Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if Senator Byrd and Senator Kennedy make statements today on this legislation, as I believe they will, that our statements be put in the Record in about the same place, with Senator Byrd's first, then Senator Kennedy's, and mine third.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in the speech I made 6 years ago, I called it the American History and Civics Education Act. I suggested we create summer academies for outstanding students and teachers of American history. The idea was to create one of those academies focused on American history and civics for teachers and one for students and to see how they worked and to gradually expand them. These presidential academies for students and teachers were modeled after the Tennessee Governors School, which I began when I was Governor of Tennessee, which still continue today, after 20 years. They are relatively inexpensive. They are 2-, 3-, or 4-week schools for students, and one for teachers. They held students in a variety of subjects, such as mathematics, science, the arts, international studies. They come together for a while and inspire one another, and then they go back to their schools and inspire their fellow students. They have been a great success in Tennessee and in other States. Senator Reid, the majority leader, was the whip at that time. He was on the floor when I made my remarks and he asked to be the prime cosponsor of the legislation, and he was. Senator Kennedy, who has had a long interest in U.S. history, takes his family once a year to some an historical part of the United States. A couple years ago, they went into Virginia and saw where Patrick Henry made his famous speech. I kid him and say he cares so much about history because he is a part of it in such a big way. Senator Kennedy heard about the proposal, and he went along the Democratic side and rounded up 20 cosponsors of the legislation. So, Senator Kennedy, Senator Reid and I and several Republican Senators introduced a bill. We had a hearing during which Senator Byrd testified on behalf of my proposal for summer academies. It passed the Senate and the House, and we have had those summer academies now for three summers. One of those is at the Ashland University in Ashland, OH, which has been a great success. I see the students and teachers every summer. I bring them on the Senate floor, and it has been proven that it is good for teachers and good for our country. So that is the reason we want to expand those programs. We also felt we would meet as a group--those of us who have something to do with U.S. history here--and we met with the Library of Congress and with other parts of the Federal Government and many of us are involved in helping Americans learn more about our country's history, especially young people. As part of that, we thought it would be wise to try to consolidate in one section of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--which we call No Child Left Behind--the various programs we already have for U.S. history and then to expand those that seemed worthwhile. That is what this legislation does. There is a great need for it. I mentioned earlier that it is our worst subject for high school, even though some of our pages seem to do pretty well. Very few students score at or above the proficient level on the American history exam conducted by the National Assessment for Education Progress. Twenty percent of fourth graders were proficient in U.S. history, 17 percent of eighth graders were proficient in U.S. history, and 12 percent of high school seniors were proficient in U.S. history. In addition, the No Child Left Behind Act may have had the unintentional effect of reducing the focus on U.S. history, as some school districts have concentrated their efforts on reading and mathematics. Therefore, it is appropriate and necessary to improve and expand State and local efforts to increase the understanding and awareness of American history and to do it, of course, in a way that doesn't preempt State and local responsibility and authority for elementary and secondary education. Therefore, what the legislation we are doing today will do is expand the summer academies. We call them presidential academies for teachers and congressional academies for students. Those academies were created in 2004 to the number of 100 in the summer gradually over the years. The priority would be to place those academies in the National Park Service's national centennial parks initiative so the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, and other museums that have innovative programs in U.S. history can be aligned with these academies. David McCullough, for example, suggested we have the academies at locations such as Andrew Jackson's home in Heritage. I think an even better idea would be to have a week for U.S. teachers at John Adams' home in Massachusetts, with Mr. McCullough as the teacher. That is the idea. Secondly, we would expand the Nation's report card--we call that NAEP--so there could be a 10-State pilot program for American history and civics student assessment in grades 8 and 12. Today, our Nation's report card doesn't measure State performance in American history. It gives us a picture of how 8th to 12th graders do nationally. This would permit Colorado, Tennessee, Alaska, and California to compare the seniors and, in doing so, call attention to improvements that might need to be made. The third thing would be to require all States to develop and implement standards and assessments in American history under the No Child Left Behind Act. But it doesn't require any Federal reporting, as we do in other subjects. Finally, it would take Senator Byrd's program--called Teaching American History, which he put into the No Child Left Behind Act 6 years ago--and it would double the authorization for that program from $100 million to $200 million, so it can serve even more than the 20,000 teachers it serves today. I thank David Cleary and Sarah Rittling of my staff, who have worked hard with the staffs of Senators Byrd and Kennedy to prepare this legislation. We intend to invite all Members of the Senate, and we hope the House will join us in cosponsoring this. Finally, I wish to tell one short story to conclude my remarks about some of the teachers who have participated. One of the things a Senator can do is to bring someone on the Senate floor who is not a Senator. It has to be done when the Senate is not in session and I have found it is a great privilege for most Americans. Early one morning last summer, I brought onto the Senate floor the 50 teachers who had been selected-- one from each State--for the presidential academy for outstanding teachers of American history. I showed them Daniel Webster's desk right here, and I showed them Jefferson Davis's desk, which is back there, and where the sword mark is where when the Union soldier came in and started chopping the desk, and the soldier who was stopped by a commander who said, ``We came to save the Union, not destroy it.'' I showed them where the majority and minority leaders speak. They saw ``E Pluribus Unum'' up there, and ``In God We Trust'' back there. They learned that we operate by unanimous consent, and we talked about what it would be like to actually try to operate a classroom by unanimous consent, much less the Senate. As you might expect, they asked a lot of good questions, being outstanding history teachers. I especially remember the final question. I believe it was from the teacher from Oregon who asked: Senator, what would you like for us to take back to our students? I said that what I hope you will take back is that I get up every day, and I believe most of us on either side get up hoping that by the end of the day, we will have done something to make our country look better. It may not look that way on television or read that way in the newspaper because we are sent here to debate great issues. That produces conflict and disagreement a lot of the time. I feel, and I believe all of us feel, we are in a very special place, in a very special country, with a very special