lowering of interest rates the loan forgiveness which senator kennedy has talked at length about what that means in assistance for teachers and nurses and all kinds of public servants to serve this community is students again this seems to be a generation of idealism and we're seeing those students will we will see those students be able to pursue a career in public service and be able to get to be able to take those jobs sometimes often at lower pay but be able to to to relieve themselves of that of the huge burden of that that that debt that they face again that's why this bill matters so much but when this bill is a major step but we know we know we've got more work to do senator enzi is said several times that we've got to pass the other legislation with the reauthorization he's right about that we all agree with that that will help on some issues such as simplifying the loan form for those cost of college as i said earlier cost in state universities in ohio has gone up fifty percent wages have gone up for an average family only three percent in this half decade that's the federal government hasn't kept up there that that means an awful lot more students to turn to the private loan system and it had faced interest rates of ten twelve fifteen sometimes a size seventeen or eighteen percent they graduate from college private or public with a huge even larger burden because of those high interest rates we need to address that in the future is the private loan system has grown more and more and more and more i close by thanking the entire committee senator kennedy senator enzi for taking up this extremely important legislation all students should be able to afford college in this country this bill is a step a major step in that direction and i i thank all well all of the fellow senators who have been so involved in this issue he time senator from new jersey's recognize for five months thank you mr president mr president i rise in support strong support of the higher education reconciliation conference report before us the bill represents a remarkable achievement this body and the congress should be proud of the billions of granite in this bill will make a tremendous difference for students across the nation students who are struggling to stay afloat because of the cost of college students who are saving every last penny in the hopes that they can achieve their dreams of college passage of this bill would mark a change in the tide here in congress it proved to students that when we say we will work to make college more affordable we mean it was built shows them that when we say we understand the obstacles they face to finance a college education we are not just throwing words around and the bill will confirm that when we say student loans should work for students we mean it this democratic led congress laid out strong principles for how we should improve access to a college education with this piece of landmark legislation we're putting those principles into action and this  feat not since the passage of the g i bill has a piece of education legislation made this big of investment in student now this is stark moment could not have been possible without the leadership of senator kennedy was once again stood up for the nation students by engineering and moving this bill forward and i also want to thank senator enzi as the republican leader on the committee to work so quickly to finalize this important bill a bill could not come at a more critical time nationwide the lowest income students at four year colleges face rough lee five thousand eight hundred dollars an unmet need after after a standard financial aid package after their loans and after the amount that their families contributed to put it simply for the neediest students all across the country current aid has not kept up the students of my home state of new jersey are no strangers to the skyrocketing cost of a college education in fact within the past five school years the cost of attendance including tuitions fees room and board at four year public colleges in new jersey has increased by almost fifty percent unfortunately family household incomes have not kept up with these rising costs even after financial aid is taken into account nearly forty percent of median family income in new jersey is needed to pay for just one year of college at four year public colleges is  simply unbearable for our students and the result this is that some of our nation's brightest students are locked out of a college and just a nation simply because they cannot afford it i'm pleased this legislation will reverse that troubling trend for all of our students and families across the country by adding billions into new grants aid next year alone new jersey students will see more than forty million dollars in new grant aid over the next five y students in mind they will have access to more than four hundred million federal grant dollars because of this bill grant dollars the equal access for many of today's college students and the bill reduce the subsidies to student lenders and gives it back to our students and it's about time far too long students struggling to afford college have seen their grants shrink their loan rates go up and their debt explode after graduation was in sixty percent of new jersey students graduate with loan debt that averages sixteen thousand dollars as a president that's not a manageable amount of debt for twenty one year old college graduate it is an unfair burden that's why i am proud of the bill because it will help lessen the burden on our students it will put money directly where it is most needed and to help granted of a critical financial assistance the benefit on nation of students and from here on millions of young people across the nation will have the opportunity to see their dream of a college degree come true they will have access to the key that will on lock their own economic empowerment build a successful career and succeed in a global economy mr president today we have an opportunity to move critical legislation forward to be signed into law of the doors to college will be open for all students in the global economy we live in today we clearly cannot afford as a nation to have our students priced out of a college education as someone who grew up poor the son of immigrants the first in my family to go to college i know the power of the programs that we are ready soon to vote on i would never have afforded st peter's college i would have never gone to rocker's law school without the power of a key federal grant program such as palin purpose and i certainly would be standing with you today on the floor of the united states senate had it not been for federal financial aid i want to ensure that that is a birthright for all of our students across the nation regardless of the happenstance where they were born and why i urge my colleagues to support the bill  recognized thank you mr president the bill before us today from a policy standpoint does some things which are extremely positive it adjusts i think appropriately the costs of the amount of subsidy that's going into the system relative to higher education loan owns and take savings from that subsidy which was going to lenders and moves it over to assist people who need assistance especially on the pell grant program so it is a it is from a policy standpoint moving in the right direction in many ways and in addition as the senator from wyoming has pointed out there needs to be tied to this higher education reauthorization act which unfortunately is not in this bill and needs to be in this bill in order to complete the package and and that is critical to this whole undertaking making sure that we get where we significantly improve our ability to support people who are going to college making sure that the loans which these people get are properly disclosed and that the money doesn't end up as we increase the grants just being taken away by increasing tuitions which are tied to our pell grant increases so i there are good things about this bill but there's also a big part of this bill that's as a result of serious harm to the budget process that we have here in the congress this bill comes under what's known as reconciliation reconciliation is a very unique vehicle which we have in the senate hundred ninety seven about one hundred eighteen billion and then in two thousand and six about thirty six billion why do we use this mechanism well every year we have two different types of spending in the federal government we have discretionary spending which means it occurs on the annual basis and is appropriated it goes through the appropriations committee it represents about a third of the federal government spending and then we have an title misspending which is spending that occurs where the federal government as a result of laws has an obligation to pay money to somebody agricultural programs are for example entitlement programs where if you plan a certain amount of fields or don't plan a certain amount of fields you have a right to a payment from the federal government under the law medicare is a entitlement program we have a lot of education programs  which are arguably entitlement programs and a lot that are just a question of programs but the problem is when you have an entitlement program you can adjust it in you really through the appropriations process the only way you can adjust it is by changing the law which affects that program you create savings or more spending and so the budget act recognize this and also recognizes extremely hard to do that in the context of the senate because the senate has the filibuster where you can basically tie anything up here without sixty votes and also require sixty votes to pass just about anything so this very unique and very powerful instrument was given to the budgeting process called reconciliation where there's a limited amount of time to debate a bill in this case ten hours as a result of the conference report no filibuster can apply and it only takes fifty one votes to pass the bill but this whole concept of giving this great this very strong power to the budget committee and to the committees of jurisdiction was to allow us to reduce the rate of growth of entitlement spending in order to make the budget more manageable what has happened here however has been to reverse that to actually do the exact opposite using reconciliation with the representation that we're going to save i believe it's seven hundred fifty million dollars which is minuscule remember that over the years we've been saving billions of dollars through reconciliation with the representation that we're going to save seven hundred fifty million dollars we have a chart which reflects this year  these are the savings which we've received on the reconciliation reviews in the past or in a two billion four in thirty three billion up until two thousand and six we did thirty nine billion this year this reconciliation bill saves less than a billion dollars net so it's really not a savings vehicle at all and in fact what it really does is it uses that ninety three billion dollar savings to mask a almost twenty one billion dollar spending event it takes the reconciliation which if you long as you get a net savings you're allowed to use reconciliation and uses it to dramatically increase spending in fact the amount of new spending in this reconciliation bill exceeds the amount of savings by twenty nine thousand two thousand nine hundred percent it's in other words the spending in this bill is twenty nine times larger than the savings in this bill which totally undermines and makes a joke out of the budget process and reconciliation and it's totally inappropriate to have done this to use reconciliation this manner it could be effectively argued that the proposals that have been brought forward under this bill would easily pass this congress with sixty votes with or without reconciliation but by using reconciliation they virtually they allow themselves to eliminate all amendments for all intents and purposes of any significance and they have this fifty one vote rule and as a result of spending twenty nine hundred times more than they essentially make a mockery of the budget process not only they make a mockery of the budget process on the issue of reconciliation they make a mockery of the budget process in the manner in which they score of the bill itself this bill is set up so that the pell grants while in north korea which is what the goal of the bill is by the fifty four hundred dollars per person but the spending on pell grants will also increase rather dramatically over the next few years because we're taking a subsidy which is now going to lenders and putting it into pell spending but in the year two thousand and thirteen under this bill we're going to go back to zero essentially zero dollars being spent on for them to take advantage of reconciliation in the protection of reconciliation they had to put in place a program