Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I wanted to ask my colleague if he will yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS. Private people are doing that today?

Mr. SESSIONS. With regard to this, we know good people can differ. I certainly believe good people can differ. I don't count myself morally superior to anybody on these questions. I am not a scientist. I certainly haven't studied it to the extent that you or other Members of this body have. Senator Coburn and Senator Hatch and others have studied it. Some have different opinions about it. I don't think it is an insignificant matter that this is a piece of life, a small embryonic life that would grow into a distinct human being. That is what we are talking about providing Federal funds to experiment with. It is not a crime today for a private person or a university to experiment on this, even if it causes people moral and ethical problems, is it?

Mr. SESSIONS. This very type embryo is what we are talking about experimenting with under the legislation that is before us.

Mr. SESSIONS. So I think that implicates some questions to all of us. It is not a thing outside the realm of reason. Good people question whether we should experiment on that life. You had a number of children who were brought here, snowflake babies. I didn't get to be with you on that occasion, but it was reported to me. Would you tell us about those children you saw?

Mr. SESSIONS. So the life that is being proposed here, it is life, I think no one can dispute that. It is a living organism. This life, if allowed to develop, will be developed into a distinct human person?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank my colleague for the many hours of effort he has put into this to analyze the data that is out there about this important issue. It has been helpful to us. I know some people think it is an easy question for them. Senator Brownback has taken the road less traveled. He has been willing to dig into the issue because it does touch on real moral and ethical questions. It is not a light matter. Let me ask the Senator a question. Is it true that the embryonic stem cells we are talking about here, if allowed to grow and mature, would be a human being, and that human being's height, hair, eye color, and all, would have been determined at that very moment when it was at that embryonic stem cell stage, how they would grow and mature?

Mr. SESSIONS. I think that is important for you to share with us. Because decisions become easier when there is not a crisis. We deal with self-defense issues and moral issues a lot of times, but doesn't seem to me we are at that critical juncture in our scientific activity that would require the American people, through the expenditures of their dollars, to affirm this procedure. Would the Senator not agree if the American people fund this procedure, then it represents a national blessing of the procedure, in effect, an approval of this procedure as moral and legitimate?

Mr. SESSIONS. Let me just interrupt you there because people miss this, perhaps. You are saying she was treated with adult stem cells?

Mr. SESSIONS. So when we get up to this line of experimenting with human life, one of the things I would ask myself is, is this medically necessary? Is this a matter about which we are debating that would prevent some sort of research? The way I see it, there are federally funded stem cells available for research today, as you have explained. Then there is no limit whatsoever on the number of stem cells that are available in the private sector, at our universities and our great research centers in the world and in the United States; is that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS. I had heard at some point that those lines may not be continuing, but I am informed that in fact those lines do continue, at least some of them, and that there is a substantial number of embryonic cells available for research if they were asked for, but they haven't been all utilized; is that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS. So it was not necessary for her treatment to have embryonic stem cells?

Mr. SESSIONS. I am uneasy about it. I don't claim to know all of it. I haven't studied it to the extent you have. I know entities of great augustness such as the Catholic Church have serious theologians and scientists. They are uneasy with it. I am not Catholic, but I understand that. People have invested a lot of time and effort and feel this is crossing a line that is dangerous for us to cross. From what I am hearing from your remarks, you don't think it is necessary to cross that line to do the kind of research that could actually save lives and that we all hope will save lives one day?

Mr. SESSIONS. I will say this, I thank you for utilizing the free speech this great Senate allows us to raise questions that some perhaps just as soon would not talk about. I do think a decent respect for those millions of Americans who strongly believe this is not a good thing to do, that this is crossing boundaries we ought not to cross, and saying we are going to take your money in disrespect of your views and spend it on a procedure you strongly feel is not the right thing, committing our Nation officially as approving this procedure is not a bridge we have to cross. That is where I come down at this point. I do not claim to be all knowing, but that is what I would say. I say to Senator Brownback, I would share with you a letter I received in March, just about a month ago, from a constituent in my State who e-mailed me in support of S. 5, and I sent back some of the thoughts my staff and I had put together on it. I got this letter. It is addressed to me, but it could probably be better addressed to you based on the work you and others have done. He had a child who had a recent four-wheeler accident and was a quadriplegic. This is his quote: In our desire to see our son again have use of his limbs, we allowed our opinions to be influenced by the media. You were so kind to respond to our e-mail with a letter stating your opinions and thoughts. After doing more research, listening to the opinions of a long-time quadriplegic, and praying about this issue, we are pleased with the position you have taken against this legislation. We felt we owed you an apology-- They certainly did not-- and thank you for your adherence to Christian moral boundaries when voting on public policy. I know a lot of people have different views on this issue, and some think everybody in the country has a certain view on it. But I think if more people understood the remarks you made, the great research that is ongoing that could actually cure or heal spinal cord injuries, could help with diabetes and Parkinson's and other diseases--if this were critical to the passage of this legislation, I think we would have a more difficult choice to make. But I think, as you have explained it, at this point in history and in science, we are at a point where that research can continue. It is not stopped, and it is not necessary for us to make that final step to cross this barrier and begin to officially, as a nation, experiment with human life. So I say to the Senator, thank you for your work. You have led me around to this position. I think I will not be supporting S. 30 and will be supporting S. 5. I think it is a better way--excuse me, which one is it, I ask Senator Brownback?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 473 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this is an important amendment. It is not related to partisan votes that we have been casting, but it is a technical amendment that amends the nature of the AMT patch. The AMT patch is a huge tax reduction. It does eliminate about three- fourths of the people who would pay taxes under the AMT. My amendment is fairer. It would include 87 percent as many, but the way it would fix the AMT and give relief would be to allow families to utilize their personal exemptions and their children's exemptions under the AMT accounting. That is not done today. As a result, seven times as many families with children are caught by AMT as are single persons. It is definitely striking at children and families. I urge that this be adopted because it is fairer, and it would reduce costs and save $82 billion.

