Paul Sarbanes

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Reserving the right to object, can I get in that queue?

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SARBANES. The Senator mentioned three rollcall votes, and then stay on the floor for other amendments to be offered.

Mr. SARBANES. Can I get on that queue?

Mr. SARBANES. What problem would it cause if we were to offer the amendment after the votes and maybe even discuss it for a few minutes?

Mr. SARBANES. I object. I object.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, today I am submitting legislation together with Senator Mikulski that would recognize the achievements of The Garden Club of America on the occasion of its 91st annual meeting in Washington, DC, from April 24 through 27, 2004. This meeting in our Nation's Capital is especially significant because it occurs here only once every twenty-five years. This legislation recognizes and honors The Garden Club and the work of its 17,000 members to improve our country. Since its founding in 1913, The Garden Club of America has grown to include 195 member clubs in 40 States and the District of Columbia. It is a recognized leader in the fields of horticulture, conservation, historic preservation, civic improvement, and has significant influence in the protection of America's environment. Right here in the District of Columbia we can witness the results of The Garden Club's labor. Indeed it played an instrumental role in the founding of the National Arboretum and the development of the Archives of American Gardens at the Smithsonian Institution. Perhaps even more importantly, The Garden Club has become a significant impetus for community service across the United States. The scope of The Garden Club of America goes well beyond its numerous publications, its public plant and flower shows, and its national medalists. It is a source for the exchange of ideas and a platform for the betterment of our communities across this great country. The purpose of The Garden Club of America is to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening, but also to share the advantages of association through educational meetings, conferences, correspondence, and publications, and to improve the quality of the environment through conservation and civic improvement. As a Marylander I know first hand of the contributions The Garden Club of America has made to our State. Ladew Topiary Gardens is a prime example of the edification and enjoyment that stems from the support of The Garden Club of America. Since 1971, Ladew Gardens has used its 22 acres of gardens to educate children, entertain families, and promote the importance of beautiful landscapes within our communities. Every spring and summer, hundreds of families congregate in the gardens to enjoy the Sunday concerts, afternoon picnics, and self-guided educational nature walks. And every year, hundreds of families leave the gardens with an exhilarated appreciation for America's outdoors, and an enriched desire to conserve that beauty. The Garden Club of America has asked for very little in return for its dedication to America's beautiful landscapes. I am submitting this legislation today in the hope that we in the Congress can recognize this significant contribution as The Garden Club of America holds its annual meeting here in our Nation's Capital. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of Women's History Month. As an outgrowth of International Women's Day, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women planted the seeds of Women's History Month during the week of March 8, 1978. The task force established an agenda of events and celebrations that included a multicultural perspective recognizing the contributions made by all women. Soon thereafter the idea spread, as many Sonoma area schools began holding similar week-long programs. In 1979, Molly Murphy MacGregor, Director of the Sonoma County Commission, spoke so eloquently during a Women's History Institute Conference about the importance of this recognition that, by the end of the conference, participants vowed to promote the idea of Women's History Week within their own organizations and to secure a Congressional Resolution declaring the week of March 8, National Women's History Week. By the end of 1980, Maryland's own Senator Barbara Mikulski, then a Member of Congress, sponsored a joint congressional resolution declaring the week of March 8 as National Women's History Week. That same year, President Jimmy Carter issued a presidential message to encourage recognition and celebration of women's historic accomplishments during the week of March 8. In 1987, at the request of women's organizations, educators, and others, the National Women's History Project petitioned Congress to expand these celebrations to the entire month of March. Upon bipartisan approval of the National Women's History Month Resolution, National History Month was born, affording us the opportunity to focus each year on areas of accomplishment and inspiration--and to honor the many great women leaders from our past and present who have served our Nation so well. As scientists, writers, doctors, teachers, and mothers, women have shaped our world and guided us down the road to prosperity and peace. For far too long, however, their contributions to the strength and character of our society went unrecognized and undervalued. Women have led efforts to secure not only their own rights, but have also been the guiding force behind many of the other major social movements of our time--the abolitionist movement, the industrial labor movement, and the civil rights movement, to name a few. We also have women to thank for the establishment of many of our early charitable, philanthropic, and cultural institutions. I would like to take this time to single out a few women from the State of Maryland whose work and accomplishments are very much in line with this year's theme ``Women Inspiring Hope and Possibility.'' These individuals are from different professions, different age groups, different backgrounds, but they all represent what it means to inspire. Edith Houghton Hooker, a member of the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame, truly