Jack Reed

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today, March 7, 2006, we celebrate the 16th annual National Sportsmanship Day. Begun in 1991 by the Institute for International Sport at the University of Rhode Island, this initiative promotes the highest ideals of sportsmanship and fair play among America's youth. In 13,000 schools, across all 50 States, and in countries around the world, students, teachers, administrators, coaches, and parents will engage in discussions on the issues of sportsmanship and fair play. The theme of this year's National Sportsmanship Day is ``Defeat Gamesmanship!'' and participants will talk about appropriate tactics and strategies when participating in games and sports. This year, in addition to promoting the values of sportsmanship and fair play, the Institute for International Sport will recognize schools across the country that have exceptional sportsmanship programs with the new All-American Sportsmanship School Award. A minimum of 64 awards will be given out to elementary, middle, and high schools as well as colleges that participate in National Sportsmanship Day and honor its principles year round. I am proud that Rhode Island is home to the Institute for International Sport and National Sportsmanship Day. For 16 years, this initiative has had a positive influence on our Nation's youth in promoting the best in athletics, and I know it will continue to do so this year and in the future.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, we are here because people are suffering throughout the country, most particularly the coldest States. Americans throughout this country--in the southland and in the northwest--understand that in Maine in the winter and in Washington State in the winter, people are freezing. Senator Collins' very poignant and very telling story about what happens when people are desperately cold should be remembered by all of us. I think it is astounding that we talk about poor people, trying to help them with a little bit of money for their heat and suggest that we take it from other poor people who use TANF money to feed their children so the other people can have heat. We talk of being responsible and say: Now we have to cut the deficit. I didn't hear that message weeks ago when we were talking about huge tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest Americans. That was not being responsible. We have a chance to help people, a last chance to help people this year who are literally freezing. It we do not take it, shame on us.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, yesterday I opposed cloture on S. 2271, the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006. Although I support Senator Sununu's bill, I voted against ending debate on it because Members of the Senate should have the right to offer amendments to this legislation, which implicates some very weighty constitutional and civil liberty issues. Today, I voted in support of S. 2271 on its merits because I believe it improves the PATRIOT Act conference report. I will continue to work with Senators Feingold, Specter, and others to make more improvements such as those included in the bipartisan Senate PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill, which passed unanimously last July.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, my motion to instruct conferees is simple. Our Army and Marine Corps have been engaged in combat operations for several years now. Their equipment is in a very difficult situation. It is estimated this year alone that the Army will need about $13.7 billion simply to repair the equipment, not to buy new equipment, that has been used in combat. The Marine Corps will need approximately $7.5 billion. My instruction would simply say allocate $50 billion and pay for it by taking the capital gains and dividend preferences being awarded in this tax reconciliation bill. I think it makes a great deal more sense to give our troops the best equipment we can have rather than to give upper income Americans another tax break. It is very simple: Are we going to give our troops a dividend in good functioning equipment or are we going to give the dividend to the wealthiest Americans?

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

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I find myself, as I so often do, agreeing with my colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. It is exactly about priorities. It is about whether the wealthiest, most affluent people in this country will enjoy a tax break or whether more fundamental needs of our Nation will be served. Senator Dodd pointed to the issue of returning veterans. Again, I was pleased to travel with Senator Dodd last October to Iraq to visit with our soldiers: marines, airmen, sailors--all of our outstanding men and women in uniform. When they come home, they need the kind of support that the fund Senator Dodd identified would give them. But there is even a more immediate concern to our Armed Forces today: $50 billion in equipment that has to be rehabilitated, refurbished, brought up to operating conditions, so these men and women can continue their operations on behalf of America. I can tell you, as someone who had the privilege of commanding a company of paratroopers, the most disconcerting concept, the most disconcerting and troubling aspect, is when your equipment is poorly maintained, will not operate, is inefficient, out of date. That drives morale down as rapidly as anything. We have--not unexpectedly because of the conflict in which we are engaged--seen our equipment stocks become overused, both aviation equipment and ground equipment: trucks, vehicles, humvees--all of them have taken a terrible beating in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Just 2 weeks ago, this body agreed with my proposal to spend $50 billion to refurbish this equipment. But as Senator Dodd pointed out, they did not agree with the way we would pay for it. In fact, the proposal was really just oratory. It says: Let's spend $50 billion which we do not have to help the military refurbish their equipment. We have to do better than that because, as the Senator pointed out, without funding, that is all well-wishes without real results. And we need real results for the men and women of our military forces. The administration is quick to point out that we are a nation at war. That is true, although in some respects we are simply an Army and a Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, at war because the American people have not been called upon to sacrifice very much, if anything. Here we are making the point--I think it is so obvious--that the wealthiest Americans, those who enjoy the benefits of this great country, I believe would be quite willing to give up their tax break on dividends and capital gains if they knew these funds would be directed to precisely the programs I am talking about: refurbishing military equipment or caring for veterans. There are many reasons to oppose the extension of the lower tax rates and dividends and capital gains, many macroeconomic reasons, many reasons in terms of our fiscal problems and in terms of our growing deficit. But one of the reasons is just the way it is distributed. Forty-five percent of the tax cut goes to .3 percent of families with incomes of $1 million or more. Seventy-two percent of the tax cut goes to families with incomes of $200,000 or more. Now, in a time when our troops are being sent into the field--at times they are complaining or have complained about inadequate equipment, insufficient equipment--at a time when they are looking around and seeing their equipment stocks being drawn down and being overused, I believe it is time to ask: What is our priority, the protection of our military forces in the field or providing additional benefits to those who have so much in society today? I think it is more important to direct these funds to our military forces. We have to do it, particularly with respect to the equipment of the Army and the Marine Corps. As Senator Dodd indicated, I had the privilege of traveling with him last October, but I just came back from my seventh trip to Iraq and fourth trip to Afghanistan. Once you are there, you understand the professionalism, skill, valor, fidelity to duty and country of these marvelous men and women. You also understand that the equipment is wearing down. The equipment has to be fixed. Because they depend upon this equipment for their lives, we can't tolerate equipment that won't operate properly. A recent article in USA Today noted that the war in Iraq has taken the biggest toll on military equipment since the Vietnam war. Two weeks ago, the National Security Advisory Group, chaired by former Secretary of Defense William Perry, released a report about the strain and risk to our military. In their words: Given the harsh environment of Iraq and Afghanistan, [resetting the force]-- that is, rehabilitating this equipment and repairing it-- is proving more extensive and expensive than in previous operations. Estimates of the costs of rehabilitating Army equipment coming back from operations overseas continues to grow . . . in addition, both the Army and the Marine Corps expect to see increasing costs associated with recapitalizing aging forces and transforming their capabilities for a broader range of 21st century missions. Gary Motsek, the Army's deputy director for support operations at the U.S. Army Materiel Command, has stated that the Army has to repair virtually everything that goes to Iraq. Last week, General Schoomacher, the Chief of Staff of the Army, appeared before the Armed Services Committee. When I asked him what the reset and recap cost for the Army was, he replied: $4 billion per year over the next 6 years. What I have since discovered--and this might be of some confusion in terms of trying to interpret a difficult and complicated budget--is that his reply doesn't cover the whole situation and doesn't provide an entire explanation of what is going on. First, I believe the Chief of Staff was discussing the repair and replacement cost, which is projected to be $24 billion over the next 6 years. He did not include recapitalization which is an additional $12 billion over the next 6 years. So the actual projected cost over 6 years is $36 billion. Second, this projection assumes a significant drawdown of troops beginning at the start of fiscal 2007 and ending in December 2008, when there are, according to the projections, no troops in Iraq. I believe this assumption is rather unrealistic and, therefore, we must assume that the reset and recapitalization costs will be significantly higher. Again, it is very difficult to parse out all of the different assumptions and other notions that are included in the budget, but the sense is that they are assuming, at least when it comes to maneuver units, that these units will essentially be drawn down within 2 years. That is a highly problematic assumption, but one that is within the President's budget. In addition, General Schoomacher's number assumes that we do not leave a single piece of equipment behind for the Iraqis. Yet I have been privy to discussions here in Congress and elsewhere in which there is a notion that we will leave significant equipment behind in Iraq to provide their security forces with the kind of equipment they need to operate. If we do leave equipment for them, the replacement costs, which are an element of reset and recap costs, will increase. A much more accurate picture of this notion of what we must do to repair and rehabilitate our equipment, or reset and recap, is the actual bill we have for fiscal year 2006, what we are paying for in this fiscal year. The Army has determined that the cost of resetting, recapping, and replacing equipment lost in battle for fiscal year 2006 is $13.6 billion. As long as we have approximately the same number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq as we do today, and we have the same tempo of operation, then that $13.6 billion cost will be an annual occurrence. As troops draw down, that funding level could go down from $13.6 billion, but significant costs will continue to accrue until 2 years after the end of the conflict. So the annual $13.6 billion price tag supports the opinion of GEN Paul Kern, who just retired as head of the Army Materiel Command. He stated that fixing and replacing Army equipment alone could run from $60 to $100 billion. If you step back and look at what we are encountering today in terms of costs, it is about $13 billion. Every year we are in Iraq at this level of operational strength, it will be roughly that. That is a lot more money than this budget anticipates. And so we have a huge unmet need to fund simple recapitalization and reequipment, rehabilitation, whatever term you want to use. But essentially, so that we understand it, it is simply going back and fixing all the equipment we have been using so aggressively in these different theaters. That doesn't buy you a new Army. It doesn't buy you a transformed Army with new, modern equipment. It simply gives you back the equipment you brought into battle in a condition that you can use it in other hostile environments. This $13 billion seems to be the kind of level of spending we are going to have to face year in and year out, as long as we are deployed, as we are, in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is the figure we have to react to. As a result, it is only prudent and sensible that for this $50 billion total we talked about for a 5-year period, that people support the concept of spending that kind of money. But, of course, what they refuse to do is put real assets, real resources to pay the bills. And that is the thrust of my proposal. I tried previously, in our debate a few days ago, to say that not only must we spend this money, we have to set priorities. We have to take those funds from the capital gains and dividends taxes and apply them to this fundamental need of our men and women in uniform. That is the Army I was just talking about. Let's turn to the Marine Corps. Last November, the Marine Corps estimated it would cost $11.7 billion to repair and replace their equipment over the next 5 years. These are, again, costs that have already been incurred. These costs are not included, as far as we can determine, in the President's budget request. We have also discovered that the Air Force is concerned about the cost of additional flying hours and the wear and tear on their equipment. Again, we could not find explicit recognition of these costs in the President's budget. Last October, the GAO released a report on military readiness. It assessed the state of 30 pieces of equipment, predominantly tanks, vehicles, helicopters, and aircraft. It made several disturbing observations, stating: GAO's analysis showed that the reported readiness rates declined between fiscal years 1999 and 2004 for most of these items. The decline in readiness, which occurred more markedly in fiscal years 2003 and 2004, generally resulted from 1. the continued high use of equipment to support current operations and 2. maintenance issues caused by the advancing ages and complexity of the systems. Key equipment items--such as Army and Marine Corps trucks, combat vehicles, and rotary wing aircraft--have been used well beyond normal peacetime use during deployments in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report then goes on to say: Until the DOD ensures that condition issues for key equipment are addressed, DOD risks a continued decline in readiness trends, which could threaten its ability to continue meeting mission requirements. The military services have not fully identified near and long term program strategies and funding plans to ensure that all of the 30 selected equipment items can meet defense requirements. I don't think there is anything startling in the sense of their conclusion. They are stating what should be obvious. We have committed our Army and Marine Corps to battle in a very harsh environment, Iraq and Afghanistan. We are operating at robust tempos of operation. This equipment is seeing the results. We have to provide for that. What is disturbing to me is that this readiness trend portends danger in the future. If readiness is declining, if it is not reversed, if we are asking the soldiers and marines to operate equipment that is not 100 percent, that is not fully supported by ample spare parts, that has not been rehauled, overhauled, rehabilitated, then we are putting our troops in a precarious position which we should not. The response, the answer? This one is relatively straightforward. Give them the money to do the job and give them sufficient resources