A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that supporting a balance between work and personal life is in the best interest of national worker productivity, and that the President should issue a proclamation designating October of 2003 as "National Work and Family Month".

Mr. President, before my friend leaves the floor, and I don't want to keep him waiting while I make my statement, I think he made some interesting points. As he knows, I generally have great respect for him. But some of these things sort of don't pass the smell test. I ask the rhetorical question: Does anybody in here believe this administration is changing work rules in order to be able to pay more people overtime?

Let me say that again. Does anybody believe the Secretary of Labor, and this President of the United States, backed by the Chamber of Commerce and many other decent, honorable business people as their core supporters, is trying to change the law to give more people access to overtime?

I would be happy to have you answer it.

I am delighted to hear that. I am glad to see the President has had an epiphany. I find it absolutely fascinating. I come from a corporate State. I come from a State where business is a great citizen and they are very active. I have never had one small businessman, I have never had one large businessman, I have never had one come and say: You know what the problem is here, Biden? You Democrats are denying people overtime. We want to expand that contract made in the thirties between labor and management to make sure our workers who are not getting it get overtime.

As they say in the neighborhood I come from, give me a break. Give me a break.

I am going to go to my formal statement in a moment. My friend from New Hampshire made a couple of very important points that are accurate, but draw exactly the wrong conclusion. He said that, in effect--my words--the social contract we entered into 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago with American workers said if you engage in manual labor, you will be rewarded for your efforts. We the American people, we the American Government value manual labor. We value what you have done to build this country. We are going to make sure that you get treated fairly. One of the things they said that related to being treated fairly was that nobody should have to work more than 40 hours. That was a judgment made. In Germany, or in France--I don't know which one it is--they say you only have to work 35 hours, and there is a debate about whether it should be 40 or 50 hours.

We made a deal as a nation. We said: Look, if you work more than 40 hours--those of you who do manual labor--you ought to be compensated time and a half for doing it--just like you work on Sunday. They say that is a day of rest. Most contractors say if you have to work Sunday, we will pay double time. That was the deal we made.

As my friend points out, there are not many manual labor jobs left in America. We have exported them overseas--or the bulk of them overseas. We made it easier for business to take all those manual labor jobs and send them overseas. This is a different world. We have now become a service economy. We have a lot less people doing manual labor. What was the underlying rationale as to why we were going to pay people overtime? We were going to pay overtime not to those who did manual labor. That is what it happened to turn out to be. We said we are going to give people overtime if in fact they are in the workplace and they don't have control over their destiny. They do not get to determine the work rules. They don't get to decide how much longer they will keep the lathes going. They don't decide whether or not they work on Saturday or Sunday. It is about control.

The underlying rationale was we said workers who by and large were manual laborers and do not have a say in their work conditions, do not have a say in how they function, do not have a say in whether they start at 8 or 10 in the morning or 4 in the morning, do not have a say in when the shifts run, and do not have a say in whether or not they get a window outside their work space, we are going to pay those guys something when we ask them to work more than 40 hours.

But for those folks who have a say, and those folks who have some control--theoretically white-collar workers, people who get a room with a view, people who have some say on whether or not the boss starts the shift or opens the door at 8 in the morning or 4 in the morning or 10 in the morning, and those folks who are more like management--they have a say and we are not going to compensate them. Their compensation is in effect because they have a say.

As a former Governor of California used to say, there is psyche remuneration for being white collar.

Just like around here, I get to pick my office. I get to decide whether I have a room with a view. I get to decide to have a more commodious work space. The person who works for me who happens to be answering the mail doesn't get that decision. If I put the mail room in a place where there is no window, as long as it meets OSHA's requirements, they work. Guess what. Hang on everybody. For those of you who ain't management, you ain't going to get overtime anymore when the boss says: By the way, show up. I have an election. You get overtime now. You all get overtime. Get ready.

At any rate, the point is this: It is about control.

My friend said the world has changed. It is a different economy than it was in the 1950s and 1960s. That is right. But if it is based upon the premise of control, which is the underlying rationale for the Fair Labor Standards Act, I would argue my friend from New Hampshire is right. The world has changed. But guess what. White-collar workers don't have control now. As we move to a service economy and white- collar workers, we don't have people digging ditches. We don't have people lifting lumber. We don't have people moving heavy equipment. They are still there, but we have white-collar workers who wear blue collars and who are in high-tech industries and industries that are the service economy--who work in restaurants and work at all these other places--who, in fact, still have no control.

Let me ask you a rhetorical question. Am I missing something here? Every single survey I have read during the last decade asking about satisfaction that American workers derive from their jobs--am I wrong or have all those surveys come back and said there is less satisfaction?

We are not allowed to talk to the galleries. So I am not going to.

But I wonder whether people watching this or sitting in the galleries as I ask a rhetorical question will ask themselves this: Am I satisfied in the workplace? Do I feel my job is rewarding? Do I have any element of control over my job?

The funny thing I have found is whether they are a DuPont engineer or a chemist or an analyst at a brokerage house, they are all afraid they are going to show up one day and find that the company has been sold and they don't have a job. They don't have any control. Guess what. They don't have much.

I agree with my friend. The world has changed. But the values haven't changed. The value we are operating on is that people who do not get much say in how and when and where and under what conditions they work when you ask them to work more than 40 hours should get paid overtime. The fact that there are fewer people wearing sweatshirts and sweating as they perform their jobs is not the issue. How many of those folks in the new service economy have any more control over their jobs than those folks who did manual labor 40 years ago?

That is the first point I want to make.

The second point I want to make to my friend from New Hampshire, who is a very bright guy--I am not being solicitous; he really is.

The second point I make, I agree. He says there is more flexibility in the workforce. I will make a bet. I will make the staffers and my Republican colleagues a bet. I bet if they go out tonight, as they stop in the grocery store or stop to pick up the bottle of milk, or if they are single, stop at the local watering hole to commiserate with their colleagues, ask the following question to whomever they encounter: What does flexibility in the workplace mean to you? Although I have never done this, I make a bet the answer everyone gets is the following: It means my boss can fire me when he wants. It means I have to work part time. It means I am flexible, but they do not have to pay health care. It means I do not have to get benefits I used to get when it was not so flexible.

Flexibility does not translate into control. It does not translate into you being able to determine, in effect, compensation for being asked to stay longer, the environment in which you work or the circumstances in which you work. Flexibility translates to most American workers as flexibility for the boss to tell me I am part time.

My friend did point out part time. I am not going to get into a debate whether it is 8 million or 1.3 million. That is focusing on the trees and not the forests. What is the big picture, folks? The big picture is my Republican colleagues have a very different set of values than I have. They are good people. They are decent people. I am not impugning their motive, but they have a different value set. I think the basic principle is if, in fact, you work in a circumstance where you do not have much control over your environment, and I ask you to work longer than 40 hours, you should have to be paid overtime. That is a basic fundamental value. To me it is simple.

What has this President done? He is a decent, honorable man. What has he done? He has a very different view of American labor and the rights of American labor. Look at his tax structure. All our existence in this last century and the beginning of this century, what was our tax structure designed to do? It was designed to treat the guy and woman who make their living using their hands the same way as the guy who makes his living using his head.

We did not make a distinction in this country based upon whether you pay taxes--until now. What has this administration said now? It depends whether you have--and it is a fancy term--earned income or unearned income. All those listening to me know the difference. Earned income means when you receive a salary, basically. Unearned income is when you have a return on an investment.

What have we done in trying not to tax dividends? We have said, if you sit in your living room, in your home library, in your corner office on the 67th floor, wherever you sit, and you manage your investments, you do your work with your brain alone trying to figure out how to best place the money you have to get a return, if you make money, if you make that week $1,000, then we are not going to tax you. But if you run a piece of heavy equipment, digging out the World Trade Center, and you make $1,000 because of your hourly wage and your overtime, we are going to tax you. Ain't that sweet?

This is the administration--my friend from New Hampshire wants me to believe--that is changing these rules in order that more people will get overtime. That does not pass the laugh test. Look, even the stenographer knows I am telling the truth. It does not pass the laugh test. Let's get real here, OK.

There is a sound philosophic argument for the position of the Republicans based on a different value set than I have, but it is sound. They argue the reason why you shouldn't tax the guy who doesn't break a sweat is because he will provide the liquidity, the pooling of money out there from which people can borrow money, make investments, cap investments, to put guys like my dad to work when he was alive. God love them being so concerned about my dad. But that is a legitimate argument. And what they say is, we value that effort, because it is a more societal consequence, than we value the guy sitting behind a crane or a heavy piece of equipment because we will tax him, but we will not tax the guy who creates something of greater value. He does not break a sweat. He does not put his body at risk. He puts his money at risk.

Now we are creeping into a two-tiered notion of what is the most valuable thing to be compensated in this country. It is a legitimate argument with which I fundamentally disagree. Make no mistake about where those guys are coming from. Don't try to tell me they are trying to help my brother, the laborer. Don't try to convince me they are trying to help the average middle-class guy. Don't try to tell me they are trying to create wealth among those who are raising their kids in split-level homes and trying to pay for tuition. Don't try to tell me that. They are trying to do that indirectly because if you let the big guy have more money, he will take a greater risk and he will invest it and maybe employ that man or woman in the $100,000 split-level home with three bedrooms and four kids. But for God's sake don't tell me that is their major concern.

This is about values. It is obvious this administration does not have the same value set, at least speaking for myself, that I have, or that we have had, or value the social contract in effect that we fought over all during the teens, 1920s, and 1930s, and began to put into place in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

The nature of the economy has changed, but the nature of those who have control and do not have control has not changed. That has not changed. Those numbers and proportions have not changed. This is not fair. But it is consistent. It goes back to the trickle-down, bubble-up disagreements, a very simplistic way to show the differences between our parties. We think average folks can actually make decisions for themselves. We think they can actually and should be rewarded for what they do. That will generate economic growth. They think, no, let the wealthiest among us make those judgments and that will trickle down and benefit my noncollege-educated father and mother. It is a legitimate argument. But it is different value set. It is a different way of looking at the world.

For Lord's sake, do not try to convince me this administration is seeking to change the overtime work rules so more people get overtime. In the last 3 years, more than 3 million private sector jobs have disappeared. And for each of those 3 million jobs lost, there is a story of a child without health care, a family in crisis without dignity or hope, their dreams lost or at least deferred. A job loss is not just another statistic, it is a real human tragedy.

Paraphrasing President Truman, and I didn't know what he was doing at the time, my grandfather Finnegan from Scranton used to say, Joey, when the guy up in Throop loses his job, it is an economic slowdown; when my brother-in-law loses his job, it is a recession; when I lose my job, it is a depression.

There is a lot of depression for a lot of folks out there. For 3 years now, this administration has told us that tax cuts are the only thing we need to do to get this economy rolling. They said tax cuts were all we needed to create new jobs. You know the talk about creating new jobs. But here we stand today, trillions of dollars in tax cuts later, and we have not added a single--hear me now--a single, not one net new job to the economy in the United States of America--not one. And I will bet the President anything he wishes to bet that at the end of his term--defeated or reelected--on election day 2004, this will be the first administration since Herbert Hoover not to create one single solitary net new job. As they used to say on ``Saturday Night Live,'' ``Ain't that special?''--not one new job.

Not only have we failed to create new jobs, we are losing the ones we have. Tax cuts were the only policy we had, but it is painfully clear they haven't worked, at least in relation to jobs. And now it is clear that tax cuts and deficits are credited for crippling our ability to meet our responsibilities here at home in homeland defense and to shoulder the burdens we face around the world, at exactly the time the President has rightfully called on us to come up with another $87 billion for Iraq.

