Intelligence Committee Reorganization

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
Oct. 8, 2004

INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE REORGANIZATION

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 1 hour and when my time is yielded that the quorum be questioned.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I object for the moment, but I will come back to it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I withdraw my objection.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator is recognized.

JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I will address some of the issues just debated on the floor of the Senate. The Senator from Utah is my friend. We have worked together, and he chairs the Judiciary Committee. We are miles and worlds apart on many issues but have found common ground many times and I am sure we will in the future. He has done an excellent job for his President as chairman of the committee.

It is my understanding that, as of today, President Bush has successfully nominated over 200 Federal judges to fill vacancies, thanks to the work of Senator Hatch and many others in the Senate. Those nominees have been approved. At this point, it is my understanding that we have one of the lowest vacancy rates in the Federal judiciary in recent memory and that we have responded particularly in the areas of our country where there have been shortages of judges and an abundance of cases to be considered. It is my understanding that the scoreboard on President Bush's nominees who have been proposed and accepted and approved by the Senate is 201; somewhere in the range of 6 or 8 have not been approved. That is quite a good average by any standard for any President. It is certainly dramatically better than the approval given to judges under the previous President, President Clinton.

There have been a lot of complaints and concern expressed about the six or eight judges who have not been approved, and while all of that argument has gone on, 201 of President Bush's nominees have been approved.

Now we have a suggestion that in the closing days of this session, we should approve even more judges. It is a troubling suggestion only in this regard: Not reflecting on any single judicial nominee or that person's qualifications, it has been a practice and tradition in the Senate that in a Presidential election year, we suspend the approval of Federal judges after the first nominating convention of a major party. It is known as the Thurmond rule because Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, chairing this same committee, established it and said once we get that close to a Presidential election, with the outcome uncertain, that we will not be approving judges. We will wait and see what the verdict of the American people will be as to whether the President, in this case, is reelected or a new President takes office and fills those same vacancies.

The Senator from Utah has asked us to look beyond this time-honored Thurmond rule. In my State of Illinois and many other States, we have withheld pursuing nominees because we understood the process was closed down, that there would not be any further judicial nominees considered. I am sure this will be discussed at length. So the record will reflect that has been the tradition. It is the situation that has applied to President after President, and most of us believe, in fairness, it should apply in this situation.

I listened carefully as the Senator from Utah talked about a number of issues, all of which are relevant, many of which will be discussed tonight in the second Presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis between President Bush and Senator Kerry.

One of the issues which he spoke to with some force was the issue of whether we are doing enough to help seniors and other American families pay for their health care. He noted that we passed a Medicare prescription drug bill. It is true that a bill passed with that name. For a person like myself who has supported throughout his congressional career the idea of assistance to senior citizens to pay for prescription drugs, it was painful to vote against a bill called the Medicare prescription drug bill. But I did vote against it, and the reason I voted against it is the same reason that most seniors across America are not only skeptical of this proposal by the Bush administration and the Republican leaders in Congress but have flatly rejected it, because if you take a close look at the proposal which the Bush White House put before us and was approved by this Republican Congress, you will see it is only a Medicare prescription drug bill in name. In fact, it is not, and the reason is obvious. There is no authority in the bill for Medicare as an agency to bargain with the pharmaceutical companies to get the best price for seniors and families across America. The pharmaceutical industry is the most powerful industry on Capitol Hill. Bill after bill, vote after vote, amendment after amendment, the pharmaceutical industry rarely loses. Why? Because they are a powerful force in our economy, the most profitable economic sector in America, and a powerful political force. They are involved in the campaigns, primarily with Republicans but some Democrats, too. They make contributions to those who believe in their approach, and they are rewarded many times with votes that come out their way. This is what happened with the Medicare prescription drug bill.

This bill expressly prohibits the Medicare agency from bargaining with pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and what it means is that seniors, even with this bill, will continue to see the cost of medication going up 10, 15, and 20 percent a year. There is no end in sight. It will continue to grow at a pace that will outstrip the money we put in this bill, at a pace that will outstrip the resources of most seniors and, frankly, will do it in a hurry.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will my friend yield for a question?

