[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22830-22831]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      LEGISLATIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend, the distinguished Republican 
leader, came to the floor, talked about a number of things tonight. I 
wish to approach things in a little different direction. I wish to talk 
about what we have accomplished in these short 7 months. We have worked 
hard. We have worked long, hard hours, something that hasn't been done 
for a long time in this body. Let's talk about the bills we have sent 
to the President of the United States that we have passed.
  Minimum wage. We hear a lot about minimum wage, but minimum wage is 
not for kids flipping hamburgers at McDonald's. Sixty percent of the 
people who draw the minimum wage are women. For over half those women, 
that is the only money they get for themselves and their families.
  I am glad we passed the minimum wage. After 10 years, we have given 
this legislation the attention it deserves. It is an issue that deals 
with women. It does. But also it is an issue that deals with people of 
color. The majority of the people who draw the minimum wage are people 
of color. We did the right thing. It is important legislation, and it 
is now the law.
  A short time ago, we finished a vote on terrorism. On 9/11, it was an 
act of terror that killed over 3,000 Americans. President Bush went to 
Ground Zero on a number of occasions, but it was thought we should take 
a look at what really happened on 9/11. What could we do to better 
prepare for similar attacks? What went wrong? Why weren't we prepared?
  So we asked--we Democrats asked--for months and months--that went 
well into more than 2 years--why don't we have an investigation to find 
out what went wrong? This was fought by the President. Finally, after 
an outcry from the survivors of the 9/11 victims and people all over 
this country, we were able to get a bipartisan commission to study 9/
11. Even though the President opposed it, we finally were able to get 
this done.
  They recommended we do certain things to make us safer. They made 
their recommendations, sent them to the White House, sent them to 
Congress, and we begged the President to implement these 
recommendations. They were not implemented. The 9/11 Commissioners came 
back and graded the President on how he had done--Fs and Ds on 
everything.
  This Congress, in these short 7 months, has passed legislation that 
implements the 9/11 Commission recommendations. There was a signing 
ceremony today at the White House. That is now the law. It is going to 
make our country much safer. The problem is, it is 3 years behind 
schedule.
  We, as Democrats, recognize we had elections last November. There was 
tremendous turnover. People never believed Democrats would take control 
of the Senate. There was some talk they would take over the House. The 
Senate was never thought to be a body that we would take over. We did.
  Why did we take over the Senate? We have nine new Democratic 
Senators, one of whom is presiding over the Senate tonight. Those nine 
Democratic Senators campaigned on a number of issues. But the one issue 
they campaigned on all over this country is to do something about the 
culture of corruption in Washington.
  Why were the nine new Democrats concerned? For the first time in 131 
years, someone working in the White House was indicted. Scooter Libby 
has now been convicted and pardoned by the President. Mr. Safavian was 
appointed by the President to take care of Government contracts. He was 
a dishonest man. He had sweetheart deals with other people, including 
Jack Abramoff. He was led away from his office in handcuffs and is now 
in prison.
  In the House of Representatives--controlled by the Republicans--the 
former majority leader of the House of Representatives was convicted 
three times of ethics violations. They changed the rules for him. He 
was indicted twice in Texas for crimes. Those are still going forward. 
A number of Members of the House of Representatives are now in jail; 
House staff in jail.
  The K Street Project. What was the K Street Project? What it was: If 
you were a lobbyist downtown, you had to

[[Page 22831]]

