Military Retired Pay Fairness Act of 2009

Mr. President, I am introducing legislation today with Ms. Collins and Ms. Stabenow entitled Child Health Care Crisis Relief Act of 2009.

This important legislation will address the national shortage of children's mental health professionals, including school-based professionals, by encouraging more individuals to enter these critical fields. The landmark 1999 Surgeon General's report on mental health brought a hidden mental health crisis to the attention of the U.S. public. According to that report, 13.7 million children in our country--about one in five--suffer from a diagnosable emotional or behavioral disorder. Such disorders as Anxiety Disorders, Attention- Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Depression are among the most common in this age group. Yet more than \2/3\ of these children do not receive any treatment. Long waiting lists for children seeking services, including those in crisis, are not uncommon. The primary reason is that severe shortages exist in qualified mental health professionals, including child and adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors. The President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health also found that ``the supply of well-trained mental health professionals is inadequate in most areas of the country . . . particular shortages exist for mental health providers who serve children, adolescents, and older Americans.'' The situation is no better in our public schools, where children's mental health needs are often first identified. According to the National Center for Education Statistics within the Department of Education, there are approximately 479 students for each school counselor in U.S. schools, nearly twice the recommended ratio of 250 students for each counselor.

The situation in my home State of New Mexico is a case in point. Estimates suggest that 56,000 children and adolescents in New Mexico have an emotional or behavioral disorder. Of these, roughly 20,000 have serious disturbances that impair their ability to fulfill the demands of everyday life. In 2009, there were a total of 55 child and adolescent psychiatrists in the entire State of New Mexico. The impact of this shortage on the affected children and their communities is disconcerting. Research shows that children with untreated emotional and behavioral disorders are at higher risk for school failure and dropping out of school, violence, drug abuse, suicide, and criminal activity. For New Mexico youth, the suicide rate is twice the national average, the fourth highest in the nation, and the third leading cause of death. By one estimate, roughly 1 in 7 youth in New Mexico detention centers are in need of mental health treatment that is just not available.

New Mexico is not alone in its struggle to address the needs of these children. Nationwide, over 1,600 urban, suburban, and rural communities have been designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas by the Federal Government due to their severe lack of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other professionals to serve children and adults. Rural areas are especially hard hit. For example, in New Mexico there is one psychiatrist per 20,000 residents in rural areas, whereas in urban areas there is one per 3,000 residents. In rural and frontier counties, it is not unusual for the parents of a child in need of services to travel 60 to 90 miles to reach the nearest psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health provider.

Finally, graduate programs providing the vital pipeline for the child mental health workforce have not sufficiently increased their funding, class sizes, and training programs to meet the ever growing need for these specialists. In the U.S., only 300 new child and adolescent psychiatrists are trained each year, despite projections by the Bureau of Health Professions that the shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrist will grow to 4,000 by the year 2020. Federal grant funding for graduate psychology education has also been significantly reduced in the past 2 years, which could reduce the numbers of child and adolescent psychologists entering the profession.

Clearly something needs to be done to address this serious shortage in mental health professionals to meet the growing needs of our Nation's youth. It is for this reason that I rise today to offer the Child Health Care Crisis Relief Act of 2009. This bill creates incentives to help recruit and retain mental health professionals providing direct clinical care, and to help create, expand, and improve programs to train child mental health professionals. It provides loan repayments and scholarships for child mental health and school-based service professionals as well as internships and field placements in child mental health services and training for paraprofessionals who work in children's mental health clinical settings. The bill also provides grants to graduate schools to help develop and expand child and adolescent mental health programs. It restores the Medicare Graduate Medical Education Program funding for child and adolescent psychiatrists and extends the board eligibility period for residents and fellows from 4 years to 6 years. Across all mental health professions, priority for loan repayments, scholarships, and grants is given to individuals and programs serving children and adolescents in high-need areas.

Finally, the Child Health Care Crisis Relief Act of 2009 requires the Secretary to prepare a report on the distribution and need for child mental health and school-based professionals, including disparities in the availability of services, on a State-by-State basis. This report will help Congress more clearly ascertain the mental health workforce needs that are facing our Nation.

This important legislation has been endorsed by the following organizations: Alliance for Children and Families, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, American Counseling Association, American Group Psychotherapy Association, American Mental Health Counselors Association, American Orthopsychiatric Association,

American Psychiatric Association, American Psychiatric Nurses Association, American Psychological Association, Anxiety Disorders Association of America, Association for the Advancement of Psychology, Association for Ambulatory Behavioral Healthcare, Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Attention Disorder, Child & Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, Child Welfare League of America, Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, Eating Disorders Coalition for Research Policy & Action, Mental Health America, National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health, National Alliance on Mental Illness, National Association for Children's Behavioral Health, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health, National Mental Health Awareness Campaign, Suicide Prevention Action Network USA, Therapeutic Communities of America, U.S. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, Witness Justice.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to highlight the greatest resource of Arkansas. It is our people. It is the working families and the small businesses in their valiant fight against the current economic crisis.

