Hillary Clinton

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, amendment No. 418 is at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that Senators Leahy, Schumer, Lieberman, Corzine, Dayton, and Sarbanes be added as cosponsors to my amendment.

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Earlier today, the Senate passed an amendment offered by Senator Cochran----

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, earlier today, the Senate passed an amendment offered by Senator Cochran to increase homeland security funding by $3.5 million in the emergency supplemental bill we will consider in the coming weeks. This is an important first step, but it is not nearly enough and it should be paid for. Our cities have already invested $2.6 billion to protect the American homefront. This amendment adds $3.5 billion to Senator Cochran's amendment and takes the fiscally responsible approach of paying for the full $7 billion without reducing the reconciliation amount. I think we need to be much more vigorous in providing the funds that our police, our firefighters, and our cities need. This will help us move in that direction, and it will also be paid for, which is another important value that this budget should be trying to promote. I ask for its approval and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes.

Mrs. CLINTON. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. Mr. President, this domestic defense fund would lift the budget cap for fiscal year 2003 when we finally do get the supplemental that I am sure will be presented to us in the very near future. And it would send a clear message that we are not going to wait on this budget to get money out to our first responders to relieve the necessary costs of our local communities; we are going to try to get that money out when it is needed. Operation Atlas is going on right now in New York City. Operation Liberty Shield is going on right now in America. We can't wait until the end of the year for the ordinary budget process to work to get money out, to make us safer, to give the tools to defend us to our firefighters and our police officers. This is a solemn time. Not only are my heartfelt feelings and prayers going out to those brave young men and women, but in good conscience I want to be sure we are doing what we should be doing. And with all respect, I don't think we should be doing business as usual. I do not think we should be considering a budget that is as devoid of reality as is this one. That sends a terrible message that here we are making flowery speeches, talking about our prayers and our best wishes for our men and women in uniform, and decimating--decimating--our ability to respond to the inevitable, unpredictable consequences of the action we have commenced. We owe more to the next generation. I hope we will decide to put aside previously existing ideological and partisan positions and come together in this Senate, as we are coming together in this country, on behalf of the military and on behalf of the country they are fighting to defend. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mrs. CLINTON. I thank the ranking member on the Budget Committee, and I thank my colleague and partner from New York for the Herculean effort he has undertaken on behalf of the cause of homeland security. Senator Schumer and I, of course, have been personally impacted by the need for enhanced security in a very horrific way because of the events of September 11 and the ongoing threats posed to New York City and other communities throughout our State where terrorist cells are under surveillance and finally discovered in Lackawanna, NY, where people are arrested in Syracuse, NY, for their likely connections with the funding of organizations that support terrorism. I don't think it is a coincidence or an accident that the two Senators from New York would be standing here in the Senate advocating as strongly as we can for the Schumer-Clinton homeland security amendment to this budget. Before my words of support to the specifics that the amendment contains, I am somewhat concerned that as we meet here today, our men and women are in harm's way in the Persian Gulf. I believe we should be suspending action on the budget. We should be focusing in this Chamber, as families and citizens across America are focusing on their television sets, on the Internet, on what is by far the most important issue confronting us: the execution of this war. We hope it will be a decisive and overwhelmingly successful effort accomplished as quickly as possible, with a minimum loss of life. I know the thoughts and prayers of all of us go out to those wearing the military uniform of our Nation and their families, their loved ones, who are praying for them. I certainly, like all my colleagues, have had the great and high privilege of meeting and being with these young men and women. They are by far the best prepared, equipped, and motivated military in the history of the world. We are all very proud of their skill, their training, and their courage. We should not only continue to do everything possible to support them at this time, but it would be appropriate for us to suspend action on the budget, especially, I must add, because I don't know that we are fully able to debate and pass a budget at this moment in history. It seems quite odd to me, while we are commenced upon a war, we have no funding for that war in this budget. We have no money for the proposed reconstruction of Iraq that has been discussed in the administration. We have no money for whatever other consequences-- intended or unintended--that might flow from the action begun last evening. Unfortunately, history will judge us harshly, because we are moving forward on parallel tracks to debate and vote on a budget that does not take account of the most overwhelming challenge we are facing. What is wrong with this picture? It makes absolutely no sense. I am stunned that we are, on the one hand, holding our hearts and our breath while we listen and see what is happening thousands of miles away that will have a direct effect not just on the lives of our brave men and women in the military who are fighting this battle, but will have a direct effect on every single American--that we are making decisions without having the information. We are being asked to vote on a budget that does not even pay for this war. I find this truly unbelievable. But