[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1798-1799]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE STATE OF THE UNION

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, tonight our President comes to Capitol 
Hill, as Presidents historically do, to deliver a State of the Union 
Message both to us here in Congress and to the country at large. I 
would have to say that this State of the Union probably, in his 
Presidency, is one of the most critical.
  We have a very bold President who has not ducked from any of his 
responsibilities, and in so he has been a very dynamic, forceful leader 
for our country. Tonight I believe he comes to Capitol Hill to 
challenge us here in the Congress on a variety of fronts, to challenge 
us to do our work in a bipartisan way, not only for our country and for 
the citizens of our country but for the world at large. This is a 
President who tonight will speak on a variety of topics. Let me talk 
about four areas I think he will dwell on for much of his time.
  First of all is growing our economy and creating jobs. There is no 
question that we are in, and have come through, a recession. We have 
men and women in our country who are out of work. The economy has 
slowed. The revenues to government have frustrated our States. 
Certainly we have to recognize and deal with that here, as revenues 
have declined. But most important, clearly it is an issue of men and 
women out of work. He will challenge us to grow our economy and to 
create new jobs, and he will do so by the dynamic approach of the 
stimulus package that will have tax reduction in it, to get money back 
into the economy and out to not only the job creator but middle-income 
Americans themselves, those who are the hard-working men and women of 
our country.
  It will be argued from the other side, with oftentimes the gnashing 
of teeth and the wringing of hands, that somehow the President is going 
to take money away from Government. Somehow, it is Government, if you 
leave the money in Government, that will create all of these jobs and 
will provide the safety net and the security for the American people. 
Yet just last week we saw our colleagues on the other side offer 
amendment after amendment that would have driven up our deficit by 
nearly $450 billion to $500 billion over the next several years. They 
clearly demonstrated that their intent is to keep all the money they 
can get and spend it, instead of in any way trying to create a package 
that will not take money out of the pockets of the working men and 
women of our country but will also generate the incentives that will 
cause the economy of this country to reinvest and to create jobs.
  Over the next several months--and I hope it will only be a couple of 
months--the Finance Committee here in the Senate, and hopefully the 
House Ways and Means Committee, will come forth with a budget and a 
budget proposal that will include within it, I trust, many of the 
incentives that our President is proposing in his economic stimulus 
package that he will talk about tonight. We can be a positive force in 
the economy by rewarding and recognizing both investment and hard work, 
instead of penalizing them by taking more and more, or by creating the 
kinds of hurdles or obstacles that the investment community has to take 
to reinvest in the economy. So I hope we listen closely to that 
proposal tonight, as our President visits with us about it.
  He has obviously talked about--and I think will talk again tonight--
strengthening and improving health care in this country. We worked at 
it a long while last year. We were at the threshold of dealing with 
Medicare reform and prescription drugs. Those probably are some of the 
most difficult areas with which to deal, but the most important. 
Prescription drugs have become a dynamic part of health care delivery 
in this country, yet we still deal with an old Medicare model that is 
not paying its way to the provider and the caregiver. As a result, many 
of our senior citizens are having difficulty finding a primary care 
provider, and are paying $300, $400, $500, $600 a month oftentimes, and 
more, for prescription drugs. We can deal with that this year and we 
can deal with it in a bipartisan way. The President has supported us in 
that.
  But last year, struggle as we might, somehow some of my colleagues 
thought it was an issue better left unaddressed until after the 
election. Why? I suspect they thought they could take it to the people 
and somehow gain political favor by arguing that one side or the other 
had denied the senior citizens of this country access to a viable 
modern Medicare program with prescription drugs. I believe that 
argument fell hollow. What was heard by all of us who were out running 
for reelection last year was: Congress, do your work. Do it on a timely 
basis. Do it on a responsible basis. Yes, and do it in a bipartisan 
way. But don't drag your feet, don't argue, and, most important, don't 
in every way avoid getting your work done, failing to address the 
problem with the argument that somehow you will gain political favor by 
doing so; that will not work.