Mr. DURBIN. I will be happy to yield for a question from the Senator from California.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, first, I thank my friend from Illinois. We had the Senator from Utah talking about how wonderful everything is with that prescription drug plan the Senator from Illinois and I voted against and Senator Kerry does not support either. The reason we voted against it is it does not do much for our seniors. It is very costly for them when they need it. It is not there because after a certain amount of expenditure, the benefit stops. We call it benefit shutdown, donut hole-different names. Lots of us are trying to fix it.

One of the main problems is what my friend described-a prohibition on the Medicare agency from negotiating with these giant drug companies for lower prices. This is where I want to ask my friend a question.

If someone from the Government came up to one of our constituents who was looking for a new bike for their son and said, You cannot shop around, you have to take whatever that store on the corner says you have to pay, I do not think that would be very popular for the Government to do. I am sure my friend would agree.

Essentially, that is what we are doing here. We are essentially taking the leverage away from Medicare to help our seniors get lower prices by telling them, even though there are 40 million Americans-that is my understanding-on Medicare, they cannot use that power and that leverage to sit across from Pfizer or any of the big companies and say: If you want to get on our formulary, you have to lower this price.

It seems stunning to me that Senator Hatch would come to the floor and say it is not true. He said: We do not stop Medicare, we just stop the agency that runs Medicare. Talk about flimflam. Talk about misleading the seniors. Is that what the Senator from Illinois heard the Senator say?

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in response to the Senator from California, I did not hear that exact quote, but it is clear for anyone who reads the bill that Medicare, as an agency, does not have the authority to bargain for lower drug prices or to create its own drug benefit program.

The Republican leadership in the White House and Congress insisted that this be done through private sector insurance companies. In fact, they expressly prohibited seniors from buying Medicare gap policies to cover this overwhelming cost of prescription drugs.

The most telling fact that I think should be part of this debate is the Bush administration insisted that this so-called Medicare prescription drug benefit plan would not go into effect until after this election. They know, the Senator from California knows, I know, that when seniors see the situation close up and all the details, they are going to feel even worse about what Congress has done. Congress has left them vulnerable on prescription drug costs, and they are not the only ones.

We are finding companies across America and families across America wrestling with the high cost of health care. What has the Bush administration done to help small businesses provide health insurance, to help families afford health insurance, to come to the rescue of 100,000 American retirees who have lost their health care benefits because of a bankruptcy court? What have they done to help these people in such dire straits? Nothing. Why? Because the companies that are profiting from these high costs of insurance and pharmaceuticals are companies that are the political favorites of the Bush administration and the Republican leadership in Congress.

So when any Senator comes to the floor and talks with some pride about what has happened over the last 4 years on health care, go ask the families of America what is happening. The honest answer is no relief, no help, and they find themselves with increasing costs for health care and the cost of health insurance.

Businesses identify this as the No. 1 problem facing American business today, that health care premiums are going up 25 percent and more each year. They say to us: How can we provide coverage for our employees, how can we be competitive in the world if we face that overhead cost?

Labor unions say exactly the same thing. They say: We try to get more money per hour for our workers so they can have a better life, but every penny of it goes for health insurance, and this year's coverage is less than last year's coverage. They are frustrated. Business, labor, families, individuals, and retirees are being left out in the cold.

What has the Bush administration and the Republican Congress done for these groups? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend continue to yield to me?

Mr. DURBIN. I would be happy to yield for a question.

Mrs. BOXER. Again, I want to thank my friend for moving to the bigger issue of all of our citizens, leading off with the issues that are facing our seniors. But I want to get back to our seniors.

My friend said it is interesting that the date of the prescription drug benefit is after the election because it is such a bad benefit and they do not want people to see there is really not very much there. They thought they could run on this as an issue, but I say to my colleague seniors are smart.

We say this is the greatest generation. This is the generation that has kept us free, and they are smart. I am sure my friend has seen what I have seen. As I go around my State, seniors are saying, please fix this thing, allow Medicare to negotiate for lower prices. Do not have the benefit that shuts down just when we need it the most. It is too expensive. Allow importation of pharmaceutical products through Canada. I am sure my friend is having that same experience.

The thing they did not count on, President Bush and our friends on the other side, is that the seniors see this on the horizon. They get it. They are used to reading the small print, and I believe they are letting us know that they are quite unhappy.

