Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 4 more minutes. We believe that immigrants, like women and African Americans before them, have rights in this country, and the time is ripe for a new civil rights moment. We believe that a nation of immigrants rejects its history and its heritage when millions of immigrants are confined forever to second-class status and that all Americans are debased by such a two-tier system. The time has come for comprehensive immigration reform. Our opponents believe that blunt enforcement can solve our current crisis. We believe that the culture and infrastructure of illegality can only be disrupted and our security and prosperity can only be assured through a three-pronged approach. First, we favor smarter and tougher enforcement through greater reliance on technology, better screening at our consulates abroad, more international cooperation on migration enforcement, working with Mexico and the other countries in Central America--which our opponents never think about or have asked to or have a program to try to do--and also tracking terrorist mobility and more efficient screening at U.S. work sites. Our national security and our immigration control efforts are both weakened when we fail to distinguish the millions of undocumented immigrants making vital contributions to our economy and the handful of extremists who would enter the United States to do us harm. How can we seriously consider diverting our scarce resources to building a fence along the border? This is a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem. A fence--muro de muerte is the alternative, and we are saying that is the kind of wall we are going to build, with all the technology we have? It is a bankrupt policy. The focus on the border will not prevent undocumented immigration. Almost half of all undocumented immigrants enter through legal channels, and others will always find ways to go over, under, or around the wall. More importantly, a United States-Mexico border fence does nothing to help us identify and track terrorists who would almost certainly choose other strategies for entry, including the use of fraudulent or legitimate documents, or entry anywhere along an unguarded northern border or coastline. Second, in an economy which depends on immigrant labor, we favor the creation of legal opportunities so that all American workers have the right to labor with dignity and the protection of our laws. More opportunities must be created for workers and families to obtain green cards through our permanent visa system. And the 400,000 or so undocumented immigrants now joining our workforce each year must be offered access to temporary visas and to a spot in the formal economy when employers cannot find U.S. workers to take these jobs. Our temporary worker program differs in fundamental ways from the failed approaches of the past. We include robust wage guarantees to ensure that temporary workers will not depress the wages and working conditions of American workers, which is happening at the present time, and we back up these guarantees with strong complaint procedures and protections for whistleblowers. We believe guest workers must not be tied to a single employer but, rather, must have the right to vote with their feet by changing jobs when employers would exploit them. And we believe workers must have the right to adjust to permanent status if their situation changes and they choose to remain in the United States. Third, immigration reform will be fundamentally incomplete without a plan for bringing the undocumented immigrants already among us out of the shadows and into legal status. Our national security requires the United States to know who resides in our country. Our economic prosperity requires that undocumented immigrants--5 percent of all workers in the United States--join the legal economy.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see my friend from Illinois here. I am going to take 1\1/2\ more minutes, and then I will yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, countless American families want their undocumented relatives to have the opportunity to become residents. One million immigrants rallied in communities across the country last week, and the crowds included thousands of families waving American flags and celebrating America as their adopted homeland. No one believes in amnesty for these immigrant workers and families, but we do believe in giving them a chance to earn--earn--legal status. That is the difference. Amnesty is a pardon. We are not pardoning any undocumented immigrants. What we are basically saying is: Come out of the shadows, pay a fine, pay your taxes, learn English, and after all those who are in line to come to the United States at the present time and have come to the United States, go to the back of the line and work your way to citizenship by playing by the rules. There are 70,000 permanent resident aliens who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you don't play by the rules, then you are subject to deportation. That is earning legal status, and that is the process we follow. All undocumented immigrants deserve this chance, but only those who pay the stiff fines, work for 6 years, pay their taxes, learn English and pass a civics test will be permitted to remain in the United States. Today, we embark on a historic debate. We have an opportunity to correct these historic wrongs. I look forward to the coming debate. Together, let us move forward, not backward, on genuine immigration reform. Mr. President, I have been here when Republicans and Democrats have come together to accept the challenge of an issue that is not going away. This issue is not going away. We now have Republicans and Democrats working together. The President has talked about this issue as well. Surely we ought to be challenged to find a way where this Nation can make progress with Republicans and Democrats and hopefully even the administration working together to help do something that is sensible, responsible, workable, humane, and consistent with our national traditions. I yield back whatever time is remaining.