Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Virginia.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I associate myself with the remarks made by my good friend from Georgia, Senator Chambliss. This has been a long effort. We worked very hard on this bill. I wish to reassure Senators, this is a good bill. I know there are some editorials out there written about it in the Washington Post and other publications. That is all part of the process of debating and enacting legislation. But you have to think, a lot of those editorials are written by those who likely have never supported a farm bill anyway, so there you go. It is like anything else, is this bill exactly what I would have wanted or Senator Chambliss would have wanted or Senator Conrad would have wanted or anybody else? No. But that is the art of legislation. It requires cooperation, bipartisanship, compromise, and getting legislation through that benefits all of our country. As I have said many times, this farm bill benefits everyone from farmers and ranchers, people in small towns such as my hometown of Cumming, population of 162, to people who live in New York City. The fact that we had 82 votes now on the override--81 before on the conference report on the bill--and the overwhelming votes in the House, I believe indicates people understand this is a broad bill that covers every American--not just farmers, not just ranchers but everyone. It is good for our country, good for our future. It is a bill that will make sure we will continue to have an abundant, safe, affordable supply of food for our people in this country, that we help low-income families put food on their tables and that we help farmers and ranchers conserve and protect our nation's priceless resources for present and future generations. This bill helps us move ahead to producing energy from cellulosic materials--we have laid the foundation for having that in the future. Just as we laid the foundation before for grain-based ethanol, now we have laid the foundation for cellulose-based ethanol in the future. It is a good bill, good for America. Again, I thank Senator Chambliss, first, for when he was chairman actually starting this process and then working together to get this bill through to its conclusion; Senator Conrad, who has been such a valuable ally in this effort, bringing the expertise that he has as the budget chairman and, as I often said, making sure we keep on track. I have often said, in writing legislation if you do something here that affects something there and that affects something else, the Budget Committee and the budget chairman have the knowledge and the expertise to know the budget impact of such actions. It has been an invaluable resource to us, to have that expertise of Senator Conrad on this committee and during this whole debate and development of this farm bill. I will also thank, again, Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, our chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee, who worked so closely with us to develop this legislation and make sure we had the proper funding so we could get this bill through. They were invaluable helping us to get this bill finally through. I wish to make sure there is no doubt in anyone's mind now--14 of the 15 titles in the farm bill conference report are now law. We do not require anybody else's signature; 14 of the 15 titles are now the law of the land. As Senator Chambliss said, we do have this one little glitch--evidently an innocent mistake, a clerical error that title III was not included. We will deal with that at some other point. I don't know exactly when, but that should not be much of a problem, since it was simply a clerical error. We will take care of that. I want people to know we have been in contact with both USDA and USAID, the Agency for International Development. They told my staff basically they could get by for a couple of weeks without our having to do more today. We will have to move ahead as soon as we can, perhaps that will not be until right after the recess, so our Pub. L. 480 programs and our development assistance programs, our market access program, which is so important for our fruits and vegetables, specialty crops and other programs in the trade title are taken care of. Again, I thank everyone. As Senator Chambliss said, we have already thanked our staff, but I don't know if we can thank them enough. They have hung in every day on this. I was going to say now they can take a vacation, but they have to wait until this other title gets taken care of; but sometime soon our staffs will be able to take a break. Mr. President, I would like to expand upon my remarks on the nutrition title of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 so that I may provide my colleagues with more information about the very important changes made in the nutrition title, particularly to the Food Stamp Program. The Food Stamp Program is the single most important antihunger program in our Nation, helping millions of families, seniors, and people with disabilities afford an adequate diet. It is our country's largest child nutrition program and serves as a critical work support program, enabling low-income working families to make ends meet and put food on the table every month. I know that many Senators have not had the opportunity to pore over the details of the legislative language and conference report for the nutrition title. So let me take this opportunity to provide some background on what has been accomplished in the nutrition area of this bill. The conference report makes major investments and improvements in the Food Stamp Program in this bill--starting with changing the name of the program to the ``Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program'' or ``SNAP.'' The change reflects the reality that food assistance benefits are no longer ``stamps'' but have been updated and modernized and are now provided on special cards, like the debit or credit cards that most Americans carry in their wallets. For the purposes of my remarks today, I will use the term ``Food Stamp Program'' throughout my comments one last time before this historic change is made. One of the primary goals for the Food Stamp Program was to end the decades of erosion in the purchasing power of food stamp benefits. Because of harmful cuts to the program enacted in the midnineties, with each passing year the purchasing power of most households' benefits has actually decreased. The biggest annual cut, which has so far cumulated in about $25 less in food assistance each month for the typical working family, was from a freeze to the program's standard deduction. This cut has affected about 10 million people a year, including many low-income working families with children, senior citizens living on a fixed income, and persons with disabilities. The largest benefit improvement in this bill is an increase in the standard deduction, which has been frozen for households of three or fewer people for over 10 years, and end any future erosion in its value by inflating the deduction each year. The inflated amounts will be calculated based on the previous year's unrounded amount, so over time we will not lose any more ground to inflation. This change will improve benefits for about 13 million people and provide a typical working family an additional $6 a month in food assistance in 2009, rising to $17 a month by 2012. Similarly, because it was not adjusted for inflation, the $10 monthly minimum food assistance benefit purchases only about one-third as much food today as it did when it was set more than 30 years ago. The minimum benefit is set at 8 percent of the thrifty food plan, rounded to the nearest whole dollar. This will mean it will be about $14 per month in 2009--almost a 50-percent increase. The Thrifty Food Plan is automatically indexed for inflation. As a result, the minimum benefit will maintain its purchasing power. And, because the Thrifty Food Plan is set at different levels for high-cost areas like Alaska and Hawaii, a new and slightly higher minimum food assistance benefit will be provided in those areas. For example, in fiscal year 2009 the Hawaii minimum benefit level will be $22 a month. Additionally, about 15 States have special combined application projects where SSI recipients receive standardized benefits. I expect USDA will reevaluate the cost- neutrality of these projects so that these households also can receive higher standardized benefit amounts to account for the higher monthly minimum benefit and standard deduction levels. The conference report ends erosion in other areas as well, including the dependent care deduction and asset limit, about which I will speak more briefly, but also the commodities for The Emergency Food Assistance Program, TEFAP, and grants for community food projects and fruits and vegetables in schools. For the first time since I have been working on farm bills, we have clearly established the principle that the value of benefits in our nutritional help for low-income families and individuals should not erode over time, just as they do not in our income tax code or the Social Security and Medicare Programs. This is a remarkable achievement. Another core principle that is addressed in this bill is that building savings and accumulating assets is an important path to financial independence. And here I want to especially thank the ranking member, Senator Chambliss, for his leadership. Many agree that it is counterproductive to discourage savings by forcing people to liquidate their retirement savings or other financial assets when they lose their jobs and need to turn to food assistance to feed their families. Policymakers from across the political spectrum agree that asset development is important to helping low-income Americans make a permanent transition out of poverty as well as avoiding it in their later years. After all, a family does not spend its way out of poverty. Quite the opposite, most families build a path to financial security on the foundation of assets, whether it be a home, a small business, or retirement savings. This bill ensures that all retirement accounts and education savings accounts are excluded from a household's financial assets when determining whether or not they are eligible for food assistance. And for the first time in nearly two decades the $2,000 and $3,000 asset limits will be adjusted for inflation each year. It is also important to note what the Congress did not do in the asset area. The administration proposed eliminating a State option called expanded categorical eligibility which allows States to conform the food stamp asset rules to those used in a TANF-funded benefit, and proposed using those savings to finance the exclusion of retirement accounts from eligibility determinations. Both the House and Senate rejected that approach because of a belief that some assets, such as retirement funds, should be excluded from the program on a national basis. In addition, by leaving the existing State option on categorical eligibility in place, States have the full flexibility to set their own asset policy. I strongly encourage USDA to work with States to expand the use of this State option beyond the 15 States that thus far have expanded categorical eligibility. States with nearly 40 percent of the food stamp caseload do not currently use the national asset policy. I hope that in the coming months and years we will see more and more States take the option. Another major improvement in this bill supports working families by allowing them to deduct the full amount of their childcare expenses from their income for purposes of food assistance eligibility and benefit determinations. The current cap on the dependent care deduction has not been raised in 15 years, but child care costs have continued to grow. Even when a low-income working family gets help paying for child care, the family's share, or copayment, can be substantial. Now, because of changes in this bill, the amount of food assistance that a family receives will reflect the actual child care costs families pay to be able to hold down their jobs. By lifting the cap, families eligible for the deduction will be able to deduct the full value of their childcare costs, rather than just a portion of the costs. The change would provide an average of almost $500 a year--more than $40 a month--to approximately 100,000 households that pay high childcare costs. This change was made cognizant of current USDA policy on the childcare deduction, which takes a broad view of what constitutes a dependent care cost, defers to parents about what is appropriate childcare, and lets States determine how to set verification policy. This proposal was part of USDA's original farm bill proposal and they have given us every reason to believe they will continue these policies and do nothing that would limit what is deductible or the amount families may deduct. For households that apply or recertify their eligibility after October 1, 2008, the dependent care cap will no longer be in effect. We expect that States will notify households already participating in the program with dependent care expenses at or above the current cap about the policy change. These households should be given the opportunity to