which goes from four and a half almost five billion dollars in the year two thousand and twelve down to zero in two thousand and thirt talk about truth in budgeting or integrity in budgeting how can anybody vote for this who believes that we have we should have an honest budget around here and claim that they are being honest  nine billion dollars of pell grants which one could realistically argue over the next ten years is going to have to be spent which isn't accounted for is just sort of well it will appear from the not only is that not enough and that's you know you'd think there'd be enough that they base that the basically the proposal makes a mockery of the reconciliation process on the budget makes a mockery of the baseline by going back to zero spending in two thousand and thirteen but then we get to pay go pay go the sacred cow of fiscal discipline from the other side of the aisle that we hear so much about around here we are going to stand by pay go in order does this apply in the federal government spending we heard that incessantly in the last congress from the other side of the aisle we heard it incessantly from people who are running for office on the other side of the aisle but it's become swiss cheese go as bill after bill after bill has been brought to the floor which is wave pay go when it came to spending want to surprise the democratic majority ways paygo when they want to spend money this president asked for an additional three minutes objection so ordered ways pay go when they wish to spend money but then claim that they're using pay go to fist discipline the federal government well it's happened time and time again the most recent agree just  vent prior to this event was asked chip where they added forty one billion dollars in new spending waiving paygo now in this event this six billion dollars down here that was a pay go violation has now grown to be about twenty billion dollars under this bill so this little hole here in the swiss cheese should be a great big hole in the swiss cheese i mean anyone who comes to this blog and claims that they're using pay go to discipline the federal budget at any time for the rest of this congress will have to have a have a sanity test given to them because they certainly can't defend that on the basis of any facts around here so the problem with this bill isn't a policy that would honestly i would have probably used a more aggressive palsy after i would've been willing to auction all these of the council get to the real numbers to what the subsidy is we might have saved a lot more money and put more money into pell but a problem with this is it is this bill in the manner which is brought to the floor basically paid puts a stake through the heart of the budget process it takes reconciliation which is really the most significant tool of the budget process and makes a joke out of it by using it to increase spending twenty nine hundred times more than it's create savings it takes the baseline and makes a joke out of it by reducing pell grants in two thousand and thirteen to zero spending when we know we're going to be spending five five and a half billion dollars and pell grants into the thirteen take pay go which is alleged to be a disciplining mechanism around here waves it and then spends twenty one billion dollars that would have been subject so my point is obviously one of frustration as former budget chairman i'd like to see us have a budget around here that meant something but if we're going to pass a budget we didn't pass a budget the democratic party passed the budget  congratulated them for that i said i was i didn't agree with the budget that these they passed it but if they're going to pass a budget that live by that have a purpose for it's purpose shouldn't be to expand spending to make a joke of the baseline and to basically put holes in the paygo mechanism which they claim is the essence of their to physical discipline so from a public policy standpoint the bill may have good policy in it but from a standpoint of managing fiscal house of this country is doing fundamental harm to the budget process this point ideal senator from massachusetts friend from new hampshire just leaving the floor i'm sorry he's leaving the floor this water was put on our desk by our loyal do to fill pages every day and sometimes i want to check this water because i think perhaps  imbibing this leads to political amnesia i think the longer you drink the water on the floor of the senate the more you tend to forget reality and forget what has happened i just listened to a speech from the senator from new hampshire talking about deficits and reconciliation bills the bill we have before us today the most dramatic increase in student aid ever in the history of the united states does not add to the deficit we pay for it and what the senator from new hampshire whom i respect and like very much fails to acknowledge is that when he was chairing the budget committee when these reconciliation bills would come to the floor they would add dramatically to the deficit every year in fact we totaled up over the last several years two thousand and one two thousand and three two thousand and five the republican reconciliation bills added one point seven trillion dollars to the deficit and now they come and rail against the deficits this bill before us today is a built that's paid for and it's paid for by taking the subsidies away from the student loan companies do you know what happened the last round of reconciliation well they ended up taking about twelve billion dollars in help away from students and giving it to the wealthiest people in america in tax cuts talk about reverse robin hood not only adding to the deficit but taking money away from students raising the cost of their loans and then giving that money in tax cuts for the wealthiest people in america now that was the politics that was rejected in the last election my my friends and colleagues here are making speeches believing that we don't have this written down somewhere about what actually happened but we do and i'm afraid that my colleague  forgotten some of the most important things that happened under that his watch and their watch which was to add in three reconciliation bills one point seven trillion dollars to the deficit mr president let me tell you this maybe the single most important bill when i finish my statement be happy to this may be the single most important bill that we passed and i'll tell you why because most of us realize that if there's one thing in america that gives you a chance to succeed it's education we can't guarantee to our kids if they're going to be successful or wealthy or happy in life we can give him a chance and the best chance that we can give them is to let him go to school and really progress along and go to the best schools they can attend i happen to be standing here today because fifty years ago somebody in the united states house of representatives decided that because the russians had launched sputnik and frightened us with the prospect of losing the war in space we needed to give more young kids a chance to go to college in america so college which had been kind of an elite opportunity for the wealthy and the sons and daughters of those who graduated from college in the past was now expanded and democratized in the one nine hundred sixty kids like myself  from east st louis illinois had a chance to go to great universities like one in town here that i went to named georgetown i didn't have any money i borrowed it from the national defense education act what a deal pay it back over ten years after you graduate and at three percent interest rate and it worked i got my college degree and my law degree and i paid back my loans and the money was there for the next generation to take advantage of it but now what's happened the cost of college education it's gone through the roof i just sat down with a couple kids from colleges in chicago and i said to a junior in a senior how much debt will you have when you graduate and junior said oh i'm up to thirty five thousand dollars in debt right now the senior said i'll be at forty five thousand when i graduate from college those figures unfortunately are not unique more and more students are ending up with debt i want to say to senator kennedy and to my good friend and close colleague george miller of california they have done a great favor for america and for america's families what they've done with this bill is to expand pell the grants which are basic grants to kids whose families don't have a lot of money expand pell grants for the first time in i don't know how many years what is a bent five years five years these pell grants been frozen the same level now they're going up and then they've come up with unique ways to reduce the burden of student loans so that young people who sign on the dotted line so they can go through another year school never thinking about what does this mean ten or twenty years from now now we're going to pay dramatically less in interest congressman miller and i introduced a bill that cut the interest rate on student loans from six point eight percent to three point four percent and it is included in this important bill that we're going to pass today think about that for a minute if you think of it in terms of your home marge what if you could cut your interest rate in half from six point eight to three point four you know what it means you're going to pay off that loan sooner you'll pay less in interest and they've got another provision in here that i think is dramatic and ingenious if a young person coming out of college with student debt agrees to take a job as a nurse or a teacher or working as a social worker things that we need in america we need more and more young people to dedicate their lives to we're going to forgive their student loans more quickly we're going to limit the amount of money they have to pay back each year on the loan and then in ten years  that mistake and the end of ten years the student loan is a racist if they will go into teaching this is a dramatic commitment that we have made to young people in america to go into jobs and professions that are so important for our future we get a lot of speeches here about how much we love this country and how much we want to see it succeed but the real test here is whether or not we are prepared to invest in our children this bill invests in our kids this bill takes money that might otherwise have gone for tax cuts for the richest people in america which was the pattern that was building around congress and instead invest and working families and their kids says to a child if you're good enough to get in a good university if you'll work hard and succeed and get a degree even if you have debt at the end of the day we're going to stand by you we're going to give you a chance to pay that debt off in a reasonable way and to pick the career and life that you want don't take the job that pays the most money because you c off your debt take the job that your heart is attached to i remembered running into a science teacher in the suburbs of chicago young woman fresh out of college she was so happy to be teaching math at this great suburban high school and i said well is this what you want to do and she said no i want to teach in inner inner city school senator but i couldn't do it because they don't pay as much money in the inner city and i got student loans you know they pay me more out here in the suburbs and i can pay off my loans and i can really i can buy a car so i made that choice i wish i didn't have to but i made the choice now repeat that story a thousand times and see the teachers who could have gone into areas where they're desperately needed who now have a chance they have a chance to succeed i just want to tell you that as i look back on the things that made a difference in my life laws that were passed that really changed my life when this congress made a commitment to loans just to kids from families like my own at that point in time they gave me a chance and  stand in the senate today because of it senator kennedy senator enzi congressman miller and others are going to provide those opportunities for thousands of young american kids a year before senators time has expired the  dysfunctionality of the senate i had been beginning to think that maybe it was the democratic leadership of the senate since the change of hands and getting this clarified is very important i do want to make this simple point our pell grants were expanded through smart grants when we did the last reconciliation when i was chairman the budget committee we put twelve billion dollars eight billion dollars into smart grants which helped kids and especially freshmen and sophomores we eliminated the origination fees and we also increased the autos to zero zero to twenty five twenty thousand dollars and we increased the asset protection last allocation so we did make these decisions but at the same time