To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to expand workplace health incentives by equalizing the tax consequences of employee athletic use.

FAIR MINIMUM WAGE ACT OF 2007

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 2, which the clerk will
report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

A bill (H.R. 2) to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of
1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage.

Pending:

Reid (for Baucus) Amendment No. 100, in the nature of a
substitute.
McConnell (for Gregg) Amendment No. 101 (to Amendment No.
100), to provide Congress a second look at wasteful spending
by establishing enhanced rescission authority under fast-
track procedures.
Kyl Amendment No. 115 (to Amendment No. 100), to extend
through December 31, 2008, the depreciation treatment of
leasehold, restaurant, and retail space improvements.
Enzi (for Ensign/Inhofe) Amendment No. 152 (to Amendment
No. 100), to reduce document fraud, prevent identity theft,
and preserve the integrity of the Social Security system.
Enzi (for Ensign) Amendment No. 153 (to Amendment No. 100),
to preserve and protect Social Security benefits of American
workers, including those making minimum wage, and to help
ensure greater Congressional oversight of the Social Security
system by requiring that both Houses of Congress approve a
totalization agreement before the agreement, giving foreign
workers Social Security benefits, can go into effect.
Vitter/Voinovich Amendment No. 110 (to Amendment No. 100),
to amend title 44 of the United States Code, to provide for
the suspension of fines under certain circumstances for
first-time paperwork violations by small business concerns.
DeMint Amendment No. 155 (to Amendment No. 100), to amend
the Public Health Service Act to provide for cooperative
governing of individual health insurance coverage offered in
interstate commerce, and to

[[Page S1213]]

amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 regarding the
disposition of unused health benefits in cafeteria plans and
flexible spending arrangements and the use of health savings
accounts for the payment of health insurance premiums for
high deductible health plans purchased in the individual
market.
DeMint Amendment No. 156 (to Amendment No. 100), to amend
the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 regarding the disposition
of unused health benefits in cafeteria plans and flexible
spending arrangements.
DeMint Amendment No. 157 (to the language proposed to be
stricken by Amendment No. 100), to increase the Federal
minimum wage by an amount that is based on applicable State
minimum wages.
DeMint Amendment No. 159 (to Amendment No. 100), to protect
individuals from having their money involuntarily collected
and used for lobbying by a labor organization.
DeMint Amendment No. 160 (to Amendment No. 100), to amend
the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow certain small
businesses to defer payment of tax.
DeMint Amendment No. 161 (to Amendment No. 100), to
prohibit the use of flexible schedules by Federal employees
unless such flexible schedule benefits are made available to
private sector employees not later than 1 year after the date
of enactment of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.
DeMint Amendment No. 162 (to Amendment No. 100), to amend
the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 regarding the minimum
wage.
Kennedy (for Kerry) Amendment No. 128 (to Amendment No.
100), to direct the Administrator of the Small Business
Administration to establish a pilot program to provide
regulatory compliance assistance to small business concerns.
Martinez Amendment No. 105 (to Amendment No. 100), to
clarify the house parent exemption to certain wage and hour
requirements.
Sanders Amendment No. 201 (to Amendment No. 100), to
express the sense of the Senate concerning poverty.
Gregg Amendment No. 203 (to Amendment No. 100), to enable
employees to use employee option time.
Burr Amendment No. 195 (to Amendment No. 100), to provide
for an exemption to a minimum wage increase for certain
employers who contribute to their employees' health benefit
expenses.
Chambliss Amendment No. 118 (to Amendment No. 100), to
provide minimum wage rates for agricultural workers.
Kennedy (for Feinstein) Amendment No. 167 (to Amendment No.
118), to improve agricultural job opportunities, benefits,
and security for aliens in the United States.
Enzi (for Allard) Amendment No. 169 (to Amendment No. 100),
to prevent identity theft by allowing the sharing of social
security data among government agencies for immigration
enforcement purposes.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia is
recognized.
Mr. ISAKSON. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for 3
minutes as in morning business prior to the continued deliberation.
Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I
know the Senator from Connecticut will seek time, and I will seek time
after him. Unless there is another speaker on the Republican side we
can share with--the Senator from Wyoming?
Mr. ENZI. I was hoping to be able to speak on the bill at some point
sometime, too.
Mr. DURBIN. This is all morning business we are talking about. Since
the bill is on the floor, I think we should defer. You go first.
Mr. ENZI. I would allow the others to go first. I was trying to keep
a longer queue from happening.
Mr. DURBIN. I am asking to be part of the queue, and if you show me
compassion and mercy, I promise to be brief.
The Senator from Georgia has asked for 3 minutes; the Senator from
Connecticut, 12 minutes; and I ask for 5 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The Senator from Georgia is recognized.

Honoring Ruben Alexander Crumbley

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, as one ages, there are many things they
appreciate in life. There is nothing greater or more appreciated than
friendship. It is an old saying that when you get toward the end of
life and you go back to count friends, you can sometimes count them and
only need one hand. When I look at my one hand in counting my friends,
I look and see the face of Ruben Alexander Crumbley, who, on today,
will celebrate his 65th birthday in McDonough, GA.
So I wish to, for a moment on the floor of the Senate, memorialize
that occasion but also to remind myself and all of us, as we deal with
the daily workings of the Senate and the importance of our job, to
never forget the importance of our friends.
Sixty-five years ago, when Rubin Alexander Crumbley was born, he had
a serious heart ailment, at a time when medical science was not nearly
as advanced as it is today. Through the surgeries and the care of his
doctor, the ailment was cured, and he has lived a long and successful
life, making significant contributions to the great State of Georgia.
He served in the State senate in the State of Georgia. He served as a
superior court judge in Henry County in that judicial circuit. And he
sought election, although falling short, to the Georgia supreme court.
He is a tireless worker and advocate on behalf of individuals, and he
and his wife Claire have worked tirelessly to improve the county of
Henry and the city of McDonough. But most important of all, as his
friends gather tonight at the Eagles Landing Country Club in McDonough,
GA, to celebrate his life and his birthday, I today wish to
acknowledge, as a friend, my great appreciation for all the
contributions he has made to me, to my life, and to my family.
In closing, I wish to also remember the third person of our group. We
were such close friends at the University of Georgia. Rarely a night
went by that after studying or partying, we did not gather together for
a cup of coffee to talk over the day and ahead to the next day. It was
Ruben Alexander Crumbley, Johnny Isakson, and Jack Cox.
So in remembering my friendship with Alex and celebrating his
birthday, I also wish to acknowledge Jack Cox because he sacrificed his
life in Vietnam and died fighting on behalf of the United States of
America. That was many years ago, but he and Alex and I have shared
together a great friendship and many great memories, which Alex tonight
will review.
I regret I will not be with him in person, but I wanted to take this
moment to acknowledge a great occasion and a great friendship.
Mr. President, I yield back.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut is
recognized.

Iraq

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, about a month ago, Senator John Kerry of
Massachusetts and I were in the Middle East, and at sundown on an
evening in Baghdad, as we landed in our helicopter in the Green Zone, a
young man walked up to Senator Kerry and me. I could hardly see him. He
was about 6 feet 2 inches, 6 feet 3 inches, a captain, and a West Point
graduate. He talked to us about his concerns and what was going on in
Iraq. This was back in the mid part of December before the Christmas
holidays. His name was Brian Freeman.
The conversation did not last very long. It was not one of those long
conversations. It may have lasted 15, 20 minutes, at best. I do not
even have a clear picture in my mind of what he looked like because it
was dark, as the conversation went on for 15 or 20 minutes. But it is
one of those meetings all of us have had in our lives, where you do not
forget a person, an individual. For whatever reason, he was compelling,
he was sincere. He sought us out. He wanted us to know how he felt
about what was happening in Iraq.
I mentioned him on ``Meet the Press'' a few weeks later in talking
about Iraq. I did not mention his name. I did not wish to put him in
that position. But I talked about this young Army captain, a West Point
graduate, whom I met. He apparently saw the program in Baghdad and e-
mailed me, and we began this conversation between my office and himself
over the last month or so, in which we talked about the surge, and he
talked about the problems associated with it, the jobs he was being
asked to do.
He said to me--I am quoting him now--

Senator, it's nuts over here. Soldiers are being asked to
do work we're not trained to do. I'm doing work that the
State Department people are far more prepared to do in
fostering democracy, but they're not allowed to come off the
bases because it's too dangerous here. It doesn't make any
sense.

CPT Brian Freeman, a West Point graduate, was killed in Iraq last
Saturday.
I have spoken to his family over the last number of days, his wife
Charlotte, his two young children, his parents and his in-laws, trying
to express on behalf,

[[Page S1214]]

I am sure, of all us the sense of grief we feel about this young man's
loss of life and his contribution to our country.
I cannot tell you how exciting it was for me to meet him. This young
man had nothing but potential and a great interest in seeing his
country do better and grow stronger. And he wanted to be a part of it
and make a contribution to our land.
Today, I am here to say enough is enough. I think all of us feel this
way. We are coming to a point next week when we will have a debate
about this. We are going to discuss various resolutions before us. I
firmly believe we have to do everything we possibly can to ensure that
the tragedy of Brian Freeman does not continue to be replicated over
and over again. That is why we must say no, in my view, to the decision
by the President of the United States to send thousands more of our
brave young men and women in uniform to the streets of Baghdad to risk
their lives for a plan which just ``doesn't make any sense,'' to quote
Brian Freeman.

I, as one Senator, intend to speak loudly, as I have already, against
this ill-conceived policy. But more than just speak out, I intend, at
every available opportunity, to ask this body and the other body to go
on record in a meaningful way against the President's specific decision
to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq and against the
continuation of our failed military strategy in Iraq.
This administration's Iraq policy has been a total failure. And this
``escalation'' or ``surge''--call it whatever you will--of 21,500 more
Americans is not going to work. I think all of us in this Chamber know
it. General Powell, General Abizaid, and General Casey know it. The
British and the rest of our allies know it. Nearly every expert who has
come before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, regardless of their
political persuasion or ideology, over the last several weeks of
hearings Senator Biden has held, knows it as well.
That was their testimony. But most importantly, two-thirds of the
American people flatout oppose it, according to a recent survey done in
our country--not that surveys ought to determine policy. But you cannot
sustain a policy when the American people no longer feel you are on the
right track. And they are right about it.
As my good friend from Nebraska, Senator Hagel, so eloquently and
passionately said:

[W]e owe the military and their families a policy worthy of
their sacrifices . . . and I don't believe we have that
policy today.

I could not agree with him more.
As we all know, we have lost more than 3,000 young men and women.
More than 20,000 American troops have been grievously injured.
According to many estimates, several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians
have been killed or maimed over the last 4 years. And now estimates
suggest this war will end up costing the American people over $1.2
trillion.
We have stretched our military to the breaking point. As Congressman
Murtha testified before the Foreign Relations Committee last week:

At the beginning of the Iraq war, 80 percent of all Army
units and almost 100 percent of active combat units were
rated at the highest state of readiness. Today, virtually all
of our active-duty combat units at home and all of our guard
units are at the lowest state of readiness--

``the lowest state of readiness''--

primarily due to equipment shortages resulting from repeated
and extended deployments to Iraq.

I strongly believe we must demonstrate to the American public that we
share their deep concerns and doubts about the President's proposed
plans to escalate our involvement in Iraq. I think we need to
demonstrate we are prepared to lead on this issue--not simply sit back,
fearful of taking positions most of us believe are in the interests of
our country.
Earlier this week in committee, I offered an amendment to the Foreign
Relations Committee proposal that was offered by my friend, the
chairman of the committee, Senator Biden, and Senator Hagel and the
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin. My amendment
called for capping the number of troops in Iraq and required the
President to seek a new authorization--after 5 years, a new
authorization; it has been 5 years since we voted on the justification
to go into Iraq--but to get that new authorization from Congress
immediately prior to any future troop increases in Iraq--an
authorization, I would quickly add, I would vigorously oppose, but it
would be an opportunity to debate on the floor of the Senate.
My amendment was not about setting a floor, as some have suggested.
It was about exactly the opposite. It was about the first step in
fundamentally altering the status quo in Iraq and forcing the President
to listen to the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Study Group to
fundamentally change our mission in Iraq and begin the phased
redeployment of U.S. combat troops.
It was also about preventing more troops from being put in harm's way
for a flawed tactic to a failed strategy.
Although my amendment failed, I voted in support of the Biden
resolution. But I believe it is absolutely essential that the final
resolution the Senate adopts next week be one with more clarity than is
currently to be found in the words of this resolution or the competing
Warner-Collins resolution, which was introduced by our good friend, the
Senator from Virginia, Mr. John Warner.
Regardless of how effective I and others are in bringing more clarity
to the resolution through the amendment process, we need to also take,
at some point in the very near future, concrete legislative action such
as was attempted last week in the committee on Wednesday but which is
not possible in the context of the concurrent resolution we will
consider next week.
We need to face the hard facts. The President of the United States
has already said he will ignore Congress when it comes to his recent
proposals on Iraq. He has said loudly he will ignore what we do. So it
is all the more important we do something that is meaningful.

Sense-of-the-Senate resolutions are the easiest things to ignore.
They require absolutely no Presidential recognition whatsoever. They
are merely opportunities for us to express our views on various
important matters. I recognize it has a value, to some degree. But
there are people out there wondering whether we are actually going to
take advantage of this time to do something more than send a message,
which all of us have sent, either privately or publicly, that this
policy must change. We are beyond the message-sending time. We all know
what the message is.
Now the question is whether this body, this historic body, that has
an obligation beyond the roles and the opportunities or the obligations
of the other body, will take a clear and strong position when it comes
to this most recent decision.
The Vice President has recently said that the nonbinding resolution
passed by this coequal branch of Government ``won't stop us,'' to quote
him. Mr. Cheney went on to say: ``I think it would be detrimental from
the standpoint of the troops'' to pass this.
``Detrimental from the standpoint of the troops''?
Refereeing a civil war is detrimental from the standpoint of the
troops. Surging into the streets of Baghdad with no clear mission is
not detrimental to our troops? Sending Americans into combat with
insufficient body armor is not detrimental to our troops? But stopping
the President from sending more young men and women into Baghdad is
most certainly not detrimental to our troops.
Two-thirds of the American public and two-thirds of our troops oppose
a surge, according to a recent survey done by the Military Times--two-
thirds of the American public and two-thirds of our troops.
But it is not public opinion polls that shape my conclusions that our
policies in Iraq are terribly flawed. It is the facts on the ground,
which I have learned, as I know others have as well in our recent
visits to Iraq, as well as the judgments of former and current military
and foreign policy experts.
What is it going to take to make this administration change course?
It is going to take a Congress, in my view, that does not allow the
blank checks over the last 5 years to continue. It is going to take a
Congress--and I am confident this one will be one--that has the courage
to stand up and clearly say we will not support

[[Page S1215]]

more troops nor the current failed policy. And if the President refuses
to listen, it is going to take a Congress that is prepared to
legislatively force the President to change this disastrous course.
So next week we will begin the process of attempting to make it
crystal clear in the language of whatever concurrent resolution we
adopt that this Congress is opposed to more troops, opposed to a policy
that makes our troops remain referees in a civil war, and in favor of a
changed policy which begins the process of the phased redeployment of
our troops, which last year the Congress had anticipated would begin in
2006.
There are those who say we should not try to tinker with the wording
of carefully crafted Iraq resolutions because they are delicate
compromises and to propose anything more forceful would be politically
divisive and that Congress ought to speak with one voice.
Well, I wish we could speak with one voice. But to them I would say,
I believe in consensus. I believe in bipartisanship. My 25-year record
in this body has amply demonstrated the value of that. But when the
quest for consensus paralyzes our ability and prevents us from taking
real action to stop the senseless death of young Americans, then I do
not think consensus ought to be the goal.
Stopping this insanity ought to be the goal. If you can do it 51 to
49, then do it. If you can do it 100 to nothing, obviously, that is
preferable. But waiting around for consensus on this issue worries me
deeply, that we are going to miss an opportunity to fulfill our
obligations to stand up and say: Enough of this stuff. Stop it now.
There are those who say that opposing the surge betrays our troops.
Quite the contrary is true. I say to them, what truly betrays our
troops is sending them into a civil war they cannot and should not have
to stop. More than 60 percent of the Iraqi people do not want us in
their country. How do you send people into harm's way when the people
you are trying to help do not want you to stay?
Of course, stopping the escalation of U.S. forces is only the first
step as part of a broader policy to stabilize Iraq and bring our troops
home.
There must also be meaningful deescalation of U.S. combat activities
in Iraq. We must begin the redeployment of U.S. forces away from the
urban areas where the sectarian conflict is greatest, to enclaves
within Iraq and to elsewhere within the region--Afghanistan, of course,
being the principal place where our troops could be used.
This will enable U.S. forces to concentrate on training Iraqi forces,
securing Iraq's borders, and conducting counterterrorism operations to
protect U.S. vital security interests in the region.
In the coming days, every American should be able to know whether his
or her Senator is prepared to go further and attempt to legally bind
the President from continuing this policy of folly. That is why I will
not be satisfied if the resolution we adopt next week is the last step
this Congress takes to right the wrong that the President is
perpetrating on our brave young men and women in uniform and on the
American people as a whole. That is why I will find opportunities, if I
can, to bring binding legislation to a vote in this body so that every
American can know where we stand on this issue.
The American people want this Congress to live up to its
responsibilities. I am confident we can and will under our leadership.
The time has come for us to weigh in and change the course of U.S.
involvement in Iraq, something we all know in our hearts needs to be
done. If we were able to authorize the President to go to war in 2002--
a vote that I deeply regret having cast in favor of--5 years ago on
grounds of weapons of mass destruction and the behavior of Saddam
Hussein--one of which was not true, and the other doesn't exist
anymore--it is time for us to debate this new argument for our
involvement in Iraq and decide, up or down, whether we believe it is
the right course of action.
This Nation of ours is at a critical crossroads. The President wants
to deepen our involvement in the war. I think most of us here want to
responsibly end our involvement after 4 painful years that have taken a
tragic toll on our country.
I have met with countless families, in my own State and in others,
who have been through the tragedy of losing loved ones in Iraq. Talking
to Brian Freeman's family in Utah the other night was painful. His 14-
month-old and his 3-year-old don't have a father any longer. Our
country lost a wonderful young man whom Senator Kerry and I had the
privilege of meeting for such a brief time. But both of us were
profoundly affected by his courage and commitment. I say to them and
others that in this body we will stand up in the coming days and bring
an end to this insanity.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The assistant majority leader is
recognized for 5 minutes.

