Patient and Pharmacy Protection Act of 2007

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might use.

This is the fourth day that the Senate is addressing an issue of enormous importance to those on the lower end of the economic ladder-- an increase in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. It is not a complicated issue. Everybody in this body knows what the issues are. Usually, we have great debates about complicated issues in the United States of America. Soon we will be debating varied policies with regard to Iraq, as we should. But this issue is a simple issue. It is an issue of simple justice. It is as old as many of us in this body. Minimum wage was advanced more than 70 years ago. We have increased it now nine times over recent years, and yet Republicans want to continue to delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay; oppose, oppose, oppose.

There was opposition yesterday in insisting that we get cloture in the Senate on an increase in the minimum wage, requiring that we get 60 votes before we can vote up or down on a simple, easy issue and question of fundamental fairness to workers in this country.

We are glad to have debates, but the message ought to go out to the American people exactly what is going on here on day 5 in the Senate on the issue of minimum wage. And we continue to have, as the minority leader said, scores--40, 50, more amendments, 90 amendments--on the issue of the increase in the minimum wage--90 amendments. Make no mistake about it, America, who is holding up the increase in the minimum wage.

Eight times the Senate has increased its own salary, increased the salary of the good Senator from South Carolina $32,000 in the last 10 years--$32,000. And if we have had 1 hour of debate on that issue--1 hour of debate on that issue, 1 hour of debate on that issue--I would be surprised. This is the fifth day our Republican friends who, as Members on the Democratic side, have enjoyed a $32,000 increase in their pay have 90 amendments to try and scuttle an increase in the minimum wage for low-income workers--trying to scuttle, to sink the increase.

These workers understand it. Workers across this country understand it. Working families understand it. Middle-income people understand it. All Americans understand it. This is one of those basic and fundamental issues people understand because it is an issue of fairness.

I don't impugn the motives of my friend from South Carolina, but he has opposed the minimum wage on every single occasion he has addressed it--every single occasion. We have the record here as to how the good Senator has voted every time on the issue of an increase in the minimum wage: going back to the House of Representatives in 2002, 2005, and over here on seven different occasions he has voted against the increase in the minimum wage. So the idea that he wants to provide $2.10 more to every worker in States that have raised--under the age- old law of the minimum wage--their minimum wage because of the failure of the Senate to do it has a sort of hollow ring to it. It has sort of a hollow ring to it since he has opposed an increase in the minimum wage on each and every occasion we have considered it. We have to take a look at exactly what is being done.

I assure my friend from South Carolina that the workers in my State understand the battle they have had to increase the minimum wage. And I daresay, in the various States across the country that have increased their minimum wage, they have understood that, too. The legislators have gone out and worked, and workers understand what they have done. They have understood what they have done. They have understood that the minimum wage is a basic standard which is supposed to be the lowest living wage. It is supposed to be the lowest living wage. Historically, it is supposed to be half of what the average wage is in the country. That goes back to the time beginning of the minimum wage and the record shows that all the way up to probably the 1980s, and then it has

dropped precipitously, half of what it was.

Going back to the 1930s, the minimum wage was designed to be a floor. If States want to add something to it, they can, but it ought to be a floor for all workers in this country. One of the principal reasons it was passed at that time is because the Members of this body, the House of Representatives, and the President of the United States saw what was happening in different parts of the country where States were lowering their wages to try and attract industries and companies in a rush to the bottom, with the exploitation of worker after worker, family after family, in a rush to the bottom. So the national decision was taken, in terms of fairness and as a moral issue, that workers who were going to work hard were going to receive a minimum wage.

One of the age-old values in our country, in society, is that work ought to pay. We hear that stated around here with great ease and frequency, and that is what we are trying to do with a minimum wage increase. We are trying to make work pay, pay people who are doing some of the most difficult work in America, and demonstrate a respect for that work, give them pay because they are doing hard, difficult work, but we respect our fellow Americans and respect their efforts.

This is not the law of the jungle. The economy of the United States of America isn't survival of the fittest. Some would like to have it that way. Some who oppose the minimum wage would like to have it that way, but it isn't that way, thank God, in the United States of America. It is in the jungle, but not with regard to a democracy and a free economy.

Let me state specifically what this proposal does. The good Senator yesterday voted to permit any State to effectively opt out of any kind of minimum wage. So that would have fundamentally destroyed any kind of uniformity across the country.

His proposal is, in the wake of the Senate and Congress over 10 years under Republican leadership refusing to increase the minimum wage, the States in their own good judgments have done so, and now he says let's add on $2.10 to do that. It does seem to me appealing in a certain respect, because I believe the minimum wage is not a livable wage in many parts of the country. We have seen these livable wage campaigns that are taking place in Baltimore, Los Angeles--many cities around the country--my own city of Boston, and they have raised it in a particular region, and it has had great success.

But that isn't the issue. This particular amendment of the Senator would basically do what was attempted yesterday, but do it in a different way. Yesterday was to effectively end the minimum wage by letting any State opt out. Today the swing of the pendulum has gone the other way. The amendment says we are going to add additional funds on to any State. Every State over these past years has noted the failure of the Senate as a result of Republican leadership because we have had a majority read back the records of the votes in the Senate. We had a majority in the Senate with good Republican support to raise the minimum wage, but we couldn't get to the 60 votes, and our Republican leadership wouldn't let us. So the States moved ahead. Now that the States have moved ahead, the Senator wants to say: Oh, you have moved ahead because you made a judgment about the respect for your own workers, and we are going to add on to it to try to disrupt the minimum wage.