to do so. Another GAO report states that more than 101,000 pieces of National Guard equipment, including trucks, radios, and night vision devices, have been sent to soldiers in operations overseas. This means the Guard does not have the equipment it needs to respond to crises here. This problem was exemplified during Katrina when the Guard stated that its communications equipment had been abroad and, therefore, it was unable to operate effectively in the aftermath of that disaster. Another impact that we all hear about is the condition of National Guard equipment. Their equipment has been sent overseas and left overseas. Their equipment is also being used intensively in these operations. We have to restore and rehabilitate the National Guard equipment also. They have several missions. One critical mission is not only homeland security but preparedness for natural disasters and consequent management. This week, Wednesday, the other body will release a report on Katrina. I am interested to see what it will say in terms of the National Guard's ability to respond, their equipment, the fact that they have been tasked to go overseas, personnel and equipment. But we have to remind ourselves that we can't neglect the Guard also. These reports, the GAO reports particularly, should have us thinking seriously about what we must do today. Again, it comes down to priorities. Secretary Rumsfeld is right about the fact that our troops are performing magnificently well. They are superb professionals doing a remarkable job. But in order to keep that edge, they have to have the equipment and the support to be the best they are. Secretary Rumsfeld says that Perry report and another report by Andy Krepenevich, which the Pentagon paid for, were looking at all material when they found that the military was strained. We are not looking at all material. We are looking today at what we believe, based upon review of the budget, based upon discussions with military personnel, is the condition of this equipment, and the need exists to fix it. We do have the finest fighting force in the world, but we have to make sure it has the finest equipment in the world. Secretary Perry made the following recommendation at the conclusion of his report: In order to restore the health of U.S. ground forces in the wake of Iraq, the nation must step up and invest substantial resources to reset, recapitalize, and modernize the force . . . Restoring the health of both services is not a matter of simply returning them to the status quo; it is a matter of that they are organized, trained, equipped, and restored to meet the full range of traditional and nontraditional challenges in the future. Next year alone the Army needs about $13.6 billion and the Marine Corps needs about $7.5 billion for reset and recap, as they call it, of their equipment. This was not included in the President's budget request. If it is not paid for with supplemental funding, the troops will have to go without, which we can all agree is not acceptable. Nothing makes our troops more vulnerable or lowers morale more rapidly than working with inadequate equipment. If the $20 billion reset and recap bill for this year alone is paid for with supplemental funding, this will add directly to our deficit. I believe with the growing size of this deficit, we should not add to it, that we should do what we can to try to prevent increased deficits. This is a time for Americans to come forward to share in the sacrifice of our men and women overseas. Particularly when it comes to a tax proposal that benefits the wealthiest Americans, I think we would be more than willing to do so, knowing that these funds could be used directly for the welfare of our soldiers in the field and for the security of the United States. Our men and women have volunteered to risk their lives. I believe we have to risk perhaps a little political capital and instead of providing these tax cuts to the very wealthiest Americans, provide a dividend to our soldiers and marines in the form of better equipment. Fifty billion in funding retained from not extending capital gains cuts and dividends cuts could pay for this. That is the essence of my instruction. It is one thing to stand on this floor as a huge majority and say: We understand our troops need $50 billion to rehabilitate their equipment. It is something else to stand up and make a tough choice, set a priority, pay for it. My instruction will do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I send a motion to instruct conferees to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

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

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, the following States have exhausted their LIHEAP funding or will do so by the end of the month: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, New Hampshire, Washington, and Ohio. This is a broad-based problem, transcending all regions of the country and, again, a direct reflection of high energy prices and falling temperatures. High energy prices are threatening the health and economic well-being of low-income families and seniors across the United States and we must provide additional LIHEAP funding this winter. On Tuesday, the Energy Information Administration released its Short- Term Energy Outlook. The data was not encouraging. Despite our relatively mild winter, households heating primarily with natural gas can expect to spend 24 percent more on fuel this winter than last winter. If a household is heating with oil, it can expect to pay 16 percent more. Those households depending on propane can expect to pay 14 percent more this winter than last. And to quote the EIA, the Energy Information Administration: Should colder-than-normal weather occur for the remainder of the heating season, expenditures could be significantly higher than currently projected. These are costs that are piling up on working families and at the same time they are seeing their wages stagnate, not keeping up with inflation and not keeping up, certainly, with energy costs. Working families are continuing to lose ground, meaning more families need LIHEAP assistance as a result. So the paychecks are being stretched thinner and thinner as families face higher prices for home heating, in addition to health care, in addition to education. So we have to do something, and I believe we should do something. At least five times over the last several months, the Senate has, by majority vote, supported an increase in LIHEAP spending at least to the $2 billion mark. But, because of the procedural rules, budget objections, we could not prevail, even though we had a majority of Senators on both sides of the aisle. I think that sends a strong signal that not only can we act, we should act. Now I will urge the majority leader to take immediate action to help these low-income Americans by bringing a measure to the floor that provides the full $2 billion in additional LIHEAP funding. And, I also ask the President, and the White House to stand on the side of American families to urge this to be done. They should release a public statement supporting additional LIHEAP funding. Also, the White House can act immediately by releasing the remaining $100 million in LIHEAP contingency funds provided in the fiscal year 2006 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations bill. If you go back to the Governors of our States, who are close to this problem, if you look at the States that are exhausting their LIHEAP funds--and it is still only February--we could have 8 more weeks of rather cold temperatures. Indeed, if the weather evens out, we should have 8 more weeks of cold temperatures because it has been mild to this point. But these States of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, New Hampshire, Washington, and Ohio need this assistance and we should give it to them. The Budget I will make more general comments about the budget. Part of it is, of course, the inability to respond to the heating crisis. I think there is a much greater set of issues confronting us with the budget the President sent up. I have deep concerns about the President's fiscal year 2007 budget. It neither meets the pressing needs of the American people nor addresses the long-term challenges that lie ahead. Clearly, we are in for another year of policies that do not help the average family or bring down the deficit. I suspect these are the two major criteria most Americans will judge this budget on: Will it assist families, working families, in the country to move forward? Will it begin to tackle some of the long-term problems we face? It is tremendously disappointing that the President's budget has cut funding for programs that are important and vital to the well-being of children, education, economic success, and the safety of Americans. While the budget was appropriately invested in national security, it unfortunately leaves our citizens behind here at home in many different capacities. In addition, the President's budget seeks to make costly tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans permanent, at a time when we are facing one of the largest deficits in the history of the country. The administration strains to show progress reducing the deficit, but in fact it exaggerates the deficit in the short run and understates it in the future by leaving out big-ticket items, such as war costs. We will shortly receive an approximately $100 billion supplemental for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be unfortunate not to support our troops in the field, but we have responsibilities of not only supporting troops in the field but doing it in a responsible way. And it is not by accumulating each year billions of dollars in supplemental appropriations; it is in trying to deal with these costs. Certainly it is including those costs in any projection of the way ahead with respect to the budget of the President. The President also has not clearly indicated how we are going to attempt to fix the alternative minimum tax. This is a tax which is gradually encroaching on the middle class of America. It was originally designed to provide default for those wealthier Americans who could, through very shrewd but legal tax planning, avoid any significant tax liability. Now, because of the design of our tax system, it is reaching down into the middle class. It is a multibillion-dollar problem we have to address. Once again, that is not in the budget. We know these large deficits will increasingly hamper our ability to sustain the economy in the long run. And no matter how rosy a picture the administration tries to paint, neither the President nor future fiscal outlooks look particularly bright given this current deficit situation. This first chart shows what has happened over the last several years. When President Bush took office, the Congressional Budget Office projected large and growing Federal budget surpluses under existing laws and policies, the so-called baseline. We can see in the year 2000 there was a $236 billion surplus. That was projected to go to $281 billion, $313 billion, $359 billion, all the way to the year 2006 with a $505 billion surplus. That is the projection. The reality is the surplus has been declining, until 2002 it reached a minus $158 billion, a deficit of $158 billion, and the numbers go down, go down in 2004 to $413 billion. There was a slight improvement, and one can argue about whether that is a one-time phenomenon based on some tax provisions we passed. The forecast of CBO for 2006 is $337 billion. That is a huge swing just at a time when we are approaching significant challenges with respect to the baby boom generation in Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. This has been a huge reversal of fortunes. In 2000, CBO was predicting a $5.6 trillion 10-year surplus from 2002 to 2011. This has turned into a deficit of $2.7 trillion. That is, by my rough calculation, roughly an $8 billion swing from positive to minus. One can just see the difference in 2006: a $505 billion surplus to a $337 billion deficit. That is an $800 billion-plus swing between the projections and the reality, the result of the policies the President has adopted, the result of some costs which could not be avoided-- certainly in response to 9/11--but many other costs which were capable of being, if not avoided, then properly funded. Certainly the tax cuts contribute significantly each step of the way as we go forward. Instead of sound budget policies preparing for the immediate retirement of the baby boom generation, the Bush administration and the majority of Congress have refused to adopt the kind of budget enforcement rules which help achieve fiscal discipline in the 1990s. Let me remind you that when I arrived in the Congress in 1990, taking office in the House in 1991, we were looking at continuous deficits many years preceding and projected to go forward. We adopted not only budget rules but budget policies. They were not supported by the Republicans. This was a Democratic initiative of President Clinton together with a Democratic Congress that actually reversed the situation. So this number, $236 billion, was the result of quite aggressive and quite responsible actions in the 1990s by Democrats and a Democratic President to move from deficits to surpluses to begin to store up what we thought would be surpluses so that we could deal realistically and fairly with the oncoming and expected issue of demographic change in the United States of an older population increasingly aging and requiring additional services. All of this was reversed through the policies of the Bush administration. We have pursued a policy, as I mentioned before, of trying to stabilize and reconstruct Iraq by supplementals, not by including even a fraction or a significant fraction of the known cost in our underlying budget. Having taken at least seven trips to Iraq and four to Afghanistan, I can tell you it is a long-term process to do it right, to get it to a point where it is not worse off than it would have been without our intervention. That takes resources. We have also had these tax cuts which continue to sap our strength. If we look at the Bush tax cuts, they are nearly 90 times larger for millionaires than for middle-income households, hugely disproportionate, having adverse macroeconomic effects, having adverse fiscal effects in terms of the budget, and not helping the families who all of us will stand up here and pledge are at the top of our list to help: those low- and middle-income families who are struggling with increased costs. This is astronomical. Families are struggling with health care, retirement issues, loss of jobs, stable employment--one does not have to go across this country too far to see communities that have been traumatized by closing factories. Every time we listen to a news report, we are hearing another company, another major company, such as Ford and others, say they are closing factories. That impact is severe and traumatic to families. They are grappling with that and retirement funds which seem to be evaporating. People who worked their whole lives and thought they would have adequate retirement and health care from their employers are finding that is becoming almost a mirage, in some cases, and at the same time, there are usually disproportionate tax advantages through these tax cuts given to the wealthiest Americans. The average amount of the 2001 to 2004 tax cuts for households of more than $1 million of income was $103,000 in 2005. The comparable figure for those households between $50,000 and $75,000 in household income is $1,200, most of which is probably eaten up before they receive it by increases in health costs, increases in energy costs, increases in the cost of simply trying to get by day to day. Middle and lower income families are paying a price for these tax cuts, and it is a price they are finding very difficult to bear each day going forward. There are specific areas of concern in this budget which have to be mentioned. With respect to health care, the President, during his State of the Union Address, said that it is the Government's responsibility ``to provide health care for the poor and the elderly.'' But his budget proposal only serves to undermine the commitment of our Nation to care for those less fortunate. The President spoke about access to care and proposed a modest increase in funding for community health centers. At the same time, however, his budget eliminates funding to those programs which educate and train the medical personnel who are necessary to provide high-quality, culturally competent care to those who will be served in these facilities. We are literally disinvesting