Encouraging Work Act of 2003
Legislative Activity
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Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S2981-2982)
March 23, 2004
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Introduced in Senate
June 4, 2003
Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S7387-7389)
June 4, 2003
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
June 4, 2003
Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S2981-2982)
March 23, 2004
Floor Debate
16 membersWhat members said about S. 1180 on the floor
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Floor Debate
16 membersWhat members said about S. 1180 on the floor
Mr. President, I want to reiterate the words of my distinguished ranking member, the Senator from Montana, on the importance of getting this bill passed. This bill is about jobs because it is about…
Mr. President, I want to reiterate the words of my distinguished ranking member, the Senator from Montana, on the importance of getting this bill passed. This bill is about jobs because it is about keeping American manufacturing competitive, particularly manufacturing that is exported. Export-related jobs in America are very good jobs because they pay 15 percent above the national average.
This bill, that we call by the acronym FSC/ETI, foreign sales corporation extraterritorial income, reduces the income tax on goods manufactured in the United States and sold overseas. Whether it is done by American manufacturers or foreign companies that have come to America to establish a manufacturing plant and hire Americans, it applies to both. It does not apply to American companies that manufacture overseas.
The World Trade Organization is the reason we are debating this bill, because the World Trade Organization has ruled that our FSC/ETI legislation, that has been on the books for more than a couple of decades, is an illegal export subsidy and has authorized up to $4 billion a year of sanctions against U.S. exports. This is something the World Trade Organization said to the European Community that they could do on U.S. exports, because until we change this law, they see us not living up to our international trade obligations.
Why would the United States respond to the World Trade Organization this way? In the very same way we expect Europe or any other country to respond when the United States wins cases before the World Trade Organization. Let me say, we win many more than we lose. In fact, anybody reading commerce newspapers over the last week would find out that the United States has recently won two decisions before the World Trade Organization on other issues.
In regard to Europe, as one specific example, we expect Europe to abide by the decision that the U.S. cattle producers won in the World Trade Organization because Europe was not taking in our red meat, our beef products, because they were treated with a growth stimulant. Europe has decided not to abide by the World Trade Organization decision, so the United States, over the last 2 years, has imposed sanctions against Europe.
Would it be surprising to you if the U.S. Government does not respond positively to the World Trade Organization ruling and then Europe would, in fact, put sanctions against American products? They have already done that. Starting March 1, there has been a 5-percent increase in sanctions. We are going to have a 1-percent increase each month that we do not repeal this legislation. By November that would be in effect a 12-percent sales tax on American products going overseas to Europe.
It is very difficult for the United States to compete when we have a level playing field, but when we have a 12-percent add-on you can see that eventually some companies are going to become uncompetitive and, as a result, workers will be laid off.
What we want this legislation to do is not only avoid these sanctions, but we want to put American manufacturing in more of a competitive environment than it is in presently by reducing the corporate tax rate on companies that export if the manufacturing is done within the United States of America.
We have, potentially, by November, sanctions of 12 percent on American products. This is a very serious threat to all Members because sanctions are going to hit agricultural products, timber products, and even manufacturing products. We need to get this issue behind us before Memorial Day or sooner or we will never be able to get this bill to the President for signature.
I wanted to act on this bill last year because I was fearful politics would get in the way of the Senate's ability to do the job. Obviously, the closer you get to the election, the more there is an opportunity for politics to interfere.
The opening debate and shenanigans we had 2 weeks ago when we first took up this bill confirmed my worst fears. Some on the other side want to play politics with this bipartisan bill. Senator Baucus and I had an agreed order of amendments that would have improved the bill and brought up important, relevant issues. That agreement was undermined by the other side, particularly the leadership on the other side. The leadership does not really want to debate the substance of this bill. Yet they would say it is very important to get this bill passed.
We hear a lot about not creating enough jobs in the economy in this recovery. This is our opportunity to create jobs. I would think everybody would want to get this bill passed. Instead, it seems this bipartisan bill is being turned into a political football.
I am hopeful everybody on the other side of the aisle will see the best policy is also very good politics. That is what we have with this bill. We help domestic manufacturers; we help U.S. companies compete overseas. Putting politics ahead of good policy is exactly the wrong approach.
In effect, this political game does not help those who face sanctions. In other words, jobs in the industries and the products that have already been identified by Europe for sanctions are going to be in jeopardy. Particularly where we have so much problem competing with the global competition we have, it doesn't help our domestic manufacturers and workers, in manufacturing as well as other segments of the economy.
As I said before, I hope the Democratic leadership will focus on the task at hand and not play politics with this very important bipartisan piece of legislation.
With that procedural point I wanted to make behind us, I wish to speak specifically as a reminder to my colleagues of some of the important features of this legislation. Repealing FSC/ETI, as the World Trade Organization has ruled against the United States and implied that we need to get our laws in tune with our international obligations, the repeal raises around $55 billion over 10 years, and 89 percent of that $55 billion comes from manufacturing industries. If that money is not sent back to the manufacturing sector,
it will be a $50 billion tax increase on manufacturing. You know one of the simple rules of economics 101--you tax something more, you get less of it.
The Congressional Budget Office then says we have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs since the manufacturing decline started in the last year of the Clinton administration--in other words, since the middle of July. A $50 billion tax increase now on that manufacturing obviously is not going to stimulate manufacturing jobs.
The bill before us uses all the money that is raised from the FSC/ETI repeal to put back into manufacturing, giving manufacturing corporations and self-proprietorships and other business entities a 3- percentage point tax rate reduction on all income derived from manufacturing in the United States.
This is not meant to help--and will not help--because our bill is not written this way to help manufacturing done offshore. We start phasing in these tax cuts this year. The cuts apply to different business entities, sole proprietors, partnerships, farmers, individuals, family businesses, multinational corporations, or foreign corporations that set up manufacturing plants in the United States but only if they set up their manufacturing plants in the United States. We are not doing anything in this bill to export jobs overseas; just the opposite. What we are doing is meant to create jobs and preserve jobs in manufacturing in the United States, and to give the benefit to American-based companies or foreign corporations based in America that are creating jobs here.
Our bill also includes the Homeland Reinvestment Act, which has broad support in the House and Senate. The finance bill is also revenue neutral. That is very important because it seems to be an unwritten rule in the Senate--maybe not one that I entirely agree with, but if we are going to get anything done in a bipartisan way when it deals with tax reform, it has to be revenue neutral.
This bill, as amended, provides over $130 billion in business tax relief, but it is paid for by extending customs user fees and, most importantly, by shutting down corporate tax shelters and abusive loopholes.
It is an unwritten rule in the Senate, as I said, for revenue neutrality. So we have gone beyond the $50 billion to $130 billion of tax changes but offsetting it totally with money raised from FSC/ETI, from customs user fees, and, most importantly, doing something that ought to be done with or without this bill--shutting down these tax shelters and abusive loopholes.
As all bills, there is never complete agreement on an approach. Our bill contains a temporary haircut on rate reduction that some of us would like to remove and others of us would like to retain. Some Members prefer a reduction in the top corporate rate in place of international reforms and a rate reduction applying just to manufacturing. These Members would say you ought to treat all corporations the same. If all corporations were being impacted with a WTO ruling in the same way, whether manufacturing or not, I would agree. We are talking about basically manufacturing and at least 89 percent of the revenues coming in. We say we want to keep our manufacturing competitive. We are going to pour most of the benefits of this legislation back into the manufacturing sector.
Those on the other side say it ought to be across the board, affecting all corporations. There is a desire on the other side for a simpler approach by just cutting taxes across the board, but a top level rate cut would only go to the biggest corporations of America. Local family held S corporations or partnerships which presently get some ETI benefits would get nothing from that approach. If we redirect the FSC/ETI money to an across-the-board corporate cut, then the manufacturing sector will be the revenue offset for the services sector tax cut.
The international tax reforms largely fix problems our domestic companies face with the complexities of the foreign tax credit. These reforms are necessary if we are to level the playing field for U.S. companies that compete with our trading partners.
The Finance Committee's bipartisan bill has been improved with an amendment to extend the research and development tax credit through the end of year 2005. That is a domestic tax benefit which is an incentive to research and development. This translates also into good, high- paying jobs for workers in the United States and not overseas. Plus, it is an incentive for research and development which is going to keep our industries competitive with the highly educated workforces of Russia, China, and India where we are finding increasing competition. We need to keep up with these others.
America has no reason to be timid about the competitiveness of our workforce--the competitiveness of our workers from the standpoint of our educational commitment and our educational attainment. We have nothing to worry about when it involves our research leading us to new industries not of this decade but for the next decade. America has a very flexible economy. We can compete. Anyone who says we can't compete is a defeatist. I am not a defeatist when it comes to America's ability to be ahead of the rest of the world as we have been for the last 100 years in almost every aspect of our economy. The research and development part of this bill is surely something that is going to help us continue to do that.
In addition to the previously agreed upon research and development amendment, there are several additional amendments pending which will substantially improve this bill. First is an amendment offered by Senators Bunning and Stabenow to accelerate the manufacturing deduction. This amendment assures that the tax relief and related economic benefits of the bill are provided more quickly to those hurt by the repeal of FSC/ETI.
Second, I have offered an amendment with Senator Baucus to extend the 2-year tax provisions which expired in the years 2003-2004. This includes items such as the work opportunity tax credit and the welfare- to-work tax credit which have been merged and simplified into a single credit as proposed by Senator Santorum and others in the bill, S. 1180.
A third pending amendment on net operating losses should also be included. This amendment allows companies that operated at losses during the difficult economic conditions of last year to offset those losses against their income for the previous 5 years. This provision would accelerate tax relief to companies that need to continue operations and recover from recent difficulties.
I ask my colleagues: Let us get on with the business at hand. Have this institution be what it traditionally has been. Yes. An institution where everything is thoroughly discussed as it ought to be because this is the only institution where that can be done in our American political system. But it is also an institution that moves along and doesn't stymie legislation. We know our responsibilities are to the taxpayers of this country to produce a good product and produce it quickly. If we think of the best policy, we will in fact have the best politics. Let's put good economic policy ahead of shortsighted politics.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I will speak as in morning business and I will yield the floor for anyone who wants to speak on the legislation.
Madam President, I will deal with the issue of the energy bill in the context of where we left off last November, two votes short of stopping a filibuster against the legislation so it could be passed. That means we had 58 votes. We needed two more. We cannot get two more votes. Therefore, the bill still languishes.
It was the first major energy policy for probably 15 years as far as the Federal Government passing one is concerned, and things are a lot scarier now than they were last November. Now we have what are the highest gasoline prices in the history of our country, just slightly above where they were a year ago, and previous to that a couple times in the late 1990s or the early part of this century. In other words, over the last 4 or 5 years they have probably been almost as high three or four times. We also have, different than at most times, very high natural gas prices.
The impact in the economy is very negative, as we know. The impact upon low-income families is very bad, as we know. It is a shame we could not get that bill passed last November. I hope we can get one passed very shortly. In fact, I had hoped the high natural gas prices and gasoline prices we faced would be an impetus to any Member in this body. Of the 42 who did not vote to stop debate, hopefully these Members will see the need for passing this energy legislation to help the economy, to help the consumers of America, to move this economy along.
I recall over the last 4 or 5 years there have been high gasoline prices in the past and maybe not so high natural gas prices in the past, that there has been an outrage expressed on the floor of this Senate about those high gasoline prices--Members speaking about collusion within the industry, Members asking the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether there was any anticompetitive activity, and tremendous outrage over the high prices.
Now that gasoline prices are higher, I would guess I would hear that same outrage. But we are not hearing it. I wonder if we are not hearing it because so many Members on the other side of the aisle were part of the filibuster against the energy bill last year, and they are ashamed when they had an opportunity to do something to bring an energy policy to America they did not do it.
That energy policy was one that was well balanced between tax incentives for the production of fossil fuel, tax incentives for the conservation of energy, and tax incentives for alternative and renewable fuels--a very well-balanced piece of legislation, legislation I would say was well balanced to meet the immediate needs of our country, which are best met by the fossil fuels we have been using for more than 100 years to take care of the near term but also well balanced for the outyears. Obviously, since God only made so much fossil fuel, and it is finite, the dependence on renewable and alternative fuels, as well as incentives for conservation, is the pattern for the future if we are going to have a sound energy policy.
This package, put together by Senator Domenici, is well balanced and had the good fortune of having so many of these tax incentives involved that came out of my Senate Finance Committee in a bipartisan way.
So why not the outrage now? We keep hearing so much debate during
the bill that is before us, and during morning business by Members, particularly of the other party, about the problems we are having creating jobs, the problems we are having with the Nation's economy.
There might be a difference of opinion whether the economy is doing well, but there are a lot of statistics that show it is doing well with the 8.2 percent growth for the third quarter of 2003, and the 4.1 percent growth for the fourth quarter of 2003, and unemployment holding steady at 5.6 percent. But we are still hearing the outrage that jobs are not being created. And who can argue that if you are unemployed and want a job you ought not have a job? You would expect to have a job with an economy growing where it is now and with the fabulously low rate of unemployment of 5.6 percent, because seldom have we had that low a rate of unemployment in the last 40 years. A national energy policy would surely help us with the creation of jobs.
So you can ask, where are the jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs? One factor affecting the manufacturing industry and, in turn, the economy in general I have not heard mentioned during the debate is the rising cost of energy. The fact is, the rising energy costs continue to be a drag on our economy.
In January, consumer prices jumped one-half of 1 percent, and that was only because, as small as that is, of higher energy costs. In fact, energy costs rose 4.7 percent, accounting for more than three-quarters of the overall increase in consumer prices.
Crude oil for April delivery is over $36 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas prices at the pump around the Nation are at record highs. Nationally, a gallon of regular gasoline averages $1.74. That is 2 cents higher than at this time last year.
Why are energy prices so high? Well, global demand for crude oil is increasing because of greater demand not only in the United States but because of a higher percentage of demand in Japan and China.
OPEC, which supplies 40 percent of the world's oil, recently announced they intend to cut production by 1 million barrels a day starting April 1. That is obviously going to push prices yet higher. This is from OPEC, an organization that has repeatedly stated their goal is to keep prices somewhere between $22 and $28 a barrel, not now satisfied with $36 a barrel. Because we are so dependent upon foreign countries for over 60 percent of our crude oil, I think they have gotten us--meaning OPEC has gotten the United States--over a barrel.
We have also seen a sustained increase in the demand and cost of natural gas. Because natural gas is now the fuel of choice for new electricity generation, the demand for natural gas is no longer seasonal. While our existing policies in Washington have created the increased demand for natural gas, we have done very little to ensure a domestic supply to meet that demand.
In fact, the increased exploration is not bringing in enough new natural gas online to keep up with the increased needs we have in this country. Hence, as you understand economics 101, when supply is down, price is up; hence, higher natural gas prices.
The fact is, high fuel prices remain a concern for transportation firms. High energy prices hurt steel mills, manufacturers, farmers, and eventually end up hurting all consumers. High energy prices cost American jobs. Unless we increase supply, we are going to see record high prices again this year, and we are going to see a continued drag on the American economy.
We need to help the manufacturing and agricultural industries save existing jobs and go beyond that to create new jobs. We need to lower our Nation's energy costs.
What are the alternatives? We could and should apply pressure to members of OPEC to increase supplies. Some have suggested releasing crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase supply and drive down prices.
I believe we can and must take action in the Senate to address rising energy costs. As my colleagues know, we have been considering a comprehensive energy bill in this Chamber for over a period of 3 years now, with the most progress made last year when we had a bill pass the House, a bill pass the Senate, a bill come successfully out of conference committee, and overwhelmingly pass the House of Representatives, but being defeated or at least stalled here on the floor of the Senate last November when we came up two votes short of stopping debate, to stop the filibuster, to get to finality. So it is quite obvious we have the votes to pass an energy bill in the Senate.
It is a shame we cannot get over that hurdle of 60 votes to get this bill there, to get us on the road to greater self-sufficiency with energy as we try to do it through a combination of incentives for fossil fuel production, incentives for energy conservation, and for alternative and renewable fuels. That conference committee agreement was voted on last November. Unfortunately, we had a minority of Senators successful in filibustering the bill.
I strongly support the chairman of the Energy Committee, Senator Domenici, in his efforts, then as well as now, to move this bill forward or, short of moving it forward, a bill of a similar nature to start over as hopefully one way of getting around a Democratic filibuster.
I am pleased Senator Domenici has introduced a slimmed-down bill that addresses the major concerns that prevented the Senate from adopting the conference report. This bill goes a long way toward increasing domestic energy production of conventional energy such as oil, natural gas, and nuclear power. The bill includes provisions to improve the tax treatment of natural gas gathering and distribution lines. It includes incentives for the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to markets in the lower 48. The bill seeks to improve our Nation's electricity transmission capacity and reliability by creating enforceable and mandatory reliability standards and providing incentives for transmission grid improvements.
It also includes a number of provisions that would increase domestic production of renewable energy and create jobs at home. Through the renewable fuels standard, it would double the use of domestic homegrown ethanol, a first-time tax incentive for biodiesel to be made from soybeans.
It would also bring new sources of energy on line. It would extend the wind energy production tax credit that I first got through the Senate in 1992. It would have an expansion of the production tax credit for biomass and a tax incentive for purchases of residential solar and wind energy equipment.
Each of these provisions will increase our production of domestic renewable energy resources. They will also create thousands--some people have estimated 800,000--of jobs all across our country.
The bill also includes incentives for energy-efficient improvements to existing homes and for the purchase of alternative fuel vehicles. These initiatives will lead to an increased domestic supply of energy, a more stable economy, and thousands of jobs for America's workers. Make no mistake about it, this energy bill is a jobs bill.
As I indicated, these provisions are in a new bill that Senator Domenici is trying to move along. But the ideal way to handle this would be to get two more votes to bring to an end the filibuster of the bill that was before the Senate last November because all of these provisions are included in that bill. There is no reason to start all over again, particularly when now, compared to last November, we have the highest price for gasoline in the history of our country, and we still have outrageously high prices for natural gas.
It is time this country has a national energy policy. There is no reason two Senators who are in the minority should stand in the way of moving this legislation along, legislation that passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly last year, came out of conference after about 2 months of work on putting together a compromise that could get an overwhelming vote in the House of Representatives and get a vast majority vote in the Senate, but two votes short of the 60, the extraordinary supermajority it takes to stop a filibuster. I don't understand why we have Democrats from corn States, with everything this bill does for the production of ethanol that would help the farmers of their States, and also help the energy needs of our Nation, how
any Senator who is from a big corn-producing State could dare vote not to end this filibuster.
There are votes out there from members of the other party, from corn- producing States, who ought to explain to their constituents why they won't join in this effort with other farm State Senators to bring massively on line the production of ethanol that can help us be more energy independent from OPEC nations, particularly in a time when Americans are shedding blood in Iraq because we need some stability in the Middle East to guarantee oil coming to our country. Obviously, the blood I am talking about is shed because of the war we are in, the war to defeat terrorism against Americans, against western culture, but also the sort of democracy we can have in the Middle East brings stability that we don't have there now. And it is important to have that stability for the economic needs of our country.
I don't know why we can't get some votes from some farm State Democrats. We only need two of about half a dozen, whom we could easily identify, who should be voting with us to bring finality to this issue.
I believe these bills on energy, because we have this pending bill before the Senate and we have the conference report that is through the House and two votes short of getting to finality in the Senate last November--whichever one you are talking about--I believe these bills represent a comprehensive energy policy consisting of conservation efforts, the development of renewable and alternative energy sources, and domestic production of traditional sources of energy. This bill goes a long way to develop an energy policy that will drive down the cost of energy and create jobs at home so that we don't have to have the outrage that we have on the Senate floor, primarily from members of the other party, over 3 out of the last 5 years when energy prices have been so high. Why don't we do something about it? We have an opportunity. We don't seem to grasp it now when it is here.
This bill is too important to our economy to let it die. Therefore, I strongly encourage Members on both sides of the aisle to help our leadership bring either the conference committee up for a vote on the issue of stopping debate or the new bill that Senator Domenici has placed before the Senate, to bring it to the floor and consider it in a timely manner, and timely is already probably 3 months late as we have seen the energy prices go up to the highest level, hurting our economy. We can and should come to an agreement so we can consider and pass this JOBS bill as soon as possible.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending Grassley amendment No. 2687 be agreed to; provided further that I then be immediately recognized to offer a further second degree related to net operating loss. I further ask consent that the amendment then be agreed to, and the underlying amendment No. 2686 be agreed to, as amended, with the motions to reconsider laid upon the table. I further ask consent that Senator Harkin then be recognized in order to offer an amendment relating to overtime; further, that no second degrees be in order to that amendment prior to a vote in relation to that amendment.
Mr. President, then, according to the unanimous consent agreement, I send an amendment to the desk for Senators Bunning, Lincoln, Santorum, Conrad, and Baucus.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. President, I would like to comment on the remarks of the Senator from Nevada. He mentioned the possibility of a cloture motion. My colleague from Iowa also mentioned that possibility, and it could be a possibility. But I hope that will not poison the waters as we still try to reach agreement on this amendment and try to reach agreement on getting to finality on this bill.
I, along with Senator Baucus, have urged that we not have a cloture motion. That, of course, is a leadership decision. I would urge my colleagues to think in terms of the fact that it takes 48 hours for that motion to mature so it can be voted upon. That will be time for us to see if we can work out agreements not only on the pending amendment but also on any other amendments that may be adopted, and then, if so, the cloture motion could be vitiated.
I hope Members will look down the road at the goal of this legislation. That goal is to create jobs that are going to be very difficult to create if we are stuck with sanctions put on our manufacturing by the European Union. We already have 5-percent sanctions. It is going to go up 1 percent a month until it gets to 17 percent. Between now and the election, that is going to add up to at least 12-percent sanctions.
I hope both sides of the aisle will agree that it is already very difficult for U.S. manufacturing to compete in the global economy. A 17-percent penalty after 1 year is just like a 17-percent sales tax. That is going to make our manufacturing exports much more uncompetitive. Since everybody is concerned about creating and preserving jobs, keeping American manufacturing strong, competitive, passage of this legislation is very important.
We all have amendments we want to get adopted. We want the Senate to consider amendments, whether germane or nongermane. There is plenty of opportunity between now and adjournment of this Congress to consider these amendments. In the meantime, if we don't pass this legislation this week, we are going to have a 6-percent penalty in April, a 7- percent penalty in May. I hope we can get this legislation passed very soon so we can get rid of all those sanctions against our products.
In the meantime we have reduced the corporate tax for manufacturing in America by 3 percentage points, and that is going to make it possible for the cost of capital in America to be less expensive and make American manufacturing much more competitive and, in the process, preserve jobs and create jobs.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
Will the Senator yield? I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his continued strong support of our working families, especially on the issues of the minimum wage and overtime. I was listening to…
Will the Senator yield?
I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his continued strong support of our working families, especially on the issues of the minimum wage and overtime. I was listening to the Senator talk about the issue dealing with training in the armed services. I ask the Senator, is it not true that since 1938, when we have gone through World War II, the Korean War, the cold war, the Vietnam War, Gulf War, everything else, during that time our young men and women who served in the military who got training and then later got out were still eligible for overtime pay regardless of the kind of training they got?
I ask the Senator further, would this not then set up the oddest kind of circumstance with a veteran and a nonveteran? Let's say two young people just got out of high school. They see these ads on television that say join the Army, be all you can be, get all this training to help you out. One friend decides to go in the Army. The other doesn't. It is a volunteer force. The person who goes in the Army gets training as an aerospace mechanic on engines or something like that, and comes out. The other person has not gone in the military, has different jobs, gets some kind of on-the-job training. Could this not set up a circumstance where if both of them were working for the same company, the person who entered the military and got that training, because of the way it is written in the rules, could be classified exempt from overtime, and the person who didn't go in the military would still get the overtime for the same exact job? Wouldn't this be the kind of situation that could arise?
Mr. President, the Senator has put his finger on it. This proposal by the administration to take away the rights of up to 8 million Americans on overtime is what I call a job-killing proposal. The Senator is absolutely right. It is common sense.
Look, if you have people working and you can work them over 40 hours and not pay them time and a half, but regular pay, why would you hire anybody else? You would just work them longer. In fact, I say to the Senator--and he may well be aware of this--when they put out the proposed rules, they put out certain examples on how employers could get around paying overtime. One of the proposals--I will read it into the Record later; I have done it previously--was to say, look, what you do is simply reclassify your workers; you then pay them a little bit less, but work them longer so your out-of-pocket expenses are the same, but you work them over 40 hours a week. What a deal.
This is like the IRS telling people how to cheat on their taxes and giving them information on how to get around the IRS Code. At a time when we need jobs in this country, this is another disincentive to creating jobs. Not only do they want to outsource jobs to other countries, I say to my friend; they now want to tell the American worker to work longer every week and don't expect to get paid any more for it.
If the Senator will yield. Again, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for not forgetting his populace roots of North Dakota. When the Senator speaks on the floor, as he just has, he speaks with clarity, common sense, and the wisdom of the common man and woman. That is why I have always admired the Senator from North Dakota.
What he has just said strikes right at the heart of what the common man and woman in this country feel--that their rights to at least overtime pay, if they are working over 40 hours, are being taken away without their having anything to say about it.
As the Senator pointed out very clearly, we are not being allowed our right to represent the common man and woman--his constituents in North Dakota, my constituents in Iowa, or anywhere else in this country--in getting a vote on the Senate floor as to whether we will permit the administration to take away those overtime rights.
I say to the Senator this is something that should not be allowed to happen on the Senate floor. I thank the Senator for his stalwart support for our working men and women and for insisting we have a vote on this Senate floor. The Senator is absolutely right that we are having all kinds of games being played, all kinds of little parliamentary tricks, so we will not vote on this.
There is one other thing I want to ask the Senator from North Dakota, who also has a keen insight and judgment on issues dealing with fairness and taxation and jobs going overseas.
This morning, the senior Senator from Iowa, who is the chairman of the Finance Committee, went on to talk about how if we do not pass this bill there are going to be tariffs because the WTO said we are in violation, and so therefore we have to change the law or we are going to have to start paying tariffs.
I am reading from what basically he said this morning: The sanctions began on March 1, 5 percent. The Senator from Iowa said: It is like a 5-percent sales tax on everything we are going to sell overseas or stuff we are going to sell overseas. He said by March it would be 5 percent; 6 percent in April; 7 percent in May; 8 percent in June; 9 percent in July; 10 percent in August; 11 percent in September; 12 percent by November.
So will the Senator from North Dakota help me clear up my thinking on this? I hear now that the Republicans, since they do not want to vote on the overtime amendment, may actually pull the bill, kill this bill, which means then we will have to pay tariffs to Europe, we will have to pay a penalty, that may amount, according to the Senator from Iowa, up to $4 billion a year. Am I correct, I ask the Senator from North Dakota, that they would rather pay tariffs to Europe than overtime to our workers?
That is what they are saying. If they pull this bill, we will have to pay these tariffs; we will be paying money to Europe but we will not be paying overtime. Does the Senator from North Dakota see it that way, that somehow because they do not want to vote on overtime they will pay tariffs to Europe but not overtime to our people? I ask the Senator from North Dakota what kind of fairness is there to our working people in that?
Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from North Dakota for the eloquence of his statement and I thank Senator Dorgan for his unwavering support through all the years I have been privileged to know him and be his friend, his unwavering support for the common man and woman in this country, for working families, for our farmers and ranchers out in the West and the Midwest.
Senator Dorgan is always eloquent in his remarks. As you listen to Senator Dorgan speak, you can hear the voice of that average man and that average woman out there who are not big time lobbyists down here on K Street; as Senator Dorgan said, they don't have the shiny shoes and suspenders and whatever else. They are out there working every day, feeding and clothing their families. They have a decent life. They give their kids a good education. They do what they can to make sure their kids have a little bit better life than they have had. It is called the American dream. And no one has been a stronger supporter of ensuring that American dream for our working families than the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan.
I thank him for all that support through all the years and for carrying on the fight for overtime and making sure our workers are paid the overtime that is due them when they work over 40 hours a week.
Earlier today I pointed out the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Thomas from California, according to the Congressional Quarterly, told a business group yesterday he thinks this foreign tax bill we have before us is doomed. Those were his words. He pointed the finger at the business community, according to today's issue of the national journal Congress Daily. Mr. Thomas, in other words, was blaming K Street lobbyists for this bill's likely demise in the House.
It seems to me what we have is a bill that is already being slow- walked by some of the majority leadership in the Senate because the leaders on the other side don't want to vote on overtime. I hope we don't hear anything from the other side saying somehow we are to blame for slowing down this bill. We had a unanimous consent agreement. My amendment was in line to be offered. I offered the amendment in good faith. I was even asking if we could have a time agreement. Imagine that. I offered the amendment. I offered a time agreement. I couldn't even be given a time agreement by the other side.
Then the Republican side goes ahead and files this motion to recommit with an amendment on it and then they filed cloture and all this gobbledygook parliamentary stuff. What it means is we will not vote today. We will have a cloture vote tomorrow. They will not get cloture. Then I hear rumors the leadership on the Republican side will then pull the bill and somehow blame Democrats, blame Democrats, us, our side, for not getting this bill through.
I will tell you, talk about chutzpah. That is like the person who went before the judge for having killed his parents and then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he was an orphan.
The other side is responsible for killing this bill. Have no doubt. Make no bones about it. They are responsible because they don't want to vote on overtime. They don't want to vote. They get kind of wobbly in the knees. Their ankles get weak. They break out in a cold sweat when they think they might have to vote on whether to uphold the administration's proposed rules that will take overtime pay away from hard-working American families. They have to vote against the administration.
Sometimes we are called upon to represent our constituents. As hard as that may be to believe by some, sometimes we are called upon to represent our constituents, not the administration but to represent our people.
The administration may want to take away overtime pay. That may be their position. But at least we ought to have the right to vote on whether we ought to uphold that decision.
I know it may come as a shock to many Americans, but sometimes we are not allowed to vote in the Senate. We are not allowed to vote on an amendment. I have my amendment pending. They won't let us vote on it because they filed this cloture motion, this parliamentary device.
As the Senator from North Dakota said, I don't care how many times we have to be here. We will be back, we will be back, we will be back to vote on whether we are going to take overtime pay away from American workers.
If we don't vote on it tomorrow, we will vote on it some other time, or my friends on the other side will continue to pull bill after bill after bill because they don't want to vote on it. Maybe they think they can just go ahead and issue the final regulations. Then it will be sort of a fait accompli. Evidently, we will not do anything.
I am sorry, Mr. President. If that is the case, we will be back with an amendment to say they will not go into effect until we have had open and public hearings on these regulations.
We will have a vote on it. My friends on the other side of the aisle are just putting off the inevitable. Maybe for one reason or another they don't want this bill to go through anyway. That is kind of an odd position, as I said to the Senator from North Dakota. As the chairman of the committee said this morning, under the international agreements we have on trade, the World Trade Organization rules that our pretax policy is an illegal export subsidy, and consequently the WTO has authorized Europe to go up to $4 billion a year against certain U.S. exports. The sanctions began on March 1. They started at 5 percent. Then they go up 1 percent a month, all the way up to 17 percent over the course of a year. I don't want to pay those tariffs. I don't want to pay those penalties.
I would like to get this bill through. The other side, though, simply because they do not want a vote on overtime, is saying they are going to go ahead and pay these tariffs. It seems to me what they are saying is they would rather pay tariffs to Europe than overtime to workers. That is exactly what is happening. Pay the tariffs to Europe but don't pay overtime to our workers.
A lot has been said about the American worker and working families. I wonder how many people know that right now American workers work longer per year than anyone else in the industrialized world. This chart shows it. For the years 2002 and 2003, American workers are working in the United States almost 2,000 hours a year--more than Australia, Japan, Spain, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, or Germany. Not only are we working longer hours per year, we are now being told if we work overtime we will not get paid for it.
Do you know what is going to happen if these rules go into effect? This bar will go way up because then employers will work their employees longer because they don't have to pay them overtime. We already work longer.