we reduced funds to lenders and put a significant amount of it into deficit reduction forty billion dollars into deficit reduction now the senator from illinois makes the position takes the position that when we cut taxes we were having the same impact on the budget as when they increase spending that's the difference between the part fundamentally we believe that when we leave people's dollars in their pockets and they get to spend it themselves because their money to begin with but that's not necessarily aggravating the federal budget situation they believe that when you take the money out of people's pockets and expand the size of the government in this case twenty nine hundred times more than you save in the area of spending reduction that's good because there is a philosophical n c o the philosophical there is quite simply the democratic party believes that it knows better how to spend people's money than people know how to spend their money we believe people who know better how to spend their money than the government knows how to spend their money that's the difference and so when the scenario for question well first i would like to complete my thought on this point because i think it is critical the budget reconciliation process was not set up to be a stocking horse for dramatic expansion in the size of the federal government entirely programs that was not the purpose reconciliation structure it was set up for the purposes of being able to control the rate of growth of entitlement programs now we can debate whether or not the budget process was set up for the  purposes of allowing us to return more tax dollars to taxpayers through reasonable tax rates but certainly on the issue of spending there's no question but reconciliation was not intended to expand in title senators time is expired that's how much time do i have that senator from wyoming controls three minutes and forty four seconds the senator from massachusetts has nine minutes and twenty five  myself i want to be notified by the chair when i have three minutes left center will be notified mr president for those that have been watching this debate and discussion and we just want to underline one fundamental and very important  concept in principle that the twenty billion dollars the twenty billion dollars which are included in this legislation that are going to be used in the ways that we have described earlier today with the the loan forgiveness for students that want to go in to new careers for some relief for the middle like class all not a nickel of that are tax payers money that comes out of the lenders a pot of resources which many of us feel is overly generous to the lenders and that's another issue but we have time after the vote at ten fifteen we'll have some opportunity to develop but this is a transfer of twenty billion dollars from the lenders to twenty billion dollars for help and assistance to the students there's no question about any of that that's number that's the number one importantly mr president as we're coming close now to the certainly of our generation and on the occasion that he was asked about the education he said the most important weapon for change in the world was education education and that is something that those of us who are strong supporters of this proposal believe it was said in my time by president kennedy and also by linda johnson when they said that no america no qualified student should be denied should be denied a college education because of cost now that's a concept and that is a bad and i would think all of us on this side of the aisle believe that very deeply and many on the other side of the aisle we wouldn't have made the progress that we have made over recent years unless we had had that kind of a commitment we have drifted from that kind of cabi that ideal that set by nelson mandela that was understood by john adams when he wrote the importance of educating the common citizenry in the constitution of the united states no constitution no state constitution as a more detailed ideal goal established in its constitution about educating the public than the massachusetts constitution one of our founding fathers one of our greatest of our founding fathers it was understood by horace mann when he established the public school system the importance of education the importance of education in terms of opportunity and promise and hope understood by abraham lincoln in the height of the civil war when he established the land grant colleges to help assist the education of citizens all over this nation understood by abraham lincoln understood by dwight eisenhower when this nation was challenged by sputnik in the late one nine hundred fifty s the development of the national defense education act understood by franklin roosevelt the g i bill pointed out seven dollars return for every dollar invested in education seven dollars return for the cost of education talk about talking about expanding resources talk about now we have the opportunity now we have the opportunity again mr president to follow the wise counsel in the judgment of some of the great philosophers of nelson mandela or john adams in our time  generation to renew that commitment this bill is a down payment for i agree with my friend from wyoming we have to go ahead and do the reauthorization we will do it we're strongly committed to do it the chairman of the house committee committed that house committee to do it and we will do it but this is the opportunity and this is the down payment and this isn't going to be the only action that's going to be tak of this continued march towards progress in terms of the education and hope for for young people not all the problems are going to be resolved not all the problems are going to be solved this is a downpayment we look at the priorities of education that all the time we have to wonder why we're even having a debate on this and why we're just talking about twenty billion dollars if you take what was expended on education in investing in the g i bill over the period of the a g i bill it was a third of the total budget in today's dollars it would me transients of dollars not twenty billion trillion dollars trillions of dollars at that time trillions of dollars for what bridget caging the young people is already wired in here and i haven't heard the speech that said all that was a mistake by the members of the congress of the senate that's a wage spent too much in terms of strong voices in opposition to the pell grants to the stafford loans back in the early one nine hundred sixty s i don't hear those voices today i don't hear those voices today why because we know that when it's done well and it's done right and it isn't always but in this case it is in terms of the pale in terms of the loan forgiveness terms of some help and assistance and relief for the middle class families it will make an important differen will make an important difference and when we hear the eloquence of some of our colleagues here in the difference it's made for their education whether it's a dick durban whether it's a maria cantwell that talks about the and most of them are professional people today paying taxes repay whatever those council loans are let's think about what this is about this is about hope this is about our future and this is about progress in america binary mr president this is the kind of investment that we need if we're going to deal with the challenges and the problems of global competition we'll have a chance to go into this in greater detail for the vote this morning but we need these kinds of investments and the kinds of investments that we have in the authorization bill in terms of teachers and the kinds of investments that we had in the complete act that was passed in a bipartisan way earlier that this year we need this in order for global competition to make sure that america economy is the strongest we need this in terms of our national security to make sure that we're going to have the men and women that are going to be able to defend this nation and use the various kinds of technologies that are developed and finally we need this investment in order that we're going to have a well trained and educated citizenry that are going to be able to breathe life into the institutions that our frame is established that's what we're talking about here mr president we're not going to achieve all of that with this legislation but it is going to be a meaningful and ongoing and continuing commitment and one that all of us who are supporting this proposal recognizes something that must be followed up and strengthen and shape as we move into the future mr president i've told them to my time senators time is expired senior senator from wyoming ideal myself the balance of my time mr president i'm always a little disconcerted that what the american public gets to watch is the debate on the senate floor this isn't where we get most of the work done this isn't where there's agreement this is where there's the disagreement and the outlining of the branding of the different parties and it's important but it isn't what gets things done we do have a bill before us today that the senate passed bill had a reconciliation vote of seventy eight to eighteen we had some of these same discussions those discussions are important and as as the only accountant in the senate i'm kind of appalled by the way that we score bills around here the way that we come up with the the different provisions the different arguments that we make on the floor but i would say the provisions of this conference report closely parallel many of the provisions in the senate passed bill there were clearly compromises made in reaching agreement on the conference report we can point to things in the conference report that are there because of republican and because of democrats sponsors in the end it's a project where the benefits to students outweigh the reservations that some of us may have now over fifty five percent of the savings are dedicated to increasing the pell grant award in the next five years low income undergraduate students will see the maximum a grant award increased by more than a thousand dollars we'll see who all takes credit for that but that's what the does and it will take people from both parties to get it passed we increase the income protection allowance so that students are not penalize for working and saving for college the unique role that are not for profit lenders have and providing information services to students has been recognized at the end of the day we will say we must still reauthorize the higher education act this is such a small part that we cannot leave out the other part or we will close the door on our students we have to reauthorize the higher education act that provides the fastest implication year around pell financial and economic literacy better college cost information improvements in outreach and student support service programs such as gear up and trio that all of us have an interest in we have passed eight extensions the higher education act that started in two thousand and four the current extension expires on october thirty first how much longer do we have to wait my goal is not to have a ninth extension on the higher education act my goal is to debate and pass a higher education reauthorization conference report and i look forward to working with senator kennedy in the house to get this accomplished no matter how you slice it the bigger piece of higher education is left on done i'll have more comments to make on the relative accounting on these different things as we get into for the debate after the vote we did agree to attend fifteen voted i want the conference report this is boxer mr brown i mr bennett  miss collins miss collins i miss coleman mr coleman i mr lieberman  mr warner i mr kennedy i  the senators wishing to cast their votes president the majority leader is recognized i c m's consent that and the current call be terminated that objection i ask you know is consent that on monday september tenth attorney and the senate proceed executive session to debate unlock the next counter numbers to thirty eight to thirty nine to forty one that there be sixty minutes for debate on the nominations equally divide between senators leahy and specter or their designees at eleven a m the senate proceed to vote on counting number two thirty eight followed by a vote a number two thirty nine followed by a vote on number two what you want at the most reconsider be lay on the table the present being merely notified of the senate's action in the senate and returned alleged the session and senator barrasso you recognize to speak in morning business i would note just as a side note that this is his maiden speech in the senate to be recognized for up to thirty minutes following that the senate begin consideration h r three or seventy four o'clock no later than one o'clock because the beginning of the jewish holiday at sundown that i've talked to the