that is the choice of this leadership, and therefore we have to go along as though this were business as usual. Let's just get up and debate a budget that does not even pay for the war that is going on now. I am sorry, I find that hard to explain to myself, and I find it impossible to explain to my constituents. Then I pick up the Wall Street Journal, and there is an article, apparently sourced from people within the administration, that contracts are being let for the reconstruction of Iraq, and in it--I am sure Americans would be interested to hear--our Government is to guarantee health care to Iraqis. We are going to guarantee good schools to Iraqi schoolchildren. We are going to build highways. We are going to build powerplants. I don't know that any of us would argue with that noble goal, but we are letting contracts, as we speak, for American businesses to undertake this contracting work. When are we going to provide for every American? It is certainly not in this budget we are debating. When are we going to provide good schools and the facilities our children deserve? It is not in this budget we are debating. When are we going to make sure we have our transportation needs met in our country, in every part of our country? It is not in this budget we are debating. Madam President, there are a lot of unanswered questions that deserve an answer. But one of those has to do with this amendment that is currently before the Senate. If you look at this budget, not only are we not even attempting to fund the war, but we do not adequately fund the second front of the war; namely, the threat of terrorism right here on our shores. We have to cover the costs of this war, and we should be honest about it. There are choices to be made. Apparently this body, under its current leadership, wants to avoid those choices. They do not want the American people to know that coming down the road in a couple of days, or a week at most, there is going to be a supplemental to pay for the war. Will it be $65 billion, $95 billion? We do not know. It is going to come to the Senate, and of course we will debate it, but why aren't we being honest with ourselves and with the rest of America? Put the costs of this war in this budget. The choices we are asking Senators to make are going to have a direct impact on the choices Americans can make. We already know this budget is hurtling us into deficits as far as the eye can see. I have never seen such fiscal irresponsibility passed on to the backs of our children. The young people, 18, 19, 20-year-old soldiers over there fighting for us, are the ones who will pay for this irresponsibility. I find that absolutely unbelievable. There are a lot of questions to be asked and answered, but certainly among our priorities, if we intend to go forward with this budget which does not account for the war, which does not make the hard choices that Americans have to live with, then certainly we had better make sure we are funding homeland security because the one thing all of the security experts agree on is that, yes, we will win, but we will also reap the whirlwind. There will be additional terrorist activities here at home and on Americans around the world, and we have to be prepared. These homeland security costs should be not only included but increased because right now they are being borne by cities and counties and States that are in deficit themselves. They do not have any revenues. The economy is flat. There is no money coming in. They are laying off firefighters. They are closing police stations. Our hospitals are wondering whether they are going to be able to continue to take in the ambulances that come to the emergency entrance or whether they are going to have to divert them because their funding is under so much pressure. Yesterday my colleague and I, Senator Schumer, met with the mayor of New York. Everybody knows there is not any better prepared city in the world than New York and everybody knows there is not any city under more stress and more potential for terrorism than New York. God bless our firefighters and our police officers and our emergency workers. They are on 12-hour shifts on, 12-hour shifts off. Every time the threat level increases in America as a whole, it goes up even higher in New York. The operation that New York City has put into effect to try to prevent terrorism, called Operation Atlas, is spending $5 million a week. We are already cutting $2.5 billion out of the New York City budget. We are going to have to cut even more, according to the mayor. But what choice do we have? New York is a global city, not only an American city. It is where the United Nations is. It is where so much else happens. Our mayor and our police and fire and other emergency workers are doing a tremendous job, but we cannot continue to shoulder these costs on our own. Our national security and our homeland security needs should be in this budget. We should be putting into this budget the cost of the war in the Persian Gulf and the cost of defending ourselves in New York and across America. If we are going forward, business as usual, with a very unusual budget that does not fairly lay out the costs and the choices before the American people, then the very least we can do is, in a bipartisan way, resoundingly pass the Schumer-Clinton amendment. This amendment restores cuts to important traditional first responder programs. It sets aside $8 billion for each of the next 10 years. And it does something that is desperately needed in this budget when it comes to homeland security: It does not take money away from existing law enforcement and firefighting programs and move it over into another category and say, guess what, we have now provided homeland security. That is the oldest shell game in the world. This budget cuts the COPS Program, cuts the local law enforcement block grant, cuts the Byrne memorial program, cuts the FIRE Act, cuts the SAFER Act. I don't think we in good conscience can cut the programs that keep the police on the street, the firefighters in the firehouse to do what they have to do every day, and then turn around and, with their additional responsibilities, claim we have given them the resources for these new burdens and challenges. These resources must come in addition to and not at the expense of these other critically necessary law enforcement and firefighting programs. As we go through this and look at the specific