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, after working together with Senator Feinstein, I am pleased to help introduce the Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2007. I have worked to take the lead in protecting consumers specifically as it relates to the sale and distribution of controlled substances over the internet and holding liable those who do so via unregistered online pharmacies. I commend Senator Feinstein for her leadership on this issue and look forward to working with her to pass this important piece of legislation. This bill would prohibit the distribution of controlled substances by means of the Internet without a valid prescription and provides for the legitimate online distribution of those drugs in certain circumstances. This past January, Attorney General Gonzalez testified to the Judiciary Committee that abuse of controlled substances is being fed by ``the proliferation of illicit Web sites that offer controlled substances for sale, requiring little more than a cursory online questionnaire and charging double the normal price.'' Gonzales further testified that ``[w]e must preserve legitimate access to medications over the Internet while preventing online drug dealers from using cyberspace as a haven for drug trafficking. I look forward to working with the Congress to ensure that controlled substances are dispensed over the Internet only for legitimate medical purposes.'' The sale and distribution of controlled pharmaceuticals on the Internet of great concern because is gives those who abuse drugs the ability to circumvent the law, and sound medical practice. This bill would go a long way in addressing the concerns expressed by Attorney General Gonzalez by reigning in a practice that has gone unregulated for far too long. Recently, there has been an explosion in the number of online pharmacies that provide controlled substances to users without valid prescriptions. Most illegal drug abuse involving prescription drugs is associated with Internet purchases, where users are given a prescription without ever seeing a doctor. The most prominent abuse occurs with regard to controlled substances such as Hydrocodone, Valium, Xanax, OxyContin, and Vicodin. A 2006 study reported that ``a staggering 89 percent of sites selling controlled prescription drugs have no prescription requirements.'' According to the study, 15.1 million adults admitted to abusing prescription drugs, including 2.3 million abusers between the ages of 12 and 17. Currently, there is no way to police this illegal activity. The ease with which consumers may purchase controlled substances from online pharmacies without a prescription is shocking. Often consumers can obtain a prescription from physicians employed by the online pharmacy by simply filling out a brief questionnaire on the pharmacy's website. Most online pharmacies have no way to verify that the consumer ordering the prescription is actually who they claim to be, or that the medical condition the consumer describes actually exists. Thus, drug addicts and minor children can easily order controlled substances and prescription drugs over the internet simply by providing false identities or describing non-existent medical conditions. In 2001, Ryan Haight, a California high school honors student and athlete, died from an overdose of the painkiller hydrocodone that he purchased from an online pharmacy. The doctor prescribing hydrocodone had never met or personally examined Ryan. Ryan simply filled out the pharmacy's online questionnaire, and described himself as a 25-year-old male suffering from chronic back pain. Ryan's death could have been avoided. I believe that Congress is in the best position to help prevent teenagers from purchasing controlled substances and prescription drugs from online rouge pharmacies. I also believe that Congress has the ability to help prevent adult prescription drug abuse by making it harder to purchase these drugs online without a valid prescription. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act would: (1) provide criminal penalties for those who knowingly or intentionally (unlawfully) dispense controlled substances over the Internet, (2) give state attorneys general a civil cause of action against anyone who violates the Act if they have reason to believe that the violation affects the interests of their state's residents, and (3) allow the Federal Government to take possession of any tangible or intangible property used illegally by online pharmacies. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act would also require online pharmacies to: (1) file a registration statement with the Attorney General and meet additional registration requirements promulgated by him/her, (2) report to the Attorney General any controlled substances dispensed over the Internet, and (3) comply with licensing and disclosure requirements. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2007 takes a substantial step towards plugging a loophole in our drug laws by regulating the practice of distributing controlled substances via the internet. By holding unregistered online pharmacies accountable for their activity, we are ensuring that those who seek to purchase prescription drugs by using the internet are protected from those engaged in reprehensible business practices. Once again I thank Senator Feinstein for her leadership in addressing this serious issue. I commend this bill to my colleagues for study and I urge them to support this important legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, after working together with Senator Feinstein, I am pleased to help introduce the Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2007. I have worked to take the lead in protecting consumers specifically as it relates to the sale and distribution of controlled substances over the internet and holding liable those who do so via unregistered online pharmacies. I commend Senator Feinstein for her leadership on this issue and look forward to working with her to pass this important piece of legislation. This bill would prohibit the distribution of controlled substances by means of the Internet without a valid prescription and provides for the legitimate online distribution of those drugs in certain circumstances. This past January, Attorney General Gonzalez testified to the Judiciary Committee that abuse of controlled substances is being fed by ``the proliferation