I want to ask my friend this: One would think, after looking at what the Veterans' Administration does for its people, when they sit down, knowing they have millions of veterans behind them, and negotiate with a drug company and get those prices down, perhaps a third less, maybe even a half lower than what they sell for normally on the market, one would think that would have been the perfect model for this group that wrote this bill to emulate what the Veterans' Administration does for its veterans.

Oh, no, no. Was not my friend surprised when it turned out that instead of taking the model that has been developed for veterans on pharmaceutical prices, where the Veterans' Administration sits across the table from the big drug companies, essentially, and bargains for lower companies, that instead of taking that model they are reversing that model and prohibiting Medicare to negotiate?

Mr. DURBIN. The Senator from California, I am sure, has met with veterans, as I have in Illinois. Veterans are fortunate when they reach an age that they can go to a Veterans Hospital and get their prescriptions filled for a modest amount each month. That is because the Veterans' Administration bargains for the prices of drugs, brings them down to a lower cost than a senior on Medicare is going to pay.

There has been a lot of talk about reimportation of drugs from Canada. I just want to say for the record, many of us believe that a promise had been made on the Senate floor that we would vote on this issue of reimportation of drugs from Canada before we went home this year. In fact, there is ample evidence in the Congressional Record, a colloquy between Senator Dorgan of North Dakota and the majority leader of the Senate, which led us all to believe that we would finally get a chance to reimport drugs that have been made in the United States safely and can be bought at a fraction of the cost in Canada and other places.

The decision was made, no, we do not have time. We cannot do it. Well, that decision was made as the decision was made to stop Medicare from asking for lower prices for drugs, at the request of the pharmaceutical companies. These companies are making the greatest profit of any sector of the American economy, and they have asked for Congress to protect their profits. This is a decision driven by greed. It is a decision where the pharmaceutical companies have said, despite the hardship on seniors, despite the hardship on families and businesses, we will not reduce the prices of our drugs.

A phony argument has been raised, and that is that we cannot reimport drugs from Canada without compromising the safety of the drugs that are brought in. Let me remind everyone that the overwhelming majority of the drugs we are talking about are the product of research in the United States. They are the product of American pharmaceutical companies. They are in packages and under names in Canada exactly as they are in the United States. We are only asking that these drugs be brought back in so that seniors can get some relief from high drug prices, relief that is not forthcoming in the Medicare prescription drug bill.

Let me say something about the safety issue. Do not trust me. I am just an elected official. Trust instead Dr. Peter Rost, who is vice president of marketing at Pfizer. Let us see what he had to say about the safety issue:

During my time responsible for a region in northern Europe, I never once-not once-heard the drug industry, regulatory agencies, the government, or anyone else saying that this practice was unsafe. And personally, I think it is outright derogatory to claim that Americans would not be able to handle reimportation of drugs, when the rest of the educated world can do this.

It is a phony issue. Safety of drugs is a phony issue. We can put safeguards in place. We have proposals before the Senate to do it. In my home State of Illinois, Governor Blagojevich has been a leader on the reimportation issue. He has established what I consider to be rational and very thoroughly thought out standards for the reimportation of drugs. Resistance comes from the Food and Drug Administration, and that resistance is inspired by the pharmaceutical companies that do not want to see cheaper drugs coming into the United States to help seniors and families meet the overwhelming cost of prescription drugs.

Tonight, during the course of this debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry, I am sure that health care will be an issue. I am guessing that someone, in 90 minutes, in the Washington University audience is going to say to both candidates: What are you going to do to reduce the cost of health care for families across America?

What the President will say is, We have done it with the Medicare prescription drug bill. And the obvious answer to that is, Well, then why did you postpone it until after the election? Why is it so hard to understand? Why the gaps in coverage? Why can't Medicare bargain for a lower price?

The answer on the other side from Senator Kerry is obviously, this administration, in the thrall and under the control of the pharmaceutical industry, is not prepared to confront them on behalf of American families and businesses which are struggling to pay for prescription drugs.

I think that is a clear choice, as there will be a clear choice on so many issues.