I think it is time to ask the question: If we are not going to create any new jobs--and the President's Council of Economic Advisers argued, by the way, that last year's tax cuts would produce 5.5 million jobs between now and the end of 2004. With the loss of 93,000 jobs last month, that puts them 437,000 jobs behind their promise already. I challenge them to create one new job during this administration.

The latest official numbers look slightly improved on paper, but that is because nearly 2 million men and women who have been out of work for over half a year know that good jobs are just not there so they have completely given up looking for work.

I know my friend from West Virginia has been through a lot. He could, not figuratively but literally, write a book on this. He has witnessed what has happened to his coal miners. He has witnessed what has happened to the folks in his State. He has been through a depression. He was part of those who worked us out of that. He knows what not having a job means to somebody.

So most of us here--all of us, Democrat and Republican, know that the key to our dignity as human beings is being able to provide for ourselves, and it is also the key to a healthy economy.

A jobless recovery, which we have right now, means nothing to the millions still out of work. And this so-called jobless recovery is in danger of causing the recovery as a whole to sputter out because its foundation is not very solid.

There is little hope for sustained, healthy economic growth without solid, good-paying jobs. Consumer confidence and consumer spending--the keys to our economy--ultimately depend on Americans' confidence that they are going to have a secure job, a job that pays a fair wage for a fair day's labor.

For over half a century, American workers have known what that meant: a 40-hour workweek and time and a half for overtime. You could count on that extra pay in exchange for the extra burden of working more than 40 hours a week.

So I would just ask, what has changed in America that says when you work more than 40 hours a week, you should not get compensated more for it? What is it that has changed that says the premise of overtime pay is no longer sound? What is it? What is it that has changed, that is different from the agreement we made--business and management and labor--that if you

don't control your work environment, you should be compensated monetarily when you are asked to work in that environment beyond 40 hours? What has changed?

What is happening? Have we taken on a new set of basic values or is there something in the marketplace that has changed that demands this?

I will conclude with this. The irony of all of this is that at the very time when people are feeling less secure physically, the very time when people are feeling less secure about their jobs, at the very time when we have lost millions of jobs, and no reasonable prospect of seeing them regained in the near term, why is it they have to pile on now--pile on now--and begin to change that basic contract?

You would think they would at least have the good grace and the courtesy to wait until things have improved a little bit. It just seems to me to be really bad form, just bad form, because you know a lot of those guys and women who are making overtime are helping pay their mother's prescription bill, are making sure that their brother, who lost his job, is able to keep his kids in school.

A lot of that money for overtime is family overtime. And now we want to change that. I think it is getting a little bit greedy. I think it is just a little bit greedy. I think it is bad form. And I sincerely hope I turn out to be wrong. I sincerely hope the economic conservatives in this administration really are attempting to provide a change in the rules to make sure that more people get overtime. I will come to the floor and say: I'm sorry, I misjudged you. I thank you for your concern for working-class people. I thank you for your concern that not enough of them were getting paid overtime, and I appreciate the fact you are now willing to pay more people more overtime. I don't think I will have to make that speech. I hope I am wrong.

Mr. President, last month 93,000 Americans lost their jobs. Over the last 3 years, more than 3 million private sector jobs have disappeared. And for each one of those 3 million lost jobs, there is a story of a child without health care, a family in crisis without dignity or hope, their dreams lost or deferred.

A job loss is not just another statistic, it is a real human tragedy.

For 3 years now this administration told us that tax cuts are the only thing we need to get the economy rolling again. They said tax cuts are all we need to create new jobs. But here we stand today, trillions of dollars in tax cuts later, and we have not added a single new job to this economy.

Not only have we failed to create new jobs, we are losing the ones we used to have. Tax cuts were the only policy they had, but it is painfully clear that they have not worked. And now it is clear that the tax cuts and the deficits they created are crippling our ability to meet our responsibilities here at home and to shoulder the burdens we face around the world--at exactly the time the President has rightfully called on us for $87 billion for Iraq.

It is time to ask the question: Can this administration create just one new private-sector job, one more job than existed when they took office?

The President's Council of Economic Advisors claimed that the last tax cut would produce 5.5 million new jobs between now and the end of 2004. With the loss of 93,000 jobs last month, that puts them 437,000 jobs behind their promises already.

I challenge them to create just one new job during this administration, one new job before the next election.

The latest official unemployment number looks slightly improved on paper, but that is because the nearly 2 million men and women who have been out of work for over half a year know that god jobs are just not there and they have completely given up looking for work.

Jobs are the key to our dignity as human beings. And they are the key to a healthy economy.

A jobless recovery like we have right now means nothing to the millions still out of work. And this so-called jobless recovery is in danger of sputtering out because it lacks a strong foundation.

There is little hope for sustained, healthy economic growth without solid good-paying jobs.

Consumer confidence and consumer spending--the keys to our economy-- ultimately depend on Americans' confidence that they have a secure job, a job that pays a fair wage for fair days' work.

For over half a century American workers have known what that meant, a 40-hour work week, and time and a half if you worked overtime. You could count on that extra pay in exchange for the extra burden of working more than 40 hours a week.

Many workers often have no choice about working overtime, it is up to their boss. But they have to work those extra hours, their employer is required to pay them time and a half.

This has been a cornerstone of the social contract between labor and management, between workers and employers.

For other workers, higher overtime pay is often absolutely essential to making ends meet. For those struggling along on the minimum wage or a little more, overtime pay can make all the difference when you are trying to make ends meet.

We know that many workers simply schedule themselves as much overtime as they can physically bear so that they can stay above water financially. But despite the key role of the 40-hour work week, despite the wide-spread reliance on time and half pay for work past those 40 hours, this administration has proposed crippling changes in the regulations governing overtime pay.

That is why I am here as a cosponsor to the Harkin-Kennedy amendment to prohibit funding for those new overtime regulations.

Senator Harkin deserves our thanks, and the thanks of millions of workers, for his leadership on this issue.

On its face, the issue could not be clearer. The administration wants to take away the rights of millions of workers to overtime pay. They want to make it easier for employers to reclassify as many as 8 million hourly workers--who now get overtime pay--to make them ineligible for overtime pay.

Right now, for most workers, if you are not ``white collar'' working in management, your boss has to pay you time and a half for all the work you do over 40 hours a week. The idea is that more highly educated workers, who participate in management, who have significant authority over the workplace, are more properly classified as salaried, not hourly, workers. They get a fixed amount of pay, no matter how many hours they may put in a week.

Hourly workers, on the other hand, who do not manage the conditions under which they work, who have less to say about the work week is organized, must be compensated if they work more than the basic 40 hours.

That has been the definition of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay for more than half a century, and its basic fairness still makes sense today.

America has changed, but not our values. But the administration's new regulations would make it easier--would actually create an incentive for employers to classify workers who have little advanced education and little or no authority--to classify those workers as white collar workers.

Those regulations would lower the amount of education currently required to classify someone as white collar or professional. And they would also loosen the definition of management activities to make it easier to claim that a lot of the basic paperwork many hourly workers currently do actually makes them administrators or executives.

Overnight, with the stroke of a computer key, millions of workers could lose the right to overtime pay. These rules are designed not only to make it easier to reclassify workers, but to make it pay for employers who do so.

Employers will save money, since they will no longer be required to pay workers time and a half for work that they are now guaranteed. There would be no change in the number of hours they could be required to do, no change in their education, no change in their responsibilities, just one change in the regulations in Washington--and they are out overtime pay and out of luck.

Today, when the biggest problem facing our economy is the loss of job, when a well-paying job is so hard to come by, these regulations are the worst thing we could do.

This administration has the worst record of job loss since Herbert Hoover--3.2 million jobs lost. Faced with the obvious fact that his economic

policies have failed to create a single new job, faced with the fact that years into a so-called recovery, we are still losing jobs, the President recently announced a warmed over package of his failed policies and labeled it a job creation plan. I suppose it is a good thing that he finally realizes that he is presiding over the worst job creation of any modern President.

Unfortunately, there is nothing new in his announcement, and absolutely nothing that would create one new well-paying job. If he truly wants to do something for the working men and women of America, I respectfully suggest that the President simply rescind these proposed regulations. That alone would protect the overtime pay on which so many men and women and their families depend today.

Now is not the time for this administration to use its regulatory power to cut the pay of millions of American workers. But if we will not stop this pay cut for millions of Americans, we can do that today here in the Senate. We can vote to prohibit any funds from going to enforce this unfair and wrong-headed change in our basic social contract, in the deal we have struck between millions of workers and their employers.

I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this amendment.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues and yield to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we are presently on the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill which is the funding bill for next year for all three of those Departments plus others--NIH, for basic medical research, and for a number of other independent type agencies, libraries, and things such as that.

Perhaps the biggest part of this bill in terms of where we ought to focus our energies and our attention is in the area of education. We know that without a good education, our hopes for the future of this country are much dimmer if we do not provide a class 1, world class education for all of our kids. Our future will be bleak indeed if in fact we start leaving some kids behind.

Thus, when the President talked a couple years ago about his proposal to leave no child behind, that sounded like something we could support and move ahead on because we do not want to, nor can we afford to, leave any children behind.

Now that we are here this week after Labor Day, it is back to school time. Back to school time means one thing: More claims from President Bush that he is serious about leaving no child behind.

When the President signed the No Child Left Behind Act nearly 2 years ago, he promised to give schools the money they need to improve. He said:

We are going to spend more money, more resources, but they

will be directed at methods that work.

Most people probably believed him. I know I did. There were long negotiations. I also serve on the authorizing committee that worked out the agreements with the White House on the No Child Left Behind Act. One of the major reasons I voted for it was that I trusted the President. I took him at his word that in fact we were going to have the resources.

In the No Child Left Behind Act, we made a major departure from what we had been doing in the past in terms of Federal funding for elementary and secondary education. This was the biggest mandate ever put upon local public schools by the Federal Government. The biggest mandate ever put on our local public schools by the Federal Government was Leave No Child Behind.

So I believed then, and I believe now, that if we are going to mandate certain performance levels for our schools, and we are going to penalize these schools for failing to make adequate yearly progress--if we are going to do that--then we must, by all rights, give them the money they need to meet these mandates and to improve.

President Bush seemed to agree. We took him at his word. But ever since he signed that law, the President's record on education has been long on spin and woefully short on spending. Saturday was a characteristic example of what I am talking about. The President used his radio address on Saturday to boast about how much funding he has provided for schools since he became President. He said--and again I quote; this is an exact quote from his radio address on Saturday--

My budget for next year boosts education funding to $53.1

billion, an increase of nearly $11 billion since I took

office.

Keep these figures in mind: $53.1 billion, his budget for next year; and he says: ``an increase of . . . $11 billion since I took office.''

Well, first, the statement is factually correct. The education budget has increased $11 billion during the Bush administration. And it is factually correct that next year's budget does call for $53.1 billion. But let's take a look at those two. The $11 billion increase during his administration has taken place, but no thanks to President Bush. The budgets increased $11 billion because Democrats in Congress insisted on it over the White House's strong objections. It is like I was saying last week about the weather, it has rained a lot around here during President Bush's administration, sometimes it has been hot during his administration,

sometimes it has even snowed during his administration, but his administration did not actually have anything to do with the weather.

The same thing with education funding: President Bush deserves as much credit for the recent education funding increases as he does for the weather outside. This chart will explain what I mean.

In fiscal year 2001, the last budget of the Clinton administration, education funding was at $42.2 billion. The next year, President Bush's first year, in his budget he asked for an increase to $44.5 billion. That would be about an increase of $2.3 billion.

