Paul Sarbanes

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator will yield further?

Mr. SARBANES. I want to tell the Senator one story. I was in a shopping center over the weekend, and I saw a bumper sticker on a car. The bumper sticker said: ``Mr. Bush, we will be forever in your debt.'' Just then, the person whose car that was came along, and I said to them: What was it you were thinking about that the President has done when you say we are going to be forever in his debt? I thought it was for something he had done. The person said: Think about it. I meant exactly what it says. Mr. Bush, we are going to be forever in your debt. Here is the debt, which the Senator from North Dakota is pointing out. I think the person is right. We are going to be forever in this debt. This is what is being handed to this generation, the next generation, and the generation after that. As the Senator pointed out in the previous chart, they have doubled the debt over this very short time period.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. SARBANES. Let me go back to this external debt that is being held outside the country. Isn't it important to understand, as difficult as the deficit and debt problems are, that when the debt is held internally, it is Americans owing it to Americans. But when the debt is being held externally, it means that as a nation, we have to service this debt which is being held outside of the country. So that amount becomes a charge, as it were, against our own standard of living; isn't that correct? Would not our standard of living be lowered as a consequence of having to meet this external debt-servicing requirement?

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield? I note from his chart, in 2001, we had $5.7 trillion in debt, of which $1 trillion was held abroad.

Mr. SARBANES. So about a sixth, maybe 17 or 18 percent, was being held abroad.

Mr. SARBANES. This President has added $2.3 trillion in debt, of which $1.1 trillion is being held abroad. So there has been a dramatic shift in who is holding this debt and what that represents in terms of a burden on our society.

Mr. SARBANES. There is a wonderful line in a Tennessee Williams play where Blanche DuBois says: I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. It seems to me that is what is happening to the fiscal situation of the United States. We are becoming increasingly dependent on foreigners and in particular foreign countries, since this debt now is being purchased largely by the central banks and not by individual investors. There has been a dramatic shift in terms of who is holding our debt. We are becoming increasingly dependent on others for our fiscal survival. It is a dramatic and deeply concerning development.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield for a question on that chart?

Mr. SARBANES. Is it not also important to ask the question, who is being affected by the spending cuts and who is benefitting from the tax cuts, because that gives you a sense of what the priorities are? It is my perception that the spending cuts are affecting those who have little--working people, or people in difficult circumstances, such as young people trying to get a college education. The tax cuts for which these spending cuts are being imposed--as the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee said, to make room for them--are going primarily to benefit those at the upper end of the income and wealth scale. So aren't those the priorities that are being set here? People have to make the connection. They say we are doing the spending cuts to reduce the deficit. Of course, then they admit they are trying to hold the deficit down through spending cuts in order to make room for the tax cuts. So you have to ask, who is being hit by the spending cuts? Who is getting the benefit of the tax cuts? Those priorities, it seems to me, are standing completely on their heads. They are just the wrong set of priorities. We have to make that connection, don't we, to understand what is happening?

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SARBANES. In light of what we previously looked at as to how this debt is being financed from outside the country, in effect what is happening is that in order to give tax cuts to very wealthy people, we are borrowing from Japan, China, Korea, and the Caribbean money centers, and so forth and so on. That is where we are finding the money to fund this debt that is being created and run up in order to give tax cuts to wealthy people, is it not?

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SARBANES. The way the Medicaid Program is structured, as I understand it, is that in order to be a Medicaid beneficiary, in order to receive Medicaid to meet your health care needs, you have to be adjudged to be at an income level that is so low it is clear you can not afford medical care. In order to get Medicaid to begin with, don't you have to meet that requirement?

Mr. SARBANES. And now they are proposing to take people who get Medicaid because their income is so low that they can't meet their health care needs in any other way, and they are imposing additional burdens on these Medicaid recipients.