Take a look at this issue as well. On the issue of health care, what has happened under the Bush administration? Under President Bush's 4 years, fewer jobs in America provide health insurance. We know from the reports, the President, during his administration, has lost more jobs in America than any President in the last 70 years of either political party. Even today's report about a few new jobs in America still leaves the President somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 net jobs lost during his Presidency. Even his father, facing a recession and a war, was able to see much more employment created than this President.

As a result of the lost jobs, and as a result of businesses struggling with the Bush economic policies, fewer companies offer health insurance.

In the year 2000, when President Bush took office, 63.6 percent of companies offered employer-provided health insurance. Today, it is 60.4 percent. That means 3.8 million Americans have lost health insurance coverage at their job.

Now, what does one do when they have lost their health insurance at their job? Well, for many of these Americans, it means no protection whatsoever. It means that they pray each morning that someone does not develop a serious illness or get involved in an accident.

So how is this making America a better place? How is it strengthening families? How is it removing fears and worries from families who are just trying to get by each day and maybe make life a little better for their children? I cannot imagine in my family, if we did not have health insurance, what it would be like, fearful that at any given moment the savings that we have could evaporate paying for health costs.

Under President Bush, 3.8 million Americans have lost health insurance. That is a fact. That will come up tonight during the course of this debate.

Look at the jobs that have been lost under President Bush as well. The Clinton administration saw an increase of 20.7 million jobs in the 8 years of his Presidency; under President Bush, a loss of 1.6 million jobs. The President says his economic policies are working. The unemployed people of America are a living testimony to the fact that they have failed because the President's economic policy is very simply stated. If we give tax breaks to the wealthiest people in America, surely everybody else will be better off.

It has not worked. It is not going to work. The helping hand should be given to businesses to create jobs. A helping hand should be given to working families to try to keep up with increased costs for health care and college tuition and gasoline. These are the basics of life. This administration has ignored it. By ignoring it they have created an economic climate that has destroyed jobs instead of creating them.

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield to my friend.

Mrs. BOXER. Would you keep the chart up. This is a shocking chart. This is not about politics or rhetoric. This is a fact. The fact is, we came off of the Clinton administration where 20.7 million new jobs were created, and we are at the end of the Bush administration and a loss of 1.6 million jobs. They will make every excuse in the book for it. The fact is, we have that kind of record, even though we are in raging deficit spending.

I am an economics major. Granted, it was a long time ago that I went to college and I got my degree in economics, but one of the things they taught us in economics 101 was that when you wanted to rejuvenate the economy-deficit spending. So here we have a President who is deficit spending, who has stolen every penny from the Social Security trust fund to pay for his tax cuts, throwing hundreds of billions-let's be exact, between $120 billion and $200 billion at Iraq with no end in sight to bear the burden of that war, let alone the human loss of life, and with all of this deficit spending we see a loss of 1.6 million jobs. It is shocking to see this type of record.

The President goes around with the music blaring, saying how great his economic program is, as my colleague pointed out, and all of these great new jobs that are being created. I want to ask my friend, for the jobs that are being created-and there are some, although it is very anemic-isn't it true that the average pay of those jobs is approximately $9,000 less a year than the pay of the jobs that have been lost? If my friend, in answering that question, could talk about what that means to families who have to pay the higher costs of health care, college tuition, gas prices, and all the things we need to pay for, it would be helpful.

Mr. DURBIN. I would be happy to respond to that question. I would say if you listen carefully, the President's regular response when asked about whether there is enough employment in America is: This administration will not rest until every American has a job.

The President better plan on staying up late at night, all through the night, for the next 3 weeks-plus of this campaign, because Americans are having difficulty finding jobs.

The point the Senator made is an important one. I have met with some of these unemployed people, many of whom worked for years, even decades, in good-paying jobs. They live in nice houses, their kids go to good schools, they had savings accounts, a car in the driveway-maybe two or three, vacations were planned. Then all of a sudden the bottom fell out. They lost the job. I met with them and listened to them about their desperate efforts to find another job. They are in a situation where they will take a lot less money for a job just to go back to work. The potential employer says: "Wait a minute, you are overqualified. Because you are overqualified we are not going to hire you because we know you'll take something better that comes along," so they can't get employed. But if they luck out and get one of the lower paying jobs, what will they have to sacrifice? Will it be their savings? Will it be the college education of their child? Will it be the home they live in? You can't tell what it means.