Darfur

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to address the crisis in Darfur. I
wish I could do more than speak out, but at the very least, I will
continue to speak out. Today I want to specifically speak to an urgent
humanitarian crisis.
On January 17, 14 United Nations organizations, including UNICEF, the
World Food Programme, and the High Commissioner for Refugees, issued a
joint statement on Darfur. These statements are usually just ignored.
They are somewhat repetitious by nature, usually dry as dust, and they
languish unnoticed on a bookshelf. This statement is different. This
statement is a plea. It is a plea for help, a desperate plea for help.
This statement outlines the efforts of humanitarian agencies in Darfur
over the last 2 years. It outlines the heroic efforts that have been
made to save hundreds of thousands of lives from a brooding genocide.
The statement reads:

In the face of growing insecurity and danger to communities
and workers, the [United Nations] and its humanitarian
partners have effectively been holding the line for survival
and protection of millions. That line cannot be held much
longer.

Humanitarian access to those in need has become highly limited.
Attacks on both civilians and those trying to help increase by the day.
There are an estimated 14,000 aid workers in Darfur, most of them
Sudanese, who risk their lives every moment of every day to save
innocent people. In recent months, these relief workers have been
murdered, raped, and attacked repeatedly. Humanitarian and U.N.
compounds have been attacked, their vehicles hijacked, their supplies
looted. Sudanese police who should be protecting them have arrested and
beaten the aid workers. Sudanese nationals who work for these
organizations have been the most viciously attacked targets of violence
and harassment.
These atrocities represent a concentrated, deliberate assault on
efforts to provide basic services to the poor, innocent people in
Darfur--food, water, shelter, and medicine. Actions by the Sudanese
Government are compounded by the actions of rebel groups, some of which
have also preyed upon civilians and are responsible for these attacks
and hijackings. In every case, it is the people of Darfur who are the
victims of this violence. A third of the population of Darfur has been
driven from their homes. They urgently need humanitarian assistance.
But humanitarian organizations are under attack, just as they are. The
Sudanese Government has indicated its willingness to accept the first
stages of a peacekeeping plan, ever so slowly. But so far there are
only a little over 100 U.N. military officers and 33 U.N. policy
advisers on the ground in Darfur, an area as large as the State of
Texas. Thousands more are needed, and they are needed immediately.
I recently joined Senators Feingold, Brownback, and others in a
bipartisan letter to the President raising the issue of these attacks
on humanitarian workers. We have asked the President what the U.S.
response will be, what our strategy should be in the face of Sudanese
assurances, promises that have not been kept. We recognize the State
Department and the President want to build on preliminary progress that
has been made in at least getting some U.N. peacekeepers on the ground.
But that progress has been tragically, deliberately slowed. As we wait
and as we debate, people die every day. We must do more.

I believe the United States should be prepared to support additional
funding for peacekeeping operations in Darfur.

[[Page S1216]]

Congress has the opportunity to do that with a funding resolution for
the rest of the year that it will vote on in just a few days. The
President should also increase funding for peacekeeping operations in
the budget request that he will soon send to Congress. Darfur clearly
remains an emergency and must remain a priority.
A little over a year ago, I went to Kigali, Rwanda, with Senator
Brownback. We stayed in the Hotel Rwanda, made famous by the film as a
refuge for people trying to escape death in the throes of another
genocide. I walked down the hill from that hotel to a Catholic Church
that I was later told was a sanctuary for only a brief time before the
rebels overtook it and killed 1,000 people on the stone floor of the
church. That was a genocide about which we should have spoken out more
and we should have done something about.
My predecessor, Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, pleaded with the
Clinton administration to do more, and President Clinton acknowledges
today he should have done more. I salute the Bush administration for
calling the situation in Darfur the genocide that it is. But now that
we have acknowledged this horror is happening in our time on our watch,
we have a responsibility to do something.
We said ``never again'' after Rwanda, but the genocide continues. The
United States and the world must take meaningful action to show the
Sudanese Government that a few hundred peacekeepers from the U.N. are
not enough, and we must act now before the thin line of relief workers
is severed and the suffering in Darfur grows even worse.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on
the minimum wage bill that is before the Senate. I have spoken a little
bit during the last week, but I have held in reserve a lot of time
because we had amendments offered that other Senators wanted to
explain. Normally when a bill is on the floor we have to stand down
here and say: Please, if you have amendments, bring them to the floor
so we can debate them. However, in about the first hour that this bill
was on the floor, we had a dozen amendments that were suggested, and
people were clamoring for time to debate them. We had amendments from
both sides of the aisle. I think there were over 115 amendments that
were suggested to this bill. Everybody realizes that 115 amendments are
never going to be voted on with any bill. I don't think we have even
come close to that on any of the bills that I have seen in the 10 years
I have been here.
Later today, the majority leader is going to file cloture. He has
given notice that he will do that. That is asking the Senate to garner
60 votes in favor of bringing the debate to a close on the Baucus
substitute which contains the minimum wage increase and the small
business tax incentive package. I congratulate Senators Grassley and
Baucus for the tremendous effort they put into coming up with a package
for small business that would help offset the impact of the minimum
wage increase. It is something that was considered the last time there
was a minimum wage increase, and I suspect that in the future it will
always be a part of a package in some way to make sure that we don't
harm these small businesspeople who provide a training ground for those
with minimum skills so that they can get better skills and get better
jobs.
The small businesses of this country are hiring people with no
skills, teaching them how to operate a cash register, how to interact
with customers, and often how to dress, how to cook--all kinds of
services. I am reminded that in Cheyenne, WY, we have a McDonald's.
They are always used as the example in minimum wage debates. They take
a lot of grief, and they really don't deserve all that grief. They do a
tremendous job of training young people in some very basic customer
service skills.
The reason I am reminded of the Cheyenne McDonald's is that we like
to point out that three former employees there who started at minimum
wage now own 21 McDonald's. So it is an entry way to greater things. It
is not for everybody, but for those with a desire to learn and succeed,
there are possibilities. Any time we can hold out hope, we are helping
people.
Yesterday there was a speech on the floor of the Senate and it was
said that we had already spent 5 days on this bill and it was time to
move on. Yesterday was actually the fourth day on the bill. Today is
the fifth day. We will not be able to have any votes today. I don't
know whether you count that or not because we were talking about how
the Senate is supposed to work 40 hours a week just like other people
do. I know a lot of my colleagues and I have our 40 hours in by about
Wednesday, but at any rate, we have been talking about working a 5-day
week. We are here, and we are talking, but we will not vote today. I
don't know whether you can really count that as a day on the bill.
We talked on the bill on Monday, but we didn't have any votes Monday.
So I don't know if you can count that as a day on the bill either. Next
Monday we have the right to talk on it again, and then Tuesday morning
there will be the cloture vote. That would be the next vote allowed on
the bill. We really had 3 days on the bill.
How productive were we during those 3 days? We voted on 11
amendments. We have over 100 amendments. Many of the amendments deal
with labor issues. There are some that don't deal directly with the
minimum wage. But the minority side, as I have watched over the last
several years, always has some unrelated amendments that they want to
showcase and get passed.
Another thing I have noticed as I have been here is the unfortunate
thing that we do to amendments that are suggested on a key bill. Once
that amendment has been suggested, if the majority is the Democrats and
the Republicans suggest the amendment, that is considered a poison
pill, something just designed to take the bill down. I can say that
because in the past on some Republican bills, when the Democrats would
submit an amendment, it would be labeled a poison pill.
Unfortunately, the people of America don't get to see the debate that
occurs off the Senate floor. They are not often invited into the
committee meetings. They are not invited into the bipartisan task force
groups that work across the aisle on solving problems before they even
get to committee. There is a good reason for that. If the media were
invited, they would take some of the dumb ideas that are thrown out--
and I have to admit when I am throwing out ideas, I throw out a lot of
ideas; some of them stick and some you really recognize as being dumb--
and concentrate on those few dumb ideas because people get enjoyment
out of that.
Some of these meetings where there is brainstorming and trying to
find common ground have to be held separately. These are often very
productive talks. There are a number of them going on right now on key
issues. I think that this is the best way to handle a bill. But what
America gets to watch is us debating on this floor, the attitudes we
project, and the arguments that we project. I know most of the people
out there watching are always rooting for one side or the other. I
don't think it is the vast majority of independents who are spending
their time addicted to the television. So our constituents kind of
expect us to ram home the arguments from our side, and we do.
I contend that what we get to talk about on the floor of the Senate
is the 20 percent of the issues we are never going to agree on.
We have to get past that point and get to the point where we look at
all proposals in a very serious way and figure out a way that we can
accept it or modify it in some way that makes it acceptable. What I
usually do is try to find a third way. We have to do a bit more of that
around here, and if we do I think we will find that the Senate will be
a lot more successful.
Senator Kennedy and I have been practicing that for the last couple
of years. We have been working prior to committee meetings, in
committee meetings, and after committee meetings. We have been very
successful at not having much floor debate on things that came through
committee. We got 35 bills through committee, and the longest debate we
had on the floor was over the pension bill. That bill was very
important, one of the most important bills in the last 2 years. It was
980 pages long in the Senate, which is not a small bill. We already had
agreement

[[Page S1217]]

before we came to the floor that there would be one hour of debate
equally divided, with two amendments and a final vote. Check back
through the years and see how often that has happened. That was an
extremely difficult bill, and we had 1 hour of debate, two amendments,
and a final vote. It can be done around here. In fact, we wound up with
27 bills signed by the President. We are checking to see how many
committees have had that kind of production. Most of those didn't get
debated here at all because there wasn't that 20 percent of
disagreement. We had the 80-percent agreement and we went with it. That
is not possible on all bills, and I understand that.
I am certainly encouraging my colleagues to get together, work on
bills prior to them becoming what might be considered a poison pill,
and see if something cannot be worked out. Hopefully, we can go back
through some of these amendments that have been offered before and look
at them with clear eyes and see if there isn't a way that what is being
talked about in principle cannot be achieved somehow.
I want to let the people watching this debate that they are not
seeing the real story on bills. There is a different and better way we
could do it. I hope that is how we will do it more often.
Now, I will speak a little more on the bill before us. I am going to
be disappointed if we don't have a few more votes on the bill prior to
having the cloture vote. Again, it is a request from the minority to
have an opportunity to vote on some of their amendments. So I urge my
Democratic colleagues to allow a vote on a few very important
amendments that my Republican colleagues have offered to the bill. I
know the Democrats don't want to vote on the amendments because each of
them is reasonable enough that it could pass. I know that may sound
silly, but that is how things often work here. I have offered
amendments--and the Democrats have sounded the trumpet that they will
allow an open process on amendments offered, but they have chosen to
filibuster by delay. When we only get 11 votes and only 3 days on which
we are allowed to offer amendments, it is hard to claim it was a full
week. Often bills that are very important here take 3 weeks. In fact, I
think that is probably the normal range for a bill around here.
So they have the opportunity right now to let the clock run out. But
we could have already voted on the minimum wage and small business
incentive package if we could have received some votes on the important
amendments that have been offered. We said we were going to cull down
the number of amendments, and we obviously did.
I call for a vote on four amendments we still have outstanding--
although there are many others outstanding. I want to reiterate my
conviction that as we move to raise the minimum wage, we must also
provide a measure of relief to small businesses which will bear the
cost of the increased wages.
Let me first turn to the four amendments I have noted. Over the
course of this debate, we have heard many times that the minimum wage
is an issue of fairness, an issue that affects working parents and
working families. The minimum wage is not the only relevant matter
before us that implicates issues of both fairness and family life. One
of the most significant dilemmas that face working men and women is the
struggle to maintain a balance between their work and family life.
Senator Gregg offered an amendment that reaches to the core of this
issue by providing the opportunity for private sector employees to
enter voluntary--I stress the word ``voluntary''--flexible work
arrangements with their employers. Senator Gregg requested and deserves
a vote on his employee option time amendment. However, more
importantly, working families in this country deserve a vote on this
amendment.
Twenty-eight years ago, this body gave Federal employees this highly
valued benefit. Now the other side of the aisle wants to deny private
employees the same right. Where this can be a big problem is where you
have a private employee who is married to a public employee. The public
employee can rework his or her schedule to be able to do what the
family needs to have done, and the spouse cannot do that because it is
illegal. They say, why can my husband or wife do it? Well, because it
is legal in the public sector. Even unions recognize this benefit is
coveted by employees. In a union-sponsored health care worker survey,
scheduling options was the second most important factor in accepting a
job.
Working families are striving to find the right balance of work and
time with their children, spouses, and other loved ones. The Gregg
amendment will remove a major obstacle to finding this balance. Nobody
should properly invoke the importance of providing relief or help for
working families, while simultaneously denying a vote on this
amendment. This is not only fair, but this is giving the employee the
right to choose, in cooperation with their employer, the best work
schedule for their family in the workplace.
Senator Kennedy has talked about the children of low-wage workers in
this country. Allowing employees more flexible work schedules will cut
down on unscheduled leave, sick days, child care costs, and the loss of
productivity that occurs when an employee is on the job but their heart
is somewhere else tending to the needs of family.
Public sector employees have enjoyed flextime benefits for nearly
three decades. We have not heard a lot of problems about it. At the
same time, it has been denied workers in the private sector. Where is
the fairness in that result? The amendment offered by Senator DeMint
goes to the heart of this discriminatory result. It says if we are
going to allow flextime benefits to some and not others, we ought to
correct the system the other way; if it is not good in the public
sector, maybe we ought to eliminate it under the Federal sector.
Senator DeMint deserves a vote, provided the other one fails.
Fundamental fairness demands it. By eliminating flexible work schedules
for Government employees until private employees have the same rights,
we hope to force our friends on the other side of the aisle to
acknowledge and address this disparity. If flextime is such a terrible
proposal and so dangerous to private employers and employees, one would
think they would support this amendment to protect Government
employees. But there is a reason they will not support this amendment.
Employees who have flextime like it: 79 percent of the women who have
it use it; 68 percent of the men who have it use it.
There are many Senators in this Chamber who offer their employees
flexible schedules. Why is it good enough policy for Senators and
Government employees and not for the private sector? It is long past
time for the Senate to give this popular benefit full and open
consideration. Once again, if we are truly concerned about our working
families and about being fair, we should not deny a vote on this
amendment.
Another amendment I hope we will vote on is Senator Burr's health
flex proposal. All of us know health insurance costs are a major issue
for both working families and small employers. This amendment would
give employers the option to provide a $2.10 increase in wages or spend
the increase on health care benefits. We have to recognize the tough
choices employees face every day and how the underlying bill will make
those choices even tougher.
Most Americans get their health care through employment, but it is
becoming more and more difficult for small employers to keep up with
escalating health care costs. Everybody in the country recognizes the
difficulty of keeping up with health care costs. The small businessman,
like everybody else, wants to have insurance for his family and his
employees. As most of us know, 46.6 million people in the United
States, or one in seven Americans, lacked insurance during 2005. There
is no pretending that a minimum wage increase is going to make that
number any smaller. Senator Burr's amendment addresses this negative
side effect.
The availability of affordable health insurance is clearly an issue
for all families, and any time this body has an opportunity to address
or examine ideas designed to achieve that end, I don't think we should
refuse to do so. Senator Burr has asked for a vote and he, too,
deserves a vote on this important issue.
Finally, Senator Vitter also offered an amendment that directly
relates to the group of people I feel will be most harmed by this
mandated increase in the minimum wage. His amendment is

