November 19, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10617 

law in 1934 but did not care to work as 

a lawyer. Instead, after a brief stint as 

a civil servant in Washington, he 

joined the Work Projects Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project, writing 

radio scripts. 

Soon he was acting in radio soaps. 

Usually, he was the voice of the gangster. 

He served a year in the Army Air 

Corps but was discharged after a year 

because of perforated eardrums. 

He landed his own TV show at the beginning of the television age, the pioneering ‘‘Studs Place’’ but lost it after 

a few seasons when he was blacklisted 

during the dreaded McCarthy era. 

In the early 1950s, he hooked up with 

WFMT, a new arts station in Chicago. 

It was the start of a great partnership. 

His syndicated radio talk show, ‘‘The 

Studs Terkel Program,’’ ran on WFMT 

every weekday from 1952 to 1997—45 

years. 

He played a sports reporter in the 

1988 film ‘‘Eight Men Out,’’ about the 

Chicago Black Sox scandal of 1919. And 

he continued to write almost to the 

day he died. 

He was, said an obituary by the Associated Press, ‘‘an old rebel who never 

mellowed, never retired, never forgot, 

and ‘never met a picket line or petition’ he didn’t like.’’ 

What made him so good? Bob 

Minzeshimer, a USA Today reporter 

who knew him, said: 

He had the listening skills of a psychologist, the timing of a comic, the curiosity of 

a scholar, and the gravelly voice of a boxing 

promoter. 

He wrote with honesty, empathy, eloquence, and humor. Above all, he wrote 

with real respect for the people he 

interviewed. 

As the writer for the Economist said, 

‘‘Talking to Mr. Terkel, the copyboy or 

the short-order clerk or the welfare 

mother felt, at last, like somebody. 

They counted; they had possibilities.’’ 

His first book, ‘‘Giants of Jazz,’’ was 

published in 1957. Nearly a decade 

passed before he wrote another, but it 

was worth the wait. ‘‘Division Street,’’ 

released in 1966, contrasted rich and 

poor along that same Chicago street 

and won him international recognition. 

Studs’ best known book, ‘‘Working,’’ 

was published in 1974. In 1999, a panel of 

judges organized by the Modern Library, a book publisher, ranked ‘‘Working’’ as No. 54 on its list of the top 100 

best English language works of the 

20th century. He won a Pulitzer Prize 

in 1985 for ‘‘The Good War: An Oral History of World War II.’’ 

Among his other books are ‘‘Hard 

Times: An Oral History of the Great 

Depression’’; ‘‘American Dreams: Lost 

and Found’’; ‘‘The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the American 

Dream’’; ‘‘Race: How Blacks and 

Whites Think and Feel About the 

American Obsession’’; ‘‘Coming of Age: 

The Story of Our Century by Those 

Who’ve Lived It’’; ‘‘Will the Circle Be 

Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth’’; ‘‘Hope Dies Last: Keeping the 

Faith in Difficult Times’’; ‘‘Touch and 

Go’’; and his final book, ‘‘P.S. Further 

Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening.’’ They just released it last week. It 

was at his bedside when he passed 

away. 

He received so many awards: a Peabody Award for excellence in journalism; the National Book Foundation 

Medal for contributions to American 

letters; the Pulitzer Prize for his book 

‘‘The Good War’’; the Presidential Humanities Medal; the National Medal of 

Humanities; the Illinois Governor’s 

Award for the Arts; and the Clarence 

Darrow Commemorative Award. 

He was the only white writer to be 

inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent at Chicago State University. 

But the recognition that meant the 

most to him didn’t come from the 

media. It was comments from people he 

worked with, people whose eyes he 

opened. Like the man who stopped him 

on the Michigan Avenue bridge and 

told him that after reading the words 

of Delores Dante in ‘‘Working,’’ he was 

never going to be rude to a waitress 

again. 

Besides Chicago, the other great love 

of Studs Terkel’s life was his wife Ida, 

with whom he shared a happy marriage 

for 60 years until she passed away in 

1999. 

Mischievous to the end, Studs said he 

wanted to be cremated and have his 

ashes mixed with Ida’s, and he wanted 

them both to be scattered in Bughouse 

Square. ‘‘Scatter us there,’’ he said. 

‘‘It’s against the law (so) let ’em sue 

us.’’ 

In ‘‘Touch and Go,’’ Studs Terkel 

worried that our Nation suffered from 

‘‘a national alzheimer’s disease,’’ as he 

said it, and a lack of historical perspective that made government the perceived enemy. 

He believed that government ought 

to stand up for the little guy and hold 

the powerful accountable. He believed 

it because he had seen it before. 

There would never be a good time to 

lose Studs Terkel but now seems like a 

particularly bad time for such a loss. 