Now, at the end of the day, at the end of the year, the actual funding went up to $49.9 billion. Why? Did President Bush come down here and ask for more money? No. Education got up to $49.9 billion because we Democrats insisted on it during the negotiations for the No Child Left Behind Act. We said, if you are going to have these mandates, let's get the money in there. And since the President wanted to get votes for his bill, he agreed. But he never asked for it. We insisted on it. So the next year we went up to $49.9 billion.

Now, the next year, President Bush asked for $50.3 billion. That was an increase of only $400 million from the previous year, seven-tenths of 1 percent. That is what he asked for. That is all he asked for. Again, we got it up to $53.1 billion. Again, why? Because Democrats insisted on it. We fought for it hard. We fought for it on the floor of the Senate, and we got it up to $53.1 billion.

Now, the real kicker is this: In his radio address, the President said:

My budget for next year boosts--

--``boosts,'' ``boosts''--

education funding to $53.1 billion. . . .

Mr. President, we are already at $53.1 billion. You have asked for $53.1 billion for next year. That is not a boost. That is the same as we spent last year.

Well, actually I want to be factually correct. His budget would increase funding by $26 million, .05 percent over last year. It is such a minuscule amount it does not even show up on a chart.

As I said before, it is true education spending has risen $11 billion during the Bush administration, but President Bush has only asked for $2.7 billion of that $11 billion. All the rest resulted from Democrats here in Congress pushing for and fighting for increased education funding. So I wanted to make that record clear.

Now, what is more, the President is trying to take credit for these education increases at the very same time the White House, this President, is working to defeat Senator Byrd's amendment, one of the pending amendments on this bill, that would fully fund title I at the fiscal year 2004 authorized level. The title I program is the key to the success of No Child Left Behind because title I helps the students who need the help the most, the millions who are now being left behind--low-income, poor kids, kids from low-income areas. It is the program also, under the No Child Left Behind Act, that will hold schools accountable for improving student performance. So title I is a program that has been in existence for a long time, and it funnels Federal funding to those most in need, the kids who are now being left behind.

In the No Child Left Behind Act we put in there the mandates that will hold schools accountable, that will penalize schools if they do not improve student performance.

President Bush and Members of Congress spent a lot of time negotiating over how much money was needed year by year for title I. This was part of the negotiations process when we passed No Child Left Behind. What we settled on was a figure of $18.5 billion for fiscal year 2004. That is the second year after the law went into effect. That is the authorized level.

Unfortunately, the bill before us provides $12.35 billion for title I. That is the amount requested by President Bush. Again, some on the other side want to play games with the numbers. They argue title I funding has risen by $2.9 billion during President Bush's administration, again, as if the President deserves the credit for it. The fact is, President Bush requested only $1.3 billion of the $2.9 billion title I has increased between 2001 and 2003. Again, the only reason title I increased more than he asked for was we Democrats here in Congress insisted on it.

Again, this chart shows the story. In fiscal year 2001, title I got $8.8 billion. In fiscal year 2002, the President requested a minuscule increase of just $300 million to $9.1 billion. The authorized level was $13.5 billion. Again, we Democrats in Congress fought hard, and we got it up to $10.35 billion.

Some on the other side have said, well, the Democrats ran the Senate for fiscal year 2002, and they didn't fund title I at the authorized level. Well, that is true, but remember, we only controlled the Senate, we did not control the House, and we did not control the White House like the Republicans do now, and we managed to get more for title I than the President requested.

In fiscal year 2003, the year we are in right now, the President requested $11.35 billion for title I, when the authorization level had risen to $16 billion. Again, thanks to Democratic pressure here in Congress, we got it up to $11.7 billion.

Now for fiscal year 2004, the President has requested $12.35 billion, $6 billion short of the authorized level of $18.5 billion.

People have said: That is the authorized level. We hardly ever fund to the authorized level.

In most cases that is true. But in this case, we have a different situation. We have mandates. Schools, you have to do this, this, this. You have to meet annual yearly progress of this, this, and this. We have now mandated it. We never did before. And, in the negotiations on No Child Left Behind, we agreed on these figures: $13.5 billion for 2002, 16 for 2003, and 18.5 for 2004, and so on. So this is not just like something else. This is the biggest Federal mandate ever on our public schools.

The biggest part of No Child Left Behind is title I, and the President has shortchanged it by over $6 billion this next year. I think we need to help President Bush keep the promise he made when he signed the No Child Left Behind Act by approving Senator Byrd's amendment. The Byrd amendment, more than any other, will show the Nation how serious we are about leaving no child behind. Do we give the schools the money they need to improve? Or do we just give them a bunch of mandates and hang them out to dry? That is what is at stake with the Byrd amendment.

I emphasize, the Byrd amendment is not just about dollars. If you want to hire good teachers, it takes money. If you want to reduce class sizes so teachers can teach, it takes money. This Byrd amendment would provide enough funding to hire more than 100,000 highly qualified teachers for the students who are at most risk of being left behind. That means over 2 million disadvantaged students would be taught in smaller classes. They would receive the full range of instructional services called for under the No Child Left Behind Act.

In his radio address on Saturday, the President said:

Schools are getting the Federal resources and help they

need to improve.

I am sorry, Mr. President. That is factually incorrect. They are not getting the Federal resources. They are not getting what you promised 2 years ago when you signed this bill into law. So I say let's help the President keep his promise. I urge my colleagues to support the Byrd amendment when it comes up for a vote. All we are asking for is $6.2 billion to get it up to the authorized level.

The President says he doesn't have the money for that. We have this huge deficit. We don't have the money to get out to these schools to fully fund this. We don't have the money.

Last night when I turned on my television set to watch the President address the country, he said he is going to send up a supplemental appropriations request for $87 billion for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan--mostly Iraq. We had an earlier bill this year that was $79 billion, of which $70 billion was for Iraq and Afghanistan. So 70 and now 87; in the space of 6 months this President has asked us to take taxpayers' dollars and put $157 billion into Iraq and Afghanistan. And we don't have $6 billion to leave no child behind, the poorest kids in the poorest areas, the low-income areas. We don't have it. Somehow we don't have that.

Mr. Bremer is talking about rebuilding schools in Iraq. They are going to

rebuild schools or build schools. I don't think we bombed schools in Iraq. Maybe we are going to build new schools. I don't know. What about the schools here in America? What about our kids here who are being left behind?

One hundred fifty-seven billion dollars? At the beginning of the Iraq war, the Department of Defense estimated we were going to be spending about $2.2 billion a month after the war. In June, that went to $3 billion. As of July, they said they were spending about $3.9 billion a month in Iraq, and another $1 billion in Afghanistan. Well, if I am not mistaken, there are 12 months in a year. If we assume that is the end of it for the whole year, 12 months, $87 billion, it seems to me that comes down to more than $7 billion a month. And they told us earlier it was going to be $2.2 billion for Iraq, and going down quickly. And now it is up to $6 billion in Iraq and $1 billion in Afghanistan, if we assume they are not going to ask for any more. And I would not make that assumption. So in 1 year, $7 billion a month for Iraq and Afghanistan.

In February, the administration said Iraq's oil reserves would help shoulder much of the burden for its own reconstruction. Mr. Wolfowitz said on April 6:

There are enormous resources available from other sources

than just the American taxpayer to help the Iraqi people in

reconstructing their country. And the oil revenues of Iraq

now for the first time in decades will be dedicated to the

welfare of the Iraqi people.

Well, it sure looks like the American taxpayer is footing the bill to me. I don't know when those oil drills are going to start coming back again and when we are going to start making money off that. Right now it is the American taxpayer.

My point is, for Iraq and Afghanistan they have asked for $157 billion in 6 months. Yet we can't fund title I. That doesn't make sense to me at all. We should have--we do have the resources. Quite frankly, if we don't meet those needs and if we don't fund No Child Left Behind, then obviously children are going to be left behind. And they are going to be the kids of the poorest, low income, because their schools will not meet the annual yearly progress reports, the mandates that are out there. We are going to lose teachers because schools won't be able to pay them what they are worth. Yet we are going to ask the American taxpayer to keep coughing up money for this quagmire that we are in now in Iraq.

A lot of people have said: This isn't Vietnam.

I am one of those who lived through Vietnam. I was in the military during the Vietnam war. This may not be Vietnam, but, boy, it sure smells like it. Every time I see these bills coming down for the money, it is costing like Vietnam, too. No one wants this country to be vulnerable to terrorists. We want to take all reasonable diligent steps that may be necessary to protect the American people. That is the duty of the Commander in Chief. But the Commander in Chief, being an elected person, also has to be accountable for how he has gone about ensuring the security of the American people. At what cost? At what impact on our society?

So the President has to be held accountable for this. I don't pretend to have all the answers for what ought to be done in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I do know something--that if we as a nation decide to go it alone in the world in anything--but especially in the war on terrorism--if we decide to go at it alone, in our way and only in our way, without the concurrence of and the help and support of our allies, old and new, and of our friends in democratic countries around the world, then I think that two things will happen. One, we will not address the scourge of terrorism as fully and all-encompassing away as it needs to be done--globally--because we are going to need the help of other countries in finding terrorists, locating them, breaking up their cells, giving you advance warning and giving themselves advance warning. That will be the first. We will do it in a military rifle- shot-type of manner. You may accomplish something for a little bit but that doesn't wipe out the terrorist network or the nests. That is the first result of our going it alone. The second result is what is quite obvious right now--the American taxpayer will foot the bill for everything.

Those are the two things I see happening right now in the world. So I think it is time to have an accounting.

Quite frankly, I think it is time we begin to reach out to other nations--our friends and our allies--to enlist their aid and support, and to vow that never again are we going to go marching off with just the word of the President of the United States. The threat of terrorism is not just at us; it is at people all over the world. It is not just up to our President--any President--to decide when and how to go after these terrorists. It is up to us globally. It is up to the United Nations. It is up to NATO, our allies and us working together to decide how and when to go after these terrorists.

I say this because in this bill now there is a shortage of funding for education, for health care, for medical research. We are even shortchanging the National Institutes of Health on medical research. I think Senator Specter will have an amendment later on that, which I will support. But we are told we simply don't have the funds. But we do have $157 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. Well, it is all a matter of priorities. I think we have to get our priorities back in order.

With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Well, if the Senator will yield without losing his right to the floor, I will try to respond to his question about the schedule. I do want to respond also to my friend's earlier comments on education funding, but I will do that when I get the floor in my own right.

To respond to the inquiry about the schedule, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, there are two observations on who is running the Senate. The Senate right now is 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 1 Independent. The Independent, Mr. Jeffords, caucuses with the Democrats, although he maintains an independent status. So it is not the case where we have a dictatorship. It is a case where the Senate is very closely divided and where there should be a comity in which people work together--as the Senator from Pennsylvania and I have done for 13 years, by the way, I would note for the record--in terms of accommodating and trying to reach reasonable accommodations on votes.

I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, I mentioned last week I was going to offer an amendment on overtime. It was no secret. I read it into the Record. It was not my side, nor was it this Senator's decision, saying that we would only have two votes on Friday morning and then go home. We could have stayed Friday and voted. It was not this side or this Senator's decision to have one vote on Monday and then later cancel it and not even have any votes on Monday.

The Senator from Pennsylvania knows as well that on Fridays there is a vote or two in the morning, everybody takes off, and then we have maybe a vote at 5 or 5:30 on Monday--what we call a bed check vote. It was this Senator's judgment that most of the votes--and we have a finite list of amendments for this bill, I say to the Senator. We agreed. Senator Reid, our assistant leader on this side, got a finite list of amendments, which is very important because that tells us we can bring closure to this bill.

