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Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I came to this Chamber just as we opened the session to welcome back our colleagues and staff and all of those who are so much a part of this great institution. I reiterate that welcome again this afternoon. I am sure we all hope this new year and this new session will be constructive and productive.
Much has happened in the weeks since we adjourned. In the war on terrorism , President Bush and his national security team continue to do a superb job. And our men and women in uniform continue to inspire us with their heroism and their success.
Closer to home, workers in New York continue to clear away the wreckage at ground zero. At the Pentagon, rebuilding is already underway.
In Princeton, NJ, a tiny 15-day-old baby girl--the daughter of Scott and Lisa Beamer--is living proof that the spirit of the heroes of United flight 93 will never die.
And just yesterday--more than 3 months after the largest bioterrorism attack in our Nation's history forced it shut--the Hart Senate Office Building finally reopened.
Those are all reasons to be hopeful about this new year. But there are also reasons to be concerned. In all, there are now more than 8.3 million Americans who want to work but do not have jobs. The collapse of Enron has cost thousands of Enron employees their jobs--and their retirement savings. Tens of thousands of other Americans who have invested part of their retirement savings in pension funds have also been hurt by Enron's implosion.
In South Dakota and all across America, people are working hard to raise their children, pay their bills, and maybe, if they are lucky, to put something away for the future. Our job this year is to help them, by strengthening our national security, our economic security, and the security of our democratic institutions.
As we begin this new session, we face two significant challenges. The first is fiscal. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the Federal Government would run a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next decade. This morning the CBO released new reports showing that $4 trillion of the projected surplus has disappeared in the space of just 7 months.
Instead of surpluses every year from now until 2011, current projections indicate that even if you include the Social Security and Medicare surpluses, the Government will run deficits at least in the years 2002 and 2003. And it will be forced to use $1.2 trillion in Social Security and Medicare trust funds over the next decade to pay for other essential Government programs. That is before we add one penny for the Medicare prescription drug benefit or strengthen our military or increase our investments in homeland security, education, or other critical priorities. It is also before we add one penny for an economic recovery package.
The second challenge we face is ideological. There are some who predict we will accomplish little this year because of our genuine differences in philosophy on many issues and because this session is so short and the stakes in the November elections are so high. But we do not have to accept that
prediction. Important issues do not have to be insoluble. The new education bill we passed last year is proof of that.
Six days from today President Bush will deliver his first State of the Union Address. Six days after that, he will send the Congress his budget proposal. Democrats will give the President's proposals very careful and respectful consideration. He deserves every aspect of respect and care that we can give his budget.
Today I would like to say a few words about what we see as our priorities for the coming year. And I might say that we look forward to working with the President and with our Republican colleagues to find principled compromises on each of them.
The first thing we need to do is finish our work from last year. We should start by passing an economic recovery plan that will create jobs and get America's economy moving in the right direction again.
Both the Democratic and Republican economic recovery plans are more than 75 percent tax cuts.
Over the holidays, the Congressional Budget Office analyzed all of the major economic recovery proposals and indicated that the least helpful would be repealing the corporate alternative minimum tax and speeding up the income tax rate reductions passed last summer.
Earlier this month, in an effort to get the negotiations moving again, I proposed two new business tax cuts for every company in America that creates new jobs or invests in new equipment and technology. But today, I offer another proposal for breaking the impasse.
There are four ideas that appear in every major economic plan--Democratic and Republican. The first is to extend unemployment benefits by 13 weeks. Republicans and Democrats have suggested that.
The second is to provide tax rebates for workers who did not get a rebate the first time. Again, both Republicans and Democrats have offered that.
The third is to provide bonus depreciation to encourage business investment. Again, both groups have proposed that.
And finally, the fourth is to provide fiscal relief for States to help them avoid cutting critical services--especially health care--or raising taxes during the recession.
I hope we can at least take up these four measures immediately. If there are others for which there can be agreement--perhaps New York assistance, perhaps the extenders, perhaps other issues--where we can find common ground, I would like to be able to do that. I hope we can do it this week.
I have begun talking with Senator Lott, and he has been extremely responsive in his desire to try to find a way to move this legislation along. I commend him and thank him for that.
Later on this afternoon we will offer a unanimous consent request that will accommodate Senators' wishes to offer amendments but also, I hope, Senators' desires to get something done. So I am hopeful we can accomplish that this week.
I might add, we have a very limited period of time. We have a couple of days this week. And because of agreed-to schedules, we only have a couple of days next week. And then we have just 2 weeks after that before the Founders' Day recess. In that period of time it would be my hope we could do the economic recovery, the election reform, the farm bill, and an energy bill as well.
That is a lot to do, but if we can make every day count--beginning with this one--I think we can do it. I am
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As I said, we also need to finish the farm bill. We do not need another year or another month to know we have to build on what has been done already.
Since the Freedom to Farm bill was passed in 1996, farm income has dropped 25 percent. USDA now warns that unless we pass a new farm bill or more emergency assistance quickly, farm income could drop another 20 percent this year alone.
The farm bill is economic recovery for rural America. So we ask that we can work together again on this legislation. Let's work to pass it immediately. Let's go to conference. Let's resolve our differences. And let's get this legislation on the President's desk.
As I noted, the President shares the view that Republicans and Democrats have advocated with regard to energy. We need a national energy plan. The administration has proposed a plan which relies a good deal on adding to production. Their view is that we drill on certain sensitive lands on which I personally have some objection. The House-passed version of that plan would add $34 billion in tax relief for energy companies.
What Democrats would do is have a balance between the need for new production and what we ought to do with conservation and with alternative energy development. Let's reduce America's dependence on not just foreign oil but on oil, period. That ought to be part of the debate we have on energy.