I hope this amendment will not be accepted, and I hope we will be able to move along and make further progress on this issue.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Madam President, I thank the good Senator for his concern about the workers in Massachusetts. In Boston we have a living wage of $11.95. We made that judgment in Boston, and it is working very well.

I take note, in this American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association publication, that South Carolina ranks 18th in terms of the cost of living. There are 17 other States that have a lower cost of living. But South Carolina is 18th in this list. It is not at the lowest; it is 18th.

The fact is, it is not greatly out of sync. It is close to the average across the country. But let's get back to the effect of the Senator's amendment.

In Arizona, in this last election, there were 756,144 people who voted for an increase in the minimum wage to $6.75. That vote would be overturned, effectively, by the Senator from South Carolina. In Colorado, 725,700 turned out for a $6.85 minimum wage. The citizens of Colorado--their votes would be overturned. In Missouri, 1,583,340 million voted for $6.50. That vote would be overturned. Montana, $6.15, 283,258 turned out. Nevada, 394,058 turned out, $6.15 an hour. Ohio, $6.85, 2,080,648 turned out. Those are 5,823,148 in six different States. That is in regard to the initial referendum. All of that would be overturned by the Senator from South Carolina.

So I come back to the basic concept, and that is that we have established some minimum standards. There are a lot of objections to those minimum health standards, so workers are not going to be--since we passed OSHA in 1970, we have cut in half the number of workers who have been killed in the workplace. We have cut that in half. About 60 percent less workers have been killed. There are other kinds of illnesses that have come up with changes in our economy, but a decision in judgment was made that we are not going to have the exploitation of workers. We are going to have safe workplaces. We don't permit the exploitation of children in our factories. We think they ought to be in schools. Some economists think: Oh, let's have children in there. Let's work those

children and see what the market does. Let's let those workers go in and work in those dangerous places. If the market, if it is going to be that disruptive in terms of the employer, let's go ahead and do that.

Well, we had decided at another time that we were not going to permit the exploitation of children or women in the workplace, and we were also going to insist on health and safety regulations and we were going to establish a basic floor, a basic floor, a minimum. It is not high enough even at $7.25, I don't believe myself, but that is the judgment that has been basically made by the Congress, by our side, the Democrats, and by a handful of Republicans, and we wish to see that raised. We wish to see that raised.

I suppose you could take the good Senator's argument and logic and say: Well, we have increased our salaries $32,000, and they have a different cost of living, so maybe South Carolina ought to get less, if we want to follow that logic. We say: No, we are one country with one history and one destiny, and we are going--obviously, Members of Congress and Members of the Senate are going to be treated as they should be, and that is fairly, for the work they do.

We say workers ought to be treated fairly for the work they do. Minimum standard. This amendment does injustice to that.

I would mention there is obviously a disparity in the cost of living. I have mentioned what the Energy Information Administration says a worker across the country pays, on average, for gasoline, and that is $2.17 a gallon. In South Carolina, it is $2.13 a gallon. It is 3 cents more in my State of Massachusetts. I was going to get the basic indicators. Health care, the average cost for a family is going to be $11,000. Try and do that on $5.15 an hour--$11,000. It is probably a little more, closer to $12,000 in Massachusetts--but $11,000 for a family of four. Try and do that on $5.15. We have the housing charts up here. I would think that even $5.15 or $7.25 an hour for people who work hard in South Carolina, they are going to have a tight belt strap in providing for their children, providing for their food, and providing for their general well-being.

But this does a major alteration and change to a very fundamental concept to what the minimum wage is all about, and I hope the Senator's amendment will not be successful and that our colleagues will vote no.

Madam President, how much time remains?

We have 11 minutes 10 seconds. Well, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Yes, I withhold.

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

Madam President, how much time do I have left?

Madam President, I think we had notified Members we would try and vote at half past, and I will certainly follow that guidance. I would say, as we wind up this debate on this particular amendment, the underlying legislation provides for an increase in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. It is well understood by all of the Members. We are taking a good deal of time for those who differ with that as a concept. We have had those who have opposed it, who tried to circumvent it, to come up with ways to avoid it, and we are glad to deal with those issues. But nonetheless, this is an amendment now by my friend from South Carolina that would effectively undermine a very important concept that has been the basis of the minimum wage for over 70 years and that is to establish a basic floor across this country, a basic floor for minimum wage, permitting States to raise--if they want to increase their wages, they can do that. If cities want to increase their wages, they can do that, such as my city of Boston, such as the District of Columbia, such as Baltimore, and such as other cities have done, and they have had very remarkable success in terms of the reduction of absenteeism, the continuation of workers remaining in employment, increasing productivity, and the rest. But that is a different issue for a different time.

