Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will not object. I just say to my colleague, I am pleased to speak right after him. I just ask that other colleagues will speak, and I would like to speak after the Senator from Florida.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Indiana, who is on the floor, my understanding is that we reached an accommodation or compromise when it comes to higher education and ``minor sports.'' We will have the GAO study that will go forward. And, in addition, we already have language in the bill that does call for a disclosure of financial information as to what is spent on different sports on the campuses. I think that is really important to a lot of us who were involved in some of these ``minor sports.'' And I see those sports being cut right now in our institutions of higher learning. I thank my colleagues for their accommodation. They seem ready to speak. I said I would be brief. I am done, I say to the Senator from Maine. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I will be very brief, because there are amendments that we have in the evening ahead of us. Let me simply talk about a conversation I had with Nils Hasselmo, who was president of the University of Minnesota and dropped by my office yesterday. He works with the American Association of Universities. He said, ``Look, Paul, I rather you not do this amendment. We in the higher education community want to work with you.'' If so, fine. I want to refer for a moment to a report. This was the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates titled ``Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities.'' This was dedicated in memory of Ernest Boyer, who had been president of the Carnegie Foundation. Many of us knew Ernest Boyer as a visionary concerning education. What concerns me about this report that came out a few months ago-- and there were quite a few front-page stories about it--is the findings. To be very brief, the findings go as follows: That in all too many of our large research universities, undergraduates go to these schools and their tuition is applied, of course, to the finances of these universities. They go in part because they hear about some of the university professors who have excellent reputations, but they never see them as teachers in their classes. It is not uncommon for undergraduates, first-year students--basically in their first year--to hardly have any professors--associate or full professors. It does seem to me if our universities and colleges are going to say they have a teaching mission, then there has to be some way that they live up to that mission. I could go on for hours and hours, but let me simply say that as an undergraduate many years ago, I experienced this. I have been a rebel about this forever. I think it is just simply unacceptable that in so many of our large research institutions, the graduate students are the priority, and the truth of the matter is, the undergraduates are not. I think when parents send their children--women and men--to go to higher education institutions, they have every right to expect that there will be a real emphasis on teaching to go along with that emphasis on research and that, indeed, in their first year, these students will have a chance to have some of these professors as teachers. That is what is wrong. I was going to speak to this in an amendment. When I talked with Nils Hasselmo and talked with others in the higher education community, we agreed to bring some presidents together, bring some higher education people together and go through this and see what kind of changes can be made. I know that Mark Yudof at the University of Minnesota is doing some very good work to try and put more of an emphasis on what happens to first-year students, and I think some of that is coming from the higher education community. I have to say, I didn't offer the amendment tonight, but I really want to see some changes take place here, and I believe there are many other Senators who will as well. The higher education community has to be accountable. There is a whole lot of Federal grant money that goes to these institutions. With all due respect, I think we have a right to say, ``Look, we want to make sure that you don't just give lip service to teaching.'' By way of conclusion, I want to mention what was in this Carnegie report as a kind of, if you will, bill of rights for students which gives us some direction, some sense of direction that I think the universities can go on: (1) By admitting a student, an institution of higher education commits to providing the student maximal opportunities for . . . including-- (A) opportunities to learn through inquiry rather than simple transmission of knowledge; (B) training in the skills necessary for oral and written communication at a level that will serve the student both within the institution of higher education and in post- graduate, professional and personal life; (C) appreciation of arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences, and the opportunity to experience the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences at any intensity and depth the student can accommodate; and (D) careful and comprehensive preparation for whatever may lie beyond graduation, whether it be graduate school, professional school, or a first professional position. (2) A student in a research university has the right-- (A) to expect to, and to have an opportunity for, work with talented senior researchers to help and guide the student's efforts; (B) to have access to first-class facilities in which to pursue research, including laboratories, libraries, studios, computer systems, and concert halls; (C) to have many options among fields of study, and among directions to move within those fields, including areas and choices not found in other kinds of institutions; and (D) to have opportunities to interact with people of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences different from the student's own background, culture, and experience, and with pursuers of knowledge at every level of accomplishment, from freshmen students to senior research faculty. Mr. President, I say to President Hasselmo and others, I look forward to having discussions with the higher education communities. I see several colleagues who are ``education'' Senators--the Senator from Maine, the Senator from Vermont. I am going to get a letter out to Senators saying if you want to be involved in a roundtable discussion, let's do so. The Chair, the Senator from Utah, has a fierce interest in education. I think he is one of the intellectuals in the U.S. Senate. I hope that we can work with the higher education community. Tonight won't be the debate on the amendment, but I say to my colleagues in higher education, this was my background. I was a teacher, a professor for 20 years. The fact of the matter is, it is time to be more accountable. The fact of the matter is, you keep saying that teaching is your mission, but with all due respect, there is plenty of evidence that is not so much the case, and we ought to give these first-year students and these undergraduates a fair shake. I conclude by asking unanimous consent that a series of statements and very powerful statements from students around the country in relation to the higher education bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. While I have the floor, I ask unanimous consent that my slot be eliminated.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. Let me just say to my colleague from West Virginia that it was an honor to work with him on this amendment. I thank him for his eloquence and for all that he does in the Senate. Mr. President, other colleagues are here--two colleagues. I am going to be quite brief. I am going to speak briefly about an amendment I was going to offer, and then I was going to ask unanimous consent my slot be eliminated. I wonder if that will be in order.