Mr. SARBANES. Five minutes, at most. Mr. President, I first thank and commend the very able Senator from North Dakota for a very powerful presentation and also for his work, day in and day out, as the ranking member on the Democratic side on the Budget Committee. I don't think there is anyone in the Senate who understands the fiscal situation better or has a more perceptive analysis of what has happened than the very distinguished Senator from North Dakota. I thank him for his leadership on this issue. I will be very brief. I simply want to say that this conference report before us is worse than what the Senate passed, significantly worse. It will cut crucial assistance to working families, to students, and to the elderly, amongst others. I think these cuts will move the Nation in the wrong direction. I particularly disagree with imposing these cuts on low- and moderate-income Americans, supposedly to bring our budget deficit under control but actually to make room to give tax cuts to very wealthy people. The budget resolution provides for reconciliation protection for both the spending bill and a tax bill. So to see the impact of the reconciliation process, one has to take the two together. Although we only have the spending bill now, the tax bill will follow along as surely as the night follows the day. The budget resolution requires almost $40 billion in spending cuts. The same budget resolution tells the committees to report tax cuts of $70 billion. So we have a reconciliation process supposedly intended to reduce the deficit--in fact, they call it the Deficit Reduction Act; where is George Orwell when we need him?--which, when both the spending bill and the tax bill are considered, is going to increase the deficit, not reduce the deficit. So these spending cuts are being made not to address our budget deficit, they are being made to make room for tax cuts--the quote from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was absolutely on point. This legislation is a clear example of a fiscal policy that places a higher priority on tax cuts than on funding needed services and reducing the deficit. This is clearly a misplaced priority, regrettably one that has characterized this administration. We have seen this incredible swing in our fiscal position over the last 5 years. When President Bush came into office, we were projecting, over the next 10-year period, a surplus in the Federal budget of $5.6 trillion. Today, after a series of excessive tax cuts, we are projecting a deficit over 10 years of $4.5 trillion. This is a swing in our fiscal position of $10 trillion in the wrong direction, from a $5.6 trillion projected surplus to a $4.5 trillion projected deficit. We are risking our fiscal future. We are targeting tax cuts to those who need them the least and we are cutting programs for those who need them the most. This is an incredibly wrong set of priorities. I am very much opposed to this conference report, and I very much urge my colleagues to reject this conference report when it comes to a vote. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate Dr. Phillip A Singerman on his very successful tenure as executive director of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO). Dr. Singerman recently announced his intention to step down from this position at the end of the year. The Maryland General Assembly created TEDCO in 1999 as a quasi-State investment corporation to facilitate business growth and foster technology transfer. When Dr. Singerman came from the U.S. Department of Commerce to lead TEDCO in 1999, its budget was approximately $650,000. Since Dr. Singerman began, TEDCO's assets have increased nearly ten fold. Through Dr. Singerman's leadership and drive, TEDCO created innovative partnerships between Maryland's large and growing high-tech Federal sector and start-up businesses that allowed the private sector to harness and grow applications for the cutting-edge technologies developed by the Federal Government. This work has also allowed Maryland businesses to work with the Federal Government to ``spin-in'' technology--connecting the best of the private sector's technology expertise to our Federal sector on behalf of our national interest. Through these and other efforts, TEDCO has gained a national reputation. For the last 2 years, it has been recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine as the leading backer of seed and early stage companies in the country. In fact, TEDCO's investments have been so successful that a company receiving its seed funding now typically receives 25 times that initial amount from other venture capital firms and the Federal Government over the following 3 years. In short, Dr. Singerman has done a tremendous amount to bolster Maryland's preeminent role as a national center of excellence for high technology innovation. As Richard C. ``Mike'' Lewin, former head of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development put it in a recent Baltimore Sun article: ``[h]e made TEDCO from scratch what it is today, the most effective technology development operation in the country.'' Mr. President, I am proud to have worked with Dr. Singerman over the last 6 years. His contribution to the State of Maryland and to our Nation cannot be overstated, and I wish him the very best in all of his future endeavors. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the entire Baltimore Sun article about Dr. Singerman's tenure as executive director of TEDCO quoted above.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my comments, Senator Stabenow be recognized, then Senator Salazar and Senator Reed be recognized. All of us seek to speak about our colleague, Senator Corzine.

