Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, what we have raised in this one amendment are two of the most basic questions that this overall tax bill raises. One is fiscal discipline. We had a vote, and I am pleased more than a majority of Senators voted not to break the $1.35 trillion cap. That was what we were being asked to do, to add $50 billion beyond the current tax cut authority through the amendment that was offered by the Senator from Iowa. The second issue we are now facing is one of priorities. Upon which do you put the higher priority, assisting Americans prepare for their old age, helping families who are providing care for a frail, elderly family member through a $3,000 tax credit--is that a higher priority than delaying the 1-percent decrease for the highest income-tax payers in America, the rate reduction which is in this underlying bill? Those are the choices. Which is more important to you? What are your priorities?

Mr. GRAHAM. By virtue of the waiver of the point of order not having received 60 votes, is that correct?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask the budget point of order be waived. I will ask for the yeas and nays, but before doing so I would like to use my 1 minute to speak against the motion.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, am I correct the second-degree amendment has failed?

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, one of the dramatic announcements of the 2000 census was the fact that one of the fastest growing components of our population is Americans over the age of 80. This is just the first ripple of what will be a tidal wave of Americans over the age of 80 as we move into the 21st century. This amendment goes to exactly that issue by first recognizing the care that is currently being given to older Americans by caregivers by providing a $3,000 tax credit to those persons who are tending to the needs of a frail elderly member of their family, and second, to encourage Americans to purchase long-term care insurance for their own protection when they might reach the point where they require institutional care. This is an extremely important amendment for preparation of the future of millions of Americans. I urge its adoption.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, what is the time limit for debate on second-degree amendments?

Mr. GRAHAM. The amendment that is offered proposes to pay for this by making a 1-percent reduction in the marginal rate cut for the highest income Americans. The second-degree amendment pays for it by blowing the budget cap of $1.35 trillion and going above that for the purposes of this very important amendment. I believe strongly in this amendment, but I also believe in fiscal discipline. I am afraid the course being suggested by the second-degree amendment is the course that is going to be suggested for the remaining months of this session of Congress; that is, every time we have a new tax idea, let's do it by increasing the total amount of tax and not be faithful to the commitment we have made to limit the total tax authority to $1.35 trillion. Mr. President, on policy grounds, I strongly oppose the second-degree amendment. I raise a point of order.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 763.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I raise the point of order that the pending second-degree amendment violates section 311(a)(2)(B) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I voted no on the tax bill that passed the Senate. I recognize there are some positive provisions in that legislation. I will speak to two of them. One was in the area of education. There were a number of features which will make it easier for families to send their children to college, the provisions which will make it easier for local school districts to finance the construction of new and to rehabilitate older school buildings. Those are positive features. I also had supported the provisions that dealt with estate tax reform by raising the level of the exemption; that is, the amount of dollars one can exclude before a person calculates the estate tax obligations. By raising those exemptions, we have substantially diminished the number of Americans who will pay any estate tax. On the whole, I found much more that was disturbing, much more that I considered to be a failure of vision, than I found to be worthy in this legislation. I hope I am wrong. I hope the comments I am going to make prove to be inaccurate in the history we will write in the aftermath of this legislation. Frankly, my experience leads me to doubt that I will be wrong. I believe in life we are constantly forced to make choices. Those in politics like to avoid making choices. We are very good at telling people what we think they want to hear, even if the cumulative effect of all the things we have told the people we want is incompatible. For instance, most Members have told the people we want to strengthen Social Security. Most Members have told the people we want to strengthen, reform, and add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The fact is, I believe what we have just done is going to make it impossible to deliver on either of those commitments. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it. I believe while what we say is not necessarily a true reflection of our choices, how we spend our money is a true reflection of how we will make our choices. I believe there was a metaphor earlier this morning. We had before the Senate legislation that would have provided substantial assistance to individual Americans and American families in dealing with the reality of the aging of our population. One of the lessons of many that we learned from the 2000 census is that America is getting older. I know that well from my own State where almost 19 percent of our population is over the age of 65 and where an increasing percentage of our population is over the age of 85. Florida is a State of the future. The United States of America will be like Florida in another generation. Yet with the legislation that would have provided immediate assistance to families that were rendering care to an elderly grandparent, an elderly uncle or aunt, some loved one in the family, or to those Americans who are thinking about their own future and are considering the purchase of long-term care insurance so they will not be a burden on their children and grandchildren when they reach advanced age, we had a choice: We could have voted for an amendment that would have made a substantial commitment of the Federal Government to encourage and recognize those kinds of sacrifices, or we could have maintained for a 3-year period the structure of the bill which provides one-third of the tax benefits to 1 percent of the American people. We would have been asking the 1 percent of the most affluent Americans to have slightly deferred a portion of the benefits from this legislation in order to have been able to pay for substantial incentives for tens of millions of Americans to prepare for their today or future consequences of aging. I regret to say we chose when we made a decision today. The decision was, it was more important to provide that benefit for the 1 percent of the most wealthy Americans than it was to assist tens of millions of Americans to prepare for their aging families and for their own future. I think that is a real choice that demonstrates real values. Frankly, I am disappointed the Senate made such a selection of values. Analyzing this bill, I say it fails on three counts, which can all be denominated through the calendar. It failed on a long-term basis; it failed on a short-term basis; and it failed today. On a long-term basis, there is no greater challenge facing this Nation than the one which that amendment to which I just alluded represents; that is, the aging of America. When Social Security was established in the 1930s, for every person who was in retirement in the United States or was of retirement age, we had some 15 to 20 active people in the labor force, people who were providing the means by which those older Americans of the 1930s could be supported. In just a few years, when the large number of Americans born immediately after World War II reach retirement age, we will be down to fewer than four working Americans for every person retiring. We have contracts outstanding called Social Security and Medicare Part A hospitalization. These are contracts for which Americans are paying every time they get their paycheck. They look down at the allocation of the dollars they have just worked hard to earn and they see the subtractions. A big part of those subtractions of the dollars is taken out of every paycheck for Social Security. Another part of those subtractions is the part taken out of every paycheck for the hospitalization component of Medicare. Why are Americans tolerating this reduction from their immediate income? They are tolerating it because they have confidence in the contract which exists between them and the U.S. Government. That contract is that once they reach the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare, the services for which they are paying every paycheck are going to be delivered. It is going to be our challenge to see that those contracts are maintained. Today we are not in a position to say with confidence that those contracts will be able to be honored because both the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare hospitalization trust fund, by any actuarial standard, are seriously under water. We had an opportunity this year, an opportunity unique in the history of this country with the enormous economic growth and surpluses it has brought, to be able to say to the American people that for the next three generations we will place ourselves in a position to honor those contracts. From now until the year 2075, we will be in a position to say we have the resources, we have made the proper preparations to honor our contractual responsibilities. We would have started that by an aggressive program to pay down the national debt so that as we entered the period of greater demands on Social Security and Medicare, we would have been in the best possible national financial position. We would have done it by supplementing the funds going into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds with a portion of the savings in national interest, about which Senator Hollings spoke so eloquently, that we are going to gain because we are paying down the national debt. A portion of those savings should have gone to strengthen the Social Security and the Medicare trust funds. The decision we made a few minutes ago by passing what I consider to be an engorged, excessive tax bill will deny us the opportunity to pay down the national debt as fully as we should. We will miss the mark by approximately $750 billion to $1 trillion in the next 10 years--what we could have done to have strengthened our Nation's finances. We are not going to be in the position to make the kind of investments for these trust funds for Social Security and Medicare that we should have made. I hope I am wrong. I hope I am unduly pessimistic. But, frankly, I doubt that I am. So we have failed the calendar in the long run. We have also failed the calendar in the short run. If there is a phrase we have heard too much of in the last few months and have honored too little, it is the phrase ``economic stimulus.'' What would happen if the economy, after a long run of booming, expanding economic growth, suddenly began to turn soft and unemployment levels reached a level we had not seen since the early 1990s? We all read about substantial layoffs in companies that we thought were invulnerable to those kinds of economic reversals. We