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, for the last 15 minutes or so, we heard the stories that have true meaning in terms of the whole American experience. Senator Domenici talked about his parents and how they worked through the process of becoming proud Americans, and the good Senator from Florida told, as well, the story of an extraordinarily successful immigrant who came here and is now serving with great distinction, representing the people of Florida. Last evening, just as the Senate was about to adjourn, Senator McCain, who is the primary sponsor of this legislation, introduced me to a wonderful young American, Fabian Nunez, and Fabian Nunez is the speaker of the California Assembly. His father was a Bracero in the 1950s, and at the end of the Bracero Program, he went back to Mexico. He came back here--the boy did--with his mother, who had been a maid and was also undocumented. She had worked two jobs. And this young boy came back to the United States--as a young boy, had gone back to Mexico and came here at 8 years old. I also talked by telephone to the father, who is 83 years old, and he said how proud he is that his son is now the speaker of the California Legislature. That is the real story of America. At other times, we have seen where Democrats and Republicans have come together and Presidents have come together with the Senate and the House and have taken action that has moved this Nation. That was certainly true during the civil rights legislation where we knocked down the walls of discrimination, of race and religion, and also of gender. We knocked down the walls of discrimination against the disabled with the Americans With Disabilities Act. We came together as well to pass the Medicare Act so that many of our elderly people would not live in poverty and also would be able to get the health care they needed. We came together to do that. We came together in terms of the higher education legislation, and today millions of young people are benefiting from that system. I certainly hope that we can, as we start this debate, come together as Americans to deal with this issue. It is a new civil rights issue, but it is one that is going to continue to be an issue unless and until we address it. There are different approaches, and they have been outlined earlier today, and they will continue to be outlined tomorrow. But I think the stories we heard this evening are the clearest and most compelling evidence of what this country is when it is at its best and what it can be. It is in that spirit that Senator Domenici spoke and that Senator Martinez spoke and that others have spoken, Democrats and Republicans. It is that spirit which we hope to capture when we address this issue and finally vote on the legislation that is before us. I look forward to having the chance to speak at greater length tomorrow. I spoke earlier today about the history of the whole migrant program and the steps that have been taken. There have been failures and some successes, but the challenging opportunities are the ones we face today. This is an issue which isn't going to go away. It is going to take the best that is in all of us. I am very hopeful that when the vote is finally cast, it will be for a meaningful, comprehensive program that will recognize the national security issues which are involved, will understand the economic issues involved, and finally, and perhaps most importantly, understand the issues of values which are involved. I will have more to say on that on the morrow. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a fellow on my staff, Marc Rosenblum, be admitted to the Senate floor for the remainder of the debate on the immigration legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I wonder if the majority leader would be willing to respond to a--

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, earlier today, the Senator from Alabama, Senator Sessions said that Senator Kerry and I objected to Senate consideration of the intelligence authorization bill because we wish to offer amendments. In fact, neither Senator Kerry nor I have objected to this bill and no other Democrat has objected to considering it. The bill is cleared on the Democratic side. That means an unidentified Republican Senator or Senators have placed a hold on the bill and are preventing the Senate from considering it. I do have two amendments to the bill. My first amendment would require the administration provide to the Intelligence Committee with the presidential daily briefs on Iraq from 1997 to the first day of the Iraq war as part of the committee's investigation on the use of prewar intelligence. I would certainly be willing to support a time agreement allowing reasonable debate and a vote on the amendment. My second amendment would guarantee that detainees held by the intelligence community would be treated humanely, and that treatment would be verified independently. Apparently, to prevent debate on this very important issue, a Republican Senator is willing to let the whole intelligence bill fail. That's an outrage. It's important for the Senate to approve the intelligence authorization bill, and it's important for the Senate to get to the bottom of the abuse of intelligence the administration used to justify war.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today, I filed an amendment that would increase funding for basic research at the National Institutes of Health, and restore cuts made under the President's budget to critical R&D programs. It would have been fully offset by closing tax loopholes. But I faced opposition from my Republican colleagues and it was not accepted. This budget and the President's American Competitiveness Initiative make no new serious commitments to invest in R&D. The President would have you believe that he is increasing our investment in R&D when it barely keeps pace with projected inflation. To fund the increases at the National Science Foundation and other increases, every other R&D agency will see real cuts for the next 5 years. It just creates winners and losers. In fact, this budget keeps our R&D investment stagnant--it has already flat-lined at 1.1 percent of our GDP. If America is going to