John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, this amendment would add back the President's level of funding for environmental cleanup. It adds back $7.3 billion over the 6-year period. That would go specifically to EPA enforcement, to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to science technology research for the EPA and to the Everglades program as well as the National Park Service. This is critical funding in terms of their ability to meet increased responsibilities of research and protection, and, as I say, it simply brings it back to the President's requested level.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, is it 60 seconds?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join, once again, with my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, in introducing legislation to create the Essex Heritage District and Commission with the goal of preserving the unique resources of Essex County, MA for future generations. Essex County, which stretches through Massachusetts' North Shore communities into the Merrimac River Valley and up to the New Hampshire border, represents a mural of American history with its architecture, industry, and culture. Within a county of only 500 square miles, there are nearly 80 historic districts which offer more examples of nationally significant early American architecture than any other place in the Nation. Included among these historical structures are 17th century marshland farms, rural homes, cemeteries, and original town commons. The shoreline of Essex County contains shipyards, lighthouses, and harbors that have been active since the 17th century. Together, these sites form a panorama of our Nation's development as a maritime and industrial power. In the 18th century, this region became a mecca for American trade, a hub for trading goods with the other great trading nations. In response, the region flourished as a manufacturing center, which led to the establishment and growth of the textile and leather industries in the Merrimac River Valley towns of Peabody, Lawrence, Beverly, and Haverhill. The history of this growth is evident today in the textile mill villages, the first sustained integrated iron works site, and one of the most significant planned manufacturing cities in the country, all of which remain largely intact today. At the heart of all this activity is the city of Salem. While Salem is famous in the history books and in American lore as the site of the 1692 witch trials, it is equally important as an early landing point for some of the first English colonists and as one of the most active ports of the 18th century. An amazing number of these historical resources remain intact including a colonial period wharf and 17th and 18th century structures exemplifying Puritan society. A tour through the historic districts of Essex County is a visual lesson in this important period of our Nation's past. We are lucky that so many of these historical resources remain to provide such a detailed record and we must work to ensure their continued protection through the creation of the Essex Heritage District Commission. The Commission, which would be authorized for 10 years, would provide the long-term commitment that is needed to bring about the success of this project. Of course, the primary mission would be preservation, but more than this, the Commission will take individually preserved resources and link them through a unified interpretive story of this region and its place in our Nation's history. While the Commission will be chartered by Federal legislation, it will not be a project managed by the Federal Government nor will it require major Federal land acquisition. Instead, the Commission will be comprised primarily of delegates from the State and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and private citizens and business interests from the participating communities. This approach should prove very successful based upon the past efforts at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site which has leveraged significant local support from the surrounding communities. For example, in the past 8 years, Federal appropriations of $24 million for the Salem Maritime Site have leveraged more than $150 million in non-Federal investments in Essex Heritage District projects, including support for the planned $75 million expansion of the Peabody Essex Museum which will include renovation of the Salem Armory building that now houses the Regional Visitor Center run by the National Park Service. Our bill would create a system under which various community groups can come together to develop their own goals by combining historic and resource preservation with economic concerns. The preservation activities which have already begun in Essex County have enhanced the region as visitor attractions for its historic sites, its picturesque scenery, and its desirability as a place to live and do business. I hope the Senate will act to ensure this success through swift and positive action on this bill.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join, once again, with my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, in introducing legislation to create the Essex Heritage District and Commission with the goal of preserving the unique resources of Essex County, MA for future generations. Essex County, which stretches through Massachusetts' North Shore communities into the Merrimac River Valley and up to the New Hampshire border, represents a mural of American history with its architecture, industry, and culture. Within a county of only 500 square miles, there are nearly 80 historic districts which offer more examples of nationally significant early American architecture than any other place in the Nation. Included among these historical structures are 17th century marshland farms, rural homes, cemeteries, and original town commons. The shoreline of Essex County contains shipyards, lighthouses, and harbors that have been active since the 17th century. Together, these sites form a panorama of our Nation's development as a maritime and industrial power. In the 18th century, this region became a mecca for American trade, a hub for trading goods with the other great trading nations. In response, the region flourished as a manufacturing center, which led to the establishment and growth of the textile and leather industries in the Merrimac River Valley towns of Peabody, Lawrence, Beverly, and Haverhill. The history of this growth is evident today in the textile mill villages, the first sustained integrated iron works site, and one of the most significant planned manufacturing cities in the country, all of which remain largely intact today. At the heart of all this activity is the city of Salem. While Salem is famous in the history books and in American lore as the site of the 1692 witch trials, it is equally important as an early landing point for some of the first English colonists and as one of the most active ports of the 18th century. An amazing number of these historical resources remain intact including a colonial period wharf and 17th and 18th century structures exemplifying Puritan society. A tour through the historic districts of Essex County is a visual lesson in this important period of our Nation's past. We are lucky that so many of these historical resources remain to provide such a detailed record and we must work to ensure their continued protection through the creation of the Essex Heritage District Commission. The Commission, which would be authorized for 10 years, would provide the long-term commitment that is needed to bring about the success of this project. Of course, the primary mission would be preservation, but more than this, the Commission will take individually preserved resources and link them through a unified interpretive story of this region and its place in our Nation's history. While the Commission will be chartered by Federal legislation, it will not be a project managed by the Federal Government nor will it require major Federal land acquisition. Instead, the Commission will be comprised primarily of delegates from the State and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and private citizens and business interests from the participating communities. This approach should prove very successful based upon the past efforts at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site which has leveraged significant local support from the surrounding communities. For example, in the past 8 years, Federal appropriations of $24 million for the Salem Maritime Site have leveraged more than $150 million in non-Federal investments in Essex Heritage District projects, including support for the planned $75 million expansion of the Peabody Essex Museum which will include renovation of the Salem Armory building that now houses the Regional Visitor Center run by the National Park Service. Our bill would create a system under which various community groups can come together to develop their own goals by combining historic and resource preservation with economic concerns. The preservation activities which have already begun in Essex County have enhanced the region as visitor attractions for its historic sites, its picturesque scenery, and its desirability as a place to live and do business. I hope the Senate will act to ensure this success through swift and positive action on this bill.