have seen the stock market first decline, then come back, then generate a level of uncertainty, unpredictability. All those things were signals of an uncertain but potentially seriously declining economy. So we said: Let's buy an economic insurance policy. Let's not just rely on what the Federal Reserve Board can do with short-term interest rates. Let's adopt a fiscal policy that will help stimulate the economy. We turned to some of the best experts in the country. They said what the Congress could do would be to give an immediate tax cut to the American people, target that tax cut at those Americans who were most likely to spend it because the essential diagnosis of this economic softening is on the demand side. People are losing confidence in their own economic futures and therefore are less willing to make that downpayment for a new refrigerator, are less willing to buy a new pair of shoes for the children, less willing to plan for a vacation in Florida. We want to reverse those senses of insecurity and give them an immediate sense of confidence, both by putting more dollars in their pockets as well as giving them a sense that they will have a greater stream of funds available to them to meet their family needs into the future. So plans were developed for a serious economic stimulus right here on the Senate floor. We will all recall it was not very many days ago that we voted for an $85 billion economic stimulus in the year 2001--$85 billion. What was the economic stimulus in the bill we just passed? Less than $10 billion--anemic, pathetic, not worthy of the phrase ``economic stimulus.'' So I hope I am wrong. I hope some of the signs we have seen in recent days that maybe the economy is turning around will prove to be a harbinger of a bright summer for America. We all hope so. But just as a person might hope their house doesn't burn down, that still doesn't keep them from buying fire insurance so, in the unlikely event it does burn down, they will have some dollars to start the rebuilding process. Mr. President, I ask for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. GRAHAM. We should be buying an economic insurance policy against the possibility that the bright summer may turn into an arid fall. In the short term, on the No. 1 economic issue facing America, in my judgment we have failed. I hope I am wrong but I doubt that I am. On the calendar, we failed in the long run; we failed in the short run; we have even failed today. This bill has too much of what I would call bait and switch, where you say this is what you are going to get done. Then when the actual product arrives it is something different. We have said $1.35 trillion is going to be the outer limits, outer perimeters of tax cuts--not for May of 2001, not even for the year 2001, but for the next 11 years. We have just committed the totality of what we have said is a prudent amount of tax cuts for the next 11 years. Yet at the same time we said that, we had over half of our Members willing to vote to add $50 billion more, beyond the $1.35 trillion, in a debate earlier this morning. We know we are soon going to get a recommendation from the President and the Secretary of Defense for substantial increases in what it will cost to defend America. Senator McCain of Arizona spoke fulsomely about that yesterday. Yet no dollars are in our economic plan for that assured request for additional spending on national defense. We know we are going to have to spend some more money on Social Security, either the way I suggested, by paying down the debt and putting some of the savings of interest costs directly into the Social Security trust fund, or even a way I do not happen to support but at least it is a way, and that is to begin the process of partial privatization of Social Security. There is a $1 trillion cost over the next 10 years to implement that plan. There is no money in the budget plan to do either of those. We have had a number of areas in the Tax Code where it is clear we are going to have to have some additional funds. If we do nothing but pass the bill that has just left the Senate, we are going to increase the number of Americans who have to pay the alternative minimum tax from today's approximately 1.5 million to almost 40 million 10 years from now. That is not going to happen. We are going to find some way to moderate the effect of the alternative minimum tax, and that is likely to have a price tag of $200 to $300 billion. Not a penny of that is provided for. We also know there are going to be a number of extenders required. Extenders are tax provisions that are in the code but only for a short period of time. One of those we passed today, which was to provide an expanded deductibility for families who pay tuition for their child to go to college. We start it in a couple of years and then end it 3 or 4 years later. The reality is we are not going to end it 3 or 4 years later. Once we commence this program of allowing deductibility of the cost of college tuition, which is a good idea, we are going to continue it. Yet we do not have the resources in this budget for that known reality with which we are going to contend. Today we are poking a very sharp stick in the eye of our fellow Members of this federalist system. Without any consultation, without any consideration of the impact that it will have on their ability to meet basic obligations such as to educate our children, we have just taken $10 billion a year out of the budgets of our 50 State partners in this American system of federalism. Half of that money is going to come out approximately beginning the first of January of the year 2002, well into the budget year that most States will start as of July 1 of this year, running until June 30 of 2002. In the case of my State, our Governor has indicated he is going to have to find somewhere in the range of $150 to $200 billion in the next period to pay for the hole we have just created in his budget beginning in January of 2002. So by the long-term calendar, the short-term calendar, or today's watch, this is a deficient tax bill. It is a deficient fiscal plan. I hope I am wrong. I hope America will be strong enough, resilient enough to avoid the kind of difficulties we have just given them as our legacy of action today. I hope I am wrong. But, frankly, I doubt that I am.