compete and win in the global economy, we must innovate and support basic research in all areas. We want the new inventions and new technologies and new cures to be made in the U.S.A. And that means supporting the basic research that is the foundation of new discoveries that will create the good jobs of the future. But this budget cuts funding for basic research. The National Academy of Sciences, the Council on Competitiveness, and Nobel prize winners like American physicist Steven Chu say that is wrong for America's future. When Dr. Chu testified before the Senate last year, he said ``There are growing signs that all is not well . . . We call for an increased federal investment in long-term, basic research.'' The Internet, the laser, MRIs, and the mapping of the human genome all came about from basic research at DOD, NIH, and other Federal agencies. Think of the millions of jobs that these innovations have created. I intend to continue my efforts in the Senate to ensure that American innovation will continue. It is critical to our growth and our future competitiveness.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, yesterday I offered an amendment to the budget resolution with the Senator from Maine and the Senator from New Jersey that would have increased funding for several education and training programs and raised the maximum Pell grant to $4,500. Regrettably, by a vote of 50-to-50, the amendment was not adopted. More than 100 educational organizations supported the Kennedy-Collins- Menendez amendment, and yesterday, I submitted to the Record several of the support letters we received from these organizations. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record additional letters from the American Association of Community Colleges, the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships, the National Association for College Admission Counseling, the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, and the National Education Association.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object, does that mean the outcome is determined? Do we have to accept the voice vote? Do we still preserve our own Senate rules so we can ask for yeas and nays after a voice vote if we are not satisfied?

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from New Jersey and 1 minute to the Senator from Maine.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, and the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this amendment will provide $6.3 billion to restore the cuts in key student aid programs, vocational education, and job training, and increase investment in those programs by 15 percent. That is the total: $6.3 billion. To pay for these investments, we close tax loopholes, laws that have no purpose, that allow corporate tax evasion. These offset provisions have been passed in the Senate on numerous occasions and have not survived the conference. But they have been voted on and passed. So this amendment effectively pays for itself. That is enormously important. These two charts indicate where the United States is internationally in the areas of math and science. The chart on the right shows that the United States has fallen behind in mathematics, and this other chart shows that American colleges and universities have fallen behind in the development of professionals in the natural sciences. That is effectively math, science, and engineering. If you look at this chart, it shows that in 1975, the United States was third in the world. If you look at the year 2000, we are 15th in the world. Really, no one disputes these findings and these conclusions. I once again draw the attention of our Members to three excellent studies. These three excellent studies, which have been done by the National Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, all make the same case as these charts do and make a number of recommendations. We have included a number of the recommendations that these institutions which reviewed our education system have made in order that the United States continue to be a highly innovative economy in the next 15 to 20 years. They make the very strong and powerful case that by being an innovative economy, we are also going to be the strongest economic power in the world and also have the strongest national security. Education is key to our national security. This is ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm'', the report by the National Academy of Sciences. That report was requested by our former Secretary of Education, Senator Lamar Alexander, and Jeff Bingaman. It is an excellent study and review. I am going to include just selected parts of these reports in my remarks. And now we have the report from the Council on Competitiveness which has reached effectively the same judgment and decision as the National Academies report. The Council on Competitiveness talks about recommendations organized in three broad categories: education; training; and lifelong skill development, the continuation of training. That is exactly what our amendment addresses. And then, finally, the National Association of Manufacturers--not known to be a particular Democratic organization--talks about the importance--again, these are studies that were completed in 2005--the importance of emphasizing science and math technology, including enhancing our education, career training, and continuing education and training programs. These are exactly the programs included in our particular amendment that the Senator from Maine and I offer with the Senator from New Jersey. It is in response to the challenge we are facing internationally. We offset that by closing tax loopholes. First let's talk about Pell grants. In this amendment, we have increased the maximum Pell grant to $4,500. As you can see, this has been frozen at $4,050 over the period of the last 4 to 5 years. There will be those who will say: Well, we have increased the total amount of funding because there are more children who are receiving the Pell grants. But the reason there are more students receiving Pell grants is because there are more students in need. This amendment will increase immediately the Pell maximum up to $4,500. This is not enormously inconsistent with what the President has said. In his last two Presidential campaigns, he has indicated that he favored the $4,500 maximum. The cost for this will be $1.8 billion. So this is the increase in the Pell Grant Program. The second aspect of this amendment is to open up access to educational opportunity by investing in the TRIO Program, the GEAR UP program, and the LEAP program. This amendment provides the additional help and assistance for those programs. Let me show who is affected by these programs. Nearly 1.5 million students benefit from the tutoring, the counseling, and other services provided by the Gear Up programs in over 1,700 schools. This program keeps students interested in school and prepares them to attend college. It has been enormously successful in opening up opportunities for helping young children, many from disadvantaged communities, into the colleges and universities across our country. The amendment also addresses the TRIO Talent Search and Upward Bound Programs, special programs to recognize talented young people who perhaps might not have had the range of courses in their high schools but, nonetheless, have demonstrated a commitment and a desire to enhance their own educational opportunities. The results have been absolutely extraordinary. If you look at the difference in the success of students in these programs compared to students who don't participate, you will see that nearly 90 percent of the Upward Bound students graduate from high school, compared to only 68 percent of all low-income students. You will also find that nearly 70 percent of Upward Bound students attend college, compared to only 54 percent of low-income students. And 50 percent of Upward Bound students attend a 4-year college, compared to just 22 percent of low-income students. So this is really about access to higher education. We are basically saying, with these reports, the United States needs every talented person in our country, and these programs help achieve that goal. We are offering an amendment that is going to open up that kind of opportunity for individuals to take advantage of and participate in this effort to maximize our ability to be competitive. Next, there is an important aspect for us in this amendment, as it will invest in critical career and technical education programs. I have taken the figures from Massachusetts, but this is typical of what is happening around the country. We have a total of 61,000 students in career and technical education in Massachusetts, and about 90 percent of them pass what they call the MCAS test. That is a stringent test that our State has instituted and has been commended on for years as being the gold standard in terms of measuring the academic achievement of students. This is the continuing vocational education programs, and it amounts to $1.3 billion of the amendment. What this does show is that individuals are gaining the skills they are going to need to compete in this era of globalization. About 90 to 95 percent of those who graduate from career and technical education programs in Massachusetts go on to college or get good jobs. This amendment invests in these programs that are critically important. We have seen in the chairman's mark on the budget that with regard to discretionary spending in 2000, the chairman's mark includes the President's proposed level of $873 million. You will hear descriptions of how that provides additional opportunities to enhance education for young people. But the fact remains, we need a quantum jump in investing in young people. We need it in the areas I have outlined, and we need it in additional areas. This year the Chinese will be graduating 600,000 engineers, according to one report. India graduates 350,000 engineers. The United States is graduating 72,000 engineers, and half of those are foreign students. We have seen the expansion of research that is taking place in India, where Intel has just hired 2,500 Indian engineers to do some of their most advanced research. IBM is following a similar kind of program. We are talking about outsourcing and offshoring jobs, and we are not talking about blue-collar jobs. We are talking about those who are going to be at the cutting edge of investment. What we are saying now is that we have to equip every young person with the ability to deal with the challenges of globalization. That means they are going to have to attain these kinds of skills for themselves. This is going to be a continuing learning process, and it has to be a national commitment. This Nation has responded when it has been educationally challenged. When we had the Industrial Revolution, we developed the public school system. At the end of World War II, we had 10 to 12 million Americans serving in the armed forces who had given 3 to 4 years out of their lives. We had the GI bill. Those Americans came back and they participated in our educational system. What we found is that they repaid $7 for every dollar invested in them. When you are investing in education, the benefits to society are huge. They come back manyfold in terms of our prosperity and our world leadership. This is not a no-sum game. This is a process by which the Nation gains. Then we were faced with the Sputnik challenge when the Russians sent Sputnik into space. Virtually overnight Republicans and Democrats came together and passed the National Defense Education Act. Many of those students who have gone through the National Defense Education Act Scholarship Program serve in our Defense Department today with great success. Today we have a similar challenge with globalization. Are we going to say it is business as usual, as this budget says, or are we going to say this is serious business? In a budget that reflects a nation's priorities, are we going to say we are sufficiently concerned about this kind of challenge that we are not going to hold the young people behind by denying them the opportunity to deal with the challenges of global education? That is what the amendment is basically about. That is why we strongly believe in it. It is clearly in the national interest. It is a reflection of what the priorities are for