What is the history of this bill? This kind of gets to the crux again of what is happening here with the proposed rules on overtime. I said last summer when I offered this amendment and it was adopted by the Senate, the biggest impact of taking away overtime pay protection would be on women. People wondered why I said that. Why would women be impacted most? For two reasons: One, because the annual hours worked by middle-income wives with children in 1979 were 895 hours a year. By the year 2000, that had gone to 1,308 hours a year. Women with children are working more--not quite double but almost--than what they were a mere 21 years ago.
Most of these jobs are in certain types of clerical positions in which women have been engaged. Some of them are in positions which are going to be reclassified under the proposed rules as ``professions.'' These are the kinds of jobs that are mostly held by working women, and mostly by working mothers. The biggest impact will be on working women. The initial wave of impact will be on working women.
I have a statement from Susan Moore of Chicago. She said:
I am currently entitled to time and a half under Federal
law. I know for a fact that is the reason I am not required
to work long hours like the project managers who are not
entitled to overtime pay. My supervisor has to think hard
about whether to assign overtime to me because he has to pay
for my time. That means more time for my family and that time
is important to me. If the law changes and I lose my right to
overtime pay, I will be faced with the impossible choice of
losing time with my family or losing my job.
This is a statement from Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA. She said:
I began my career as a supply clerk earning $3.10 an hour
in 1976. I entered an upward mobility program and received
training to become an engineer technician with a career
ladder that gave me a yearly boost in income. It seemed,
though, that even with a decent raise every year, I really
relied on overtime income to help make ends meet.
I am a working single parent. There are many more single
parents today with the same problem. How does one pay for the
car that broke down or the braces for the children's teeth?
Overtime income has been the lifesaver to many of us.
When I as a working mother leave my 8-hour day job and go
home, my second shift begins. There is dinner to cook, dishes
to wash, laundry and all the other housework that must be
done which adds another 3 to 4 hours to your workday. When
one has to put in extra hours at work, it takes away from the
time needed to take care of our personal needs.
Listen to Sheila Perez who is from Bremerton, WA, a single parent. She says:
It only seems fair that one should be compensated for that
extra effort of working overtime. Overtime is a sacrifice of
one's time, energy, physical and mental well-being.
Compensation should be commensurate in the form of premium
pay as it is a premium of one's personal time, energy and
expertise that is being used.
If I might interpret what Sheila Perez is saying, she says: I am a single parent. I work hard. I rely on overtime. When I get home from work, I have another job taking care of my kids, doing all of my laundry. My time with my kids at home on the weekends is my premium time. If I am being asked to give up my premium time to work on the job, I ought to be given premium pay.
I can't say it any better than Sheila Perez. Again, it is another example why this is going to hit working women the hardest.
I am just notified that CongressDaily, as of 3 p.m., which was only about 40 minutes ago, had this statement. CongressDaily comes out during the day, and at 3 p.m. said:
A senior GOP leadership aide reiterated today that GOP
leaders will refuse a floor vote on the amendment from
Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to strike a labor provision
involving overtime pay for white-collar workers.
I don't know if that is true. It is being reported in CongressDaily at 3 p.m. that they will refuse a floor vote on my amendment; refuse it. Why is it they get so wobbly in the knees, with weak ankles, and break out in a cold sweat? Maybe they are just afraid of George Bush. Maybe they are afraid of the administration downtown.
I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, don't be afraid of them; be afraid of the people you represent. They are the ones who pay your salary. They are the ones who vote to send you here. They are the ones whose overtime is being assaulted, not the President and the people down at the White House.
Last summer in August, Peter Hart Research Associates, a well-known national pollster, did a poll. This was the question: There is now a proposal to change the Federal law that determines which employees have the legal
right to overtime pay. This proposal would eliminate the right to overtime pay for 7 million employees who now have that right. Do you favor or oppose this proposal? In favor, 14 percent; oppose,74 percent.
That is not even close. I can understand why the other side would not want to vote on this. Maybe they feel dutybound, politically bound, party bound to support their President. Therefore, they would not want to vote because they know 74 percent of the American people are opposed to this proposal to take away their overtime pay, the right to overtime pay.
This is an issue that strikes, as so many before me have said, at the heart of fairness and equity to American workers. What could be more fair than if you have to work over 40 hours a week, you have to be paid time-and-a-half overtime? That is the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938.
What is a little known fact is that a debate raged in this country for a long period of time--I would say almost 40 years from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, at least until 1938--on restricting the number of hours that an American worker had to work without getting some kind of extra pay. Remember, in those days we even had child labor; we got rid of that. The American workers were working 50, 60, 70 hours a week with no protection by labor unions, no rights whatever. Finally, slowly but surely, organized labor grew, more and more rights were attained by our workers, and then the debate ensued about how many hours a week should a worker work without being paid overtime.
A little known fact: In 1937, this Senate, in this very Chamber in which we find ourselves today, right here in this Chamber, the Senate, in 1937, voted to establish a 30-hour workweek. Imagine, right here in the Senate where we are standing, the Senate, in 1937, voted for a 30- hour workweek. The debate ensued, and finally, by 1938 they compromised. The compromise was a 40-hour week with time-and-a-half overtime. Think about that: the Senate, in 1937, actually voted to establish a 30-hour workweek. Today, we cannot even get a vote in the Senate on whether we will pay people overtime to work over 40 hours a week. We cannot get a vote on it.
That says something about the difference of the Senate in 1937 from the Senate in 2004. I wonder how many votes the Senate would get today if someone offered a vote to establish a 30-hour workweek. Do you think it would get 10 votes? In 1937 they got a majority of the votes, right here in the Senate. Yet now they are working longer and longer hours every year. More and more people are being made to work over 40 hours a week and not being paid for it.
The reason I hear so much is we need to reclassify workers. The reclassification they are talking about basically would hit women the hardest, would reclassify them as being professional and therefore exempt from overtime. Again, they have done this without having one public hearing. I think they thought they could get by with it; just issue these rules and that would be the end of it. The American people have spoken loudly and strongly, saying they are not going to sit down and let their rights to overtime pay be taken away.
Congress Daily, today at 3 p.m. says, quoting a senior GOP leadership aide, GOP leaders will refuse a floor vote on my amendment.
As I said a week or so ago--and I see my colleague from California-- and I am not in the habit of quoting the present Governor of California, the movie actor, but I will quote him in saying ``I'll be back.'' We'll be back. This is not going to go away. If the other side thinks by doing these parliamentary tricks that somehow we will give up, they are wrong.
We will not give up because we are fighting for the rights of American workers to have justice and fairness in their working conditions. As Sheila Perez said, from Bremerton, WA, if she is forced to give up her premium time, her time with her family, she ought to get premium pay.
We will continue to fight for this.
I am delighted to yield.
Why don't I yield the floor so the Senator can be recognized.
Before I do, let me thank my colleague from California, Senator Boxer, for her longtime unyielding support for our working families. No one has fought harder, more consistently, and with such eloquence than the Senator from California. I know the people of California recognize in Senator Boxer they have a fighter who will not give up and who will not back down in fighting for their families' rights.
I yield the floor.
Will my colleague yield?
I thank my colleague for pointing this out. I think this does clarify it. Because who better to respond than the people being affected, the police officers?
I say to my friend from California that this, right here, is very instructive:
We also believe it is unrealistic for unions to claim that
overtime pay granted under a current collective bargaining
agreement is likely to be revoked during a new negotiation.
I ask the Senator, am I correct that what she is actually saying is, however, now overtime pay will be a negotiable item?
See, now it is nonnegotiable.
Am I right on that?
I thank the Senator from California. This really does point out what is very important.
Again, I ask the Senator if I am correct in my interpretation, because I want to make sure I am clear on this, that right now, for these certain classes that are not being reclassified as it exists, if you work over 40 hours a week, you have a contract negotiation that is not even negotiable because you are covered by overtime law.
See, that is it.
The Senator has done something of great value to all of us by bringing this out. A lot of the time we hear these things, but this puts it in focus.
The Secretary says:
Hourly workers not affected by part 541 under either the
current or proposed rules.
But is there anything in the proposed rules that would prevent an employer from saying: OK, you were an hourly worker. We have now reclassified you. You are now a professional. Don't you feel good? You are now a professional. And guess what. You don't get overtime.
There is nothing to stop them from doing that.
The Senator, basically, is thanking the wrong person. The Senator should look in the mirror if she wants to thank someone. The people of California are privileged to have a fighter like Barbara Boxer representing them in the Senate. I mean that. Not only is the Senator a personal friend of mine but someone I admire so much because she never backs down. When Senator Boxer speaks, you hear clearly the voices of the common man and woman, the person who doesn't have a voice here, individuals who will never set foot on the Senate floor, who never will be privileged to speak in this hallowed Chamber. The Senator from California speaks for them.
I send an amendment to the desk. I ask for the yeas and nays. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. President, last night the majority leader set up a process for moving this bill to a cloture vote.…
I send an amendment to the desk.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. President, last night the majority leader set up a process for moving this bill to a cloture vote. This is not our preferred route for moving what is clearly a bipartisan bill voted out of committee 19 to 2. The two dissenting votes happened to be Republicans, not Democrats. This is clearly a bipartisan bill. A bipartisan bill should not require a cloture vote to get passed.
I remain hopeful we will be able to work out an agreement on moving the bill forward without the need for this extraordinary parliamentary process, but if cloture is the only way to move this bill, then I hope everybody will support cloture. We need to support cloture in the same bipartisan manner we used to build this bill. It is urgent that we move this bill immediately.
This bill reduces the income tax on goods manufactured in the United States and sold overseas so we can create jobs in America. We give a priority on taxation to goods made in America.
Everybody in this body is concerned about outsourcing. If we want to do something about keeping jobs in America and adding to the number of jobs in America, this bill will do it. It is going to make our costs of operation less and consequently competitive with world competition. That is why we call it the JOBS bill.
The reason we are in a bad position right now is because under the international agreements we have on trade, the World Trade Organization has ruled that our pretax policy is an illegal export subsidy, and consequently the World Trade Organization has authorized Europe to do up to $4 billion a year in sanctions against U.S. exports.
It isn't just the case of our tax system causing us to not be competitive. On top of that, we now have $4 billion of sanctions to further weigh down our ability to compete in the export market. These sanctions began on March 1. These sanctions started at 5 percent, which is just like a 5-percent sales tax on the stuff we are going to sell. The rule of Economics 101 is if you tax something at a higher rate, you get less of it. But not only is it 5 percent now, it is going to be 5 percent for each month we do not conform our tax laws to our trade agreements.
Remember, we have trade agreements because the U.S. Congress enacted those trade agreements. It has been done by a majority of the representatives of the American people. One percent a month can take us all the way up to a maximum of 17 percent over the course of a year. By November, we are going to have a 12-percent tax on our exports. This is a very serious threat for all States because the sanctions hit a wide range of products--agricultural, timber, and manufacturing products that we sell overseas.
We need to get this issue behind us very soon or we will never get this bill passed and we will continue to have this mounting level of taxation on our products being exported to a point where we are even more uncompetitive, to a point where workers may be laid off; whereas just the opposite can happen if we pass this legislation. We are going to be able to make our manufacturing more competitive and across the board with a wider range--not just for big corporations in America but for individuals that export, for sole proprietorships that are in manufacturing; you name it. People are going to get the benefit of a lower rate of taxation if they manufacture in America--not if they have a company in America and they manufacture overseas but just American jobs, American products made in America, or if a company wants to come over here and invest in America and build a plant and hire American workers, they will get the benefit of it as well.
We had 3 or 4 days on this bill 2 weeks ago. We started on it again yesterday. I think it is very important that we move ahead on this legislation. But the opening debate and the procedural shenanigans confirm my worst fears because there are some on the other side who want to use this legislation to move things that are unrelated to making our industry competitive and unrelated to the motivations behind this bipartisan bill.
Senator Baucus and I agreed on an order of amendments that would improve the bill and broaden important relevant issues. That agreement was undermined by the process coming from the other side of the aisle.
It means Members there presumably do not know the importance of this legislation, do not want to debate the substance of the bill but debate everything else. In a sense, this bipartisan bill is being turned into a political football. That is inexcusable because we have worked hard throughout this process to make sure everyone's concerns, both Republican and Democrat, were incorporated into this bill. You do not play political games with a bipartisan bill that affects the jobs of manufacturing workers across this land.
I take a moment to talk about how bipartisan this bill is. It is bipartisan and was built that way from the ground up. It is the construction that began when my friend and colleague, Senator Baucus, was chairman of the Finance Committee. Senator Baucus held hearings on this issue in July 2002 to address the FSC/ETI controversy going on within the World Trade Organization. The title of the hearing was ``The Role of the Extraterritorial Income Exclusion Act in the International Competitiveness of U.S. Commerce.'' Talk about a chairman taking his responsibilities seriously, Senator Baucus did.
Even then we were concerned about the outsourcing of jobs. We were concerned about American manufacturing being able to compete with the global environment we are in. We heard at that time vital testimony from a cross-section of industries that would be adversely affected by the repeal of this extraterritorial income act.
We also heard from U.S. companies that were clamoring for international tax reform more broadly than FSC/ETI because our tax rules were hurting their competitiveness in the foreign markets. If you want to create jobs in America, and we have a tax system that makes us uncompetitive, would you not expect the Congress of the United States to respond, and respond in a bipartisan way to that problem for our manufacturers? Or if you did not, why would you harangue about outsourcing? You need to do something about it.
These companies that testified in the summer of 2002 told us their foreign competitors were running circles around them because of our antiquated international taxing rules. During this hearing, we had our colleagues, Senator Bob Graham of Florida and Senator Hatch of Utah, express concerns about how our international tax laws were impairing the competitiveness of U.S. companies. After some discussion on forming a blue-ribbon commission to study this problem, we all decided that decisive action was more important than the usual commission approach that usually ends up with a lot of public relations and high talk but no action.
During that hearing, then-Chairman Baucus formed an international tax working group that was joined by Senator Graham, Senator Hatch, and this Senator, and was open to any other Finance Committee Senator interested in this issue. The bipartisan Finance Committee working group formed the basis for the bill we are debating this very minute. We directed our staff to engage in an exhaustive analysis of many international reform proposals that have been offered. Our efforts were intended to glean the very best ideas from as many sources as possible.
Senator Baucus and I also formed a bipartisan, bicameral working group with the chairman and ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee of the other body in an effort to find some common ground on dealing with this repeal of FSC/ETI. Obviously, that did not go so well because the other body has come out with legislation somewhat different than ours. Consequently, they are finding it very difficult to get the votes to pass it in the other body. That is another reason, if we move quickly, maybe we can impress upon the House of Representatives that this body can function, this body works; we have a good product and maybe that will encourage bipartisanship in the House of Representatives.
Through this working group we continued our efforts in cooperation with
Senator Hatch, Senator Bob Graham, and other members of the Finance Committee who wanted to do what was fair and what was right in complying with this World Trade Organization ruling. We continued our bipartisan efforts when I became chairman in 2003. In July last year, we held two hearings on the FSC/ETI and international reform issues. One hearing focused on: ``An Examination of the United States Tax Policy and Its Effect on Domestic and International Competitiveness of United States-Based Operations,'' building upon the very successful hearing that chairman Baucus had in 2002.
Our second hearing was entitled ``United States Tax Policy and Its Effects on International Competitiveness of United States-Owned Foreign Operations,'' as opposed to United States-based operations in the first hearing. These two hearings concluded our final bipartisan effort in reviewing all of the policy options that led to the creation of the bill that is before the Senate right now.
Let me again emphasize there is not one provision in this JOBS bill that was not agreed to by both Republicans and Democrats. We have acted in good faith. We have acted in the best of faith to produce a bill that takes American manufacturing jobs and ensures that our companies remain the global competitors we want them to be. We did this in a fully bipartisan manner, which is what the American people expect on such an important issue as manufacturing jobs in our Nation's economic health.
These efforts that have been expended to bring this bill to this point are apparently not enough for some. They still view this whole process as political punt, pass, and kick competition. I now realize there are some who do not want this bill to pass, and maybe not having it passed will serve their political end. They want economic downturns that continued sanctions will produce to continue economic doldrum.
Several weeks ago, an article in the Washington Post quoted a Democratic tax aide as saying: ``There is not a lot of incentive for us to figure out this problem.'' The Democratic aide went on to say that allowing the extraterritorial income controversy to fester would yield increased sanctions that somehow would benefit the Democrats in November. That is an appalling statement because we hear the concern that is legitimately expressed about outsourcing.
We have a bill before the Senate that can do something about outsourcing. We have a situation before the Senate that if we do not pass this bill, not only will we not have some tax advantage we thought we once had, but we will have the sanctions on top of that to weight down American industry so more people are laid off.
How can Members one day give a speech about outsourcing and the next day slow down a bill that does something about outsourcing? Outsourcing only comes as a matter of competition. There is not any American businessperson sitting around anyplace that decides, I want Mary's job to go to India. I want Pete's job to go to China. I want Ralph's job to go to Russia.
There is not any American businessman who speaks in terms of: I don't want this American to have a job, because they would not have hired them in the first place.
This outsourcing happens because they look at what their competition is paying to produce a product. In the economics of business, when you are a businessperson, wherever in the world, if you do not make a profit, you are not going to be in business. So a businessperson seeing that he is not competitive, that is where you lead to outsourcing.
Now these American manufacturers come and testify before our committee. They tell us what makes them noncompetitive. One is the cost of capital in America being high. We have an opportunity to reduce the cost of capital and, at the same time, encourage manufacturing in America. That is what this bill does.
So everyone on both sides of the aisle who talks about outsourcing--I do myself--needs to band together if we are serious about doing something about outsourcing and get behind this effort to get the bill passed because manufacturers tell us this bill will help. And, for sure, they know these sanctions that are on American manufacturing now are an additional burden they cannot withstand.
America's farmers and manufacturing workers must not pay the price for the sort of stonewalling we are seeing. Efforts to delay this bipartisan bill with unrelated measures is a bad excuse. Why would they raise political issues that are unrelated to this bill in an attempt to undermine the JOBS Act?
Delay will allow sanctions to continue and drive down our economy. That will allow sanctions to increase to 12 percent by the November elections. Maybe that is too tempting for some people who are worried about the election instead of the next generation to pass up.
I am hopeful we will see the best politics ends up being good policy. That is what we have with this bill. We help domestic manufacturers. We help U.S. companies compete overseas. Putting politics ahead of good policy is exactly the wrong approach. In effect, this political game does not help those who face the sanctions. It does not help domestic manufacturers and workers in those industries.
A vote against this bill is a vote to continue European Union sanctions, already at 5 percent--6 percent in April, 7 percent in May, 8 percent in June, 9 percent in July, 10 percent in August, 11 percent in September, 12 percent in November.
We are here to represent the interests of the United States. On this bill, we are here to represent the interests of jobs in America. We are here to represent the symbol ``Made in America.''
If we do not pass this bill, whether people realize it, they are representing the interests of the European Union, because it is the European Union which is going to benefit with European jobs.
We have 5.6 percent unemployment in America, which is probably less unemployment than most of my life in politics as an index of how the economy is going. But still, it is bad to have 5.6 percent unemployment. What is worse than the 5.6 percent unemployment is the people who are complaining about the 5.6 percent unemployment and not passing this bill that is going to make employment in America better.
Oh, maybe they are looking over to Germany. Their unemployment rate went up last month to 10.7 percent. By not passing this bill, we might help some German workers get a job, some of the German unemployed get a job. Well, I do not think we ought to put the interests of the European Union first.
The only way to honor our trade obligations and to make American business competitive and to create jobs in America is to pass this bill and repeal the extraterritorial income provisions of our law. It is very simple. It is so simple that is why this is a bipartisan bill. As I said before, I hope the leadership of this body can cooperate, both Republican and Democrat, to focus on this legislation, to focus on the task at hand, and particularly on the other side where all the amendments are coming from, to know the importance of passing this bill, not stalling this bill, and moving forward.
Repealing FSC/ETI raises about $55 billion over 10 years, and 89 percent of that money comes from manufacturing. It gives us an opportunity to use that $55 billion to emphasize American manufacturing, the creation of jobs in America, and to use that $55 billion as an incentive to American manufacturers to manufacture here and not to manufacture overseas.
We need to send that money back to the manufacturing sector because if we do not, then besides these sanctions, we have a $50 billion tax increase on American manufacturing.
The Congressional Budget Office says we have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs since July of 2000. Is this manufacturing decline something the Bush administration did? No. It started in July of 2000. A $50 billion tax increase will not stimulate manufacturing jobs.
Again, simple principles of economics 101: If you tax something more, you get less of it.
The JOBS bill uses all of the money from the FSC/ETI repeal to give a 3 percentage point tax cut on all income derived from manufacturing in the United States. Let me emphasize: just in the United States. It is not for manufacturing by American companies overseas.
The relief applies not only to big manufacturers but sole proprietors,
partnerships, farmers, individuals, family businesses, multinational corporations if they are manufacturing in America, and also plain big or small foreign companies that set up manufacturing plants in the United States.
We also include international tax reforms, mostly in the foreign tax area, and most of which benefit manufacturing.
Our bill also includes the Homeland Reinvestment Act, which has broad support in both bodies of the Congress.
The Finance bill is revenue neutral. That is another thing we have to do: have it carefully crafted in order to get bipartisan support for this legislation and not add to the deficit; there are both Republicans and Democrats who do not want to pass a tax bill that loses revenue. So we have the ability, by extending Customs user fees--and, more importantly, by shutting down illicit tax shelters, corporate tax shelters, and closing abusive corporate tax loopholes--to raise money to do even more than we have described to be able to do some reform of the international taxing regime generally beyond just FSC/ETI.
As with all bills, there is never complete agreement on this approach. That is even considering the fact it was voted out of committee in a bipartisan way 19 to 2. Remember, all Democrats voted for this bill to come out of committee.
Our bill contains a haircut on the rate reduction some of us would like to remove and others would like to retain. Some Members prefer a reduction in the top corporate rate across the board in place of the international reforms and the manufacturer's rate cut in this bill. I understand the desire for this simpler approach cutting taxes, but a top level rate cut would only go to the biggest corporations of America. Local family-held S corporations and partnerships, which presently get some extraterritorial income benefits, get nothing from this. If we redirect FSC/ETI money to an across-the-board corporate cut, then the manufacturing sector will be the revenue offset. In other words, we are going to be shifting from tax advantages from manufacturing to services where we have some problem, but I think we generally agree not as much of a problem as we have in manufacturing.
The international tax reforms largely fix problems our domestic companies face with the complexities of the foreign tax credit. These reforms are necessary if we are to level the playing field for U.S. companies that compete with our trading partners. The Finance Committee bipartisan bill has been improved with an amendment to extend the research and development tax credit through the end of 2005. That is a domestic tax benefit that incentives research and development, makes our businesses competitive and prepared for the next generation of technology. This, however, translates also into good, high-paying jobs for workers in America and not overseas.
In addition to the previously agreed upon R&D amendment, there are several additional provisions to improve this bill. We have the amendment by Senators Bunning and Stabenow, a bipartisan amendment to accelerate the manufacturing deduction. This amendment ensures the tax relief and related economic benefits of the bill are provided more quickly to those hurt by the repeal of FSC/ETI. This is now part of the bill.
Second, there is an amendment I offered with Senator Baucus to extend for 2 years tax provisions that have expired. Some expired in 2003, some this year. This includes items such as the work opportunity tax credit and the welfare-to-work tax credit which have been merged and simplified into a single credit as proposed by Senator Santorum and others in the bill S. 1180. This is now a part of the legislation.
A third provision on net operating losses is also included. This provision allows companies that operated at losses during the difficult economic conditions of last year to offset those losses against their income of the previous 5 years. So this provision is going to accelerate tax relief to companies that need it to continue operations and to continue their recovery from the recent economic difficulties. This provision is now in the bill.
The JOBS bill before us also contains many other items that are widely supported by the Members. We have enhanced the amount of transition relief for U.S. manufacturing companies that will be harmed by the FSC/ETI repeal. We have enhanced depreciation provisions, brownfield revitalization, mortgage revenue bonds. We allow deductions from private mortgage insurance for people struggling to afford a home.
The bill includes tax benefits for reservist employees that provides a tax credit to employers for wages paid to reservists who have been called up to active duty. We have extended and enhanced the Liberty Zone Bonds for the rebuilding of New York City, particularly requested by its two Senators. We have increased industrial development bond levels to spur economic development. We have included the Civil Rights Tax Fairness Act. We have provided for rail infrastructure and broadband.
All of these benefits are being held hostage because some Members are pushing politically motivated votes on an issue that is not even in this bill. Let's get on with the business at hand and finish it. Let's put good economic policy first in the Senate.
We do have the issue of cloture which comes up periodically when we have to get to the completion of legislation. I, for one, was hoping this cloture would not be filed. That is the way Senator Baucus and I hoped it would happen. I have to deal with the fact it is filed. My colleague Senator Baucus has to deal with that fact as well. This needs to be dealt with on a little higher plain than from bill to bill.
I propose to the leadership of the Republican and Democratic caucuses that somehow, if we are going to get between now and adjournment this fall, without a lot of waste of time on the part of the Senate and the 100 Members equally affected, that we get a list of the so-called amendments I referred to as politically motivated. I think the other side sees they have certain issues that ought to get before the American people, ought to be discussed. Republicans have some of those issues as well that Democrats would just as soon we not bring up. I don't know why there can't be some agreement unrelated to a specific bill before the Senate that certain of these issues are going to be brought up, and we will find someplace to handle one on this bill, one on another bill, a third one on another bill, so they don't get dumped at one time all on one piece of legislation. Then we know ahead of time what the situation is; there will be a plan for the functioning of the Senate.
I should not speak for Senator Baucus but I believe I can. He comes from a philosophy that this place ought to work, that it ought to make product. We ought to do our job. And I am sure that even though he might have a different view than I do on this issue of cloture, he wishes it were not that way. I wish it were not that way. He wishes there was a plan before us to move every important piece of legislation in an expeditious way because that is what we are sent here to do. We all ought to want to make this place work because when it does not work, it makes all of us look bad. It puts the good of the American people secondary to politics, whether it is Republican politics or Democratic.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, the matter before the Senate is what? Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Mr.…
Mr. President, the matter before the Senate is what?
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, wishes to speak for 15 minutes. I ask following that, the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, be recognized.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, last week, I was in Nevada and I visited a number of police stations and fire stations. Let me direct our attention to the Henderson Police Department that I met with. The chief, the deputy chief, and a number of police officers were there. It was time for a shift change. A number of hard-working police officers were there. I expected them to talk about homeland security and their obligations as first responders. They wanted to talk about that, of course, about the unfunded mandate passed on to police departments in Nevada and all over the country. Henderson, NV, is the second largest city in Nevada. By most standards, it is not really large--about 250,000 people. It is a suburb of Las Vegas, where I went to high school.
They didn't want to talk about homeland security and first responders initially; they wanted to know what is happening to their overtime. That is what is on the minds of firefighters and police officers all over America. As has been established on the Senate floor in the last 2 days during the pendency of the Harkin amendment and efforts to deprive us of a vote on that, people in our country are very concerned about what this administration is doing regarding overtime. This affects about 8 million working men and women in this country. Specifically, it is directed to police officers, who I talked about; firefighters, who I have talked about; and nurses.
A group of young people visited me today in my office upstairs. They were here representing a group of young Jewish leaders from Las Vegas. I asked them what they were going to do and what they were doing. One young lady said she was a student studying to be a nurse. She had less than 2 years to go to complete her degree. I didn't say anything, but what I wanted to say is, Do you know what has happened with this administration? They are trying to take away your overtime. They are trying to make it so that if you are working in a hospital and there is work that needs to be done, you can do it, but you won't get paid for it. I didn't say that to her, but that is what I felt like saying.
Being a chef now is very in vogue. When I was younger, to have somebody say they were going to go to school to be a cook, you didn't hear much about that. Now there are a lot of young men and women who go to school to learn to be a chef. That is the thing to do; it is one of the things to do. They work very hard. People don't realize how hard they work. As their jobs require, especially when big things are going on in the restaurants and they get a convention or some kind of a wedding or anniversary, they are required, because they have a lot of work to do, to work more than 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. Under the proposal we have from the President, they won't be able to get their overtime. Anyone making more than $22,000 a year is, in effect, prevented from getting overtime.
Clerical workers: Why would you want to take the ability of somebody required by virtue of their work to put in extra time and not be paid for it?
Mr. President, the Fair Labor Standards Act, more than 50 years ago, said if a person works more than 8 hours a day, more than 40 hours a week, except under contractor situations, and some other exemptions-- few in number--they are to be paid extra, time and a half, and for working holidays, double time, meaning they work 1 day and get paid as if they worked 2.
Physical therapists, reporters--that is a strange way to punish reporters, but I guess you can do it that way. If you are in the middle of something big, you can just say ``stop'' because you are not going to get paid.
Paralegals, dental hygienists, graphic artists, bookkeepers, lab technicians, and social workers--these are the people included in the 8 million Americans who would lose overtime protection under the proposal of President Bush. That is a shame. It is too bad and it is not fair.
When these police officers and firefighters ask me about overtime-- when you go to these kinds of meetings, you don't want to be partisan. That takes away the purpose of your being there. What was I to say? I could only respond that our President has suggested--I should not say suggested--he has directed this. There is now, of course, a rule in effect, which is working its way through the process, to take away the ability of people who make more than $21,000 a year to make overtime pay. I told them that.
They are worried about their overtime pay. Families depend on overtime. It is not just the firefighters I saw in Reno or the police officers I met at Henderson whom I spoke about. It is families all over the country who depend on overtime.
As I have indicated, it is not only the firefighters, not only the police officers, nurses, flight attendants, preschool teachers, cooks, secretaries, fast-food shift managers, but 8 million others will lose their right to overtime pay under the new rules the administration wants to adopt.
We hear speeches on this floor, we hear speeches at high school graduations, we hear lectures given to us from the time we are kids until the time we pass on that this country is built upon hard work, that hard work has enabled generations of Americans to own a home, buy a car, do things to make a stronger community and give their children a good education. They say if one works hard in America, that is all it takes.
Americans have been willing to work hard and reach their goals. We are working longer now than we ever have before. Almost one-third of the labor force in our country regularly works longer than a 40-hour week. Twenty percent, 2 out of every 10 workers in America, work up to 50 hours a week. The Fair Labor Standards Act recognized employers would take advantage of employees if they were not required to pay overtime. That is why the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed.
The principle of overtime pay for those who work more than 40 hours a week was part of that act. It was the main purpose of that act. This legislation recognized hard work rewarded those who worked the hardest. Families who work hard depend on overtime pay. In fact, families that work overtime earn 25 percent of their pay in overtime. The administration's proposal would cut their pay by 25 percent.
It would also mean fewer jobs. Why? Of course it would be fewer jobs, because why would an employer bother hiring somebody else when they can just have whoever is working--a nurse, a clerical worker, a reporter, a graphic artist, a social worker--why hire another one? Just make them work more hours. They may not have to work a full shift, just have them work 2 or 3 hours a day. That way they will not have to hire a new person.
Of course, it would mean fewer jobs because companies would simply force their employees to work longer hours instead of hiring new workers. In the current economic condition, when millions of Americans are out of work during this administration, the last 3 years, there have been almost 3 million jobs lost. It does not make sense to do something that will stifle the creation of new jobs when in the private sector we have already lost almost 3 million jobs. Even for the workers who would still qualify for overtime, this is a bad rule, because some by contract would allow people to be paid overtime. Why? Because big companies would force overtime-exempt workers to put in longer hours and cut the hours of those qualified for overtime.
This rule is bad for so many reasons. It punishes working families by cutting their pay. It prevents the creation of new jobs and dishonors hard work, which is one of the things I have talked about, one of those things that has made this country great. Well, these are strong, convincing arguments, not because I made them, but because they are common sense. That is what has been said on this floor during the last 2 days.
Last night, I asked, why are my colleagues going to try to invoke cloture? I heard they were going to file a petition for cloture. I asked that question when we were doing our closing, when the distinguished majority whip said he was sending a petition to the desk to invoke cloture. I asked, why would he do that?
I cannot understand why he would do that. I asked why, because the House overwhelmingly said they wanted to have this overtime rule rescinded, and
in the Senate we voted to rescind this rule.
My distinguished friend, the senior Senator from Kentucky, said we voted on it once. Why do we need to vote on it again?
