Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this is a sense of the Senate that we ought to go on record for an increase in the minimum wage. This Nation is having unprecedented prosperity. We have the lowest unemployment that we have had in 30 years, the lowest rates of inflation. Still, we have 11 million minimum-wage workers. And a minimum-wage working family of three is still $3,000 less than the poverty income for a family of three. This is an issue that affects women. It is an issue that affects children. It is an issue that affects families. No one in the United States of America who works for a living ought to live in poverty. We hope now to have a sense of the Senate that we will increase the minimum wage 50 cents this year and 50 cents next year. That is what the Daschle amendment does, and this is a sense of the Senate to support it.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yeas and nays.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in the budget there is $778 billion for 10 years for the reduction in taxes. The amendment offered by myself and Senator Dodd is very simple. Effectively, it takes $156 billion of that, first, to fully fund IDEA; to fully fund the smaller classrooms; and to take the remaining funds, which is $43 billion that can be used for afterschool programs, for technology, for Pell grants, for Work- Study Programs, and for other education programs. Effectively, we are saying this is the best opportunity that we have had in a generation to continue a partnership between local, State and the Federal Government in the areas of education. We have a real opportunity to do so. We believe that we can still leave 80 percent of the tax cut. We are taking 20 percent of the tax cut to fully fund IDEA, to meet our commitments, and to also fully fund the smaller classroom. This is supported by school board associations, the school administrators, parent/teachers, the disability rights, the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities, and the Federation of Children with Special Needs. It is supported by all of those groups in the best interests of the future of our country. I hope it is accepted.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. Unanimous-Consent Agreement--Amendment Nos. 173 and 218

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Ashcroft amendment is a sense-of-the- Senate. Our amendment is real dollars, real dollars. We are saying fund the education programs before the tax cut. That is what the issue is. I am interested in what the Governors say, but I care most about those parents who are supporting this program. Every child group, every education group supports it.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, may we have 30 seconds?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. President, I want to just mention to the Members again what we are basically talking about is funding, meeting our responsibility under IDEA, which this Nation is committed to offer the next 10 years, and also funding the smaller class program and providing a significant increase in the Head Start Program, the Pell grants, the work/study programs, afterschool programs, school dropout programs. These are the groups that support our program: American Association of School Administrators, the National Education Association, Parent- Teachers, Council of Greater City Schools, Chief of State School Offices, Federation of Teachers, Committee on Education Funding, the National Parent Network on Disabilities, the Disability Rights Education Fund, Easter Seals, Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities, National Federation of Children with Special Needs. Virtually every children's group and every education group understands that this is our best opportunity in this Congress to really make a downpayment in terms of the partnership among local, State, and Federal in terms of enhancing academic achievement and accomplishment in the schools across our country. We have a chance now to fulfill our commitments that we have all made in statements and speeches and press releases to do something now. That is what this vote is about. It says we will fund these programs before we go for tax breaks for wealthy individuals. That is the choice. It is as clear as can be. That is what the issue is. We are hopeful that we will get strong support for that program. Mr. President, I yield what time remains to my colleague and cosponsor, Senator Dodd.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield to the Senator from Washington. Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.

Mr. KENNEDY. Ashcroft is pending.

Mr. KENNEDY. Ashcroft. We have 10 minutes remaining on the Ashcroft amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have just been back here now distracted. Are we going to just finish up now the amendment? We have been here with Senator Dodd all during the lunch hour since 1 o'clock, which I am glad to do to accommodate others. And the chairman has been enormously accommodating. But I thought we would have Senator Dodd next. Senator Murray is here and wanted to speak. Senators Harkin and Dodd wanted to speak on it and to do the last 10 minutes. The chairman has been extremely courteous in accommodating everyone's interest. Both of them are here. What I would like to do is to have some idea.

Mr. KENNEDY. May I ask for a minute so the Senator can respond?

Mr. KENNEDY. The provision here talks about now allowing transfer of new subsidies from the general fund. That is not applicable to Part B. It says right here on page 90. That is prohibited without the use of transfers of new subsidies from the general fund. And it also talks about prohibition of intergovernmental transfers. Can the Senator tell us how she foresees the solvency being worked out, if it isn't going to be higher premiums, or reduced benefits?