the American people. The American people understand the importance of investing in students and workers. It is key to their prosperity. We cannot have a competitive economy with breakthroughs in innovation unless we have highly skilled, highly trained individuals. If you look over the various scientific magazines you see that in the last twenty years the U.S. share of research articles has declined from 38 percent to 30 percent. Meanwhile, China's share of articles more than doubled. Other countries are investing in their young people, and the United States can't afford to fall behind in this regard. The challenge to the Senate is whether we are going to begin that process of investing in the young people of this Nation or whether we are going to be an also- ran Nation down the line. I will include in the Record the names of the more than 100 groups that support this amendment. I ask unanimous consent to print that in the Record. The being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: 100 Groups Support the Kennedy-Collins Amendment Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.* American Association of Community Colleges.* Coalition of Higher Education Assistance Organizations.* National Counci1 for Community and Education Partnerships.* National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education. National Association for College Admission Counseling. National Women's Law Center. National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity and its 30 members: American Association of University Women, Washington, D.C.; American School Counselors Association, Alexandria, VA; Barre Technical Center, Barre, VT; Bismarck State College, Bismarck, ND; Burlington Technical Center, Burlington, VT; Cape Cod Community College, W. Barnstabe, MA; Career Communications, Overland, KS; Center for Technology, Essex, Essex Junction, VT; Cisco Systems, Inc., Annapolis, MD; Cold Hollow Career Center, Enosburg Fall, VT; Douglas County School District, Highlands Ranch, CO; Educational Equity Consultants, St. Joseph, MO; Feminist Majority Foundation, Arlington, VA; GrayMill Consulting, Tehachapi, VT; Her Own Words, Madison, WI; MAVCC, Stillwater, OK; Mid- Atlantic Equity Center, Chevy Chase, MD; Minot Public Schools, Minot, ND; Missouri Gender Equity Program, Columbia, MO; National Women's Law Center, Washington, D.C.; Nontraditonal Career Resource Center, New Brunswick, NJ; North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, Bismarck ND; Northeast Community College, Norfolk, NE; Northern New England Tradeswomen, Essex. VT; Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center, Middlebury, VT; Project Lead the Way, Clifton Park, NJ; Randolph Area Vocational Center, Randolph, VT; TALL, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ; Thompson Sohool District, Loveland, CO; Tradeswomen Now and Tomorrow, Chicago, IL; West Virginia Women Work!, Morgantown, WV; Wider Opportunities for Women, Washington. D.C.; Williston State College, Williston, ND; Women Work!, Washington, D.C. PIRG Higher Education.* US Student Association.* The Workforce Alliance. Student Aid Alliance (66 Members): American Association of Colleges of Nursing; American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy; American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers; American Association of Community Colleges; American Association for Higher Education; American Association of State Colleges and Universities; American Association of University Professors; American College Personnel Association; American College Testing; American Council on Education; American Dental Education Association; American Federation of Teachers; American Indian Higher Education Consortium; American Jewish Congress; American Psychological Association; American Society for Engineering Education; American Student Association of Community Colleges; APPA: The Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers; Association of Academic Health Centers; Association of Advanced Rabbinical and Talmudic Schools; Association of American Colleges and Universities; Association of American Law Schools; Association of American Medical Colleges; Association of American Universities; Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities; Association of Community College Trustees; Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges; Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities; Citizen's Scholarship Foundation of America; Coalition of Higher Education Assistance Organizations; College Board; College Parents of America; College and University Personnel Association for Human Resources; Council for Advancement and Support of Education; Council for Christian Colleges and Universities; Council on Government Relations; Council of Graduate Schools; Council for Higher Education Accreditation; Council of Independent Colleges; Council for Opportunity in Education; Educational Testing Service; Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities; Lutheran Educational Conference of North America; NAFSA: Association of International Educators; National Association for College Admission Counseling; National Association of College and University Business Officers; National Association of College Stores; National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education; National Association of Graduate and Professional Students; National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities; National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs; National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges; National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators; National Association of Student Personnel Administrators; National College Access Network; National Collegiate Athletic Association; National Council for Community and Education Partnerships; National Council of University Research Administrators; National Education Association; NAWE; Advancing Women in Higher Education; United Negro College Fund; United State Public Interest Research Group; United States Student Association; University Continuing Education Association; and Women's College Coalition. *Also members of Student Aid Alliance.