Our economy is in crisis. Real people 

are hurting. Ordinary people who 

worked hard all their lives are watching their savings disappear. Millions of 

Americans are losing their jobs and 

their homes. They are seeing hundreds 

of billions of their tax dollars handed 

out to banks and to Wall Street, and I 

guess they are wondering: Is anybody 

in Government listening to them? 

In these hard times, in this rare 

lameduck session of Congress, we in 

the Senate would do well to follow 

Studs Terkel’s example: to listen not 

only to the wealthy and well connected 

but also to the quiet hopes and concerns of everyday Americans. As Studs 

Terkel showed in his immortal works, 

those everyday Americans are the soul 

and real strength of America. 

Our condolences go out to Studs’ and 

Ida’s son Dan and to all who knew and 

loved Studs Terkel. 

He stood only 5 feet 5 inches tall, 

with a slouch that made him look even 

shorter. But in Chicago and so many 

other places, Studs Terkel was a giant; 

and he will be greatly missed. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor and 

suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT 

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise 

to speak about the Economic Recovery 

Act, which is a comprehensive stimulus 

package. We need it. Our Nation needs 

this. It is a much needed shot in the 

arm for our ailing economy. When the 

economy is ailing, there are two 

choices: We can choose the path of, 

say, Herbert Hoover and say: Government should not be involved, let an ideological straitjacket tie us up—We 

know what happened then—or we can 

choose the course economists on the 

left, the middle, and the right have 

said we should choose, which is we need 

a major stimulus package to get the 

economy going. 

I would have hoped we would have 

made the choice to help this economy 

and help the millions of Americans who 

are worried. Hundreds of thousands 

have lost their jobs, millions more are 

worried about losing their jobs, and 

tens of millions see every week that 

the paycheck does not stretch as far as 

it did. 

We face an economic crisis of a scale 

and scope that we have not experienced 

in 25 years, if not longer. By every 

measure we are headed toward a cliff. 

We are in the midst of the greatest 

housing crisis since the Great Depression. Unemployment has been rising 

rapidly and is expected to hit levels we 

have not seen at least since the early 

1980s. 

States and localities face massive 

budget shortfalls that may force them 

to raise property taxes unless Federal 

assistance is delivered. Families are 

running harder just to stand still, seeing their incomes shrink while their 

costs, especially their food and energy 

costs, are far greater than they were 1 

year ago. 

The credit contraction that has 

spread from the financial system to average households has pummeled American businesses in every part of the 

country, businesses big and small. Not 

even the most optimistic among us can 

argue that our economic problems will 

take care of themselves. 

The question before us is: What are 

we, as stewards of the public trust, 

going to do? I believe the answer is 

clear: The Federal Government should, 

it must, provide an economic stimulus 

to Main Street as we have to Wall 


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S10618 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE November 19, 2008 

Street. It must be significant and substantial and it must be targeted at our 

most pressing needs. 

The plan before us does that. It will 

prime the pump of America’s job machine, by fast-tracking $13.5 billion of 

investment into our Nation’s infrastructure which forms the bedrock of 

our economy. It will help the States 

avoid the difficult decision to raise 

property taxes; you cannot do that 

now. But some of them may have no 

choice because they have budget shortfalls. But we can avoid that terrible 

choice by delivering $40 billion in 

emergency fiscal aid through the 

FMAP. 

The stimulus package before us will 

jump start renewable energy production by making major investments in 

the technologies that will not only 

help America become energy independent but will make us a global leader in the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles. 

Importantly, this bill will also resuscitate small business lending. We all 

know small businesses are the engine 

of our economy. But small businesses 

have been overlooked in the financial 

rescue efforts to date. 

So working with my friend and colleague from Massachusetts, Senator 

KERRY, we have worked to include provisions in this stimulus package that 

will throw our small businesses a life 

vest to weather this storm so they can 

emerge from it as leaders in job creation. 

Small businesses generally rely heavily on loans from banks to build inventory, meet their payroll consistently, 

and fuel the growth of the business. 

These loans have all but dried up, 

threatening the survival of car dealerships, mom-and-pop pharmacies, restaurants and shops all across the Nation. 

The Federal Reserve recently reported that 75 percent of domestic 

banks said they had tightened their 

lending standards for small-business 

loans, 75 percent. At the same time, 70 

percent of the lenders told the Fed that 

they would charge more for those 

loans. According to the New York 

Times in an August opinion poll, twothirds of entrepreneurs told the National Small Businesses Association 

that their companies had been hurt by 

the credit crunch. 

Traditionally, Small Business Administration loans have filled this gap. 

But chronic underfunding of the SBA 

under the Bush administration and its 

outdated fee structure have greatly reduced lender participation and undermined the valuable function that SBA 

lending could play during this credit 

crisis. 