The Senator from South Carolina's amendment, in effect, says we will take this $2.10, which will be the value of the increase in the minimum wage, and add that to every State across the country. That is an entirely different concept. I, myself, find that certain parts of this are attractive to think that we do need to raise the minimum wage beyond the $7.25, but that is not the debate today. That is not the debate. That is not the issue. The basic issue is whether we are going to violate the very fundamental understanding we have, with regard to this issue at this time in this body now, and that is that we are going to pass a floor in this country applicable to all the States and raise it from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. That is the issue. The amendment of the Senator from South Carolina, however well-intentioned, does serious injury, disruption, and violence to that very basic and fundamental concept. I hope it will not be accepted in the Senate.

We are approaching the time of 10:30, and we are very hopeful we will have a vote in relation to the amendment of the Senator from South Carolina in the next couple of moments.

Madam President, I am prepared to yield back my time.

I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

I ask the yeas and nays.

Madam President, we have a good deal of business to do. Since some of these issues relate to the Finance Committee, we are working out with Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley their proposal and schedule. There are several important amendments they are addressing and working out. We expect to have action on those, if not in the very late morning, in the early afternoon.

We had an amendment by Senator Sessions that we were looking forward hopefully to at this time.

Mr. President, I am wondering whether my friend from Michigan would yield me the last 4 minutes.

Mr. President, this amendment does nothing to help working families, especially those earning the minimum wage. It is a travesty that we are debating more tax breaks for the wealthy who use health savings accounts as another way to shelter their income when we should be talking about a long overdue pay increase for working families.

The real-world impact of this amendment is one more tax break that makes health savings accounts, already the most tax-preferred accounts in history, even more alluring to those who are healthy and wealthy. It seems my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have yet to run out of more sweeteners for wealthy health savings account holders.

We shouldn't spend another dime on health savings accounts. At the same time, there is no money--no money--for health care for children of those who are poor or frail, there is no limit to the money they want to spend for new tax breaks for the wealthy.

Health savings accounts don't work for working families. A minimum wage worker who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year, makes $10,712. The deductible for a high-deductible family plan can be as much as $11,000--more than the worker makes in a year. And that is just the deductible, that doesn't even include the premiums.

These accounts are no solution for working families who are uninsured or underinsured. A recent survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that compared with those with traditional comprehensive insurance, families using high-deductible health plans with health savings accounts were less than half as likely to have been uninsured before being covered by their current plan. Instead, those opening health savings accounts are more likely to be healthy and wealthy and switching to a health savings account to take advantage of tax breaks. Do we understand? Do we understand the growth in the health savings are for people who are already insured? This doesn't do anything for workers, let alone minimum wage workers. Why does the increase in the minimum wage have to be--have to carry the burden of providing a tax break for the wealthiest individuals in this country? Why don't we put this on some other program? Why is it the hardest working Americans at the lowest end of the economic ladder have to be out there and to have a sweetener for the wealthiest individuals? Why is it, Mr. President? That is what this amendment is all about.

The GAO found the average income of those using health savings accounts was $133,000--three times that of all tax filers. That is the average income of use. We are trying to get an increase in

the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25, and our friends on the other side want to have a tax break for those whose average income is $133,000. We know our Republican friends are opposed to an increase in the minimum wage. Isn't a vote against it enough? Do you have such disdain for hard-working Americans who are earning the minimum wage that you have to file these kinds of amendments? Put it on your tax extenders. That is what the health savings accounts were on before. Put it on that. Why take it out on hard-working Americans who are at the lower end of the economic ladder?

These plans don't work for working families because the high out-of- pocket costs associated with the high-deductible plan leaves these families at great financial risk. It's no wonder that over half of all bankruptcies in America are caused by patients unable to pay their medical bills.

Of those who go bankrupt due to medical expenses, 75 percent had health insurance but found it didn't cover the care they needed when they got sick. Health savings accounts contribute to this, with those who are in high-deductible health plans with the accounts twice as likely to spend 5 percent or more of their income on medical costs and twice as likely to delay or avoid needed health care as those with traditional health plans.

The large majority of low- and moderate-income working families who are given no choice but a high-deductible plan can't afford to fund a health savings account. And many employers don't contribute to their employee's accounts, and if they do, the contributions are well below the funds needed to meet the high deductible.

While more than half of those with incomes above $50,000 contribute $1,000 or more annually to their accounts, more than two-thirds of those with lower incomes contribute less than $1,000, and more than one-quarter are unable to contribute any money to their account.

Even if they manage to come up with money to put into their account, those with lower incomes are disadvantaged because of the regressiveness of the tax code. A family of four earning $20,000 who manages to scrape together $1,000 gets no tax advantage for their contribution, while a family earning $120,000 gets a $3l0 tax reduction.

The inequity only increases with higher contributions. In the unlikely event that a family earning $20,000 was able to contribute $5,450, last year's maximum contribution, would still get no tax advantage for their contribution, while a family earning $120,000 would receive a tax break of $1,667.

It's no surprise that a study late last year by the Government Accountability Office found that health savings accounts were being disproportionately used by those with high incomes. The GAO found that the average income of those using health savings accounts was $133,000, almost three times that of all tax filers. And account holders in a health savings account focus group acknowledged that many were using their health savings accounts to shelter income.

Finally, the GAO noted that:

when individuals are given a choice between HSA-eligible

and traditional plans . . . HSA-eligible plans may attract

healthier individuals who use less health care or, as we

found, higher-income individuals with the means to pay higher

deductibles and the desire to accrue tax-free savings.