of illicit Web sites that offer controlled substances for sale, requiring little more than a cursory online questionnaire and charging double the normal price.'' Gonzales further testified that ``[w]e must preserve legitimate access to medications over the Internet while preventing online drug dealers from using cyberspace as a haven for drug trafficking. I look forward to working with the Congress to ensure that controlled substances are dispensed over the Internet only for legitimate medical purposes.'' The sale and distribution of controlled pharmaceuticals on the Internet of great concern because is gives those who abuse drugs the ability to circumvent the law, and sound medical practice. This bill would go a long way in addressing the concerns expressed by Attorney General Gonzalez by reigning in a practice that has gone unregulated for far too long. Recently, there has been an explosion in the number of online pharmacies that provide controlled substances to users without valid prescriptions. Most illegal drug abuse involving prescription drugs is associated with Internet purchases, where users are given a prescription without ever seeing a doctor. The most prominent abuse occurs with regard to controlled substances such as Hydrocodone, Valium, Xanax, OxyContin, and Vicodin. A 2006 study reported that ``a staggering 89 percent of sites selling controlled prescription drugs have no prescription requirements.'' According to the study, 15.1 million adults admitted to abusing prescription drugs, including 2.3 million abusers between the ages of 12 and 17. Currently, there is no way to police this illegal activity. The ease with which consumers may purchase controlled substances from online pharmacies without a prescription is shocking. Often consumers can obtain a prescription from physicians employed by the online pharmacy by simply filling out a brief questionnaire on the pharmacy's website. Most online pharmacies have no way to verify that the consumer ordering the prescription is actually who they claim to be, or that the medical condition the consumer describes actually exists. Thus, drug addicts and minor children can easily order controlled substances and prescription drugs over the internet simply by providing false identities or describing non-existent medical conditions. In 2001, Ryan Haight, a California high school honors student and athlete, died from an overdose of the painkiller hydrocodone that he purchased from an online pharmacy. The doctor prescribing hydrocodone had never met or personally examined Ryan. Ryan simply filled out the pharmacy's online questionnaire, and described himself as a 25-year-old male suffering from chronic back pain. Ryan's death could have been avoided. I believe that Congress is in the best position to help prevent teenagers from purchasing controlled substances and prescription drugs from online rouge pharmacies. I also believe that Congress has the ability to help prevent adult prescription drug abuse by making it harder to purchase these drugs online without a valid prescription. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act would: (1) provide criminal penalties for those who knowingly or intentionally (unlawfully) dispense controlled substances over the Internet, (2) give state attorneys general a civil cause of action against anyone who violates the Act if they have reason to believe that the violation affects the interests of their state's residents, and (3) allow the Federal Government to take possession of any tangible or intangible property used illegally by online pharmacies. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act would also require online pharmacies to: (1) file a registration statement with the Attorney General and meet additional registration requirements promulgated by him/her, (2) report to the Attorney General any controlled substances dispensed over the Internet, and (3) comply with licensing and disclosure requirements. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2007 takes a substantial step towards plugging a loophole in our drug laws by regulating the practice of distributing controlled substances via the internet. By holding unregistered online pharmacies accountable for their activity, we are ensuring that those who seek to purchase prescription drugs by using the internet are protected from those engaged in reprehensible business practices. Once again I thank Senator Feinstein for her leadership in addressing this serious issue. I commend this bill to my colleagues for study and I urge them to support this important legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today Senator Murray and I are pleased to introduce the Striving Readers Act, for the eight million middle and high school students across this country who are not reading well enough to succeed in school. I thank Senator Murray for her longstanding leadership on this issue, as well as the Alliance for Excellent Education, the International Reading Association, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. I also thank my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, who have agreed to cosponsor the bill Senator Cochran, Senator Kerry, Senator Lott, Senator Akaka, Senator Burr, Senator Dodd, Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, and Senator Lincoln. I thank them for their support and for demonstrating that improving reading and writing in every grade is something we all can get behind. This important bill will help schools in every State ensure our adolescents read and write well enough to learn in school, graduate on time, and succeed in college and the workplace. Better literacy is the cornerstone to improving student achievement in all subjects, lowering dropout rates, and ensuring students do well when they go on to college or the workforce. A recent study by the American College Testing Program (ACT) found that students with better literacy skills in high school do better in their math, science, and social studies courses both in high school and in college. The Striving Readers Act marks an important effort to improve reading for the older student. Last year, Congress appropriated $1 billion for the Reading First program available for every State to ensure children read by the third grade. That was an important step, and we have seen 4th grade reading scores rise nationally because of it. However, research shows that many readers who test