Mr. KENNEDY. May I ask a question, please? On this trust fund, the reserve fund, on page 90, which describes the fund, there are also the words that the committee report would not allow the reserve to be funded by the intergovernmental transfers. That would be the part that the President talked about--any of the funding from the surpluses. And then, on page 90, it indicates that you can't have the funds from other revenues, as it talks about being adjusted for legislation that extends the solvency of the fund. How are we going to extend the solvency without additional funds in order to trigger this program? You have the solvency mentioned, and 9 years and 12 years. We don't want to create a program that says we are going to do something on prescription drugs and then, on the other hand, which says we are only going to do it if we extend solvency, and then we don't have additional funds to extend solvency. I am interested in what kind of a commitment or promise this is really going to be.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. Point of inquiry. Can I try to clarify this issue? If I could have the attention of the Parliamentarian. As I understood, we had the Ashcroft amendment. And then we had 12 minutes left on our side; 12 minutes on the other side. And as someone who was interested in our side, the Democratic side, I thought the Senator from Maine asked to take the 10 minutes--it was on the other side--to talk about an amendment that was going to come up, just as we talked about an amendment we hoped would be considered later in the afternoon. I do not remember a consent request that we set that aside. I have been sitting here, Senator Dodd has been sitting here, ready to debate the Ashcroft amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, whose time is being used now?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. KENNEDY. Thirty minutes. Mr. President, I yield myself 7 minutes. As has been pointed out by our friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the importance of providing resources and help and assistance to local communities and then having a degree of flexibility within those communities is basically a concept which this body has gone on record supporting as long as we have some accountability for those funds. That is incorporated in the amendments which I cosponsored with Senator Hatfield in 1994, providing States with flexibility, and now we see that legislation is in conference with the House of Representatives. We did not have the resolution of our friends until just a few moments ago, but after a quick look at the sense-of-the-Senate, I urge our colleagues on this side to support it. The point that I think is always well worth understanding is that education is basically a local responsibility as has been pointed out by the two speakers on the other side of the aisle. Only about 5 to 6 cents out of every dollar that is spent locally comes from the Federal Government. The rest is raised locally and by the States. So whatever success or failure we have out there in local communities obviously is attributable to the local communities. We have had some success. We have other challenges. What I think the American people want today is a partnership between the local community and the State and the Feds to try to enhance academic achievement. What we have heard from those schoolteachers and what we have heard from parents and what we have heard from students is a series of recommendations. They had talked about smaller class size, better trained teachers, afterschool programs. They talked about technology in the classroom and some other recommendations--literacy programs as well. That is what they have been telling us, and we have developed legislative proposals to respond to those ideas. I point out for the benefit of the Record that currently, according to the Department of Education--and I will include their study in the Record--95 cents of every dollar is actually appropriated for local schools, 95.5 percent of the Federal funds actually go to local districts; a half of 1 percent stays at the Federal level, 4 percent stays at the State level. So, this is a pretty good indication that whatever we do--and it is very modest when you look at the Nation--it is getting to the community. We can always do better with what we are providing there, but we are, at least with regard to getting the funds into the local communities, doing pretty well, I think. It is certainly better than the kind of bureaucracy that exists at the State level. Having said that, we will have an opportunity this afternoon to do something which I consider to be very significant in the area of education--a real choice. The proposal we have today indicates the importance of supporting local desires and local interest in the community, and I am certainly going to recommend we all support that. But, later on this afternoon, we will have a measure which the Senator from Connecticut and I will send to the desk, and which we will vote on, which will say: Let's really do something, provide some additional resources to help assist those local communities. It is all nice and well to agree to a resolution that, as this resolution does, encourages further flexibility at the local level. We are going to embrace and support that. But we will have an opportunity this afternoon to say the following: Before we have the tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals, let us go ahead and fully fund the IDEA program at 40 percent. We heard a great deal of debate about that in the earlier debate on education. Now, this afternoon, we will have an opportunity to fully fund, at 40 percent, the IDEA program--the special needs programs of help and assistance