programs, we have tried to increase the programs that keep the operations going day to day and to provide the additional funding that is necessary. Let me give one example. In fiscal year 2002, Congress appropriated $360 million for the FIRE Act. The FIRE Act is a program that assists fire departments in protecting local communities. Those communities may use it for training, equipment, and additional staffing. It has been a Godsend to both professional and volunteer fire departments across New York and across America. As to the $360 million appropriated, there are more than $2 billion in requests from fire departments for this funding--six times the amount appropriated. Yet the proposed budget provides only $500 million for the FIRE Act for fiscal year 2004. The Schumer-Clinton amendment would add $250 million, so we could at least try a little harder to meet the legitimate requests of fire departments. Currently, two-thirds of our Nation's fire departments do not even meet the standards for adequate staffing. I don't think this Congress would ever allow our Army to engage in a war with two-thirds of its divisions understaffed. Incredibly, that is exactly what we are asking our firefighters to do. This amendment also provides additional funding for bioterrorism preparedness and prevention. The budget provides a mere $400 million for these critical needs. Even with the funding that we offered last year under the leadership of Senators Kennedy and Frist, that is not enough. Many local and State public health departments do not have the facilities or the equipment to perform routine surveillance or epidemiological investigation, or do the lab work to identify any kind of foreign matter. At the same time, we have loaded the burden of the smallpox vaccination effort on top of everything else public health departments are supposed to be doing, again without adequate funding. I asked at several counties in my State, what are the tradeoffs? That is what happens at the local community. We can have this debate and pretend there are no tradeoffs, that we are not going to pay for the law, that we are going to cut funding for local law enforcement and firefighters and let somebody else worry about it. We will be the Senate that cuts taxes so they have to be raised at the local level or else local communities have to do without essential services. I asked about the tradeoffs in one county, Onondaga County, where Syracuse is. In order to deal with the smallpox vaccination challenge, they have had to go out and cut all their other programs. They had to cut the Maternal and Child Health Program; they had to cut the women's health examination program; they had to cut the regular examinations and screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer; they have had to cut pediatric dental visits and preschool and early intervention family services. Nobody is saying we do not want to be prepared in the horrific event of a smallpox terrorist attack, but don't we also want to take care of our maternal child and health needs? Our children's dental needs? Why are we putting ourselves into making these false choices? I will tell you why. Because the other side is intent upon this huge tax cut no matter what the war costs, no matter what homeland security needs are, no matter what the choices are. I have to say I am no great historian, but I think history will look back on this moment and will, if not shaking its head and scratching its chin, certainly wonder how on Earth, at a time of an international crisis for America's leadership, we would unilaterally decide to drive our economy and this Government into the deficit ditch. That is for my friends on the other side of the aisle to answer. I don't have an answer. I find it unbelievable that it is even a question we have to be addressing at this moment in time. There is much to be done that would at least try to interject some common sense, some reality into this budget. But under any objective assessment of where we stand in the world right now, this budget should be a nonstarter. It should be withdrawn from the floor. Every one of us should be saying: My goodness, we have higher obligations. How can we keep faith with those young men and women who are on the front lines for us? How can we keep faith with those young men and women who are on the front lines at home for us? How can we continue to provide the quality of life and economic opportunity that is expected in our country? We are in danger of being the first generation of Americans to leave our children worse off than we were. Mark my words, no generation of Americans has ever done that. We are about to do that. We are about to load onto the backs of our children and those lucky enough to have grandchildren the unknowable costs of military actions that may be necessary to protect our freedoms; the unknowable costs of ongoing security to protect us here at home; and the very certain costs of providing quality, affordable health care and quality education and decent transportation--to say nothing of keeping faith with Social Security and Medicare. This is a very solemn moment, and it is not only solemn because of what is happening in the Persian Gulf; it is solemn because of the extraordinary commitment of this Senate leadership to take action that will not stand the test of time. But, if we go forward on this budget, I hope we will, in a bipartisan way, not only increase our homeland security amount, but I will be offering a domestic defense fund based on nearly 18 months of work. It would go into the Department of Homeland Security to get money directly to first responders, to put money directly to places of high threat such as New York and Washington, and money into a flexible fund that can be drawn down by communities.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. To respond, if I could, to the Senator from Pennsylvania, my great hope is that abortion becomes rarer and rarer. I would only add that during the 1990s, it did, and we were making great progress. These decisions, in my view, have no place in the law, so they should not be drawing distinctions in the law. This ought to be left to the family involved. The very fact the Senator from Pennsylvania does not have such a distinction under any circumstances, I think, demonstrates clearly the fallacy in this approach to have a government making such tremendously painful and personal and intimate decisions.