[[Page S1218]]

one of fundamental fairness, also, to the small employers who create
the jobs and try their best to play by the rules. Senator Vitter's
amendment recognizes that small businesses often do not have the in-
house resources or the outside experts they need to assist them in
complying with the ever-growing amounts of paperwork they are required
to provide to the federal government. They cannot afford to hire
expensive consultants to do this for them. Paperwork in the Federal
Government is voluminous, and learning how to do it correctly often
takes very thick manuals. The information they are required to give to
the Federal Government is very extensive. I used to file some of those
forms and reports, and I was amazed at the textbooks you had to go
through to be able to fill out the forms properly. Part of that is a
problem we have with the Paperwork Reduction Act. We ought to take a
look at the Paperwork Reduction Act again.
Our income tax forms could be much easier to fill out. I went to the
IRS when I first got here, as the only accountant in the Senate, and
told them that I have done a few of those forms. I could not understand
them; I could not understand the logic behind them. There are a couple
of places where a line could be added and you would not have to go to
another form. I found out there is a huge penalty to Government
agencies who add a line to a form. But there is no penalty for adding
another chapter to the book that explains the form. Therefore, it is
easier to add another whole chapter than to add a simple line. The
Paperwork Reduction Act is creating some problems for small business
that keep the paperwork from being plain and simple.
As a result, small businesses sometimes make inadvertent errors in
complying with these obligations. His amendment would relieve small
businesses from monetary fines for certain first-time violations that
pose no threat to health or safety. This is a very important criteria.
The Federal Government should not be playing a game of ``gotcha'' in
these circumstances, particularly with small businesses. What they
should be doing is playing fair. If we, too, are being fair, we would
allow a vote on this important amendment.
Apart from these amendments, I believe we need to focus on the
central question before this body. Everybody in this Chamber knows we
will approve an increase in the minimum wage and that we will do it
very soon. The debate, as I keep reminding people, has not been over
whether to do the increase, it has been whether we can keep people in
business at the same time we do the increase and the ways to do that.
We have made some progress on that issue, I believe.
There is a long road ahead to do the tax package Senator Baucus and
Senator Grassley so capably worked out in a very bipartisan way because
those bills are supposed to start in the House and that will be part of
the argument, too. There will be some argument. Some of the offsets are
opposed by some people--and I think, if you look at the list of those
who oppose them, it is big businesses, not small businesses. I believe
they think they are being left out of this process. However, this is a
small business issue, and I am trying to solve some of those small
business problems. The approval of an increase to $7.25 is simply not
an issue; and, further rhetoric on this point adds nothing to the
important public debate that remains.
The debate is simple: How do we go about mandating this increase
without harming the small businesses that have to pay for it? These
small businesses have been the engine of our economy and employ the
bulk of the minimum wage workers. We do great harm not only to these
small businesses but to all those workers who rely on them for their
livelihood if we don't provide the practical means for businesses to
afford such mandated increases. We have failed in our responsibilities
if we do not balance an increase in the minimum wage with the
appropriate relief for small businesses. For a worker without a job, a
higher minimum wage is meaningless.
As a former small business owner--my wife and I had three shoe
stores--I know how difficult it can be to meet payroll every week and
meet all the other obligations a small businessman has to face. Here
are the realities: Raising the minimum wage to $7.25 imposes a 41-
percent increase in labor costs for a small employer with minimum wage
workers. Many of them will see this as a tax. That is why some on our
side have problems voting for an increase in taxes. It goes to a very
important segment of our population, but it is a 41-percent increase in
labor costs. Every employer has to face the very real issue of how he
or she will deal with this increased cost and still make the payroll
week after week.
This cartoon appeared in one of the papers. It says:

The good news is the U.S. House voted to increase the
minimum wage. The bad news is I can't afford to pay any more.

Although this cartoon may, at first, appear humorous, these are very
real and very difficult questions that impact our small business
employers dramatically. It is not a laughing matter. These payroll
increases have to be paid for by employers, and money doesn't grow on
trees. A lot of the things we look at as options often are not
available to them. The fact is that competition regulates prices--
unless we have price controls--and employers must make hard decisions
as how to meet these increased payroll obligations.
When costs go up, businesses must first look to cut expenses. The
choices they have can be very difficult. To meet higher mandated
payroll costs, the smaller employer may be forced to consider cutting
back on benefits, such as health insurance, retirement, and leave
plans. It is simply too easy to forget that fringe benefits have a
significant cost, and if a small employer must reduce expenses to meet
payroll, these costs are often the first to go.
Beyond cutting fringe benefits, small businesses may need to consider
cutting back work hours or eliminating overtime or eliminating some
duplication on a shift. I mentioned a video store that has always had
two people to close up because they think two is the minimum for
safety. They are now talking about having to go to one person to close
up. Cutting hours, eliminating overtime, laying off workers or not
hiring more are traditional and often necessary responses to meeting
increased costs. Unfortunately, these actions ultimately hurt the very
workers the minimum wage increase is designed to help.
Another thing we need to do--and I have avoided putting it into the
bill as an amendment--is to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act.
The HELP Committee has passed it unanimously twice. The Senate has
passed it unanimously twice. But we have not been able to get a
conference committee. Part of the reason for not getting a conference
committee is worrying about where the conference committee will go.
There ought to be a lot more confidence in the conference committee on
the side of the Democrats right now because they will control the
conference committee.
I am hoping that the Workforce Investment Act can be a way that we
can help get more job training. Small businesses also provide some job
training for which they do not get paid. That does not come under that
bill. As I mentioned, small businesses often hire people with minimum
skills and teach them the skills they need to move up the wage ladder.
Incidentally, of the businesses I checked on, the average time that a
person stayed at minimum wage was 3 weeks. If they had the capability
to learn, they moved up quickly.
We must also remember that when confronted by higher labor costs,
employers will naturally gravitate toward filling positions with the
most highly skilled, experienced, and productive workers available.
Once again, this phenomenon of replacing low-skilled workers with
high-skilled workers in the face of rising labor costs winds up harming
the very workers the minimum wage seeks to help. Minimum wage positions
are often the entryway into the world of work for those who lack skills
and experience. Mandated increases in the minimum wage run the risk of
closing that entryway to many.
Beyond these cost-cutting measures of eliminating benefits, reducing
hours, downsizing, laying off employees, and reducing low-skill and
entry-level employment, employers might have to face the prospect of
increasing the price for goods and services. Such increases drive
inflation and cause all

[[Page S1219]]

consumers to ultimately pay the price of these mandates. The irony is
that as the cost of these labor increases is passed through to
consumers, it affects everyone, including the minimum wage workers
whose recently increased wages are suddenly devalued by the increased
price of goods and services that impact them as well.
My colleagues and I feel strongly about the working families of this
country and the businesses they work in and the businesses they run. I
wish to emphasize that point. I consider the working families of this
country to also include small businesses. A lot of us don't realize the
``wake up in the middle of the night wondering what is going to happen
with the business'' concern and the real risks these people take. A lot
of them are just mom-and-pop businesses that hire 3, 5, 15 people.
There is support for raising the minimum wage, but we recognize that
by doing so, we put people out of business or make them cut their
workforce. If we end up putting someone out of work, we are not doing
them any favors. That is the reason we have offered a number of
amendments to H.R. 2. This bill never went through the committee
process, either in this body or in the other body. I think the
committee process helps the chances of moving a bill along and takes
care of a lot of the amendments we maybe ought not debate on the floor.
We have not had a chance to offer any amendments at all to this
legislation until this week. When a bill goes directly to the floor and
circumvents the committee process, Members have no choice but to go
through the committee amendments process on the floor of the Senate. We
only got to vote on 11 amendments, and have only gotten 3 days to vote
on amendments.
Once again, I urge the Democratic leaders to allow us to vote on the
amendments we have offered, and I strongly urge them not to forget the
working families of this country who employ low-skilled workers. They
will need real relief in order to keep their businesses growing and
their employees working under this mandate. This body must commit in a
bipartisan way now to the real issue at hand; that is, providing a
responsible increase in the minimum wage that allows small businesses
to continue employing and providing job opportunities to the very
people the minimum wage is designed to help. The simple answer is
before us.

Amendments Nos. 135 and 138, En Bloc, to Amendment No. 100

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Cornyn, I ask unanimous
consent to set the pending amendment aside and I call up amendments
Nos. 135 and 138.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse.) Without objection, it is so
ordered. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Enzi], for Mr. Cornyn,
proposes amendments numbered 135 and 138, en bloc, to
amendment No. 100.

The amendments are as follows:

AMENDMENT NO. 135

(Purpose: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the
Federal unemployment surtax)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. ___. REPEAL OF FEDERAL UNEMPLOYMENT SURTAX.

(a) In General.--Section 3301 (relating to rate of Federal
unemployment tax) is amended by striking ``or'' at the end of
paragraph (1), by redesignating paragraph (2) as paragraph
(3), and by inserting after paragraph (1) the following new
paragraph:
``(2) in the case of wages paid in calendar year 2007--
``(A) 6.2 percent in the case of wages for any portion of
the year ending before April 1, and
``(B) 6.0 percent in the case of wages for any portion of
the year beginning after March 31; or''.
(b) Conforming Amendment.--Section 3301(1) of such Code is
amended by striking ``2007'' and inserting ``2006''.
(c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section
shall apply to wages paid after December 31, 2006.

AMENDMENT NO. 138

(Purpose: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to expand
workplace health incentives by equalizing the tax consequences of
employee athletic facility use)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. __. EMPLOYER-PROVIDED OFF-PREMISES HEALTH CLUB SERVICES.

(a) Treatment as Fringe Benefit.--Subparagraph (A) of
section 132(j)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986
(relating to on-premises gyms and other athletic facilities)
is amended to read as follows:
``(A) In general.--Gross income shall not include--
``(i) the value of any on-premises athletic facility
provided by an employer to its employees, and
``(ii) in the case of any taxable year beginning in 2007,
so much of the fees, dues, or membership expenses paid by an
employer to an athletic or fitness facility described in
subparagraph (C) on behalf of its employees as does not
exceed $900 per employee per year.''.
(b) Athletic Facilities Described.--Paragraph (4) of
section 132(j) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating
to special rules) is amended by adding at the end the
following new subparagraph:
``(C) Certain athletic or fitness facilities described.--
For purposes of subparagraph (A)(ii), an athletic or fitness
facility described in this subparagraph is a facility--
``(i) which provides instruction in a program of physical
exercise, offers facilities for the preservation,
maintenance, encouragement, or development of physical
fitness, or is the site of such a program of a State or local
government,
``(ii) which is not a private club owned and operated by
its members,
``(iii) which does not offer golf, hunting, sailing, or
riding facilities,
``(iv) whose health or fitness facility is not incidental
to its overall function and purpose, and
``(v) which is fully compliant with the State of
jurisdiction and Federal anti-discrimination laws.''.
(c) Exclusion Applies to Highly Compensated Employees Only
if No Discrimination.--Section 132(j)(1) of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 is amended--
(1) by striking ``Paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection
(a)'' and inserting ``Subsections (a)(1), (a)(2), and
(j)(4)'', and
(2) by striking the heading thereof through ``(2) apply''
and inserting ``Certain exclusions apply''.
(d) Employer Deduction for Dues to Certain Athletic
Facilities.--
(1) In general.--Paragraph (3) of section 274(a) of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to denial of
deduction for club dues) is amended by adding at the end the
following new sentence: ``The preceding sentence shall not
apply to so much of the fees, dues, or membership expenses
paid in any taxable year beginning in 2007 to athletic or
fitness facilities (within the meaning of section
132(j)(4)(C)) as does not exceed $900 per employee per
year.''.
(2) Conforming amendment.--The last sentence of section
274(e)(4) of such Code is amended by inserting ``the first
sentence of'' before ``subsection (a)(3)''.
(e) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section
shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31,
2006.

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as we have reached Friday in the
consideration of the increase in the minimum wage, let me restate both
by affection and respect for my friend and colleague from Wyoming. We
have a strong personal relationship and a very good professional
relationship. There are a few occasions when we differ, and this
happens to be one of them, but it doesn't take away from the fact that
I have enormous respect for his legislative abilities. We have worked
in a number of areas, and we have every commitment to working together
in so many of those areas of our HELP Committee. I know we don't have
to repeat it, but it is true. Since we have a moment on a Friday, I
wanted to express it because of my deep concerns about the direction of
this underlying legislation.
Let me state, with regard to these family issues, our committee is
enormously interested in these family issues. The fact is, we have not
addressed them in these recent Congresses. That happens to be the fact.
We have not marked up those measures when Republicans were in charge of
our committee. We didn't get them out on the floor of the Senate, so we
have not considered them. But we are strongly committed to them. We are
strongly committed.
My friend and colleague from Connecticut, Senator Dodd--who is the
author of the Family and Medical Leave Act--struggled 10 years before
we ever could get that legislation passed because of the opposition
within the Republican Party. He wants to extend that. It only applies
to companies of 50 or more and leaves out half of all the workers. He
wants to address that issue.
The Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, has had longstanding
legislation providing up to 24 hours for individuals to go and work
with teachers, engage in teacher conferences.

[[Page S1220]]

I have engaged in legislation for sick leave for workers, which is
enormously important to people here.
Family-related issues are something in which we are enormously
interested and concerned with. But I want to indicate we are also
interested in flextime. But we also recognize that in this past
Congress, this President eliminated overtime for 6 million Americans--
overtime--this administration.
I am not going to take the time now, but I will certainly put the
material in the Record about the proposal the Senator has just
referenced--my friend, and he is my friend, the Senator from New
Hampshire--talking about his flextime legislation. Here on page 2 in
the legislation it says, ``notwithstanding section 7, an employer may
establish biweekly work programs that--section (A) title I--that
consist of a basic work requirement of not more than 80 hours over a 2-
week period and in which more than 40 hours of the work period may
occur in a week of that period.''
I believe this is the end of the 40-hour workweek, when your employer
can make you work 50 hours in a week with no overtime. You say: No
overtime? Where is that?
If we go to page 7 of the legislation, under the definition of
``overtime,'' the term ``overtime'': ``when used with respect to
biweekly programs means all work worked in excess of the biweekly work
schedule involved in excess of the allocated 50 hours a week.''
So here we are basically saying if the employer makes the judgment
and decision that you are going to work 50 hours, you are going to work
more than 40 hours. Under the existing law you get overtime pay for
over 40 hours. Under this, you work 50 hours and you don't get the
overtime. Here it is in the legislation.
Why do we have that on the minimum wage bill, I ask? It seems so
accommodating. Can't we just accommodate family-related issues on it?
Here we are trying to undermine it.
The issue, of course, that is key in all these matters--you say: What
about public employees? Public employees do. They have unions to
protect them, and they have longstanding agreements about how and who
makes the judgment and decisions in working out those flextime issues.
It is an entirely different situation. I am glad to try to work that
out, as we have with Members on family-related issues. But why should
we have to do it on a simple item like the terms of increasing the
minimum wage? Why is it? As I said yesterday, we are considering zero
amendments on our side. We are prepared to vote. I bet I could even get
the leader to say--well, probably not--to say we would go with a voice
vote and approve it today. But, no, at the current time we have, to my
knowledge, 109 amendments. They increase every day from the other
side--109 amendments. Zero over here, 109 amendments.
Another issue comes up, the issue of agencies violating different
regulations, and if it is a first offense and exclusion of health and
safety--look carefully how they define health and safety. This is an
issue without a problem. Agencies have that flexibility today and use
it today. What are we really trying to get at?
Under the original proposal that was offered with regard to first
offenses, it would have exempted 97 percent of all mine safety
companies. You say let's redraft that now in terms of health and safety
and see if you won't take it. Why are we doing that out here on this
question? We have just done mine safety.
If we want to deal with regulatory reform we are glad to do that.
With regard to small business I thought that would be in the Small
Business Committee's jurisdiction. Why should we be dealing with that
when all we are trying to do is get an increase in the minimum wage?
Then I hear: What is going to happen in terms of employment when we
pass this increase in the minimum wage? One chart I didn't use the
other day but I remember from the past is this one. The last minimum
wage increase did not increase unemployment. These are the figures,
going from 1997, September, all the way through the year 2000. It shows
the last time when we went to $5.15 the gradual decrease in
unemployment.
If you look at it this way, we have the increase and the wage was
$4.75 in the summer of 1996. Look at the increased job growth. Then we
increased it in 1997 to $5.15, and it continued job growth.
There are 3.7 million Americans who work in these small mom-and-pop
stores who will never be affected because of the small business
exemptions. It is $500,000. They are excluded. It is only those. These
are the figures on it.
We have gone through those in some measure. I still am distressed
that we are spending this amount of time on this issue, and I wonder
why it is the Republicans have all of these issues. If we had accepted
all the amendments that have been offered by the Republicans, we would
have added $241 billion in spending; $241 billion would have been added
that would not have been offset.
We are on the fifth day today. We will be on the sixth day on Monday,
the seventh on Tuesday. When we had the increase in 1977, we spent 2
days on it. When we had the increase in the minimum wage in 1989, we
had 2 days. In 1996, we had 2 days--4 hours in the House of
Representatives. Since we have been debating this issue, the good State
of Iowa, Monday night, had a debate in the legislature for the increase
in the minimum wage. They passed it. They considered it in the Senate,
debated it, and passed it, and the new Governor of Iowa is signing the
increase in the minimum wage today. This is what is happening out
there.
This is part of what the American people are wondering about
regarding this institution: Why in a State it takes 3 days to get it
and other times it has taken a couple of days to consider this. It is a
very simple matter: just raise the minimum wage to $7.25 from $5.15. We
are in day 5, Monday it will be day 6, vote on cloture on day 7. With
the 30 hours it will continue on into the better part of next week. Why
does it take so long for this institution when all the amendments are
over on this side, from the Republicans?