  I think the President may also talk about something else that is 
reshaping American health care, and that is, of course, excessive 
lawsuits that are causing doctors literally to pack their bags and move 
to other States that have been bold enough to do tort reform over the 
last several years and where, as a result, the cost of insurance for 
care providers is not as great as it is in other areas of our country. 
This is something we have to deal with here. Yes, we have to look at a 
certain segment of our economy right in the eye and say fair is fair. A 
reward for malpractice suit should not make both the patient and his 
attorney multimillionaires in a single act. Clearly, a person injured 
by malpractice should be rewarded for that injury. None of us argue 
that. But the fact that in some instances predator lawyers can make a 
million dollars or more a case doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and I 
don't think it makes a lot of sense to the consumers, who now find they 
have to pick up the bill because of malpractice insurance that some 
doctors are now paying that is in the $200,000 to $300,000 to $400,000 
a year range. That is, by any definition, excessive. I think our 
President will speak to that this evening, will talk about tort reform, 
and charge us, this Congress, in a bipartisan way to deal with that 
responsibly.
  It is obvious to me, at least, that many Americans will be tuning in 
tonight to listen to the President on those issues. But obviously there 
is now another issue on which he will spend, I would guess, a good deal 
of time. That is the issue of defending peace and security at home and 
abroad. The President came to us last year in a post-9/11 environment 
with a very bold reform package. In the waning days of the last 
Congress, we produced a new agency of our Government entitled the 
Department of Homeland Security. That was a bold step on the part of 
our President. Anyone on the other side who says that we are less 
secure today as a country than we were before 9/11, or that we are not 
as secure as we ought to be, fails to recognize the significant amount 
of money and the major steps that have been and are now being taken to 
build greater security for the citizens of our country.
  I was chuckling a little bit the other day when a Member of this 
Senate talked about not having accomplished anything. I thought, my 
goodness, that Senator must never travel on the airlines anymore, must 
never go through security checks that sometimes take 20, 30, and 40 
minutes, that sometimes require all of your bags to be inspected, your 
shoes taken off, your coat and jacket to be taken off.

[[Page 1799]]

  I have seen, and I am sure the Presiding Officer has seen, 4- and 5-
year-old kids almost strip-searched and wanded at the airports. 
Arguably, that is security. Frustrating? Yes. But I think our airlines 
today are substantially more secure than they have been. They will 
become increasingly secure as we refine security, and the people at 
those checkpoints become all the more efficient in their jobs. That is 
part of what this Congress has accomplished.
  Certainly border security has become increasingly tight. The ability 
to identify illegal aliens who may be here for a purpose of doing us 
harm is now an aggressive process, well underway. Our Department of 
Justice has moved very aggressively to find, apprehend, and prosecute 
those where cases can be effectively built that they are, in one form 
or another, here with a purpose other than finding work and providing 
beneficial service to this economy.
  For anyone to say we are less secure today is a surprise to me. Does 
it say we are as secure as we ought to be? Certainly not. But it also 
suggests, in light of the threat of terrorism, that we, as a country, 
live differently today and must think differently in a post-9/11 
environment, that we must be constantly vigilant and, yes, our agencies 
of government--whether it be Federal, State, or local--must improve 
their abilities. And they are being given the resources to do just 
that, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Certainly, that 
is a challenge. I think it is a challenge that the President will speak 
about this evening.
  Lastly, and certainly as important, will be the issue of security 
abroad. Our Nation is a humane and civil nation. We are a peace-loving 
nation. We have always taken war as a very serious undertaking and one 
from which--while we do not enjoy it in any way when it comes to our 
own citizens' security and the security of freedom-loving citizens and 
allies around the world--we have not stepped back. Certainly, in a 
post-cold-war environment, we recognize, as the world's superpower, 
that awesome responsibility and force we have.
  This President--and I have heard him, as have all of us--speaks very 
clearly to that, recognizing not only his responsibilities as our 
President and Commander in Chief, but it is a responsibility he does 
not take lightly nor does he take casually. He sees it as a huge 
responsibility and one that he and his Cabinet treat most seriously.
