Press Conference with Leaders of the Senate Democratic Caucus - Legislative Agenda

Press Conference

Press Conference with Leaders of the Senate Democratic Caucus - Legislative Agenda

SEN. REID: Every year, the majority introduces their first and most important 10 bills. And following that, the minority introduces their 10 most important bills. We are doing that today and explaining to you why we're doing this and why we're doing the bills that we've done.

First of all, it's very important to note that we have to talk about the economy and let the American people know that we know how very, very serious it is that we do something. There was an election that took place. It called for change. And we have to change. We are in a very, very deep rut, have to figure a way to get out of it. The American people want us to do this on a bipartisan basis. And we need to do that.

I repeat, the American people realize that we have such a difficult time with the economy. It's in a state of crisis, not thousands of jobs being lost each month but now hundreds of thousands of jobs lost each month. And we have to have a way to recover, to reinvest. We have to stabilize what we do in this economy. And we have to make sure that the projects that go forward are worthy and they're needed projects.

We have to make sure that back here in Washington, there's a new Washington, one that has some discipline, has some restraint. There's accountability; there's oversight; there's responsibility and transparency. And we have to make sure that we not only are concerned about what's happening on the short term but also the long term.

We have to have investments that move into the private sector, create private-sector jobs. We don't all -- we don't want all this growth to take place because of government jobs. And we have to help workers who have been damaged by this crisis. Who are those people? They're people who have lost their jobs. They're people who have lost their homes.

The reason it's so important that we do something, about people who have lost their homes, is that it's not only that person that lost their home that gets hurt but it's also the people in the neighborhood that get hurt, who have done nothing wrong but have been damaged as a result of that home being foreclosed upon. Communities are damaged. Governments are damaged, because the tax revenues go down so very, very much.

We are going to do everything we can to create jobs, put the middle class first and strengthen our economy. And we're going to do it with the thought in mind that we have to make America more energy- independent. And in doing so, it helps our national security and our national economy.

Senator Durbin?

SEN. DURBIN: I'd like to address three of the bills that are part of the package.

The first one is focused on restoring accountability and oversight to the executive branch and making government more transparent. We're going to start by reviewing the Bush administration's controversial midnight regulations. Many of these last-minute changes by executive order, we believe, can hurt American workers, families, the health care and the environment.

Some of these regulations include changes in the Family and Medical Leave law that would limit employee access to family and medical leave. Among other things, this rule would make it more difficult to work -- for workers to use paid vacation or personal time to take leave, and would allow employers to speak directly to an employee's health-care provider.

Secondly, Medicaid outpatient services. The rule would narrow the definition of outpatient hospital services to reduce Medicaid beneficiaries' access to those services, such as dental and vision care.

Third, endangered species consultation in the Department of Interior. This rule would alter the implementation of Endangered Species Act by allowing federal land-use managers to approve projects like infrastructure creation, minerals extraction and logging without the consultation of environmental experts. Oil-shale development, another controversial area, one that -- where I believe that, unfortunately, this administration is trying to change dramatically in the closing minutes of this administration.

The second area relates to immigration. Democrats will strengthen our economy and national security by enacting and enforcing tough and fair immigration laws. We want to reform our immigration laws -- a reform that is badly needed -- to safeguard the rights and wages of American workers while requiring everyone who lives in America to follow our laws and pay their fair share of taxes. We'll provide more effective border enforcement to prevent illegal immigration. We'll reform and rationalize current avenues, recognizing that we are a nation of immigrants.

The third issue, restoring America's power. Democrats will enhance our national security by strengthening our military in the right way, rebuilding America's standing in the world and reducing key threats, providing our troops the equipment and training they desperately need and our veterans the support that they deserve here at home. Senator Murray has been a leader on these veterans' issues, as well as Senator Akaka, of course, chairman of the committee.

We will strengthen nonproliferation and protect our nation from other deadly weapons, and we'll share more effectively in the fight with terrorism by transitioning our strategy in Iraq and refocusing our resources on al Qaeda, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and other emerging threats.

SEN. REID (?): Senator Schumer?

SEN. SCHUMER: Thank you. One of our main focuses is focusing on the middle class. As you know, I think middle-class voters showed that they thought that this -- the present administration forgot them.

Well, we are going to focus like a laser on middle-class families and what they need. We're going to make good on our promise to bring real relief to middle-class families. In 2007, many of us introduced a bill, called the Middle Class Opportunity Act, to refocus our tax policy on helping middle-class families. And you're going to see us move forward on that in the next months.