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, to quote Yogi Berra, perhaps slightly inaccurately, ``This seems like deja vu all over again.'' It was over 20 years ago now when this Nation suffered through the embarrassments and dangers of Watergate. The Nation was treated to the spectacle of testimony about the Attorney General of the United States and the Secretary of Commerce shaking down the captains of industry for campaign contributions, and hauling briefcases full of hundred dollar bills. Americans learned about expenditures that totaled over $200 million in 1996-valued dollars. They saw a genuine constitutional crisis that toppled a Presidency and posed much greater risks for our constitutional democracy. And they understandably were not pleased. In the fallout from Watergate, the Members of Congress got the message from their constituents to fix the problems that permitted the campaign finance abuses that composed an important part of that scandal. The Congress responded by enacting a program of voluntary spending limits for Presidential election campaigns in exchange for providing public financing for Presidential candidates in both the primaries and the general election. And, Mr. President, it has worked. It has worked superbly. In all the Presidential elections since 1974, we have never again seen the abuses that the 1972 election will infamously represent to all who lived through it or have learned about it from the history books. That makes it doubly difficult to understand, Mr. President, why anyone would want to destroy those reforms that have worked so well. But that's precisely what some on the other side of the aisle want to do. Just 1 year ago, when we were considering the last congressional budget resolution, the Republican majority on the Budget Committee at the behest of other Republican Senators made an effort to abolish the Presidential campaign finance system. At that time, I offered an amendment to remove the language from the resolution that would have had that effect, and by a vote of 56 to 44, obviously composed of the votes of both Democratic and Republican Senators, we succeeded in saving the existing system of Presidential campaign spending limits and public financing that has removed corruption from Presidential elections, limited the amount of money spent in those campaigns, and returned to the American people the allegiance of candidates for the highest office in the land and the most powerful office on the face of the Earth from the special interests which used to so generously pay for the campaigns. This year, opponents of publicly financed Presidential elections are using a different approach, but the intent and the result would be the same. It would end the system of spending limits and public financing of Presidential elections. That is why I stand here with my good friend, the Senator from Tennessee, and colleagues from both sides of the aisle. We will oppose, and once again we are determined to defeat, this effort to kill the system of public financing that is working to keep special interests from taking over Presidential politics once again. The budget resolution says: ``This proposal would not terminate public financing, only the source of the funds.'' Well come on, Mr. President, how are we going to have public financing and the spending limits and clean campaigns that go with it if we don't fund this proven system? Who's attempting to kid whom? This is a time for us to win back the collective faith of our community members and the rest of the country. We should be committed to restoring the American trust in our electoral system. Obliterating a system of public financing that has worked for two decades is no way to accomplish that. Plain and simple, Mr. President, the system works. In 1972, when Richard Nixon ran for President, he spent $60 million in that race, the equivalent of $200 million today. That is more than the total both President Bush and Bill Clinton spent in 1992. I challenge those Senators who are the proponents of the provision in the budget resolution to find any American who would favor a return to the days prior to the Watergate reforms--except, of course, representatives of the moneyed special interests who would love to be able to purchase special access and influence again if we were to permit them to do so. I hope we will not forget the way it used to be. We must not forget that a Presidential candidate accepted a $2 million campaign pledge from an industry, and then his administration granted that industry an increase in price supports that cost the American people far, far more than the $2 million contribution. We must not forget the approval of an airline's route application shortly after a large corporate contribution to the party in power. And we must remember the settlement of antitrust litigation on terms favorable to a corporation very soon after that corporation agreed to underwrite a large portion of the cost of a political convention. Those were the bad old days of Presidential elections, Mr. President, and I am totally confident the American people do not want to return to those kinds of practices. These are the kinds of activities the system of voluntary spending limits and public financing has eliminated from Presidential elections, and that is why it is so important to preserve public financing of Presidential elections. Nearly 50 percent of Americans believe lobbyists and special interests control Washington, and over 90 percent believe that campaign contributions from special interest groups influence members' votes. Special interest political action committees [PAC's] contributed a record $189 million to congressional candidates during the 1993-94 election cycle. It is these same PAC's that sniff out the movement of power in Washington as their loyalties flip like pancakes on a griddle. And in 1994, the Federal campaigns for the House and Senate cost an astronomical $600 million. This is a system that is out of control. The people know it, and they do not like it one bit. But look at the role of PAC's in the presidential election system. PAC's provided less than 1 percent of the funding for the Presidential campaign in 1992; 1 percent. But that would change if we do not adopt this amendment, if we do not save the Presidential campaign financing system. Mr. President, the American people want the strings of special interests cut from their Government. They want to retake control of their Government. In fact, Mr. President, that is exactly what this campaign fund does with respect to Presidential elections. More people participate through the checkoff than contribute voluntarily to campaigns in this country. One out of seven Americans participate in the checkoff, whereas only 1 in 22 Americans contributed to campaigns in 1994. The checkoff could, in fact, be stronger than it is today. No American is coerced to participate in the checkoff. It is a voluntary system. But it works. The system of financing Presidential elections has no political or ideological bias. And the history of Presidential campaigns in the past 20 years demonstrate that it is warmly embraced by candidates for both parties. It has been accepted by both Republican and Democratic candidates. Indeed, since 1976, all but one major candidate for the Republican or Democratic Party nominations voluntarily chose to participate in the Presidential campaign finance system. All major party candidates for the general elections have chosen to accept public financing since 1976. We are faced today with a new, and ever growing sense of urgency to fix our campaign system. As the influence of special interests grows, the distance between the American people and their Government grows. Our citizens, the most fundamental and critical engine to our ability to govern, feel they are being cut out of our democratic process. But that is a debate for another day. The subject for today is not to turn back the clock and retreat from the single most beneficial set of changes to our system of financing campaigns in our lifetimes. We have the honor of representing the public trust and responding to their concerns and needs. We did the right thing a year ago when we rejected a very similar provision with the identical objective, and I urge my colleagues to once again demonstrate conclusively that the special interests will not be permitted to regain control of Presidential campaigns and, in so doing, unleash unlimited campaign expenditures--all financed by moneyed special interests--on the American people. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and to preserve the Presidential Campaign Finance System. I compliment the Senator from Tennessee for his leadership on this amendment. He knows, from close, firsthand observation, the destruction that the abuses in the campaign of 1972 caused, and he was closer than most to the further dangers that we fortunately avoided. It is reassuring to see him courageously stand up and resist this misguided effort, and I am proud to stand with him and with our other colleagues who are joining as cosponsors of this amendment. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I know the Senator from Nevada wishes to speak with respect to the environmental amendment but I would ask unanimous consent--I think it is in order anyway--the remainder of time on both amendments be managed by the distinguished manager of the bill.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished manager of the bill very much. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am delighted to yield 2 minutes to the Senator.

