Health
Benefits plan--like all of us do--and you do not worry about it. We
have great coverage. I often think many times those of us who serve in
the Senate and the House probably think: Well, probably everybody lives
like we do. Everybody makes $150,000 a year. You have a couple of
houses, drive nice cars, wear nice clothes. We send our kids to great
schools.
Well, I don't know, if I am not mistaken, as to the population of the
Senate, out of 100 Senators, I think--what is it--80 now are
multimillionaires? There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing
wrong with having money and achieving the American dream and having
nicer clothes, a nicer car, a nicer house. There is nothing wrong with
that. That is a big part of the American dream. But it seems to me that
those of us who have been blessed with good health and good fortune,
and who have sort of made it to the top of that ladder, it is incumbent
of us that we leave the ladder down for
[[Page S13602]]
others to climb, too, not pull it up behind us. And there are Senators
and Congressmen in this body and in the House who are well to do, who
have been blessed with good fortune, who understand the necessity of
leaving the ladder down, and who fight constantly to make sure we meet
our obligations as a Congress to reach down and help those less
fortunate than ourselves.
Nowhere is this more true than in health. Nowhere is this more true
than in health. We have tried over the years, since we cannot get a
national health insurance program passed, to at least sort of block and
tackle, if you will, to fill in the gaps, to help make sure people of
low income can get at least some access to decent health care.
One of the most important of those is the community health centers.
President Bush himself said at one time that his goal was to have a
community health center--it was a State of the Union Message. I was
there. President Bush said his goal was to have a community health
center in every poor community by 2008, and we all rose and applauded.
I believe in community health centers. Obviously, the President does,
too. But where is the President? Where is he? Because in this bill not
one new community health center will be authorized for next year--not
one. Not one will be built in the United States.
Health professions. We want to recruit qualified health professionals
to serve in parts of the country. It is slashed by $185 million.
National Institutes of Health: 355 new research grants will be cut.
It is the smallest percentage increase in NIH. Actually, it is level
funded. It is less than 1 percent, so you might as well say NIH has
been level funded. This is the first time since 1970--35 years--that
NIH has not received an increase.
Rural health programs: cut by $137 million. Now, you know there was
some talk when this bill came back out of conference that they
``fixed'' the rural health problem. Not true. Not true. Not true. Rural
health programs are cut by $137 million and nine vital health
programs--trauma care, rural emergency medical services, health
education training centers, healthy community access programs,
geriatric education centers--are closed.
This one I think deserves a little bit more discussion, the geriatric
education centers. We know our society is aging. We know geriatric care
is a kind of a specialty. We want health professionals trained in
geriatric care so the elderly among us will be healthier, will have
better diets and nutrition, will have better exercise, and will have
more sociability.
We know when you do those modest things, you keep the elderly out of
nursing homes, you keep them out of the doctors' offices, you cut down
on Medicare and Medicaid.
Well, here is a map that shows States that will lose geriatric
centers. All the stars are geriatric care centers that are going to be
closed. Two weeks before the 78 million baby boomers in this country
begin to turn 60--that is next month, January--we are going to close
all these centers. In Iowa, we have a center at the University of Iowa
School of Medicine that trains doctors, osteopaths, nurses, dentists,
chiropractors. There is a big need. Iowa has the highest percentage of
citizens over the age of 85--the highest of any State in the Nation.
This bill eliminates the geriatric center at the University of Iowa. So
that is education.
Let's look at labor. We know that people are unemployed and they want
to be retrained. The Department of Labor is cut in this bill by $430
million, the biggest cut ever made to the Department of Labor--the
biggest ever, at a time when we keep hearing stories about how China is
training all these engineers and scientists and doing all this stuff.
We need to get people retrained, and this bill cuts adult job training
and youth job training. Adult job training is cut and youth job
training is cut. I guess we are telling people that you may have had a
job and that job has ended, but you may want to get into the new
economy. Do it on your own. You are not going to get any help.
People cannot do that. They are broke and out of work, and they have
kids and families. Rather than advancing, they will go out and find
some job that will at least put bread on the table, when they could be
getting job training that would allow a better job and higher income in
the future. This slashes employment services by $89 million--an 11-
percent cut in employment services.
What are employment services? They are to help people get employed,
to get a job. Yet we are cutting it, even though we know the rate of
unemployment has gone up. I don't know how anybody can justify this,
especially at this time of the year.
Let's take one more look at LIHEAP, the Low Income Heating Energy
Assistance Program. This bill provides no additional funding for
LIHEAP. We know that fuel costs are skyrocketing. In Iowa, natural gas
prices are up 40 percent from last year. Hawkeye Area Community
Assistance in southeast Iowa reports that LIHEAP funds are likely to
run out in mid January, one of the coldest months of the year in my
State. This bill fails to keep up with this overwhelming need.
I was in Iowa a couple weeks ago and I met with some people who
applied for and are eligible for LIHEAP. I remember one individual who
is disabled and lives by herself. Her monthly cost for fuel has gone up
about 50 percent for what she pays every month. I think she qualifies
for $232 in LIHEAP funding. I mentioned that to somebody after I met
with these people. I mentioned I had this meeting and this one woman
who was disabled lived by herself and she qualified for $232 in energy
assistance to pay her heating bills. One of the individuals in the
group I talked to said, ``That ought to pay her monthly bill.'' I said,
``Wait a second, that $232 is for the year.'' They thought it was for
the month. I said that is for the year--October, November, December,
January, February, March, and probably April. That is $232 for 6 or 7
months. ``I didn't realize that,'' she said, ``I thought it was for the
month.'' I said, ``No, that is for the whole year.''