The adverse selection that would result will raise premiums for working families in traditional plans, increasing the likelihood they will join the ranks of the uninsured.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. Promoting health savings accounts is bad health policy, it is bad tax policy, and it does nothing to help low- and moderate-income working families.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I join my friend from West Virginia in commending Mr. Brown, the Senator from Ohio, for his speech today.

When I first arrived here--the Senator from West Virginia probably remembers--freshman Senators were rarely expected to speak. If you spoke within the first 2 years, people thought you were coming along a little more rapidly than others might expect. That tradition has long passed. We can understand why.

Today in the Senate, working families and the middle class have a new champion. His name is Sherrod Brown, and he comes from Ohio. He has spoken eloquently and movingly and compellingly about the challenges facing citizens in the small towns and big cities of his State. He could be speaking for the middle class and working families in New Bedford, Fall River, Lowell, Lawrence, Springfield or Worcester or other places around the State of Massachusetts.

When he summons us to the great challenge in foreign policy, the war in Iraq, he speaks what is in the hearts, the souls, and the minds of all Americans.

Madam President, while I appreciate my colleague from Oregon and his commitment to education, this is not an omnibus tax bill; it is long overdue legislation to increase the minimum wage. It is not an opportunity for Members to present their tax cut wish list. It is Congress's opportunity to finally right the wrong of denying millions of hard working minimum wage workers a raise for 10 years.

Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues filed more than 25 amendments proposing new or expanded tax cuts. Many of them would cost billions of dollars. None of them are paid for.

This amendment would extend several tax benefits for education that I strongly support, but it should be paid for. It would cost $35 billion over the next decade. That cost should be offset by the elimination of unjustified corporate tax loopholes that are currently draining the Treasury.

I also can not support his amendment because it seeks to make permanent tax benefits that I believe represent misplaced priorities. The amendment would extend the Coverdell education savings account provision, which provides benefits to families with children in private elementary and secondary schools, while doing nothing to improve our Nation's public school system.

And this amendment does nothing for working families who do not have enough assets and savings to participate in the Coverdell scheme.

As the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service notes:

the main outcome of extending the [Coverdell accounts] to pay

for K-12 education expenses may be to slightly subsidize

higher income families who might have sent their children to

private school anyway.

While Coverdell accounts might help richer families send their children to private school, it does nothing to address what parents are calling for to improve public schools.

The Coverdell bill does not: put qualified teachers in the classroom; reduce class sizes; modernize or repair school buildings; provide additional afterschool opportunities; or hold schools accountable for improved student achievement.

At a time when we are asking our schools to do more under the No Child Left Behind, while failing to live up to our funding commitments, we should not divert billions of tax dollars to support private schools. This year over half of the school districts in America will see their title I funding cut. Funding for the No Child Left Behind Act has fallen over $55 billion short of the amount promised 5 years ago.

We are over $8 billion under the amount promised to ensure equal education opportunities to disabled students just 2 years ago when we reauthorized the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Reversing these shortfalls should be our priority in this Congress, not making permanent a tax benefit that promotes private schools over public schools.

I do strongly support the extension of the deduction for qualified tuition and related expenses for higher education, which is set to expire at the end of 2007. This deduction allows middle-income Americans to take a deduction for higher education expenses of up to $4,000. The IRS estimates that nearly 4.7 million students and families in the U.S. took advantage of the deduction in 2004.

I look forward to working on this proposal as we move forward with the debate on college affordability and higher education in the coming weeks.

We must prioritize making college more affordable.

The cost of college has more than tripled in the last 20 years. Each year, 400,000 students who are qualified to attend a 4-year college find themselves shut out because of cost factors.

As a result, students and families are pinching pennies more than ever to pay for higher education and more students and families are taking out loans to finance higher education.

We must provide them relief with a comprehensive strategy that starts with a substantial increase in the Pell grant. As the cost of even public college tuition and fees has climbed by an unacceptable 46 percent since 2001, the maximum Pell grant has not increased even a penny. This Congress should quickly act to remedy this.

We also should reform the student loan programs and use the savings to increase student aid. Senator Smith has joined me in introducing the STAR Act, which provides incentives for schools to participate in the cheaper federal student loan program and uses savings to increase need- based aid generating over $13 billion over 10 years in need-based aid at no additional cost.

Finally, Congress should make college loan payments more affordable by reducing interest rates and capping monthly loan payments.

I plan to address these issues in our committee very soon and I would welcome Senator Smith's contributions to that legislation and that debate.

I also look forward to working with him, Senator Baucus and other members of the Finance Committee as they develop a responsible tax package that helps middle class and low-income families afford to send their children to college.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I understand we are working out a time agreement. I would like to try to see what the time is. I have heard we then want to vote--some have said we are going to vote at 5:15. I don't understand what the time agreement is. I want to cooperate, and will, with the Senator. If we can withhold for a minute or two so that we can get the time agreement, if others want to speak, I certainly won't object to it. I understand we had an agreement, but I am not sure of the particulars yet and what it all means.

Mr. President, I see other Senators. If they want to introduce amendments for a minute or two until we get this straightened out, if that is their purpose, that is fine. I have no objection to that while we are trying to work this through.