singlish republican leader we have some things we're going to look to on the seventeenth and eighteenth seventeenth there's no votes on the tenth there will be votes we're going to try to develop and we haven't done  had a number of conversations with him the republican leader as to how we proceed on the iraq matters we have we need to sneeze the defense authorization bill and we want to make sure there's time to adequately debate that we also want to again address the iraq situation and we have people as i speak trying to work out something that will be different than what we've done in the past that can be done something on a bipartisan basis we still may have to do the partisan matters and hopefully the senators working on together can come up with some way we can proceed on that we're not there yet i just want to learn everyone that we can the seven think we're going have to a lot of work on defense authorization defense authorization and also mr president arac matters and we would hope that we can complete it that we again we're not of the point where we're near able to work out in am a consent agreement on that but i've kept their minority advised every step we've taken in this regard is their objection reserving the right structure that in a way that stuff they're all interested parties and the majority leader and i'll be attended to discuss that in the coming days without objection so order senior senator from massachusetts is recognized this was far exceeded our the vote actually that we had had earlier on our education measures and that we had a number of our absentees here today that indicated favorable support for the legislation so it's a very i think a very important statement about where we are as a country in terms of the education issue and i think this ought to be reassuring that strong support that shaping of both the authorization legislation and this legislation we certainly wouldn't have be here and he spoke very eloquently and well about the importance it's their viewpoint which i share for the reasons he's outlined the simplicity of the application we have four hundred thousand young people that are qualified for college that don't go to college and many of them do so because they just can't work their way through they have a extremely complex difficult questionnaire and they don't have the kind of support systems to be able to help and assist them and this will help and assist not only in that area that just ended and he personally took a great deal of time with as well as senator reed but also with regards to the teachers seeing under served areas the transparency provisions that will help parents  understand the costs of the various universities it has a number of built where the features that the senator outlined in his statement and we want to give the assurance now that we've had this strong vote here that we are going to look forward to working with the house usually to make sure that we are going to have a successful passage because it's going to maximize the impact of this legislation that we have just passed when we are successful in the reauthorization so we will certainly work on that issue and we have a number of other education issues that we're working on as well we understand that kindergarten into the early grades we understand the importance of getting well trained teachers in under served areas and imports of parental involvement challenges that are out there with regards to  disabled and the students the challenges that we're so many of the students are facing in terms of limited english speaking parental involvement the whole issues of accountability and growth models there are a lot of complex issues but we we are certainly want to wrestle with those and to try and eventually have as a result of the working i do gather in our committee sort of a seamless web of progress in terms of the education systems here in our country that's certainly our intention and we are well down the road with the actions that have been taken today i wanted to would just mention a few of these items mr mention individuals who worked long and hard on this on this measure i failed to do it and not during the earlier presentation or limited time but i think as  authorisation and also the general format of a good deal of what we've done today as it's been in the works for a number of years this didn't just sort of happen this a year the authorization legislation that we have passed here which basically had the name of been sent to n z on that before we had the changes that took place in the election so we we have been working very hard and we have been enormously blessed by just an extraordinary a group of men and women that it worked with us and these are complex difficult issues complex difficult issues with incredible implications and we have had it we have on our a committee  our education committee a membership that is very involved in very in gage on education issues all of them have ideas as if one of the reasons that makes that committee so interesting is that we have enormous numbers of ideas and suggestions and it's taken a good deal to try to work with these our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and then and with both houses but that was achieved and  accomplished and so i'll certainly mention some of those that have done such an extraordinary job and we are very very much in their debt in the obviously we are all honored to serve as members of this institution but all of those who have worked on this legislation should take it a great deal of satisfaction and the difference that they made in the shaping of this legislation because they have played an indispensable role and we value very much their continued contribution and my staff michael meyers who has been the chief of staff in our human resources committee kerry no way we could have completed this bill and so thank you mary nadler joe helper lisa wayne ski and robin leach stan and i'd also like to thank david cleary of process more than most this bill required significant help assistance from the congressional budget office like to give them a special thanks paul collins and deborah cal civic and justin humphrey they put i n tremendous work nights and weekends everything in between the model and estimate the budgetary effects of the complex provisions in the bill and all the many alterations and changes that the committee considered  in the house legislative council's office all of work nights and weekends to assist in drafting the language and working out technical issues in the bill finally like to thank members of the education team of the congressional research service adam still charmaine mercer jeff kenzie david small is expertise that was invaluable throughout this process so mr president i'll just take a few moments here but i just wanted to highlight again just briefly the more details will explain in greater detail the conference report does my fully complete state statement will i outlined in the earlier presentation the should set a believe as a goal that we don't want to permit a qualified student to lose the opportunity for a college education because of cost we still have a long ways to go we recognize earlier in the debate that the costs of college have gone up extraordinarily granted assistance has basically stabilized and gone down in real terms and the earning power of the middle class has been level or fall in slightly over the period of recent years so this we have tried to provide some help and assistance and the issue of the  costs of the the percentage of repayment we've done a i think a first rate job in saying that better repayment options a cap of borrowers monthly payment fifteen percent of their monthly discretionary income we have the loan forgiveness for borrowers in public service jobs the protection for working students by not penalties their earnings what's happening now is so many of these students go out there and work and work hard earn a little money and son as they are outside of the eligibility to pick up the other provisions of the legislation in terms of help and assistance we've addressed that issue matching to grants to states to improve college  access and then provide these benefits said to no cost to the taxpayer by reforming the student loan industry so works for the students and not so they have the banks that's the basic concept mr president we do a cut in the interest rates just referring to that earlier from six point eight to three point four percent by twenty jan one thousand per year for high achieving students who commit to teaching high need subjects and i'd need schools we didn't really emphasize to stress that during the earlier presentation this is really one of the great important provisions in this legislation i think we all understand we need a well trained teacher in every classroom in america and we need well trained teachers in particular in inner city and schools and in also in rural communities under served and we need them to have their special skills we provide some really important help and assistance here for that and as sent in he has mentioned in the authorization we provide other kinds of incentives for schools and colleges  to also move in that direction we support the stark black colleges other minority serving colleges as well as indian reges reservations to the increased funding for the upward bound program provide tutoring you know the supports to help a disadvantage students prepare and apply and succeed in college and i'll show by that measure is so important in just a in just a moment as we mentioned during the course of the earlier discussion we  opportunity they can be in public safety it could be in law enforcement be in public education early childhood education in child care public health all public health service agencies can be working with special needs children and the disability community that's enormously important in the elderly and the frail elderly recently a challenge for our country public interest law this is all public defenders legal services well as prosecutors library public service library sciences and other public based service report providers to help and assist students so that they can gain information nonprofit organizations and teaching full time at tribal colleges or universities i mentioned mr president the the article in time magazine this week that is talks about  kind of attitude that is taking place in colleges all over this country and that is the desire of so many of these young people to be involved in public service and to help respond to the needs in the community want to be part of the solution not part of the problem and so often because of the air indebtedness they have to choose careers in order to deal with the indebtedness and this will open up a whole take advantage of that idealism that is out there and with this legislation we are giving them an a pathway to really make a difference in terms of the future of our country and i think that's enormously important i think this is really one of the most important parts of this legislation and i think it's we've we've tried to work on it and i think it's really will be a very very important i might just give a quick example mr president of how the own forgiveness where it's starting to reach in my state thirty five thousand dollars the average eighteen thousand dollars in debt under the loan forgiveness of the fifteen percent they won't pay more than fifteen percent of their disposable income they'll save seven hundred thirty dollars and they continue to work as a public school  educated more than half of indebtedness will be forgiven over the period of their time if you take a similar situation with their there's a police sergeant in the family of two in arkansas annual salary is twenty eight thousand dollars debt seventeen thousand dollars this will help them save them eleven hundred dollars a year in terms of repayment on there and at the end if they stay in fourteen thousand of their seventeen thousand dollars in debt will be forgiven fourteen thousand of their seventeen thousand yet they stay on and working in law enforcement so this gives you a really  reauthorization which as i said and she referred to addresses rising costs by requiring college publicized college costs information this is a real a problem parents have a difficult time understanding what the real costs are is fees and school books going on a college over one hundred dollars for a freshman school book in a rather general subject matter and these are surprises when you find out that they cost several hundred dollars additionally that people don't are going to are unaware know some of our colleagues have talked about this and we're certainly aware of this challenge and we're going to try and see what we can do to try and help provide some assistance and we've gotten broad support from the colleges and universities so many of them are stunned by what has been happening at the schools and colleges and