embodied this year's theme. Ms. Houghton Hooker was convinced that progressive reform would occur much more quickly and completely if women achieved the right to vote. In 1909, in the midst of Maryland's suffrage movement, Hooker organized the Just Government League and affiliated her organization with the National American Woman Suffrage Association, NAWSA. In 1910, the defeat of suffrage in the Maryland General Assembly led Hooker and others to believe that, although they should continue to urge suffrage legislation at the State level, the passage of a national constitutional amendment should be the priority of their organization's efforts. Ms. Houghton Hooker also realized early on that while there were several local and statewide suffrage organizations, these groups would have to present a united front in Annapolis and that activists would have to engage in an effective and collaborative public information campaign. With that in mind, in 1912, she created the Maryland Suffrage News as the official organ of the Just Government League, which served to address each of those needs: unity, a statewide presence, and public information. The News became the weekly voice, not just for the Just Government League, but for the entire suffrage movement in Maryland. In addition to developments regarding suffrage, the News informed its subscribers, most of whom were from the middle class, of the needs and circumstances of working class women, and the problems associated with education, crime and corruption. And, in 1917, largely because of her work in growing the News, Hooker was named President of the Maryland Suffrage Party of Baltimore. Now, the many bound volumes of the Maryland Suffrage News reside in the Maryland Historical Society, where our generation and future generations can learn about the struggles of the suffrage movement, the dedication of suffragists, and the importance of the result. The late Rachel Carson, another Maryland woman and scientist, inspired the Nation as pioneer of the modern conservation movement. Carson, a well-known naturalist, wrote Silent Spring, which became a key symbol of the new environmental movement in this country. After World War II, Ms. Carson became concerned about the increased use of synthetic chemical pesticides and took it upon herself to alert a national audience to the environmental and human dangers of haphazard use of these chemicals. In the tradition of women inspiring and helping others, I would be remiss if I failed to mention Clara Barton, founder and first president of the American Red Cross. While recuperating from illness in Europe, she learned of the Treaty of Geneva, which provided relief to sick and wounded soldiers. Upon her return to the U.S., her crusading ensured the signing of the Geneva Treaty in 1882. Ms. Barton founded the American Red Cross in 1881, where she served as its first president. Several years later, she wrote the American Amendment to the Red Cross Constitution, which provided for disaster relief during peacetime as well as war. As part of her legacy, the American Red Cross continues to provide relief work in times of famines, floods, and earthquakes in the United States and throughout the world. I also want to mention some of today's heroes from Maryland. Sol de Ande Mendez Eaton serves as an activist for the Maryland Hispanic/ Latino community. Ms. Eaton convened the first Maryland Statewide conference on civil rights as co-chair of the Maryland Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She has worked at the local and State level as a pioneer in the areas of women's health and domestic violence. Every day, she continues to inspire us to work for the rights of others by seeking to reduce discrimination in employment, housing, education and health. June Bacon-Bercey, another Marylander, the first African American woman to receive a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences, inspires us as well. As a television forecaster, she is also the first African American woman, and indeed the first woman to receive the American Meteorological Service Seal for television-radio weather-casting. In 1979, Ms. Bacon- Bercey became Chief Administrator of Television Activities for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. She is a scientist, an international expert on weather and aviation, as well as a wife and mother. Recognizing the difficulties that other women would face in pursuing her profession, she has chosen to go beyond her substantial personal achievement to help other women reach their goals in weather-related professions. In fact, she donated her winnings from a game show to create a scholarship plan for young women wanting to join meteorology. In view of this year's theme, I commend Ms. Bacon-Bercey not only for her example and inspiration to other women, but for her generosity in directly helping others reach their dreams. Since the first woman received a medical degree from a United States medical school, in 1848, female doctors have helped shape and change the course of medicine. A model physician in the State of Maryland, Dr. Marie Amos Dobyns, has worked in Maryland for over 20 years and served over 3,000 patients. As an Eastern Cherokee Native American, she integrates her heritage into her medical practice and her vision of a partnership between patient and physician has inspired would-be physicians across the country to seek out innovative approaches to offering comprehensive patient-centered care. I am privileged to speak in honor of the mothers, wives, daughters, friends and neighbors that have inspired and opened up possibilities for us all. We should take this month to redouble our efforts to ensure that their work has not been for naught. In that regard, I ask us all to take Women's History Month as a time to reflect on the contributions of women, but also as a time to refocus on how much needs to be accomplished to achieve full equality.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Does that chart mean if one-third of the tax cuts that are being proposed to be made permanent, if only one-third of them remain not made permanent, that would more than cover the shortfall in Social Security?