Mr. President, I have tried to be accommodating, and I have heard that people want to vote at 5:15 and 5:30. I want to make sure that we are going to get a fair share of the time. I will have to object until we have an agreement. I think we are going to get the agreement. What has been outlined on the floor is not what the agreement is going to say. If we have an agreement in terms of time, I think we ought to follow that. If there is going to be objection, that is fine. I will be around here. They told me there were Members who wanted to vote by 5:30 because of traveling. I want to accommodate that, and I want to make sure we divide the time between now and 5:30.

Mr. President, whenever we are going to vote, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Alabama have 15 minutes prior to that time. We will try to work out the time

before that with the floor staff. But we have that locked in.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be temporarily laid aside and that Senator Kyl be recognized to offer an amendment.

Mr. President, I say to my good friend from Arizona, there is always a Member on our side who would like to give some brief remarks. I ask, when might the Senator be ready to offer his amendment?

Mr. President, I asked unanimous consent that the pending amendments be laid aside so Senator Kyl can offer his amendment.

Mr. President, for the interest of moving this along the rest of the day, there are two Senators who wish to speak, and it is my hope after they speak we can get some other amendments up and start voting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown, be allowed to speak for 10 minutes, and following Senator Brown, that the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Sanders, be allowed to speak for 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I ask what the Senators are going to speak on.

The Senator from Arizona wants to speak on the amendment?

And the Senator from Missouri?

For how long?

So the understanding is that the Senator from Vermont will speak for 10 minutes, the Senator from New Hampshire for 10, the Senator from Missouri for less than 10, and then Mr. Kyl for 10 minutes.

I ask unanimous consent that the order of speakers be as just stated.

Mr. President, I will speak for just a minute. I very much appreciate the remarks of our very good friend from West Virginia. He is right. He is always right, especially on matters of procedure. It is my thought that we will have no more than four. In

honor of the Senator's points, I deeply appreciate that sentiment. We won't go beyond the four. In an attempt to try to move the bill forward, we are trying to get floor speakers and, hopefully, get the amendments up so that there is enough opportunity to offer their amendments and we can vote on the amendments. But the Senator's basic point is absolutely correct.

Yes.

At this point.

Yes. I thank the Senator from Arizona.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside and I be allowed to call up my amendment, No. 206.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside and that I be allowed to call up my amendment No. 207.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 2:05 p.m. today be for the debate on the Baucus amendment No. 207 and the Bunning amendment No. 119 and that the time run concurrently on both amendments, with the time equally divided and controlled between Senators Baucus and Bunning; that at 2:05 p.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Baucus amendment, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Bunning amendment; with 2 minutes of debate equally divided between the

votes; with no second-degree amendment in order to either amendment prior to the vote.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment No. 207 which was just reported. This is essentially a substitute amendment to the Bunning amendment No. 119.

My amendment is quite simple. It says that Congress should repeal the 1993 tax on Social Security benefits and eliminate wasteful spending such as spending on unnecessary tax loopholes--and I might say there are many of those--in order to fully offset the cost of such repeal. My alternative also explains that if we do not fully offset the cost of repeal, we will be paying substantially, among other things, more interest to foreign creditors because we will be not paying for it, essentially--and so increasing the deficit, essentially.

This amendment of mine, the alternative, I think is the better amendment. Why? Because we have to be concerned about fiscal discipline. Unlike the underlying small business tax package reported out by the Finance Committee, the Bunning amendment is not paid for. Indeed, to repeal this provision now, as Senator Bunning proposes, would drain over $200 billion from the Treasury over the next 10 years.

Furthermore, the Bunning amendment would eliminate a dedicated source of revenue for Medicare. As my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know, we recently set up a trigger to warn us when 45 percent of Medicare funding comes from general revenues and, of course, the Bunning amendment would move us closer to that trigger point.

The dedicated funding source that would be eliminated by the Bunning amendment helps pay for hospitals, nursing care, home care services for the elderly, all paid for by Medicare. I think a drastic reduction in that funding source, that is $200 billion worth, would impair the Federal Government's ability to pay for hospital and nursing home care under Medicare.

Furthermore, a loss of revenue such as that in the Bunning amendment will make it even more difficult for us because it fails to address long-term solvency and, in fact, makes long-term solvency of Social Security more in peril, not less. Such a change as Senator Bunning proposes is not paid for and would do great harm to both Social Security and to Medicare.

I strongly urge my colleagues to think carefully. There is an option to vote for the Baucus amendment and an option to vote on the Bunning amendment. The first vote would be on the Baucus amendment. The Baucus amendment is more in the nature of a sense of the Senate, and I think it is the better course because, clearly, if we are to reduce the taxes Senator Bunning proposes in his amendment, we have to do it thoughtfully and not in a way that is not paid for, in a way that threatens and imperils not only the deficit but also Medicare and Social Security.

Mr. President, I see my colleague on the floor now, and I yield the floor so my colleague can speak.

Mr. President, how much time remains on my side?

I yield the remainder of our time to the Senator from Maryland, Mr. Cardin.

Mr. President, might I inquire, what is the regular order?