So it became clear that the big voting day was going to be Tuesday. Everyone is going to be here. It will be a long day. We can wrap up. We can have a whole series of votes on Tuesday, maybe bring this bill to a close by Wednesday--certainly Thursday at the latest.

I say further to my friend from Pennsylvania that the record shows that in the last several years about the average length of time spent on this bill, whether it has been in Democratic hands or Republican hands, has been

about 5 to 7 floor days because this is such a big bill. There is a lot in it. There are a lot of amendments, and usually a lot of debate on different aspects of this bill. So it would not be unusual for this bill, under the leadership of my friend, and very good leadership I might say, that we would be on the Senate floor for 5 or 6 days on this bill.

We were on it Wednesday. We had no votes Tuesday--again not our decision. The decision was made by the majority leader that we would not vote on Tuesday. We were on it Wednesday and Thursday. That is 2 days. We had two votes on Friday. Today, we are here talking but no votes. So Tuesday and Wednesday, that would give us about 5 legislative days that we would be on it. We can probably finish this bill by Wednesday night, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania.

So that is the schedule. I am not holding up anything. We couldn't vote today anyway. We couldn't vote on anything. The majority leader made the decision that we were not going to have votes on this bill today.

When I heard that, I said, OK, I am going to offer my amendment, and I will object to going off of my amendment for anything else until we vote on it because we can vote on it first thing tomorrow morning. We can come in tomorrow morning and vote on it, or tomorrow afternoon we could vote on this amendment. We will vote on it.

I did not mean to go on. I yield.

That is true.

I agree. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

I have a hard time seeing it over there.

Will my friend yield for a question?

I don't understand why there is a flareup. This bill, we are moving ahead on it. Wednesday and Thursday we had good debates. We had amendments. We voted. We brought up amendments, most on our side. I think there were a couple on the Republican side that came up.

I don't know why there should be a flareup. We have the amendments pending. We said let's set a time to vote on it. We can move ahead. That is the sort of comity you work out. We will work out a time. We know we are going to vote on it, so let's find a time that is agreeable. In fact, in the well Thursday night, I thought there was an agreed-upon time, for the afternoon, for two. I said that is fine; I don't care. Then when I came in Friday morning, I found out that had been blown out of the water--not by our side but by the Republican side.

Will the Senator yield on that point?

Thursday night--you don't have to take my word for it. We were in the well with the majority leader----

The minority leader on our side, Senator Reid. I was involved in the discussion. We were just talking about moving ahead and getting a vote on this amendment on Tuesday.

I wouldn't say that hands were shaken and it was agreed, but someone said 3 or 3:15 on Tuesday. I said--someone said that to me. I didn't say that--I said, fine, OK, let's work it out. We will have a time on Tuesday we can work.

The Senator is right. Some of this does have to do with the fact that there are a number on our side running for President. We know that. They have been out. But everyone is going to be here tomorrow. The point is, not everyone is here today, Monday, not even on your side or our side, but everyone is going to be here tomorrow; so that Thursday night there was sort of a gentlemen's agreement--the assistant leader was there, too--that we would set a time on Tuesday to vote on this. That is the kind of thing we work out here.

If I could just finish? Then, when we come in Friday, I find that has been yanked away from us, that we can't have a time agreed upon to vote.

That is when this Senator decided, I am going to lay down my amendment and I am going to object to going off it until we get some kind of agreement worked out. It is not blackmail. It is just trying to move this process forward.

If my friend will yield further, I say why not? Tomorrow everyone is going to be here. If you want to agree on a time, you and I could agree on a time. I don't care. Everyone is going to be here tomorrow. We will agree on a time and we will move forward. There is no reluctance or resistance on our part to doing that. I don't know what the blocking is.

You have the floor.

I would be glad to set it aside. I would be willing to agree on a time tomorrow and set it aside.

What happens to the amendment? Will the Senator absolutely assure me if I set it aside that we will vote on this amendment tomorrow afternoon?

Well, there you go.

I say to my friend, we will work it out. I am sure it will be worked out.

Mr. President, I know my friend from Louisiana wishes to speak. I want to take a couple of minutes to respond to the remarks of my friend from Pennsylvania about the education bill.

I am constrained to, once again, point out some facts, as I did with this chart. I want to hold it up again. Perhaps my friend wasn't on the floor when I held this chart up before. This is education funding from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2004. In his radio address on Saturday, President Bush was boasting about the fact that he had an $11 billion increase in funding in his administration. That is true. It went from $42 billion to $53 billion. That is $11 billion. But no thanks to him.

As I pointed out before, in fiscal year 2001 it was $42.2 billion, and in 2002 Bush asked for $44.5 billion--a very slight increase.

In negotiations with the President on the No Child Left Behind Act, Democrats insisted and got it up to $49.9 billion. The next year President Bush asked for $50.3 billion--a $400 million increase, a .05- percent increase.

We Democrats fought hard and got it up to $53.1 billion. Now the President said in his radio address that he has a boost in education funding for next year. As I pointed out, this year it is $53.1 billion, and he asked for $53.1.

Those are the facts. Facts are stubborn things. You can have all the rhetoric and dress up your words but facts are stubborn things. The fact is, of the $11 billion increase for funding in education since this President came to office, the President has only asked for $2.7 billion of that increase. That is the fact. Facts are very stubborn things.

My friend from Pennsylvania dresses it up. But as we say in Iowa, you can put an apron and a pink ribbon on a pig but it is still a pig. You can dress this up in all kinds of fancy language. Quite frankly, we are leaving education funding behind.

I wanted to, again, bring out the facts and make sure that people had the facts in education funding and why we need to get the Byrd amendment agreed to on title I.

Again, when we negotiated No Child Left Behind, the President and the Congress agreed on these funding levels for title I. Now we are $6 billion less than what we agreed upon earlier.

Facts are very stubborn things.

That is why we need to adopt the Byrd amendment.

I thank the Senator from Louisiana for her patience. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

I would like to ask this question: Is it not true that since President Bush took office we have lost 3.3 million private- sector jobs in America, more jobs lost than any President since Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression, and that 75 percent of the jobs lost have been manufacturing jobs and good paying jobs across America? Despite the fact that manufacturing jobs account for less than 14 percent of our private-sector economy, 75 percent of the private-sector job loss has been in manufacturing jobs. These jobs have been lost to Third World countries--China and other nations.

Is it not also true that this proposal to cut overtime and basically defy the sacred 40-hour workweek would result in the importation of Third World wage standards into the United States? It is bad enough that we have lost millions of jobs to the Third World and overseas. Is this proposal by the Bush administration adding insult to injury by bringing those Third World work standards to America's families we honored with that resolution last Friday?

Mr. President, I congratulate my colleague, Senator Murray, for speaking on the overtime amendment offered by Senator Harkin, and Senator Robert Byrd for speaking on his amendment involving funding the President's mandate, the No Child Left Behind legislation. I address both of those issues for a moment.

First, I say to the Senator from Washington, what she has outlined in her State can be repeated in virtually every State across America. For the last several years, we have seen a loss of jobs in America virtually unprecedented in recent history. In fact, you have to go back so far as President Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression to find a time when America has lost as many jobs as we have lost since President Bush took office. Remember, in the preceding 8 years we created 22 million new jobs in America, but since President George W. Bush has taken office we have lost almost 3 million jobs. This is a modern record, a sad record felt in every State, my own included.

I have also been told that some 90 percent of the jobs we have lost have been manufacturing jobs, jobs which have been lost to Third World countries, countries such as China, that have taken away the manufacturing jobs that used to be the bread and butter for the communities of America. They are leaving in droves. Since President Bush took office we have lost 120,000 manufacturing jobs in Illinois. In the last 5 years, we have lost one out of every five manufacturing jobs, and there is no end in sight.

I held a press bipartisan conference today with some of my colleagues who decried the current situation in China where they are sucking away all of our jobs because of currency manipulation. The point is that will be addressed in another bill.

In this bill, we have to be concerned not with the exodus of American jobs to Third World countries but the immigration of Third World labor standards into the United States. The Bush administration, through the Department of Labor, is establishing a standard which says that some 8 to 10 million workers in America will no longer qualify for overtime pay. Those included in that group, as we have heard from my colleagues on the floor, are firefighters, nurses, many who have important jobs in communities related to health and safety. The Bush administration has said they will not be entitled to overtime in the future.

Those with a sense of history can remember from our history courses and our readings how many lives were lost in America in the establishment of the labor movement to fight for one particular thing: the 40-hour workweek. This was, frankly, one of the most contentious issues. We finally said, as a matter of law in America, businesses could only work their employees 40 hours a week or they would have to pay time and a half for the extra time. That was a bitter battle that went on for decades with a lot of bloodshed and lives lost because of social upheaval as workers across America spoke out for their rights. But eventually it was established. The 40-hour workweek in America became a sacred precept, not just in collective bargaining contracts but as well in legislation, to apply to everyone. The understanding was that beyond 40 hours you would have to pay extra.

What is the basis for it? Certainly so the workers' rights would be respected. It would lessen exploitation. It would say to the employer, if you are going to work someone beyond 40 hours, that certainly is a physical impediment, one that could be a hardship, as well as a family hardship, and you should pay more for it.

Now comes the Bush administration saying it is family friendly and eliminating the right to overtime pay for 8 to 10 million Americans. It could not come at a worse time. It could not be a worse idea.

Senator Harkin of Iowa offers an amendment which my friends on the other side of the aisle are afraid we will call for a vote on, an amendment that says we will not allow the Department of Labor to go forward with this bad idea.

I totally support the Harkin amendment. We need to protect the rights of workers in America today, rights that have been fought for decades, over a century of effort by men and women to bring dignity to the workplaces under assault because of this proposal from the Bush administration.

Let me say a word about the Byrd amendment before the Senate. Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia has offered an amendment which basically says to the President: Keep your word. Keep your word.

When this President came to office as the education president, he said: I am going to bring Democrats and Republicans together. He turned to my friend and colleague behind me, Senator Kennedy, and said: Join me in passing the No Child Left Behind legislation. Let's do it right. Let's do it in a bipartisan fashion.

Senator Kennedy joined him, as did Congressman George Miller of California, in a bipartisan effort, supported by many, including myself. No Child Left Behind demanded accountability in schools but said if the children are having a tough time passing the test, we want to provide extra resources to school districts across America so the test scores will improve.

Resources for title I is a program where school districts directly help students and their families, students who are falling behind. The amount that was to be authorized for this was spelled out in law, written down and approved by the President, signed into law, and No Child Left Behind went into effect.

Across America, public schools are bound by the requirements and mandates of No Child Left Behind. But, unfortunately, when it came to President Bush's budget, he failed to appropriate the funds necessary to pay for this mandate. So the mandate goes unfunded at the local level.

I don't know about the States of my colleagues but I can speak about Illinois. We are in a terrible fiscal crisis. We had to cut $5 billion in State funds this year--a very difficult thing to do--and our schools have suffered in the process. For us now to say that this Federal mandate of No Child Left Behind is not going to be funded as President Bush promised means that the President is not keeping his word to the schoolchildren and families of America.

Senator Byrd's amendment says to the President: Keep your word. Find the $6 billion you promised to send to these school districts.

I happen to think Senator Byrd is right. I am happy to be a cosponsor of his amendment. We cannot at this point in time establish new mandates and new responsibilities on school districts across America struggling to survive and not provide the resources.

