[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 22195-22196]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         HELP COMMITTEE AGENDA

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the message from this election is clear. 
There is little doubt that the American people want a change of course 
in Iraq. But they also want a government that stands with them and 
their families as they look to the future--jobs that reward their hard 
work, health care that is good and affordable, and education that 
continues to open the door to the American dream for all of our 
citizens.
  That was the agenda of the voters in this election and it will be the 
agenda of our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee when we 
convene in the new year. And with Senator Reid as our majority leader, 
America's families will see great progress on the issues that they care 
most about.
  Yesterday, Democrats selected the membership of our committee. Every 
member is an experienced legislator with a deep commitment to working 
families and a solid record for getting things done.
  So I welcome back Senator Dodd, Senator Harkin, Senator Mikulski, 
Senator Bingaman, Senator Murray, Senator Jack Reed, and Senator 
Clinton. And I welcome our new members: Senator Obama, Senator-elect 
Sanders, and Senator-elect Brown.
  I am also grateful to continue working together with Chairman Enzi. 
The gavel may change hands, but our partnership will not. He is a true 
leader and has set the standard for fairness and statesmanship, and I 
look forward to working with him on the many issues before the 
committee in the next Congress.
  My first priority will be to increase the minimum wage. Americans are 
working harder than ever, but millions of hard-working men and women 
across the country aren't getting their fair share. We are not 
rewarding work fairly anymore, and working families are falling behind.
  The minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for almost 10 years. 
A minimum wage worker who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year still 
makes just $10,700 a year--$6,000 below the poverty line for a family 
of three. In this era of skyrocketing costs, these hard-working 
Americans are forced to make impossible choices--between paying the 
rent or buying food, between paying for gas or paying the doctor.
  Americans understand fairness, and they know this is unfair. That is 
why the American people took the battle into their own hands this year. 
They pounded the pavements for months to put minimum wage increases on 
the ballot in six States this year. And all six of these ballot 
initiatives passed by decisive margins. If there is one message from 
this election that emerged loud and clear, it is that no one who works 
for a living should have to live in poverty.
  Raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour will benefit almost 15 
million Americans. It will help more than 7.3 million children whose 
parents will receive a raise.
  Minimum wage workers serve in many of the most difficult and most 
important jobs in our society. They care for children in day care 
centers, and for the elderly in nursing homes. They clean office 
buildings, hotel rooms, and restaurants across the country. They are 
men and women of dignity, and they deserve a fair wage that respects 
the dignity of their work. It is long past time to give minimum wage 
workers a raise.
  Another high priority is to remove the barriers to lifesaving stem 
cell research.
  We are in the era of the life sciences, and no area of medical 
research has more promise than stem cell research to speed the search 
for new cures for diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, cancer, and many other 
serious illnesses.
  Thanks to the courage of leaders such as Michael J. Fox, the people 
of Missouri last week chose hope over fear by approving a 
constitutional amendment to allow stem cell research.
  Congress should learn from that example. Last year, a broad 
bipartisan majority approved legislation to tear down the barriers that 
have kept NIH scientists from realizing the full potential of this 
research. That bill was rejected by the President, but hope can never 
be vetoed.
  We will be back again and again next year until we succeed in 
overturning the restrictions on stem cell research that hinder the 
search for new cures, and delay the day when the hope of a better 
future becomes a reality for patients across America.
  We must also address the crisis in college affordability that affects 
every low and middle income family and that threatens our economic 
progress. It is more important than ever for our citizens to have a 
college education so they can compete in the global economy and have a 
fair chance at the American Dream. But because of soaring college 
costs, stagnant student aid and heavy student loan debt, it is becoming 
increasingly difficult for our citizens to get such an education.
  Today, students and families are pinching every penny to save for 
college--but it is not enough. Each year, 400,000 low-income students 
do not attend a 4-year college because of cost factors. Student debt is 
also a barrier to the pursuit of vital but lower-paying professions 
like teaching, public health, and social work.

