Teachers at the Table Act

Madam President, I rise today to introduce, along with Senator Judd Gregg, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, legislation we have called the

Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action. We are introducing this legislation because, as the chairman and ranking member of the Budget Committee, we understand that we are on an unsustainable fiscal course; that we confront a budgetary crisis of unprecedented proportions if we fail to act. That crisis will be caused by a combination of our current budget deficits and enormous Federal debt, combined with the explosion created by the baby boom generation.

Here is the outlook we confront with respect to the demographic tidal wave coming at us. We see, in 2007, we are at about 40 million people who are of retirement age, and that will grow to 80 million by 2050, dramatically changing the budget circumstance for this country.

We know we face enormous challenges with Medicare and Social Security. You can see the long-term cost of Medicare. The shortfall over 75 years is now estimated at $33.9 trillion. The shortfall in Social Security over that same period is $4.7 trillion. These are staggering amounts, a shortfall in Medicare of almost $34 trillion, a shortfall in Social Security of over $4.7 trillion.

Looked at another way, Medicare and Medicaid spending, according to experts, if it stays on the current course, will consume as much of our national economy as the entire Federal budget does today.

Let me repeat that. If the trend lines continue, by 2050 we will be spending as much, just on Medicare and Medicaid, of our national income as we spend for the entire Federal Government today. This fundamentally threatens the economic security of the country.

At the same time, we have tax cuts in place. they are extended, according to the President's proposal, it will drive us right over the cliff.

This chart shows the Medicare deficits in purple, the Social Security deficits in green, and the cost of extending the President's tax cuts in red. We can see the combined effect is to take us right over the fiscal cliff, deep into debt and deficit in a way that is unprecedented.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve said this about our budget outlook in January:

[O]ne might look at these projections and say, ``Well,

these are about 2030 and 2040 and so . . . we don't really

have to start worrying about it yet.'' But, in fact, the

longer we wait, the more severe, the more draconian, the more

difficult . . . the adjustments are going to be. I think the

right time to start is about 10 years ago.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve has it right.

Senator Gregg and I are coming to our colleagues today and calling for this bipartisan task force for responsible fiscal action.

What would it do? Simply, it would be given the responsibility to address our unsustainable long-term imbalances between spending and revenue. Everything is on the table. The task force would consist of 16 members, 8 Democrats, 8 Republicans, all of them Members of Congress, except for 2 representing the administration. The Secretary of the Treasury would chair the task force. The obligation of this group would be to submit a report on December 9, 2008. It would take 12 of the 16 members to report a blueprint for our fiscal future. They would be given the responsibility to find ways to address the shortfall in Medicare and Social Security and the ongoing and endemic budget deficits. These 16 members, 8 Democrats, 8 Republicans, would have the opportunity and the responsibility to develop a plan for our fiscal future, but it would take 12 of the 16 to report a plan, and the plan would only come at the beginning of the next administration. This would not be part of election year politics. This would be part of a serious plan to address our long-term fiscal imbalances.

If 12 of the 16 agreed to a plan, it would then receive fast-track treatment in the Senate. It would come to a vote without amendment after 100 hours of debate. Final passage would require a supermajority, 60 votes in the Senate, 60 percent of the House of Representatives.

Senator Gregg and I have worked on this all year. We have discussed this with many Members in both the House and the Senate. This is our best judgment of how best to proceed. We believe this would give the Congress and the country an opportunity to write a better fiscal future, one that would strengthen America, reduce our dependence on foreign capital and put us in a position to keep the promise that has been made to the American people of a country that is strong and fair, that respects those in retirement and, at the same time, gives maximum opportunity to those working to strengthen their families and this country.

I thank my colleague Senator Gregg, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, for the extraordinary time and effort he has put into developing this proposal.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed comments in the Record about this proposal: Support for it from David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States; support from the Concord Coalition, the bipartisan Concord Coalition that is well known for its support of a fiscally responsible future; and from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Again, I recognize my colleague, the very able Senator from New Hampshire, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.

Madam President, I again thank my colleague, Senator Gregg, who has been incredibly engaged in this effort. He is very fairminded in the structure of this proposal and I think visionary in terms of understanding the need for action.