It is more important than ever before to give working families and businesses the tools they need to succeed in this world, to be competitive in the global marketplace and, more importantly, to be able to be successful on their own land. Hard work and entrepreneurship have fueled the Arkansas small business economy for decades, and we must ensure it remains that way in the future.

That is why I have designed a package of tax cuts and Tax Code simplification measures that I call the Arkansas Plan, to help move our State and hard-working families forward. Together, these tax measures will allow working families and small businesses to get ahead and emerge from this economic crisis stronger and more competitive than ever before. These measures will encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, create new jobs, and lessen our dependence on foreign oil; as well as reduce the burden on working families and small businesses by simplifying our ever-complicated Tax Code.

This week, I am focused on measures that will allow working families and small businesses to emerge from the economic crisis stronger and more competitive. I have reintroduced the Small Business Health Options Program, which would make health insurance more affordable, predictable, and accessible for small businesses and self-employed individuals. Our SHOP bill offers tax incentives to encourage States to reform the poorly functioning small group insurance market and encourages the development of State purchasing pools backstopped by a voluntary nationwide pool.

The majority of uninsured Americans are self-employed individuals and employees of small businesses. Small businesses are the No. 1 source for jobs in our great State of Arkansas. Yet only 29 percent of businesses with fewer than 50 employees offer health insurance coverage because it is simply too expensive. Of the total uninsured population of Arkansas--more than 56 percent--approximately 295,000 Arkansans are employed by a firm with 100 or fewer employees.

Our SHOP bill is a pragmatic model for larger health reform legislation that allows us to begin to address the needs of the millions of working uninsured Americans whose top priority is access to quality and affordable health care for their families. What we are looking for is to be able to give small businesses, their employees, and self-employed individuals the access to the same kind of quality and affordable health insurance we enjoy as Members of Congress.

I think it is very doable. I am looking forward to continuing my work with Senator Snowe and others on a plan we have worked on for years now. Whether it is done independently or in the context of a larger health care reform package, it is time to do something for small businesses, their employees, and the self employed because they are the largest component of the uninsured that we could really do something substantively for.

Another piece of my Arkansas plan is legislation to help Arkansas taxpayers who have seen their investments disappear as a result of the deteriorating economic conditions. My proposal would allow taxpayers to deduct up to $10,000--up from the $3,000 cap they have now--as the amount an individual can deduct annually for capital losses suffered.

More than 100,000 Arkansans count on such investments. Arkansas families have seen the value of investments plummet during the current economic crisis. The resulting losses from the dramatic downturn in the market have been felt by all investors, but probably the hardest hit are those taxpayers who are at or near retirement age, who are counting on such funds for their retirement security. This gives them a little bit of ease.

I have also introduced the Savings for Working Families Act, which would encourage low- and middle-income families to establish savings accounts for the purchase of a first home, a college education, or to start a business. These individual development accounts have a proven track record of success in Arkansas.

In addition, today I introduce the Family Tax Relief Act to help the families of more than 140,000 Arkansas children afford the cost of childcare. If you look around this Nation at the hard-working Americans--particularly in Arkansas--who are in need of childcare, good-quality childcare, to be able to pay for it, this is a substantial difference in these economic times that helps them achieve that goal.

Also, today I introduce a bill to update rules for S corporations so that businesses can access capital and have the opportunity to expand and create the much needed jobs Arkansans need.

Together, I believe these bills will equip the working families and small businesses in our great State of Arkansas with the resources needed to navigate the current crisis.

Next week, my Arkansas Plan will focus on encouraging American innovation and entrepreneurship to create new jobs here at home and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. I will introduce a series of energy, research and development, and workforce training

tax initiatives to accomplish this objective.

The following week, I will look forward to introducing reform measures to simplify the Tax Code and reduce the burden of Arkansas' working families and businesses by working to build a tax structure that is fair and equitable for all Americans.

I encourage my colleagues to look at these commonsense measures to see how they will benefit their own constituents in States across this great land.

Throughout my career in the Senate, I have made Arkansas' working families and small businesses my top priorities. From my seat on the Senate Finance Committee, I will continue to work to bring our families the relief they need and business owners the tools they require to invest and grow and become successful and continue to be competitive.

