Floor Statements

If there is no further business to come before the Senate today, and if the Republican leader has nothing further, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, recently in my home State of Vermont, the Vermont State Senate, with a very strong vote, passed a resolution in opposition to the war in Iraq and demanding that our troops come home as soon as possible. It is appropriate our legislature has done that because in Vermont we have paid a very high price for this war. In fact, in terms of per capita loss, the State of Vermont is higher, tragically, than any other State in this country.

In my home State of Vermont, and I believe all across this country, the American people are deeply concerned about the war. They want real debate here in Washington on the issue and, most importantly, they want reaction. That is why I will vote for cloture on S.J. Res. 9 and why I will then proceed, if I am allowed to, if the Republicans allow us to cast that vote, to vote for this resolution.

Let me say a word about the resolution itself, which is very clear and to my mind directly addresses the central concerns of the majority of Americans who, in the elections last November, made it as clear as they could that they want a new course in Iraq. They do not want more of the same, they want a new direction.

The joint resolution we are debating backs our troops, it fully supports our troops, but recognizes that circumstances in Iraq have changed dramatically and most importantly establishes a goal of removing U.S. combat troops by March 2008.

It requires the troop redeployment out of Iraq begin no later than 4 months after the legislation is enacted. The goal it sets of redeploying most of our troops out of Iraq, March 31, 2008, happens to be the very same date proposed by the bipartisan and well-respected Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. So this follows very closely the line of thought of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.

It allows troops to remain in Iraq for three purposes: to protect Americans still working on Iraqi reconstruction, to train the Iraqi police and their military, and to engage in counterterrorism operations.

In my view, President Bush's war in Iraq has been an unmitigated disaster. It is a war many of us understood we should never have gotten into in the first place. It is a war this administration was totally unprepared to fight, where some people in the administration were talking about how the Iraqis would be throwing flowers at our troops-- not roadside bombs but flowers--and that our troops would be coming home after a ``cakewalk,'' in a couple of months.

That was what they were talking about. It is a war that unfortunately and tragically has cost us terribly in terms of American blood. As of today, we have lost almost 3,200 brave American soldiers, almost 24,000 more have been wounded. Let me tell you very clearly that the evidence is overwhelming that tens of thousands more of these brave soldiers fighting in Iraq are going to be coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder or coming back home with traumatic brain injury. That is the reality of what this war has cost us up to now.

This at a time when we do not have the funding to adequately take care of our veterans, as we have seen at Walter Reed, at a time when middle-class families cannot afford to send their kids to college, at a time when this Nation has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, at a time when hunger in America is substantially increasing. This war, with the President's proposed increase, will cost us some $500 billion and that price tag is going up by $8 billion every month.

This cost is not only going to take money away from the pressing needs of the middle-class and working families of this country, but it is going to add to the $8.5 trillion national debt which this country currently has.

This is a war that has caused unspeakable horror for the people of Iraq--not just for our families who have suffered losses but for the people of Iraq. People who had suffered so long

under the horrendous brutality of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship are suffering even more today. We are looking at a nation in the process of disintegration. That is Iraq today. There are estimates that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed--some estimates go as high as 500,000--and almost 2 million Iraqis have fled their own country. In fact, anyone in Iraq who has any money at all, anyone who is part of the middle class, is trying to get out of that country as quickly as possible, and about 8 percent of Iraqis have had to flee their own country.

As I speak, President Bush is returning from a trip to Latin America. Wherever he spoke, he encountered massive protests. In country after country he discovered that people in Latin America hold our Nation in extremely low esteem, largely because of his ill-advised decision to invade Iraq and the disastrous way in which the Iraq occupation has been managed. That is certainly true not just in Latin America, it is true all over the world. How are we, as the most powerful military force in the world, going to be able to lead the world in the very important fight against international terrorism and Islamic extremism when in country after country leaders do not want to identify with us because of the policies of the President of the United States.

In the days immediately following 9/11, the world rallied around the United States when we were grievously attacked; not just leaders but the huge majority of people in nations all over the world expressed their support and expressed their concern for the United States. They were on our side, not just for reasons of compassion but understanding that we had to work together as a planet, as a civilized world in addressing the attacks of extremists and fundamentalists and terrorists. We had to work together and the United States was prepared to play a leadership role.

Tragically, that reality is no longer the case. We are now held in lower esteem internationally than ever before in the modern history of America. That is not just a bad thing in the sense of our young people going to Europe and finding out they are not respected or that our country is not respected, it is a bad thing if we are serious about trying to develop an international consensus to fight the very serious problem of international terrorism.

Tragically, the Bush administration has refused to listen to the American people who, in the national election this past November, made it very clear they want a new direction in Iraq and they want this war wound down. They did not vote for an escalation in this war, they voted to wind down the war. This administration has not only not listened to the American people, they have refused to listen to the thoughtful suggestions of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This administration has refused to listen to the advice of our military leaders in Iraq who have told us that increasing troops from the United States would make it easier for the Iraqi Government and military to avoid their political and military responsibilities: Why make the hard political decisions? Why make the hard financial decisions? You don't have to do that. Uncle Sam is there to provide you with the troops. The American taxpayer is there to provide you with the money. You don't have to make those choices.

This administration has not only refused to listen to the American people, to our military, to the Iraq Study Group, perhaps most importantly they have refused to listen to the Iraqi people themselves who, according to a number of polls, tell us very strongly they believe that in the midst of all of the chaos, all of the horror that is taking place in their country, they would be more safe, they would be more secure if our troops left their country.

If President Bush will not listen to anybody, including the American people, including former generals, including the Iraq Study Group, including international public opinion, then it is up to Congress to tell him it is time to move in a new direction in Iraq. In the 2006 elections, in my view, the people of Vermont and of this Nation told us they wanted Congress to begin asserting its constitutional authority over this war and that they wanted us to rein in this administration. Most important, they told us they wanted us to begin the process of bringing our troops home as soon as possible. As a Vermont Senator, that is exactly the effort I intend to make. We must bring our troops home instead of leaving them to be embattled referees of a civil war that only the Iraqis--not our brave soldiers--can stop.

Iraq's Government and its military must step up and accept their political and military responsibilities. As the Baker-Hamilton commission said, that will only happen when we insist that the Iraqis and not American troops are responsible for the future of Iraq.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 399 and the bill be referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, March 15; that on Thursday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and that there then be a period of morning business for 60 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the first 30 minutes under the control of the Republicans and the next 30 minutes under the control of the majority; that the period of morning business be extended for an additional 30 minutes, with that time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; that during the adjournment all time count postcloture and all time in morning business count postcloture.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, and if the Republican leader has no further business today, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, in several weeks, the Senate will begin its deliberations on the fiscal year 2008 budget resolution. It is my strong belief that the Senate must pass a budget that will expand the shrinking middle class, that will reduce the enormous and growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, that will keep our promises to our Nation's veterans, that will reduce our recordbreaking national debt and lower the poverty rate. That is what this Senate should be focusing on.

Simply stated, in my opinion, the way for us to move in that direction is to repeal the President's tax breaks that have been given to the wealthiest 1 percent, the people who need it the least and, in addition, for us to take a hard look at the Pentagon, take a hard look at the waste and the fraud and the unnecessary weapons systems that are existing in the Pentagon right now. We don't need weapons systems that were designed to fight the Soviet Union; we need an approach to fight al-Qaida.

I think we can find billions of dollars in savings when we look at the military budget as well. The bill I am introducing today, the National Priorities Act, will in fact accomplish these goals.

A budget is more than a long list of numbers.

A budget is a statement about our values, our priorities, and the time is long overdue for the United States Congress to get its priorities right, to begin to stand up for the middle class and working families of this country, rather than multinational corporations and the wealthiest people who, year after year after year, have so much power over this institution.

Let me do what is too rarely done on the floor of this Senate, and that is take a hard and cold look at the reality facing the American middle class and working families of this country.

As a member of the Budget Committee, every week we have somebody from the President's administration coming before us, and they tell us the economy is doing great; it is marvelous. The people of Vermont and the middle class of this country don't believe it because every single day they are seeing an economy which is forcing them, in many instances, to work longer hours for lower wages, an economy in which they wonder how their kids are going to get decent-paying jobs, an economy which suggests that for the first time in the modern history of our country, our children, if we do not change our direction, could have a lower standard of living than we do.