Mr. SARBANES. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, in a few weeks our good friend, Jon Corzine, will leave the Senate, where he so effectively represented New Jersey and its people over the past 5 years, to become Governor of his State. I have been privileged to serve with Senator Corzine on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, to whose work he has brought an extraordinary combination of principle, vision, intelligence, and solid common sense. I wish to say a few words today about his spectacular work on that committee. For a while, I was privileged to serve as chairman of the committee, and I can tell you that no chairman could have a better fate than to have Jon Corzine as one of his members. Prior to entering the U.S. Senate, Jon Corzine spent nearly a quarter of a century with Goldman Sachs, the New York investment bank, including five as its chairman and CEO. His long and wide-ranging experience in the financial markets made him especially well qualified to deal with the issues that came within the Banking Committee's jurisdiction. In very short order, it was apparent that whenever Jon Corzine's turn in a committee meeting came to put questions to witnesses, even the most confident and sophisticated among them listened more intently and responded more carefully. Senator Corzine's contribution to the accounting reform and investor protection legislation known as Sarbanes-Oxley was invaluable. Along with Senator Dodd, who also serves on the committee, Jon Corzine was among the first members of the Senate to call for hearings on investor protection in the wake of the collapse of Enron Corporation. Those hearings took place in February and March of 2002, and Senator Corzine, along with others on the committee, Senator Dodd and others, played a critical role in shaping the reform legislation enacted 4 months later. I have done it before and I wish to again acknowledge the very substantial and significant contributions Jon Corzine made in helping to shape and develop that legislation. His work was invaluable. Consistently in the work of the committee, Jon Corzine played a critical role in efforts to strengthen protections for investors in our capital markets. BusinessWeek, in fact, noted that his work in this area gave him ``an unusually high profile for a junior Senator.'' His contributions to the work of the committee were by no means focused only on these issues. Indeed, he touched virtually every issue in the committee's jurisdiction. He has worked vigorously to expand housing opportunities and the effectiveness of Federal housing programs. He has been a forceful spokesman for full funding for critical programs of the Department of Housing and Urban Development-- section 8 vouchers, housing for the elderly, improved public housing, and other efforts to assist low-income homeowners and renters. It is indicative of his commitment, and in his statement here in the Chamber only a few minutes ago he again was making reference to how people who work at minimum wage can't afford an apartment in county after county across the country. He led efforts to expand coverage of FHA insurance for multifamily housing, something especially relevant in States such as New Jersey where inflated housing costs affected previous program ceilings. He pressed for energy efficiency requirements in public and assisted housing, and he has remained committed to Federal action to assure secondary mortgage market liquidity and affordable housing. Jon Corzine was an original cosponsor of the legislation to stop predatory lending practices and spoke forcefully in the committee's deliberation about the harsh and cynical techniques predatory lenders used to exploit vulnerable borrowers seeking mortgages and other credit. He has been one of the leaders in the Senate in the fight against Federal preemption of State consumer protection laws which are designed to protect our citizens against these practices. He has been among the Senate's most outspoken advocates for public and private financial literacy programs to ensure that all Americans of all ages and all backgrounds have the skills to grasp the financial implications of the often complex credit card loans and other financial arrangements they are offered. He has obtained Federal funding for financial education programs in elementary and secondary schools and was the leader in the ultimately successful efforts in 2003 to pass the Financial Literacy and Education Improvement Act, which incorporates many of his ideas. For his work on this issue, the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy named him ``Federal Financial Literacy and Education Legislator of the Year.'' Throughout his tenure, Senator Corzine has been among our most articulate advocates for public transportation, whose importance in the day-to-day lives of his constituents he knows firsthand since he represents the most densely populated State in the Nation. He fought to preserve and enhance the Federal transit program as the new surface transportation authorization legislation was developed. As a result of his efforts, New Jersey will receive nearly $2.5 billion in transit formula funds from 2004 through 2009, a 50-percent increase over the amount the State received