Mr. President, I oppose the Bunning amendment. It is a perfect example of why we do things in committee; namely, here we are on the Senate floor. This is an amendment that raises the budget deficit by $200 billion. It has never been discussed. We haven't taken it up in the Finance Committee. That is not a good way to legislate.

Second, it has the adverse consequence of increasing the deficit by $200 billion. That is not a good thing to do, with all the ramifications that an increase of $200 billion in the deficit will have. I strongly oppose the amendment.

Remember, the way to work legislation, generally, is through committees, as much as we possibly can. That way we will get a better product. My goal in the Finance Committee is to work as a committee. If we work as a committee, we are more likely to get better legislation rather than ad hoc legislation out here on the floor of the Senate.

I urge opposition to the amendment.

Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 505(a) of H. Con. Res. 95, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent there be 40 minutes of debate to run concurrently on the Baucus amendment No. 206 and the Smith amendment No. 113, the time controlled as follows: 30 minutes under the control of Senator Baucus or his designee, 10 minutes under the control of Senator Smith; that no further second-degree amendment be in order to either amendment; that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided between the votes; that upon the use or yielding back of the time, the Senate vote in relation to the Baucus amendment to be followed by a vote in relation to the Smith amendment, as amended.

Madam President, I will speak for a few minutes. Clearly education is one of our country's highest priorities. I don't think there is anybody in this body or in the other body on the other side of this Capitol who will disagree with that statement. It is certainly one of the most important, if not the most important. The pending Smith amendment, however, is not the right way to address this issue.

First, the Senator did not offer his amendment in the committee of jurisdiction. There have not been hearings on this amendment. The committee has not had a chance to work on the amendment, and it shows. First, the amendment is not paid for. It would increase the deficit by $35 billion over 10 years. No. 2, it leaves in place overly complex tax provisions. It needs simplification. We clearly need to consolidate the myriad different education credits and deductions with which the people in the country are faced and have an almost impossible time trying to figure out. This amendment does not do the job.

It also includes controversial provisions such as the Coverdell tax cuts for K-12 education, provisions I personally favor but I know many Members of this body have deep public policy concerns with. We need to focus on education. As chairman of the Committee on Finance, I pledge that this committee will work aggressively to develop a comprehensive education package that includes simplification of all the myriad current tax provisions and hopefully will be much more effective--do what it is supposed to do--and will also address the various needs of various people in our society, especially low-income people who have a hard time getting to college or getting into a voc-ed school, a community college, a tribal community college, or whatnot.

We in America are in sixth place in a competitive index in the world and most of that is due to a lower standing in higher education, clearly behind Nordic countries and Singapore. To compete in a global economy, we need to focus to improve our educational system. It is my goal, if I have anything to do with it, in 3 or 4 or 5 years it will be known in the world that it is in America where the action is, it is in America where they are starting to get it right, they are starting to address and to figure out ways to make sure their kids--and a little older kids--are very well educated; where we Americans are so proud of what we are doing and other countries will recognize what we are doing.

It will take work to get there, but that should be the goal, and I am doing what I can to help us get there. We know about the increase in college tuition and all the problems that is causing. My State of Montana has an especially difficult time. More than two-thirds of the students in my State receive grant aid. Frankly, that is a nationwide figure. In my State it is even higher; it is 80 percent. We need education assistance. Mr. President, 14,000 individuals from my State claim more than $35 million in tuition fee deductions; nationwide, more than 4.5 million people together claimed about $10 billion in tuition fee deductions. Again, simplify, target them, make it work so we are doing what we should be doing.

Let me talk for a few minutes about how complicated these education provisions are. First, we have the HOPE scholarships and the Lifetime Learning credits.

I might say to my colleagues, there are nine other types of tax benefits for education. Here they all are. I am sure everybody knows all about these and I am sure everybody understands them completely. First, the student loan interest deduction; next, tax-free treatment of canceled student loans; tax-free student loan repayment assistance; Coverdell education savings accounts featuring tax-free earnings; qualified tuition programs which also feature tax-free earnings; penalty-free early distributions from any type of retirement account arrangement for education costs; allowing families to cash in savings bonds for education costs without having to pay tax on the interest on those; tax-free educational benefits for employers; business deductions for work-related education. We have over 11 that I can count, and I don't think anybody knows them, not one person--maybe one person. Not very many people. If we have a hard time in this body understanding those, think of the poor students. Think of the families. Think of the people trying to make some sense out of all this.

To some degree, voters in November were saying to us in Washington and around the country: People in Washington aren't listening to us. We have problems. They are not listening to us. Congress is a bit dysfunctional. What are they doing about education? We all know the need. What are they doing?

My goal in the committee, working very closely with Senator Kennedy of the HELP Committee, is, together with their authorizing legislation and our tax legislation, to get the ball rolling so we are focusing on education. It is so important to me.

We also, I might say, need to focus on the neediest. Current tax credits and deductions don't help the neediest. They don't have any income to pay income tax on. It is not targeted, all these lifetime scholarships and HOPE scholarships, and so forth. We had a great hearing in the Committee on Finance. Maybe while we consolidate and simplify--a very strong recommendation, I might say, by all those who appeared before us, is combined Pell grants. So many students get their aid through Pell grants. That is certainly true in community colleges, it is true in tribal colleges. Those are lower income students. It is Pell grants that they need and we need to boost Pell grant levels even higher.

