anniversary, there was a ceremony in philadelphia. and president reagan went to philadelphia to participate in the ceremony. and he invited me to go with him. he invited senator h he ein -- senator heinz as well. but he had other commitments that day and did not go and it was a fascinating experience to travel alone with the president, talk to him on air force one, talk to him in the presidential limousine. and when we arrived at independence hall, they had a great wheel. and the wheel started with george washington, the first president, and then john adams and all the way around until it came to ronald reagan right next to george washington. and he and i talked about the drama that he experienced on the

wheel right next to president washington. on that particular week, we had the confirmation hearings of judge bork for the supreme court of the united states, and september 17 when i traveled to philadelphia with the president, it was a thursday and i missed my opportunity to question judge bork. and i got that opportunity on saturday morning, and i was the only one there and had -- at least there were only a few people there and had an opportunity to question judge bork for an hour and a half. and ultimately, played a key role in the rejection of the nomination of judge bork who believed in original intent and had a very, very different view of the constitution. did not believe in due process

of law. that was not part of the constitution, and he disagreed with the incorporation of the ten amendments through the due process clause to apply to the states. and that was a momentous supreme court hearing. during the years of president george h.w. bush, there were many matters of note. one that stands out was the confirmation proceeding as to justice souter, and when justice souter was up for confirmation and i participated in that as a member of the judiciary committee as i have participated in the confirmation of judge bork, the pro-choice groups were apprehensive about justice -- about judge souter becoming justice souter. and i examined his record very

carefully and thought that he would read the precedence of roe v. wade in a favorable light and supported his confirmation. and then he became a stalwart for a woman's right to choose and a stalwart for constitutional principles involving civil rights and individual freedom. during the years of president clinton, i chaired the appropriations subcommittee on labor, health, human services, and education, and at that time had an opportunity to take the lead in increasing education funding very substantially. pell grants were raised very materially. they had been $2,400, and the committee then moved them up and now they are in excess of of $5,000. also took the lead in helping

the working men and women through funding for the department of labor and for the national labor relations board and for mine safety, osha and mensha. and on the funding for health as has already been noted took the lead with the concurrence of senator harkin who was then minority ranking member to increase funding for the national institutes of health from $12 billion to $30 billion. and during the decade i chaired the committee, that enormously increased the availability of grants, some years as much as as $3.5 billion were added to the funding of the national institutes of health. and then when the stimulus package came up, i offered the amendment and led the battle to add an additional $10 billion.

n.i.h. had slipped back because of across-the-board cuts and failure to have cost of living adjustments, but the $10 billion in the stimulus package has provided 15,000 grants and has stimulated the interest in a whole generation of sciences. senator menendez commented a few moments ago, talking about my 10,000 votes, how those research grants have led to enormous savings of prolonging of lives and saving of lives on many strains of cancer and research into heart disease and autism and parkinson's and alzheimer's, with ee morm us strides being made. during the administration of george w. bush again, many momentous events. just to mention one because time is running, i led the fight for

embryonic stem cell research, the specter-harkin bill to use federal funds to use stem cells which had enormous potential for curing the maladies of the world. a veritable fountain of youth by injecting stem cells into diseased cells. president bush vetoed the specter-harkin bill, vetoed it twice, but now with president obama, there has been an executive order and senator harkin and i are continuing to push for legislation because legislation has more pharmacy than an executive order. an executive order can be changed by the next president. and then the obama administration -- administration of president obama. got to know senator barack obama, had his office down the

corridor from mine on the seventh floor of the hart senate office building. and when he came forward with his proposal for a stimulus and i took a look at what was happening on the economy, i was concerned that we would slip back into a 1929 depression if we did not pass the stimulus bill, and i voted for the stimulus bill on this floor and commented about the political peril that it -- that has had a profound effect on my political life, which i will not discuss here, but had the stimulus package not been passed, i think we would not have been in the great recession which we are in, but we would have been in another great depregnancy. and my own state, pennsylvania, has received $16 billion. without that funding from the stimulus package, there wouldn't

be unemployment compensation paid today. there wouldn't be medicaid paid today. it has the potential for 143,000 new jobs. it's only halfway through the cycle of two years. passed in mid february, not even a year old. we see the financial problems of california. well, where would california be without the stimulus? where would any of the states b without the stimulus? and the stimulus package and other proposed federal expenditures has caused quite a public reaction so that there is great -- a great concern in america today with what is going on in washington, and people are very concerned, as many -- as am i, about the deficit and about the national debt, and we're going to be called upon to raise

the national debt again. when i was elected to the senate, the national debt was was $1 trillion. during the tenure of president reagan, those eight years, it increased to $3 trillion. president reagan was the great economizer. on his fiscal policies. but we have no choice when it comes to raising the debt because if we don't raise the national debt, we will be in default, and the debt is being paid for, many, many obligations, including the support of our troops in afghanistan which i will comment about in a few moments. and in the spring of this year, april, may, june, july, there was tremendous worry about what the federal government was talking about spending. $1 trillion on health care reform, $1 trillion on