in the predecessor legislation. He also succeeded in assuring priority treatment in terms of planning, funding, and execution under this new legislation for a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River. This project, the Trans- Hudson Midtown Corridor, has been identified as a crucial investment for the region's mobility and security. As a result of his efforts, the National Transit Institute, which provides training, education, and clearinghouse services to support public transportation, will be maintained at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Senator Corzine was a leader in the effort to develop a Federal backstop for terrorism insurance after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Those attacks left such insurance widely unavailable and put businesses and commercial property owners at risk of future losses from terrorism without having insurance coverage. He recognized immediately this situation would create a drag on economic activity and again brought his expertise to bear in helping to develop the Federal legislation under which the Federal Government would share the risk of future terrorism losses with the industry. Senator Corzine was one of the first to recognize the threat that identity theft poses both to consumers and to the integrity of the Nation's payment system. He has been a leader in the fight for safeguards on personal information, on protecting the privacy of our citizens. Many of these things I have spoken about reflect a common theme, and that is Jon Corzine's concern for those left out and left behind. It has been a hallmark of his service in the Senate that he has sought to bring into the mainstream of American life those who have been left out of it. This concern for those, in a sense, who have been forgotten, was reflected in his work in the international arena, particularly the emphasis he placed on the situation in Darfur. Again and again, Jon Corzine took the floor of the Senate to bring to our attention the terrible things that were happening there and to push for measures to help alleviate that situation. Finally, let me say what has distinguished Senator Corzine's service in the Senate over and above his many specific accomplishments is the dedication and vision and principles that underlie all his work. Before coming to the Senate, he spent much of his professional life as an investment banker. But he brought to his responsibilities certain fundamental convictions about the nature of American society, a hopeful and optimistic vision of American life that first took place as he was growing up in a small farming community in central Illinois. It was there he has said he learned ``the meaning of hard work and the opportunities afforded by a strong education system.'' Jon Corzine went on to earn his B.A. as Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve where he served for 6 years. He attended the University of Chicago Business School at night, and not too much later he joined Goldman Sachs. His many years in the financial markets have not dimmed Jon Corzine's vision of America as a nation grounded in opportunity--opportunity for a good education, for a decent job, a place to raise one's family and someday to retire with dignity, security, and self-respect. He has dedicated his efforts to advance programs that can make this vision a reality for all his fellow Americans. When he announced his candidacy for Governor of New Jersey last December, Senator Corzine pledged he would ``fight like crazy to make sure that there is a view that government can be a partner in lifting up the lives of the rest of America.'' This is surely what he has done in the Senate. In just 5 short years, notwithstanding his junior status in a body that sets a high premium on seniority--when I first came here I was very critical of the seniority system, but I have to admit that as time has gone by I have come to see the virtues of the system. Jon Corzine has had an impressive record of accomplishment. He has demonstrated the astute and principled leadership in the Senate that will most assuredly make him a distinguished Governor of the State of New Jersey in the service of all its people. If I may be so bold as to address a word to the people of New Jersey, I simply say they have an extraordinary leader about to take over as the Governor of their State. I urge them to give Jon Corzine their backing and support so he can bring his vision to bear in the State of New Jersey. When Woodrow Wilson became Governor of the State of New Jersey, he introduced a progressive agenda which became the model for the Nation. New Jersey went to the very forefront of the 50 States in addressing fairness and opportunity for its citizens and enhancing their quality of life. I say today, as we bid our dear colleague a fond farewell, Jon Corzine can provide that kind of leadership for New Jersey. He can move that State to the very forefront of the 50 States and make it a shining example of what can be accomplished when all of us pull together in order to enhance opportunity for each and every one. I wish him the very best as he leaves this body and in the years ahead. I yield the floor.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield me 30 seconds?