That happens to be the fact. We debated education. It is interesting.
Our committee deals with education as the appropriations committee for
education. Finance has some provisions in there with regard to the tax
provisions. We have important education legislation coming up. We have
worked out higher education legislation in our committee. There are
still a few areas in terms of the loan programs we still have to work
out. We are working with the administration on the K-12 program. But
now we have dropped in here $35 billion in terms of education credits.
There is nothing on the IDEA Program--nothing. No help and assistance
on IDEA. No help and assistance in increasing Pell programs. They
selected $35 billion for whatever they wanted on education to challenge
us to vote against that particular proposal.
Is that it? The underlying bill is to try to get an increase in the
minimum wage. I am glad to debate education. I was so interested in
this because last year we increased the scholarship programs by $12
billion for students, and it went to conference and the Republican
leadership took all $12 billion and put it for taxes. I can't scarcely
remember any of those people who were arguing yesterday for increasing
help and assistance for the students raising their voice let alone
their vote in opposition. Or, when we added the funding, or tried to
add the funding to the budget last year, I don't remember any of those
speaking out. Twelve billion dollars it would have added. I don't
remember any of those voices out there. But they suddenly want to have
a long debate on that program.
Now we want to have a long debate on health savings accounts. The
average user of health savings accounts earns $133,000 a year, and
three-quarters of those who had the health savings accounts had
insurance before they had them. I thought the question today was to get
to the uninsured, not the wealthy who already had insurance. That is
coming from the other side. Why on the minimum wage bill? I am glad to
debate that issue, but why on the minimum wage? Why hold up another day
for workers? That is what is happening.
Every day we are denying these workers, every single day, every hour
we are denying these workers an increase in the minimum wage. Make no
mistake who is doing that--109 amendments from that side and zero from

[[Page S1221]]

this side. You can say: We want to just have a little fair opportunity
to discuss these. Come on. We weren't born yesterday. We know what is
happening. This is a whole process to delay, and I believe they hope to
defeat us on this issue.
It has been 10 years since we have had the increase. We have had 15
votes. We had a couple of other amendments which were accepted. We are
prepared. The issue, on these family-related issues--we are the
committee, we will work closely with our brothers and sisters on other
committees to get these jobs done. But don't, on Friday afternoon, say:
Oh, we just need to have a few more amendments on this. Then what will
happen?
We are basically holding the increase in the minimum wage hostage now
for additional tax expenditures for businesses. No clean bill. The
House of Representatives, with 80 Republicans, went ahead and passed a
clean bill but not here in the Senate. No, roadblocks were put in our
way by Republicans. Make no mistake about it. Let's just call it what
it is. Roadblocks, parliamentary tactics are used to block a bare
increase in the minimum wage, to basically prohibit that increase.
We have the additional billions of dollars in tax expenditures added
to it and now we still have opposition by filibuster by amendment. All
of us have been around here. It is filibuster by amendment. Thankfully,
we have a leader who is going to file cloture so at least we will have
the vote on Tuesday next. But there should be no doubt in the minds of
people, as we come into this weekend, who bears the burden in terms of
the basic reluctance and opposition to the increase in the minimum
wage. As I said yesterday--I won't repeat it--but it amazes me to try
and understand why this blind opposition, and why the vehemence of this
opposition of increasing the minimum wage to $7.25. What is it that
bothers our Republican friends? What is it about it? It isn't the
question about we want an opportunity to talk about education or health
care or Social Security or immigration. No, no. There is opposition to
going to $7.25 for those who are on the lowest part of the economic
ladder. We have seen the most extraordinary explosion of wealth in this
country in the history of this Nation, and we have held those workers
for 10 years--they have lost 20 percent of their purchasing power. We
are just restoring the purchasing power for those individuals. It has
the strong continuing opposition of the Republicans.

It is difficult for me to understand the reasons for that. Certainly
it can't be economic. We haven't had a debate--we have been ready to
have that debate on what it does in terms of communities, what it does
in terms of the economy. We have demonstrated that with figures, the
best we have had. States that have increased the minimum wage do better
economically. Countries that increase the minimum wage reduce poverty,
have the strongest economies in Europe. We are glad to debate the
various case studies that have been done with Krueger and Card over at
Princeton analyzing different kinds of communities. We are glad to
debate if you want to debate economics. No, no. It is all filibuster by
amendment on these other topics.
So, Mr. President, I thank our leader, Senator Reid, for being
willing to file the cloture petition. We will vote on it next week, and
hopefully we will be able to get a positive vote on that and we will be
able to move ahead.
We want to leave on this Friday and let those who are out there who
have been working hard and who are appreciative of the Congress--4
hours the House took to debate an increase in the minimum wage, 80
Republicans who supported that, and here we are at the end of the week,
looking forward to another week on this issue with over 109 different
amendments waiting, waiting, waiting, all offered by Republicans, on
the widest variety of different subject matters one can imagine. We all
know what is going on, and so do those minimum wage workers, their
families, workers across this country, middle-income people and others
in the faith community, in the trade union movement, who believe in a
fair America and believe that those on the lowest rung of the economic
ladder are entitled to participate in the promise of America, like
everyone else.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following Senator
Alexander's statement, Senator Lautenberg be recognized for up to 15
minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I would make a brief comment, if the Senator
will allow that, prior to his speech.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Of course.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for
his comments. He makes some very persuasive arguments in a very short
period of time on the four amendments I talked about, and I am sure we
could reach an agreement and have a very short debate, probably 10
minutes equally divided, on those four and then a vote, and that would
simplify things a lot. I understand his comments about how we have
over--I don't remember how many amendments--but I need to mention,
there are amendments on the Democratic side. It is a little easier for
them to forgo their amendments, because they are in control. The other
side doesn't have a way to bring up issues. What I am saying right now
is what the Democrats said for the last 2 years and what Senator
Kennedy said a minute ago is what our leadership had to say on issues
as we filed cloture. This is a very common procedure, and we all know
how it works. So we will be dusting off arguments from the other side,
they will be dusting off arguments from us, but hopefully we can
progress through these issues in a very substantial way and get them
done.
I appreciate those comments, and I will learn from them. I did notice
the dates we talked about for quick resolution on the minimum wage
happened before this Chamber had television. I suspect a lot of the
debates we have here have more to do with television than they do with
the substance of the amendment we are working on. I hope Senators can
forgo that possibility, although I am not sure in this culture we can.
I would hope the pundits out there, radio talk shows and television
talk shows, could forgo on some of the issues trying to foment each of
their sides so they argue and fight.
It would be a lot easier if we had some civility that went with it. I
appreciate the other side's civility through these debates and I would
ask that they allow these four more amendments.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, sometimes we like to say something so
often and so vigorously that we believe it actually does what we say it
will do, and I am afraid that is the case of the minimum wage arguments
that have gone on since 1939. Perhaps it did in 1939, but I would
suggest today that it doesn't do what we say it will do. I expect to
vote for the minimum wage proposal the Senate produces if it includes
the tax incentives and other measures that will help small business men
and women pay the bill so they don't have to cut jobs as they compete
with companies around the world, in China and in India and other
places.
I will talk for a few minutes this morning about whether the raising
minimum wage does what we say it does. We are doing a fairly
extraordinary thing here. The Government is intervening in the
marketplace. We don't ordinarily do that. We are fixing prices. We are
fixing the cost of labor. Let's say we were in a class at the
University of Massachusetts, University of Wyoming, or University of
Tennessee in economics 101, and the professor walked in and said, Good
morning, students. We have an interesting problem here. Let's pose
this: The Government wants to intervene in the marketplace to fix the
price of labor--something it doesn't ordinarily do. So the problem for
the students to solve would be this: The reason for the intervention is
to help, as the Senator from Massachusetts said, those who are on the
lowest rungs of poverty. Working people on the lowest rungs of poverty
will be our target. We want to help them have more money in their
pockets.
Second, obviously we would like to do this in a way that most
efficiently gets whatever money we have for this to them and doesn't
miss the mark. Next, we want to do it at the lowest possible cost. We
have lots of needs in the Government and in this country. Finally, we
want to find the fairest way to pay the bill. If we are going to come
up with this grand social objective that is presumably an objective for

[[Page S1222]]

the whole country, then who pays the bill? All of us? Some of us? A few
of us? The richest of us? Who pays the bill?

So the challenge to the students is this: The Government is going to
intervene. We are going to help, according to the Senator from
Massachusetts, the lowest on the rungs of the economic ladder--people
who are poor--people who are working. We want to do it in an efficient
way. We want to make sure the money gets to the people we want to help,
and we want to send the bill for all of this--hopefully as low as
possible--to the fairest group of people who ought to pay for it.
I think if the answer came back to that question that what we ought
to do was raise the minimum wage, the professor would give it a D or an
F, or he might even send it back to the students who sent him that
answer and say, Maybe you didn't hear my question. My question was: How
do we intervene in the marketplace to help the people who are on the
lowest rungs of the economic ladder? How do we do that in the least
expensive, most efficient way, and with the fairest way to pay the
bill?
Let's begin to critique the answer I posed that a student might have
given to the professor in economics class 101. First, I think the
professor might say, If you come back with a minimum wage idea, it is a
very expensive way to go about it. A new study released by the
Congressional Budget Office, which I ask unanimous consent to be
included in the Record following my remarks--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. ALEXANDER. A new study by CBO estimated that raising the minimum
wage to $7.25, which is the proposal here, would cost $11 billion. A
study done by the Employment Policies Institute put the cost at $18
billion. I ask unanimous consent that this study by Professors
Burkhauser of Cornell and Sabia of the University of Georgia be
included in the Record following my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 2.)
Mr. ALEXANDER. So the student who suggested the minimum wage came up
with a pretty expensive idea, an $11 billion price tag, or $18 billion,
according to another study. But those estimates are about raising the
cost of everyone's wages to $7.25 an hour. That is not how it works,
because many workers are already paid a certain amount above the
minimum wage and they will continue to earn more than the new minimum
wage. So in effect, we are also legislating that a number of workers
will receive a wage higher than $7.25, which means the cost is much
higher than $11 billion or $18 billion. That is a lot of money. That is
the first critique of the student's answer.
The second one: How well does this money hit the mark? We heard
Senator Kennedy say repeatedly: Those on the lowest rung of the
economic ladder. We have visions of women and children who are poor,
particularly single mothers. Senator Kennedy has great passion for this
issue. I have heard him many times over the last 4 years talking about
how this is a women's issue; this is a children's issue; this is an
issue for Americans on the lowest rung of the ladder who are in
poverty. Well, let's see if that is true.
The studies show it is not true. Raising the minimum wage doesn't
efficiently target the poor. Only one in five minimum wage workers live
in households at or below the poverty line. So most of that $11 billion
or $18 billion won't be going to the people who need it the most. It is
more likely to be going, for example, to raise the salary of a teenager
from a well-off family who has a part-time job at the mall. The
Employment Policies Institute, the study I mentioned a little earlier
by the professors from Cornell and the University of Georgia, said in
their calculations that even less of the money would go to the workers
in poor families--13 percent. Even if you look at households earning
twice the rate of poverty, which was just under $40,000 in 2005, the
Employment Policy Institute study found that less than half--43 percent
of the minimum wage increase--would go to those families.
Let me go directly to the professors' study of the minimum wage. They
say:

While the minimum wage is often promoted as a policy
designed to help the poor, minorities, and single mothers,
this analysis reveals that only 3.7 percent of the benefits
from a $7.25 hour Federal minimum wage would go to poor
African-American families.

So 3.7 percent of the benefit of this $18 billion-plus cost will go
to poor African-American families. Only 3.8 percent would go to poor
single mother families. What we are about to do, if we do it, is spend
$11 billion, $18 billion--more than that, probably--with the stated
objective of helping the poor, especially single women, especially
mothers with children, especially minorities, and what the professors'
study shows is that only 3.8 percent goes to poor single mother
households.
Even more troubling, they go on:

The majority of working poor families, families who are
working but remain in poverty, receive no benefit from an
increase to $7.25 an hour.

The majority of families who are working but in poverty get no
benefit from what we are about to do. These families don't benefit
because they already earn more than the new Federal minimum wage and
remain in poverty either because of a low number of hours worked or a
large family size. Many of these individuals would benefit far more
from an increase from the generous Federal and State earned-income tax
programs.

A couple more statements from the professor from Cornell and the
professor from Georgia:

Only 3.8 percent of the benefits from an increase to $7.25
an hour accrue to poor single mothers. One of the factors
causing this low percentage of benefits is the fact that the
majority of poor single mothers have hourly wages above this
level. In addition, only 18.5 percent of the benefits going
to single mothers will go to those in poverty, the majority
of benefits going to single mothers will go to those earning
more than twice the poverty line.

So the authors conclude that only 12.7 percent, or 2.3 billion of
their estimated $18 billion cost of this increase will go to poor
families, and only 3.7 percent goes to poor African-American families.
The authors say that the ability of the minimum wage to target poor
families is weaker and decreasing over time. Contrary to the statements
of its advocates, fewer and fewer low-wage employees are supporting a
family on minimum wage, with only 9 percent of low-wage employees
actually supporting a poor family.
I think the professor so far, in grading the paper of the student who
suggested an increase in the minimum wage, would say, well, you came up
with something that is hugely expensive, $18 billion-plus. And second,
you came up with something that almost entirely that misses its target,
only 3 or 4 percent to poor African-American families out of this huge
amount of money? So far that paper is not doing very well at the
University of Massachusetts, Wyoming, or Tennessee.
Then there would be another question that ought to be answered. Who
pays the bill? The people who are to pay the bill under the proposal of
the Senator from Massachusetts are the small businesspeople of America.
They were described by the Senator from Wyoming because he used to own
a shoe store. We stand in the Senate almost every day and talk about
small business men and women and how they have health care costs, how
they have taxes to pay, they have OSHA requirements to meet, they have
Federal regulations added every year, and we say if we do not do
something about this, more of these jobs are going to India and China,
and we have a big outsourcing of jobs around the world.
Even if we, as a Senate, were to decide that we wanted to take the
most expensive and perhaps the most inefficient way to help the people
lowest on the economic ladder, why would we send the bill to the small
businesspeople of America? Why wouldn't we send it to Wall Street? Why
wouldn't we send it to the big corporations? Why wouldn't we send it to
the taxpayers at large? Why couldn't all of us pay the bill?
We are very good in Washington, DC--I used to notice this as Governor
of a State--some Senator or Congressman would come up with a good-
sounding idea, pass it, hold a press conference, take credit for it,
and come back down and make a statement at the Lincoln Day or Jefferson
Day dinner about local control. What we do here all the time is come up
with good ideas, take credit for them, and send

[[Page S1223]]

the bill to someone else. That is what we are doing here: we are not
paying for this. We are not saying: That is going to cost $18 billion
so let's raise taxes on Americans to pay for it. We are saying it will
cost $18 billion-plus, but, no worries, we will just send that on to
the small businesspeople of America, not the big businesspeople.
According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, small
businesses employ 61 percent of all minimum wage workers. That is a lot
of mom-and-pop shops, family-owned businesses. Why should they pay the
bill for this idea? One reason it might have been better to take this
legislation through the committee that the Senator from Massachusetts
and the Senator from Wyoming so ably lead is, we could have discussed
this and there might have been a better way to reach this goal of
taking whatever money we have--maybe a generous amount, maybe $18
billion--and sending it directly to people on the lowest rung of the
economic ladder.
We might have talked about the earned-income tax credit. The earned-
income tax credit isn't always popular on this side of the aisle
because it has had some fraud in it, but the idea is a good idea. I
first heard about it when Pat Moynihan was in the Nixon White House in
the early 1970s. He suggested instead of welfare programs we ought to
have a negative income tax. He said rather than set up a lot of
Government programs that tend to break down the family and spend money
in bureaucracies, if people are working in America, and they are not
making much money, let's give them some money. We are a rich country.
We have 25 percent of all the money in the world every year for just 5
percent of the people in the world. And some people are really well
off. They have more than one house. They have big incomes. We all know
that. And so it tugs at us to think we are so wealthy and we still have
people who are not just sitting on a bench, but we have people who are
working every day, sometimes two jobs, and they are not making enough
to help their families. That is what this debate is about. Pat Moynihan
said in the early 1970s, and this Congress has said before: Let's try
the earned-income tax credit. In other words, if you are working, and
you are poor and you qualify, we will send you a check. The check comes
from all of us. It doesn't come from this segment of society or that
segment or just the small businesspeople. We all step up to the plate.
The taxpayer pays the bill for earned-income tax credit.
Why didn't we have a hearing to talk about that? The tax credit is
targeted to help low-income workers. It is only available for families
making up to between 175 to 200 percent of poverty. For example, in
2006, a single parent with two or more children could not receive the
earned-income tax credit if he or she earned more than $36,000. That is
not a lot of money when you are trying to raise two children.
In comparison, according to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly
60 percent of a minimum wage increase would go to individuals living in
families earning more than $36,000. So 60 percent of what we propose to
do here goes to families earning more than $36,000, but an earned-
income tax credit recipient could not receive money if they made more
than $36,000.
The CBO study released this month also looked at the potential impact
of increasing the minimum wage to $7.25 as well as possible increases
to the earned-income tax credit. I put that in the Record a few minutes
ago.