In my home State of Illinois, almost half of the school districts are now in desperate financial straits. In the city of Elgin, IL, a growth area in my State, they appropriated funds 2 years ago to build four new schools that were to be open this fall when school opened. Sadly, the Elgin School District does not have the resources to open the schools. They cannot afford the teachers. They cannot afford the overhead costs. The four brandnew school buildings sit vacant, an indication of how difficult it is to fund education at the local level in the midst of a recession, in the midst of a situation when State budgets are struggling to find balance.

That is a compelling argument for us to keep our word, to make certain that school districts across America have the money to help the kids improve their test scores, improve their education, become better readers, understand math and science, and improve as students. Unless and until we do that, we have no business mandating on these school districts that they have to start transporting students across school district lines and all of the other penalties associated with No Child Left Behind.

Let's pass the Byrd amendment. Let's keep our word to the schoolchildren across America, even if the Bush budget does not.

The last point I make is an amendment which I plan to offer at the first opportunity. Again, it relates to a promise made by President Bush. I was at the State of the Union Message, as most Members of the Senate attended, just a few months back. I listened carefully as the President made a pledge on behalf of the people of the United States. It was historic in terms of its commitment. The President said: We in the United States would lead the world in battling the global AIDS epidemic. President Bush said to standing, thunderous ovation from both sides of the aisle that he was pledging $15 billion a year over the next 5 years to fight the scourge of HIV and AIDS around the world. It was the right thing to do. The President was showing the leadership, which we expect of him, and leadership which makes all of us proud as Americans. Frankly, most of us believed at that point the deal was cut, that from that point forward no questions would be asked.

Now look at the bill before us and what do you find? Do you find that the $15 billion over 5 years results in $3 billion in spending in the next year, as one might expect? No. Scarcely $2 billion will be available--$2 billion to meet a $3 billion commitment.

There have been many serious casualties in Iraq. We have lost many lives. Many of our service men and women have been injured. But now we are dealing with the other Iraqi casualties--funding for our schools, funding for the global AIDS epidemic.

The President again must be held to the standard that he set, the standard of American leadership around the world in dealing with the global AIDS epidemic. I certainly hope my colleagues, many of whom voted for the resolution offered by Jeff Bingaman, the Senator from New Mexico, a few weeks ago--I think there were over 80 votes in favor of it, and we said we should put $3 billion in the budget this year for the global AIDS epidemic. I hope they will support my amendment which I hope I can offer later today or the first thing tomorrow, because in that amendment we will be able to keep our word.

Recently, in the Chicago Tribune, there was an editorial. This editorial suggested that this is a key floor vote on whether we are going to implement President Bush's bold $15 billion 5-year plan to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. The Tribune went on to say:

The vote will go a long way toward determining if the U.S.

will keep its promise to lead the world in the fight against

At the conclusion of my remarks, I will offer an amendment which I understand will be fourth in order for voting tonight.

I rise today to offer an amendment to fulfill our pledge to the millions of people around the world, in Africa in particular, who suffer from HIV/AIDS.

AIDS is fast becoming the worst plague the world has ever endured. Already, 25 million people have been killed by the disease. These charts have been provided to us by the United Nations World Health Organization. If we will look at these startling numbers, they indicate the number of adults and children newly infected with HIV during the year 2002: 3.5 million in sub-Saharan Africa; 700,000 in South and Southeast Asia; 270,000 in East Asia; 150,000 in Latin America; 250,000 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The numbers of newly infected people last year are truly startling.

Take a look at those who are living with HIV/AIDS at the end of the year 2002: 29.4 million in sub-Saharan Africa; 1.2 million in East Asia; 6 million in South and Southeast Asia; 1.2 million in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; almost a million in North America. The numbers are startling.

Then, of course, the mortality tables really tell an equally sad story. The estimated adult and child deaths from HIV/AIDS during the year 2002: 2.4 million in Africa. I know what happens when these numbers are read. Eyes glaze over, minds turn numb, and one thinks, I cannot calculate all of these numbers.

If you had been there, as I and so many of my colleagues have been, to meet with the families who are infected, who understand that they have a death sentence from HIV/AIDS, families who show extraordinary courage every single day getting up and doing their work, realizing they will never be able to afford the medicine necessary to prolong their life, families trying to keep it together with their children for that last moment, realizing their time will soon come, you would never ever forget it.

The statistics, as I said, may be something that numbs our mind but, frankly, for those who seen it firsthand, as I have, they will never forget it. As parents are dying, 14 million AIDS orphans have been left without the care and support they need. Unless we act soon, there will be 25 million AIDS orphans. Each year, the world loses a population greater than the city of Chicago because of AIDS.

We know how to stop the deaths. In his State of the Union Address, President Bush made a 5-year pledge of $15 billion to help millions of AIDS sufferers in Africa and around the world in fighting the AIDS epidemic. Listen to what he said:

We can turn our eyes away in resignation and despair, or we

can take decisive, historic action to turn the tide against

this disease and give hope of life to millions who need our

help.

Unfortunately, the President's solid and courageous rhetoric was not backed up by his own budget request. His budget this year falls nearly $1 billion short of the $3 billion for the coming year that is needed to meet the 5-year $15 billion pledge.

Sadly, the President's shortchanging on AIDS will cost lives. The additional $1 billion we seek to restore today will put 1 million people on treatment and prevent 2.5 million new infections.

In July of this year, Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, a real leader on this issue, asked us to enact a sense-of-the-Senate resolution to tell the world, listening carefully to what we have to say on this issue, what we believe. Senator Bingaman offered a very courageous resolution, as follows:

It is the sense of Congress that Congress, when considering

appropriations Acts for fiscal year 2004, should fully

appropriate all the amounts authorized for appropriation in

the Act, even to the extent that appropriating such amounts

will require Congress to appropriate amounts over and above

the funding levels in the Concurrent Resolution on the

Budget. . . .

Senator Bingaman said we should put $3 billion into this fight on AIDS as we promised, and he said we should do it even if it violates the budget resolution.

What happened to Senator Bingaman's resolution? It passed with 78 Members voting in favor of the resolution.

The Members who stood up and said they are prepared to vote for $3 billion to fight the global AIDS epidemic include the chairman of the subcommittee on appropriations which brings this bill to the floor, Senator Specter of Pennsylvania; the Republican majority leader, Senator Frist, his assistant leader, Senator McConnell of Kentucky; as well as the Presiding Officer from Georgia. All of these Senators and many more voted in favor of this resolution, saying they were prepared to stand up and vote for $3 billion to fight for AIDS. In just a few minutes, they are going to have that chance. They will be able to demonstrate to the world that what they voted for in the Bingaman amendment was more than just posing for holy pictures, that they were in fact prepared to cast the vote even if it broke the budget resolution because the AIDS epidemic was that powerful and that overwhelming.

With those 78 votes, this Durbin amendment should pass easily. Maybe I do not even need to complete my speech, but on the off chance that some of my colleagues might be thinking of changing their minds--having voted for the Bingaman resolution and now given a chance to actually vote for the money, decide they want to vote the other way--let me tell them why they should not. Remember what the President himself said:

We care more about results than words. We're interested in

lives saved.

Now is our opportunity to go beyond words and fulfill the pledge the President made in his State of the Union Address and the pledge we made in the Senate this last July. Keeping our promise and fighting against AIDS is in America's interest. AIDS is not just a humanitarian crisis, it is a security crisis. Living up to President Bush's promise on AIDS is important for showing the world we will keep our commitments.

As the CIA Director recently said when asked is AIDS a security issue, Director Tenet said: You bet it is. With more than 40 million people infected right now, a figure that by 2010 may reach 100 million, AIDS is building dangerous momentum in regions beyond Africa. As this disease spreads, it unravels social structures, decimates populations, and destabilizes nations around the world.

The National Intelligence Council found that in five of the world's most populous nations, the number of HIV-infected people will grow to an estimated 50 million to 75 million by the year 2010.

AIDS is particularly devastating to national armies around the world that ensure the stability of their nations. In South Africa, according to the Rand Institute, some military units have infection rates as high as 90 percent. Keeping our promise on AIDS to the world is not only the compassionate thing to do, it is the smart thing to do in terms of national security as well.

Today, we have a chance to change the course of the AIDS pandemic by providing $3 billion, as promised, in the next fiscal year. The amendment I am putting forward would close the gap between the rhetoric of our promise in the State of the Union Address and our 78 votes on the Senate floor and the real needs of AIDS sufferers by fully funding the $3 billion. The amendment provides $939.7 million to close the gap and fully fund this $3 billion pledge.

The stakes could not be higher. Let me quote Majority Leader Frist who said recently:

History will judge whether a world led by America stood by

and let transpire one of

the greatest destructions of human life in recorded history

or performed one of its most heroic rescues.

Senator Frist is right. In just a few moments, with the Durbin amendment, on a bipartisan basis, we can say to the world we will not stand idly by and make budgetary excuses about an epidemic that threatens our world; we will come to the rescue as we promised.

Instead of fulfilling this pledge, unfortunately, the White House is claiming that the full amount cannot be spent in the next year. All the leading development organizations and medical authorities have rejected this White House claim. This week in Roll Call, a newspaper on Capitol Hill, all--and I underline ``all''--of the leading relief and development organizations in the United States placed an ad endorsing the fact that the full $3 billion could be well spent. Don't fall for the argument: That $3 billion, they won't know what to do with it.

The fact is, there are ample opportunities to stop the spread of AIDS right now. There are not enough funds available, and $2 billion does not meet the global need. By putting in the full $3 billion we promised, we will save lives. By not appropriating that money, lives will be lost, more people affected, and more AIDS orphans to populate this troubled world.

The White House is also ignoring the capacity of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria, the most effective tool we have to beat AIDS. The Global Fund that is chaired by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a member of President Bush's Cabinet, Secretary Tommy Thompson, is scaling up successful programs on the ground in Africa and is working to stop the wave of the pandemic in India. It needs hundreds of millions of dollars this fall to fund the grant applications which they know will work to slow down the spread of AIDS.

The White House should not forget the extraordinary needs of AIDS orphans. According to a soon-to-be-released report by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, orphans and vulnerable children need $15 billion each year for basic health, education, and community services. The Global HIV Prevention Group found that AIDS prevention spending falls $3.8 billion short of what is needed by 2005. Although we can spare the lives of babies with AIDS for the price of a Sunday newspaper in the United States, only 5 percent of the women at risk have access to medication to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

I say to my 78 colleagues who voted for the Bingaman amendment just a few weeks ago, understanding that to meet the $3 billion funding request might cause us to go beyond the allowed amounts in the budget resolution, you, including my friend from Pennsylvania, who is the chairman of this subcommittee, voted in the affirmative and said you understood the seriousness of this challenge. You were prepared to take an extraordinary step on the floor of the Senate for an extraordinary challenge which faces the world.

Have they forgotten? Will the rollcall reflect political amnesia on the part of my colleagues or will they stand strong and stand tall for the position that they took not that long ago when we voted on this Bingaman amendment just a few weeks back?

I hope they will join me and commit to fully funding the $3 billion to fight AIDS. We have a unique chance to change the future and save lives. It is in our hands.

Today, a 15-year-old boy in Botswana faces an 80-percent chance of dying of AIDS. I have been to Botswana. This wonderful country unfortunately has a clouded future because of the specter of AIDS which hangs over it today. If we act now, we can change the future for these children before it is too late. I beg my colleagues in the Senate, please look beyond the sterility of this budget resolution. Look in your heart and realize, as Senator Frist has said, we cannot stand idly by. We cannot make procedural arguments. We cannot find any comfort or refuge in some procedural element that suggests maybe we can't afford it. We know better.