Mr. SARBANES. There are other examples of this. I offered an amendment in the Budget Committee to fully fund the firefighter grant program. That amount is $900 million--not billions as we are talking here but just $900 million. Two years in a row, the Congress has appropriated $750 million. So we have not appropriated the fully authorized amount but we have gotten up fairly close to it at $750 million. The President's budget submitted to the Congress had $500 million. In other words, it cut the program by one-third, $250 million, from the level it had been for 2 successive fiscal years. These are grants that go out to firefighters across the country to try to enhance their professionalism, upgrade their equipment, better prepare them to deal with the threats we confront. One of the things we are very anxious to deal with is that one-third of all the firefighters in the country do not have the equipment, the breathing equipment to protect them in a serious fire, from smoke inhalation. That is one of the things we would like to take care of. Yet the President's budget proposed to the Congress cut the funding for this program by one-third. The President is now running political ads showing firefighters on 9/ 11 moving out of the wreckage, and there is a stretcher with a flag on it. We know what the firefighters did. We know the heroism they have shown. Every year, I go to the National Fallen Firefighters ceremony, which is held at the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial, which is in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the location of the U.S. Fire Academy. Families come from all over the country. There is a weekend of events and ceremonies to mark the memory and the heroism of fallen firefighters. The year after 9/11 we could not do it in Emmitsburg. There were too many people and so the ceremony was held at the MCI Center in Washington because the number jumped so tremendously as a consequence of those deaths in New York. In money terms, that is not a big item, but in its significance and in what it stands for, I think it is very substantial. We know our first responders place themselves at risk. They are the first called upon. There were firefighters going up the steps of the World Trade Center in an effort to rescue people when people in the building were coming down the steps in order to escape. In effect, they were placing themselves in further danger in order to save their fellow human beings. They did not know these people. They were all strangers to them but they were responding to their duty. It is extraordinary when we stop and think about it. The impact of it is obviously recognized by some of the President's people because they are putting it in this political ad. But I would like to see them take the program up to $900 million to do the firefighter grants so we could provide firefighters across the country with the protective equipment which they need as they carry out this very dangerous occupation. That would require only $400 million. The President's tax cuts provide $45 billion for the top 1 percent. Will the top 1 percent, those making over $337,000, who are getting an enormous--what is the tax return they are getting? Does the Senator have that figure in his mind, $120,000 or something?