Yet we are cutting back on that. We are not providing enough money to
take into account the increased price of propane and heating oil and
natural gas prices. I have heard: Don't worry, Harkin, we will come
back in January and, if we need to, we will pass a supplemental or
something at that time.
Don't hold your breath. What about the people who are out there who
don't know how to pay their heating bills, who need to get propane
delivered, especially in rural communities such as where I live? We
have propane tanks. I have a propane tank outside of my house. You call
up the company to come fill it. Well, all right, you have to pay the
bill. If you have not paid the previous month's bill, you are not going
to get it delivered. Unlike natural gas where they cannot cut you off,
they can cut you off of propane.
So we are going to come back and do this in January or February. Yet
we will let anxiety rise, let people worry about it. I can tell you
right now, in my State of Iowa, there are people living on the edge.
They have food stamps, they are getting LIHEAP, many are disabled, and
many are elderly. They are thinking, I know that next month is going to
be cold--in January and February. Maybe I should not buy the drugs I
need now because I will need that money next month. Maybe I will cut
back a little bit on some of the food I have been buying or I will cut
back on some of the things I want to do in order to have the money for
the heating bills. That is what is happening now. There is anxiety out
there. We are saying: That is okay, be anxious; we will come back in
January or February and fix it.
Is that any way to treat people? Put yourself in that position. What
if you didn't know whether you could pay your heating bill next month?
What if you didn't know whether you were going to be able to pay? They
say don't worry about it, we will come back in January and February and
we will fix it.
When we passed a continuing resolution at the end of September, I
took the floor to beg my colleagues to reject this part of the
continuing resolution that would cut the community services block
grants by 50 percent. Well, we didn't get that done. Then it was put on
the DOD bill, and they told us we will take care of that. The funding
for community services block grants goes out to help programs such as
Head Start and LIHEAP. In other words, if you are going to apply for
LIHEAP, you usually go to some agency--an
[[Page S13603]]
area agency on aging or you go through one of these community action
agencies. They help you with the paperwork and do the necessary things
to show that you qualify. If you don't have that, chances are you
probably would not qualify.
In our continuing resolution, we cut that by 50 percent. We are told
we will take care of it, we will fix it. But that was in September. We
have gone through October, November, and December--3 months--and the
community services block grant is still cut by 50 percent. They say we
will take care of LIHEAP, too. When? In March, April or May?
So whether it is health, human services, education, medical research
at NIH--no matter what it is in this bill--what can I say; it is awful.
This bill is awful. It is not something we ought to hold our heads up
and be proud about. We ought to be ashamed of this, ashamed that we
cannot find it in ourselves to meet the needs of the poorest people in
our country, the neediest.
This bill ought to be rejected, and we should go to an honest
continuing resolution, not one that cuts programs but one that at least
keeps last year's level. If we want to, then we will come back and fix
it again next year. But this bill is not deserving of our support. It
sends the wrong--I don't want to say it sends the wrong message, that
is not it; it doesn't do the right thing. It doesn't do what a
generous, compassionate nation ought to do for its neediest citizens.
Mr. President, I see my distinguished colleague, Senator Kennedy, is
on the floor. Again, I yield the floor to him. There has been no one
who has fought harder for these programs in education and health and
human services for all of his adult life, no one who has spoken more
passionately and forthrightly about the obligation we have as public
servants to meet the needs of our neediest citizens than Senator
Kennedy.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join with those on our side and I think
most Americans in commending the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin, for his
steadfastness and determination to make sure we are a fairer country, a
country that is going to offer better opportunities for many of those
who have been left out and left behind.
I listened carefully to his excellent presentation earlier in
outlining the choices, the alternatives for the American people
presented in this particular legislative proposal. Once again, he has
made the convincing case that we can, as Americans, do a great deal
better in terms of those who have been left behind. With this
recommendation that has come back from the conference which represents
basically the Republican priorities, there are going to be millions and
millions of Americans who are going to have a dimmer Christmastime this
particular year.
There is an extraordinary irony that we are within 9 days of
Christmas Eve when families will gather around the Christmas tree,
exchange gifts, will attend church services, and think about the spirit
of Christmas. When they realize what their representatives have done in
Congress, they know they will have a dimmer Christmas with fewer
opportunities for their children and their parents and for the lives of
working families in this country.
I thank the Senator from Iowa for his excellent presentation and for
the continued battle for decency in our country.
As the Senator from Iowa has pointed out, this is an issue of choices
for our Nation. Budgets are an issue of choices and priorities. He
mentioned that during his presentation, and he has repeated the areas
where we are going to see further reductions that are going to make it
more difficult for families in this country.
But you can't get away from the major fact, that a judgment and a
decision has been made by the majority for a tax giveaway, effectively,
to the wealthiest individuals in this country of $95 billion. Someone
has to pay for it. The judgment that has been made by the majority
party is that it is going to be the neediest members of our society who
are going to have their belts tightened over this period of time.