Let me show my colleagues what we are talking about. The majorities in the Senate and in the House voted against the Bush overtime proposal on September 10 of last year. Yes, we had a vote on it once before. My distinguished friend is right, September, October, November, December, January, February, March--yes, we had one. I counted it on my fingers. It was more than 6 months ago when we had a vote in the Senate, 54 to 45. It did not go party-line votes, but it was close. There were some courageous Republicans who voted against the party line, one of whom is sitting in the chair. They voted against this issue, and it passed.
Not long after that, less than a month after that, the House, by a party-line vote said, no, we do not want to rescind it, they knew they were wrong because of what I have said today, that it punishes working families, it prevents the creation of new jobs, it dishonors hard work, and they recognized that. So by a vote of 221 to 203, the House voted to have the instruction go to the conferees to take what happened in the Senate and rescind what the President had done.
In the middle of the night, the Republican majorities in the House and Senate, without a single Democrat being present, took the Harkin- Kennedy amendment--that is this amendment right here, passed by a vote of 54 to 45--out of the omnibus bill. It comes to the floor and it is not in the bill. Surprise, surprise. Even though it passed, they took it out.
Yes, my friend from Kentucky is right; we had a vote on it over 6 months ago, and by some phantom-like work in the middle of the night, contrary to what I think are rules of fairness, and just brute power, they stripped this from the bill.
By recorded votes, the House and the Senate said they wanted this rule changed, but in spite of our constitutional framework, in spite of the rules we have in the Senate and House and the rules that work to keep the two bodies working together, they were abrogated and we came up with this strange situation.
No, the conferees did not follow these heavy votes. When this bill was rolled into the omnibus, the conference committee struck it. I repeat, the conference committee, which excluded Democrats, ignored the votes of Congress and in doing so ignored the voice of the American people.
I respect the opinions and views of every Member of the Senate, whether or not I agree with those views, because I know every Senator was elected by the citizens of their State. Every Member's opinion carries weight with me because I believe every person in America has a right to be heard. In order for the people to be heard, the votes of those who represent them must count for something in Congress. Unfortunately, the conference committee that stripped Senator Harkin's overtime amendment out of the Omnibus appropriations bill said our votes do not count; the voice of the people does not count; the voice of the people does not matter. Meeting behind closed doors, the committee disregarded the will of Congress and ignored the voice of the American people. So we have to have another vote on this.
We have had those on the other side of the aisle say this is an important bill. Why are we doing this?
Senator Harkin has said he would take a time agreement. What does this mean? We have unlimited debate in the Senate. I think Senator Harkin would take 15 minutes, give the majority 15 minutes, and then vote, an up-or-down vote on whether we want to have a rule in the United States that police officers, nurses, cooks, clerical workers, firefighters, physical therapists, reporters, paralegals, dental hygienists, graphic artists, bookkeepers, lab technicians, and social workers and on and on--8 million people are not going to be able to get overtime. I want a vote here. We want a vote. We are entitled to a vote. The only vote we had, the voice of the people, was stricken in the middle of the night. If this is an important bill, can't we afford 15 minutes to vote on this amendment?
The reason they don't want a vote on this amendment is because they know this amendment of Senator Harkin will pass and the Secretary of Labor will have to issue new directions.
The purpose of the underlying amendment is to protect the jobs of American workers. It is a measure that protects the overtime pay of 8 million people, 8 million people who have families. Remember, 20 percent of these people work up to 50 hours a week; 25 percent of them depend on this overtime pay to make car payments, house payments, furniture payments, to send their kids to school. The voices of the American people are clear, just as the voices of the police officers and firefighters I met in Nevada last week were clear. They want us to protect the overtime pay their families depend on. We have a duty as legislators, national legislators, to stand and speak for the people we represent.
This bill, which is an important tax bill, the majority is willing to take down. The majority is willing to take down this important tax bill that we support on our side. They are willing to take it down, to have it go into limbo as so many other things do, like the gun legislation, like other bills. We can't seem to have closure on much of anything around here because the majority is unwilling to take tough votes. If it is something they disagree with, procedurally they just block us from voting on it.
This matter, that is, overtime pay for 8 million people, is going to be something we are going to vote on. The responsibility for this bill being taken down is not at the hands of the Democrats. It is at the hands of the majority party, the Republican Party, which refuses to have a vote on repealing a decision made by the President of the United States that takes away overtime pay for people who make more than $22,000 a year, as I have listed on this chart. It is wrong.
I told people twice yesterday that seeking to do away with this amendment by a parliamentary maneuver is not going to accomplish anything. We are wasting time. I can just see it now. The majority leader is going to come here and say we don't have time to do these important pieces of legislation; we are so busy.
We are busy wasting time. That is what we are doing. We wasted yesterday. We wasted all day today. We are having a cloture vote tomorrow. Cloture will be defeated. But to even show the complicity of what is happening here by my friends on the other side of the aisle, they were unwilling--they didn't have the nerve to file cloture on the underlying bill. Why? Because it would show directly what they were doing with the Harkin amendment. So they have developed this very interesting procedure where they have a motion here to recommit. The only reason they are doing it this way is so they do not have a direct attack on the FSC/ETI bill, the underlying bill here, and the Harkin amendment. They are going around that and saying we have this motion to recommit. If cloture is invoked, the bill comes back in its regular form.
Say whatever you want to say in however many ways you want to say it, this is an attempt to stop Senator Harkin from having a vote on this overtime issue. It is wrong. No matter how many times people say we are going to be able to vote on it some other time, the record is replete with our cooperating in the first few months of this legislative session.
We have said to Senator Harkin on many occasions, Let us go ahead and do this legislation. Let us work on this legislation. You can offer it on the next piece of legislation. And then the next piece of legislation.
We are at the end of the rope. The American people will no longer let us avoid this issue. This is an issue that must be addressed and we are going to address the issue because it is the right thing to do. Eight million Americans are depending on us, and $22,000--it is as if somebody who makes $22,000 a year and then gets overtime pay is committing some type of crime. Is that ruining our country? As I established here statistically, no, it is not. It is good for our country. Overtime pay creates more jobs. It rewards hard work. It allows people to maintain their standard of living--which isn't very high. Remember the starting point is $22,000 a year.
I hope in the days and weeks to come and the few months we have left in this
legislative session, where we have 13 appropriations bills to pass and many other items, people remember the wasted time this week. All we want is a simple vote on overtime. Fifteen minutes of debate and vote. They will not let us do that because they know it would show the President of the United States is wrong, wrong in trying to take away overtime pay from people who make $22,000 a year or more. It is wrong.
They will not let us vote on this. We are going to continue coming back as often as we have the opportunity. They will not be able to escape this. I feel really bad about this bill, which is important to our country. The majority is willing to take down a bill that is important to the competitive nature of our country. They are willing to take this bill down because they don't want a vote on overtime pay because it makes the President look bad. I should tell them the President looks bad anyway on this issue. They are not going to take away the damage done here. Why not let us vote and get rid of that ridiculous rule he has issued and get back to allowing people to be rewarded for working hard and creating new jobs? It is an issue we need, to make sure people are honored for hard work, rewarded for hard work, not punished.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, the junior Senator from Arizona is someone for whom I have the highest regard. He is articulate. He always makes a good presentation. I am glad he is a neighbor of the great State of Nevada.
But I have to say the one question he didn't answer is, Why don't we just vote on this? Why don't we just have a vote on this overtime issue? We have agreed to have Senator Harkin spend 15 or 20 minutes summarizing his arguments, the majority can take whatever time they believe appropriate, and then we can vote on this issue and move on to this most important underlying bill.
My friend from Arizona, who is the first person who has come to try to defend the overtime proposal of the President, says the study is faulty, that it is really not 8 million people, and some are part-time.
Let's say it is faulty, which I don't think it is, but let's say it is only 6 million people.
I would also say, of course, more people would qualify for overtime pay because whatever they are doing is allowing people who now are not entitled to overtime pay, people who really don't make much money--we would allow them to have overtime pay under the proposed rule.
Let them do it. Let them have overtime. No one is trying to stop them from having overtime. What we criticize is why would we want to make one group of workers disadvantaged to try to advantage another group of workers? Let's let them all be entitled to overtime, time and a half. That seems to be the fair thing to do. I see nothing wrong with giving people who are not making much money now the ability to get overtime. We support that. But why disadvantage others?
Of course, we are told it is in the definition of ``white collar.'' Can you imagine the litigation and problems it is going to cause in the workforce--who is a chef, who is a cook, who is a physical therapist?
This is an issue that is important to millions and millions of working men and women in this country. We believe the rule is not right for the American people. We believe people should be rewarded for hard work. We believe we should create more jobs, not take away jobs. This proposal will not reward hard work, and it will take away people's honest efforts to be rewarded for hard work.
We are willing to vote, as had been done last September when we voted in this body by a large margin to rescind the rule. The House of Representatives, by more than 220 Members, said they wanted to do what the Senate did, the same thing. We voted on it twice. It was taken out in the middle of the night in a secret conference, with no Democrats present. Why can't we vote on it again? We believe that is what we should do. Let's vote on whether the President and his people are right or wrong.
We are willing to debate this issue in public, not secretly. We are willing to state our position and simply go forward as the Senate and the House have already spoken and get rid of this rule, which is unfair.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, I wish to talk about a trip I took last week to the Middle East. I was privileged to travel with a group of colleagues to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria, Iraq,…
Mr. President, I wish to talk about a trip I took last week to the Middle East. I was privileged to travel with a group of colleagues to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar. I will discuss it in two parts.
One part is what we saw happening in Iraq and the apprehension, the concerns we all had with the confusion, the chaos that exists there, the continued loss of life among our troops, and the inability to cope with a relatively new form or a new mode of warfare where remote bombs are set off by people who are some distance away from the place of the explosion, seeing a target they particularly want to get to, and the prospect that will continue to be an ever-increasing part of the mechanism of war. It is so tough to fight against that kind of weaponry, that kind of a remote attack.
The people are courageous. They are dedicated. I had a chance to meet with some of our troops. I particularly met with a group from New Jersey. I got the same impression from all with whom I met. These are people who really want to do the right thing. They are not mercenaries. They are there because of the obligation they feel toward resurrecting or helping the revitalizing of Iraq and turning over to them their own responsibilities for governing.
Our people are young. Frankly, even though I served in World War II and was myself young--I was 18 when I enlisted--our military personnel today look different. They seem to be more educated. They seem to be more thoughtful. Their bravery is unquestioned. They are out there doing their duty even though there are risks all over the place which we saw in abundance.
We left Iraq about an hour before the explosion took place at the hotel. We were not at the hotel, but we were nearby. We were in the air when the bomb went off. It was simply, if I can say that, a replay of what happens every day there, whether it is Iraqis being killed or Americans being killed or coalition troops being killed. The death and the violence is ever present.
I believe we are on a path to try to make it right, but what we have to recognize is that we are not free to leave, even though there is a proposal that goes into place on July 1 for a governing council made up of Iraqis that will purportedly take over. I say ``purportedly'' not because I am disdainful of the effort--I am not at all--but for the lack of readiness for governing.
They need 73,000 policemen, for instance, and they have in the low twenties in uniform now. It is very hard to control the chaos, the turbulence, and the confrontations that
occur with such a small police force. It is going to take a long time, maybe a couple of years, to get the police force to the size they need. They also need an army.
What is the conclusion? The conclusion is we cannot leave there, and we have to face up to it. There are 130,000 troops coming in to replace existing personnel on the ground who have been there long enough to be rotated. Nobody believes we are going to be able to pack our bags on July 2 and start to go home. We are going to be there a long time, and I hope we will have the courage to face up to the funding necessary and put it in the budget and say what it is we are doing there.
We are adding to the total indebtedness of the country, but yet we hide it. We appropriated $166 billion thus far, and it looks as if we are going to have a supplemental request for $50 billion to $75 billion in the not too distant future, and it is on the side.
We have to support our people. You have no idea how disappointing it is when I talk to young people who are serving. I said: If you can be totally candid with me, tell me what your complaint is. Is it the accommodations? Is it where you live? Is it how you live? Is it the food you get? No, no, no.
One young man, a captain, said to me: Mr. Senator, I will tell you what bothers me. I see some of our coalition friends, people who are helping us in this quest of ours, who have the latest in bulletproof vests. The ones we have are not as good and they do not protect us as well as they should.
We have seen that in the papers, but here when you come face to face, you see the faces of people who are wearing those vests, who are trying to protect themselves while they do their duty, I can tell you this: Five Senators--all of us--were wearing the latest in flak gear. It was a sad commentary on where things are to hear them say they do not have it.
They point to their weapons. I think they were M-16s. I carried a Carbine when I was in the Army, so that is not a familiar weapon to me. They said the coalition people had better, newer rifles, lighter, more efficient. Why should that happen? They needed trucks and armored vehicles, and they did not have them. Why should that happen? When we look in the paper, just yesterday, and see the problem is in the transportation of the materials to Iraq, that the manufacture of these products has taken place but we can't get the materials there, it is very disappointing. I hope we will be able to do something to accelerate the pace of providing the protective gear and the equipment they need.
Today I want to discuss another part of the trip. The volatile situation in Israel--the Middle East altogether--was difficult to witness. We went to Israel and the other places I mentioned--the Palestinian territories, et cetera.
The other visit was taking place with the Prime Minister of Israel and a few people from his staff. Suddenly activity took place and people were running out and coming back with notes. The Prime Minister of Israel reported to us: We have just had a suicide bombing in Ashdod, which is a port community in Israel, and 10 people were killed and many more wounded.
I watched this man, who I have known over the years, deflate and age in years in just a few minutes, whipped by the knowledge that more of his citizens, innocent civilians, had been killed.
I volunteered the notion that he may want to adjourn the meeting and take care of the business he had to take care of, the duties he had to deal with. He said, no, as Prime Minister of the Jewish state, unfortunately, we learn to live with adversity and we must carry on, so we will carry on the meeting.
It was a painful thing to witness. It happens so frequently. We are in a state of shock when we hear it and see it, and I know the pain that must go through their community because it affects so many people. It is the dead, the injured, their friends, their families, their fellow workers, and those with whom they serve in the military. The pain is an excruciating whirlpool, it touches so many people. When we look at that, we say, what is it that permits this kind of slaughter of innocent people to take place?
Now we hear the shrieking about the assassination, we will call it that directly, of Sheikh Yassin, the man who invented Hamas and all the horrible deeds they carried out. This is after the third suicide bombing attack in Israel in the year 2004. The death toll now stands at 941 Israelis killed by terrorism since the start of the intifada in September of 2000.
Israel is a tiny country with a small population of 6.3 million people. To put the terrorist toll in perspective, if the United States were to suffer such a wave of terror attacks, over 50,000 Americans would be dead, almost the same number we lost over 10 years in Vietnam, 58,000. In Britain, it would have translated into approximately 9,000 fatalities. Imagine the impact that has in this single day when 10 people are killed from that attack. It is the equivalent of 500 people. If we had a killing in 1 day of 500 people by terrorists, we would be, as we were in Vietnam, in national mourning. These relative numbers underscore the impact of terrorism on the Israelis.
Israel has seen 130 attempted suicide bombings since September 2000. In the latest incident, 10 Israelis lost their lives, leaving behind dozens of children, grandchildren, spouses, parents and, as I said, friends and workers and those with whom they served in the military.
As I looked at the pictures in the papers of the 10 victims, most of whom were under 40, with families to support, I asked myself: What could it take for 2 young Palestinian kids, 17 years old, to be capable of perpetrating such atrocities against innocents?
One of the main reasons that takes place, in my view, is the Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has not only failed to rein in the terrorists but he is actively supporting a culture that incites young people to commit such acts. Arafat's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack, along with Hamas. They take pleasure in this. Large crowds of Palestinians in the West Bank celebrated the attacks by honking their car horns, firing guns into the air and distributing candy to passersby for the killing of innocent people. The Palestinian Authority did nothing to stop these celebrations.
By the way, I have never heard of a celebration taking place, with all the violence that has been visited upon Israel, when they killed some Palestinians, never. As a matter of fact, there are times when soldiers in the Israeli army have refused to serve, saying their conscience disturbed them such they did not want to serve in those territories.
There have been many times when Israeli civilians or soldiers have been punished for attacks on Palestinians within their community. That is the difference in the cultures. One culture celebrates death and destruction, and the other mourns the victims on both sides of the boundary.
The reality is Yasser Arafat has instituted a deliberate policy of preaching and encouraging hate. Books they have in the school system teach them to hate the Israelis, to hate the Jews. For example, on March 13, 2004, Palestinian Authority-controlled television carried a speech by a sheikh in Gaza in which he said the Jews are the sons of apes and pigs and the extremists and terrorists who deserve death while we deserve life since we have a just cause.
I was on a TV program one day with a representative of the Arab organization here, and I said this violence has to stop; you have to come to some peaceful arrangement, some detente. He said: Not as long as the occupation continues.
He was an American of Palestinian heritage. So I said, well, would you say Native Americans living in America, people who had their country wrested from them in the late 1600s, early 1700s, would have the justification to strap bombs on their backs and go into the Federal Reserve Bank or the Supreme Court or places such as that and blow them up and say this is an occupation?
The Presiding Officer is a man of learning and experience, and I would ask: How many times have borders moved as a result of combat, as a result of war? It has happened many times. Those adjustments remain in many instances.
When we look at the reason for this killing, instead of saying stop it, once and for all, Arafat should speak out and say, stop the killing. We should
not lend him a hand of help, not a nickel's worth of assistance or anything else until he gives up that post and turns it over to people.
We met with the finance minister from the Palestinian Authority. He was a reasonable individual, wanting to make peace, wanting to stop the violence. The Palestinians cry as much as the Israelis cry when they lose a son or a daughter. The false belief they are going to some kind of martyrdom does not relieve them of the sadness of the loss of a family member.
We learned something else. There was an emergency meeting in Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah following the suicide bombing at the Ashdod port. Arafat refused his cabinet's call to use Palestinian security forces against terror organizations.
Palestinian cabinet ministers, such as the interior minister and the commander of the national security forces, pleaded with him to act against Hamas and Fatah's military wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. He refused to intervene. He is an accomplice in these killings no matter how they try to deny it. He provides no useful service to his ``leadership in the Palestinian community.'' He incites them to violence.
We went to Syria, and all President Assad wanted to talk about was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are borders, 600-mile borders. He couldn't stop the people from crossing the border. We know who is crossing the border. He didn't know. He said there were people in innocent travel, business, recreation, family, et cetera. Meanwhile, terrorists are flooding into Iraq, many of them coming across the Syrian border.
That is what happens there. It is the corrupt leadership that has people believing the way out is to kill themselves and to kill Israelis and other innocent people. We don't know what the reach is. To the train bombing in Spain or other acts of violence in other parts of the world? But this notion that violence is an acceptable form of behavior is outrageous, and Arafat is allowing Palestinian society to be undermined and destroyed by a reign of terror. He has chosen to allow terrorism to flourish. Because of Arafat's lack of action, not only are Israeli children being orphaned and Israeli society terrorized, but also the Palestinian people's dream of living in a secure, free, and vibrant state is being destroyed.
I still believe all roads and roadmaps lead to a two-state solution. When I was in the region last week, I urged the Israeli leadership to try to meet and resume direct contacts with Palestinian officials in order to try to make progress toward a settlement. I told Prime Minister Sharon that his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip was a good start. Such a withdrawal, however, must be done in coordination with Palestinian and international officials to ensure there is a viable infrastructure to govern the people and to prevent Hamas and the Islamic Jihad from overrunning the Gaza Strip.
I also encouraged the Israeli Prime Minister to work with the international community to resume progress on the roadmap and to begin looking at how to withdraw remote Jewish settlements from the West Bank as well as from the Gaza Strip. Yet any real progress on the roadmap depends on the speedy emergence of new Palestinian leaders who realize that a healthy Palestinian state cannot be built on a foundation of terror and violence. On this point, there should be no concessions, no flexibility, no turning a blind eye.
Today we see pictures of angry mobs in the Arab world protesting the death of Sheik Yassin, the head of Hamas. The Israeli military's strategy of targeted assassinations is questionable and controversial. But I have to ask my colleagues, if someone is standing in your kid's schoolyard with a gun in his hand, what would you do? Would you meet with him and confer about what he ought to do or would you take advantage of the opportunity of the moment and abolish the threat? Do you eliminate the threat immediately or abide by the Marquis of Queensbury rules when dealing with terrorists? These are difficult questions, but given the lack of real leadership on the Palestinian side, the Israelis are trying to find the best way to protect their population from terror.
Peace in the Middle East begins with the removal of Arafat from power. It is a step the Palestinians must take if they want to move their nation forward. Peace will not be obtained through terror but only through peaceful negotiation. It is something Yasser Arafat clearly does not understand, but we have to help him understand. We can't give him any other help of any kind. As a matter of fact, whatever sanctions we can put on him and his corrupt government, we ought to do it.
It is very painful to witness, I understand, for those who are engaged in the innocent pursuit of life, to suddenly come face to face with someone who has been encouraged to give up his life. What kind of false notion is this, that somehow or other you get rewarded for losing a son or daughter and get a financial reward? I think what we ought to do is try to trace those financial rewards to the countries that offer them. Maybe friends like Saudi Arabia ought to step up and do their share to not permit this to happen, to not permit these militant groups to exist in their society.
I can tell you one thing. After our visit there, I am more convinced than ever that we must protect Israel no matter what we have to do to see that she survives. It is not because we just love those people. It is because we love the American people. It is because we want to protect America's interests. It is because we don't want to have American troops in the middle of that mad world, with corrupt governments who siphon off the wealth of their countries while their people in those communities starve and have no opportunity for themselves.
That is the interest I see we have in a strong Israel. It is not just the informational exchange. That is important. But it is the fact of Israel sitting there as a reminder to those corrupt countries, and it is an extension of democracy. It is not an extension of the United States. It is not the 51st State. It is an extension of democracy, and it shows what people can do when they can take a malaria-ridden nation and change it into a thriving agricultural and scientific nation. That is the example that has to be set and that is the one that has to be understood and we ought not to equivocate and say there is violence on both sides. That is the wrong message. You can't say that because that only encourages terrorism. It says violence on one side begets violence on the other side.
I said it before. I have never heard an Israeli, and I know many, nor have I ever seen the country, celebrate the death of children on the other side of the boundary. I have never seen them celebrate when men, women, and children who are innocent are killed--never.
But in the Palestinian community they celebrate by shooting off guns and handing out candy to kids and parading, happy that they have taken someone out of the family, a child, a sister or brother, mother, father--outrageous. Outrageous.
We have to stand steadfast in our support of Israel. We have to insist that Arafat step aside and provide them the right leadership, and there is leadership there but they don't have a chance to operate because he robs them of that opportunity.
It was a wonderful opportunity we had to see what was taking place there and be able to report back and shape our thinking based on the need.
Support our troops. Commend them for what it is that they do in accordance with the tenets of democracy and ultimately decency. We can argue whether we should be there or we should not be there, but we are there and we have to support those people as fully as we can, everyone who wears a uniform. We have to be proud of them. They do their duty splendidly.
With those thoughts, Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
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Mr. President, this afternoon we resume consideration of the JOBS bill. The chairman of the committee, Senator Grassley, is on his way over. I thought I would proceed to make sure we do not have any…
Mr. President, this afternoon we resume consideration of the JOBS bill. The chairman of the committee, Senator Grassley, is on his way over. I thought I would proceed to make sure we do not have any dead time.
While the Senate went off this bill and considered the budget just a week ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new job figures for February. Those data show 8.2 million people are still unemployed. That is more than 2 million more than at the beginning of the recession in March 2001. Job growth remains too slow.
As this chart shows, we have lost more than 3 million private sector jobs since December 2000, and job creation has not turned around.
This next chart shows jobs lost--2.2 million jobs lost; overall total employment, 3 million jobs lost from January 2001 to February 2004; 3 million lost in the private sector during that same period. It was almost 3 million, 2.8 million lost in the manufacturing sector.
The economy created just 20,000 new jobs in February. The private sector created no new jobs last month. All the net new jobs came from the Government. Let me repeat that. There were no new private sector jobs created last month. Yet there were 20,000 new jobs overall, and all those jobs were Government jobs. That is not something I think we want to do.
This next chart shows manufacturing jobs. It is very interesting to see that in the years 1950, 1960, 1970, all the way up to the year 2000, this dotted line shows that today, 2004, we have the fewest jobs in America in half a century. That is the fewest jobs in half a century. Stated another way, the number of jobs we have now is as low as it was a half century ago.
Manufacturing jobs declined for the 43rd straight month. Mr. President, 3,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared in February. Manufacturing employment is at its lowest point in more than a half century, since March of 1950. Again, that is what this chart shows. The job level now is as low as it was a half century ago.
Part of the story is that the American manufacturing worker has become more productive. The average manufacturing worker has turned out more product than before. But it goes deeper than that. Manufacturing production--that is the output of manufacturing jobs--remains below the levels of the beginning of 2001.
There is reason for continued concern about the future. A week ago, Goldman Sachs reviewed the latest manufacturing data and concluded:
[W]e interpret Monday's decline in the New York Fed's
Empire Survey for March as one more piece of evidence that
the manufacturing sector is transitioning to somewhat slower
growth. . . .
This next chart shows the share of population with jobs. That is, we reached our peak in about the year 2000 of the percentage of American population that had jobs, and we can tell by the chart that whereas it has been steadily rising in percentage of Americans who have jobs from 1994, steadily rising up to the beginning of the recession in March 2001, we have declined precipitously since that date.
In sum, the jobs picture remains sluggish. Even the normally taciturn Federal Reserve noted the weak job market in saying in a recent statement last Tuesday that ``hiring has lagged.''
The latest Labor Department numbers show total unemployment fell in February to 138.3 million. The share of the population age 16 and older with jobs declined to 62.2 percent. This employment population ratio is lower than it was at any time between March 1994 and June 2003. Again, that is in the chart as I just indicated.
The slow job market spans the Nation. As of January 2004, nearly 3 years after the recession began, almost every region of the country continues to have higher unemployment than in March 2001. Forty-five States have higher unemployment rates than when the recession began.
In terms of unemployment, my State of Montana has fared better than some, but unemployment remains markedly higher than pre-recession levels throughout much of the country. Colorado unemployment is up 2.8 percent. Again, if we look at the chart, every State has higher unemployment, as indicated by red, but for three States. One is the State of Montana, where it is level. In two States, Nevada and South Dakota, unemployment has actually declined. In every other State, unemployment has increased at a very marked rate.
Again, as I said, Colorado is up 2.8 percent; Ohio is up 2.6 percent; Massachusetts up 2.6 percent; Oregon up 2.4 percent; New York up 2.3 percent; Texas is up 2.1 percent; and New Jersey is also up 2 percent. The list goes on.
In terms of the absolute number of jobs, 36 States have failed to get back to the pre-recession employment levels. In 49 States, job creation has not kept up with natural growth in the number of potential workers. Only in Alaska has job growth exceeded the growth of working age population.
The news of the Nation's slow job growth has cycled back to lessened consumer demand, and thus economic growth. This chart shows consumer confidence. As we can see beginning in 1994, consumer confidence in America remained at about the 95 percent level. This is the consumer confidence index, based in the hundreds, so it was a little lower in 1994 to 1996. It steadily rose from 1997 to 1998. Those are the boom years. It reached its peak roughly at the beginning of the recession in March of 2001, and then just plummeted to its low levels.
Why is that important? It is important because, as I have mentioned, the Nation's slow job growth has cycled back. It has cycled back to lessened consumer demand. When consumer demand is down, economic growth also falls off as well.
In the latest consumer confidence survey, confidence fell for the second straight month in part because of consumer concern over the weak job market. Nearly 3 years after the start of the recession, consumer confidence remains below its January 2001 levels.
These numbers of people without jobs are not just statistics; they are real lives. These are real lives we are talking about. This weak job picture causes real pain. It causes disruption in many families.
For example, there is a fellow named John in East Helena, MT, who has worked 22 years at the ASARCO smelter plant that has recently closed. John suffers permanent health problems from working with chemicals at the plant. He has been unable to get full-time employment so he works part time. John cannot get health insurance because he has preexisting health conditions.
Then there is Bruce. Bruce is 50 years old. He worked 28 years at that same East Helena smelter. He did what they say to do; that is, use retraining benefits and train as a computer technician. Unable to get work in that field, he works now full time in a grocery store.
Often when a person loses a job, a family loses a job. Evelyn from western Montana wrote:
I am concerned about the economy of Western Montana. . . .
I see that industry . . . is [waning]. What do we have to
offer our children and grandchildren in the way of stability
within Montana? . . . What do you propose . . . [to give us]
a hope of being able to support our families?
Kim wrote about her husband's job:
The second paper mill my spouse has worked at in three
years is threatened with closure in the next six to twelve
months. In a letter to the employees . . . in Missoula,
Montana[,] the company president blamed the endless drain of
manufacturing America to overseas as the cause for possible
shut-down. [The company] makes liner-board, the cardboard
boxes products are shipped in. [I]f products are not made in
the United States, boxes are not needed. . . . [T]he liner-
board market is a direct reflection of the state of the
economy[,] because the more liner-board boxes sold[,] the
more products being manufactured within the United States . .
.
Real people like John, Bruce, Evelyn, and Kim are the reason we need to move this bill. We need to fight to create and keep good manufacturing jobs in America.
The bill before us provides a 9-percent deduction for manufacturing, effectively reducing the tax rate for domestic manufacturers by 3 percentage points. The JOBS Act will thus help all manufacturers produce goods in the United States. Cutting taxes for domestic manufacturers will help prevent layoffs and will help preserve jobs. It is the right thing to do.
We got a good start in this bill the week before the budget resolution. The Senate agreed to the managers' amendment that among other things ended some outrageous leasing tax shelters,
and the Senate unanimously extended the R&D tax credit. We expanded that credit for universities and labs.
We also conducted a good and spirited debate on an amendment by Senator Dodd. That amendment addressed the performance of Government contracts by American workers. After working collaboratively on modifications proposed by Senator McConnell and Senator McCain, the Senate agreed to that amendment by a vote of 70 to 26.
The Senate then began debate on an amendment proposed by Senators Bunning and Stabenow to accelerate the phase-in of the manufacturing tax cuts. The Senate also began considering an amendment by Senator Bayh providing for an extension of expiring tax provisions. These last two important amendments are now pending.
Under a previous order, the next first-degree amendment in order will be that offered by the minority leader or his designee. We understand the amendment will be proposed by Senator Harkin regarding the Department of Labor's overtime regulations. I know there are strong feelings on this amendment, but Senators are all now aware that we must address that issue in order to move this bill along. I hope we can come up to a vote on that amendment in a reasonably short period of time and move to other amendments.
In the end--and I will keep returning to this theme--this bill is about jobs, good jobs, about jobs in America. We are trying to help preserve American manufacturing. The task ahead of us is large, the challenge great, but Americans do not shrink from that challenge.
Renee, the bookkeeping manager for a small manufacturer in Bozeman, MT, said it well when she wrote:
The United States is a nation built on steely determination
in the face of overwhelming odds. We must act now to reverse
the loss of our high-skill, high wage manufacturing jobs.
That is our job, and we need to do that. We need to get this bill done for John, Bruce, Kim, and Evelyn and all the hardworking Americans who depend on a strong manufacturing sector in America. We cannot let them down. Let us move on to the bill, let us move on to amendments and let's address them. Let's move this bill and let us do what we can to strengthen American manufacturing.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I take a couple of moments to discuss the pending second-degree amendment, the amendment offered by the Senator from Indiana, Senator Bayh. It is an excellent amendment. It is somewhat broad in scope. I commend Senator Bayh for suggesting this. My guess is it will be adopted without too much difficulty.
I have been pushing for a long time, and I know the chairman of the committee has, as well, the package of extenders. We have crafted the underlying JOBS bill to create jobs and to stimulate competitiveness in American business. In addition to the new provisions in the bill, it is critical we renew our past commitments in the Tax Code and not leave anyone behind. I am talking about the so-called package of tax extenders.
We failed last year to extend many expired or expiring tax provisions that are essential. We now have another chance. That is the amendment offered by the Senator from Indiana, not only to extend these provisions, but also to improve upon them.