receive the higher dependent care deduction that corresponds to their full costs as soon as the provision takes effect. A benefit increase for these households however, is their option. In no case should a household have its benefits terminated or reduced for not responding to paperwork requesting verification for the amount of childcare costs they have above the current cap. In two areas, this bill builds upon the very successful State options provided in the 2002 farm bill. These simplifications have made the program less burdensome on States agencies and families alike, have helped to keep low-income households connected to the Food Stamp Program, and have been a major factor in the sustained drop in State food assistance error rates. The 2002 farm bill allowed States to extend ``simplified'' reporting rules to most households. Some 48 States and the District of Columbia have adopted this popular State option, which dramatically simplifies the rules for how many food stamp participants inform the State about changes in their income and other circumstances. Unfortunately, due to an oversight in the 2002 bill, States are not allowed to apply simplified reporting to several categories of households, such as households with only elderly or disabled members. USDA wisely, through guidance and in its proposed regulation, allowed States to extend the option to some households that might be excluded, such as homeless households and migrant and seasonal farmworkers. This bill specifically allows these households to be included in simplified reporting and extends the State option to households with only elderly and disabled members, so long as States extend the simplified option for 1 year rather than 6 months for such households to reflect the fact that many of them live on fixed incomes and have stable living situations and thus do not have many changes to report. In fact imposing 6 month reports on these households would make them worse off by putting their food assistance at risk more often than is now the case. This change will allow States to simplify their operations and reduce confusion, by having just one reporting system with common forms, staff training, and other rules. I urge USDA to implement this provision and the underlying simplified reporting option in a way that allows it to achieve its full intent of minimizing the number of changes that households need to report and that States need to respond to, whether those changes are for food stamps or for another program that the State administers along with the Food Stamp Program. Simplified reporting cannot be simple if USDA allows exceptions to our basic principle that changes should only be made to the case if a household reports that their income exceeds the gross income limit. Another popular and successful provision from the 2002 farm bill gave States the option to provide 5 months of transitional food assistance to families that leave welfare. We did this not only because we wanted to reduce the paperwork burden but also to keep eligible families connected to food assistance when they left welfare for work. This is important because we know that, for families who are leaving welfare for employment, the first couple of months are particularly vulnerable. Having work supports such as food assistance help them to weather this period and actually decreases the likelihood that they will return to cash assistance. The 2002 farm bill made this State option available to families that leave Federal TANF-funded cash assistance programs. Since then, some States have established separate State-funded cash assistance programs for certain groups of poor families with children. These State programs give greater flexibility to States to develop services and supports that can serve these families appropriately. This bill extends to States the option to provide transitional food assistance to individuals participating in these State-funded public assistance programs. Several States have specifically indicated that this change will be beneficial to them and the families with children that they serve. For all of these benefit improvements, I expect USDA to implement the provisions in a way that is sensitive to the needs of the State agencies that administer the program. It is with some disappointment and disbelief that I note that the administration still has not yet issued final regulations for the 2002 farm bill's food stamp provisions. In implementing this bill I urge USDA to provide sufficient, flexible guidance to States in a timely manner. One of the helpful implementing policies USDA allowed in 2002 was to extend the 120-day quality control hold harmless protections to provisions that are State options, such as simplified reporting and transitional food stamps. I expect USDA to allow that policy for this farm bill as well. In addition to major improvements in the benefit levels and rules, the nutrition title contains numerous program oversight and integrity provisions, as well as provisions that address basic program operations. As I mentioned at the outset of my remarks, this bill finalizes the replacement of paper coupons in favor of the electronic benefits on plastic cards that are now the way people access their food assistance across the country. The bill prohibits States from issuing any new coupons and provides that existing coupons shall be redeemable for only 1 year from the date this bill is enacted. This is a minor change in the operation of the program, since no State currently issues coupons and fewer are redeemed each month. Nonetheless, the change required numerous technical and conforming revisions in the statute to purge the act of ``coupons'' and other trappings of the old system. No policy changes are intended in making these revisions other than to reflect the existing reality. For example, in replacing the word ``coupons'' with ``benefits'' Congress did not intend to change policy beyond simply recognizing that coupons do not exist anymore. The term ``benefits'' refers to the food voucher-like benefits that households receive on electronic benefit transfer cards, EBT, but does not include auxiliary activities under the act, such as nutrition education or food stamp employment and training services. Despite the overwhelming success of electronic benefits in modernizing benefit delivery, reducing retailer fraud, and removing a large source of stigma for recipients, there is one area where there remain concerns about EBT benefits, and this bill has tried to address the concern. Under the old food stamp coupon system, some households, especially seniors who qualify for small benefits, could store up those smaller amounts and use several months' worth in one shopping trip or for a special occasion, such as a holiday gathering. With food stamp coupons there was no deadline for how long they were good for. Under EBT systems, however, some States have moved households' benefits ``offline'' after as few as 3 months if there is no activity in the account. This can be a problem for households that receive small benefits and want to store them up for a special supermarket trip. So this bill strikes a balance. It allows States to move a household's benefits offline if the household has not accessed the EBT account for 6 months. But the State will be required to notify the household of this step and to reinstate its benefits within 48 hours if the household makes a request. I expect States to make the process for recovering benefits after they have been moved offline easy for households. Any inquiry about food assistance, or general request for assistance from a household that has had benefits moved offline, should be considered a request for reinstatement of lost benefits. In other words, households should not have to contact a particular phone number or ask for some complicated reinstatement option in order to get benefits restored to their accounts. Rather, eligibility workers and local office or call center employees should assist households and should help them to initiate the process of reinstating their benefits. I recognize that some States may need to renegotiate the terms of their EBT contracts, and I urge USDA to work with States to implement the provision as quickly as possible given the time constraints set by the effective date constraints. This bill also responds to another benefit issuance matter that has come up recently in Michigan and in other places over the years. States currently issue food stamps in one monthly installment for each household. They may, and usually do, ``stagger'' food stamps by issuing the month's food stamps to different households on different days of the month, for example, based on the last digit of the household head's Social Security number. This practice spreads out the state's workload and helps supermarkets smooth out the demand for food. Some States--most recently Michigan--have faced pressure from retailers and others to divide each individual households' monthly allotment into two or more issuances over the month. I do not support such a change and was surprised to learn that the law permitted it. Dividing households' monthly food stamp allotments could prevent some households from making large buying trips or from purchasing large, economy-size containers of staple foods. It also would be burdensome on households with small benefit amounts--such as seniors--because they would have to use their food assistance EBT card at multiple shopping trips during the month instead of only one. In fact, the Michigan Department of Human Services polled current food assistance recipients about such a potential change and learned that recipients strongly opposed splitting food assistance benefits into a twice-monthly allotment. The bill includes a provision that would prevent States from dividing monthly allotments. No other policy changes are envisioned. The bill does not intend to change the rules with respect to the issuance of expedited benefits, the proration of benefits for partial months, the issuance of supplemental benefits in the event a benefit correction is needed, the way that people who reside, or formerly resided, in drug or alcohol addiction treatment facilities receive food assistance, or any other area. The nutrition title also clarifies a provision that has inadvertently denied food assistance benefits to innocent people. Individuals who are being actively pursued by law enforcement for outstanding felony charges or for violations of probation or parole are not eligible for food assistance benefits. This rule appropriately ensures that fugitives do not receive public support. However, in practice, this rule occasionally denies food assistance to the wrong people--innocent people whose identities may have been stolen by criminals or those whose offenses were so minor or so long ago that law enforcement has no interest in pursuing them. If the issuing authority does not care to apprehend the applicant when notified of his or her whereabouts, there is no public purpose served by denying food assistance benefits. Unfortunately, inadequate guidance to States has resulted in exactly that. This provision would correct this by requiring USDA to clarify the terms used and make sure that States are not incorrectly disqualifying needy people who are not being actively pursued by law enforcement authorities. One important area of the bill has not gotten a lot attention. It has to do with our own, as well as USDA's oversight of State administration of the program. Several provisions in the nutrition title are included to improve oversight of States with respect to computer systems, eligibility processes, and access to benefits. For example, the bill requires States to adequately test and pilot new computer systems. I do not wish to see another instance of a State implementing a multimillion dollar computer system that does not work, and which USDA knew would not work. Time and time again, I have read about computer systems that do not work and either cause families to wait 3 months for food stamps or that issue benefits inaccurately. That is unacceptable management of the program. USDA must demand adequate testing and hold States, not clients, accountable for any mistakes in benefits when there is a major systems failure. The bill also includes a provision that was proposed by USDA to increase the penalties on States if, despite these measures, a ``major systems failure'' nonetheless occurs. If the Secretary determines that overissuances have occurred because of a ``major systems failure,'' the States, rather than households, as is usually the case, are to be liable to repay the Federal Government for the cost of the overissuance. This is entirely appropriate because the mistake is clearly not the household's fault, and their ability to purchase food should not be compromised because of the State's egregious mistakes. When major State problems occur, the State's energy and resources should be focused on fixing the problem, not on collecting from low- income households that had no role in the mistake. New automated systems are not the only program area that requires more oversight, monitoring, and enforcement of standards. States are now using online applications, conducting business with clients over the phone, and