Mrs. CLINTON. No----

Mrs. CLINTON. That is the point.

Mrs. CLINTON. Does the Senator's legislation make exceptions for serious life-threatening abnormalities or babies who are in such serious physical condition that they will not live outside the womb?

Mrs. CLINTON. The Senator from Iowa got in first.

Mrs. CLINTON. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. CLINTON. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. CLINTON. You know, on the Senator's point, I am not arguing against any public education effort, any proselytizing, any means whatsoever to persuade people about what choice they should make. I don't, in fact, think that we have done enough to educate the public about reproductive health, about how to prevent unsafe and unwanted pregnancies, about how to improve contraception, and about what is really at stake in this debate over a women's right to make decisions about her own reproductive health. But for the Senator to imply that there are never instances of abnormalities and problems like the ones represented by the women in my office yesterday, which would be outlawed by your legislation, I believe is deceptive. We could solve this, as we have now for 20, 30 years, by saying this is a debate that does not belong in the United States Senate. It belongs in the hearts, minds, consciences of women and their loved ones, and in the medical offices of America, not the U.S. Senate.

Mrs. CLINTON. Well, I think the Senator from Pennsylvania is posing a false syllogism. Clearly, if people are told in a poll about the kinds of procedures that might be medically necessary out of context, I can certainly understand why the reaction might be that is not something that we want to talk about, not something we want to think about. But what I do think is extreme is making a decision in this body to outlaw a medical procedure that may be required and medically necessary.

Mrs. CLINTON. Is the Senator aware that in the very poll he cited, there is another finding? When Americans were asked if a law should be passed with no health exemption, 59 percent said no, it should not pass.