When we were last on the bill, the Senate acted to improve one of the provisions, the research and development
tax credit. This was the first of many positive steps we need to take to fix an ailing economy. Encouraging research and development clearly is one of the most important forward looking actions we could take. Why is that so important? It is the underlying basis for improving innovation and for addressing the offshoring of American jobs.
In addition, there are many other provisions commonly referred to as extenders. They all address the needs of our Nation. These are not contentious. They are not partisan. Rather, they are provisions that just make good sense.
The chairman and I pushed to have these same provisions extended last year. We urged our colleagues not to wait until the last minute before these provisions were expired. We wanted to move right away.
These provisions are like a yo-yo. We enact them. We extend them for several months, sometimes a year or a year and a half, we let them expire. After they have expired, sometimes we go back and reenact them retroactively and there is no break. Sometimes we do not reenact them retroactively. It is very poor policy.
I personally believe all these provisions should be enacted permanently into the Tax Code. We should not have the on-again, off- again, up-and-down, yo-yo effect Congress has undertaken in addressing these provisions. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we are not making these permanent. Nevertheless, they are not, and taxpayers have suffered often from lapsed provisions. We have let them down. I hope we do not do that again. The time has now come to extend these provisions. If we do not act now, there is no telling when our next opportunity will be.
In this package there are many good provisions that have already expired. They are widely supported. The expiring provisions include a diverse array of topics and all are important. One of the most important expiring provisions we must address is the one allowing for the carryback of net operating losses, otherwise known as NOLs. In the wake of prolonged economic downturn and the recent ruling by the WTO, it is very important we give American businesses a chance to recover their losses. Like the underlying JOBS bill, this provision also promotes economic growth.
Two other important provisions are the work opportunity tax credit, sometimes known as WOTC, and the welfare-to-work tax credit. I have worked long and hard with many of my colleagues--especially Senator Santorum, Senator Bayh; both Senators worked very hard--for the provisions to make the credits permanent. Unfortunately, we cannot achieve permanence at this point, but neither can we afford to let this opportunity pass.
The work opportunity tax credit and the welfare-to-work tax credit are proven initiatives that help economically disadvantaged workers get jobs. They help those receiving the welfare check to earn a paycheck. That is very important. These provisions very much help get people off welfare and to get jobs. Both of the credits expired in 2003 in December.
As we consider ways to create jobs for Americans, it is only appropriate to consider what these tax credits have done for both employees and employers across our country. In a recent study, it is shown in New York State the work opportunity tax credit generates economic benefits that exceed the cost of the program. These programs are too valuable to fall by the wayside.
This amendment, including the extenders, will simplify and strengthen the credits to expand unemployment opportunities for disadvantaged individuals and attract more employers to participate in the program.
Along with these are other provisions that help raise the standard of living in America now and in the future. Individual credits against the alternative minimum tax provide for such things as lifetime learning credit, the HOPE scholarship, and care for the elderly and disabled. These provisions not only create incentives for education but also help families build a stronger financial base.
Other benefits to be gained from this important extenders package include encouraging computer contributions to schools, economic recovery provisions in the wake of September 11, deductions for school teachers, and energy incentives for the environment. And the list goes on.
These tax incentives make America a better place, a better place for jobs, education, health care, environment, and more. Now is the time to act. We must not let these essential parts of our Tax Code fall by the wayside.
I encourage my colleagues to join me in support of this amendment offered by the Senator from Indiana, Senator Bayh, and others. Like the JOBS bill itself, these provisions will help make important contributions to American business and to American people.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, a fundamental feature of any income tax system is the ability to use losses to reduce taxable gains. If a company has gross income of $100,000 and losses of $50,000, we don't force the company to pay tax on $100,000--they only pay tax on net income.
But just as a company can have gross income and losses within the same year, a company can also have income in one year and losses in the next.
Letting companies ``carry-back'' their losses to prior years smooths things out and helps companies deal with the hardships of the business cycle.
And it is important to be able to carry losses back. Carrying losses forward doesn't give taxpayers a boost when they need it.
Carrying losses forward only gives them a boost after things have already turned around.
Many businesses have been in hard times for the last 3 or 4 years. Giving them a 1- or a 2-year NOL carryback doesn't help them--because they don't have any profits in the last few years.
For many of these companies, the last year they were profitable was 1999 or even earlier. These companies will be able to use a 5-year NOL carryback to help them turn things around.
I urge you to support this amendment, to help get our economy going again.
For example, the timber industry in Montana and many parts of the Northwest was profitable in the late 1990s. But many of these timber companies--both large and small--have fallen on hard times in the last few years. The terrorist attacks of 9/11, the economic downturn, and the wildfires of last summer have taken their toll on these timber companies.
These companies paid large tax bills when things were going well. But how that they are struggling they can't get any of those taxes back.
If they had a smoother, more consistent pattern of earnings, they would have paid less tax over the course of the last 5 years. Instead, the boom-bust cycle that has actually played out is giving them higher tax bills overall.
This NOL provision will ensure that these timber companies--and many other companies in cyclical industries--pay an appropriate amount of tax over time. It will give them a boost in those unprofitable years when they need it most.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Madam President, I know we are a little stalled on the floor right now. There is an underlying amendment to…
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Madam President, I know we are a little stalled on the floor right now. There is an underlying amendment to the bill, and then there is a second degree that is now trying to be worked out having to do with tax extenders. I understand there may even be yet another second degree into this package.
I know the leadership has said there will be no votes today. I understand that. But I ask the Presiding Officer, is there now pending a unanimous consent agreement that after the disposition of the pending amendment, and any amendments thereto, that Senator Daschle or his designee would then be recognized to offer an amendment?
I thank the Presiding Officer because that was my understanding: that upon the disposition of the pending amendment, and any amendments thereto--any second degrees--then Senator Daschle would be recognized, or his designee, in which case he is designating me to offer the overtime amendment.
Now, I was here the other day, and I was going to offer the overtime amendment as a second degree to the underlying amendment, but then Senator Grassley got recognized, as is his right as the chairman of the committee, to offer a second degree, and that now is what is pending before the Senate.
I take the floor this afternoon to once again state how urgently necessary it is that we proceed to consideration of my amendment regarding the administration's proposed changes of the rules on overtime.
To recapture what has transpired, about a year ago, the Department of Labor issued proposed regulations that would fundamentally change how employers pay overtime to people who work over 40 hours a week. These proposed regulations came forth without having one public hearing, perhaps the most substantial change in our overtime laws since 1938 when they were adopted under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
You would think if any administration wanted to really change how overtime is paid, they would have gone around the country and had public hearings. This is normally what you do. No. These were issued without one public hearing.
Now that the proposed regulations have been out there, the Department of Labor has heard from America. I understand tens of thousands, maybe as high as 70 or 80,000, comments have come in on these proposed regulations. Still the administration has not seen fit to have public hearings about it. I think they thought they could do it quietly. This is a fundamental alteration, the biggest alteration since 1938 when the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed.
Last year I offered an amendment to an appropriations bill that would have denied the right of the administration to issue the proposed regulations and would have forced the administration to work with Congress, to have hearings and come up with a reasonable approach to changing overtime rules. That amendment was adopted by the Senate on a bipartisan vote. The House of Representatives soon after had a vote on what they call instructing their conferees, which is basically a vote to say we agree with the Senate and this is what we want in the final bill. That passed the House of Representatives.
So they went into conference between the House and the Senate with my amendment intact. Somehow it never made it to the final bill. The administration came into the conference and said it had to be taken out. It was thrown out. And, of course, the Omnibus appropriations bill we vote on, as you know, cannot be amended. So, therefore, we were faced with an up-or-down vote on the bill without this amendment. We had to vote to keep the Government operating, to pay our troops in Iraq, and everything else.
I said at the time this is too important a matter just to forget about and move on. So when the Senate came back into session in January of this year, I immediately took to the floor and said: At the first opportunity, I will offer this amendment again. The American people now have heard about it, and they know about it. They are beginning to understand what it means to them and their jobs to have these changes go into effect. I believe the votes are here, once again, to say to the administration: No, don't take away the right of people to get time- and-a-half pay when they work over 40 hours a week.
By some estimates, up to 8 million American workers would have their right to overtime pay taken away. So I have said I would offer this amendment on this bill. They call this a jobs bill. Well, this amendment is about jobs. It is about not only protecting jobs and overtime pay, but it is about creating jobs.
I believe it is necessary to proceed to consideration of this amendment so that the administration, once again, will understand that prior to any final regulations being issued, they need to go back to the drawing board, hear from the public, work with Congress, as other Congresses have done. Since 1938, we have amended the Fair Labor Standards Act maybe a dozen times, but it has always been done in conjunction with Congress, Congress and the administration working together to come up with reasonable amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act. There is nothing wrong with that. Times change. Conditions change. This should be done periodically.
But this administration did not do that. They just drafted these under the
cover of darkness, issued them and said: We are going to take away the right of about 8 million Americans to overtime pay.
So it is appropriate that we debate and vote on my amendment on the FSC JOBS bill because my amendment is about one thing--jobs. These new overtime rules will eliminate time-and-a-half overtime pay for up to 8 million American workers. But, again, it is not just about eliminating overtime pay. These proposed rules will retard the creation of new jobs. This is just basic logic. If employers can more easily deny overtime pay, they will push their current employees to work longer hours without compensation. With 9 million Americans currently out of work, why would you give an employer yet another disincentive to hire new workers. Yet that is exactly why the administration is pushing these new overtime rules. This is why these proposed new rules have the support of some major business groups in America but not all.
I always like to point out that I represent a lot of businesses in my State of Iowa--good, healthy, productive businesses. Not one business in my State of Iowa has come to me saying we need to change the overtime rules, not one. I am wondering, where is this coming from?
The National Association of Manufacturers says, well, they will reduce labor costs. It will reduce the need to hire new workers. It will have a direct destructive impact on jobs in the United States.
So let's be clear. My amendment on overtime is about creating jobs, overcoming the stagnant job market. And, yes, it is about making sure we protect the time-honored right to overtime pay when you work over 40 hours a week.
There was an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal which I think summed it up. It says: Shortchanged. Many firms refuse to pay for overtime. Employees complain. Others claim workers are exempt under the law or raise output targets, but the rules are confusing.
Here is the quote:
. . . While employees like overtime pay, a lot of employers
don't. That is no surprise. Violations are so common that the
Employer Policy Foundation, an employer supported think tank
in Washington, estimates that workers would get an additional
$19 billion a year if the rules were observed. That estimate
is considered conservative by many researchers.
In plain English, the Employer Policy Foundation, an employer- supported think tank in Washington, is basically saying American workers are being cheated out of $19 billion a year because they are working overtime and they are not getting paid for it right now.
Well, guess what happened, Madam President. A couple of these companies got caught. They got taken to court. They appealed and the appeals court found for the employees. One famous case on the west coast is where employees were clocking out of work after working an 8- hour day, and they were being forced to come right back in the door and work longer hours. Well, they got caught. More and more employers were getting caught.
So now what they want to do is change the rules. They want to work you longer. They want to work you more than 40 hours a week, but they don't want to pay you overtime. That is what the Wall Street Journal said.
So rather than being confronted with the fact that they might be taken to court, they change the rules. Now there won't be any court case. That is what the administration's proposal on overtime is all about. It is about taking away the rights of people.
You know, I had a quote that I will bring up in further debate on this amendment. One worker--a woman, if I am not mistaken--said something I thought was very poignant. She said:
My time with my kids and my family in the evenings and on the weekends is premium time to me. If I am being asked to give up my premium time with my kids and my family, then I think I ought to get premium pay. That is what overtime is about.
They are asking you to give up your premium time with your family, your children, to work overtime. You ought to get premium pay, which is what time and a half is all about. Again, the Bush administration thought they could put these new rules into effect quietly, with no hearings, before anybody knew what was going on. They were wrong. They got caught. The fact is, public outrage over the proposed new overtime rules has gotten stronger and stronger as Americans learn more about the details. They want these proposed rules to be stopped.
I understand if the other side, the Republican side, can drag this out and prevent a vote, well, then maybe in the next month or so they can issue these final rules taking away overtime pay, and then it will be very hard to undo that later on. They know that. That is why they don't want a vote on this amendment. That is why the other side is doing everything they can to keep me from getting a vote.
Madam President, we are not going to be quiet about it. This is the editorial from the New York Times: ``The Quiet Shift In Overtime.''
It says:
The Bush administration is engineering bread and butter
changes in the Federal regulation of overtime pay. . . .
The proposed Labor Department regulations have stirred
justifiable concerns.
They are being presented by the Labor Department as overdue
improvements.
But as they are doing it, as they said, they are doing it quietly, behind the scenes.
More problematical is the possibility that more workers--
millions, according to pro-labor analysts--could be forced
into unpaid overtime under the regulations, which do not
affect blue collar workers. By some estimates, veterans,
police detectives, or senior nurses might lose overtime
compensation that now accounts for as much as 25 percent of
their salaries.
They thought they could do it quietly, but the more we learned about it, we found that the American people were not going to sit by and let premium time with their families be taken away, being forced to work longer hours for regular pay.
With so many people unemployed, you would think you would want to create jobs. These proposed rules on overtime will be a disincentive to creating any new jobs.
Madam President, I hope we can get to my amendment. I will have more to say about it. I have more data and details I wish to bring out. For example, one thing I brought out before, since 1938, there has been a classification of learned professions, such as lawyers, doctors, architects, things like that--the learned professions, which were exempt from overtime. In all of the regulations since that time, there has never been any inclusion in the learned professions of what an individual learned while serving in the U.S. military. It wasn't until going through these proposed regulations with a fine-tooth comb that we discovered there were inserted into these proposed regulations four or five words about what these learned professions--as it goes through them all--learned while in the military, military training.
That had never been in the regulations before--never. Why were those in there? Here it is right on this chart. These are the changes, the new part of the regulations that had never been there before:
However, the word customarily means that the exemption is
also available to employees in such professions and
substantially the same knowledge level as the degreed
employees, but who attain such knowledge through a
combination of work experience, training in the Armed Forces,
attending a technical school, attending a community college,
or other intellectual instruction.
What is different? ``Training in the Armed Forces'' has never been in these rules before. So when we see all these ads saying ``join the Army and be all you can be,'' they talk about all the nice technical training you can get while you are in the military. What they are not telling you now is, if you do that, after you get out of the military, you will be exempt from overtime pay because of what you learned while you were in the military.
So we could have a situation where we have two individuals: one goes to the military and gets training and the other doesn't. They come out and they could have substantially the same kind of jobs. One could have had on-the-job training and one learned in the military. Both are basically equal. The person who served in the military gets cheated out of overtime, but the person who wasn't in the military would be able to get overtime. What kind of sense does that make? But it is in there.
``Training in the Armed Forces'' has never been in the rules since 1938. We
fought World War II, the Korean war, the cold war, Vietnam war, and every other war and we have never said to the men and women in uniform when they learn something in the military, we are going to take away their right to overtime. Why are we doing that now? Why are we doing that?
Again, these are some of the hidden little things in this proposed regulation that need to be brought out, with scrutiny in the sunshine. Let people know about it. Again, I hope we can get to my amendment. It has the overwhelming support of the American public. As more and more of them know about this, they don't want their right to be taken away. I have talked with workers who received no overtime last year, no overtime pay. They were expressing to me how much they were opposed to this proposed change in the rules.
I said: If you are not working overtime, why are you opposed?
They said: It is a right we have. We may not have gotten overtime, but if I do work it, I want my right protected. That just about sums it up. It is a right that should not be taken away.
Again, it is urgent that we proceed to the overtime amendment. Let's go to my amendment. Let's have a good debate. I am willing to have a time agreement, if the other side would like to have a time agreement. Let's have the debate. I want to hear from the other side why we should let these proposed regulations go into effect. Let's have the debate so the American people can understand what is at stake, and let's have an up-or-down vote on my amendment. Let's have an up-or-down vote on whether the Senate would agree with the administration that these proposed rules, these changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act, should go into effect or whether the administration should go back to the drawing board, work with Congress, do it in an open, aboveboard manner.
There are some changes that do need to be made in the Fair Labor Standards Act. There is one part of the proposed rules of which I am supportive, and that is raising the base from about $8,000 a year to $22,000 a year. That should have been done a long time ago.
My amendment does not affect that. My amendment leaves that in place. But in giving with one hand--that is, raising the base up to $22,000 a year--the administration is taking away the right to overtime pay from about 8 million Americans with the other hand. That is a bad deal.
I hope we can get to my amendment. I hope we can have a good debate and an up-or-down vote on it. I am prepared to do so whenever the leadership dispenses with these pending amendments.
Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2881 and ask for its immediate consideration.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from Iowa, the Senator from Montana, and also Senator Reid, our assistant leader on this side, for working out this agreement. As I have said all along, all we want is debate and a vote on the overtime issue.
This is an important issue that has come to a head right now because the administration shortly will be issuing final regulations on this issue without really having duly consulted with Congress. These regulations could take away the right to overtime pay for over 8 million American workers.
So I hope we can have a good debate on this, probably tomorrow--not tonight but tomorrow. Certainly I have discussed this with the Senator from Montana. We would be willing to enter into a time agreement.
I have heard some talk around that the other side, the Republican side, will now file a cloture motion. Obviously, if that cloture motion wins, then my amendment fails because it is ``nongermane.''
Now, we just saw--and I did not object to the amendments just being adopted which have to do with some extenders. There were some other things added. Those are also nongermane to the bill. So the other side cannot make the argument that they are not going to allow nongermane
amendments to this bill. We just adopted a whole bunch of nongermane amendments to this bill. So that is fine. We do that all the time around here.
I hope we can have a good debate on this overtime issue and have an up-or-down vote. I can assure the other side that if their goal is to cut off this amendment by filing a cloture motion, we will do all we can on this side to deny cloture on this bill until we have a vote on the overtime amendment.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor and look forward to the debate tomorrow on overtime.
Will the Senator yield? Mr. President, I join the Senator in cosponsoring the Harkin amendment. Is the Senator familiar with the fact that the Republican leadership has now done a parliamentary…
Will the Senator yield?
Mr. President, I join the Senator in cosponsoring the Harkin amendment.
Is the Senator familiar with the fact that the Republican leadership has now done a parliamentary maneuver so there is absolutely no opportunity for this institution to act on the Harkin amendment dealing with overtime; that they have taken the rules of the Senate and are so unwilling to address the amendment of the Senator from Iowa that they have effectively foreclosed any opportunity for the Senate of the United States to act this afternoon, late afternoon, this evening, or at any time until after the cloture motion?
Can the Senator from Connecticut possibly tell us why the Republican leadership would want to deny the people's representatives in the Senate the opportunity to express their view on an issue that affects approximately 8 million workers in this country?
Mr. President, as the Senator remembers, we had a vote on this measure on September 10, 2003. To substantiate what the Senator has pointed out, they voted 54 to 45 in the Senate to retain overtime, and in the House of Representatives it was 221 to 203. This was a matter of 7 or 8 months ago when we had this body speak in a bipartisan way and the House of Representatives speak in a bipartisan way. Still we find the Republicans are denying the Senate an opportunity to express its will.
Does the Senator not agree with me that this is sending a message to every working family in this country that we have Republican opposition to the increase in the minimum wage, Republican opposition to extending the unemployment compensation, and Republican opposition to halting the proposal that will eliminate overtime for some 8 million Americans; that one can conclude this administration is not on the side of working families?
Will the Senator not agree with me that for the first time in the history of the overtime laws this administration has stated if individuals in the military--I am reading from their proposed regulation of March 31, 2003. They talk about training in the Armed Forces, stating if you are a member of the National Guard and are called up to go over to Iraq, you take a training program in order to try to provide greater protection and defense for the men and women in your unit, you come back here to the United States, you go back to your workplace, and you think you are entitled to overtime, under their proposal, make no mistake about it, you are excluded.
I draw the attention of the Senator to the comments of the very distinguished head of a veterans organization. The Senator has mentioned the categories of those who will be made ineligible for an increase in overtime. This is a letter to Secretary Chao from Thomas Corey, national president of the Vietnam Veterans of America, dated February 17, 2004:
[We] would like to make you aware that the proposed
modification of the rules would give employers the ability to
prohibit veterans from receiving overtime pay based on the
training they received in the military. This legitimizes the
already extensive problem of ``vetism'' or the discrimination
against veterans.
There it is. That is what their proposal is all about. I don't blame the other side for not wanting to have a vote on it.
Has the Senator ever heard of such a time when we have American servicemen spread all over the world being called on--and the National Guard and Reserve--to get some training, and they come back and go back to work, and there comes the boss who says, Well, you have some training in the military, and you are out?
I draw the attention of the Senator to the comments from the National Association of Manufacturers.
The NAM applauds the department for including this
alternative means of establishing that an employee has the
knowledge required for the exception [from the overtime
protections] to apply . . . For example, many people who come
out of the mili-
tary . . .
There it is again, the National Association of Manufacturers praising that part of the Bush proposal.
We are talking about those who are serving in the Armed Forces now, and we know 40 percent of the combat arms in Iraq are National Guard reserve units. We find out that those individuals who get that extra training, which is essential in order to help protect the lives of their fellow servicemen, are told when they come back home, too bad, you are not going to get your overtime pay.
I ask the Senator if this has been his experience. I have a chart, as well, regarding workers without overtime protections being more than twice as likely to work longer hours.
The point I have heard the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from Illinois make is, if you do not have the protections, some think you will have to work a little bit longer, but it will not make much difference.
This chart from the Labor Department shows what happens in the two cases: where workers are paid time and a half for overtime and where they are not.
I had requested to be recognized following the Senator.
Mr. President, this is on my time.
This chart shows if you do not have overtime protections, you are twice as likely to work more than 40 hours a week and three times as likely to work more than 50 hours a week.
Without overtime protections, hold onto your seat, employers will make you work twice as hard after hours.
Does the Senator agree with me that the Bush Administration is not only denying fair compensation on a proposal that has been in effect since the 1930s, but the message ought to go out to workers across this country they are going to work a great deal longer, a great deal harder because without the overtime protection, that is the record. They will be exploited in the workplace.
I ask a final two questions of my friend from Connecticut.
When we are talking about police officers and nurses and firefighters, they are the categories we rely on for homeland security. They are the backbone of homeland security. Here we are in the Senate effectively saying to those workers, we are going to take away your overtime pay. The Republicans are saying that because they will not let us get a vote on it.
We have a lot of problems in this country, but I don't believe one of the problems is that we are paying our firefighters, our nurses, and our police officers who are on the front line of homeland security--I don't think the principal problem we have is we are paying them too much.
The Senator from Connecticut is the leader in this body with regard to children and children's issues. I have a chart that looks at the number of children hungry in this country. We are seeing an expansion of hunger in this country. We do not talk about it a great deal in this body, but it is a direct result of the fact working families are having a hard time making ends meet. They have not gotten an increase in the minimum wage, unemployment compensation has been denied, they are facing the threat of loss of overtime. We have 13 million hungry children. I ask the Senator, we have the other problem with 8 million unemployed, 8 million workers who will lose overtime, the low minimum wage for 7 million, 3 million more Americans are living in poverty because of the economic policies of the last 3 years, and 90,000 workers a week are losing their unemployment benefits. Regarding the impact of all these economic policies on children, I am wondering if the Senator would address this issue briefly. It is important when we are talking about these issues, we are not just talking about technical questions of overtime; we are talking about real people with real lives and people who are facing some very challenging times.
Mr. President, I underline once again what the Senator from Connecticut has been saying about the average wage in 2001. The average wage of the jobs we lost in 2001 was $44,570, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average wage of the jobs we are gaining today is $35,000, down 21 percent. This is outside of the overtime. These are the new jobs. This is the average wage today of the new jobs being created, $35,000; $44,000 of the jobs we lost in 2001.
This is what is happening, and we are saying to these workers: Well, that is not bad enough. We are going to deny you overtime pay. We have been denying you an increase in the minimum wage for 7 years. We are going to deny you unemployment compensation--90,000 people a week. These are the facts. The average wage of jobs lost was $44,570 to but only $35,410 for the jobs gained.
As this chart shows you, American workers are working longer and harder than workers in any other industrial nation in the world. Look at this line right over here. The United States is right at the top. Americans are working longer, they are working harder, and they are falling further and further and further and further behind. And what is the answer of this administration? Cut overtime. We can do better. What is the answer of the Republican leadership? Deny us a chance to do something about it. That is what we are faced with.
Well, it seems to me that hopefully Americans will have their answer sometime soon. If we are not able to on this bill, I know the Senators from Connecticut and Illinois share my view. I know the Senator from Iowa does. This is just the beginning. This is the opening shot. I tell our Republican friends, this issue is coming at you again and again and again. Make no mistake about it. You don't like to vote on it? Too bad. These families are suffering out there, and we are going to keep bringing this up, again and again and again and again, until you do vote on it.
I am glad to yield.
Well, it is beyond comprehension, I say to the Senator,
that in this proposal the administration has yielded to the recommendation of the National Association of Manufacturers, that those who get special skills in the military would not qualify for overtime. And I read that particular provision in the proposed regulation.
I ask unanimous consent to print the paragraph in the Record, dated March 31, of the proposed rules that talk about training in the Armed Forces.
[From the Federal Register Mar. 31, 2003]
(d) The phrase ``customarily acquired by a prolonged
course of specialized intellectual instruction'' generally
restricts the exemption to professions where specialized
academic training is a standard prerequisite for entrance
into the profession. The best prima facie evidence that an
employee meets this requirement is possession of the
appropriate academic degree. However, the word
``customarily'' means that the exemption is also available to
employees in such professions who have substantially the same
knowledge level as the degreed employees, but who attained
such knowledge through a combination of work experience,
training in the armed forces, attending a technical school,
attending a community college or other intellectual
instruction.
It is right in there. And it was requested by the National Association of Manufacturers. They made a comment about how happy they are it is in there. It is one of the most offensive proposals this administration has made.
I want to just make a final comment and respond to what the Senator has mentioned with regard to the nurses because this is so important, as I know the Senator is concerned about the issue of the quality of health care.
This is from Cathy Stoddart of Mingo Junction, OH, a nurse at the Allegheny Regional Hospital in Pittsburgh:
. . . President Bush and the Republican members of the
House and Senate are trying to take away the one thing that
discouraged hospital administrators from forcing nurses to
work overtime. If you think nurses are running away now, just
wait until their employers start telling them they have to
work a 20 hour shift and aren't getting overtime pay for a
single minute of it!
This proposal affects the quality of health care. We talked about the standard of living for working families and the challenges they are facing over a lack of an increase in the minimum wage, over the lack of unemployment compensation, and now there is the overtime proposal. This is going to have a dramatic impact and adverse effect on the quality of health care in this country. And for what? And that is because of the urging of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce urging the administration to find a way to cut back on overtime for 8 million workers in this country.
I thank the Senator from Illinois for raising not only what this issue is going to mean for working families, but what the impact is going to be on, in this case, health care and other vital services.
We have talked about veterans. In that regard, I bring to the attention of the Senator Randy Fleming, who writes:
I am also proud to say that I am a military veteran. I have worked for Boeing for 23 years. The training I received in the Air Force qualified me for a good civilian job. The second thing is overtime pay. With the overtime, I have paid for my kid's college education. The changes this administration is trying to make in the overtime regulations would break the government's bargain with the men and women in the military, close down the opportunities that working vets and their families thought they could count on.
When I signed up back in 1973, the Air Force and I made a deal that I thought was fair. They got a chunk of my time and I got training to help me build the rest of my life. There was no part of the deal that said I would have to give up my right to overtime pay. You have heard of the marriage penalty. I think what these new rules do is create a military penalty. If you get your training in the military, no matter what your white-collar profession is, your employer can make you work as many hours as they want and not pay an extra dime. If that is not a bait and switch, I don't know what is.
I have no doubt employers will take advantage of this new opportunity to cut our overtime pay. They will say if they can't take out our overtime pay, they will have to eliminate the jobs. It won't be just the bad employers because these rules will make it very hard for companies to do the right thing. The veterans and other working people will be stuck with less time, less money, and a broken deal.
There it is, in real life, Randy Fleming, a veteran who looks down the road in the eyes of his children, hard working, played by the rules, served our country, acquired some skills, and he is looking to the future.
This is a lousy proposal. It doesn't deserve to be favorably considered. But our Republican friends are refusing us, denying us the opportunity to get a vote on it. I know the Senator from Iowa would be willing to agree to an hour of debate, a half hour of debate, 15 minutes of debate--we know what the issues are--to get a vote. The idea to use the rules of the Senate to deny the Senate the ability to express its will on this issue is an enormous insult to working families all across the country and one they will not forget easily.
The Senator is absolutely correct. I welcome his historical memory on this issue. We have been involved in conflicts-- Vietnam, Korean War, World War II--with Republican and Democratic administrations, and at no time during those conflicts did we ever say the skills that were developed in the military were going to effectively preclude you from receiving overtime. This is the first time with this administration. The Senator is correct.
The overtime rule is unfair. As the Senator knows, particularly today, when so much of the combat arms are National Guard--probably 40 percent of the combat arms in Iraq today are National Guard and Reserve--these are people getting these skills, going back home, and getting the jobs. They are not staying in there 5, 7, 10 years. They are receiving these skills now, and these skills are necessary in terms of protecting the members of their squad or unit, to ensure that the military mission is going to be advanced.
I would be interested in the Senator's reaction. I mentioned Randy Fleming, who is a military veteran and served in the Air Force from 1973 to 1979, got training in the military, and used overtime to pay for the tuition of his children. He says: When I went in the service, I went in the service to get that training. No one told me that after I served 6 years in the Air Force and got my training, that in the twilight period of my life, because I received that training 20 years ago, I am going to be denied the overtime pay I had planned to put aside to educate my daughter. No one told me, he said in his letter. You talk about a marriage penalty. Here it is, a penalty against us. Where
is the fairness? Where is the justice? Isn't the word of the United States good on this?
I commend the Senator for bringing up this historical background because we have never done that to the veterans.
I mentioned earlier the letter to Secretary Chao from Thomas Corey: We would like to make you aware that the modification of the rules would give the employers the ability to prohibit veterans from receiving overtime pay based on the training they received. This legitimizes the already extensive problem of vetism, discrimination against veterans.
This is it. I put the section in the Record of the proposal. I think there are many reasons to be against this proposal, but the signal it sends to the families of our servicemen couldn't be more unfortunate.
I yield the floor.
Is our situation such that we are on the JOBS bill? We have a very important vote tomorrow. That vote is cloture to stop an effort to bring nongermane issues into and stall this bill. I spoke this…
Is our situation such that we are on the JOBS bill?
We have a very important vote tomorrow. That vote is cloture to stop an effort to bring nongermane issues into and stall this bill.
I spoke this morning, spending a great deal of time explaining how the JOBS bill is a fully bipartisan bill built from the ground up in a bipartisan manner. We cannot get anything through the Senate that is not bipartisan. We can get a lot of things through the House of Representatives that are partisan but not through the Senate.
Now we are facing an attempt to defeat this bipartisan measure by injecting politically charged amendments into the JOBS bill regarding an issue that is not even dealt with in this bill. Somebody wants to write a law.
Why does the other side insist on amending this important bill for a matter that is not even the subject of this legislation? We need to focus on what is in this bill and what will be killed if we do not get cloture approval tomorrow.
We know the only way this bill can pass is by a ``yes'' vote tomorrow on stopping debate and moving to finality. But will the Democrats say no to cloture? Will they go on record opposing the provisions that are in this bill--very important provisions for creating jobs in America, preserving jobs in manufacturing, answers to concerns that the people of this body have expressed about outsourcing, about not enough manufacturing jobs being created?
If you look at this bill, you will find, then, that there is very important provisions for creating jobs that the other side is preparing to kill, so, in a sense, their vote tomorrow will be a vote contrary to what they have been complaining about for a long period of time about this recovery not providing enough jobs, and particularly about jobs going overseas.
This bill will prevent that. I do not understand why people would not vote to move a bill along that is going to solve a lot of the problems about our not creating enough jobs in manufacturing. If this bill does not move along, actually the situation is going to get worse, and we are going to lose jobs that we presently have in manufacturing.