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SARBANES. In other words, a third of the Nation's retirees get at least 90 percent of their income from Social Security, another third get from between 50 and 90 percent of their income from Social Security. It demonstrates how dependent retired people are on Social Security to keep them out of poverty so they can lead a reasonable life.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I appreciate my distinguished colleague from North Dakota joining with me in this exploration of the implications of this budget. I will talk about job creation for a moment, and to indicate any budget we deal with, which is the most important Government document we act upon, contains thousands of decisions that are critical to our national life. Those decisions reflect important choices in terms of the priorities for our country. We have just been engaged in a discussion about tax breaks for the wealthiest among us. Are we more concerned with strengthening Social Security to make sure that people in retirement are adequately covered or making the necessary investments in education, transportation, and the environment? All of those decisions are involved in crafting the budget. In its composite, the budget is a very important macroeconomic document because it sets the fiscal path for dealing with the overall economy. We ask the question, Will the budget fund the programs, create jobs, and strengthen our economy? Will the budget have long-run structural deficits? What will be the impact of those deficits on our future economic performance? Will it move us toward full employment or away from it? We talked about the credibility of the President's budget and the fact that it fails to account fully for what the projections should be. We talked about the budget's failure to project for 10 years to show the full cost of making these tax cuts permanent, the failure to adjust for the alternative minimum tax, and the fact that the budget has zero in it for our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who are they kidding? Everyone knows that our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is going to cost something. Then they say: Well, we cannot really estimate. They should make a good-faith estimate for inclusion in the budget. We are confronted with these facts, and again and again we are not getting the full picture. It is a little bit like things are under shells. If you lift off the cover, all of a sudden you discover another problem. When the President proposed his first massive tax cut, he told us, ``We can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget deficits.'' That is what President Bush said when he came into office. In the first budget he submitted, he predicted, for fiscal year 2004--the year we are now in--that we would have a $262 billion surplus. This was the President's prediction. The following year, with a budget already in deficit, the President advocated another tax cut. At that time, he said, ``Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short term.'' And the President's budget at that time--that is, the next year--stated the deficit would be so short term that by fiscal year 2004--the year we are now in--the Government would be back in surplus by $14 billion. Last year, on the brink of war with Iraq, the President proposed yet another tax cut. He also submitted a budget that did not include the cost of the war. He predicted that the deficit for fiscal year 2004 would be $307 billion. Now, in 3 years, the President had shifted from predicting a surplus of $262 billion for 2004 to the next year when he predicted a surplus of $14 billion for 2004. Then, when he submitted the 2004 budget, he predicted a deficit of $307 billion. So over the 3-year period, we went from a $262 billion surplus, predicted for the year we are in, to a $307 billion deficit. That is a change of $569 billion. It is pretty clear that although the President said, when he submitted the 2004 budget, he was predicting a deficit of $307 billion, it looks now as if the 2004 deficit will be about $520 billion. That is $780 billion more than the President predicted in 2001, $535 billion more than he predicted in 2002, and $214 billion more than he predicted when he sent this year's budget--the budget we are in--to the Congress. So we are told we can do these big tax cuts and that it will not matter because we are not going to have a deficit. And here we are deeply in the hole. What is the consequence of this? Some might say: Well, he is producing jobs. We had an economic slowdown, and now we are producing jobs. We are putting the country back to work. Let's look at those predictions and what has actually happened. In the 2002 Economic Report of the President, the administration forecasted that in 2004 the economy would have 138.3 million jobs. Last year, the President lowered that estimate to 135.2 million jobs. And in his most recent economic report, he lowered it again to 132.7 million jobs. In other words, in just 2 years, the forecast for jobs in the country has been lowered by 6 million. When the President passed the 2003 tax cut, the administration predicted that by January 2004, the economy would create over 2 million jobs. In the fall of 2003, Secretary Snow predicted the U.S. economy would create 2 million new jobs from the third quarter of 2003 until the third quarter of 2004--an average of over 200,000 jobs a month. What has happened? We just got the figures on Friday for the month of February. For the month of February, it was reported that the economy created 21,000 new jobs in February--21,000--none of them in the private sector, incidentally; zero private sector jobs were created. When Secretary Snow made this prediction of just over 2 million new jobs last fall, we would have needed an average of about 200,000 new jobs a month in order to meet his prediction. The performance has been so dismal, we have only averaged 59,000 new jobs per month over the last 2 months. We have to produce jobs 444,000 a month from now until the third quarter of this year for Secretary Snow's prediction to be borne out. The economy is not creating these jobs. We face a real difficult jobs situation.

Mr. SARBANES. Certainly.

Mr. SARBANES. Those earning over $1 million get $127,000 per year. As a category, they get $45 billion. Would they be willing to reduce that to $44,600,000,000 in order that we could fund these firefighter grants at the full authorization level of $900 million instead of the $500 million that is in the President's budget, which itself represented a cut of $250 million from what Congress had appropriated in each of the other 2 years? Is it unfair, inequitable, unjust to say that in the order of priorities, funding those firefighter grants should come ahead of a small portion of these tax cuts for those making $337,000 a year? I defy anyone to argue the equities of that case. That is why this is not a good budget. That is why we voted against it in the committee and that is why over the coming days, under the leadership of our very able colleague from North Dakota, we will put before this body--I and others and certainly the Senator from North Dakota himself--amendments that will frame the choice in terms of priorities. Those are the choices we need to face. Let's put the choices out there. Do my colleagues think it is reasonable to take a small portion of this tax cut and use it for this purpose, or must every single penny of what the President is seeking for the very elite go to the very elite, despite these other pressing needs? As I understand it, in the coming days this week, opportunities will be presented to offer amendments which will frame those choices. The Senator has framed one. Everyone talks a good game about education, including the President. The question is, will you put the resources there to do the job? As the Senator points out, fully funding education is more costly than the example that I have been citing. But nevertheless, for just over $9 billion we could fully fund No Child Left Behind, which would address what we are hearing from the States, who are saying now, We can't do this job. You have saddled us with a job without the resources. The $9 billion is one-fifth of this tax cut that is going to those making over $337,000 each and every year. Those amendments framing those choices need to be put to this body. I look forward to the responses my colleagues will make to them. I yield the floor.