We voted with Senator Bingaman. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for this amendment.

I ask unanimous consent Senator Murray be added as a cosponsor to this amendment.

I don't know if it is appropriate now to ask that the amendment be read by the clerk?

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

It is my understanding I have control of the time until 15 minutes before 6, and I yield to the Senator from Florida.

Mr. President, in the remaining few seconds I have under the unanimous consent agreement, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to help us. We heard from the President the other night. We need to rally as a nation to put up our resources where we made our commitment in Iraq. We made a commitment, as well, through the President and through the Senate, to deal with the global AIDS crisis.

Frankly, I think it would be difficult for us to explain how we can find $87 billion in Iraq and not find the $3 billion that the President promised to the world, and we in the Senate stood behind him by a vote of 78 in favor to support. This will be our chance to do it.

When we do it, we will be able to look back at this moment as not only doing the right thing, but doing something very important for generations to come.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my colleagues will remember the President's State of the Union Address, during which $15 billion over 5 years was pledged to fight global AIDS.

This bill only provides $2 billion. When Senator Bingaman offered his amendment on the floor on July 10, by a vote of 78 to 18, we said we want it to be $3 billion regardless of the budget resolution; 45 Democrats and 33 Republicans voted for $3 billion in spending. It can be spent. Every major organization has come forward and said the need is there, the need is now.

To my friends on the other side of the aisle, including the chairman of the subcommittee, who voted for the Bingaman resolution, if 33 Republicans will step forward today as they did July 10 for the same proposition, we guarantee our 45 Democratic votes will be there with you. Let's pass this resolution and keep our promise to fight the global war on AIDS. Stand behind President Bush's promise of $3 billion.

Mr. President, I move to waive section 504 of the Budget Act, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, last week I offered an amendment to the pending appropriations bill that would prevent the administration from implementing a new regulation that could result in millions of American workers losing their overtime pay protection.

My amendment is very straightforward. It would allow the administration to increase overtime pay protection for working Americans but not take it away from those who currently have that protection.

I was quite surprised, as a matter of fact, to come to work yesterday and find that on Friday, after we had debated this appropriations bill--we adopted a couple of amendments on the appropriations bill last Friday, and, we all know, at the end of the day, the leader always has unanimous consent requests agreed to that have been worked out on both sides. I was quite surprised to see that last Friday, the Senate passed unanimously, by consent, a sense-of-the-Senate resolution supporting a balance between work and personal life being in the best interest of national worker productivity and families.

S. Res. 210 was adopted last Friday. It is sponsored by Mr. Hatch, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Alexander, and I assume others. It expresses the sense of the Senate that supporting a balance between work and personal life is in the best interest of national worker productivity and that the President should issue a proclamation designating October as ``National Work and Family Month.''

I will read a few of the clauses that we all voted for last Friday:

Whereas the quality of workers' jobs and the supportiveness

of their workplaces are key predictors of job

productivity, job satisfaction, commitment to employers

and retention. . . .

Whereas employees who feel overworked tend to feel less

successful in their relationships with their spouses,

children, and friends, and tend to neglect themselves, feel

less healthy, and feel more stress;

Whereas 85 percent of U.S. wage and salaried workers have

immediate, day-to-day family responsibilities off the job;

Whereas 46 percent of wage and salaried workers are parents

with children under the age of 18 who live with them at least

half-time;

Whereas job flexibility allows parents to be more involved

in their children's lives, and parental involvement is

associated with children's higher achievement in language and

mathematics, improved behavior, greater academic persistence,

and lower dropout rates. . . .

Whereas nearly all working adults are concerned about

spending more time with their immediate family. . . .

Resolved, That--

(1) it is the sense of the Senate that--

(A) reducing the conflict between work and family life

should be a national priority; and

(B) the month of October should be designated as ``National

Work and Family Month'';

(2) the Senate requests that the President issue a

proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to

observe ``National Work and Family Month'' with appropriate

ceremonies and activities.

We adopted this resolution last Friday, unanimously. Maybe some did not know about it. I did not know about it either, but I support it. It sounds very

good: It is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority.

We have this resolution, and now we have the proposal by the administration, rolled out this spring under cover of darkness--there was not one public hearing anywhere in the Nation--which changes rules and regulations that will affect overtime protection for over 8 million American workers and their families.

It is interesting that the administration did not ask us to change the law. No, they just want to do it by rules and regulations.

We cannot have it both ways. We cannot have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying--we all say--we have to reduce the conflict between work and family life, and it ought to be a national priority; that people need to spend more time with their families, and then let the administration implement these changes in rules and regulations which mean that people will have to work longer hours with less pay. That is exactly what it means: longer hours with less pay.

I found it so interesting that we have been debating my amendment--it came up last week. I guess we talked about it a couple of times during the week. We talked about it at length on Thursday. We spoke about it on Friday, and yet on the very same day we adopt a sense-of-the-Senate resolution unanimously saying we want to reduce stress on families. We want to recognize that workers need more time with their families. Well, OK, here is a chance to not just have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution but to take concrete action to make sure that happens by telling the administration that we are not going to permit these changes in rules and regulations that would take away overtime protection for up to 8 million people.

Again, a quick summary of the Bush administration's proposal is simply this: Eliminate the 40-hour workweek by allowing employers to deny millions of workers overtime pay, workers who are currently guaranteed overtime pay protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938. This proposal is antiworker. It is antifamily. It is the antithesis, the total opposite, of what we passed on Friday as a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. It is an attack on America's middle and lower income workers. It will not create one job. In fact, just the opposite; it will kill a lot of jobs.

Why do I say that? Because employers right now know that if workers work more than 40 hours a week, they have to pay time and a half overtime. So in many cases, they might find it better to go ahead and hire someone new, hire another person, rather than paying that kind of overtime pay.

Let's say one changes the rules of the game. No longer is one protected by time and a half. That means their employer can say they need them to work 43 hours this week, 44 hours, 45, but guess what. They do not get any more money. They get the same salary they had before. They just do not get any more money.

Now, what is an employer going to do? Why, here is a new pool of labor that is not going to cost him a cent. So why would they go hire someone new to work when they can take an existing person and say work longer at no extra pay?

Employers will have a financial disincentive to hire new workers if they can force current workers to work these longer hours without pay.

Who are we talking about? We are talking about nurses--again, we have a nursing shortage right now and we are trying to get more nurses-- police officers, firefighters, retail managers, insurance claim adjustors, journalists, medical technicians, paralegals, surveyors, secretaries, and so on. For most of those men and women, the overtime pay they earn is not spare change. It is not for frivolous spending. Sometimes it is essential to help pay the mortgage, feed the children, pay for college, and save for retirement.

In fact, I have a recent letter from the National Association of Police Organizations which represents thousands of law enforcement officers from across the country. They oppose the administration's proposal because, as they said:

Under such regulations, America's State and local law

enforcement officers, already strained by countless overtime

hours ensuring community safety from terrorist threats, could

lose their basic benefit accorded to them for their efforts.

A few days ago President Bush was asked a question about my amendment. He said that basically I was wrong. He said that the proposal would increase overtime coverage for low-income workers.

Interestingly enough, part of the proposal does raise the income threshold, and I will get into that in a minute. So he says it is going to cover more people. The other part of the proposal, though, in changing the rules, would result in up to 8 million people losing overtime pay protection.

By raising this income threshold, most of the people who are already getting overtime pay are already over that threshold so they are going to be covered anyway. They are covered now. They are going to be covered then. So it is really not going to increase the number of people paid overtime pay because they are already getting it. But do not take my word for it. This is what industry and their consultants had to say about it from Hewitt Associates. On their Web they say their clients include half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list. This is what Hewitt Associates said:

These proposed changes likely will open the door for

employers to reclassify a large number of previously

nonexempt employees as exempt--

Meaning exempt from overtime pay.

The resulting effect on compensation and morale could be

detrimental, as employees previously accustomed to earning,

in some cases, significant amounts of overtime would suddenly

lose that opportunity.

The administration argues the proposal they are putting out is simply to update and clarify current regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Again, the Society for Human Resource Management, which touts itself on its Web site as the world's largest association devoted to human resource management, said the following:

This is going to affect every workplace, every employee and

every professional.

I will explain a little bit about how some of these rules work right now. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, hourly workers are generally guaranteed overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. Many salaried workers are also eligible for overtime pay under this law. The administration's proposal will make it much easier for employers to deny salaried workers overtime pay protection. The result: Millions of salaried workers earning more than $22,100 a year would be denied overtime under the proposed changes. This proposal would keep workers from spending time with their families without compensation.

Now, we said last week we want workers to spend more time with their families. One of the ways to do that is if they have guaranteed overtime.

Maybe the employer says, well, I do not need an employee to work overtime because I have to pay time and a half. Well, now if I do not have to pay them time and a half, they can work 44, 48 hours a week and I do not have to pay anything extra.

I have always thought at least--and I think it has sort of been generally accepted as a kind of a social contract in this country--that we wanted people to spend more time with their families, but if an employer needed someone to work overtime, that they would be compensated for that at more than just their regular pay because we were taking away the time they could spend with their family that would be beyond their normal workweek, and therefore we paid time and a half, or on Sundays sometimes double time, for that kind of overtime.

Right now, American workers already work longer hours than any industrialized country and nearly all Third World countries. This is a chart that shows that. U.S. work hours increase, over the years, while those in other industrialized nations decrease. Here is the change in annual average hours worked from 1979 to 2000. We see in the United States it went up 32 hours. In Japan, it has fallen 386 hours; Germany, fallen 489 hours; France, fallen 244 hours; Italy, 88; United Kingdom, 107 hours; Canada, minus 31 hours; Australia, minus 44 hours. This is from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2001.

Already, our workers are working more than their counterparts in all of

these countries, from Japan to Australia to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. They have made a decision in those countries that one can still have high productivity and still give workers time off to be with their families, and they have a better social system and stronger families because of it, and because workers are not working so much they are more productive in the time they do work. In America we just keep on working people more and more, longer hours all the time. So already American workers are working longer hours.

Under this proposal put out by the Bush administration to take away overtime protection, in a few years this number is going to be skyrocketing. As I said before, it is not enough that we export all of our manufacturing jobs out of this country to Third World countries; now we are importing Third World labor standards into this country: No labor protections and no overtime protection, just work however long your employer wants you to work without overtime pay protection.

Major women's organizations, including the National Partnership for Women and Families and the American Association of University Women, oppose the administration's proposal because they fear an increase in mandatory overtime would take time away from families and disrupt the schedules of working parents as well as impose additional childcare and other expenses.

I said last week that the first wave of people who will be hit, if this proposed change goes through, will be women. This charts show what I mean and why it will be women who will be hit first and hardest. I am not saying men won't be hit; they will be. But I am saying the first wave of people hit the hardest by taking away overtime pay protection will be women.

If we look at the labor force participation rate for men and women from 1948 until today, we see participation of women has climbed dramatically. Women's participation in the labor force climbed from slightly over 30 percent to over 60 percent, and participation rates for men consequently have declined from about 88 percent to about 74 or 75 percent. So it is women who have come into the workforce in the last 30 or 40 years.

We see some other statistics here. We find that 61.3 percent of married couples with children were dual earners in 2002.

In 1975, 47.3 percent of women with children were in the labor force. In 2002, it was 71.8 percent.

Women with children under 3--in 1975, only 34 percent of women with children under age 3 were in the workforce. Now it is over 60 percent of women with children under 3 who are in the workforce. And 66 percent of women with children worked 40 hours or more in 2002.