So why would they be prepared to kill this bill? This bill will end $4 billion a year of tariffs put on U.S. exports by Europe. Those tariffs are already being imposed against U.S. exports of grain, timber, paper, and manufactured goods. We can end those tariffs now at 5 percent, growing 1 percent a month into the future. We can end them with this bill. But will the Democrats say no?
A vote against the JOBS bill is a vote in favor of that 5-percent tariff going up 1 percent a month into the future. And that goes up very fast, making our business, our American manufacturing uncompetitive.
The Congressional Budget Office says we have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs since the manufacturing downturn started 6 months before President Bush became President. This bill provides $75 billion of tax relief to our manufacturing sector to promote rehiring in U.S.- based manufacturing. But will the Democrats say no?
The Democrats claim they are worried about the scope of the proposed overtime regulations. The regulations are not even final yet. But how can you worry about overtime if you do not have a job in the first place? Shouldn't
we first worry about creating manufacturing jobs and take care of overtime on another bill instead of slowing this one up? Or will the Democrats say no?
The money from the FSC/ETI repeal gives a 3-percentage point tax rate cut on all income derived from manufacturing in the United States. It is not for manufacturing done offshore. We start this tax relief immediately.
This manufacturing rate cut relief applies to sole proprietors, partnerships, farmers, individuals, family businesses, multinational corporations, even foreign companies that set up manufacturing plants in the United States to manufacture here with American workers. This should keep the Government out of their pockets while they try to recover from the economic downturn. That is what this bill is all about: helping these manufacturing companies recover from the economic downturn. Now, will the Democrats say no to the opportunity to help American manufacturing?
This bill includes international tax reforms, most of which benefit American manufacturing, to keep it competitive in the global marketplace.
This bill also includes the Homeland Reinvestment Act, which has broad support in both the House and the Senate. It has both Republican and Democrat sponsors. But will the Democrats say no?
This bill extends the research and development tax credit through the end of 2005, something very necessary to keep our industry ahead of the curve, building for the next product, building for the next service, particularly in the technical areas. This is a domestic tax benefit that incentivizes research and development, translating into good, high-paying jobs for workers here in America, not across the ocean. But will the Democrats say no tomorrow on the cloture vote?
In addition, there are several additional provisions that are important to this bill. Senators Bunning and Stabenow sought to accelerate the manufacturing deduction. This ensures that the tax relief and related economic benefits of the bill are provided more quickly to those hurt by the repeal of FSC/ETI.
The bill extends, for 2 years, tax provisions that expired in 2003, last year. Some of them already expired. Some of them are expiring this year. They need to be included because those incentives are very important to the prosperity of companies that rely upon these tax incentives. This would include items such as the work opportunity tax credit, helping young people, helping low-income people to get jobs, to get job training. It helps to move people from welfare to work because we have tax credits that do that.
Why would any Democrat vote against the extension of the welfare-to- work tax credits, moving people out of welfare, where they are assured a life of poverty, into the mainstream of America, the world of work where you have a chance to move up the economic ladder? Over here, in welfare, you never have a chance to move up. We have tax credits to help. Will the Democrats say no to these tax credits to help low-income people get into the world of work, to move above, to improve themselves, to get out of poverty?
There is a provision also in this bill on net operating losses that will accelerate tax relief to companies that need it to continue operations and recover from recent difficulties. The reason for doing that is they have some tax credits. They do not have income to write it off against. This gives them some benefit helping them to enhance their recovery.
We have enhanced depreciation provisions to help the ailing airline industry, the manufacture of airplanes--Boeing, in my State where avionics are made for airplanes, Rockwell Collins--because you cannot, under existing depreciation laws, get something into completion by this deadline because it takes so long to build an airplane. This will extend provisions that were meant to help industry a year ago if they got long timelines to get something finished.
There are new homestead provisions. This provides special assistance for businesses in counties that are losing population. This is rural economic development, providing incentives for newly constructed rural investment buildings, for starting or expanding a rural business in a rural high-outmigration county. Will the Democrats say no to that rural economic development?
This bill includes brownfields revitalization. The bill waives taxes for tax-exempt investors who invest in the cleanup and remediation of qualified brownfields sites. Will the Democrats say no to helping clean up the environment? Would that vote comport with the rhetoric you hear on the environment from the other side of the aisle?
Mortgage revenue bonds: This proposal would repeal the current rule that mortgage revenue bond payments received after the bond has been outstanding for 10 years must be used to pay off the bond, rather than issue new mortgages.
There are 70 Senate cosponsors to this bill. Would the Democrats justify voting no on cloture to kill a provision that 70 of their colleagues support?
We allow deductions for private mortgage insurance for people struggling to afford a home. Anyone planning to vote no on this one? Would they vote no on allowing the cost of mortgage insurance to be written off as one writes off interest on a mortgage? That is helping a lot of young people to get a home that they would not otherwise be able to afford. I know home ownership is the highest it has been in the history of our country. Maybe they are saying: We have enough Americans owning homes. Why help some other people this way? It is in this bill. If they vote no tomorrow, they are voting against helping those homeowners with their mortgage insurance costs.
This bill includes a tax credit to employers for wages paid to reservists who have been called to active duty. Would Democrats say no to the guardsmen and reservists who are defending our country, helping us win this war, by voting no tomorrow?
We have extended and enhanced the Liberty Zone bonds for rebuilding New York City. The two Senators from New York have talked to me about them. Are they going to vote no tomorrow and say no to the Liberty Zone bonds helping New York City at a time when Ground Zero begs for help? Will they tie up funding for the Liberty Zone in order to prove a political point for a Labor Department overtime regulation that has not yet been finalized? If it had been finalized, there is an opportunity for an expedited procedure for congressional veto of those very same regulations they don't want. This is not the last train out of the station. There are other opportunities to fight these battles and probably in a more appropriate way than a nongermane amendment on legislation that ought to pass, that is going to preserve and create jobs in manufacturing. Where are the priorities of the other side of the aisle?
We also have in this bill increased industrial development bond levels to spur economic development. We have bonds for rebuilding school infrastructure. We have included tribal bonds which apply the same rules to Native American tribes issuing tax exempt bonds to finance facilities on a Native American reservation that apply to tax exempt bonds that we allow State and local governments to use. Are Senators of the other party going to vote against the Native American Indian provisions of this bill?
We have a tribal new markets tax credit. This amendment would add $50 million annually in the new markets tax credit dedicated to community development entities serving Native American reservations, if there is a poverty rate of over 40 percent. Are they going to say no to helping those needy Americans?
We have included a Civil Rights Tax Fairness Act so when people have been harmed in violation of their civil rights, they can go to court and get justice. Do you know what happens when they get justice? We have some people paying income tax on what they pay their lawyers so when it is all said and done, a big settlement, sometimes the people who have been harmed get nothing because of the unfair taxation of that award. Are the Democrats going to say no to those people who have had their civil rights violated? They can't get justice in court. That doesn't sound like the other party, does it?
Is it worth killing off these important priorities over a regulatory issue that has already been voted on by the Senate? How many times do we have to express our view on something?
We also have in this bill a special dividends allocation rule that benefits agricultural cooperatives. We have other farm provisions that help cattlemen receive tax free treatment if they replace livestock with other farm property where there has been drought, flood, or other weather-related conditions within 2 years from the date the livestock has been sold. Last year we heard a lot from the other side of the aisle about not helping the farmers who have been hurt by drought. Here is an opportunity to help some people through tax problems they have as a result of something beyond the control of the family farmer. Are they not going to give those farmers an opportunity to have help?
We have a provision that allows payment under the National Health Service Corps loan repayment program to be exempt from tax. Every Senator here has rural America in their State. We are always saying there is not adequate health delivery services in some parts of our country in rural America. We set up the National Health Service Corps to provide services there. They still have a hard time getting adequate service, but we have provisions in here for additional incentives for people to serve rural America. I hear from my colleagues that we have to do something about health care in rural America. We have an opportunity tomorrow in this legislation to do something about it. Will the Democrats vote no tomorrow?
We have a proposal to allow the itemized deduction for unreimbursed vehicle use for rural letter carriers. Why does that come before us? Because every time you drive a quarter of a mile and you stop at a rural mailbox to leave mail, and then go on to the next farmer's box to leave mail, that vehicle has higher costs than if it was going down the road 60 miles an hour and never stopping. The Tax Code ought to reflect a little bit different business deduction for that automobile as opposed to a business vehicle that doesn't stop at every mailbox.
We have provisions in this bill to enhance broadband expensing provisions. We always hear from the other side that the quality of life in rural America can never be equal to that of cities if they don't have the same IT access. This gives that IT access. I hear Members of the other side of the aisle talk to me about broadband tax credits. We have an opportunity to do that now. Are they going to say no to what they have been asking me to do for the last 2 or 3 years?
We provide real infrastructure tax credits, the so-called short-line credits. This bill provides $500 million over 3 years in Federal tax credits to States for intercity passenger rail capital projects. Eligible intercity passenger rail projects include planning, track rehabilitation, upgrade, development and relocation, security and safety projects, passenger equipment acquisition, station improvement, intermodal facilities development, and environmental review and impact mitigation.
States may transfer credits directly to short-line and regional railroads. They are going to say no to that?
Finally--here is something for the New York Senators--the proposal makes $100 million in tax credits available to New York to be used on rail infrastructure projects in the New York Liberty Zone.
Will the Democrats say no? Will they vote against cloture tomorrow and thereby kill these measures? Will they do this over a proposed regulation which, as Senator Kyl and Senator Sessions just explained, is being misrepresented and used as a political scare tactic?
All of these benefits are being held hostage because the other side is pushing a politically motivated vote on an issue that is not even in this bill.
The leadership on the other side doesn't really want to debate the substance of this bill. Sometimes I get that feeling. They would prefer to turn this bipartisan bill into a political football.
This is inexcusable because we have worked very hard throughout this process to make sure everyone's concerns, both Republican and Democrat, were incorporated into this bill. I related all of those. There is no reason this bill should not get almost unanimous support. In fact, it was voted out of committee 19 to 2. Now we have opposition from the other side. I don't understand.
Anyone who votes against cloture tomorrow is effectively voting against all of the items I just listed. This should not happen on a bill that is meant to create jobs in America, with an emphasis upon manufacturing jobs.
Several weeks ago, there was an article in the Washington Post quoting a Democratic tax aide--unidentified--saying, ``There's not a lot of incentives for us to figure out this problem.''
The Democratic aide went on to say that allowing the extraterritorial income controversy to fester would yield increased sanctions--increased tariffs--on American products going to Europe, which would benefit the Democrats in November.
That is a very appalling statement. I don't think that staff of either party are paid to think in terms of politics. They ought to be paid to think in terms of policy and, in the end, if they think about policy, they have good politics.
Efforts to delay this bipartisan bill with unrelated measures is a poor excuse. So let's get on with the business at hand and finish this bill. Vote on cloture tomorrow, approve cloture, have finality on the bill, and when we do all that, we are going to put a jobs creation bill ahead of partisan politics, put these important benefits I just listed ahead of some concern that we have about an administrative regulation that hasn't even been issued yet. Let's stop playing politics and put the Senate back to work and move the JOBS bill forward.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I was listening with interest to my colleagues from Massachusetts and Iowa talk about the overtime issue. I was thinking about this in the context of jobs. One of the great debates we…
Mr. President, I was listening with interest to my colleagues from Massachusetts and Iowa talk about the overtime issue. I was thinking about this in the context of jobs.
One of the great debates we have is an economy that apparently is growing but producing really no new jobs. We are about 2.5 million jobs down from 3 years ago. Last month's jobs numbers were pretty anemic--I think 12,000 jobs, almost all of them government jobs.
I was thinking about the announcement 2 weeks ago that scheduled to create this manufacturing jobs czar that had been promised last fall. The administration is going to create a jobs czar because they are concerned about jobs, so they announced a ceremony that was going to be held to introduce their jobs czar. And then just before it happens, it is called off because the jobs czar is in China visiting his manufacturing plant he has moved from Nebraska to China. Everybody in the Administration was embarrassed about that. They are going to have a jobs czar that actually moved some of his American jobs to China. He was over there visiting his employees when the President was prepared to announce a new jobs czar for U.S. jobs.
It seems to me that the 40-hour workweek has always been about creating jobs, because if you can work employees 50 hours, 60 hours, 70 hours, and there is no consequence to it, then you don't have to create new jobs.
You just work your current employees overtime, on and on. But for 60 or 70 years in this country we have decided if you are required to work more than 40 hours a week, you have a right to be paid overtime. That is incentive to create jobs for the amount of work that is available or necessary for that amount over 40 hours. So at a time when we are losing jobs, and when jobs are the issue, I ask my colleague from Iowa, isn't it the case this overtime proposal actually retards the creation of new jobs, and to keep the 40-hour workweek and to get rid of this goofy proposal from the Department of Labor would actually be job creating?
As I walked over to the Chamber a few moments ago, it occurred to me there is almost never someone walking around this building, or standing out in front of the building who is advocating on behalf of working families, saying my job is to be here to make sure the voice of working families is heard in the Halls of Congress. There are a lot of people with shiny shoes, suspenders, and Cohiba cigars here and they are paid well to look after the big interests of this country, and they do a great job, God bless them. But the fact is working families don't have so much influence, regrettably, in Washington, DC. They don't have people here looking after their interests.
I am talking about those families in this country who know about second jobs. Why? Because they work second jobs. They know about second shifts. Why? Because they have the second-shift job. They know about secondhand, they know about second mortgages, and about second everything. Now they are worried about job security and about whether they will keep their jobs, about whether their jobs will be exported to China because they cannot compete with 33-cent labor. Now they have to worry about a proposal that says, for 70 years we have had a 40-hour workweek, and we are thinking of changing that so the big employers have the opportunity to work you 50 hours a week or 60 hours a week if we choose.
We go to bed at night in this country feeling good and safe. Why? Because the men and women from our police forces are driving up and down the streets to keep us safe. We go to bed not worrying about fires because we have firefighters out there who are awake all night. Many of them work extra hours and are paid overtime for it. That is an important part of their family's income.
Now we are told by the Department of Labor we would like to change all that after almost 70 years; we don't think employers ought to pay overtime. My colleague had it right. In fact, the sole job of some consulting companies it is to say to corporations, we are going to find a way with these rules to allow you not to have to pay overtime to your employees. I don't understand it.
I watched this morning when my colleague from Iowa was on the floor. I don't understand why we are not voting on this amendment. We voted on it before. The Senate already expressed itself. We said we support this amendment. I don't have the foggiest idea what those who are now scheduling this place think they are accomplishing. This isn't going away. This is going to be voted on. Perhaps not 5 minutes from now, maybe not 5 hours from now, but the Senate will vote. When the Senate votes on this, the Senate is going to say the Department of Labor should not be allowed to promulgate those rules. Why? Because the Senate, by and large, has a sense of fairness about this. The only way the leadership can stop this is to prevent a vote.
That is why we are here today, trying to force a vote. But those who have their foot in the door are doing it for one reason. They would lose a vote if they had it. They are going to have it and lose it. It will probably be tomorrow or next week, but this vote will happen and they are going to lose it. Why? Because there is a basic sense of fairness, in my judgment.
Finally, I come back to the proposition I started with. This kind of rule at this point is a way of saying we don't need more jobs in this country. Eliminating overtime for 6 or 8 million people is a way of saying we don't care about creating jobs. If you cannot work people overtime, over 40 hours, without paying time and a half--if you cannot do that, you have to create jobs to do the extra work. That is the way the system works. That is what has allowed the economy to grow. That is what produces new jobs.
Those who now support this proposition--the administration, Department of Labor, the majority party in Congress--that these overtime rules ought to be changed after 60-some years and prevent overtime payments to 6 million or 8 million people, they are the ones who are saying, apparently, we don't need new jobs in this
country. They don't stand for creating new jobs. I cannot think of a worse position to take at this point than, in the face of diminishing jobs and jobs moving overseas and outsourcing and those issues, for somebody to come to this floor and say, by the way, let's cut down even more on jobs by forcing people to work longer without paying them overtime. This makes no sense to me at all.
Again, my colleague is doing a service to the Senate by standing here and saying we are going to vote on this.
That is an interesting construct of the debate, and I think a reasonably accurate one. This underlying bill, while it has some flaws, would pass the Senate, in my judgment, and will pass the Senate. Those who are the architects of the bill and bring it to the floor want to bring it in a circumstance where they say, oh, by the way, this is our idea and you cannot add any of your ideas to it.
What the Senator from Iowa is doing is using the only alternative available to him to try to stop something that diminishes and destroys jobs in this country and destroys the opportunity to create more jobs.
The Senator from Iowa is perfectly within his rights to offer this amendment. The Senate already expressed itself on this amendment. Republicans and Democrats have said: We believe we ought to stop the Department of Labor from issuing these rules on overtime. It is not a radical position. The Senate has already taken this position. It had the vote.
I conclude by trying to put this in some perspective. I find it interesting that there are people in our political system who like organized labor as long as it is overseas. I will describe a story of something that happened. My colleague was perhaps there at the time. There was a joint session of Congress held in Washington, DC. As joint sessions are in almost all cases, it was a majestic situation. The House and Senate come together in the House Chamber. It is normally when the President gives a State of the Union Address, but sometimes a foreign leader is invited to speak to a joint session of Congress.
On this day, at the backdoor of the House of Representatives, a man was introduced to a joint session as Lech Walesa from Poland. I will never forget the day because this man, probably 5'8" tall, kind of chubby cheeks, red cheeks and a handlebar mustache, walked to the front of the room of the House and the applause began. It went on and on and on and on.
Then this man, no politician, no diplomat, no scholar, no intellectual, no military hero, told his story. I will never forget the speech he gave that day. The story briefly was this: He was a worker in a shipyard in Gdansk, Poland. He had been fired from his job as an electrician because he was leading a strike to organize workers. He was fired by the Communist government. On a Saturday morning, he was back in the shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, leading a strike of workers in that shipyard once again against the Communist government. He told us that the Communist secret police grabbed him and beat him severely. They took him to the edge of the shipyard and they hoisted him up unceremoniously over the barbed wire fence and threw him on the other side of the fence in this shipyard in Gdansk, Poland.
He told us that he lay there face down bleeding. Remember, this is an unemployed electrician who was leading a strike for a free labor movement against a Communist government. He lay there on that Saturday morning, bleeding face down in the dirt, wondering what to do next. The history books, of course, tell us what he did next. He pulled himself back up, climbed right back over the fence into that shipyard, and then 10 years later he was introduced in the House of Representatives to a joint session of the Congress as the President of the country of Poland.
This is what he said to us: We did not have any guns. The Communist government had all the guns. We did not have any bullets. The Communist government had all the bullets. We were only armed with an idea, and that is workers ought to be free to choose their own destiny. He said: My friends, ideas are more powerful than guns.
This man was no intellectual, no politician or diplomat, he was an unemployed electrician. And 10 years later he walked into this building as the President of his country, saying that workers have rights.
Our country embraced him. Our country embraced the effort and the sacrifice by Lech Walesa and so many others in the country of Poland in support of workers rights, in support of labor unions, in support of the very things we are talking about today.
It is interesting that it was Lech Walesa and Poland that lit the fuse that created a free Eastern Europe. In country after country, he lit the fuse that started it all and changed the world--the power of one and the power of an idea.
My colleague from Iowa is talking about the power of an idea, and this is not a new idea; it is a timeless truth. Yes, there are some timeless truths, and that is working people have a right to expect to be treated fairly. This country is not just about people at the top; this is about people at the top and the bottom and everything in between.
In my part of the country, we understood a century and a half ago, as the
wagon trains moved across the landscape in North Dakota heading west, that one does not move a wagon train ahead by leaving some wagons behind. We understood that long ago. The same is true with respect to policies in this country, especially economic policies.
The things that represented the root and the core of belief for Lech Walesa of Poland was represented on the streets of America 75 to 100 years ago about the rights of workers.
Business has rights, workers have rights, investors have rights. I understand all of that. Now we are talking about the right of people who for 60 years have understood the rules, and the rules are that if one's employer wants to work a person more than 40 hours a week, they have a right to expect to be paid overtime.
All of a sudden, for millions of families, law enforcement folks, firefighters and others, this administration wants to say: We are changing that rule; we believe employers have a right to tell you to work 50 or 60 hours and they do not need to pay you overtime.
As I said before, that is a quick way to say we do not need to create new jobs. We will just overwork existing workers. It is not fair. There is a basic sense of fairness in this Congress. That is why when this is voted on, as it was before, it will pass.
The basic contention of Senator Harkin is that this is, at its root, unfair. It changes the rules of the game.
You can talk a lot about this country of ours. I suppose in political campaigns there is way too much negative talk about our country. But there is a lot right about our country, and much of what has been right about our country has been manifested by people who have gone to the streets and gone to the ballot boxes and effected positive change that has improved the lives of working people and raised an entire middle class in this country which did not previously exist.
This is a big issue and an important issue. It is probably not as big or important to anybody in this Senate who doesn't get paid overtime. But there are millions of families who rely on overtime, who work hard every day to get the extra hours and get the overtime pay because that is the way they send their kids to school and buy their schoolbooks and send their kids to college or buy the spring clothing--to those families, it is important. I come back again to say those are the families who know about second: Second choice, second mortgage, second shift, second job, and too often, in my judgment, they get shortchanged here in Congress.
But they will not, I repeat not, be shortchanged if the Senator from Iowa and I and others who demand a vote on this provision get a vote because we will win that vote. We won it before in the Senate. We will win it again. When we win that vote, we will stop the Department of Labor from doing this, and we will, in my judgment, have advanced two things: No. 1, the respect for the rights of American workers; and, No. 2, we will have forced the creation of additional jobs in this country, something that is desperately needed at a time when we see far too many jobs going overseas.
I don't know what the time situation is of the Senator from Iowa, but I want to make one more comment. I talk about jobs overseas because it is the core of this issue about jobs that brings me to the floor to talk about overtime. I have spoken a good number of times about this issue and I am going to talk one more time for a minute.
The symbol of outsourcing of jobs is for me Huffy bicycles. We all know about Huffy bicycles. They are 20 percent of the American marketplace. Buy a good Huffy bicycle, buy it at Sears, Kmart, buy it at Wal-Mart. It used to be made in Ohio by American workers. I am sure they were proud of their jobs. I don't know any of them. Eleven dollars an hour they were paid to make Huffy bicycles.
Between the handlebar and the fender they put a little decal on Huffy bicycles and the decal was the American flag. But Huffy bicycles are not made there anymore. They are made in China. The decal isn't an American flag anymore. They changed the decal. In fact, I was told it was the last job the workers in Ohio had to do, was replace on existing inventory the American flag decal with a decal of the globe. Huffy bicycles are made in China by people making 33 cents an hour, working 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. The workers in Ohio can't compete with 33 cents an hour. That is the struggle of American workers these days. It is a big struggle. We have big questions to answer. We have trade policies we must try to set right. We have to deal with all these issues. We have to find some way to stand up for the interests of American jobs and American workers.
This overtime issue is just one piece of that, just one piece. But to some families it is everything. It is the way they send their kids to school; it is the way they help pay their mortgage; it is the way they help provide the income to raise their families. So this is a big deal to many families in this country.
For the 6 to 8 million families, workers who are affected by this, I think they owe a great debt of gratitude to my friend, Senator Harkin from Iowa. I will stand with him as will many of my colleagues to say he has a right to get this vote. When we get this vote we are going to win. We are going to do it not because we want to have a political argument with anybody; we are going to do it because this is very important to millions of Americans families who, all too often, are left behind in public policy here in this Congress.
I yield the floor.
Will the Senator yield? I was hoping my friend would stay. I would like to ask a series of questions and give him some information. Does the Senator have the time to stay? Mr. President, I thank my…
Will the Senator yield?
I was hoping my friend would stay. I would like to ask a series of questions and give him some information. Does the Senator have the time to stay?
Mr. President, I thank my friend, Senator Harkin, for his wonderful words. It means so much to me coming from him, someone who has been in this Senate for so many years, a voice of the working people. By the way, that is most of the people in this country who have to work for a living. In many families, as we know, two people are working, and in many families they work overtime to be able to pay the bills and college tuition and health care, and on and on. This issue is crucial.
I also thank Senator Baucus for being so strong in his support of allowing a vote on this amendment.
It is very important because, as my friend said today at lunch--I had the honor of listening to Senator Harkin speak as he made the point-- how can you do a jobs bill and not look at the issue of overtime, which if the administration has its way will be taken away from probably 8 million people? As my friend, Senator Harkin, relayed the history, it is a stunning situation that we find ourselves refighting the issue of overtime in the 21st century.
I wish to share with my colleague something that is very interesting, a bit of correspondence that has gone back and forth. When I saw Secretary Chao--by the way, I find her to be a very nice person. I like her. We have a very nice personal relationship. This is not personal. I asked her about the regulation. I said: My people at home are very afraid of this regulation because they think they will be denied overtime.
She said: Oh, it's hardly going to affect anybody.
I said: All right. Instead of asking you about every category, let me tell you that my police men and women, my firefighters, and my paramedics--my first responders--are very concerned about losing their overtime.
She said: Senator Boxer, not a chance. This is not even going to happen.
So I wrote her a letter, and I said: Secretary Chao, you know I oppose this. I am very worried about it. Can you please explain to me why I should not be worried? So she writes back a letter. I wrote her on February 9, and on February 26 I was very pleased that she answered the letter, and she explains why, in her opinion, firefighters and first responders and policemen will not be impacted.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record my letter to Secretary Chao and her response.
Well, it did not end there, I say to my friend from Iowa. I got a visit from police officers in my office here in Washington, and what is on their agenda, the first thing? Overtime. I said: Well, look, I am going to do everything I can to protect you. I raised this issue with Secretary Chao. She answered my letter. She says you have nothing to worry about. Will you please go over her answers, and can you please comment back to me as to what you think of her opinion on whether you will lose overtime?
So I have blown up for you to see, I say to Senator Harkin and Senator Baucus, something you might be interested in. These quotes go side by side.
Secretary Chao says in her letter to me:
First, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and other
first responders are not white collar employees. They do not
perform office or non-manual work.
So, therefore, she is essentially saying they will not fit into this revision of the rules because they are not white-collar employees. This is what she says about police officers.
This is what my police officers write back:
Many police officers do not drive black and white patrol
vehicles and perform only enforcement/patrol duties. Police
officers also serve in investigative and other capacities. As
such they do not wear uniforms and a great deal of their work
is performed in an office.
So here she is saying they are not white-collar employees and they say many times their work is in the office.
In cold case units--
You know what a cold case is: an old case. They call it a cold case. They just put it aside--
The vast preponderance of their duties entail reviewing
files and records in the office.
With the increased use of technology many officers are
spending more and more of their time performing office, non-
manual type work to facilitate the detection and basis for
apprehension of criminal suspects.
Without an explicit non-exempt status--
This is the key point--
Local agencies interpreting the regulation may well
determine that those employees are white collar and perform
office work--and then exclude them from overtime coverage. If
this were to occur, many of the most talented officers would
choose not to be promoted (to the detriment of the
Department) due to monetary concerns.
So with all due respect to Secretary Chao, who is, as I say, a friend, her comment that they are not white-collar employees is not at all clear. So that is one difference.
Now let's go on to the other differences. This is why my police officers are absolutely in favor of what Senator Harkin wants to do, which is to reverse the move of the administration.
Secretary Chao's letter says:
Second, a large number of such employees--such as those
represented by the International Union of Police
Associations--are covered by collective bargaining
agreements, which are not affected by the current or proposed
regulations. We also believe it is unrealistic for unions to
claim that overtime pay granted under a current collective
bargaining agreement is likely to be revoked during a new negotiation.
So that is her second point. First, they say they never do white- collar work. Wrong. Now she says their collective bargaining agreements could never be overturned.
Let's see what the California police officers say:
The clout of independent police associations varies widely.
Some would be able to protect their contract-required
overtime, others would not. Many overtime provisions in
collective bargaining agreements refer to the regulations or
statutory requirements. Those overtime provisions would end
with statutory or regulatory changes and would not even
extend to the next negotiations.
To assume that it is ``unrealistic'' that contract
provisions once granted would not be revoked is simply
ignorant.
Those are strong statements.
Contract provisions are frequently revoked during the
collective bargaining process. The regulatory or statutory
requirements currently in place have held at bay any attack
of the overtime agreement.
Regulatory and statutory requirements have been a major
contributing factor in the successful recovery of moneys owed
and withheld by employers in violation of respective
collective bargaining agreements.
Yes, I yield to my friend.
Exactly.
Exactly the point.
Right. They say right here:
If it was such a foregone conclusion that represented
employees could negotiate and maintain overtime protections
absent statutory and regulatory requirements, the law and
regulations would never have been made applicable to any
workers under a collective bargaining agreement.
That is right. You have the statutory protection, which they are now going to take away from these workers. They are taking it away and saying: Well, you can fix it with your collective bargaining.
And she says, you have it anyway in your collective bargaining, which is not always the case. I think what the police officers have done, in dissecting this, is to be the truth tellers here.
There is one more chart. Secretary Chao says in her letter:
Third, many public safety employees, as well as nurses, are
paid on an hourly basis. Hourly workers are not affected by
Part 541 under either the current or proposed rules.
This is what the California police officers say:
Employers have made determinations on who is exempt based
on the totality of the regulatory requirements. Some will
view any modification as a basis to reconsider exempt status.
Collective bargaining agreements generally do not state that
employees are ``hourly'' employees. Employers would challenge
that assertion.
So that is another point.
Then Secretary Chao says:
Moreover, those public safety employees who are paid on a
salary basis and may be earning less than $22,100 a year will
immediately gain overtime protection under our proposed rule.
They say:
Fine. But this does not apply to and will not affect any
California public safety officers.
Thank God we pay them more than $22,100 to protect our lives and our children's lives. So that is a useless deal in this category of workers.
Lastly, she writes:
I can assure you, however, that it is not our intention to
deny overtime pay to police officers, fire fighters,
paramedics, or LPNs, or to change the current rules with
respect to RNs.
Here is what the police officers say:
We in police work subscribe to a common rule: Say what you
mean, mean what you say and memorialize it in print. If the
intent is not to deny overtime, then put it in writing.
By the way, that was in my first letter I sent to Secretary Chao. I said: You keep saying they are not affected. Why don't you change your rule and simply exempt first responders, and then at least my police and firefighters and nurses and paramedics will not be so upset.
Even more to the point, collective bargaining agreements generally do not state that employees are hourly. So it is very easy for an employer to say: Show me in your contract where it says you are hourly, even if you formally are. So people are going to be stuck, and they are not going to get their overtime pay.
At the end of the day we have to get back to this bottom line. The Secretary says:
I can assure you, however, it is not our intention to deny
overtime pay to police officers, fire fighters, paramedics. .
..
I say to my friend, put it in writing. I think that is pretty obvious. They will not put it in writing.
I am so happy that my friend brought this up. When I first approached Secretary Chao, we had a very friendly conversation. It was right out here.
I said to her: My people are up in arms. Talk to me. What are you doing?
Well, it is hardly going to affect anybody, she said.
I said: Well, if it is going to affect hardly anybody, why bother? That doesn't make any sense.
Then I said: My policemen, my firemen, my first responders are really over the top on this.
And she said: They are not affected.
That is why I wrote to her and said put it in writing. She said: It is not necessary, they are exempt because they are not white collar, and all the rest.
Here we find out from the police officers themselves how silly the Department of Labor position is because of the fact that many of our criminal cases are solved now on computers in the office, doing investigatory work.
I don't know exactly what is going on except an effort to undermine working conditions and pay for millions of people.
I want to read one more letter and then I will leave the floor. This is from SGT Mark Nichols, President of the Santa Ana Police Officers Association in Orange County:
Public safety in California is facing a major crisis as we
try to get back on our feet fiscally. To eliminate the
Federal non-exempt provision at this time when dollars are
scarce would be akin to placing a huge bull's eye on the
already beleaguered morale of our members. We are currently
stretched further than is prudent. To give our employers the
opportunity possibly of stretching us even further to save an
extra buck or two could be devastating to a profession
already facing recruitment and retention problems.
We are a profession that works 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, 365 days a year. I personally left a salaried position
to join police work. Being compensated for extra work at the
overtime rate was a big factor in my decision. We are
continually required to extend our workday or return to work
from off duty time. This is a difficult enough job, with its
disruptions and hardships placed on our members and our
families. To even allow for the possibility that police
officers could lose their non-exempt status and overtime
provisions is irresponsible.