in those long-term assets--in this case, the human assets of highly trained physicians and physician assistants and nurses and technicians we will need to man this health care system going forward. We can look at the projections. The huge increase in seniors requires additional resources and additional redeployment of these resources. That is not taking place in this budget. I am also disappointed that the budget provides no additional funding for nursing education at a time when my State of Rhode Island and every State in the country is seeing a huge demand for nursing care. The nurses are a vital component of our health care system. In my State of Rhode Island, they are reaching out across the globe, spending three or four times what it costs to hire a local American nurse simply to fill their ward so they can continue to function. This is an irony, too, because we are all looking for those jobs and those skills which will not be shipped overseas, which will not be digitized and sent away. Nursing is one of these high-quality skills. So it is not only for health care benefits, it is also for economic development. Yet we are struggling to try to help the nursing profession provide the resources to train new nurses in America. The result, of course, is we are taking them from overseas. This might benefit us in the short run but not in the long run. We have to ask ourselves: What is it doing to the health care systems in places such as the Philippines and other countries that are struggling to have adequately trained professionals in their ranks? We are essentially reaching out and taking them away. We have to do better. We can do better. The budget eliminates funding for primary care and allied health professional training under title VII and decimates the scholarship program designed to encourage more disadvantaged and minority students to enter the health care workforce. Here again, we are trying to match up the talent and skills of Americans with the jobs we need to do, and we know we will need to do them in the future. That does not make sense to me. His budget also eliminates the Universal Newborn Screening Program and the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program which help States institute effective newborn screening programs and promote research through improved trauma care for children. There is no one in either body who will come to this floor and not speak about our obligation to the children of America. This is the sanctity of protecting them. But here are programs that operate effectively and efficiently to do that--screening newborns to detect very early if they have medical problems we must deal with rather than waiting later when these problems have, in some cases, overwhelmed the child and the family. This is a sensible, efficient approach to delivering health care services. It is not being supported in the budget. The National Institutes of Health, the leading source of basic biomedical research, is also facing a reversal in funding. Less than 2 months ago, President Bush signed into law the first cut to NIH funding since 1970. Now he is proposing to cut funding to 18 of the 19 institutes, including the institutes conducting research on cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. The National Institutes of Health, over the last several years, has been an example of a bipartisan commitment to raising their funding level, recognizing, again, that in order to confront health care issues in the country, we need the infrastructure of research, and not just to deliver effective treatment, but also we hope to get a bit of a handle on the explosion of costs in the health care system. When we stop investing adequately in the National Institutes of Health, we are locking ourselves into a situation where we will not have the new breakthrough drugs, the new breakthrough technologies, and we will not be able to deal with the host of issues confronting us. This is, again, a reversal of a decade of progress on a bipartisan basis to keep funding robustly the National Institutes of Health. Health care services essential to our elderly population also were not spared. His proposed cuts to Medicare will inflict pain on the Nation's elderly without solving the growing cost of health care. We all have to recognize, given demographics, given changes in the delivery of medicine, that the cost of health care has to be addressed. Not very much of what the President is doing is designed to address that cost. This is an issue which transcends party, transcends reason, transcends all of our individual interests, and it needs leadership by the President. This budget is simply tweaking and cutting adversely benefits to seniors and not dealing in a responsible way with the acceleration of costs. Medicare providers have already borne the brunt of several years of payment freezes and reductions, and once again, they are going to be included in this budget proposal. I am also dismayed about the proposal to further cut home health care providers. The President talks about the importance of increasing access to home- and community-based services for the elderly and disabled seeking alternatives to traditional institutional-based care, but by cutting reimbursements to home health care providers, this budget sets in motion the exact opposite policy. Instead of encouraging people to move out of institutional-based care, which is typically more expensive, into home-based care, this policy would reverse that trend. Medicare spending on home health care has already fallen dramatically, from 8.7 percent in 1997 to 3.8 percent in 2005. There has been a squeeze on home health care and I think eventually that squeeze will provide a real disincentive for using what is both humane and efficient and effective care for seniors. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, projects a decline of 2.6 percent of total spending by 2015 in the absence of a 2006 payment freeze. So what we are seeing is the rhetoric talks about the logic of moving people from expensive institutional care, hospitals, and other settings, into their homes. And, frankly, most people I know who are sick, the first thing they want to do is get out of that hospital. They recognize the wonderful care they are getting but to be home is just as helpful sometimes as any type of prescription in recovery for an individual. Yet we are contradicting that sensible policy in this budget. With respect to education, we also see some of these cuts that are impacting adversely our educational programs at a time when everyone stands up and says we are in a global economy and we need to have the best educated students in the world. We have to emphasize programs that will make us competitive because we are in a struggle that is going to define the future of this country, its prosperity--indeed, its security. That struggle rests in large part on providing generation after generation of well-educated Americans. We have new challenges. New Americans coming from around the globe who are coming into our public school systems require language training and cultural sensitivity and a host of other challenges that, frankly, didn't exist in the 1950s when I was going to grammar school and high school--grammar school at least. These challenges have to be met, and they cannot be ignored. The President's budget, once again, showed his promise to retain America's competitive edge is not a promise that is backed up by the resources that are necessary. We understand we have to invest in math and science. This is increasingly a more technologically driven world. We are looking at countries around the globe, China and India, that are committed to bringing up their math and science capabilities. They have literally hundreds of millions of talented, bright people. They are beginning to make their presence on the world scene felt, their economic presence particularly. They are devoted to education. We have to be, also. That requires emphasis on math and science. But our students need more than just that; they need literacy and history and, most of all, qualified teachers in every subject matter. The President's budget proposes a $2.1 billion cut to Federal education funding. This is the largest proposed cut in the 26-year history of the Department of Education, at a time when the President and his Cabinet stand up and say this is probably the most important thing we can do to build the economic strength and vitality of America for the next several decades. Once again, the President has proposed eliminating the LEAP program. This is a Federal-State matching program that allows assistance for higher education support for low- and moderate-income Americans. It gives grants to the States. The States have to match the grants with their own money. It is a very valuable program. In total it proposes to eliminate 48 federally funded educational programs, including GEAR UP, Teacher Quality Enhancement, Even Start, TRIO Upward Bound/Talent Search programs. These TRIO programs are designed to go into minority communities and find students that have the talent but not necessarily the type of support they need to get through high school and commit themselves to go on to higher education. We have to do that. We understand, again, if you look at the demographics, that this country is becoming significantly less White and more of people who are African Americans and Latinos--all of them. If we are not reaching out today into these communities and finding young people of talent and giving them the support and giving them the idea--which, for affluent families is obvious--that they can go to college, they should go to college, we are going to find ourselves decades from now--perhaps even sooner--with a population where we have not utilized their talent and we are not able to compete on a global scale. All of these programs help do that. To eliminate them without any ability to respond in a meaningful way to these needs, to me, is shortsighted and wrong. The Bush budget freezes the maximum Pell grant at $4,050. This is the fourth year in a row they proposed freezing this grant, and we know what is happening to college tuitions, they are going up. In 1975 the Pell grant covered 80 percent of the cost of a 4-year public college education. Today it covers about 40 percent. Senator Pell was my predecessor in Rhode Island, from whose wisdom we all benefit today. He recognized back in the 1960s that if you allow young people to go on to college, you will reap benefits that are huge over many years. I wouldn't hesitate to say that a lot of the leading members of our community--in business, in politics, in anything you name--one of the reasons they are able to participate at this level is because 30 years ago, in 1967 and 1975, they were able to go to college and pay for it because there was a Pell grant that was providing 80 percent of the cost of their 4-year public college education. Today, who are we leaving behind because they are saying: I would love to go on to college, but I can't afford it? Who are we leaving behind who will go to a school but not the school they could have gone to with this financial assistance and, as a result, whose career and whose contribution might be limited? I do not think this policy makes sense. The President's budget also proposes to eliminate the Perkins Loan Program, leaving students with fewer resources to help them meet the cost of attending college. Perkins loans are another complement in our Federal arsenal of support to education that helps students make their way through college. The majority has just pushed through a budget reconciliation bill which will cut $12.5 billion from higher education. This budget is saying we are going to cut more. We just made $12.5 in reconciliation cuts. How can we continue to do that? How can we cut the funds that we presumably have committed to spend and now send up a budget that will continue this very constrained support for higher education? And it is not just higher education. If you look at some of the early education initiatives that are so necessary to children who have not yet even reached school, you have scientists each day pointing out how important it is for early childhood education to give children the skills and talents and the very idea that education is something they have to pursue vigorously all their lives. If you look at this budget you see, again, huge shortcomings. The President's budget proposal freezes funding for the Federal child care and development block grants for the fifth year. The administration's own budget figures show that 400,000 children will lose childcare assistance by the year 2011, and this is on top of the 250,000 children who have already lost childcare assistance since fiscal year 2000. These are huge numbers with huge impacts in every community across the country. At the same time, because of the way the economy has been performing, the number of low-income children has been increasing. Poverty is increasing in the United States today as a result of many factors-- globalization, the economic policies of the administration. We saw in the 1990s, again, not only a reversal from a deficit to a surplus, we saw poverty levels starting to decline. Along with those descending poverty levels we saw a lot of other positive social benefits. The numbers and percentages of abortions dropped because the economic situation for families seemed to be improving. This whole approach is increasing the demands of more low-income people, while at the same time decreasing the resources available. It does not make a great deal of sense. Additionally, the budget would provide no additional funding for the Head Start and Early Head Start Programs, freezing funding at $6.7 billion. This results in the Head Start Programs in our country having to make very tough choices--eliminating almost 19,000 children, squeezing, again, the payments and the benefits they give to their workers, attacking or undermining the quality of the comprehensive services that are the cornerstone of the Head Start Programs. This is not good. The President's budget also eliminates the community services block grant, which is critical to so many communities across the country. Again, this notion of the community service block grant was to give the local community leaders the resources because they have the sensitivity and clearer vision to what their particular community needs. When you squeeze these community service block grants, you put a huge burden on property tax payers because those individuals, all of us, will support local government. That is not as efficient or fair a mechanism for raising revenues as income tax or anything else, but that is the reality because local communities will have to put more burden on their local property tax payers or eliminate these services. That is an area of great concern, also. It is not just health care and education, there are many other areas. One is energy. The President said in a frank admission, which we all appreciated, that the United States is addicted to oil. But like many people with addictive problems, I don't think the administration is seeking meaningful treatment. Gasoline consumption in the transportation sector represents about 44 percent of total oil consumption in the United States each year. If you include diesel fuel, that number jumps to 57 percent. To bring about any serious reduction in our dependence on foreign oil we have to increase the fuel efficiency of our cars and light trucks. So we need an increase in our CAFE standards. That is the first place we need to go that yields the biggest bang for the buck that will put us on a path to reduce significantly our energy consumption. But that is not what the President is talking about. He is talking about renewing the fight for drilling in ANWR, a fight that culminated on this floor just a few weeks ago in a rejection of that proposal. He is not pressing for the immediate technological fix of moving up CAFE standards. Once again, I believe this approach plays to our strength as a nation. We continually point to our technological innovation, our ability to use technology to solve problems. Here is a huge problem. Why don't we apply technology? I am always disconcerted when you look around the globe and see companies such as Toyota, for example, who have launched very successful hybrid automobiles. Where are the hybrids in significant numbers, and sufficiently sophisticated, by our own manufacturers? Ford has the Escape hybrid vehicle. This technology is not something beyond our capacity and capability, but the nation needs a budget and policy that will support technology development. You need action in Congress that will increase CAFE