Nothing illustrates it better or more effectively than this chart
illustrating where the House bill leaves tax cuts for the wealthy
individuals under the Christmas tree but leaves middle-class families
out in the cold. Families with incomes over $1 million will receive
$32,000, and those families with incomes under $100,000 will receive
$29. And people can say, Is that what this legislation is all about?
Why in the world are you doing that?
We just listened to the Senator from Iowa talk about all these cuts.
What does that have to do with tax cuts? The fact is, if you are going
to provide $32,000 in tax incentives to families making over $1 million
in income and only $29 for families making under $100,000 in income,
you not only have the issue of fairness if you are going to go for the
$95 billion--it is grossly unfair in the distribution--but then you
have to ask, How are we going to pay for all of that? The Senator has
done a very comprehensive job in presenting that issue.
I will take a couple of areas. We have gone through these at other
times with the Senator from Iowa--and I commend him--in the health
area, the neighborhood health centers, the training of personnel, all
the range of public health programs. What I would like to do this
morning is take a look at where we are with education funding.
This chart shows where we have been in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001,
2002. Look what has been happening in the last 4 years, and this
Republican bill contains a $59 million cut in education programs. Look
at America's priorities as reflected in education. One can say money
doesn't solve everything. It doesn't, but it is a clear reflection of a
nation's priorities. This chart is backed up with budget figures. I
have the budget items right here that reflect all of this. They
indicate that this is what we are saying to Americans on the issues of
education.
In my State, we have made some important progress in education. We
have made some important progress. Quite frankly, we put in place in
our State a number of the reforms that were eventually put into No
Child Left Behind--smaller classes and better trained teachers. In the
NAEP test, which is the national education test, Massachusetts scored
higher than all other states in reading, and tied for first in the
Nation in math. In Boston, we saw a 19 point increase in the number of
Hispanic students proficient on the math test, and a 10 point increase
for African American students. These are the first major breakthroughs
in the history of our country in these disparities. We are beginning to
see progress because we have been investing in children.
Not anymore. Here is where we are going: Right back to the good old
bad days in terms of a nation's priorities in education.
Today, we will have an opportunity, on the issue of education, to
reaffirm what we did in the Senate. That was a bipartisan effort that
produced a decent bill. We met our obligations under what they call
reconciliation and the budget items. In a bipartisan way, led by our
chairman, Senator Enzi, and with the assistance of Republicans and
Democrats, what did we do? We--in our committee and on the floor--
virtually unanimously in our committee increased the maximum need based
aid to Pell-eligible students to $4,500. Before that, we haven't been
able to increase the maximum Pell grant. We have been flat on these
Pell grants. These affect the neediest students. There are 400,000
students who won't go to colleges, who are academically qualified to go
to colleges, because they can't afford the dramatic increase in the
cost of tuition.
The Senate did something about it. We increased these grants to
$4,500, and we gave an additional boost to those students in their
junior and senior years who are going to be studying math and science.
Why math and science? Because as all of us understand, if we are going
to have an innovative economy, we are going to have to invest in the
degrees that are going to permit us to have an innovative economy. That
is necessary not only because we need an invigorated economy, but we
need strengthened national security and defense. We were able to do
this in the Senate.
What has the House of Representatives done? The House of
Representatives has raised the interest rate caps for students to 8.25
percent.
At that rate, the typical borrower will pay as much as $2,600 more on
[[Page S13604]]
loans. They raise the origination fees on direct loans in the short
term, which will cost the typical borrower $400; they impose a new 1-
percent fee on all students who consolidate their loans. It is going to
cost students, parents, and families thousands of dollars more to
attend or to send their children to college. That is where the House of
Representatives goes--increasing the cost of college for working
families who are already struggling. That is why we believe it is so
important that our negotiators hold firm to the provisions in the
Senate bill. We meet our responsibilities, and we provide the kind of
help which is so necessary for students in this country. That is what
our bill does.
We will have a chance to vote on our motion to instruct conferees
this afternoon. We do not always have a chance to offer amendments or
motions to instruct conferees on every subject matter but we will in
terms of the issues on education and higher education.
I want to mention one other item that the good Senator from Iowa has
spoken to because I think it is enormously important to our fellow
Americans. Here is the cover of Nature Magazine, publisher of the
original human genome paper. The Senator from Iowa was visionary in
ensuring that NIH was going to move forward in giving the support for
the mapping of the human genome.
With the mapping of the human genome, we have seen all kinds of
possibilities in terms of health care and medical breakthroughs. We
have seen medical breakthroughs in the historic diseases that have
affected every family across America, including all of us in the Senate
and the House of Representatives. We have seen breakthroughs addressing
the problems of Alzheimer's, the problems of Parkinson's disease, the
problems of cancer, the problems of diabetes.
We have begun to see enormous progress that is being made. We are at
the tip of the cusp. That is because we have had bipartisan
cooperation. The Senate was working together, as we have in education.
We worked together, Democrats and Republicans, all during period from
the late 90's through 2002 to try to get investment in breakthrough
research. Just about every scientist who has appeared before the
Senate's Committee on Appropriations says this is the life science
century. The possibility of achieving breakthroughs that benefit every
family in America are virtually unlimited if we invest the resources.
