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WASHINGTON - (January 29) -- Senator Bob Graham, D-Florida, made the following comments this evening in response to President Bush's State of the Union Address:

"I thought it was a good speech that drew upon the unity which Americans are feeling after the horrific events of September 11th and the success of the war on terrorism," said Graham, chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. "But it had limited objectives because our resources are going to be so committed to the war, homeland security and getting the economy back on track."

He said the speech was "sparse on specifics – for example, the reference to the environment was just a few words."

On domestic priorities such as a prescription drug benefit for Medicare beneficiaries, Graham added, "President Bush said the right words. But we know from previous announcements that the number of dollars that will be proposed in the president's Fiscal Year 2003 budget will be inadequate if, as the president inferred, we will have a program that will be available to all Medicare beneficiaries.

"Last year, we had approximately $300 billion over 10 years within which to provide a prescription drug benefit. I understand the president's budget is going to be under $200 billion over 10 years now. I don't believe we can have a program that will be affordable and will be comprehensive for under $200 billion. In fact, it was very hard to have a program that met all those standards with $300 billion.

"What the president said was very satisfying. The problem is, there are a lot of details yet to be filled in and some of the details we do know, such as the amount that the president is going to be recommending for prescription drugs for Medicare, are not going to be sufficient to fulfill all the objectives of his speech," said Graham.