I say to my colleagues or staffs who may be listening, all those who recognize we are headed for a fiscal cliff and that we need to take action, this is our opportunity. This is it. Those who say we have to do something, here is our chance. This is completely bipartisan, eight Democrats, eight Republicans. It takes 12 of the 16 to make a report, a supermajority; that is, to assure it is bipartisan in result. This is a task

force of Members of Congress and representatives of the administration, 14 Members of Congress, 2 representatives of the administration. It is not outside experts, people who would not be responsible or be held accountable for the outcome. These will be people who are accountable, who are responsible for the outcome. This is a measure that will lead to a vote.

I say to my colleagues, this will assure that the work of this group will come before the Congress if 12 of the 16 agree. Because if they do, there will then be 100 hours of debate but no amendment permitted, and there will be a vote up or down. Those who recognize it takes us working together to face up to these difficult problems, I ask them to join with us, Republicans and Democrats. Absent this, I suspect what will happen is further delay, further divisiveness, and no real result. That will mean even tougher choices in the future.

I urge my colleagues to think carefully of this moment. This will not be considered until after the election. We have done everything we can to take election politics out of this, understanding it is highly unlikely that a matter of this import would be considered in an election year and that perhaps the best opportunity is at the beginning of a new administration. None of us know whether the new administration will be a Republican or a Democratic administration. None of us can know the makeup of the next Congress. What we do know is we face a ticking timebomb. The faster we act, the better for our Nation.

I am happy to yield.

I thank the Senator. I had a number of my colleagues, as the Senator knows, come to me with great concern. Their concern was: Gee, you are putting the Presidential candidates in an awkward position. How are they going to react to this? My reaction was: This is a gift to all the Presidential candidates, this is a gift to the next administration because this will provide them a bipartisan blueprint on how to proceed with some of the most vexing issues facing this country.

So I see absolutely no downside for either side, Republican or Democratic--for Presidential candidates on either side or candidates for Congress on either side--because this is a process leading to a proposal that would have bipartisan support if it is to proceed.

If I were an incoming administration, I would welcome a bipartisan plan to deal with Social Security, with Medicare, with the growth of deficits and the debt, and not to have it come in the middle of an election but to only be presented after the election but before the next Congress meets and the next administration takes on its responsibilities.

I see it as not only a gift to the candidates but, more importantly, as a gift to the American people to take on some of the greatest challenges facing our country and to do it in a bipartisan way and to do it in a way that actually leads to a result and action.

I again thank my colleague. This is the beginning of an effort. I ask colleagues on both sides, please, join us in this effort. Let's do what we all know must happen--that we must take on these issues, that we must come up with solutions, and we must do it sooner rather than later.

I thank my colleagues.

Let me begin by thanking the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Conrad, for moving forward with this important effort to try to reach a conclusion and progress on the most significant issue this Nation faces beyond our fight with Islamic terrorism. In the post-Katrina world, if the country knew that a category 5 hurricane was headed at us, we knew where it was going to hit, we knew the size of the hurricane, and we knew the damage it would do, the Government would be absolutely irresponsible not to respond to that.

What we have coming at us is a category 5 fiscal hurricane. We know when it is going to hit, and that is when the baby boom generation retires and begins to retire next year and reaches its peak in its retirement size by about the year 2025. We know the impact of the problem, the size of the problem, that there is $62 trillion of unfunded liability which will be generated by the retirement of the baby boom generation to pay for the benefits under Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

To try to put that in context, that is more than the entire net worth of all of America--all our homes, cars, stocks, all our assets. That is how big this liability is. We know the effect of this category 5 fiscal hurricane because we know it is going to basically wipe out the ability of our children and our children's children to have as high a quality of life as we have had because the cost of paying for this fiscal tsunami will be so high.

We need to get on to the issue of trying to address this looming threat. As the Comptroller General said today, we have a category 5 hurricane headed at us and people are still playing on the beach as if the wave is not going to arrive. Well, the wave is going to arrive. So what the chairman of the Budget Committee has put forward today--and I am honored to have the opportunity to participate in this effort--is a proposal to move forward with substantive and definitive legislation which will result in action. That is what we need--action. It is similar to the old Fram oil filter ad: You can pay me now or you can pay me later. If we act now, the cost is going to be less than if we act later.