Does anyone think that is what this administration is doing? No. They
say, let us give $95 billion more in tax breaks to the wealthiest, and
let us cut all of that potential right off at the knees. That is what
they have done. That is what is before us. That is why the Senator from
Iowa has said that this is an unacceptable budget. Do not take our word
for it. Look at the budget, the choices that have been made. If one
goes back, at least in my State, and talks with families, they will
probably be talking to you now about the Medicare D Program and how
they are going to deal with the confusion. But underneath it all, when
it comes to the end of the conversation, they will say: What are the
possibilities of getting some real breakthroughs? My father has
Alzheimer's, my uncle has Parkinson's disease, what are the real
chances of doing something about these diseases? We have to take care
of them. We love our family members, what are the possibilities of
finding breakthrough treatments to save them?
Every scientist and every researcher was moving along on this. We
thought we had an agreement to consider the stem cell legislation,
another area on which the Senator from Iowa has been a leader. We
thought we had an agreement by the leaders that we were going to bring
this up. The House of Representatives has acted on it. My State of
Massachusetts has acted on it. Other States have acted on it. What is
wrong with the Senate? They say, we have to take more time to pass more
tax giveaways to the wealthiest individuals, we cannot afford to take
the time to do the stem cell research. No, sir, we cannot do that. I
say, this is the priority. That is why the Senator from Iowa is as
worked up as he is.
This is the reality of the NIH budget. Dr. Landis, who is the
Director of the National Institute on Neurological Disorders and
Stroke, says:
If we are to fund new programs, we will have to stop
funding old programs. For every young investigator, a senior
investigator will be unfunded. For every senior investigator
who's refunded, it means a junior investigator won't be.
Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield on that?
Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.
Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate the Senator pointing this out because
yesterday a big story broke in the newspapers from NIH. A lot of times
people ask what happened with the human genome project, what is it
leading to, mapping of the entire human genome. A couple of years ago,
I paid my first visit to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York,
Long Island. It is run by James Watson, who is one of the codiscoverers
of the structure of DNA. What they had embarked upon at that time was
the beginning of mapping the genes of all of the cancers known to
humans. It was a small project. It was funded and it went along.
Yesterday, a story broke that Dr. Zerhouni, the distinguished and very
capable head of the National Institutes of Health, announced that the
National Institutes of Health was embarking upon a program to map and
sequence the genome of every known cancer. They are going to go out and
take cells of every cancer, take the DNA out, and map it. They think
that it is going to take about 10 years to do. It will cost about $1
billion to $1.5 billion.
Is it worthy? Of course. These are the bullets we will have to really
get at cancer. It is phenomenal in its concept and what it is going to
do.
Here is the problem, as the Senator from Massachusetts pointed out.
We do not give them any extra money to do it. That means if they are
going to embark on this, they are going to have to take money out of
other research on Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and
everything else.
Yesterday, I asked Dr. Zerhouni: Where is this money coming from?
Already we are cutting down and cutting back on the number of grants
that are being awarded, and now with this appropriations bill that we
have, it is going to get even worse.
I say to my friend from Massachusetts, when we embarked on mapping
and sequencing the human genome back in 1991 when I was chairman, we
did not take money from some other place. We came to the Congress and
said this is important, let us do it, let us fund it and we did it, and
we paid for it.
Now, with this tremendous news yesterday that came out about mapping,
sequencing the genomes of all known cancers, we are now cutting the
funding basically for NIH. So I say to my friend from Massachusetts,
what he pointed out, that is what we are confronting. We are
confronting cutting back in other needed research to do this or maybe
we will not do this after all. That is the dilemma we face. That is the
position that this appropriations bill puts us in. I thank the Senator
from Massachusetts for pointing that out.
Mr. KENNEDY. I welcome that very important statement. What we are
seeing from the research community is not only the progress that is
being made in basic research, but the acceleration of breakthroughs
through the use of advanced engineering and computers to fast track
this kind of research.
This chart reinforces the point that the good Senator has made. Four
out of five new ideas will be rejected in fiscal year 2006. This chart
states that 79 percent of grant applications to NIH will be rejected.
This will be the highest percent of grant rejections in decades. In
these grants lie the possibilities of life saving treatments and cures.
When we are talking about the grants, as the Senator knows, we are
talking about serious grants. These are not grants submitted by someone
off the street saying: Listen, give me some dough, I think I think I
have an idea. These grants have been researched, examined, and tested.
They are the best, in the opinions of the scientists in that particular
area, and are worthy of further progress. The opportunities for
meaningful progress are in these projects. Eighty percent of those
grants are being rejected. Why? Because we want $95 billion to go to
the wealthiest individuals in this country. This is who is paying for
the budget cut, this right here--the 80 percent of scientists whose
grants will be rejected. With the budget squeeze and those few hundreds
of
[[Page S13605]]
millions of dollars saved, we will be able to provide the additional
tax breaks, giveaways to the wealthiest individuals.
Finally, I want to bring up the subject on which the Senator from
Iowa has been the leader. I want to talk about the dangers of avian flu
and the dangers of the pandemic. I have listened to the Senator make
the persuasive case for our Nation that avian flu is a danger. I have
listened to him stop this Senate and say: Look, we have to take action
on this flu legislation. We have to provide the resources to deal with
this challenge we are facing.
I know this chart is difficult to read, but it is a time line going
back to 1990. It lists all the warnings from June, 1992 through today.
We see the warnings all the way back 1992:
Policymakers must realize and understand the potential
magnitude of a pandemic.