If we increase the minimum wage as has been proposed, CBO says it
would cost $11 billion, the smaller number, but only $1.6 billion of
that $11 billion would go to working families living below the poverty
line. CBO is bipartisan, and works for all of us. They went on to say
that to send nearly the same amount of money to working poor families,
$1.4 billion in assistance, we would only need to increase the earned-
income tax credit by $2.4 billion. So instead of a $11 billion or $18
billion pricetag for the minimum wage, we could have done the same
thing through the earned-income tax credit by spending $2.4 billion.
Increasing the earned-income tax credit would target the same amount
of money to poor families as raising the minimum wage at one-fifth the
cost.
I have used my example of asking a professor at the University of
Massachusetts or Wyoming or Tennessee, saying to his class: We have a
large goal. We want to help people who are working and who are at the
lowest rung of the economic ladder, as Senator Kennedy describes. What
would be the best way to do it? Tell me, the professor would say, tell
me how to get the largest amount of money to that group of people, how
to do it at a reasonable cost, and tell me who should pay the bill.
I think if the answer came back that we should spend $18 billion or
more, and it costs five times as much to do it through the minimum wage
as it would through the earned-income tax credit, and in addition to
that, doing it through the minimum wage sends the bill to a struggling
group of people disproportionately, the small businesspeople of
America, and lets off all the rest of us, I think that person would get
an F. And I think we ought to, as well.
I am sure what is going to happen in this Congress is we are going to
pass a minimum wage bill because we are a wealthy country and we want
people who are working and who do not have as much to have more. That
is our impulse. And I don't believe that bill will get out of this
Senate without substantial assistance for the small businesspeople who
are paying the bill, or disproportionately the bill.
My hope is that Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, some time before we
bring up this minimum wage idea again, will say: Let's give ourselves
the same kind of examination that I just suggested for those college
students. Let's ask ourselves how to do this in an efficient, fair way
that gets the money to the right people, instead of going around the
country saying ``minimum wage, minimum wage, minimum wage,'' only to
find out some time later that we have a lot of disappointed, poor,
working families around America who aren't helped by what we convinced
ourselves was the right thing to do.

Exhibit 1

Congressional Budget Office,

U.S.Congress,

Washington, DC, January 9, 2007.
Hon. Charles E. Grassley,
Chairman, Committee on Finance,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: In response to your request, the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed some of the
potential consequences of a hypothetical increase in the
federal minimum wage rate from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per
hour and of several hypothetical expansions in the earned
income tax credit (EITC). To provide the information, as
requested, about the potential impacts on workers whose
family income was below the federal poverty threshold, the
analysis used data from the March 2005 Current Population
Survey (CPS).
The analysis is subject to a number of limitations and
should not be interpreted as a cost estimate of the effects
of implementing changes in the federal minimum wage or the
EITC in future years. CBO simulated the impacts of those
policy options as if they were in effect in 2004 and did not
incorporate any effect on employment levels or the number of
hours worked. Since that time, the number of workers with
wage rates in the $5.15 to $7.25 range has fallen by almost
30 percent and is expected to continue to decline as
increases in state minimum wage rates and other changes in
the labor market occur. For simplicity, CBO assumed that an
increase in the minimum wage rate would have affected only
the wage rates of workers earning between the old and the new
minimum rates. Some workers with wage rates outside that
range might also be affected by an increase in the minimum
wage. For example, employers are permitted to pay certain
tipped workers as little as $2.13 per hour if their tips
bring their total hourly earnings up to the federal minimum
wage; thus, an increase in the federal minimum wage could
cause some of those employers to raise their wage rates.
Also, some employers of workers already paid at or just above
the new minimum wage rate might increase those workers' wage
rates as well.
In addition, the CPS does not contain all of the
information needed to compute the EITC, limiting the accuracy
of those estimates. Based on the CPS, the estimated amount of
EITC payments in 2004 was about 25 percent below the actual
amount that year. CBO does not have a basis to infer whether
that discrepancy would lead to an underestimate or an
overestimate of the share of additional payments resulting
from the hypothetical expansions of the EITC that would go to
poor families. Moreover, the Joint Committee on Taxation
produces the official estimates for any change in the EITC;
its estimates may be different.
As discussed more fully in the attachment to this letter,
the major findings of the analysis are these:

[[Page S1224]]

On the basis of data from the March 2005 CPS, about 18
percent of the 12 million workers who were paid an hourly
wage rate between the federal minimum wage of $5.l5 and $7.24
were in families that had a total cash income below the
federal poverty threshold in 2004. Had all of the workers in
that wage range, instead, received $7.25 per hour, they would
have gotten about $11 billion in additional wages in that
year. About 15 percent of those additional wages ($1.6
billion) would have been received by workers in poor
families.
As requested, CBO examined the potential effects of
hypothetical expansions in the EITC that would have provided
additional payments to workers in poor families similar to
the amount of additional earnings poor workers would have
received by increasing the minimum wage rate to $7.25 per
hour. One option was to increase the subsidy rate for
childless workers by 50 percent. Another option was to
increase the subsidy rate for workers with three or more
children by 25 percent. On the basis of data from the CPS,
combining those options would have increased total EITC
payments by roughly $2.4 billion in 2004, with workers in
poor families receiving $1.4 billion of that total.
The analysis was prepared by Molly Dahl, Tom DeLeire, and
Ralph Smith of CBO's Health and Human Resources Division and
Ed Harris of CBO's Tax Analysis Division. If you or your
staff have any questions or would like further details,
please feel free to call me at (202) 226-2700 or Ralph Smith
at (202) 226-2659.
Sincerely,
Donald B. Marron,
Acting Director.
Attachment.

Response to a Request by Senator Grassley About the Effects of
Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage Versus Expanding the Earned Income
Tax Credit

In response to a request from Senator Grassley, the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) used data from the Current
Population Survey (CPS) to analyze the distributional effects
of a hypothetical increase in the federal minimum wage rate
and of several hypothetical expansions in the earned income
tax credit (EITC). Although use of the CPS allows the
production of results consistent with official poverty
measures, the CPS is known to be inaccurate for measuring the
EITC. CBO's estimates for a particular policy change could
either understate or overstate the true cost of an expansion
of the EITC, depending on how information available in the
CPS differs from what taxpayers reported on their tax forms.
CBO simulated the impacts of the hypothetical policy options
as if they were in effect in 2004 and did not incorporate any
effect on employment levels or the number of hours worked.
The results are not estimates of the effects of implementing
those options in future years.
Furthermore, this analysis is not a cost estimate. For
proposals that would amend the Internal Revenue Code,
including changes in the EITC, official cost estimates are
provided by the Joint Committee on Taxation; its estimates
may differ from those presented here.

Methodology

CBO identified workers who would have been affected by a
hypothetical increase in the federal minimum wage rate from
$5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour in 2004 as those who
reported in the March 2005 CPS that they were paid on an
hourly basis and whose wage rate was between $5.15 and $7.24
at the time of the survey. Also included were workers who
reported that they were paid $5.00 per hour, under the
assumption that most of them were actually paid $5.15 but had
rounded their survey response.
To estimate the impact of the hypothetical wage rate
increase on the family income of workers, CBO assumed that
all hourly workers whose wage rate was between $5.15 and
$7.24 per hour would have been paid exactly $7.25 per hour
had the hypothetical minimum wage rate been in effect. CBO
further assumed that workers whose wage rate was $7.25 or
higher would have been unaffected by the hypothetical
increase in the minimum wage. For this tabulation, CBO
assumed that no changes in employment or hours would have
resulted from the higher minimum wage rate. The earnings gain
attributed to the hypothetical increase in the minimum wage
was calculated simply by multiplying the increase in the wage
rate by the total number of hours that CBO estimated the
affected people worked in 2004.
A limitation of this analysis is that the estimates are
based on wage rates reported for March 2005 and income
reported for 2004 and, therefore, do not reflect changes that
have occurred since then or that will occur before future
changes in the federal minimum wage, if enacted, would be
implemented. For example, increases in state minimum wage
rates and other changes in the labor market have already
lessened the potential impact of raising the federal minimum
wage rate.
CBO used information on family size and both before-tax
cash family income and after-tax income, including certain
noncash sources of income, in 2004 to place the affected
workers into income categories relative to the poverty
thresholds.
As requested, CBO also examined different ways of expanding
the EITC to achieve similar income gains for workers in
otherwise-poor families. Note that the CPS does not contain
all of the information necessary to compute the EITC,
limiting the accuracy of CBO's estimates. For example, using
the CPS, CBO estimates that taxpayers received about $29
billion in EITC in 2004, when they actually received about
$40 billion.

Estimates of the Effects of a Hypothetical Increase in the Minimum Wage
in 2004

Table 1 provides CBO's estimates of the number of workers
paid on an hourly basis in March 2005 who received a wage
rate below $5.00, between that rate and $7.24, and at or
above $7.25. It shows that 11.6 million workers reported that
they received a wage rate in the affected range. Table 1 also
provides a cross-tabulation by income-to-poverty ratio, based
on the family cash income of those workers in 2004, as
reported by the Census Bureau. It shows that 18.5 percent
(2.1 million) of the workers who received a wage rate in
the relevant range in March 2005 were living in families
that were poor in 2004.
Table 2 repeats the information from Table 1 but uses an
after-tax measure of income that also includes the value of
certain noncash sources of income. In the placement of people
into income-to-poverty categories, the poverty thresholds
themselves remain unchanged. On the basis of this alternative
measure of income, a smaller portion of the workers in the
relevant wage range were counted as poor (14.4 percent,
rather than 18.5 percent).
Tables 3 provides CBO's estimates of the income gains that
would have resulted from raising the wage rates of everyone
who reported that they were paid between $5.00 and $7.24 per
hour up to an hourly rate of $7.25. For those figures, CBO
simply added its estimates of the gains in earnings from the
wage rate increase to estimates of families' cash income. CBO
estimates that $1.6 billion (15 percent) of the $11 billion
in increased earnings that resulted from the higher wage rate
would have been received by workers who were in families with
money income below the official poverty threshold in 2004.

Estimates of the Effects of Hypothetical Increases in the EITC in 2004

Table 4 provides CBO's estimates of the distributional
income effects of the changes in the EITC specified in the
request. Again, the estimates are based on the CPS, not tax
statistics, and do not take into account the many intricacies
of actual tax provisions or the ways that people might alter
their behavior in response to changes in the EITC. The Joint
Committee on Taxation provides the official estimates of the
potential effects of changes in the EITC.
In 2004, eligible taxpayers with one qualifying child could
claim a credit of 34 percent of their earnings up to $7,660,
resulting in a maximum credit of $2,604; the credit phased
down at a rate of 15.98 percent of earnings above $14,040 for
nonjoint filers and $15,040 for joint filers. For eligible
taxpayers with two or more qualifying children, the credit
was 40 percent of their earnings up to $10,750, with a
maximum credit of $4,300; the phase-out rate was 21.06
percent, beginning at earnings above $14,040 for nonjoint
filers and $15,040 for joint filers. Taxpayers between the
ages of 25 and 64 with no qualifying children could claim a
credit of 7.65 percent of their earnings up to $5,100,
resulting in a maximum credit of $390; beginning at earnings
above $6,390 for nonjoint filers and $7,390 for joint filers,
the credit phased out at a rate of 7.65 percent. All
thresholds are higher now. Not only are they indexed for
inflation, but the plateau for joint filers was increased by
$1,000 in 2005 and is scheduled to increase again in 2008.
The first column of Table 4 shows that, of the estimated
$29 billion in EITC received in 2004, about 40 percent ($11
billion) was received by workers in poor families. (As
explained, that CPS-based estimate of the total amount of
EITC received is much lower than the actual amount that year,
$40 billion.)
The second column reports CBO's estimates of the effects of
a hypothetical expansion in the EITC in which workers in
families with three or more children would be eligible for an
additional credit. The subsidy rate for that group was
increased from 40 percent to 50 percent, the maximum credit
available was increased from $4,300 to $5,375, and the phase-
out rate was increased from 21.06 to 26.325 percent,
representing a 25 percent increase over the credit available
in 2004 to those in families with two or more children. (The
difference between the maximum credit available to those in
families with three children and those in families with two
children is $1,075, as compared with the $1,696 difference in
the maximum credit available to those in families with two
children and those in families with one child.) Using CPS
data, CBO estimates that this expansion would have increased
EITC payments to poor families by $1.1 billion.
The third column examines what the results of a
hypothetical expansion of the EITC to childless individuals
might have been. As requested, the subsidy rate, the maximum
credit, and the phase-out rate to workers without children
were increased by 50 percent. Under the hypothetical
expansion, the maximum credit available to those workers
would have been $585, and the subsidy and phase-out rates
would have been 11.475 percent. This expansion would have
increased EITC payments to poor families by an estimated $0.3
billion.
The fourth column examines the effects of a hypothetical
expansion of the EITC in which both the expansion for those
in families with three or more children and the ex-

[[Page S1225]]

pansion for childless individuals discussed above were
implemented. Using CPS data, CBO estimates that the
combination of the two would have resulted in increasing EITC
payments to the poor by $1.4 billion, about 60 percent of the
overall increase of $2.4 billion that CBO estimates would
have occurred in 2004 if those expansions had been in place
at the time.

TABLE 1.--DISTRIBUTION OF HOURLY WORKERS IN MARCH 2005, BY WAGE IN 2005 AND FAMILY CASH INCOME IN 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hourly Workers, by Wage Rate
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less Than $5         $5 to Less Than $7.25        $7.25 and Higher            Total
Income-to-Poverty Ratio                -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number                   Number                     Number                 Number
(Millions)   Percent     (Millions)      Percent    (Millions)   Percent   (Millions)   Percent
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less Than 1.0.........................................          0.2      20.2              2.1        18.5          3.3       5.2          5.7       7.5
1.0 to Less Than 1.5..................................          0.1      11.6              1.5        12.7          4.3       6.7          5.9       7.7
1.5 to Less Than 2.0..................................          0.1      11.2              1.3        11.1          5.7       8.9          7.1       9.3
2.0 to Less Than 3.0..................................          0.3      21.4              2.1        18.3         12.9      20.3         15.2      20.0
3.0 or More...........................................          0.4      35.6              4.6        39.4         37.5      58.9         42.4      55.6
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total.............................................          1.1     100.0             11.6       100.0         63.6     100.0         76.3    100.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Current Population Survey (March 2005).
Notes: Wage is the reported hourly wage in March 2005.
Income is before-tax family cash income in 2004, corresponding to the Census Bureau's definition of money income. Poverty thresholds are based on family
size and composition. The definitions of both income and poverty thresholds are those used to determine the official poverty rate and are as defined
in Bureau of the Census, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004, Current Population Reports, P60-229 (August 2005).