cap-and-trade on climate control, and great public opposition arose to what was happening in washington, and it was promoted by the gridlock which is present in this chamber, spoken about by senator menendez and senator lautenberg a few moments ago, by the filibusters which were being carried on by republicans. well, a few years ago, filibusters were being carried on by democrats, and president bush's judicial nominees were the subject of filibusters. the business about filibusters and about gridlock is a problem on both parties. it isn't a matter of bipartisan blame -- it's a matter of bipartisan blame. senator menendez commented about my willingness to reach across the aisle. i did that on the other side of the aisle, and do i that on this

side of the aisle. when i came to the united states senate in 1980, there were many moderate republican senators who reached across the aisle. we had senator hatfield from oregon just discussing the distinguished presiding officer brought me greetings from senator hatfield, the senator from oregon, and senator packwood, also a moderate from oregon. senator danforth from missouri, senator wyker from connecticut, senator chafee from rhode island, senator stafford from vermont, senator warner from virginia, senator heinz from pence, senator mathias from maryland. i could go on and on and on. well, today the moderates on the other side of the aisle with my departure can fit in a telephone booth. and it's not good for the senate and it's not good for the

country. and when i undertook the town meetings this year, i made it a practice in my tenure in the senate, 30 years, to visit almost every county almost every year, and the first county i went to in august, first day i had an opportunity to travel when the senate was not in session. usually when i got to lebanon county, there were 85, 100 people. on this occasion, there were 1,200 people. they had live television transmission units from msnbc and fox and cnn, and there was enormous anger about what was happening in america with the spending, what was happening with the deficit, what was happening with the national debt. and those were problems which we yet have to face. i get the question in my candidacy for re-election. i'm seeking a sixth term.

i want to follow then-senator biden, the most recent six-term senator. well, people say why -- why run now? why after serving for 30 years, being the longest serving pennsylvania senator? people notice i have a big birthday coming up. i was born on february 12, the same day as lincoln's birthday. i was born 121 years after abraham lincoln was born. that's as close as i'll come to talking about age. i believe with satchel paige, the great baseball pitcher who was ageless and satchel paige made many famous statements. one of his most famous statements was "if you didn't know your age, how old would you think you were?" i choose 37. i choose 37 because nobody would

believe 17. that was a happy year in my life there is a psychological term called arrested development. that may have occurred to me at 17. but why run now? well, because there are so many things to be done. there are so many important problems, and the experience and the seniority and the knowledge i think can be put to good use for the 12 million constituents i have, and there is a great facet on term limits. it's called losing at the polls. and the people can say yes or no to candidacy for re-election. but i'm full of victim, vigor -- i'm full of vim, vigor and vitality and there are a lot of things i want to do, and the four granddaughters are very much on my mind as will their

children and their grandchildren be. and we have health care reform which is still pending in the congress of the united states, and it has been a very, very difficult matter which has consumed this body and the house of representatives for months. the house can pass it more quickly than can the senate, and we worked ton for the better part of six months. we passed here and it's well-documented that it took 60 votes because there wasn't a single republican who would support cloture. there had to be 60 democrats who would agree, and that led to a lot of concessions being made to get the 60 votes. some senators insisted on special consideration for their states, and i think that was wrong. so why did i vote for the package? because the good vastly outweighed the bad.

and i was asked in pennsylvania why didn't i get some special consideration for pennsylvania? well, i didn't because i thought it was the wrong thing to do. i was on a radio program last week, and critical radio program for what's going on in washington, but i got a compliment for not asking for special consideration. well, we have a new senator-elect in massachusetts, and we ought not to do anything in the interim until he is seated. then there will be 59. so not enough to shut off a filibuster by the republicans. so the question is, where do we -- where do we go from here? president obama has talked about a number of alternatives. the day -- a week ago last wednesday after the massachusetts election, he was talking about a pared down bill.

i doubt that that could pass -- could pass the senate. it would be unfortunate if all the work that has been done on the historic health care reform were to be nullified. the health care bill ran into great problems because of misrepresentations. there are no death panels in the health care bill. on my town meetings, people were talking about death panels and i told them authoritatively and accurately, there were no death panels. there was a worry about government takeover of health care. that wasn't the bill. there was a government option. i was for a robust government option. but leaving the private sector in place but taking steps to give a choice to people who wanted to buy insurance, but to get insurance reform, to

eliminate preexisting conditions as a way for insurance companies to maneuver and decline to pay claims or the cancellation of insurance when somebody got sick or not covering children. so many of the insurance lies. and i think it would be unfortunate if all we did was nullified. one way to approach it would be for the house to pass the senate bill. that would be my recommendation, and then to have immediate corrective legislation on a number of the points which went too far, on the special favors for certain states. i believe there would be support on the other side of the aisle that we could correct the abusive practices, if the house was to adopt the senate bill. but i respect the house. i've read what the speaker had