Mr. SARBANES. I thank the very able Senator from California for her yielding to allow these tributes to be paid to Senator Corzine. I know she has been here quite a while waiting to speak on another issue. It was extremely gracious of her to do that. I wanted to recognize that and thank her very much.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in support of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act of 2005. This legislation represents a bipartisan, bi-cameral compromise to extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 for 2 years, through December 31, 2007. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleagues, as it is through the hard work of Banking Committee Chairman Shelby and Senators Dodd and Bennett, along with the House negotiators, led by Financial Services Committee Chairman Oxley and ranking member Frank, that we have been able to work out this compromise and ensure that TRIA continues. As I said when the Senate first considered a TRIA extension bill in November of this year, the original TRIA was designed to address the adverse impact on the terrorism insurance marketplace of the sudden lack of terrorism reinsurance after the September 11th attacks. Reinsurance is a mechanism by which insurance companies spread their own risks, allowing them to write more policies; without it, insurers' capacity to offer coverage for losses due to terrorism shrank considerably. By all accounts, the federal backstop provided by TRIA achieved its goal of making terrorism insurance coverage available and affordable once again. The Treasury Department reported this summer, ``TRIA was effective in terms of the purposes it was designed to achieve. TRIA provided a transitional period during which insurers had enhanced financial capacity to write terrorism risk insurance coverage. . . . More generally, TRIA provided an adjustment period allowing both insurers and policyholders to adjust to the post-September 11th view of terrorism risk.'' However, after the Treasury Department released its report, serious disagreements emerged as to what would be the most efficient, effective, and equitable way to assure the continued availability of terrorism insurance. This is an issue that deserves careful analysis, which is why this extension bill contains a requirement for a study by the President's Working Group on Financial Markets on the long-term availability and affordability of terrorism risk insurance. I hope that this requirement will result in a thorough examination of the issues and will include input from all stakeholders, which will help us answer the question of how to insure against terrorism over the long-term. To allow time for that examination to take place, this compromise legislation continues the TRIA program for 2 additional years, with certain modifications, which I will briefly summarize. Following the model of the extension bill passed by the Senate in November of this year, this legislation narrows the scope of the TRIA program, further targeting the program toward the types of terrorism insurance that are the most difficult to provide. Under the terms of the extension, the federal backstop will no longer be available for insurance policies covering commercial automobiles, professional liability, burglary and theft, farm owners, multiple peril, and surety. Just as the original TRIA did, this extension places more of the risk on the insurance industry, and correspondingly less on the Federal Government, in each year. For example, in 2005, under the current program, the amount of terrorism losses that an insurer must cover before federal assistance becomes available is 15 percent of the premiums collected by that insurer in lines covered by the TRIA program. Under this extension, this ``insurance company deductible'' will rise to 17.5 percent of premiums in 2006, and 20 percent of premiums in 2007. Moreover, the amount that insurers must pay above their deductible also increases, rising from 10 percent of losses in 2006, to 15 percent of losses in 2007. In addition to the individual insurance companies' deductible, the insurance industry as a whole must cover a certain amount of losses before federal assistance becomes available. In 2005, the last year of the current TRIA program, that amount is $15 billion. Under this legislation, that amount will rise to $25 billion in 2006, and $27.5 billion in 2007, an increase from the amounts included in the legislation originally passed by the Senate in November. Also, after March 31, 2006, no federal assistance will be available at all under the program for a terrorist attack in which total losses do not exceed $50 million, a level which rises to $100 million in 2007. The starting date for this increase in the trigger level is later than it was in the bill passed by the Senate in November, to allow the insurance industry and policyholders a grace period in which to adapt to the new level. Finally, I want to emphasize that this compromise legislation, like the extension bills passed by both the Senate and the House earlier this year, retains a critically important piece of the current TRIA program: the requirement that insurers make terrorism coverage available to policyholders in all of the lines covered by TRIA. These provisions follow the framework of the existing TRIA program, keeping the federal backstop in place so that insurers will continue writing terrorism policies, while placing progressively more of the costs onto the industry itself. As with