well in 4th grade do not carry that knowledge into upper grades. We must not risk squandering the investment Congress has already made for younger students. Seventy percent of our middle and high school students read below grade level. That means we must continue our support for ongoing programs that reflect the needs of the older student for more advanced vocabulary and comprehension skills. All students, throughout their K- 12 educational experience, deserve adequate support to ensure they graduate on time with appropriate skills and knowledge that meet the demands of the 21st century. To be sure, some problems with the Reading First program have surfaced. Let me assure you that the Striving Readers bill addresses those problems to ensure the law and its implementation are fair, transparent, and driven by research, not special interests. Interestingly, many in my State have told me that the law is good and showing results; the problems have come with poor implementation. Low literacy skills don't just cost the student; they cost our economy because students don't learn what they should in school. The National Center for Education Statistics found that 53 percent of undergraduates require remediation. One-half of these students required a remedial writing course, and 35 percent took remedial reading. That means community colleges spend $1.4 billion every year catching kids up to where they should have been when they graduated. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy reports an estimated $16.6 billion in remediation costs to the U.S. economy each year. This means that America's businesses and colleges are spending $16.6 billion teaching high school graduates skills they should have learned in high school. America's declining competitiveness in the global economy is due in part to sub-par literacy skills. International comparisons of reading performance placed American 11th graders close to the bottom, behind students from the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, and other developing nations. Our high school graduates continue to lag, as employers move jobs overseas, not for the low-cost labor alone, but also to tap into the highly literate, motivated, and technologically skilled workers that other nations can offer them. The Striving Readers Act will help our Nation raise its literacy levels and compete in a global arena. We can do this. Research shows that adolescents with lagging literacy skills can master college material if they receive good literacy instruction in school. Specifically, the Striving Readers bill would do the following: Help States create statewide literacy initiatives, share data on student progress with parents and the public, and improve teacher training and professional development in literacy so that all students receive high quality instruction. Help districts and schools create plans to improve literacy, including targeted interventions for students far below grade level, top notch assessments for all students, training for teachers in every subject to incorporate literacy strategies, and regular data to improve teaching and learning. Allow districts and schools to hire and place literacy coaches, train parents to support the literacy development of their child, and connect learning inside the classroom with learning that takes place outside the classroom. Ensure States, districts, and schools participate in a rigorous evaluation that demonstrates student progress. Require the Federal Government to complete an overall evaluation of the program to determine its impact on the Nation's middle and high schools. I am proud to say that my State has been working on this issue for a long time. In 1998 Alabama launched the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI), a statewide program designed to ensure every student in grades K to 12 is proficient in reading. We provide ongoing, research-based training to teachers in all subjects so that every educator can help students struggling to read. Fortunately, the Alabama Reading Initiative is now in every elementary school in the State. Unfortunately, fewer middle and high schools have been able to take part, due to limited funding. This is true in other States as well. For those schools in the program we have seen great gains. ARI schools have made great progress, and those that have had the benefit of additional funding from the Federal Reading First program have shown even more rapid, dramatic gains. Many of you have heard of the outstanding impact of the Alabama Reading Initiative, primarily for younger children. It is time for us to develop new methods to meet the needs of students in the upper grades who are reading and writing below grade level. I applaud Alabama's leadership on this important issue as they work to expand the Alabama Reading Initiative into middle and high schools, and I am honored to offer legislation to promote this effort on the national level. I would like to thank Governor Riley for his commitment to the Alabama Reading Initiative, and Dr. Katherine Mitchell, whose enthusiasm and hard work has made the success of ARI a reality for Alabama's children. Alabama has become a model for the Nation, and I am so proud of the progress they have made. The Federal Government cannot and should assume the responsibility for education from the States. But we can develop research, supply seed money, and provide leadership to help States make advancements, without unnecessary mandates. We can leverage success in places like Alabama to shine a light for others. We know that, given the right instruction and opportunity, children can learn to read and write well and use that knowledge to achieve at higher levels of education. I hope that our colleagues in the Senate will join Senator Murray and me in supporting the Striving Readers Act. And I hope we will authorize Striving Readers as part of No Child Left Behind so that children in every State have the reading skills they need to succeed in school, college, and the workplace.