they have been enormously cooperative and helpful the simplifying of the form i give will make a big difference and this strengthens the gear of the trio to improve preparation and higher education the record on these programs has been extraordinary in terms of providing the bridge for many of those that come from disadvantaged backgrounds to get them started in the college and giving them the help and assistance the follow up so that they'll complete their higher education and then the teacher preparation programs so those are some of the essential element where we're going with one very important aspect and that is to help and assistance in the pell program it's remained flat you can look from two thousand from four two thousand and two all the way to two thousand and six or seven forty three hundred we'll go to fifty four hundred twenty twelve there was some comments about how there had been some increase in the funding of pell during this period of time all of which is true but that is because there were increasing number of poor students who were eligible for the pell grant gov a guy konami that we had more than five and one point seven million people fell into poverty during this period of time million or more than a million of those are students and so they put more money in the but they never really kept up with the growth needs to the point being a very important increase in terms of the cost and as the chairperson senator brown has pointed out so mr president that these are some of the the the fundamental points of the legislation outlined in a more complete statement point out in more dramatic form what is happening in terms of need for many of these students and how we find that so many of those where we're seeing in our education currently in our education system the increasing divide of america i think all of us should believe that if we're going to be one country with one history and one destiny we don't want education adding to the separation of a divided nation it ought to be bringing the country together based upon  ability based upon hard work enterprise and willingness to work and to achieve and accomplish and what we have found in our education system now that for a number of reasons unintended it is working to sort of divide the country and that is a very very important issue that we have tried to address in a number of different ways in this legislation it is very important to do so i believe we have emphasized that are stressed it that much  earlier comments but it is an underlying commitment that we have and in mar more complete statement i go review and go over the different ways that we have tried to do it we're going to continue to work work at it so mr president i thank again all of our cause ask unanimous consent that my a complete statement will be included in the record not objection so ordered mr president senior sen from wyoming is recognized and i want to thank the senator from massachusetts senator kennedy for his great explanation of what's in the bill that we just passed and as the debate on this conference report comes to close it  is necessary to thank those who have worked long and hard to get us to this point it has been a lot of people and i appreciate the extensive list that senator kennedy had chairman kennedy has no marvelous job of pulling everybody together covering very diverse topics some of them very controversial and working through what i would what i was like point out to people is not always a compromise sometimes it's a third way so what we're what we're trying to do is get to a goal and this bill goes a long way toward getting to that goal and i thank him for his commitment to not only moving forward with this bill but to join me in pressing for the comprehensive higher education reform bill i'd also like to thank everyone on my staff whose work to get us to this point in particular i'd like to think katherine mcguire who directs the whole operation of all of the different bills that we're working on and they're actually about fifty five in the process covering health education labor and pensions and i think beth the omon who has been the education group are on our side that's led the team that i have that has helped put together these different packages in the education area and i've got to say our committee covers everything from birth to death because we start with preschool and then we have elementary and secondary education then we have higher education and then we have continuing education and in this day and age it's important for people not just to graduate from college it's important for them to continue to learn and of course there is a direct relationship between how long you continue to learn and how long you live  it's going to be even more important as the baby boomers are retiring that we encourage a lot of them to continue in the workforce perhaps in different jobs and they've ever done before and so we have we have a lot of things that we need to get done yet that we've been working on head start is one of those preschool programs that we have we actually handle sixty nine preschool programs and we need to do some convincing on that so that we eliminate some some some spending but head start has already passed the senate it's already passed the house and we're working very carefully to get that finished up now with the with the conference report as well and i think we're making good progress on that  child left behind the house is informed us that they now have their draft proposal ready to discuss and we can now devote some time to doing that as a but we've been working on it we've been working on that in a very bipartisan way for a long period of time now going back into the last session of of congress and now into this month and again i want to congratulate senator kennedy for the way that  he's held coffees to bring in experts that can clear been a more casual atmosphere some of the difficulties and give us a better understanding share with us some of their ideas on how that can be achieved it's been extremely helpful we've had meetings with chairman miller and ranking member mckeon from the house along with the president and first lady and the secretary of education on numerous occasions and those have been very bipartisan meetings well i'd be very remiss if i failed to mention the commission that's been working on no child left behind and provided us with a number of  proposals suggestions advice on what needs to be done to make that even more effective and those of those who have been again worked on in a very bipartisan way to see which fit with all of the other ideas that we've got and i think we'll come up with a with a plan for that that will improve the system it will eliminate some of the feeling that it's just about evaluating teachers and w give them more tools to know what their students are lacking so that we do not leave whole groups or individuals children without an education and that's what the whole purpose of that is we're also trying to work in the in the high school area where we can eliminate dropouts and eliminate some of that remedial work that's need to do in college and cost billions of dollars to parents and to taxpayers but another important piece to this puzzle that we need to do is that continuing education we have passed unanimously through the senate twice over the last three and a half years the workforce investment act this is this is an act that would train nine hundred thousand people to hire skilled jobs or different jobs and they've held before so that they can retire and do something different and still be a contributing part of the workforce continue to have revenue coming in but we've never been able to conference that bill i think that's a crime we need to get it through once again through the the us senate and get it conference and i know that some of the concerns were what might happen in conference now it's our side that should have the worries about what could happen in conference because as we've seen in the in conference actually the minority can be left out of a conference  i would hope that would not be the case but there's a lot of devilment that can be done and that's why we didn't get to conference the workforce investment act i kept assuring that it wouldn't be that wouldn't happen in conference but  now the other side should know for sure that anything they're worried about the republicans doing in conference won't happen and i will try and convince the republicans that the democrats will show equal courtesy and we won't have to worry about what they might do in that bill and we can wind up with something that will actually train people to higher skilled jobs so we're not outsourcing them to other countries that's what's happening right now we don't have this training process to the level of flexibility where it really serves the people in the new occupations are coming up i mention that kids are in school now will undoubtedly have more than a dozen different careers more than a dozen different careers not different employers i mean that's really easy just quit when you move to another work essentially the same gun a job that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about moving to a new career and why is that essential because a lot of the jobs that are available today will not be available in the future out of those fourteen different occupations that a person will probably have nine of them haven't even been invented yet that's how the world's changing and we've got to be sure that the whole education process from preschool to death conforms to the new economy so that people in the united states citizens of the united states are the ones getting the good jobs that we're not sending with the new technology around the world to be accomplished we can do it we're very innovative country this bill that we've done today will go a long ways to helping in higher education but w focused mostly on was just the financing and there are a whole bunch of pieces of higher education that go beyond that and that's what what the chairman and i have been emphasizing to the house that they need to get done and we are hoping to have some very firm dates and when they will get that done this could get into a presidential election situation if it goes much longer that probably would not be productive for higher education or kids i would emphasize again that that that needs to be done i will mention one area again because this is this goes back to a story from my earlier days my first child was applying for college i had to face medical form as an accountant as an accountant i have trouble understanding not only parts of the form but parts of the worksheet is a typical government thing they give you a worksheet to be to fill in a blank of the final form and the work sheets almost as difficult as the farm and as an accountant it's a little tough sometimes to know what even supposed to go into the blanks but that's ok because the government always provides extensive extensive instructions on how you can interpret the blanks that you're supposed to fill in and hopefully on the new one page form that we've got they won't have to refer to extensive explanations i think it's pretty clear what we have on the new ones and it's supplemented with instead of taking pieces off of your income tax form to report on you already have the form do so the form can be submitted with it and that has greater explanation than trying to do all of the math that worksheet b calls for so we have simplified that greatly but besides the fact that it's very formidable and that keeps a lot of people from ever applying for financial aid i had the opportunity to fell out one of these when my first child was getting ready to go to college and was picking a fairly expensive college and i thought well maybe we can qualify for some in the financial officer said yeah i think you i think you probably can you just have to fill out this little form and we've filled it out and work on it we were in the shoe business we had a shoe store and it was a family or my wife and i both worked there and the kids worked there some of the time and we had other people that work for us too and we're going through all the crises that small businesses today have to deal with like how do you afford the insurance for your people and it's not fair to buy insurance for yourself unless you buy insurance for the people that work for you so going through a number of those prices in anybody that's in small business knows that there are those times when you wake up in the middle of the night with oh my word how my going to pay the bills today but aside from that i filled out the form and got the results back and they said you really don't qualify and there are there are two essential reasons one is that if you sold off a fourth of your inventory each year you wouldn't need the help well if you sell off a fourth of your inventory and your child makes it through school in four years which