What the American dream has been about is that our parents worked hard so that we could have a better life than they did, and that is what we want for our kids. But unless we make fundamental changes in the way this economy is working, the likelihood is that our kids, despite a huge increase in worker productivity, despite technology, will have a lower standard of living than we do, and we must not allow that to happen.

Since President Bush has been in office, more than 5 million Americans have slipped into poverty. We are seeing an increase in the rate of poverty in the United States, including 1 million more children. Not only does the United States have the highest rate of poverty of any major country on Earth, we also, shamefully, have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world.

I know there is a whole lot of talk about moral values on the floors of the Senate and the House. To my mind, having the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world is not a moral value. It is a disgrace. It is a shame. It is time we in this country paid attention to the children rather than the wealthiest people.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the childhood poverty rate is nearly 18 percent. Other studies suggest that it might be higher.

Some people say: Well, that's the way it goes. Well, that is not the way it goes among other major countries in the world. In Germany, the childhood poverty rate is 9 percent; in France, it is less than 8 percent; in Sweden, it is less than 7 percent; in Norway, 4.2 percent; in Finland, 3.4 percent. If other countries can have childhood poverty rates of less than 5 percent, so can the United States of America.

Just one example. Our allies in Great Britain made a commitment to end childhood poverty and they have reduced the childhood poverty rate by over 20 percent since 1999. At the same time, child poverty in the United States increased by 12 percent. If we make the commitment, we can do that.

Let's take a look at our health care situation. The costs of health care, as everybody in this country knows, are soaring. The number of people without health insurance has risen to a record high of 46.4 million in the year 2005. That is an increase of almost 7 million more Americans lacking health insurance since President Bush took office.

While the President continues to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, the lack of health insurance kills many more Americans each year than September 11 and Katrina combined. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they lack health insurance.

In my view, the United States of America must join the rest of the industrialized world. We must guarantee health care to all of our people as a right of citizenship. While I know some

people say we can't afford to do it, I would argue that at a time when we are spending more than twice as much per capita on health care as any major nation on Earth, we can do that. We can provide quality health care to every man, woman, and child as a right of citizenship without spending a nickel more than we are presently spending. But to do that, we must be honest. We are going to have to take on the insurance companies. We are going to have to take on the drug companies. We are going to have to take on the multinational corporations that benefit out of our health care system and say that when we spend money for health care, it should go to health care not for profiteering.

Health care is not just a human rights issue, it is not just a moral issue, it is an economic issue as well. Small businesses cannot survive if they are forced to pay huge increases in health care premiums each and every year. That is true in the State of Vermont. That is true all over America. More and more small businesses are simply saying: We can't do it; we can't provide health insurance to our workers--which is one of the reasons the number of uninsured is going up.

In addition to the health care crisis, there is an area within health care that I want to focus a lot of attention on, and that is the crisis in dental care. In rural America, in rural Vermont it is becoming very difficult for people to find a dentist. The Surgeon General has reported that tooth decay has become the single most common chronic childhood disease, five times more common than asthma and seven times more common than hay fever.

I will be introducing legislation to address the dental crisis in this country. I do not want to see kids in schools have teeth rotting in their mouths. We can do better than that.

In terms of education, millions of middle-class American families are finding it increasingly difficult to afford the escalating cost of a college education with average tuition and other costs increasing by more than $4,300 at a 4-year public university and over $8,000 at a 4- year private college since 2001.

We all understand that young people are not going to make it into the middle class unless they get a college education. We all understand that our Nation is not going to be economically competitive if our young people do not get the best college education they possibly can. Yet all over our country, middle-class families are saying: How am I going to be able to afford to send my kids to college? And young people are graduating college on average about $20,000 in debt. If they are lower income, they may come out of college $30,000, $40,000 in debt.

If we are serious in what we say about the importance of education, we have to make college education affordable to every family in this country. We don't want to lose the intellectual capital of millions of young people who are sitting there wondering: Can I afford to go to college? Do I want to come out of college deeply in debt?

Last year, 35 million Americans in our country, the richest country in the history of the world, struggled to put food on the table-- struggled to put food on the table. The Agriculture Department recently reported that the number of the poorest, hungriest Americans keeps going up.

What is going on in this great country when more and more of our fellow Americans are going hungry and are struggling to put food on the table? This should not be happening in America. But it is not only hunger, we have an affordable crisis in housing as well. Today millions of working Americans are paying 50 to 60 percent of their limited incomes to put a roof over their heads, and we have families in the United States of America--families--who are sleeping in their cars, children who are sleeping in cars, and we have people, as we all know, who continue to sleep out on the streets of cities and towns all over America.

Last year, there were 1.2 million home foreclosures in this country, an increase of 42 percent since 2005.

When we talk about the needs of the middle class, it is not just affordable housing. The issue of energy is a prominent issue that must be addressed. The cost of energy has risen rapidly. Since President Bush has been in office, oil prices have more than doubled and gasoline prices have gone up by 70 percent since January of 2001, and gas prices are soaring as I speak. In rural States, such as my State of Vermont, such as Minnesota, workers get into their cars, they fill up their gas tanks, and suddenly they are finding that increased cost is coming right out of their paycheck. They are not making much more money. The cost of gas is going up.

In America today, the bottom line is that millions of American workers are working longer hours for lower wages. The median income for working-age families has declined 5 years in a row. Husbands are working long hours, wives are working long hours, kids in high school are working trying to make ends meet, and in many instances people are falling further and further behind.

Today, incredible as it may sound, the personal savings rate in America is below zero, and that has not happened since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In other words, all over this country, working people and people in the middle class are purchasing groceries and other basic necessities with their credit cards and are going, in the process, deeper and deeper in debt.

Over the past 6 years, when we talk about the economy and decent- paying jobs, we should recognize that as a nation, we have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs which often pay people good wages and good benefits. In my own small State of Vermont, we have lost 10,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 6 years, which is 20 percent of the manufacturing jobs in our small State.

The reality is that if somebody loses their manufacturing job and they are lucky enough to find another job, in most cases, that other job will pay substantially lower wages and have worse benefits than the manufacturing job they have lost.

Today, 3 million fewer American workers have pension coverage than when President Bush took office, and half of private sector American workers have no pension coverage whatsoever. I have long been involved in the struggle to make sure that workers have been able to retain the pensions that were promised to them by their employers. But we are seeing more and more workers who have enormous pension anxiety: Is the pension that was promised to me 20 years ago when I began to work in this company going to be there when I need it, when I retire? More and more workers are finding that will not be the case.

One thing we do not often talk about is just how hard the people in our country are working. We kind of forget about that. But the fact is, the people, working people in this country, now work the longest hours of any people in the industrialized world. In my State of Vermont, it is absolutely not uncommon to see people who are working not one job, not two jobs, but on occasion working three jobs trying to cobble together an income, trying to cobble together some health care for their families. People are working 50 hours, 60 hours, 70 hours.

The New York Times reported a while back that the idea of the 2-week paid vacation is becoming something of history. So we have people who are working 51 weeks a year, and there are people working 52 weeks a year. That is what is going on in the middle class and working families of our country.

The reason I raise these issues is that it is terribly important to bring a dose of reality to the floor of the Senate.

When the President tells us the economy is doing great, the truth is that he is right, in one sense. The economy is not doing well for the middle class. It is not doing well for working families. Poverty is increasing. But the President is right when he says the economy is doing well for the wealthiest people in this country. That is true. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is shrinking, and poverty is increasing. That is the reality.

The reality is that the upper 1 percent of the families in America today, that 1 percent has not had it so good since the 1920s. According to Forbes magazine, the collective net worth of the wealthiest 400 Americans increased by $120 billion last year to $1.25 trillion. The 400 wealthiest Americans are worth $1.25 trillion.

Sadly, the United States today--and I know we don't talk about this too much, but it is important to bring it out on the table--the United States

today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country on Earth and the most unequal distribution of income of any major country on Earth, and that gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider. Today, the wealthiest 13,000 families in America earn nearly as much income as the bottom 20 million, and the wealthiest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Let me repeat that: 13,000 families earn almost as much income as the bottom 20 million, and the richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. That trend is very dangerous for our country. It suggests we are moving in the direction of an oligarchy, where a small number of people have incredible wealth and, with that wealth, incredible power, at the same time as the vast majority of our people are struggling just to keep their heads above water. We as a nation can do a lot better than that.

According to a December 2006 report by the Congressional Budget Office, the average after-tax income of the wealthiest 1 percent of households rose from $722,000 in 2003 to $868,000 in 2004. After adjusting for inflation, that is a 1-year increase of nearly $146,000, or 20 percent. This represents the largest increase in 15 years measured both in percentage terms and in real dollars.

Now, what does that mean in English? What it means in English is that the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well, that is what it means, while a lot of other people are struggling very hard to keep their families afloat.

Why have I given this overview of the state of the economy? I have given this overview because I believe we need a budget that begins to address the realities I have just discussed. We need a budget that says to the middle class and working families and low-income Americans: We know you are hurting; we are on your side. At the same time, we need a budget that says to the very wealthiest people in this country: You know what, you are part of America, too. Your incomes are soaring. If you are a CEO of a large corporation, you are making 400 times what the worker in your company is making. You know what, we want you to be part of America, and you have to make some sacrifices so the people in this country don't go hungry and so working-class kids can get a college education. Join America. Don't be separate with your huge incomes.

The President has just, as you know, introduced his budget. He has told us that in his budget, the United States does not have enough money to meet the health care needs of this country. His response is to inadequately fund the Children's Health Insurance Program and to cut Medicare and Medicaid by $280 billion over the next decade.

The President has told us we don't have enough money to take care of our veterans, and we all have seen recently what has been going on at Walter Reed Hospital. The President has said that despite the fact that we have 22,000 wounded in Iraq and that we have veterans on waiting lists all over this country, we just don't have the money to take care of our veterans.

The President has told us we don't have enough money for childcare; we don't have enough money for dental care; we don't have enough money for special education; we don't have enough money to address the crisis in global warming; we don't have enough money to make sure qualified students have access to a quality education without going deeply into debt.

The President has told us we don't have enough money to fully fund Head Start, that we don't have enough money to expand the earned income tax credit.

That is what the President has told us.

The President, in his budget, has also told us something else. The President has said we don't have enough money for the needs of the middle class and working families, but we do have enough money to provide $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent and that we really don't have to take a hard look at the Pentagon and all the waste, the fraud, and the unnecessary weapons systems that are in that institution.

In my view, these upside-down priorities have to be changed, and that is the responsibility of this Senate. The bill I am introducing today will begin to turn our national priorities in a very different direction from that which the President is suggesting.

The National Priorities Act will repeal tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent in 2008 and eliminate $60 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse at the Pentagon and use that money to do the following. In other words, what we are doing is we are going to ask our wealthy friends who have received huge tax breaks to start paying a little bit more in taxes. We are going to ask the Pentagon to take a hard look at their huge budget and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. We are going to be raising about $130 billion to do that.

Now, let me tell you what we can do with that $130 billion. We can provide health care services for over 4 million Americans by increasing investments in federally qualified health centers and by raising funds substantially for the National Health Service Corps. In my State and all over America, federally qualified health centers are providing cost-effective quality health care to millions of people. By increasing funding and expanding these programs, putting more money into these programs, we can provide high-quality health care, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs, and we can do it in a cost-effective way. We can make a serious effort to provide primary health care to every man, woman, and child in this country. That is what we can do.

We can expand access to dental care. By providing $140 million more for workforce, capital, and equipment needed, we can address in a significant way the dental care crisis in this country.

We can provide health insurance to over 8 million children not covered by expanding the CHIP program, Children's Health Insurance Program, by over $15 billion. In my State of Vermont, almost all of our kids have health insurance. The rest of our country should move in that direction. It is not acceptable that children in America do not have health insurance. We can do that through this legislation.

We can address the crisis in terms of inadequate funding in the VA and make sure that all of our veterans get the health care they were promised, the health care they deserve. That is what this budget does.

We also, in this budget, ensure that working families with children have access to affordable childcare by increasing investments in the childcare development block grant by over $2 billion. It is a national outrage that all over this country working families cannot find good, quality affordable childcare. Single moms are going off to work, and they are worried. They worry deeply about the quality of care their children are receiving. It is a major crisis. This legislation provides the funds to address that crisis.

Head Start has been a successful program. This legislation provides the funding to allow every qualified child in America to receive early education, nutrition, and health services by fully funding the Head Start Program.

In my State of Vermont and, again, all over this country, higher and higher property taxes are causing very serious problems for middle- class families, splitting communities apart. This legislation will lower property taxes by keeping the Federal commitment to provide 40 percent of the cost of special education for about 7 million children with disabilities. Mainstreaming kids with disabilities is a good idea. It is the right thing to do. The Federal Government has not kept the promises it has made to school districts all over this country. We have to increase funding substantially for special education, not, as the President wants, cut funding for special education. This bill does that.

This bill provides an additional 330,000 students with Pell grants and increases its purchasing power for over 5.4 million other students by doubling the maximum Pell grant. In other words, we want our young people to be able to go to college. We do not want them to come out in debt. This legislation does that.

This legislation instills low-income high school students with the skills and opportunity they need to go to college by increasing the TRIO and GEAR UP education programs by 50 percent.

This legislation creates more than 200,000 jobs by increasing investments in renewable energy, energy-efficient appliances, public transportation, and

high-speed rail. By making our environment cleaner, by attacking and reversing global warming, we can create hundreds of thousands of jobs. That is what this legislation does.

This legislation addresses the crisis in affordable housing by creating 180,000 jobs in constructing, preserving, and rehabilitating affordable housing rental units.

This legislation reduces taxes by $400 to $1,134 per year for 10 million American workers and families with children by expanding the earned-income tax credit.

This legislation reduces the deficit by $30 billion.

To be very honest, I do not expect this legislation to be passed tomorrow, probably not even the next day. What this legislation is doing, though, is providing the Congress with a blueprint, and it is a very simple blueprint. It says: Which side are you on? It says that when those people who come before us and say: Yes, we understand there is a health care crisis; we just can't afford to do anything about it; we understand there is a childcare crisis, there is a housing crisis, there is a crisis in terms of the affordability of higher education, but we just can't do anything about it. We just don't have the money. What this legislation does is say: Yes, we do have the money. We do have the money if we rescind the tax breaks that go to millionaires and billionaires, if we ask the Pentagon to preserve, to make sure we continue to have all the resources we need for our soldiers and the strongest military in the world but take a hard look at waste, fraud, abuse, and weapons systems we don't need. If you do those two things, we can come up with $130 billion. With that $130 billion, we can address the major problems facing our country, and we can lower our deficit.

I hope that my fellow colleagues will give serious thought to this legislation and that we can move it forward.

Mr. President, in several weeks, the Senate will begin its deliberations on the fiscal year 2008 budget resolution. It is my strong belief that the Senate must pass a budget that will expand the shrinking middle class, that will reduce the enormous and growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, that will keep our promises to our Nation's veterans, that will reduce our recordbreaking national debt and lower the poverty rate. That is what this Senate should be focusing on.

Simply stated, in my opinion, the way for us to move in that direction is to repeal the President's tax breaks that have been given to the wealthiest 1 percent, the people who need it the least and, in addition, for us to take a hard look at the Pentagon, take a hard look at the waste and the fraud and the unnecessary weapons systems that are existing in the Pentagon right now. We don't need weapons systems that were designed to fight the Soviet Union; we need an approach to fight al-Qaida.

I think we can find billions of dollars in savings when we look at the military budget as well. The bill I am introducing today, the National Priorities Act, will in fact accomplish these goals.

A budget is more than a long list of numbers.

A budget is a statement about our values, our priorities, and the time is long overdue for the United States Congress to get its priorities right, to begin to stand up for the middle class and working families of this country, rather than multinational corporations and the wealthiest people who, year after year after year, have so much power over this institution.

Let me do what is too rarely done on the floor of this Senate, and that is take a hard and cold look at the reality facing the American middle class and working families of this country.

As a member of the Budget Committee, every week we have somebody from the President's administration coming before us, and they tell us the economy is doing great; it is marvelous. The people of Vermont and the middle class of this country don't believe it because every single day they are seeing an economy which is forcing them, in many instances, to work longer hours for lower wages, an economy in which they wonder how their kids are going to get decent-paying jobs, an economy which suggests that for the first time in the modern history of our country, our children, if we do not change our direction, could have a lower standard of living than we do.

What the American dream has been about is that our parents worked hard so that we could have a better life than they did, and that is what we want for our kids. But unless we make fundamental changes in the way this economy is working, the likelihood is that our kids, despite a huge increase in worker productivity, despite technology, will have a lower standard of living than we do, and we must not allow that to happen.

Since President Bush has been in office, more than 5 million Americans have slipped into poverty. We are seeing an increase in the rate of poverty in the United States, including 1 million more children. Not only does the United States have the highest rate of poverty of any major country on Earth, we also, shamefully, have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world.

I know there is a whole lot of talk about moral values on the floors of the Senate and the House. To my mind, having the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world is not a moral value. It is a disgrace. It is a shame. It is time we in this country paid attention to the children rather than the wealthiest people.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the childhood poverty rate is nearly 18 percent. Other studies suggest that it might be higher.

Some people say: Well, that's the way it goes. Well, that is not the way it goes among other major countries in the world. In Germany, the childhood poverty rate is 9 percent; in France, it is less than 8 percent; in Sweden, it is less than 7 percent; in Norway, 4.2 percent; in Finland, 3.4 percent. If other countries can have childhood poverty rates of less than 5 percent, so can the United States of America.

Just one example. Our allies in Great Britain made a commitment to end childhood poverty and they have reduced the childhood poverty rate by over 20 percent since 1999. At the same time, child poverty in the United States increased by 12 percent. If we make the commitment, we can do that.

Let's take a look at our health care situation. The costs of health care, as everybody in this country knows, are soaring. The number of people without health insurance has risen to a record high of 46.4 million in the year 2005. That is an increase of almost 7 million more Americans lacking health insurance since President Bush took office.

While the President continues to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, the lack of health insurance kills many more Americans each year than September 11 and Katrina combined. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they lack health insurance.

In my view, the United States of America must join the rest of the industrialized world. We must guarantee health care to all of our people as a right of citizenship. While I know some

people say we can't afford to do it, I would argue that at a time when we are spending more than twice as much per capita on health care as any major nation on Earth, we can do that. We can provide quality health care to every man, woman, and child as a right of citizenship without spending a nickel more than we are presently spending. But to do that, we must be honest. We are going to have to take on the insurance companies. We are going to have to take on the drug companies. We are going to have to take on the multinational corporations that benefit out of our health care system and say that when we spend money for health care, it should go to health care not for profiteering.

Health care is not just a human rights issue, it is not just a moral issue, it is an economic issue as well. Small businesses cannot survive if they are forced to pay huge increases in health care premiums each and every year. That is true in the State of Vermont. That is true all over America. More and more small businesses are simply saying: We can't do it; we can't provide health insurance to our workers--which is one of the reasons the number of uninsured is going up.

In addition to the health care crisis, there is an area within health care that I want to focus a lot of attention on, and that is the crisis in dental care. In rural America, in rural Vermont it is becoming very difficult for people to find a dentist. The Surgeon General has reported that tooth decay has become the single most common chronic childhood disease, five times more common than asthma and seven times more common than hay fever.

I will be introducing legislation to address the dental crisis in this country. I do not want to see kids in schools have teeth rotting in their mouths. We can do better than that.

In terms of education, millions of middle-class American families are finding it increasingly difficult to afford the escalating cost of a college education with average tuition and other costs increasing by more than $4,300 at a 4-year public university and over $8,000 at a 4- year private college since 2001.

We all understand that young people are not going to make it into the middle class unless they get a college education. We all understand that our Nation is not going to be economically competitive if our young people do not get the best college education they possibly can. Yet all over our country, middle-class families are saying: How am I going to be able to afford to send my kids to college? And young people are graduating college on average about $20,000 in debt. If they are lower income, they may come out of college $30,000, $40,000 in debt.

If we are serious in what we say about the importance of education, we have to make college education affordable to every family in this country. We don't want to lose the intellectual capital of millions of young people who are sitting there wondering: Can I afford to go to college? Do I want to come out of college deeply in debt?

Last year, 35 million Americans in our country, the richest country in the history of the world, struggled to put food on the table-- struggled to put food on the table. The Agriculture Department recently reported that the number of the poorest, hungriest Americans keeps going up.

What is going on in this great country when more and more of our fellow Americans are going hungry and are struggling to put food on the table? This should not be happening in America. But it is not only hunger, we have an affordable crisis in housing as well. Today millions of working Americans are paying 50 to 60 percent of their limited incomes to put a roof over their heads, and we have families in the United States of America--families--who are sleeping in their cars, children who are sleeping in cars, and we have people, as we all know, who continue to sleep out on the streets of cities and towns all over America.

Last year, there were 1.2 million home foreclosures in this country, an increase of 42 percent since 2005.

When we talk about the needs of the middle class, it is not just affordable housing. The issue of energy is a prominent issue that must be addressed. The cost of energy has risen rapidly. Since President Bush has been in office, oil prices have more than doubled and gasoline prices have gone up by 70 percent since January of 2001, and gas prices are soaring as I speak. In rural States, such as my State of Vermont, such as Minnesota, workers get into their cars, they fill up their gas tanks, and suddenly they are finding that increased cost is coming right out of their paycheck. They are not making much more money. The cost of gas is going up.

In America today, the bottom line is that millions of American workers are working longer hours for lower wages. The median income for working-age families has declined 5 years in a row. Husbands are working long hours, wives are working long hours, kids in high school are working trying to make ends meet, and in many instances people are falling further and further behind.

Today, incredible as it may sound, the personal savings rate in America is below zero, and that has not happened since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In other words, all over this country, working people and people in the middle class are purchasing groceries and other basic necessities with their credit cards and are going, in the process, deeper and deeper in debt.

Over the past 6 years, when we talk about the economy and decent- paying jobs, we should recognize that as a nation, we have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs which often pay people good wages and good benefits. In my own small State of Vermont, we have lost 10,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 6 years, which is 20 percent of the manufacturing jobs in our small State.

The reality is that if somebody loses their manufacturing job and they are lucky enough to find another job, in most cases, that other job will pay substantially lower wages and have worse benefits than the manufacturing job they have lost.

Today, 3 million fewer American workers have pension coverage than when President Bush took office, and half of private sector American workers have no pension coverage whatsoever. I have long been involved in the struggle to make sure that workers have been able to retain the pensions that were promised to them by their employers. But we are seeing more and more workers who have enormous pension anxiety: Is the pension that was promised to me 20 years ago when I began to work in this company going to be there when I need it, when I retire? More and more workers are finding that will not be the case.

One thing we do not often talk about is just how hard the people in our country are working. We kind of forget about that. But the fact is, the people, working people in this country, now work the longest hours of any people in the industrialized world. In my State of Vermont, it is absolutely not uncommon to see people who are working not one job, not two jobs, but on occasion working three jobs trying to cobble together an income, trying to cobble together some health care for their families. People are working 50 hours, 60 hours, 70 hours.

The New York Times reported a while back that the idea of the 2-week paid vacation is becoming something of history. So we have people who are working 51 weeks a year, and there are people working 52 weeks a year. That is what is going on in the middle class and working families of our country.

The reason I raise these issues is that it is terribly important to bring a dose of reality to the floor of the Senate.

When the President tells us the economy is doing great, the truth is that he is right, in one sense. The economy is not doing well for the middle class. It is not doing well for working families. Poverty is increasing. But the President is right when he says the economy is doing well for the wealthiest people in this country. That is true. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is shrinking, and poverty is increasing. That is the reality.

The reality is that the upper 1 percent of the families in America today, that 1 percent has not had it so good since the 1920s. According to Forbes magazine, the collective net worth of the wealthiest 400 Americans increased by $120 billion last year to $1.25 trillion. The 400 wealthiest Americans are worth $1.25 trillion.

Sadly, the United States today--and I know we don't talk about this too much, but it is important to bring it out on the table--the United States

today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country on Earth and the most unequal distribution of income of any major country on Earth, and that gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider. Today, the wealthiest 13,000 families in America earn nearly as much income as the bottom 20 million, and the wealthiest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Let me repeat that: 13,000 families earn almost as much income as the bottom 20 million, and the richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. That trend is very dangerous for our country. It suggests we are moving in the direction of an oligarchy, where a small number of people have incredible wealth and, with that wealth, incredible power, at the same time as the vast majority of our people are struggling just to keep their heads above water. We as a nation can do a lot better than that.

According to a December 2006 report by the Congressional Budget Office, the average after-tax income of the wealthiest 1 percent of households rose from $722,000 in 2003 to $868,000 in 2004. After adjusting for inflation, that is a 1-year increase of nearly $146,000, or 20 percent. This represents the largest increase in 15 years measured both in percentage terms and in real dollars.

Now, what does that mean in English? What it means in English is that the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well, that is what it means, while a lot of other people are struggling very hard to keep their families afloat.

Why have I given this overview of the state of the economy? I have given this overview because I believe we need a budget that begins to address the realities I have just discussed. We need a budget that says to the middle class and working families and low-income Americans: We know you are hurting; we are on your side. At the same time, we need a budget that says to the very wealthiest people in this country: You know what, you are part of America, too. Your incomes are soaring. If you are a CEO of a large corporation, you are making 400 times what the worker in your company is making. You know what, we want you to be part of America, and you have to make some sacrifices so the people in this country don't go hungry and so working-class kids can get a college education. Join America. Don't be separate with your huge incomes.

The President has just, as you know, introduced his budget. He has told us that in his budget, the United States does not have enough money to meet the health care needs of this country. His response is to inadequately fund the Children's Health Insurance Program and to cut Medicare and Medicaid by $280 billion over the next decade.

The President has told us we don't have enough money to take care of our veterans, and we all have seen recently what has been going on at Walter Reed Hospital. The President has said that despite the fact that we have 22,000 wounded in Iraq and that we have veterans on waiting lists all over this country, we just don't have the money to take care of our veterans.

The President has told us we don't have enough money for childcare; we don't have enough money for dental care; we don't have enough money for special education; we don't have enough money to address the crisis in global warming; we don't have enough money to make sure qualified students have access to a quality education without going deeply into debt.

The President has told us we don't have enough money to fully fund Head Start, that we don't have enough money to expand the earned income tax credit.

That is what the President has told us.

The President, in his budget, has also told us something else. The President has said we don't have enough money for the needs of the middle class and working families, but we do have enough money to provide $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent and that we really don't have to take a hard look at the Pentagon and all the waste, the fraud, and the unnecessary weapons systems that are in that institution.

In my view, these upside-down priorities have to be changed, and that is the responsibility of this Senate. The bill I am introducing today will begin to turn our national priorities in a very different direction from that which the President is suggesting.

The National Priorities Act will repeal tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent in 2008 and eliminate $60 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse at the Pentagon and use that money to do the following. In other words, what we are doing is we are going to ask our wealthy friends who have received huge tax breaks to start paying a little bit more in taxes. We are going to ask the Pentagon to take a hard look at their huge budget and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. We are going to be raising about $130 billion to do that.

Now, let me tell you what we can do with that $130 billion. We can provide health care services for over 4 million Americans by increasing investments in federally qualified health centers and by raising funds substantially for the National Health Service Corps. In my State and all over America, federally qualified health centers are providing cost-effective quality health care to millions of people. By increasing funding and expanding these programs, putting more money into these programs, we can provide high-quality health care, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs, and we can do it in a cost-effective way. We can make a serious effort to provide primary health care to every man, woman, and child in this country. That is what we can do.

We can expand access to dental care. By providing $140 million more for workforce, capital, and equipment needed, we can address in a significant way the dental care crisis in this country.

We can provide health insurance to over 8 million children not covered by expanding the CHIP program, Children's Health Insurance Program, by over $15 billion. In my State of Vermont, almost all of our kids have health insurance. The rest of our country should move in that direction. It is not acceptable that children in America do not have health insurance. We can do that through this legislation.

We can address the crisis in terms of inadequate funding in the VA and make sure that all of our veterans get the health care they were promised, the health care they deserve. That is what this budget does.

We also, in this budget, ensure that working families with children have access to affordable childcare by increasing investments in the childcare development block grant by over $2 billion. It is a national outrage that all over this country working families cannot find good, quality affordable childcare. Single moms are going off to work, and they are worried. They worry deeply about the quality of care their children are receiving. It is a major crisis. This legislation provides the funds to address that crisis.

Head Start has been a successful program. This legislation provides the funding to allow every qualified child in America to receive early education, nutrition, and health services by fully funding the Head Start Program.

In my State of Vermont and, again, all over this country, higher and higher property taxes are causing very serious problems for middle- class families, splitting communities apart. This legislation will lower property taxes by keeping the Federal commitment to provide 40 percent of the cost of special education for about 7 million children with disabilities. Mainstreaming kids with disabilities is a good idea. It is the right thing to do. The Federal Government has not kept the promises it has made to school districts all over this country. We have to increase funding substantially for special education, not, as the President wants, cut funding for special education. This bill does that.

This bill provides an additional 330,000 students with Pell grants and increases its purchasing power for over 5.4 million other students by doubling the maximum Pell grant. In other words, we want our young people to be able to go to college. We do not want them to come out in debt. This legislation does that.

This legislation instills low-income high school students with the skills and opportunity they need to go to college by increasing the TRIO and GEAR UP education programs by 50 percent.

This legislation creates more than 200,000 jobs by increasing investments in renewable energy, energy-efficient appliances, public transportation, and

high-speed rail. By making our environment cleaner, by attacking and reversing global warming, we can create hundreds of thousands of jobs. That is what this legislation does.

This legislation addresses the crisis in affordable housing by creating 180,000 jobs in constructing, preserving, and rehabilitating affordable housing rental units.

This legislation reduces taxes by $400 to $1,134 per year for 10 million American workers and families with children by expanding the earned-income tax credit.

This legislation reduces the deficit by $30 billion.

To be very honest, I do not expect this legislation to be passed tomorrow, probably not even the next day. What this legislation is doing, though, is providing the Congress with a blueprint, and it is a very simple blueprint. It says: Which side are you on? It says that when those people who come before us and say: Yes, we understand there is a health care crisis; we just can't afford to do anything about it; we understand there is a childcare crisis, there is a housing crisis, there is a crisis in terms of the affordability of higher education, but we just can't do anything about it. We just don't have the money. What this legislation does is say: Yes, we do have the money. We do have the money if we rescind the tax breaks that go to millionaires and billionaires, if we ask the Pentagon to preserve, to make sure we continue to have all the resources we need for our soldiers and the strongest military in the world but take a hard look at waste, fraud, abuse, and weapons systems we don't need. If you do those two things, we can come up with $130 billion. With that $130 billion, we can address the major problems facing our country, and we can lower our deficit.

I hope that my fellow colleagues will give serious thought to this legislation and that we can move it forward.

Mr. President, before I begin discussing the war in Iraq, I wish to say a few words about another issue that is perhaps even more important and that is the constitutional issues at the very heart of this entire debate.

Let me be very frank: I am not a great fan of the Bush administration. And of the many grave concerns I have about President Bush and his actions, at the top of that list is that the President seems not to understand what the Constitution of the United States is all about. Whether it is the consistent attack on our constitutional rights which his administration has pursued for a number of years or his ``signing statements'' which attempt to circumvent legislation passed by Congress, the President appears to believe he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to. That, in my view, is not what the United States of America is all about, and it is not what our Constitution provides for.

In that regard, I wish to inform my colleagues in the Senate that I have submitted a resolution, similar to one introduced by Congressman DeFazio in the House, that makes it very clear the President does not have the constitutional authority to start a war against Iran without the express authority of the Congress. There are many people in my State of Vermont--and there are people all over this country--who are deeply worried that the President may take us into a war in Iran and that he is currently laying the groundwork for that war in exactly the same way he led us into the war in Iraq.

So let me be very clear: If President Bush were to start a war in Iran without receiving the authority to do so from Congress, he would not only be creating, in my view, an international disaster, he would also be creating a major constitutional crisis. I hope very much he does not do that.

President Bush fails to understand the power to declare war under the Constitution is given to the Congress, not the President. My resolution, S. Con. Res. 13, is very simple. It states clearly that it is ``the sense of Congress that the President should not initiate military action against Iran without first obtaining authorization from Congress.'' I hope my colleagues will give strong support to this resolution.

Mr. President, in my State of Vermont and all across this Nation, the American people are increasingly concerned about the war in Iraq. As others have stated more eloquently than I, the American people want real debate in Washington, in the Senate, on this issue that is worrying people all across our Nation. More importantly, not only do they want debate, they want action, and they want action now.

Frankly, I have a hard time understanding why some of my colleagues would try, through parliamentary maneuvers, to prevent a vote on what is at best a very modest proposal. This issue is not complicated in terms of what will be taking place tomorrow on this floor. It seems to me that if you support President Bush's escalation of the war in Iraq-- and there are many who do--then vote against the resolution. That is your right. On the other hand, if you don't believe that an escalation of this war is a sensible idea--and I certainly do not--then vote for the Reid resolution. But at the very least, there should be a vote. Let the American people know how we stand.

Let me be clear in giving you my perspective on this war: In my view, President Bush's war in Iraq has been a disaster. It is a war we were misled into and a war many of us believe we never should have gotten into in the first place, a war I voted against as a Member of the House. This is a war the administration was unprepared to fight. The administration has shown little understanding of the enemy or the historical context in which we found ourselves.

Who will ever forget President Bush declaring ``mission accomplished'' aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln when, in fact, the mission had barely begun. Who will forget Vice President Cheney telling us that the insurgency was ``in its last throes'' just before some of the bloodiest months of the war. Who will forget those Bush advisors who predicted the war would be a cakewalk, nothing to worry about, and that we would be greeted in Iraq as liberators.

This war in Iraq has come at a very high price in so many ways. This is a war that has cost us terribly in American blood. As of today, we have lost over 3,100 brave American soldiers. In my own small State of Vermont, we have lost 25. Twenty-three thousand more Americans have been wounded, and tens of thousands will be coming home with posttraumatic stress disorder which will impact their lives forever. This is a war which, with the President's proposed increase in funding, will cost us some $500 billion, with the price tag going up by $8 billion every month. This cost is going to add to the huge national debt we are leaving to our children and our grandchildren and it is going to make it that much more difficult for us to fund health care, education, environmental protection, affordable housing, childcare, and the pressing needs of the middle class and working families of our country which have been so long neglected. Yes, for more military spending; no, for the needs of ordinary Americans who are struggling so hard to keep their heads above water.

This increased expense for the war will make it that much harder for us to fund the needs of our veterans whose numbers are increasing as a result of this war. This is a war which has caused unimaginable horror for the people of Iraq. People who suffered so long under the brutality of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship are suffering even more today. There are estimates that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or wounded and almost 2 million have been forced to flee their own country, some 8 percent of their entire population. While civil war tears neighborhoods apart, children are without schools, people are without electricity, health care, and other basic necessities of life. The doctors and nurses, teachers and administrators who have provided the professional infrastructure for the people of Iraq are now long gone.

This is a war which has lowered our standing in the international community to an all-time low in our lifetimes, with leaders in democratic countries hesitant to work with us because of the lack of respect their citizens have for our President. Long-time friends and allies are simply wondering: What is going on in the United States of America, that great country? This is a war which has stretched both our Active-Duty military to the breaking point as well as our National Guard and Reserve forces.

Morale in the military is low, and this war will have a lasting impact on the future recruitment, retention, and readiness of our Nation's Armed Forces.

This is a war which has, in many respects, lowered our capability to effectively fight the very serious threats of international terrorism and Islamic extremism. Five years after the horrific attacks of 9/11, Osama bin Laden remains free. Using the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq as their rallying cry, al-Qaida's strength around the world continues to grow. And currently the situation in Afghanistan is becoming more and more difficult.

Tragically, this administration has refused to listen to the American people who, in this last election, made it very clear they want a new direction in Iraq and they want this war wound down. This administration has refused to listen to the thoughtful suggestions of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which included two former Secretaries of State, including President Bush's own father's Secretary of State, as well as a former Presidential Chief Of Staff and a former Secretary of Defense, that it was time for a change of direction. The President didn't listen to them. This administration has refused to listen to the advice of our military leaders in Iraq who told us increasing troops from the United States would make it easier for the Iraqi Government and military to avoid their political and military responsibilities. The more troops that come in, the easier it is for the Iraqi Government to avoid making the political compromises and the tough choices they have to make.

This administration has refused to listen to the Iraqi people, who, according to a number of polls, tell us very strongly that they believe in the midst of all of the chaos and horror taking place in Iraq today, the Iraqi people say they would be safer and more secure if our troops left their country. In fact, this administration has tragically refused to listen to anybody, except that same shrinking inner circle, led by Vice President Cheney, who has been consistently wrong from day one. Those are the people the President continues to listen to.

As most everybody understands, and as the recent National Intelligence Estimate has recently confirmed, the situation in Iraq today is extremely dire. The sad truth is that now there are no good options before us; there are simply less bad options. In Iraq today, according to Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, there are now at least four separate wars being fought--four separate wars that our soldiers, who have fought with incredible bravery and skill, now find themselves in the middle of.

Let me quote Secretary Gates, who has recently stated:

I believe there are essentially four wars going on in Iraq: One is Shia on Shia, principally in the south; second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al-Qaida.

The reality today, as described by the Secretary of Defense, has nothing to do with why President Bush got us into this war in the first place. In March of 2002, he told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that they were poised to use them against us. That was not true and certainly has no relevance to the war today. In 2002, he told us Iraq was somehow linked to al-Qaida and had some responsibility for the 9/11 attack against our country. That also turned out not to be true and certainly has no relevance today to the situation in which we find ourselves.

In the 2006 elections, the American people, in a loud and unmistakable voice, told us they no longer had confidence in the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. In my view, they told us they wanted Congress to begin asserting its constitutional authority over this war and that they wanted us to rein in this administration. Most importantly, they told us they wanted us to begin the process of bringing our troops home as soon as possible. And as a Vermont Senator, that is exactly the effort I intend to make.

In my view, the Reid resolution before us is but a small first step at moving us forward. If it is passed--and I hope it will be--it must be followed with much stronger legislation that has real teeth in it. That is what the American people want. I have cosponsored legislation, introduced by Senator Kennedy, that would prohibit the use of funds for an escalation of U.S. military forces without a specific, new authorization from the Congress--a prohibition also included in the legislation introduced by Senator Obama, whose bill I also support.

Instead of just voicing our disapproval of President Bush's escalation of the war in a nonbinding manner, we should now be considering legislation that provides for the safe and orderly redeployment of virtually all of our troops out of Iraq within the next year, even as we continue to give support to the Iraq Government and their military for the purpose of helping them accept their political and military responsibilities. That is the legislation we should be passing.

Senator Feingold has introduced legislation requiring that our troops be redeployed from Iraq within 6 months of passage of the bill. Senator Obama has introduced similar legislation requiring that our troops be redeployed starting this May.

In my view, while I will vote for the Reid resolution tomorrow, and while I think it is terribly important that we bring together a bipartisan effort to tell the President this escalation is wrong, the bottom line is we must go forward well beyond that, and we must do that in the near future. We must exercise the constitutional responsibility we have over the power of the purse.

We are mired in a war that has now gone on longer than any American involvement--longer than American involvement in either the First World War or the Second World War. We will spend more money on this war in real dollars than we spent on either the Korean war or the Vietnam war. Our standing in the international community has declined and our ability to combat international terrorism has been seriously compromised.

It is time to say no to this ill-conceived escalation. It is time to deploy our troops out of harm's way. It is time to end this war and to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can.

Mr. President, the issue of American presence in the Middle East is of great importance. We are currently engaged in a war in Iraq from which, according to poll after poll, a majority of the American people believe we should withdraw.

In the face of the momentous elections of this past November, in which the American electorate indicated their dissatisfaction with the President's policies in Iraq, President Bush has responded with a call for more troops, not less. At this moment, he is escalating the war, not redeploying our brave men and women out of harm's way. He is sending these troops into the middle of a civil war.

Now there are reports that the President may be considering expanding this tragic war into Iran. The President has no constitutional authority to make war on Iran without congressional approval, nor has he historical precedent. I offer today a resolution ``expressing the sense of Congress that the President should not initiate military action against Iran without first obtaining authorization from Congress.'' The resolution sets forth the constitutional grant of authority to Congress for declaring war and funding any war, it cites Federalist Paper No. 69 on the intention of the drafters of the Constitution, and it cites Presidents Washington and Jefferson on the power reserved to Congress to authorize war.

The resolution strongly and unequivocally affirms that the President does not have the power to initiate military action against Iran without first obtaining authorization from Congress, that neither of the existing authorizations to use military force in Iraq gives him such authority, and that the President must seek congressional authority prior to taking any military action against Iran.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the issue of American presence in the Middle East is of great importance. We are currently engaged in a war in Iraq from which, according to poll after poll, a majority of the American people believe we should withdraw.

In the face of the momentous elections of this past November, in which the American electorate indicated their dissatisfaction with the President's policies in Iraq, President Bush has responded with a call for more troops, not less. At this moment, he is escalating the war, not redeploying our brave men and women out of harm's way. He is sending these troops into the middle of a civil war.

Now there are reports that the President may be considering expanding this tragic war into Iran. The President has no constitutional authority to make war on Iran, nor has he historical precedent. I offer today a resolution ``expressing the sense of Congress that the President should not initiate military action against Iran without first obtaining authorization from Congress.'' It sets forth the constitutional grant of authority to Congress for declaring war and funding any war, which cites Federalist paper number 69 on the intention of the drafters of the Constitution, and which cites Presidents Washington and Jefferson on the power reserved to Congress to authorize war.

The resolution strongly and unequivocally affirms that the President does not have the power to initiate military action against Iran without first obtaining authorization from Congress, that neither of the existing authorizations to use military force in Iraq gives him such authority, and that the President must seek congressional authority prior to taking any military action against Iran.

Mr. President, the Federal budget is more than a long list of numbers which, in this case, adds up to about $2.9 trillion. The Federal budget, similar to any family budget or any company budget, is a statement of values and priorities. In fact, the Federal budget, in many ways, is a statement of what our country is all about.

We would all find it irresponsible and strange if a family we knew spent all of its money on an expensive vacation but forgot to put aside money for the mortgage or the rent and suddenly the family and their kids found themselves out on the street. We would say: My goodness, that is irresponsible. The family was spending money where they shouldn't have been and not spending it where they should.

Preparing the Federal budget and analyzing the Federal budget is exactly the same process. It is about spending the money of the people of the United States of America. It is about deciding where we should spend it and where we should not spend it. It is looking at the American people as a family. It is about taking a hard look at the needs of our people and prioritizing the budget in an intelligent and a rational way.

Let me take a quick glance at the economic reality facing the middle class, the working families of our country, tens and tens of millions of Americans and their kids.

Since President Bush has been in office, more than 5 million Americans have slipped into poverty, including over 1 million children. Not only does the United States of America have the highest rate of poverty of any major country on Earth, we also shamefully have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, with almost 18 percent of our children living in poverty. Today, 37 million Americans live in poverty and 13 million are children.

Last year, in the richest Nation in the history of the world, 35 million of our fellow Americans struggled to put food on the table. The Agriculture Department recently reported that the number of the poorest, hungriest Americans keep rising. In America today, hunger is a growing problem.

We have a crisis in our Nation in terms of affordable housing. Millions of working families in my State of Vermont and all over this country are paying 50 to 60 percent of their limited incomes for housing. And there are, as we well know, other families who are either living in their cars or living out on the streets--in some cases, with their children--in America.

Last year, there were 1.2 million home foreclosures in this country, an increase of 42 percent since 2005.

The cost of energy has rapidly risen since President Bush has been in office. Oil prices have more than doubled and gasoline prices have gone up by 70 percent since January of 2001. This increase in energy prices, in gas prices, is putting a huge strain on people from all over this country, including workers from rural States such as Vermont, who have to travel long distances to get to their jobs.

As is well known, many middle-class families in our country today are finding it increasingly difficult to afford the escalating costs of a college education with average tuition and other costs increasing rapidly with the result that many families are now saying: We can't send our kids to college, while other young people are graduating college deeply in debt.

In America today, millions of our workers are working longer hours for lower wages, and median income for working-age families has declined for 5 years in a row. Today, incredible as it may sound, the personal savings rate is below zero, which has not happened since the Great Depression. In other words, all over this country working people and people in the middle class are purchasing groceries, they are purchasing gas at the pump, they are purchasing other basic necessities through their credit cards and, in the process, are going deeper and deeper into debt.

Over the last 6 years, we have lost in this country 3 million manufacturing jobs, often good-paying manufacturing jobs, including 10,000 in my small State of Vermont. Many of the new jobs that are available to those displaced workers, if they are lucky enough to find new jobs, will pay wages and benefits substantially lower than the jobs they have lost.

It is no secret that in America today our health care system is disintegrating. There is little dispute about that. Health care costs are soaring. Today, we have 46.6 million Americans with zero health insurance, an increase of 6.8 million since President Bush has been in office.

Today, 3 million fewer American workers have pension coverage than when President Bush took office and

half of private-sector American workers have no pension coverage whatsoever.

Throughout our country, American workers who now work the longest hours of any people in the industrialized world--husbands working long hours, wives working long hours, people being stressed out by having to work so hard to earn the living they need to pay for their basic needs--are finding it harder and harder to come up with jobs, to get jobs which provide them a decent amount of vacation time. The 2-week vacation is something many workers no longer can have in this country.

While the middle class is shrinking and while poverty is increasing in our country, there is another reality taking place. That is that the wealthiest 1 percent, the people at the very top of the economic ladder, have not had it so good since the 1920s. The middle class is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the people on the top are doing phenomenally well.

According to Forbes magazine, the selective net worth of the wealthiest 400 Americans increased by $120 billion last year to $1.25 trillion; 400 families, $1.25 trillion in worth. The 400 wealthiest Americans are worth an unbelievable amount of money and their wealth is soaring.

Sadly, however, the United States today has the most unfair distribution of wealth and income of any major country and the gap between the very wealthy and everyone else is growing wider. This was a country formed around egalitarian principles--we are all in it together. When one goes up, others go up. Yet what we are seeing today in an almost unprecedented way is the people on the top making out like bandits, earning huge increases in their incomes, in their wealth, while the middle class shrinks and poverty is increasing.

Today the wealthiest 13,000 families in our country own nearly as much income as do the bottom 20 million families. That is 13,000 compared to 20 million. And the wealthiest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.

I have given a brief sketch of the economy in terms of how it impacts the middle class and working families of our country. Let me, within that context of what is happening to tens of millions of Americans, take a look at the President's budget.

At a time of a major health care crisis, with more and more Americans uninsured or underinsured, the President's budget would cut Medicare and Medicaid by $280 billion over the next decade, lowering the quality of health care for approximately 43 million senior citizens and people with disabilities who depend on Medicare and more than 50 million Americans who rely on Medicaid.

At a time when our childcare and early childhood education system are totally inadequate to meet the needs of working parents, the Bush budget reduces the number of children receiving childcare assistance by 300,000. Childcare in crisis. The President's response: Deny childcare to 300,000 children.

In addition, the President's budget provides a $100 million cut for the Head Start program at a time when only about one-half of the children eligible for this important and excellent program actually participate in it due to a lack of funding. Huge numbers of kids cannot get into Head Start. The President's response: Cut Head Start funding.

While hunger in this country, as I mentioned earlier, is shamefully increasing, the President's budget denies food stamps to 280,000 families and eliminates nutrition assistance to over 400,000 senior citizens, mothers, and newborn children.

We are in a war in Iraq. We are in a war in Afghanistan. The number of our veterans is increasing. Twenty-two thousand have been wounded, many seriously. Many will come back to this country with post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet the President has significantly cut funding for the VA over a period of years, and some years ago made hundreds of thousands of veterans ineligible to get VA health care.

In this great country, with so many people struggling desperately to keep their heads above water, we should not be cutting back on health care. We should not be cutting back on nutritional benefits. We should not be cutting back on Head Start, affordable housing, the needs of our veterans, and educational opportunities for middle-class families. That is what we should not be doing.

This is especially true when the President's budget provides $739 billion in tax breaks over the next decade to households with incomes exceeding $1 million per year. The average tax break for this group of millionaires will total $162,000 by the year 2012.

Let me be very blunt. In my view it is wrong, in my view it is immoral to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires--the people who need them the least--while cutting back on the needs of the middle-class and working families of our country. That is wrong.

Is this budget, the President's budget, a reflection of the values of the people of our country? I do not believe that. I do not believe ordinary Americans think it is right and appropriate to give tax breaks to billionaires and then provide inadequately for our veterans, for our children, and for our seniors. That is not, in my view, what America is about.

We are told over and over again we do not have the money to reduce childhood poverty in this country. We are told we do not have the funds to wipe out the disgrace of hunger in America. We are told we do not have enough money to make sure the young people who graduate from high school in this country, who are excited about going to college, will be able to do so without coming out deeply in debt.

We do not have the money to help those families. Yet--yet--while we turn our backs on the middle-class and working families of our country, it appears we have plenty of money for the millionaires and billionaires of this country. We have tens of billions, in fact, to shower on those who need it the least, yet we have nothing, and we are cutting back on the programs, for those who need it most.

Included in the President's budget, amazingly, is the complete repeal of the estate tax which would take effect at the end of 2010. As you know, the complete repeal of this tax would benefit only the top two- tenths of 1 percent of the American people. Let me repeat that. The complete repeal of the estate tax would benefit solely the upper two- tenths of 1 percent of the American population.

These are families, of course, who already are millionaires and billionaires, and these are families who in the current economy have been doing exceedingly well. In other words, 99.8 percent of Americans would not benefit by one nickel from the complete repeal of the estate tax, as proposed by the President.

According to the President's budget, this repeal of the estate tax would reduce receipts for the Treasury by more than $91 billion over the next 5 years and more than $442 billion over the next decade. But the long-term damage to our fiscal solvency is even worse.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, repealing the estate tax would cost over $1 trillion from 2012 to 2021--over $1 trillion. In other words, if the President's plan to permanently repeal the estate tax succeeds, the children and family members of the very few most privileged families in America will reap a massive tax break. Instead of closing the gap between the rich and the poor, instead of addressing the huge national debt and deficit problems we have, we make both situations worse by fully repealing the estate tax.

I have brought with me a few charts to demonstrate who are the winners and losers in the President's budget. Obviously, fortunes go up and down, and we do not know what anyone is going to be worth tomorrow, let alone in the coming years. And the estimates I am giving to you and the charts I am using are based on two reports.

The first is an April 2006 report by United for a Fair Economy and Public Citizen, entitled ``Spending Millions to Save Billions,'' reflecting the financial position of the wealthiest 400 Americans in this country as compiled by Forbes magazine from the year 2005.

The second is a May 30, 2006 report from the House Government Reform Committee, entitled ``Estimated Tax Savings of Oil Company CEOs.''

Of course, no one can predict what the numbers will be in the years to

come. But these are the best figures available to us at this time.

Let me go to the first chart. The granddaddy of all of the winners under the Bush budget is none other than the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune. If the estate tax was completely repealed, the entire Walton family would receive an estimated tax break of $32.7 billion--that is with a ``B''--$32.7 billion in tax relief for one family which today happens to be one of the wealthiest families in this country already.

Meanwhile, in contrast, the President's budget proposes to cut Medicaid by $28 billion over the next decade, driving up the cost of health care for tens of millions of Americans. In other words, while one of the wealthiest families in this country gets a tax break of over $30 billion, tens of millions of Americans--children, seniors--will suffer. Now, that may make sense to someone, that may appear to be fair to someone, but it sure does not make sense to me. In other words, if the President's proposed budget passes, millions of Americans will lose, including some of the most vulnerable people in our country, while one very wealthy family wins.

A second major beneficiary of the President's tax cuts is the heirs of the Mars candy bar fortune. Now, I like Snickers as much as anybody. And I do not want to be seen here as attacking Snickers, one of the basic food groups of American society. But the family that owns Mars is slated to receive an estimated $11.7 billion tax break if the estate tax is fully repealed.

Mr. President, $11.7 billion for the Mars family. They are winners. Yet, who are the losers? As I mentioned earlier, all over this country there are waiting lines for veterans to get into VA hospitals. We are not keeping our promises to the veterans. Veterans lose while one family wins big time. I think that is wrong.

Another major winner in the President's budget is the Cox family. They are the heirs to the Cox cable fortune. They will gain $9.7 billion if the estate tax is repealed. Meanwhile, while the Cox family would receive almost $10 billion in tax breaks, the President wants to cut funding for education by $1.5 billion.

The President keeps talking about No Child Left Behind while his budget continues to leave, in fact, millions of children behind. In Vermont and all over this country, school districts are struggling with grossly inadequate funding for special education, which the President also wants to cut. We do not have the money to fund special education to improve public education in America. We do not have that money. But we do have $9.7 billion for one family, the Mars family.

Another major beneficiary of the President's budget is the Nordstrom family, owners of the upscale department store chain. By repealing the estate tax, the Nordstrom family stands to receive an estimated $826 million tax break, according to the April 2006 report from United for a Fair Economy. Tax breaks of over $800 million for an enormously wealthy family, and yet we see a $630 million cut in the President's budget for the Community Services Block Grant Program.

As you know, the Community Services Block Grant Program provides the infrastructure necessary to deliver services to 15 million of the lowest income people in our country. These are people who are hungry. When they are hungry, they go to the community action program. When they are homeless, they go to the community action program. When they do not have any money to buy food, they go to the community action program. We are going to cut back on that program, but we do have $826 million in tax breaks for the Nordstrom family.

Another major beneficiary of the Bush budget is the family of Ernest Gallo, who would receive a $468 million tax break--$468 million. Meanwhile, the President proposes to cut $420 million from the Low- Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the LIHEAP program.

According to the latest available data, 5.4 million senior citizens on fixed incomes and low-income families with kids receive help paying their heating bills through this program each and every year. In the State of Vermont, trust me, it gets very cold, and we have a lot of people in Vermont and throughout this country who are dependent upon the LIHEAP program. But, as a nation, the President suggests: No, no, we have to cut $420 million from LIHEAP, which impacts the lives of low-income senior citizens. But--guess what--we do have $468 million available as a tax break for the Gallo family.

The former CEO of ExxonMobil does very well from the President's tax breaks. As some will remember, while the cost of gas at the pumps was soaring, while the profits of ExxonMobil were soaring, the company decided, in its wisdom and generosity, to provide a $400 million retirement package for their departing CEO, Mr. Lee Raymond. Now the President wants to reward Mr. Raymond by providing his estate with an estimated $164 million tax break. On the other hand, there is a program called the Commodities Supplemental Food Program which provides a package of high-quality, nutritious food to some 480,000 seniors, mothers, and children. The President wants to eliminate this program. He is saying to the 4,000 seniors in Vermont who benefit from this program, the almost half a million seniors, mothers, and kids who benefit from this package of food once a month: We in America don't have enough money to provide for you who are hungry, for you who are old. We can't do it. But if you are the former CEO of ExxonMobil, if you have a $400 million bonus at the end of your career, guess what. Your family will get a $164 million tax break.

As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, it appears to me that the choice we as a Congress are facing and that the American people are facing is pretty clear. Do we continue to shower huge tax breaks on millionaires and billionaires, people who are already doing phenomenally well, while we cut back on the needs of the middle-class working families and the most vulnerable people in this country? It all comes down to the phrase ``which side are we on.'' Are we on the side of those people who make huge campaign contributions to Congress and the White House, or are we on the side of tens of millions of working families, struggling hard to keep their heads above water?

That is the choice we face. As a member of the Budget Committee, I think the answer is pretty obvious. I will not be voting to provide a tax break to the heirs of the Wal-Mart fortune. Rather, I will be fighting to substantially increase financial aid for low- and middle- class families so that every American, regardless of income, can receive a college education. I will not support another tax cut for the former CEO of ExxonMobil and his family. Instead, I will be voting to give support to working families all over this country who are desperately seeking quality and affordable childcare.

If, as a nation, we are serious about addressing the long neglected needs of the middle-class and working people and creating a fairer and more egalitarian society, we have to invest in education, health care, housing, and our infrastructure. We have to deal with the crisis of global warming and sustainable energy, as well as many other areas. We also have to reduce our national debt. Given that reality, Congress must develop the courage to stand up to the big money interests, to the wealthiest families. We must roll back the tax breaks given to the wealthiest 1 percent, and we must demand that fortunate people rejoin American society and understand that like everybody else in this country, they are part of America and not a special breed. If we are to keep faith with our children, our seniors, our veterans, and with those people who have no health insurance, we can do no less. I look forward to working with my colleagues to make sure we do just that.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 3 p.m., in closed session to receive a briefing on Iranian activities in Iraq.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on ``The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to evaluate overseas sweatshop abuses, their impact on U.S. workers, and the need for anti-sweatshop legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, for an oversight hearing on the coast guard deepwater acquisition program.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet in executive session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February, 14, 2007 at 9:30 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``Judicial Security and Independence'' for Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 10 a.m. in Hart Senate Office Building Room 216.

Witness List

The Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court, Washington, DC.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 11:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on Senate Committee Budget requests.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 14, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

I ask the Senator to yield so I can do some housekeeping.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate today, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order, at the conclusion of Senator Smith's remarks.

I thank the Senator.