standards and increase gasoline mileage. If we are talking about tax policy to help us avoid dependency on foreign oil, it is not cuts to dividends and capital gains and huge benefits to the wealthiest, it is perhaps providing tax support for those people and those companies that will put vehicles that get 45 or 55 miles per gallon on the road. We can build it. That might give us an advantage or another opportunity to reassert ourselves as the premier leaders in automobile technology in the world and the premier manufacturers, a position that we are losing. In December, Senator Snowe and I wrote a bipartisan letter, signed by 30 Senators, asking the President to fully fund energy efficiency and renewable energy programs authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. When we passed the Energy Policy Act, we increased funding for energy efficiency provisions and renewable energy programs. Our letter must have been lost somehow because the budget cuts key energy efficiency programs such as building code programs, Energy Star, weatherization programs, and industrial energy efficiency. I had a visit yesterday from architects from the American Institute of Architects. These are local Rhode Islanders. They pointed out that a huge amount of our energy is wasted because buildings are not properly designed and properly built to contain energy and use it efficiently. We could have significant savings with improved building technology. It begins with some of these rather everyday programs such as building codes, weatherization, industrial energy efficiency--these programs are being cut. I agree with the President. We need to end our addiction to oil. But to do that, our budget needs to support programs, initiatives, that reduce our dependency in the short and long term, and funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs will reduce our demand for fossil fuels such as natural gas and petroleum. Supporting energy efficiency and renewable energy is the best approach we can take to deal with the issue of energy dependency in the United States. I have already spoken about the LIHEAP program. We must support LIHEAP funding because we have low-income families struggling and literally suffering today because they are caught in this vise of cold weather and high energy costs, and we have to give them relief. The President also speaks, as we all do, about the need for good housing in this country. But again, this budget does great harm to the Housing and Urban Development Department. Overall, the Bush HUD budget proposes $33.6 billion in discretionary spending authority, as compared to $34.3 billion last year. That is a 2-percent cut--$622 million off the top. I don't know anybody in this Chamber or our colleagues in the other body who will come to us and say we have solved the affordable housing problem. In fact, I think they would say this is perhaps one of the most persistent and difficult problems we have to face in every community in this country, the ability to rent affordable, decent housing, or the ability of a young family to buy a starter home. It is excruciatingly difficult. Yesterday, we had representatives from our disabled community in our office, who are down here talking about the issues confronting them. The No. 1 problem they have is finding affordable, adequate housing for disabled Americans. We talk about our commitment to people with disabilities, but when we have put resources to the rhetoric, too often the resources aren't there. At a time when people need better housing, this budget is not responding. The President proposes to cut funding for programs to assist at-risk people with their housing needs, including a $190 million cut in programs to assist the elderly with housing costs, and a $118 million cut in programs to assist persons with disabilities with housing costs--that is the No. 1 concern of many families--and a $35 million cut in programs to support lead hazard reduction in public housing. The section 8 voucher program is also underfunded, threatening families with the loss of their vouchers, threatening families who are now being helped to afford their housing and seeing that help disappear. The President's budget will also cut the Community Development Block Grant Program by $736 million. We all know, because we have mayors coming into our offices constantly, that CDBG funds are a key element in allowing local leaders to help develop their communities. That is the kind of money that can be used very adroitly to leverage other funds to help economic development, to help renewable housing--all of these things which are so important. That cut will be devastating to the mayors in every community across this country. The administration also proposes zero funding for the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, which is a very smart way to redevelop formerly contaminated lands in our urban areas. These are areas of former industrial production that can be renewed, if we can environmentally restore or remediate the property. There are also cuts to the Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Communities Program. All of these things go right to the ability of municipalities and counties to provide viable economic development which supports jobs and families in communities across the Nation. Public housing programs, which serve more than 1 million children and more than one 1 million families with seniors in residence, would experience deep cuts. The HOPE VI Program, which pays for the rehabilitation or replacement of dilapidated and rundown housing, takes public housing and transforms it into mixed-income housing. We have seen one example in Rhode Island--a project in Newport, RI-- which is transforming the whole neighborhood. This HOPE VI program is going to be eliminated in the President's budget. It is the only significant source of Federal money for new housing and new opportunities. The President also proposes to cut the public housing capital fund, which is the capital investment for public housing agencies. He proposes a $260 million cut there. Finally, the public housing operating fund is level funded. Again, how do you level fund operating for residents and public housing at a time when costs all are going up, particularly energy costs? I don't think there is any expert sitting around suggesting that the spike to $60 per barrel is a temporary phenomenon. Once OPEC realized they can get away with charging $60 a barrel and not provoke an economic meltdown yet in the world economy, that will be their target for the next several years, if not for the foreseeable far future. We are stuck with huge energy expenses, and those expenses will hit public housing and community-based activities heavily. If we don't respond by at least helping a bit, it is going to be an excruciating burden on municipalities and counties all across our country. Let me finally also comment about the Defense budget. As I mentioned, this budget is highly invested in defense, and at this moment in history that approach seems to be unavoidable. I believe we should be responsible and pay for it rather than continuing to borrow these funds. But you can't avoid the obvious. We are still threatened by implacable, ruthless enemies. We are still engaged in a very difficult challenge in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, we have to continue to spend on our own protection and our national security. But the administration again refuses to recognize that this is not a passive phenomenon. They talk about a long war, they talk about a generational struggle, but each year they come to us and say this is emergency funding for Afghanistan, for Iraq, for many provisions on the war on terror. Since September 11, this administration has requested $440 billion in supplemental funding. A significant part of that, I believe, has to be internalized in the regular budget process. It is tough. It will require very tough, difficult choices, but it is the truth; it is reality. The other thing I think we have to do, and the President has to lead us in, is we have to ask the American public to make sacrifices. There are people sacrificing today. Soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors, and their families are sacrificing dramatically. But that is a rather small spectrum of Americans. I challenge anyone here to say what the President has asked of the average American in terms of sacrifices necessary to support this war on terror. He certainly hasn't asked them to put their hands in their pockets and pay for it. He hasn't challenged them to stand up and do many other things. This is reaching a level that takes on a moral proportion. We cannot continue this struggle without at least some commitment as a whole nation, not just those men and women in uniform and their families but the whole Nation to become engaged and involved in this effort. As I said, many of the provisions in the budget of the Defense Department, the supplemental budget, I believe should be included in the regular budget process. The President's budget has requested authorization for 482,400 active-duty soldiers and 175,000 active-duty marines since 9/11. Yet the Army has maintained an active-duty force of over 500,000, and the Marines have ranged from 178,000 to 180,000 personnel. In a sense, the President is sending up a budget which has a significantly less number of personnel that are on active duty. Again, that is not something that we know is going to go away. We have come a long way in the sense in March of 2003 or May of 2003 that we would have very few people in Iraq and Afghanistan, that it would be resolving itself. We are in the midst of a very difficult insurgency, and these troops will be needed on duty and in uniform for at least the next years, or several years. I believe that should be included in the budget. The Army and the Marine Corps have a huge pricetag for rehabilitation of the equipment they have been using--$68 billion. Many of my colleagues who have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan understand that. They are operating in the summertime at 120 degree temperatures in a sandy climate. That eats up the equipment. We have helicopters operating at 15,000 feet in thin air, and that chews up the engines in very difficult conditions. We know that. We know we have a price tag of $68 billion, and, yet a small fraction of that is being, I think, inadequately included in the budget. When it comes to defense and national security, we have to provide the money to do it reasonably and responsibly. We are looking at a deficit as far as the eye can see. As we look at the huge commitment by our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, I would think you would see a shift in the administration approach; I would think you would see the President stand up and say we have to pay for these things. It is a long-term effort, and we can't let this devastate and overwhelm us because we know eventually, as we have seen in the past, there is no free lunch. We can borrow the money today--billions and billions of dollars--but eventually interest rates will start creeping up, start shutting off economic productivity here in this country, and we will see inflation begin to bump up. We will see all of the dangers and all of the difficulties that we thought in the mid-90s we had turned the corner on, at least because our policies were taking hold in terms of dealing with the deficit, funding reasonably and responsibly, and actually seeing that result in not only economic growth but growth that was lifting up all of our citizens. We are looking at increases in income and wages, not just at the top level but at the middle- and low-income levels of our economy. The reverse is true today--huge increases in upper income compensation and benefits--spectacular. If you were in such a position, you would be quite wealthy. But if you look at the bottom wages, they are stagnant and falling. That is not going to produce the kind of country that will support families, support individuals, and make us more productive in the future. I hope we will look carefully and closely at this budget and make appropriate changes. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I would like to begin my remarks today speaking about a topic that I have been involved with, along with many of my colleagues for months now. That is LIHEAP funding. If you look at a weather map, you will see that temperatures across much of the United States are only expected to be in the thirties and forties today. Winter has finally arrived. In Providence, the high is only projected to be 19 degrees. A nor'easter is on its way up the east coast; they forecast snow that will hit here in the DC area tomorrow, all the way up to New England, and so winter has arrived. I wanted to mention the weather forecast because we are at the end of the second week of February, and there is no new funding for the Low- Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and as far as I know, there are no plans by the majority to bring to the Senate a vote on a $2 billion LIHEAP funding proposal. This funding proposal was removed from the Department of Defense Appropriations bill conference report. It was one of a few items that was stripped out, there were many other nondefense items that were included in the Defense Appropriations conference report in December, but for some reason this was dropped. I think a reason it is adversely affecting thousands and thousands of Americans across the country, ranging from the Northeast into the mid-Atlantic, across the Midwest, out into the far West. People are struggling with rising energy prices, and today, falling temperatures. On Monday, a bipartisan letter signed by 34 Governors urged Congress to pass $2 billion in immediate additional LIHEAP assistance. These are Governors from across the country, Governors that are of both party affiliations, Governors who are trying to respond to these conditions of both weather and extraordinary price increases. The letter states: LIHEAP applications are projected to increase by as much as 25 percent in some States . . . If Congress does not increase LIHEAP funding in the next few weeks, state programs across the country could run dry and the number of households unable to meet their basic heating needs could skyrocket. I ask unanimous consent that both of these letters be included in the Record.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. I have great respect for the procedures and rules of the Senate, but we have come too many times to issues--I can recall back when we were talking about armored humvees when the objection was made this is not the right legislative vehicle to do this. I think we have an obligation to our soldiers and marines to help them now and pay for it now. This might be the only occasion we can do both. I urge passage.

Mr. REED. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. REED. Reserving my right to object, if the Senator has 2 minutes, can I have an additional 2 minutes?

Mr. REED. I move to waive all provisions of the Budget Act and budget resolutions necessary for the consideration of the pending amendment to this bill and for the inclusion of the language of the pending amendment in the consideration of an amendment between the Houses.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, our Army and Marines face a critical problem: $47 billion worth of equipment which they have used in Iraq and Afghanistan needs to be repaired and reconditioned. They call it reset recapitalization. We have to do this. This equipment is not new equipment, it is not transformational, it is the equipment they need. I commanded a paratrooper company in the 82nd Airborne Division. I can tell you the worst thing for morale is to have soldiers with poor and inadequate equipment. We owe it to them. My amendment would be the responsible way to do it, pay for it, by taking capital gains cuts that are proposed, dividend cuts and others that are proposed, and other loopholes. It is essentially very simple. Are we going to give a dividend to the wealthiest citizens or are we going to give a dividend to our troops, our soldiers, and marines? And that dividend is equipment that will work, not only today but in the future. This is particularly important for the National Guard. Every one of your National Guard units has equipment they have left overseas or has been run into the ground. If we do not act responsibly--not just act but act responsibly, then we will not be able to assure our soldiers and marines that the equipment they have is the best equipment, that it works, and it will be reconditioned and refit and work in the future. I urge passage of this amendment.