I thank my friend. I know he has to go to other Senate business. I will ask for a quorum call in a moment. But I will yield to him for one more comment. I just say thank you on behalf of my police officers, my nurses, my first responders. I can't thank you enough.
I thank the Senator. He made my day. I am so privileged that he would say such words to me. On this issue, we will not back down. We will stand together with many of our colleagues. Interestingly, a majority of the Senate already voted with the Senator. All we are asking is give us a vote on behalf of the policemen, the policewomen, the first responders, the firefighters, the nurses, the paramedics. Let us make sure we do not take away their overtime pay because to do so would be an enormous hardship on them and on their families at a time when we should be elevating them in status and saying to them, thank you, not only in pictures that we love to show with our arms around them--and we all do that--but in deeds. We really mean what we say, and we say you will not lose your overtime pay.
I hope we can get a vote on this important amendment and move on to the rest of the bill which is quite important.
I thank the Chair and suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Mr. President, I want to continue to discuss the white- collar exemptions on the overtime legislation and the…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I want to continue to discuss the white- collar exemptions on the overtime legislation and the amendment we are dealing with. I want to express how frustrating it is to see a very carefully constructed proposal by the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, being mischaracterized, therefore placing fear in the American people through the misrepresentation of the nature of these regulations.
First of all, Secretary Chao is one of the finest public servants I know. From the time she gets to work in the morning until the time she gets home late at night, she is committed to making this a better country, a good country to live and work in. She wants to do something about these regulations that have not been changed since 1954 in any significant way. They need to be updated. Her proposed rule changes have received 70,000 comments. The Department of Labor is considering those, and they ought to be able to update these regulations. There is no doubt about it. It is time to do that.
The impact has been completely misrepresented. We need to talk about it. I think the reason, frankly, is that we are in a political season. People want to make this a political issue. If they can go around and say, Mean old President Bush wants to deny you your overtime and you can't get overtime anymore, and they can stir this up and make these complaints, then they think some people might believe it. But it is not right. What is being said is not right. It is not fair.
The Department of Labor has proposed changes to the regulations governing the overtime exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act, also known as the white-collar exemption.
The regulations defining which workers are entitled to overtime were written in 1954 and have not been updated to reflect the ongoing changes in the workplace. Today's workers are operating under the rules that are 50 years old.
These rules include job descriptions like ``gang leader,'' ``ratesetter,'' and ``Linotype operator.'' Therefore, it is easy to understand why many businesses have trouble identifying which workers qualify for overtime and which are exempt under current law.
The proposed rule increases the minimum salary requirements for overtime from as low as $155 a week to $425 a week.
Let me talk about that. Let us get this straight.
A worker making as little as $155 a week today could be denied overtime if they are classified in a supervisor capacity. Under the rules of the Secretary of Labor, if you made $425 a week or less, you are automatically entitled to overtime no matter what job title some business might give you. That is going to help a lot of people, I submit. According to the Department of Labor, this change would result in 1.3 million Americans who earn less than $22,100 per year being guaranteed overtime compensation. That is not so now. A worker can be classified as some sort of supervisor making $18,000 or $20,000 a year and not get overtime.
Under the current regulations, a person earning $14,300 annually who works behind the counter at a restaurant, for example, and is called a manager could be denied overtime compensation. The new regulations would guarantee overtime pay to this person and others making less than $22,100. They would be guaranteed it. That is a lot of people. It means a lot to those people.
Additionally, the Department of Labor projects 10.7 million workers who currently qualify for overtime will have all of those protections strengthened, including nurses, chefs, secretaries, unionized workers, and first responders.
Following discussions with the Department of Labor, the Fraternal Order of Police, a major organization representing thousands of police officers who we deal with from the Judiciary Committee on a regular basis and who is actively engaged in defending the interests of their members, released a statement recognizing the fact that police officers will still receive overtime compensation under these new regulations. The President of the National
Fraternal Order of Police, Chuck Canterbury, said:
Thanks to the leadership of Secretary Chao, we have no
doubt that overtime pay will continue to be available to
those officers currently receiving it and, if the new rules
are approved, even more of our Nation's police officers,
firefighters, and EMTs will be eligible for overtime. This
development was possible because this is an Administration
that listens to the concerns of the FOP, and because of their
commitment to our Nation's first responders.
I think that is a strong statement. And for months now we have been hearing how these regulations are going to hurt policemen, firemen, and emergency medical technicians.
That is not true. It is false. In fact, it is going to guarantee a lot of people overtime who are not receiving it today.
According to the Human Resource Policy Association, the proposed changes would impact about 12.6 million workers--it sounds like a lot-- 12.6 million workers out of 134 million workers. About 10 percent of workers would be affected. Of that 12.6 million affected, 12 million would now qualify for overtime or have their current overtime protections strengthened--not reduced, strengthened--12 million out of 12.6 million who are affected will have their protections strengthened. The other 644,000 workers--highly educated individuals earning an average of $50,000 per year--might be subject to reclassification under these regulations. That is what it is focusing on. The proposed rules would clarify the regulations affecting millions of workers.
By updating these rules, the Department of Labor would ease the burden on employees and employers who find it difficult to navigate the often confusing and outdated regulations governing proper compensation, including overtime pay. Additionally, the Department will be better able to enforce the law once clarifications are made.
I know the Presiding Officer is a lawyer, a former attorney general and justice of the Texas Supreme Court, and knows litigation. As a lawyer in private practice not too many years ago--maybe not long before I came to the Senate in the mid 1990s--I represented a friend I grew up with who is a bulldozer operator, a heavy equipment operator. He is a good guy. He had a dispute with his employer. He thought maybe he was entitled to overtime pay because he ran heavy equipment. The company said, No, you are a contractor. I said, Friend, I think you are right. We filed a lawsuit, and we had to go to court. We eventually settled before trial, and we got him overtime. I think he was legally entitled to overtime under current Federal regulations. Whether he should have been, I do not know. But it makes it clear that these rules and regulations are confusing. He had to pay me a lawyer's fee to represent him. I do not know how much it cost the court or how much it cost the company to pay their lawyer to defend the lawsuit. But this kind of thing happens too much.
I represented one more overtime case. She was a clerical person at an entity, and she thought she was being unfairly treated. I looked at her case and it was not a lot of money. I talked to her and I thought she was right. We filed a lawsuit. They agreed eventually to pay her overtime after some haggling and discussion back and forth.
Do you know where she worked? Do you know who her employer was? It was a union local. They agreed to pay and they admitted she was not properly paid overtime. If we make it clearer so that it is indisputable what overtime is and what it is not, we will see less confusion.
Lawsuits over violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act are increasing each year. According to the HR Policy Association, in 2001 the number of Fair Labor Standards Act class action lawsuits actually exceeded the number of Equal Employment Opportunity class action lawsuits.
In Carpenter v. R.M. Shoemaker Company, the court ruled that a project superintendent making around $90,000 annually was not an exempt employee and was thus entitled to overtime even though the employee supervised three large construction projects for a construction management company.
These laws are complex. If I were a plaintiff and I were representing someone, I would try to figure out a way to get my client in there and get them overtime, too. But I don't think that is what Congress had in mind when it created a statute where a guy making $90,000 a year that supervises three large construction projects can receive overtime compensation. That sounds like a supervisor to me. I bet the company did not lose the lawsuit for any other reason than there was probably a violation of the complex Federal law written in 1954, 50 years ago.
In Hashop v. Rockwell Space Operations, the court decided that ``network communications systems instructors'' who had advanced degrees in physics, mathematics, and engineering, and trained personnel were not exempt because they used technical manuals and made decisions in groups. These things are pretty complicated.
Under the current rule we have employees earning $90,000 a year or possessing advanced degrees qualifying for overtime. This is not the low-wage worker we keep hearing about in our debate. Fundamentally that is what Secretary Chao's regulations are focused on, these high-wage employees who are supervisors and are slipping in and claiming overtime when that was not the intention of Congress.
Many employers worry about incurring large unexpected litigation costs due to their inability to properly interpret these confusing rules. Even lawyers and Department of Labor investigators can have difficulty deciphering the line between exempt and nonexempt employees. By clarifying the line--who is a salaried employee and who is not--we can reduce the number of lawsuits brought under this section, and we can make sure more people get paid overtime properly from the very beginning. If you make less than $22,100 a year, you get overtime. That is a bright line. That is what we ought to have more of, more bright lines in this Congress so there is a lot less confusion. If you make less than that, you get overtime. That will pick up a tremendous number of people today who have been classified as some sort of manager or supervisor but have made much less than $22,100 and, as a result of these changes, they are going to gain benefits. I believe far more will benefit than will lose under these proposed regulations. By clarifying that, we can reduce lawsuits.
In 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, the Congress instructed the Secretary of Labor to make changes to the white-collar exemption rules. That was part of the congressional instruction, to make changes in the white-collar exemption rules. It was understood, I assume, at that time that they had not worked everything out fully and more work needed to be done on these regulations.
The Department of Labor has now issued these proposed regulations. They issued them in March of last year. Everyone has seen them. They have been published. They have received in response to these proposed regulations over 70,000 comments during the 90-day comment period. Secretary Chao is doing her job. She is seeking to update and modernize these regulations to make them fit the contemporary needs of America today. We do not have gang leaders being paid wages today. I don't think that job description any longer exists. There is a lot of need for improvement and change. Secretary Chao is on the right track. They will continue to refine these regulations if there is a problem.
There is no plot here to try to undermine the right of working Americans to receive overtime. That is a completely bogus and political argument we are in at this time. Frankly, politics is intervening too much in our debate of late. I guess that is the nature of American government. We will have to put up with it. I am getting a bellyful of it and think we need to set the record straight whenever possible.
I am looking at another group that has been asserted would lose benefits under this, the Non-Commissioned Officers Association of the United States of America. They wrote a letter to Bill Frist, the majority leader in the Senate. They said:
It is a blinding glimpse of the obvious that neither the
current rules nor the revised proposal will negatively impact
those who serve or have served in the [United States]
uniformed services. In fact, this association's direct
discussions with DOL leads us to the conclusion that the
proposed rule relative to
the revised ceiling for annual income (increased from $8,060
to $13,000) will greatly expand the pool of eligible workers
for overtime compensation.
I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record.
We need to let this process work, allow the Secretary of Labor to evaluate these comments and continue her process of establishing fair and modernized overtime regulations.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Mr. President, I would like to speak about the Harkin amendment. I wasn't here for the earlier conversation,…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I would like to speak about the Harkin amendment. I wasn't here for the earlier conversation, but I was advised about some of the arguments that have been made. It concerns me because people are concerned about the proposed rules that have been promulgated by the Department of Labor. I think it is incumbent upon us to clarify the situation so American workers are not frightened of these proposed rules because of the mischaracterization by certain people.
The amendment here would stop the rules from going into effect. I fear there are things being said about these rules that are very inaccurate, misleading, and therefore are frightening people into thinking somehow the rules would prevent them from receiving overtime pay, when the reality is more people would be ensured they could qualify for overtime pay than is the case today.
I want to speak for a few moments to try to allay the fears of people so they are not concerned about these proposals and they embrace them, because the possibility of overtime extends to a larger universe of people than it does today. I will talk about this for a moment. The amendment would prohibit the Department of Labor from pursuing this proposed rule, which clarifies something called the white-collar exemption from the FLSA overtime rules, or the Fair Labor Standards Act rules.
What it has to do with is the requirement that non-white-collar workers are entitled to overtime under certain circumstances. The question is, how do we define the non-white-collar workers as opposed to the white-collar workers to understand who is entitled to receive compensation for the overtime and who is not. The proposed changes would actually guarantee payments to 1.3 million low-wage workers who were not entitled to overtime before. I think this is the key point. It does not take away people; it adds to the number of people who would qualify for overtime.
This is one of the ways in which that occurs: It would raise the minimum salary level at which workers are ensured overtime pay from $155 to $425 a week, $22,100 annually. So it raises the level at which this kicks in, which would be the largest increase since the law was enacted in 1938. So we are making the availability to a much larger group of people, people at a higher salary level, than has ever been the case.
It will actually ensure that the lowest 20 percent of all salaried workers get pay of time and a half for overtime work. Now, that is a substantial increase in the number of American workers who will be ensured overtime pay. This is so important because I have heard from workers who have personally spoken to me and they are very frightened about this. They believe that somehow or another these proposed rules are going to make it more difficult for them to get overtime pay. The reality is that a lot more people are going to be ensured that they will receive overtime pay. First, as I said, because we are raising the level of people who would be covered. That is the largest reason why we can make that claim.
Another thing that this proposed rule does is to clarify the definitions of who is actually covered and who is not covered. In recent years, there have been a large number of class action lawsuits that have been brought over this definition of white-collar status; therefore, the question of whether they are exempt from overtime requirements. This has actually surpassed the Equal Employment Opportunity class action lawsuits in number, and there are a lot of those. The trial lawyers end up making millions of dollars off of this confusion in the current system over the definition. This law would eliminate all of that cost and all of the wasted energy in litigation and paying a lot of trial lawyers by clarifying who is covered and who is not covered.
Now let's talk a little bit about that definition because, once again, people are asking whether they are going to be covered anymore; they will be exempt from this guarantee of overtime pay with the new definitions. I want to make it very clear that in most of the situations I have heard described that just is not true.
Employees who earn more than $65,000 annually would be exempted from the overtime pay requirements if their job involves executive, administrative, or professional duties. Now, again, we are talking about time-and-a-half pay. When one is making over $65,000 a year and they are in an executive position, the theory is that they can negotiate their own salary, that they are not in the situation in which they would be getting time and a half for the time they put in, and that is the reason for this particular exemption.
Those who earn between $22,100 and $65,000 will remain eligible for overtime pay if they meet what is called the short test. That determines whether they are exempted white-collar workers. That test basically includes definitions such as whether one supervises two or more employees, whether they have the authority to hire and fire or they need an advanced degree or some kind of specialized training. One would have to clearly be in one of those categories in order not to be guaranteed the protection of this time and a half for overtime. That is between $22,100 and $65,000.
There is a study out that I think also has some faulty data in it which have skewed the effect of the proposed rule that has been used by the opponents of the proposed regulation and by the supporters of the amendment that would prevent the regulation from going into effect. The claim is that 8 million workers would become exempt from overtime pay requirements based on this so-called EPI study. One of the reasons that the number is so large is because the study counts part-time workers who do not work 40 hours a week and therefore do not receive overtime pay.
Well, we have to extract all of those workers in order to have a relevant cohort because one has to work 40 hours a week in order to qualify for overtime pay.
The study also includes individuals who are not affected by the rule. Again, I do not see how one can have a valid study that allegedly shows how many people would no longer qualify if a lot of people are included in the study who do not qualify in the first instance. So it is very unclear what the actual number of people would be who would not qualify for the overtime pay.
Clearly, this study is fatally flawed in those two significant respects and therefore it should not be used to scare people into suggesting they would no longer be covered.
I will give some other examples of different professions in which there have been questions raised, and I think it is important we allay the fears of these people. Cooks are concerned, people who cook in restaurants, for example. Well, all cooks are not exempted from the overtime pay in the proposal.
Only chefs who have college degrees in the culinary arts will be deemed white-collar workers and therefore exempt from this requirement. So when one hears the conversation about all of the cooks who are no longer going to be entitled to time and a half because that is--I mean, when a person is working in a restaurant, for example, there is a lot of time and a half involved in that and here we are not talking about most of the people. The people who would be exempted are only those who have a college degree in culinary arts, which does not represent most of the people who are actually doing the cooking.
One of the arguments is as to the process, and there has been a suggestion that this rule was just passed in the middle of the night and somehow people are not aware of it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Prior to the drafting of the rule, the Department of Labor held over 40 meetings of stakeholders, people who had an interest in the proposed rule, 50 different interest groups, including, by the way, 16 labor unions. Some of the labor unions have raised questions, I think some will support it, but the bottom line is they were included in the consultations.
I am advised that the Department of Labor invited 80 groups to participate in these stakeholder meetings. So I do not think anybody can claim this was done in the middle of the night.
I ask unanimous consent that a letter which was provided to me--it was sent to the majority leader and minority leader from the Grand Lodge Fraternal Order of Police--be printed in the Record.
The author of the letter in the first paragraph--I will not cite the entire letter but the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, whose name is Chuck Canterbury, wrote this:
I am writing on behalf of the membership of the Fraternal
Order of Police to advise you of our concerns regarding an
amendment which is expected to be offered tomorrow on the
floor of the Senate concerning the proposed regulations
governing the exemptions from overtime pay under the Fair
Labor Standards Act, and to renew our opposition to any such
effort which would have the effect of delaying or hindering
the Department of Labor's ability to issue a final rule.
The reason I quote that letter is to make the point that this is the FOP, a very large and important union in our Nation today, which would like to see this rule issued. It is an illustration of one of the groups that has been involved in the process that understands what the Department of Labor is doing and appreciates the positive effect of the rule that has been proposed.
I also want to make it clear that this is only a proposed regulation. After the rule is promulgated by the Department, obviously there would be a final implementation of the rule. At the earliest, that would come out next year sometime, and clearly the Senate would have the ability at that time to address any complaints about the final rule. The agency, I am advised, has received over 80,000 comments with respect to its proposed rule and is currently working its way through those comments. So this is not something that is going to be happening tomorrow. Once they get through all of those comments, they will promulgate the final rule, again perhaps coming out sometime next year. The Senate, in any event, would have plenty of time to work on it.
That is essentially what I wanted to say, to make the point that those who have been scared or frightened by some of the comments about this proposed rule should stop and get more information about the rule. They should listen to some of the debate we are trying to bring to the floor and contact the Department of Labor if they have a question, or contact our offices so we can clarify what this proposed rule really does. We can make it clear it is not being put into effect to take a bunch of people out of the market for time-and-a-half guarantee of overtime, but in point of fact it would actually guarantee that more people would have the ability to get overtime, and because of the clarification of definitions, it would remove the potential for even more litigation that simply raises confusion about whether people are covered.
We can make it clear we are talking about people who make a lot of money, who have a lot of control over the negotiation of their salaries, who have supervision over other employees, and so on. Those are the people who are being exempt. It is not the people who are just regular workers, who don't supervise a lot of people, who don't hire and fire people, and so on. Those folks may or may not wear white collars to work, but the bottom line is they are not exempt from the requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act to provide them time and a half for overtime for the hours they actually work. It is important to get that message out to folks; that it is not something about
which they should be concerned. Rather, the intention behind the rule is to clarify and expand the number of people eligible for it.
I hope folks who have concerns about that will be in touch with us so we can allay those concerns. Perhaps the amendment I am talking about will come up for a vote, perhaps it will not. If it does, I hope it is defeated because we need to move forward with the regulations the Department is working on right now and see them promulgated. Once that occurs, you will see labor unions and workers all over the country looking at the final product and saying, yes, that is fair. That is protective of me. It clarifies the situation, and we can support it.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. The parliamentary inquiry I would like to make is where are we right now on the bill? Are we on the motion to recommit, at this point? I understand also that a…
Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.
The parliamentary inquiry I would like to make is where are we right now on the bill? Are we on the motion to recommit, at this point?
I understand also that a cloture motion has been filed on the motion to recommit.
Since there is a motion to recommit that is pending, is it not in order for an amendment to be made to that motion?
Do I understand that both a first-degree and second- degree amendment have been made already?
So, therefore, no amendments, then, are allowed, under the rules of the Senate, to be made to the motion to recommit?
Further inquiry, Mr. President: Yesterday this Senator offered an amendment dealing with overtime. Is that amendment still pending?
Is it further correct to say that if cloture is invoked, this amendment would fall, that it would not be allowed under the rules of the Senate?
I understand that. But then this Senator would be allowed to offer my overtime amendment on the new bill that will be before us at that point?
Further inquiry, Mr. President: If, however, cloture is invoked on the motion to recommit, is it not true that this Senator's amendment then would fall and not be allowed, under the rules of cloture, or am I wrong? Maybe my amendment would be allowed.
Yes.
I understand that. I want to make it very clear for those who may be watching in their offices and not present on the floor. If cloture tomorrow, when it ripens, is invoked, we will not be allowed to vote on an overtime amendment; is that correct? Because it will be deemed to be nongermane under the rules of cloture, is that correct?
I repeat my question. I want to make it clear to those who are watching in their offices and may not be on the floor right now. Under the rules of germaneness, under the rules of the Senate, because of the parliamentary tactics just taken by the majority, having a motion to recommit and then sort of filling the tree, as we call it around here in parliamentary parlance, having the first-degree amendment and the second-degree amendment and then filing cloture--that was filed, I guess, yesterday--that through all of this parliamentary maneuvering, if in fact the Senate votes for cloture, on Wednesday, on tomorrow, then Senators will be denied a right to vote on my overtime amendment; is that not correct?
I will ask one more time because I want to get this straight. There is pending a cloture motion. That cloture motion will be voted on tomorrow; is that not correct? It will ripen tomorrow.
If in fact there is a vote tomorrow on cloture and cloture is invoked--that is, a majority of the Senate votes yes on cloture--then this Senator's amendment on overtime will not be allowed under the rules of the Senate pertaining to germaneness; is that correct?
Then under the rules of Senate, if cloture is invoked, this Senator's amendment would not be allowed, I understand, because it will be nongermane.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I understand that under a previous order the Senate is going to recess at 12:30 p.m.
Mr. President, we are in a situation where it looks as though the majority on the other side simply does not want to vote on my overtime amendment. They are going to do everything they can to try to prevent it.
Again, there is talk about delay and who is delaying this bill. Look, I offered my amendment the other day and we could have had a vote by now. I was willing to enter into a time agreement. They would not do it. I offered the amendment under a unanimous consent agreement reached with the other side to bring it up. Now, the parliamentary games being played are not on this side; they are on the other side. One really has to ask, Does the other side really want to get this bill through?
Again, I have no doubt that the chairman, my friend and colleague from Iowa, wants to get it through. He is chairman. Having been in that position before on another committee, I know you want to get your bill through. I have no doubt that the Senator from Iowa would like to get the bill through. It looks as though the leadership on that side-- either the leadership or the administration; I don't know who is calling the shots--is simply saying they don't want to have a vote on overtime.
It is really unfortunate that they have now filed cloture on this bill. My friend and colleague from Iowa, and others on the other side, have referred to this as a jobs bill. They keep talking about it is a jobs bill. Well, all I can say in response to that is I believe the ranking member of our committee, Senator Baucus from Montana, would like to get the bill through, we would like to get completion of this bill and get it through, but that does not mean we should not be allowed to offer some reasonable number of amendments to try to improve it as we see fit. They may win, they may lose, but at least we ought to be allowed the right to offer and debate some amendments within reasonable timeframes.
One of the most important job-related amendments is the amendment on overtime. How could we possibly tell the American people with a straight face that we are passing a ``jobs bill'' on the Senate floor but we are not addressing the issue of overtime pay and the administration's proposed regulations that would have the effect of taking overtime pay protection away from millions of American workers?
This is an issue that goes right to the heart, the gut, of our American workforce: The right to be paid time and a half when one works over 40 hours a week. It has been in the law since 1938. Yet, as I said yesterday and I will continue to point out, last year the administration came out with a proposed set
of regulations to change the underlying overtime law. They did it without having one public hearing. Imagine that, changing something so fundamental to the American work ethic as the right to overtime pay without having a public hearing.
They put out the proposed regulations and the American public responded with thousands--I have heard maybe 60,000 to 70,000 comments. Then last summer, after a number of us had gotten wind of what they were trying to do and we started reading the proposed regulations, we offered an amendment on the Senate floor that would have basically denied that part of the overtime regulation that would take away this overtime right.
That amendment I offered last summer passed the Senate. It was bipartisan. I have heard a lot of references to the fact that this bill is a bipartisan bill. Well, the amendment I am offering is a bipartisan amendment because it was voted on last summer by both Republicans and Democrats and passed in the Senate, 54 to 46. Around here, that is pretty bipartisan.
Basically, what that amendment said is, no, we are not going to agree with the administration's proposed changes on overtime rules. If the administration wants to make fundamental changes in overtime rules, they ought to do it in the time-honored manner: work with Congress, have public hearings around the country, and then let Congress and the administration get together to revise, if revision is needed, overtime laws. But that is not the way the administration did it.
Again, if I hear correctly people on the other side say we are slowing down or stopping this bill, I am sorry; it does not ring true. This bill could have been brought up last fall, and it was not. We just spent a whole week in the Senate debating a gun bill that failed with over 90 votes against it. What was that all about? Why did we spend over a week doing that when we could have been doing this bill, if this bill is so important?
One has to raise some questions about what is going on because when one reads some of the publications around here--this was in Congressional Quarterly Today about this bill. According to the Congressional Quarterly, the chairman of the House committee, Congressman Thomas:
. . . told the Tax Executive Institute, a group of
corporate tax officials, on Monday that lobbyists seeking
specific changes in international tax rules had effectively
stymied his bill, according to the Associated Press.
So it is not us who are stymying this bill. Again, there are some corporate lobbyists downtown who are. Again, from CQ Today:
Meanwhile, House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, R-
California, told a group of business tax officials on Monday
that the current House version of the bill (H.R. 2896) was
probably doomed.
So it is not us who are slowing this bill down, not at all. This Senator would like to see this bill get through. I think there are some good things in this bill. That does not mean we should not be allowed to offer our amendments and have an up-or-down vote on those amendments.
A jobs bill? Well, fine, call it a jobs bill, but do not tell me this is a jobs bill and then say we cannot have a vote on our overtime amendment. That is about jobs. We know it is about jobs because we know, common sense dictates, if an employer can work a person longer than 40 hours a week and not have to pay overtime, why, it would be much better to work the person longer, pay them less, and then not hire any new workers.
At a time when we have 9 million Americans out of work, we have a jobless recovery in this country, why would we now be wanting to give employers another incentive not to hire new workers?
We had an agreement to consider my amendment. It was the fourth amendment in the series we agreed to prior to last week's recess, but no sooner was I able to offer my amendment last evening than the majority leadership decided to move to recommit the whole bill and to file cloture on that motion.
I am not sure how that meets our previous agreement to take up my amendment, but that is where we are now. A motion to recommit the bill is pending. I would like to talk about overtime. I would like to have an amendment about overtime and have a vote on it. As my parliamentary inquiries earlier this morning showed, we can go through this whole charade, motion to recommit, file a cloture, we can vote on that, and we can still come back with this amendment.
I suppose then they will file cloture on the bill. That is why it was wrong on the majority side to file cloture on this motion to recommit and why I hope we will oppose that cloture motion and deny cloture until we can get a right to offer our amendments and have a vote on our amendments.
We are not asking for unlimited debate. I would agree with the manager of the bill right now to a time limit on my amendment with an up-or-down vote. So it is not about us stalling this bill. Forget about that. Get that out of your head. That is not what is happening. What is happening is the majority side simply does not want to vote on overtime. Why? Because I think they are afraid, and the vote will be even stronger this time than it was last summer because more and more American workers, more and more people have found out what this administration downtown is trying to do to their overtime pay.
I will be on the floor waiting for every opportunity to offer this amendment and to get a vote on it. If the other side believes that somehow by going through this charade and slowing this bill down and somehow blaming us for it when we are not doing this is somehow going to get rid of this overtime amendment, well, I am sorry to disappoint them. We are going to continue to debate and have a vote on this overtime amendment. It is that crucial, that important, to the American worker that this Senate express itself once again and say no to the administration, that we are not going to let them trample on the rights of American workers and take away their right to overtime pay if they work over 40 hours a week.
I see my time has expired. I yield the floor.
Madam President, I give my compliments to the yeoman efforts of the Senator from Michigan. She has done a wonderful job. She has many times come to me and asked: Max, can't we do more? I have an…
Madam President, I give my compliments to the yeoman efforts of the Senator from Michigan. She has done a wonderful job. She has many times come to me and asked: Max, can't we do more? I have an amendment to accelerate the deduction and many times it will be explained how important it is, particularly for her people in the State of Michigan.
I compliment the Senator very much for her terrific work. Those in Michigan ought to know, she is persistent and steady in coming to this Senator and saying we have to do more; let's do this. And the same with the Senator from Kentucky, Senator Bunning. I have heard from him. But I must be honest and seek a full disclosure and say the Senator from Michigan has been very consistent and done a superb job. I also compliment her on the charts. They are good charts, explaining the situation very well.
I thank the Senator for her statement. She is on target. Most Members in the Senate will vote for this amendment offered by the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Michigan. It is very important to do what we can to create and to retain jobs in America.
The underlying bill goes a long way to accomplish that objective, but this amendment goes further; and that is, I think it costs about $6- point-some billion and accelerates the deduction, meaning that companies can get that deduction earlier. They can plan earlier. And it is for all size companies, not just big business, but all size business.
We all know, as the Senator from Michigan pointed out, half of all employees in America work for small businesses, and three-quarters of all new jobs in America are created by small businesses.
We often say small business is the backbone of America. Why do we say that? Because it is true. Small business is the backbone of America. A lot of these big companies can go offshore--and it is one of the problems we are trying to address--but the small business cannot go offshore in the main. If a big business goes offshore and takes contracts away, often small business bears the brunt of it. So it is very important we do what we can to keep jobs in America.
This clearly is a complex problem; that is, offshoring, outsourcing. It requires a very dedicated, concentrated effort to solve it. It is quite complex. There are various ramifications, various parts of this. The Senator from Michigan mentioned a good number of them, including the high cost of health care in this country.
One of the problems we are facing, too, is currency manipulation by various countries, including China and Japan, countries with huge reserves in currencies and having a great effect on the American economy; and it is not always good.
In addition to that, it is trade policy. We are reaching trade agreements with minuscule economies--Morocco, Bahrain. Well, that is fine. Morocco is a great country, as is Bahrain, but the point being, those are small economies. Rather, there are huge economies where we are not enforcing trade agreements already reached. One is China, this WTO, another is India.
We hear all the time about call centers moving to India. We do not hear about American companies selling to India, for a very good reason. India is a very closed country. It is very difficult to sell in India.
If we, as a country, were to use much more of our efforts to enforce trade agreements and open up huge markets--that is India and China-- rather than using our efforts to reach trade agreements with smaller countries, we would be doing a much better job to help keep jobs in America. That is just one of the various things we can and should be doing.
I am happy to yield. I yield the floor, Madam President, so my good colleague can have the floor.
Madam President, I am just saying, we have a huge challenge here to help create jobs and to keep jobs in America and to retrain people who lose jobs.
This phenomenon of job loss is huge. As the chart by the Senator from Michigan shows, we have lost about 3 million jobs since 2001; that is net loss. Those are manufacturing jobs; a net loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs in America. We have also lost a good number of service jobs, but on a net basis, not near as many service jobs lost as manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing just pays significantly more than service.
I might also say, this is not just an American phenomenon. It is happening in countries worldwide. It is happening in virtually every country. The one country where it is not happening as much is Japan, interestingly. But it is happening in every other country. Why? I daresay part of the reason is due to just natural phenomena--not natural, but phenomena that are occurring worldwide, due largely to globalization, advances in technologies, communications technologies, which are forcing countries worldwide to compete even more aggressively, to cut their costs as much as they can, and producing wherever they can to get the best rate of return they possibly can.
That is why it is happening worldwide, not just in America. It is happening worldwide. Part of that is because of increases in productivity. Obviously, as productivity increases, more products are produced with fewer employees per product.
Just to state the problem does not mean we stop right there. We have to start finding answers to the problem; that is, how to get more employees, more workers, more Americans working in more good-paying jobs. One way is with this bill. This bill will help reduce the cost of production; that is, by deduction. This bill actually creates a 9- percent deduction for the cost of domestic manufacturing. That is important.
For example, take a small business whose income tax would be $200,000 on domestic manufacturing, the 9-percent deduction calculates to roughly about a 3-percent reduction in the rate, so that is a $6,000 reduction in that company's income taxes. That helps. That is not a small matter to reduce one's income taxes by that amount. So that is one partial solution to job loss in America this bill addresses.