is not the standard but i want to say that all three of my kids did graduate in four years but if you sell off one for the period and torrie each year you can afford to send your child to college without any financial help well i had to point out to them that if i sold off one fourth of my inventory each year i was out of business by the time that my child graduated so that's not quite fair and hopefully we've made some corrections so that we won't be putting people out of business in order to get their kids through college but we'll be expecting them to make  contributions to that but the other the other surprise was we had made our kids work and we made them save a substantial piece of what they earned when they worked so that they could pay part of their way to college and this same financial officer said to me you know she'd have been better off if she'd bought a car because that wouldn't count against her now what kind of incentive is that for the kids of this country they really will appreciate their education more if they participate in their education and so i think if we can get that reauthorization part through we will protect and incentiv kids to actually work toward their college education so that it'll mean more to them as they go through and that'll probably cut down a little bit on how long it takes them to get through school as part of that money is there's i'd like to see every kid be to get an education and have some money left over when they get their education about a whole bunch of loans and we'll we'll we'll be able to do part of that with that and i do have i do have some concerns as everybody this when they when they pass a bill and one of those is i'm the only account in the u s senate so when we look at some of the stuff in the way we score things i  have some difficulties with them and we need to be aware of them because these are going to come back by this later and one of them is the chart that that the senator from new hampshire used earlier which shows how scoring works around here and that's that you can provide benefits and then if you can and the scoring at a particular point you can drop off to zero and show that you fully funded it but it's not going to work that way in reality and i don't know who's going to be in the majority when we hit two thousand and twelve nobody does but whoever is in the majority of two thousand and twelve has to figure out how to fill the gap of the dip in the chart as well as taking care of inflation that's happened in the meantime and hopefully greater pell grants as a whole in reality at that point in time because we're going we're going to try and do that and i hope that we're able to do that at that point in time why am i concerned about this well we've we've done some things with interest rates over a period of time that have had some of the same effect on students we always try to figure out how we can get the lowest interest rates for kids that are going to college and that's important and a number of senators including the presiding officer have pointed out the importance of the well we got involved in interest rates actually when president carter was in office and interest rates got to eighteen percent and were going higher and did go higher we had no idea how much higher we had no idea whether they would ever come down again and so congress got involved with student loans and said six point eight percent is the highest the name but he's going to pay while they go to college and we did kind of put some ends on that and in the meantime of course interest rates came back down we went to variable rates then which allowed the government to fluctuate more on interest rates but each time it becomes a problem for whoever is in the majority because you can kind of pin the difficulty on them say you've got to solve it in the matter what solution you come up with we're not going to like it and we're going to make it into a campaign issue but i hope that we don't do that all of the time but it is important for people to realize that we're cutting the interest rates in this reconciliation bill that we just did and we're going to get him down to three point four percent but that's over a period of time so students that are in college and just heard the discussion should not expect to be able to go get a loan tomorrow or as soon as the president signs a bill and get a train for ten percent and so that that gets phase in it will get down to three and four tenths percent but then it ends and we run into the same situation that we had that i pointed out a minute ago that one party or the other is going to be in the majority at that time and they're going to have to solve that problem of how do we keep the interest rate at three point four percent or lower or match up to much higher ones because those all have a cost you know how is that how is that cost handled well it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to the banks because we subsidize them up to a level and we change that from time to time too and that's the subsidy is what we've been talking about in this reconciliation bill you can offer this lower rate to the students and then we will plug it in so that you make a reasonable rate of return now we always have a little trouble deciding what that reasonable rate of return is as well and that's the subsidy that the federal government does that we're talking about and two years ago we cut that subsidy and we cut it pretty severely and we made twenty two billion dollars in savings off of cutting that corporate subsidy now at that time what we did is we put half of the savings in this subsidy which actually comes from the taxpayers in the end you gotta understand that it's from the taxpayers that we're doing this but we took half of that and we put it to deficit reduction which is kind of a return to the tax payers and we took the other half and we did we did a number of things for students we decreased blown origination freeze to zero percent we put eight billion dollars into a specialized kind  pell grant which was the smart american competitive grants for science technology engineering math and some languages that's a need for this country and if we don't meet that need we're going to have some difficult economic times in this country so we said we've got to get more kids involved in science technology engineering and math and we took care of the college portion of that to encourage him with a smaller amount their freshman and then a little bigger in their sophomore year and then a lot bigger in their junior and senior year if they would do science technology engineering and math and that came to eight billion dollars we also increased loan limits for freshmen and sophomores we increased asset protection and we increased the auto zero from fifteen thousand twenty thousand that's that's the level at which you can get a full pell grant so we did some things with the money for students at that point in time we had criticized for a lot of things that we did not do for students that could have been done just as there will be criticism with this bill for things that could or could not be done  i do think that we arrived at a good solution one that will work one that i'm hopeful and i'm pretty sure the president is going to sign that will make a difference for kids but i do want to emphasize that that we do need we do need to finish up that reauthorization package without that a lot of this doesn't work it sounds good but it doesn't work so let's get the whole job done once since two thousand and four we have extended the higher education act this portion that sunday eight different times we've said what we've got now is good enough so we can't reach any other kind of a decision select just extended again and we extend and chunks and i don't want to have a ninth extension i want to really get the job done there are some really great things we have hundreds of pages  bill is that they are reauthorization that does good things for students and it's good to have great assistance but this this is the bill at the senate passed that's a part that i'm talking about that we haven't done yet this has nothing in it that really needs to be done and we can do it the agreement in the senate on this was ninety five and nothing you don't get more bipartisan than ninety five to nothing i'm pretty sure if the other five people would have been here it would ben a hundred to nothing that is agreement and that's because this desperately desperately needs to be done and i'm glad that the house is going to take a look at it in fact the chairman told me that they would be using this bill as a blueprint i assured him that if you use that as a a blueprint and took the wording that goes with it that it could be dead really quickly around here we usually don't do that sort of thing though because each of us has to get a fingerprint on everything and that slows down the process sometimes but i suspect it will be fairly close to what we have done here and needs to be my staff i want to thank and chlo adam brudenell amy shank and the shoeman great dean and kelly hastings and i would be very remiss if i didn't think the members of senator kennedy's staff on their hard work and cooperation michael meyers carmel martin j d the rock miss you are back in erin renner and finally i'd like to thank the members of the health committee and their staff for their hard work through this process and this has been one of the most contentious committees in years past when we're working on education we're working on help this is one of the most cooperative committees in the united states senate and we do intend to make progress in all four of the areas that we work in we've got the pensions thing pretty well wrapped up last year we've got a little technical corrections portion that we have to get done yet and there are always additional things in the pension area but a some significant changes in the labor area last year to the to light in recent weeks with the first change in major change in mind safety in twenty eight years and we'll be reviewing the to the tragedy that happened in utah to see how that how that fit in with what we did or did not get accomplished and look at future changes but it took us twenty eight years to make the first major change  it won't hurt if we get to twenty four twenty eight months before we get the reports in that help us to analyze the any other changes that we need to make so once again i want to thank my my  colleague from massachusetts senator kennedy for his tremendous effort his tremendous knowledge his capability to explain and come through with ideas sometimes compromises but quite often the third ways of doing things it makes a huge difference and the result is the bill in the way that it passed today a year before the senior senator from massachusetts is recognized  mr president i pause for a moment today with thousands from across the country of gathered in boston to remember the lives of two of our massachusetts firefighters  tail and warren payne were laid to rest yesterday and today in west roxbury and dorchester a week ago warren and paul lost their lives  grateful for their service and we mourn their loss paul cahill was fifty five and a father of three children it previously served in the united states navy and joined the boston fire department in one nine hundred ninety three warren payne was fifty three and a father two children who have been a firefighter from one thousand years and were not scheduled to be on call that night but he agreed to help a friend both paul and warren were bravery and dedication and were committed to the lives and well being of their community each day they served our city they were ready to place themselves in the front lines and the people of boston will never forget their outstanding service and the difference they made my heart is in boston today with the firefighters from across the country and especially those from engine thirty ladder twenty five in west ro they did the job they love to do it god bless paul and warren and all their family and friends who have gathered in boston to grieve for them mr president i see my friend on his feet it's been very patient with this time and will permit me just to continue for just a very few minutes at the very very grateful loves at the conclusion of a hundred tenth congress we will miss our friend our colleague and one of our finest and most respected members john warner is a true american patriot will spend his life serving the public good from volunteer in to serve in world war two at the age of seventeen to his services secretary the navy and his years among us in the senate is life has been defined by a commitment of service to others first and foremost a virginia gentleman john warner is also one of the greatest advocates our fighting men and women have ever had in the united states senate consistently supporting their interests regardless of the prevailing with wins it was an extraordinary