Mrs. CLINTON. I heard the Senator from Massachusetts referencing the fact that, legal or illegal, this is not going to prevent abortions where they are necessary. My reading of the legislative language you have put forth, makes a very clear argument that this is a slippery slope; that there are going to be not only difficulties in defining procedures, but the fact is that once you have criminalized this procedure, what doctor will perform any medically necessary procedure? There is no reason to believe any doctor would put his practice and his life at risk. As we know right now, a trial is going on in Buffalo, NY, for the murder of a doctor who provided such services.

Mrs. CLINTON. Will the Senator permit me to respond to his statement?

Mrs. CLINTON. That is what I believe based on what I consider to be the slippery slope of the legislative language that you have carefully and cleverly crafted in this bill.

Mrs. CLINTON. Yes, I do.

Mrs. CLINTON. Yes, on the Senator's time.

Mrs. CLINTON. We are talking about those few rare cases when a doctor had to look across a desk at a woman and say, I hate to tell you this, but the baby you wanted, the baby you care so much about, that you are carrying, has a terrible abnormality. We had a chance yesterday to build on these successes and do even more for women's health and to prevent unwanted and unsafe pregnancies. Senator Murray's amendment would have increased access to contraceptive coverage by ensuring basic fairness for women in preventing health plans from discriminating against contraceptive coverage in their prescription drug plans. Yet my colleagues did not vote for that. They would much rather criminalize a health procedure than improve women's health. Senator Murray's amendment would have also provided Medicaid and CHIP coverage for pregnant women and their newborns. Yet again, we defeated that on a budget point of order because we are not really interested in women's health. That is not really what this debate is about. I have to ask myself, why do we, as government officials, expect we can make these decisions? We know that people of means will always be able to get any health care procedure they deem necessary. That is the way it was before Roe v. Wade. That is the way it will be after this passes the Senate. So who are we really leaving out? We are leaving out the vast majority of American women, middle income women, working women who can't get on an airplane to go to Sweden or some other place. I have also seen the results of that. In a hospital in northeast Brazil, a woman's hospital I visited, I went up and down the corridors. Half the women were there for the most wonderful of reasons, because they just had a baby. The other half were there because of problems they had encountered, mostly because of botched back-alley, illegal abortions. Some of them lost their fertility forever; some of them lost their lives. When I asked the minister of health what they were going to do about this, he said to me: This is a classic case where it is the poor, the middle class that suffer. The rich can get whatever health care they need. We can make it illegal to get abortions. That doesn't bother the rich. There has always been a double standard. If you are rich, you get what you need. If you are poor, you are left to the back alleys. That is one of the other reasons we had to do Roe v. Wade, because is it fair that we have that kind of distinction made on the basis of class or income instead of the basis of law? We are facing a moment of historic importance, but not about what we should be debating at this time in our history. I only wish this legislation were not before us. But now that it is, we have to educate the American public. I will end by referring again to the young woman, Mrs. Eisen, who was in my office yesterday, about 25 years younger than I am. Hard to imagine. She said: I had no idea that the decision I made with my husband and my doctor to deal with this genetic abnormality was something I could have never had under the laws of where I lived before, and that if this passes, it will become illegal in the future. I said: Well, you didn't have to think about that. That was something that, thankfully, we took off the national agenda. But there are those who, from very deeply held beliefs, which I respect, would wish to substitute the Government's decision, just like they did in Romania and China, or substitute the roll of the economic dice, such as happens in Brazil and elsewhere for what should be a difficult, painful, intimate, personal decision. This bill is not only ill-advised, it is also unconstitutional. I understand what the other side wants to do. They are hoping to get somebody new on the Supreme Court and to turn the clock back completely, to overrule Roe v. Wade, which is why the Senator from Iowa has such a timely amendment. Is this bill really about what the sponsors say, or is it, as they candidly admit, the beginning of the end--to go back in this country to back-alley abortions, to women dying from botched, illegal procedures? I think you can draw your own conclusions. It is up to the American public to determine whether they want medical decisions being criminalized by this Senate. Thank you.