There is a lot of work to be done in a very short period of time. I hope we can do all of that in the time we have allotted for these very important bills.
We also need to pass terrorism reinsurance . Efforts to solve this complex problem last year were impeded by some who sought to use this issue to push other extraneous issues. This year we will need to work together to assess the real needs of the marketplace and provide real solutions--the sooner, the better.
Our second responsibility is to continue to lay the foundation for long-term economic growth. An essential part of that foundation is expanded trade. Last month, the Finance Committee passed a bill that gives the President expanded trade promotion authority and addresses important labor and environmental issues related to trade. The committee also passed a bill to expand trade adjustment assistance, including assistance for farmers who are displaced by global trade.
Early this year we will bring to the Senate floor a fast-track bill that includes both of these essential components, and I hope we will pass it with broad bipartisan support.
Expanded trade was a key factor in the economic boom of the 1990s. Other key factors were fiscal discipline and increased productivity made possible by advances in technology. To keep America's technological edge, we should take final action on the Export Administration Act this year. We should expand broadband Internet access and work to make it universal, the same as telephone service, this year. We should find a way to make R&D tax credits permanent this year, and we should build on the bipartisan success of our new education bill passed last
year by expanding opportunities to go to college or attend a training program and by working toward full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Act so that children with disabilities can develop their skills to the fullest potential. After all, the minds of our young people are our best hope for long-term economic growth.
Our third responsibility is to increase families' economic security. We should raise the minimum wage $1.50 an hour over 2 years so people who work full time don't have to live in poverty. In 1996, we changed welfare programs to say if you are able-bodied, you should work. Since then we have seen dramatic decreases in the State caseloads and increases in the number of people moving from welfare to work. For too many families, however, moving off welfare has not meant moving out of poverty. We need to strengthen welfare reform this year and make sure people who move from welfare to work have access to affordable child care, transportation, and health care so they can actually make a better life for themselves and their children.
We need to expand affordable health coverage to uninsured Americans. We need to pass a real, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights. Insurers should not be able to deny medical care once you get sick, and certainly they should not be able to deny care or coverage based on the results of genetic tests that indicate you might get sick someday.
President Bush says he opposes genetic discrimination. We hope to work with him this year to prohibit both employers and insurers from using genetic test results as a basis for discrimination and to prevent disclosure of genetic information to banks, employers, and anyone else who has no legitimate need for information.
The collapse of Enron has left thousands of former Enron employees suddenly fearful of growing old in poverty. For every Enron worker, there are tens of thousands of workers in other companies who worry that they could share the same fate. We have a responsibility to look at everything from Federal rules governing 401(k) pension plans to corporate disclosure requirements under securities laws, to accounting reforms and whether the accounting industry's self-regulatory system is sufficient.
We need to learn what happened and then work together to prevent it from ever happening again. We must also work together this year to protect, not privatize, America's public retirement system, Social Security, and Medicare, and to add real prescription drug coverage to Medicare. Half measures such as voluntary discount cards that just push the costs off on pharmacists and provide little savings to seniors are simply not adequate.
Our fourth responsibility is to strengthen homeland security. On September 11 and when the anthrax letter was opened in my office, we saw how devastating it can be when terrorists are able to slip through the holes in our homeland security. We need to work in a bipartisan manner to close those holes as quickly as possible.
We were puzzled during the debate on economic recovery when some insisted that strengthening our homeland defense was not an emergency. We are pleased by new reports that indicate the administration has now decided to devote real attention and resources to homeland security, and we will certainly work with them to do so.
Our fifth responsibility is to strengthen the security of our basic democratic rights and institutions. That includes
the right of every American to vote and have that vote count. A year ago, we had just come through the most difficult Presidential election in our lifetimes. Since then, Senators DODD, MCCONNELL, BOND, SCHUMER, and TORRICELLI have come up with a bipartisan plan to strengthen our election system. I intend to bring their bill up as soon as possible. The American people are asking--fairly, I believe--whether our campaign system is part of the reason Enron was able to do what it did. Whether that is true or not, the mere suspicion that it might be true is damaging to our democracy.
House supporters need only three more signatures on a discharge petition to bring the Shays-Meehan bill to the floor. I expect they will get those votes and pass a good, comprehensive campaign finance reform bill this year. We must change the system now.
One of the heroes who defied the hijackers on flight 93 was Mark Bingman, a gay man. His courage may have helped save this very building. This year we should have the courage to pass ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and prohibit employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. We must also pass the bipartisan bill expanding the Federal hate crimes law to include gender, sexual orientation, and disability, and to provide greater protections against crimes motivated by racial and religious bias.
Scott Beamer will always be remembered for those final brave words: ``Let's roll.'' His new daughter Morgan, born just 15 days ago, is probably the best known of the babies born to fathers who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks. But she is not the only one. So far there are 17 such babies, including a pair of twins. By summer there will be 40 more babies born to fathers who died in the September 11 attacks. Every day in America, 11,000 babies are born.
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Last year was one of the saddest in our Nation's life. As we begin this new session, with its new challenges and new opportunities, let us remember those who died on September 11. But let us also remember the children they left behind, some of whom they never even had the chance to see or hold. Let us also remember the other children who are depending on us to pass on to them an America that is filled with as much hope, freedom, and possibility as the Nation we inherited from our own parents.
Let us resolve together to find a way to meet the most important of all of our responsibilities. I am confident that we can.
I look forward to working with our Republican leader, as I have always done at the outset of a new session of Congress. This year is certainly one of those years again.
I thank my colleagues and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
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