chairman of the armed services committee where he helped transform the committee from a cold war posture to a new focus on emerging threats rapid technological changes and modern warfare the changes he made helped usher the committee into the twenty first century as his colleagues on the committee for a quarter as a colleague on the committee for a quarter of a century i could attest to the unrivaled depth of his understanding of the nation military and was grateful to have the opportunity to call upon him in numerable times over the years for wise counsel in addition to his commitment and dedication to our military and to a strong national defense john warner is also the  ent of the finest traditions of the senate deliberate thoughtful principled over the past twenty eight years he has shown us all that we can disagree without being disagreeable and the demand the demands of the american people that we do our very best to support our armed forces in their all important missions for our country and our future time after time he demonstrated his courage decency and hi principles in the senate whatever the partisan passions of the moment that's who john warner is someone who thinks long and hard about the important decisions and then does what he feels is right i'm sure he thought long and hard about the decision to retire from the senate and i know that it wasn't an easy call he will leave enormous shoes to fill for the next person elected to serve the people of virginia in this body i will miss serving side by side with john warner in the next congress but i'm grateful that we'll have a here in the senate for the coming year especially as we work to finances for the extraordinarily complex and dangerous situation we confront in the middle east i'm sure that all of us admire him for a statesman's ship and leadership and we're grateful for his friendship which extended to my brothers jack and bobby as well we'll miss him very much mr president  that objection so ordered the president the senior senator from oregon is recognized for ten minutes present before he leaves the floor i think i would just like to mention we have seen with chairman kennedy over the last few minutes why he is so admired by senators on both sides of the aisle we have seen how he has engineered critically important bipartisan legislation that helps our working families and education area we have heard him speak eloquently about fallen firefighters we admire them so tremendously in boston and across our country and of course once again we think of senator warner i'll have more to say about him in the days ahead and senator kennedy has spoken for all of us this morning as he talked about how much we value senator warner's counsel and insight and i just want senator kennedy to know how much i appreciate his leadership and how much i value his counsel here in the united states president thank you i've come to the floor senator bennett of utah and i have brought to the united states senate the first bipartisan universal health care coverage legislation in more than thirteen years and i thought today i would open my remarks on health care in something of a light fashion there is a brand new study that has recently found that americans are no longer the tallest people in the world over the past fifty or so years the u s population has lost that status and now ranks among the shortest among industrialized countries another rowland's now holds the honor for the tallest nations the authors of this new study speculate that this change may stem from the fact that most other affluent countries have health care systems that cover their entire population and that particularly healthy lifestyles and healthy diets are also significant factors now senator bennett is six foot six i am six foot four and we would like our country to get it right full position back as the leader among nations in the height department and we think part of what is going to be necessary to do that and in all seriousness to make our health policies more health focused rather than just spending on health care is to adopt some fresh policy and we have been particularly interested this week mr president because the wall street journal which i think ali knows displays a preference for strong preference for private health care sector solutions has written a fascinating front page article this week on the special accomplishments in holland with respect to health care and i've long been of the viewed that as we look finally to accomplishing what this country hasn't been able to do for seventy years which is to get all americans good quality affordable health care we're going to have to devise our own system not going to be possible to import some other countries system of health care to our nation and just pretty much plop it down on the united states of america and say disses the way to go but as the wall street journal said in their article dis week there are some important lessons to learn as it relates to the experience of other countries and i would article and i quote here since a new system took effect last year cost growth is projected to fall this year to about three percent after inflation from four point five percent in two thousand and six waiting lists are shrinking and private health insurance we're coming up with innovative ways to care for the sick and what struck senator bennett and i mr president is are are an awful lot of comparison between our bipartisan legislation and the experience of the dutch for example both in holland and in the united states under our our proposal there would be a requirement that individuals would have to purchase their own health insurance insurers under our proposal as holland would not be able to discriminate against individuals who've had illnesses we saw in the movie sicko for example that wonderful scene with the star wars music describing all of the various conditions that individuals might have that would exclude them from insurance coverage that would be illegal under what senator bennett and i are advocating it is illegal according to the wall street journal in the netherlands and finally in the netherlands and under our legislation there is a sharp and very specific focus on prevention and on wellness and the tragedy in our country mr president is we really don't have health care at all what we've largely got is care medicare shows us probably more clearly than anything else medicare part a will pay huge expenses for senior citizens hospital bill check goes from the government  hospital medicare part b on the other hand will pay for virtually nothing for prevention and keeping people well senator bennett and i think to choose that we would say change that for the first time under our legislation medicare would be authorized to discount premiums for seniors who lower their blood pressure lower their cholesterol practice good health in their individual lives i'm struck by this wall street journal article where insurers in holland are adopting much the same kind of approach the article states on the front page of the journal that insurers now are offering a discount to customers who buy low cholesterol versions of yogurt butter and milk so the point is present worldwide the message is getting out prevention works well now a new focus on personal responsibility in keeping our citizens healthy makes sense they're doing it and holland wall street journal describes the positive benefits there and i and senator bennett along with our co sponsors senators bill nelson amar alexander and judd gregg we're trying to build a bipartisan coalition here in the united states senate to do exactly the same thing now our legislation healthy americans act would require that everyone not on medicare or in the military would have to purchase private health insurance but to make sure that that's doable we fix the broken marketplace under our legislation private insurance companies would be able to cherry pick they would be able to take just healthy people and send sick people over to government programs more fragile than they are they couldn't discriminate against those with illness that have to spread risk through large groups of people right now sensually much of the private insurance business is about just filtering out those people who have illnesses and finding a way to cover  just those who are healthy our legislation would change that we also take critical steps to make sure that if you're going to require that people purchase coverage you have a generous subsidy for folks with modest incomes so what senator bennett ny proposed them apparently they're doing something along these lines in holland is we would subsidize up to a hundred of those up to one hundred percent of poverty completely and for those between one hundred percent of poverty and four hundred percent of poverty there would be a partial subsidy the most generous subsidies of any program anywhere in our country would be offered under this legislation that i and senator bennett with love centers alexander and gregg and bill nelson offer to the senate how do we pay for it the lewin group which is kind of the gold standard for looking on health policies or scored the administration's approach is many of the states and ours said we can find a lot of the savings under our legislation through an administrative process that establishes that once you sign up in ohio once you sign up in oregon or anywhere else in the country you're in for life you don't have to sign up again and again and again in my home state my guess is it's very similar to the situation ohio if you're on medicaid or something like thirty one or thirty two categories of coverage and a poor person who's got to try to squeeze themselves into one of those boxes in order to get coverage degrading to the poor at a big waste of money so what senator bennett and i have offered is a one stop process so you sign up once and everything else from that point on is essentially accomplished through the magical world of the electronic transfers and an individual's contribution would be taken out of their paycheck while they're working so ours is fully funded and i think there is an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation particularly should the bush administration want to assist in this effort for example every single economist w come before the finance committee before the budget committee has talked about the tax code as it relates to health care just proportionally favoring the most affluent and rewarding inefficiency at the same time to put it another way if you're a high flying c e o in the united states you want to go out and get a designer smile put on your face you can do it right off the cost of that service every bit of it on your taxes but if you're a hard working woman without any health plan and a local furniture store you get nothing so why and senator bennett redirect the current tax expenditures the biggest part of private health care spending and the lewin group establishes in there and now a source of our report that that would ensure that we could expand coverage over the next few years with out any additional cost to taxpayers and the lewin group has said the proposal now being sponsored by five members the united states senate would slow the rate of growth in health care spending by one point five trillion dollars i know the distinguished president the son of the great interest in and health and we're so pleased that he's here because we work together on these issues often it's clear this is the premier domestic issue of our time the i'm a nation of today's demographics with a rapidly aging population escalating costs huge increase in chronic illness our current health care system is not sustainable it is not one that you can just put on automatic pilot and say let us  it this way for years and years in the future and the tragedy of course is with all of the wonderful doctors and hospitals and nurses in ohio and oregon and all across the country we are spending and not money on health care to do this job we are simply not spending it in the right places to give an idea of how out of whack american health care spending is for the amount of money we're spending the night mr president the two point three trillion dollars is three hundred million of us in the country you divide three hundred million into two point three trillion and you can go out and hire a doctor for every seven families in the united states and say doctor your job will be for this year to take care of seven families will pay you two hundred thousand dollars a year my experience i'd say the president the senate when i bring this up to physicians at home in oregon they say ron where do i go to get my seven family sounds pretty good to be able to get back into the business of practicing medicine again and advocating f my patients rather than going through all this paperwork bureaucracy and red tape so we are spending and not on health care today we're not spending it in the