We try to deal with middle-class problems as families go through life. First, we double the child tax credit. So bringing a new child into the world is very expensive these days. We're going to double that. An average middle-class family will spend an average of $20,000 on a newborn child before his or her second birthday.

Second, most families are two-family -- when there are two parents, they're both working; when there's a single parent, he or she is working. And we need help with child care. It's a new world. And middle-class families need help on that, and we're going to extend quality child care by extending the dependent tax credit to cover a greater percentage of child care expenses.

Third, as you go through life, what are the expenses? Middle of most people's lives, it's college. Middle-class families wake up in the middle of the night worried how they're going to pay the tuition bills. We have already passed a bill that allows a certain amount of tuition to be deducted. We're going to increase that deduction significantly, up to $3,000 per student, $9,000 a year per families. And we're going to include things like textbooks, which can often cost a thousand dollars.

And finally, our parents are living longer. Who's taking care of them? And we're going to have a new tax credit for families that pay for the care of an aging parent who does not live with the family.

So we're trying to help the middle class as they go through life.

We certainly want to help those who are poor. That's been a credo. But we believe we should be helping both, and I think you will see in this Congress a union -- as you saw in the election -- of the middle class and those who are trying to be middle class, as opposed to the wealthy and the middle class, which is what George Bush unsuccessfully tried to do.

The other set of bills we're dealing with is -- deals with fiscal responsibility. And we Democrats are going to be very, very careful about national savings. We're going to encourage people to save. We can't do that immediately, but we're going to prepare legislation so in the future they can. Our negative savings rate is one of the great causes of the problems we face. We're going to increase IRAs.

We're going to allow accounts for newborn children, and there's going to be a saver bonus for middle-class families that increase their savings.

Government spending doesn't occur in a vacuum. And the final thing that we are doing is making sure that our spending is done in a careful, responsible way, with transparency, oversight and accountability.

SEN. REID: Senator Murray.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): I go home every weekend to Washington State, and whether I'm in the grocery store or in formal meetings with the people I represent, they don't hesitate to tell me what they think, what they like, what issues are important to them, what they're mad about or what's critical to them.

And the issues change over the years, but what is constant and always constant is people want to make sure that they have access to affordable quality health care and that our education system works for them, that their children will get the kind of education that means that they can have a job even in these tough economic times. Those two issues will be a critical part of our agenda, as the leaders in the Senate during this Congress.

We want to make sure that all families, businesses, everyone have access to affordable, quality health care. It's a challenge, but we believe that we need to address this issue head on, and we have two great leaders in the Senate -- Senator Kennedy and Senator Baucus -- who will be leading us as we put that plan forward.

In terms of education, we want to focus again on early childhood learning so that our young people have the opportunity to start school prepared. We want to make sure that all of our students in our schools today have a pathway to success so that they don't see school as an end but see it as a beginning and an opportunity for them to participate in our economy.

And we strengthen our community college system. Today, as our economy is declining, states are finding it very difficult to make sure that those really important structures are secure in their own states. At a time when it is critically important that we are training people for the economy of the future, we don't want our community colleges to be struggling as hard as they are, because they are the place where many of our young people today get the skills to get the green jobs of the future or to get into our health care system which will help our economy get back on track.

So as this country calls for change, we are saying to them, we are bringing change to you by bringing forward a package of bills that says that this country will work for you again.

Q Mr. Leader?

SEN. REID: We're going to take some questions, and we're going to divide them up into the area of bills that we're looking into, so it's -- going to have a number of people answer questions.

Yes?

Q Senator Reid, when you finish with the stimulus legislation, which of these issues do you expect to take up on the floor after that?

SEN. REID: We're going to take up after that the Omnibus Appropriation Bill, so we'll have funding until October 1st of this year. That's what we'll take up.

This work period, this six-week work period, we have a number of things we're going to do. We've got this massive land bill that one senator's held up on some 164 bills. We're going to work on that over the weekend. We're going to move then to the Lilly Ledbetter legislation. We're going to move then to the SCHIP legislation. And in the meantime it's possible we may have to start doing TARP again. And then after that, we're going to work on the economic recovery plan.

Yeah?

Q Leader, Roland Burris is a former accountant, auditor of the Federal Reserve; he's been vice president of a bank as well as a state comptroller who brought in budgets on -- brought in state budgets on budget -- (off mike). Wouldn't he be an asset to the Senate, having as much fiscal responsibility and experience that he has?

