The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy (9 page)

What explains this dedication to a purpose that so conflicts with his own economic interests? His editor and publisher, Jonathan Karp, interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's “Fresh Air” program, suggested that his motivation sprang from two powerful influences, both from the very start of his life: First, his parents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, though they ultimately “made it” in society, never stopped identifying with the struggles of the poor Irish immigrants from whom both were descended. They imparted to all their children a strong message not to forget their roots, and not to forget those still struggling, those subject to present-day discrimination and unequal access to the American dream. The second, equally powerful influence—perhaps surprising to those who think of Senator Kennedy as strong advocate for the “wall of separation between church and state—”was his Roman Catholic faith. He especially took to heart the verses in Matthew in which Jesus says that whoever serves the poor serves Him.

He translated that passion for service into effective legislative action, as President Barack Obama noted after his death: “For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.”

It won't be “mission accomplished” on the economy until average Americans are secure in their jobs and can provide for their families.

—As quoted in Reuters article, “Bush, advisers
paint rosy picture of U.S. economy,”
August 9, 2005

The history of our nation rests on the skills of its workers no less than on the achievements of its scholars.

—Speech, October 19, 1975

It's time to raise the minimum wage for America's lowest paid workers. This Sense of the Senate resolution can send a clear message that help is on the way for the lowest paid, hard-working Americans struggling to keep their families afloat and their dignity intact. It's wrong when a paycheck for a 40-hour work week isn't enough to feed a family of four. We intend to right that wrong by raising the minimum wage. We are talking about … real people. They are teacher's aides and child care workers. They work in clothing stores and airports. They clean and maintain buildings all across the country. … Their ability to support their families depends on whether we vote to increase the minimum wage.

—Statement in support of the Sense of the Senate
Resolution to Raise the Minimum Wage,
March 25, 1999

Americans are working harder and earning less. … They are worried about losing their jobs, losing their health insurance, affording their children's education, caring for their elderly parents, and somehow saving for their own retirement. The rich are still getting richer, but more and more families are left out and left behind. The rising tide that once lifted all boats now lifts only the yachts.

—Statement on the introduction of
The American Workers Economic Security Act,
quoted in Roll Call, March 25, 1996

Fewer hungry people are not good enough—we want no hungry people anywhere in America. It's a matter of simple justice.

—End Hunger Now Rally,
February 29, 2000

The Republican Congress raised their own pay by a juicy $4,600 last year—but they continue to block a fair raise for the nation's lowest paid workers. Republican Members of Congress didn't blink at giving themselves a pay raise. Yet they deny—and continue to deny—a fair increase for workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. Our Republican friends preach the value of work—and then deny a fair day's pay for a full day's work.

—White House Rally for the Minimum Wage,
March 8, 2000

It is disgraceful that hard-working women and people of color are still battling wage disparities and pay discrimination on the job. There is a wealth of evidence that shows that the wage gap still continues to plague American families, and that wage discrimination continues to be a serious and pervasive problem in workplaces across the country. In spite of the progress we have made, women still earn only 76 cents for every dollar earned by men. African American women earn just 64 cents, and Latinas earn only 54 cents for every dollar earned by white men.

—Statement on Equal Pay Day,
April 3, 2001

These facts don't lie. Over the past three decades, the extraordinary benefits of our record prosperity have been flagrantly skewed in favor of the wealthiest members of society. Today, the top one percent of households have more wealth than the entire bottom 95 percent combined.

This extreme and widening disparity is disturbing, especially when so many Americans are working harder and longer. Parents are spending less and less time with their families—22 hours less a week, according to a study last year by the Council of Economic Advisers. Thirteen percent of all Americans are working a second job just to make ends meet. And these extra hours at work mean that the parents have less time to be with their children.

—White House Rally for the Minimum Wage,
March 8, 2000

A sound economy is the greatest social program America has ever had, the source of our hopes for action on all the other issues facing us.

—Speech, April 2, 1976

America cannot successfully compete with newly industrializing nations on the basis of which country can pay the lowest wages. It's a mistake to even try. It makes no sense to run a race to the bottom.

—Speech at the Conference of The National
Association of Private Industry Councils,
February 27, 1995

The American economy has deteriorated for more than two years, and the patient's vital signs continue to falter. President Bush and Republicans in Congress have responded by prescribing quack medicine—tax cuts for the wealthy that do nothing to cure the patient's illness. Even though the patient keeps getting worse, the President just keeps prescribing larger and larger doses of the same quack medicine, with a louder quack.

—Statement on the economy and the
plight of America's workers,
May 7, 2003

The aim of tax reform is not to plow up the whole garden but to get rid of the weeds so that we can let the flowers grow.

—Speech, July 1, 1977

People want to end loopholes in the tax laws, so that those who eat at the most expensive restaurants will pay their bill themselves, instead of making the Treasury foot the bill through tax deductions that are nothing more than food stamps for the rich.