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of Senators Hutchison, Bingaman, Hutchinson, Breaux, Ensign, Baucus, Lincoln, Thompson, and myself to introduce a piece of legislation which will extend the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families supplemental grants for one year. This grant program has been critical to the success of welfare reform in our States. The TANF block grant, as it is commonly known, was established in the 1996 welfare law. These were modest supplemental grants for 17 relatively poor or rapidly growing States. The grants were intended to reduce the very large disparity in welfare funding between poorer and wealthier States that resulted from the basic TANF funding formula. The TANF supplemental grants have afforded States, like ours a more adequate opportunity to achieve TANF goals. While TANF is scheduled to be reauthorized in 2002, the supplemental grants included in the 1996 law were authorized only through October 2001. If the grants expire, 17 States will lose as much as 10 percent of their TANF funding beginning in October 1 of this year. Wealthy, low- growth States will experience no reduction. These grants are not supplemental in the sense of being add-ons. They were designed as an integral part of the TANF allocation formula and are critical to the success of the TANF programs in the States that receive them. The decision to end the grants a year before reauthorizing the entire program was not a policy consideration, only a financial one. It was done in order to ensure a balanced budget by 2002. The 2001 budget resolution, passed by both the House and the Senate, provides $319 million for a one-year extension of these important grants. This provision acknowledges the Senate's commitment to maintaining the tools that many of our States require to continue efforts to help people move from welfare to work, from jobs to careers. Since the passage of the welfare reform law in 1996, more is expected of state welfare systems that ever before. TANF agencies provide a broad range of social services that include job training and employment counseling, reducing out-of-wedlock births and promoting family formation, and addressing individual challenges such as domestic violence--just to name a few. Without the TANF supplemental grants, impacted states will find themselves unable to provide many of the programs that have enabled their citizens to successfully move from public assistance to independence. Given the significant costs of work supports, many of the 17 States that receive supplemental TANF grants are now spending more TANF funds each year than they receive from their basic TANF grant. In fiscal year 2000, for example, TANF expenditures in nine of the 17 States that receive TANF supplemental grants exceeded 100 percent of their basic TANF allocation. These States are my own home State of Florida, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. For these reasons, we are requesting that a one year extension of the TANF supplemental grants. This step will help to ensure that high- growth States can continue their welfare reform efforts and will enable the supplemental grants to be considered as part of the overall TANF reauthorization next year. Support for the extension of this program should come from all Senators who want to see the goals of welfare reform fulfilled. Whether or not one comes from a State that receives TANF supplemental grant dollars, support for this bill will send a loud and clear message that the United States Senate adheres to the goal of ensuring that all States have the means to provide the services necessary to help all Americans, regardless of where they live, to move from dependence to independence. That is a goal worth fighting for and I encourage all of my Senate colleagues to cosponsor this important piece of legislation.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this amendment has two principal provisions. First, it stands for the principle that we should have a series of tax bills before the Congress where we can consider one at a time, rather than a single gargantuan bill as is before us tonight. Second, we believe the purpose of the first tax bill should be to deal with the first economic challenge of America, which is a slowing economy. I would like to call on my colleague, Senator Corzine, for discussion.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, when President Bush sent us his proposal for the repeal of the estate tax, he suggested that both the State and the Federal components of that estate tax be treated equitably. Twenty percent of the estate tax collected by the Federal Government is remitted to our 50 States in the form of a State credit. The other 80 percent stays in the Federal Treasury. Under the bill that is before us, half of the State's share will go out of effect as of January 1, 2002, and the other half will go out of effect as of January 1, 2005, and the Federal share does not go out of effect until January 1, 2011. So what we are essentially saying is, we are rejecting the recommendation of the President. We are saying that we are going to get ours first, and let the States have to eat a substantial amount of this reduction beginning January 1 of next year. My State, as probably most of yours, has already passed its budget for the next fiscal year. Gov. Jeb Bush told me today it is going to cost him approximately $200 million in this year's already-passed budget.

