[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8723-8724]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             FIRST 100 DAYS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, last November, the call for change in 
Washington rang out from coast to coast. The Presiding Officer was one 
of the results of that historic vote on November 7, which has been good 
for the people of the State of Maryland and for the people of this 
country. The American people called for us to put partisanship aside in 
pursuit of common ground, to end the culture of corruption, to cast 
away the rubber stamp, and, most importantly, to change the course in 
Iraq. This Congress has heard that call. As we reach our 100th day, we 
are well on our way to delivering a government as good and honest as 
the people it serves.
  From the very first day, we knew all our progress would depend on 
renewing the people's faith in the integrity of Congress. And just as 
an aside, Mr. President, I would note that while I am not much of a 
poll watcher, it was brought to my attention earlier this week that the 
polls showed the American people are much more supportive of the 
Congress than they were just a few months ago. A lot of that is as a 
result of what we have been able to do here.
  Our first order of business was passing the toughest lobbying ethics 
reform legislation in the Nation's history, and we have done that. We 
voted to give working Americans a much deserved and long overdue raise 
in the minimum wage. We passed a continuing resolution that enacted 
tough spending limitations, and earmarks were eliminated. We passed 
every single recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, after they 
languished in the Congress for years with nothing being done. We passed 
a responsible pay-as-you-go budget that cut taxes for working people 
and invested more in education, veterans, and health care. And I might 
say that as a result of Senator Johnson being incapacitated for the 
next few weeks, we were able to pass that budget even though the margin 
here was 50 to 49. We had two brave Republicans to join with us on this 
very sound budget, which we appreciate very much--Senators Snowe and 
Collins--and it was done even though in the past the Republicans 
couldn't pass the budget with a much larger majority than we have.
  Yesterday, we passed legislation offering the promise of stem cell 
research in a responsible, ethical way, with 66 votes--or actually 63, 
but three Democratic Senators were unable to be here. They would have 
voted for that. So 66--1 short of being able to override the promised 
veto of the President. I think it is very possible we will get this 
bill, and it will be the first to override the President's veto. I 
think we can do that. There must be another Republican who will step 
forward, in a profile in courage, and vote with us and give hope to 
millions of Americans.
  In the weeks ahead, we will turn our focus to reducing drug costs for 
senior citizens. That is going to be a battle because the wealthy, 
strong, powerful pharmaceutical industry has hired nearly every 
lobbyist in town--those with Gucci shoes and chauffeur-driven 
limousines--and they have been flooding this Capitol to prevent the 
American people from having the benefit of Medicare being able to 
negotiate for lower priced drugs. The big HMOs, the health care 
providers, and the insurance companies can but not Medicare. What does 
that say? It says the pharmaceutical industry is way too powerful. But 
we are going to have a shot at it. We will see how much power the 
pharmaceutical industry has over the Senate. On this side of the aisle, 
they have very little power, but we will see how much power they have 
over on the other side of the aisle. So we are going to try to allow 
Medicare to negotiate for lower priced drugs.
  We are going to do our very best to develop a new strategy for 
energy, and we are going to act as quickly as we can to see what we can 
come up with regarding comprehensive immigration reform. We passed 
something here last year. We did it without the help of the President. 
With the help of the President this year, maybe we can do better. I 
certainly hope so. He says he wants to help, but actions speak louder 
than words.
  All the while, during these first 100 days, as I mentioned, we 
retired the

[[Page 8724]]

rubber stamp and restored Congress to its rightful, constitutionally 
mandated role as a coequal branch of Government. The Bush 
administration is finally being held accountable for some of its 
failures--and I say some of them, whether the political manipulation at 
the Department of Justice, where we learned today that all the e-mails 
dealing with their so-called political computers appear to have been 
destroyed or hidden--just part of the manipulations of this very 
historic Justice Department, and I mean historic in the sense of being 
the most corrupt ever, the most inept ever. We have also been able to 
look at this administration for its failures at Walter Reed, the 
deplorable conditions at Walter Reed, and the tragic mishandling of the 
war in Iraq.
  No message was more clear in November than the call for a new 
direction in Iraq. Yet, in the months that have passed, President Bush 
has only dug us deeper, deeper in this intractable civil war going on 
in Iraq. Now we hear the Army will be forced to put further strain on 
the troops by extending their tours of duty from 12 to 15 months. Next, 
the Marine Corps will have added time to their already strained forces.
  Today, although you didn't read it in the paper because it happened 
since the papers went to print, a bridge in Iraq was blown up right in 
the city of Baghdad, with cars piled up off of that. They do not know 
how many are dead as a result of that. In the Green Zone, inside the 
Iraqi Parliament, a bomb went off today, killing members of Parliament. 
They do not know how many, maybe only a couple. We don't know at this 
stage. But many were injured right in the Iraqi Parliament.
  Policing the civil war was never supposed to be the mission, and 
every day the price we pay grows worse and worse--3,300 American lives 
lost, tens of thousands more wounded, and about $\1/2\ trillion spent. 
That is $\1/2\ trillion that could go to health care for the 47 million 
Americans who have no health care and to look at what we are going to 
do about the children dropping out of school and to do something to 
provide monies for the Leave No Child Behind Act, which could help 
education around our country. This $\1/2\ trillion spent, yet no end in 
sight, according to our President, for the troops. More of the same.
  It takes more than saying we support our troops to make it so, and in 
these first 100 days, this Congress put words to action. Our emergency 
supplemental appropriations bill gives the troops every single penny 
requested by the commanders on the ground, plus it gives more than the 
President requested. It provides a reasonable, realistic strategy to 
draw them out from the crossfire of another country's civil war, and it 
provides funds that the President's budget left out to make right the 
unconscionable situations at Walter Reed and other VA medical 
facilities, because our troops do deserve that support. The support of 
the American troops doesn't end when they leave Iraq; it must continue 
when they come home to American soil.
  No single piece of legislation will bring this tragic war to a 
climax. The American people understand that, but they elected us to 
lead the way, to chart a new course, showing President Bush the way 
forward, and in these first 100 days, we have done precisely that on 
the war in Iraq and the issues here at home.
  In the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to do the very best 
we can to change the direction at home and abroad.

                          ____________________