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I know I am going to be joined on the floor in a moment. I had a chance to speak earlier today on the floor of the Senate. But unless there is some tabling motion--and there may not be opportunity for full debate and discussion--I told my colleague from Washington that I would just begin to speak about an issue that she is going to raise on the floor of the Senate. I guess the Senator from West Virginia, Senator Rockefeller, will also speak to this because he has been raising this question over and over again. The three of us really have focused on this. This, again, has to do with what I talked about earlier today on the floor of the Senate--compensation to veterans with tobacco-related illnesses. There was the hope on the part of the veterans community--the Chair, I think, would be interested in this--that there would be compensation to veterans having to do with addiction to tobacco. That is to say, in many ways it was handed out like candy. These veterans say, ``Look, if there are going to be rules for compensation, the same rules should apply to us.'' That seems fair to deal with some of the health care struggles and illnesses with which they have to deal. That was the first preference. I want to go on to add--now I am speaking for myself--if not direct compensation for veterans, then at least the money that is saved by not providing that compensation should go to veterans. The Office of Management and Budget, I think, estimated savings of something like $17 billion. I personally think that is too high an estimate, but that is a whole other issue. But if not the $17 billion for compensation, then at least it seems to me that money ought to go to veterans' health care. I could spend hours and hours--I will not--talking about all the ways in which veterans fall between the cracks. I actually found this to be, I think, probably the greatest education I have had since I have been a U.S. Senator, having to do with my dealings with veterans. I have been just amazed by how much veterans really need health care coverage, and it is not provided; veterans that are homeless; veterans struggling with PTSD, on and on. I think there is a whole lot that needs to be done. Let me say to those who follow veterans' health care issues that we have a flat-line budget that does not take into account really the inflation in medical costs, and I don't think takes into account demography, because more veterans are living to older age. We have a reliance on third-party payments that I am not sure is going to come through. If we ever get back to the VA housing bill--I hope we will--I will have an amendment that deals with that. We have, as I said before, a population that is living to be 85 and beyond, and I don't think we have figured out yet what to do about that. We also have the problem of compensation for atomic veterans who have been waiting years for justice. I intend to be out here with a piece of legislation for an up-or-down vote on this. These are men and women that went to ground zero in Nevada and Utah without any protective gear. So many of them have died from cancer. So many of their children and grandchildren have had illnesses. So many of them have struggled. We should expand the list of radiogenic diseases that are covered, that are presumptive diseases, because they still aren't getting compensation. It was a terrible thing the government did. It was a terrible thing. We lied to them. They should have been given protective gear. They should have been told what they were going to be exposed to. They weren't. My point is that on each and every one of these issues, whether they get direct compensation or not, at the very least that money ought to be put into veterans' health care. Instead, what happened is when the ISTEA highway bill went from the Senate to the House, all of a sudden a whole bunch of new projects got added on. The question becomes, How can we afford it? What is the ``offset''? For those watching this discussion on the floor of the Senate, that means, Where do you get the money from? Where the money was taken from was the $17 billion that the veterans community thought would, in fact, go to direct compensation for them and their families, or at the very least would go into veterans' health care. That is exactly what happened. That is what happened on the bill. When that bill came back here, when it passed the Senate, I voted against that bill. Then for complicated reasons there were some changes that needed to be made in a technical correction bill, and Senator Rockefeller stepped forward. I was pleased to join him. And he said, ``Look, when that technical correction bill comes before the floor of the Senate, I will have an amendment to essentially knock out the provision that took $17 billion, or however you score it, away from the veterans community.'' We went through a debate on this. We reached an impasse. The majority leader then decided the way he would deal with this is we would just put the technical corrections for the highway bill in the IRS conference report. So this conference committee dealing with this Internal Revenue Service bill essentially took the technical corrections for ISTEA and put it into the IRS conference report, which means we can't amend it. So when Senator Murray comes to the floor of the Senate, she is going to be, I think, appealing the ruling of the Chair. She is going to talk about what happened having been outside the scope of the IRS conference committee. In other words, there was no chance for discussion on the technical corrections bill about what happens to veterans compensation and health care, and so on and so forth. The technical corrections just got put into the IRS conference committee. So we will have that debate on the floor of the Senate. Senator Murray will be out here taking the lead. I thank her for that, because I actually think that what was done was a real injustice. Let me say to colleagues, I think the Congressional Budget Office scored this at about $10 billion, and then the OMB scored it at $17 billion. In some ways, it gets to be sort of funny money. But in any case, the higher figure was chosen because that gave some of our colleagues the opportunity to load more projects onto the ISTEA highway bill and gave them more of an offset. But in all due respect, I say this to all of my colleagues, the veterans community is going to hold us accountable on this. I hope people will listen very carefully to what Senator Murray has to say, and I hope we have an initiative similar to the initiative which Senator Dorgan took. And we will have a very strong vote. For my own part, if we don't win on this--and I hope we do--I think it ought to go back to conference committee. I think this provision dealing with the technical corrections should be knocked out because I think we should have a separate vote on the technical corrections bill. Then we should be able to come out here with an amendment and have an up-or-down vote as to whether or not the $17 billion that should have gone to compensation for veterans and their families, or at least into health care for the veterans community, should or should not be there as opposed to transferring it to the highway bill. That is the issue. There is no way people here are going to be able to avoid it. One way or another, I think people are going to hear from the veterans community. And they should hear from the veterans community. So we will shortly, when Senator Murray returns, have this discussion. I assume that this question will be before the Senate. For my own part, if we don't win, though I hope we do win, I think what I want to do is keep coming back over and over again and basically raise the same question and forcing votes. We can have the same votes over and over and over again. People can play around this however they want to. People can vote against the proposition that we honestly ought to have taken the $17 billion that should have gone for veterans' compensation and health care and kept it there, or people can vote whether it should be transferred to the highway bill for different projects that were added on in the House. We should have a strong vote in the Senate on this question. Or people can vote one way, and then kind of just look the other way while in the conference committee it gets done. But regardless of what we do procedurally, regardless of what we do process-wise, I want to remind colleagues one more time on the floor of the Senate that this was a real injustice. I don't know how people justify it. I don't know how people justify it. First issue: The veterans community says, ``Look, if we are going to be talking about compensation for people who are addicted to tobacco, do you know what happened to us when we were serving our country? Cigarettes were handed out to us like candy.'' So we asked for some compensation. We are paying the price for that addiction to tobacco. We asked for the compensation. They don't get the compensation. Then I say, and I think other veterans say this as well, if not the direct compensation, at least over the next 5 years put it into veterans' health care. Put it into the veterans' health care system. There is not one Senator here who spends any time back in his or her State with the veterans community who doesn't know that this is a system in need of reform. Dr. Kizer has moved forward with some good initiatives; some other initiatives I question. I think he has provided good leadership. But we should be doing much, much more. Much, much more. What about Vietnam vets? More drop-in centers? Senator Akaka has done a