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today Senator Murray and I are pleased to introduce the Striving Readers Act, for the eight million middle and high school students across this country who are not reading well enough to succeed in school. I thank Senator Murray for her longstanding leadership on this issue, as well as the Alliance for Excellent Education, the International Reading Association, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. I also thank my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, who have agreed to cosponsor the bill Senator Cochran, Senator Kerry, Senator Lott, Senator Akaka, Senator Burr, Senator Dodd, Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, and Senator Lincoln. I thank them for their support and for demonstrating that improving reading and writing in every grade is something we all can get behind. This important bill will help schools in every State ensure our adolescents read and write well enough to learn in school, graduate on time, and succeed in college and the workplace. Better literacy is the cornerstone to improving student achievement in all subjects, lowering dropout rates, and ensuring students do well when they go on to college or the workforce. A recent study by the American College Testing Program (ACT) found that students with better literacy skills in high school do better in their math, science, and social studies courses both in high school and in college. The Striving Readers Act marks an important effort to improve reading for the older student. Last year, Congress appropriated $1 billion for the Reading First program available for every State to ensure children read by the third grade. That was an important step, and we have seen 4th grade reading scores rise nationally because of it. However, research shows that many readers who test well in 4th grade do not carry that knowledge into upper grades. We must not risk squandering the investment Congress has already made for younger students. Seventy percent of our middle and high school students read below grade level. That means we must continue our support for ongoing programs that reflect the needs of the older student for more advanced vocabulary and comprehension skills. All students, throughout their K- 12 educational experience, deserve adequate support to ensure they graduate on time with appropriate skills and knowledge that meet the demands of the 21st century. To be sure, some problems with the Reading First program have surfaced. Let me assure you that the Striving Readers bill addresses those problems to ensure the law and its implementation are fair, transparent, and driven by research, not special interests. Interestingly, many in my State have told me that the law is good and showing results; the problems have come with poor implementation. Low literacy skills don't just cost the student; they cost our economy because students don't learn what they should in school. The National Center for Education Statistics found that 53 percent of undergraduates require remediation. One-half of these students required a remedial writing course, and 35 percent took remedial reading. That means community colleges spend $1.4 billion every year catching kids up to where they should have been when they graduated. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy reports an estimated $16.6 billion in remediation costs to the U.S. economy each year. This means that America's businesses and colleges are spending $16.6 billion teaching high school graduates skills they should have learned in high school. America's declining competitiveness in the global economy is due in part to sub-par literacy skills. International comparisons of reading performance placed American 11th graders close to the bottom, behind students from the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, and other developing nations. Our high school graduates continue to lag, as employers move jobs overseas, not for the low-cost labor alone, but also to tap into the highly literate, motivated, and technologically skilled workers that other nations can offer them. The Striving Readers Act will help our Nation raise its literacy levels and compete in a global arena. We can do this. Research shows that adolescents with lagging literacy skills can master college material if they receive good literacy instruction in school. Specifically, the Striving Readers bill would do the following: Help States create statewide literacy initiatives, share data on student progress with parents and the public, and improve teacher training and professional development in literacy so that all students receive high quality instruction. Help districts and schools create plans to improve literacy, including targeted interventions for students far below grade level, top notch assessments for all students, training for teachers in every subject to incorporate literacy strategies, and regular data to improve teaching and learning. Allow districts and schools to hire and place literacy coaches, train parents to support the literacy development of their child, and connect learning inside the classroom with learning that takes place outside the classroom. Ensure States, districts, and schools participate in a rigorous evaluation that demonstrates student progress. Require the Federal Government to complete an overall evaluation of the program to determine its impact on the Nation's middle and high schools. I am proud to say that my State has been working on this issue for a long time. In 1998 Alabama launched the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI), a statewide program designed to ensure every student in grades K to 12 is proficient in reading. We provide ongoing, research-based training to teachers in all subjects so that every educator can help students struggling to read. Fortunately, the Alabama Reading Initiative is now in every elementary school in the State. Unfortunately, fewer middle and high schools have been able to take part, due to limited funding. This is true in other States as well. For those schools in the program we have seen great gains. ARI schools have made great progress, and those that have had the benefit of additional funding from the Federal Reading First program have shown even more rapid, dramatic gains. Many of you have heard of the outstanding impact of the Alabama Reading Initiative, primarily for younger children. It is time for us to develop new methods to meet the needs of students in the upper grades who are reading and writing below grade level. I applaud Alabama's leadership on this important issue as they work to expand the Alabama Reading Initiative into middle and high schools, and I am honored to offer legislation to promote this effort on the national level. I would like to thank Governor Riley for his commitment