Mr. SARBANES. The Senator enumerated the three concerns: a 10-year projection of the cost of the tax cut, the alternative minimum tax; the Senator mentioned the failure to reflect in the budget any cost for our involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan. I want to be clear on this point. Am I correct in understanding that the budget which the President sent to the Congress for the next fiscal year beginning on October 1 of this year, 2004--the budget he submitted to the Congress, the spending blueprint--has zero for the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan? Is that correct?

Mr. SARBANES. What that says is he could fund No Child Left Behind and he would still have $36 billion left of the tax cut; is that right?

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

Mr. SARBANES. Absolutely. Yes.

Mr. SARBANES. They are already talking about that around town. The other day, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve himself talked about cutting back on the benefits under Social Security. Here is what has happened. It needs to be understood. There is a direct connection. These large tax cuts that primarily benefit very wealthy people-- there is some benefit for others, no question. The chairman talked about that today, but in the total picture of where the benefits are going, that is a relatively small portion. Most of the benefits go right up to the top group in society by income and wealth. They say we are running deficits, so to cover the deficits they have to use up the Social Security surplus. Then they say to correct the using up of the Social Security surplus, we have to cut Social Security benefits. It must be understood, these things are linked. The reason they have the deficit which now says they must cut Social Security benefits is because they gave the very large tax cuts to the elite, producing the deficit, which resulted in drawing down the Social Security surplus which then leads them to say, we have to cut the Social Security benefits. These are choices. This administration has made a choice. The choice the administration has made is to put tax cuts for the elite ahead of sustaining Social Security benefits. That is the choice they have made. It needs to be understood. Does the Senator agree there is a direct connection in this regard?

Mr. SARBANES. You see it runs along here like this. This is as far as the chairman's budget projects it, right to there. Then it stays on that line a little bit and then look what happens to it--it is incredible. It is the shooting star deficit, the way this thing is going.

Mr. SARBANES. I would like to pick up on the Senator's point about the cost of adjusting the alternative minimum tax. Of course, the alternative minimum tax was put in place in order to tax wealthy people who are using various deductions and exemptions, and so forth, not to pay taxes. The idea was, at a minimum you ought to pay a certain amount of tax. There was a huge public outcry about that--justifiably so in my opinion. So we put it into place. Of course, as the economy evolves, you have inflation and so forth and so on, and you have to keep adjusting it; otherwise, it is going to work its way down further into the middle class. It was never intended to do that. So it has been adjusted from time to time. In fact, the President is proposing in his budget, as I understand it, a 1-year adjustment--not projecting it out. Of course, that raises the question immediately in your mind: Why a 1-year adjustment? I think it is obvious why, if you do this, because it shows if you really adjust it as it ought to be adjusted, you are projecting out $658 billion in a 10-year cost to reform the alternative minimum tax. There is a $658 billion 10-year cost to reform the alternative minimum tax. Here you have $1.6 trillion to extend and make permanent the existing tax cuts, the sum total of which is $2.2 trillion.

Mr. SARBANES. You are telling me it is real money. Absolutely. The Senator is absolutely right. This budget is kind of you see this, but you do not see what is behind the scenes, what is coming. We cut off the picture and look at a certain point. It works pretty good. You cut it off here before this line takes off. You see what we are showing-- this part. It is an exercise in prudence to come along and say: Wait a second; let us see how that works in the outyears. All of a sudden, you see it just takes off like that. The Senator is absolutely right.

Mr. SARBANES. At least.