TABLE 2.--DISTRIBUTION OF HOURLY WORKERS IN MARCH 2005, BY WAGE IN 2005 AND AFTER-TAX (POST-TRANSFER) FAMILY INCOME IN 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hourly Workers, by Wage Rate
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less Than $5         $5 to Less Than $7.25        $7.25 and Higher            Total
Income-to-Poverty Ratio                -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number                   Number                     Number                 Number
(Millions)   Percent     (Millions)      Percent    (Millions)   Percent   (Millions)   Percent
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less Than 1.0.........................................          0.2      18.7              1.7        14.4          2.2       3.5          4.1       5.4
1.0 to Less Than 1.5..................................          0.2      13.0              1.4        12.4          3.3       5.1          4.8       6.3
1.5 to Less Than 2.0..................................          0.1       9.7              1.0         8.3          4.7       7.4          5.8       7.6
2.0 to Less Than 3.0..................................          0.2      14.7              2.1        18.0         11.0      17.3         13.3      17.4
3.0 or More...........................................          0.5      44.0              5.4        46.9         42.4      66.6         48.3      63.3
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total.............................................          1.2     100.0             11.6       100.0         63.6     100.0         76.3    100.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Current Population Survey (March 2005).
Notes: Wage is the reported hourly wage in March 2005.
Income is after-tax family income, including certain noncash sources of income, in 2004, corresponding to the Census Bureau's definition of money
income, minus taxes, plus noncash transfers (MI=Tx+NC)--an alternative measure of income that the bureau has examined. See Bureau of the Census,
Alternative Income Estimates in the United States: 2003, Current Population Reports, P60-228 (June 2005). Poverty thresholds are based on family size
and composition and are as defined in Bureau of the Census, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004, Current
Population Reports, P60-229 (August 2005).

TABLE 3.--DISTRIBUTIONAL EFFECTS OF A HYPOTHETICAL $7.25 MINIMUM WAGE IN
2004
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Increased Earnings  (Billions
Income-to-Poverty Ratio            of 2004 dollars)          Percent
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less Than 1.0.................                            1.6         15
1.0 to Less Than 1.5..........                            1.6         14
1.5 to Less Than 2.0..........                            1.6         14
2.0 to Less Than 3.0..........                            2.2         20
3.0 or More...................                            4.0         36
-----------------------------------------
Total.....................                           10.9        100
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Current
Population Survey (March 2005).
Note: Income is before-tax family cash income in 2004, corresponding to
the Census Bureau's definition of money income. Poverty thresholds are
based on family size and composition. The definitions of both income
and poverty thresholds are those used to determine the official
poverty rate and are as defined in Bureau of the Census, Income,
Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004,
Current Population Reports, P60-229 (August 2005).

TABLE 4.--THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE EITC IN 2004 UNDER ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHETICAL POLICIES, BASED ON THE CURRENT
POPULATION SURVEY
[Billions of 2004 dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Increases in EITC Payments
-----------------------------------
Income-to-Poverty Ratio                        Base 1/  Option 1 1/ Option 2 3/ Option 3 5/
1          2           2           2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less Than 1.0......................................................     11.4         1.1         0.3         1.4
1.0 to Less Than 1.5...............................................      8.4         0.5         0.1         0.6
1.5 to Less Than 2.0...............................................      4.8         0.2           *         0.2
2.0 to Less Than 3.0...............................................      3.0         0.1         0.1         0.1
3.0 or More........................................................      1.7           *         0.1         0.1
--------------------------------------------
Total..........................................................     29.3         1.9         0.5        2.4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Current Population Survey (March 2005).
Notes: EITC = earned income tax credit.; * = less than 0.1 billion.
Income is before-tax family cash income in 2004, corresponding to the Census Bureau's definition of money
income. Poverty thresholds are based on family size and composition. The definitions of both income and
poverty thresholds are those used to determine the official poverty rate and are as defined in Bureau of the
Census, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004, Current Population Reports,
P60-229 (August 2005).
a. CBO's estimates of the EITC received based on information available in the Current Population Survey. The
actual EITC (including both the credit used to offset taxes and the refundable portion of the credit) in 2004
was about $40 billion.
b. For this option, the subsidy rate, phase-out rate, and maximum credit for EITC recipients with three or more
children were increased by 25 percent.
c. For this option, the subsidy rate, phase-out rate, and maximum credit for EITC recipients with no children
were increased by 50 percent.
d. For this option, the subsidy rate, phase out-rate, and maximum credit for EITC recipients with three or more
children were increased by 25 percent, and the subsidy rate, phase-out rate, and maximum credit for EITC
recipients with no children were increased by 50 percent. This option combines those in columns 2 and 3.

____
Exhibit 2

Raising the Federal Minimum Wage: Another Empty Promise to the Working
Poor

(By Craig Garthwaite)

Overview

This paper provides a historical view of the effect of
increases in the federal minimum wage on the working poor
with a particular focus on the past 15 years. Since its
inception in 1938, increases in the federal minimum wage have
become an increasingly weak mechanism for addressing the
problem of poverty in America. This continuing deterioration
stems from the fact that fewer low-wage employees are
supporting a family on a minimum wage income. As poverty
becomes more a problem of hours worked and not an
individual's wage level, anti-poverty policies that focus on
wages will be less efficient than polices that focus on
income, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

Wages vs. Income

While wages and income are certainly related, the
connection between the two has always been tenuous. In 1946,
Nobel prize-winning economist George Stigler commented, ``the
connection between hourly wages and the standard of living of
a family is remote and fuzzy.'' As this study shows, the
fuzzy connection in 1946 has become blurrier over time.
Examining Census Bureau data since 1939, the authors found
that fewer low-wage employees live in poor households today
than in years past. Specifically, in 1939, 85 percent of low-
wage employees were living in poor households. By 2003, only
17 percent of low-wage employees were living in poor
households. Consequently, attempting to target

[[Page S1226]]

poor families by manipulating wages is an inefficient means
of addressing the problem.
Even more important than the number of low-wage employees
living in poor households is the number of low-wage employees
who are the heads of poor households. This stereotypical
beneficiary of an increase in the wage floor is the one
supporters of minimum wage increases claim represents the
typical minimum wage employee. In reality, a small fraction
of low-wage employees are the head of a poor household, and
this number has decreased significantly over time. In 1939,
nearly one-third (31%) of all low-wage employees were the
heads of a poor household. By 2003, only 9 percent of low-
wage employees were heading a poor household.
These statistics all reveal an underlying point--modern
families have multiple workers whose collective earnings make
up the family income. Federal anti-poverty policy should
adjust accordingly. As more women and teenagers have entered
the workforce as second and third earners, the ranks of low-
wage employees contain fewer individuals singlehandedly
supporting a family.

Federal Minimum Wage Increases and Poverty

A byproduct of the aforementioned changes in the
composition of family incomes is that the poor make up a
small percentage of beneficiaries from a wage hike. Contrary
to popular perception, the average minimum wage employee is
not in poverty or raising a family on a minimum wage income.
Analyzing Census data, the authors found that a
beneficiary from a proposed federal minimum wage hike to
$7.25 an hour is far more likely to be in a family earning
more than three times the poverty line than in a poor
family. In total, only 12.7 percent of the benefits from a
federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 an hour would go to
poor families. In contrast, 63 percent of benefits would
go to families earning more than twice the poverty line
and 42 percent would go to families earning more than
three times the poverty line. The average benefit per
household is approximately the same, with poor families
receiving a benefit of $1,110 and families earning three
times the poverty line earning $1,090--nearly the same
benefit, despite a vast difference in family incomes.
While there is strong empirical evidence to suggest that
increasing the minimum wage will have adverse employment
effects--particularly among young African Americans, young
non-high school graduates, and teenagers--the authors assume
no disemployment effects associated with the minimum wage
hike so as to allow the policy its best chance to achieve the
poverty-reducing goals promised by its proponents. While the
minimum wage is often promoted as a policy designed to help
the poor, minorities, and single mothers, this analysis
reveals that only 3.7 percent of the benefits from a $7.25 an
hour federal minimum wage would go to poor African-American
families. Only 3.8 percent would go to poor single mother
households. Even more troubling, the majority of ``working
poor'' families--families who are working but remain in
poverty--receive no benefit from an increase to $7.25 an
hour. These families don't benefit because they already earn
more than the new federal minimum wage and remain in poverty
either because of a low number of hours worked or a large
family size. Many of these individuals would benefit far more
from an increase in the generosity of federal and state EITC
programs.

Work Effort and Poverty

Examining the hours worked by poor employees reveals that
increases in work effort could have a significant effect on
income. The authors found that the median wage of the highest
earner in a poor household was much higher than the proposed
federal minimum wage--$9.25 for poor households and $9.60 for
poor and near-poor households (up to 150 percent of the
poverty line). While this wage should be sufficient to put a
family of four out of poverty (even without a second or even
third earner), the data reveal that the majority of these
individuals are not working full-time.
The median hours worked for the highest earner in a poor
family in 2003 was 1,720--significantly less than full time
(2,080 hours a year). While including near-poor families in
the calculation brings this number up to 1,872 hours, the
majority of these individuals are still working less than
full time at their current wage. These individuals would
receive significantly more benefit from programs that promote
increased work effort than they ever would from a minimum
wage increase.

Single Mothers and the Minimum Wage

Advocates of increasing the federal minimum wage often
insinuate that primary beneficiaries will be single mothers
raising a family on a minimum wage income. As was mentioned
above, only 3.8 percent of the benefits from an increase to
$7.25 an hour accrue to poor single mothers. One of the
factors causing this low percentage of benefits is the fact
that the majority of poor single mothers (58%) have hourly
wages above this level. In addition, only 18.5 percent of the
benefits going to single mothers will go to those in poverty.
The majority of benefits going to single mothers will go to
those earning more than twice the poverty line.
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), the primary sponsor of a
federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 an hour, recently
stated in support of an increase that ``the jobs available to
women leaving welfare are often minimum wage jobs.'' Census
data, however, shows this is not the case. From 1995-2000,
the time period following welfare reform, the employment rate
of single mothers increased by 10.8 percentage points. Many
of these single mothers were undoubtedly leaving the welfare
rolls and joining the workforce. If Sen. Kennedy's claim is
correct, one would expect a significant increase in the
number of single mothers holding low-wage or federal minimum
wage jobs. In reality, 77 percent of the increase in
employment was accounted for by single mothers holding jobs
paying more than low wages (50 percent of the average private
sector hourly wage rate).
Examining the period over the 1990's business cycle
produces similar results. The employment rate of single
mothers increased by 14 percentage points, with 64 percent of
this increase accounted for by single mothers earning more
than low wages. Only 24 percent of the increase can be
accounted for by those who held jobs at the prevailing
federal minimum wage rate.

Conclusion

The authors calculate that, absent any employment loss, the
cost to employers of the proposed increase in the federal
minimum wage to $7.25 an hour will be $18.26 billion. Only
12.7 percent ($2.3 billion) of this cost will actually go to
poor families, with only 3.7 percent going to poor African-
American families. The ability of the minimum wage to target
poor families is weaker and decreasing over time. Contrary to
the statements of its advocates, fewer and fewer low-wage
employees are supporting a family on the minimum wage, with
only 9 percent of low-wage employees actually supporting a
poor family.
Therefore, effective anti-poverty programs must concentrate
on family income and not wages. While most working poor
families will not receive any benefit from an increase in the
federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, the vast majority
would receive a benefit from increases in the generosity of
federal and state EITC programs. These programs provide
targeted assistance to the low-income working families so
often cited in support of minimum wage increases--the same
families that receive a minority of the benefits from a wage
increase.

I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I understand Senator Lautenberg will be
recognized next. I don't see him in the Senate. I will yield to him
when he comes.
I say to my colleague from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, how much I
appreciate his fabulous remarks and analysis.

Amendments Nos. 209 and 210 En Bloc

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending
amendment be temporarily set aside and I call up amendments Nos. 209
and 210 en bloc on behalf of Senator Kyl.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Sessions], for Mr. Kyl,
proposes amendments numbered 209 and 210 en bloc.

The amendments are as follows:
Mr. SESSIONS. Senator Alexander, I was going to talk about the
earned-income tax credit in some detail, about how we work it in
America today. An amendment I filed has been accepted, and I do think
the earned-income tax credit, as the Senator most cogently stated, has
greater potential to help the working poor in America than the minimum
wage increase. I knew that was so. But after the Senator's speech I
know it is much more so than I thought. It is important we hear about
this. I thank the Senator.
The amendment that I offered that was accepted will ask the Treasury
Department within 6 months to report to us what can be done to allow
working Americans to get their earned-income tax credit as part of
their paycheck. I have been talking about this for several years. It is
time to get serious about it. I found most people get their earned-
income tax credit when they file their tax return the next year.
They work all year. As a result of that income history and the number
of children they have, they qualify for the earned-income tax credit,
and they get a big refund. On average it is $1,700 to $2,400, depending
on the size of the family. That is a lot of money. It is almost $1 per
hour worked.
Now, one of the key purposes of the earned-income tax credit was to
help the working poor. The working poor are trying to make decisions
about jobs, how to take care of their families, and we wanted to
incentivize them to work and to not take welfare or other benefits, but
over the years, the way it has worked out, the tax credit comes in one
lump sum--not when a person is

[[Page S1227]]

making a decision about whether to go to work. And they don't get it
then, so they still are paid whatever the minimum wage is.
I feel strongly about this. It is contrary to the policy that Milton
Friedman and others thought about when they were talking about earning
tax credits by working because, in the mind of the employee, the
worker, there is no connection between that big tax return and their
work. The tax credit needs to be tied to the work. It can be done now.
A small number of businesses provide that tax credit today on the
paycheck. It would, in fact, amount to almost $1 an hour for lower
income workers as an increase in their pay if we can make this happen.
Remember, we do not have withholdings from this tax credit. There are
no deductions from it. It is $1 they can take home, keep, and use for
their family--to fix the tires on the car, the brakes, buy something
their children need at school.
It is bad public policy to have the earned income tax credit to be
distributed as it is. It is contrary to, I think, the impetus behind
it. I believe we can fix it.
I know a lot of people, as the Senator said, think the earned income
tax credit is rife with fraud. There is some evidence to suggest there
is a substantial amount of fraud in this program. I do not think it
would increase if it were paid on the paycheck.
I think more people, perhaps, would find themselves eligible if it
were brought up at the workplace with them when they started to work
and they made claim to it, who otherwise would not know they are
eligible for it and might not even file a tax return, or if they do,
they may not even claim the earned income tax credit. So I think we
might have some more people claim the benefit, but it would have the
public policy benefit of encouraging work and helping people while they
work.
I think it is the right thing to do. I have talked with the Treasury
Department about it several times. They fiddle around, and they talk to
you, and they give an excuse, and they say: There is this problem and
that problem. But from the beginning, this has been talked about. When
they got right down to it, they could not obtain a consensus on how to
do it, and they did not require it to be made part of the paycheck.
They allowed it to be done differently. And most people are taking it
otherwise than in their paycheck.
So, Mr. President, I am excited that this has been accepted. I hope
the Treasury Department will respond in good faith to help us analyze
this problem. And if they do, I think we can do a lot for working
Americans.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from Alabama
and ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor to his
legislation.
Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. President. We would be pleased to have
that happen.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Health Care