to the Alabama Reading Initiative, and Dr. Katherine Mitchell, whose enthusiasm and hard work has made the success of ARI a reality for Alabama's children. Alabama has become a model for the Nation, and I am so proud of the progress they have made. The Federal Government cannot and should assume the responsibility for education from the States. But we can develop research, supply seed money, and provide leadership to help States make advancements, without unnecessary mandates. We can leverage success in places like Alabama to shine a light for others. We know that, given the right instruction and opportunity, children can learn to read and write well and use that knowledge to achieve at higher levels of education. I hope that our colleagues in the Senate will join Senator Murray and me in supporting the Striving Readers Act. And I hope we will authorize Striving Readers as part of No Child Left Behind so that children in every State have the reading skills they need to succeed in school, college, and the workplace.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would note as I begin how much I appreciate Senator Voinovich and his passion for America in trying to introduce responsibility in spending and taxes. We don't always agree on everything, but he is a man of principle and dedication to his country. Mr. President, the amendment I will be asking my colleagues to consider tomorrow deals with a growing problem that we have in America. It has to be confronted completely before long. It is the alternative minimum tax. This is a tax that after you figure what you owe on your income tax return and you have taken all your deductions, you have to calculate your taxes again and you may have to file under the alternative minimum tax and pay more taxes. That was an idea conjured up before I came to the Senate to capture rich people who weren't paying enough taxes. Maybe it had some resonance to it, but it has fallen very hard now on the middle class, and it is very dramatic. We in this Congress have become addicted to the money the alternative minimum tax brings in. We have decided, though, that we can't allow millions of middle-class people to be burdened with a new and higher tax, so we have tried to fix it. We did what was called the AMT patch-- a patch. It wasn't a complete fix, it was a Band-Aid, and it would do a lot. Actually, it has done considerable. Without a patch next year, about 23 million people will be subjected to the tax, but with the patch, 17 million of those will not. They will be dropped out of AMT. Seventeen million people will be saved from that. I just want to say, first of all, the real solution, as everyone knows, is tax simplification. We need to do that, but we have no real momentum at this moment in the Congress in either House or in either party or by the President. Those of us not on the Finance Committee sometimes wonder why we don't have more proposals for tax simplification, but we don't. It is going to happen sometime, sooner rather than later. So the patch helps. It raises the AMT exemption level, the amount of money, the floor to which you get caught with, and that has helped some. But the real truth that I must share with my colleagues is that the result has not been fair. It is not a principled way to deal with the people being caught by the alternative minimum tax. In 2006, for example, 7.4 percent of married people with children paid higher taxes under the AMT, while 1 percent of singles paid the AMT. Think of that. This tax, the way it is calculated and the way it is put together, it has fallen incredibly hard, over seven times as hard, on married people with children as it does on single taxpayers. Why is that so? Well, when you calculate your alternative minimum tax, you can't use your personal exemptions. You can't use that personal exemption of $3,400, and you can't claim your children as exemptions. So I would first say one of the most valuable things this country has are the parents out there, some single moms, working their hearts out every day to raise and educate the next generation of young people who are going to lead this country. So the alternative minimum tax I have believed for some time has penalized people with children. We have had a marriage penalty and now we see with the AMT, we are actually taxing children, making it even more expensive for young families to have children. So I think my amendment does the right thing. It achieves a very similar result as the patch but is more principled, more cued to what is in the national interests, and more fair. First, it treats children and personal exemptions correctly. You still get your personal exemption under the AMT and exemptions for your dependents in your household. Under this plan as I have offered it, 87 percent as many people will not have to file an AMT return as would under the patch--almost the same, 13 percent less, but very close to the same number. But astoundingly and importantly, it costs a lot less. It would save in terms of tax revenue lost $82 billion over 5 years. It would be a lot less expensive in terms of tax cost. This $82 billion could help us contain the deficit. It could help us fund the expiring tax cuts that have allowed us to have a low-tax economy that has led to such terrific growth in our economy, would provide some of the money we could use for that, and it would be good for the economy in a way that I am afraid this unprincipled approach to patching the AMT does not. There would be less focus on high income, high tax States. I come from a lower tax State, a poorer State, a poorer State with a lower average income than the average in the United States. We are doing a lot better, and I am proud of that, but we still are below the national average in a number of different ways. Our State would not benefit much at all under the patch. Let me show my colleagues this chart. This is a rather astounding chart. These are the percentage of taxpayers who paid the AMT by State in 2005. In my home State of Alabama, it was 0.8, eight-tenths of 1 percent. Less than 1 percent paid any AMT. But in New York, with a good bit higher average income, 6 percent paid--6 percent of the people paid it. The numbers are high in other States. Mississippi is low at .9, and the Dakotas are .8 and .6. Indiana is 1.0; West Virginia, .9. The lower income States are not going to benefit as much under the kind of patch we are talking about. Most