in some cases closing local offices and reducing staff as a result of these changes. New technologies present enormous opportunities to improve customer service, but they also carry risks if the technology does not work or the State agency lacks sufficient oversight. The bill is, in part, responding to a recent GAO report that found that USDA has not collected sufficient information on the effects of alternative methods of benefit delivery on program access, payment accuracy, and administrative costs. The bill requires USDA to set standards for identifying when States are making major changes in their operations and for States to notify USDA and report on the effect these changes have on program integrity and households' access to benefits. Though the provision of which I am speaking, section 4116 does not specifically pertain to the privatization of the Food Stamp Program, it does have particular relevance given recent efforts by two States, Texas and Indiana, to privatize major components of their food assistance delivery mechanism. Prior to the approval by the Food and Nutrition Service of both the Texas contract and the Indiana contract, I communicated extensively with the Food and Nutrition Service by letter as to the kinds and manner of data collection that I deemed critical in each instance. I continue to be extremely concerned that USDA is not properly monitoring those projects, as well as other State efforts to transform the way that services are delivered with respect to how these new systems are affecting the most vulnerable members of our society. Because that correspondence was extensive and because it is in the records of USDA, I will not submit it here for the record. I would note however, that in implementing section 4116 of the conference report, I expect USDA to closely review my prior correspondence regarding the Texas and Indiana contracts regarding what kinds of information should be collected. In particular, I expect USDA to review my letter to Secretary Johanns sent on January 19, 2006. That letter in particular clearly laid out expectations as to proper evaluation criteria, especially as they pertained to program access for certain vulnerable populations, such as individuals with disabilities and those with limited-English proficiency. I would also like to note that USDA has thus far refused, both in the case of Texas and the case of Indiana, to gather appropriate quality control data in the specific geographic areas that were initially rolled out for testing. In those cases, I asked USDA to gather quality control data that was specific to the geographical area that was being initially rolled out so that a comparison could be made to the rest of the State that was still operating under normal parameters, and I asked USDA to gather data that would allow for a timely evaluation of the pilot area. USDA responded that this was not possible because quality control data is not gathered for substate geographical areas and quality control data is not available for evaluation until many months after it is first gathered. This provision allows USDA to rectify this situation and, in addition to other reporting measures, I fully expect USDA, in implementing this provision, to ensure that quality control data is gathered when there are major changes in program design that allows for comparison of substate areas that are being tested and which allows for the timely use of the State-reported data in evaluation prior to moving ahead with later phases of a project. Another provision of the bill creates an explicit State option for accepting food assistance applications over the telephone. As I previously mentioned, innovative States have experimented with online applications and telephone interviews as a way of streamlining the process for people who have difficulty coming to welfare offices, such as working families with busy schedules and senior citizens. The nutrition title would allow households to apply for food assistance over the telephone and have their benefits date back to the date of the telephone application. This is important to ensure that households that apply over the telephone do not have a delay in their benefits and receive smaller benefits for the first month. We have provided that a telephone signature should be accepted as adequate for all purposes. No subsequent mail-in application should be required in order for the application to be considered filed by the State agency. Throughout the history of the Food Stamp Program, the courts have played a positive, constructive role in ensuring that congressional intent is carried out. The program has not been overrun with litigation because both Congress, in writing statutes, and USDA, in writing regulations, have taken great pains to be clear and specific. On those rare occasions when courts have misunderstood our intent on an important matter, Congress has amended that statute accordingly. Because USDA keeps the Agriculture Committees closely apprised of its regulatory actions, Congress also has been comfortable with--indeed supportive of--litigation to enforce the Department's regulations. On numerous occasions when we leave a matter open in the statute, it is because USDA has told us exactly how it plans to address the matter in regulations. Congress has always operated on the assumption, and with the intent, that the program's regulations would be fully enforceable and fully complied with to the same extent as the statute. I was disturbed to learn of two recent cases in which courts disregarded the longstanding history of judicial enforcement of the act and regulations. A district court in Ohio refused to entertain a suit brought to enforce the Department's regulations for serving people whose primary language is not English, and an appellate court in New York held that States are less responsible for compliance with the act and regulations when the program is administered by local governments than when the State administers the program itself. Accordingly, this legislation clarifies that States must comply with the Department's rules on service to non-English-speaking households as well as with the statute. The regulations, no less than the statute, create rights for households to ensure that they can receive benefits. Responding to the New York case, the legislation clarifies that States' responsibility is no less in locally administered systems. Congress has granted States the option for local administration as a convenience; nothing in the law reduces States' responsibility if they take this option. If the State could not be held fully accountable for strict compliance with the act and regulations in these cases, local administration would not be permitted. These amendments correct that problem. I have been a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee or the House Agriculture Committee for over 30 years. I have always operated on the assumption that the act and regulations create enforceable rights for actual and prospective participants and that litigation may properly arise under provisions of either. When I have heard of examples where applicants or clients were not provided with the service that the act and rules provide, such as timely and fair service, assistance for those who need it by the State agency or 10 days to turn in requested paperwork, I have supported the right of an individual to file a claim against the State to enforce the rules established by Congress and the regulations stemming from the statute. With very few exceptions, the old Food Stamp Act and the new Food and Nutrition Act are based on the principle of individual rights. Much of that stems from a history in the 1960s and 1970s of clients not being able to gain access to the program. To be sure, section 2 has little in it to enforce: subsections (a) through (g) of section 7 do not affect individual households, and sections 9, 10, 12, and 15 focus on retailers and wholesalers. Within section 11, paragraphs (e)(19), (e)(20), (e)(22), and (e)(23), as well as subsections (f) through (h), (k), (l), (n) through (r), and (t), regulate state agencies rather than households. The same is true in section 16 of the beginning of subsection (a) as well as of subsections (c), (d), and (f) through (k). Sections 14(a), 18(e) and (f), 19, 23, 25, and 27 similarly do not convey rights to households. A few other provisions by their terms no longer apply to anyone. But by and large, the Agriculture Committees, and Congress as a whole, have consistently intended that the Food Stamp Program be administered in strict conformity with the Food Stamp Act and with regulations the Secretary has duly promulgated under this act and that prospective and actual participants be entitled to enforce these provisions legally. The legislation also clarifies the act's privacy protections to ensure that those receiving confidential information for legitimate reasons are not free to make other uses of that information or to retransmit it to third parties. Any decisions about releasing or using information should be made in advance by the Department or State food stamp agencies. The focus was on retransmission of information. Other than the provision explicitly allowing these records to be accessed in households' litigation, the bill does not expand initial access to confidential information. Confidential records would continue to be unavailable to the general public and others not having a legitimate reason relating to program administration. In the program integrity area the bill responds to USDA's request for more flexibility in how they penalize retailers who have committed fraud against the program. Electronic benefits have greatly reduced the occurrence of clients converting their food assistance benefits into cash, but there sometimes remain problems with stores finding ways to enrich themselves at the expense of the Federal Government and low- income households. Under this bill USDA will have more flexibility in the types of penalties it can impose on such stores. USDA will be able to disqualify an offending retailer, subject the retailer to financial penalties, or both. Elsewhere in the bill, the Secretary is provided expanded authority to penalize individuals and companies that defraud USDA programs. While that provision does not apply to any of the individuals and families who receive food assistance it could be used with respect to retailers and other program operators. Given our history of collaboration with the Department on crafting this retailer fraud provisions as well as fraud detection and enforcement systems in the other nutrition programs, it is not my expectation that the Secretary would ever use that authority without extensive consultation with the Agriculture Committees. The bill also adds two new specific disqualifications for recipients who have intentionally used their food assistance benefits inappropriately. I do not think these kinds of behaviors are common among food assistance recipients, but they are nonetheless inappropriate, and people who engage in them should be penalized. The first came up because of a story in my State. Apparently someone used their food assistance benefits to buy water in returnable containers. The individual's real goal, however, was to discard the water and return the container for the cash deposit. This kind of activity is obviously not consistent with the purpose of the program and States will now have specific authority to deal with it when it occurs. The second would address instances where food assistance recipients intentionally resell food that they have purchased with food assistance benefits. This is a little bit of a grey area, and I want to be clear about what we do and do not intend with this provision. It is not consistent with the goals of the program for individuals to resell large quantities of food for a profit that they have bought with food stamp benefits. However, I recognize that food stamp households may occasionally buy a cake mix which is used to make cupcakes for their child's elementary school bake sale or they may shop for one another and reimburse each other for food. Two families who share an apartment may sometimes share or swap food, even though they generally purchase and prepare their meals separately. These are not fundamental affronts to the integrity of the program. In fact, these are facts of life for honest low- and moderate-income families. USDA and States should only treat the egregious cases--where recipients intentionally sell food that was clearly purchased with food assistance benefits for a cash profit--as fraud. Innocent, well-intentioned low-income individuals should not be disqualified under this new provision. The bill also includes $20 million in the nutrition title for pilot projects to test innovative ways of using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to improve the diets and overall health of recipients and to especially reduce the problems of obesity and the related bad health outcomes. Particularly, this funding is provided for USDA to carry out a pilot program that would test whether certain incentives can be effective in helping food stamp households to purchase healthier foods. The funding is intended to be used for a pilot program using the existing