Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to memorialize in the Record of the Senate, one of the great institutions in the State of Georgia. This year, Saint Joseph's Hospital celebrates its 125th anniversary of providing the citizens of Atlanta and the Southeast with the highest quality and most compassionate health care services.

Let me speak for a moment on the significance of Saint Joseph's:

In 1880, 125 years ago, shortly after the Civil War, four young determined Sisters of Mercy traveled to Atlanta from Savannah with a meager 50 cents in their collective pockets to start a hospital. Hospitals were not common during this time. The Sisters' idea of creating a hospital that would serve the entire community, and not simply be a place to die, was truly bold and visionary.

With the goal of ``extending the mission of healing mercy begun by Christ, showing a just and compassionate regard for all who suffer,'' Saint Joseph's Infirmary was established as a 10-bed hospital in an old house located on Courtland and Baker Streets in downtown Atlanta.

Saint Joseph's established Georgia's first school of nursing in 1900, an indigent ward to care for the poor and rural population during the depression, diagnostic outpatient clinics, and a $10,000 operating room to begin a legacy of state-of-the-art medical technology.

The hospital became a national leader in treating heart disease, performing the first openheart surgery in the Southeast, the first angioplasty as an alternative to bypass surgery, and operated the first comprehensive cardiac catheterization laboratory. And, Saint Joseph's became one of only six medical centers in the world to perform percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty.

In 1978, the hospital moved to north Atlanta in order to continue its growing mission of service and changed the name to Saint Joseph's Hospital. To maintain close ties with those it served downtown, Saint Joseph's Mercy Care Services began. Starting as a simple signup sheet for volunteers to visit women's and homeless shelters, teams used their own vehicles and worked out of tackle boxes filled with medical supplies donated by physician offices. Today, Saint Joseph's Mercy Care Services is truly an integral part of the community. They now provide comprehensive services to the chronically homeless of Atlanta.

In 2003, the hospital formed the Saint Joseph's Research Institute, a comprehensive research center to provide patients access to some of the newest and most innovative therapies available in the world. The Research Institute provides preclinical research and trials and clinical trials in cardiology, pulmonology, radiation, oncology, gastroenterology, orthopaedics and more.

Saint Joseph's is among only 10 nonteaching hospitals in the country to have earned the Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence and Patient Safety by HealthGrades, Inc., the Nations' leading provider of health care quality information. It is also among a prestigious group of hospitals on Solucients 100 Top Hospitals for Cardiovascular care--Saint Joseph's has been named a 100 Top Hospital 5 times. J.D. Power and Associates also has recognized Saint Joseph's as a Distinguished Hospital for Service Excellence, providing an outstanding patient experience, for 2 consecutive year, the first hospital in Atlanta to earn the distinction.

But it is the people behind the awards and recognitions that make Saint Joseph's so unique. From the Sisters of Mercy who still are intimately involved with the hospital to the nurses, physicians and medical support staff--the spirit of mercy is alive and vibrant. That spirit transcends the entire organization and is the foundation for the superior medical services and programs, the unique compassionate care, the volunteers who raise money for the homeless and underserved, and the auxiliary who put in tireless hours at the hospital without pay. The spirit of mercy is in all employees who come to work year after year with smiles on their faces and compassion in their hearts.

It gives me great pleasure to recognize on the Senate floor the contributions of Saint Joseph's Hospital to the citizens of Atlanta, GA, and the Southeast.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Tom Cremins, a fellow on the Commerce Committee staff, and Michael Dodson, a fellow on the staff of Senator Nelson of Florida, be granted the privilege of the floor for the debate on the NASA conference report.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer. I thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I had not intended to come to the floor today but I passed my television set in my office, and I caught the preceding speech regarding American priorities and certain allegations regarding leadership at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. I felt compelled for a second to try to answer some of the rhetorical questions that were asked but never responded to in the speech. If I heard it right--I could be corrected--one of the questions was ``I don't understand what we are trying to accomplish.'' It was stated in the context of extending the tax cuts, I presume the tax cuts the House passed--to extend on capital gains and dividends. I will assume for a second that was part of them. There may have been others, and I will address some of them, but I thought it was time, at least for those who might be watching and listening today.

There are two distinct philosophies in Washington, DC. One has just been characterized. My hope is, in the few minutes I have been allocated, to be able to characterize the other.

When George Bush took office at the beginning of his first term, this country was moving into a serious recession which was realized shortly after that term began.

In September, on the 11th day of September, in the year 2001, America had the most unbelievable, heinous attack upon us that has ever been perpetrated, even worse, both in death toll but also in tragedy, than that of Pearl Harbor. That event, on top of the declining economy which was inherited in large measure by the administration, this President, and in turn this Congress, set on a new course to do two things: One, empower the great economic engine of America, which is American business and free enterprise. We did so by strictly passing legislation in terms of tax cuts and changes in tax policy that would empower American business, offer the incentives for more jobs and bring us out of the economic difficulty we were having.