right place and that's what they have begun to change in holland according to the wall street journal this week that's what i and senator bennett than our colleagues on both sides of the aisle seeking to do in the united states senate one last comment mr president i know that  there is a hectic schedule for all senators and certainly some are from ohio is the question whether there should be action now or whether the congress should simply wait for another presidential election here are the consequences of waiting for several more years the census bureau reported last week that two point two million additional americans were without health insurance between two thousand and five and two thousand  this congress wait a couple of years more we can expect that number increase and the number without coverage in this country to hemorrhage further that is a moral abomination number one and it's going to be costly to taxpayers number two because those people very often will have to go to hospital emergency rooms to get their coverage and of course those bills will be passed on to businesses and ohio and oregon across the country and to our taxpayers so the costs of delay are very direct and immediate second with respect to employer based coverage the new numbers indicate mr president that the number of employers offering coverage has now fallen below sixty percent and it's pretty easy to see why is with these double digit premium hikes pricewaterhouse says that health costs are going to average this year a little over eleven percent a lot of our employers want to do the right thing by their workers and simply cannot offer coverage if this congress decides to stand down on the question of overhauling health care and say let's just wait till two thousand and nine you're going to see more businesses in ohio and oregon and across this country lose coverage and i don't think we ought to sit by and just let our  coverage continue to melt away along the lines of the statistics that i mentioned and finally on the question of prevention and what holland is doing and what we're seeking to do in the health of americans ac there is a very significant cost with respect to chronic illness as it relates to doing nothing to change our policies the new numbers with respect to chronic illness mr president indicate that in thirty one states over the last year obesity has risen once again and of course there is a direct link here between heart and stroke and diabetes and so many illnesses not one state not one experienced a decline so if the congress says well we'll pass on overhauling american health care until two thousand and nine we can expect to have missed another opportunity yet another opportunity for doing something about nasty health care policies that put a new focus on prevention and wellness so this question of waiting for two more years and saying let's just spend our time looking at what the various candidates for president of both political parties are saying about health care certainly it's getting a lot of attention in terms of the debates on t v and all of us trying to look at the various merits of the candidates proposals and they are good people and they have good suggestions but i want to make it clear to the senate that there are very very real costs of waiting to fix health care i think the question of fixing health care is so urgent we ought to get on with it and we ought to get on with it in a bipartisan way which is what i i and senator bennett are trying to do and we're very proud to have been able to get the support of business and labor leaders w offered the initial proposal andy stern the president of the service employees international union stood on one side of me and steve burd the c e o of the safeway a company a very large fortune fifty company stood on the other side we had individuals like ron pollack the families usa and advocates for compassionate end of life health care with us as well last time that congress looked at this and present the senate i think remembers you know this period in the early one nine hundred ninety s the people who stood with me for the kickoff of the healthy americans act were spending millions pretty much being each other's brains at the last time the congress and the president during the clinton years debated health care so there's a different climate certainly a different climate for businesses in ohio and oregon when i hear from businesses at home unlike nine hundred ninety three twenty years when they said we can't afford fixing health care they're now saying we can't afford the status quo that's why they're joining senator bennett and i and others on these proposals my hope is that as congress looks at the evidence whether it's the wall street journal reporting on promising developments you know very often people think of europe socialized countries wall street journal putting on the front page of the paper mr president a publication that clearly favors private health care coverage an example of a country in europe where they seem to be making great progress so as we devise our own system one that is uniquely american i and senator bennett want to work with every member of the senate i think i can speak for senators bill nelson i'm our alexander judd gregg the others that we've been talking to that we think this is the premier domestic issue of our time certainly the conflict in iraq is the premier national security issue but the premier domestic issue here at home is fixing american health care and i think based on the evidence that comes in every day we know what needs to be done now the question as making sure that there's the political will to go forward i look forward to working with the president of the senate w present and i'd also note the absence of recognized every day an estimated forty four hundred lives are lost around the world tuberculosis day and day out yesterday today tomorrow fifteen lives will be lost and roughly in the few minutes of my of my remarks tuberculosis is an urgent global crisis that demands our attention and our response two billion people two billion people one third of the world's population carry around with them the tuberculosis bacteria in this country as many as ten to fifteen million in the united states alone are infected with tb bacterium most will not get sick but many of them are and in some jeopardy nine million people practically a population of my state of ohio become sick with active tuberculosis every year one point six million people world will die we struggle with many diseases that are beyond our scientific understanding but to burkey los is not one of them these deaths are preventable tb is the greatest curable infectious killer worldwide much of the good work of the legislation that this congress that the senate passed last night will be undermined if we don't do a better job of controlling tuberculosis our investments in development will do little to improve economic conditions its entire populations as so many in africa especially in india especially are reeling from this disease combating tb is fundamental to sustaining economic development in poor countries my colleagues know this congress following the leadership of the foreign operations subcommittee chairman pat leahy and ranking member judd gregg has made have made great strides in investing greater resources in global health diseases like aids hiv and malaria have received tremendous increases over the past several years and i hope this trend will continue last night the united states senate did something about this the amendment that i offered last night with senators brownback senator senators brownback durbin boxer and smith added ninety million dollars in funding for our international efforts against tuberculosis bringing total spending to two hundred million dollars  undoubtedly that will save lives combating by tb must go hand in hand with the fight against aids hiv up to fifty percent of people who are hiv positive develop tuberculosis is many as half the deaths  in africa actually are deaths from tuberculosis the leading cause of death among people who are hiv positive all over the world hiv infection weakens a person's immune system making it fifty times more likely that that person will develop to bracts of tuberculosis so if someone is carrying the tb bacteria in their body as a third of the world's people are if they get infected with hiv or have some other disease or weakness from well nutrition or something else they are much much more likely to develop active tuberculosis and to compound that mr president under checked drug resistant tuberculosis including deadly x d r tb threatens to reverse progress made against aids and tb worldwide in today's world extensively drug resistant tb so called x t b s d r t v poses a great public health threat never more than a plane ride away this past june we got a wake up call one american boarded a plane to europe while infected with drug resistant tuberculosis luckily his was not the most very ill and strain but as example shows us clearly that this disease does affect america and that more resources for tb are needed to prevent identify treat and control excessively drug resistant tuberculosis we need to heed that wake up call and act before it's too late it's within our power there's no mystery here mr president we know what to do we know how to treat and we know how to treat and cure regular so called garden variety tuberculosis we know how to treat and cure multi drug resistant tuberculosis in overwhelming majority of cases and we know how to treat generally excessively drug resistant x t r t b tuberculosis did that in cure people of that it's without within our means treating regular garden variety tb costs only twenty dollars per person it's a small price to pay to save our lives mr president i thank my colleagues including the senator from tended junior senator from pennsylvania for his support of this issue last night was a victory for for people around in the developing world who are who are so often victims of tuberculosis so often suffer from that it's also a victory for people in our country a few of whom have tb but most of the many more people who are playing right away or potentially potentially exposed to the senators offering general speeches having wrapped up legislative business earlier today or earlier the senate passing a compromise with the house on student loans and grants that tally seventy nine to twelve next week transportation spending and housing and urban development although the senate is expected to finish legislative business by wednesday prior to the observance of the jewish holiday of russia shannah senators not expected to be in session thursday or friday span you can see live coverage of the house members having worked on student loan compromise earlier houses working on an overhaul of patent law right now live coverage of the house once again is on c proceed on block mr president and consent the resolutions be agreed to and block the preambles agreed to and block the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table and block the consideration these items appear separately in the record that any statements relating there to appear at the resolution two fifty three expressing the sense of the senate they've stablish manav a museum of the history of american diplomacy through private donations is a worthy endeavor is their objection to proceeding to the measure without objection so ams consent the resolution be agreed to the preamble be agreed to the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table and block that any statements relating there to appear at the appropriate place in the in the record as if read without further intervening action or debate long celebration of the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the marquis de lafayette is there objection to proceed to the measure without objection so ordered this present as a man's consent the resolution be agreed to the preamble agreed to the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table and block that any statements relating there to appear at the appropriate place in the record as if read without objection is present i ask man's consent the senate proceed to meet a consideration of s rez three eleven submitted earlier today a clerk will report preamble agreed to the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table and block that any statements relating there to appear at the appropriate place in the record as if that today when the senate completes its business its stand adjourn until ten a m monday september tenth and on monday following the prayer in pledge journal proceedings be approved to date the morning hour be deemed expired the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day the senate proceed to executive session is provided under a previous order without objection mr president if there is no further business there now is that the senate stand adjourned under the previous order