of the benefits of the patch will be transferred to only a few States for a lot of different reasons. One is because they have higher taxes which cannot be deducted under the AMT. So I would say what we need to do is to do better. By having the exemptions allowable under the AMT calculation, we would benefit people more fairly around the country, although not a complete fairness. It is still going to be a tax that dramatically shifts benefits to higher income, higher tax States. There is no doubt about that. But this is at least a step in the right direction, and it helps real people. My excellent staff person, Dr. Andrew Barrett, talks about a professor he knows, Christopher Wolfe, who has 10 children. He is getting whacked by the AMT. I think a person who is pouring his heart and soul into raising a large family and trying to do the right thing by them should not lose their tax exemptions and have to pay a higher tax than somebody who didn't have that. I hope we can have a good vote on this tomorrow. I think it is the right thing. As we go forward, we are going to have to talk about this more. The more I study it, the more convinced I am that this is not a good way to handle tax policy in America, this AMT. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Orrin Hatch be listed as a cosponsor on that legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will sum up. I am a member of the Budget Committee. One of the things you see as you watch these budgets go through here and we discuss them and debate them and it sounds like a lot of politics and hot air and partisanship. But the real truth is that a budget is a defining instrument for a party. A budget tells what your priorities are, what direction you want to take the country in. I am not sure we have ever had a budget since I have been here--well, maybe a few in the beginning but certainly not in the last several years of my tenure--that was passed on anything other than a party-line vote, at least in the Budget Committee. Once again, the budget that came out of this Budget Committee, now that we have a Democratic majority, passed with all Democratic votes and no Republican votes. Last year, the budget that passed out was passed by all Republican votes and opposed by all Democrats. But they were in the minority at that time. I used to think, well, why can't we just get together and work these things out. Perhaps we can at some point. Perhaps we will have a break in this cycle. But right now, it seems that the budget defines us and our differences. What is it we agree on? What is it we disagree on? Where do we want to take the country? And where does somebody else not want to go? Let me mention a few things about this budget. It is a spending budget. The President proposed a rather substantial increase in discretionary spending; but our Democratic colleagues passed a budget that adds $18 billion more in nondefense discretionary spending than the President asked for. It brought it up to a total increase in nondefense discretionary spending of over 6 percent--I think it is 6.1- percent growth in spending. Well, what is the cost of living? What is the CPI, the inflation rate? It is about 2.3 percent. So this budget increase, in a time of war, in a time when entitlements are raging out of control, is not a frugal budget; it is a spending budget. You should not be spending almost three times the inflation rate if you want to have any kind of responsibility in spending. We don't have to spend three times the rate of inflation to keep the country from collapsing. The country is not going to collapse if we had a flat budget or if we cut 3, 4, 5 percent, if you want to know the truth. The Republic will still be standing. But, no, we have to fund these programs, these ideas, and these visions that utilize money and runs up the total. So they have shoved through a budget that increases it substantially. Last year, we passed, on a party-line vote, a proposal that would have contained, by about 1 or 2 percent over 5 years, the growth in entitlement spending. Senator Judd Gregg worked this in. He believed in it passionately. He believed we could now, early on, before we reach a fiscal disaster in the future, control some of these spending programs. He had a modest cut in the growth--growth only--of Medicare. I think it was like 45 percent growth to 46 percent growth. How about that? Do you think we can sustain that? It got to the floor and all of the Democrats opposed it and several Republicans opposed it, and it failed. We could not even contain the growth by 1 percent. So all last year, in this last election, my Democratic friends, were out railing at President Bush for spending wildly. They claimed that Republicans were irresponsible on spending, and here they go coming back with this budget. Did it have any effort or did it display any movement whatsoever to contain the growth of entitlement spending? Zero. It didn't attempt to confront that issue. I think that is a mistake. We have had a lot of complaints that we have to do something, but when it came down to the time to produce a budget, over the objection of Senator Gregg and others, they had no interest in that. Well, what about taxes? We didn't have any savings on the spending side. We had an increase on spending. What about taxes? They say this is not a raising-taxes budget, that it doesn't raise taxes, don't worry about that. We have not voted to raise taxes. Let me tell you what they did do. They created a system and a mechanism--or at least the majority did when they passed this budget--that is going to put us in a position where we are going to raise taxes, and I am going to explain it to you as simply as I possibly can. The budget adds four points of order. A point of order calls for a supermajority vote to carry out some act. They said you cannot have tax cuts unless several things occur, and the only way you can have those tax cuts, if those things don't occur, is override a budget point of order, and that takes 60 votes, not 50. So what about the existing tax cuts--the capital gains reductions, the marriage penalty elimination, the dividends reduction? What about reducing the tax rate for the lowest income workers who pay Federal taxes by 33 percent, from 15 to 10 percent? Well, they came up with a proposal that says you cannot even extend those tax cuts that have been in place for a number of years and begin to expire in the next