great job of leading the way for drop-in centers for Vietnam vets and other veterans. What about other veterans who struggle with post- traumatic stress syndrome? What about veterans who are homeless, many of them struggling with substance abuse? What about elderly veterans? What about veterans who fall between the cracks, and they don't have a direct service-connected disability illness and they are not low-income and therefore they are not eligible? And so on and so forth. This is a system that needs to be put on a more solid financial footing. This is a system that needs to do better by way of veterans. This is a health care system that faces many challenges. And what we did is we took the $17 billion that should have been direct compensation for these veterans who are addicted to tobacco--or at a minimum should have been put into veterans' health care--and we used the money to offset the cost of a whole variety of different projects, mainly highway projects added on to the ISTEA bill in the House of Representatives. And then when Senator Rockefeller and some of the rest of us wanted to amend the technical corrections bill to knock out that transfer of funds away from the veterans community to highways, we never had the opportunity to do so. The majority leader didn't want an up-or-down vote. You can do all you want with procedure and process. But you still have to be held accountable. But instead, we got another end run. We have the technical corrections bill folded into the conference report, completely outside the scope, as far as I can see, of any IRS reform bill, thus denying us the opportunity to have an up-or-down vote. Senator Murray will come here and challenge that, saying it was beyond the scope of the conference committee, and we will vote on this issue. I look forward to when she comes out in the Chamber and when we have that vote. And I say to colleagues, please, focus your attention on what was done, because I do not see how we explain this away to people in the veterans community. I hope I am not boring people with this argument. I keep repeating it over and over again, but I don't see how you explain to people that the money which should have gone to them by way of compensation--and, as a second choice, at least into their health care system--instead got transferred to paying for people's highway projects. Does anybody want to debate anybody in the veterans community about this? Does anybody want to defend this in any VFW hall or American Legion hall? How about the Vietnam Vets of America? How about the Paralyzed Veterans of America? How about the Disabled American Veterans? How about the Atomic Veterans? How about the Military Order of the Purple Heart? Do any of my colleagues want to defend this? I think this is a tough one, and I hope that we can take corrective action. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Arizona for his remarks. For a moment, I want to respond to some of what my colleague from Arizona said. He need not stay, but I did want to amplify on some of his remarks. I have had the honor of being able to work closely with Congresswoman Pelosi, who I think has been a very courageous leader in the human rights area. I have worked with a lot of human rights organizations, and Wei Jingsheng and others in China, who have had the courage to speak up. I, too, want to give credit where credit is due. I think it is terribly important that the President speak out about human rights-- terribly important. I think it was perhaps even more important that this was on television and radio and people in China had an opportunity to hear this discussion. I also believe, however, that really the question is, What next? I think that is really the question in regard to the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction and exporting of technology --dangerous technologies--in regard to trade. I think last year China exported something like $40 billion worth of products to our country and we exported $15 billion to China. That is clearly a policy that doesn't serve the people in our country well at all. I think also in the human rights area, which is very near and dear to my heart, I wish the President had met with some of the human rights advocates in China. I wish he had met with some of the families of the victims of Tiananmen Square or, for that matter, of those who are now in prison. But most important, on the ``what next'' part, I really hope that we will see some changes. There are, at minimum, some 2,000 men and women in prison in China just for the practice of their religion or because they have spoken out; many have spoken out for democracy, which is what we cherish in our country. We just celebrated 222 years of our noble experiment in self-rule. Those prisoners of conscience should be released. We meet all the time in our country very courageous men and women, now living in the United States of America. Many of them can't go back to China. They have been ``blacklisted.'' They should be able to go back to their country. It is not enough to say, because the Government released Wei Jingsheng, who served 16, 17, 18 years in prison because he had the courage to stand alone and to speak out for democracy, that this represents progress, because he is now in exile. He can't go back to his country to see his family, to see his loved ones. Quite clearly, the discussion about Tibet was good, but what we absolutely have to see are some negotiations with the Dalai Lama, a specific timetable to put an end to what has been absolute pressure on the people in Tibet. Last year, things got worse in Tibet. There has been no improvement whatsoever in human rights. Every time I have an opportunity to speak out about human rights on the floor of the Senate, I don't miss that opportunity. I say to the President that I appreciated someone who was pushing and pushing the President to speak out on human rights. I am glad he did. I think the credit should be given to the President for raising a lot of other terribly important questions that deal with our national security and our national defense. I also believe, however, in the human rights equation, which I think should be part of the foundation of our foreign policy. The whole way we need to measure the success of the President's trip is, what next? What next? The proof will be in the pudding. We have to wait and see. We have to continue to press and press and press.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I had come down to join the Senator from North Dakota. I will not take more than a few minutes, but I wanted to speak on this. I don't mean to complicate matters, but I came down to speak on this question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. So now we have an addition, in the dark of night, where the conference committee sneaks in another indefensible tax cut to wealthy people. That was not the bill that passed out of the Senate. I do not think it was in the House version. But in the conference committee it was put in. So, colleagues, I think there will be another effort on the floor, and I am pleased to join with my colleagues in doing this--with Senator Dorgan and others--which will essentially say this is outside the scope of conference. It was not passed by either body and should not be in there. We will have a ruling by the Chair, and maybe we will have an up-or-down vote. But I just point out that while there are some very good things in this piece of legislation--my colleague from Nebraska was one of the leaders in this effort with very, very good things that people around the country appreciate. But then we go to the conference committee, and we have a couple things that happen which are not democratic, with a small ``d,'' not accountable, not decisionmaking that I think makes a whole lot of sense. To the veterans, I say on the floor of the Senate: count on my support, working with Senator Rockefeller, working with Senator Murray, and working with others to, one way or another, try to knock out this transfer of funding, however it is estimated, $17 billion or less, that should be going to veterans in direct compensation or should be going to veterans' health care, as opposed to being put into the highway bill for different projects. And the second thing I want to bring to everyone's attention is cuts in capital gains for the wealthy, in the dark of night, added in the conference committee. And then finally the estate tax break--and I see my colleague from Nebraska here--which was actually corrected in the Senate bill and then dropped in conference. So we had a correction which would not have given the break to these poor folks with estates worth $17 million and more. And it could have easily been put in the conference committee. That is what we did on the Senate side. But, no, it was dropped. So, colleagues, we are going to, I think, have some debate and some action on the floor this afternoon on this. I will be pleased to join other colleagues on both of these questions. And before you start calling this a reform bill, take a very close look at what was added to this bill, or what was dropped from this bill, in the conference. I yield the floor. Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Chairman Archer wanted to make sure that for those Americans with estates worth more than $17 million, that we give them a special break. That is correct. Those Americans who are struggling with estates worth more than $17 million, they got, roughly speaking, an additional $200,000 break by mistake in last year's budget bill. The Senate corrected that mistake, but the correction got taken out in this conference committee. I hear my colleagues talk about IRS reform. How does that add up to reform? We have these Orwellian titles. We call everything ``reform.'' To most people in the country, when they find out about it, they do not think it is reform. We have paycheck protection that does not protect the paycheck; we have the Family Friendly Workplace Act which isn't friendly to the family; we have the TEAM Act which has nothing to do with teamwork, so on and so forth. Now this is called reform, and we give this break to folks with estates worth more than $17 million. The second issue in the conference committee had to do with capital gains. I ask unanimous consent that a piece by Richard Stevenson of the New York Times on June 24 called ``Break in Capital Gains Tax Is Added to I.R.S. Overhaul'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I bring to the attention of my colleagues a couple of issues that relate to this IRS conference report that is before us. First of all, my colleague from North Carolina was conveying a message to labor. He was talking about the fact that he was going to be very vigilant and he was going to be watching closely what happens with the oversight board. I think we should be vigilant and pay attention to what happened in this conference committee. I bring a couple of matters to the attention of my colleagues. I, first of all, will start out talking about veterans. I know that my colleague from West Virginia, who has been such a powerful advocate for veterans, will also speak about this, and I understand my colleague from Washington will be on the floor later taking action, and I will be pleased to join her. Let me go through this very briefly. As the highway bill--called the ISTEA or TEA-21 bill--moved to the House, and Members of the House wanted to add on more projects, the question was how to fund it. The way it was funded was to take an estimate from the Office of Management and Budget having to do with whether or not there would be compensation to veterans for illnesses caused by their addiction to tobacco. Cigarettes were handed out like candy to veterans when they were in the service. The decision was made that veterans should not receive this compensation. OMB said this would lead to a savings of about $17 billion. I think CBO said more like $10 billion, but conferees used the $17 billion. That money, I say to my colleagues, if not going to direct compensation for veterans, at the very least should go to veterans' health care. I cannot even tell you how many calls we get in our Minnesota office from veterans. It is really shocking the number of veterans who fall between the cracks. We have an aging veterans population. We don't know what to do as more veterans reach the age of 85 or how they will be taken care of in the veterans' health care system. We have Vietnam vets suffering with PTSD who drop in our office who still need a lot of help. A third of the homeless people in this country are veterans, many struggling with substance abuse, who need help. We have a VA health care system that has been put on a flat-line budget that won't work. We are talking about whether or not we are going to live up to our commitment to veterans. There was a technical corrections bill to this highway bill. Senator Rockefeller and I intended to have an amendment knocking out this $17 billion transfer of funds that should be going to veterans and instead was put into the highway bill. That is correct, I say to my colleagues, that is exactly what happened. I didn't vote for the bill for that reason. The majority leader did not want to afford us the opportunity to have an up-or-down vote on our amendment on the technical corrections bill. So he took the technical corrections bill and had the conferees put this into the IRS conference report. Therefore, we can't amend it. I bring to the attention of my colleagues that this was outside the scope of conference, as I see it. I think Senator Murray and others will have more to say about this. Certainly, in this IRS reform bill that passed the Senate and the House, we didn't do this, but in the conference report, things were loaded on, and one of them was essentially this technical corrections bill that did not give us the opportunity to knock out this transfer-- OMB says $17 billion; I think that is too high. That $17 billion either should have gone directly into compensation for veterans, vis-a-vis their tobacco addiction, or at the very least should have gone into veterans' health care. Therefore, questions should be raised about this conference report that is before us. I say to my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, the VA-HUD appropriations bill, of course, has been pulled. But the first opportunity I get, I will be back with an amendment to knock out this provision that took $17 billion, or thereabouts, that should have gone to veterans and instead put it into highway projects. We will come back to this, and we will have an up-or-down vote. First point. Second point. Boy, I will tell you, conference committees! I say to my colleague from Wyoming, I used to teach political science classes. I have to tell you. You know, I feel guilty. I need to refund tuition to students for those 2 weeks I taught classes on the Congress. I was so off in terms of a lot of the decisionmaking. I should have focused on the conference committees as the third House of the Congress, because these folks can do any number of different things. And the thing that drives me crazy is you can have a situation where the Senate did not have a provision in the bill, the House did not have a provision in the bill, and the conference committee just puts it in the bill. Then it comes back for an up-or-down vote. No opportunity to amend. Or you can have a situation where the Senate and the House pass bills with a provision in them and the conference takes it out. It is, I think, the least accountable part of decisionmaking in the Congress. Now, we have a couple of provisions of this bill that I think are worth talking about. One of them is a provision that was a drafting error. I would like to include in the Record a piece by David Rosenbaum of the New York Times of June 24: ``A Mistake Prevails, as Certainly as Death and Taxes.'' I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for just a minute, the Senator from North Dakota can have the 4 minutes, and we will go forward. I did speak earlier. People will be accountable on the vote. The discussion is taking place. We can come back to it if we need to come back to it. My colleague has been taking the leadership on this. Just go ahead.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I regret objecting then, because I don't quite understand why it would be that we wouldn't want to have a discussion, I think, on the issue that my colleague raised, and as a Senator I certainly want to speak on it.