The recent memorial services for the two Maine Guard members whose lives were lost in Mosul were another reminder of the sacrifices that so many Mainers have made while serving America. I hope all Mainers will join me in continuing to keep these men and women, their families, friends, and loved ones in their thoughts and prayers.
2004 was also an eventful year in Washington, D.C. I continue to be honored each and every day with the opportunity to serve in the U.S. Senate, representing the finest state in the nation, and to have been involved in many issues that affect Mainers as well as all Americans.
In the Senate, we have worked to keep Americans safer; helped strengthen our economy; promoted advances in diabetes research; secured funding for schools in rural communities; and extended the law on education for children with special needs, to name a few accomplishments.
Following are just a few of the legislative accomplishments from the past year in which I am proud to have played a role.
One of the biggest accomplishments not only of 2004, but of the past five decades was the signing into law of the Collins-Lieberman Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which implements the key recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. This bill, which I wrote with Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, restructures our intelligence agencies so that they can better combat terrorism. It is the most significant reorganization of our intelligence community in more than 50 years and will help to keep us safer at home and improve the quality of intelligence to our troops. I am proud that we were able to work with the President and our colleagues to enact this monumental reform that our intelligence community needs to deal with the new threat of global terrorism. We must ensure that our intelligence agencies have the leadership, agility, and resources necessary for this new structure to succeed. As Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I will continue to work to ensure the successful implementation of this landmark law.
Last fall, Congress also passed a bill which will extend much-needed tax relief to low and middle-income families and to married couples in Maine and throughout the nation. Without this legislation, these important tax relief provisions would have expired in 2005.
The Working Families Tax Relief Act allows a family of four with an income of $40,000 to save more than $900 on their taxes in 2005. In total, an estimated 94 million Americans will continue to have lower tax bills. For example, the bill will allow more than 300,000 Mainers to benefit from maintaining the 10 percent tax bracket at the current income levels of $14,300 per family, and $7,150 per single taxpayer. Without this extension, taxpayers with incomes beneath these levels would have been subject to a 15 percent tax rate, representing a burdensome tax increase that would have been difficult for many hard-working Maine families who are already struggling to make ends meet
In addition, under the legislation, more than 170,000 Maine couples benefit from the marriage tax penalty relief, and nearly 120,000 Maine families will benefit from the child tax credit.
This tax law also ensures that our lowest-income working families benefit through an expansion of the refundable child credit. Under this provision, many families that do not have enough tax liability to claim the full $1000 tax credit per child will still be eligible for a refund. Nearly 12 million children throughout the nation -- and many thousands of Maine families -- will benefit from this provision.
Finally, I am also very pleased that this tax package includes an extension of the $250 deduction provided to teachers who purchase supplies for their classrooms with their own funds. This provision extends a law that I authored and is a modest, but appropriate, step toward recognizing the invaluable services that teachers provide each and every day to our children.
Another new law, the "Pancreatic Islet Cell Transplantation Act," was signed by the President in October and offers important support for diabetes research. The new law aims to find a cure that will help the one million Americans who suffer from Type I, or juvenile diabetes. As the founder and co-sponsor of the Senate Diabetes Caucus, this issue has long been a concern of mine. This bill will allow for promising advances in the fight against diabetes through research and promotion of islet cell transplantation.
The primary goal of the new law is to determine if pancreatic islet cell transplantation could become a standard form of therapy for people suffering from Type 1 diabetes. The bill calls for an increase in supply of pancreases for transplantation and improves the coordination of federal efforts and information.
Another issue with which I have long been concerned is providing a quality education for Maine children. Rural schools and school districts in Maine received more than $4.1 million in additional funding this year under the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), legislation that I authored. These dollars are crucial to ensuring the Maine students, regardless of where they live, have access to the education they deserve.
The $4.1 million in REAP funding awarded to Maine was distributed under two programs: the Small and Rural Schools Achievement program and the Rural and Low Income Schools program. A total of 163 districts in Maine benefited from these federal dollars. REAP was designed to level the playing field for small and high-poverty rural school systems so that rural Maine students receive a high quality education. This funding also will give rural school systems more flexibility to meet their unique local needs. I am pleased to announce that we have been successful in increasing federal funding for REAP each year since its enactment.
In this Congress, we also increased federal funding for children with special needs through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which ensures that students with disabilities have access to public education. The bill provides for an increase in federal funds to help states meet the higher costs associated with educating children with disabilities. I have long fought for increased funding for IDEA and for requiring the federal government to fully fund its share of the cost of disability education.
Since its original passage in 1975, IDEA has provided breakthrough opportunities for children with disabilities and has helped many of these students reach their full potential. But as administrators in small rural school districts in Maine and throughout the nation will tell you, inadequate federal funding has placed an enormous financial burden on school districts that are already struggling. While I support efforts to mandate even more federal funding for IDEA, this bill is a major step that will make additional funds available for all states to help educate children with disabilities.
As I look ahead to 2005, my goal is to promote a bipartisan working environment in the Senate so that we can focus on tackling the important issues facing this country. With the election behind us and significant issues looming such as the ongoing war in Iraq, strengthening homeland security, dealing with the deficit, simplifying our tax code, improving our health care system, expanding access to higher education, and safeguarding our environment, we need to be able to focus on our work without getting sidetracked by partisan politics. I hope that the success we had at the end of last year with the bipartisan Collins-Lieberman intelligence reform legislation will start us off on the right foot this year. My hope for the new year is that 2005 will bring peace and prosperity to all Mainers and their families.
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