Mr. GRAHAM. I recommend that my colleagues look at the letter from the NGA as to what this will do to your State. Call your Governor and support this amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the second amendment I have is not of the broad sweep of the amendment we have just been discussing, but it points out, maybe as a metaphor, some of the problems in this legislation. This bill proposes to repeal the estate tax in the year 2011. That same proposal was made by President Bush with a big difference. The estate tax is a shared source of income. The States get approximately 20 percent of the estate tax which is collected at the Federal level; 80 percent stays in the National Treasury. What President Bush had suggested was that there be an equal phase-out of the State share and of the Federal share. That is not what is in the bill before us tonight, unfortunately. What we have before us tonight is a bill which would say that beginning January 1, 2002, just a little more than 7 months from now, the State share would be cut in half. Then it says that there will be gradual further reductions and then January 1, 2005, the State share would be zero. The Federal share, on the other hand, continues in effect until the year 2011. So effectively, what we are saying, with apparently no consultation with our brethren in the States, is that they are going to take the hit first because we are the ones who decide who has to carry the burden first. I think that is egregiously unfair in our Federalist system. It also is going to put States in this position. I was talking earlier today with the former Governor of Ohio, our colleague, Senator Voinovich. Ohio is one of a number of States which has a biennial budget; that is, they develop a budget, and it lasts for 24 months. They will be starting their next 24-month period on July 1 of this year. What we are going to say is they are going to build a 2-year budget predicated on receiving their share of the Federal estate tax. They are going to find that 6 months into a 24-month period half of that money has evaporated because we have elected to make them our friends and fellow colleagues in this wonderful Federal system. We have made them have their share of the estate tax cut occur, in this case, 10 years before the Federal share of reduction really begins to kick in and totally 6 years before the Federal reduction becomes fact. What policy rationale can there be for us to treat the 50 States in the way that this bill purports to do? The amendment I have offered will get to exactly the same destination. The estate tax will be repealed. There will be zero income for the States. There will be zero income for the Federal Government because there won't be any tax to produce any income. But it does what the President has suggested--that we do it fairly; that both sides of this partnership, both husband and wife, share equally and proportionately in the decline of their revenue. There are many of us who pride ourselves on being Jeffersonian Federalists. We believe in local government. We vote to send more responsibilities down to local governments. We are about to change our labels. We are becoming situational Federalists. We want the States to have more local control when it is to our benefit. But now that we have this opportunity to essentially raid their income, because they are not going to be up here voting, other than those of us who represent our constituents in the States--of course, the U.S. Senate was peculiarly established to be the representatives of the interests of States, so we ought not to be the body leading this way. We should not be the body fighting the recommendation of President Bush to be fair and equitable. We should be the body which is expressing its recognition of the importance of the States and the relationship with the National Government. This proposal, in my judgment, goes 180 degrees in the opposite direction. So my amendment is simple. It says, yes, we are going to repeal the estate tax; yes, we are going to do it in the same number of years as has been suggested; but we are going to treat both sides of this partnership--the States and the Federal Government--equally and proportionately as we do so. I urge adoption of this amendment. Mr. President, I send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. GRAHAM. That is not a threat to use all 9 minutes but a small sliver.