In October alone, the number of loans 

made under SBA’s largest loan program dropped over 50 percent compared 

to the same month last year. So the 

economy desperately needs this shot in 

the arm. 

And SBA’s loan program is cut in 

half. What foolishness. Why do we not 

change it? That is why Senator KERRY

and I fought to include in the economic 

stimulus package provisions that will 

modernize the SBA and jump start 

lending to small business. 

Our bill provides $615 million to support $22.5 billion in zero-fee loans to 

small businesses under the 7A and 504 

programs. Providing zero-fee loans will 

deliver needed relief to small business 

on Main Street during Wall Street’s financial crisis. 

The bill also provides $1 million to 

support $10 million in new microloans 

for small businesses and $4 million for 

critical technical assistance for these 

new ‘‘micro’’ borrowers. 

In sum, our Nation needs this stimulus package, not just for the small 

businesses or the large businesses 

across the Nation but for the American 

families who have faced devastating 

hits to their wealth and economic security. We need to build a platform from 

which we can emerge from this credit 

crisis as a global leader in energy and 

innovation and high-paying job creation. I strongly urge the passage of 

this proposal. 

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

CARDIN). Without objection, it is so ordered. 

The Senator is recognized for 10 minutes. 

Mr. BARRASSO. Thank you very 

much, Mr. President. 

f 

MEDICARE 

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, 

today I come to the floor to tell the 

Nation a story, and it is the story of a 

Wyoming doctor, a doctor by the name 

of Randy Johnston. He is an ophthalmologist who practices in Cheyenne, 

WY. He is very qualified. He is very capable. He is also a good friend. 

The reason I come to tell you this 

story is because, like many doctors 

across the country, Randy takes care 

of people on Medicare, and occasionally 

in his practice as an ophthalmologist 

he gives shots to people on Medicare. 

As a matter of fact, there is a picture 

of Dr. Johnston on the front page of 

the American Medical News. This is an 

article dated November 10, written by 

Jane Cys, and it shows Dr. Johnston in 

his office in Cheyenne getting ready to 

give a shot. 

Well, in the past, Randy would buy 

the drugs that his practice uses and 

then bill the patients for the treatment. The drugs that Randy uses are 

typically injected, but under this Part 

B Medicare drug program some are infused through a patient intravenously 

right into the vein. 

Two years ago, Randy enrolled in a 

new program created by the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act. This Medicare 

Part B program was called the Competitive Acquisition Program—CAP is 

the phrase they use. It was designed to 

give doctors a choice in the way they 

administer the drugs. 

Under the program, the doctor would 

first see the patient, then order the 

medicine from a Government vendor, 

then get the medicine, and then give 

the injection. 

Well, the way it worked is, Medicare 

would then pay the vendor for the 

drugs. Medicare also would bill the patient if there was a copay or a premium 

the patient owed. Randy was only responsible to bill Medicare for the actual treatment of the patient, not for 

the medicines. 

Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services hailed this 

new program as a way to alleviate administrative burdens and reduce Medicare costs—a good idea. Doctors could 

now spend more of their time with 

their patients rather than serving as 

drug purchasers and bill collectors. 

Randy signed up for the program 

early, and the program that was passed 

as part of the 2003 bill finally got started in 2006. Randy thought it made good 

sense for him, good sense for his patients. Some of his Medicare patients 

could not afford to pay for their officeadministered drugs, and Randy saw 

great potential in this new program. 

He could transfer the Medicare billing 

part of it to someone equipped to handle the administrative redtape, and 

this freedom would leave him more 

time to focus on practicing medicine. 

The program has now been in place 

for 3 years. What are the results? Well, 

only 4,200 doctors signed up for the program. You may ask, why is that? Dr. 

Johnston can tell you, and this article 

in the American Medical News explains 

it very well. Administrative hassles, 

burdensome drug transportation and 

storage rules, and vendor delivery 

problems—and that is just to name a 

few. 

For example, the Government rules 

require doctors to give patients the 

drugs only in the facility where the 

vendor delivered the medicine—no exceptions, none. This requirement prevented doctors from moving drugs between their main office and a part-time 

satellite office they may have in another community. 

Washington bureaucrats simply do 

not understand what a burden this policy can be in rural and frontier communities. Seniors living in rural States 

such as Wyoming often have to travel 

great distances—hundreds of miles—to 

see a specialist like Dr. Randy Johnston. This program, with good intentions, clearly was not designed to meet 

the unique needs facing rural patients 

and health care providers who work 

tirelessly to serve their patients. 

Dr. Johnston was also required to 

order the drugs for a specific individual 

patient by name. He was not allowed to 

restock a general office supply to use 

on multiple patients. 


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