Also, working with Pell grants, make a simplified tax credit--maybe refundable. Lower income people need the money upfront. It doesn't make any difference to have it later on, a year later when they are figuring out tax returns. It has to be upfront. That is another recommendation given by a very impressive, persuasive witness before our committee a short time ago.

We also need to think about covering not only tuition but also other education expenses. What about books, room and board, and so forth? The current major provisions cover tuition, tuition only. I think it is true that some of this has to be increased. Which ones, that is the question.

Frankly, as we are talking about helping teachers with greater deductions, my view is: Find a way to give teachers greater pay. That is the real solution here, rather than saying you have to get a deduction so you can help pay for your students' expenses. We need to get teachers better pay. Even though we don't have primary jurisdiction, we are certainly creative around

here. We can figure out a way here in the Congress to help States pay better salaries to teachers so we get even better people teaching school than we have now. We have good teachers, but we need to also make sure they have the pay they need.

The underlying minimum wage bill is paid for. This amendment is not paid for. The underlying total small business package is $8.3 billion and we pay for it. This is a $35 billion package, four or five times that, but it is not paid for. It was not discussed in committee. Slapdash here on the floor. That is not the way to do legislation. As I said many times, and I keep saying it because I believe it, in the Committee on Finance we are going to work as a committee because that is the best way to legislate. That means working with Democrats and with Republicans in a give and take to get a committee product. I pledge to my colleagues we are going to work mightily to get a very good education product from our committee in conjunction with the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, so the right hand knows what the left hand is doing.

I do believe the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. With the two of us working together in cooperation from both sides of the aisle--and Senator Enzi, I am quite certain, has the same views--we are going to do something about education here. I fully believe that will happen.

Now I yield 10 minutes to the senior Senator from Arkansas.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Arkansas and I be allowed to have a dialog without Senators losing the right to the floor.

I would say to my good friend from Arkansas that I very much want to reassure her. She is such a tremendous member of our committee and such an able Senator from her State, and I know her State is very proud of her. But the answer is definitely totally 100 percent yes. Education is one of my passions. It is so important. It means so much to me, and I know it does for all of us. I love going to schools and seeing the teaching in schools. It is one of the best parts of this job.

I also wish to make sure that our kids and grandkids have the same quality of life, the same standard of living that we have been able to enjoy, and that means, given the global competition we face from other countries such as China and India, and so forth, we need the best, and we are going to have the best.

So I say to my good friend, in the Committee on Finance, Senator Grassley and I are a very close team on the committee and we are going to move aggressively on ways to boost the availability and to help people get the very best education, in conjunction with Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, when No Child Left Behind is brought up, and other authorizing legislation on education comes up, so that we can do something that makes us all on both sides of the aisle proud to address education.

Madam President, could I ask the time allotment on both sides?

I don't see the Senator from Oregon on the floor. I don't know if other Senators wish to speak on the pending amendment. I don't see other Senators on the floor. I would ask my good friend for a little bit of assistance in this matter.

Madam President, we have two votes coming up shortly, and I would like to speak to a couple of points on my amendment. Essentially, my amendment is a sense of the Senate that we will, and must, work under the provisions we have been discussing in the last few minutes. It says we believe the taxpayers play such an important role making education more affordable, and it also says we should pay for it. That is something I must say, and I will say, as my good friend from Minnesota as well as other Senators have said, that there are a lot of ways to find the so-called pay-fors we should find, the so- called pay-fors, in closing tax loopholes. There is a lot of constructive talk--in fact, I initiated a lot of it--about the tax gap, about $350 billion of income taxes owed to the Government--owed but not collected--$350 billion every year owed but not collected--without raising any taxes, without passing any legislation that increases taxes. That is $350 billion that should be collected, and we are not collecting it. I am not saying we could get it all, but I am saying we should get a lot of it. Part of that is payroll taxes that is not collected. The estimates are $50 billion, $60 billion in payroll taxes that are not being collected. Well, adding $30 billion, $40 billion a year to the Social Security trust fund wouldn't hurt. Adding a few billion dollars to the hospital insurance Part A trust fund wouldn't hurt. We have to work hard to find that.

My point is we can find the so-called pay-fors when we do the things we need to do. So this is not some big pipe dream: Sure, we are going to talk about this stuff. I am saying we are going to enact the kinds of provisions we are talking about. It could be up to $35 billion, which is the amount contained in this amendment but which is not paid for. As I mentioned, it is under the alternative amendment, that is the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon, which doesn't address the complexity, it doesn't address a lot of real problems.

I said, perhaps a bit unfairly, it is a slapdash amendment on the floor, but it is true it is an amendment of first impression. This is the first we have seen it. It never came up in the committee. I am trying, in a small way in this Congress, to try to anticipate subjects that are going to come up on the floor, anticipate major amendments that are going to come up on the floor, in the committee of jurisdiction, the Committee on Finance, and have hearings on them. Let's get experts to come and tell us about them so we can modify them and make them work, rather than seeing them for the first time on the floor and wondering what in the heck this is and what it is all about.