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I have great regard for Senator Grassley. I know how hard he has worked on this bill, as he has on other issues. As he said earlier tonight, he is prepared to work on issues such as prescription drugs for Medicare. I appreciate that, and I have enjoyed the many times we have been colleagues to achieve public policy objectives. I just say I think this is one of those issues on which maybe we have to agree to disagree. This is not a new relationship. Since 1924, the States have been participating with the Federal Government in the estate tax, and 35 States have no other estate tax than the share they get through their participation in the Federal tax. In fact, in my State, it is in the State constitution that the only estate tax that can be collected is that which comes as a State credit on the Federal estate tax. So while it might appear to be easy for the States as we are repealing the estate tax, it is obviously not going to be easy and for some States virtually impossible. I go back to the example Senator Voinovich gave to me earlier today of his own State, which is a binding budget situation. They had written their budget, or are about to, for 24 months beginning July 1 of this year, and now they are going to lose approximately half--we do not have the exact State-by-State numbers, but a significant percentage of this source of revenue. That is a very difficult fiscal position for us to put our friends and colleagues in the 50 States in and I think unnecessarily. President Bush had recommended this reduction be done proportionately. I, frankly, assumed it was being done proportionately until someone pointed out that we were deviating from what the President had recommended. I believe this is kind of a ``gotcha'' approach to the States as they are so deep into already committing themselves for at least 1 and maybe 2 fiscal years. In the case of my State, our legislature finished its business on May 4 or 5, with the budget to go into effect on the first of July. It has in it approximately $775 million as our State's share of the estate tax. Almost half of that is going to evaporate as of the first of January, halfway through the fiscal year. The irony of this is that we talk about we want to do something for the American taxpayer. The American taxpayer pays taxes at all levels of government. If we take a substantial share of this source of revenue away from the States in a precipitous move for which they have been unable to plan, what are the States going to do? Are they going to have to raise property taxes to fill the gap? Are they going to have to raise sales taxes to fill the gap? Are they going to have to find some other source of revenue or begin well into their fiscal year to make significant cuts in services? And what is the service that States provide? For my State and most States, half or more of the total State revenue is spent on one function. What is that function? We ought to know it well because we just spent the last 2 weeks talking about how committed we were to it. What is the function? Education. That is what States do with over half of their money. If we think it is important for us to spend 2 weeks debating the 7 percent of public education which is financed from Washington, we certainly deserve to spend some time discussing the approximately 55 percent of education which is paid by the States. The balance between the Federal 7 and the State's 55 is what is paid at the local level, largely through property taxes. We seem to be, at least in the amount of attention that is being given to this, indifferent to what we are doing to our American taxpayers in terms of their State responsibilities and what we are doing to American education by destabilizing the primary source of financing for American education, which is the 50 States. Mr. President, hoping that I have not used all of the 9 minutes, I will conclude by saying I think this is going to be a test of whether we really are serious, committed Federalists and think that respect and dignity across levels of government is an important part of the oil that makes this very intricate Federal system work and that indifference, bordering on rudeness, toward the States is what could cause it to begin to grind the gears. I believe the adoption of this amendment, which is the proposal made by President Bush, which is a proposal that gets to exactly the same destination as the advocates of repeal of the estate tax would do but do it in a fair and equitable manner as between our 50 States and our Federal Government, is an extremely important statement of our commitment to federalism. I urge the adoption of this amendment when it comes for a vote on Monday.