—Speech, September 30, 1978

This issue [pension plan fairness] presents a stark choice about who we represent here in the Senate. “Which side are you on?” Are we on the side of the workers and retirees who struggle to find some economic security in their old age, or the side of the wheeler-dealers, corporate raiders, and the super-rich?

—Statement on pension plan reversions,
November 11, 1995

The sad fact is that today small companies and private citizens are Davids without slingshots, competing against corporate Goliaths in wars of attrition which have become increasingly difficult to win. The American people are not just concerned about “big government”—they are also concerned about the control exerted by “big business.”

—Speech, August 7, 1978

Nearly one in five U.S. families is headed by a single woman—yet these women continue to earn the lowest average rate of pay. Women are entitled to the same paychecks as their male colleagues who are performing the same or comparable work. Without pay equality, women are less able to provide an economic safety net for themselves and their families.

—Statement on Equal Pay Day,
April 3, 2001

I regard competition as the cornerstone of our free enterprise system. Along with the Bill of Rights, it is the most important and distinguishing feature of our nation in the world community, a beacon for many other nations who are striving to emulate our two-hundred-year-old example of freedom and prosperity.

—Speech, June 30, 1977

For decades the labor movement has stood as a bulwark for freedom and democracy against tyranny around the world. The labor movement was essential in making America a strong society. Its advocacy of progressive legislation has brought immense benefits to all Americans, whether or not they have a union card.

—Statement on the North American Free Trade
Agreement, November 20, 1993

HEALTH CARE
:
SENATOR KENNEDY'S
LAST GREAT CHALLENGE

F
INDING A WAY TO PROVIDE ALL
A
MERICANS WITH ACCESS
to high quality health care has been something Ted Kennedy advocated from his very first term in the U.S. Senate in 1962. As the years went by and each proposal to accomplish the goal met with defeat, his determination increased. But the cause was still one among many; it did not become the central crusade of his life until 1973, when his twelve-year-old son Teddy, Jr. was stricken with cancer.

All at once he was plunged into a world of life-or-death medical decisions, grueling treatment schedules, and countless hours spent in waiting rooms with other parents of young cancer patients. He was there as a parent, not a politician, but the sounds and scenes in those waiting rooms stayed with him as no fact-finding tour or hearings on the state of health care could ever have done. Teddy, Jr. was fortunate to be admitted into an experimental treatment program that was highly promising for children with his form of cancer—at a cost of three thousand dollars per treatment. Three times per week for two years. While the protocol was still in the clinical trial phase, the government paid the bill; however, once the treatment was proven effective, the families were made to pick up the costs. In most cases their private insurance companies simply refused to pay.

So he saw many of these parents, who by this time he had come to know quite well, taking out second mortgages, or even forced to sell their homes. Some lost their jobs—and their health insurance—due to the time spent shuttling a sick child back and forth to the hospital for treatment. Bankruptcy and financial ruin loomed for people just like him, parents willing to do anything to save a child's life, but unlike him in their middle-class resources. From that point on, “the battle [for health care] had my complete attention.”

And that is the way it remained to the last day of his life.

While I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will—yes, we will—fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.

—Letter to President Obama, May 12, 2009

What we face is, above all, a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.

—Letter to President Obama, May 12, 2009.
These were the lines directly quoted by
the President in his address to the nation
on health care reform, September 10, 2009

For me this is a season of hope, new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few—new hope. And this is the cause of my life—new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American—North, South, East, West, young, old—will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.

—Democratic National Convention,
August 12, 1980

Thirty-one years ago this summer, Dr. Martin Luther King led the March on Washington to demand basic human rights for all Americans. Today we have the chance to fulfill another part of that dream, by making health care a basic right.

—Statement on health care reform, July 28, 1994

If we deny the finest health care to any citizens, we deny the value of their lives. They become slaves of unnecessary suffering and disability. The promise of a beautiful society acquires a hollow ring. The American dream becomes a nightmare.

—Speech, October 5, 1975

What we have today in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system.

—Remarks on health care, May 31, 1994

America doesn't need a double standard on health care: one for those who can afford it and another for those who can't.

—Speech, February 1, 1976

A world that is spending $300 billion a year for arms can spend a little more for health. And it may well be that what we do in health will be as important to world peace and cooperation in the long run as what we achieve in arms control, and at a tiny fraction of the cost.

—Speech, May 6, 1977

Too many elderly Americans today must choose between food on the table and the medicine they need to stay healthy or to treat their illnesses. Too many seniors take half the pills their doctor prescribes, or don't even fill needed prescriptions—because they cannot afford the high cost of prescription drugs. Too many seniors are paying twice as much as they should for the drugs they need, because they are forced to pay full price, while almost everyone with a private insurance policy benefits from negotiated discounts. Too many seniors are ending up hospitalized—at immense costs to Medicare—because they aren't receiving the drugs they need at all, or can't afford to take them correctly. Pharmaceutical products are increasingly the source of miracle cures for a host of dread diseases, but senior citizens are being left out and left behind because Congress fails to act.