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Week of September 22nd
STABILIZING OUR ECONOMY: Our financial markets are in free fall and we must take bold, bipartisan action to restore predictability and confidence to our economy. This week, as a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I am looking forward to reviewing details of the Treasury Department's bailout proposal. Congress will work quickly with the Administration to provide the tools that are necessary to ensure our nation's economic security. Once the immediate crisis has eased, we must closely examine how our financial system was allowed to become so vulnerable in recent years. Any examination must include the effects of deregulation, deficit spending, the trade deficit and our over dependence on foreign energy sources. Once the dust settles, we must take decisive action that will prevent the type of financial collapse that we have witnessed in recent weeks and restore fiscal stability and positive growth to our economic system.
CONTAINING IRAN: On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This is a man whose country continues to fund terrorists worldwide, has flagrantly disregarded the international community in his pursuit of nuclear weapons, and considers the Holocaust as fiction. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Monday, I will participate with others in a protest outside the United Nations office in Washington, DC, to voice my opposition to President Ahmadinejad and the policies he espouses. Iran currently is one of the greatest threats to the national security of the United States and to our ally Israel. We must support further efforts to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons capability and support diplomacy, inspections and incentives to secure Iran's cooperation. The United States and the international community must remain united against this threat.
EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK: On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing entitled, "Barriers to Justice: Examining Equal Pay for Equal Work." As a member of this committee, I have long been alarmed at the statistics on equal pay. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, on average, American women earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. In Maryland, according to the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, the median annual income for men with a college degree or more is $73,000 vs. $57,000 for women. Minority women face an even larger gap. Every day millions of American women are denied equal pay for equal work - and many of them don't even know they are being paid substantially less than their male counterparts. I have co-sponsored the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to ensure that victims of pay discrimination have a fair chance to seek justice. I was disappointed that the Senate failed to proceed to debate this measure in April 2008, but we will push again to pass this before the November elections. Equal pay for equal work should be a cornerstone of our nation; to negate it is to deny our basic principles of equality and justice for all.
FIGHTING CANCER: Also this week, I am privileged to host University of Maryland (College Park) Head Men's Basketball Coach Gary Williams and his group Coaches vs. Cancer. This nationwide collaboration between the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches, brings more than 500 Division I, II and III college basketball coaches together to raise awareness and raise funds for cancer research. Joining Coach Williams for the event will be University of Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun, Syracuse University Coach Jim Boeheim, Temple University Coach Fran Dunphy, and University of Alabama Coach Mark Gottfried. We all will participate in a rally with volunteers from the American Cancer Society, many of whom are cancer survivors. The coaches and volunteers will be on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to increase funding for NIH research and CDC cancer control programs. They also will encourage swift passage of S. 625, the landmark Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which would end tobacco industry marketing to children and regulate the manufacture of tobacco products. I am a co-sponsor of this important, life-saving legislation.
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