But if this President says he won't rest until every American has a job, he better stay up at night for a long, long time because we have lost more jobs under his Presidency than any President's since Herbert Hoover. For those who are not students of history, he was the President during the Great Depression, a depression which our parents lived through and will remember as the toughest time in their lives.

This President has created a climate in this country where the number of jobs is not growing. It did not have to be that way. Take a look at what happened under the Clinton administration. The Clinton administration was creating 2.6 million jobs a year. The Bush administration has been losing about 200,000 jobs a year.

You say to yourself, What was the difference? The difference was the Clinton administration put together a sound fiscal policy for America. It was not easy. In fact, it passed the House and the Senate-I served in the House at the time-by one vote in each Chamber. Vice President Gore cast the deciding vote. President Clinton did say that in his administration we are going to take deficits seriously. I know the other party, the Republicans, say they are fiscal conservatives but we believe that getting the deficit under control is critically important if we are going to rejuvenate this economy and bring down interest rates and have more capital investment.

We did it. It was painful. Many Members of the House and Senate lost their seats because they voted for this plan. But it worked. As a consequence, under the Clinton administration jobs were created.

Now take a look at what this President has done. Claiming to be a fiscal conservative, this President now has us in a position where we have the largest deficit in the history of the United States. How can this be? The President will say, Don't blame me for 9/11. Don't blame me for the recession that was inevitable. Don't blame me for the war in Iraq. But the honest answer is he has to accept the blame for an economic policy that called for tax cuts during this same period, tax cuts primarily focused on the wealthiest people in America. That is what has been driving deficit numbers to a great extent. That is something for which you can blame the Bush administration.

Many of us believe a tax policy that would have helped smaller businesses, family farmers, and individuals struggling to pay the bills for their families could have put real juice in this economy, as the Senator from California suggested, rejuvenating it at the right level at a lower cost.

To give to a person making over $200,000 a year another $5,000 or $10,000 or $20,000 is gilding the lily. Their life is pretty comfortable. To give them $20,000 more means more stocks purchased, more money invested. But it is not the same kind of expenditure as when you give $5,000 to a working family which turns around and says now we can consider the downpayment on a car, we can get the washer and dryer, a little remodel job on the kitchen, we can put the money away for our son and daughter for a college education, we can make sure we are planning for a brighter future for our family. It is the difference between night and day.

There was a moment in a movie, which was controversial, called "Fahrenheit 9/11." President Bush was speaking to a group. I don't know where it was located. He was on film. He was in his tuxedo and the people all around him were in tuxedos, and he said something along these lines: Some people say you are the upper last class. They call you the wealthy. They call you the upper level. But I call you my base.

It was supposed to be a humorous line, but there was more truth than humor. The President has served his base well with his economic policies. He has said to those people who are well off: You are my first priority. His economic policies have been directed to help them, time and again, at the expense of working families, at the expense of the worst deficit in our history.

So we have a choice. We have a choice to make on November 2. More of the same? Continuation of this policy, risking more jobs lost, putting more burdens on working families?

Take a look at the long-term unemployment in this country. The long-term unemployment in 2000 was 649,000 people. Now it is almost three times that amount, 1.7 million people. Long-term unemployed, meaning they have tried and tried and cannot get back to work.

Take a look at who is better off because of the policies of the Bush administration. These charts tell you what happens here. The household income in America is down, under the Bush administration. If you think you are pedalling faster and not going any farther, this chart tells you why. You may be making a few more dollars, but the cost of living for working families has gone up.

How have the CEOs at the major corporations done under the Bush tax policy, the people making dramatically more money than the people working in the office and factory? The CEO compensation went up 20 percent. Take a look at the HMOs, the insurance companies that have been protected by this administration. Their profits have been up 84 percent.

Do you think you are paying more for gasoline today than you were 4 years ago? This is the chart: $1.47 was the average price of gas in 2001. The average price of a gallon of gas in 2004 is $1.92. And when we hear the price of a barrel of oil is over $50, it may be a good thing for the oil companies, but it is bad news for American families and a lot of businesses.

Why are these airlines going into bankruptcy one after the other? I was on a plane the other day-United. At the end of the flight, as we landed, the flight attendant came on and said: Thank you for flying United. I know you had a choice of many companies that are in bankruptcy or near bankruptcy. That is what he announced to the passengers. Everybody kind of laughed, but it is a sad reality.

The cost of fuel, the cost of oil, and our dependence on foreign oil instead of an energy bill that moves us toward independence have left us vulnerable as an economy and left American families vulnerable paying for the bills.

Where is the leadership? Do we really need 4 more years of wrong decisions like these, decisions that would not challenge the Saudis and their oil supplies and instead say America is going to move forward to energy independence so we can't be held captive by OPEC and the Saudi Arabian oil cartel? That is the difference. That is the case.

We are suggesting there ought to be a better vision for America, and move us away from dependence on Mideast oil, move us toward an economic policy to give working families a fighting chance. You haven't seen it for 4 years.

Tonight, this administration through the President is going to try to justify some of the harsh realities.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DURBIN. Yes.
BREAK IN TEXT

Mr. DURBIN. I would be happy to respond to the question.

First, Mr. President, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 21½ minutes remaining.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me say to the Senator from California that she has really come to the heart of the problem. The President said in his first debate that being President was hard work. He said that over and over again. This is hard work. This is hard stuff. These are hard things to do. I don't doubt it. Being President of the United States may be the toughest job in the world. But sadly, the President, despite the hard work he has experienced, doesn't understand the hard work families have to go through just to make ends meet. If he were a little more in touch with these families and their own struggles, he would understand why we need a man or a person in the White House standing up for them and understanding the challenges families face every single day. And it hasn't happened.

The Senator from California mentions outsourcing. It is true. The head of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Bush administration sent a report to Congress saying that the outsourcing of jobs was a positive, a good result; sending jobs overseas was good. He explained that that would mean more competition and lower costs, completely overlooking the obvious. When a good-paying job leaves America, it is not likely the person who lost it is going to get another good-paying job, or get it soon. It is likely that that follow job is not going to have the same level of benefits for the person who just saw their job outsourced.

This administration plays by a strange economic textbook. That economic textbook calls for total free market forces despite the consequences. Even under this administration, the President has seen what the free market unbridled can lead to.

I put as exhibit A Enron. If you do not have a government through its President and regulatory agencies keeping an eye on some corporate activity as we keep an eye on individual activity, terrible things can occur-and they did occur in Enron, a business that defrauded a lot of innocent people out of their life savings, not to mention misrepresentations made in terms of the status of that business and the impact it had on so many other businesses. But this President steps back every time someone suggests that he needs to stand up to free market forces that are not serving America. He will not stand up to pharmaceutical companies that are overcharging Americans. He wouldn't let the Medicare agency bargain for lower prices. No. Let the free market work its will. The free market is working its will at the expense of a lot of senior citizens and families who can't afford their prescription drugs.

Did the President get on the phone as he promised as a candidate and call the OPEC cartel when they were holding oil off the market and driving up prices in America? No. Let the free market work its will. You know what happened. Gasoline prices have gone through the roof, airline fuel prices have gone through the roof, and America's economy has suffered. More jobs are being lost, more airline employees are being laid off, and we see businesses dependent on fuel struggling across America.

When it came to a tax break, did this President take into consideration that the cost of a college education is going up more than 20 percent a year in many institutions and that families with bright students who want the best chance in life just can't imagine their son or daughter graduating with $100,000 in debt and a diploma? Did the President think about that when he decided to look at the Tax Code to help families? No. No, there was no provision in there for the deductibility of college education expenses. The President said to let the market work its will at the expense of many of these families.

Langston Hughes once referred to the group of people that I am talking about. He called them "people for whom life ain't been no crystal stair." He was a person who understood that people get up every morning and struggle-struggle to keep their family together, struggle to make ends meet, struggle to try to believe that their kids will be better off than they are. These families would like to believe there is somebody someplace in Washington who cares, someone who understands we are headed in the wrong direction in this country in so many instances.

We are losing jobs. We are seeing important jobs outsourced. We are seeing our deficit at record levels. These are the harsh realities.