Who are these women? Bookkeepers, paralegals, clerks, nurses, physical therapists, social workers, et cetera, those who are really doing the nitty-gritty hard work to keep our society together. These are the facts right here. Now we are going to tell these women: Sorry, we know you have children in daycare, we know you have to pay a lot for childcare, but we need you to work longer hours per week.

Maybe in the past, if these women had worked longer hours, they got time and a half for overtime, but now they will not; they will get the same salary rate. Now they will have to continue to pay for more childcare. Yet they will not get 1 cent more for their labors.

This chart also shows what is happening with middle-income families. Remember last week we passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority? We recognized:

Whereas nearly all working adults are concerned

about spending more time with their immediate family;

Whereas 85 percent of U.S. wage and salaried workers have

immediate day-to-day family responsibilities off the job;

Whereas employees who feel overworked tend to feel less

successful in their relationships with their spouses,

children, and friends. . . .

That is what we said last week on the Senate floor.

Here is what is happening with our middle-income families. Average weeks worked per year by middle-income families with children: In 1969, the number of average weeks worked per year by middle-income families with children was 78.2. Look at it now, 97.9 weeks per year, average, for a middle-income family in America with children. That is why I showed this first chart, where you see the United States is going up in hours worked and all the other countries are going down. And you wonder why American workers and their families are stressed out, why we are having family strife in this country, why families are breaking up, why the divorce rate gets higher, why our kids don't have parents around after school to help nurture them. We wonder why we are having such trouble in our society. Because we are not letting our working parents spend more time with their families.

Columnist Bob Herbert recently wrote in the New York Times:

You would think that an administration that has presided

over the loss of millions of jobs might want to strengthen

the protections of workers fortunate enough to still be

employed. But that's not what the Administration is about.

Since the Senate overwhelmingly supported the Hatch resolution last Friday, which I just quoted from--passed unanimously--I would think it would be a no-brainer to support my amendment saying the administration cannot take away overtime pay protection for millions of Americans. But I don't know what the situation is right now with the leadership. We wanted to vote on it today. We wanted to vote on it today, but I guess the leadership on that side, on the majority side--I don't know what they are deciding right now, whether or not we can vote on it today or not.

But we are all here.

The Senator from Pennsylvania earlier mentioned something about Democratic Presidential candidates being gone. That is true. They are running for President. The Senator from Pennsylvania sought the Presidency himself once. So did this Senator from Iowa. You know what it is like when you have to be out there on the campaign trail and attend to your duties here. But it just so happens everyone seems to be here today. So why don't we vote today? Why is there an empty Chamber? Why don't we move ahead and vote--now, later, I don't care when--and we can wrap up this bill by tonight.

Again, I don't know why we would want to make it easier to deny American workers overtime pay. Why would we want to make it easier? It seems to me we would want to make it tougher. If we want people to spend more time with their families, reduce that kind of stress, you would think we would want to make it tougher, harder to deny American workers overtime pay. But the proposed regulations of the Bush administration would make it easier. I don't know. Why would we want to do that? How would this help the economy? How does it strengthen families? How does it help people who need to work overtime for extra pay?

I read into the Record last Friday a statement by a worker--I forget what State she was from--who had a disabled child, and she was saying she needed the overtime pay for her upkeep and to keep her child home and she relied on her overtime pay.

Here it is. Michael Farrar, from Jacksonville, FL. He and his wife need overtime pay to support their 21-year-old disabled son Andy who lives with them. Michael Farrar said:

When I took this job, it was clear that I was expected to

work more than 40 hours per week. And I agreed to it because

I knew I'd need the money. We'd be devastated without the

overtime now--we have no more corners to cut.

When I took this job it was clear that I was expected to

work more than 40 hours a week. And I agreed to it because I

knew I would need the money.

Michael Farrar of Jacksonville, FL.

Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA 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 of income. It seemed though that even

with a decent raise each year I really relied on overtime

income to help make ends meet. 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?

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 house work

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.

It seems only fair that one should be compensated for that

extra effort.

These are not my words. These are the words of Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA.

It seems only fair that one should be compensated for that

extra effort. Overtime is a sacrifice of one's time, energy

and 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.

It has been a crime that many engineers and technicians were

paid less than even their straight time for overtime worked.

It has never made sense to me that the hours I work past my

normal 8 are of a lesser value when those additional hours

are a cost of my personal time.

What do we say to Sheila Perez? What do we say to Michael Farrar? I think what we say to them is that we understand. We passed a sense-of- the-Senate resolution last Friday. That is what we did. We passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that workers are over-stressed and overworked. They are concerned about spending more time with their families. We said it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority. Yes, Michael Farrar, that is what we said. Yes, Sheila Perez, we said that on your behalf last Friday. But, Michael Farrar; but, Sheila Perez, today, on Tuesday, the week after, we are not going to do one single thing to stop the Bush administration from changing rules and regulations that will take away your overtime pay protection.

It is not what we do, Ms. Perez or Mr. Farrar, that is important around here. It is what we say that is important. We said: We are on your side. We understand your problems. Gosh, we think it should be a national priority. But don't count on our votes to make it happen. Listen to what we say but don't watch what we do around this place.

It is time for us to stand and be counted and to put into form what we said last week the facts are. These are all nice words on a piece of paper. This is what we believe without actions to back up our beliefs.

What I am asking is the Senate now back up those nice words that we said last Friday in this sense-of-the-Senate resolution--back them up with a strong vote saying that we are going to protect overtime pay protection. We are not going to permit overtime pay protection to be taken away. If you do not to strengthen it, or if you want to extend overtime pay protection for more workers, that is fine. But don't take it away from the workers who now have it.

That is what this amendment that I have offered is all about. I am hopeful we can get to a vote on it today. We are here to vote. It is Tuesday. It is already 11:30. We haven't had one vote today. Why not? Why don't we vote on this? It is the pending amendment. I don't know why we can't vote on it. But evidently, for some reason, the Republican majority doesn't want to vote on my amendment. The majority, for some reason, doesn't want to bring it up for a vote. Why, I don't know. After all, Republicans, as well as Democrats, voted unanimously last Friday saying that it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority. Why we don't want to vote on this today, for the life of me, I can't understand.

I end my comments now, but I will be back to talk more about this overtime issue because it is a national issue. It is one that strikes at the very heart of the middle-income and middle-class families in this country. It is an issue that strikes at the very heart of our productivity as a country. It is an issue that strikes at the very heart of what kind of society we want to be and to become. It strikes at the very heart of working women who have children and who want some time, as Ms. Sheila Perez said, to attend to personal needs and to a second shift at home with their kids and family. That is what it strikes.

It is time for us to do our duty, to do our job, to stand up for working families and to stand up for the men and women of this country who are now being overworked and underpaid. If this proposed change in regulations goes through, it will mean more overwork and more underpay. That is the wrong direction for our country. It is time for the Senate to say no to these changes in regulations that would take away overtime pay protection for millions of middle-income Americans.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Do I understand correctly that it is the position of the Republican Party that rather than giving an opportunity for the Senate to express itself, the President has announced that if this particular provision is turned over--effectively if we vitiate what the administration is attempting to do on overtime--they are prepared to veto legislation which is vital for the education of the children, K- 12, legislation which provides important help and assistance for those young students who are trying to continue along in terms of higher education, and effectively emasculate or undermine, as well, the funding that is necessary for the National Institutes of Health? This administration evidently is saying it is more important to deny nurses, firefighters, and policemen overtime than to provide the funding which is essential to educate the children and to provide for essential health needs.

Is that the understanding of our leader as to the position of the majority on this legislation?

Mr. President, if I could ask one more question of the Senator, the Senator is very familiar with the fact that our Republican friends refuse to permit the Senate to have a vote on increasing the minimum wage. If we don't increase the minimum wage, it will be the lowest in terms of purchasing power in the history of minimum wage. Republicans won't permit that. They oppose the Davis-Bacon provision which permits construction workers to be able to have a decent income. They have effectively also withdrawn--listen to this--the tuberculosis standard in OSHA which is so essential in order to protect people who have contamination in their lungs. We have seen the pensions of working families collapse over the period of the last 3 years.

What in the world has this administration got against working families? This seems to me to be symbolic of their attitude about working families: Let them eat cake. Let them eat cake. As the Senator has pointed out time and time again, it is the working families who have been the backbone of our economy historically when things have gone well and it is the working families who have taken the brunt when we have had mismanagement of the economy.

Does the Senator share my view? Is that a fairly good indicator of the kind of contemptuous attitude the administration has generally with regard to working families?

Mr. President, the Senator has been very generous with his time. I bring two matters to the attention of the Senator and ask whether he agrees; I have listened to the exchange between the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from South Dakota.

This chart I have points out that middle-income mothers are working 55 percent more hours today than 20 years ago. This chart shows 1979 up through 2000. We have seen this dramatic expansion of the number of hours that women are working in the workforce to provide for their families.

At the same time we are seeing this dramatic increase, we are finding out that there is a reduction in terms of overtime. As the Senator pointed out earlier, we are finding out that American workers--this column on the chart indicates the number of hours Americans are working in relation to other industrialized nations. So workers are working harder, they are working longer hours, they are more productive, and all they are asking is to be able to get decent pay.

But the question I ask the Senator is in relation to this particular chart. This is enormously interesting. Workers without overtime protections are more than twice as likely to work longer hours. If you take those workers who do not have overtime protection, they work more than twice as long as those who have the overtime protection.

If you take away this kind of protection, the word ought to go out to workers that they are going to have to work longer and harder for less pay because that is what is happening today. And that is what is happening for 40 hours a week. And for 50 hours a week, you work three times as long if you don't have any overtime protection than if you have it.

It is very clear that the Business Roundtable and others are correct as they understand that by eliminating the overtime pay it is affecting the bottom line.

Earlier I heard the Senator talking about what is happening in terms of the police and the firefighters. I bring this chart to the attention of the Senator and see whether he agrees. This is from the National Association of Police Organizations. The Bush proposal would deny overtime:

Under such regulations, America's State and Local law

enforcement officers, already strained by countless overtime

hours ensuring community safety against terrorist threats,

could lose this basic benefit accorded to them for their

efforts.

This is from the International Union of Police Associations:

The alterations would also provide a strong disincentive

for agencies and municipalities to hire additional first

responders, as they seek ways to operate under the growing

constraints of historic financial burdens.

The implementation of these rules would mark a critical step backwards for our public safety. . . .

I just wanted to reaffirm what the Senator said in his

excellent comments about the impact this would have on women,

the impact this would have on first responders, and the real

threat and danger this poses to the hardest working men and

women in industrial society. They are the American workers

and they have the most to lose.

I thank the Senator.

Will the Senator from West Virginia be kind enough to yield for a question?

The Senator from West Virginia was here at the time we had the debate on the No Child Left Behind Act and remembers it very clearly. I remember one of the finest education talks I have heard in the Senate was where the good Senator from West Virginia reviewed for the Members of the Senate his personal experience--it was shared by a few others--in terms of the value of education as a young person when he was growing up in the State of West Virginia. As he remembers the debate on the No Child Left Behind Act and the debate we had the year before when we were looking at the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, there was a general recognition in this body that just providing resources without reform was not meeting our responsibility to the children of this country. But if we were going to have reform, we were going to have to have resources.

As I remember the discussions we had with the President of the United States on this point, this was a simple concept, but a rather basic concept, one which gathered broad bipartisan support and was the keystone of the whole No Child Left Behind Act. I am wondering if the Senator remembers at least that general debate and discussion in which this body said, OK, we have not been able to use the resources we have used in looking at title I and elementary and secondary as effectively as we would like to, but we are strongly committed toward reforming our educational system because education is so important to the future of our country, and that was a debate that took place, that resulted in No Child Left Behind, and it is to that issue that the Senator from West Virginia is addressing the Senate, as I hear him this afternoon; that we have put in place the reforms but what is not there are the resources to give life to the reforms. This is what is at the heart of the Senator's amendment, as I understand it and as I interpret it. Am I correct?