Mr. KENNEDY. I withhold the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 1 minute and then I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Maine. I quickly want to respond to my colleague from New Hampshire. When you say there was $9 billion in aid added last month to higher education, this includes 3.7 billion for a grant program that only helps ten percent of students who need it. Most of this $9 billion helps banks, not students. The $6 billion increase for the Pell grant that I supported and worked on with the Chairman of the HELP Committee was jettisoned completely in the Senate bill. Instead there was no additional grant aid for 90 percent of poor students, and this is at a time when 400,000 students would like to go to college, are ready to attend college, but can't because of cost. Now I will yield to the Senator from Maine.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. KENNEDY. How much time remains on either side?

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, the Senator from New Jersey, and myself understand that we are facing a worldwide challenge. That is not just what we are saying; that is what the Academy of Sciences is saying, the Academy of Engineering is saying, the Institute of Politics is saying, National Association of Manufacturers, Council of Competitors. You can't do business as usual. The rest of the world is playing for keeps. The question is whether we will or not. When we faced the challenge of Sputnik, America responded and doubled its involvement in education. We are facing a worldwide challenge now, and we believe these investments will make sure we move toward the goal of maintaining the United States as No. 1. Anything else will put us behind. I believe my time is up.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank my colleagues. (The remarks of Mr. Kennedy are printed in today's Record under ``Morning Business.'') amendment no. 3014

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I offer this amendment along with the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, and the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez. As we confront the global economy, America is facing a massive new challenge. It affects our jobs, our way of life, and even our national security. Education is the key to meeting that challenge. This last year, we had many important reports ranging from the National Association of Manufacturers to the National Academy of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. All of them say we have to invest in education to meet the global challenge. When we faced the challenge of Sputnik, we doubled our investment in education overnight. We need that kind of commitment again so that we can compete with China and India and maintain our position as No. 1 economically and militarily. The amendment that Senators Collins and Menendez and I offered increases Pell Grants, student aid, and job training. It pays for these new investments by closing egregious tax loopholes that the Senate has approved before. The amendment is supported by 100 organizations, and I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a sample of the letters of support we have received. This amendment is a downpayment on our future. I urge the Senate to accept it.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I support the amendment offered by the senior Senator from West Virginia and am pleased to cosponsor this amendment. This amendment would add $184 million to the budget for mine safety inspectors. The need for this type of investment is clear. Twenty-four miners have already died this year, 21 of them in coal mines, just one of the total number of coal mine deaths for all of last year. We know that coal plays a vital role in meeting the Nation's need for energy. Over half of Americans get their electricity from coal. It is essential for mines to remain productive. But safety can't yield to production goals. Protecting our miners is a moral obligation and a national priority. We must do everything in our power to minimize the risk of injuries and deaths. This January, I joined Senator Isakson, Senator Enzi, and Senator Rockefeller on a trip to the Sago Mine. We met with the families of the fallen miners, and they shared their thoughts and memories in a way that deeply touched us all, and made action by Congress all the more essential. We need strong mine safety enforcement and inspections. The Bush administration has jeopardized the safety of our Nation's miners by continuing to cut the number of positions from coal mine safety enforcement. The administration's fiscal year 2007 budget continues this trend by proposing a cut of 27 more positions, for a total of an 18 percent reduction in staff since fiscal year 2001. And there are now 217 fewer mine safety inspectors than we had in 2001. NIOSH warns that our Nation's mine safety inspectors are aging. Approximately 44 percent of the MSHA's underground coal mine inspectors employed in 2003 will be eligible for retirement by 2008. MSHA has not adequately prepared for their departure from the workforce. This amendment will help us restore the critical funding needed to provide more mine safety inspectors and ensure that our Nation's miners are safe now and in the future, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we join our dear friend and colleague, Senator Inouye, in remembering his wonderful wife and life-long companion, Margaret Inouye. She faced her cancer as she lived her life--with dignity, grace, a ready smile, and a firm resolve. I read Dan Inouye's own words about her passing. He said, It was a most special blessing to have had Maggie in my life for 58 years. She was my inspiration, and all that I have accomplished could not have been done without her at my side. We were a team. Senator Inouye and Maggie came to the Senate just months after I did. It has been one of my greatest pleasures to serve with Dan over these many years. He is our rock, our steady hand, our wise counselor. And we know that in no small measure, Maggie made that possible. Our thoughts and our prayers are with Dan and his son Kenny as they face this great loss. Dan, we love you, we care for you, and we look forward to your return as you continue to serve the people of the State you love.