I submit that is precisely what has happened. If you look at the last 5 years, we have gone from a period of recession, which began in 1999, peaked probably in 2000-2001, and since, we have continued to climb and improve. Why have we done so? We have done so because we empowered the American business person and the American employer and the American employee by allowing them to keep a little bit more of their business and invest it in this great country, spend it in discretionary spending, buy a new home. Economic

enterprise breeds economic enterprise which breeds more economic enterprise.

We know from the standpoint of our side of that philosophical issue, if you empower business to do more business, the American Government will prosper. Our revenues have gone up in this country. They have not gone down because of tax cuts. June 15, 2005--this year--was the largest single take in tax revenue in the history of the United States of America. It was because our country is running on all cylinders, or almost all cylinders.

When I went to college, 95 percent employment was full employment. We have that today. We have had an unbelievable sustained period of very positive interest rates. We have had an economy that has not been attacked by inflation, and inflation continues to be under control. The jobs that were lost because of the recession in the early part of this decade are coming back, and they are coming back at a rapid rate. Business formations, prosperity, American home ownership is at an all- time high. The real estate industry is at an all-time high. American business enterprise is thriving, and I submit it is not confusing to me. I do understand what we are doing. What we are doing is we are empowering that which has always taken this country to great heights: the American free enterprise system, the American taxpayer, the American employer, and the American employee. We are empowering them with their money and believing they can do it better, and we can prosper together.

The other side's philosophy is, you charge the people more money to take care of the problems you perceive. Instead of empowering them, you shackle them with less money, you empower government, you breed mediocrity. That is wrong.

No one predicted September 11. Nobody could have ever predicted September 11. But while in the process of reinvigorating the American economy through strategic tax cuts, this administration has confronted the most horrible fate a country could confront on September 11 in the attack of terrorism. We have pursued terrorists around the world. We have secured our airports. We are securing our ports. We have been fortunate not to have an attack on our soil since that date. That did not come cheap. It came at a great price. A great price we have financed, in part, obviously, with the deficits that were referred to. But we paid for an awful lot of it with the growth in our revenue from an empowered taxpayer and an empowered employer and an empowered employee.

I just want to make a couple things clear. I am one member of the majority party of this Senate, and I can only speak for myself. But I take issue with being characterized as someone who is trying to cut health care, someone who is trying to take food out of the mouths of children, somebody who is trying to take welfare and turn it back around and hurt people on welfare to recovery, someone who is trying to make it harder for kids to go to college.

All of those examples that I heard in the previous speech were examples of taking an issue and distorting an issue to make it appear that one side is against children, for hunger, against education, for ignorance--all those negative connotations. So for a second I will address them, if I can.

We had an earlier motion in the Senate today with regard to Medicaid. We have a lot of Governors in this country who are attempting to get flexibility with Medicaid. I happen to be one who supports giving the Governors flexibility from the standpoint of Medicaid. Why? First of all, they and their legislatures administer Medicaid, we don't. We pay for two-thirds of it, but we hold them accountable for its administration. If they are accountable for its administration, and they are paying a third of the costs, and we are holding them accountable, by golly, they ought to get flexibility to use some of the tools. I know the distinguished Presiding Officer knows about tools in medicine today and applies them to health care for our poorest.

Being more flexible for our Governors to deal with one of the largest single expenditures of State government, the largest in my State, is good common sense. It is not cutting health care. It is empowering the people who are helping to get it to the people who need it.

This business of taking food out of the mouths of babes, I do not know what the Senator from New York was referring to specifically, and I will give her the benefit of the doubt. But I will say, cutting the rate of growth in programs is not taking food out of the mouths of people who are getting it. Cutting the rate of growth in spending is trying to manage our budget. I have never seen a time, even back in the early 1990s, when the Republicans were attacked in the House for taking the food out of the mouths of young children. It was the rate of growth in programs that was talked about. It was not real dollars. I submit the reference today was probably precisely the same thing.

As far as welfare rules are concerned, one of the great legislative initiatives of the 1990s was welfare reform and welfare-to-work. I have been to the centers in my State. I have seen the bulletin boards, the success stories today of people who were on welfare, shackled for a lifetime, and then empowered by welfare-to-work legislation. We have reduced our roles in this country tremendously. We have not really reduced the cost of welfare that much because we are providing childcare, we are providing training, we are providing transportation, and we are providing education.

But do you know what we did. We slowed the growth of the cost of welfare to the American taxpayer. In the process of doing it, we empowered Americans who thought they were shackled for a lifetime in poverty, in welfare, because we got them job training. We got them child assistance while they were being trained. We empowered them and challenged them to go off of welfare and on to work. And they are there today. That is a great accomplishment.

As to the student loan business, I do know a little bit about that. We were tasked in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee on budget reconciliation with finding some savings. The characterization in the previous speech was it will cost students more money to go to college and to borrow on student loans. There are going to be some costs, that is correct. We still, however, as a government, provide through Pell grants and through assistance in the College Loan Program unparalleled assistance to students wanting to go to college and to finance that education. We are merely trying to make that program accountable and live to a certain extent within our means.

There was a comment in the preceding speech that it is time to get back to arithmetic and reality. I will address my remarks to that for just a second.