Mr. KERRY. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I will just take a couple of minutes and then reserve the remainder of the time for other Senators who want to speak on this issue. I thank the Senator from Washington. I want to emphasize, if I may, a couple of points that both she and I have made. This is not a struggle, in my judgment, over whether one group wants to be fiscally responsible and the other group does not. We are both talking about a framework for a balanced budget. In fact, were it not for the insistence on a very significant size tax cut on a 7-year basis--still over $200 billion, less than that over 6 years--there is today enough money on the table by both sides, agreed upon, to balance the budget. I hope Americans understand that. We do not have to have this fight except for the struggle over a tax cut. It is the struggle over the tax cut that forces the taking of money from a whole lot of things that matter in order to give the tax cut. The tax cut is fundamentally a borrowing from the future to give to the present. The tax cut is essentially a transfer payment taking from the next generation in terms of investment and current programs and giving to a group of people to spend it today. That is really what we are fighting about here because we have identified, and the President has delivered to us and we have voted for a sufficient number of discretionary cuts to balance the budget of this country this afternoon. What we are saying in our vision is we are willing to support--many of us, not everybody perhaps--some form of a tax cut in order to have compromise here. There are certainly some Americans who really deserve one. If it were geared in a way that absolutely guaranteed that the right people were getting it, there might be much more support for building the compromise faster. But there is no excuse for taking 20,000 kids out of Head Start and saying you do not get a head start so we can give somebody earning more than $300,000 a year more money. It is irrational. But that is exactly what the program is at the same time as the stock market of this country went up 34 percent in one year, at the same time as company after company reports record profits, at the same time as interest rates are low, unemployment is low, and 8.5 million jobs have been created in 3\1/2\ years. What is the rationale for taking 20,000 kids and saying you do not get a head start so we can jump-start the economy--8.5 million jobs better than Ronald Reagan did, better than George Bush did? It is illogical. In New Bedford, MA, 294 children are currently participating in Head Start. So I wonder what Senator here would like to go tell those kids, go stand in front of them and say, ``No more program. Sorry.'' Or to say that ``50 of you are going to be out of this program and the rest of you get to go ahead because we think it is a good program. We just do not want 50 of you to continue in it so we can give people who earn $300,000 or more a nice tax break.'' That is the choice. Mr. President, another important effort that would be cut here is the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. It serves over 134,000 kids in Massachusetts alone. The Republicans want to cut this antiviolence program by $50 million. That may be a relatively small cut. But again, I ask the question: Why? Why? Has somebody discovered suddenly that every school in America is free of drugs? Has somebody discovered suddenly that drugs are no longer a problem? Has somebody discovered that kids are not still bringing weapons to school and we do not need to make our schools safer? I cannot think of a parent in America who would agree that safe schools and drug-free schools is not yet a priority of this Nation. Yet, our friends on the other side of the aisle, in order to give this great big, fat tax cut, are coming in and saying, ``Sorry, kids. It does not matter how unsafe your school is. We are not going to consider that a Federal priority anymore.'' Mr. President, I will just close by showing on these two charts the history of what has happened with respect to these expenditures. This is what we did in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1995 in the black-- every year the Federal priority was to try to help make a difference to hurting places in America. We were going to try to help these schools do better. Here is the Republican revolution. There is the date that the Republican revolution began--the biggest cuts in American history all of a sudden despite the fact that experts across the land will tell you that each of these efforts is working. Mr. President, here is the history in a different way. This is what we are doing. Last year the Republicans proposed a $26 billion cut in education appropriations. The Senator from Illinois is here. He will remember this. He was one of the people who helped to stop it. They wanted to cut $10 billion from education last year. That was their original goal. But the committee raised a storm. People raised a storm, and that came out of the committee at $4.9 billion. Then it came down here, and we had an effort, a fight on the floor, that resulted in a $3.7 billion cut finally. That is the bite of the apple they took. We came along and said, ``We do not want a $3.7 billion cut. We think that is wrong.'' So we had another big fight on the floor. We consumed all the time and energy of the U.S. Senate, and we finally won and got the $3.7 billion restored so we have a lesser cut. What is the lesson learned from that? The Senate ultimately voted--I think it was about 80-plus Senators--to say let us just take this tiny little nibble out of the apple. And what happens this year? They come right back and propose to devour the apple again with a $25 billion cut. Why are we are going through that exercise again? No wonder most Americans are sitting around at home saying, ``Have these guys lost their minds? Where are they coming from?'' That is called extreme, Mr. President, from here, to here, with this intermediary experience, and here is what we wound up with. You would think somebody learned a lesson. So I hope that we are going to have the good common sense not to split ourselves apart but to come together around the most fundamental commitment we could make in this country today. There is no way we will compete with Japanese, with Germans, with any of the other developing countries who care more about education than we do apparently. They put the effort into it. We should be putting the effort into it. All of us know that very few Governors, very few mayors are going to run for office with the ability to say, ``I am going to raise the tax base, the property tax,'' which is the most onerous of all taxes, ``and I am going to adequately fund education.'' The whole purpose of these efforts was to make up the difference in those areas. I hope that we will do just that in this Chamber. I ask unanimous consent to reserve the remainder of time on both the environment amendment and the education amendment for those Senators wishing to speak thereon.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, this is a very similar issue to the one just discussed. I am proud to be joined in this effort by the Senator who led the fight in committee, who has been one of the Senate's most outspoken and capable leaders with respect to the issue of education, Senator Murray of Washington. She attempted in committee to get this changed. We are now seeking this together on the floor, along with other colleagues. It seems to me, Mr. President, if somebody came along and said to Americans, ``I'm going to run for office, and I'm proposing the largest cuts in education in American history,'' you would be laughed out of the room. People would look at you and say, ``What, are you serious? That's your platform?'' That is what is being proposed. That is what we have in the agenda in this budget--the largest education cuts at the Federal level in American history. Now, it is incomprehensible to me, Mr. President, when we measure each of the particular Federal programs that are contained within the Federal budget for education, why at this point in American history that is the route we would choose to go down. Republican President George Bush led an effort, with the Republican Governors and Democrat Governors alike, to try to reform the education