tradition. We would like for the students to know that and to know that is how we feel about the job we have. I am delighted today that Senators Byrd and Kennedy, who have contributed so much to U.S. history over the years, both in their own personalities and by legislation they have introduced, have joined me in this effort to expand the Federal programs that focus on putting U.S. history and civics in a little higher place in the classroom so that our students learn what it means to be an American. I invite my colleagues to join us, and I invite all Americans to join us in their communities, in their schools and in their States, to make that a priority. Exhibit 1 Remarks of Sen. Alexander--American History and Civics Education Act Introduction Mr. President, from the Senate's earliest days, new members have observed as we just heard a ritual of remaining silent during floor debates for a period of time that ranged from several weeks to two years. By waiting a respectful amount of time before giving their so-called ``maiden speeches,'' freshman senators hoped their senior colleagues would respect them for their humility. This information comes from the Senate historian, Richard Baker, who told me that in 1906, the former Governor of Wisconsin, Robert LaFollette, arrived here ``anything but humble'' (and I'm sensitive to this as a former governor). He waited just three months, a brief period by the standards of those days, before launching his first major address. He spoke for eight hours over three days; his remarks in the Congressional Record consumed 148 pages. As he began to speak, most of the senators present in the chamber pointedly rose from their desks and departed. LaFollete's wife, observing from the gallery, wrote, ``There was no mistaking that this was a polite form of hazing.'' From our first day here, as the majority leader said, we new members of this 108th Congress have been encouraged to speak up, and most of us have. But, with the encouragement of the majority leader, several of us intend also to revive the tradition of the maiden address by making a signature speech on an issue that is important both to the country and to each of us. I want to thank my colleagues who are here, and I want to assure all of you that I will not speak for three days--as former Governor LaFollette did. Mr. President, I rise to address the intersection of two urgent concerns that will determine our country's future. These are also the two topics I care about the most: the education of our children and the principles that unite us as Americans. It is time that we put the teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place in our schools so our children can grow up learning what it means to be an American. Especially during such serious times when our values and way of life are being attacked, we need to understand clearly just what those values are. In this, most Americans would agree. For example, in Thanksgiving remarks in 2001, President Bush praised our nation's response to September 11. ``I call it,'' he said, ``the American character.'' At about the same time, while speaking at Harvard, former Vice-President Al Gore said, ``We should [fight] for the values that bind us together as a country.'' Both men were invoking a creed of ideas and values in which most Americans believe. ``It has been our fate as a nation,'' the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote, ``not to have ideologies but to be one.'' This value based identity has inspired both patriotism and division at home, as well as emulation and hatred abroad. For terrorists, as well as for those who admire America, at issue is the United States itself--not what we do, but who we are. Yet our children do not know what makes America exceptional. National exams show that three-quarters of the nation's 4th, 8th and 12th graders are not proficient in civics knowledge and one-third does not even have basic knowledge, making them ``civic illiterates.'' Children are not learning about American history and civics because they are not being taught it. American history has been watered down, and civics is too often dropped from the curriculum entirely. Until the 1960s, civics education, which teaches the duties of citizenship, was a regular part of the high school curriculum, but today's college graduates probably have less civics knowledge than high school graduates of 50 years ago. Reforms, so-called, in the '60s and '70s resulted in the widespread elimination of required classes and curriculum in civics education. Today, more than half the states have no requirement for students to take a course--even for one semester--in American government. To help put the teaching of American history and civics in its rightful place, today I introduce legislation along with several distinguished co-sponsors including: Senators Reid, Gregg, Santorum, Inhofe and Nickles. We call it the ``American History and Civics Act.'' This act creates Presidential Academies for Teachers of American History and Civics and Congressional Academies for Students of American History and Civics. These residential academies would operate for two weeks (in the case of teachers) and four weeks (for students) during the summer. Their purpose would be to inspire better teaching and more learning of the key events, persons and ideas that shape the institutions and democratic heritage of the United States. I have had some experience with such residential summer academies, when I was Governor of Tennessee. In 1984, we began creating Governor's schools for students and teachers. For example, there was the Governor's School for the Arts at Middle Tennessee State University and the Governor's School of International Studies at the University of Memphis as well as the Governor's School for Teachers of Writing at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, which was especially successful. Eventually there were eight Governor's Schools helping thousands of Tennessee teachers improve their skills and inspiring outstanding students to learn more about core curriculum subjects. When these teachers and students returned to their schools for the next school year, they brought with them a new enthusiasm for teaching and learning that infected their peers. Dollar for dollar, the Governor's Schools were one of the most effective and popular educational initiatives in our state's history. States other than Tennessee have had similar success with summer residential academies. The first Governor's school was started in North Carolina in 1963 when Governor Terry Sanford established it at Salem College in Winston-Salem. Upon the establishment of the first school, several states, including Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee established similar schools. For example, in 1973 Pennsylvania established Governor's Schools of Excellence, which has 14 different programs of study. As in Tennessee, students participating in the Pennsylvania Governor's School program attend academies at 8 different colleges to study everything from international studies, to health care and teaching. Also established in 1973, Virginia's Governor's School is a summer residential program for 7500 of the Commonwealth's most gifted students. Mississippi established its Governor's School in 1981. The Mississippi University for Women hosts the program, which is designed to give students academic, creative, and leadership experiences. Every year West Virginia brings 80 of its most talented high school performing and visual arts students to West Liberty State College for a three-week residential program. These are just a few of the more than 100 Governors' schools in 28 states--clearly the model is a good one. The legislation I propose today applies that successful model to American history and civics education at the national level by establishing Presidential and Congressional academies for students and teachers of those subjects. Additionally, this proposed legislation authorizes the creation of a national alliance of American history and civics teachers who would be connected by the internet. The alliance would facilitate