There is not one Member in here who likes the deficit situation we have been in. I applaud the White House for encouraging us, and I applaud Senator Gregg in his diligent leadership to force us to try to bring about savings and begin to reduce the rate of spending in programs. The reconciliation bill we passed, which I believe was $39.4 billion in savings, is a start. It is only a start. We will have to do more.

In the case of the reconciliation and those savings, whatever the program might be, there is going to be somebody who says: Don't cut here, cut there. But for us eventually to make this budget process accountable, we will have to be able to open all of government, look at all of government, analyze all of government, and make hard choices. The reality of arithmetic is you cannot tax America into prosperity. You cannot solve everyone's problem by taxing those who are producing the jobs that employ the people of the United States of America. What you can do, however, is hold yourself accountable on the spending side and empower those who produce the revenues to do more.

The arithmetic of our tax cuts is simple, because of capital gains reductions, mature assets which were held and not liquidated because of the tax rate were sold, and new money was made, and it was deployed in new investments with growth because dividends became equalized with capital gains and, in fact, were lowered in a rate of taxation. Wall Street began to focus on dividends as being a positive thing for companies to do.

There has been a tremendous move on Wall Street, and the market is

stronger and investment in America is stronger because of what we did in bonus depreciation, because of what we did in expensing. In every one of those things that was called a cut, we raised revenue, and we did so because we empowered American business.

But if the Senator from New York or anybody else thinks that if you have a billion-dollar problem, you can just raise taxes by a billion dollars and solve it, and that is the way for us to go in the 21st century, they are dead wrong. Because there is a point at which when you tax, you suppress prosperity, you cause people who have money to make the decision not to deploy that money anymore. You cause the exact opposite of what has happened in this country for the past 3 years since the tax programs were passed.

So while I may have missed some of the points because I caught this in passing and stopped at the TV to listen, I did not miss one point. The point was the question: I don't understand what it is we are trying to accomplish. I will tell you what we are trying to accomplish. We are trying to accomplish empowering the great locomotive of prosperity, American free enterprise, the American employer and employee to do better. And as they do better, the American Government does better, and revenues go up, not because we raised rates but because we raised hope and we raised opportunity.

Secondly, I know where we are trying to go in budget reconciliation. We are trying to go where every American is every day of their life. We are trying to sit around the kitchen table, setting priorities, looking to the future, seeing where we can slow the rate of growth of Government expenditures. We are not trying to take food out of the mouth of a single person, nor to take health care away from a single person. Nor do we want a deadbeat dad not to get caught. We want every child support payment to be made. To characterize one party as being for those things and the other being against them, to me, is quite ludicrous. But you have to go through a budget process of reconciliation and savings by looking at programs, analyzing programs, setting realistic goals for the future, and trying to make them more accountable.

The United States of America is a great and prosperous nation for a lot of reasons. But the most important reason of all, it is a land of hope and opportunity. Taxation can destroy the hope and, in turn, destroy the opportunity when it is carried to the excess no matter how noble the cause on which it is levied.

Mr. President, I thank you for the time yielded to me. I thank you for the opportunity to serve with you in this body. In the next few days, as we close out this legislative session, I hope we can, in the end, be where we started this year, with a goal of empowering the American taxpayer, doing a better job handling the expenses of this country, and doing what we always do in giving thanks to live in the greatest Nation on the face of this Earth, the United States of America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be added to the amendment as cosponsors: Senators Lott, Coleman, Rockefeller, DeWine, Alexander, Bennett, Burns, Hatch, and Chambliss.

Mr. President, it is a privilege for me to introduce a Member of the Senate who has been instrumental in bringing this amendment to the floor, Senator Coleman from Minnesota. I yield him 4 minutes.

I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I first thank Senator Coleman for his remarks and associate myself with those remarks. I particularly thank Chairman Enzi of the HELP Committee, as well as Senator Kennedy. They have made sure that

this stayed alive during the course of this session.

I thank Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for the efforts they made on pensions and particularly thank Senator Coleman and Senator Lott for their untiring efforts to bring this to reality today.

I wish to go back to one thing Mr. Coleman said briefly by acknowledging what brings us to this point in terms of airlines. In the past 5 years, there have been five things that have happened, none of which would be in control of the aviation industry: the decline of the stock market early in this decade, the tragic events of 9/11 which grounded American aviation, the unprecedented historically and continuously low interest rates, the hurricanes that hit the United States and shut down refineries and petroleum and closed major airline markets for transportation, and not the least of which is petroleum going to $70 a barrel and aviation fuel tripling in its cost.

If we take all of those and combine them with the constraints of the current formula on pensions, one can understand why the aviation industry has had the difficulties it has had and how employees of legacy airlines will lose their pension benefits unless we adopt reasonable and appropriate amendments such as the amendment we propose today.

Very simply, this amendment does a couple of things. One is for the aviation industry. It allows the amortization of the obligation over a 20-year period of time, an amount that is manageable, an amount that is doable, an amount that for all intents and purposes will ensure employees will get the pensions they have earned. Failure to adopt this amendment will almost guarantee that those employees of airlines such as Delta, Northwest, and others will not ultimately get the pension benefits they have earned. The major consequence of that will be the taxpayers of the United States of America, through their surrogate, the PBGC, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, will have the additional liability those pensions will thrust upon the PBGC.

In this amendment, we have met the challenges the aviation industry has before it. We have looked responsibly at the right formula and the way in which to calculate that formula to ensure the benefits are paid. We have addressed the concerns of the industry and its individual airlines, all of which have similar unique but some different problems.

In particular, what we do is give hope for the employees to get their benefits. We cap the liability of the PBGC, and we ensure that one of the most important elements of the U.S. economy, the aviation industry, is not forced by laws that are out of sync to unfund, defund, or jettison their pension plans for the employees who have made those airlines fly throughout their careers and throughout their history.

We have some time remaining on our allocation for the amendment, to which Senator Lott was to speak but was called away. I reserve the remainder of our time on the amendment for Senator Lott upon his return.

Mr. President, I would like to turn the wheel back on our time allotted to the Isakson amendment and yield that time to the Senator from Mississippi and, in so doing, repeat my acknowledgment of my thanks to Senators Grassley, Baucus, Enzi, and Kennedy for their cooperation in allowing this amendment of the aviation portion of the pension bill to come before the Senate today, and the distinguished Senator from Mississippi for his untiring effort to bring us to this point today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Carper, Salazar, and Nelson be added as cosponsors to the Isakson amendment on the pension bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Con. Res. 62.

I ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be agreed to, the resolution, as amended, be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 217, S. 1234.

I ask unanimous consent that the Craig amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

First of all, I want to associate myself entirely with the remarks of the Senator from Nevada. I wanted to rise for the same purpose--to talk for a minute about our men and women in Iraq, the successes that have taken place there, and how proud I am of it.

But I can't help but, at the outset of my remarks, for a second, respond to the remarks of the Senator from Illinois a few minutes ago. I had a flashback as I listened to that speech--a flashback to my generation's war in the 1960s in Vietnam, a flashback that reminded me of what happened when American politicians began to slowly but surely question America's intentions in a war while our people were deployed, which slowly resulted in the end of withdrawal of a military that never quite had the support anymore that it deserved while in harm's way.

I would like for a moment to talk about what we do know. We have had lots of questions raised about what we don't know, what we should have done, what somebody may or may not have done. Let us talk for a second about what we do know.

Senator Ensign has done a great job talking about what we knew leading up to going into Iraq. I would like to remind us of a few other things.

We know that war was declared on America in the 1990s by Osama bin Laden, and we were attacked seven times without responding. It was finally with the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that this President changed America's policy to one of preemption, committed himself to going after terrorism wherever it existed, and doing everything we could to liberate the world from the tyranny of terrorism.

We must remember that today we are not in a war like past wars. We are in the ultimate war between good and evil. The terrorists don't want to beat us, they want us to lose our resolve so they can rule the world through intimidation. Terrorists don't want what America has. They do not want America to have what it has: the first amendment, freedom of speech, the right to worship as we see fit, the right to bear arms--all the things that stand in the way of the tyranny they would like to employ around the world, and have employed in a couple of places very successfully, in Afghanistan that we liberated and now in the nation of Iraq.

There are those who would have you believe, by their speeches, that we are fighting the Iraqi people. We are fighting terrorism in Iraq. This war is about Iraq, the United States of America, our soldiers, the future of our generation, and our way of life as we have known it.

I commend and respect anyone who would raise a question or a doubt and seek an answer. But we must not forget that the truths that we know are compelling, that we are fighting the right war in the right place at the right time for the right reason.

For those who say we never found a weapon of mass destruction, I would submit to you that Saddam Hussein himself was a weapon of mass destruction. In 1990, when he went into Kuwait and we went in and liberated, it was Saddam Hussein who rained missiles upon Israel that wasn't even in the fight. It is Saddam Hussein who gassed his own Kurds. It is Saddam Hussein who systematically ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi people and buried them in mass graves.

It is no coincidence that al-Qaida operates today as the head of the insurgency that fights our troops in Iraq because this is their war-- their war against what America stands for, and what the future of the world can be if we are successful. We have some tough days ahead, but we must stay the course.

In one year, we have caused the Iraqi people to have an interim resolution, to draft a constitution, ratified, and to seek a permanent election to elect permanent representatives, something that would have been unthinkable just 2 or 3 years ago.

But we did it because of the resolve of these men--the American soldiers and the Iraqi soldiers fighting shoulder to shoulder with them today in the final stages in Iraq.

Yes, we have battles to fight. Yes, there will be more terrorist attacks. And, yes, there will be tragic losses that all of us grieve. But we cannot, as a nation, lose our resolve, or have politicians quibble on the edges while our men and women are standing in harm's way.

I commend our troops and our soldiers. I commend our country. I commend our citizens to look to the future and appreciate that everything we enjoy and have today is because of those who have sacrificed in the field of battle, those who have led in this Congress and in this Nation's Government in the past to defeat dictators and tyranny wherever it existed.

We are in the ultimate battle between good and evil. Compromise and quitting is unacceptable. Seeing it through to its course is essential for our men and women in harm's way and for the children of the United States of America and the children of the world because, you see, unlike history under Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the children of Iraq now understand that there is a future, that there is the potential for a bright future, and success and good times with no fear. They do so because this brave Nation, when attacked by the tyranny and the evil of terrorism, decided it would follow it wherever it took us and we would preempt it so it could not stand and it could not exist.

On behalf of our men and women in harm's way, the children they protect, the dreams and aspirations of Americans for a bright future, as bright as our past, I commend our men and women in harm's way. I stay the course as a Member of this Senate to support them in the war on terrorism, and I ask all of us to be careful when we raise questions that must be raised to never raise them in such a way that would compromise this effort or compromise the commitment and dedication of these brave men and women.

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

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished senior Senator from Georgia, my dear friend. I appreciate his guidance and I associate myself with his remarks. The distinguished Senator from North Dakota made an admittedly tongue-in-cheek analogy about 55 dead farmers. To change this program in midstream could put a lot of family farmers in the South on life support, and that is not tongue-in-cheek. It would not only cripple the agriculture economy of communities across the Nation, but it would have a most devastating effect on farmers in my State and in the Southeast.

Make no mistake, adoption of this amendment would result in many traditional family farms going out of business--plain and simple.

We had this debate in 2002, when we passed a carefully crafted farm bill. We debated farm payment limits extensively at that time, and it is absolutely wrong to seek to change those rules in midstream. That debate takes place in 2007, when the bill is up for reauthorization.

Our farmers have made business decisions based on that farm bill. They have had significant investments based on that farm bill. We cannot pull the rug out from under them in midstream.

This amendment punishes the farmer whose livelihood depends solely on the farm. In my part of the country, a farmer must have a substantial operation to make ends meet. Why would we seek to punish family farmers at a time when they have made large investments in order to become competitive in an international marketplace? Now is not that time.

Mr. President, on behalf of farmers in my State of Georgia and across the

Southeast, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Grassley amendment.

I yield back.

I yield back to the leader.

Mr. President, I rise in morning business to pay tribute to a great Georgian, a great American, a personal friend of mine, and a great citizen of Cobb County. In about 11 days our county will come together to pay tribute to this great individual and I wanted today on the Senate floor to memorialize for a moment the contributions of Earl Smith. For me it is a particular point of personal pride and it is because Earl Smith has been a role model to me my entire adult life. Quite frankly, I don't know that I would be privileged to serve in the Senate had it not been for his example, his support over 35 years.

I met Earl Smith when he founded the Cobb County Lions Club in the 1960s and led it to be the best club in Georgia. I knew him as a businessman because I was in real estate and he was

in the heating and air conditioning business. He installed new units in houses I sold, serviced them, and built a business to be one of the best in the United States of America.

I know him because when our community was in need of facilities for our young people, Earl Smith took time from his business, raised money, and supported the construction of the East Cobb YMCA, today a shining gem in Georgia.

I know him because when our county was in a significant political disaster with an absence of leadership and faced with unparalleled growth and unparalleled difficulty, Earl Smith volunteered and went and qualified for office, ran and was elected as chairman of the county commission and took a county that had grown from 197,000 to 400,000, and now is almost a million; met the needs of its wastewater treatment; met the needs of its electric power generation; met the needs of its roads and transportation system; and even brought about public transportation to this growing and burgeoning community.

He did it during tough political times, but he did it because he was a man of dedication to his community and a man who never ever quit.

Today, a man who has done all those things--built a great business, served in the civic clubs, worked in his church, built a YMCA, a man in the autumn of his life could do many things on beaches or in the mountains--decided there was one more mission. So he took the lead in raising $140 million to build the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center in suburban Atlanta in Cobb County near the Galleria Center, a facility upon which ground was just recently broken, and in less than 2 years will be completed to be the finest urban performing arts center in the United States of America.

So today on the Senate floor, I rise for this brief moment to pay tribute to a man who has given countless hours, countless dollars, countless efforts and all of his being to make his community better.

On November 7, when the community comes together to honor him, if I can't be there in spirit, these words will be there so that he knows not only does his community recognize him, but on this day on the floor of the Senate we pay tribute to Earl Smith of Cobb County, GA.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank the chairman and Senator Harkin for all of their work on this bill. Mr. President, as you know, arthritis is the Nation's leading cause of disability, and it impacts the lives of 44 million Americans including 300,000 children. Very few people know, however, that people with rheumatoid arthritis die 5 to 10 years earlier than those without arthritis. In 2003, arthritis claimed the lives of 9,500 Americans.

In response to this national epidemic, the CDC, and over 90 national organizations developed the Nation's first ever public health blueprint to fight arthritis--the National Arthritis Action Plan. Following release of the plan in 1998, the committee, under your leadership, established an arthritis program at the CDC and supported a cooperative relationship between the agency and its partners. This partnership has supported several significant elements of the NAAP and continues to play an instrumental part in reducing the pain and disability of arthritis for millions of Americans. It is my understanding that the committee has included sufficient funds in the fiscal year 2006 appropriation for the CDC to sustain this collaboration with its partners at the same level.

I thank the chairman.

Mr. President, I associate myself entirely with the remarks of my colleague, the senior Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss.

I rise for two specific reasons. The first is to correct some statements that have been made to be factual that are not and, second, to take issue with the contention that the amendment before us places people before buildings.

Before I do either, however, I want to pay particular praise and attention to Senator Harkin and Senator Specter. My first visit ever to the Senate was as a Member of Congress, shortly after my election, when I came to the offices of both these Senators, accompanied by Bernie Marcus, Oz Nelson, and other executives who led a private sector focus on what we are discussing and debating today; that is, the fact that the world's premier health care and disease prevention facility was crumbling and in shambles.

These corporate leaders came to these two Senators and came to us, along with Dr. Jeffrey Copeland, with a plan to remake and rebuild the CDC so that it could carry out the jobs of the 21st century in health care.

Ironically, that visit was a year and half before September 11, 2001. But fortunately, it was a year and half before that tragic day because all of the research that was done that helped us in the identification of the anthrax problem that we had was done right there in CDC, to deal with monkeypox, to deal with avian flu, to deal with the West Nile virus--all of these diseases we have, in part, been able to deal with, with the new facilities built in this 5-year building program.

I commend Senators Harkin and Specter for their leadership and for their support.

I rise in opposition to this amendment based entirely on the facts which have been presented which are not correct. I will deal with the facts first.

The statement has been made on this floor that $200 million in construction money is sitting idle at the CDC. There is $200 million for construction at CDC, which is absolutely essential to complete Building 23 and start Building 24, in addition to the $171 million that is included in this appropriation.

As Senator Specter said early on, contractors don't contract until all compensation for construction can be made. We did the seed-planting money in the previous appropriations bills in this Congress. Now it is time build Building 23, which is the Infectious Disease Building.

It is incorrect to characterize money that is there today as being excess funds. It is part of the cash flow that we have appropriated over a 5-year plan to complete this project.

Second, and most importantly, the statement was made that CDC had spent $60 million of the money on a welcome center.

I happen to know where that came from. That came from a newspaper article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which was, on its face, absolutely incorrect. The $60 million building is the Global Communications Center, which was Building 19, which was the first thing we completed to allow the United States of America and the CDC to be able to meet a pandemic, a terrorist attack, and communicate simultaneously and seamlessly throughout the world to stop the death and destruction of Americans, as well the lives of human beings throughout the world. It was an absolutely incorrect statement made in the media. There is no welcome center, but there is a state-of-the-art communications center that allows us to instantly respond to the threats we know only too well--whether it be threats of human beings like those on September 11 who attacked us, or threats that lie await in poultry and birds in Asia that may materialize into an avian flu human-to-human transfer.

Both the statements of $200 million being on deposit or $60 million being spent on a welcome center are incorrect in the way they were presented. The money in this bill of $200 million for this 2006 budget is to provide $171 million to complete Building 23, which is the infectious disease laboratory, another $21 million for Building No. 24, which will be one of the last buildings to go into place--this is the planning and design money--and $7.5 million for maintenance of these facilities.

Last, the characterization that this amendment is about putting buildings before people's lives, with all due respect, there is a fact that should be shared today. All decry AIDS, and I commend the Senator from Oklahoma for wanting to put $60 million in AIDS drugs for those who cannot afford them, but to do so and claim that CDC spend this on a building when they could be spending it on AIDS patients is a travesty.

This year, the CDC, on its own, will deploy, of its money and that of other governments and other resources around the world, over $1 billion in its prevention efforts for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. There is no organization in the world that is more on the leading edge of the prevention of AIDS and its treatment than the Centers for Disease Control. In fact, to take this $60 million away from the building laboratory that is designed for infectious disease study would do more harm to patients with AIDS than would help to move it to drug programs for patients with AIDS. It is an improper characterization and it is an improper prioritization of money that is appropriated.

As the Senator said in the beginning presentation of his amendment, this does not save a dime of expenditure. It just moves some money around. There are some places we ought to do it. The distinguished Senator from Oklahoma is right many times in his criticism and the characterizations he presents, but he is 100 percent dead wrong in terms of this amendment.

I respectfully submit the facts to the Senate, and I ask my colleagues to reject the Coburn amendment on the CDC and continue our commitment to the health care of the people around the world and the safety and security of American citizens by continuing to fund the world's premier health care, health prevention, and health resource facility, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA.

Mr. President, with all due respect, this is not a choice of putting buildings ahead of people or people ahead of buildings. This is a choice of maintaining the commitment to save the lives of our children and grandchildren in the future against pandemics and terrorist threats in the future.

The Senator from Oklahoma, well intended, is wrong. I urge a ``no'' vote on the Senator's amendment.

Mr. President, I rise this morning to reflect for a moment on the apparent successful events in Iraq this weekend and also to look forward to more successful events in the months ahead. It appears the people of Iraq--10 million of them--turned out on Saturday to ratify a constitution under which elections will take place on December 15 of this year. I believe now is an appropriate time for us to recognize, in the process of liberating the people of Iraq, the great accomplishments our brave young men and women have made to allow that process to take place.

About 2\1/2\ years ago, America went into Iraq with three stated goals. One was to depose Saddam Hussein. That was done. He goes on trial tomorrow, to be tried by his own people, in his own court, by his own judges. Second, we went in to rid the nation of weapons that could hurt others and stabilize the country so we could accomplish the third goal, which is to allow the people of Iraq to self-determine their future, as we in America did some 229 years ago.

The first goal, deposing Hussein, was accomplished, and he goes on trial. The second goal of stabilizing the country has, in fact, been accomplished. It has been accomplished in a unique way and was ratified by the very election that took place on Saturday, because on Saturday the Iraqi military protected the Iraqi polling places to allow the Iraqis to have an election that had very little disruption or violence by the insurgents. Now we move toward December 15 and the election of a permanent assembly for the people of Iraq to govern themselves.

On the first day of February of this year, I visited Baghdad, shortly after the elections that were held on January 31. I saw on that day the pride of Iraqis holding up their index finger, stained with blue ink, with smiles on their faces and self-satisfaction from having voted, which they did. We saw at that election where a number of the Sunnis stayed home, where most of the Shiites and the Kurds voted, and there were about 8 million votes.

Just 8 months later, I watched this morning on TV and saw index fingers raised with ink stains to evidence the vote that had taken place, but those ink stains were not just on the fingers of Shiites and Kurds, they were on the fingers of Sunnis as well because, as was said after the first election in Iraq in January, the Sunnis learned that in a democracy, if you do not vote, you do not count. Although their votes may have been different yesterday, it laid the groundwork for this country to self-determine its future in peace, for its three groups within their country to join together, to form a government, to iron out their differences peacefully, and to grow in the Middle East what many thought was never possible, and that is an Arab nation self- determining its future, with its people electing its representatives, living and growing in peace and harmony with its neighbors.

There have been a lot of critics of our efforts in Iraq. There have been some who have said the war was wrong and others who have said we ought to come home, when, in fact, they have misjudged and mischaracterized the entire event. For us to come home is to lose the war. For us to stay is for liberty and peace and freedom to take root, to grow, and to prosper, and for an area of the world that for all time has been in turmoil to have the chance in future time to be in peace. That is not just good for the Middle East. That is not just good for the Iraqis. That is good for America. That is good for the nations of the world. That is good for the future peace of this great Nation we call the United States of America, for it was terrorism that drug us into the Middle East. It is terrorism, through insurgents, that we fight today in Iraq. And it is terrorism that will lose, not in the end to bullets but to votes, with a people free to self-determine their future.

The people in Iraq began that process on January 31 and reaffirmed that process this past Saturday. I am confident and looking forward to the future, that on December 15 they will reaffirm that process again by holding free elections, guarded--and peacefully guarded--by their own trained troops, who will be the security force that in the future replaces our men and women, and that they will secure the country of Iraq not just for one election, not just for one day, but for the future.

It has been said that victory in Iraq is a process and not an event. I believe that is an appropriate statement. We have gone through a process that deposed an evil dictator, stabilized a violent nation, allowed free elections to take place, for a constitution to be drawn, for elections for its ratification to take place, and now we are on the doorstep of the election of those permanent representatives who will self-determine the future of the nation of Iraq. In this process, known as freedom, America has contributed much.

Our sons and daughters have been there steadfastly fighting the insurgents, securing the Iraqi people, and giving the flame of liberty and freedom a chance to grow and glow. On Saturday that process apparently took place again. I look forward to it taking place on December 15. I thank God for the brave men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces and the resilience of our people as, once again, we are the leading light for freedom, peace, hope, and liberty not just in our own country but around the world.

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

Yesterday, the city of Atlanta, the State of Georgia and the game of golf lost a legend and a friend, Charlie Yates.

Charlie Yates won the national college golf championship in 1934, and was a Walker Cup competitor twice. In 1938 Charlie Yates won the British Amateur Championship at Royal Troon in Scotland.

Charlie Yates was a close friend of the late Bobby Jones, and a constant playing partner with Jones at their beloved East Lake Golf Club. Yates played in eleven Masters tournaments, and was a member of the Augusta National Golf Club.

Charlie Yates's contributions were not limited to the game of golf. He served as president of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from 1962 to 1965, and then chaired the Atlanta Arts Alliance which became the Woodruff Arts Center, one of America's great centers for the Arts.

Under Yates's leadership the Woodruff Arts Center's overall budget rose from $3.8 million in 1973 to $163 million in 1983, and he led the effort that raised $5.4 million for the center's endowment.

Charlie Yates touched the lives of many Georgians, including this Senator, through his efforts on behalf of our community and through his wonderful family. I am honored to pay tribute to a great American, Charlie Yates.

Mr. President, I rise on the advice and consent question of Judge John Roberts.

Before I address my judgment on that, I would like to pay tribute for a second to Sandra Day O'Connor and the late William Rehnquist.

Sandra Day O'Connor's announced retirement caused the nomination by the President of John Roberts, and subsequently the untimely passing of Chief Justice Rehnquist afforded the opportunity for that nomination to be for Chief Justice as well. In the anticipated furor of this debate and confirmation, the credit never was given that should have been to Justice O'Connor or Justice Rehnquist.

Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. She served with honor and distinction. She wrote brilliantly, concisely, and succinctly, and, most importantly of all, she had an insight and wisdom second to none. In fact, I commend to everyone her final writing, her dissenting opinion on the eminent domain case, if you want to see a Justice who was well grounded and interested in the American people.

Judge Rehnquist was the 16th Justice of the United States, an outstanding individual of immense capacity, dedication, and commitment to the United States of America. His loss is a tragedy, and the retirement of Justice O'Connor is a loss to the Court.

But now we are confronted with our constitutional responsibility as Members of the Senate to address the question of John Roberts, the nominee of President Bush.

I come to this debate somewhat differently than a lot who preceded me. I am not an attorney. Before my election to the Senate, I was a businessman, always had been, always will be when I leave. I come also as a new Member of the Senate. In fact, a year ago today, I was engaged in a debate in Columbus, GA, with my Democratic opponent for the Senate seat. The issue that night of that debate was clearly what was the role of the Senate in terms of the confirmation of a Justice to the Supreme Court and the issue of the day, which was filibuster. It was only a year ago when whether a judge could even get an up-or-down vote was a major question on the floor of the Senate.

I happen to have been elected, obviously, to that Senate seat, sworn in on January 4, and came to the Senate to find that advice and consent was impossible because filibuster was the rule of the day. Then a unique thing happened. Fourteen Members of this body made a deal--and I commend them for it. They broke a logjam, and very quickly we were able to confirm six appointments to the court, some who had languished as long--as in the case of Judge Pryor--as 4 years.

No one knew Justice O'Connor would announce her retirement a few weeks later, nor that Chief Justice Rehnquist would die, but all of us knew that when an appointment came, the agreement that had been made might be put in jeopardy because it set forth a standard that filibuster might be necessary under extraordinary circumstances. There were many who anticipated whomever the President appointed would be in and of itself an extraordinary circumstance.

Then along came John G. Roberts, who is an extraordinary man.

I will vote to confirm the President's nomination of John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States. In large measure, I will do so because of who and what John G. Roberts is, has been, and will be--a decent and humble man of immense intelligence and demonstrated compassion.

We will hear and I have heard earlier today some in this Chamber who will tell us that he never answered any questions; we don't know where he stands. Well, to me, those are simply code words for them saying they couldn't pin him down, tie him in knots, or prejudice him for future decisions. Personally, I don't want a Justice who any lawyer can tie in knots or predispose. I want a judge I can stand before and count on the fact that he will call them like he sees them, that he won't be in one corner or the other, that he will do what is right, what is dictated by the law and the Constitution.

In my 33 years in business, I was in court from time to time--as few times as possible. But all of us have been. I served as a foreman of a grand jury. I served on a petit jury. I have been, in the case as a businessman, in court myself. I don't want to go into a courtroom where I know I have a judge who has a bent, a predisposition, or an agenda. I want to go before a judge who wants to treat me under the law as equally and as fairly as my opponent on the other side, who will rule based on the facts, based on what is before him, based on the law, and based on our Constitution. I want a Justice who will study the law, listen to my side of the case, listen to the other side, and call it as he sees it.

In his introduction, John Roberts said he was an umpire and he was a humble man. That says a lot about John Roberts. If there is anything we need on the bench today, it is those who see themselves umpires making the right call, the right decision the right time in every single case, for there is no instant replay on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. As Judge Roberts said in his confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee, just as people do not go to a baseball game to watch the umpires, they do not go to court to watch the judge. They go to court to get a fair decision, unvarnished and untainted.

I was in Columbus, GA, during the break in August. I did an education listening session. After it was over, I met with some 6th grade kids of that school, some kids I gave the chance to ask me questions, some children I gave the chance to find out what they would like to know from a Senator.

A little girl by the name of Maleka said: Senator Isakson, I have one question for you. What is the hardest decision you are going to have to make in the U.S. Senate? What is the most important decision you are going to have to make in the U.S. Senate?

That was about a month ago today.

The first answer I gave her was confirming Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.

It came to my mind instinctively because we all knew the nomination of Judge Roberts had been made and we would make that decision. All of us in here also know that the Constitution specifically says it is our advice and our consent which makes that determination.

We also know that the third leg of the stool which is the great genius of the United States of America is the judicial branch, which is equal and separate from the courts and the executive. But it is also in these confirmations where the executive, the legislative, and the judicial come together. There is no more important decision made by a Member of the Senate than who the next Justice or Chief Justice of the United States will be.

I close my remarks by telling you this: John G. Roberts has made the toughest decision I will have to make an easy one. He is a class act. He is an

intellect. He is an honorable man. He is a man who, when the cases of justice in America are decided before our Supreme Court, will call it as he sees it, listen to both sides, rule on the law, and understand the Constitution. You can ask no more of a man than John Roberts has demonstrated time and again. That is precisely what he will deliver.

Thursday at 11:30 I will be honored to cast my vote on behalf of the people of Georgia to confirm John G. Roberts as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States in the history of our country.

I yield the floor.