Mr. REED. I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, the amendment proposed by the Senator from Iowa is my amendment. It would meet the supreme need of the military to reset, recapitalize, and rehabilitate $43 billion or more of equipment. The one big difference is that my amendment will pay for it. It will take the responsible step of actually paying to help our military. What I will use is dividend offsets. I will offer that later. But we have the responsibility to be responsible, not only give the troops what they need but pay for it so we do not increase the deficit. I hope we respond by supporting my amendment which takes care of the troops but does so in a responsible way by providing the resources to pay for this necessary equipment.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, it is my intention when it is appropriate to offer an amendment entitled Strengthening America's Military. This amendment will repeal the extension of tax breaks for capital gain and dividends and instead use the funding to give our military some of the vital help it needs. There is no question we have the most formidable military in the world. It is a combination of the courage and skill of our fighting men and women, together with the best technology. But we have to ensure that this Army and our Marine Corps and all of our military forces are adequately equipped. It is a question of priorities. As members of this administration are quick to point out, we are a nation at war. But they have not asked all the people of this Nation to sacrifice for that war, something this country has done in almost all past conflicts. There are literally thousands of young Americans serving and sacrificing in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the globe. Their families sacrifice as they wait for them to return. Their communities have sacrificed as they have seen National Guard units mobilized and sent overseas. But the vast majority of Americans has not been summoned to this great struggle. I argue now is the time where such sacrifice is necessary, particularly among those who benefit most from society. Rather than debating whether to extend certain tax cuts, we should consider ways to increase Federal revenues to pay for the costs of the war, something the country has done in almost all past military conflicts. To raise the additional revenues needed to equip our military, we first need to remove the provisions in the tax reconciliation bill that extend the lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains. There are many reasons to oppose the extension of the lower tax rates and dividends on capital gains, but the key reason is the fact they are unfair. Most of the tax goes to upper income families: 53 percent of the tax goes to .2 percent of families who have incomes of $1 million or more; 78 percent of the tax goes to families with incomes of $200,000 or more. Secondly, there is a host of offsets that Democrats and Republicans alike have supported. As the ranking member on the Budget Committee, Senator Conrad has long pressed for such amendments, including shutting down abusive tax shelters, ending a loophole for oil companies that lets them avoid taxes on foreign corporations, and ending the tax benefit for the leasing of foreign subway and sewer systems, requiring tax withholding on Government payments to contractors, and renewing the Superfund tax so polluting companies pay for cleaning up toxic waste. These offsets, included in this amendment, more than meet the equipment needs of our soldiers, and as such, the remaining revenue will go for reducing the deficit, another important goal and need. When I say ``equipment needs,'' I mean repairing, rehabilitating, and replacing, or what the military calls ``resetting and recapitalization'' of the equipment of the Army and the Marine Corps which is being used in Afghanistan and Iraq. I recently returned from my seventh trip to Iraq and my fourth trip to Afghanistan. I was impressed by the superb dedication and professionalism of our fighting men and women. However, it is clear to me and to many experts who study the military that our Armed Forces, particularly our ground forces, are suffering from the strain on personnel and equipment. An article in today's USA Today notes that the war in Iraq is taking the biggest toll on military equipment since the Vietnam war. Last week, the National Security Advisory Group, chaired by former Secretary William Perry, released a report about the strain and risk for our military. In their words: Given the harsh environment of Iraq and Afghanistan [resetting the force] is proving more extensive and expensive than in previous operations. Estimates of the cost of rehabilitating Army equipment coming back from operations overseas continues to grow . . . in addition, both the Army and the Marine Corps expect to see increasing costs associated with recapitalizing aging forces and transforming their capabilities for a broader range of 21st century missions. Gary Motsek, the Army's Deputy Director for Support Operations at the U.S. Materiel Command, has stated the Army has to repair or rebuild virtually everything that goes to Iraq. If you have been to Iraq--and I know many of my colleagues have--this is an intense and difficult environment to operate equipment; certainly intense and difficult for military personnel there. The temperatures in the summertime can get to be 120 degrees. There is sand throughout the country which is sucked up into the blades of helicopters, into the intakes of moving vehicles on the ground. The wear and tear is extensive. The same is true with Afghanistan. It is very difficult, in addition, because of the high altitudes. It is extremely difficult for our helicopters and our fixed-wing aircraft to operate, particularly helicopters. These are very demanding environments and they are taking their toll on equipment. We have to ensure that our military forces have this equipment. Let me further point out, we are not talking about buying a new class of ships or planes. We are just talking about taking those vehicles that have been run down because of combat operations and bringing them back into the shop, fixing them, repairing them, and getting them back to our troops. If we do not do that, then what we are going to see-- perhaps not this month or next month or this year but inevitably--is that our forces will be sent out with equipment which is inadequate, which is literally, perhaps, falling apart. We owe it to these soldiers, we owe it to these marines, we owe it to the Nation to make sure they have the best equipment, the best maintained equipment. That is going to cost a lot of money. The question here today is, very simply: How will we pay for it? Do we give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans in terms of dividend preferences, or do we give a dividend to our soldiers and marines? And the dividend is equipment they can count on--reliable, well-maintained equipment, ready for battle. I would vote for a dividend for our troops, not special dividend treatment for the wealthiest Americans. In a briefing given to staff members of the Armed Services Committee this month, the Army estimated over the next 6 years it will cost approximately $35.6 billion to reset and recapitalize the force. Last November, the Marine Corps estimated it would cost $11.7 billion to repair and replace their equipment over the next 5 years. These are costs that are already incurred. We cannot avoid them. This is not buying new things we need or want. This is fixing what we have and must operate. And there is no end in sight to our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. We hope that improvements in the security climate will allow forces to be redeployed, equipment to be redeployed. But any sensible observer in both countries would tell you quickly that our presence will be long term and the demands on our troops and equipment will be there not just this year but for many years in the future. GEN Paul Kern, who just retired as head of the Army Materiel Command, gave an estimate of between $60 and $100 billion to replace the Army equipment alone--just the Army equipment: to replace it, repair it, get our troops back to the condition they were before these operations began in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last October, GAO released a report on military readiness. It assessed the state of 30 pieces of equipment, predominantly tanks, vehicles, helicopters, and aircraft. It made several disturbing observations. It stated: GAO's analysis showed that reported readiness rates declined between fiscal years 1999 and 2004 for most of these items. The decline in readiness, which occurred more markedly in fiscal years 2003 and 2004, generally resulted from 1. the continued high use of equipment to support current operations and 2. maintenance issues caused by the advancing ages and complexity of the systems. Key equipment items--such as Army and Marine Corps trucks, combat vehicles and rotary wing aircraft--have been used well beyond normal peacetime use during deployments in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In sum, we are wearing this equipment out in combat operations overseas that are continuing today and will continue for the foreseeable future. This equipment is essential for our defense and for the protection of our military personnel. We have to do this. It is unavoidable. And the question, again, is very clear: Are we going to give a dividend to the wealthiest Americans or a dividend to our troops in the form of equipment they can rely upon, equipment they can use to defend us, equipment that will protect them, equipment that will assure their families they have the best, so when they bid them farewell, as their unit deploys, they will not have to worry that equipment will break down and endanger their loved ones? That is our job. To me, the choice is pretty clear. This report of the GAO goes on to say: Until the DOD ensures that condition issues for key equipment are addressed, DOD risks a continued decline in readiness trends, which could threaten its ability to continue meeting mission requirements. The military services have not fully identified near and long term program strategies and funding plans to ensure that all of the 30 selected equipment items can meet defense requirements. This language is very disturbing. It suggests rather strongly that the readiness of our military forces is in question in terms of equipment, certainly, if we do not respond quickly. And ``respond'' does not simply mean borrow some more money and throw it at the problem. To me, it means making sure our priorities are such that we can afford to do this not just today but in the years ahead. Another GAO report states that more than 101,000 pieces of National Guard equipment, including trucks, radios, and night vision devices, have been sent to soldiers in operations overseas. This means the Guard does not have the equipment it needs to respond to crises here. It is another aspect of our deployment situation. We have shipped Guard units over along with their equipment. The equipment has stayed behind. The Guard has come back. If there is a crisis in the homeland, if there is a natural disaster, we are deploying Guard units without a lot of the equipment they had just 2 or 3 years ago, a lot of the equipment which is essential to their plans to respond to crises in the homeland and natural disasters. I believe this problem was exemplified during Katrina when the Guard stated its communications equipment had been overseas and, therefore, it was unable to operate effectively in the aftermath of the disaster. There are real costs that we have to face today, and we have to face it not simply by charging it to the next generation but by biting the bullet, asking people to make sacrifices. And, again, when the sacrifice is the choice between a dividend that accumulates for the very wealthiest Americans or a dividend for the troops, give the dividend to the troops. Mr. President, these reports are warning signs. Now, Secretary Rumsfeld continues to state that our troops are performing well and are battle hardened. He is absolutely correct. But our troops and their equipment cannot continue to perform well without the proper upkeep. Our troops need a break, and their equipment needs to be repaired and refurbished. I think he has to distinguish, and we all have to distinguish, between the individual valor and skill and patriotism of soldiers and marines and their units and the institutional Army and Marine Corps, with their need to continue to provide adequate equipment for all of these troops and these units. There is no doubt about the fighting spirit and fighting skill and the tenacity and the experience of these units today. But you have to look very clearly at the capacity of the Army and the Marine Corps to generate the equipment and rehabilitate the equipment and repair the equipment that these soldiers and marines rely upon. Secretary Rumsfeld says reports such as the Perry report I mentioned and the report by Andy Krepenevich--a former military officer who was actually commissioned by the Pentagon to do the report, and who looked at it and reached the same conclusions, essentially, as the Perry report--he says they were looking at old data when they found that the military was strained. There Secretary Rumsfeld is wrong. These reports were not looking back, they were looking forward. And they see danger ahead, and make the point very clearly that our Army is not broken, but the strain is increasing. And if we do not act now--responsibly now--to fix these problems, the future ahead is dire, indeed, for our forces in terms of their readiness, in terms of their equipment preparedness, and in terms of the strain on our personnel. The responsible thing to do is not simply go out and borrow $50 or $60 billion more and add it to our deficit, it is to make the hard choices here, to demand a little of the sacrifice that our soldiers and marines and sailors and airmen and airwomen give us every day. Secretary Rumsfeld says we have the finest fighting force in the world. I agree with that. The difference is, I want to keep it that way, and I want to do it honestly. I want to do it by paying for it. I want to do it by making sure we set the priorities right here, now, not simply borrowing more money, going down the road borrowing again and again and again because eventually--and I believe the military understands this--we are not going to be able to fund these operations and these requirements by simply having supplemental appropriations every year which are outside the budget. At some point, the effect on our economy, the effect on our fiscal posture is so crippling that we will have to scale back. And the people who will be squeezed out, then, will be the soldiers and the marines and the sailors and airmen and airwomen we count on today to defend and protect us. The Perry report makes the following recommendation: In order to restore the health of U.S. ground forces in the wake of Iraq, the nation must step up and invest substantial resources to reset, recapitalize, and modernize the force. . . . Restoring the health of both services is not a matter of simply returning them to their status quo; it is a matter of ensuring that they are organized, trained, equipped and restored to meet the full range of traditional and nontraditional challenges in the future. Next year alone, in the budget and the supplemental, the Army needs $23 billion and the Marines need $7.5 billion for reset and recapitalization--again, military terms for repairing, rehabilitating, getting the equipment back up to operational readiness. While we have yet to see the President's budget, or the supplemental, it is not guaranteed these needs will be funded. In recent years, the President's budget requests and the supplementals have provided less funding than the military services have requested. Furthermore, if it is funded, this just covers this year's bill. These bills will continue on for many years. As I pointed out before, at some point economic pressures--and, ironically, those pressures will be more severe if the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan begin to resolve themselves--those pressures could curtail the adequate funding necessary to fully care for this equipment and the personnel who operate this equipment. It is time we asked Americans to sacrifice a little for those who do so much for us. As someone who commanded a company of paratroopers in a younger day, I can tell you, there is nothing more disconcerting to morale than not having good equipment to do your job. Not only does it endanger the soldier and the marine, it sends a much stronger signal about our priorities and what we care about in terms of supporting the military than any speech given by any politician in Washington or elsewhere. That is our responsibility today, to stand up and be counted--like those troops are standing up and being counted--to take care of their needs, and do it responsibly, not add more to the deficit, not add more force to choke off, eventually, the funding they need so desperately to do their job so well. More than anything else, when soldiers go out on operations, they and their families want to be certain they have the best equipment and that that equipment is well maintained. Rather than providing dividends to the wealthy, let's provide our troops with an equipment dividend. Our fighting men and women have volunteered to risk their lives every single day in a war zone for the rest of us. They deserve the best, and we owe it to them. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. To me, the logic is compelling. The need to help is there. Let's put our actions where so many times our words are. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time to the Senator from Montana.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, before I comment on the nomination, I would like to recognize and thank several people who have been very helpful in preparing my comments: Kara Stein, Justin Florence, and Sharon Rapport. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a series of letters from national organizations with respect to issues of church and state separation and the nomination of Judge Alito.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, nearly two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that ``there is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.'' As was the nomination of John Roberts to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist, the nomination of Samuel Alito to replace Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, upon her retirement, is an extremely important moment for our Nation. The Constitution makes the Senate an active partner, along with the President, in the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee. Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution states that nominees to the Supreme Court shall only be confirmed ``by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.'' The Senate's role in the confirmation process places an important democratic check on America's judiciary. As a result, this body's consent is both a constitutional requirement and a democratic obligation. It is in upholding our constitutional duty as Senators to give the President advice and consent on his nominations to Federal courts that I believe we have our greatest opportunity and responsibility to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. In our consideration of the nomination of Chief Justice Roberts last fall, I stated my test for a nominee to the Supreme Court. It is a simple test, one drawn from the text, the history, and the principles of the Constitution. As I said then, a nominee's intellectual gifts, experience, judgment, maturity, and temperament are all important. But these alone are not enough. In addition, a nominee to the Supreme Court must live up to the spirit of the Constitution. A nominee must not only commit to enforcing the laws, but to doing justice. A nominee must give life and meaning to the great principles of the Constitution: equality before the law, due process, freedom of conscience, individual responsibility, and the expansion of opportunity. It is these principles that ensure full and equal participation in the civic and social life of America for all Americans. A nominee to the Supreme Court must make these constitutional principles resonate in a rapidly changing world. In my view, Judge Alito has not met this test. In his personal writings from his time in the Reagan Department of Justice, he has outlined a view of the Constitution that is narrow, restrictive, and backward-looking on issue after issue. He has pursued this vision through both the clients he has chosen to represent and the causes he has chosen to advocate. In addition, his opinions on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals have shown the impact of his personal philosophy on his role as a judge. Too many times he has read constitutional clauses and statutes in a narrow and cramped way to protect the Government or big corporations instead of ordinary Americans. In case after case, and in his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Judge Alito has failed to show a commitment to protecting the spirit of the Constitution. Indeed, during his hearings, he had a chance to answer questions about his prior writings and rulings in a clear manner. Instead, Judge Alito opted to speak in broad platitudes and failed to answer key questions in a manner that would qualify or put in adequate context his prior writings and rulings. Part of the genius of the Constitution that our Founding Fathers drafted is that it fulfills two functions at once. It is a blueprint for our Nation to govern itself through a system of checks and balances. It is also a charter of the rights and liberties of the American people. I am deeply concerned about Judge Alito's views in both of these areas. Judge Alito's record on the Third Circuit shows he has joined or agrees with a movement to undermine the ability of Congress to protect the American people through restrictive interpretations of the Commerce Clause and the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court, in recent years, has struck down more acts of Congress than ever before. By narrow 5-to-4 margins, in cases such as United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison, the Court has drifted from longstanding Supreme Court precedents to invalidate portions of the Gun-Free School Zones and the Violence Against Women Acts. Judge Alito would go even further. In his dissent in the case of United States v. Rybar, he advocated striking down Congress's ban on the transfer and possession of machineguns. Alito's opinion diverged not just from the majority in his own Third Circuit but also from five other courts of appeals that had already found the law to be a constitutional expression of Congress's authority. Yet Judge Alito argued that he was not convinced by Congress's findings on the impact of machineguns on interstate commerce. He substituted his own policy preferences in a way that the Third Circuit majority found was, in their words, ``counter to the deference that the judiciary owes to its two coordinate branches of government.'' Every other circuit has since disagreed with Judge Alito's views on this case, and the Supreme Court has concurred in these circuit court decisions. Judge Alito's divergence from mainstream constitutional views on this issue is particularly disturbing because it echoes personal views on congressional authority he has expressed in other contexts. For example, while working in the Reagan administration, he argued in a memo that the Truth in Mileage Act of 1986 ``violates the principles of freedom'' and should be vetoed by the President. This Federal law requires a seller to disclose the vehicle's mileage on the title when ownership is transferred. Congress enacted this law to prohibit odometer tampering and to protect consumers from mileage fraud. Samuel Alito argued that it was the States, and ``not the federal government,'' that should protect American citizens. Not only does Judge Alito have an unusually narrow view of the Commerce Clause, it also appears that he would restrict Congress's ability to pass laws under section 5 of the 14th amendment. This clause states that ``Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.'' Those provisions include some of our most fundamental constitutional principles, including due process and the equal protection of the law. Congress has acted under the authority of this clause to protect the rights of women and minorities, to ensure religious freedom, and to guarantee civil rights for the elderly and the disabled. But based upon his writings and rulings, Judge Alito would severely limit the meaning of this clause. In Chissiter v. Department of Community and Economic Development, he found the sick leave provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act to be unconstitutional because he believed that 12 weeks of leave was ``out of proportion'' to the gender discrimination that Congress wished to remedy. Here again, Judge Alito relied on his own policy preferences to strike down the measured judgment of Congress. In the case of Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, the Supreme Court explicitly upheld the family leave provisions of the act by a 6-to-3 vote. Where Alito had questioned the judgments of Congress, the Hibbs majority, including Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor, found that, in their words: The [Family Medical Leave Act] is narrowly targeted at the fault line between work and family--precisely where sex-based overgeneralization has been and remains strongest. The possible consequences of this tendency by Judge Alito to second- guess the policy judgments of Congress and to replace them with his own policy preferences are profound. They go beyond any single act of Congress or any single area of policy. As just one example, this year the Supreme Court will consider a pair of cases on the constitutionality of the Clean Water Act. These cases challenge whether Congress can protect wetlands and tributaries through its commerce clause power. If the Supreme Court, with a recently confirmed Judge Alito, adopts a more restrictive view of the commerce clause and the 14th amendment, it could limit our ability to protect our country's wetlands, let alone our national interests in area after area. At the same time that Judge Alito has advocated for a narrower vision of Congress's constitutional authority, he has argued that the powers of the executive branch should be nearly unlimited. In a 2001 speech to the Federalist Society, Judge Alito stated that since the 1980s, he had believed in the ``theory of the unitary executive.'' In the Judiciary Committee hearings, Judge Alito denied any connection between the unitary executive theory and the scope of Executive power. But scholars and judges have drawn from this theory to advance expansive views of the executive. For example, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court reviewed the President's claim that he could indefinitely detain an American citizen without bringing charges or giving him a day in court to challenge the detention. Eight of the nine Supreme Court Justices rejected the President's claim, and Justice O'Connor wrote in her plurality opinion that ``a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens.'' In a lone dissenting opinion, Justice Thomas deployed the unitary executive theory to support broad Presidential powers. He wrote that congressional or judicial interference in foreign affairs or national security ``destroys the purpose of vesting the primary responsibility in a unitary Executive.'' In view of the long scope of American constitutional history, the unitary executive theory is a relatively recent invention. It was a creation of the Reagan Justice Department in the 1980s. And according to his speeches, Judge Alito has subscribed to it since working there. While he worked in the Reagan administration, Judge Alito proposed a particular idea to, in his words, ``increase the power of the Executive to shape the law.'' In a 1986 memorandum, Alito argued that the President should issue statements when signing a bill because the President's ``understanding of the bill should be just as important as that of Congress.'' The administration has followed Judge Alito's 1986 advice. For example, just recently, the President issued a signing statement regarding the McCain amendment which prohibits torture. In that statement, the President wrote that he would construe the McCain amendment ``in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch.'' The practice Judge Alito first advocated in the mid-1980s arguably helps the executive to thwart the will of Congress when it passes a law. While the current Supreme Court has not given weight to these signing statements interpreting the meanings of acts of Congress, I worry how a possible Justice Alito would view these Presidential statements should they come before him on the Supreme Court. I think Judge Alito's view of the unitary executive is wrong and violates the text and the spirit of the Constitution. In Federalist Paper No. 47, James Madison explained how the Constitution deliberately divided power among the branches of Government. Rather than create a unitary executive, the Framers created a careful and thoughtful system of checks and balances between all three branches of Government. They were very weary of concentrating too much power in any one branch of Government. As the McCain amendment demonstrates, Congress plays a vital role in placing limitations on Executive power, but so do and must the courts. In the near future, the Supreme Court will hear further cases in this area. Perhaps the President's claimed authority to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans in violation of congressional statutes will come before the Court. In this time of crisis in particular, we need to have Supreme Court Justices committed to the balance and separation of powers between the three branches of Government. Despite Judge Alito's statements that no one is above or beneath the law, Judge Alito's record and views on the unitary executive give me pause. If Judge Alito believes that under the Constitution the President can determine what laws apply to him and how they apply, then he is essentially giving away the power of the Supreme Court as well as the power of Congress. Ever since Marbury v. Madison, it has been ``emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.'' That settled doctrine, Marbury v. Madison, clashes with this notion of a unitary executive who can declare the law for himself and thus make himself exempt from the law. Judge Alito's support for a powerful and unitary executive is exacerbated by his 15-year circuit court record of repeatedly deferring to government officials when American's civil rights and liberties lie in the balance. As I mentioned earlier, this is the other function the Founding Fathers created for the Constitution. The Framers included the fourth amendment in the Bill of Rights to protect Americans against unreasonable government searches and seizures. It was a response to the abuses of the British in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Yet time and again, Judge Alito has deferred to police, prosecutors, and other governmental agents instead of ordinary Americans. Judge Alito wrote in his now famous 1985 job application essay that he disagreed with the Warren Court's criminal procedures decisions. These include famous cases in the development of American liberties-- for example, Miranda v. Arizona, which sets forth rights for the accused; or Katz v. the United States, which prohibited warrantless electronic surveillance; or Gideon v. Wainwright, which guaranteed every American the right to a lawyer. There is little doubt that Judge Alito's personal views in this area have carried over to his time on the bench. As Professor Goodwin Liu testified before the Judiciary Committee, in fourth amendment cases, Judge Alito has not one time taken a position more protective of individual rights than his colleagues on the Third Circuit. These include cases where there were defective warrants, where agents conducted warrantless electronic surveillance, or where police used excessive force against unarmed individuals. Indeed, the Washington Post found that Judge Alito had sided with the government in these cases over 90 percent of the time, whereas other appeals court justices nationwide only sided with the government 54 percent of the time. In the face of government officials, the dignity, autonomy, and rights of individual Americans have carried less weight for Judge Alito. As just one example, his dissent in the 2004 case of Doe v. Groody would have upheld the strip search of a mother and her 10-year-old daughter even though they were not named in the search warrant for the house. Judge Michael Chertoff, who wrote the majority opinion in the case and who is now the Secretary of Homeland Security, said that Judge Alito's opinion of the case, if adopted, could ``transform the judicial officer into little more than the cliche `rubber stamp.''' Judge Chertoff's quote is an apt summation of my concern over the nomination of Judge Alito. American courts cannot become a rubberstamp blotting out the constitutional rights of our citizens. But from women's rights to workers' rights and reproductive freedom to religious freedom, Judge Alito's writings and rulings reveal insensitivity to the judiciary's role in protecting the charter of freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. The first amendment protects Americans' religious liberties through two clauses that work in tandem: the free exercise clause and the establishment clause. I worry that if confirmed, Judge Alito would upset the careful balance the Founders sought in constructing the first amendment. In fact, Judge Alito seems to interpret the establishment clause as a rarely applicable part of the first amendment. He applies the free exercise clause on a much broader basis, often interpreting establishment clause cases as free exercise cases. He seems to see a plaintiff's complaint of establishment clause violations as attempts to block the free exercise of religion. Judge Alito's views appear to have been developed well over 20 years ago on these issues. In his 1985 job application essay, Judge Alito wrote that he disagreed with the Warren Court's establishment clause decisions. These rulings prohibited government-sponsored prayer in public schools, protected students who are members of minority religious faiths, and prevented State interference with and entanglement in America's religious liberty. Judge Alito's record on the bench supports a troubling view of the establishment clause. For example, he joined a dissenting opinion in the case of ACLU of New Jersey v. Black Horse Pike Regional Board of Education, supporting student-led prayer at official, school-sponsored high school