sharing of best practices in the teaching of American history and civics. It is modeled after an alliance I helped the National Geographic Society begin during the 1980's to put geography back into the American school curriculum. Tennessee and the University of Tennessee were among the first sponsors of the alliance. This legislation creates a pilot program. Up to 12 Presidential academies for teachers and 12 Congressional Academies for students would be sponsored by educational institutions. The National Endowment for the Humanities would award 2-year renewable grants to those institutions after a peer review process. Each grant would be subject to rigorous review after three years to determine whether the overall program should continue, expand or end. The legislation authorizes $25 million annually for the four year pilot program. There is a broad basis of renewed support for and interest in American history and civics in our country. David Gordon noted in a recent issue of the Harvard Education Letter: ``A 1998 survey by the nonpartisan research organization Public Agenda showed that 84 percent of parents with school-aged children said they believe that the United States is a special country and they want schools to convey that belief to their children by teaching about its heroes and traditions. Similar numbers identified the American ideal as including equal opportunity, individual freedom, and tolerance and respect for others. Those findings were consistent across racial and ethnic groups.'' Our national leadership has responded to this renewed interest. In 2000, at the initiative of my distinguished colleague Senator Byrd, Congress created grants for schools that teach American history as a separate subject within school curricula. We appropriated $100 million for those grants in the recent Omnibus appropriations bill, and rightfully so. They encourage schools and teachers to focus on the teaching of traditional American history, and provide important financial support. Last September, with historian David McCullough at his side, President Bush announced a new initiative to encourage the teaching of American history and civics. He established the ``We the People'' program at the NEH, which will develop curricula and sponsor lectures on American history and civics. He announced the ``Our Documents'' project, run by the National Archives. This would take one hundred of America's most important documents from the National Archives to classrooms and communities across the country. This year, he will convene a White House forum on American history, civics, and service. There, we will discuss new policies to improve the teaching of history and civics in elementary and secondary schools. This proposed legislation takes the next step by training teachers and encouraging outstanding students. We need to foster a love of this subject and arm teachers with the skills to impart that love to their students. I am pleased that today one of the leading members of the House of Representatives, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, along with a number of his colleagues, are introducing the same legislation in the House. I want to thank Senator Gregg, Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, who has agreed that the committee will hold hearings on this legislation so that we can determine how it might supplement and work with recently enacted legislation and the President's various initiatives. Mr. President, in 1988, at a meeting of educators in Rochester, the President of Notre Dame University, Monk Malloy, asked this question: ``What is the rationale for the public school?'' There was an unexpected silence around the room until Al Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, answered in this way: ``The public school was created to teach immigrant children the three R's and what it means to be an American with the hope that they would then go home and teach their parents.'' From the founding of America, we have always understood how important it is for citizens to understand the principles that unite us as a country. Other countries are united by their ethnicity. If you move to Japan for example, you can't become Japanese. Americans, on the other hand, are united by a few things in which we believe. To become an American citizen, you subscribe to those principles. If there were no agreement on those principles, as Samuel Huntington has noted, we would be the United Nations instead of the United States of America. There has therefore been a continuous education process to remind Americans just what those principles are. Thomas Jefferson, in his retirement at Monticello, would spend evenings explaining to overnight guests what he had in mind when he helped create what we call America. By the mid-19th century it was just assumed that everybody knew what it meant to be an American. In his letter from the Alamo, Col. William Barrett Travis pleaded for help simply ``in the name of liberty, patriotism and everything dear to the American character.'' There were new waves of immigration in the late 19th century that brought to our country a record number of new people from other lands whose view of what it means to be an American was indistinct--and Americans responded by teaching them. In Wisconsin, for example, the Kohler Company actually housed German immigrants together so that they might be ``Americanized'' during non-working hours. But the most important Americanizing institution, as Mr. Shanker reminded us in Rochester in 1988, was the new common school. McGuffey's Reader, which was used in many classrooms, sold more than 120 million copies introducing a common culture of literature, patriotic speeches and historical references. In the 20th century it was war that made Americans stop and think about what we were defending. President Roosevelt made certain that those who charged the beaches of Normandy knew they were defending for freedoms. But after World War II, the emphasis on teaching and defining the principles that unite us has waned. Unpleasant experiences with McCarthyism in the 1950's, discouragement after the Vietnam War, and history books that left out or distorted the history of African-Americans made some skittish about discussing ``Americanism.'' The end of the Cold War removed a preoccupation with who we were not, making it less important to consider who we are. The Immigration law changes in 1965 brought to our shores many new Americans and many cultural changes. As a result, the American Way became much more often praised than defined. Changes in community attitudes, as they always are, were reflected in our schools. According to historian Diane Ravitch, the public school virtually abandoned its role as the chief Americanizing Institution. We have gone, she explains, from one extreme (simplistic patriotism and incomplete history) to the other--``public schools with an adversary culture that emphasize the nation's warts and diminish its genuine accomplishments. There is no literary canon. There are no common readings, no agreed upon lists of books, poems and stories from which students and parents might be taught a common culture and be reminded of what it means to be an American.'' During this time many of our national leaders contributed to this drift toward agnostic Americanism. These leaders celebrated multiculturalism and bilingualism and diversity at a time when there should have been more emphasis on a common culture and learning English and unity. America's variety and diversity is a great strength, but it is not our greatest strength. Jerusalem is diverse. The Balkans are diverse. America's greatest accomplishment is not its variety and diversity but that we have found a way to take all that variety and diversity and unite ourselves as one country. E pluribus unum: out of many, one. That is what makes America truly exceptional. Since 9/11 the national conversation about what it means to be an American has been different. The terrorists focused their cross-hairs on the creed that unites Americans as one country--forcing us to remind ourselves of those principles, to examine