Barbara Boxer

I had the privilege to address the Senate for about 15 minutes on the quality of two wonderful Ninth Circuit court nominees who are coming up for cloture votes today at 5 o'clock. I am very hopeful we can, in fact, shut off debate on this…

I will conclude about Judge Paez in this fashion. I will have printed in the Record the extensive list of his supporters--elected officials, both Republican and Democratic, national law enforcement associations, California State judges and…

I thank my friend. Is the Senator aware that Judge Paez has been endorsed by the National Association of Police Organizations, Executive Director Robert Skully, the Los Angeles Police Protective League Board president, the Los Angeles…

I commend my friend from Illinois. A long time ago, he and I talked about the importance of having a school safety fund where if schools felt they needed assistance, whether it was to purchase equipment--a metal detector--whether it was to…

Doesn't it sound great? I will give the Senator that. It is his idea. Come up with a Coverdell account, and they start it, say, when the child is first born. Then the child is 5. If this is for real, they start using it, but if it isn't…

May I ask my friend a question on this point because this is a good debate. What the Senator is essentially saying is somebody can open up one of these Coverdell plans.

My understanding on the $2,000 is there are fewer people in that category who could participate; and therefore, it would not benefit the middle class.

If my friend could comment on how it makes him feel as someone who has always been a fighter for the average person. Here we have senior citizens in our country, one out of eight, after they have worked all their lives, have saved their…

For anyone who just fell off the turnip truck, Republicans in Congress have a new rallying cry--``We won't let them raid Social Security!''. . . . [Tom] DeLay asks us to believe that the Social Security trust fund is under assault by…

Yes. I have been waiting 3 days to see us get into a debate on the things that matter to people--things such as the minimum wage and environmental protection.

I thank my leader for his comments and his spirit because it is the spirit we need in this country, which is the can-do spirit. We can take care of the people's business, even if it is difficult for my friend. I know it is because I know…

The number of dollars that would have been lost in the school year 1999-2000 as a result of the Republican tax cut was $5.273 billion in the first year, this year that we are talking about. They were willing to give to the wealthiest…

What I said was I felt the program should be ratcheted up in a logical fashion, and that we are at the point where the Department of Education, Secretary Riley, has stated that $600 million is what he needs and what he can now handle to…

I thank the Senator. He is so kind to me. What I said was, there are many more applications than were funded. I did not suggest that we fund all 2,000.

As I repeat to my friend and colleague, a real leader in this area, this number was not pulled out of a hat. This number comes from the President's request. The President's request has a rationality.

What the Senator is trying to do is reach an agreement. I would reach an agreement if I knew we would have a vote on my second degree. If you object to Senator Specter trying to be accommodating, that is your choice.

Simply put, what we do is we add another $200 million to afterschool programs. We believe it is very important to do this. I have a number of cosponsors. This would take the funding to the President's requested level of $600 million. It…

So in my sum up, from what I get from the Senator from Washington, there is no money for school construction, there is no money for class size reduction, and there is $200 million less for afterschool care. I say to my friend, please, when…

I have to ask my friend, what kind of message are we sending to our kids when, on the one hand, we say to them as parents that education is crucial to them in this incredibly important global marketplace where they are in competition with…

If we do not make changes and if the President does not prevail with the Republicans and this bill passes as it is, we will not only lose 29,000 teachers out of the classrooms, but next year a lot of those kids who were in classroom sizes…

So this bill that purports to do something for our children, in essence, is a pink slip for 29,000 teachers across this country who were hired under the Clinton-Murray initiative to lower classroom size; is that correct?

It seems as if there is a shell game being played with money that is not behind the piece of paper, and they have completely zeroed out this important class-size reduction plan which we began. Is my friend saying to me that unless we can…

Education, in my view, is the No. 1 issue in this country today. Why? Because we know that if we do not give our children a good education, a series of bad things happen: They will not be productive, they will drop out, they will get into…

But is it not true that out of that increase there is $1.2 billion for a program that does not exist and the funds will not be spent unless the program is authorized? And is it not true that $1.2 billion is supposed to replace the lower…

I hate to break into the flow of thought, but in listening to my friend from Illinois I am wondering if he is aware that the first President to call attention to the needs of education in modern American history happened to be a Republican…