Second, we adopted an amendment to this bill already. It is the Hatch-Murray amendment. Senator Murray very much knows, as does Senator Hatch from Utah, that Washington State is a State that a few years ago was called the ``Silicone Forest'' with all the sort of higher-tech companies developing in Washington State. The Washington Seattle Port trades a lot. Salt Lake City is not a huge seaport, by any stretch of the imagination, although they have the great salt lake--it is not small--but the point is, Senator Hatch from Utah also knows the importance of extending the research and development tax credit. It is a measure, frankly, he and I have introduced jointly many times over the years. But that provision now is also adopted as an amendment in this bill.
The more we can encourage research and development, the more we are going to create jobs and keep jobs. We know, too, that where the research is, is where the jobs tend to be; that is, where the products develop is where the jobs tend to be. This is a research tax credit for American research and
development. It is not overseas, but it is in America. So that, too, is going to help.
Now we come with this amendment, the amendment offered by the Senators from Kentucky and Michigan. It is an additional stimulus because it accelerates the deduction very significantly. That is going to help. It is going to go a long way.
There are lots of other things we need to do. I am not going to spend all night talking about them, but one is to adopt the second-degree amendment offered by the chairman of the committee; that is, the extenders provision. That is very important.
Madam President, you know, as well as anyone in this body about the importance of predictability, the importance of certainty, as much as possible, that any businessperson may have or may not have--or, to state it differently, the uncertainty they may have. Every businessperson abhors uncertainty. You almost don't care what the problem is so long as the problem is pretty certain. If you know what the problem is, you can work around it. If the problem is always changing, it is pretty hard to work around it.
We have had something called tax extenders, and they have been for very good purposes, as the Senator from Maine well knows. I think the Senator from Maine, as I recall, has one on education for teachers. It is to help teachers get their deduction for the supplies they purchase to help their students. That has expired.
Well, if I am a teacher with very low pay--it would be a great job, actually, in many respects; that is, to be a teacher--I would want to know if that deduction is still available or not. So far, it is not available. It has expired. But in the extenders package we are adopting here, we are going to extend that deduction so teachers will know, at least until the end of 2005--18 months roughly; they are going to have that.
There are a lot of other extenders, too. Senator Bayh, for example, is interested in the work opportunity tax credit and other similar tax credits which enable employers to get people off of welfare and hire people so they are doing work, so they can earn a living for themselves and their families. That tax credit has expired. Senator Santorum is also interested in extending that tax credit. We have that here in the extenders.
There are a good number of others. For example, Senators Clinton and Schumer are very concerned about the liberty bonds for the development of New York City. That has expired. That is jobs. The more we can continue these extenders and get them back in the law, the more it enables those people in New York and others related to it to know whether or not they can depend upon those bonds and continue the reconstruction from the damage caused by 9/11.
In addition, there are some provisions that help the District of Columbia. We don't have any Senators here representing the District of Columbia. We all are, in a certain sense. But those, too, are going to be available.
I mentioned the one the Presiding Officer is interested in. What about computers in schools? We have a provision for companies to donate computers to schools. That has expired. I would think we would want to extend that. That is going to help kids, help companies. It is going to help America. It provides jobs.
After that, there are a few others. I won't go into great detail. There are incentives for jobs, for health care, to clean up pollution and more.
Essentially, we have a responsibility to pass these extenders. We have been derelict over the years. Everybody likes these provisions. Everybody wants them. They last maybe a year, a year and a half, then they expire. We let them lapse sometimes for 6 months, sometimes 7, sometimes 8. Sometimes we go back and reenact them retroactively. Sometimes we don't. It is just nuts. They are yo-yo extenders. How in the world are people going to be able to plan if we are yo-yos?
We as Senators should put them permanently in the law because we always reenact them. My hope is over the not too distant future we will be able to do that.
Another temporary extension is in the bill. That is going to help address some of the job loss this country is facing.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for securing the time. I may not need all of that time. I want to take a few minutes to express my deep concerns about the pending amendment. I am in…
Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for securing the time. I may not need all of that time. I want to take a few minutes to express my deep concerns about the pending amendment. I am in favor of the pending amendment. My concern is that an effort will be made to somehow avoid having to vote on this critical issue, the issue of overtime pay.
First, let me commend Senator Harkin of Iowa for being so tenacious and patient about this amendment. He has offered this proposal in the past. We carried the amendment, as I recall, in the Chamber, only to watch the matter be dispensed with and dropped in conference.
He has tried to bring up this matter before. In fact, prior to the recess period, Senator Harkin was on the floor of this Chamber for a number of hours, trying to get a vote. I think he agreed
to a simple 20 minutes or 25 minutes of debate on whether we would be able to prohibit the administration from implementing a new regulation that would take overtime away from millions of working Americans.
I have no doubt about the outcome of the vote if we can actually get a vote. I have no doubt the overwhelming majority of our colleagues, if given the chance to express themselves on the proposed regulation by the administration, would support the Harkin amendment. We have done that already. I think that is where Members are, both Democrats and Republicans.
But a determined minority here will not allow us to have this vote. We will not get the chance to express whether we believe that hard- working Americans who work beyond their 40 hours ought to get paid for the overtime work they do.
I was stunned to learn not only is the administration proposing the regulation that would prohibit overtime pay for people, but actually, within administration documents, they instruct employers on how to craft their working relationships with their employees to avoid paying overtime pay, moving people into whole new classifications they had never held.
I am baffled that the administration has unveiled such an antiworker, antifamily proposed regulation. It is simply one more bad economic policy decision that I think is indefensible, and I think we would like a chance, both Democrats and Republicans, to express ourselves on this proposal.
I am determined, along with the Senator from Iowa and many others, to stay here and do whatever we have to do to get an up-or-down vote on whether we ought to ban people from collecting overtime pay when they work those hours.
I will be happy to yield to my colleague from Massachusetts.
I thank the Senator. The Senator from Massachusetts has been a Member of this Chamber for a number of years, and I have been here for almost a quarter of a century. I say to my colleague from Massachusetts, I was born at night but not last night.
You can use the rules of this institution for various purposes. It seems clear to this Member that the reason the Republican leadership--a determined minority within the majority--is engaging in these parliamentary sorts of gymnastics is because they know the outcome. I suspect a strong majority of us would speak with a resounding voice in saying no, you shouldn't implement a rule that would prohibit hard- working Americans from collecting overtime pay. This is particularly troublesome at a time when so many are out of work and where two incomes in a family may be necessary to keep up with the mortgage payments, or to pay college tuition, or make car payments. We cannot deprive 8 million Americans who today have the right to collect overtime. The only reason the Republican leadership is prohibiting a vote is because they know the outcome--the amendment would pass.
Again, I thank my colleague for his question. I don't know how you can draw any other conclusion than my colleague from Massachusetts has.
As I recall--again, my colleague has a wonderful sense of history, and I think my memory is not bad but correct me if I am wrong--during the Reagan administration, during the Bush administration, the President's father, extended unemployment benefits in those years when people were out of work. I think during both Republican and Democratic administrations, they said we ought to extend those unemployment benefits and raise the minimum wage. But in this administration's case, the answer is a resounding no. Not only do they not allow us to vote on those matters and extend those benefits as every administration has over time, but, of course, they are going a step further and proposing regulations.
Let me be clear so people understand. If you are among one of 250 current white-collar occupations, if you are a nurse, a firefighter, a police officer, emergency medical training personnel, health technician, clerical worker, surveyor, chef, if you are in those categories and many more, even though your work obligations don't change at all, it gives your employer the right to reclassify you as no longer someone who qualifies for overtime pay. Even though your work doesn't change, you will be deprived of overtime pay, no matter how many hours you work. I don't understand.
I am happy to yield to my colleague.
Mr. President, I had heard some reports about this. I had never seen this letter before, but I find it incredible. Like many of my colleagues, I have attended various meetings with the families of guardsmen and reservists who have deployed to Afghanistan
and Iraq over the last number of months. I have also been at armories in my State as the men and women have come back from their service there. I have even visited with our troops in Iraq for a few days in December. I cannot believe that these men and women, many of whom have spent a year boots-on-the-ground overseas would be treated in this way. These men and women have already had to put their jobs and families on hold as they go over for a year--maybe getting back for a week or so. It is hard enough to do that, hard enough to be away, hard enough to go through the perils of serving in a war zone as these young men and women are doing. But I find it stunning to also be told because of the training they may receive in order to help us rebuild Iraq and defend their fellow men and women in the uniform, that the training they got now deprives them of getting as much as 25 percent of their income. I am told that as much as 25 percent of the earning power of an average worker in this country comes from overtime pay. People coming back who just served their country, who put their life on the line, and been away for a year, are now being told if they got job training over there, they will no longer be eligible for overtime pay. That is incredible.
I thank my colleague for the question. I see our friend from Illinois, as well, so I will not take much time.
I am glad the Senator pointed this out. It reinforces the argument I mentioned a moment ago that according to Labor Department studies, this elimination of overtime pay for 250 job classifications will reduce the earning power of the average working family by 25 percent. What the Senator from Massachusetts is saying is not only will you have less pay, but you will have to work longer hours, as well.
I am glad the Senator referenced the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. We went through World War II, we went through Korea, Vietnam, through economic downturns, and no administration ever suggested the kind of changes in overtime pay this Bush administration is advocating today.
I urge, as my colleague from Massachusetts has, give us a chance to vote. Give this body a chance to express its will on whether we think during these times of economic hardship people ought to be able to get overtime pay.
If you are a nurse, clerical worker, firefighter, a reporter, a paralegal, dental hygienist, graphic artist, the list goes on, those are the job classifications in which you will be denied overtime pay. Your work remains the same, you do not get the extra pay, you work longer hours.
Let's vote on the Harkin amendment. Let's have an up-or-down vote to determine whether this body believes overtime pay ought to still be the practice in this country.
Mr. President, again I thank my colleague from Massachusetts. He has in a sense answered the question himself with these numbers. It is hard to believe, given the times, the hardship, 90,000 people a week are exhausting their unemployment insurance benefits.
We know of the pressures that exist on families already. We know how hard it is today economically. It is not an uncommon story to hear, whether you are in the home State of the Presiding Officer in Ohio, or Massachusetts, Illinois or Connecticut, to have families where two, three, and four jobs are held in order to make ends meet and how critically important it is to have that income coming in.
When we read about jobs being outsourced across the country, being shipped off to India and China, and the administration is saying that that is a good thing for the economy, when 2.6 million manufacturing jobs have been lost, many of which have left the country, we have to be concerned about the future of America's families. These are all pressure points on these families who are living on the margins. We are not talking about families who are necessarily in poverty but families who are struggling to provide for their basic needs, trying to prepare for children
going on to college, seeing to it they get a good education, keeping them properly clothed, and in good health.
Forty-four million Americans do not have health care. The overwhelming majority of that 44 million are working people with two incomes. That is the average. Over 80 percent of the 44 million people without health care are working families. Now you take up to 25 percent of their income away and make them work longer hours. How is that balancing work and family?
This body took 7 years to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act with the help of my good friend from Massachusetts. We tried to make it possible for people to balance their needs, but now, this administration is depriving these families and their children from receiving basic necessities.
I am glad my colleague from Massachusetts has raised the issue beyond just the numbers and statistics we cite.
These are real people and real lives out there struggling to make ends meet. And now the Republican leadership is depriving this body a chance to vote on this amendment which would prohibit the administration from moving forward with their overtime proposal. I am glad my colleague made the point about the firefighters, about the EMT services, about the police officers. These are the first responders on homeland security. This administration is not only turning their back on veterans and people in uniform who are going to be shoved into the class of not getting overtime pay, but even our first responders now are going to be asked to pay a price as well.
Let's vote on the Harkin amendment. Let's have an up-and-down vote to determine whether or not this body believes overtime pay ought to still be the law of the land and not relegated to a handful of people.
So, Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his efforts. I am glad to join with him as a cosponsor of the Harkin amendment.
Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to join my colleague from Kentucky on a very important amendment. I also appreciate Chairman Grassley and our ranking member, Senator Baucus, as well,…
Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to join my colleague from Kentucky on a very important amendment. I also appreciate Chairman Grassley and our ranking member, Senator Baucus, as well, for their leadership and their support in working with us on this important amendment.
Our amendment, as my colleague indicated, speeds up the tax cut for all U.S. manufacturers to address the current manufacturing crisis.
This particular amendment would increase the tax relief in 2004--five times more than in the underlying bill--and, in fact, would provide about $6.5 billion in relief to manufacturers and small businesses over the next 5 years.
My colleague has gone into the specifics of a lot of this amendment. What I would like to do is spend my time talking about why this is so critical.
We have a crisis in manufacturing in this country. Nowhere is that more evident than in my home State of Michigan where last year we had the largest number of jobs lost in the country and the highest unemployment rate. This is an issue that is my top priority.
When we look at what has happened in terms of manufacturing jobs over the last number of decades, we see that we are back now to the lowest point since the Depression and when Herbert Hoover was President of the United States.
We have seen huge drops in jobs. My great concern is that even though we are seeing an increase as it relates to the stock market and positive indications, we have not yet seen that translate into jobs. I believe that is for many factors that relate to the pressures on manufacturers in a global economy.
When we look at the fact that the United States has lost over 2.8 million manufacturing jobs in the last 3 years, this is a crisis.
Let me speak specifically to a couple of examples I have talked about.
When we look at this number in Michigan compared to other States, there is a 19-percent job loss. We have seen literally, every single day, headlines in the papers about people losing their jobs, plants closing and going to other countries, the exporting of jobs, and layoffs occurring all around Michigan; not only in manufacturing, I might add, but when we look at the outsourcing issue, we are looking to white-collar jobs, technology jobs, engineers, health care workers, a wide variety of jobs. But we know in our country--and I believe very strongly coming from Michigan--that we have to have a foundation, a manufacturing base to have a strong economy and a strong middle class.
In Michigan, I am very proud of the fact that we make products and we grow products. That is the basis of our economy. Frankly, it has been the basis of the U.S. economy since the beginning of our country.
We are seeing a huge drop--on down to 2003--in what has happened in terms of jobs in Michigan.
One example I talked about earlier today is a plant called Electrolux in Greenville, MI, a community of 9,000 people in the western rural part of the State, where 2,700 people are employed to make refrigerators, Frigidaire, in fact, through Electrolux. They have added a third shift and the company says they are making a profit. But they have also indicated they could make a bigger profit if they moved to Mexico and paid $2.50 an hour and no health benefits. So they are closing. We have Michigan residents here today to speak at a hearing tomorrow about the devastation this loss of jobs will create.
We have to do everything possible to provide incentives and support for manufacturers to remain in the United States and keep our jobs here.
There are a lot of factors, when we look at what is happening with Electrolux and when we look at what is happening in Steelcase in Grand Rapids, MI, cutting 77 of its skilled workers.
Wohlert, in Lansing, MI, has laid off 245 workers because of the bad economy and overseas competition; Easton, in Marshall, MI, indicates they would be cutting 185 of their 285 jobs and moving plants to Mexico; Federal Mogul in St. Johns and Greenville, MI, Lear Corporation in Traverse City, Gidding & Lewis in Menominee, Straits Steel in Ludington. The stories go on and on.
There are many reasons for that. We know we need to be smart about trade policies where we are encouraging the creation of a middle class and raising the standards around the world, raising standards in Mexico and in China and other places, where we are competing and finding our jobs are moving, and by raising that standard of living. Instead of losing or exporting our jobs, we can export our product and they will have a middle class so they can buy our products.
I indicated to the folks that Electrolux may be able to move the plant to Mexico and pay $2.50 an hour with no health benefits, but the question I had was, who was going to buy the refrigerators? Certainly not citizens if they make $2.50 an hour with no health benefits.
We have to be doing everything possible to create a race up instead of a race down. This amendment is a very important part of the equation to do that. We need to make sure we are providing incentives and tax relief for manufacturers which create jobs in the United States. This amendment, in fact, will do that.
We also know we need to tackle issues such as currency manipulation, where China, Japan, and other countries basically create a tax for our manufacturers. When a Michigan manufacturer sells a product into China they have to sell it at a higher price. It can be up to 40 percent equivalent of a tax into China. When Chinese businesses sell in the United States, they can artificially lower their prices. Why do they do that? They want us to move the plant to China instead of selling our goods to China. We need to tackle that. If the Secretary of the Treasury would simply certify that, in fact, currency manipulation is occurring, there are actions we can take to level the playing field. That needs to happen as well.
Senator Schumer has a bill--in fact, I am a cosponsor--and I hope in addition to the amendment today and the legislation before the Senate, we would pass that very important legislation to level the playing field for our businesses and our workers in America.
We also need to address health care costs. We need to do it in a way that addresses the fact that our manufacturers have health care costs tied to employment in this country as part of doing business and in other countries they do not. We need to tackle that in a way that does not cost our workers in terms of their health care coverage or increase their costs. We can do that.
We also need to be addressing a number of issues that deal with trade.
The reality is, the place to start right now is with this bill. This amendment provides $6.5 billion more in tax relief and assistance to manufacturers who create American jobs.
I have another amendment I will offer that will add to what I believe is a very important part of the picture. That is, this tax deduction phases out over the next 10 years and is then available to all manufacturers, not just domestic manufacturers. I believe that is a mistake and we ought to make sure it remains only for those creating jobs in America. I look forward to debating that even further.
I am pleased today to be sponsoring this amendment with my colleague. I should also indicate I have legislation I had introduced last fall with my colleague from South Carolina, Senator Graham, on this very subject that included both the manufacturing tax credit and eliminated the phaseout so that those dollars and the tax credit would be focused on our domestic manufacturers.
What we see today is not only an issue that affects major employers. It is important to say this is a small business issue as well. The majority of manufacturing establishments are small businesses. The vast majority of them have 20 employees or less. This is not only an issue for our major manufacturers--and certainly in Michigan we are very proud of our large manufacturers; they are part of our auto industry and our high-tech industry, and we are very proud of our furniture industry and all of the other industries we have in Michigan--but this is very much a small business issue, as well.
Let me finally say as we help manufacturers, we are also helping our economy and our families in terms of standard of living. When we look at the average service-sector salary and a manufacturing-sector salary, we see a major difference. Within our families, our workers are able to have a good manufacturing job, they are able to have dollars in their pocket to care for their families, to buy that house, to send the kids to college, to be able, in Michigan, to buy that snowmobile or the cottage
up north and able to have the quality of life we all want for ourselves and our families.
The way to stimulate this economy, the way to keep consumer confidence moving and to keep all of the economic indicators moving in the right direction is to support our manufacturing sector in our country. That is what the bill does; that is what this amendment does.
I hope my colleagues will join together in a bipartisan way to support this particular amendment which will add significant support for our manufacturers. It will do it immediately this year because they need help now.
Will my friend yield?
Madam President, I want to take a moment, first, to thank my colleague for his kind words and for his leadership. Secondly, I do want to indicate cosponsors on our side of the aisle to the amendment: Senators Levin, Feinstein, Kohl, and Rockefeller. I very much appreciate their support.
Madam President, I will offer an amendment to extend for 2 years the work opportunity and welfare to work tax credits, and to make certain improvements to these programs that will make them even more…
Madam President, I will offer an amendment to extend for 2 years the work opportunity and welfare to work tax credits, and to make certain improvements to these programs that will make them even more effective in helping Americans' transition from welfare to work along with other tax extenders. These credits clearly belong in a bill whose name is JOBS; I can think of few programs that have created jobs and provided basic workplace skills to a segment of the population that is badly in need of these resources with the efficiency and low cost of WOTC and W-t-W. I can also think of few jobs programs that have as positive an impact as these have on scarce state welfare resources. I am also pleased that Senator Bayh is joining me as a cosponsor of this bipartisan amendment. I would also like to thank Chairman Grassley and Senator Baucus for their support of this important initiative.
WOTC and W-t-W are also key elements of welfare reform. Employers in the retail, health care, hotel, financial services, and food industries have incorporated this program into their hiring practices and through these programs, more than 2,700,000 previously dependent persons have found work.
A recent report issued by the New York State Department of Labor bears this out in economic terms. Comparing the cost of WOTC credits taken by New York State employers during the period 1996-2003, for a total of $192.59 million, with savings achieved through closed welfare cases and reductions in vocational rehabilitation programs and jail spending, for a total of $199.89 million, the State of New York concluded that WOTC provided net benefits to the taxpayers even without taking into account the additional economic benefits resulting from the addition of new wage to the GDP or reductions in other social spending such as Medicaid.
In that regard, the New York State analysis concluded that the roughly $90 million in wages paid to WOTC workers since 1996 generated roughly $225 million in increased economic activity. Perhaps even more importantly, the study found that roughly 58 percent of the TANF recipients who entered private sector employment with the assistance of WOTC stayed off welfare.
I mentioned the New York State study because it is the first of its kind; however, I am certain that similar conclusions would be reached in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or any of the other 48 states and the District of Columbia. These programs work and do so at a net savings to taxpayers. In fact, over a 7-year period there were more than 110,000 certifications for both WOTC and W-t-W in Pennsylvania alone enabling many to leave welfare and find private sector work. The legislation is supported by hundreds of employers throughout Pennsylvania and around the country.
WOTC and W-t-W have received high praise as well from the Federal Government. A 2001 GAO study concluded that employers have significantly changed their hiring practice because of WOTC by providing job mentors, longer training periods, and significant recruiting outreach efforts.
Mr. President, WOTC and W-t-W are not traditional government jobs programs. Instead, they are precisely the type of program that we should champion in a time when we need to be fiscally responsible. These are efficient and low cost public-private partnerships that have as their goal to provide a means by which individuals can transition from welfare to a lifetime of work and dignity.
Under present law, WOTC provides a 40 percent tax credit on the first $6,000 of wages for those working at least 400 hours, or a partial credit of 25 percent for those working 120-399 hours. W-t-W provides a 35 percent tax credit on the first $10,000 of wages for those working 400 hours in the first year. In the second year, the W-t-W credit is 50 percent of the first $10,000 of wages earned. WOTC and W-t-W are key elements of welfare reform. A growing number of employers use these programs in the retail, health care, hotel, financial services, food, and other industries. These programs have helped over 2,200,000 previously dependent persons to find jobs.
Eligibility for WOTC is currently limited to: (1) recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, TANF, in 9 of the 18 months ending on the hiring date; (2) individuals receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits; (3) disabled individuals with vocational rehabilitation referrals; (4) veterans on food stamps; (5) individuals aged 18-24 in households receiving food stamp benefits; (6) qualified summer youth employees; (7) low-income ex-felons; and (8) individuals ages 18-24 living in empowerment zones or renewal communities. Eligibility for W-t-W is limited to individuals receiving welfare benefits for 18 consecutive months ending on the hiring date. More than 80 percent of WOTC and W-t-W hires were previously depending on public assistance programs. These credits are both a hiring incentive, offsetting some of the higher costs of recruiting, hiring, and retaining public assistance recipients and other low-skilled individuals, and retention incentive, providing a higher reward for those who stay longer on the job.
Program Renewal and Improvement. Despite the considerable success of WOTC and W-t-W many vulnerable individuals still need a boost in finding employment. This is particularly true during periods of high unemployment. There are several legislative changes that would strengthen these programs, expand employment opportunities for needy individuals, and make the programs more attractive to employers. These changes are reflected in legislation which I introduced along with Senator Baucus, S. 1180, and these changes are as follows: one combine WOTC and W-t-W. The administration's budget proposes to simplify these important employment incentives by combining them into one credit and making the rules for computing the combined credits simpler. The credits would be combined by creating a new welfare-to-work target group under WOTC. The minimum employment periods and credit rates for the first year of employment under the present work opportunity tax credit would apply to W-t-W employees. The maximum amount of eligible wages would continue to be $10,000 for W-t-W employees and $6,000 for other target groups $3,000 for summer youth. I addition, the second year 50-percent credit under W-t-W would continue to be available for W-t-W employees under the modified WOTC; two, eliminate requirement to determine family income for ex-felons. Under current law, only those ex-felons whose annual family income is 70 percent or less than the Bureau of Labor Statistics lower living standard during the six months preceding the hiring date are eligible for WOTC. The administration's budget also proposes to eliminate the family income attribution rule; three, raise the WOTC age eligibility ceiling from 24 to 39 years of age for members of food stamp households and ``high-risk youth'' living in enterprise zones for renewal communities. Current WOTC eligibility rules heavily favor the hiring of women because single mothers are much more likely to be on welfare or food stamps. Women constitute about 80 percent of those hired under the WOTC program, but men from welfare households face the same or even greater barriers to finding work. Increasing the age ceiling in the ``food stamp category'' would greatly improve the job prospects for many absentee fathers and other ``at risk'' males. This change would be completely consistent with program objectives because many food stamp households include adults who are not working, and more than 90 percent of those on food stamps live below the poverty line.
I am very pleased that President Bush proposed a 2-year extension for these programs in his budget, as well as some useful modifications and improvements. The administration along with all of us in Congress are eager to continue our efforts to create jobs in America. The amendment would provide for a 1-year extension of current law to facilitate a transition period and then in the second year implement these important changes. I would prefer a permanent extension which would provide these important programs with greater stability, thereby encouraging more employers to participate, make investments in expanding outreach to identify potential workers from the targeted groups, and avoid the wasteful disruption of termination and renewal. A permanent extension would also encourage the state job services to invest the resources needed to make the certification process more efficient and employer- friendly. Yet the cost is a significant consideration in the current budget environment even though this is an excellent use of tax incentives which ultimately saves government resources while expanding opportunity for Americans.
Finally, I would urge the Senate to act quickly on this amendment and on the underlying vehicle. WOTC and W-t-W expired at the end of last year, and even though the extension we propose is retroactive, these programs will not be fully effective until they become law. The individuals who enter the workforce under these programs, and our states, that benefit greatly from the reduction in welfare that these programs generate, deserve quick action by the Senate on this amendment. I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. President, I rise to commend the Senate for the passage yesterday by unanimous consent an amendment to extend for 2 years the Work Opportunity and Welfare to Work tax credits, and to make certain…
Mr. President, I rise to commend the Senate for the passage yesterday by unanimous consent an amendment to extend for 2 years the Work Opportunity and Welfare to Work tax credits, and to make certain improvements to these programs that will make them even more effective in helping Americans transition from welfare to work. These credits clearly belong in a bill whose name is JOBS; I can think of few programs that have created jobs and provided basic workplace skills to a segment of the population that is badly in need of these resources with the efficiency and low cost of WOTC and W-t-W. I can also think of few jobs programs that have as positive an impact as these have on scarce state welfare resources. I am also pleased that Senator Bayh joined me as a cosponsor of this bipartisan amendment. I would also like to thank Chairman Grassley and Senator Baucus for their support of this important initiative as part of a larger package of extenders.
WOTC and W-t-W are also key elements of welfare reform. Employers in the retail, health care, hotel, financial services, and food industries have incorporated this program into their hiring practices and through these programs, more than 2,700,000 previously dependent persons have found work.
A recent report issued by the New York State Department of Labor bears this out in economic terms. Comparing the cost of WOTC credits taken by New York State employers during the period 1996-2003--for a total of $192.59 million--with savings achieved through closed welfare cases and reductions in vocational rehabilitation programs and jail spending--for a total of $199,89 million--the State of New York concluded that WOTC provided net benefits to the taxpayers even without taking into account the additional economic benefits resulting from the addition of new wages to the GDP or reductions in other social spending such as Medicaid.
In that regard, the New York State analysis concluded that the roughly $90 million in wages paid to WOTC workers since 1996 generated roughly $225 million in increased economic activity. Perhaps even more importantly, the study found that roughly 58 percent of the TANF recipients who entered private sector employment with the assistance of WOTC stayed off welfare.
I mention the New York State study because it is the first of its kind; however, I am certain that similar conclusions would be reached in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or any of the other 48 States and the District of Columbia. These programs work and do so at a net savings to taxpayers. In fact, over a 7-year period there were more than 111,000 certifications for both WOTC and W-t-W in Pennsylvania alone enabling many to leave welfare and find private sector work. The legislation is supported by hundreds of employers throughout Pennsylvania and around the country.
WOTC and W-t-W have received high praise as well from the Federal Government. A 2001 GAO study concluded that employers have significantly changed their hiring practices because of WOTC by providing job mentors, longer training periods, and significant recruiting outreach efforts.
Mr. President, WOTC and W-t-W are not traditional government jobs programs. Instead they are precisely the type of program that we should champion in a time when we need to be fiscally responsible. These are efficient and low cost public-private partnerships that have as their goal to provide a means by which individuals can transition from welfare to a lifetime of work and dignity.
Under present law, WOTC provides a 40-percent tax credit on the first $6,000 of wages for those working at least 200 hours, or a partial credit of 25 percent for those working 120-399 hours. W-t-W provides a 35-percent tax credit on the first $10,000 of wages for those working 400 hours in the first year. In the second year, the W-t-W credit is 50 percent of the first $10,000 of wages earned. WOTC and W-t-W are key elements of welfare reform. A growing number of employers use these programs in the retail, health care, hotel, financial services, food, and other industries. These programs have helped over 2,200,000 previously dependent persons to find jobs.
Eligibility for WOTC is currently limited to: (1) Recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families in 9 of the 18 months ending on the hiring date; (2) individuals receiving Supplemental Security Income, SSI, benefits; (3) disabled individuals with vocational rehabilitation referrals; (4) veterans on food stamps; (5) individuals aged 18-24 in households receiving food stamp benefits; (6) qualified summer youth employees; (7) low-income ex-felons; and (8) individuals ages 18-24 living in empowerment zones or renewal communities. Eligibility for W-t-W is limited to individuals receiving welfare benefits for 18 consecutive months ending on the hiring date. More than 80 percent of WOTC and W-t-W hires were previously dependent on public assistance programs. These credits are both a hiring incentive, offsetting some of the higher costs of recruiting, hiring, and retaining public assistant recipients and other low-skilled individuals, and a retention incentive, providing a higher reward for those who stay longer on the job.
Despite the considerable success of WOTC and W-t-W, many vulnerable individuals still need a boost in finding employment. This is particularly true during periods of high unemployment. There are several legislative changes that would strengthen these programs, expand employment opportunities for needy individuals, and make the programs more attractive to employers. These changes are reflected in legislation which I introduced along with Senator Baucus, S. 1180, and these changes are as follows:
The administration's budget proposes to simplify these important employment incentives by combining them into one credit and making the rules for computing the combined credits simpler. The credits would be combined by creating a new welfare-to-work target group under WOTC. The minimum employment periods and credit rates for the first year of employment under the present work opportunity tax credit would apply to W-t-W employees.
The maximum amount of eligible wages would continue to be $10,000 for W-t-W employees and $6,000 for other target groups--$3,000 for summer youth. In addition, the second year 50-percent credit under W-t-W would continue to be available for W-t-W employees under the modified WOTC.
Under current law, only those ex-felons whose annual family income is 70 percent or less than the Bureau of Labor Statistics lower living standard during the 6 months preceding the hiring date are eligible for WOTC. The administration's budget also proposes to eliminate the family income attribution rule.
Current WOTC eligibility rules heavily favor the hiring of women because single mothers are much more likely to be on welfare or food stamps. Women constitute about 80 percent of those hired under the WOTC program, but men from welfare households face the same or even greater barriers to finding work. Increasing the age ceiling in the ``food stamp category'' would greatly improve the job prospects for many absentee fathers and other ``at risk'' males. This change would be completely consistent with program objectives because many food stamp households include adults who are not working, and more than 90 percent of those on food stamps live below the poverty line.
I am very pleased that President Bush proposed a 2-year extension for these programs in his budget, as well as some useful modifications and improvements. The administration along with all of us in Congress are eager to continue our efforts to create jobs in America. The amendment would provide for a 1-year extension of current law to facilitate a transition period and then in the second year implement these important changes.
I would prefer a permanent extension which would provide these important programs with greater stability, thereby encouraging more employers to participate, make investment in expanding outreach to identify potential workers from the targeted groups, and avoid the wasteful disruption of termination and renewal. A permanent extension would also encourage the state job services to invest the resources needed to make the certification process more efficient and employer- friendly. Yet the cost is a significant consideration in the current budget environment even though this is an excellent use of tax incentives which ultimately saves government resources while expanding opportunity for Americans.