and define them, and to celebrate them. The President himself has been the lead teacher. President Bush has literally taken us back to school on what it means to be an American. When he took the country to church on television after the attacks he reminded us that no country is more religious than we are. When he walked across the street to the mosque he reminded the world that we separate church and state and that there is freedom here to believe in whatever one wants to believe. When he attacked and defeated the Taliban, he honored life. When we put planes back in the air and opened financial markets and began going to football games again we celebrated liberty. The President called on us to make those magnificent images of courage and charity and leadership and selflessness more permanent in our every day lives through Freedom Corps. And with his optimism, he warded off doomsayers who tried to diminish the real gift of Americans to civilization, our cockeyed optimism that anything is possible. Just after 9/11, I proposed an idea I called ``Pledge Plus Three.'' Why not start each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance--as we do here in the Senate--followed by a faculty member or student sharing for three minutes ``what it means to be an American.'' The Pledge embodies many of the ideals of our National Creed: ``one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'' It speaks to our unity, to our faith, to our value of freedom, and to our belief in the fair treatment of all Americans. If more future federal judges took more classes in American history and civics and learned more about those values, we might have fewer mind-boggling decisions like the one issued recently by the Ninth Circuit. Before I was elected to the Senate, I taught some of our future judges and legislators a course at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government entitled ``The American Character and America's Government.'' The purpose of the course was to help policy makers, civil servants and journalists analyze the American creed and character and apply it in the solving of public policy problems. We tried to figure out, if you will, what would be ``the American way'' to solve a given problem. The students and I did not have much trouble deciding that America is truly exceptional (not always better, but truly exceptional) or in identifying the major principles of the American Creed or the distinct characteristics of our country. Such principles as: liberty, equal opportunity, rule of law, laissez faire, individualism, e pluribus unum, the separation of church and state. But what we also found as we find in this body was that applying those principles to today's issues was hard work. This was because the principles of the creed often conflicted. For example, when discussing President Bush's faith-based charity legislation, we know that ``In God We Trust'' but we also know that we don't trust government with God. When considering whether the federal government should pay for scholarships which middle and low income families might use at any accredited school--public, private or religious-- we find that the principle of equal opportunity conflicted with the separation of church and state. And we find there are great disappointments when we try to live up to our greatest dreams, for example, President Kennedy's pledge that we will ``pay any price or bear any burden'' to defend freedom, or Thomas Jefferson's assertion that ``all men are created equal,'' or the American dream that for anyone who works hard, tomorrow will always be better than today. We are often disappointed when we try to live up to those dreams. We learned that, as Samuel Huntington has written, balancing these conflicts and disappointments is what most of American politics and government is about. Mr. President, if most of our politics and government is about applying to our most urgent problems the principles and characteristics that make us the exceptional United States of America, then we had better get about the teaching and learning of those principles and characteristics. The legislation I propose today with several co-sponsors will help our schools do what they were established to do in the first place. At a time when there are record numbers of new Americans, and at a time when our values are under attack, at a time when we are considering going to war to defend those values, there can be no more urgent task than putting the teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place in our schools so our children can grow up learning what it means to be an American.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, we have an impressive new President of the United States. He has proven without a shadow of a doubt that he is capable of doing many things at once. I was privileged to go to one of the summits he had. That one was on health care. He had another one on entitlements. He has been to a wind turbine factory. He was in California yesterday. He has overruled some of President Bush's environmental decisions. And yesterday he did what many Americans are doing: he picked his bracket in the NCAA basketball tournament, and he picked North Carolina, which predictably caused their rival, the coach of Duke, Coach ``K,'' to say the following: Somebody said we're not in President Obama's final four, and as much as I respect what he is doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets. That was our U.S. Olympic coach yesterday. There is some truth to that. The President is very impressive and is capable of doing many things at once. But, we don't need a lot of things done at once right now. We have one big issue--it's the economy, Mr. President. While all of us have our role to play in this--Senators, businesspeople, all of us across the country--there is only one person who can do what the President of the United States can do. He is the agenda setter. He is the mobilizer. If the President of the United States focuses on one single big issue and throws everything he has into it for as long as he can, he will wear everybody else out and he will solve the problem, if it can be solved. I am confident in this country the problem can be solved. He has been there for 4\1/2\ months now. We still have a big economic problem. It was going on before he came in, correct. Some people say Americans don't pay attention to history, but I am not so sure about that. In October of 1952, General Eisenhower was running for President and said: I shall go to Korea. He was elected. The Korean war was a big problem then. On November 29, he went to Korea, and said he would concentrate his attention on the job of ending the Korean war until it is honorably ended. There were a lot of other things going on in 1952 and 1953 that needed to be solved. But President Eisenhower focused on the Korean war, ended it, and the country was grateful. It is time for President Obama to focus on fixing the banks and getting the economy moving again. He can do that. The country needs for him to do that, and the country would be grateful if he did. There are other issues, but we only have one President; we have one big issue. Mr. President, it's the economy. That is where the focus needs to be. We are currently debating the President's budget, and we have some differences of opinion. As the Senator from Wyoming said, we believe on the Republican side it spends too much, it taxes too much, and it borrows too much. It is a blueprint for a different kind of country. It is an honest blueprint, in my opinion. It is a 10-year picture of where America would go under the President's proposed budget. It will bring much more Government, add much more debt, and it will be turning over to our children a country that they will have a hard time affording and in which they will have fewer choices. It is not the kind of country I want to see. The new higher tax rates would raise taxes by $1.4 trillion over 10 years. It is the largest tax increase in history. Going back to history a little bit, we can learn lessons from history. President Hoover in 1932, as we were entering a recession, raised