any compromise product, no one would say that the legislation is perfect. But it is a serious effort to address the concerns we have heard raised regarding TRIA and the potential effects of its expiration, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I want to congratulate subcommittee Chairman Bond and Ranking Member Murray for successfully concluding this conference report. I would like to note that this is the first time this subcommittee, as currently constituted, has brought a conference report to the Senate and, in my view, this report is a worthy achievement and I intend to support it. I note, in particular, the strong title on Transportation funding in the report. We all worked very hard to pass a Transportation authorization bill earlier this year that maintains a balanced transportation program, ensuring adequate funding for both our Nation's highways and transit programs. In my view, both of these components are extremely important to the future economic growth of our country, and I am happy to note that the conference report being brought to us this afternoon is largely faithful to the provisions included in SAFETEA-LU. The report's provisions regarding Federal employees are also to be commended. The report includes language that will help Federal employees to compete on a more level playing field with contractors in cases where Federal agencies decide to consider contracting out jobs. The report ensures pay parity for all Federal employees--military and civilian alike. It also provides over $125 million to consolidate the FDA at White Oak, and ensures that 68 Taxpayer Assistance Centers, including 4 in Maryland, will remain open until after the inspector general completes a report to determine the impact proposed closures would have on both employees and clients. I thank the managers of the bill for their hard work on these important issues. I also want to talk about the appropriation for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD. At the outset, I want to express my appreciation to Senator Bond for his commitment over many years to maintaining strong and effective housing programs. Senator Murray, who has not served as Ranking Member on the Subcommittee dealing with HUD issues until this year, has proven to be a very valuable addition to this effort and has shown a deep understanding of, and commitment to, these important programs. The key problem that the Conferees faced in putting together this report is that they were not given enough money to fund the housing programs at a fully adequate level. For example, the HOME and CDBG program, both very flexible programs, used to build and rehabilitate housing, create new homeowners, and create new jobs, suffer modest cuts in the report. Public Housing, the Nation's basic housing program for the poor, is inadequately funded as to both its day-to-day operations, and its long- term capital needs. The funding figures are very close to last year's appropriations--and I recognize that this was no easy task for the conferees--but we need more to maintain our basic investment in this fundamental program. HOPE VI is cut by nearly one-third, though I commend the managers for getting this much, given the administration's repeated efforts to kill the program altogether. Finally, I want to express my deep disappointment that the conference report adopts the funding formula for renewal of section 8 vouchers put forward by the House instead of the far more effective formula adopted by the Senate in the bill we passed earlier this year. Section 8 is the largest housing program funded the Federal Government, serving over 2 million low-income people. On the positive side, the conference report we are considering today does provide an increase in funds over last year that will help to restore at least some of the vouchers that were lost. On the other hand, by adopting the House formula voucher renewals, we are likely to see the loss of thousands of valuable housing vouchers in fiscal year 2006. For several years, voucher funding for each housing authority has been allocated based on the prior year's cost and utilization of vouchers at each housing authority around the country. The Senate would have used as a base for this calculation the most recent 12-month period. By contrast, the House formula, which has been adopted by this report, uses only a 3-month snapshot. As you might expect, the Senate provision gives a much more accurate picture of both the housing authority's voucher utilization and costs by taking a broader picture of the data. In addition, the data that would be used under the Senate provision would be more up to date, ensuring a more accurate outcome. Projections based on data from HUD confirm this view. Under the House formula, some housing authorities will get millions of dollars of voucher funds beyond what they can legally use, while others will not get enough to fund even vouchers that are currently in use. At a time of such tight resources, this kind of planned waste is simply inexcusable. I want to emphasize that the Senate managers fought for the more sensible Senate language. It is unfortunate that the House, with the strong support of HUD, prevailed in this case. Earlier this week, a senior official at HUD said in the New York Times. ``Lack of Section 8 Vouchers for Storm Evacuees Highlights Rift Over Housing Program,'' November 8, 2005, ``The housing voucher program is something we believe in. But we have to make sure the money's well spent.'' I regret to say that HUD objected to the Senate provision which would have produced a demonstrably more effective and efficient allocation of section 8 funds. In the end, despite the efforts of the chairman and ranking member, HUD and the House prevailed. This concerns me greatly. I certainly hope that HUD does not come back next year and use the wasteful results of this ineffective system for which they advocated, as a rationale to provide less funding for fiscal year 2007. Despite this significant disappointment, I want to, again, indicate my support for the overall package.