  In doing so, he has operated both in a bold and cautious fashion. For 
anyone to suggest anything less than that did not hear our President's 
speech at the United Nations and his willingness to challenge them to 
do their job with the passage of the U.N. resolution that, in fact, 
finally put inspectors back into Iraq to do just that, to inspect and 
to find if Saddam Hussein had lived up to the original U.N. resolution, 
first and foremost, and, secondly, to see if, in fact, he was 
continuing to build weapons of mass destruction and if he had gained 
any kind of nuclear capability.
  It has already been well established that he has both chemical and 
biological weapons. Those were found. Those were recorded. Yet somehow 
today the world is cautiously saying: Well, that doesn't seem to count 
anymore. It is what you find today or tomorrow that will cause this 
country and our allies to disarm Saddam Hussein.
  I do not think the President or his people see it that way. And while 
they have been willing to give the United Nations ample time to 
respond, this President does have a responsibility, and that 
responsibility is, yes, to the world at large and the freedom-loving 
people around the world, but his responsibility is to us, here at home, 
to make sure the actions we take in foreign policy increasingly reflect 
on our security and our stability.
  I think the President will talk about that this evening, as certainly 
he and his Cabinet have been involved in that over the last good number 
of weeks and months. It has been one of his primary missions, along 
with bringing this economy back to life and moving us forward as a 
country.
  This is a critical speech for our country, both here and abroad, as 
this President speaks to us and to the American people about his vision 
of leadership and responsibility, to move our economy, to create jobs, 
to put people back to work and, at the same time, to strengthen and 
improve health care and the general well-being of the citizens.
  He will, by his proposal of faith-based approaches, encourage us to 
deal with acts of compassion. The President wants to apply compassion 
to some of the deepest problems in America. That is a side of our 
President that has been badly underestimated by some. He will urge 
Congress to pass both his faith-based and citizen service initiatives. 
Why? Because it is in the best interest of this country to do so. For 
good people to be helping good people who are in need of help, with 
some assistance from our Government, at a tremendously lower cost and 
in a considerably more compassionate way, is exactly what this 
President will speak to in that initiative.
  Lastly, of course, as I have mentioned, is defending the peace and 
the security at home and abroad. September 11, nearly 2 years ago now, 
was a time of awakening under an attack and a loss of our fellow 
citizens' lives that we didn't think could happen. While some experts 
had studied the issue over the years and had told us that someday it 
would happen, I don't believe there was ever a true belief that it 
could happen here. Now we know it can.
  For us to think it will never happen again would be to dramatically 
underestimate not only the ability of the human mind to figure a new 
approach but the intent of terrorists to do our citizens and our 
country wrong.
  We have made some great steps forward in reshaping Government and its 
agencies to be more sensitive, to be able to connect the dots of 
intelligence and information and, out of that, to make an assessment as 
to the security of our country.
  Also, this President has gone much beyond that. He has reached out to 
the world at large and challenged people not to in any way encourage or 
ignore a risk of terrorism and to deal with terrorists as if they were 
enemies of the world and enemies of the state. Clearly, we have a role, 
as a very powerful country, in working with our allies to make sure 
terrorism and terrorists have no safe haven anywhere in the world. That 
is why our President insisted that U.N. resolutions be enforced and 
that we go back into Iraq, as the United Nations inspections team has 
over the last several months, to determine whether Saddam Hussein was 
living up to U.N. resolutions that largely were to disarm and 
neutralize him after the Desert Storm war over a decade ago.
  That will be another important part of his speech this evening, as he 
assesses that for us and challenges us, both as a country and as a 
Congress, to work with him in the days to come.
  Trade and jobs and the economy on one hand, security on another, 
these are issues that Congresses in the past have faced and this 
Congress will face. Our challenge is to be able to work together, not 
for one side to gain political advantage over the other but to see how 
we can best solve these problems. Many of them, if not most, will have 
to be dealt with in a bipartisan way so that our country truly does 
come together not only to make ourselves more secure, but in that 
security to be able to live in a good life, to be able to have the 
resources and the wherewithal to sustain life in both a livable and 
enjoyable fashion. That is the American dream. Most important, that is 
the American responsibility, be it here at home or to the world at 
large. That is our challenge.
  I believe our President will once again challenge us this evening to 
greatness.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Illinois is recognized for 15 minutes.

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