taxes. He raised taxes on the wealthy people. The top tax rate rose from 25 percent to 63 percent. What were the effects of the 1932 tax increase? Tax revenue decreased, the Federal deficit increased, and the Great Depression continued for a number of years. The middle of a deep recession is no time to be raising taxes on anyone. I know the President is saying: Well, this only goes into effect later. But everybody makes plans today based on what happens tomorrow. We also know that if they say we are only going to tax the rich people, we have heard that said before. In 1969, everybody became concerned because there were 155 people in America who didn't pay any taxes. So we had what was called the millionaire's tax to catch them. We put in a new tax rate 40 years ago. If Congress had not acted, that tax rate that was set to capture 155 people who didn't pay taxes 40 years ago would have captured 28 million Americans this year. In this country, you rise. You make more money and you rise into the higher tax rates. So if you put a high tax rate to capture 155 people, what we find 40 years later is that you capture 28 million Americans who are paying higher taxes, and many of those individuals are making incomes of $60,000, $70,000, and $80,000 a year. President Kennedy and President Reagan both lowered taxes when they became President and were in economic slowdowns. When President Reagan came in, we had a serious economic slowdown. I was Governor of Tennessee at the time, and unemployment was higher then than it is today. Inflation was a lot more then than it is today. Interest rates were terrifically high then. President Kennedy and President Reagan decided to lower taxes during the economic slowdowns. President Obama is proposing the largest tax increase in history, and the tax especially goes on the engine that creates the most new jobs. In America, all businesses are important for creating jobs. In my home State, we have Federal Express. It employs almost 300,000 people around the world. On the Republican side of things, we would like to have immediate expensing of all the big airplanes Federal Express buys, or the software Microsoft buys--which is not based in my State. Because if these companies can deduct those expenses in the first year, they will make more money, they will hire more people, and Tennessee will do better. Jobs are what we are talking about. But most of the new businesses come from small businesses. Secretary Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, says this tax they want to impose only affects the rich people, and only 2 or 3 percent of the small businesses are affected. Well, I checked into that a little bit. If you work for a company with 20 or more employees--up to 500 employees is a small business--chances are 50-50 that you are working for somebody whose taxes are going to be raised by this proposed tax increase in the President's budget. If those taxes go up in the half of the small businesses that create most of the new jobs, then there is no money to buy new equipment, there is no money to hire a new person, there is no money to raise salaries, there is no money to pay health care benefits and there might not be enough money to pay employees and jobs may be at risk. Raising taxes on owners of small businesses in the middle of a recession is not the way to create new jobs. Then there is the national sales tax on electric bills and energy. Clean air and climate change is an important issue with me, especially clean air. I live at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, where we have unhealthy air that's polluted with nitrogen, sulfur, and other pollutants. I have introduced legislation to have higher clean air standards. I have also, every Congress since I have been here, introduced legislation to have caps on carbon that comes out of the coal-fired powerplants. Not caps on the whole economy, just the powerplants, which produce about 40 percent of the carbon. Some other Senators would like to have what is called a cap-and-trade tax on the entire American economy.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on a day in a week when there is a lot of news where people are hurting in a serious economy, I have some good news to report, and it will just take me a few minutes to do it. Our senior Senator, Mr. Byrd, Senator Ted Kennedy, who is chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and I introduced legislation today that will help push the teaching of U.S. history in our classrooms. The way I like to describe it is by saying this: that it will help to put the teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place, in our classrooms, so our children can grow up learning what it means to be an American. The legislation which we have introduced would expand summer academies for outstanding teachers, authorize new teacher programs, require States to set standards for the teaching and learning of U.S. History, and create new opportunities to compare the tests that students take on U.S. history. Specifically, the legislation would, No. 1, authorize 100 new summer academies for outstanding students and teachers of U.S. history and align those academies with locations in our national park system, such as the John Adams' House in Massachusetts or the Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I see the pages sitting here today. They are real students of U.S. history because they live it and learn it each day they are here. I don't know what their scores are on the advanced placement tests for U.S. history, but I know one fact, which the Chair may be interested in learning: The highest scores in any high school in America on the advanced placement test for U.S. history is not from a New England prep school or a Tennessee prep school or an elite school in some rich part of America; it is from the page school of the House of Representatives. They had better scores on U.S. history than any other high school. I don't know what the Senate page scores were, so I won't compare them. The point is--and this is an idea David McCullough, a well-known author, had: We would expand the number of presidential and congressional academies for outstanding students and teachers and have them placed in the National Park Service initiative. Second, the bill we've introduced today would double the authorization of funding for the teaching of American history programs in local school districts, which today involve 20,000 students as a part of the No Child Left Behind Act. Third, it would require States to develop and implement standards for student assessments in U.S. history, although there would be no Federal reporting requirement, as there is now for reading and mathematics. Finally, it would allow States to compare history and civics student test scores in the 8th and 12th grades by establishing a 10-State pilot program expanding the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), which is also called the ``Nation's Report Card.'' We have a tradition in the Senate where each of us, when we first arrive, make a maiden speech. We still call it that. Most of us pick a subject that is important to us. I made mine almost exactly 6 years ago, on March 4, 2003. The subject was something I cared about then and care about today and on which we have made some progress. I argued, as I mentioned earlier, it was time to put the teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place in our schools so as our children grow, they can learn what it means to be an American. On the ``Nation's Report Card,'' our worst scores for our seniors in high school are not in math or science but in U.S. history. It will be very difficult for us as a country to succeed if we don't learn where we came from. I ask unanimous consent that the speech I made 6 years ago be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator. I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds to conclude.

