Advancing America's Priorities Act - Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
ADVANCING AMERICA'S PRIORITIES ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - July 28, 2008)
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is time for this debate. No, this debate is overdue. It is about time the American people understand the choices we are making on the floor of the Senate. Every month this President asks us for $12 billion to $15 billion to wage the war. Is it paid for? No. It is added to the deficit. We are told we have to do it; we have to do it, not just for the troops--no one wants to see the troops go without--but because it is our moral responsibility, according to the Bush administration, to rebuild Iraq. We liberated them. We removed their dictator. We have lost over 4,000 of our best and bravest lives and thousands injured. But month after month, the administration tells us we need to spend $10 billion to $15 billion on the war in Iraq. The protests from the other side of the aisle are few, if any, to this President's plan to spend $12 billion to $15 billion a month in Iraq.
Now comes this bill. This bill suggests spending money in America. What do we hear? A chorus of complaints from the other side of the aisle that it is wasteful--wasteful--to be spending money in America, projects that are new Federal programs, questioning whether there is wisdom behind them, whether taxpayers' dollars should be spent.
The American people should be the judge. Should we be spending American taxpayers' dollars to establish a national registry for those suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease in the hopes we might learn something that leads to a cure? Obviously, the House of Representatives felt it was. That rollcall was 411 to 3. But there is objection on the Republican side of the aisle: a new program.
Then there is the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, calling on the National Institutes of Health for paralysis research and rehab activities, a new program, I will admit it. But if it was a member of my family stuck in a wheelchair, quadriplegic, you can bet I would be begging for this bill. How did it do in the House of Representatives? It passed unanimously, but it is held up on the Republican side of the aisle because it is money spent in America for a new program.
Here is another. Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill. Senator Kennedy, fighting brain cancer in Massachusetts, cannot be here to stand and speak for it. I will speak for it. He and Senator Cochran, a Republican from Mississippi, believe this is money well spent on stroke treatment in America. It is another new program, and it is here for America. It is opposed by the Republican side of the aisle.
Why? Why do they want to stop these programs that help us here at home? The list goes on and on. Postpartum depression. I joined Congressman BOBBY RUSH in pushing this one when a lady, a few days after giving birth in Chicago, dove out a hospital window, killing herself--suicide. We don't want that to happen. This bill tries to help mothers struggle through postpartum depression.
Vision care for kids--more money to be spent in the United States. It is opposed by those who are putting a hold on these bills.
All these bills overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives without any bipartisan rancor, until they got over here. Many of the same Senators who have voted for a blank check to send money to Iraq month after month do not want to spend money in America. I think a strong America begins at home. It begins with good health care. It begins when we care about our own people first.
Then there are the Judiciary Committee bills. The Senator from Oklahoma is a member of the Judiciary Committee. Every one of these bills he had a chance to amend in the committee. Every one of these bills came out of committee by unanimous vote, which would include his vote. Now he is objecting to moving forward on the floor.
He does not want us to pass the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act to authorize an increase in authorization levels for runaway kids or the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act to try to finally bring to justice those guilty of killing a lot of the great people in America who have been victims of civil rights crimes.
The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act. Mental illness is such an integral part of many criminal acts. We want to do something about it. It passed unanimously out of the committee, but it is money spent in America, and they object to it. They object to this money being spent. Why?
Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act. Who favors that? No one favors that. Why won't we spend a few dollars to stop it? You know what is going on in the Internet. How did that bill do? It passed the House of Representatives 409 to 0. There were no breakdowns. Democrats and Republicans all agreed we have to stop this scourge, until it came over here and was stopped by the Senator from Oklahoma. I don't understand his thinking on all this. Let me make one thing clear. These are authorization bills. They do not spend money. They authorize us to spend money, but that authorization has to be followed up with actual spending, and we are limited in the total amount we can spend. If we want to put money into these programs, it has to be taken from other programs.
Many of the same Senators who vote month after month to send money to Iraq, many of the same Senators who voted for tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America in the midst of a war, are saying we cannot afford this money for medical research and money to make America safer. That is what this vote is all about.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are not leaving the Energy bill. Senator Reid, the Democratic leader, offered the Republicans to return to that bill immediately. This isn't going to take 60 hours, unless the Republican side decides to drag it out forever. It doesn't have to. It can take a much shorter period of time.
The bottom line is still this: Are we ready to spend money here in America to solve some of our own problems or are we going to keep shipping this money overseas to rebuild an Iraqi economy that already has more oil than most nations on Earth? Why don't we spend money here for medical research, making it safer for our kids to go on the Internet, or trying to find runaway children?
I think investments in America make us stronger, and that is what this vote will be all about. Those who make the argument to vote against it are voting against investment in America.
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