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to mark a significant milestone: the Minnesota-based Children's Program of Northern Ireland is celebrating its 25th anniversary this summer. This important program began in 1973 when one nine-year-old from Belfast, David Hughes, traveled to Minnesota and stayed with Roy and Ruth Lerud of Twin Valley. From this simple beginning, wondrous things have happened. During the following summer, Rotary Clubs in Hibbing, Minnesota, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, joined together to bring 120 children, ages 10-11, to Minnesota host families. And now, 25 years later, the program can boast that more than 4,000 children have come to Minnesota and neighboring states. These children have had their lives touched in immeasurable ways. And they have touched the lives of untold thousands of Minnesotans. The Children's Program of Northern Ireland was the first of its kind in the nation. It is now the blueprint of 25 other, similar programs throughout America which bring children to Minnesota for a summer of peace and understanding. Something important is at work here--Minnesotans are working to bring about peace, one child at a time. When the good people of Minnesota got involved in this program 25 years ago it was because they saw the need and stepped in to fill it. There were no Presidential Commissions or calls by Congress asking citizens to become involved. Rather, there were everyday heroes and heroines who tried to make their world better by opening their homes to a child from a troubled part of the world. And they have succeeded. Rotary is proud, and rightly so, of its motto ``Service Above Self.'' The Hibbing Rotary Club and the Belfast Rotary Club, in 1974, were living embodiments of this motto, as are all the people throughout Minnesota and Northern Ireland whose hard work and dedication have made this program such an enduring success. From the beginning these selfless efforts have been driven by volunteers. I would like to recognize, on the floor of the United States Senate, two of those volunteers. Hazel Busby is the coordinator in Belfast. She has been a tireless and enthusiastic volunteer for many, many years. I also would like to recognize Kathy Schultz, who is the current American board president. Both of these women merit the highest recognition for their contributions toward achieving peace in our time. None of us can know exactly how significant these Minnesota efforts have been in bringing peace and understanding to our world. However, we can know that the work of these fine people has brought a large measure of peace and understanding to untold thousands on both sides of the Atlantic. And that, in and of itself, merits recognition and highest praise.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I call up my amendment numbered 2902, which is at the desk.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me just say to my colleagues, this is one-tenth of 1 percent, and we have studies on administrative waste within the Department of Defense. That is my point. It is hard to believe that we could not take one penny out of $1 of the overall budget and put it into child care to make sure that these families are able to receive the support that they deserve. With almost a 50-percent gap, according to CRS, a waiting list of 93,000 families for child care, this is a great opportunity to help a lot of military families in probably the most important way we can. All of us who have been parents and grandparents know that. So I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Cardell Johnson, an intern in my office, be allowed floor privileges.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me be clear to my colleagues. I believe in the basic discussion I have had that a lot of the men and women in personnel who are involved, I say to my colleagues, who are actually involved down in the trenches delivering child care programs within the Department of Defense child care program, will tell you, ``Senator, $270 million over 5 years would do us a world of good, because we have almost 50 percent of the families we can't serve.'' My colleague can get a statement from the director saying, ``Look, we are not in favor of this.'' I mean that can be the position that the Department takes. That is the position that maybe someone who administers the program takes. But with all due respect, I have here a Congressional Research Service report. I will quote. This backs up the internal 1995 DOD report. In the 1995 survey, potential need for all the services is estimated to be 299,278 child care spaces. Given that there are currently 155,311 spaces, DOD is meeting about 52 percent of the total potential need. My colleagues come here to the floor and they say there is already a plan to meet this need. But there isn't a plan to meet this need. We are talking about a gap of 48 percent. I will say it one more time. Just ask the families. Just talk to the families. Ask that 48 percent what it feels like to not have adequate child care, what it feels like when you both have to work and you don't know whether your child is in really good child care, what it feels like when you are both working and your child comes home alone from school. We could do a world of good. The evidence is clear. There is a huge gaping need here. With all due respect, whatever official positions we get from DOD on this, the fact of the matter is, I think, the evidence is irrefutable. We have a 48 percent gap, and for 1 penny of 1 dollar, one-tenth of 1 percent across the board, look at the studies on administrative waste. We could put $270 million into child care for our military families and meet a huge need. That is the issue. I hope there will be strong support for this amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. WELLSTONE. If my colleagues have essentially yielded their time, or may now reserve some of their time, let me try to summarize it. Let me try to make this appeal again. We have a 1995 study which says, ``Look, almost 50 percent of the families are hurting here. They need the child care services.'' I have a Congressional Research Service study that says the same thing. We phase it in over a 5-year period. It is a total of $270 million, one-tenth of 1 percent of the overall Pentagon budget. Isn't part of our readiness making sure that these families of our military personnel can feel secure that their children are getting good child care? Can't we do this in our budget for our military families? The medical evidence is overwhelming about the importance of early childhood development. It is overwhelming about the development of the brain. It is overwhelming that we ought to do better. This amendment enables us to do this. I guess I am disappointed in the opposition, although, of course, everybody has a right to take whatever view they want to. I make yet one final appeal to my colleagues to please support this amendment. It is eminently reasonable, eminently balanced, and it really does a world of good for military families. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, today I am introducing a piece of legislation, and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has introduced this on the House side. This legislation is called the Strategic Transitional Employment Program, STEP. This legislation is an outgrowth of some of my work as a senator in Minnesota and in other communities around the country. If I had to summarize my travel in our country in Delta, MS, or East Los Angeles, or Watts, or inner-city Baltimore, or inner-city Minneapolis, or rural Minnesota, or Appalachia, Letcher County, KY, or inner-city Chicago, over and over and over again, the one thing I heard from people was: Where are the jobs at decent wages that we can support our families on? More than anything in the world, Senator, we want to be able to earn a decent living and give our children the care they need and deserve. Congresswoman Norton and I had the opportunity to be at First Baptist Church here in D.C. Pastor Eldridge Spearman's church, in the Greenway community, working with the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization. There was a wonderful turnout of people from the community. They said this would be the best single thing we could talk about. Over the next 4 years, an effort to create 1.8 million jobs for people, transitional employment, moving toward living-wage jobs, opportunity for education, job training, so that we build up the human capital in our communities so that we then can attract the private capital. This is a major issue that is off the political debate screen but should be on the political debate screen and should be part of our agenda. There is a jobs gap in our Nation now, close to 5 million jobs, and even with the economy humming along at peak economic performance, there are many communities, as the eminent scholar, William Julius Wilson, points out, where there is no work, work is the most important thing we can focus on. When people work, they contribute to family, they contribute to community, they have dignity. But there are too many communities in our country where there are almost no jobs at all. This legislation speaks to that. I will be bringing to the floor of the Senate some sense-of-the-Senate amendments that talk about the need to have thorough study and investigation. I will work out amendments that come from this piece of legislation, build up support, and come to the floor over and over and over again to talk about this. This is a structural problem in our economy, and this is the key to economic opportunity. Children do better when their parents are doing better. There is no more important priority than to focus on jobs and to focus on job opportunities. That is what this legislation does. I thank Brian Ahlberg, on my staff, and Deanna Caldwell