Mr. ALEXANDER. It doesn't just get rich people.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I believe there is another lesson, too, if we look back 40 years to October of 1969. It sounds very good to say we are going to tax the rich people. There are just a few of them; they are not you. We are going to take their money. You will be all right. That is exactly what happened in 1969. That was the last time we had a millionaires tax--that is what they called it--because they found 155 people who had paid no income taxes, so they passed the millionaires tax. We have another name for it today; it is called the alternative minimum tax. This year, if Congress did not act, it would have taxed 28 million Americans. It started out to catch 155 rich Americans and now could catch 28 million, including a lot of the middle class.

Mr. ALEXANDER. One of the tax portions has to do with what Senator Gregg, the Senator from New Hampshire, who is our ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, calls the national sales tax on electricity, a tax that would be a so-called cap-and-trade system tax.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kyl and I be permitted to engage in a colloquy for 20 minutes, and that I be informed when we have 2 minutes left.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Madam President. President Obama's Budget Madam President, President Obama's budget raises taxes by $1.4 trillion over 10 years. It is the largest tax increase in history, right in the middle of a recession--a recession we all hope we can get out of soon. I have with me today on the Senate floor my colleague Senator Jon Kyl, a member of the Finance Committee, who is, in our party, at least, and certainly within the entire Senate, one of the experts on taxation and jobs and progrowth Government policies. I say to Senator Kyl, I was looking through the history books a little bit this weekend. I noticed President Hoover, in 1932, raised taxes. He, in the Revenue Act of 1932, raised taxes across the board and raised the top tax rate from 25 percent to 63 percent. That was at a time when the unemployment rate was about 23 percent in this country. The effects of the 1932 tax increase were income tax revenues went down and the Federal deficit went up and unemployment stayed up all the way to 1940, when it was still 15 percent. But President Kennedy, of course a Democratic President, came along after a little bit of a sluggish period of time, and he cut taxes in a variety of ways and tax revenues went up. President Reagan came in a few years later, after a difficult time in the late 1970s, which I remember very well, and he reduced taxes and tax revenues went up. So I wonder what the lessons in history are. If we are in the middle of a recession and people are struggling for jobs--and in the Hoover and Kennedy and Reagan administrations we learned that tax increases often reduce revenues and impose costs--what is the lesson in history for the Obama budget?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I think he calls it the Making Work Pay credit.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, it is not entirely clear how much a cap-and-trade system on the entire economy will raise. The President estimates in his budget $646 billion over 10 years. Some observers think that is low; that it might be $60, $80, $100, $120 billion or even more over 10 years. The cap-and-trade system--the way of limiting the use of carbon in the economy--is the subject of a very important debate we should be having in the Senate. For the whole 6 years I have been in the Senate, I have recommended a cap-and-trade system just for powerplants, not for the whole economy. I see the distinguished Senator from New Mexico on the floor who is chairman of the Energy Committee. He has had his own bill there. But our point would be in the middle of a recession, you don't put on top of the American people a new tax on electric bills and gasoline purchases. Just in December of last year, 10 percent of customers for Nashville Electric Service said they couldn't pay their electric bills, even with TVA's relatively low rates. So whatever the views are on cap-and- trade--and there are many views even within our conference: Our Presidential nominee, John McCain, supported cap-and-trade, and I support a limited one but not in the middle of a recession--the way to deal with a recession is not more taxes.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I hope all of us in the Chamber understand that people are hurting, and we want to see jobs and see the economy moving again. I think our point is that the lessons of history show that raising taxes doesn't help create new jobs. Now is not the time to change inequities in the Tax Code. Now is the time to create new jobs and for people to have more money in their pockets. We would like to join with the President in focusing attention on fixing the banks and getting credit flowing again in the same way President Eisenhower did when he said: I will go to Korea and concentrate my attention on this job until it is honorably done. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Our responsibility as the minority party is often to hold the administration accountable, to point out the other side of things, and to oppose things we think are wrong. Our responsibility also is to say what we are for. This week during the debate and over the next couple weeks you will hear Republicans offering different ideas for a clean energy agenda, one that begins with conservation, on which most of us agree. You will hear ideas including building 100 new nuclear powerplants, that is carbon free. You will hear ideas about finding more natural gas, that is low carbon and using plug-in electric cars, which we can plug in at night and we wouldn't have to build any more powerplants. So we could move toward more American energy, as clean as possible and as fast as possible, but what we want to remember--and this doesn't seem to be remembered in the budget--is to do so at as low a cost as possible because people are hurting today because of unemployment and high costs and a lack of jobs.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Well, the Senator from Arizona brings up a very good point, which is the limitation on deductions people might take. Now, again, that sounds pretty good because one may say: Well, that applies just to someone with a lot of money, but let's think about this for a minute. That means charitable deductions in the United States would not receive the same sort of treatment under President Obama's plan that they do today. So we take a college such as Maryville College in my hometown, which is a small Presbyterian college that doesn't have a very large endowment; a faith-based college. It is having a tough time in the economy anyway. Then we come along and we say to people to whom it might turn for charitable contributions: Sorry, we are going to take away the incentive that Americans have to make charitable contributions to the colleges, to the Boy Scouts, to the Girl Scouts, to the pro-life groups, to the pro-choice groups, to all sorts of associations in America that are having a hard time raising money for charitable activities, and we are going to make it that much harder. This country leads the world in terms of charitable contributions. Typically, about 2 percent of our income goes to charitable contributions. No other country in the world has that sort of tradition of giving, and in the middle of a recession we would limit charitable contributions to nonprofit organizations who are already struggling. Madam President, we have been asking the question: Why would someone who is interested in seeing an economic recovery propose these kinds of tax policies--to limit charitable deductions, limit the deduction on home mortgages, punish American companies doing business overseas, and put a mandatory energy tax on the American people? All of these are policies that don't seem to make any sense. As my colleague pointed out in the very beginning, they run opposite to the lessons we have learned historically. Why would this be done? It turns out that a very interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday, March 12, may have the answer. It was written by Daniel Henninger. It is called ``The Obama Rosetta Stone.'' It is said that the Rosetta Stone is where you go to get the answer to the great mystery of life. The Rosetta Stone in the Obama budget Mr. Henninger finds is on page 5 of the budget. This, I think, provides the clue to why all of these negative policies are being introduced into the budget at this time. Let me quote from page 5 of the Federal budget. He is referring to the amount of income the top 1 percent of earners in our country makes: While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not. Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected. There's nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few. . . .It's a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it. I think what Mr. Henninger has found in the Obama budget is the rationale for these paradoxical tax provisions. It is not a matter of helping families or supporting small businesses to create more jobs or helping the economy grow out of the recession; rather, this is all being done to redistribute the wealth in the country because it is alleged that the people at the top end of our economy are making more money than they should.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Vermont. Mr. President, this morning Secretary Geithner appeared before the Budget Committee. He had good humor. He was resilient. He did a good job in his testimony. He said, a variety of times, approximately this: There would be no economic recovery until we fix the banks and get credit flowing again. I would like to make a constructive suggestion to our new President, who I think is an impressive individual, and to Secretary Geithner, because while that may be the goal of the Government, the country is not yet persuaded the Government will do that or can do that. I asked Secretary Geithner whether he is familiar with a book by Ernest May, a longtime professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The book is called ``Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers.'' The reason I asked Secretary Geithner about that was because Ernest May's book ought to be required reading for any governmental decision maker. The thesis of the book is that any crisis one may be presented--if you are Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Defense--usually has something in history to teach you a lesson. For example, if you are the Kennedy administration dealing with the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s, you may want to look back to Hitler's invasion of Rhineland in 1936 to see whether we should have stopped him then and avoided, perhaps, World War II. Professor May often says one has to be very careful in thinking about the different analogies because you might pick up the wrong analogy and the wrong lesson from history. I would like to suggest to the President and to the Secretary of Treasury, in the spirit of Professor May's book, a couple of analogies from history that I believe would help this country deal with the banking crisis, deal with getting credit flowing again, and begin to get us back toward the economic recovery that we all want for our country and that we very badly need. The first example comes from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected after a deep recession, and maybe even a depression was already underway, much worse than today. Mr. President, 5,000 banks had failed, and deposits were not insured. What did President Roosevelt do? He did one thing: Within 2 days after taking the oath of office, he declared a bank holiday, from March 6 to March 10, 1933. Banking transactions were suspended across the Nation except for making change. He presented Congress with the Emergency Banking Act. The law empowered the President, through the Treasury Department, to reopen banks that were solvent and assist those that were not. The House passed it after 40 minutes of debate, and the Senate soon followed. Banks were divided into categories. On the Sunday evening before the banks reopened, the President addressed the Nation through one of his signature fireside chats. The President assured 60 million radio listeners in 1933 that the crisis was over and the Nation's banks were secure. By the beginning of April, Americans confidently returned $1 billion to the banking system; the bank crisis was over. Now, there was a lot more to come. That was not the end of the Great Depression, but it was the end of the bank crisis, and it came because of swift and bold Presidential leadership. The lesson I would suggest from that analogy to our nation's history, is that President Roosevelt did not try to create the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Civilian Conservation Corps and the PWA and the WPA and pack the Supreme Court all in the first month of his term of office. He declared a banking holiday within 2 days after taking office. He assured the country that he would fix the problem. He went on the radio not for the purpose of talking about the whole range of problems but to say, on March 12, 1933: I want to talk for a few minutes to the people of the United States about banking. And he explained what was going on. He said: We do not want and we will not have another epidemic of bank failures. He said: We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system. The people believed him. They put money back in the banks because the American people were looking for Presidential leadership at that moment. They knew that the Congress or the Governors or other individuals in the country could not fix the bank problem. They knew the President had to fix it. When the President took decisive action and said he would fix the problem, the country responded and that part of the problem was fixed. The bank crisis was over. That is analogy No. 1. Analogy No. 2--and I believe the analogy is closer to today's challenge facing President Obama and Secretary Geithner and all of us, really--is President Eisenhower's speech in October 1952 in which he declared he would end the Korean war. I'd like to read a paragraph from that speech because it seems to me so relevant to the kind of Presidential leadership that might make a difference today. President Eisenhower said: The first task of a new administration will be to review and re-examine every course of action open to us with one goal in view: to bring the Korean war to an early and honorable end. In these circumstances today, one might say to bring the bank crisis and the credit freeze to an early, honorable end. President Eisenhower, then a general, not President, said: This is my pledge to the American people. For this task a wholly new administration is needed. The reason for this is simple. The old administration cannot be expected to repair what it failed to prevent. In other words, the issue in the Presidential election of 1952 was change. That is also familiar. It just happened to be the Republicans arguing for change at the time. Then the President said: That job requires a personal trip to Korea. I shall make that trip. Only in that way could I learn how best to serve the American people in the cause of peace. I shall go to Korea. On November 29, in the same month he was elected to the Presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower left for Korea. The lesson from that instance in history, as Ernest May would have us look at, is not that President Eisenhower ended the Korean war by Christmas or even by Easter of the next year. The lesson is that he told the American people he had one objective in mind. Of all the things going on in 1952--inflation and other problems--he focused on the one that only a President could deal with. He did it in memorable terms. We remember the phrase today: I shall go to Korea. The people believed him. They elected him. They relaxed a little bit. The war was ended, and the 1950s were a very prosperous time. I wish to make this a constructive and, I hope, timely suggestion because the President and the Secretary are about to tell us what they are going to do about banks. What I would like to suggest is this: they don't need to scare us anymore. Back in Tennessee, we are all pretty