EBT infrastructure. For example, a participating household that purchases fruits and vegetables with their food stamp benefits would receive a discount on the portion of their purchase that is deemed healthful. Or alternatively, the household would have extra benefits added onto its EBT card for the component of their grocery store purchases that are healthful. This provision is an investment in a very important area. But I must be clear that it is very important for these pilot projects to be rigorously evaluated and that the evaluations be independent, so the Agriculture Committee can have reliable information on what really works and does not work to change people's food purchasing behavior, diets, and health status. To provide USDA with maximum flexibility in implementing this provision, the statute does not go into great deal about the structure of the pilot program. However, I have every expectation that USDA will consult closely with the Agriculture Committee as it works to implement this provision. The bill also requires USDA to study the cost and feasibility of reinstating the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico into the national Food Stamp Program. Since 1982 Puerto Rico has received a fixed block grant amount for food assistance, rather than be a part of the U.S. program like the 50 States, District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. This block grant does not take into account changes in economic or demographic conditions, such as unemployment or the number of people who are in need of food assistance. Puerto Rico operates their Nutrition Assistance Program with rules very similar to the Food Stamp Program, except that it has been forced to impose much lower eligibility criteria as a result of capped funding. For example, a Puerto Rican household has a maximum net income limit of only 23 percent to 34 percent of the poverty level, instead of the 100 percent cut off used in the Food Stamp Program. It is important that Congress gain a better understanding of whether we are meeting the food needs of U.S. citizens living in Puerto Rico and whether inclusion in the Food Stamp Program would be appropriate in the Commonwealth. With this study I hope to get a better understanding of what the local conditions are in Puerto Rico and how to address the issues in the next farm bill. Another provision of the bill seeks to ensure that all children who live in households receiving food stamps are getting the free school meals to which they are entitled. Forty percent of all food assistance recipients are school-age children and about 45 percent of food assistance benefits go to families with school-age children. Food assistance benefits are a critical factor in reducing food insecurity amongst families with children. All children in families receiving food assistance get another important benefit--automatic enrollment for free school meals provided through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. Such children have been eligible for free school meals for some time, but the requirement that they be automatically enrolled without completing a duplicative paper application was enacted in 2004 and will be effective nationwide for the first time in the 2008 to 2009 school year. The goal of the direct certification requirement is to move to a system that seamlessly enrolls 100 percent of school-age children in households receiving food assistance benefits for free school meals without imposing any additional paperwork on already stressed families. Unfortunately, it appears that some States are not implementing this provision effectively. As a result, families and schools must fill out and process needless paperwork that was already processed by the food stamp agency. I strongly encourage USDA to work with States to ensure better implementation of direct certification. Government need not and should not be unnecessarily redundant and wasteful. This legislation requires USDA to report to Congress annually on each State's progress toward that goal and to identify best practices. The report can thus be used to help States assess their own progress and expand the reach of direct certification. The farm bill nutrition title makes a significant new investment in food purchases for emergency food organizations, increasing the Federal mandatory funding that is available from $140 million per year to $250 million, adjusted for annual food inflation. Because the amount has been flat since 2002 it has lost purchasing power, while food prices have climbed by more than 15 percent. TEFAP also will receive $50 million in additional funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2008 to deal with the short-term immediate needs of food banks in light of the recent economic downturn and high food price inflation. I would also like to highlight some of the changes we made to the Food Distribution Program on Indian reservations. As my colleagues may know, under the Food Stamp Act, tribal governments have the authority to run a commodity program for their tribal members who would prefer commodities to food stamps. The program helps ensure that low-income Native Americans who live in very remote areas and for whom food stamps are not an option have access to nutritious foods. Currently, there are approximately 243 tribes receiving benefits under the FDPIR through 98 Indian tribal organizations and five State agencies. The bill makes a number of changes to the program. First, the statute is clarified to ensure that individuals disqualified from the Food Stamp Program are also disqualified from FDPIR. Second, the bill provides more authority to ensure that traditional and local foods are included in the food package based on input from program participants. Finally, and perhaps most important, Congress is requiring USDA to submit a report on the FDPIR food package and its ability to meet the food and health needs of low-income Native Americans. I am deeply concerned that FDPIR may be failing as a substitute for the Food Stamp Program. Unlike food stamps, it does not differentiate between the food needs of the poorest versus those with more income. Moreover, I am concerned that the quality of the food provided in the food package is not as healthy and nutritious as it ought to be, nor does it respond to the diet and health challenges of Native Americans. The Secretary has open ended authority to improve or expand FDPIR, which is an entitlement to Native Americans in lieu of the Food Stamp Program. I look forward to hearing from USDA about if or how FDPIR needs to be modified to respond to the food security needs of its participants. The nutrition title also make a very significant investment in the health of our Nation's children by expanding the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which will receive $150 million annually within 5 years and thereafter be indexed to inflation. Several important policy changes are also made to the program. First, because eating habits are established early in life, we limit the program to just elementary schools, with an appropriate transition period for currently participating secondary schools. The bill also includes significantly strengthened targeting of program funds to low-income children by specifying that priority be given to applicant schools that have the highest proportion of children who are eligible for free or reduced- price meals. I expect USDA and states to take this income targeting very seriously. The statute is very clear. It does not suggest that the prioritization of low-income schools is optional but clearly indicates that first priority be given to the schools with the greatest proportion of low- income children. The statute also removes any reference to dried fruits that previously existed. The program is intended to provide fresh fruits and vegetables only. As my colleagues may gather from my remarks, I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished in the nutrition title of this farm bill. We have made the title a top priority within the bill and taken pains to ensure that we strengthen our Federal nutrition programs for the tens of millions of children, seniors and families they serve. Of course, we still have a long way to go before we end hunger in this country. But with this legislation we will be moving in a direction of reducing hunger, strengthening our people and building healthier, stronger communities. Mr. President, in addition to the more than 1,000 farm, conservation, nutrition, consumer and religious organizations who urged us to override this veto, more than 2,700 Americans signed an online petition, which said the following: We urge Congress to override President Bush's veto of the 2008 farm bill . . . It protects the safety net for all of America's food producers, increases funding to feed our nation's poor, enhances support for important conservation initiatives, and helps make America more energy independent . . . Please vote to override President Bush's veto and enact the 2008 Farm Bill into law. I will not enter all the names into the Record because there are e- mail addresses listed here, and I don't want to make all those public. I ask consent to have the petition printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, let me state the obvious. The administration's position, and what I hear from the other side of the aisle, is a blank check for Iraq but not a dime for urgent domestic priorities. I can tell you that is a nonstarter with the American people. We have more to do here internally for America than just borrowing money from China and sending it to Iraq. I have worked to add to this bill urgently needed funding for an array of domestic needs, including health care, extended unemployment insurance, and grants to fight crime in neighborhoods across America. We have added emergency funding for the Byrne Grant Program to provide critical funding to local law enforcement, and this funding is crucial. Unless we restore the Byrne funding for fiscal year 2008, local law enforcement operations will be severely cut back--set back, even--if we provide the funds in 2009. In my State of Iowa, over half of all the drug task forces will be forced to shut down unless these cuts are restored. Mr. President, 15 out of 21 regional drug task forces will be eliminated. That is just my State. Think about your State. It is going to devastate our law enforcement activities to fight drugs and crime. Law enforcement has made it clear that once these programs are stopped, they are very hard to start again. It is hard to hire back trained and experienced law enforcement, hard to restart a wiretap, for example, to reconnect with lost witnesses. So the Byrne Grant Program is absolutely essential. But there are other things we need to do. There is $400 million for NIH in this bill. Much of that is for cancer research. We are making great strides, but in the last few years, we have not kept up with medical inflation, and therefore the amount of dollars we have for cancer research is being eroded. We have $1 billion in this bill for LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Mr. President, 15.5 million households are at least 30 days overdue in meeting their heating costs. We know how high costs are going, and now we have the summer months coming on, and in the South particularly, where they are going to need air- conditioning, we need this money for our low-income and our elderly people. We extend unemployment compensation by 13 weeks. We know the best stimulus of all is to help those who are unemployed, to get them the money, to get them through a rough patch so they can get back to work. We also defer the implementation of seven Medicaid and Medicare amendments. These are supported by the National Governors Association. If we do not defer the implementation of these amendments, it is going to have a profoundly bad effect on health care in all of our States, and many of these regulations go into effect in June and July of this year unless we put a stop to them. These are all the provisions that are in the domestic package. Again, we have $100 billion in this bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. What about America? What about using this bill to stimulate our economy, extend assistance to the unemployed, fight crime, create jobs, and invest in medical research? It is not just Iraq and Afghanistan, it is also America. That is what this first domestic package is about, and I urge all Senators to vote to adopt this amendment to the bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Subcommittee on Rural Revitalization, Conservation, Forestry and Credit, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 2:30 p.m. in room 332 of the Russell Senate office building.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 21, 2008, at 2:45 p.m.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 21, 2008, to conduct a hearing. The Committee will meet in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office building, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building at 10 a.m.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 21, 2008, at 9:15 a.m., to hold a hearing on defense trade cooperation treaties with the United Kingdom and Australia.