for doing such superior work, and I thank the Center for Community Change, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Peter Edelman and William Julius Wilson for their work, as well. The bill I introduce today, the Strategic Transitional Employment Program (STEP) Act of 1998 addresses what I consider to be one of the key moral issues facing our country. The issue is jobs. I often say that if you want to prevent crime, if you want to prevent drugs, broken homes, violence in our homes, violence in our schools and on the streets, then focus on providing all Americans with a good education, good health care and a good job. Too many Americans who want to work and are able to work cannot find a good job. During my recent and continuing travels, I have found that even as official unemployment figures and other leading indicators suggest that we should be celebrating our economic success, many American communities continue to struggle with the demoralization of joblessness. When I traveled last year to Mississippi, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Kentucky, urban and rural Minnesota, and when I travel to struggling communities, neighborhoods and barrios today, I heard and still hear the question: Senator, where are all the good jobs? We want to work. We are able to work. Where are the jobs? Most Americans are aware that the gap between rich and poor in America is widening. Between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s, incomes of the richest fifth of families increased on average by 30 percent, or about $27,000 after adjusting for inflation. In contrast, the real incomes of the poorest families declined on average 21 percent, about $2,500. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ``In the United States as a whole, the poorest 20 percent of families with children had an average income of $9,250 in the mid-1990s, while the average income of families with children in the top 20 percent of the income distribution was $117,500, or 13 times as large.'' In the United States today, poverty is becoming more and more concentrated, the poor are more and more isolated, and joblessness is more strongly associated with that poverty than ever before. Concentrated joblessness is increasing in urban neighborhoods and poor rural communities. Meanwhile, the joblessness is becoming more and more prolonged--a chronic condition--for residents of those areas. Last Friday I took part in an event at First Baptist Church in Southeast Washington, D.C. First Baptist is just across the Anacostia River on Minnesota Avenue. It serves the communities of Greenway, Marshall Heights and many others across our nation's capitol. District of Columbia Delegate Holmes-Norton and I announced that we would be introducing this bill, and I would just like to thank the church, including its pastor Eldridge Spearman, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Strayhorn and others of the church's staff for welcoming us there. Representatives of the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization also were present and participated in what I believe was an important event. The problem of joblessness persists today in Washington, D.C. and in communities across the country, even at a time when our economy is at peak performance. Between 4 and 5 million Americans of working age lack the jobs they need to support themselves and their families. Many have been jobless for prolonged periods. They have lost their jobs, or they have never been able to find a job. They lack the skills and experience to get a job, or there are no jobs nearby where they live. Many are so discouraged they no longer are seeking work. They are not even counted as unemployed. We are not talking only about those who are already or soon will be losing welfare benefits. Those people, many of them women with children, will be required to find work. We also are talking about more than a million men--African-American men in our cities, men regardless of race or background in urban and rural areas. Many jobless men are fathers. They want to work. They are able to work. But they remain jobless. Why has concentrated joblessness and poverty increased and intensified for some while the rest of the country is enjoying an abundance of work, when in fact in some areas there are labor shortages? There are a number of reasons, but two are fundamental: changes in the nature of work and in the location of work. Race is a third important factor. We have experienced profound economic restructuring that has transformed the nature of work and the skills demanded for work. Industrial and manufacturing jobs, once a foundation of our economy, have given way to work that is driven by new technological developments and a global marketplace. The demand for skilled workers, those with education and training, is high. Lower-skilled workers, who have always been the most vulnerable to economic shifts, have seen their work opportunities dwindle or vanish. The gap between average earnings of high school graduates and college graduates has become a gulf. In fact, ``the unemployment rates for low-skilled men and women are five times that among their college-educated counterparts,'' according to the prominent social scientist and Harvard University Professor William Julius Wilson. I am pleased that to say that I believe we are on the verge of completing conference work on the workforce legislation that will improve the country's job-training system. That is a crucial, bipartisan work-product of the Senate's Labor Subcommittee on Employment and Training, on which I am proud to serve as Ranking Minority Member. I am hopeful we can complete and enact that legislation in the coming weeks. The bill I introduce today is designed to fit closely with and complement that reform of the federal job- training system. It would utilize the streamlined and improved job- training infrastructure that the workforce bill is designed to bring about. The location of work also has changed. Business has moved to the suburbs. New jobs, even lower-skill jobs, are more likely to be found in suburban environments than central city or rural communities. In the 1980s, 87 percent of new jobs in the lower-paying and lower-skilled service and retail trade sectors were created in the suburbs, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). And all too often, jobs in the suburbs are inaccessible using public transportation. Race is a further determinant of concentrated poverty and joblessness. We cannot ignore or dismiss the impact of racial discrimination. It has created islands of poverty and joblessness. It is no coincidence that the residents of most central cities, of most poor rural counties, are more likely to be racial minorities. William Julius Wilson describes how many of our central cities have become essentially racially segregated and poor: In addition to changes in the economy and in the class, racial, and demographic composition of inner-city ghetto neighborhoods, certain government programs and policies contributed, over the last fifty years, to the evolution of jobless ghettos. Prominent among these are the early actions of the FHA in withholding mortgage capital from inner-city neighborhoods, the manipulation of market incentives that trapped blacks in the inner cities and lured middle-class whites to the suburbs, the construction of massive federal housing projects in inner-city neighborhoods, and, since 1980, the New Federalism, which, through its insistence on localized responses to social problems, resulted in drastic cuts in spending on basic urban programs. Just when the problems of social dislocation in jobless neighborhoods have escalated, the city has fewer resources with which to address them. HUD's State of the Cities report for 1997 observed that, ``In 1995, the poverty rate for whites (not of Hispanic origin) was 6.4 percent; for Asians and Pacific Islanders it was 12.4 percent; African Americans, 26.4 percent; and Hispanics 27.0 percent.'' The Eisenhower Foundation recently published a report that examines what has happened in the 30 years since the historic Kerner Commission report of 1968. Here is one finding from that report: ``Since the Kerner Commission, the U.S. has had the most rapid growth in wage inequality in the Western world, with racial minorities suffering disproportionately. . . [T]here cannot be meaningful progress in closing the racial divide without an economic corollary.'' The problem is not only urban. An American Indian in Minneapolis or a Mexican-American immigrant in Willmar, Minnesota might still not receive fair consideration from too many potential employers. With historic Civil Rights legislation through the years, we have largely transcended the most blatant policies of racial prejudice and segregation