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

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today to share with you a remarkable story. As sweeping a statement as this is, the story of Miami Edison Middle School is truly the story of America in the 20th Century. It is the story of immigration, with all its challenges, and all its rewards. It is the story of hard work, of culture differences, and cross- cultural understanding. It is the story of a city, and a neighborhood and how each generation that passes through leaves behind a layer to build on. With its Art Deco auditorium and full-sized gymnasium, Miami Edison High School, originally called Dade County Agricultural High, was as magnificent a structure as you could imagine when it was built in 1928. Through the school, one can trace the growth and transformation of the face of Miami, and indeed, the country. When it opened in what was then Lemon City, a swath of land surrounded by lemon and orange groves, the entire student body was white. My wife, Adele, was a student there, as were many of the men and women who are today some of Florida's most respected citizens, including Congressman Clay Shaw and his wife, Emilie, historian Arva Moore Parks and Miami Dolphins football star Nat Moore. By the 1960s, most of the students were Hispanic. A new high school for the area was built in 1978 and Edison became a middle school. Today, the majority of students are of Haitian descent or are recent Haitian immigrants. Edison High School has the highest percentage in the state of students still learning English. It has the lowest math and reading tests scores. It has far too many students living in poverty. The original high-school building, however, looks much the same as it did when it was built, only better. For years Edison, like many urban schools, was left to crumble. Finally, school and county officials decided it was time to put this piece of Florida history in the path of the wrecking ball. To many Edison alumni, organized as the ``Over the Hill Gang, this was unconscionable. In an age when too many children are being taught in makeshift classrooms, trailers and former utility closets, we were sacrificing what could truly have been called a temple of learning. We were carelessly trampling our history and taking down with it the too-long- lost tradition of teaching our children in school buildings that reflect that grandeur of what goes on inside their walls. A group of Edison alumni including Arva Moore Parks, one of Florida's great voices for preserving our history, fought to save the school. In 1992, Dade County agreed to keep the original school standing and refurbish it to meet the needs of today's students. While the alumni group had the best intentions, the parents of today's Edison students were wary, and not without cause. The neighborhood had been promised a new middle school in 1988. It was supposed to be completed by 1992. Instead, children were still trying to learn in a decaying, leaking building. The move to preserve the old school looked, to many neighborhood parents, like another broken promise. In the end, the families of that area got the best of both worlds. The building, restored by architect Richard Heisenbottle of Coral Gables, is a magnificent melding of old and new. The architectural elements of the past are bolstered by a new wing, new lighting, plumbing and air-conditioning. Old classrooms were gutted and refurbished. The original wood floor of the gymnasium remains in place along with a 1,700-seat auditorium with Deco light fixtures and a carved, wraparound balcony. In 1997 the architect, the alumni group, the Dade County School Board and the Dade Heritage Trust received one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's prestigious honor awards for the project. The building itself is a tribute to all involved, but strangely enough, it may not be the most important structure that grew out of this effort. The men and women who fought to save the school also built a sturdy bridge connecting Miami's immigrants to its old guard, its present to its past. One United Band: The Edison Linkage Foundation was formed to reassure the community's parents that today's students mattered as much to the alumni as the school building. The foundation raises money for an aggressive mentoring program that offers a stipend to successful students at Edison High School to tutor younger, at-risk children and to serve as role models for navigating the challenging and often frightening world of adolescence. For some immigrant children, that world is even more frightening than for most young people. Language barriers are just a small part of the problem many of these children face. Some came from Haiti directly to middle school without having had any formal education before. They are illiterate in their own language as well as a new one. Many live in poverty, with families who cannot spend as much time with them as they'd like to and cannot help them with their homework. Tutors can help fill in the blanks, bridge the gaps that keep them from reading, understanding, learning and staying in school. They can offer a living, breathing vision of something to strive for. The program has been a resounding success. In the 1999-2000 school year, 26 middle-school students showed measurable academic gains after being tutored. Of the student's tutored, 15 percent were non-readers. Those students are now reading at a level three and above. Meanwhile, the graduating seniors who served as tutors are all headed for college this fall. The money to pay for the tutors' time is raised from Edison alumni scattered around the country and through fund-raisers including shows and sales of Haitian art. The art shows are both a fund-raising tool for the mentoring program and college scholarships, and a source of pride for children from Haitian families. The third of these will take place May 21, 2001, in the Florida House in Washington, D.C. All of this has been thanks to the hard work of a number of dedicated volunteers and professionals. These include: Martha Anne Collins, Linkage Foundation administrator; Ron Major, Edison Middle School principal; John Walker, coordinator of the tutoring program and an assistant principal at Miami Edison High School; Alma King-Jones, Middle School coordinator and administrative assistant to the principal; Betsy Kaplan of the Dade County School Board; historian Arva Moore Parks and my wife, Adele Khoury Graham, who co-chaired the Linkage Foundation; Charles Keye, Linkage Foundation treasurer; Fred and Mary Exum and the ``Over the Hill Gang'', who have helped coordinate the brick donation program for the Dade County Public School system. All these people, and many more, are responsible for the vision, and then the reality, that became the Edison Middle School and the Linkage Foundation. These men and women reached across generations and through racial and cultural divides to unite Miami today with the Miami of yesterday. In doing so, they have helped create a source of hope and opportunity for the Miami of tomorrow.