So this proposal, which has been put together after a lot of thought and effort on behalf of myself and Senator Conrad, is basically built around three concepts. First, that there must be absolute bipartisanship. So as Senator Conrad has outlined, the task force, when it meets, must have a three-fourths vote in favor of whatever proposal they bring forward. Secondly, everything has to be on the table. Nothing can be off. After all the discussion, in order for this to work, all these parts interplay with each other, you have to be willing to address not only reform and how you deliver better benefits at a lower cost under Medicare and Medicaid and better benefits at a reasonable cost under Social Security, but you also have to address the tax side of the ledger. So everything needs to be on the table. Third, that for this to work, there has to be an action-forcing mechanism. We have seen report after report, commission after commission. A lot of them have done excellent work. But on these issues, which are such hot buttons, what happens is, a commission will make a report, and all the interest groups will attack it from this side and that side and the next side. So this proposal is structured so there is an action-forcing event; specifically, fast-track approval which, again, has to be by a supermajority of the final report of the task force.

This truly is an opportunity to move forward to address this issue. Our failure to do so would be truly ironic because the problem which we confront as a nation, which I say is probably the single biggest issue after the war on Islamic terrorism, fighting the war against Islamic terrorism, is that this fiscal category 5 hurricane is headed toward us, which is essentially going to wipe out our children's opportunity to have a quality of lifestyle equal to ours, is totally the responsibility of the present generation who is governing, the baby boom generation. We are the generation of governance today. So before we pass our problem on to the next generation, we have a responsibility to address it and to try to improve the effort.

I know, as I look around this Chamber and at this administration, there are people of goodwill who, given the right structure, which this task force is, would be willing to come together, make the difficult decisions, and have the expertise to know how to make those decisions to move maybe not a complete resolution of these issues but a significant resolution of the issues down the road so the next generation does not have to bear the whole burden of resolving the problems. It is time to act.

I congratulate the chairman of the Budget Committee for being the force behind getting this effort going. It is a very positive initiative. I think it will be received very well on our side of the aisle. I believe strongly that the administration will receive it well. Therefore, I believe we have a great opportunity to move forward in a way which will make sure our children and their children have as good a country and as strong a country from the standpoint of fiscal policy as we have.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I think the Senator made an excellent point that we are now in a Presidential election. This Commission is a gift to those candidates because they can come forward and point to this Commission as taking on some of the most complicated issues they are going to face. Because this timebomb--which is an appropriate description, using the Senator's words--is going to start to explode, and the explosion will be rather large during the term of the next Presidency.

So this is an opportunity to give those candidates for President a forum and a procedure where these issues, which are so critical to the success of the next Presidency, can actually be moved down the road toward resolution. Is that not true?

I once again congratulate the chairman of the Budget Committee for his exceptional leadership in this area. This is the first step in a bipartisan effort which, hopefully, will lead to a bipartisan solution that America will see as fair and which will pass on to our children a stronger and more vital Nation.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I have come to the floor, today, to introduce the Fair Home Health Care Act of 2007 to recognize the extraordinary value of the services that home health care workers perform. This legislation is in response to a Supreme Court decision in June that ruled that home care workers are not entitled to the protections provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

At the center of that case was a 73-year-old retiree named Evelyn Coke, who spent some two decades of her life cooking, bathing, feeding, and caring for the everyday medical needs of people who cannot take care of themselves. Today, Evelyn Coke suffers from kidney failure. But despite 20 years of working more than 40 hours a week, she can't afford a home health care worker to take care of her. She sued her employer for not paying time-and-a-half pay for all those hours that she worked overtime but was denied premium pay by way of compensation. Unfortunately, Evelyn Coke lost her case before the Court because of an outdated exemption to the Federal minimum wage and overtime laws.

In 1974, Congress expanded the Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA, include protections for most domestic workers, such as chauffeurs and housekeepers. However, a narrow exemption was created for employees providing ``companionship services'' to seniors and people with disabilities. At that time, home care, like babysitting, was largely provided by neighbors and friends.