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. An additional 4 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank our friend and colleague from North Dakota for his leadership on this issue. I hope that those who have had the chance to listen to opening debate will pay close attention over the next 4 days. This is an enormously important document we are debating. It is an indication of a nation's priorities. It is important that we listen with care to the discussion. Money isn't everything, but it is a measure of a nation's priorities. Budgets are moral documents. They represent who we are and what we value. Just 6 weeks ago, the President delivered a State of the Union Address that gave hope to many of us in Congress for a budget that meets the needs of the American people. The President told us that night that a hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency and stays at it until they are back on their feet. But the budget before us tells a different story. It fails to meet the security needs of Americans who are looking for real security in the face of terrorism. We have seen the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, the failure in Iraq, a failing grade from the 9/11 Commission, failure on the security of our ports, failure in curbing nuclear power in Iran and North Korea, failure after failure when it comes to our national security. But you would never know it from this budget. Does it prepare us for the next disaster? Does it support a winning strategy in Iraq? Does it fully invest in the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission? Does it secure our ports and inspect every shipping container crossing our shore? When it comes to nuclear weapons, does it provide the resources needed for real nonproliferation? The answer to each one of these questions is no. The administration and the Republicans may talk about national security, but the real record is one of mistake and failure. This budget is a failure, too, when it comes to meeting the needs of our families here at home. When it comes to healing the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, the elderly, or the disabled, this budget falls short. When it comes to strengthening our economy, opening the doors of opportunity, creating new jobs, and equipping America to compete in the global economy, this budget again falls short. Instead, it cuts vital programs on which people rely and offers even more tax cuts to the wealthy. Franklin Roosevelt had it right: The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. This budget does none of that. Countless families are facing serious problems. They are being hit on all sides with higher health costs, higher heating costs, higher college costs, higher gas prices. Their jobs and pensions are in danger. Their savings are at an all-time low. They are caught in a prescription drug nightmare because of a bill that put the drug industry and the insurance industry ahead of patients. These are hard-working men and women who play by the rules and take care of their families, but this budget lets them down. Instead of investing in education, it cuts school programs. Instead of helping the elderly with their heating bills, it slashes funding for low-income heating programs. Instead of training workers for new jobs, it eliminates job training and vocational education programs. Instead of helping our young people afford college, it cuts college aid. But it provides for $1.7 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. Those are the wrong priorities for America. Compare that to the recent cuts to Medicaid. Compare that with the $379 million cut in heating assistance for the poor. Compare that with the cuts to education. Compare that with the $456 million needed to help disadvantaged high school students reach college under the TRIO, Upward Bound, or Talent Search Programs. Yes, a budget is a statement of priorities, and we have seen where this administration's priorities are on health. The Medicaid Program is key to promoting a real culture of life in America. Medicaid provides care to a third of all mothers giving birth, including the prenatal, pediatric care their children need to be healthy. Mere hours after the President declared in the State of the Union Address that the Government would meet its responsibility to provide health care for the poor and elderly, the President signed a bill to impose draconian cuts on the Medicaid Program. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that bill will cause 45,000 poor Americans to lose coverage over the next 5 years, and 65,000 will lose coverage within 10 years, and 60 percent of those losing coverage will be children. In Maryland, a quarter of families subject to increased premiums disenrolled. In Oregon, higher costs caused disenrollment, and 67 percent of those who disenrolled became uninsured. Because of these Medicaid cuts, 13 million Medicaid beneficiaries will have to pay more for their prescriptions over the next 5 years, and 20 million will have to pay more over the next 10 years. When copayments rise for the poorest patients, health declines. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that increased copayments for medications for poor families caused an 88- percent increase in adverse events, such as heart attacks and strokes, and caused a 78-percent increase in emergency room visits. This is what happens. If you cut back on providing assistance with copays for individuals who otherwise would be eligible, we are finding out, you end up paying a great deal more out of the health care budget, in addition to increasing the pain, anxiety and difficulties these families are facing. A single mother with two children who makes $8 an hour currently pays $3 when she visits the doctor and does not have any cost sharing when her children go to the pediatrician. Under the new law, when her child goes to the pediatrician with an ear infection, she may be charged $20. When she goes to a doctor for treatment and a test for diabetes, she will pay $50. She may have to pay as much as $832 a year. A single mother with two children earning $25,000 now pays no