scared. There are a lot of people who are not sure what is going to happen with the banks. They don't need to explain the whole problem to us anymore. That is not what leaders do. Leaders solve problems. Maybe it needs to be explained enough so we grasp it, but basically Americans are looking for Presidential leadership to solve the problem. I don't think we have to be persuaded that our impressive new President is capable of doing more than one thing at a time. He may have shown that better than anybody else in history. We have already had two summits--one on health and one on fiscal responsibility. I was privileged to attend one of the summits. I thought it went very well. The President has repealed some of President Bush's orders that he didn't agree with on the environment and stem cell research. The President has been out to a wind turbine factory in Ohio talking about energy. He has persuaded Congress to spend a trillion dollars, over my objection, but still he was able to do that in the so-called stimulus bill. The new Secretary of Education has worked with the President, and he made a fine speech on education the other day. He is doing a lot of things. A lot of things need to be done. The point is, there is one overriding thing that needs to be done today, and that is to fix the banks and get American credit flowing again. President Roosevelt didn't create the Tennessee Valley Authority and the CCC and the WPA during the bank holiday. He fixed the banks. So my respectful suggestion is that our impressive, new President say to the American people as soon as he can, in Eisenhower fashion: I will fix the banks. I will get credit flowing again. I will take all these other important issues facing the country--health care, education, energy, on which I am eager to work--and I will make them subordinate to that goal. In the spirit of President Eisenhower: I will concentrate my full attention on this goal until the job is honorably done; that job being, fixing the banks and getting credit flowing again. I genuinely believe that if this President did that, if he, in effect, made that speech, cleared the decks, gathered around him the bright people he has around him and said to the American people: Don't worry, a President can do this and I am going to. That statement would be the beginning of the economic recovery. Because lack of confidence is a big part of our problem. This crisis began with $140 oil prices. That was, in the words of FedEx chairman Fred Smith, ``The match that lit the fire.'' Then there was the housing subprime mortgage crisis and then banking failures. Now, even in strong community banks in Tennessee, we have people who are out of work and who can't pay their small business loans or student loans. Some of those banks are beginning to have some problems. We need to interrupt this train. We only have one person who can do it. A Senator cannot do it. The Vice President cannot do it. The Secretary of the Treasury cannot do it. No Governor can do it. The President can; only he can do it. Even though he may be able to do many things well at one time, he needs to do one thing until the job is honorably done. My respectful suggestion is that Ernest May's book, which reminds leaders to think in terms of history, ``Thinking in Time,'' is a powerfully apt book for these times. As the Secretary and the President and his advisers think about how to present to the American people what their plan is, they should remember that a part of it is not only developing a strategy. The most important part is persuading at least half the people they are right. I believe that means clearing the deck: no more summits, no more trips in other directions. Focus attention on the problem facing the country until the job is honorably done. In Eisenhower fashion, I hope the President will say: I will fix the banks. I will get credit flowing again. I will concentrate my attention on that job until it is done. I yield the floor, suggest the absence of a quorum, and ask unanimous consent that the time during the quorum be split evenly between the parties.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I wonder if either the Senator from Arizona or New Hampshire would have a comment on the way that spending was accomplished in the stimulus bill. For example, in the Department of Education, where I used to work, the annual budget was $68 billion. But the stimulus added $40 billion per year to the department's budget for the next 2 years. There were no hearings. There was no discussion about this. No one said: Are we spending all the money we are spending now in the right way, and if we were to spend more would we give parents more choices? Would we create more charter schools? Would we, as the President said yesterday, of which I approve, spend some money to reward outstanding teachers? What about the way this is being spent on energy, education, and Medicaid, for example?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I heard the Senator from Arizona say it was not just a $1 trillion stimulus package, that by the time you add in all these projected costs in the future, it might be much more.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I wonder if I might ask the Senator from Arizona, one might look at the chart Senator Gregg has up and say that is not too big an increase in Federal spending, but of course the United States produces about 25 percent of the world's wealth. When we go up on an annual basis by a few percentage points, it begins to change the character of the kind of country we have. How do you see this kind of dramatic increase in spending and taxing and debt affecting the character of the country as compared with, say, countries in Europe or other countries around the world?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask the Chair to let me know when I have 2 minutes remaining. I believe we have 30 minutes allocated to us at this stage.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally charged to each side.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair. Madam President, this is an important next 3 or 4 weeks for the United States. The President of the United States has outlined his 10- year blueprint for our country's future in the form of a budget. The budget is now before the Congress, and it is our job to consider it. We are doing that every day in hearings, and we are looking forward to the details the President will send later this month. But for the next 4 weeks, including this week, the major subject for debate in this Senate Chamber is this: Can we afford the Democrats' proposals for spending, taxes, and borrowing? And our view--the Republican view--is the answer is no. As an example, in the 1990s, President Clinton and the Congress raised taxes, but they raised taxes to balance the budget. This proposal--and we will be discussing it more as we go along--will raise taxes to grow the government. Not long ago, the President visited our Republican caucus, and we talked some about entitlement reform--the automatic spending that the government says we don't appropriate; mostly all of it is for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--and he talked about the importance to him of dealing with entitlement spending. Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, made a speech at the National Press Club to begin this Congress in which he said that he was going to say to this President: Let's work together to bring the growth in entitlement spending, automatic spending, under control. We had a summit at the White House, which we were glad to attend, about that. But I say to Senator Gregg, the Senator from New Hampshire, who is the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, I was disappointed to come back from the excellent meeting we had at the White House on fiscal responsibility and find, for example, that in this budget we have $117 billion more for entitlement spending on Pell grants. So my question to the Senator from New Hampshire is: Does this budget actually reform entitlement spending, or does it not?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.