Here's the warning in Hong Kong, 1997.
Here it is in the GAO report:
Federal and State influenza plans do not address key issues
surrounding the purchase and distribution of vaccines and
antivirals.
Here it is from the World Health Organization:
Authorities must understand the potential impact and
threats of pandemic influenza.
Here it is in Vietnam. Here is the December 2003 outbreak in Korea.
The Senator rightfully challenged this body to say we have to do
something about the pandemic threat. And we responded. I had the
opportunity to be at NIH when the President of the United States made
his commitment to this deal with $7.8 billion. What happened? The money
that had been requested by the President, the money that had been put
into the budget by the Senator from Iowa was struck out. The President
requested it. The Senate went on record. We have the warnings. We have
been told about this. Secretary Leavitt has spoken passionately about
this issue. Former Secretary Thompson has spoken out about this issue.
But we are still falling behind on pandemic preparedness.
This chart is familiar to the Senator from Iowa but is one I think we
need constant reminding of. Japan had their comprehensive flu plan in
October of 1997; Canada, February `04; Czech Republic, `04; Hong Kong,
`05; Britain, `05. We have gone through their plans and they are
extensive. The United States released our plan November of `05, and it
is incomplete.
Do we think in this budget we are giving the assurances to the
American people that we are going to be leaders, able to deal with a
possible pandemic? Absolutely not.
I share the real frustration of the Senator. He had mentioned earlier
the problems they were going to have in terms of heating oil. Under
current funding, families in Massachusetts will receive LIHEAP
assistance that is effectively enough for only one tank of oil.
Basically, low-income and middle-income working families use two to
four tanks over the course of the winter, two to four tanks. They will
have one tank under current funding levels.
I think of the number of people, primarily women, who are waiting to
go back to work. There are some women who want to go to work, but they
do not have the childcare to take care of their child so they can go to
work. In Massachusetts, 13,000 children are on waiting lists for
childcare slots. Most of these mothers have the opportunities to go to
work, but they can't without childcare assistance. I think that is a
long, difficult wait for so many of these families who are constantly
challenged to protect their child while going out and working and
providing for their family. They are constantly facing that every
morning they wake up. Do you think we are helping them? Oh, no, we are
adding more burdens to them. There will be fewer slots, under this
particular proposal, for those families.
I think of the 160,000 people who are unemployed in my State and the
72,000 jobs that are out there waiting for people to be able to
receive. The only thing that is missing is the training programs, to
train part of the 160,000, train 72,000 so they can get those jobs. Do
you think that is in this legislation so these families will be able to
participate in their community, make even a greater contribution to
their community, plus pay taxes? Oh, no. We are cutting back on that
funding. There are further cutbacks on the training programs.
We are cutting back or eliminating the dropout prevention programs.
We are cutting back on the afterschool programs. The list goes on. The
point has been made very eloquently by the Senator from Iowa. As the
Senator from Iowa has pointed out and as I mentioned, this day is about
choices in the Senate. It is about choices--whether, on the one hand,
we think in our national interest it is more important to give the $95
billion in tax giveaways to the wealthiest individuals in this country.
It is not even a fair plan. If you were for a tax program that was
going to be fair, at least you could make that case, I would think, and
hold your head up. This is $95 billion, and the $32,000 to every family
earning over the $1 million and $29 to every family earning under
$100,000--that is not even fair, if you thought that was the Nation's
priority, paid for by the most vulnerable people in our society.
I do not want to hear a lot from the other side talking about the
Christmas spirit. We have seen how the Christmas spirit is reflected in
real terms in their votes on these issues here. It is not going to be a
happy one.
In our motion to instruct on higher education, which we will address
in the afternoon, the following Senators have indicated support. There
are others that have contacted me about it as well. Senator Harkin and
Senator Durbin, Senator Dodd, Senator Reid, Senator Lieberman, Senator
Kerry, Senator Reed of Rhode Island, Senator Corzine, Senator Clinton,
and I will add others as the day goes on.
I thank my colleague and friend from Iowa for his excellent
presentation, for his review of all these issues and questions, and for
posing the vital issue for the American people, almost at the time of
Christmas Eve. He has summarized it. There is no one more knowledgeable
or understanding, or anyone who has been a more forceful advocate of
all of these causes, than the Senator from Iowa. I thank him for his
energy and persuasiveness and his presentation.
Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: How much time do
I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eleven and one-half minutes.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I don't know if any others want to come
over. That is why I asked for 90 minutes to point out how bad the bill
is.
Looking at all the various programs that were cut, Senator Kennedy
did an outstanding job of going over how devastating some of these cuts
are going to be in terms of health, education, and medical research.
Going through a big bill like this, sometimes your eyes kind of glaze
over some of the important aspects that people do not bring to the
forefront.
But there is one other cut in this bill that people ought to know
about. All the staff who are watching, the Senators who are watching,
you ought to know about this cut. It is the maternal and child health
block grant being cut by 3 percent. The real per-capita purchasing
power is now 20 percent below what it was in 2002. What is the maternal
and child health block grant? It helps low-income mothers get
preventive health services and medical treatment for children who have
disabilities and other special needs.
One of the best things we have ever done here to help low-income
families have healthy babies and to make sure those babies get the best
start in life is the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant Program,
which goes out to the States, and it is cut by 3 percent.