system of this country. Together, the President, President Bush, and the Governors fought for something called Goals 2000. President Clinton came into office and we managed to move that effort to fruition. It is the most basic kind of effort to try to address the problems in our schools. There is not any American who is not aware of the problems of our schools. It is why parents struggle to send their kids to any school they think will work. They go into debt to do it. They go to parochial school, they get out of public school, they struggle with their public school. State after State has stressed the issue of education reform. Yet, here we are, having passed something that offers school districts help to be able to raise the standards, raise the standards of teaching for the kids, raise the standards of ongoing learning for the teachers, raise the standards of curriculum, raise the standards with respect to the administration of a school so you have school-based management--a whole host of things that almost everyone in the U.S. Senate would agree are good things to do--yet we are going to reduce, for literally tens of thousands of kids, the opportunity to be able to touch those goals. This budget would cut education by $25 billion in real terms over the next 6 years. In fact, it would cut education by $3.2 billion in fiscal year 1997 alone. When we examine this budget, we can only conclude it is the sequel to last year's story with respect to the attack on education that most Americans came to agree was extreme. Senator Murray and I rise today to offer an amendment that will restore our funding for education investments to the level proposed in the President's fiscal year 1997 budget. This simply comes to the level of a balanced budget over 7 years, by CBO figures, that the President offered in his budget. Mr. President, I will have two charts that show what has happened in education, but I will wait until the charts arrive. We have a lot of schools, despite increased resources, that do not have computers. They do not have facilities in libraries that even have modern textbooks. Many schools have part-time librarians because they cannot afford to have a full-time one. Many schools cannot even afford to stay open beyond 2:30, 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We have a huge public resource we have invested in, and we do not even use it into the evening for many communities--for remedial education, ongoing family education, for problems with language so people could proceed faster to the mainstream with respect to the use of language--a whole host of things we could be doing creatively. We do not do them, and now we will cut our capacity to be able to provide the kind of assistance that would allow schools to experiment in those areas. It is very difficult for me to understand why we are reducing the ability of people to even have remedial reading and other kinds of efforts when only one-third of the high school graduates in the United States of America last year had what is considered a passable reading level. We have 2\1/2\ million kids in America who graduated from high school last year. One-third of them were below basic reading level, one-third were at the margin, and only one-third were passable. Only 100,000 of our high school graduates had what was considered a world- class reading level. I do not know if every school in this country needs phonics or what, but to reduce the ability of schools to make those choices right now flies directly counter to the experience that everyone has come to agree is critical in order to be able to get a decent job in this new information management world we live in. Everybody understands that. The world is different. The marketplace is different. People are going to have to prepare for three, four, five careers in a lifetime. How do you do that if you are not coming out of the best education system in the word? How do you come out of the best education system in the world if you do not have the basic resources and the basic tax base in many communities to be able to afford it? How about the tax base issue? Title I: So many of our communities depend on title I money to be able to provide the mainstreaming, the extra teacher assistance, even the classroom level of students that provides adequate education at the early intervention level. Why would we be reducing the ability to do that? Why would we be reducing the ability of kids to have Head Start? Why would we be reducing the ability of kids to do the one thing we have learned is so important, which is to take at-risk kids and get them into a new learning environment where they can actually gain the skills to get a job when they are at risk of dropping out of high school? We have seen so many of these kids that we understand that this is critical. Mr. President, this amendment would still spend $17 billion less than function 500 than would have been invested if the prerescission policies of last year had kept pace with inflation. So this is not profligate spending. We are not coming here asking people to just throw money at a problem. We are asking people to keep up in those programs that have been proven to work at least with a level of inflation and prerescission level. Mr. President, I have more that I could say on this. I will turn to my colleague, Senator Murray, who will talk with greater specificity about what is at stake here. I reserve the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I send a second amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, this is an amendment on behalf of myself, Senators Lautenberg, Boxer, Mikulski, Daschle, Baucus, Lieberman, Leahy, Dodd, Kennedy, and Graham of Florida. I want to particularly thank the Senator from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg, for his persistent, continued leadership in this particular area and his efforts in committee to try to guarantee that we had adequate funding with respect to the environmental policy for this country. I regret enormously that this amendment to restore funding for environmental cleanup failed by a party line vote in the Budget Committee. This amendment that we are now proposing funds the most fundamental priorities of the country with respect to the environment, protection of our natural resources, our national parks. I will just preface the specifics of the amendment by saying, Mr. President, that all of us care enormously about the budget and the fiscal restraints that we are living under right now. The issue in Washington is not whether or not we are going to balance the budget. This fight should not be, ``They don't want to balance the budget.'' They do. ``They're irresponsible. They just want to spend a lot more money.'' We don't. That is not the fight. There are two budgets, one of which we voted on last night that balanced the budget by CBO figures in 6 years. It is a Democrat vision of how we ought to go about spending money to balance the budget. There is an opposing vision. That opposing vision suggests that we should not be spending a certain amount of money on environmental protection, but rather we ought to be spending that money giving tax breaks to our wealthiest citizens, people who already have a lot of money and do not particularly need at this moment to receive another tax break. Mr. President, I remind colleagues that we have reduced the deficit over the last 4 years and cut it in half. That is a promise kept by the President of the United States. When he ran for office, President Clinton said, ``I will cut the deficit of this country within 4 years.'' It is now 3\1/2\ years later, and the deficit has been cut in half. In addition to that, we have had, as we know, record economic continued growth. We have had 8.5 million jobs created. That is the context in which we are making a number of choices about where we proceed from here. One of those most fundamental choices is whether we are going to keep faith with our commitment to the American people that our kids are not going to drink leaded water, that we are going to continue to proceed down the road of the Safe Drinking Water Act, that we are going to continue down the path of the Clean Air Act. We have made great gains in the last few years in the quality of the air that people breathe. There are less people entering hospitals or dying of emphysema or