The Senator from California says it does not appear that this administration has a plan. In many instances, it does not appear this administration has a clue. It is as if the President, with those auditoriums filled with thousands of fans, does not take the time to step outside the auditorium and talk to an average family about what they are going through as their cost of health insurance goes up and the cost of living goes up as well.

IRAQ

I will use my remaining time of morning business to speak to the other issue brought up by the Senator from California. That, of course, is the situation in Iraq.

We had a report through the Senate Intelligence Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee this week from Mr. Duelfer who went back to Iraq and for the second time spent months and millions of dollars to look for weapons of mass destruction. He came back and told us they are not there. We cannot find them.

Think about that. Think of how often President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and others told us we were in imminent danger from an attack from Saddam Hussein because of arsenals of chemical and biological weapons and the rebuilding of the nuclear weapons in Iraq. That was the justification. That is why we had to invade. That is why we could not wait. And it was all wrong. Totally wrong.

Now comes the administration saying, no, it was not really about weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact they said that then over and over again. It was the fact that Saddam Hussein could not be trusted and was an evil man. It was about the fact he may have had the desire-the new word, "desire"-to build weapons of mass destruction and it really was about the Oil for Food Program in Iraq.

Really? Go back and check the tape on statements made by the President as to why we had to send our Armed Forces into harm's way. The statements made by the President do not quibble: weapons of mass destruction, yellow cake, uranium coming into Iraq, linkage between al-Qaida and those who were responsible for September 11, al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein.

Now, today, that evidence, that case, has evaporated. It is gone after millions of dollars have been spent desperately trying to find evidence of one weapon of mass destruction.

Trust me, those who are following this debate, had this administration found a tiny shred of evidence of weapons of mass destruction, it would have been front page news around the world. They could not find a thing.

The intelligence was bad. The reasons for going to war, given to us by the President, was just plain wrong.

Where are we today? Mr. President, 140,000 of our best and brightest, our soldiers, marines, our airmen, those in the U.S. Navy, our guardsmen and reservists, got up this morning in Iraq and went to do their duty and risk their lives for America. Over a year and a half after our invasion of Iraq, there is no end in sight. They say we hope someday soon to have elections. We are not quite sure how much of Iraq will be safe to vote. We hope to have an election and we hope to have the Iraqis take over. Those are two good goals. I hope we can reach them.

But we have to acknowledge the obvious. This administration was not prepared for the war in Iraq. They were prepared for the invasion. Our troops did a masterful job in a very short period of time. But this administration was not ready for what followed. Isn't that the most basic thing to ask of a Commander in Chief? Don't send my son or your son into battle unless you are prepared to give that soldier everything they need to be safe, to win, and to come home. This administration was not prepared.

I know that because for the last few months I have spent time on behalf of Illinois soldiers, demanding they have body armor to protect themselves in Iraq, one of the most basic things one would think we would provide, demanding we have armor plating on Humvee vehicles so as they travel across Iraq they do not fall prey to the homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, demanding we put the necessary defensive equipment on helicopters so we will not have Guard and Reserve and Regular Army helicopters shot out of the sky because they were not properly equipped.

Why would I be doing this, a year and a half after the invasion, after giving the Bush administration every single penny they asked for to execute this war? I am doing it, and many others in the Senate and Congress are doing it, we are doing it because this administration was not prepared for the war in Iraq.

The losers are over 1,000 American soldiers who have lost their lives, and the 7,000 bravely wounded. I have met many going to a veterans hospital, Jefferson Barracks, right outside of St. Louis, meeting a young soldier, quadriplegic as a result of injuries sustained in Iraq; going to Walter Reed Hospital to meet these brave young men and women who have lost an arm, a leg, both hands, suffered head injuries. They are there with their families trying to put their lives back together, still proud of their service to this country, as they should be.

But as you walk away from the hospitals, you think we could do more. We should have been ready. We were not ready. But we could not wait. We could not wait for the U.N. inspectors to finish. We could not wait for a real coalition to come together-taking nothing away from the coalition we have, let's be honest. When you pick up the morning paper, the casualties, the soldiers who have lost their lives are overwhelmingly American soldiers. I am glad the Brits are with us. I am glad another 30 nations have given us some assistance in this regard, but when it comes to putting lives on the line in Iraq every single day, trust me, it is America front and center. And it has been for a long, long time.