SEN. REID: I met with Roland Burris this morning, as I've said to all of you earlier. Senator Durbin and I spent 45 minutes with him. I asked him, when the meeting began, "Tell me about yourself," because I'd never met him before. And he talked about his going to law school; he talked about being the first black bank examiner. So we -- I went through his history. I know it quite well.

And we -- as you know, we have some hurdles to get through. We have an 1884 Senate rule that indicates there has to be a counter- signature by the secretary of State. That -- he acknowledged that. There's no dispute about that. And there's going to be a court decision on that in the next two days.

He is also going to testify tomorrow, starting at 3:00, in the state of Illinois, regarding whatever dealings that he's had with Blagojevich.

After that, as I've indicated, we're going to see what we do with this matter. It seems pretty clear to me that the entire Senate's going to have to vote on this. And we hope to get it done as soon as we can.

Q Mr. Leader?

SEN. REID: Yes.

Q How do you look back on your statement that the Burris appointment would not stand? And if he is seated, will you view that as having been you and the president-elect having been outmaneuvered by Governor Blagojevich?

SEN. REID: I think that that quite simply is not true.

The reason Barack Obama joined with us in the first letter, and certainly the statements made subsequent to that, that this nomination is tainted, because if you don't know anything about this, it doesn't look very good: Blagojevich, who was arrested at his home going to work one morning for trying to sell this office; we've seen time and time again in print and before the electronic media the crude language, Blagojevich saying this is a "f-ing gold mine, I've got to get anything I can out of it." How are we supposed to react? We reacted in a very reasonable way.

Now, since then, we have had the opportunity to see if there can be any transparency in this. We know that the state of Illinois is entitled to representation, but until we remove the cloud from this Blagojevich nomination, we cannot move forward. And I think it's a pretty easy hurdle to get over, if in fact we can show that there's -- through the transparency that we believe must exist, because the senator from Illinois has to satisfy not only us but the people of Illinois that this is a fair deal. And that's what we're working on right now.

Q And if I could, Mr. Leader, those Democrats who supported Mr. Burris, especially early on, would you consider them in any way having been disloyal to you and the president-elect?

SEN. REID: I've only received one phone call from one senator, and we had a pleasant conversation. And she said we'll wait and see how things play out. And so I have -- this is not a question of disloyalty, it's a question of whether we do the right thing for the country. And we're doing our utmost to do that.

And I think if anyone talks to Roland Burris, he will be the first to acknowledge that he's been treated fairly to this point.

Q Mr. Leader, the chairman of the Rules Committee now, Senator Feinstein, says this is a legal appointment. So why does this now have to go to the whole --

SEN. REID: Well, all due -- all due respect to Dianne, it's not a legal appointment. We've gone through this in great detail. Since 1884, to have a governor appoint someone, you need the signature of the governor and the counter-signature of the secretary of state. That is a rule.

The only way we can change that -- it's never been changed. The only way we can change that is by changing the rule. That takes a two-thirds vote, and I think it's pretty clear we wouldn't get a two- thirds vote. So until the court rules in Illinois whether or not the secretary of state has to sign this, that decision (won't ?) be made.

If the court rules, for example, that he doesn't have to sign it, he can still sign it. So I think Dianne, I'm sure, didn't get all the facts.

Q (Off mike.)

SEN. REID: Well, no, I'm not insisting on going anyplace. I said, after these things take place, as we explained to Burris, we'll make a decision. The Rules Committee is one thing we can do. We can -- it's a privilege motion, we can bring it to the floor. We can do lots of things.

Q Regarding the agenda, I noticed --

SEN. REID: Oh, great question. (Laughter.)

Q There hasn't been much talk about the environmental legislation that you put forward. I was wondering if you could just sort of trace what you see as -- where you see that on the agenda, in regards to the economy, and also if the legislation that you put forward is going to serve as a vehicle for --

SEN. REID: Global warming is here, and we have to do something about it. And one way to address that, more than any other way, is to do something about being energy-independent.

If we were energy-independent, it would do so much to help the environment. It would make the air cleaner. It would allow us to produce electricity more cheaply and to get it to where it's needed.

So any time you talk about global warming or the environment, understand, the focus should be on energy independence. And Obama has never taken his eye off that. And neither have we.

Yes.

Q Mr. Leader, on the Lilly Ledbetter legislation, is the Senate going to consider that and paycheck fairness as one big bill --

SEN. REID: No. No. Patty will respond to that. But Lilly Ledbetter, we're going to do that, as I understand it, just that narrow issue of Lilly Ledbetter. We'll get into pay equity at a later time.

Thank you, everybody.

END.

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