lung disease as a consequence of the fact that our cities are now becoming free of smog and carbon dioxide and the nitrogen oxides that used to not only take away the view, but take away life. That is an enormous gain in the quality of life for this country. Our amendment seeks to guarantee that we continue to make that gain. So we seek to restore $7.3 billion over 6 years for environmental protection funding. We seek to raise that funding to the President's requested level for three key environmental agencies--the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] itself, for the National Park Service [NPS], and for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA]. Mr. President, the President's budget and the Republican budget--here are two different views. These numbers are not rhetoric. The Republican budget seeks to cut $10.9 billion for environmental protection from the President's budget request over the next 6 years. The President's budget would, in fact, be cut severely by the Republican budget in the final year--fiscal year 2002. In 2002, the Republicans would cut by 20 percent the National Park Service budget. The President's budget for the National Park Service is extremely important given that the number of visits to our Nation's parks continue to increase and that steady pace of visits has taken its toll on many parks. For example, the Grand Canyon alone needs $350 million to repair roads, sewers, and water systems. In addition, over the last several years, Congress has added a substantial number of new responsibilities to the Park Service, while the core operational budget for the Park Service has remained flat in real terms since 1983. The Republican budget, in fiscal year 2002, would include a 12- percent cut for Superfund even though there are thousands of Superfund sites not yet cleaned up; at many sites cleanup efforts have not even started. It would mean a 9-percent cut for the EPA's water programs, even though there is city after city in America with decaying water infrastructure, with problems with pipes and sewers and combined sewer overflows. Nevertheless, there is a cut. It would provide a 23-percent cut for the Environmental Protection Agency's operations and enforcement programs, which is a way of gutting environmental protections and cleanups. If you do not have the inspectors--the environmental cops on the street--to go out to hold people accountable, then some people will take advantage of the system. Some people will cut corners on environmental measures or do nothing at all and pollution will occur, which is precisely why we are in the predicament we are in this country and, I might add, in every country in the world facing massive cleanups of toxic sites of poisons and of dirty water and of dirty air. There is a 21-percent cut for the EPA science and technology program which defies imagination when you measure what the Japanese are doing, what the Germans are doing, what other countries are rushing to do to create jobs in the new technologies that will clean up these environmental disasters. Why would the United States of America, the world's leader in many of these technologies, precisely because we have invested in them, suddenly retreat and disinvest? There is a 15-percent reduction in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's operations and research program. Mr. President, these cuts that the Republicans are proposing are more than just numbers on a page. They express a set of priorities. They express their vision of where expenditures ought to go. They have to be counterbalanced against the choices that have been made to fund the alternative of that money. Where does that money go? Does it go into deficit reduction? No. It does not go into deficit reduction. They are taking from these environmental priorities and giving to people who already are doing very well in the United States of America. That does not really make sense. So the question has to be asked, again and again and again, what are the priorities of our Nation? Let me give a specific example of what happens in my State of Massachusetts in the area of drinking water. Massachusetts and the Nation have made great strides in the past two decades on cleaning up our water. Massachusetts is probably one of the States providing higher expenditure in terms of efforts to safeguard our drinking water. Yet 17 percent of our citizens still drink from water systems that violate Federal water standards. We have over 1 million people in 80 communities who last year drank water that failed to meet the Federal standards. We have 300,000 people in 14 communities who drank water containing disease-causing fecal matter. There are over 800,000 people who drank water from water supplies that failed to meet the Environmental Protection Agency standard for adequate filtering and disinfecting of tap water. In Massachusetts, in 1994 and 1995, there were 141 water systems serving nearly 500,000 people that failed to meet the basic sanitary testing requirements for tap water. Mr. President, that is just my State. I could show those examples in States all across this country. Why are Americans going out and buying bottled water at a cost that far exceeds their water bills on an annual basis? The answer to that is because they do not trust the water systems. Why do they not trust the water systems? Because they know these kinds of statistics exist. It is our responsibility to be able to guarantee that those systems work. What is happening in the face of that responsibility? We are going to cut back on enforcement. We are going to cut back on water grants to States. It is absolutely mindless. We should be assisting communities with investments for new water systems and testing measures. We should be spending more to guarantee that our citizens are safe. That is the responsibility of Government. What we have here are two very differing views of what that responsibility is and how it ought to be carried out. Mr. President, we are seeking, as I said, $7.3 billion simply to bring the level back to what the President recommended for three key areas: the EPA, the Park Service, and NOAA. There are reasons for doing this. With respect to an agency such as NOAA, many people do not know what services NOAA provides that Americans use and depend on every day. For example, NOAA runs the National Weather Service which is vital to the Midwestern States, particularly, for farming disasters, for prediction of storms. It is NOAA's long-term oceanic and atmospheric research program that developed the 5-day weather forecast and just recently made possible the 6-day forecast. The weather service modernization at NOAA is now at a critical stage. The President's budget would allow us to finish the job we are doing of providing new technologies and restructuring in this NOAA field. Future weather satellite coverage, by these cuts, would be cut in half. That would result in a blackout if any working satellite failed. The funds that are here would allow NOAA to maintain its fleet of satellites, assuring that there would be no gaps in satellite coverage. This is critical for weather warnings, for hurricane storm prediction, avoiding disasters, and for many other defense and civilian-oriented programs. NOAA's research increases the reliability of hurricane predictions saving the nation billions of dollars in losses. NOAA's programs help protect human lives and property; it provides national security by supporting weather service modernization and operations. It is critical to our flight systems, to the safety of our transportation network, to our national fisheries and coast protection efforts. I am not going to continue on in this area. I do want to emphasize, Mr. President, we are really simply asking that we keep going down the road that America has decided it would like to go down. Regrettably, what will most likely happen here is we will have these cuts proposed by the Republicans; we will expend enormous amounts of energy debating these cuts that the American people do not want; and then we will come back later this year and will probably win some kind of a restoration in environmental funding. At least, I hope we will. In the end, we are just nickel-and-diming ourselves and disinvesting in one of the most important quality-of-life issues that really matter to our fellow citizens.