When it comes to paying for this war, it is the American taxpayers front and center. We have spent over $1 billion a week on the war in Iraq and there is no end in sight. We appropriated almost $20 billion to start rebuilding Iraq and we are not spending it. Why? It is a vicious circle. Let me tell you what it is.

You cannot stabilize Iraq until you move the economy forward. You cannot move the economy forward until you build basic infrastructure such as electricity, and you cannot build basic infrastructure if you have insurgents and terrorists and guerillas blowing up everything you build. This vicious circle suggests there is no end in sight.

So the President has driven our national bus into a cul-de-sac and now challenges Senator Kerry to explain how to get out of this mess. A lot of us think that even giving the President the authority to go forward, he should have been prepared. He should have known what we were getting into.

Ambassador Bremer said, within the week, we did not send enough troops there. Had the right number of troops been sent at the right time, it could have been a more peaceful environment, but instead it is dangerous and American soldiers are still living in fear of what is going to happen from day to day.

At the same time, we turned our back on the obvious target, Osama bin Laden. I went to Afghanistan in the first codel with Senator Daschle, the first daylight codel that was allowed into Afghanistan, to Bagram Air Force Base, to a closed briefing by our intelligence agents about Osama bin Laden. They put up this huge aerial photo of the Tora Bora Mountains and they drew a tiny circle on the map. They pointed to all Members of Congress and the Senate and said: This is where Osama bin Laden is and we are going to nail him. This tiny circle.

I left there thinking, great, that will break the back and the morale of this terrorism network of al-Qaida. But it didn't happen. The Bush administration did not execute it well. They did not bring in the troops. They did not capture Osama bin Laden. He is not only still on the loose but al-Qaida is spreading like a cancer across the globe.

Where is our coalition to fight al-Qaida? It is the coalition that was stiff-armed by this administration when it came to the invasion of Iraq, when the President said, We will do it alone. We do not need you. Bring it on.

Remember when the President said, "Bring it on"? Well, they brought it on and, sadly, we have a lot of soldiers who have sacrificed so much for their country because of it.

We need to turn this corner. We need to have a new vision. We need to have a leader who will reach out to the world and reestablish America as a leader willing to work with others, not that any country should ever have veto power over our national defense. That is our call. That is our decision.

But we know, as President Bush's father knew, that it is a coalition of nations that makes us stronger. When we decided in the Persian Gulf war to bring Arab nations and their soldiers into that war as part of our coalition, it did not just add more soldiers in the field, it added an element that is missing in this war in Iraq.

Why are we being criticized so roundly in Arab States? Because we went into Iraq without waiting for those who could and would have helped us. This President could not wait, and now our soldiers are paying the price. I hope the American people make a decision to move forward with a new vision for this country, not to repeat the same mistakes again and again.

We have made mistakes when it comes to our economic policy, and we have paid a dear price for it. We have made mistakes when it comes to our agenda in Congress. We do not take up the serious bills that America's working families expect us to take up. We have generated the biggest deficit in the history of the United States to leave our children. We have the costs of war that are over $1 billion a week, and no end in sight. And, sadly, we are still losing our soldiers.

I was on the phone yesterday, as I have tried to so many times, to call the families of Illinois soldiers who have died overseas. I have not been able to get through to all of them, and I can understand some of them just don't want to take phone calls. That is understandable. And each and every one of them is a profile in courage. They are so proud of their son or daughter who has lost his life or her life in Iraq, and they are proud they served their country. I am, too. But I also want to take some pride that we have policies that are going to reduce the likelihood that more soldiers will end up losing their lives.

This administration has been in total denial about the reality of the threat in Iraq, total denial about the reality of what continues as a war in Iraq, total denial when it comes to understanding that we have lost a worldwide coalition that stood by our side after 9/11 and now wonders why the United States wants to go it alone.

I want to make certain, as I end these remarks, that we understand that in this great Nation we live in, we do have a chance to make a choice. And that chance will come on November 2.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that as part of my unanimous consent agreement, that when I finish and yield the floor, a quorum will be questioned.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has to actually suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DURBIN. I object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

Mr. DURBIN. I object.