I appreciate what the good Senator has said in his comments. These figures might get complex for people who are watching this debate. Basically, the No Child Left Behind Act said, No. 1, we are going to let the States develop their own curriculums.

No. 2, we are going to have well-trained teachers who are going to learn that curriculum and be able to teach the students.

No. 3, we are going to have smaller class sizes so a well-trained teacher in the classroom is going to be able to interact with the students in those classrooms.

No. 4, we are going to find out how much those children learn over the course of the year by giving them not just robot tests and situations where teachers teach to the test but really inquire about what these children are learning in the classroom.

No. 5, we are going to have supplementary services to help those children if they fall behind so they will be able to keep up. That is effectively what we were looking at in the No Child Left Behind proposal.

We demanded accountability, as the Senator remembers. We demanded accountability from parents because we gave parents the report cards not only about how the children were doing but how their school was doing. We gave accountability to the teachers that they were going to have to upgrade their skills in the courses they were going to have to teach. We gave accountability to the school systems that unless the school systems were going to perform, if they were going to effectively abandon their children or not perform for their children, that they would effectively be taken over by the State. And we were going to insist on a good quality education.

Does the Senator, in his comments today, agree with me that we are getting accountability with the students who are working in America and the teachers who are trying hard and those in local communities who are trying to get the small classes, but we do not have the accountability by the President of the United States and the administration providing the resources to let them do it and that the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia would meet our accountability and our commitment when we voted on behalf of that bill?

Would the Senator agree that is effectively what we are trying to do? That is the way I read the Senator's amendment.

I want to just bring to the attention of the Senator from West Virginia the results of the scores that are taken in my own State of Massachusetts, which really began this effort, which is very similar to what I have just outlined here, 5 years ago.

Let me just read the front page on September 4, 2003 of the Boston Globe:

Scores show broad gains on MCAS test.

That is the statewide standard test, which is basically equivalent to what we call the NAEP test. Let me read this.

More Massachusetts high school students passed the MCAS

graduation test on their first attempt this year, as scores

climbed in nearly every grade, every subject, and every

racial group, statewide results released yesterday show.

About 75 percent of the class of 2005, or about 52,000

students passed both the English and math portions of their

10th-grade test on their first try this spring. That is

significantly better than 69 percent of students in the class

of 2004 and 68 percent of students in the class of 2003 who

passed the first time they took it.

Jubilant state officials hailed the scores at a State House

news conference yesterday as ``extremely impressive'' proof

that the Massachusetts 10-year effort to improve public

schools is bearing fruit.

Curriculum reform, better teachers, smaller class size, afterschool programs--this is just what has happened in one State, I say to Senator Byrd. These were the same things we were committed to for every State in the country, to see this kind of progress.

We have not solved all the problems. We still have many others. I will not take the time of the Senate to review all of the different categories, the ethnicity, the student status, all the different categories. I ask unanimous consent to have this article printed in the Record.

But I want to ask the Senator this last question. In the Budget Act, the budget for fiscal year 2002, the conference report-- this is what bothers me. We have seen the increase in the education budget going from 1997 to 2001 up to 13 percent, to 2002, to 16 percent. That is when Democrats and Republicans worked with the President to try to begin the downpayment on this effort. This is when we had the bipartisan agreement.

Then the next year, as the Senator has pointed out, after the television lights had faded and the crowd had disappeared, we have in the budget, with the Republicans in charge:

For the years beyond 2002, this report assumes the 2000

discretionary function level grows by inflation.

It grows by inflation. Therefore, under the Republicans, it was going to be zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. That is what was in the Republican budget. After we passed the bill and we saw the bill increase, this is what they were saying.

Many of us were saying that might have been, but we will hope for the next year from the President of the United States, who specifically negotiated those increases--we thought: That's a mistake--we will find something different. But instead what we have effectively found, as this chart here indicates, under the Bush budget, it leaves millions of children behind. We are going to be leaving 6.2 million children behind; 5.89 in 2005; 5.8 million in 2006; 2007, more than 5 million; 5 million; 5 million. Effectively, under the Byrd proposal, if we continued that progress we achieve what the No Child Left Behind committed us to, and that was we were going to have, at the end of 12 years, proficiency in the public schools for the disadvantaged children of this country. That is what the Byrd amendment puts us on a pathway to. That is why it is so important, so essential.

If the Senator would permit me one more moment? We attended the Armed Services Committee meeting earlier today. Does the Senator not agree with me the investment in education is essential if we are going to have the best fighting men and women in the world; that investing in education is essential if we are going to have the strongest economy in the world; and that investing in education is absolutely necessary if we are going to be able to preserve democratic institutions in the greatest country of the world? That this is the core value?

Parents understand that. You and I understand it. Senator Harkin and Senator Murray understand that. That is what the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia commits us to here, at a time when we are being requested $87 billion, to say we can have a downpayment of $6 billion for the children of this country.

I thank the Senator very much.

Mr. President, I will speak briefly about my higher education amendment, which I offer with my friend and colleague, Senator Collins, from the State of Maine.

It is our hope that we might be able to vote on the Byrd amendment and the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut and this amendment later this evening. I do want to take a few moments, once again, to review the importance of adding the $2.2 billion to make sure the Pell Grant Program will continue to be alive and well.

Very quickly, the issue of availability of college for young people on the basis of their talent and educational achievement goes back to the 1960 campaign. That was a prime issue in that campaign: whether we, as a matter of national policy, were going to say to any young person in America, that if they had the ability to get admitted to any of our fine universities across this country, the size of their pocketbook or wallet would not limit them in terms of attending any of the great public or private universities, that they would be able to put through a package which would include grant programs, some loan programs, perhaps some work-study programs, perhaps a summer job program, and whatever else they might bring to the table, but at least it was going to be available.

There was going to be help and support for any young person in America. And any young person who was to take advantage of it was not going to have to mortgage their future in terms of borrowing from banks or from loan agencies. That was enormously important.

As a result of that, we have seen the opportunity for higher education available to millions of Americans. It was not really much of a surprise because we had seen the GI bill and then the cold war GI bill that was made available to veterans who took advantage of it.

The GI bill, after World War II, opened up enormous opportunities for new generations. Any careful review and study of that GI bill would find that paid back into the Treasury $9 for every $1 that was invested in students. It more than paid for itself just in terms of the bottom line economics of it, let alone the opportunity it gave to millions of young people. And then we had the cold war GI bill.

So this issue has been discussed and debated in this country as a matter of national policy. But what we are seeing, in the very recent times, is the sliding away from that fundamental commitment that says young people, if they are able to meet the academic standards, would be able to go to college.

In fact, I can remember a Secretary of Education, under a Republican administration, testifying before the Education Committee and saying: That is not what this Republican administration is really all about. Any young person will go where they can afford to go. And it should not be the Federal Government that is going to provide them with any of the help and the assistance.

That was an absolute retreat on what I thought for a time was a matter of a national kind of policy and priority. But, nonetheless, we have had to have that battle every several years. We have to have that battle on this Appropriations Committee because any careful reading of this appropriations bill would reflect that this Republican bill does effectively nothing to help families afford college. This has a zero increase in individual Pell grants. It has a zero increase in campus- based aid. It has a zero increase in the college work study. These are programs to provide job opportunities in the schools, as well as the Pell Grant Program.

If we look at the difference, the contrast between grants and loans, we can look back over the recent history. This goes back to 1980, 1981, where you will see that 55 percent of the education assistance was actually in grants, and then about 42 or 43 percent were actually in loans.

If you look at where we are now, in 2001, 2002, you will find 58 percent are loans and 41 percent are grants. This is a dramatic shift.

What this has meant is that great numbers of young people--estimates

are anywhere from 35 to 45 percent--who are attending higher education are working 25 hours a week or more.

If you visit any of the campuses, you will find that the young people, at the time there is a break in the instruction, are talking about their jobs rather than talking about the books or their poems or the ideas which they are taking from their classes.

What we have seen is enormous indebtedness that the young people have experienced over this period of time, and this is for the average student who is going to any of the schools. About 68 percent of any of the young people who are attending schools or colleges get some financial aid.

Four years ago, when they were graduating from any of the public and private institutions across the country, the average was $27,000, $28,000 a year in terms of debt. Now that has doubled effectively because of the increase in the amounts the young people have to borrow. That has increased dramatically with a number of the young people who are going to graduate schools. And it is not infrequent that those who are graduating from the graduate schools end up with debts of $100,000 or $120,000.

This chart shows the shrinking buying power of the Pell grant. Going back to the late 1970s, if you got a Pell grant, it was about 84 percent of the cost of your education, if you went to a public 4-year institution. If you went to a private institution, it was still about 40 percent. Now we find it is 39 percent instead of 84 percent, if you are going to a public 4-year institution. If you are going to a private 4-year institution, it is down to 15 percent.

One of the most dramatic factors is the median income for the Pell grant recipients. It has gone from a little over $11,000 for family income in 1989 to 1990, to the year 2000 where it is now $15,000. This is the average income, 15,200 for 4.8 million young people who get the Pell grant who go to college today. But these are individuals who have the academic know-how and who have worked hard, come from humble backgrounds, and have been able to excel academically and gain entrance into some of our finest schools and colleges in the country. They are demonstrating an extraordinary perseverance.

What we are saying with this amendment is that we are going to make sure the Pell grant is going to continue its value in terms of young people who are qualified for it. Under this particular amendment, it will add $450 to the value of the Pell grant, which will mean 200,000 more children will be able to take advantage of the Pell grant in this $15,000 range. These are young people of talent, commitment, and conviction, who are hard working. This gives them the opportunity. That is what this is about. If this amendment is not successful, there will be over 100,000 Pell grant recipients, it is estimated, receiving the Pell grant today who will lose it as a result of the increase in the tuition that we have seen escalate over the past year.

I will not take the time to go over the increases, but every Member of the Senate understands what has happened in terms of increases in their States.

Finally, I draw the Senate's attention to the administration's policy itself, talking about Pell grants. The bill provides $12.7 billion for Pell grants, $538 billion less than the President's request for the high priority program. We are asking for $2.2 billion in order to provide for the Pell grant but also the TRIO programs, which are the indispensable link for children who come from disadvantaged educational circumstances but are gifted and talented, so they are able to gain entrance into the schools, as well as the GEAR UP Program which has been such a success.

We believe this is one of the most important amendments. If you care about education, you will stand with Bob Byrd, with his increase in No Child Left Behind. If you care about providing opportunities for the sons and daughters of low- and middle-income families who have ability, who have creativity, who have demonstrated their willingness for hard work, you will vote for this amendment. This amendment makes sense. It is an expression of a nation's priorities. I hope we will have a strong vote.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I yield myself 1 minute.

There are 4.8 million young Americans who take advantage of the Pell Program. That is $4,050. The average cost of public university tuition has increased 10 percent. This amendment effectively provides the $2.2 billion that will increase the Pell grant to $4,500. That is an increase of 10 percent. Without this kind of increase, more than 100,000 students who have been admitted to colleges on the basis of merit will drop out. There is no question about it; this amendment is about opportunity. It is about hope. It is about the future of America. I hope the Senate will accept it.

Mr. President, I move to waive section 504 of the concurrent resolution for the purpose of the pending amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.