premiums or cost sharing for a child's medical care and pays $3 copayments for herself. Under the new law, she will now be charged monthly premiums for Medicaid coverage for herself and her children. Even if she manages to pay the premiums, she may have to pay $40 for a visit to the pediatrician, and she will have to pay as much as $1,250 a year for Medicaid. Do you know what happens? Those parents, when they have that sick child who has the ear infection or has that cough, are thinking: Is this child $40 sick or $50 sick? Or if I go to the emergency room, is this child $125 sick? Is my child $125 sick? I think I will wait tonight. Sure, they are coughing, and sure they are in pain, sure they are suffering, but I am working at a low paying job, and I have to make the decision about whether I can afford care. For a single mother of two earning the minimum wage, the new Medicaid law imposes additional cost sharing on her children. They would now face copayments for certain prescription drugs, and these copayments would, for the first time, be indexed to the rate of medical inflation, which is higher than the general inflation. And on minimum wage, her income would not even keep up with general inflation since the minimum wage has not been increased since 1997. To add to these damaging reductions, the President's budget proposes another $14 billion in reductions to Medicaid. The Senate budget resolution has not adopted these serious cuts, but time and again, we have seen how the House-Senate conferees follow the administration's proposal rather than the Senate's measure. The President's budget proposes $36 billion in Medicare cuts over the next 5 years and $105 billion over the next 10 years. This means higher premiums for seniors and the disabled and will result in reductions of quality of care at hospitals and home health agencies. In Massachusetts, President Bush's Medicare proposal will mean that our hospitals will have to cut their budgets by more than $400 million, home health agencies by $50 million, and nursing homes by $150 million. Again, the Senate resolution has not adopted these reductions, but we know where the conference report is likely to end up. In addition, the budget resolution includes a deeply troubling procedural barrier to fixing the problems in the Medicare drug program. The Republican budget effectively torpedoes any sensible measure to improve the benefit provided to seniors by requiring any such improvements to overcome a point of order. The budget resolution has adopted major reductions to public health programs. Under these reductions, Massachusetts would lose millions of dollars for programs that protect the health and safety of our people. That cut means 17 rape crisis centers across our State will face significant financial hardship, and our programs on violence prevention and suicide would effectively be eliminated. The cuts mean that programs to keep our children healthy would be eliminated. Programs to screen newborns as early as possible for hearing loss would be eliminated and so would our State oral health program. That means 59,000 children would not get basic dental screening, and over 35 programs that train health care providers to deliver care in underserved areas and support diversity and proficiency in health care would be eliminated. Although we are living with the threat of natural and manmade disasters, the proposed cuts would compromise our emergency medical services and impair the system's ability to function as a safety net for catastrophe. Under the chairman's budget, NIH funding will barely keep up with inflation. Last year's budget was cut so our medical research programs are still suffering setbacks. Over the last 2 years, the NIH budget has increased by an average of 1 percent per year. Not since 1970 has the NIH been so consistently underfunded. If the NIH budget were simply to keep up with inflation since 2005, we will have to increase the budget by another $1.8 billion. This chart indicates the Bush administration cuts to vital NIH research. We see the important increases during early 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003. Then we see dramatic reductions. Under the President's budget, the NIH budget would be flat for the second year in a row. That hasn't happened in more than half a century. This is the century of the life sciences. With all that we know about the slicing of the gene, DNA, and all the possibilities of stem cell research, most researchers believe that the opportunities to make enormous progress on the diseases which affect every family, whether it is cancer, Alzheimer's, or heart disease, are immeasurable. But we are not going to have those promises fulfilled if we see the kinds of reductions that we have seen in this budget. We hear a great deal about the challenges we are facing to compete internationally. We are told we need to be an innovative society, and an innovative society needs innovative life sciences. That is certainly an area of enormous possibility if we are going to provide resources for the basic research. But, no, we are cutting back in these extremely important areas. These are the areas in which we are cutting back: We have seen reductions in the Cancer Institute, a reduction in the Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, reductions in research in diabetes and kidney diseases. We know that $1 out of $4 spent under Medicare are spent on diabetics; $1 out of $10 in the general health area are spent on diabetics. When we make breakthroughs in the diabetes treatments, we are going to see an enormous change for the people who are affected by this disease, and we are going to have an enormous impact in terms of total health care costs. But we are cutting back on those areas of research and we are cutting back on mental health and cutting back on child health and development. 18 of the 19 NIH institutes will suffer cuts compared to the rate of inflation, which means that NIH will fall behind in the race for new cures. I don't believe those are America's priorities, but they are the priorities of this President, and we are going to find out if they are the priorities of this Senate. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?