[[Page 22196]]

  Last year, we passed an increase in student aid through the Senate 
only to see our proposals die in the House. With the House and Senate 
under new management, next year we will provide needed help to families 
struggling to put their children through college.
  We will increase Pell Grants from $4,050 to $5,100. We will cap 
college loan payments to no more than 15 percent of your income. We 
will cut student loan interest rates. We will reform the student loan 
program so it works for students and not just the banks. And we will 
use the savings to increase student aid.
  And at long last, we can no longer ignore the need for health care 
reform. We must reduce the cost of health and we must make it available 
to each and every American.
  Every Member of the Senate, and their staffs, and every Federal 
employee has a sense of security about health care that is denied to 
millions of Americans. Members of Congress know that if we get sick, or 
if our children need medical care, our health insurance plan will cover 
virtually all of the costs.
  Tens of millions of our fellow citizens have no such guarantee. 
Nearly 50 million Americans lack health care coverage entirely, and 
tens of millions more have inadequate coverage. In a nation with the 
best doctors and finest hospitals in the world, it is profoundly wrong 
that so many Americans suffer from illnesses that could have been 
prevented or treated more effectively--if only health care had been 
available and affordable.
  The time is long overdue to address the crisis in health care. 
Bipartisan health care reform is possible, and our first step toward it 
should be effective legislation to strengthen and reauthorize CHIP, the 
program that provides quality health care for 4 million children.
  But our experience with health reform in Massachusetts showed that we 
can do more. We proved that people from all parts of the political 
spectrum can come together to provide health care for all. So this, 
too, is one of our top goals for the coming Congress.
  Together, we can--we must--make the promise of this century of the 
life sciences a reality for all Americans by seeing that every American 
has quality, affordable health care.
  These are our top priorities for the new year, but they are not our 
only priorities.
  We must pass the CLASS Act and create a long-term care infrastructure 
in this country that will support every American's choice to live at 
home and be part of their community. Every older or disabled American 
has this right, and it is our job in Congress to provide them with the 
support they need to make this a reality.
  We will strengthen early learning opportunities, starting at birth, 
for each of our children. Prevention works in health care and it can 
work in education as well.
  We must also ensure that our schools are equipped to meet the 
challenges of the global economy. Our Nation's future depends on many 
things, but certainly one of the most important measures of the 
strength of our democracy is the excellence of our public schools. This 
year, we will revisit the reforms contained in the No Child Left Behind 
Act.
  The law charted a sound course for American education four years ago, 
but it is time for us to reshape our commitment and provide better 
solutions for schools to respond to the challenges identified by the 
law. These reforms are right and we're ready to work with President 
Bush, as we did 5 years ago. But given the many failures of 
implementation by his administration and the meager commitments to 
education reform in his budgets, the President has a high hurdle to 
cross to demonstrate that he is seriously committed to these reforms.
  In addition, we must give workers a stronger voice in their own 
futures and in meeting the needs of their families. We must protect 
workers' right to join together and fight for better wages and working 
conditions, free from employer intimidation. Workers need opportunities 
to improve their skills through job training programs. And families 
deserve paid sick days to care for loved ones without fear of losing 
their jobs.
  Americans who have worked a lifetime to provide for their families 
deserve to retire in dignity, not in poverty. We must ensure our 
retirement system works for all Americans, not just corporate 
executives.
  We can make bipartisan progress, too, on measures that will improve 
health care and reduce costs--not by denying services to patients, but 
by improving efficiency and effectiveness. Congress should aid doctors, 
hospitals, and patients to improve their use of electronic medical 
records, and we should explore responsible ways to reward the quality 
of health care, not just the quantity of care.
  And we must fulfill our duty through our hearings and our legislative 
program to ensure that Government is working for the people, that we 
have strong laws to keep workers safe on the job and that workers are 
fairly paid, that student loans work for students and not just the 
banks, that students are protected from exploitation in the private 
student loan market, that prescription drugs we rely on and the food we 
eat are safe, that the workers that risked their lives for others on 9/
11 are cared for as they deal now with the illness and injury.
  These will be my priorities as chairman of the Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee next year. They come directly out of this 
election where the American people spoke loud and clear. And I look 
forward to working with my colleagues to make important progress for 
America's families.

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