in our country. But to some degree we have replaced them with policies of inaction and neglect. Poor minorities have been made poorer, in some cases are more segregated, and many remain stereotyped. We pay for neglect, for the failure to act, in a myriad of ways. Neglect breeds destructive behavior that harms individuals, that harms those in close proximity, and that eventually harms those far removed. Criminal behavior is a child of neglect. We know that there are strong relationships between poverty, unemployment, and crime. Work deters the kind of crime that is found in communities of concentrated joblessness and poverty. It may not be all that is needed, but legitimate work opportunity is integral. Without it there is no hope. The STEP proposal would build a bridge to close the ``jobs gap''--the gap between those who are doing well in today's economy and those who are being left behind. The problem in this case is not the cyclical nature of our economy. It is chronic and structural joblessness. We cannot any longer disregard the substantial portion of our population that is being left out of the benefits of general prosperity. The Center for Community Change estimates a jobs gap of about 4.4 million. In other words, 4.4 million people are out of work or economically in need of additional employment due to a lack of jobs appropriate to their skills and abilities. The estimate includes about 2.1 million of the officially unemployed who have been without work for 15 weeks or longer. It also includes about 330,000 persons who are without work but have given up their employment search and are therefore no longer officially unemployed--also called the discouraged worker. And it includes about 2 million full-time equivalent positions, which represent the nearly 4 million ``economically underemployed,'' people who work part-time because they cannot find a full-time job and who are also not included in the count of the officially unemployed. The answer to the jobs gap is jobs, and our bill will create jobs-- 1.8 million of them over three years. The idea for this legislative proposal comes from people who have devoted much of their professional lives to attempting to solve this problem: the Center for Community Change, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Peter Edelman, William Julius Wilson and grassroots organizations around the country which serve low-income communities. Our bill will not create every permanent job that is needed. Massive job-creation programs have been proposed and even tried in the past. They usually were designed as counter-cyclical interventions in the economy to address recessions. We also acknowledge that there are other reasons for joblessness which our bill does not directly address. If there are no jobs nearby, part of the solution may be transportation. If a jobless person is a parent, part of the solution may be affordable, quality child care. Rather, the bill proposes for the first time a specific and limited policy tool to address a specific, crucial need. It is a realistic effort to provide for out-of-work individuals a transition between chronic joblessness and a non-subsidized job in the private or public sector. It is a serious, even if initial and partial, effort to close the jobs gap. What I propose today is a plan to provide nearly 2 million Americans with a significant step toward a full-time, living wage job. It will help these jobless individuals living in poverty with meaningful employment experience for one year, as well as with skills- training and education. It will provide hard-hit communities with needed economic development and services so they can attract more investment. It will prepare workers who, at the end of a year of skills- developing work, can qualify for many of the positions that private employers are telling us they cannot fill because they can't find able and experienced workers. That also will help attract investment. Finally, it will create a new demonstration program at the Small Business Administration to help target venture-capital investment to small enterprises that provide jobs in high-unemployment, high-poverty communities. The core of the bill is a 4-year, $20-billion program to create 1.8 million entry-level, 12-month, transitional jobs. These will be community employment jobs, filling needs in the affected communities. The program would be administered by the Department of Labor, largely through the existing federal employment and training infrastructure, which we are in the midst of reforming and improving in substantial ways. Money and decision-making power would be pushed down to the local level. Participation by key groups--employers, labor, elected officials and community-based organizations--would be assured. We are not simply providing make-work jobs leading to nowhere. State and local plans would have to specify how the jobs and the accompanying skills development would provide a transition to gainful employment after one year. Nor are we creating an exploited, low-wage workforce to displace current workers or undercut their wages, such as many allege is happening with Welfare-to-Work in some places. Strict anti- displacement language is included in the bill. Workers in the program would be paid slightly above minimum wage, plus benefits, and would receive full federal labor law protections. The program would be paid for from discretionary funds, so no budgetary offset would be required for its enactment. Nonetheless, offsets are included in the bill. It would be paid for by eliminating unnecessary current spending. The bill would revoke the current subsidy of excessive executive compensation among large American corporations--prohibiting the federal tax deduction for salaries paid to executives which are more than 25 times the compensation of another employee of the same company for the same year. And it would repeal the deferral of income tax owed on assets of U.S.-controlled foreign corporations. Here is how the bill would work. The STEP Act would provide transitional employment to place people firmly on the pathway to economic security. The STEP Act would provide funding over four years to create entry- level jobs, and provide benefits, for people who have been jobless 15 weeks or more, who have a family income at or below poverty, and who are living in a community of concentrated poverty and unemployment. The jobs would be transitional--meaning that eligible participants could stay in the program for a maximum of twelve months, although some exceptions would be allowed. Under the four-year STEP initiative, States and local communities would spend the first year carefully planning a job creation strategy to create, nationwide, 1.8 million jobs over three years. With an eye towards ensuring quality and the coordination of resources, the STEP Act incrementally builds the number of jobs created each year to reach the total of 1.8 million jobs. Funding is provided in the second (post- planning) year to create 200,000 jobs; in the third year to create 600,000 jobs; and in the fourth year to create 1 million jobs. The number one priority of STEP is creating jobs for people who need work--people living in communities of concentrated poverty and unemployment. STEP is not just a job that ends in 12 months. It is the propellant for landing sustaining employment--employment that pays a living wage, the kind of job that could provide meaningful responsibilities to help people develop work skills and get sound work experience under their belt. At the same time, STEP participants would have paid time--10 hours per week--to get secondary, vocational, or post-secondary education. Their annual earnings would be consistent with living wage principals. They would be hooked into services such as transportation and child care which will be critical to their ultimate success. Also, they would have job search and job placement assistance to help ensure their successful transition out of the STEP program. The second priority is to create jobs in communities where jobs are scarce--in communities of concentrated poverty--whenever possible. There is no lack of work to be done in poor neighborhoods. The STEP Act would authorize work, regardless of its location, for environmental conservation or restoration, to develop infrastructure or affordable housing, to provide human services or to support small businesses. Poor communities could use the wage subsidies that STEP would provide to help with the renovation of schools and community centers, to provide child care or community health care services, to provide elder care, to provide aides to school teachers, to provide after-school and summer recreational programs, to develop parks and playgrounds, to provide 911 phone service, to remove lead paint and asbestos, to