Mr. BOND. Madam President, yesterday, I had the pleasure of traveling
to Lee's Summit, MO, to talk about the problem of health care. Right
now, we know about 47 million Americans do not have health insurance.
That is a huge burden for those families. It is a big problem for all
of us as policymakers who need to be addressing this issue.
I went with the President and HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. We toured
the Saint Luke's Health System Hospital in Lee's Summit, which
represents a very important next step in information technology for
health care.
The information on patients coming in--from the diagnosis to the x
rays--is all included on a basic computer format, which makes it
available to any physician or nurse or other health care provider
working with that patient. Even the radiologist does a description of
what the x ray means, which is included by voice transcription directly
into the program that is on the computer. It is linked through each
room, so at a distance, for smaller rural hospitals, experts can do as
thorough a diagnosis as they could in the room, with the exception they
cannot physically put their hands on the patient.
But this has brought this hospital into a state where more and more
hospitals want to go. We have the best technology. We have the best
health care providers. We have the finest new medications, prescription
drugs, that have dealt with many of the illnesses. But we have a much
more expensive system because we have such quality care. The President
has outlined a proposal on how we can incentivize Americans to buy
insurance, keep health care costs under control, and maintain private
control of health care decisions, leaving it in the hands of the
patients and the providers.
Well, I believe the President has said the best way to do that is
through private health insurance. He says that is a debate we ought to
have in Washington. We believe the private sector is the best delivery
vehicle of health care. We know there is a role for the Federal
Government, but it is not to dictate, it is not to be the
decisionmaker.
As he suggested, I think it makes sense to look at the Tax Code as
part of the solution to the problem. Right now, if you pay your own
health insurance, you pay taxes on the entire cost. If you are an
individual, you get no benefit from paying your health insurance. But
if you have an employer who pays for your health insurance, either all
or part of it, you get that tax free.
I think that creates a very unlevel playing field. The President's
proposal would establish a more equitable system, one I hope this body
will carefully consider through the HELP Committee--to look at it, look
at the details, criticize it, change it, but at least give it a full
hearing.
I was rather disappointed, yesterday, before we even went out, to see
some leaders of the majority party saying, oh, it is dead on arrival.
Well, we are in such need of having real solutions to health care, I
suggest this is a serious proposal that warrants serious discussion. I
do not know all the details of it. But I had an opportunity to ask
questions of staffers. I listened intently as the program was presented
to a number of small business owners and small business employees who
were very excited about the prospect of getting a tax break at a
minimum of maybe some $2,200 a year if they bought health care--
whatever minimum program their States would provide--if they were a
single person, they would get $7,500 off of their tax bill; if they are
a married couple, filing jointly, they would get $15,000.
Now, you may ask the question: Well, if they are low income and do
not have to pay any income tax, where would the benefit come from?
Well, by lowering their AGI, or the adjusted gross income, they would
not be subject to Social Security and Medicare costs. So at the $15,000
level, that would exempt $15,000 from payroll taxes for FICA and
Medicare.
So they were very encouraged that they would, for the first time, be
able to afford health care. The small business owners were anxious to
provide it for their employees or see their employees have access to
it.
There are lots of questions about how it works. But from what I
understood, you have to determine what is it you have to buy to
qualify. I think at this point the thinking is that the States would
determine what that base program is. It would obviously have to have
some kind of catastrophic care.
It is my hope that it would also include preventive care to make sure
people stay healthy. It is particularly important for children. We are
going to be renewing the SCHIP program to make sure children in poor
families have that kind of coverage. The best investment we can make in
the future is assuring that our youngest citizens get off to a good
start with good health care, identifying potential problems and
treating them early and getting them off to a start in their education,
giving them the opportunity to begin life with good health. And a good
education is No. 1. SCHIP would be available for the children of
families who

[[Page S1228]]

are at the bottom of the income ladder. But for all children, I hope
they will be buying a health plan that focuses on preventive care,
making sure people know what they have to do to stay healthy, and
identifying problems before they become serious.
The States would be given flexibility to use additional funds which
the Federal Government makes available to the States to implement their
programs. Some States already have ways of assisting their lower income
people, not the poorest but the lower income workers, providing the
assistance for payments of premiums, if that is what the State wishes
to do. So there is a lot of room for innovative programs at the State
level.
The night before, the Governor of Missouri, Matt Blunt, offered
another program, for example, and that is to say to all businesses: If
you offer a health care plan to your employees that meets basic minimum
State standards, you will be exempted from the franchise tax--a great
boon to encourage Missouri businesses to offer all of their employees
at least a basic health care plan. Proposals like that would be
encouraged, and the great laboratories of the States could move forward
to determine what kinds of things work best.
There was some question--I don't know where it came from--that this
might cut back on our support of FQACs, federally qualified health
centers, what we call community health centers. There is no truth to
that. The President is a big supporter--as is, of course, his Secretary
of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt--of making sure there are
health care clinics available in every area of the country. They have
been on a vigorous expansion program and intend to continue that. I
have visited health care clinics, over 50 of them, in different parts
of our State, from the center cities to the suburban areas to the
larger communities in rural areas to the most economically challenged,
lowest population areas of the State. Those are absolutely the most
critical safety net we have. I believe strongly in them. I have worked
with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to support them. They must
continue to be there.
We are talking in this plan about using the Tax Code to make health
insurance more available, but community health centers have the
important challenge of making sure it is accessible. In many places,
the only place you can find a doctor who will deliver babies is in a
community health center or through a community health center, or find a
dentist who will take care of dental problems. A shocking statistic we
heard: 80 percent of 17-year-olds have serious dental problems in the
United States. We have made dental care part of it. But these people
who work in the community health centers are a vital part of our health
care network.
The President's plan envisions strengthening that safety net. In
addition, he remains committed to allowing small businesses to go
together in pools to purchase health insurance and avoid the high
premiums often charged to individual small businesses and the cost of
administering those plans, which becomes extremely burdensome for many
small businesses. I hope this year we can also pass association health
plans.
Finally, the President spoke very forcefully about the need to
continue the effort for medical malpractice reform. We saw the need for
it in Missouri. Missouri passed a bill, and we started getting much
better health care. In the western part of the State, until Missouri
passed its medical malpractice reform, there were no doctors, outside
of government hospitals, who could afford to be in the business of
delivering babies. This is a problem which translates into higher costs
of medicine because with unrestrained medical malpractice lawsuits
being filed, there is a real danger that a great deal of time and
effort will be wasted on unnecessary procedures for fear of the impact
of a malpractice lawsuit. Many times, even the best doctors have
maloutcomes. People don't live forever. We are all going to die from
something. If there is a lawsuit filed against a doctor every time
there is a bad outcome, they are going to be faced with insurance costs
that go through the roof or health care that is not available.
I go back to the point that this is a concept, the outlines of which
I think I know but which I think deserve a fair hearing. I hope that as
we take a look at the many challenges facing us, our HELP Committee and
our Finance Committee will look at the President's program to determine
whether it may be one way of assuring we get health care insurance to
many of the 47 million Americans who don't have it. I urge that they do
so. I am sure there will be changes all of us would like to make, but I
believe the concept merits a hearing. I urge my colleagues to give it
that chance.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Madam President, to follow up briefly on the last item my
colleague from Missouri was discussing, health care, the President in
his State of the Union addressed it and laid out one approach which was
certainly different from anything I had heard before, a tax approach
that would call for some people to have to pay some taxes on Cadillac
plans that they enjoy today and to use the money generated to help
folks who don't enjoy that kind of health coverage. Some people
immediately rejected it out of hand. I have not done that. I think we
need to study it more closely and understand the ramifications. In the
end, whether we agree that is a good idea or not, most of us will agree
that it is a good idea to figure out how to harness information
technology in the delivery of health care in our own States and in the
country, much as the VA has done for veterans who go there for service
at their facilities.
Delaware is endeavoring to become the first State to put in place a
statewide Delaware Health Information Network which links our hospitals
to our doctors' offices to our labs in a free-flowing electronic
exchange of information. It will allow the exchange of electronic
health records and lead the way, as a little State, to show what we can
do for our country to save money and to save lives and improve outcomes
and, frankly, to improve the quality of life for the providers as well
and the satisfaction they derive from their work.

Climate Change

The second thing I wish to mention is this document which was
released earlier this week. It is called ``A Call For Action.'' It was
released on Monday by an interesting coalition of business leaders,
manufacturers, utility companies, and environmental leaders. The folks
who released it are called the United States Climate Action
Partnership. I wish to briefly mention the charter members of the group
who were here in the Capitol, just down the hall in the LBJ Room, on
Monday morning. They include DuPont, a 200-year-old company
headquartered in Delaware; Alcoa; BP--used to be called British
Petroleum, now they are ``beyond petroleum''; Caterpillar; Duke Energy;
the Environmental Defense folks; Florida Power & Light: GE; the NRDC,
National Resources Defense Council; Pew Institute; PG&E Corporation, a
big utility on the west coast; PNM, which is New Mexico power: and the
World Resources Institute. What they have done is said: Climate change
is real. Our Earth is becoming warmer. We have something to do with it.
They call on us to do something about it--not just us in the Senate but
as a nation to do something about it. They have laid out here a series
of findings, of principles, and of recommendations.
One of the things I am doing is sharing with each of my colleagues a
copy of this document. If we can get the utilities, manufacturers, and
a number of our leading environmental groups to agree on a path forward
on the principles and the recommendations, that is an important step
for our country.
I shared this with the President on Wednesday. He was in Delaware to
look at the work going on at the DuPont Company with respect to
biofuels, biobutanol, making ethanol out of cellulosic ethanol, out of
cornstalks, looking at work being done on fuel cells. I shared with him
a copy of this document.
The President had in his speech the other night about one sentence
where he talked about global warming and acknowledged that it was real.
Then he moved on. But I said to the President during a chance I had to
chat with him that there is a parade that is beginning to form, a
realization that something

[[Page S1229]]

is happening to our planet, that we have something to do with creating
this warming, and that we have an obligation to do something about it.
I applaud the leaders from the environmental and business communities
who have joined forces to say: This is an approach which makes sense.
They take what we call a market approach and use in their approach the
idea that while we are putting in place a cap-and-trade system to
reduce CO<inf>2</inf> emissions, why don't we do so in a way that
incentivizes clean coal technology with carbon recapture, that
incentivizes things such as wind power, maybe incentivizes the next
generation of nuclear energy as well.
I commend them. I understand from folks who are involved in this
original partnership, they are getting a lot of calls from around the
country, from other business leaders, and some from the environmental
community who want to know more about it and, frankly, want to join. My
message to the President on Wednesday was, a parade is forming. We can
watch the parade. We can be a part of that parade or we can lead that
parade. We need to lead the parade. President Bush is our President,
and he needs to be leading that parade as well.
I wanted to share that.
The third thing I wish to do is comment on the legislation before us
and to applaud the efforts of several of our colleagues, including
Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, as we have brought this minimum
wage bill to the floor and coupled it with small business tax cuts. The
President signalled early on that he would be willing to sign the
minimum wage bill, after having not supported it for a number of years.
It has been a long time. We have heard plenty of speeches in the last
week about this issue. It has been a long time since we raised the
minimum wage.
As Governor of my State, we raised the minimum wage a time or two. I
always contended that if we wanted people to get off welfare, to go to
work and to be successful, work has to pay more than welfare. If you
take a minimum wage job and you enhance that with an income tax credit
and add to that Medicaid benefits, add to that food stamps and food
supplement benefits, people aren't going to get rich--help them with
assisted housing--but if we do it right, people can actually be better
off working than they would be receiving the welfare. An increase in
the minimum wage is part and parcel of that.
I am pleased to support this increase, even if it is coupled with
increases or changes and modifications to small business tax credits.
We all know--in fact, everybody in the Senate has given speeches, I
am sure, saying this--that small businesses are the engine of job
creation in this country. I have, and I suspect the Presiding Officer
has, as have the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from North
Carolina, we have all given speeches saying how important the small
business community is. Small business generates new jobs. One of our
important jobs in government--Federal, State, and local--is to create a
nurturing environment for job creation and preservation. Some of the
ways to do that are a well-trained workforce, reasonable tax burdens,
reasonable regulations, safer communities, transportation, good
infrastructure, and affordable health care. But taxes are important.
What I commend Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley in doing is
crafting a series of tax credits for small business that incentivizes
them to hire people, some of whom are coming off of welfare and
disability, and veterans coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq. They
have done good work, and I look forward to supporting adoption of the
legislation and working out a compromise with the House that includes
both the increase in the minimum wage and the tax cuts and, in some
cases, credits for small businesses, and then get the President to sign
that compromise.

Honoring Our Armed Forces

Senior Airman Elizabeth A. Loncki

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I want to mention today the death of a
Delawarean--our 15th Delawarean--whose life has been lost in Iraq. She
was the first female whose life has been lost in Iraq and whose funeral
I attended a week or two ago. I want to reflect on the life and service
of Air Force SrA Elizabeth Loncki.
She was the first female Delawarean to be killed in the line of duty
in Iraq. As a bomb disposal technician, Elizabeth performed one of the
most dangerous tasks assigned to Armed Forces personnel. She routinely
put herself in harm's way with the hope and knowledge that her actions
would save the lives of others. I daresay they have saved the lives of
hundreds of other people. The steel nerve and extreme bravery required
to locate and disarm explosive devices are not traits too many people
possess, including us. Only the bravest of our soldiers and military
personnel carry out this responsibility, and her ability to perform and
carry out this difficult work speaks volumes about her character and
sense of duty to her colleagues, comrades, our country, and to the
Iraqi people.
Elizabeth epitomized the best of our country's brave men and women
who fought to free Iraq and to secure a new democracy in the Middle
East. She exhibited unwavering courage, dutiful service to her country,
and above all else, honor. In the way she lived her life--and how we
remember her--Elizabeth reminds each of us just how good we can be.
Elizabeth was only 23 years old but her competitive spirit and kind-
hearted ways touched the lives of all that knew her. She was blessed
with a wonderful family--younger sister, Olivia, loving parents,
stepparents, grandparents, great-grandparents and many aunts, uncles,
and cousins--and countless numbers of friends and comrades.
She was also loved by SGT Jayson Johnson, who was stationed with
Elizabeth at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. They had recently purchased a
house together and Jayson had made plans to visit Elizabeth's father to
seek his permission to ask for Elizabeth's hand in marriage. The
sadness of his loss cannot be overstated.
Elizabeth was a 2001 graduate of Padua Academy in Wilmington. She was
a natural athlete with a competitive spirit and she excelled at
volleyball, basketball and softball. She briefly attended the
University of Arizona before enlisting in the Air Force in March of
2003. On February 24, 2004, she graduated from Eglin AFB-Naval Tech
Explosive Ordinance Disposal School. She was proud of her training and
gladly told inquiring strangers that the ``Bomb Squad'' sweatshirt she
often wore was indeed the real thing.
Elizabeth volunteered to go to Iraq before she was officially called
and was deployed on September 27, 2006. Her grandfather recalled her
saying, ``If I saved one life, it was worth it.'' An Air Force official
told the Loncki family that each day her team went out, they probably
saved scores of lives. She will always be remembered as a hero who put
the safety of others before herself.
On January 7, 2007, Elizabeth made the ultimate sacrifice near Al
Mahmudiyah, Iraq, when a car bomb her team was working on exploded
while they were trying to disarm it. TSgt Timothy Weiner of Tamarac,
FL, and SrA Daniel B. Miller, Jr., of Galesburg, IL also gave their
lives while trying to save others on that fateful day. All three were
members of the 775th Civil Engineer Squadron at Hill Air Force Base.
Elizabeth was one of the few women who dared to serve as a bomb
disposal technician. Her family recently shared a story from a sergeant
major who had helped train Elizabeth. I think this goes to the heart of
the person she was and what she believed in. I'd like to share a bit of
that. He said, ``Elizabeth was an ultimate troop. I am an old Special
Forces guy and have been through a lot of action. I have served in
three wars. I had the privilege of being in Elizabeth's company. She
was involved in extreme combat training and the highest danger. She
saved a lot--I repeat--a lot of lives. . . Bar none, she was one of the
finest people I have ever trained. I have two boys in the military and
have lost troops under my command in the Special Forces and I have
never worked with a finer person.''
On January 13, 2007, I attended Senior Airman Loncki's funeral at St.
Peter the Apostle Church in New Castle where Elizabeth had been an
active member.
Following the service, Elizabeth was laid to rest with full military
honors in

[[Page S1230]]

the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery. The outpouring of love and
support from the many people who gathered for her burial serve as a
testament to the positive impact that Elizabeth had on all of those who
were blessed to know her.
For her service, Airman Loncki received numerous recognitions during
her Air Force career: Air Force Training Ribbon, Global War on
Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, National Defense Service
Medal, Air Force Good Conduct Medal, and the Air Force Outstanding Unit
Award. The Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with Valor Device were
awarded posthumously on January 9, 2007.
As I listened to Elizabeth's friends and family speak about the type
of person she was, I couldn't help but think about the heavy toll that
this conflict has taken on our country. Elizabeth had originally
planned for a career in the Air Force but she had begun to express
doubts about our role in Iraq. She told her grandmother that the people
of Iraq ``don't want us over there'' and had asked her father, ``if
people don't want us to help, what do we do?''
If I could talk to Elizabeth, I would tell her that she epitomized
what is best in this world. I would tell her that if the day ever comes
when the Iraqi people decide to put aside their hatred and come
together as a nation--and that day cannot come soon enough--it will be
the heroic actions of people like her that made this possible.
Next week in this Chamber I believe we are going to debate a
resolution, and the resolution is about what course we should take in
Iraq. I think the President and those who don't share his proposal for
a surge of our troops share the same goal. The goal is this: How do we
convince the Iraqi people to take charge of their lives? How do we
convince them to assume responsibility for their country? How do we and
others help to convince them to find a way to share power, share the
wealth of their country, and to stop killing each other?
The President believes the best way to do it is to send more troops
to Baghdad and to other parts of the country. Those of us who disagree,
including some of the President's own military leaders with whom I met
in Iraq last year, think that maybe the best way to convince them to
make the tough choices in Iraq is to make it clear that we are not
there forever, that this is not an engagement without an end in sight,
and that we have expectations for them to stand and deliver for their
own country.
I close simply by saying that sometimes we think these debates are
just debates that we have in our Nation's Capitol, and there is a
country on the other side of the world, with people we don't know, who
are doing things we, frankly, don't understand. But it is also
important for us to remember people such as Elizabeth Loncki who are
willing to risk it all to try to help them, and our obligation is to do
our dead level best to make sure they and we get to the right place.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.

