[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 21855-21856]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             MOVING FORWARD

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the elections are over. It is time for us to 
move forward. It is time to move forward and, in working together, 
begin the process of moving our great country forward.
  Last week the American people spoke for change. In the months ahead, 
Senate Democrats will fight for change. We are going to focus on three 
priorities, including bipartisanship. We have to work together. We 
can't accomplish anything as Democrats standing alone. As has been 
shown, the Republicans couldn't accomplish anything standing alone. We 
need to work together to pass legislation on a bipartisan basis and 
send it to the White House. We must have open government--a new word: 
``transparency''--and we have to have results. Bipartisanship is great. 
But if people don't see what we are doing and there are no results, it 
is not as it should be.
  We have a lot of challenges: health care, energy, the economy, 
including these deficits we have; Iraq. We need to restore checks and 
balances. Last Wednesday or Thursday I met a lot of press people in the 
audience and I said to each of them: I will bet most of you here have 
never watched a congressional conference in session, a conference 
committee meeting. It is true. We haven't had one. That is what we used 
to do here. We used to have them for a couple of hundred years, and for 
a couple of decades I was involved in them. But during the last at 
least 6 years, we haven't had any--a conference where we have a House 
bill and a Senate bill and we have an open meeting, and Republicans 
make suggestions on how the bill could be made better, and Democrats 
make suggestions, and there is a vote taken publicly. We haven't done 
that, and that is not good. We need to do that. That is what I am 
talking about, open government, these checks and balances our Founding 
Fathers set forth in that document we call the Constitution, three 
separate, equal branches of government.
  I commend the distinguished majority leader. We worked together here 
in the Senate to come up with the most significant lobbying and ethics 
reform in a quarter of a century--since Watergate, actually. We passed 
that. We passed it on a bipartisan basis. We included not only lobby 
and ethics reform; we had, as a result of a number of Senators led by 
Dianne Feinstein, a provision in there dealing with earmarks, to make 
earmarks more transparent. The bill we passed out of here slowed the 
revolving door between government employees and lobbyists and 
eliminated gifts paid for by lobbyists and substantially expanded 
disclosure by lobbyists. It limited privately funded travel in many 
instances, and required more disclosure. It stopped dead-of-the-night 
legislating regarding open meetings. We did this. We should all feel 
good about what we accomplished in this regard. But, sadly, it went to 
the House and that was the end of it. So I would hope before the 
distinguished majority leader ends his career as a Senator, which has 
been a markedly significant career, that we can do that. It should be 
the law of the land, and hopefully it will be in the next couple 
months.
  Finally, this Senate and we Democrats will do our very best to focus 
our energies on the challenges facing our country and take concrete 
steps to protect our country and help working families get ahead. For 
too long families have struggled with high health care costs while the 
big drug companies haven't struggled. I am glad they have not had to 
struggle, but I think we need to have a more even playing field--
especially with insurance companies. For too long, ranchers in Nevada 
and farmers all across this country have struggled to fill their tanks 
with gas and to have enough money in their bank accounts to do that 
which they need to do. But they have seen these big oil companies get 
the tax breaks that I personally do not think they deserve. I don't 
think the American people believe they deserve them either.
  For too long, all Americans have worried about the direction of the 
war in Iraq only to see Congress refuse to have a real debate on the 
issues. On a personal basis, I have encouraged the President to listen 
to what the Baker-Hamilton working group has to say, and I know he will 
do that. I think it is important that he is willing to meet with those 
people. They are a tremendous group of very patriotic Americans with 
significant experience. On the Democratic side, as an example, you have 
the former Secretary of Defense and former Presidential Chief of Staff. 
They are good people, Democrats and Republicans, who are going to be 
talking to the President. If we are going to have a new direction in 
Iraq, the President must listen to new ideas. This is a step in the 
right direction.
  That is why last week I asked the President to convene a bipartisan 
congressional leadership group and invite other people, too, if he 
wants, of course. It is his meeting. But if he wants, to have Secretary 
Baker, Congressman Hamilton, members of the military. I think if we 
spent a couple of days doing this--however long the President sees 
fit--I think it would be helpful to have if he heard what we had to 
say. If we are going to have a new direction in Iraq, the President 
must listen to new ideas. That is why I felt comfortable in suggesting 
this to the President.
  We Democrats have some very concrete ideas as to what we think should