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 21, 2008.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Exploring the Skyrocketing Price of Oil'' on Wednesday, May 21, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 21, 2008, at 2 p.m., to hear testimony on pending nominations.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Alissa Doobay of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, Lyndon Johnson has always been a personal hero to me. Every time I find myself in Austin, TX, I make a visit to the LBJ Library. Only for me, it is not a trip, it is more of a pilgrimage. I have been to that library so many times I think I could conduct a blindfolded tour by now. I was just there a couple months ago. My favorite place in that library, of course, is the Great Society Room, with the plaques on the wall listing the incredible array of legislation and programs that Lyndon Johnson passed into law. You go down it and you read them all: the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Job Corps, VISTA, Upward Bound, the Food Stamp Program, legal services for the poor, the Community Action Program, Community Health Centers, Head Start, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, public broadcasting, the National Mass Transportation Act, the Cigarette Labeling Act, the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act--Mr. President, it takes your breath away when you look at what this one person, with a Congress, was able to accomplish. So, Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the ``failure'' of the Great Society. Yes, the ``failure'' of the Great Society. At least that is what I have been hearing ever since I first started running for office in 1972 and 1974, coming to the House, and then to the Senate. All those years I have heard from most of my friends on the other side of the aisle and the conservatives what a great ``failure'' the Great Society was. In fact, this supposed ``failure'' has become an article of faith among conservatives. As President Reagan said on May 9, 1983: The great expansion of government programs that took place under the aegis of the Great Society coincided with an end to economic progress for America's poor people. So I thought I would come to the floor today to discuss the ``failures'' of the Great Society. Well, I wonder where to start. But I suppose a good place to start is with the great Civil Rights Act of 1964. Think about it. Prior to that act, African Americans faced brazen discrimination and segregation--the American version of apartheid. In many parts of our country, African Americans could not eat in the same restaurants or at the same lunch counters as Whites. They could not use the same bathrooms, the same swimming pools, the same water fountains, the same motels, the same hotels. They literally were consigned, as we know, to the back of the bus. Well, because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Lyndon Johnson's championship of it, those Jim Crow laws and practices were ended in the United States of America. It became illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. Now we take it for granted that people of color, different nationalities, different religions are seen in our parks and playgrounds, our libraries, our swimming pools, our sports arenas, our motels and hotels, but it was not so long ago that this was not so. Hardly a ``failure.'' Another ``failure'' of the Great Society, of course, the Medicare Program. Let's take a look at that. At the bill signing ceremony on July 30, 1965, President Johnson enrolled former President Harry Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card. We always talk about life after age 65 as the ``golden years.'' For many, prior to Medicare, life at 65 used to be the ``nightmare years''--with tens of millions of Americans unable to even afford basic medical care, condemned to living out their senior years in the misery of untreated or poorly treated illnesses or diseases. Here, Mr. President, I want to get personal. See, my father, Patrick Harkin, was 54 years old when I was born. My father had an eighth grade education. Most of it he spent as a coal miner. Now, most people don't think there are coal mines outside of Pennsylvania or West Virginia, but Iowa at one time was the second largest coal-producing State in the Nation. Young kids who didn't go to school went to the coal mines. So my father worked for the greater part of more than 20 years in the coal mines. Later on in life, he suffered what they called then the miner's cough, which we now know is black lung disease. My mother died when I was 10. My father was just about 65, and he had paid enough in, in the 1940s, to qualify for Social Security. So he had Social Security. He had three kids under the age of 18 and no money. He lived in this little two-bedroom house out in the middle of smalltown Iowa. But we had Social Security that kept us together. But I can remember it was like clockwork: Every year, every winter, my father would get sick. He had this miner's cough, and usually in the winter it would get worse and he would come down with pneumonia or something like that. Since we didn't have a car, one of my cousins or someone--and my father did not want to go to the hospital because we didn't have any money. He wouldn't see a doctor because we didn't have money. So one of my cousins or somebody would come over, and he would finally get so sick he couldn't stand it, and they would rush him to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines. Thank God for the sisters of mercy at Mercy Hospital. They would nurse him back to health, get him OK, send him back home. This happened like clockwork every winter. My father was always bothered by it. He was proud. He didn't like to accept charity. Heck, if left to his own devices, he probably would have died a long time before then because he just wouldn't have accepted that kind of medical care. I can remember coming home on leave from the Navy for Christmas 1965. Now, I hadn't been paying too much attention--I was just trying to keep alive, so I wasn't paying too much attention to legislation and things such as that. I didn't mark the passage of the Medicare bill. I didn't know it even happened. As I said, I was just in the military doing my thing. But I can remember coming home on that Christmas break and seeing my dad, and he showed me his Medicare card. Now he could get medical care. He could go to the doctor. He could go and get taken care of before he got so sick he had to go to the hospital every time. You can't imagine what this was like for him. You see, he felt he had earned this through a lifetime of hard work, working for our country, raising a family. This was not charity. He had earned this. It was part of his Social Security. So when someone tells me about Medicare, part of the ``failures'' of a great society--hardly a ``failure.'' I wonder why there aren't more people out here rushing to introduce bills to repeal it if it is such a great ``failure.'' It has saved so many people in our country, such as my father, who lived out the remainder of his years in a little bit better health because of Medicare. So it is very personal with me. Another ``failure'' of the Great Society was the Higher Education Act. In 1965, it was rare for young people from disadvantaged and low- income backgrounds to go to college. The only way I got there is I had an NROTC scholarship because of the Navy. That was the only way I was able to go to college. So President Johnson passed the Higher Education Act, creating work-study programs, loans with reduced interest rates, scholarships, opening the door to college for tens of millions of Americans to have access to the American dream--again, hardly a ``failure''. In August 1964, Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Food Stamp Act. Prior to that act, hunger was shockingly widespread in America, especially in Appalachia and rural parts of our country and in our inner cities. Thanks to the Food Stamp Program, hunger in America is rare. Tens of millions of Americans--more than half of them children-- are ensured a basic nutritional minimum thanks to this program. The farm bill we just passed, with the Presiding Officer's help in getting it passed, expanded the Food Stamp Program. It took out some of the barriers to access, so families in America can get more access for their families and their kids. In the State of the Union Address in 1988, President Reagan said that the Great Society ``declared war on poverty and poverty won.'' He said this in the State of the Union Address. It is another Reagan myth. Look at the facts. Look at the data. From 1963 until 1970, during the impact of the Great Society programs, the number of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent. The poverty rate for African Americans fell from 55 percent to 27 percent. The poverty rate among the elderly fell by two-thirds. This is an amazing success. What is unfortunate is that the poverty rate has not fallen significantly since 1970. Our progress has been stalled. Indeed, in the last few years, the gap between the rich and the poor in this country has grown dramatically. So we need a new generation of American leaders committed to reducing the gap. We need a new generation of leaders with Lyndon Johnson's passion and commitment to fighting poverty and hunger and homelessness and inequality and discrimination. Any fairminded observer would say that LBJ's Great Society was far from a ``failure;'' it was a monumental success. The Great Society programs defined the modern United States of America as a compassionate, inclusive society, a genuine opportunistic society where everyone can contribute their talents and abilities. The Great Society is very much the living legacy of our 36th President. We see the Great Society today in cleaner air and water, young people from poor backgrounds going to college, seniors and poor people having access to decent medical care, and people of color exercising their right to vote and live in the neighborhood of their choice. We see the Great Society in Head Start, quality public schools, vocational education, college grants and loans--all those rungs on the ladder that people need to achieve the American dream, even those from humble, hardscrabble backgrounds, such as Lyndon Johnson himself or this Senator from Iowa. Americans have a tendency to take for granted the achievements of the Great Society. But just imagine an America without Medicare, without the Civil Rights Act, without the Voting Rights Act, without title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, without Head Start, without community health centers, without vocational education. I could go on and on. It would truly be a greatly diminished America, a less secure America, a less just America. And without the great companionship of Lady Bird Johnson, it would be a less beautiful America. I know the Johnson family is here today, including Linda Bird, Lucy Baines, and their families, and many close friends and colleagues of President Johnson and members of his administration. I thank them for keeping the LBJ legacy alive and not letting it become invisible. Before I close, let me quote from a small part of a speech that was given by Joseph Califano just this Monday at a luncheon here in Washington commemorating the legacy of Lyndon Johnson. Obviously we all remember Joe Califano being Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Listen to what he said: Of even greater danger to our Nation, by making the presidency of Lyndon Johnson invisible, we lose key lessons for our democracy--courage counts and government can work-- and it can work to the benefit of the least among us in ways that enhance the well-being of all of us. I can think of no sentence that sums up the legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson better than that. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the full speech of Joseph Califano printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as every truly great leader in our Nation's history, Lyndon Johnson brought us a giant step closer to achieving our highest ideals. He fought passionately for social and economic justice for all Americans. He fought to put the American dream within reach of every citizen. That is the legacy we salute today. That is truly the success--and not the ``failure''--of the Great Society. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 Seeing Is Believing: The Enduring Legacy of Lyndon Johnson (Keynote Address by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., May 19, 2008) For many in this room, Lyndon Johnson's Centennial is a time for personal memories. We remember how LBJ drove himself--and many of us--to use every second of his presidency. We remember his five a.m. wake-up calls asking about a front page story in the New York Times--the edition that had not yet been delivered to our home; his insatiable appetite for a program to cure every ill he saw; his insistence that every call from a member of Congress be returned on the day it was received--even if it meant running the member down in a barroom, bathroom or bedroom; his insistence that hearings begin one day after we sent a bill to Congress; his pressure to get more seniors enrolled in Medicare, more blacks registered to vote, more schools desegregated, more kids signed up for Head Start, more Mexican-Americans taking college scholarships or loans; more billboards torn down faster--for the country, and for Lady Bird. And we remember his signature admonition: ``Do it now. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Not later today. Now.'' We who served him saw that Lyndon Johnson could be brave and brutal, compassionate and cruel, incredibly intelligent and infuriatingly stubborn. We came to know his shrewd and uncanny instinct for the jugular of both allies and adversaries. We learned he could be altruistic and petty, caring and crude, generous and petulant, bluntly honest and calculatingly devious--all within the same few minutes. We saw his determination to succeed run over or around whoever or whatever got in his way. As allies and enemies alike slumped in exhaustion, we saw how LBJ's relentless zeal produced second, third and fourth bursts of energy--to mount a massive social revolution that gave new hope to the disadvantaged. As he did so, he often created a record that Machiavelli might not only recognize, but also envy. To him, the enormous popularity of his unprecedented landslide victory, and every event during his presidency--triumphant or tragic--were opportunities to give the most vulnerable among us a fair shot of the nation's abundant blessings. We saw these things. But somehow the world beyond--and even the people of his own party--seem not to see. Throughout this year, and last week in endorsing Barack Obama, John Edwards made reducing poverty a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. Yet he never mentioned Lyndon Johnson, the first--and only--President ever to declare war on poverty and sharply reduce it. A few weeks ago in his eloquent victory speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Barack Obama followed a familiar pattern of omission. In recounting the achievements of previous Democratic presidents, he mentioned the pantheon of FDR, Harry Truman, JFK--but not LBJ. Not Lyndon Johnson--not the man who would be proudest of Barack Obama's candidacy and what it says about America, the president uniquely responsible for the laws that gave this man (and millions of others) the opportunity to develop and display his talents and gave this nation the opportunity to benefit from them. Earlier in the campaign, when Hillary Clinton publicly noted that ``it took a President'' to translate Martin Luther King's moral protests into public laws, she broke the taboo and mentioned President Johnson. The New York Times promptly rebuked her in an editorial for daring to speak that name-- and instantly things went back to normal: Lyndon Johnson was put back in his place as the invisible President of the twentieth century. The reason, of course, goes back to Vietnam. The tragedy of Vietnam has created a dark cloud obscuring the full picture of Lyndon Johnson's presidency. Without downplaying in any way the tragedy of the Vietnam war, I am convinced that to make Lyndon Johnson the invisible President--particularly for Democrats to indulge such amnesia as politically correct--is unfair not so much to him, but to our nation and its future. Why? Because if we make Lyndon Johnson's whole presidency invisible--if we are unable or unwilling to speak his name-- we become less able to talk about the lasting achievements of this nation's progressive tradition--a tradition that spans both parties over the last century. If we are unable or unwilling to see this President, we break the chain of history and deny our people an understanding of the remarkable resilience of progressive tradition from Theodore Roosevelt, through Woodrow Wilson. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry Truman's Fair Deal and John Kennedy's New Frontier, to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Of even greater danger to our nation, by making the presidency of Lyndon Johnson invisible, we lose key lessons for our democracy: courage counts and government can work-- and it can work to the benefit of the least among us in ways that enhance the well-being of all of us. Think about this: Americans under 40 have seen in Washington only governments that were anti-government, corrupt, mired in scandal, inept, gridlocked, driven by polls, favored the rich and powerful, or tied in knots by Lilliputian lobbyists and partisan bickering. Talk to many Americans today about Washington and they're likely to say: it doesn't work; it doesn't care; it doesn't understand my problems; the special interests control it. Tell an American that Washington can work, it can help them, and they react like doubting Thomas: I won't believe it till I see it. That's the political reality of our skeptical times: seeing is believing. So as we begin our observance of this centennial in this critical political year, here is the question: Do we want to rekindle support for progressive ideas, for a modem progressive movement? If so, if we hope to restore belief in a government that serves and lifts up the many as well as the few, if we want to make government work again, then we must see our history more clearly and tell it more completely. We must see the full vision and achievement of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, the domestic revolution that he not only conceived, but carried out. Failure to do so not only distorts our past, it short changes our future. For there is a connection between seeing and believing--and also between seeing and achieving. We live in an era of political micro-achievement. In recent years, it is considered an accomplishment when a President persuades Congress to pass one bill, or a few, over an entire administration: one welfare reform; one No Child Left Behind. Partisan attacks and political ambition choke our airways, not reports of legislation passed or problems solved. What a contrast. In those tumultuous Great Society years, the President submitted, and Congress enacted, more than one hundred major proposals in each of the 89th and 90th Congresses. In those years of do-it-now optimism, presidential speeches were about distributing prosperity more fairly, reshaping the balance between the consumer and big business, rebuilding entire cities, eliminating poverty, hunger and discrimination in our nation. And when the speeches ended, action followed, problems were tackled, ameliorated and solved. This nation did reduce poverty. We did broaden opportunity for college and jobs. We did outlaw segregation and discrimination in housing. We did guarantee the right to vote to all. We did improve health and prosperity for older Americans. We did put the environment on the national agenda. When Lyndon Johnson took office, only eight percent of Americans held college degrees; by the end of 2006, twenty- eight percent had completed college. His Higher Education legislation with its scholarships, grants and work-study programs opened college to any American with the necessary brains and ambition, however empty the family purse. Since 1965 the federal government has provided more than 360 billion dollars to provide 166 million grants, loans and work study awards to college students. Today six out of ten college students receive federal financial aid under Great Society programs and their progeny. Below the college level, LBJ passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, for the first time committing the federal government to help local schools. By last year, that program had infused 552 billion dollars into elementary and high schools. He anticipated the needs of Hispanics and other immigrants with bilingual education, which today serves four million children in some 40 languages. His special education law has helped millions of children with learning disabilities. Then there is Head Start, To date, more than 24 million pre-schoolers have been through Head Start programs in nearly every city and county in the nation. Head Start today serves one million children a year. If LBJ had not established the federal government's responsibility to finance this educational surge, would we have the trained human resources today to function in a fiercely competitive global economy? Would we have developed the technology that leads the world's computing and communications revolution? Seeing is believing. In 1964, most elderly Americans had no health insurance. Few retirement plans provided any such coverage. The poor had little access to medical treatment until they were in critical condition, Only wealthier Americans could get the finest care, and then only by traveling to a few big cities like Boston or New York. Consider the changes Johnson wrought. Since 1965, some 112 million Americans have been covered by Medicare; in 2006, 43 million were enrolled. In 1967, Medicaid served 10 million poor citizens; in 2006, it served 63 million people. The program is widely regarded as the key factor in reducing infant mortality by seventy-five percent--from 26 deaths for each 1,000 live births when Johnson took office to less than seven per 1,000 live births in 2004. The Heart, Cancer and Stroke legislation has provided funds to create centers of medical excellence in just about every major city--from Seattle to Houston, Miami to Cleveland, Atlanta to Minneapolis. To staff these centers, the Health Professions Educational Assistance Act provided resources to double the number of doctors graduating from medical schools and increase the pool of specialists, researchers, nurses and paramedics. Without these programs and Great Society investments in the National Institutes of Health, would our nation be the world's leader in medical research? In pharmaceutical invention? In creation of surgical procedures and medical machinery to diagnose our diseases, breathe for us, clean our blood, transplant our organs, scan our brains? In the discovery of ingenious prosthetic devices that enable so many of our severely wounded soldiers to function independently? Seeing is believing. Closely related to LBJ's Great Society health programs were his initiatives to reduce malnutrition and hunger. Today, the Food Stamp program helps feed some 27 million men, women and children in 12 million households. The School Breakfast program has served more than 30 billion breakfasts to needy children. Seeing is believing. It is not too much to say that Lyndon Johnson's programs created a stunning recasting of America's demographic profile. When President Johnson took office, life expectancy was 66.6 years for men and 73.1 years for women. Forty years later, by 2004, life expectancy had stretched to 75 years for men and 80 years for women. The jump was most dramatic among poor citizens--suggesting that better nutrition and access to health care have played an even larger role than medical advances. For almost half a century, the nation's immigration laws established restrictive and discriminatory quotas that favored blond and blue-eyed Western Europeans. With the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, LBJ scrapped that quota system and put substance behind the Statue of Liberty's welcoming words, ``Give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'' This Great Society legislation refreshed our nation with the revitalizing energies of immigrants from southern and Eastern Europe, south of the border, Asia and Africa, converting America into the most multi-cultural nation in the history of the world and uniquely positioning our population for the Twenty-First century world of new economic powers. In the year before Immigration reform was passed, only 2,600 immigrants were admitted from Africa, less than 25,000 from Asia and 105,000 from Central and South America. With the lifting of the quotas, in 2006, 110,000 immigrants were admitted from Africa, more than 400,000 from Asia and 525,000 from Central and South America. I can't see LBJ eating at an Ethiopian or Sushi restaurant, but I can see him tapping into the intellectual acumen, diversity and energy of this new wave of immigrants. Seeing is believing. Lyndon Johnson put civil rights and social justice squarely before the nation as a moral issue. Recalling his year as a teacher of poor Mexican children in Cotulla, Texas, he once told Congress, ``It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country. But now I do have that chance--and I'll let you in on a secret--I mean to use it.'' And use it he did. He used it to make Washington confront the needs of the nation as no president before or since has. With the 1964 Civil Rights Act Johnson tore down, all at once, the ``Whites only'' signs and social system that featured segregated hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, toilets and water fountains, and rampant job discrimination. The following year he proposed the Voting Rights Act. When it passed in the summer of 1965, Martin Luther King told Johnson, ``You have created a second emancipation.'' The President replied, ``The real hero is the American Negro.'' How I wish that Lyndon Johnson were alive today to see what his laws have wrought--especially the Voting Rights Act that he considered the most precious gem among the Great Society jewels. In 1964 there were 79 black elected officials in the South