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support passage of S. 705, legislation to establish an Interagency Council on Meeting the Housing and Service Needs of Seniors. This legislation will help the Federal Government work with its partners to meet the growing housing and related needs of senior citizens around the country. The Interagency Council will work to better coordinate Federal programs so that seniors and their families can access the programs and the services necessary to allow them to age in place or find suitable housing alternatives. The challenges that confront us are growing more urgent as our population ages. Data from the 2000 census show that the population over 65 years of age was 34.7 million. This number is expected to grow to over 50 million by 2020. It is projected that by 2030 nearly 20 percent of our population will be over 65. That is, almost one American in every five will be elderly. As our senior population continues to increase, so will the demand for affordable housing and service options. This is a matter of concern not only for those who will need the services but for families-- children along with spouses. It concerns communities all around the country, as productive and responsible citizens grow older and need help. It is a matter of deep concern for us all, because it will affect the well-being of our entire society. In order for seniors to age in place, or find alternative housing arrangements, services must be linked with housing. Seniors must be able to access needed health supports, transportation, meal and chore services, and assistance with daily tasks in or close to their homes. Without needed supports, seniors and their families face difficult and even daunting decisions. The Commission on Affordable Housing and Health Facility Needs for Seniors--``Seniors Commission''--established by Congress in 1999 found that too often, seniors face premature institutionalization because housing and services are not linked. According to the Commission's report, ``the very heart'' of its work ``is the recognition that the housing and service needs of seniors traditionally have been addressed in different `worlds' that often fail to recognize or communicate with each other.'' The Commission concluded that: ``the most striking characteristic of seniors'' housing and health care in this country is the disconnection of one field from another.'' If left unattended, the problem of lack of coordination will increasingly undermine all of our efforts to assure that Americans, as they age, have access to the services they need. The Interagency Council on the Housing and Service Needs of Seniors will increase coordination and will serve as a permanent national platform to address the needs and issues of our aging population. The Interagency Council will help to improve collaboration and coordination among the Federal agencies and our State and local partners, to ensure that seniors are better able to access housing and services. This Council will work to find new ways to link housing programs and needed supportive services to increase their efficiency, to make them more accessible, and to strengthen their capacity. The decisions that our seniors and their families must make are difficult enough. They should not be made more painful and burdensome by having to negotiate a confusing maze of programs and services and a multiplicity of administrative procedures. I am hopeful that the Interagency Council on Meeting the Housing and Service Needs of Seniors will be able to focus attention on this problem, while working towards solutions. This bill has wide support from a diverse array of groups, ranging from senior advocates to faith-based organizations and direct service providers. The diversity of groups that have worked together in support of this legislation is indicative of the great need for such coordination. If we are to successfully address the growing needs of seniors, it is clear that much work must be done. The establishment of an Interagency Council on Meeting the Housing and Service Needs of Seniors is a critical first step in this endeavor. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this important legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the legislation as reported from Committee be printed immediately following this statement. I also ask unanimous consent that the attached letters of support, section-by-section analysis of the bill, and relevant fact sheet be printed in the Record.

Mr. SARBANES. Finally, I want to thank Chairman Shelby for his leadership and assistance in moving this legislation. I also want to acknowledge the excellent work of the staff on this bill, especially that of Jennifer Fogel-Bublick, as well as Sarah Garrett, Mark Calabria, and Tewana Wilkerson. In addition, we could not have done this without the active support of Kathy Casey, Chairman Shelby's Staff Director. Exhibit 1