Finally, I commend the Senate for acting on this amendment and encourage support for cloture tomorrow and quick completion of this important underlying jobs bill. WOTC and W-t-W expired at the end of last year, and even though the extension we propose is retroactive, these programs will not be fully effective until they become law. The individuals who enter the workforce under these programs, and our States, that benefit greatly from the reduction in welfare that these programs generate, deserve quick action by the Senate on this bill. I urge all of my colleagues to support its passage.
Mr. President, while democracy activists in Burma have been murdered, intimidated and harassed for well over a decade, the blitzkrieg on freedom launched last weekend by the illegitimate State Peace…
Mr. President, while democracy activists in Burma have been murdered, intimidated and harassed for well over a decade, the blitzkrieg on freedom launched last weekend by the illegitimate State Peace and Development Council--SPDC--killed and injured scores of supporters from the National League for Democracy--NLD.
Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and numerous other activists were brutalized, arrested and today remain held incommunicado. Reports indicate that Suu Kyi is being held in the Yemon military camp, 40 kilometers outside of Rangoon. It is believed she suffers from lacerations to her face and a broken shoulder. The administration should waste no time in gaining access to Suu Kyi to ensure her safety and security.
I have come to the floor every day this week to draw attention to the untenable situation in that country. On Monday, I urged the administration to act promptly and decisively in support of democracy in Burma. The State Department can take specific action without the need for legislation--such as broadening visa restrictions, freezing assets, and downgrading Burma's diplomatic status in Washington.
Yes.
I would say to my friend from Arizona, there will be a regional ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh on June 18 and 19. Secretary Powell is scheduled to be there. I hope that will be an opportunity to hear from the
other Asian, ASEAN countries, that maybe, for once, they will understand what a pariah regime that is and work with us in a coordinated fashion to impose sanctions that will actually mean something in bringing down the regime.
I thank my friend from Arizona. I understand the Japanese may be reconsidering their statement of yesterday. There could well be a subsequent statement today that might be more pleasing to the Senator from Arizona and myself.
I thank him for being an extraordinary leader on this issue, as well, and for agreeing to cosponsor the bill I am about to introduce.
I also might mention, I had an opportunity to talk with the Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy Secretary of Defense today to encourage them to take a very great interest and recommend the President take a very great interest in this issue. The only way, obviously, we are going to have an impact in Burma is for the United States to use the kind of leadership only it can provide to rally the world around a sanctions regime and tighten the noose around this regime and hopefully this will be the beginning of that effort.
The White House should utilize all authority at its disposal to immediately sanction the junta, including banning imports from Burma and raising the brutal crackdown on democracy before the U.N. Security Council.
On Tuesday, I appealed to the international community to stand by the people of Burma during their dark hour of need, and called upon the world's democracies to act in support of Suu Kyi and her courageous supporters. Elected representatives cannot stand by idly while democracy in Burma is strangled by the SPDC.
Today, along with my colleagues Senators Feinstein, McCain, Leahy, Specter, Kennedy, Mikulski, Kyl, Daschle, and Santorum, I am introducing the ``Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003''. This act recognizes that what is needed in Burma is fewer carrots and more sticks.
Among other restrictions that I will describe shortly, the act imposes an import ban on articles produced, mined, manufactured, grown, or assembled in Burma. It prohibits the import of goods to the United States produced by the SPDC, companies in which the junta has a financial interest, and the SPDC's political arm, the Union Solidarity Development Association--USDA.
Lest my colleagues forget, the USDA, under the direction of the junta, orchestrated the recent terror in the townships that left scores dead and Suu Kyi injured. They are Burma's fedayeen.
There are some who discount economic sanctions as a tool to coerce and modify the behavior of repressive nations. According to their argument, sanctions hurt the very people they are intended to help.
Sanctions in Burma will not rape ethnic girls and women, burn down their villages and murder their brothers, husbands, and sons.
Sanctions in Burma will not impress children into the military, drug them, and send them off to dangerous battlefields.
Sanctions in Burma will not use slave labor, nor will they profit from an illicit narcotics trade that wreaks havoc among the region's youth and contributes to an exploding HIV/AIDS rate along Burma's borders.
Finally, sanctions in Burma will not attack peaceful supporters of the NLD or democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, nor will they ever take a single life by an act of violence.
The SPDC is guilty of committing the laundry list of heinous crimes that I just described. Every single one of them is an assault on the human rights and dignity of the Burmese people. Burma's junta is as chronic an abuser of human rights as Kim Jong-Il in North Korea--and as was the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The fact of the matter is that the import ban will impact a negligible percentage of Burma's population. It will deny Burma the ability to import some $350 million to $470 million worth of goods to the United States--most of which are garments and textiles--thus denying the SPDC legitimate revenue.
Unfortunately, the people of Burma reap almost no benefits from this income. The SPDC is more interested in spending revenue on itself than in investing in the welfare of the people of Burma.
With over one-quarter of Burma's imports currently destined for the United States, the ban will hit the SPDC where it hurts most--in the pocketbook and its public image.
South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, who knows a thing or two about sanctions and repression, said of Burma earlier this week:
We urge freedom loving governments everywhere to impose
sanctions on this illegitimate regime. They worked for us in
South Africa. If applied conscientiously, they will work in
Burma too. Freeze the assets of the regime and impose
stringent travel restrictions on them and their supporters.
We need a regime change [in Burma].
I supported sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa then, and I support sanctions against the military junta in Burma now.
Sanctions will empower Burma's democrats who have already demonstrated their support for freedom by overwhelmingly electing the NLD in the 1990 elections. These polls were never recognized by the SPDC. Instead, the junta has spent the past decade trying to suffocate the aspirations for democracy by all of Burma's people and imprisoning their leader, Suu Kyi.
In addition to the import ban, the act also freezes the assets of the SPDC in the United States and requires the U.S. to oppose and vote against loans or other assistance proposed for Burma by international financial institutions.
It expands the visa ban to former and present SPDC leadership and the Union Solidarity Development Association and requires coordination with the European Union's visa ban list. Let me be clear that the SPDC leadership includes all officer-level individuals associated with the regime.
Finally, the act requires the Secretary of State to promote greater awareness of the abuses of the SPDC, requires the State Department to more proactively promote awareness of U.S. policy toward Burma, and encourages greater support for Burmese democracy activists.
Let me close with a few words and observations about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Over the years, the daughter of the father of Burma's independence has stood squarely between the people of Burma and the thuggish regime. Against great odds and often in great danger, Suu Kyi has consistently and successfully stared down SPDC generals and their military might. She has never wavered--not once--in her support for democracy and the rule of law for Burma.
Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with Suu Kyi and the people she so ably represents. She is obviously the greatest hope for that country.
I ask my colleagues: If America does not stand with Suu Kyi and the NLD now, whither freedom and justice in Burma? Without us, it has no chance.
Pressure, patience and persistence will bring political change to Burma. Suu Kyi knows this in her heart and mind, as we all do. America must lead. And if we do, others will rally.
I thank my friend from New Mexico. I yield the floor and ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Baucus in the introduction of the Encouraging Work Act of 2003. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit, WOTC, and Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit, W-t-W, are tax…
Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Baucus in the introduction of the Encouraging Work Act of 2003. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit, WOTC, and Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit, W-t-W, are tax incentives that encouraging employers to hire public assistance recipients and other individuals with barriers to employment. The combination of Welfare Reform passed by Congress in 1996 and the assistance to employers found in the WOTC and W-t-W has enabled expanded opportunity for many Americans. Yet more can be done.
Under present law, WOTC provides a 40 percent tax credit on the first $6,000 of wages for those working at least 400 hours, or a partial credit of 25 percent for those working 120-399 hours. W-t-W provides a 35 percent tax credit on the first $10,000 of wages for those working 400 hours in the first year. In the second year, the W-t-W credit is 50 percent of the first $10,000 of wages earned. WOTC and W-t-W are key elements of welfare reform. A growing number of employers use these programs in the retail, health care, hotel, financial services, food, and other industries. These programs have helped over 2,200,000 previously dependent persons to find jobs.
Eligibility is limited to: 1. recipients of Temporary, Assistance to Needy Families, TANF, in 9 of the 18 months ending on the hiring date; 2. individuals receiving Supplemental Security Income, SSI, benefits; 3. disabled individuals with vocational rehabilitation referrals; 4. veterans on food stamps; 5. individuals aged 18-24 in households receiving food stamp benefits; 6. qualified summer youth employees: 7. low-income ex-felons; and 8. individuals ages 18-24 living in empowerment zones or renewal communities. Eligibility for W-t-W is limited to individuals receiving welfare benefits for 18 consecutive months ending on the hiring date. More than 80 percent of WOTC and W-t- W hires were previously dependent on public assistance programs. These credits are both a hiring incentive, offsetting some of the higher costs of recruiting, hiring, and retaining public assistance recipients and other low-skilled individuals, and a retention incentive, providing a higher reward for those who stay longer on the job.
Without action by Congress WOTC and W-t-W will expire on December 31, 2003. After seven years of experience with these programs, their value has been well demonstrated. In 2001, the GAO issued a report that indicated that employers have significantly changed their hiring practices because of WOTC. With the resources provided by WOTC, employers have provided job mentors, lengthened training periods, engaged in recruiting outreach, and listed jobs or requested referrals from public agencies or partnerships. WOTC and W-t-W have become a true public-private partnership in which the Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, the states, and employers have forged excellent working relationships.
But the challenges for employers and those looking for better opportunities are real. The job skills of eligible persons leaving welfare are sometimes limited, and the costs of recruiting, training, and supervising low-skilled individuals cause many employers to look elsewhere for employees. The weak economy and rising unemployment give employers more hiring options. WOTC and W-t-W are proven incentives for encouraging employers to seek employees from the targeted groups.
Despite the considerable success of WOTC and W-t-W, many vulnerable individuals still need a boost in finding employment. This is particularly true during periods of high unemployment. There are several legislative changes that would strengthen these programs, expand employment opportunities for needy individuals, and make the programs more attractive to employers.
The Administration's FY 2004 budget proposes to simplify these important employment incentives by combining them into one credit and making the rules for computing the combined credits simpler. The credits would be combined by creating a new welfare-to-work target group under WOTC. The minimum employment periods and
credit rates for the first year of employment under the present work opportunity tax credit would apply to W-t-W employees. The maximum amount of eligible wages would continue to be $10,000 for W-t-W employees and $6,000 for other target groups ($3,000 for summer youth). In addition, the second year 50-percent credit under W-t-W would continue to be available for W-t-W employees under the modified WOTC.
Under current law, only those ex-felons whose annual family income is 70 percent or less than the Bureau of Labor Statistics lower living standard during the six months preceding the hiring date are eligible for WOTC. The Administration's FY 2004 budget proposes to eliminate the family income attribution rule.
Permanent extension would provide these programs with greater stability, thereby encouraging more employers to participate, make investments in expanding outreach to identify potential workers from the targeted groups, and avoid the wasteful disruption of termination and renewal. A permanent extension would also encourage the state job services to invest the resources needed to make the certification process more efficient and employer-friendly.
Current WOTC eligibility rules heavily favor the hiring of women because single mothers are much more likely to be on welfare or food stamps. Women constitute about 80 percent of those hired under the WOTC program, but men from welfare households face the same or even greater barriers to finding work. Increasing the age ceiling in the ``food stamp category'' would greatly improve the job prospects for many absentee fathers and other ``at risk'' males. This change would be completely consistent with program objectives because many food stamp households include adults who are not working, and more than 90 percent of those on food stamps live below the poverty line.
The Work Opportunity Credit and Welfare-to-Work Credit have been successful in moving traditionally hard-to-employ persons off welfare and into the workforce, where they contribute to our economy. However, employer participation in these important programs can be increased, particularly among small and medium-sized employers. This is due to the complexity of the credits and the fact that they are both only temporary provisions of the tax code subject to renewal every year or two. Small, medium, and even some large employers find it difficult to justify developing the necessary infrastructure to administer and participate in these programs when their continued existence beyond one or two years is constantly in question.
This legislation will remedy this problem by combining WOTC and W-t-W into one, more easily administered tax credit, and by making it a permanent part of the tax code. Many organizations including the National Council of Chain Restaurants, National Retail Federation, Food Marketing Institute, National Association of Convenience Stores, National Restaurant Association, American Hotel & Lodging Association, National Roofing Contractors Association, National Association of Chain Drug Stores, American Nursery and Landscape Association, and the American Health Care Association support this legislation. Representatives Amo Houghton, R-NY, and Charles Rangel, D-NY, have introduced identical legislation in the House of Representatives. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this legislation.
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to introduce the Medicare Chronic Care Improvement Act of 2003. For the last three decades, the Medicare program has fulfilled our promise to care for older…
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to introduce the Medicare Chronic Care Improvement Act of 2003. For the last three decades, the Medicare program has fulfilled our promise to care for older Americans who have spent a lifetime working and contributing to our Nation's economy. Currently, 41 million seniors depend on Medicare for critical health care assistance. Those seniors have been asking Congress for many years to strengthen Medicare. This Congress, we must respond by taking action. We must enact legislation this year that fills the gaps in Medicare.
When Congress and President Johnson designed the Medicare program in 1965, they could not have foreseen the health care system that exists today. New technology, advances in research and an aging population have changed both what beneficiaries need and the system that is responding to those needs. One of the unforseen implications of these changes is a growing number of Americans living with chronic conditions.
In 2000, over 45 percent of Americans had a chronic condition. That number continues to grow and, by 2020, more than 48 percent or 157 million Americans, will have at least one chronic condition. Chronic conditions encompass an array of health conditions that are persistent, recurring, and cannot be cured. They include severely impairing conditions like Alzheimer's disease, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, depression, hypertension, and arthritis.
Treating serious and disabling chronic conditions is the highest cost and fastest growing segment of health care. People with chronic conditions represent 78 percent of all health care spending. These people are the heaviest users of home health care visits, prescriptions, physician visits, and inpatient stays.
As we grow older, the chances of developing a chronic condition increase. Thus, it should be no surprise that nearly 80 percent of Medicare beneficiaries have at least one chronic condition and two- thirds have two or more chronic conditions. However, the Medicare fee- for-service program does not currently cover many of the services needed to provide quality care to beneficiaries who are managing complex chronic conditions.
To meet the needs of these individuals, our Medicare fee-for-service system must reflect a person-centered, system-oriented approach to care. Payers and providers who serve the same person must be empowered to work together to help people with chronic conditions prevent, delay, or minimize disease and disability progression and maximize their health and well being.
That is why I am here to reintroduce a much needed solution--the Medicare Chronic Care Improvement Act of 2003. This bill establishes a comprehensive plan to improve and strengthen the Medicare fee-for- service and Medicare+Choice systems by generating better health outcomes for beneficiaries with chronic conditions and increasing efficiency.
This bill would achieve these results by, first, helping to prevent, delay, and minimize the progression of chronic conditions by authorizing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to expand coverage of preventive health benefits. The bill permits providers to waive deductibles and co-payments for preventive and wellness services currently covered by Medicare and streamlines the process of approving new preventive benefits.
Second, this bill provides a person-centered, system-oriented approach to care for this extremely vulnerable segment of our population by expanding Medicare coverage to include assessment, care- coordination, self-management services, and patient and family caregiver education and counseling.
For more detail, I am also entering a section-by-section bill summary into the Congressional Record following this statement.
The Medicare Chronic Care Improvement Act provides a comprehensive solution to improving the quality of life and health for millions of Americans who are struggling with serious and disabling chronic conditions. Not only that, it has the potential to save the Medicare program money, by better managing and treating chronic conditions before costly complications result. That is good for seniors and good for Medicare--a win-win situation.
It is time to step up to the plate and fulfill our obligation to our Nation's most vulnerable citizens. Improving Medicare is the right thing to do, but only if we do it the right way. I believe that this bill is a critical component of the right recipe for strengthening the Medicare program for today and tomorrow's beneficiaries. Unlike the administration's Medicare reform plan, the Medicare Chronic Care Improvement Act gives beneficiaries better care while maintaining consumer choice and improving the program's efficiency. Because these are the results that West Virginians want, I will fight to include the provisions of this bill in any Medicare reform package that moves through the Finance Committee or the Senate floor.
I would like the record to reflect that the following groups publically support this legislation: Alzheimer's Association; American Geriatrics Society; Center for Medicare Advocacy; Families USA; and Medicare Rights Center.
National Chronic Care Consortium, representing such organizations as: Aging and Disability Services Administration, State of Washington (Olympia, WA); Aging in America, Inc (Bronx, NY); Albert Einstein Healthcare Network (Philadelphia, PA); Area Agency on Aging 10B Inc. (Akron, OH); Baylor Health Care System (Dallas, TX); Benjamin Rose (Cleveland, OH); Beth Abraham Family of Health Services (Bronx, NY); Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Minnesota (Eagan, MN); Carle Foundation Hospital-Health Systems Research Center (Mahomet, IL); Catholic Health Initiatives (Parker, CO); Centura Health (Denver, CO); Community Health Partnership, Inc. (Eau Claire, WI); Fairview Health Services/Enbenezer (Minneapolis, MN); Halleland Health Consulting (Minneapolis, MN); Hebrew Home and Hospital (Hartford, CT); Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield (Pittsburgh, PA); Inglis Innovative Services (Philadelphia, PA); Lancaster General Hospital (Lancaster, PA); Masonicare (Wallingford, CT); Mercy Medical Center--North Iowa (Mason City, IA); MetroHealth System (Cleveland, OH); Metropolitan Jewish Health System (Brooklyn, NY); Minnesota Senior Health Options (MSHO) (St. Paul, MN); Motion Picture and Television Fund (Woodland Hills, CA); Northeast Health (Troy, NY); Presbyterian SeniorCare (Pittsburgh, PA); Saint Michael's Hospital (Stevens Point, WI); SCAN (Long Beach, CA); Sierra Health Services (Las Vegas, NV); Summa Health System (Akron, OH); Sutter Health (Sacramento, CA); Total Longterm Care, Inc. (Denver, CO); Upstate NY Network of the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, VISN 2 (Albany, NY); ViaHealth (Rochester, NY); Visiting Nurse Service of New York (New York, NY); Volunteers of America National Services (Eden Prairie, MN); and Wisconsin Partnership Program at Community Living Alliance (Madison, WI).
I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and the summary be printed in the Record.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for not to exceed 10 minutes. Madam…
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for not to exceed 10 minutes.
Madam President, last night I observed, as I am sure many Americans did, Richard Clarke's statement on the program ``60 Minutes'' where he made some very strong allegations concerning President Bush and his lack of effort on the war on terrorism. I was struck by his tone, by his statements, and also by the lack of questions concerning what he had done the previous years.
I believe Mr. Clarke was appointed in May of 1998 by President Clinton as the first National Coordinator for Security Infrastructure Protection and Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. That is a very long title, but many people say ``counterterrorism czar.'' He was the person to combat terrorism. That is a very prestigious position, a very important position.
Looking at the events that occurred in 1998 and also in 2000, I wonder what we were doing. I kept waiting for the questioner to ask him: Why didn't we do more?
On August 7, 1998, terrorists bombed the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Madam President, 212 people were killed on August 7, 1998, and over 4,000 people were injured in Nairobi. Eleven people were killed and 72 people were wounded in Tanzania. It was a very deadly day.
Two U.S. embassies--that happens to be U.S. soil--a lot of people are not aware of that but our embassies are U.S. soil. Those are U.S. buildings, those were U.S. employees, some U.S. citizens--almost all U.S. employees. Africans were killed.
What was our response? The Clinton administration, with Mr. Clarke as the head of counterterrorism, lobbed a few cruise missiles, supposedly to get Mr. bin Laden. We missed, but I compliment them for trying.
What else did we do? Did we try again? The answer is no. Did we send special forces over there? The answer is no. They killed 212 people in Nairobi, 11 people in Tanzania, over 4,000 people injured, some of them critically, very seriously injured, and what did we do? We lobbed a few cruise missiles and hit the desert. This was in August of 1998.
I kept waiting for the questioner to say: Why didn't we do more in 1998? I heard him say: We were on a wartime footing; we had a lot of meetings; I had a lot of face time with President Clinton; I talked with him about it; we urged him to do more. Why didn't we do more?
I have only served with a few Presidents but I could not help but think Ronald Reagan would have done more. We had American soldiers who were killed as a result of a terrorist bombing in Germany, and Ronald Reagan sent planes to Libya and sent a heck of a signal to Mr. Qadhafi and, frankly, I think he changed his terrorist ways to some extent.
I can't help but think President Bush 1 would have done more, and I know President Bush 2, the current President, would have done a lot more.
President Clinton was President for 8 years, and Mr. Clarke was head of his counterterrorism division for about 3 of those years. He worked in his administration in another capacity as well. But we didn't do hardly anything after the 1998 bombings, which was a direct assault on the United States and our citizens, our people, our property, and two poor countries in Africa, and we did not do anything.
Later, the USS Cole was attacked on October 12, 2000, and 17 people were killed, 39 were wounded, and it was pretty close to being a lot more serious than that. We could have had hundreds killed. Again, that was a direct attack on the United States. Mr. Clarke was still head of counterterrorism, and what did we do then? The answer is nothing. They might have had some meetings, but they did not do anything. They did not do anything visible, anything we could see. They did not make concerted efforts.
Last week, I was watching on TV a picture of bin Laden walking in Afghanistan where we had satellites viewing him, and we still did not do anything. We did not have assets in the region. Why? We had plenty of time to put assets in the region to make a change and maybe prevent 9/11/2001 from even happening, but maybe the administration and maybe Mr. Clarke were preoccupied or they did not have it high on their priorities.
Those questions were not asked in this program. Maybe, for whatever reason, he has a vendetta against the current President. I don't know.
I also learned today from Condoleezza Rice, the President's National Security Adviser, that Mr. Clarke wanted a job in the new Department of Homeland Security. I don't know what caused his change. I don't know what his motivation is. I am not sure if he wants to sell books or is looking for a job or what his efforts are. But I am amazed at the neglect or the lack of interest in the previous administration after we had our embassies attacked, after we had the USS Cole attacked, and we had Americans killed and hundreds of American employees killed.
We had thousands of people injured, and we did not do anything. For him to have the gall or the nerve to start pointing a finger at President Bush saying he did not do enough in fighting the war on terrorism when Mr. Clarke was actually in a position to really do
something for 2 or 3 years during the Clinton administration, I find unbelievable. I cannot believe the press would not ask, why did he not do more, why did President Clinton not do more? Why did we not respond? If we would have responded in 1998, 1999, or 2000, maybe 9/11 would have never happened. It is unbelievable that kind of attack would be made. Maybe it is for political reasons. I do not know. It is very sobering and startling.
I hope when he is in front of the cameras or maybe when he is before a committee in Congress people ask him why did he not do more when he was in a position to do so.
It is also interesting to note on October 19, 2001, the Bush White House issued a press release saying Mr. Clarke was recently named special adviser to the President for cyberspace security. It is not the same. The President has an excellent team and he receives counsel from an excellent team. With his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney, with Secretary of State Colin Powell, the President has an excellent team in foreign policy.
I am very disappointed in Mr. Clarke's comments. I think he should be held accountable and questions need to be asked of him.
I yield the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Madam President, point of order. I object. Madam President, I thank the Senator. I wanted to alert fellow Senators what is going on. It is obvious that the Republican side of the aisle does not want…
Madam President, point of order.
I object.
Madam President, I thank the Senator. I wanted to alert fellow Senators what is going on. It is obvious that the Republican side of the aisle does not want to vote on the overtime bill. For some reason, they are afraid to confront this issue. I don't want to take a lot of time. I would agree to a half hour evenly divided. We have debated this issue before. But make no mistake about it, the Department of Labor is about to issue regulations that will strip overtime pay protections from 8 million workers in this country.
This Senate, last year, on a bipartisan vote, passed my amendment to disallow those regulations. The House of Representatives also, on a bipartisan vote, voted to uphold what we did in the Senate. And the administration stripped it out on the Omnibus appropriations conference report.
They say this is a jobs bill. How about the jobs of people who are working overtime in America? How about the men and women who have given up their premium time with their families and with their kids, after work, on weekends, to work overtime? What about them? These are jobs, also. How about the people unemployed right now who would be employed but, if employers can work people over 40 hours a week and not pay them a cent more, why would they hire anybody else?
Last, as I said the other day and I pointed out, this is a dagger pointed at our veterans. You can look in the old regulations. There is nothing in there about training in the military causing you to be exempt from overtime pay protection.
Here, I blew it up on this chart. I am not going to read the whole thing, but basically it puts in these words: ``training in the Armed Forces.'' What does that mean? It means if you get specialized training as a veteran and you come out and go to work, you can be exempt from overtime pay protection simply because you got that training in the Armed Forces. You aren't called a ``learned professional'' without a four-year specialized degree otherwise. But not if you are a veteran. The regulations would substitute veterans'
training for university education, at least to take their overtime away.
What it does is it makes a veteran who got specialized training in the Armed Forces less eligible for overtime pay than his or her counterpart who never served in the military who otherwise has the same education. That is why we feel so strongly about disallowing the proposed regulations of the Bush administration that will strip these overtime pay protections from 8 million workers.
Make no mistake about it, the Department of Labor is about to issue these regulations. They say they are going to issue them this month. Perhaps that is why the Republican side doesn't want to vote on them. They want the Department to issue the regulations, get them in force and effect. Then they know it is harder to overturn them, once those rules and regulations are out there.
I hope the working men and women around America are paying attention to what is happening on the floor of the Senate right now. The other side has known full well; they were told earlier on if they were going to call this a jobs bill, we ought to be allowed to offer our amendment for an up-or-down vote on whether the administration ought to be allowed to issue these regulations stripping overtime pay, regulations on which they have never had one public hearing, not one. Yet the other side is not letting us even vote on it. Not even vote on it. That is the charade. That is the game that is going on around here.
Are we stopping this bill? We are not stopping this bill. I heard someone say if the Harkin amendment on overtime pay is adopted it will kill the bill. Why, I ask, would it kill the bill? This is a jobs bill. We are trying to protect jobs in America.
At some point we will vote on this amendment. Maybe not on this bill, because I can see the writing on the wall now. They are going to keep second-degreeing this amendment to death. Then they are going to go off the bill and go onto the budget.
But I will be back. I don't want to quote the Governor of California, but, ``I'll be back.'' I will be back and I will be back and I will be back. Whenever there is an opportunity for this Senator to offer this amendment to stop the taking away, the stripping of the rights of our working people in this country to overtime pay, I will be here. If there is an opportunity on this bill, I will do it, but I can see what is happening. The other side does not want this brought up for a vote, and they will do everything they can to preclude me from bringing it up.
I say to the other side: I will be back.
Will my colleague from Iowa yield for a question?
I wanted to ask if the other side would be willing to have a time agreement on the Bunning amendment and the Grassley amendment that was added thereto. Then maybe we can get to the overtime amendment.
Bill Text
Latest available legislative text
[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1180 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1180
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the work
opportunity credit and the welfare-to-work credit.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
June 4, 2003
Mr. Santorum (for himself and Mr. Baucus) introduced the following
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the work
opportunity credit and the welfare-to-work credit.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Encouraging Work Act of 2003''.
SEC. 2. MODIFICATIONS TO WORK OPPORTUNITY CREDIT AND WELFARE-TO-WORK
CREDIT.
(a) Credit Made Permanent.--
(1) Subsection (c) of section 51 of the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986 is amended by striking paragraph (4) (relating to
termination).
(2) Section 51A of such Code is amended by striking
subsection (f).
(b) Eligibility of Ex-Felons Determined Without Regard to Family
Income.--Paragraph (4) of section 51(d) of such Code is amended by
adding ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (A), by striking ``, and'' at
the end of subparagraph (B) and inserting a period, and by striking all
that follows subparagraph (B).
(c) Increase in Maximum Age for Eligibility of Food Stamp
Recipients.--Clause (i) of section 51(d)(8)(A) of such Code is amended
by striking ``25'' and inserting ``40''.
(d) Increase in Maximum Age for Designated Community residents.--
(1) In general.--Paragraph (5) of section 51(d) of such
Code is amended to read as follows:
``(5) Designated community residents.--
``(A) In general.--The term `designated community
resident' means any individual who is certified by the
designated local agency--
``(i) as having attained age 18 but not age
40 on the hiring date, and
``(ii) as having his principal place of
abode within an empowerment zone, enterprise
community, or renewal community.
``(B) Individual must continue to reside in zone or
community.--In the case of a designated community
resident, the term `qualified wages' shall not include
wages paid or incurred for services performed while the
individual's principal place of abode is outside an
empowerment zone, enterprise community, or renewal
community.''
(2) Conforming amendment.--Subparagraph (D) of section
51(d)(1) is amended to read as follows:
``(D) a designated community resident,''.
(e) Clarification of Treatment of Individuals Under Individual Work
Plans.--Subparagraph (B) of section 51(d)(6) of such Code (relating to
vocational rehabilitation referral) is amended by striking ``or'' at
the end of clause (i), by striking the period at the end of clause (ii)
and inserting ``, or'', and by adding at the end the following new
clause:
``(iii) an individual work plan developed
and implemented by an employment network
pursuant to subsection (g) of section 1148 of
the Social Security Act with respect to which
the requirements of such subsection are met.''
(f) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall
apply to individuals who begin work for the employer after December 31,
2003.
SEC. 3. CONSOLIDATION OF WORK OPPORTUNITY CREDIT WITH WELFARE-TO-WORK
CREDIT.
(a) In General.--Paragraph (1) of section 51(d) of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking ``or'' at the end of
subparagraph (G), by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (H)
and inserting ``, or'', and by adding at the end the following new
subparagraph:
``(I) a long-term family assistance recipient.''
(b) Long-Term Family Assistance Recipient.--Subsection (d) of
section 51 of such Code is amended by redesignating paragraphs (10)
through (12) as paragraphs (11) through (13), respectively, and by
inserting after paragraph (9) the following new paragraph:
``(10) Long-term family assistance recipient.--The term
`long-term family assistance recipient' means any individual
who is certified by the designated local agency--
``(A) as being a member of a family receiving
assistance under a IV-A program (as defined in
paragraph (2)(B)) for at least the 18-month period
ending on the hiring date,
``(B)(i) as being a member of a family receiving
such assistance for 18 months beginning after August 5,
1997, and
``(ii) as having a hiring date which is not more
than 2 years after the end of the earliest such 18-
month period, or
``(C)(i) as being a member of a family which ceased
to be eligible for such assistance by reason of any
limitation imposed by Federal or State law on the
maximum period such assistance is payable to a family,
and
``(ii) as having a hiring date which is not more
than 2 years after the date of such cessation.''
(c) Increased Credit for Employment of Long-Term Family Assistance
Recipients.--Section 51 of such Code is amended by inserting after
subsection (d) the following new subsection:
``(e) Credit for Second-Year Wages for Employment of Long-Term
Family Assistance Recipients.--
``(1) In general.--With respect to the employment of a
long-term family assistance recipient--
``(A) the amount of the work opportunity credit
determined under this section for the taxable year
shall include 50 percent of the qualified second-year
wages for such year, and
``(B) in lieu of applying subsection (b)(3), the
amount of the qualified first-year wages, and the
amount of qualified second-year wages, which may be
taken into account with respect to such a recipient
shall not exceed $10,000 per year.
``(2) Qualified second-year wages.--For purposes of this
subsection, the term `qualified second-year wages' means
qualified wages--
``(A) which are paid to a long-term family
assistance recipient, and
``(B) which are attributable to service rendered
during the 1-year period beginning on the day after the
last day of the 1-year period with respect to such
recipient determined under subsection (b)(2).
``(3) Special rules for agricultural and railway labor.--If
such recipient is an employee to whom subparagraph (A) or (B)
of subsection (h)(1) applies, rules similar to the rules of
such subparagraphs shall apply except that--
``(A) such subparagraph (A) shall be applied by
substituting `$10,000' for `$6,000', and
``(B) such subparagraph (B) shall be applied by
substituting `$833.33' for `$500'.''
(d) Repeal of Separate Welfare-to-Work Credit.--
(1) In general.--Section 51A of such Code is hereby
repealed.
(2) Clerical amendment.--The table of sections for subpart
F of part IV of subchapter A of chapter 1 of such Code is
amended by striking the item relating to section 51A.
(e) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall
apply to individuals who begin work for the employer after December 31,
2003.
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