In the three decades since the exemption was created, the numbers of home care workers and their responsibilities have expanded dramatically as the population has aged and more and more people are choosing long- term health care services in their homes rather than in institutions. There are more than 1 million home care workers in the U.S. They provide physically and emotionally demanding and often life-sustaining care for the elderly and disabled still living in their own homes.

This bill brings together two issues that are very close to my heart--on the one hand, independent living and quality of life for seniors and people with disabilities, and, on the other hand, the basic rights of American workers to premium pay for overtime work. Service providers and the people they serve agree on this: no one is served well when home care workers are not paid a living wage. Home care workers deserve fair pay. Seniors and people with disabilities deserve continuous relationships with home care aides that they can trust to deliver the care that they need.

Last week, several constituents who provide these kinds of services came to my office. One man, Pete Faust, has worked in home care settings for 30 years. Pete makes $12 an hour and admits he has trouble making ends meet; the overtime pay he receives makes it possible to pay the bills. He knows that he could go work somewhere else and make twice as much, but he worries that it is hard on his clients not to see the same friendly familiar face on a regular basis.

Casey Cole is another of my constituents, and he is in a similar position. He works 12 days in a row, and then gets two days off. Often, however, there isn't anyone else to cover the shifts when he is off, so he will work 26 days in a row. Even his days off aren't really days off, because he's answering calls or checking in to make sure that all the people under his care are getting their needs met.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a Pete Faust or a Casey Cole to help them out. There is a shortage of qualified home care workers, and of there is high turnover in the field. Some 86 percent of direct care workers turn over every year. Almost 90 percent of homecare workers are women, and they are predominantly minority women, making an average of just $9 an hour.

The reason for the shortage of people to do this work is certainly not a shortage of compassion. The problem is that people need to be able to make a living wage when they have their own families to take care of. It is high time to grant these hard-working people the minimum wage and overtime protection. That is why I am introducing this legislation, today.

The Fair Home Health Care Act will include home care workers under the same rules that currently cover babysitters. That is to say, they will be entitled to Fair Labor Standards Act protections if they are not employed on a ``casual basis.'' Casual basis is defined as employment on an irregular or intermittent basis, when the employee's primary vocation is not the provision of homecare, the employee is not employed by an agency other than the family or household using his or her services, and the employee does not work more than 20 hours per week.

I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this legislation. The bill will improve pay for hardworking caregivers, and it will increase access to care for our Nation's seniors and people with disabilities.

Mr. President, I am here today with my colleagues Senators Reid, Murkowski, Inouye, Johnson, Tester, Domenici and Bingaman to introduce legislation to reauthorize and amend the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act, NAHASDA. This bill, the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2007 will not only reauthorize the primary housing programs for Indian Country but it will enhance the crucial services provided under these programs.

The Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act provides formula-based block grant assistance to Indian tribes which allows them the flexibility to design housing programs to address the needs of their communities. Since its adoption in 1996, the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act has transformed the way in which Indian housing is provided in the tribal communities. It is clear that the programs have been very successful. For example, in 2006, Tribes have been able to build, acquire, or substantially rehabilitate more than 1,600 rental units and more than 6,000 homeownership units. Each of these units became a home to an American Indian or Alaska Native family.

Even with these improvements, we are still facing a housing crisis in Indian Country. At the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs March and July hearings on Indian housing, we heard alarming statistics: 90,000 Indian families are homeless or under-housed. Approximately 40 percent of on-reservation housing is considered inadequate. Over one-third of Indian homes are overcrowded. More than 230,000 housing units are immediately needed to provide adequate housing in Indian Country.

Tribal elders in the Northern Plains are living in homes without roofs, with only tarps to shield them from the harsh elements including below-zero temperatures. Indian children across the country are forced to live in overcrowded conditions in homes with 23 other people or in trailers in the Northern Plains with wood stoves and no fresh drinking water. This is a national disgrace. How are children supposed to grow and learn in these conditions and how are communities supposed to thrive? This is particularly distressing given the fact that funding for Indian housing has decreased over the last several years, because it has not kept up with inflation and the rising cost of building materials.

The U.S. has a trust responsibility to provide housing for our First Americans. The bill my colleagues and I are introducing today will strengthen NAHASDA by providing tribes with increased flexibility, with the goal of producing more homes in Indian country. The amendments are incremental changes to current law. We realize that ``one size does not fit all'' in Indian housing. Housing needs in the Great Plains differ greatly from those in the southwest. This is why we retained the basic structure of the Indian Housing Block Grant Program, because through this block grant program, tribes and tribal housing entities are able to use the funds to serve their unique needs.

NAHASDA works and with the amendments we are proposing, it will continue to improve housing conditions for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Please allow me to highlight some of the major amendments we are proposing.

Title I of the bill would reauthorize the Indian housing block grant and amend the program to streamline reporting requirements. Title I will also allow Indian tribes to have increased flexibility in running their housing programs by allowing funds to be utilized for community buildings such as day-care centers, Laundromats, and multi-purpose community centers. Through housing we are not only building homes, but the hope is to also build communities.

Title II of the bill creates a new Self-Determined Housing Activities program under which grant recipients may use a portion of their funding to meet their distinct needs in a self-determined manner. This title also expands the list of activities that grant funds may be used for to include operation, maintenance and rehabilitation of rental and homeownership units, mold remediation and necessary infrastructure.

Title III of the bill authorizes a study to assess the existing data sources for determining the need for housing for funding purposes, while Title VI creates a new demonstration project to allow grant recipients to access vital economic development and infrastructure programs.

I am committed to finding ways to provide more homes in Indian Country. The Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2007 is an important and crucial step towards fulfilling this commitment. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am today introducing the Teachers at the Table Act of 2007. This bill is the Senate companion to legislation introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this year by Representative Carolyn McCarthy of New York and Representative Lee Terry of Nebraska. I am pleased this legislation is cosponsored by my colleagues, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.

This legislation would create a Volunteer Teacher Advisory Committee to advise Congress and the Department of Education on the impact of No Child Left Behind, NCLB, on students, their families, and the classroom learning environment. The teachers serving on this Committee would be chosen from past or present state or national Teachers of the Year and would be competitively selected by the Secretary of Education and the majority and minority leaders of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.

Every year I travel to each of Wisconsin's 72 counties to hold a listening session to listen to Wisconsinites concerns and answer their questions. Since NCLB was enacted in early 2002, education has rated as one of the top issues brought up at my listening sessions. I have received feedback from constituents about the noble intentions of NCLB, but I have also heard

about the multitude of implementation problems with the law's provisions. The feedback from teachers, parents, school administrators, and school board members has been invaluable over the past 5 years and yesterday, I introduced the Improving Student Testing Act of 2007 in response to some of that feedback.

The Teachers at the Table bill I am introducing today seeks to help ensure that Congress and the Department of Education receive high- quality yearly feedback on how NCLB is impacting classroom learning around the country. The teachers who will serve on the committee will be competitively chosen from past and present Teachers of the Year, who represent some of the best that teaching has to offer. The bill would create a committee of twenty teachers, with four selected by the Secretary of Education and four selected by each of the majority and minority leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. These teachers would serve 2-year terms on the advisory committee and would work to prepare annual reports to Congress as well as quarterly updates on the law's implementation.

Every State and every school district is different and this legislation ensures that the teacher advisory committee will represent a wide range of viewpoints. The bill specifies that the volunteer teacher advisory committee should include teachers from diverse geographic areas, teachers who teach different grade levels, and teachers from a variety of specialty areas. Creating a diverse committee will help ensure that the committee presents a broad range of viewpoints on NCLB to Congress and the Department of Education.

Much work needs to be done this fall to reform many of the mandates of NCLB and I look forward to working with my colleagues during the reauthorization to make those necessary changes. One thing is certain-- whatever form the reauthorized NCLB takes, there will be a need for consistent feedback from a diverse range of viewpoints.

We need to ensure that the voices of students, educators, parents, and administrators, who are on the front-lines of education reform in our country, are heard during the reauthorization of NCLB this fall and going forward during the reauthorized law's implementation in years to come. This bill seeks to help address that need by enlisting the service of some of America's best teachers in providing information to Federal education policymakers. The advisory committee created by this legislation will provide nationwide feedback and will allow Congress to hear about NCLB directly from those who deal with the law and its consequences on a daily basis.