do what DeLay and the boys in the House wanted you to do or you could 
not get a job down there. They had to approve who was hired on K 
Street. That is what we call the ``lobbyist fiefdom.''
  So there was a reason the nine new Democratic Senators wanted us to 
move forward quickly on ethics and lobbying reform. S. 1, the first 
bill we did--the most important bill is listed No. 1--was ethics and 
lobbying reform; and we passed it. It has been passed. It is the most 
sweeping ethics and lobbying reform in the history of our country.
  I have said publicly, I say again in front of one of the nine new 
Democratic Senators, thank you for bringing to Washington a new 
culture. Yesterday, when that passed, we are in that new culture now.
  We have sent to the President benchmarks to measure progress in Iraq. 
We sent to the President and funded mine-resistant combat vehicles. We 
sent to the President legislation giving the National Guard the 
equipment they need. The President went to the gulf--Katrina--and 
looked at it 22 times, I am told. But he would not give them any money. 
We forced the President to take what we wanted to give him in the 
supplemental appropriations bill--$7 billion. And we got that to the 
gulf victims.
  We got disaster relief for small businesses and farms--3 years 
overdue. Wildfires are burning in the West as we speak. In Nevada, last 
week, we had 20 fires burning at the same time. We have one fire we 
share with the State of Idaho that is approaching a million acres 
burning. We got wildfire relief.
  We were able to pass a law preserving the U.S. attorneys' 
independence. Why did we do it? Well, they were firing U.S. attorneys. 
The Presiding Officer was a U.S. attorney. There is an old saying in 
the law: What are you trying to do, make a Federal case out of it? Why 
did we say that? Because U.S. attorneys make cases you cannot beat most 
of the time.
  But these U.S. attorneys, under this administration--under this 
corrupt administration--had to do what this administration wanted them 
to do or they had to go look for a new job. We do not know the full 
extent of what U.S. attorneys did because of political pressure from 
Karl Rove and others at the White House. I do not know if we will ever 
know. We know some of it.
  What else have we passed? A pay raise for our troops, making college 
education more affordable. We passed in our reconciliation bill the 
most significant change in college education since the GI Bill of 
Rights. We passed CAFE standards, raising the fuel efficiency of 
vehicles for the first time in 25 years.
  We passed, recently--first of all, in the supplemental appropriations 
bill, we funded SCHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program, until 
the 1st of October. And here, yesterday, we passed health insurance for 
children. The Wounded Warriors legislation passed; a balanced budget 
with pay as you go. What does that mean? We passed a budget. The 
Republicans, for 3 years they had a majority of 55 to 45, and they 
could not pass a budget. We did it with a majority of 1--50 to 49. It 
is balanced, it is pay as you go. The Republicans, in the past, ran up 
these astronomical debts for our country, and did it with red ink.
  We do not do that. We gave middle-class tax cuts, extended the child 
tax cut, gave tax relief for small businesses, funded women's health. 
We expanded eligibility for Head Start.
  We had 94 hearings addressing the conduct of the war, and it is so 
important we have done that. As a result, we were able to take a look 
at the scandals that took place at Walter Reed, where our veterans were 
being neglected. We have things in progress we have passed and are 
waiting for conference reports to come back.
  We are going to try--we tried to pass it tonight. There was an 
objection to reauthorizing the FDA, Food and Drug Administration, WRDA, 
Water Resources Development Act. We passed the competitive legislation 
that some say is some of the most important legislation passed in this 
body in decades, making this country more competitive educationally and 
in the business world.
  The President has vetoed important legislation--stem cell research. 
Giving hope to millions of Americans has been vetoed by the President. 
The President vetoed timelines for bringing our troops home from Iraq.
  And then, of course, we had a number of things blocked by 
obstructionism of the Republicans--lower priced prescription drugs. We 
were prevented from being able to vote because we could not get 60 
votes, with the obstructionism of the Republicans on the ability of 
Medicare to negotiate for lower priced drugs. Insurance companies can 
do it, HMOs can do it but not Medicare. That is wrong, and we have been 
blocked from doing that.
  We were even stopped from doing an Intelligence authorization bill. 
It is hard to comprehend, but that is true. This country is at war with 
the terrorists, but they have prevented us from doing an Intelligence 
authorization bill; there are a number of agencies in this country that 
handle our intelligence, our spying, and they stopped us from updating 
what they need to be able to do.
  They twice filibustered antisurge legislation in Iraq, forced 45 
cloture votes.
  So, Mr. President, we have had a very productive 7 months. I hope we 
can come back and do more. I have been very happy with the last month 
or so. It appears bipartisanship is breaking out all over. I hope that 
can continue. As I said yesterday, when we do something good, there is 
a lot of credit to go around. When we do not do anything, there is a 
lot of blame to go around.

                          ____________________