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

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I will be introducing two amendments on behalf of the leadership, one with respect to the environment and one with respect to education. I am joined on the education amendment by the distinguished Senator from Washington, Senator Murray. I will just proceed very rapidly on the environment one in order to dispose of it, and then we will spend a few minutes on the education one. Amendment No. 3990 (Purpose: To help protect the quality of our water and air, to clean up toxic waste, to protect our national parks and other natural resources, and to ensure adequate enforcement of environmental laws, by restoring proposed cuts in the environment and natural resources, to be offset by the extension of expired tax provisions or corporate and business tax reforms)

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I was originally scheduled to go at a later time. Because we were fogged in, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed with two amendments, which I was going to do later, at this moment in time and reserve such time on those amendments as is set aside for other colleagues on our side to be able to speak at a later time.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I inquire what the order is at this point in time, if there is an order, and, if there is not, I want to keep the floor.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I strongly support the amendment offered by the junior Senator of Minnesota to use the Tax Code creatively to help families afford higher education. While Republicans are cutting Pell grants and student loans for average working families, Democrats propose to give every family a $10,000 maximum deduction for tuition costs, and allow their sons or daughters who take out student loans to deduct the interest on those loans so the burden of debt they carry when they graduate will not be so great as it otherwise would be. These proposals are real-life solutions to real-life family problems. How can we say that people should go to college--everyone should receive the training they need--and then make it as difficult as we can to do it? We need to make it easier for Americans to afford the education and training they need to compete in a new global marketplace. The costs of college are rising rapidly. This year, the average undergraduate will pay up to 6 percent more than last year for tuition and fees at both 4-year and 2-year colleges. Parents putting children through college, adults returning to school, and graduates with student loan payments are all facing these costs. This tax deduction is targeted to middle-income families, to help ordinary Americans meet the costs of higher education. A full tax deduction would be available to two-income families earning up to $100,000, and single individuals earning up to $70,000. These tax deductions could be used for educational expenses at 4-year colleges and universities, community colleges, and vocational and professional schools. This amendment would help 16.5 million students across the country better afford the costs of higher education. This is in contrast to the Republican budget which caps the Federal direct student loan program at 20 percent of loan volume. This will result in disruptions for colleges and universities and real problems and uncertainty for students. Since schools participating in the direct loan program currently handle nearly 40 percent of loan volume, many will be forced out of the program. But the real reason Republicans are trying to mangle this successful program is to help assure banks and guarantee agencies continued access to Federal subsidies. Under the current Tax Code, although education expenses related to one's current job are tax deductible, education investments to prepare for new jobs and careers are not. This amendment would address this discrepancy. But beyond helping families pay for tuition costs, I want to help parents get the lifetime education and training they will need to compete. Investment in higher education is crucial to making sure that Americans are able to meet the challenges of jobs which require advanced skills. Statistics show that the more education a person has, the more money he or she will earn. We need to provide access to higher-paying jobs for students from all families, and this is an important step in that direction. Mr. President, in 1995 President Clinton proposed a deduction for tuition expenses. I was proud to support his proposal, but I did not believe it went far enough. I have heard from dozens, indeed hundreds, of Massachusetts students or the families of those students, about the difficulties they are experiencing in paying back the loans they have taken out in order to be able to afford post-high school education. Before the Senate Democratic leadership introduced the President's proposal, I urged that they expand the proposal to provide tax deductibility of interest paid on outstanding student loans, and they agreed that such a provision would be desirable and would offer real and important help to Americans who are seeking to improve their educational levels and their competitiveness as workers; the leadership group added tax deductibility of loan interest payments before they introduced the measure. I am pleased that the amendment we are debating today contains both these key features that will enable deduction from income taxes of both tuition and student loan interest payments. This is a solid amendment, Mr. President, which will help Americans to help themselves. I compliment the Senator from Minnesota for developing the amendment, the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, and his staff who have labored diligently to produce the Democratic leadership amendments and prepare them for floor action, and all other Senators who have been involved in assembling this amendment and bringing it to the floor. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, which takes a very significant step toward helping the 16.5 million students in colleges and universities to afford the education they need.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, during National Nursing Home Week, May 12- 18, we celebrate the more than 100,000 people in Massachusetts who live and work in our State's 590 nursing facilities. Nursing facilities have become an integral part of our health care delivery system, providing rehabilitative care for individuals who expect to return home as well as long-term care for the chronically ill. Currently, about a quarter of all Massachusetts residents 85 years of age and older need nursing facility care. Approximately half of these individuals suffer from Alzheimer's disease. In addition, nursing facilities also care for many younger people, including severely disabled children, individuals who have suffered traumatic head injuries, and those who depend on ventilators to live. Nursing facilities also make an important contribution to the Massachusetts economy by providing jobs for more than 55,000 people and adding more than $2 billion to the local economy through wages and the purchase of goods and services. As our population ages and nursing facilities assume an even more important role, it is critical that we maintain the quality of care provided by these facilities. Recent proposals to dramatically reduce Federal Medicare and Medicaid spending would have a devastating impact on elderly and disabled people in nursing facilities, 80 percent of whom rely on these two programs to pay for their care. In addition, we must maintain the protections contained in the 1987 nursing home reform law, which have helped nursing facilities to improve the quality of services they provide to the Nation's 1.5 million nursing facility residents. National Nursing Home Week should mark a renewal of our commitment not only to the 55,000 elders and disabled people who live in our State's nursing facilities, but also to the 55,000 nursing facility employees who have dedicated their lives to caring for our most vulnerable citizens. In honor of this week, I salute all these employees whose contributions are so important to the well-being of so many in Massachusetts.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today in support of Senator Rockefeller's amendment to reduce the size of the Medicare cuts to the level of the President's budget and to preserve the basic health care protections this nation now provides for senior citizens. Without Medicare, many and perhaps most of the 38 million Americans who are Medicare beneficiaries would have inadequate health care and treatment--or no treatment at all. This year's Republican budget would cut Medicare by $167 billion over 6 years, $50 billion more than the President's budget. This cut would reduce Medicare spending growth far below projected private sector growth rates, resulting in reduced quality and access to health care for millions of Americans. This year's Republican Medicare cuts are all too similar to last year's Medicare cuts. In their fiscal year 1996 budget, the Republicans would have cut Medicare by $270 billion over a 7 year period to finance a $245 billion tax cut primarily for America's wealthiest people. These cuts would have resulted in a $9.5 billion loss to Massachusetts alone over the next 7 years. These cuts, if allocated evenly among all beneficiaries, would have cost each of the 900,000 seniors and disabled people who depend on Medicare an additional $1,240 a year. But this year's Republican cuts in Medicare are still too large and will risk turning Medicare into a second-class system for seniors who cannot afford to opt out of the traditional Medicare Program through Medical Savings accounts. It is also amazing that Republicans still have not disavowed their intention to increase premiums to pay for a tax cut. Our Nation's senior citizens, with an average annual income of $17,000, spend more than 20 percent of their incomes on health care. Additional health care expenses would put an even greater burden on this population. I believe that Medicare can be reformed without totally dismantling the fundamental security that the system provides. The President's budget shows that premium increases, deep cuts, and damaging structural changes are not necessary to balance the budget and guarantee the solvency of the Medicare trust fund. By failing to identify and eliminate corporate subsidies, and adamantly insisting on tax cuts for the rich, the Republicans are forced to cut programs for middle-class Americans far deeper than the President's plan, and the Medicare Program is bearing the brunt of this attack. Medicare is a part of Social Security, a contract between the Government and the people. People pay into the trust fund during their working years and then receive good health care in their retirement years. The Republicans would break this fundamental contract with the American people. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment offered by Senator Rockefeller which I am proud to cosponsor. We must stop the Republicans from using the Medicare trust fund as a slush fund to pay for tax cuts. We must carefully and responsibly reform Medicare for the sake of preserving and strengthening Medicare and those who depend on it. The Republican budget really fails this test once again. In colloquial terms, Mr. President, ``They just don't get it.''