and 300 in the entire nation. By 2001 (the latest information available) there were some 10,000 elected black officials across the nation, more than 6,000 of them in the South. In 1965 there were five black members of the House; today there are 42 and the black member of the Senate is headed for the Democratic presidential nomination. Seeing is believing. But LBJ knew that laws were not enough. Thus was born the concept of affirmative action. Johnson's conviction that it is essential as a matter of social justice to provide the tutoring, the extra help, even the preference if necessary, to those who had suffered generations of discrimination in order to give them a fair chance to share in the American dream. LBJ set the pace personally. He appointed the first black Supreme Court Justice (Thurgood Marshall), the first black cabinet officer (Robert Weaver) and the first black member of the Federal Reserve Board (Andrew Britmmer). He knew that if executives and institutions across the private sector saw qualified blacks succeeding in positions of high responsibility, barriers across America would fall--because for them, he knew, seeing was believing. Less known, and largely ignored, was Johnson's similar campaign to place women in top government positions. The tapes reveal him hectoring cabinet officers to place women in top jobs. He created what one feminist researcher called in her book, Women, Work and National Policy, ``An affirmative action reporting system for women, surely the first of its kind . . . in the White House. . . .'' LBJ proposed and signed legislation to provide, for the first time, equal opportunity in promotions for women in the Armed Forces. Signing the bill in 1967, Johnson noted, ``The bill does not create any female generals or female admirals--but it does make that possible. There is no reason why we should not someday have a female chief of staff or even a female Commander in Chief.'' LBJ had his heart in his War on Poverty. Though he found the opposition too strong to pass an income maintenance law, he took advantage of the biggest ATM around: Social Security. He proposed, and Congress enacted, whopping increases in the minimum benefit. That change alone lifted 2.5 million Americans 65 and over above the poverty line. Today, Social Security keeps some thirteen million senior citizens above the poverty line. Many scholars look at Social Security and that increase. Medicare and the coverage of nursing home care under Medicaid (which funds care for more than 64 percent of nursing home residents) as the most significant social programs of the Twentieth Century. Seeing is believing. Johnson's relationship with his pet project--the Office of Economic Opportunity--was that of a proud father often irritated by an obstreperous child- For years conservatives have ranted about the OEO programs. Yet Johnson's War on Poverty was founded on the most conservative principle: put the power in the local community, not in Washington; give people at the grassroots the ability to walk off the public dole. Today, as we celebrate LBJ's 100th anniversary some forty years after he left office, eleven of the twelve programs that OEO launched are alive, well and funded at an annual rate exceeding eleven billion dollars. Head Stan, Job Corps, Community Health Centers, Foster Grandparents. Upward Bound (now part of the Trio Program in the Department of Education), Green Thumb (now Senior Community Service Employment), Indian Opportunities (now in the Labor Department), and Migrant Opportunities (now Seasonal Worker Training and Migrant Education) are all helping people stand on their own two feet. Community Action (now the Community Service Block Grant program), VISTA Volunteers and Legal Services are putting power in the hands of individuals--down at the grassroots. The grassroots that these programs fertilize just don't produce the manicured laws that conservatives prefer. Of all the Great Society programs started in the Office of Economic Opportunity, only the Neighborhood Youth Corps has been abandoned--in 1974, after enrolling more than 5 million individuals. Ronald Reagan quipped that Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty and poverty won. He was wrong. When LBJ took office, 22.2 percent of Americans were living in poverty. When he left five years later, only 13 percent were living below the poverty line--the greatest one-time reduction in poverty in our nation's history. Seeing is believing. Since Lyndon Johnson left the White House, no president has been able to effect any significant reductions in poverty. In 2006 the poverty level stood at 12.3 percent. Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign has promised to create a cabinet level poverty czar in her administration. In the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the President was the poverty czar. Theodore Roosevelt launched the modern environmental movement by setting aside public lands and national parks and giving voice to conservation leaders like Gifford Pinchot. If Teddy Roosevelt launched the movement, Lyndon Johnson drove it forward more than any later President--and in the process, in 1965, he introduced an entirely new concept of conservation: ``We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction;'' he said, ``we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation.'' That new environmental commandment spelled out the first inconvenient truth: that those who reap the rewards of modem technology must also pay the price of their industrial pollution. It inspired a legion of Great Society laws: the Clean Air, Water Quality and Clean Water Restoration Acts and Amendments, the 1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act, the 1965 Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act, the 1968 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act. It also provided the rationale for later laws creating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Superfund. Johnson created 35 National Parks, 32 within easy driving distance of large cities. The 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act today protects 165 river segments in 38 states and Puerto Rico. The 1968 National Trail System Act has established more than 1,000 recreation, scenic and historic trails covering close to 55,000 miles. No wonder National Geographic calls Lyndon Johnson ``our greatest conservation president.'' Seeing is believing. These were major areas of concentration for Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, but there were many others. Indeed, looking back, the sweep of this President's achievements is breathtaking. Those of us who worked with Lyndon Johnson would hardly consider him a patron of the arts. I can't even remember him sitting through more than ten or fifteen minutes of a movie in the White House theatre, much less listening to an operatic aria or classical symphony. Yet the historian Irving Bernstein. in his book on The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson, titles a chapter. ``Lyndon Johnson, Patron of the Arts.'' Think about it. What would cultural life in America be like without the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where each year two million visitors view performances that millions more watch on television, or without the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden that attracts 750,000 visitors annually? Both are Great Society initiatives. The National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities are fulfilling a dream Johnson expressed when he asked Congress to establish them and, for the first time, to provide federal financial support for the Arts to increase ``the access of our people to the works of our artists, and [recognize] the arts as part of the pursuit of American greatness.'' LBJ used to say that he wanted fine theater and music available throughout the nation and not just on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In awarding more than 130,000 grants totaling more than four billion dollars since 1965, the Endowment for the Arts has spawned art councils in all 50 states and more than 1,400 professional theater companies, 120 opera companies, 600 dance companies and 1,800 professional orchestras. Since 1965, the Endowment for the Humanities has awarded 65,000 fellowships and grants totaling more than four billion dollars. Johnson established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to create public television and public radio which have given the nation countless hours of fine arts, superb in-depth news coverage, and programs like ``Sesame Street'' and ``Masterpiece Theater.'' Now some say there is no need for public radio and television, with so many cable channels and radio stations. But as often as you surf with your TV remote or twist your radio dial, you are not likely to find the kind of quality broadcasting that marks the more than 350 public television and nearly 700 public radio stations that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting supports today. They, as well as the rest of the media, have been helped by the Freedom of Information Act, the Great Society's contribution to greater transparency in government. Seeing is believing. So is listening. For urban America, LBJ drove through Congress the Urban Mass Transit Act, which gave San Franciscans BART, Washingtonians Metro, Atlantans MARTA, and cities across America thousands of buses and modernized transit systems. His 1968 Housing Act, creation of Ginnie Mae, privatization of Fannie Mae and establishment of the Department of Housing and Urban Development have helped some 75 million families gain access to affordable housing. In the progressive tradition in which Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt confronted huge financial and corporate enterprises, Johnson faced a nationalization of commercial power that had the potential to disadvantage the individual American consumer. Super-corporations were shoving aside the corner grocer, local banker, independent drug store and family farmer. Automobiles were complex and dangerous, manufactured by giant corporations with deep pockets to protect themselves. Banks had the most sophisticated accountants and lawyers to draft their loan agreements. Sellers of everyday products--soaps, produce, meats, appliances, clothing, cereal and canned and frozen foods-- packaged their products with the help of the shrewdest marketers and designers. The individual was outflanked at every position. Seeing that mismatch, Johnson pushed through Congress a bevy of laws to level the playing filed for consumers: Auto and highway safety for the motorist a Department of Transportation and National Transportation Safety Board; truth in packaging for the housewife; truth in lending for the homebuyer, small businessman and individual borrower; wholesome meat and wholesome poultry laws to enhance food safety; the Flammable Fabrics Act to reduce the incendiary characteristics of clothing and blankets. He created the Product Safety Commission to assure that toys and other products would be safe for users. When he got over his annoyance that it took him five minutes to find me in the emergency room of George Washington University Hospital, with my three year old son Joe who had swallowed a bottle of aspirin, he proposed the Child Safety Act which is why we all have such difficulty opening up medicine bottles. Seeing is believing. By the numbers the legacy of Lyndon Johnson is monumental. It exceeds in domestic impact even the New Deal of his idol Franklin Roosevelt. It sets him at the cutting edge of the nation's progressive tradition. But there is also an important story behind these programs that speaks to the future--that offers the lessons of what it takes to be an effective President. What lessons does this President have for our nation and his successors, especially those who value the progressive tradition? First, Lyndon Johnson was a genuine, true believing revolutionary. His Texas constituency and the tactical constraints of his earlier offices reined him in before he became President. But his experiences--teaching poor Mexican American children in Corolla, Texas, working as Texas director of Roosevelt's National Youth Administration, witnessing the indignities that his black cook, Zephyr Wright, and her husband Gene Williams, suffered during his senate years when they drove from Washington to Texas through the segregated south--fueled his revolutionary spirit. He saw racial justice as a moral issue. He refused to accept pockets of poverty in the richest nation in history. He saw a nation so hell bent on industrial growth and amassing wealth that greed threatened to destroy its natural resources. He saw cities deteriorating and municipal political machines unresponsive to the early migration of Hispanics and the masses of blacks moving north. To him government was neither a bad man to be tarred and feathered nor a bag man to collect campaign contributions. To him government was not a bystander, hoping wealth and opportunity might trickle down to the least among us. To LBJ, government was a mighty wrench to open the fountain of opportunity so that everyone could bathe in the shower of our nation's blessings. He wanted his government to provide the poor with the kind of education, health and social support that most of us get from our parents. Second, Lyndon Johnson was perpetually impatient, relentlessly restless, always in a hurry. Andrew Marvell's words could have been written for him: ``But at my back I always hear/Time's winged chariot, hurrying near.'' Lyndon Johnson saw himself in a desperate race against time as he fought to remedy the damage slavery and generations of prejudice had inflicted on black Americans. Why? Because he feared that, once black Americans sensed the prospect of a better life, the discrimination they had once accepted as inevitable would become intolerable; they would erupt--and, subvert their own cause. ``Hell,'' he said to me during some of those eruptions, ``Sometimes when I think of what they've been through, I don't blame them.'' He saw himself in a race against time as he sized up Congress, political reality and attitudes of affluent Americans. LBJ knew that he must use--now!