Please justify that. When you vote later today on whether to accept
this appropriations bill, please justify just that one thing: how you
are going to justify cutting the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant
Program.
As bad as this bill is, every time I look at it, I ask: Can it get
any worse? The answer to that is, yes. It is going to get worse. Here
is why.
[[Page S13606]]
This bill had a $1.4 billion cut. We have just gone over all of the
things that are cut in this bill--the Maternal and Child Health Block
Grant Program, to education, to medical research--all vital in defining
the kind of country we are. Can it get worse? Yes. Here is what is
going to happen. Hang on.
Tomorrow or Saturday or sometime, we will be voting on a Department
of Defense appropriations bill. That Department of Defense
appropriations bill will have a bunch of things in it that do not deal
with the Department of Defense. By the way, it will also have in it a
1-percent across-the-board cut. We are already told it is in there--a
1-percent across-the-board cut.
All of the cuts we have talked about--Maternal and Child Health Care
Block Grant Programs, title I funding, special education, geriatric
training centers, and NIH--all of that is going to get an additional 1-
percent cut.
The way that works out is, the $1.4 billion cut in this bill is going
to be a $2.8 billion cut. It will double it.
As bad as this bill is now with the $1.4 billion cut, by the time we
are through here tomorrow and voting on a 1-percent across-the-board
cut, it will be twice as bad--a $2.8 billion cut in this bill.
That is because this bill is about $140 billion. You take a 1-percent
across-the-board cut, that is $1.4 billion. So get ready. That is why
this bill should not be passed in its present form because there is
going to be that 1-percent across-the-board cut. It is going to double.
The Senator from Massachusetts mentioned the avian flu bill. We put
money in here for the avian flu. I offered an amendment on DOD
appropriations back in September. In December, the chairman of the
Appropriations Committee said that is not the proper place for it, that
it ought to be on the Labor-Health and Human Services bill. I agreed
with him. But we didn't know if we were going to have a bill. So it was
put on the DOD bill.
Later on when we got this bill before us, we added $8 billion to get
us prepared to fight perhaps the biggest flu pandemic the world has
ever seen, one that could kill hundreds of thousands of our fellow
citizens, one that could hospitalize up to 90 million people in this
country. We put $8 billion in this bill. Guess what. Look at the bill.
It is not in there. It is all gone, all taken out.
They say they are going to put some more in the Department of Defense
bill. We haven't seen it yet. But they took it out of this bill.
It is going to get worse. Today is December 15. By the way, it is
also the anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights to our
Constitution. I hope it is not too much of a leap to ask on this
anniversary of the Bill of Rights: What about the rights of poor
people? What about the rights of low-income people? What about the
rights of our people to be protected from the pandemic flu? What about
the rights of our citizens to decent health care, the rights of our
citizens to a decent education, no matter where they live or the
circumstances of their birth? Should the quality of your education be
decided by geography, where you live? What about our rights? This bill
before us speaks to rights, human rights, the basic rights of an
American citizen to decent health, housing, education, a shot at the
American dream. So on this December 15, 10 days before Christmas, the
anniversary of the adoption of our Bill of Rights, throughout much of
the world it is a season of giving, but here in Congress with this bill
it is a season of taking away education programs, taking away job
training, taking away home heating assistance, taking away rural health
programs, taking away maternal and child health care.
But what it really takes away is hope. It takes away hope from
people, hope for a better life, hope for a better shot at the American
dream, hope that their children will have it a little bit better than
what they have had.
I remember when then-Governor Bush was running for President in 2000.
He had a saying at that time--I haven't heard it lately, but he had a
saying that the Government can't give hope to people. Well, I beg to
differ. Government can give hope to people. It depends on who is
running the Government as to who is getting the hope. As the Senator
from Massachusetts just pointed out, we have a huge tax bill, more tax
breaks for the wealthiest in our society. If you are making over $1
million a year, you have a lot of hope. You are going to get about
$32,000 in your Christmas stocking. Thirty-two thousand, you are just
going to get it, a nice tax giveaway for the most affluent in our
society. A lot of hope has been given to them by this Government.
But if you are low income, if you live in small rural America, if you
are elderly, if you are disabled, if you need the help of the
Government to lift you up and to give you some hope for a better life,
you don't get hope. It is taken away from you.
So what we are saying to low-income families who are working, trying
to pay their bills, trying to scrape by, trying to keep their families
together, trying to raise their kids, I guess what we are saying is,
Merry Christmas, hang your stocking, and Congress is going to put a
lump of coal in that stocking for you. That is what you get.
I don't understand how anyone can vote for this bill, especially at
this time of the year. I hope our conscience would come to the fore. We
all know the wonderful story from Dr. Seuss. We recall reading it to
our kids, ``The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.'' This bill is a bill only
the Grinch could love. No funding for avian flu, lowest increase in NIH
funding in 35 years, cuts education funding as No Child Left Behind
requirements are going up, no increase in college aid, cuts job
training. I could have added a lot more--as I said, cuts in maternal
and child health care, cuts in geriatric training, cuts in Head Start.
Well, if you like the Grinch, I suggest you might want to vote for
this bill. But we need to reject it and insist that the leadership
provide enough funding to write an acceptable bill. They have the power
to do it. We did it in the Senate. I repeat, under the leadership of
Senator Specter, on a bipartisan basis, we passed a bill here 97 to 3.