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment by the distinguished minority leader, Mr. Daschle, and the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Exon. I have been talking with the people of Massachusetts about this budget. The people of Leominster and Worcester and Falmouth don't come up to me and say: ``Senator, how does that spending compare to the OMB baseline?'' They don't scream out: ``What is the savings in the outyears compared with the savings in next fiscal year?'' They don't ask: ``What is the cap on entitlement spending?'' But, Mr. President, that does not mean that the people of Massachusetts are apathetic about the Federal budget. They want to know if the Congress is going to work with the President to balance the budget. And they want to know how the budget is going to help them. The proposal submitted to Congress by the President of the United States balances the budget. This proposal before us eliminates the deficit in 2002. When he came to office in 1993, the President worked with Democrats in Congress, and we took a $290 billion deficit and cut it in half in 3 years. That achievement fulfills the President's promise in 1992 to halve the deficit in his first term. America's deficit is still pernicious--but right now, we are doing better than any other nation in the world. Our deficit is smaller as a share of our economy than the shortfall in any other major economy in the world. Mr. President, let me state clearly: President Clinton and the Democrats in Congress worked together to enact this economic plan--and we did this without one single Republican vote. This budget reflects our priorities of deficit reduction without forgetting our commitment to middle-class Americans. Please remember, Mr. President, something the Republican Party seems to forget: Deficit reduction, in and of itself, is not an economic policy. It is part of a larger picture. It is part of a vision--the Democrats' vision--of this country's future which will lead us into the next century with a healthier American economy and a stronger middle class. That's good for America's corporate headquarters and America's households. Our plan has kept interest rates low, so more Americans have been able to buy a first home or a new car. Our plan has subdued inflation to 2.7 percent since 1993--the yield on 10-year Treasury notes dropped a full point when this plan was enacted. That helped alleviate the credit crunch which hurt so many of my friends and neighbors in Massachusetts during the Reagan-Bush recession. Our plan has created more than 8 million jobs--including 1 million jobs in basic industries like construction and manufacturing. It has fostered robust and steady growth of gross domestic product--unlike the recession of the early 1990's which crippled the American family. This proposal before us, the President's budget, continues our good record. It balances the budget the right way--by making Government smaller and more efficient, by promoting a strong economy and a healthy business environment, by investing in the programs that matter to working Americans. There is a right way to balance the budget--to make Government more efficient without ripping away the safety net from the American family. This budget leaves no one behind. It helps people who need help and closes loopholes on those who don't. The American people understand this, Mr. President. This is a budget which reflects their priorities. Mr. President, let me take a moment to tell our colleagues about the impact this budget has on the families in my home State of Massachusetts. The President's budget designates more American cities as empowerment zones--a program designed to stimulate community revitalization. Our colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, understands how important this program is to America's cities. He has introduced legislation which would expand the tax credits under the Empowerment Zone Program to cities designated as enterprise communities. I support his efforts and I support the President's expansion of the current successful program. The expansion promises to help communities across Massachusetts like Boston, Lowell, Springfield, and Lawrence. The President's budget will allow these cities and others to develop and expand opportunities for their residents through a series of tax benefits, social service grants, and better program coordination. At a time when some cities face high unemployment and high poverty rates, the Congress should be passing a budget which encourages economic growth and citizen participation in strategic plans for revitalization. We, Democrats, are fighting to expand empowerment zones while we hold back Republican attempts to distress our urban centers further by cutting services vital to low-income Americans, like the low-income tax credit. The President's budget commits a full $1 billion for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program in fiscal year 1997, $1 billion in advanced appropriations for fiscal year 1998 and $300 million for emergency funding. Mr. President, this past winter, my State survived one of the most brutal winters we have seen in a century. There was record snow in Boston and small towns all over New England. Families in Dorchester, in Everett, and in Malden--families all across Massachusetts--relied on LIHEAP to assist with staggering heating bills. This program literally kept families from freezing: I am proud the President has committed Federal resources necessary to meet the needs of working Americans, and I am discouraged that the Republican budget resolution is silent on funding for LIHEAP. The President and the Democrats are committed to the working families in Massachusetts and New England. The Republicans are silent. The President's budget proposes $200 million to electrify the Amtrak segment between Boston and New Haven--a project which will make possible high-speed rail travel between Boston and Washington, DC, by the year 2000. The President and Democrats commit $5.5 million to conservation and management of fisheries which would help restore New England's collapsed stock of cod, flounder, and haddock. The Republicans are silent. The President and the Democrats are fighting for $500 million in mass transit operating subsidies for Massachusetts. This means commuters to Boston will not constantly be asked to pay higher fares just to get to work. Republicans are silent. The President and the Democrats are fighting for $650 million for the Central Artery. The Republicans are silent. The President and the Democrats are fighting to expand the Summer Jobs Program which gives so many young people in Massachusetts their first work experience. This budget follows the wisdom of Mayor Menino who joined me in fighting against the Republican shut-downs earlier this year. He knew the effect these shut-downs would have on summer jobs. We forced them to open the Government, fund the Summer Jobs Program and we will together fight to expand it by giving another 500,000 kids a chance for employment. But, then as now, the Republicans are silent. The President and the Democrats are fighting the AIDS epidemic and have committed resources to highly affected cities like Boston by fully funding the Ryan White CARE Program. This means nutrition services to people living with AIDS, and testing and counseling for those who fear HIV-infection, will continue at the AIDS services organizations across the State. The Republicans are silent. The President and the Democrats are fighting for $100 million for the clean-up of Boston Harbor, and the Republicans are silent. That