to say about the disinclination to adopt the senate bill, but it has been a long time in coming to get reform, and legislation which is enacted is such to modification. and it has to move in steps. we could only get to the 1965 voting rights act because you had the 1964 legislation, so that there are opportunities for changes. and the abusive facets and the wrongful revisions of the senate bill, if taken by the house, could be corrected, and i think there would be support on both sides of the aisle for that. there are a great many items on my agenda. one of the concerns i have is the issue of imports

illustratively from china where there are subsidized and take unfair advantage of the trade laws. and i've appeared many times before the international trade commission, something i had done in private practice as a lawyer on appellate arguments in court. i won a big case preserving a lot of jobs several months ago on the tire industry, stopping china from sending tires into the united states which were subsidized. won a big case in the i.t.c. that i was the lead advocate on on the steel industry to stop china from selling steel in the united states. been working on a project to deepen the port of philadelphia from 40 to 45 feet. senator heinz and i got authorizing legislation in 1983. took until 1992 to get the corps of engineers to say that it was economically sustainable.

then i worked on the appropriations committee with my seniority to get more than $77 million appropriated. it's been contested by the state of delaware on environment at concerns, which have been answered totally by environment at impact studies. and recently we were successful in getting the secretary of the army to invoke the supremacy clause. but there's still -- still more work to be done on that. working hard for the university of pittsburgh medical center, working on manufacturing a vaccine. we've been short of vaccines, and we can't rely upon important sources. that is a multimillion-dollar project working and has the promise of thousands of jobs for that area. working on northeast pennsylvania, to get a train from scranton to hobek, working

fouworkingfor the farmers and fl electric and working on my position on the environment and puck works committee on climate control, working on immigration reform. as chairman, i managed the bill through the senate in 2006. working on the issue of campaign finance reform. the supreme court last week came down with the decision to allow corporations to engage in political advertising, to elect or defeat candidates, which will, as justice stevens in dissent pointed out, open the door for wide-spread corruption. and in considering the issue of a constitutional amendment which would reverse that decision and allow congress and states to set limits on campaign finance. i've been working for a decade

to try to get the supreme court televised for transparency. they make all of the cutting-edge decisions. been very active on foreign policy. many things i am working on at the present time. within the last month i made a trip to afghanistan and syria and india. and my study of the situation in afghanistan leads me to oppose the president's plan to send 30,000 additional troops. i think we have to do whatever it takes to fight al qaeda because they're out to annihilate us. but why fight them in afghanistan when they can just as easily organize in yemen or in somalia or elsewhere? efforts to get help from the pakistanis is not being very successful. in india, our congressional

delegation met with prime minister singh. i put the question to him, would he be willing to have a lem takes with the number of troops oned border which would eliminate pakistani troops to help us fight. prime minister singh said he would if the terrorists would be stopped from coming into india as they blew up the hotel in mumbai more than a year ago. so there are many things to be done. our congressional delegation visited in syria. i have visited the mideast almost every year during my ten your i -- during my tenure in te senate. very much concerned about the security of israel ands. and in the visits that i've had to syria, i've gotten to know bashir assad and his president

hafez el-assad. i have made many trips to syria because i believe that syria is the key to the peace process there. syria wants the return of the golah and only israel could decide whether israel wants to give back the golah. but it is a different era today than it was in 1967 when the gvment ogolan. only israel can decide that for itself. if israel could get concessions for syria to stop destabilizing lebanon, to stop supporting hamas, that is an issue which ought to be considered. well, the hour is growing late. we're keeping staff here. but i thought this occasion on

the 10,000th vote, as i said, i sat here for about an hour waiting for the vote to end before senator casey could make his comments. it gave me a few moments to reflect on why i was interested in running for public office originally, what those 10,000 votes have meant to me, with a very brief statement as to some of those votes during the administrations of president reagan, the first president bush, president clinton, the second president bush, and president obama, and what i'd like to see done in the future. and there is -- there is much to be done on so many, many lines. i said to senator casey, who's been here only three years, i'd like to be here to speak of him on his 10,000th vote. i don't entertain that

seriously, but the issues that i talked about are ones that are very important to me, and i think to the future of my state and the future of my nation. and now the administrators have handed me the closing script. which i think all those in the chamber would be glad to read. those watching on c-span, if any, have had the opportunity, on behalf of the leader, i ask consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. tuesday, january 26. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the senate resume consideration of

h.r. 45, the debt limit, as provided under the previous order. finally, i ask the senate recess from 12:30 until 2:15 for the weekly caucus luncheons. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. specter: i've been asked on behalf of the leader to advise senators to expect a series of two roll call votes to begin at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow. those votes will be in relation to the baucus amendment, number 3300, regarding social security exemption, to be followed by a vote in relation to the conrad-gregg amendment, regarding a fiscal task force. since there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that we adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate standeds adjourned until.