couple of years. Those cannot be extended without being able to overcome the budget points of order. To do so, the most logical thing is to cut spending. So if you cut spending enough to pay for a tax reduction, a tax reduction that is already in place--and some have been in place for over 5 years--if you don't cut spending sufficient to ``pay for the lost revenue,'' according to these estimates, then you cannot undo it without 60 votes. When we passed those tax reductions, it was virtually party line, although several Democrats, including Ben Nelson, voted with us, but one time it was a tie vote. Another time it was one or two votes. These were razor thin, the low fifties. By putting in a 60-vote point of order, it is not going to be possible to extend the existing tax cuts, the reduction of the rates, capital gains. They estimated, for example, that capital gains reductions would cost the Treasury $5 billion. As it turned out, capital gains, after being reduced, have resulted in increases to the Treasury of $133 billion. If you sell a piece of property and you have to pay 20 percent on the profit, you might not do it. If you are thinking about selling stock and you say, wait a minute, it has grown in value and you are going to have to pay a 20 percent tax on that, you may say I will just hold it. At 15 percent, people say, OK, I will pay that. We have had an interesting time of more sales of property and assets subject to capital gains, and we increased revenue after the tax rate was reduced. I wish to say to you that this budget has put us in a position that I don't see how it is possible that we can extend even the existing tax reduction. Those tax reductions have spurred this economy. They were enacted during a time when we had difficulties. It is important to note that when President Bush took office, the Nasdaq, the high-tech stock market, had fallen 50 percent. The first quarter he took office was negative growth. In fact, the last month of President Clinton's term was negative growth. President Bush inherited an economy in serious trouble. Then 9/11 hit and we were in a recession. It could have been a long one, but it turned out not to be. It bounced back quickly, and a big reason is he reduced taxes; the economy grew and picked up the slack and began to grow. Two years ago, the revenue coming into the U.S. Treasury increased 15 percent over the previous year. Last year, the revenue coming in--this is money actually in the Federal till--went up 12 percent over the 15 percent. This year, they are predicting that revenue to the Federal Treasury will be up almost 10 percent over last year's 12 percent. That is fabulous growth. What should we do? We ought to contain Federal spending. We ought to keep those tax cuts in place, not to make somebody rich, not just to let them keep more money--money that they earned--but because it is good for our economy, because we are a free market economy, and we are a group of people who believe in individual responsibility--not like the Europeans, who are semi-Socialist, if not Socialist, who deeply believe in higher taxes, more regulation, bigger government, and more social welfare. That is not our heritage. We have a heritage of free, responsible, individual Americans, whose goal and ideal is to take care of ourselves, but we will help those who need it when they need it. I wish to say this budget defines a lot of who we are. I think it defines a different vision for what is best for America. It has been that way for most of the time I have been in the Senate, and it looks like we are at it again this year. I feel strongly we ought not to go and slide and move toward the big government, high taxes, and social welfare system of the Europeans. They say: Well, it has not made the taxes go up; we have a budget and the Finance Committee can fix this and they can do whatever they want to do. They have a lot of freedom. But with the points of order in the budget, I submit to you that we have a problem. I submit to you this Democratic budget that came out of the committee is similar to this torpedo on this chart. Democrats can say they have not raised taxes yet, but they have launched that torpedo right at this thriving, vibrant American economy. The torpedo is named ``tax increases'' and they are on the way. That is a fact. I don't see anything that is going to intercept that torpedo because the vote tomorrow will put us on a road we cannot get out of. It is going to put us in a situation where the votes will not exist to cut taxes, and we are going to allow even existing tax reductions to phase out, and taxes will jump, and it will amount to the largest tax increase in American history, from what the experts tell us. It is late. This is an important point and an important time for our country. When we pass a budget, it doesn't do a whole lot. A budget basically has a couple of things it does. It sets the total level of spending. That level has been raised over what the President has asked for. It creates a mechanism that could allow us to extend tax cuts for less than 60 votes, or do other revenue changes for less than 60 votes. But the budget we are passing is going to put us into a situation where we will increase spending and we will be put on a road to increase taxes. I think that is a wrong direction for our Nation, and I doth protest. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, just briefly on this next amendment, I think it is a defining vote on the question of whether we intend to extend the current lower tax rates. The budget resolution that is before us has four points of order against tax cuts, but the way it is written, it even includes continuing our current income tax rates beyond 2010 because that would be defined under this budget as a reduction in taxes. This means that this proposed budget resolution would require 60 votes to extend the currently existing lower rates beyond 2010. I believe that is a mistake. These reduced rates include the $1,000 per child tax credit, the 10 percent bracket, the marriage penalty, the adoption tax credit, capital gains and estate tax repeal. I urge my colleagues, let's not put a burden on our economy and on our constituents by allowing these current tax rates that are low now to surge upward when they expire at the end of 2010. Do not put a 60- vote requirement to extend current rates.

Mr. SESSIONS

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