silence is unacceptable, Mr. President. I will do all I can to break the silence. I will come to the floor as often as possible and discuss the ill-effects of the Republican budget. If the President's proposal is not accepted by the Senate, I will not give up on the environment. I will offer an amendment at a later stage in this debate, and I will fight to restore drastic cuts in environmental programs the Republicans have imposed on the American people and the residents of Massachusetts. And, while we fight to clean our air and our water, the Republicans have locked arms against the American taxpayers. The Republican plan slashes funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and allows polluters to foist the tab for their mess on the taxpayers rather than forcing the polluters to clean up after themselves. If the President's budget is not accepted, I will offer an amendment that recognizes education as the key to economic and income security. I will offer an amendment to add-back the cuts the Republicans are making to the President's plan. I am proud he has included a provision for which I have been fighting in this Congress--the President's budget calls for a $10,000 deduction for educational expenses. That is real money to working families who face double-digit inflation in the cost of higher education. Real money to help real people. Listen to some of the letters I have received recently: Melvin Harris of Roxbury wrote to me: My son is currently attending school at Morgan State University in Baltimore. He and I were shocked to find that federal funds had been cut drastically which he was depending on. With me being a retiree, it is hard for me to pay his tuition, room and board. Would you please do something to help me? The President's budget will help Mr. Harris. Timothy Crawford of Wellesley wrote to me: As a senior in high school, I am looking forward to going away to college next year. I have worked hard to get good grades throughout high school and have been accepted to good schools and am now trying to make the decision of where to attend. One very important part of my decision is the price of the school and the assistance I can get. I am afraid the Republicans in our government will cut education programs and I may not be able to attend college, my brother may not be able to attend college, or we have to work out a plan so that one of us goes to college while the other works. I hope you will continue to support education and do something to help us. The President's proposal will help Timothy Crawford and his family. I have dozens of letters from students at Wellesley College. And, hundreds of letters from physicians and attorneys who cannot repay their student loans, and millworkers and musicians who ask for help sending their kids to college. And, the President's proposal will help them all. The President has learned from Massachusetts the importance of science and technology to the American economy. This budget marks the fourth straight year the Democrats have proposed an increase in science and technology programs--while the Republicans would cut science and technology programs by 30 percent by the year 2002. I will fight for the President's proposal for an increase of $13 billion for university-based research: it is the key to America's future. And, Massachusetts knows this better than almost every other State in the Union. The President and the Democrats have given us a chance to fight back against crime in our neighborhoods. This budget proposes $2 billion for 49,000 new police officers to protect America's neighborhoods. Putting additional cops on the beat in communities across Massachusetts will help deter crime, break the cycle of violence, and make our towns and neighbhoods safer places to live. In 1994, I fought successfully to increase the funding in the crime bill to put an additional 100,000 cops on the street by the year 2000. And, it is paying off for Massachusetts. Just this week, 99 Massachusetts cities will receive more funding--Worcester will receive $1.85 million to hire 18 officers. Springfield will receive $1.25 million to hire 17 officers and Lowell will receive $1.5 million to hire 20 new officers. To date, thanks to this program, my home State has received funding for 1,300 new police men and women. While the Republicans continue to threaten the community policing fund--jeopardizing the safety of corner stores and neighborhood schools and households--the President's budget understands the needs of Massachusetts' neighborhoods. That's why I support this proposal. The President and the Democrats also propose $25 million for new advanced police officer education and training. State and local police departments need assistance to meet the growing demands of law enforcement and I am prepared to fight to help them. And, Mr. President, what do we hear from the other side of the aisle? The same, war-torn, threadbare rhetoric about tax and spending. The same partisan bickering. Is this proposal all tax and spend? Of course not. The President's budget is certified by the Congressional Budget Office to balance in 6 years. It protects the environment. It protects our elderly. It funds education and puts cops on the street. It takes care of the little guy. In the face of the extreme Republican budget, the President and we, Democrats, have given the country hope by reducing the deficit with common sense and compassion. It saves the Medicare Program for our seniors, and the Medicaid Program for our children and low-income Americans. My friends in Massachusetts just don't buy it when you tell them: ``this isn't a cut--it's merely a reduction in the growth of spending.'' They understand that the extreme Republican budget forces them to spending twice as much on Medicare premiums. They understand that Cape Cod beaches will be under attack, and Boston harbor clean-up will be stalled while their water and sewer rates are skyrocketing. They understand that they are paying into the system and--under the Republican plan--they will be getting little in return. They understand that when the Republicans are not speaking in arcane, incomprehensible, confusing budget jargon--they are silent. The President's budget speaks to the people I meet at home in Massachusetts. This budget meets our spending priorities and promises more good economic news for the American family. That is why I support it. I urge our colleagues to support his balanced budget. Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, as we observe National Police Week, I want to pay a special tribute to one police family in Massachusetts. For the third year in a row, a group of 46 officers and friends from Massachusetts rode the 600 miles to Washington on their bicycles to attend ceremonies at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial to honor those who have fallen in the line of duty. Among that group is Officer Paul Gaines and his three sons, Kevin, 10 years old; Stephen, 12; and Shawn, 14. Back at home, and missing her sons on Mother's Day is Sgt. Gladys Gaines, head of the Boston Police Department's domestic violence unit. This remarkable family is an inspiration to all of us. While dysfunctional families who raise troubled children make the news, Paul and Gladys Gaines have obviously imparted to their children high moral values and a sense of responsibility to family and community, their own family, the family of brother and sister law enforcement officers, and the larger community of the Commonwealth. I want to pay tribute to the Gaines family and to the work they do as police officers and as parents.