for the local communities that have special needs children--and meet for the first time our responsibility of funding it at 40 percent, prior to the time we have tax breaks for the wealthy. That will be the significance of the vote on our amendment this afternoon. We will say that we will support a program for smaller class size from K-3, we will support the afterschool programs, we will as a result of this particular amendment see an expansion of the Pell grants and an expansion of the work/study programs, and we will see an expansion of the Head Start programs. We are effectively saying, instead of $778 billion in tax breaks, we are going to take $156 billion of that over the next 10 years and put it where it will make a difference for children in our country at the local level, in the local community--in smaller class sizes, in helping and assisting in modernizing buildings, in upgrading the skills of our teachers, in effective afterschool programs, in additional technology, in helping and assisting in bringing the Pell Program up to date in a more effective way, and in work/study programs which in many instances are used to expand literacy training and fund the literacy program. It will be very easy later on this afternoon when we vote on this; the choice will be very clear. After all the pronouncements, all the speeches, all the declarations, all the press releases, this afternoon this Senate will have an opportunity to say we are, over the next 10 years, going to have the most serious support for local improvement, raising the standards of education, that we will have had in the last 35 years. That will be before the Senate this afternoon in our amendment. There still will be ample resources, over $500 billion, that will be available for the tax breaks. So I hope when the time comes we will have the support of those who have been speaking in support of local schools and districts involving parents, involving local decisions. I hope we are going to have their help and their support. Do they want to really put their vote where their voice has been and where their press releases have been in supporting education? Or are they going to vote and say: We will do that at another day, but I am going to vote for tax breaks for wealthy individuals? That is the choice. That will be the choice when the Senate considers the amendment that Senator Dodd and I will introduce at the first available opportunity. Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time do we have?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, over the course of the past 2 days of debate, we have seen that there really are no additional funds in this budget proposal before the Senate for the preservation of the financial security of Medicare. But there are proposals for a tax cut of $778 billion over the period of the next 10 years. This amendment says we will take $320 billion of the amount that is reserved for the tax cut and use it for the financial security of Medicare. Effectively, we are saying, with the surplus, which represents the pay-ins by hard-working Americans--hard-working Americans--that we are going to use that money for the preservation of Medicare, and then we can move ahead and really reform Medicare, and give that a priority over tax cuts which are currently in the budget. It is a simple question. Are we going to favor financial stability and security of Medicare or are we going to favor tax cuts? I say we can do both, but let us do the financial security of the Medicare system first. That is what this amendment is all about. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this $686 billion is the amount that we would like and the President would like to have out of the surplus to fund the Medicare trust system so that it will be financially stable to the year 2020. That is what it represents. Under the budget proposal of the majority, if you are not going to allocate this 15 percent of the surplus for the Medicare system, you are going to have to have $686 billion in cuts or premium increases. That is not what I am saying; that is what the Medicare trustees have said. To conclude, basically what we are saying, let us go ahead, prior to the tax cut, take the 10-year budget, take $320 billion of what the Republicans are intending to use for a tax cut, and use it to put the Medicare system on a sound financial system. That is it. Put the protection of Medicare first, prior to a tax cut. That is what this vote is about. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record statements from the AARP and virtually every senior citizen organization, including the National Council of Senior Citizens, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security, the OWL organization, Families USA, Gray Panthers, all of the organizations that are in strong support of using the 15 percent to make Medicare financially sound so we will have the opportunity to bring about reforms, and do that prior to the time we have tax breaks. That makes sense to protect working families in this country.

Mr. KENNEDY. I appreciate the courtesy.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will reserve that time, and I will move on to another amendment, if that is agreeable to the floor managers. If I could have the attention of the floor managers, I am glad to either yield that time, if you were going to yield yours back. If you want to hold yours, I will hold mine. I am quite prepared to go on to another amendment. I do not want to hold up the Senate any further.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, my friend and colleague from West Virginia wanted to address the Senate on a matter relating to the budget. I am wondering whether there is some time he can use.