We can do it. If only the President of the United States just said to
the House leadership, We want the Senate bill, we want what the Senate
did to be fair and just to all our citizens, we would have this. We
would have it. That House of Representatives, they will do whatever the
President tells them to do. And if he had waded in there and said,
Look, we don't accept this, we will have the Senate-passed version,
that is what we would have. We would all vote for it and hold our heads
up high and say we did the right thing for the citizens of our country.
Yes, leadership has the power to do it. They have the White House, the
House, and the Senate.
What is stopping them from giving us a decent bill? As I said, we did
it here. We did it on a bipartisan basis in the Senate. But if we pass
this bill now, this conference report, and give this very cruel rush--
well, we have to get out of here. We have to go home for Christmas. We
have to pass the bill. No, we don't. No, we don't. What we need to do
is to say no, go back to the drawing board, get us a bill that is
acceptable, and if we have to go on a continuing resolution for a month
until we come back, or 2 months, until February, we have done that
before. We would be better off going on a real continuing resolution, I
say to my friends in the Senate. We would be better off than accepting
this bill and putting the pressure on the White House and the House to
come back with a better bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. HARKIN. That is really the essence of it, Madam President. We
need a better bill. We should not vote for this one.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. I share the concerns and frustrations expressed by the
distinguished ranking member of this subcommittee, Senator Harkin, and
I believe he will agree with me that this bill, the bill that the
Senate passed was structured as well as we could have structured it,
given the allocation which we had.
Mr. HARKIN. I just said so, yes.
Mr. SPECTER. My question to the Senator from Iowa would be, on this
conference report, where I have already said publicly in the conference
that I thought it was grossly inadequate, $5 billion under last year on
health, which is our No. 1 capital asset in this country, and
education, which is a major
[[Page S13607]]
capital asset--health so we can function, education to prepare us for
the future, and job training in the Department of Labor, I would ask
him if--and I have said publicly that I intend to vote against this
bill as a protest unless my vote is needed. And I know that is unusual
for the chairman of the subcommittee to take that position. But I
believe that Senator Harkin and the subcommittee and full Senate and I
have done what we can on a bill subject to limitations that we have. I
would ask the Senator from Iowa if there is anything more we could do
given the restrictions as to allocation of what we were facing?
Mr. HARKIN. First, I say to my friend, and he is a dear friend of
mine--we have exchanged chairmanships on this committee going back over
15 years--as I said earlier in the Chamber, and I say again, the bill
that our chairman, Senator Specter, put together and that we brought
out on the Senate floor, we worked it. Our staff worked it. We got a
97-to-3 vote, I say to my friend. The bill that the Chairman brought to
the floor we passed 97 to 3. It was a good bill. We always want to do
more, but given the restrictions, that was a good bill. That is the
bill we ought to have before us now. The problem is that the House
wouldn't go along with it. But that doesn't mean that we have to go
along with it.
I appreciate the position the chairman is in. I have been in that
position, too, in the past. I appreciate the difficult position he is
in. But I want the record to be clear that this chairman brought out a
good bill, a bill that was passed 97 to 3 by the Senate. I point out
that this chairman fought very hard for our priorities and for health
funding. I don't want anyone to mistake what I am saying. But I am just
saying that the House and I have to say the White House, maybe through
inaction or not being involved, let it happen and are now confronting
us with this conference report that is totally inadequate. That is
totally inadequate.
I might add to my friend from Pennsylvania that what we are facing
now is the result of a bad budget. That is what it is. We have a bad
budget forced on us. This is sort of the end result of that. But even
with that bad budget, we came out with a decent bill. I say to my
friend from Pennsylvania, I only wish the White House had been actively
involved in this conference and came down and told the House
leadership: We want nothing less than what the Senate did.
If we had that, we would have had a bill out here that would pass 97
to 3 again. It might even pass unanimously.
So I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, we can do better than this.
I say to my friend, I do not enjoy voting against this bill. I do not
enjoy it. I do not enjoy not signing the conference report. But we can
do better. We do not have to accept this. We can go on a continuing
resolution, a real continuing resolution, and say to the White House
and the House: No, we need to do better than this.
That is why I say to my friend from Pennsylvania--I have the greatest
respect and admiration for him, as he knows, and he has fought hard for
us--sometimes at the end of the day you have to say no, we are not
going to accept it. So that is our position and that is my position on
this bill.
I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, I know he has other things he
has to work on today on different legislation and everything, but we
have to send a signal to the House and the White House that this is
unacceptable. I say to my friend, I thank him for his leadership and
for bringing out a good bill here in the Senate, something we were
proud of and voted for. I was proud to work with Senator Specter on
that bill. I am sorry the House and, yes, I say the White House--they
should have been involved in this--are now confronting us with a bill
that is unacceptable.
I thank my chairman.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, to keep America strong, we need to keep
our families and communities strong. That is why I am very concerned
about the fiscal year 2006 Labor, HHS and Education appropriations
bill.
The Senate is scheduled to take up the final conference agreement on
this bill, and it is bad news for the American people. This bill is
filled with the wrong priorities for our country.
If we pass this bill as a result, it will tear apart what is left of
America's health care safety net and provide fewer investments in
education and workforce training.
Instead of investing here at home--in our people, our children, and
our communities--this bill will move us in the wrong direction and will
undermine America's strength.
If we can rebuild schools and hospitals in Iraq out of emergency
funding, why can't we provide the resources our own communities need
here at home?
We know that rebuilding safe and stable communities in Iraq requires
investments in education, training, and health care. And the same is
true in communities across America.
If we want to be strong here at home, we need to invest here at home,
but this falls far short of what we need.
That is really a disappointment because this bill is the most direct
tool we have each year to improve the health and education of the
American people.
More than any other appropriations bill, the Labor-HHS bill directly
impacts almost every family and every community. This is a bill that
funds all of the Federal commitment on education. It provides funding
for our investment in biomedical research. It funds all of the Older
Americans Act programs. And it provides the funding to retrain our
workers to succeed in a very competitive global economy.
This is an important bill and it should be used to invest in America,
but instead--this bill cuts funding by $540 million from last year's
level. When we add in the Medicare administrative funds, the total cut
soars to $1.4 billion.
That means we are moving in the wrong direction--and families are
going to feel the impact in health care, education and job training.
Let me start with health care.
This bill cuts total health care funding by $466 million. It cuts
programs that help the uninsured get health care, efforts like
community health centers, the maternal child health block grant; health
professions training, rural health, and CDC disease prevention
programs.
This bill also moves us in the wrong direction on disease research.
We can all be proud of the National Institutes of Health. It is the
leading source of biomedical research into deadly diseases like cancer,
MS, Parkinson's, ALS, heart disease, and AIDS. But this bill provides
the NIH with the smallest increase since 1970. It would move us
backward in our fight against cancer and other terminal illnesses. How
can we expect to be able to find vaccines for new global pandemics when
we are cutting our investment in critical research?
This conference report will also make it harder for uninsured
families to see a doctor. Specifically, this bill eliminates the Health
Community Access Program, which I have fought to protect for many years
now.
This is a program that helps our local communities to coordinate care
for the uninsured and provide integrated health care services for
vulnerable families.
I have seen the Community Access Program at work in my home State of
Washington, and I know it is making a tremendous difference.
These are the very programs we should be investing in today. The HCAP
program was authorized with broad bipartisan support in 2002. But this
bill would eliminate this successful community-based model for helping
the uninsured.
Not only is this bill bad news for health care, it also moves us in
the wrong direction on education.
This bill represents the smallest increase in education in a decade.
Today, schools are facing increasing requirements under No Child Left
Behind. Today, family are facing rising college tuitions. Today is no
time to shortchange education. We know the burdens on our local
community are growing.
In the coming year, school districts will face higher academic
standards, and they will have to meet new requirements for highly
qualified teachers. That means they need more help. But the conference
reports cuts funding for the No Child Left Behind Act by 3 percent.
Funding in the conference report is $13.1 billion below the
authorized funding level.
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This bill also marks the first time in 10 years that the Federal
Government will slide backward on its commitment to students with
disabilities. The Federal share of special education costs would drop
from 18.6 percent in fiscal year 2005 to a flat 18 percent in fiscal
year 2006.
Every time we cut back our investment in special education, we are
putting a higher burden on local school districts, children, and their
families.
In addition, funding for disavantaged students-through title I--will
receive its smallest increase in 8 years. In fact, the funding level in
this bill is $9.9 billion less than what Congress and President Bush
committed to provide. The bill would leave behind 3.1 million students
who could be fully served by title I if the program were funded at the
committed level.
Many students are feeling the impact of higher tuition. This year,
tuition and fees grew by 7.1 percent at 4-year public universities. But
the conference report fails to increase the maximum Pell grant award
for the fourth year in a row.
It also fails to increase funding supplemental educational
opportunity grants, the Work-Study Programs, and the LEAP Program,
which supports State need-based aid.
In addition, the conference report also fails to increase funding for
GEAR UP and the TRIO Programs, which help disadvantaged students
complete high school ready to enter and succeed in college.
This bill also moves us in the wrong direction on helping America's
workers.
We hear a great deal about economic recovery and building a strong
economy. Yet this conference report will cut adult job training by $31
million. It will cut youth training by $36 million. These programs
serve over 420,000 people nationwide. How can we hope to strengthen our
economy and help those who lost manufacturing jobs if we are reducing
our investment in job training?
All of the tools we need to build a strong economy--and a strong
America--are on the chopping block in the Conference Reports.
Worst of all, this is not the end.
We know that there will likely be an across-the-board cut in all
discretionary programs, including those funded in the Labor, HHS and
Education appropriations bill.
That means even more families will lose access to affordable health
care, more children and schools will go without the resources they need
to meet the Federal mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act, and more
workers will see the American dream slip away when their plant closes.
This is not the right message to send to our families and
communities.
Let's show them that we want to make America strong again and that we
are willing to invest here at home.
I urge my colleagues to reject this conference report and force the
Republican leadership to invest in making America stronger.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, there is time available on the bill,
the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill, for those who
wish to speak in favor of it. If any of my colleagues wish to do so, I
invite them to come to the floor at this time. If there are no speakers
in favor of the bill on our time, I intend to utilize this time for a
discussion on the PATRIOT Act, which has a very limited amount of time
to debate and discuss these issues. But I renew my statement. If
anybody wants to speak in favor of the bill, they should come to the
floor at this time and we will find time for them to speak.
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