build or renovate housing, and to provide community safety and crime prevention services. This is just some of the work that could be, and should be, done in communities with entrenched poverty. The jobs that would be created and the location of those jobs would be determined by the people most familiar with the needs of the community and with the needs of local residents. Local community members, elected officials, labor unions, and representatives from for- profit business would collaborate to develop work proposals and identify worksite employers. When work could be physically located in or would benefit a community of concentrated poverty and unemployment, that work would receive funding before other proposals. We would allow jobs to be located outside a community of poverty for two reasons: (1) because we understand that the best skill-developing work opportunities may lie outside the boundaries of an impoverished community and our first priority is getting people to work; and (2) because we recognize that wages alone don't renovate schools or build houses. Other resources are necessary and may not be available to those communities. Participants, however, would have to be residents of a community of concentrated poverty and unemployment. Employers could be local public agencies, private nonprofits, or private employers. Work created in public agencies and in nonprofits would be funded first. The bill contains a number of measures to ensure that current employees would not be harmed or displaced. Labor organizations would play a significant role in selecting job proposals and in monitoring work conditions. It also contains provisions to ensure that workers would be provided health insurance benefits; would be covered by Federal, State, and local labor laws; would be covered by anti- discrimination statutes; and would be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit. The cost of creating 1.8 million jobs over four years as I have outlined is $21 billion. That cost of providing jobs to those who need them is a bargain compares to the inescapable price that we pay, and that our children will pay, for doing nothing. The price of neglect is high--fiscally, emotionally and culturally. The bill also provides funding for community development venture capital--a critical need in most low-income communities. Equity capital is in short supply in low-income areas. Grassroots community development organizations have accomplished much through self-help economic development efforts, including microlending and technical assistance to businesses. However, few of these organizations have the financial or technical capacity to make equity investments to launch businesses or to help them expand. A field of community development venture capita (CDVC)l funds is emerging to fill the gap. These CDVC funds are targeting businesses that traditional institutional investors shy away from for a variety of reasons. These are businesses that may be located in economically distressed urban or rural areas, or businesses in need of equity investment in smaller amounts than what the traditional investor would consider. Also unlike the traditional investment firm, CDVCs target companies that will create good jobs that pay decent wages and opportunities for advancement. They seek to shape the culture of young companies with respect to sustainable community development and environmental impact. That means providing entrepreneurial solutions to social problems, creating jobs and generating wealth in economically disadvantaged areas, and yielding competitive long-term investment returns. There are about 30 community development venture capital funds currently operating around the country. Northeast Ventures Corporation in Duluth, Minnesota is an excellent example. Northeast Ventures invests primarily in a seven county area that is a restructured mining region. They invest in a wide range of industries, with ``typical'' initial investments ranging from $150,000 to $350,000. The STEP Act would provide funding of $20 million over four years for community development venture capital initiatives. The program would help to build the capacity of existing CDVC funds and encourage the development of emerging funds. The funds would be channeled through experienced, qualified, nonprofit intermediary organizations to provide venture capital financing (loans, grants, and equity investments) to venture capital funds that serve low-income people and their communities. The funding would also be used to provide training, education and operating support to develop the technical and administrative capacity of emerging community development venture capital organizations. Mr. President, the STEP Act would be an important effort towards bridging America's jobs gap. I hope my colleagues will support it. I ask unanimous consent that a list of groups supporting the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President today I am introducing an amendment that will show the heart and hands of our government in caring for the victims of domestic violence in the military. My amendment is simple: it will provide health benefits for abused dependents of members of the armed forces, who are currently receiving transitional compensation due to their batterer's discharge or court martial for abuse. These health benefits include medical, dental, and mental health care at armed forces facilities. Victims, battered women and abused children, would be entitled to health benefits for as long as they received transitional compensation, which is a maximum of three years. The financial expense would be negligible; but the increased care, safety and dignity given to our military dependents who are victims of abuse would be huge. Domestic violence is one of the most serious issues we face. It knows no borders. Neither economic status, geography, or race shields someone from domestic violence. It is happening to women in your families, your neighborhoods, and in your place of work and worship. Most distressing, it is happening at an alarming rate in military families. Battering is the one of the single greatest causes of injury to women. According to Department of Justice statistics, of the 1.4 million hospital emergency room admissions in 1994, about one quarter were treated for injuries from domestic violence. Among civilians, the DoJ has estimated that, on average each year, from 1992-1996, about 8 in 1000 women . . . age 12 or older experienced a violent victimization by a spouse or boyfriend. The numbers for domestic violence victims in the military are deeply disturbing and much bigger. Department of Defense data indicates 17.8 to 19.0 women per 1000 for substantiated reports of abuse during the same period. Substantiated reports of abuse are those confirmed by a military review panel. Many battered women and their children in the military do not come forward because they fear they will be destitute or lose key benefits if their spouses are discharged or court-martialed on the grounds of abuse. This amendment reduces the disincentives of victims to come forward about the violence in their homes. It allows dependent family members in the military to get the health services they need, so that they can escape their abusers and move toward independence. There have been cases brought to my attention where military dependents could have benefited from this legislation, and we know, that sadly, there are many more such stories throughout the military. Annette is the former wife of a Navy Chief Petty Officer and mother of two young children. She was routinely beaten by him from June 1994 through 1996. Military protective orders and civilian restraining orders failed to protect her and her children. Her ex-husband was charged with twenty-one offenses by the United States Navy, including eight assault charge involving Annette. He was ultimately court- martialed. Due to domestic violence, Annette has been declared ninety percent disabled by doctors and therapists. She suffers from severe skeletal and muscular damage to her back from an attempted rape by her husband; debilitating migraines due to nerve damage; dental problems as a result of her teeth being knocked out; and post traumatic stress disorder. These are just a few of her challenges while attempting to raise two children. She is receiving transitional compensation, but has had no health benefits. She has several thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills. We need to ensure that military wives and dependents like Annette get the health services they need and deserve to care for their children and to heal. I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment. amendment no. 3027 (Purpose: To eliminate secret Senate holds) On page ____, after line ____, insert the following: