Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
January 22, 2004 -- Page: S131

MRS. HUTCHISON. Madam President, it would be in everyone's interest, once our Senators are notified, if we could set that time so our time could be roughly equally divided before then.

With that, Madam President, I will speak on our time and talk about the importance of passing the omnibus bill. This is a bill that encompasses many departments in our processes in the Senate. Normally, we try to pass each department separately so we can deal with those issues separately. Because of various circumstances, we now have a bill that takes in several major departments. Therefore, there are things that have not been debated separately. I know there are concerns that have been raised.

However, we must pass this bill if we are going to have the will of today's Congress take effect for the appropriations between now and October 1 of this year.

If we do not pass this bill--the alternative is a continuing resolution--it means that last year's priorities would prevail, and there would be some major losses in funding for the next 9 months of this year.

Let's take, for instance, the veterans. Today we would lose, by not passing this bill, the ability to fully serve our veterans in their health care. Continued operations under a continuing resolution would force the Veterans' Administration to curtail the hiring of new physicians and nurses, pharmacy costs would continue to rise, and we would not have the money to pay for the added expenses that we are seeing in the medicine benefits to veterans. The waiting list for veterans medical care would start to rise, and it would mean the VA would not be able to expand its long-term care services under the old priorities.

Part of our bill this year that is before us today expands veterans medical benefits. If we pass a continuing resolution, we would not be able to increase that medical service. We have new veterans with medical needs coming home now from Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea that we would not fully fund the needs of veterans today is unthinkable. That is what would go by the wayside if we do not pass the omnibus bill.

Let's talk about education. In the bill, Pell grants maintain their historically high maximum award of $4,050 to help disadvantaged students achieve the dream of a college education. Afterschool centers are increased in funding to $1 billion.

Impact Aid--now, Impact Aid is for school districts that have a high number of bases, military personnel in that school district. Impact Aid helps the school district overcome the fact that you cannot tax Federal property. If a base is a major part of a school district, that is nontaxable property. Yet military personnel send their children to these schools. So the Federal Government has always made up the amount that would be lost in property taxes by giving Impact Aid. It is increased $49 million over last year. That will be lost for the next 9 months if we do not pass this bill, thereby further strapping the school districts in the places that have a high volume of military personnel.

Wouldn't that be an incredible thing to say to our active duty military: Oh, we are putting more responsibility on you. We are putting more burden on you. Many of you are overseas, but you have to worry about the school districts not having the money to fully educate your children while you are serving our country. Is that really a message we want to send today to our military personnel?

Head Start funding, to help prepare our disadvantaged young children to learn and succeed in school, it is boosted by $148 million in the omnibus. That would be lost for the next 9 months if we do not pass this bill, so we would not be able to get those programs geared up with the reforms that we are trying to put in place that make Head Start more of an educational experience rather than just a play experience that is day care. We are trying to give these young children the opportunity to proceed, before they get to kindergarten, with the very best early childhood education possible.

When I was home over the holidays, I visited one of these target Head Start centers, where children in the 3-year-old class and the 4-year-old class were learning their ABCs. They were learning their numbers. They were learning the computer. There were 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds working on the computer. This is the kind of Head Start Program we want to fund. That would be possible if we pass the omnibus bill. That would certainly be curtailed if we do not pass the bill.

The National Cancer Institute would have $148 million more over the next year if we pass the omnibus bill. But if we stick with last year's priorities, the National Cancer Institute will have to stop its funding increases. Many people know, with the increase in health care research in the National Cancer Institute, we have been able to make great headway in fighting cancer, in finding the cause of cancer, and then finding something that will fight that particular cause of cancer.

The Geraldine Ferraro Cancer Education Program would be funded in fiscal year 2004 $5 million. It would help educate the public on issues surrounding blood cancers. None of this funding would be provided under a continuing resolution. So that is $5 million that would go to the education of cancers such as lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, which is very important because these are the cancers that have historically been underfunded. Many people now are getting these cancers when they are not really aware that they need to have their blood checked but because they are losing energy. It is a terrible disease. The Geraldine Ferraro Cancer Education Program funding would lapse if we do not pass this bill.

Election reform. We made major steps in the right direction on election reform this year. The Help America Vote Act would be providing funding to States to make sure they follow through on Congress's commitment to strengthen the electoral process. None of this funding would be available under the continuing resolution.

In a very important Presidential election year, when we are going to elect every Member of the House and when we are going to elect one-third of the Senate, do we really not want to fully fund the reforms to assure our electoral process is fair, that it is a system where people can count on their vote counting? I hope not. That is $1.5 billion in the omnibus bill that would not be funded for the next 9 months, until October 1, if we do not pass the bill.

So we obviously would not have any of these reforms in place if we do not fully fund and pass the omnibus bill that is before us today.

The Millennium Challenge. This is a program that would be both authorized and funded at $1 billion this year to help developing countries achieve economic growth, to lay out alternatives to poverty, violence, and terrorism. This is very important in our war on terrorism. If we keep terrorists from being able to lock into a country that is very poor, we will give the people of that country hope, hope that there is something else besides just violence and continued poverty. Economic possibilities, economic opportunities are what will make a difference in many of these countries.

The FBI is a very important part of homeland security. We now have put the FBI into the same grid that works in homeland security, with intelligence sources to try to pick up the signals that maybe there would be another terrorist attack.

Under the omnibus bill, the FBI will be able to hire 229 new agents, receiving $138 million in program improvements to help in the fight against terrorism. If we do not pass this omnibus bill, we will go 9 months without allowing the FBI to gear up for what we are asking them to do; and that is, to hire the agents to be a part of our homeland security.

The International Trade Administration is funded at $28 million more this year. What would we lose if that funding goes by the wayside? This is what is focusing on many countries' compliance with trade standards, China's compliance with trade standards. We have heard many concerns raised in our country about China complying with fair trade standards. We need to make sure China and every country meets the standards they have signed on that they would meet, standards that require intellectual property to be protected.

We don't want to allow people to copy the videotapes or the movies or the books that are being written by other people and not pay the intellectual property requirement to do so. But we need the enforcement capability. That will be lost.

We are targeting countries for cultural exchanges and education programs. One of the long-term goals in the war on terrorism is to try to bring people from countries that do not have democracy, that do not know freedom, to our country for cultural exchanges, for education, to show public education, giving our children the opportunity to learn, to read and write and learn math, to be able to function in a world that will create an economic base for a country. Many of the countries that are the home bed of terrorism do not have these freedoms.

Cultural exchanges are one of the long-term goals that we have in the war on terrorism to have people come from these countries to see what happens when you have a strong system of public education, to see what happens when you have freedom, to see how people can live when there is the right to free speech, when there is the right to a free public education that would give our young people the economic opportunities that education will give them.

A long-term continuing resolution that would not give any of these priorities that we have put in place in the bills that have come out of these committees would cause a $5.5 million budget shortfall for the Small Business Administration. That would be almost a 20-percent reduction in their budget. Programs that help small businesses compete, such as the 7A program, would eventually be shut down if we have a continuing resolution rather than this omnibus bill.

As I have gone through my State during the past 2 months, I have found many small business people complaining that the Small Business Administration offices are being shut down, the services are not there, the opportunity to have Small Business Administration loans and counseling is not as it used to be. If we pass a continuing resolution instead of this omnibus bill, we will lose almost 20 percent of the Small Business Administration budget.

It is very important we pass this bill, if we are going to fully fund our veterans health care, if we are going to fully fund the schools in our home district military bases so that people on active duty serving our country will not have to worry that their children in school are not getting their full educational opportunities this year.

The National Cancer Institute, with a $148 million cut over the next 9 months will have to stop the progress they are making in many arenas for finding the cure and the cause of cancer.

We are in a major election year. We would not fund the reforms that Congress has passed to assure every vote is counted, that we have good voting machines so that we won't have an issue such as what happened in Florida in the last Presidential election. We are helping States to have the integrity of the ballot in this very important election year for our Congress and for the President.

The International Trade Administration must be able to make sure that our intellectual property rights are met by countries such as China and other places that copy movies, copy books that don't pay the intellectual property requirements; the long-term exchange programs that will help us fight terrorism by giving the young people from a country that does not know freedom the opportunity to see what freedom and public education can bring; cutting back on the FBI--all of these are the things that would happen if we don't pass this omnibus bill.

It is my hope that we will have the opportunity to pass this bill today so we can put the imprimatur of Congress today on the next 9 months of funding in this fiscal year rather than rely on a bill that passed 2 years ago which doesn't take into account some of the reforms that have been made in Congress. It is my hope that Members will see that our veterans' needs and the needs of our active-duty military children in education and in cancer research will prevail. We will pass this bill and give our children a chance, and our country a chance, to have the increases we need for our homeland security, and the education of our children, and the research into cancer to find the cause and the cure. We must pass the omnibus bill to go forward in all of these aspects.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ON THE SENATE FLOOR REGARDING THE CONFERENCE REPORT -- Page: S135

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, the Senator from New York is on the floor and Senator Bennett is on his way, but I want to take a moment and say I understand some of the concerns that have been raised, but this is a bill that puts Congress's imprimatur on spending for the next 9 months. It does not take last year's priorities. It takes this year's priorities.

We have had a chance to talk about it. We have had a chance to debate. We have had amendments earlier in the process. There has been a full vetting of the differences on this bill. My bottom line is, are we going to let this bill fail and have a continuing resolution that will go from January to October 1 and fail to enact the reforms in election law that will ensure the integrity of the ballot in our country during a Presidential election year? Are we going to keep $148 million from going into the National Cancer Institute when we are doing great research on the causes of cancer and the potential cures? Are we going to fail to meet the needs of our veterans by not allowing the hiring of physicians and nurses, not fully funding the pharmacy costs which are going through the roof, which we must fund for the veterans who are needing drugs as so many people in our country do? Are we not going to fully fund the impact aid schools where our military children go to school while their parents are in Iraq and Afghanistan? Are we going to let those schools' budgets be cut back? I ask, what is the alternative to passing this bill? The alternative is using last year's budget, last year's priorities, and not putting the stamp of this Congress on these priorities in place.

I think we have to look at our choices. The choices are increasing the FBI, increasing impact aid for our schools, increasing National Cancer Institute funding, increasing the ability to make sure China and other countries are complying with intellectual property laws. We will lose a lot if we do not pass this omnibus bill today and go forward with the funding programs for next year on an orderly basis.