--the sympathy generated by John Kennedy's assassination and the huge margin of his own election victory in 1964. He knew that his political capital--no matter how gigantic in the early days of his presidency--was a dwindling asset. Third, Lyndon Johnson was a man of extraordinary courage. For me the greatest price our nation pays for our collective blindness is this: By rendering LBJ invisible we lose sight, for the future, of how much a truly courageous political leader can accomplish. Sure, LBJ had the politician's hunger to be loved. But, more than that, he had the courage to fall on his sword if that's what it took to move the nation forward. He did just that when, in an extraordinary act of abnegation, he withdrew from the political arena to calm the roiling seas of strife and end the war in Vietnam. To me no greater example of Presidential political courage exists than Lyndon Johnson's commitment in the area of civil rights. He fought for racial equality even when it hurt him and clobbered his party in the South. After signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Johnson was defeated in five southern states, four of them states that Democrats had not lost for 80 years. Still he kept on. In 1965 he drove the Voting Rights Act through Congress. In 1966, he proposed the Fair Housing Act to end discrimination in housing. His proposal prompted the most vitriolic mail we received at the White House, and Congress refused to act on the bill that year. In the November 1966 mid-term elections, the Democrats lost a whopping forty-seven seats in the House and three in the Senate. Border and southern state governors met with the President at his ranch in December. In a nasty assault on his civil rights policies, they demanded that he withdraw his fair housing proposal and curb his efforts to desegregate schools. Undeterred, in 1968, he drove the Fair Housing Act through the senate--tragically it took Dr. King's assassination to give Johnson the leverage he needed to convince the House to pass it. You have to see political courage like that to believe it. I was fortunate to see it close up. I want our people and future leaders to be able to see it. Fourth, Lyndon Johnson knew how to use power. Johnson married his revolutionary zeal, impatience and courage to a phenomenal sense of how to use power skillfully--to exploit a mandate, to corral votes, to reach across the aisle in order to move this nation, its people and the Congress forward. Lyndon Johnson felt entitled to every lever, to help from every person, every branch of government, every business, labor and religious leader. After all. as he often reminded us, he was the only President we had. He had no inhibitions in reaching out for advice, ideas, talent, power, support. He often saw traditions of separation of powers. or an independent press, or a profit-minded corporate executive, as obstacles, to be put aside in deference to the greater national interest as he defined it. He was brilliantly opportunistic, calling upon the nation and the Congress in the wake of even the most horrific tragedies--the assassinations of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King--to bring a new measure of social justice to all Americans. He knew how to harness the power of the protestors and the media to tap into the inherent fairness of the American people. He asked Martin Luther King in January 1965 to help with the Voting Rights Act by ``getting your leaders and you yourself . . . . to find the worst condition [of voting discrimination] that you run into in Alabama . . . . and get it on radio, get it on television, get it on--in the pulpits, get it in the meetings, get it every place you can . . . . and then that will help us on what we are going to shove through in the end.'' He loved King's choice of Selma, Alabama. He knew, as he told Dr. King, that when the American people saw the unfairness of the voting practices there, they would come around to supporting his bill. And they did. He offers a defining lesson in the importance of mustering bipartisan support. These Great Society proposals were cutting edge, controversial initiatives and LBJ assiduously courted Republican members of congress to support them. His instructions to us on the White House staff were to accord Senate Republican minority leader Everett Dirksen and House minority leader Gerald Ford the same courtesies we extended to Senate Majority leader Mike Mansfield and House Speaker John McCormack. It was not only that he needed Republican votes to pass bills like the civil rights, health, education and consumer laws: he saw bipartisan support as an essential foundation on which to build lasting commitment among the American people. He knew that the endurance of his legislative achievements, and their enthusiastic acceptance by state and local governments, powerful private interests and individual citizens across the nation, required such bipartisan support. He didn't accomplish all he wanted. He called ``the welfare system in America outmoded and in need of major change'' and pressed Congress to create ``a work incentive program, incentives for earning, day care for children, child and maternal health and family planning services.'' He saw the threat posed by the spread of guns and proposed national registration of all gulls and national licensing of all gun owners. Congress rejected his proposals. But he did convince Capitol Hill to close the loophole of mail order guns, prohibit sales to minors, and end the import of Saturday night specials. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get expand Medicare to cover pre-natal care and children through age six, and used to say, ``If we can get that, future presidents and Congresses can close the gap between six and sixty-five.'' He spotted the ``for sale'' signs of political corruption going up in the nation's capital and called for public financing of campaigns. Our nation and its leaders pay a heavy price when such a towering figure--among the most towering political figures of American history--becomes at the same time America's invisible president. In this year, when for the first time in our history a black American is a leading candidate for the Presidency, when so many domestic issues dominating the campaign--access to health care, persistent poverty amidst such plenty, affordable higher education, effective public schools, environmental protection--are issues LBJ put on the national government's agenda, it is time to see the full measure of this President. Too many lessons of his presidency have been ignored because the Democratic party, the academic elite, political analysts and the mainstream media have made him the invisible president. In this troubled time, when political pollsters and consultants parse the positions of candidates for public office, Johnson's exceptional courage on civil rights should be a shining example for a new generation of political leaders. His recognition of the significance of bipartisan support for controversial--but needed--domestic initiatives, and his ability to muster such support, should be studied by politicians and citizens who seek to change the world. His unique ability to make Washington work. to nourish and maintain partnerships between the Executive and the Congress, the public and private sectors, and to focus the people on critical needs like racial justice and eliminating poverty demonstrate ``Yes, we can!'' to skeptical citizens who have never seen Washington get it done. It's time to take off the Vietnam blinders and let our eyes look at and learn from the domestic dimension of this presidency. Let everyone think what they will about Vietnam. But let us--especially Democrats--also recognize the reality of this revolutionary's remarkable achievements. It is encouraging to me that some of Johnson's severest anti-war critics have begun the call for recognition of the greatness of his presidency. Listen to the words of George McGovern who ran for president in 1972 on an anti-war platform and maintains that ``The Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations were all wrong on Vietnam:'' ``It would be a historic tragedy if [LBJ's] outstanding domestic record remained forever obscured by his involvement in a war he did not begin and did not know how to stop.. . . . Johnson did more than any other president to advance civil rights, education and housing, to name just three of his concerns. . . . '' `` The late John Kenneth Galbraith, another leading critic of the Vietnam War, has called for ``historical reconsideration'' of the Johnson presidency: ``In the New Deal ethnic equality was only on the public conscience; in the Kennedy presidency it was strongly urged by Martin Luther King and many others. . . . It was with Lyndon Johnson, however, that citizenship for all Americans in all its aspects became a reality. . . . On civil rights and on poverty, the two truly urgent issues of the time, we had with Johnson the greatest changes of our time. . . . The initiatives of Lyndon Johnson on civil rights, voting rights and on economic and social deprivation. . . . must no longer be enshrouded by that [Vietnam] war.'' And listen to Robert Caro, LBJ's most meticulous and demanding biographer: ``In the twentieth century, with its eighteen American presidents, Lyndon Johnson was the greatest champion that black Americans and Mexican Americans, and indeed all Americans of color, had in the White House, the greatest champion they had in all the halls of government. With the single exception of Lincoln, he was the greatest champion with a white skin that they had in the history of the Republic. He was . . . the lawmaker for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed . . . . the President who wrote mercy and justice into the statute books by which America was governed.'' Historian David McCullough has said that the threshold test of greatness in a president is whether he is willing to risk his presidency for what he believes. LBJ passes that test with flying colors. It's time for all of us to give his presidency the high marks it deserves. Lyndon Johnson died 36 years ago in 1972. But his legacy endures. It endures in the children in Head Start programs in hamlets across our nation, in the expanded opportunities for millions of blacks, Hispanics and other minorities. It endures in the scholarships and loans that enable the poorest students to attend the finest universities. His legacy endures in the health care for the poor and the elderly that are woven into the fabric of American life. It endures in the public radio stations millions of drivers listen to as they drive to and from work. It endures in the cleaner air we breathe, in the local theatres and symphonies supported by the National Endowments, in the safer cars we drive and safer toys our children play with. Seeing is believing. That legacy also endures--let us remember--in the unfinished business of our nation's long progressive movement that he pressed so impatiently for us to finish. LBJ knew that movement could be stalled, but he knew that it must never be stopped. So, over these few days, as we look back and celebrate this centennial, let us also look forward and let us inspire others to see clearly and fully. Because seeing is not only believing; seeing has everything to do with achieving.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jenna Jones of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 15, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in Executive Session to consider pending military nominations.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 15, 2008, at 3 p.m. in Executive session to conduct a hearing.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 15, 2008, at 10 a.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Thursday, May 15, 2008, at 1.50 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 15, 2008, at 2 p.m. to hold a hearing on U.S.- China relations.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 15, 2008, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nuclear Terrorism: Providing Medical Care and Meeting Basic Needs in the Aftermath.'' THE PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 15, at 9:30 a.m. in room 562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing.