Floor Statements

Madam President, before he leaves the floor, let me congratulate Senator Grassley for his very fine work on this legislation, and Senator Hatch as well. It has been a true bipartisan effort. I want to take this discussion in a little different direction. I strongly support the SCHIP program. I happen to believe it is a disgrace that the United States of America remains the only country in the industrialized world which today does not guarantee health care to all of its people. I just came back the other day from a trip to Costa Rica, and this small, poor country manages to cover all of its people. Yet, in our country, we have 47 million Americans who have no health insurance, and we have some 9 million children who have no health insurance.

I always find it ironic that the American people seem to get from the White House what they don't want, and they don't get what they do want. The American people want to end the war in Iraq as soon as possible, a war which will soon be costing us, if you can believe it, $750 billion--three-quarters of $1 trillion--which even in Washington is a lot of money. For the war in Iraq, for Halliburton contracts, we seem to have an endless supply of money. The American people don't want it, but that is what they are getting.

On the other hand, the American people do want health insurance for their children. The American people strongly support--and the polls are very clear about this--the SCHIP program. The American people would like all of the children in this country to be covered. That is what they want, but that is what they are not getting.

What this bill, in fact, does do, which is very good--and I mentioned a moment ago my congratulations to Senator Grassley and Senator Hatch for their efforts--is it takes us somewhere. It provides health insurance for 5 million more children, which is clearly a significant step forward, and I will strongly support this legislation.

It is interesting to me that from the White House the main argument, it appears, for opposition to this particular piece of legislation, and the reason they are threatening to veto it, one of the key reasons is this is an expansion of ``government health care''--government health care. Let me read to my colleagues to whom it might be of interest, and to the American people, a poll on the economy done a few weeks ago by CBS News, from September 14 to September 16. This is the CBS poll.

Question No. 1: Which do you think would be better for the country: Having one health insurance program covering all Americans that would be administered by the government--administered by this terrible government--and paid for by taxpayers, or keeping the current system where many people get their insurance from private employers and some have no insurance? So CBS asked: Do you want a government-administered program covering all people or do you want the current system? The response from the American people was 55 percent believe in one health insurance for all Americans administered by the government; 29 percent want to maintain the current system.

We hear a lot of discussion from the White House about how terrible ``government health care'' is, and yet what the polls show by an almost 2-to-1 majority is that the American people would like a health insurance system guaranteeing health care to all people administered by the Government and paid for out of the tax base.

When I go back to Vermont, I find strong support for the Medicare Program, I find strong support for the Medicaid Program. Veterans want to see a significant increase in VA health care, which is, in fact, a 100-percent controlled Government program. In fact, Mr. Nicholson, who is head of the Veterans' Administration, former head of the Republican Party, says--and I think he is quite right--that the Veterans' Administration provides some of the very best quality health care in the United States of America, and they have been honored by national organizations who have looked at health care quality and have awarded distinction to the Veterans' Administration, which is, by the way, a 100-percent Government-run health care system. We have federally qualified health systems, health care programs all over America which time and time again are acknowledged to be tremendously successful. They are supported in a very strong, bipartisan way here in the Congress. They provide health care to millions of Americans--Government health care. So I think we should perhaps end this bogeyman mentality of Government health care--how terrible an idea it is. In fact, the American people want more Government health care in this country.

Our health care system has serious problems. In fact, it is in the midst of disintegrating. We have 47 million Americans today who have no health insurance, and that number, since President Bush has been in office, has gone up by over 7 million. The cost of health care is soaring. More and more people are not only uninsured, they are underinsured. Despite all of that, our country continues to spend twice as much per capita on health care as any other Nation on Earth. Meanwhile, despite all of that spending, despite all of the people who are uninsured, our health status measures--including infant mortality and life expectancy and the kind of work we do in disease prevention-- ranks very low compared to other developed countries. We spend more, we get less value, we have more and more people uninsured, our health care system is disintegrating, and it is high time, in my view, that the United States ends the national disgrace of being the only country in the industrialized world that does not provide health care to all people.

Not only are more and more people uninsured; this system is even incapable of providing the doctors we need, especially in rural America. In cities we have doctors who are specialists earning millions of dollars a year, but somehow this system can't get doctors into rural America, into primary health care, into internal medicine. We lack dentists all over this country. We have a major nursing crisis, such that

we are depleting the health care systems of the Philippines and other countries, because we are not educating our own nurses. So we have some major problems.

In terms of the SCHIP program, it is hard for me to understand--it is hard for me to begin to understand--how this President can be threatening to veto this legislation. We hear in the Congress a whole lot about family values. Well, if taking care of our children is not a family value, then I don't know what a family value is. It is clear also that providing health insurance to our children is what is cost effective. Forget the suffering involved. Forget the children who deal with illness they are not getting treated for because their parents don't have health insurance. Look at the cost-effective aspect of this. What kind of thinking is involved when we say: No, we can't provide health insurance for you, but when you get sick because you haven't gone to the doctor, oh, yes, we will operate on you and we will spend tens and tens of thousands of dollars to take care of you when you are in the hospital?

Let me conclude by saying that the time is long overdue for this country to get its priorities right. We should not continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a war the American people don't want. We should not, as the President and some in this institution want, give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent by repealing the inheritance tax. One trillion dollars over 20 years, we have money to do that, but we don't have, apparently, $35 billion to provide health insurance to 4 million children in this country. This Congress has to reorder and change the priorities established in the White House, and I believe that passing this SCHIP program will be a good step forward, a first step forward to be followed by much more.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Increasing American Wages and Benefits Act of 2007.

Since 2000, key economic indicators confirm that the economic security of Americans is moving in the wrong direction: nearly 5 million more Americans are living in poverty; nonelderly household income has declined by nearly $2,500; over 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost; and 8.6 million more Americans are without health insurance. While the rich have gotten richer, every other income group over the past 7 years has lost ground economically, with the middle class and working families losing the most.

The Increasing American Wages and Benefits Act would begin to reverse this downward economic trend for workers employed in construction, forestry, ski resorts, stone quarries, asphalt paving, hotels, restaurants, landscaping, housekeeping and many other industries by reforming the H-2B guest-worker program.

Under current law and existing Federal regulations, employers applying for H-2B visas must first certify that capable U.S. workers are not available, efforts were made to recruit U.S. workers for these positions first, and the employment of guest workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

As documented by the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups, the H-2B program is frequently used by employers to drive down the wages and benefits of U.S. workers, while cheating H-2B workers out of earned benefits. These abuses have clearly undermined the legislative and regulatory intent of this temporary guest-worker program.

The Increasing American Wages and Benefits Act would reform the H-2B program to ensure that workers receive the wages and benefits they deserve and prevent employers from abusing the system.

Specifically, this legislation: requires employers to do a much better job at recruiting American workers first at higher wages before being able to hire H-2B guest-workers; provides the Department of Labor with the explicit authority to enforce labor law violations pertaining to the H-2B program; allows workers who have been directly and adversely affected by the H-2B program

to have their day in court against unscrupulous employers; prohibits companies that have announced mass lay-offs within the past year from hiring H-2B guest-workers. Allows the Legal Services Corporation to provide the same legal services to H-2B workers as it provides to H-2A workers; requires employers to pay for the transportation expenses for H-2B guest workers both to the United States and back to their country of origin once the employment period ends; and provides other important protections for H-2B guest-workers.

This legislation improves and strengthens the H-2B program so that it can be used by employers during emergency labor shortages, while increasing the wages and benefits for both American workers and guest- workers.

I am proud that the Increasing American Wages and Benefits Act has the strong support of the AFL-CIO; the Service Employees International Union, SEIU; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Southern Poverty Law Center; the Building and Construction Trades Department; the Laborers' International Union of North America; the United Food and Commercial Workers; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters; the United Farmworkers of America; and the Farmworkers Support Committee.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters of support.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Increasing American Wages and Benefits Act of 2007.

Since 2000, key economic indicators confirm that the economic security of Americans is moving in the wrong direction: nearly 5 million more Americans are living in poverty; nonelderly household income has declined by nearly $2,500; over 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost; and 8.6 million more Americans are without health insurance. While the rich have gotten richer, every other income group over the past 7 years has lost ground economically, with the middle class and working families losing the most.

The Increasing American Wages and Benefits Act would begin to reverse this downward economic trend for workers employed in construction, forestry, ski resorts, stone quarries, asphalt paving, hotels, restaurants, landscaping, housekeeping and many other industries by reforming the H-2B guest-worker program.

Under current law and existing Federal regulations, employers applying for H-2B visas must first certify that capable U.S. workers are not available, efforts were made to recruit U.S. workers for these positions first, and the employment of guest workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

As documented by the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups, the H-2B program is frequently used by employers to drive down the wages and benefits of U.S. workers, while cheating H-2B workers out of earned benefits. These abuses have clearly undermined the legislative and regulatory intent of this temporary guest-worker program.

The Increasing American Wages and Benefits Act would reform the H-2B program to ensure that workers receive the wages and benefits they deserve and prevent employers from abusing the system.

Specifically, this legislation: requires employers to do a much better job at recruiting American workers first at higher wages before being able to hire H-2B guest-workers; provides the Department of Labor with the explicit authority to enforce labor law violations pertaining to the H-2B program; allows workers who have been directly and adversely affected by the H-2B program

to have their day in court against unscrupulous employers; prohibits companies that have announced mass lay-offs within the past year from hiring H-2B guest-workers. Allows the Legal Services Corporation to provide the same legal services to H-2B workers as it provides to H-2A workers; requires employers to pay for the transportation expenses for H-2B guest workers both to the United States and back to their country of origin once the employment period ends; and provides other important protections for H-2B guest-workers.

This legislation improves and strengthens the H-2B program so that it can be used by employers during emergency labor shortages, while increasing the wages and benefits for both American workers and guest- workers.

I am proud that the Increasing American Wages and Benefits Act has the strong support of the AFL-CIO; the Service Employees International Union, SEIU; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Southern Poverty Law Center; the Building and Construction Trades Department; the Laborers' International Union of North America; the United Food and Commercial Workers; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters; the United Farmworkers of America; and the Farmworkers Support Committee.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters of support.

Mr. President, the State of Vermont has lost one of its greatest scholars, Raul Hilberg. I wish to honor this remarkable man, the central figure in the founding and establishment of Holocaust studies, not just in the United States, but in the world. It is fitting that he was also a central contributor to the establishment and development of the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

So horrific were the events of the Holocaust that for many years scholars avoided the subject. Not Raul Hilberg. Born in Vienna, Austria, he and his family fled the Anschluss of Hitler and the Nazis to emigrate, first to Cuba, and ultimately to the United States. While in Cuba, he saw the fate of the S.S. St. Louis, a ship full of Jews who had fled Germany seeking asylum. The ship was denied permission to land in Havana, and only after a long voyage from port to port were its 936 Jewish passengers finally allowed to disembark in several European countries.

In the United States, Hilberg served in the Infantry of the U.S. Army. Upon his return to this country he did graduate work at Columbia University, where he received a Ph.D. under the tutelage of Franz Neumann. His doctoral thesis was on the Holocaust: he took careful and copious notes on Nazi documents seized by the U.S. Army, transcribing the information he uncovered on index cards. Then he sat at a small table in his parents' apartment and wrote his thesis on the basis of those cards. That thesis was the kernel of the greatest scholarly work ever written on the Holocaust.

In 1956, Raul Hilberg became an assistant professor of political science at the University of Vermont. He later became professor and chairman of that department. He remained at U.V.M. for the rest of his career until his retirement in 1991, despite many enticements to go to major research universities, sustained in his academic life by his friends Jay Gould, Stan Staron, and Sam Bogorad. He was a great teacher. One of his colleagues remembers attending his course on the Holocaust: ``His words came out in perfectly structured paragraphs, eloquent with a quiet gravity, so compelling that every student in the class was transfixed from the moment Raul began speaking until the bell rang for the end of class.''

In 1961, Raul Hilberg's magisterial ``The Destruction of the European Jews'' was published, but only after rejections from many publishers. Even Yad Vashem rejected the manuscript because some scholars disagreed with Hilberg's perspective. Thereafter revised and updated in succeeding editions, the book was then, and has remained, the most important, the most seminal, work on the Holocaust. It, more than any other scholarly work, was responsible for the creation of what we know today as the field of Holocaust Studies.

The great documentary filmmaker, Claude Lanzmann, spoke recently of his discovery of Hilberg's book, which occurred as he was considering making the film that was to become ``Shoah.'' ``It took me months to get through this formidable, magnificent, monstrous book. Hilberg was a man of details, and that is what I especially liked. The first time he appears in ``Shoah'' he says, `All along, during my work, I never began with the big questions because I feared inadequate answers.''' Lanzmann continues, ``He laid bare the implacable mechanism of what he held to be a bureaucratic process of destruction. From the moment the German bureaucracy made its object, it could only go all the way, as through carried by its own logic.''

Hilberg published other important books, among them ``Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders'' and a memoir, ``The Politics of Memory.'' He edited ``The Warsaw Diaries of Adam Czerniakov,'' which was translated by his colleague, Stanislaw Staron.

But he was not just a scholar in an archive. As one of the Senate's representatives on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, I am very aware of his work in the public sphere, work which richly supplemented his great contributions as an academic scholar. An original member of the President's Commission on the Holocaust, Raul Hilberg, played a central role in the founding of the U.S. Holocaust Museum. He then served on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council from 1980 through 1988, and further served on the Museum's Academic Committee from its inception through 2005.

His friend, Michael Berenbaum recently wrote this about his involvement with our Nation's great memorial to the ``Shoah'': ``For his work with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Hilberg never once accepted remuneration, even when others were paid for their work. He was a consistent, gracious and insisting presence demanding the highest of standards of others and measuring up to them himself.'' In his honor, the museum has established the Raul Hilberg Scholarship.

For his great scholarly and public accomplishments, Raul Hilberg was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.

An enthralling and inspiring teacher, Raul Hilberg will be missed by many generations of students at the University of Vermont. The absence of his deep knowledge and unsparing honesty leaves the world of Holocaust studies bereft of its presiding genius. And his passing leaves a great loss in the lives of his wife, Gwendolyn and his children, David and Deborah.

Raul Hilberg's work, however, which so carefully details the bureaucracy of annihilation, will live on to serve as a constant reminder of the responsibilities that we have, as citizens and as individuals, for the sufferings of others.

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, September 12, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

The hearing will focus on the reauthorization of the Federal Trade Commission.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 12, 2007, at 10 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the status of energy efficient lighting technologies and on S. 2017, the Energy Efficient Lighting for a Brighter Tomorrow Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 12, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to consider an original bill entitled, ``The Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP Indian Health Care Improvement Act of 2007''; H.J. Res 43, ``Increasing the Statutory Limit on the Public Debt''; and revising subcommittee assignments for the 110th Congress.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 12, 2007, at 10 a.m. to consider the nomination of the Honorable Julie L. Myers to be Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing entitled ``Regulatory Preemption: Are Federal Agencies Usurping Congressional and State Authority?'' On Wednesday, September 12, 2007, at 11 a.m. in room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Witness list:

The Honorable Donna Stone, Delaware General Assembly [R-32], President, National Conference of State Legislatures, Dover, DE; Alan Untereiner, Attorney, Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck & Untereiner LLP, Washington, DC; Collyn Peddie, Attorney, Williams Kherkher, Houston, TX; Viet Dinh, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law School, Washington, DC; David Vladeck, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, 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, September 12, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., in order to conduct a hearing to receive testimony on the Nomination of Robert C. Tapella of Virginia, to be Public Printer, Government Printing Office.

Mr. President, later on this morning, I will be offering an amendment which, frankly, in terms of dollars, is not one of the big amendments as part of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill, which is over $100 billion. This amendment is only $20 million. But while it is small in the amount of money it deals with, it is enormously significant to the millions of men and women who have served our country in war, and it is especially relevant to disabled veterans, those people who have given as much as anyone can expect defending their country--the people without arms, the people without legs, the people in wheelchairs. It is for them I am offering this amendment, and I am very pleased that this amendment has the support of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, and AMVETS.

The amendment I am offering addresses an ongoing and an emotional concern within the veterans community. It is the concern that we in the U.S. Government are nickel and diming veterans in an absolutely shameful way through the so-called rounding-down process in terms of the checks that go to disabled veterans. Some years ago, as a temporary budget Band-Aid, the Congress initiated the so-called rounding down of veterans disability benefits and a few other categories of benefits that affect veterans, their spouses, and their children. Under this rounding-down process, every year when we calculate the new disability benefits veterans will receive as a result of their COLAs, the resulting amount is rounded down to the whole dollar.

Let me give an example of what I mean. A veteran receives a check, or should receive a check, every month for hypothetically $200.99. What we have done is say to that veteran: We are taking away, every month, that 99 cents, and you are going to get a check for $200.

Now, somebody here may say: Hey, 99 cents is not a lot of money. Multiplied by 12 months a year, you are talking about less than $12 a year. What is the problem? Well, the problem is, if you are a low- income veteran, it does matter. But I think even more significantly than the dollars, what we are saying to that veteran who opens that check, sitting in a wheelchair, we are saving 99 cents a month on you. But by the way, we are giving no-bid contracts out in Iraq which cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, or perhaps billions of dollars, and we are going to balance the budget on your 99 cents per month.

So the amount of money we are talking about here is not a whole lot, but symbolically, to thousands of disabled veterans, it says something about how we in the Congress feel about them. We are saving 99 cents a month. Well, I think we can afford to give that 99 cents to those guys in the wheelchairs, the people without one arm, the people who are blind, the people who can't hear, the people coming home from Iraq with traumatic brain injury. I think we can afford to give them that 99 cents, and that is what this amendment is about. This amendment is going to cost all of $20 million--$20 million in a bill which is over $100 billion.

Let me quote from the Independent Budget. I think many Members of the Senate know that the Independent Budget is the budget brought together by all of the major veterans groups, and this is what they say when they describe this process:

Disability compensation and dependency and indemnity

compensation rates have historically been increased each year

to keep these benefits even with the cost of living. However,

as a temporary measure to reduce the budget deficit,--

A temporary measure.

Congress enacted legislation to require monthly payments,

after adjustment for increases in the cost of living, to be

rounded down to the nearest whole dollar amount.

And let's remind ourselves what kind of benefits we are talking about. Disability compensation benefits are benefits that veterans receive if they have a service-related disability and were discharged under other than dishonorable conditions.

Furthermore, this rounding down applies to what is known as the clothing allowance. When veterans have prosthetics or orthopedic appliances such as a wheelchair, they understandably have a high chance of wearing down or tearing clothing at a faster rate than the average person. In other words, you are in a wheelchair, it rubs, your clothing gets worn out. You get help with that. We are rounding down those checks.

This is not a complicated piece of legislation. This is legislation that says to people who have done as much as a human being can do for this country that we are no longer going to continue to nickel-and-dime you. I hope very much the Members of the Senate will join me and the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, the Disabled American Veterans, and AMVETS in supporting this legislation.

I yield my time.

Mr. President, the amendment I am offering has the support of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, and AMVETS, and it is cosponsored by Senator Menendez.

In a $109 billion piece of legislation, this $20 million amendment is not significant from a monetary perspective. It is, however, very significant in terms of the message we send to veterans throughout our country, especially disabled veterans, the men and women who have lost arms and legs defending us, who move around in wheelchairs, who are blind and/or deaf.

In the 1990s, as a temporary measure, Congress initiated the so- called rounding down of veterans' disability benefits. Under this rounding-down process, a disabled veteran who is supposed to receive, for example, a check for $200.99 has that 99 cents taken away from him and only gets the $200.

A veteran in a wheelchair opens his envelope check every month and is reminded that the United States Government is saving 99 cents a month. What a message that sends to the veterans.

This is an important amendment. It should be adopted.

Mr. President, we have heard over the last few moments from some of our Republican friends, again, the assertion of how strong this economy is doing and how we have to continue going along this same path with an OMB Director who is supportive of these policies. Let me reiterate, I do not believe the economy is stronger when, over the last 6 years, 5 million more Americans have become poor, slipped into poverty, including a million children. I do not believe this economy is strong when median income for working age families has declined by about $2,400 since the year 2000. I do not believe this economy is strong when the personal savings rate has been below zero for eight consecutive quarters. I do not believe this economy is strong when 8.6 million Americans have lost their health insurance since President Bush has been in office. I do not believe this economy is strong when 35 million Americans struggled to put food on the table last year and hunger in America is growing. I do not believe this economy is strong when home foreclosures are now the highest on record, turning the American dream of home ownership into a nightmare.

We need a new direction in economic policy, policies which protect the interests of ordinary Americans and not just the wealthy and the powerful. We need an OMB Director to tell this President the reality of economic life for tens of millions of our families rather than continue a mythology which essentially represents the interests of the people on top who, in fact, are doing very well. Maybe government should represent all rather than just the wealthy and the powerful.

When I talked before about the budget priorities of President Bush, we should continue that discussion and talk about how he treats our veterans. The war in Iraq, something which I strongly opposed, has given us now over 27,000 soldiers who have been wounded, many of them seriously. Studies tell us that many of the soldiers returning home from Iraq are coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. How did the President's budget, a budget which we turned around, how did his initial budget treat the veterans? His budget proposed cutting the VA by $3.4 billion over 5 years after adjusting for inflation. That does not say thank you to our veterans and their families and all they have gone through.

We have a President who in his budget has said we don't have enough money to address the needs of the middle class, working families, senior citizens, children, and veterans. We don't have enough money to do that, to pay attention to the people who are hurting. But amazingly enough, President Bush has told us we do have enough money to provide $739 billion in tax breaks over the next decade to households with incomes exceeding $1 million per year. Under President Bush's proposal, the average tax break for this group of millionaires would total $162,000 by the year 2012. So if you are a millionaire or a billionaire, the good news is, we have enough money for you. But if you are a veteran coming home from Iraq with PTSD, if you are a mother trying to find quality childcare for your kids, if you are a worker trying to find health insurance, sorry. This country does not have enough money for you.

Let me be very blunt. In my view, it is wrong to be giving huge tax breaks to the very wealthiest people, the people who need them the least, while cutting back on the needs of the middle class and working families. I should say that Mr. Nussle's record as chairman of the Budget Committee tells us clearly he supports these tax breaks for the very rich while, at the same time, he has been prepared over the years to cut programs for those who need them the most. That is wrong. That is why I will be voting against Mr. Nussle's confirmation.

Included in President Bush's budget is the complete repeal of the estate tax which would take effect at the end of 2010. The complete repeal of the estate tax, we should be clear, because sometimes people have not been quite so clear about it, would benefit the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent of our population, the top three-tenths of 1 percent, and 99.7 percent of the American people would not benefit, their families would not benefit by one nickel from the repeal of the estate tax. Obviously, if you are in the top three-tenths of 1 percent, you are already a millionaire or a billionaire, and you are already in a family which is doing very well and has been doing well in recent years. In other words, 99.7 percent of Americans would not receive one nickel. The wealthiest people, who are

doing very well, would get all the benefits.

According to the President's budget, this repeal of the estate tax will 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, all of which benefit goes to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent. In other words, if the President's plan to permanently repeal the estate tax succeeds, the children and family members of the most privileged families in America will reap a massive tax break. Paris Hilton, you are in luck, if the President gets his way. You are going to do very well. But for other Americans, the deficit will go up, and the argument will be raised that we don't have enough money to take care of our kids, our seniors, and our veterans.

What has Mr. Nussle's position been as chairman of the Budget Committee on repeal of the estate tax? He is there alongside the President. So we have every reason to believe he will be recommending to the President that we continue this extremely unfair and disastrous policy.

When we talk about repealing the estate tax, which the President wants to do, which Mr. Nussle wants to do, which many of our Republican friends want to do, I think we should see who benefits in a more specific sense. Yes, it is the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent who will get all of the benefits, the people who need it the least. Let's look at one particular family who does have the best. Let's put this thing into perspective. The reality is the big winner, the people who need this money the most--not the kids, not our seniors, not low-income people, not our veterans, no, they get at the end of the line--the people who receive a significant amount of the benefits from repeal of the estate tax is the Walton family that owns Wal-Mart. In fact, today--and these things change; they go up and down--the estimated net worth of the Sam Walton family is about $83.2 billion. From where I come, that is pretty good, $83.2 billion. You are a family that is doing fine. You will probably be able to pay the rent next month. If the estate tax is repealed for this one family, they will receive a benefit of $32.7 billion, one family, $32.7 billion.

We do not have enough money, says the President, to increase health insurance for our children. Oh, he is going to repeal that $32 billion to take care of 3 million more kids? We cannot afford that, but we can afford to give $32 billion in tax breaks to a family worth $83 billion.

Those priorities are wrong. In my view, they are immoral. We need an OMB Director who begins to explain to the American people this is not what America is about, who begins to explain to the American people we need a budget that reflects the needs and deals with the needs of millions of families, where people are working longer hours for lower wages, that deals with the problems of our senior citizens, deals with the problems of our crumbling infrastructure, deals with the problems of kids who cannot afford to go to college, deals with all of the problems our people face every single day. That is the kind of budget we need. That is the kind of OMB Director we need. What we do not need are policies which give obscene benefits to the very wealthiest people in this country.

Let me simply say at this point that in fact what this debate is about is whether we are going to have an OMB Director who can advise the President about the reality facing our working families or will we continue the same failed policies?

Having said that, Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire talks about program after program. Yes, we want to take care of our veterans, we want to provide health insurance to our children, and we do not want to give tax breaks to billionaires.

Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to my friend from California.

Mr. President, let me conclude by applauding Majority Leader Harry Reid, Chairman Kent Conrad, and Senators Schumer, Dorgan, and Boxer for publicly expressing their opposition to the Nussle nomination.

The bottom line is today the economy is doing very well if you are in the top 1 percent, if you are a millionaire or a billionaire. But if you are in the

middle class, if you are a working person, the likelihood is you work longer hours for lower wages.

We need a change in economic policy. We need an OMB Director who can advise the President about the reality of the vast majority of the people, and not just the very wealthiest people in our country.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, my understanding is that the Senator from Pennsylvania is correct. He can proceed.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2600, that the amendment be considered as read, and that it be set aside.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside to call up Sanders amendment No. 2571, that the amendment be considered as read, and that it be set aside.

Madam President, as my colleagues know, this legislation, the SCHIP legislation, includes a $3 billion incentive pool, and the purpose of this pool is to provide States with the funding they need to do outreach efforts in order to attract children into the program. The reality is, however, a number of States today have already enrolled 90 percent of their kids into the SCHIP program, and with the passage of this bill, more States will soon be at that level.

Further, we want to provide strong incentives for States below the 90-percent enrollment to reach that level.

This amendment, in order to incentivize States to reach that level of 90 percent, would allow States to apply for multiple grants of up to $2 million each when they achieve an enrollment rate of greater than 90 percent of children below 200 percent of poverty. These grants would help assure the children we enroll in SCHIP have a place to go to receive medical care and to find the personnel they need to provide that care. These grants would come from a pool of money--the State Health Access Innovations Pool--of $250 million, about 8 percent of the $3 billion incentive pool. This money will be used to find innovative approaches to increasing the availability of health and providers and services and would result in the direct provision of health services.

The reason for this initiative is pretty clear. In Vermont and in many other parts of this country, one can, in fact, have health insurance and yet find it quite difficult to buy or to find providers of that service. So what we are saying is let us make sure that when our kids do have health insurance, there will be doctors, there will be dentists, and there will be other health care providers. This is a good amendment, and I certainly hope it will be supported.

The other amendment I have offered, amendment No. 2600, is a simple amendment to Section 111 of the Children's Health Insurance Program reauthorization. Section 111, as my colleagues know, applies to certain qualifying States that expanded their Medicaid Program to cover kids prior to the enactment of CHIP in 1997. I wish to commend the Finance Committee for working language into the current bill that will no longer penalize these ``early expansion States'' and will allow States to cover children between 133 percent and 300 percent of the Federal poverty level to be covered under the CHIP program.

My amendment simply states that payments to States to cover these children who were previously covered under Medicaid be used solely to fund health care-related activities. Specifically, the language states that payments may only be used to provide coverage or to expand access for health care infrastructure, including but not limited to the provision of school-based health services, dental care, mental health services, federally qualified health centers, and educational debt forgiveness for health care practitioners in fields experiencing local shortages.

This amendment is a simple provision that will specify that States benefiting from an increased match must use these funds for health care and will allow States to address coverage issues as well as the crucial area of expanding access to services, something that particularly affects rural and inner city communities. I urge support for this amendment.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am introducing today with Senator Leahy the U.S. Employee Ownership Bank Act.

At a time when the U.S. has lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs; at a time when we are on the cusp of losing millions of high-paying information technology jobs, this legislation would begin to reverse that trend by providing employees with the resources they need to purchase their own businesses through Employee Stock Ownership Plans and Eligible Worker Owned Cooperatives.

Specifically, this legislation would authorize $100 million to create a U.S. Employee Ownership Bank within the Department of Treasury to provide loans, loan guarantees, technical assistance, and grants to expand employee ownership throughout the country.

Why is it so important for the Senate to provide incentives to expand employee ownership in this country? The answer is simple: employee ownership is one of the keys to creating a sustainable economy with jobs that pay a living wage.

This legislation has the strong support of the ESOP Association, a nonprofit organization representing approximately 2,500 Employee Stock Ownership Plans throughout the country. Let me quote from a letter they recently sent to my office:

Your legislation is a modest first step in awakening our

Government to the fact that in the 21st Century the inclusion

of employees as owners of the companies where they work in a

meaningful manner should be a key component of any national

competitiveness program. If the Senate adopts your

legislation, and it eventually becomes law, we assure you

that the ESOP community will work constructively to ensure

that the loan and grant program you propose works effectively

to benefit the employee owners, the employee owned companies,

and our American economy.

Every day we read in the papers about plants that are being moved to China, Mexico, and a number of other low wage countries. Since a number of these factories were making profits, shutting them down was unnecessary and could have been avoided by selling these factories to their employees through ESOPs or worker-owned cooperatives.

Since 2000, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost 3.2 million decent-paying jobs. Put another way, since George W. Bush has been elected President, this country has seen one out of every six factory jobs disappear.

In addition, the Associated Press recently reported about a study by Moody's which found that ``16 percent of the nation's 379 metropolitan areas are in recession, reflecting primarily the troubles in manufacturing.''

In other words, about 16 percent of the biggest cities in this country are experiencing a recession, largely due to the loss of decent-paying manufacturing jobs. I suspect that this problem is even worse in rural areas. In my small State of Vermont, we have lost about 20 percent of our manufacturing jobs over the past 6 years representing over 10,000 jobs.

Let me just give you an example of some of the jobs that have been lost. From 2001-2006 the United States of America experienced the loss of 42 percent of our communication equipment jobs; 37 percent of our semiconductor and electronic component manufacturing jobs; 43 percent of our textile jobs; and about half of our apparel jobs.

Not only are we losing decent-paying manufacturing jobs, we are also losing high-paying information technology jobs as well.

While the loss of manufacturing jobs has been well-documented, it may come as a surprise to some that from January of 2001 to January of 2006, the information sector of the U.S. economy lost over 640,000 jobs or more than 17 percent of its workforce.

Unfortunately, the worst may be yet to come. Alan Blinder, an economist at Princeton and the former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve has recently concluded that between 30 and 40 million jobs in the United States are vulnerable to overseas outsourcing over the next 10 to 20 years.

Would expanding employee ownership be a cure-all for what ails the manufacturing and information technology sectors? Of course it wouldn't. But I strongly believe that employee ownership can and should be one of the central strategies in combating the outsourcing of American jobs. Simply put, workers who are also owners will not move their own jobs to China.

Today, there are some 11,000 Employee Stock Ownership Plans, hundreds of worker owned cooperatives, and thousands of other companies with some form of employee ownership, and most of them are thriving.

In fact, employee ownership has been proven to increase employment, increase productivity, increase sales, and increase wages in the United States. According to a Rutgers University study, broad based employee ownership boosts company productivity by 4 percent shareholder return by 2 percent and profits by 14 percent. Similar studies have shown that ESOP companies paid their hourly workers between 5 to 12 percent better than non-ESOP companies.

Yet, despite the important role that worker ownership can play in revitalizing our economy, the Federal Government has failed to commit the resources needed to allow employee ownership to realize its true potential, and that is why this legislation is so important.

When I was the Ranking Member of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee in the House of Representatives, I was able to hold a hearing on this issue nearly 4 years ago.

During the hearing, a number of witnesses told the Subcommittee that if Federal loans, loan guarantees, technical assistance and grants were made available for the expansion of employee ownership, factories that are now closed and abandoned would be open for business today.

For example, the Subcommittee heard from Larry Owenby who worked at the RFS Ecusta mill in North Carolina for 30 years until one day, the company decided to shut down.

Other witnesses talked about factories that were closed in Mississippi, Alabama and Ohio. All of the witnesses testified in support of Federal loans, loan guarantees and technical assistance for the expansion of employee ownership. In fact, if this assistance had been around before the plants had closed, many of them would still be employed today as employee owners.

The final point that I want to make is that the Federal Government, through the U.S. Export-Import Bank, is already providing billions of dollars in loans, loan guarantees and other assistance to large, multi- national companies, such as Boeing, General Electric, and Halliburton. Many of these companies happen to be some of the largest job cutters in America, as they have moved hundreds of thousands of jobs to China, India, and Mexico.

In my opinion, instead of providing corporate welfare to large corporations that are throwing American workers out on the street as they move overseas, we should be providing employees with the tools they need to create and retain jobs right here in the United States through the expansion of employee ownership.

I urge my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.

Mr. President, I am introducing today with Senator Leahy the U.S. Employee Ownership Bank Act.

At a time when the U.S. has lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs; at a time when we are on the cusp of losing millions of high-paying information technology jobs, this legislation would begin to reverse that trend by providing employees with the resources they need to purchase their own businesses through Employee Stock Ownership Plans and Eligible Worker Owned Cooperatives.

Specifically, this legislation would authorize $100 million to create a U.S. Employee Ownership Bank within the Department of Treasury to provide loans, loan guarantees, technical assistance, and grants to expand employee ownership throughout the country.

Why is it so important for the Senate to provide incentives to expand employee ownership in this country? The answer is simple: employee ownership is one of the keys to creating a sustainable economy with jobs that pay a living wage.

This legislation has the strong support of the ESOP Association, a nonprofit organization representing approximately 2,500 Employee Stock Ownership Plans throughout the country. Let me quote from a letter they recently sent to my office:

Your legislation is a modest first step in awakening our

Government to the fact that in the 21st Century the inclusion

of employees as owners of the companies where they work in a

meaningful manner should be a key component of any national

competitiveness program. If the Senate adopts your

legislation, and it eventually becomes law, we assure you

that the ESOP community will work constructively to ensure

that the loan and grant program you propose works effectively

to benefit the employee owners, the employee owned companies,

and our American economy.

Every day we read in the papers about plants that are being moved to China, Mexico, and a number of other low wage countries. Since a number of these factories were making profits, shutting them down was unnecessary and could have been avoided by selling these factories to their employees through ESOPs or worker-owned cooperatives.

Since 2000, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost 3.2 million decent-paying jobs. Put another way, since George W. Bush has been elected President, this country has seen one out of every six factory jobs disappear.

In addition, the Associated Press recently reported about a study by Moody's which found that ``16 percent of the nation's 379 metropolitan areas are in recession, reflecting primarily the troubles in manufacturing.''

In other words, about 16 percent of the biggest cities in this country are experiencing a recession, largely due to the loss of decent-paying manufacturing jobs. I suspect that this problem is even worse in rural areas. In my small State of Vermont, we have lost about 20 percent of our manufacturing jobs over the past 6 years representing over 10,000 jobs.

Let me just give you an example of some of the jobs that have been lost. From 2001-2006 the United States of America experienced the loss of 42 percent of our communication equipment jobs; 37 percent of our semiconductor and electronic component manufacturing jobs; 43 percent of our textile jobs; and about half of our apparel jobs.

Not only are we losing decent-paying manufacturing jobs, we are also losing high-paying information technology jobs as well.

While the loss of manufacturing jobs has been well-documented, it may come as a surprise to some that from January of 2001 to January of 2006, the information sector of the U.S. economy lost over 640,000 jobs or more than 17 percent of its workforce.

Unfortunately, the worst may be yet to come. Alan Blinder, an economist at Princeton and the former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve has recently concluded that between 30 and 40 million jobs in the United States are vulnerable to overseas outsourcing over the next 10 to 20 years.

Would expanding employee ownership be a cure-all for what ails the manufacturing and information technology sectors? Of course it wouldn't. But I strongly believe that employee ownership can and should be one of the central strategies in combating the outsourcing of American jobs. Simply put, workers who are also owners will not move their own jobs to China.

Today, there are some 11,000 Employee Stock Ownership Plans, hundreds of worker owned cooperatives, and thousands of other companies with some form of employee ownership, and most of them are thriving.

In fact, employee ownership has been proven to increase employment, increase productivity, increase sales, and increase wages in the United States. According to a Rutgers University study, broad based employee ownership boosts company productivity by 4 percent shareholder return by 2 percent and profits by 14 percent. Similar studies have shown that ESOP companies paid their hourly workers between 5 to 12 percent better than non-ESOP companies.

Yet, despite the important role that worker ownership can play in revitalizing our economy, the Federal Government has failed to commit the resources needed to allow employee ownership to realize its true potential, and that is why this legislation is so important.

When I was the Ranking Member of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee in the House of Representatives, I was able to hold a hearing on this issue nearly 4 years ago.

During the hearing, a number of witnesses told the Subcommittee that if Federal loans, loan guarantees, technical assistance and grants were made available for the expansion of employee ownership, factories that are now closed and abandoned would be open for business today.

For example, the Subcommittee heard from Larry Owenby who worked at the RFS Ecusta mill in North Carolina for 30 years until one day, the company decided to shut down.

Other witnesses talked about factories that were closed in Mississippi, Alabama and Ohio. All of the witnesses testified in support of Federal loans, loan guarantees and technical assistance for the expansion of employee ownership. In fact, if this assistance had been around before the plants had closed, many of them would still be employed today as employee owners.

The final point that I want to make is that the Federal Government, through the U.S. Export-Import Bank, is already providing billions of dollars in loans, loan guarantees and other assistance to large, multi- national companies, such as Boeing, General Electric, and Halliburton. Many of these companies happen to be some of the largest job cutters in America, as they have moved hundreds of thousands of jobs to China, India, and Mexico.

In my opinion, instead of providing corporate welfare to large corporations that are throwing American workers out on the street as they move overseas, we should be providing employees with the tools they need to create and retain jobs right here in the United States through the expansion of employee ownership.

I urge my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.

Mr. President, I will be very brief. I rise in support of the Kerry amendment. I do so for two reasons. No. 1, while I applaud Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley for their work on expanding health insurance to 3.2 million more children, we should be aware that expansion only increases coverage for one-third of children in this country who are uninsured. This is the United States of America, and we should not continue to be embarrassed by the fact that we remain the only country in the industrialized world that does not provide health insurance for all of our children. Going forward for 3.2 million children is undoubtedly a step forward. We have, however, a long way to go, and the Kerry amendment would take us closer.

The second point I wish to make deals with national priorities and the direction in which we believe our country should go.

I hear that a lot of my friends are talking about the expense involved in providing health insurance to our children. This particular bill would cost us $35 billion over a 5-year period. Is $35 billion a lot of money? It is. Is it worth spending that money to cover 3.2 million children? It is. Yet I find it ironic that the President of the United States and others are telling us we cannot afford this expenditure at the same time that many--the President, certainly--are telling us we need to repeal completely the estate tax, which only applies to the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent of our population. If we were to repeal the estate tax, one family, the Walton family who owns Wal-Mart, would receive tax breaks worth $32.7 billion for one family. So the debate today is whether we spend $35 billion to

cover, over a 5-year period, 3.2 million children or, as the President and others would have us do, give $32.7 billion in tax breaks to one family. This is an issue of national priorities.

Very briefly, because I see my friend from Iowa standing, it seems to me we have to move not only to provide health insurance for all our children, but, in fact, we need to move to a national health care program that guarantees health care for every man, woman, and child in this country, and we can.

I conclude on that note. This is a moral issue. We have to cover our children. This is an issue of national priorities. For all of those who think we are spending too much money, they may want to think twice about the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks they have given to the wealthiest 1 percent and the ideas they have for the future.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this debate is not just about extending health care to our children. It is about our national priorities. It is about who we are as a nation. It is about which side we are on.

For the last 6 years, we have had a President who has insisted, as one of his major priorities, on more and more tax breaks for the very wealthiest people in our country. People who are worth millions of dollars and people who are worth billions of dollars have, collectively, received hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks. But when it comes to those people most in need, those people who are most vulnerable, including the children of our country-- the kids who are 2 or 3 years of age--who have health care needs, this President, tragically and embarrassingly, has not been there. If you are wealthy and powerful, he is there. If you are a child and vulnerable, AWOL--he is not listening. In fact, he has been in opposition.

It is no secret to the American people that our current health care system is disintegrating. Today, 46 million Americans, including over 9 million children, have no health insurance whatsoever, and tens of millions more are underinsured, with high premiums and copayments. Costs are soaring every single year, and small businesses in my State of Vermont and throughout this country are no longer, in many cases, able to offer any health insurance. Throughout the country today workers are being asked to pay a higher and higher percentage of the cost of their health insurance, and many of them cannot afford to do that because health insurance premiums have been rising four times faster than workers' earnings since the year 2000.

In the midst of all of that--more and more uninsured, costs soaring-- we end up spending twice as much per capita

on health care as any other country and remain--we remain--the only Nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all our people as a right of citizenship. Today, we are debating about whether we should expand the SCHIP program to 3 million more children. But all over the industrialized world, every child in those countries has health care as a right of citizenship.

Despite the over $2 trillion--$2 trillion--we now spend on health care--money which, to a significant degree, goes to enrich the insurance companies and the drug companies--our health status measures, including infant mortality and life expectancy, rank among the lowest of developed countries. We spend twice as much as other countries per person on health care--with over 9 million children who have no health insurance--and yet health status measures are lower than many of our allies around the world.

There is no question but that in the face of rising costs and a broken health care system, we need to make fundamental changes in the way we do health care in this country. We need to develop a cost- effective national health care program which guarantees health care to all our people, and study after study suggests we can do that without spending any more than we currently spend on our wasteful and bureaucratic nonsystem. That is what we have to do, and that is what I will fight for as long as I am in the Senate.

Today, we are discussing, despite what some may say, what is, in fact, a modest proposal--a modest proposal. We are discussing an expansion of the SCHIP program, which would expand health care to some 3 million more children. Over 9 million American children today are uninsured, and all we are doing today is saying: Let's expand health insurance to one-third of those children. If this bill were passed in 5 minutes, two-thirds of the uninsured children would remain uninsured, and in the United States of America we can do a lot better than that.

As Chairman Baucus has said, as Senator Olympia Snowe said last night, investing in the health insurance of our children is a good investment. It is cost effective. Today throughout this country there are children who are unseen by medical professionals. They are developing illnesses which are undetected. Those illnesses become worse as they get older. They end up in the hospital. It costs significant sums of money to treat these young people, as they age, in hospitals, when we could have eased their suffering and saved money by getting to their illnesses when they were young, if they had the opportunity to see a doctor.

As Chairman Baucus also mentioned, there is the issue of dental care in this country. In my own State of Vermont and throughout this country, there are millions and millions of young people who simply cannot gain access to a dentist who have teeth rotting in their mouths in the United States of America, in the year 2007. That is not acceptable to me, and I hope it is not acceptable to my colleagues in the Senate.

Given this sorry state of affairs regarding health care in this country in general, and the needs of our kids in particular, I find it ironic we are having any debate about increasing health insurance coverage for children under the SCHIP program.

Let me be very clear, in terms of providing health insurance to our kids, I would go--and will go--a lot further than this legislation. I have, in fact, recently introduced S. 1564, the All Healthy Children Act of 2007, which would provide health insurance to every child in America. That is where I think we should be going.

Some people, including the President of the United States, are saying: My goodness, this bill will cost $35 billion over a 5-year period; we can't afford that.

But I find it ironic that many of those same people, including the President of the United States, believe, among other things--among many other things--that we can afford to repeal entirely the estate tax, which would benefit only the top three-tenths of 1 percent of the American people. The very richest people in this country would, if the President had his way, receive $1 trillion in tax breaks over 20 years. That is $1 trillion in tax breaks over 20 years going to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent of the American people. That we can afford. But when it comes to spending $35 billion over a 5-year period for the children of our country, we do not have the money.

I find it ironic, if we repealed the inheritance tax, one family, the Walton family who owns Wal-Mart, would receive $32 billion in tax breaks. Yet we are trying to insure 3 million children today for $35 billion. So $32 billion for one family; $35 billion for 3 million children.

To my mind, what this debate is about is getting our priorities right as a nation. I am getting a little bit tired of hearing many of my colleagues, and hearing this President, talk about family values, when we have almost 10 million children in this country uninsured. If you are interested in family values, you are interested in the future of this country, you are interested in the children of this country.

This is a modest proposal. It is a first-step proposal, and it should be passed and passed immediately.

Thank you very much.

Madam President, I want to take this opportunity to say a few words about health care in general and about the needs of our children in particular. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I think it is clear to most Americans that our health care system today is disintegrating, and that we unfortunately and tragically remain the only country in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all of its people as a right of citizenship.

Now, I hear a whole lot of talk in the Senate--I heard it in the House--about health care. But, up front, we should be aware that there is something fundamentally wrong in terms of the way we do business that 46 million Americans have zero health insurance, that the cost of health care is soaring every single year, and that tens of millions of Americans who do have health insurance have very weak insurance programs and are underinsured.

On top of all of that, with 46 million uninsured, tens of millions underinsured, we continue to pay by far the highest prices in the world for our prescription drugs. In other words, we have a problem, and the time is long overdue for the Senate to stand up to the insurance companies and the drug companies and start representing the American people.

In my view, the solution is moving us toward a national health care program which provides health care to every man, woman, and child as a right of citizenship.

When people say, well, something like that will be very expensive. Well, not really. What we have now is clearly the most inefficient and wasteful nonsystem in the world by which we are spending twice as much per capita for health care as any other major country.

So people say: Well, gee, the Canadian system is not perfect; The British system is not perfect; The Danish system is not perfect. True enough. Neither is our system. And we spend twice as much per person on health care as does any other system.

Tonight, and in the coming few days, we are going to be focusing on the needs of our children. In the midst of a nation with 46 million uninsured, we have over 9 million children, one in nine, who are also uninsured. Every 46 seconds another baby is born uninsured in the United States.

I have heard a lot through my career in the U.S. Congress about family values. So let me be very clear and suggest that it is not a family value to live in a country in which 9 million children have no health insurance at all.

Uninsured children are almost 12 times as likely as insured children to have an untreated medical need, are four times as likely as insured children to have an unmet dental need.

The statistics go on. An estimated two-thirds of children and adolescents with mental health needs are not getting the care they need. Only one in five children with serious emotional disturbances receives specialized treatment. Given this sorry state of affairs, I find it ironic that we are having any debate about increasing health care coverage for children under the CHIP program. It seems to me that the very least this Nation should be doing is providing health insurance to every child in America--something, by the way, this bill does not do.

If this bill, in its current form, were to pass tomorrow, it would provide health insurance to approximately one-third of the children who are uninsured--one-third. In my opinion, as we move toward a national health care program guaranteeing health care to every man, woman, and child, the very least we should be doing is making sure all of our children are covered. That is why I have recently introduced S. 1564, the All Healthy Children Act of 2007.

This bill, in fact, would provide the opportunity for every child in America to have health care coverage. In addition, since insurance coverage alone does not guarantee access--in other words, you can have health insurance, but you cannot necessarily find a doctor or a dentist who will treat you--we must also make certain there is an adequate supply of health professionals and conveniently located sites of care.

Along with Senator Murkowski, I have also introduced S. 941, the Community Health Centers Investment Act, to significantly expand the number of community-based, federally qualified centers, a proven cost- effective system of primary health care that is governed by the people who use it. These health care democracies serve all regardless of ability to pay and insurance status.

The issue we are dealing with in terms of health care is not only providing health insurance but making sure there are doctors and clinics and hospitals available to treat the people who need the help. One of the crises, of the many we are facing as a nation in terms of health care, is, believe it or not, we are not producing the doctors we need for today, especially in rural areas and primarily in primary health care. We are not producing the dentists we need. We are not producing the nurses we need. As our Nation becomes older, those problems will only become more severe.

In that regard, I have done what I could and will continue to move forward to significantly increase the funding for the National Health Service Corps, to provide scholarships and loan repayment to those choosing primary care specialties and agreeing to practice in underserved areas. I am happy we are on a path to increase funding for community health centers, but clearly we have a long way to go in order to fund the national health service.

While the debate on these initiatives awaits another day, we must pass a CHIP bill that matches the House bill in funding level. Accordingly, I will be cosponsoring the Kerry amendment to provide SCHIP with a $50 billion increased authorization over the next 5 years. At a minimum, though, I certainly hope the Senate passes the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee.

I know some of the objections raised about expanding health care coverage for children come from people who think spending the amount of money proposed in this legislation is too much. I mention to those Members who, in many cases--certainly including the President of the United States--are supporting the repeal of the inheritance tax, the estate tax, to tell them that with the full repeal of the estate tax, one of the wealthiest families in America would receive in tax breaks almost as much money as we are attempting to spend right now to provide health care for over 3 million American children. So on the one hand, there are people--the President of the United States, among others--who say we have to repeal the inheritance tax, all of which benefits now will go to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent. One family getting $32 billion, that is a good idea. But to provide $35 billion to provide health care for over 3 million American children, that is a bad idea. I think those priorities are a little bit backwards.

Let me conclude by saying all of us are very proud to be Americans. We want this country to be No. 1 in many respects. It should not give any of us pride to know that in every other major country on Earth virtually all of the people have health insurance as a right, have lower cost prescription drugs than we do. The idea that today and tomorrow we will be debating whether we can afford to provide another 3 million children with health insurance suggests to me we have a long way to go in this debate. We should not only provide health insurance to 3 million children, we should provide health insurance to the over 9 million children who are without health insurance. We should provide health insurance not just to 9 million uninsured children but to 46 million uninsured Americans.

In my view, health care is a right, not a privilege. The idea that there are people today who are scared to death about what happens when they or their children become ill because of the high cost of health insurance is something that should not take place in this country. This bill is a small but important step forward.

At the end of the day, we have to join the rest of the industrialized world and make sure all of our people, regardless of income, have high quality health care.

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.