We have a great country, and each of us feels very particular about our State. I come from a seventh-generation Arkansas farm family. My home is precious to me. I reiterate what I started with, and that is that our greatest assets and resources in Arkansas are our people. They are hard working, innovative, and stalwart in coming together to help one another and help this country. Whether they are small business individuals or whether they serve in the armed services or whether they are teachers or whether they care for parents and the elderly, they are wonderful people, and they deserve our utmost attention, as do those in other States.

I am willing to bet my colleagues that the Arkansas Plan, which I put together to benefit Arkansas small businesses and working families, will also benefit the working families in each of their States. I challenge you all to take a look at this and help me to move these initiatives forward on behalf of our working families and small businesses across this country.

Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce the National Foreign Language Coordination Act with my colleagues Senators Cochran, Dodd, and Durbin. Through sustained leadership and a coordinated plan of action, our bill aims to increase the number of individuals with foreign language skills and cultural understanding.

Globalization has made the world smaller and Americans must be better equipped, with language skills and cultural knowledge, not only to survive in it, but to prosper. Whether it is: competing on the world market to provide goods and services, cross cultural exchanges between educators and business people of different countries, or allied military or diplomatic operations to make the world more secure and peaceful, all of these efforts require communication to succeed.

It took the tragic events of 9-11 to bring attention to our shortage of foreign language speakers. Many of you know about the emergency call for linguists following the attacks. Unfortunately, this was not surprising. The fact that only 9.3 percent of all Americans speak both their native languages and another language fluently, compared with 56 percent of people in the European Union, is cause for alarm.

Our national security continues to be at risk without enough foreign language proficient individuals. Counterterrorism intelligence will go untranslated, or be so late as to lose its usefulness, if we do not have more foreign language experts. Foreign language skills are also vitally important to preserve the economic competitiveness of the U.S. Globalization forces some Americans to compete for jobs in a marketplace no longer limited by borders. According to the Committee for Economic Development, the lack of foreign language skills and international knowledge results in embarrassing and costly cultural blunders for companies. In fact, the Committee reports that American companies lose an estimated $2 billion a year due to inadequate cultural understanding.

Many of the Federal Government's efforts to address language needs in the U.S. over the past 40 years have come in reaction to international events. We do not have a proactive policy.

In 1958, the National Defense Education Act was passed in response to the Soviet Union's first space launch. We were determined to win the space race and make certain that the U.S. never came up short again in math, science, technology, or foreign languages. That act was a great success, but in the late 70s its foreign language programs merged into larger education reform measures and lost their prominence. The results are clear. In 1979, the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies said that ``Americans' incompetence in foreign languages is nothing short of scandalous, and it is becoming worse.''

After 9-11, Congress and the administration once again took action to address language shortfalls, but I fear that these efforts will prove to be only a band-aid and not a complete cure to the Nation's recurring foreign language needs. Despite the administration's efforts to implement new programs and policies to address our language shortfalls, I fear that without sustained leadership and a coordinated effort among all Federal agencies, state and local governments, the private sector, and academia, we will remain where we are today: scrambling to find linguists after another major international event. We must be prepared to avoid another 9-11 type shortage.

Together we must commit to build and maintain language expertise and relationships with people from all across the world--whether or not the languages they speak are considered critical at the time--and to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place to prevent catastrophic events--or at least be prepared to respond to them. To this end, there needs to be one person in the Executive Branch who will lead the cross- agency efforts to better understand America's language needs for the next 5, 15, or 20 years, and to figure out how to address those needs. This leadership must be comprehensive, as no one sector--Government, industry, or academia--has all of the needs for language and cultural competency, or all of the solutions.

The Bush administration's National Security Language Initiative was a good first step at coordinating efforts among the Intelligence Directorate and the Departments of Defense, Education, and State to address our national security language needs. However, we must ensure that this effort will continue, bring in the advice of all Federal agencies and stakeholders, and address our economic security needs.

The legislation we introduce today would set us on the right course by implementing a key recommendation of the 2004 Department of Defense, DOD, National Language Conference and echoed by Department of Defense sponsored State language roadmap summits which is to establish a National Foreign Language Coordination Council, chaired by a National Language Advisor. An integrated foreign language strategy and sustained leadership within the Federal Government is needed to address the lack of foreign language proficient speakers in government, academia and the private sector. Just as I have advocated the need for deputy secretaries for management at the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to direct and sustain management leadership, I envision a National Language Advisor to be responsible for maintaining and leading a cooperative effort to strengthen our foreign language capabilities. Without such a coordinated strategy in the world in which we live, I fear that the country's national and economic security will be at greater risk.

Specifically, our bill ensures that the key recommendations of the DOD National Language Conference be implemented by having strong leadership that will develop policies and programs that build the Nation's language and cultural understanding capability; engage Federal, State, and local agencies and the private sector in solutions; develop language skills in a wide range of critical languages; strengthen our education system, programs, and tools in foreign languages and cultures; and, integrate language training into career fields and increasing the number of language professionals.

To strengthen the role of the U.S. in the world, our country must ensure that there are sufficient numbers of individuals who are proficient in languages other than English. Increasing foreign language skills enhances national security and economic prosperity.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, Americans have every right to be outraged over the recent bonuses given to employees of the group within AIG that led to that company's collapse. American taxpayers have provided $185 billion--and counting--to save a firm that has been deemed ``too interconnected to fail.''

It is unacceptable that millions of those taxpayer dollars have been handed over to some of the executives who caused this disaster in the first place. If there is a constitutional way to reclaim those bonuses, I support it.

But it is important to remember that executive compensation practices have been out of control for many years. While the wages and benefits of middle class workers have stagnated, CEO compensation has exploded.

According to the Economic Policy Institute's ``State of Working America,'' in 1965 U.S. CEOs at major companies made 24 times the pay of an average worker. By 2005, CEOs earned 262 times the pay of an average worker.

The comparison between CEOs and minimum wage workers is even starker. In 1965 U.S. CEOs at major companies made 51 times the pay of workers earning the minimum wage. By 2005, CEOs earned 821 times the pay of workers earning the minimum wage.

These comparisons are important not because they could be used to incite calls for class warfare, but because the American people deserve an honest accounting of the activities of the corporations that touch their lives in so many ways. Every American deserves an honest wage for honest work. And every American, from the top of the corporate ladder to the bottom, deserves to know whether they are being compensated fairly--whether they are sharing in the rewards of the company's work or whether their labors are mainly fueling ever more extravagant pay for the top executives.

We have lost the balance we once had in America. Executive pay has soared, while pay for many s has not even kept pace with their productivity increases. It's not surprising that there is widespread fury when CEOs get it wrong. After all, they have a hand in setting their own salaries. But recently, the anger of the average American worker has boiled over because so many CEOs have gotten it so wrong. That outcome is not healthy for our economy, and it's not healthy for our society.

If companies want to pay their executives handsomely for excellent performance, they should be able to do that. They should be able to compete for top talent. But the shareholders should be looking over their shoulders as they adopt excessive pay structures, and the taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing the resulting income disparities.

To restore some balance, the shareholders of a corporation should have to approve lucrative compensation packages. And, the companies shouldn't receive a tax deduction for handing out excessive pay.

That is why today I am introducing two bills--the Excessive Pay Shareholder Approval Act S. 1006, and the Excessive Pay Capped Deduction Act, S. 1007.

The Excessive Pay Shareholder Approval Act would require a supermajority--60 percent--vote of the shareholders to approve a compensation structure in which any employee receives more than 100 times more than the average employee of that company. Corporations could pay executives whatever they think is appropriate, but shareholders would have to OK packages that are 100 times as large as the average worker earns. This bill would require greater transparency in compensation and would encourage companies to think about how they pay their lower-paid workers, not just how they reward the people at the top.

Similarly, the Excessive Pay Capped Deduction Act would limit the normal tax deduction for compensation for executives to 100 times the compensation of the average worker at that company. Again, corporations could pay executives whatever they decide is appropriate, but they could not claim limitless tax benefits for doing so. This bill also would encourage companies to look at their entire compensation structure, and it would protect taxpayers.

Here is an example. If the average worker at a company earned, including wages, paid leave, supplemental pay, and retirement, the same amount as the average worker nationwide in December of 2008, that worker would have earned around $50,000. At that company, a supermajority of shareholders would be required to approve pay packages larger than $5 million and that company could not deduct compensation in excess of $5 million.

How many companies would this affect? According to the research firm The Corporate Library, in 2007 the median compensation for CEOs of S&P 500 companies was $8.8 million. Therefore, if these companies are only paying average wages across the rest of the company, many of them would be affected by this legislation. Many would not.

From our founding, this country has benefitted from a sense of unity and balance that has brought Americans together in good times and in bad. If the rewards handed out by our leading corporations flow excessively to the very wealthy while leaving middle-class families behind, we risk losing that sense of common purpose. The uproar over AIG bonuses showed very clearly the corrosive effects of compensation packages that appear to be disconnected from the reality that the average family faces day in and day out.

The two bills I am introducing today would help to restore some of the balance we have lost, by ensuring greater accountability for the disparities in compensation for corporate leaders and the average workers they employ, and by protecting taxpayers when a company's compensation packages reach extreme levels.

I urge my colleagues to support both bills.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Military Retirement Pay Fairness Act of 2009. I want to thank my colleague, Senator Gregg, for cosponsoring this important legislation.

The Military Retirement Pay Fairness Act addresses a critical issue that impacts our nation's veterans. Certain service members who receive special separation pay must have that benefit recouped if they later re-enlist and become eligible for a pension. Under current law, the Department of Defense, DOD, is bound by a statutory formula for recouping that benefit and cannot change the amount it recoups each month, even if it results in severe financial hardship for our nation's veterans. In fact, many veterans are currently in dire financial straits because of this unnecessarily harsh formula. This legislation will fix the formula and provide these veterans with much needed financial relief.

I would like to talk about one particular veteran who brought this issue to my attention. Sgt. Wayne Merritt of Dover, New Hampshire served in the Air Force for nearly 14 years until the end of the Cold War, when the Defense Department began to draw down its forces. At DOD's encouragement, Mr. Merritt took a one-time Special Separation Benefit, and then started working in the private sector.

But in 1996, Sgt. Merritt decided to serve his country once again, joining the New Hampshire Air National Guard. When Sgt. Merritt retired in 2006, he became eligible for a pension that provided him and his family with enough to help pay the bills, especially his monthly mortgage payments.

However, just a couple of months ago, Sgt. Merritt had his life turned upside down when he got a letter in the mail from the Defense Department. The letter said that, within a few weeks, DOD would begin recouping his separation benefit by withholding more than half of his pension each month until the full amount is paid back.

Sgt. Merritt was shocked. He planned his family budget around a pension payment he had been receiving each month for nearly 2 years, only to get a letter saying that, in a few weeks, it would be reduced by more than half. Sgt. Merritt suddenly found himself in a position where he couldn't make ends meet and make his mortgage payments. In fact, he was so concerned that he contacted a real estate agent to talk about selling his home.

Sgt. Merritt contacted DOD, asking if there was anything that could be done to work out a manageable monthly payment plan. Sgt. Merritt did not ask for the amount to be forgiven, but simply asked DOD to be flexible and work out a payment plan that he could afford. DOD told him that there was nothing it could do to help, citing a statute that tied its hands.

On behalf of Sgt. Merritt, I contacted DOD and spoke to Undersecretary Robert Hale. He told me that DOD doesn't have a choice-- it must recoup over half of his income because the formula in the statute dictates the rate. The result is that Sgt. Merritt, and over 1,000 veterans in similar situations across the country, face financial hardship as a result of an unfair rule. As each month goes by, DOD has to garnish over half of Sgt. Merritt's pension payments.

I do not believe that Congress intends to treat our Nation's veterans this way. That is why I am introducing legislation today that would provide a simple and straightforward solution. Instead of an unnecessarily harsh formula, our bill will provide DOD with the flexibility it needs to develop manageable monthly payment plans that do not impose undue financial hardship on service members. In addition, DOD would be required to consult with the service member to create a monthly payment plan, taking into account a veteran's financial situation when determining how much should be recouped each month. To make sure these payment plans are manageable, DOD would only be able to recoup, at the most, 25 percent of the veteran's monthly pension check until the benefit is repaid.

This legislation would also address other problems with pension recoupment.

It would provide service members with adequate notice of the recoupment so that they have time to prepare for the loss of income. Sgt. Merritt received his letter just weeks before DOD garnished over half of his pension pay. This legislation ensures that service members have at least 90 days notice before recoupment begins.

Finally, the legislation would also give the Secretary of Defense the flexibility to ensure that no veteran will be left destitute from this recoupment. We need to recognize that financial circumstances change over time. If recouping the benefit would cause a severe financial hardship, the Secretary of Defense should be able to waive that amount.

This legislation is critical. Each month, over 1,000 veterans face circumstances similar to Sgt. Merritt's. Undersecretary Robert Hale told me that while he sympathizes with these veterans, he has no legal recourse to change the amount it recoups every month. This legislation provides DOD with the flexibility it needs to ensure that we do not punish veterans who have made the courageous decision to serve their country again.

I'm glad that this effort has the support of DOD, as well as veterans organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, VFW, and the Military Officers Association of America, MOAA.

I want to thank Senator Gregg for his support of this important, common sense legislation. I also want to thank my fellow New Hampshire delegation member, Carol Shea-Porter, for introducing companion legislation in the House. I urge my colleagues to join me in addressing these important issues.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.