Important Priorities

IMPORTANT PRIORITIES -- (Senate - January 04, 2007)

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am honored to be here with my Democratic colleague today. I listened to the Senator from New York talk about our top 10 priorities. Senator Reid, our new majority leader, and Senator Durbin before me talked about how we now in this new majority are going to focus on the real issues affecting American families. I congratulate Senators Reid, the new majority leader, and McConnell, the Republican leader, for setting the right tone today by bringing us together this morning and reminding us all that we are here together to work on a very important agenda for the American people. We will have our disagreements, our partisan battles, but at the end of the day we have to move legislation forward because if there was any message to me out of the November election that brought us to the majority now, it was that people want us to get past the partisan rancor on the floor of the Senate. They want us to get past the bickering. They expect debates, they like that, but at the end of the day they want us to move forward.

Across this country today, American families are struggling to send their kids to college, struggling to get health care, struggling with their pensions, struggling with their salaries, and they expect us, the 100 leaders of the Senate, to be here together to solve those issues in a way that moves them forward and gives promise and hope to the next generation.

Mr. President, that is what the top 10 priorities are that our new majority leader set out for us today. They are bills that focus on bringing back hope and opportunity for the thousands of American families that are hoping today that we have heard them and that we will respond and work hard to make sure their lives are better.

I am pleased that we are beginning next week with ethics reform. I think it is important to start with a strong message that we understand we have a responsibility to uphold the honor of this Senate, not just for today but for many years to come. I am very excited that within a few weeks we will be talking about the minimum wage for the families out there who are struggling so hard to make sure they do the right thing for their kids and to send them a message that we understand and we are going to do a little bit to help them.

Senator Schumer talked about the 9/11 Commission and implementing their report--something we should have done long ago. The security of this Nation, people's fear about where we are, is a message that we all need to understand. I am pleased that is part of the top 10 priorities of this new Congress. In dealing with the Medicare prescription drug plan, I have met with many seniors in my home State and they are confused and frustrated. They are angry as they fall into the doughnut hole and realize that the promise we have given them of prescription drugs is not meeting that expectation, and we have a responsibility to do better. I hope that we can.

I heard Senator McConnell a short while ago say he didn't want us to tear apart the Medicare prescription drug plan. Nobody does. We want to make it work. I hope we can work together in cooperation and make that happen. Stem cell research: The Senator from Iowa will be speaking in a few minutes. He has been a leader on that issue. It is about promise and hope for so many American families. I hope we can move it quickly through the Senate, through the House, and to the President's desk. If we have to, I hope we have the votes to override. Far too many families struggle today, and we should at least send them the promise of the future as generations before did for us. Energy independence is critical in my State and across the Nation. It is something I hear about everywhere I go.

Strengthening our military: Certainly, that is important today, as we know we face terrorism across the globe, and we have exhausted our forces in Iraq. We have to make sure that we work together in a bipartisan manner to strengthen our military not just for today but for those who come behind us.

Included in that for me is taking care of those who have served us, our veterans, keeping the promise we made to them when they served us overseas, that we will be there when they come home. We cannot tolerate the long lines our men and women are in, the fact that they are coming home and cannot get a job; that the unemployment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds who served in Iraq and Afghanistan is three times the national average.

We have a lot of work to do there. I am pleased our leader has put out immigration. This is an issue the Senate has worked through. It is a tough one, but it is one that, if we work together, we can move forward.

Many other issues are coming before us, but one I want to mention, in my last few minutes, is the issue of education. That is the backbone of our country, it always has been: making sure young people today can grow up and know that if they choose, they can go to college and it is affordable.

I am especially delighted that S. 7, one of the top 10 priorities, addresses the issue of college affordability. It is very disheartening to me to walk into a middle school today and have seventh and eighth graders say to me: Why should I get good grades; I can't afford to go to college. That is not the message we should be sending. We should be sending the message to them that if they work hard and get good grades, they will go to college.

We have to address that issue in the Senate. We all know the jobs of the future depend on our young people today and whether they get the education they need, and the money should not be a barrier.

I know this issue. Money was not a barrier for me when I was growing up. My father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was in high school. There are seven kids in our family. We all thought the door had been shut to us and the ability to go to college. But not so because leaders in the Senate stood up before I ever knew about them and said we need to have Pell grants and student loans and we need to make college affordable.

So all seven kids in my family--despite the fact my dad could no longer work and was confined to a wheelchair, that my mom had to go on welfare, she had to go back to school herself and raise seven kids--we were able to go to college on Pell grants and student loans. All seven of us graduated and went on and one of us became a Senator.

We should not be shutting that door of hope to any young American today. No matter what happens to them personally, no matter what their circumstances, no matter what State, city or community they grow up in, we want them to know the United States of America and leaders in their country know it is important for them to get an education.

So as we move forward in this session of Congress, we are going to focus on college affordability and making sure that the backbone of our country is strong once again.

We have much work ahead of us. We do need to work together. Mr. President, 51 to 49 in the Senate is very close, but we know that the issues in this country are extremely important and the families in this country are counting on us.

I look forward to working with all of my colleagues to achieve an agenda that sends that promise of hope once again.

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