[[Page 21856]]

happen. First of all, again on a bipartisan basis, with 79 votes on the 
Defense Authorization bill for the previous year, Democrats and 
Republicans joined together to put a provision in that bill that said 
the year 2006 will be a year of significant transition in Iraq. The 
year 2006 is coming to an end. We need to implement that law.
  We, as Democrats, also offered an amendment that received 40 votes 
called the Reed-Levin or Levin-Reed amendment, however you want to look 
at it, to begin a change of course, to set a framework to change 
course. For example, in that legislation, we called for responsibly 
redeploying our troops to transform the mission to training, 
counterterror, logistics, force protection. Does this mean pulling all 
the troops out now? Of course it doesn't. But it does say we must start 
redeploying troops as soon as possible.
  Second, the sectarian differences must be reconciled. They are 
plaguing the country. We have had in the last 2 days, just that we know 
of, almost 200 Iraqis killed, 3 American soldiers, 4 British soldiers. 
We must push for changes to the Iraqi Constitution and power and 
resource sharing.
  I believe it is time for our President to call for a regional 
conference that he participants in. I spoke to the King of Jordan 
today. He thought it was a good idea to have the President call for a 
meeting of the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan--even Syria. It 
is a regional problem. Let's talk about this regionally. It is more 
their problem than our problem. They have more to lose or win than we 
do. So I think a regional conference would be very important to 
regionalize our strategy.
  We must revitalize the failed construction efforts. It was stunning 
to see in the weekend news how much less oil is being produced there in 
Iraq than before the war. It was stunning to see how little potable 
water is being produced there than before the war. And to see that the 
electricity in Baghdad--as an example, prior to the war it was 16 hours 
a day, and now it is down to less than 4 hours a day. We have to 
revitalize our failed reconstruction efforts.
  Finally, we have to rebuild our military. We do not have a single 
undeployed Army unit that is battle ready. Everything is in need of 
repair or replacement--replenishment. The Pentagon has told us it will 
cost $75 billion to bring the military up to what it was before the 
war. We want to work and see if we can accomplish that. Those are our 
suggestions.
  From Iraq to the economy, there is much to do in the next few weeks 
and then at the beginning of the new year and a new Congress--so much 
to do. We must take advantage of the next few weeks and get as much 
done as we can.
  There are 55 Republicans, there are 45 Democrats, we understand 
that--for the next 60 days. After that, it is going to be a very slim 
majority that we have, but it is one that we believe will open the door 
for bipartisanship. I hope, for the good of the American people, we can 
continue to look forward--not dwell on the past but look forward.
  I hope very much we can get our so-called tax extenders done. The 
reason these are important to do is they are critical tax relief for 
American families and businesses that will expire if we don't do 
something--a deduction for college tuition, deduction for State and 
local sales taxes. The manager of the bill on military construction is 
Kay Bailey Hutchison from Texas. This has been her issue because the 
large State of Texas is losing those families' tax deductions, 
deductions for out-of-pocket expenses incurred by teachers and for 
businesses, the research and development tax credit, the work 
opportunity tax credits and Welfare-to-Work tax credits. These things 
are extremely important. Unless we act to extend this relief in the 
next few weeks, families will be facing a tax increase next year. That 
is not acceptable and we need to act.
  It is a new day in the Senate. Let's work together and move America 
forward. I offer my hand to my friends on the other side of the aisle. 
I have reached out to my friend, Senator Frist. We are going to do 
everything we can to have the country know we are doing good things in 
the next few weeks. And I reached out to my friend, Mitch McConnell, 
who I understand will be the next Republican leader, to work together 
on the issues of the next Congress as we have on many issues in the 
past.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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