IRAQ

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, these have been some terrible days
for our country. Last Saturday, we lost 27 American men and women in
Iraq, making it the third deadliest day for our country and our forces
since this war began. A Blackhawk went down northeast of Baghdad; all
12 of the troops aboard were killed. Men with grenades, mortars, and
assault rifles attacked a building guarded by American and Iraqi forces
in Karbala. Five American troops were killed that day. Coalition forces
made a push against insurgents. Five more troops were killed and 59
Iraqis along with them. In Anbar Province, four soldiers and a marine
were killed.
Despite the President's handpicked Iraqi Study Group's bipartisan
call for a new course, he has not listened. Despite the advice of GEN
John Abizaid, a distinguished military leader and former Chief of Staff
to Colin Powell, who called for a new course, despite the bipartisan
calls of my colleagues who have called for a new course, despite the
American people who last November called for a new course, and despite
the rising death toll, the President has decided to escalate this
conflict. He wants to send 21,500 more troops into the crossfire of a
civil war.
Even more disturbing is the behavior and the rhetoric of the Vice
President. I don't know how many of my colleagues had a chance to watch
the Vice President's interview with Wolf Blitzer this week on CNN's
``The Situation Room.'' But I encourage my colleagues who have not seen
it to watch it. It is up on Youtube. You have to see it to believe it.
In that interview, Vice President Cheney boasted of ``enormous
successes in Iraq.'' He also rejected the idea that Iraq is in a
``terrible situation.'' Imagine him dismissing that.
The interview was so incredible that the Washington Post discussed it
on its front page on Thursday. The Vice President blamed everybody but
himself for any troubles in Iraq.
As far as the Vice President was concerned, it was all the media's
fault. What did he say of us, the Congress? He said we were helping the
terrorists. Vice President Cheney's boasting of the Iraq successes was
on the front page of the Washington Post that day. The story is
incredible. It says on the front page of Thursday's paper: ``Defending
Iraq war, defiant Cheney cites enormous successes.'' He says that the
media is so eager to write off this effort or to declare it a failure.
It goes on to say that there are problems in Iraq, but he said it's not
a terrible situation.
Not a terrible situation. Describe that to the families who lost
someone in the last few weeks in Iraq.
He said--this is the Vice President of the United States--he has a
responsibility to help the President and to help communicate with the
Congress. He doesn't. He sits here often, but he doesn't. He said that
despite that, the congressional opposition won't stop us from sending
20,500 more troops; it will only validate the course we are on.
Imagine. The story inside the paper was a very different one. The
story told in these two pages in Thursday's Washington Post is 99
faces, 99 more families who are going to mourn, 99 more children who
will not see their father or their mother again, 99 parents who lost a
child. And he says it is not a terrible situation? It is a disgrace.
This doesn't look like the face of enormous success. No, it doesn't.
On those two pages alone is a total of 99 men and women who will never
see their friends and family on American soil again. Madam President,
3,063 American troops have died in Iraq; 74 of them had ties to my
State of New Jersey. And we have seen over 23,000 with injuries, many
severe, over 700 have lost limbs and many suffering from traumatic
brain injury.
Of the almost 600,000 people--584,000 to be precise--who have served
in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 30,000 of them have PTSD, post-traumatic
stress syndrome; 30,000 countless brain injuries besides that.
The administration's troop increase is not simply a surge. What they
did is they searched the word files, probably went to the computer and
to the dictionaries to try to find a word that would evade the truth of
what this is about. Surge is a euphemism for escalation of our
involvement in this war.
When we hear the Vice President talking about enormous successes, it
makes one wonder if the President and Vice President have been shielded
from reality by their handlers. We see it in the continuation of the
policy that says don't take any pictures of the flag-draped coffins
when the remains of our soldiers are returned to the United States of
America; don't do that. It is against the rules. Can you imagine that?
That sign of honor to the deceased shielded from the view of the public
because underneath that flag lies the remains of some young person.
That is the way they see things, and now we are told to expect
another $100 billion request from the administration to fund this war.
When does it end?
I am a proud cosponsor of legislation that is authored by my
colleague Senator Biden. Senator Hagel served valiantly in Vietnam. He
knows what war is like. Senator Levin and Senator Snowe--all denounce
this dangerous increase. This resolution, which easily passed the
Foreign Relations Committee, is clear in stating that the Bush surge is
not in the national interests. It is certainly not in the interests of
the families who have sons or daughters serving there. It puts the
Senate on record as being against a growing military conflict that will
hurt our

[[Page S1231]]

long-term goals abroad and our security at home.
Similar to the young men and women serving today, I was proud to wear
the uniform of my country in World War II in Europe. Those who are
serving are obeying the orders of their Commander in Chief, and they do
it fully and bravely.
In that war, World War II, the mission was clear: Defeat the enemies
who attacked us. While the battles and the casualties were in far-off
places, the brunt of the war's burden was borne by the families at
home.
We started this fight because we were told things that proved not to
be true. We believed in our leaders, and we thought they were telling
us the truth. What else would we think? The President, the Vice
President, then the chief of the military, Colin Powell, and others--we
had faith in their belief. We had faith in the mission. Many of us
doubted. I was out of the Senate for a 2-year period, and that is when
that decision was made, but I would have believed it, coming from those
illustrious positions with people who were known for substance because
of the fact that they had achieved those positions. We had faith, but
the mission in Iraq was surrounded in a fog.
It is time to redefine this mission in Iraq, a mission that includes
bringing our troops home. The Iraqis say they want us to leave. Members
of Congress and military leaders want us to leave, and the American
people, in a broad consensus, want us to leave. Bring home those
troops, they say.

Outside my office, I continue to pay my respects to these soldiers. I
have a display called The Faces of the Fallen, all who have perished in
this war up to a date that we can get the latest pictures, such as
those we see displayed in the Washington Post. The display gives us a
face to the names of the soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Visitors come by. Some of them are families and friends.
Visitors search the photos daily for people they know, love and miss
and they write notes in a book we have provided. Everyone who signs
that book ``God bless these people,'' honors them for their service,
even though there is a question about whether they ought to be serving
there now.
Until President Bush listens, until Vice President Cheney realizes
this is more than a bunch of victories, that successes are there, until
that language is wiped out of their daily statements, we are going to
have to keep adding faces to that display of fallen heroes memorial.
And I am going to have to say to people who come into my office in New
Jersey, particularly, who have sons and daughters serving there--one
woman tells me about her son who was wounded, got the Purple Heart, and
they are sending him back to combat or the woman who comes in crying so
bitterly that you can barely hear her talk. She screamed at me at first
when I called her when the notice of her son's death was given. She
asked the question: My son was a second lieutenant. He loved being in
the military. He was a trained artillery officer. What in the world
were they asking him to do when they asked him to defuse roadside
bombs? He lost his life defusing a bomb.
No, Madam President, if the message can't get through to the White
House and the leadership, what faith can we have in the decisions made
in this country today? It is discouraging. The world doesn't believe
us. The people in our country don't believe us, in huge numbers. Yes,
there are those who serve bravely and constantly. They do what they are
told. That is what one does in the military. But while we think of
sending people there who have already had, some of them, two tours of
duty and they are being sent for a third tour of duty, it is impossible
to imagine that their consciences don't keep them awake at night, but
apparently they don't.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Madam President, today is the fifth day of the debate on
the minimum wage. Some of the days have been days that people have not
talked a lot or offered a lot of amendments, but that is not the fault
of the majority. It is not the fault of the minority. For whatever
reason, they didn't offer them.
The question always arises as to when enough is enough. Have there
been opportunities in this legislation before the Senate dealing with
minimum wage, raising the minimum wage for the first time in 10 years?
I know the Senate is not accustomed to the open process we have had on
this legislation and on the legislation dealing with ethics in
lobbying, but this is something we are going to get used to. My Members
would rather not have had the votes we had this past week. They were
tough votes. None of them related to minimum wage. That is the Senate,
an open process. But someone has to make a decision at some time that
enough is enough, and I think I have made that decision. I am going to
file a motion to stop debate on this issue and move forward on this
much needed legislation.
Ten years was a long time ago. During that period of time, the cost
of food has gone up about 25 percent, the cost of health care about 45
percent, housing about 30 percent, gasoline about 135 percent,
congressional pay during that same period of time has increased by
$30,000. Ten years ago, Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, not
Nancy Pelosi; Bill Clinton was starting his second term as President of
the United States; the old movie ``Titanic'' was being released; a
stamp to mail a letter was 32 cents.
Today, different than 10 years ago, the pay of the average chief
executive is 821 times that of a minimum wage worker. The chief
executive officer for one of these companies could go to work on Monday
and by noon have made as much money as minimum wage workers, working
their hearts out for a year, would get.
Yesterday and the day before, we voted on all kinds of amendments,
amendments that totaled--I roughed them out--calling for tax cuts of
about $350 billion. Madam President, how much more is it going to take
in the way of tax cuts to get the minority to vote for a minimum wage
bill? None of the tax cuts are paid for--$350 billion. That is a lot of
money. If you took one-dollar bills and laid them end to end from my
home in Searchlight, NV, to Washington, DC, it would take 14,000 lines
of dollar bills to amount to $350 billion--14,000.
We have voted on health savings accounts, tax breaks for teachers,
and Social Security tax breaks. My favorite was a $2.10 suggestion in
legislation offered by one of the Republican Senators. You don't use
the $2.10 to increase the wages of a minimum wage worker, but they
could do other things with it--buy health care, for example. But it is
so interesting; every one of these amendments that were offered were
offered by someone who has no desire of voting for a minimum wage. It
is an effort to divert attention from the real issue before this body,
which is raising the minimum wage.
Every one of these amendments we voted on is important. I am not, in
any way, indicating that people do not have the right to offer
amendments. They can offer them on any subject they wish. That is what
this Senate is all about. But I think it is about time a decision is
made whether we are going to give the poorest of the poor who are
working, not on welfare, the opportunity to keep working and not have
to go to welfare.
Sixty percent of the people who draw minimum wage are women, and for
over half of those women, that is the only money they get for
themselves and their families. People think that minimum wage is for a
bunch of kids flipping hamburgers at McDonald's, but that is not the
way it is. About 3 weeks ago, Business Week had a very good piece on
the minimum wage. What this piece said is that raising the minimum wage
raises the boat for everybody.
I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle will allow this
legislation to go forward, to stop talking about it and vote on it. It
is important that we do that. Ten years is too long.
We have had a lot of amendments. Is this enough? When is enough?
Could we have worked longer hours? Perhaps so. All I know is Wednesday
we worked very hard to try to get some of the people in the minority to
agree to votes--and we couldn't get that done--on their amendments, not
our amendments their amendments.
We have a lot of important things to do and I understand that. I sure
hope we can move beyond minimum wage to other issues.

[[Page S1232]]

Cloture Motion

Mr. REID. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The bill clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the Reid (for
Baucus) substitute amendment No. 100 to Calendar No. 5, H.R.
2, providing for an increase in the Federal minimum wage.
Ted Kennedy, Barbara A. Mikulski, Daniel K. Inouye, Byron
L. Dorgan, Jeff Bingaman, Frank R. Lautenberg, Jack
Reed, Barbara Boxer, Daniel K. Akaka, Max Baucus, Patty
Murray, Maria Cantwell, Tom Harkin, Robert Menendez,
Tom Carper, Harry Reid, Charles E. Schumer, Richard
Durbin.

Cloture Motion

Mr. REID. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The bill clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close the debate on Calendar No.
5, H.R. 2, as amended, providing for an increase in the
Federal minimum wage.
Ted Kennedy, Barbara A. Mikulski, Daniel K. Inouye, Byron
L. Dorgan, Jeff Bingaman, Frank R. Lautenberg, Jack
Reed, Barbara Boxer, Daniel K. Akaka, Max Baucus, Patty
Murray, Maria Cantwell, Tom Harkin, Robert Menendez,
Tom Carper, Harry Reid, Charles E. Schumer, Richard
Durbin.

Mr. REID. Madam President, I have other business to conduct on
another matter. It is my understanding the distinguished Republican
leader wishes to speak at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader is recognized.

Amendment No. 210

Mr. McCONNELL. I call for the regular order with respect to the Kyl
amendment No. 210.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That amendment is pending.
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask the amendment be divided as indicated by the
copy at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be divided.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the Republican majority in the
previous Congress was prepared to raise the minimum wage. In fact, the
House of Representatives passed an increase in the minimum wage and the
Senate tried to pass an increase in the minimum wage. The difficulty
was that Democrats ended up blocking passage because they did not like
the fact that the minimum wage was attached to other provisions last
year. The minimum wage was attached to some very significant
provisions--tax extenders, modification of the death tax--and our good
friends on the other side didn't like the way it was packaged and
therefore prevented its passage.
The last time the minimum wage passed, back in 1996, and President
Clinton signed it, he praised the minimum wage, particularly because it
was packaged with tax relief and regulatory relief for small
businesses. So it has been the practice of the Congress, under both
Republicans and Democrats, for a minimum wage to be passed in
conjunction with other matters. In fact, my good friend, the majority
leader, has advocated that and supported the package that came out of
the Finance Committee, even though every Member on the other side of
the aisle voted, in effect--by voting to invoke cloture--voted in
effect for a clean minimum wage yesterday.
With regard to how much time we have taken on this bill, we didn't
have any votes last Monday, and we are not having any votes today on
minimum wage, even though we did vote to confirm General Petraeus,
which we certainly should have done. We have not had that much time on
the bill.
I think my good friends on the other side of the aisle are having a
hard time adjusting to being in the majority in the Senate. The price
you pay for being in the majority in the Senate is, in order to
complete bills, the minority gets votes. I remember my good friend and
colleague, the Democratic whip, saying the Senate is not the House. Our
new occupant of the chair, in his first couple of weeks in the Senate,
is learning already that the Senate is not the House.
In the Senate, virtually every bill has numerous amendments. The
majorities are always frustrated because minorities get their votes
before moving to final passage. I have said to my friend the majority
leader on several occasions over the last few hours that I was hoping
that we could have some more amendments on this minimum wage bill
before moving to its inevitable conclusion. It will end up similar to
the ethics bill last year, passing with an overwhelming bipartisan
majority. But there are still some other important amendments that our
side would like to offer, and we will be discussing those amendments
and how our Members feel about that in the next few days.
At some point in the not too distant future, an increase in the
minimum wage, in conjunction with tax relief for small business, will
pass the Senate on a very large bipartisan basis.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Cardin). The majority leader is
recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we all have memories. My memory is that
during the time that Senator Lott was the majority leader we had very
few opportunities to amend bills because he, in the vernacular in the
Senate, filled the tree and there weren't opportunities to do that.
Senator Frist did not do that nearly as much as Senator Lott when he
was the leader, but certainly it was done a lot of times. We have
chosen not to do that. We have chosen the amendment process. That is
why I said earlier today: When is enough enough?
I have sent the cloture motions to the desk, and we will make that
decision at noon on Tuesday.
While the distinguished Republican leader is on the floor, I will say
a few more words on another subject.
The Republican leader and I have talked on several occasions about
this Iraq situation. Anyone who reads the newspaper, listens to the
radio or watches TV--we all know there are a number of resolutions
around the Senate dealing with the escalation of the war in Iraq. The
leader and I have talked about them.
We have pending in the Senate now, S. Con. Res. 2, which is a
bipartisan resolution. Upon disposition of the minimum wage bill--and I
have spoken to the leader, Senator McConnell--he is unable to clear
consent to move S. Con. Res. 2 now. Members may not be available to
clear it at the moment, and I understand that, so I am not going to put
any unanimous consent request before the Senate because the
distinguished Republican Senate leader has told me he is not able to do
that. But in an effort to save time, I intend to move to proceed to the
concurrent resolution today and file cloture on that motion. If on
Monday the Republican leader is still not able to grant consent to
proceed to it, we will be in a position, then, to look forward to the
Tuesday vote. If he is able to give me consent to move forward to that,
then we can vitiate the cloture motion.
Mr. President, I will be filing that motion on cloture today to
proceed to a bipartisan resolution reported out by the Foreign
Relations Committee earlier this week. We are moving forward to demand
a new direction in Iraq, as we have spoken about a number times.
Senator Lautenberg finished a speech on that today. We hope Republican
leadership will join with us to fully debate this issue, permit votes
on amendments, and ensure an up-or-down vote on the President's plan.
Our troops and the American people deserve no less.

____________________