graduation ceremonies. The Supreme Court, in an opinion joined by Justice O'Connor, has since explicitly rejected this approach in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe and as recently as last year has sought a careful balance in establishment clause cases such as ACLU v. McCreary County. In summary, in ACLU of New Jersey v. Black Horse Pike Regional Board of Education, the Third Circuit majority determined that a student-led prayer at a graduation ceremony violated the establishment clause. Judge Alito joined the dissent in arguing that the establishment clause does not prohibit a high school graduation prayer. The school board involved had decided to allow graduating students to vote whether they wished to have a prayer, a moment of silence, or neither at their graduation ceremony. The students voted for prayer. Citing Wallace v. Jaffree and Board of Education v. Barnette, the Third Circuit majority said: An impermissible practice cannot be transformed into a constitutionally acceptable one by putting a democratic process to an improper use. Judge Alito joined the dissenting opinion written by Judge Mansmann, stating that ``the establishment clause should not be read to prohibit activity which the free exercise clause protects.'' The dissent argued that the Supreme Court in Lee had not decided any broad constitutional precedents against prayer at graduation ceremonies, stating the facts in the case were wholly different, as the graduates, not the principal, maintained control over the ceremony, thereby avoiding the appearance of a state actor. The dissenters wrote: The establishment clause should not be used for imposing content-based restrictions on religious speech in a public forum under the appropriate scrutiny analysis. The dissent further criticized the Lemon test established in Lemon v. Kurtzman, pointing to a ``division'' existing on the Supreme Court ``as to whether the establishment clause precludes the government from conveying a message that endorses or encourages religion in a generic sense, or especially acknowledges or accommodates the broad Judeo- Christian heritage of our civil and social order.'' It also concluded: [A]n absolute prohibition on ceremonial prayer at graduation would . . . violate the Free Exercise Clause by unduly inhibiting the practice of religion, and would also implicate the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. In another case, Child Evangelism Fellowship of New Jersey v. Stafford Township School District, Judge Alito wrote an opinion requiring a school to distribute a proselytizing religious group's literature to elementary school students under the Equal Access Act. Judge Alito dismissed the school district's concerns that students would perceive distribution of the religious fliers as endorsement of religion. Again, Judge Alito's view in this area of the law differed from that of the Supreme Court. Justice O'Connor's opinion in Board of Education v. Mergens, for example, carefully distinguished between requiring access to school facilities--which was acceptable under the Equal Access Act--and requiring the active involvement of school officials and teachers, which could have an inappropriately coercive effect. Although I could discuss more cases, the basic point I want to make here is that I believe Judge Alito would upset the careful balance between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, allowing majority religious views to prevail over minority views, and leading to an inappropriate Government coercive effect on religious practice. As Justice O'Connor states in McCreary: At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for the constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish . . . Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly? I believe Judge Alito would make that trade. Consider another area. The Federal Courts play an important role in enforcing American workers' access to fair and safe working conditions, while protecting their right to organize, and providing a forum for remedying wrongful discrimination. Yet, as a judge, Alito has consistently tried to limit the reach of Congress' workplace statutes, and to make it more difficult for plaintiffs to bring legal claims. For example, in RNS Services v. Secretary of Labor, the Third Circuit majority found that the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission had jurisdiction over the work and safety conditions of employees at coal processing sites. But Judge Alito disagreed, siding with the employer by interpreting the statute and case law restrictively. One academic study has found that Judge Alito has sided with the employee or union in only 5 out of 35 labor opinions he has written. These are decisions that have real world effects on working people, as the recent mining accidents in West Virginia demonstrate all too clearly. As far as a woman's right-to-choose is concerned, in his 1985 job application, Samuel Alito wrote that he was proud of his work in the Reagan administration advancing a ``legal position'' that he ``personally believe[d] very strongly.'' Namely, that ``the Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion.'' Let me make clear, he did not say that he thought abortion was wrong; he wrote that the Constitution did not protect a woman's right to choose. This is a view that he advanced as a lawyer and then a circuit judge, and that he did nothing to dispel in his Judiciary Committee hearings. In his work for the Reagan Justice Department, Alito wrote a memo with a strategy for ``bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v. Wade'' by chipping away gradually at privacy and reproductive rights. In the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Judge Alito used his dissent to argue for a constitutional interpretation that would do just that, chip away at the protections for the freedom to choose. The Supreme Court explicitly rejected Alito's opinion, with Justice O'Connor writing that the State ``may not give to a man the kind of dominion over his wife'' that Judge Alito would have accepted. Judge Alito's record in this area is long and clear, and I am disappointed that rather than openly answer the questions of Senators on the Judiciary Committee, he responded with obfuscating statements about the judicial process. The Supreme Court has been a leader in safeguarding all kinds of civil rights, through momentous cases like Brown v. Board of Education, and through its application of historic laws of Congress like the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Victims of racial, gender, age, or disability discrimination can find remedies in the Federal Courts. But from my reading of his record, Judge Alito has repeatedly used procedural and evidentiary requirements to make it more difficult for plaintiffs to vindicate their civil rights claims. One study of discrimination cases heard by Judge Alito in which the panel was divided concluded that he sided against civil rights protections 85 percent of the time, more than any other judge on the Third Circuit. For example, in the case of Bray v. Marriott Hotels, the Third Circuit said that an African-American woman denied a promotion in favor of a white woman, when the company had not followed its policy, should have a chance to present her case before a jury. Judge Alito disagreed, saying that this would ``allow disgruntled employees to impose the costs of trials on employers.'' As the majority in the case noted, under Judge Alito's view Title VII ``would be eviscerated.'' I know Judge Alito spoke in the hearings about his own family's history as immigrants to the United States. America's courts have played a crucial role in reviewing the immigration, deportation, and asylum decisions of the Federal Government and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). As the noted conservative Judge Posner recently wrote, his appellate court reversed the Board of Immigration Appeals 40 percent of the time last year, mitigating the at-times harsh, unequal, and unfair application of our immigration laws. In the hearings, Judge Alito said he agreed that the way BIA cases are handled ``leaves an enormous amount to be desired.'' Yet immigrants who have appealed these decisions have found no place of refuge in Judge Alito's courtroom. According to one academic study, Judge Alito sided with the BIA in 7 out of 9 opinions he has written on asylum, and in 7 out of 8 other immigration opinions he has authored. I believe that the spirit of our laws and the history of our country require that immigrants to our shores are assured fair and full hearings. In his application to the Reagan Justice Department in 1985, Samuel Alito wrote that his interest in constitutional law had been ``motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions'' about voting rights. These landmark decisions, in cases like Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims, have enshrined the bedrock principle of ``one person, one vote'' into our Constitution. They have protected the right of all Americans to have an equal share in our democracy, regardless of the color of their skin or the location of their home. While Judge Alito backed away from these strong statements in his confirmation hearings, his opinion in a voting rights case he heard on the Third Circuit calls that statement into question. In the case of Jenkins v. Manning, Judge Alito joined an opinion rejecting the African-American plaintiffs' challenge to the voting system for the local school board. The dissenting judge in the case wrote that Judge Alito's side had ``overlooked the broad sweep of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its 1982 amendments'' which that judge noted ``is widely considered to be the most successful piece of civil rights legislation ever enacted by Congress.'' The Supreme Court continues to regularly hear cases about the ability of Americans to participate fairly and equally in our democracy, and I believe a nominee to the Supreme Court should clearly and emphatically treasure and respect the Court's role in safeguarding voting rights, rather than minimizing it. At the hearings before the Judiciary Committee, Judge Alito attempted to distance himself from his record and the constitutional views he has advocated throughout his career. An attorney must vigorously serve the interests of his client, but in the case of Judge Alito, he chose his clients--political offices in Republican Justice Departments--precisely because of the constitutional agenda it allowed him to advance. So, I do not accept Judge Alito's plea that we should not evaluate him based on the constitutional values he advanced through political positions. I also have not been convinced by Judge Alito's vague rhetoric during the hearings about following the judicial process, or his begrudging acknowledgment that important Supreme Court cases were indeed ``precedents of the Court.'' While judges on the Federal circuit courts are circumscribed by Supreme Court precedent, there is no higher court to bind the Justices of the United States Supreme Court. Decisions of the Supreme Court are binding on all lower courts, so even if a circuit judge disagrees with well-established precedent about the rule of law, he or she must follow that law. But this is not true of the Supreme Court. As Justice Frankfurter once wrote: It is because the Supreme Court wields the power that it wields that appointment to the Court is a matter of general public concern and not merely a question for the profession. In truth, the Supreme Court is the Constitution. It goes without saying that the constitutional views of the Justices determine the rulings of the Supreme Court. In response to questioning during the hearings, Judge Alito pledged to put aside his personal views. But in his writings and speeches, including his 1985 job application, Judge Alito didn't just record his personal political views; he wrote down his views about what the Constitution means--about what rights it contains, and what limits it places on Government. To be clear, this is exactly what it means to serve on the Supreme Court and interpret the Constitution. America's courtrooms are staffed with judges, not machines, because justice requires human judgments. This is particularly so on the Supreme Court. Of all the hundreds of thousands of cases filed in American Federal Courts each year, only about 80 reach the Supreme Court. These are the hardest of cases, cases that have divided the country's lower courts. These are cases where one constitutional clause may be in conflict with another; where one statute may influence the interpretation of another; and where one core national value may interfere with another. These cases often divide the Justices of the Court by close margins. Surely the Justices on both sides of a 5 to 4 case can claim to be following the judicial process and respecting the precedents of the Court. What divides their opinions is the set of constitutional values that they bring to the case. Judge Alito's testimony before the Judiciary Committee suggests a failure either to understand or to acknowledge the impact of his own constitutional views on the outcome. of cases that he hears. Given his lengthy record and his extensive statements about what the Constitution means, the burden was on Judge Alito to convince the Senate that he would be a judicious and balanced member of the Supreme Court. The questions he was asked by members of the Judiciary Committee gave him numerous opportunities to do so. Judge Alito did not meet this burden. He failed to inform this body of his views on important constitutional issues, he evaded fair and important questions instead of offering honest and insightful answers, and he in no way demonstrated that he would uphold not just the letter of the law, but also its spirit. As a result, I cannot support his lifetime nomination to the highest court in America. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, this evening the Senate passed the conference report to the fiscal year 2006 Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill. I want to express my concerns with this conference report. Not only does this legislation shortchange important priorities compared to the Senate version of this bill, which passed on a near unanimous vote of 94 to 3, it is not the only affront to these programs since an additional across-the-board cut to discretionary spending is included in the Department of Defense appropriations conference report. I am disappointed that this conference report fails to provide our children with the resources they need to compete in today's world. Children of all ages will be affected by the decisions we make today. This conference report decreases funding to programs that help students succeed at every stage. Indeed, it cuts education funding for the first time in 10 years. Despite rising tuition costs, college students will not see an increase in financial aid. The supplemental educational opportunity grant, SEOG, program will receive $26 million less than the Senate bill we passed in October. The maximum Pell grant award will be frozen at $4,050 for the fourth year in a row, making it more difficult for students to keep up with tuition and the cost of attending college. Funding for No Child Left Behind Act programs are reduced by 3 percent, for a total that is $13.1 billion below the authorized level. Elementary and secondary school children will experience a decrease in services funded through the School Improvement Programs, the educational technology State grants, and the Javits Gifted and Talented Program, which all received less funding than in the Senate bill. Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act will see its smallest increase in 8 years, for a total of $12.8 billion. This is $9.9 billion less than the $22.75 billion authorized in the No Child Left Behind Act. This funding is critical to improve education in this country. In 2001, members of this chamber made a commitment with the No Child Left Behind Act to give every child an opportunity at an excellent education. The President and our colleagues from across the aisle should join us in seeking to uphold that commitment. Infants and toddlers will also receive fewer services. The President's fiscal year 2006 budget proposal, the House bill, and the Senate bill all included increases in funding for Head Start. However, this conference report ignores those increases and instead includes less than 1 percent increase for this important early childhood program. Head Start centers across the country are cutting back on comprehensive services, the core of this program's success, because funding has been minimal year after year and has not kept pace with inflation. In a time when we should be increasing our investment in early childhood development, this conference report moves us in the wrong direction. The conference report also reduces health funding by a total of $466 million. It will set back critical research at the National Institutes of Health, unravel already fragile health care safety net programs, undermine essential health professions training programs, and leave our Nation completely unprepared to respond to a looming avian influenza pandemic. In this conference report, the National Institutes of Health, NIH, after seeing its budget doubled only a few years ago, will face the smallest percentage increase--less than 1 percent--in more than three decades. Withdrawing our support for revolutionary basic and clinical research at such a crucial time will undoubtedly set back our efforts in the war against cancer, as well as impede our quest to learn about the causes of and find effective methods to diagnose and treat debilitating conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, and autism. These diseases are not only devastating to those who are afflicted and the families who care for them, they continue to be a significant drain on our health care system and our economy. This bill also deals a devastating blow to essential safety net programs. First, it essentially stops cold the President's initiative to create 1,200 new or expanded health center sites to serve an additional 6.1 million people by 2006. The Senate-passed bill provided $105 million over the fiscal year 2005 level for community health centers while this bill contains an increase of only $66 million, in essence freezing any new competition for community health center funds. Second, the report slashes funding for programs that train health care providers who serve in health centers and other safety net sites. Title VII health professions programs have a long tradition of responding to the needs of medically underserved communities as well as providing support to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of our health care workforce. Under this bill, a broad array of small but essential programs pertaining to trauma care systems, geriatrics training and education, and emergency medical services will be eliminated. Over the past several years, Senator Roberts and I have led a strong bipartisan effort in support of these essential education and training programs. Gutting these programs is penny-wise and pound-foolish. It will cripple our ability as a nation to be better prepared for the inevitable emergencies and tragedies that happen every day and the demographic tidal wave that will soon be hitting our health care system. The bill also neglected to include a Senate amendment allocating nearly $8 billion in emergency funds to combat the avian flu. Instead, the conference report actually diverts millions from the annual influenza program budget to pay for rural health programs, with a promise that funding for avian flu would be included in the pending Defense appropriations bill but at a much lower amount than the Senate originally provided. This conference report fails to provide sufficient funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP. Rising energy prices threaten to financially overwhelm low-income families and seniors. This winter, the average family will face a $1,000 natural gas bill, an increase of 38 percent from just last year. For families using heating oil, prices are projected to hit $1,400, an increase of 21 percent over last year. These price increases are overcoming workers' salaries and seniors' Social Security checks. American families need economic relief from high energy prices. They need the security to know they will not have to decide between heating their homes or feeding their families and paying the energy bill or buying lifesaving medicines. With a sharp increase in energy prices this year, it is obvious that level funding for the LIHEAP program is inadequate. A majority of the Senate supports $5.1 billion in funding for LIHEAP, but this conference report does not reflect the will of my colleagues. This conference report fails the American people in a number of very important ways. It fails to maintain our promise to give children the opportunity to achieve their full potential. It fails to preserve our commitment to groundbreaking and potentially lifesaving advancements in medicine. And it fails to sustain support for essential programs that help vulnerable Americans.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I strongly oppose the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 Conference Report. This conference report and the Administration's budget are fiscally irresponsible and reflect misguided priorities. The dual reconciliation process this year illustrates these misplaced priorities, as middle- and low-income families are being asked to pay the price for tax cuts for the wealthiest. The second reconciliation bill, which will soon be negotiated by the House and the Senate, will contain a reduction of as much as $70 billion in tax revenue that will more than eliminate the effect of the spending cuts to critical programs in the conference report that we are considering today. With the enactment of the two reconciliation bills, there is a real effort by this administration and the majority to perform a bait and switch on the American people and at the end of the day the ``so-called'' deficit reduction bill along with the tax reconciliation bill will further increase the deficit by as much as $30 billion over the next 5 years. The President's claim at his news conference yesterday that his policies are focused on the priorities of average Americans belies the experience of most working families. The economy has grown this year, but the benefits of that growth continue to show up in the bottom lines of companies rather than in the paychecks of workers. The Minority Views of the Joint Economic Committee 2005 Annual Report released yesterday finds that in the recovery from the 2001 recession, working families have been left behind from the start, and they continue to be left behind today. The unemployment rate is nearly a full percentage point higher than when President Bush took office, about 5 million fewer jobs have been created in this recovery than at this point after the 1990-91 recession, and millions of Americans who want to work do not have jobs. Higher prices for gasoline, home heating fuel, and medical care are also squeezing the take-home pay of workers. In the past year, average hourly earnings are down, after adjusting for inflation. Moreover, wage growth has been uneven, with low-earning workers hit hardest by sluggish wage gains and more recently by declining real wages. The signature policies of the administration and the majority have not addressed the problems facing ordinary American families. Successive rounds of tax cuts were poorly designed to stimulate job creation and produced a legacy of large budget deficits. Those large and persistent budget deficits contributed to an ever-widening trade deficit and massive borrowing from abroad. Most of the benefits of the tax cuts accrued to very high-income taxpayers, while--as this reconciliation bill shows--cuts in programs that benefit middle- and lower-income families are viewed as the best way to pay for those tax cuts. As far as health and human service programs go, this bill has gone from bad to worse as compared to the Senate-passed bill. As expected, significant portions of the reduction that are achieved in this reconciliation bill are achieved by cuts in programs that low- and moderate income Americans rely on. The reconciliation package before us includes roughly $40 billion in spending cuts over 5 years, of which $11.2 billion will come from Medicaid and Medicare. Included among these `savings' are new copayments on Medicaid beneficiaries and additional flexibility to States to scale back coverage for certain vulnerable populations. It also tightens rules designed to limit the ability of elderly people to shed assets in order to qualify for nursing home care. And, for the first time, people with home equity of $500,000 or greater would be ineligible for nursing home care under Medicaid. During Senate consideration of the reconciliation bill, I offered an amendment to restore targeted case management services, TCM, to assist eligible high-need Medicaid beneficiaries gain access to needed medical, social, educational, and other services. Despite promises that this provision would be corrected, the conference report jeopardizes an essential bridge to services for these populations. While low-income Medicaid beneficiaries are bearing the brunt of budget cuts, drug companies and Medicare managed care plans emerged virtually unscathed in the conference report. Specifically, the report drops a Senate provision that would have eliminated the $10 billion slush fund to health insurers a key recommendation of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, MedPAC, because it is unnecessary, unwarranted, and provides an unfair competitive advantage to private health plans over traditional Medicare. Nevertheless, under veto threat by the President, the conference report leaves this fund fully intact, forgoing $5.4 billion in savings over 5 years and twice that amount over 10 years. The bill also shed most of the drug rebate provisions contained in the Senate-passed bill and includes only two minor provisions that generate savings of only $220 million over 5 years and $720 million over 10 years. I would remind my colleagues that this body passed by a vote of 75 to 16 a Baucus motion to instruct conferees to reject provisions that would undermine Medicaid coverage for pregnant women, the disabled, low-income children, the elderly, or other vulnerable populations. Yet, this conference report entirely ignores the will of the majority of the Senate in this area. At the same time, this conference report strikes yet another blow to community health care providers who serve Medicare and Medicaid recipients. On the Medicaid side, pharmacy payment reform provisions contained in this bill will be devastating to the Nation's community retail pharmacies and could significantly reduce Medicaid recipients' access to their essential services. The provisions cut $6.3 billion out of community retail pharmacies payments over the next 5 years by reducing the amount that Medicaid pays for generic medications at a time when the program should be doing everything it can to encourage utilization of generic medications. Every time a pharmacy dispenses a generic medication, Medicaid saves about $100, but this report drives pharmacies to either dispense more expensive medications or simply not serve Medicaid customers at all. The conference committee also included cuts to Medicare providers that were not included in either the House- or Senate-passed bills. Under the conference report, home health care providers will see their reimbursement rates frozen in 2006, in addition to the already scheduled .8 percent reduction implemented as part of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Again, this conference report puts into effect the exact opposite policy at a time when the administration and States have made access to home- and community-based care a priority. I, along with Senator Collins, had urged the conferees to not consider such cuts, and I am disappointed that is exactly what the conference did. Another unfortunate provision in this conference report will impact individuals with disabilities who have languished for months waiting for the Social Security Administration to review and approve their applications for Social Security Supplemental Income, SSI, and are owed back benefits as a result of these delays. They will now have to wait even longer under this package. Instead of receiving a single lump sum payment as they do under current law, SSI beneficiaries will receive back benefits in installments that could stretch out over the course of a year. This provision means many poor SSI recipients with disabilities who have been unable to work and who have probably been unable to pay their mortgage, heating, and other bills will be forced to endure financial destitution even longer. Another area of concern is the inclusion of the House reauthorization for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF. This bill adds tough new requirements on States and recipients with no additional funding for child care. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, has estimated that an additional $11 billion in childcare funding is needed to meet these requirements. Unfortunately, this bill only provides $1 billion in additional childcare funding. If my Republican colleagues were truly committed to helping families break the cycle of poverty, they would not create tough new requirements that States and recipients will be challenged to meet and then provide no additional childcare funding to help them do so. Moreover, the policy goals of this conference report are quite detrimental to States like my home State of Rhode Island. We are a leader among States in providing childcare assistance to low-income families. We recognize that all working families need help paying for childcare and that high quality early care is the key to the healthy development of our children. Rhode Island has made a commitment to help all low-income families pay for childcare, giving equal treatment to families on welfare and those who are working but cannot afford the high cost of childcare. In Rhode Island, we have seen childcare budgets rise as Federal investments have remained stagnant. The new TANF work requirements, coupled with inadequate funding for childcare, jeopardizes my State's commitment to assure that all children have safe, nurturing, and enriching childcare. New harsh requirements will now apply to separate State programs as well, hurting States that have been successful in helping families transition to work through other State initiatives. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, has estimated a cost to States of $8.4 billion over the next 5 years in order to meet these work requirements. This amounts to a higher cost to States than even the controversial House-passed bill. I want to take this opportunity to remind my colleagues that last week Senator Carper introduced and this body approved by a vote of 64 to 27 a motion to instruct conferees not to include the reauthorization for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in this reconciliation package. I am most troubled that such a vote was ignored, and we now face the reauthorization of TANF without allowing the Senate to put forth its own bill and have a fair debate on this issue. The reconciliation conference report also includes a $1.5 billion cut in Federal funding for child support enforcement efforts over the next 5 years and $4.9 billion cut over the next 10 years. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle might suggest that these child support cuts are modest, but the fact remains that the CBO has estimated that, as a result of these cuts, $2.9 billion in child support will go uncollected over the next 5 years. In my home State of Rhode Island, 45,000 families rely on the Office of Child Support Services for help in securing and maintaining child support payments. This is an agency that needs more not fewer resources in order to continue to make collections efficient. I am baffled that the leadership of this Chamber would cut a program that is cost effective, promotes responsibility, and helps families. This program has garnered strong bipartisan support because of its cost effectiveness. During consideration of S. 1932, the Budget Deficit Reduction Act, the Senate approved a sense-of-the-Senate amendment offered by Senator Harkin, stating that the Senate should not accept any cuts to the child support enforcement program during this Congress. In addition, last week Senator Kohl introduced and this Chamber passed by a vote of 75 to 16 a motion to instruct conferees not to include any provisions that would reduce funding for the child support program. How can a program that has this level of bipartisan support receive a $1.5 billion dollar cut? This reconciliation conference report also hurts college students by eliminating the Pro-Gap Program that would have provided $6.5 billion in much-needed aid for college students. In its place is a single modest math/science initiative. While I fully support initiatives that boost our global competitiveness through encouraging study of math and science, I am dismayed that this bill compromises the successful and important Pell grant program to do so. For the first time need-based financial aid under the Pell grant program is tied to curriculum, essentially stifling academic freedom for low-income students. Again, I remind my colleagues that last week Senator Kennedy introduced and this Chamber passed by 83 to 8 a motion to instruct conferees to insist that the Senate provisions increasing need-based financial aid, which were fully offset by savings in S. 1932, be included in the final conference report. I am disappointed that such a vote was ignored. In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, escalating home energy prices, and stagnant wage growth, taking money from important Federal programs in order to pave the way for billions of dollars in tax cuts shows how out of touch the majority and administration are with hard- working Americans. Unfortunately, there has been no change in the priorities or policies of the administration and the majority to address the problems facing the country's most disadvantaged citizens or to help ordinary working families. And instead of sound budget policies aimed at preparing for the imminent retirement of the baby boom generation, this administration and this majority have refused to adopt the kinds of budget enforcement rules that helped achieve fiscal discipline in the 1990s and have remained committed to extending tax cuts that will add further to the budget deficit. The end result is that policy priorities are distorted and programs that help working families cope in a difficult economy have become candidates for budget cutting in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest. Meanwhile the problems of large budget and trade deficits and the economic insecurity felt by many American families remain unaddressed.