So I would urge my colleagues to support the sense of the Senate amendment which I am offering. I think it is the right way to get at the problem. As I have said many times, I pledge to my colleagues that we on the Finance Committee are going to dig into this. We are going to find ways to make sure we have the best education tax provisions we can possibly get. Therefore, I urge a positive vote on my amendment. After that, I encourage Senators to vote against the Smith amendment. He means well, he is a good guy, but there is a time and place for everything. This is not the time and place for the Smith amendment. There will be a time and place later on this year for those subjects and the able Senator from Oregon is a member of the committee and I know we are going to hear from him on his amendments and he will be right. These provisions we can address and will address.

So I am prepared to yield back my time. I know the Senator from Massachusetts was seeking time to speak, but apparently he no longer is.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, to be charged equally to both sides.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the Baucus amendment.

I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time.

I yield back the remainder of our time.

Mr. President, I appreciate the admonition and good counsel of my good friend from Oregon. My mother used to say: If you can do it, do it now. My mother used to also say: If you are going to do it now, do it right the first time. This is not doing it right the first time.

We rejected, about an hour ago, a similar amendment; that is, an amendment that was not offered in committee. I do not mean to be pejorative, but it is sort of a slapdash amendment, thought up, not considered in committee.

This amendment is just too complex. It causes a big increase in the budget deficit. It is not paid for. I have a whole list of reasons why we should not adopt this amendment. Essentially, we will get to these issues in committee, and that will be the right time and place to deal with these issues.

Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 505(a) of H. Con. Res. 95, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from South Carolina such time as he might consume.

Mr. President, could I ask what the time situation is?

Mr. President, I ask to have the Senator from South Carolina yield me 8 minutes.

I need to address a few of the things that were said. ``We are on the fifth day of this debate.'' Yes, we are. ``It's a simple bill.'' No, it is not a simple bill. It is simple in the one proposal that is out there, but it has a lot of interlocking implications. We had some debate yesterday, separate from an amendment on tip credits. We talked about work opportunity tax credits. We talked about earned- income tax credits. All of those tie in with the minimum wage, so it has a lot of implications.

It has a lot of implications for small businesses, too. I showed some quotes from a lady who would lose hours, another from someone who would lose their job. They were all in situations where they can't afford to do that. There have been charts showing that on the aggregate it helps the whole economy to raise the minimum wage. But on an individual basis it affects people individually. Small business employees understand. They are really connected to their business. They know how much the employer is making. They know what the markup is on things. And they know whether their job is in danger or not, so there is that concern.

But I want to clear up something. There has not been an argument against raising the minimum wage. The argument has been for doing something to help counter the impact on small business. We have been acting in a bipartisan way on some things; we can act in a bipartisan way on this. I contend that as soon as there is some assurance to the minority that there will be some tax offsets for the small businesses, this process will speed up dramatically. But until there is that assurance we will be using our opportunities, the process, to make sure we can take care of small business at the same time and not put them out of business.

There has been some cooperation, at least through the press. I would mention that Senator Reid said:

If it takes adding small-business tax cuts to have a

minimum wage tax increase, we're going to do that. Maybe we

can get 60 votes to invoke cloture on a straight minimum

wage. I'm not sure we want to do that. . . . A one-party town

doesn't work. We have a majority of 51-49. We're going to

accomplish the possible; that's what we're going to do.

That was on January 5 at a press conference. I have some other quotes from him, too, but Senator Baucus said:

Small business is the engine that drives our economy and

creates jobs on Main Street. That's why I'm proud we are

getting them some tax relief from Uncle Sam. . . . It's high

time our workers get a raise. At the same time we are going

to give a boost to small business.

That was a January 17 press release.

Senator Kerry:

I support the majority of the provisions of the Small

Business and Work Opportunity Act of 2007. I would have

preferred that this package moved separately rather than in

tandem with a minimum wage bill. However, the reality is we

need a tax package in order to advance minimum wage

legislation.

That is from a January 2007 committee report, Small Business and Work Opportunity Act of 2007.

I have a whole lot of quotes from the other side of the aisle that have encouraged me that we can do both things--raise the minimum wage and have some offsets for small business.

I have talked to the Senator from Massachusetts about this before. I understand his desire to have just the minimum wage increase and his concern that any other discussion takes away from that. I suggested that it wouldn't take away from it if it were a whole package to begin with; that it would be a minimum wage increase and our concerns about having some tax breaks for the small businesses would overcome that. But we have not gone that route yet.

The debate we had yesterday, the cloture vote we had yesterday, would have excluded the possibility of doing the tax breaks. I have to tell you, to get those tax breaks to offset the impact on small business has a long road to go because the House didn't pass any of those. In fact, the House has made some very detrimental comments about it. There is a process over here that enforces the rights of the minority and can provide some protection for the small businesses, the mom-and-pops out there trying to make enough living for their own families and provide for some workers that we can take care of at the same time. But it is

going to take some showing that there is some dual concern, both for the employee and for the mom-and-pop businesses, before we move along much faster.

That is what the debate is about. It is not about whether to raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage will be raised. I hope there are a whole lot of other things that will be done in the process, too, because we need to move these people to more skilled jobs, and we need to get a Workforce Investment Act through, too, and I would have liked to see this be part of this same bill, too, so we could increase the skills of the employees and get them into better jobs. We don't want to just remove the bottom rung of the ladder and have them have to make a bigger step to get a job to begin with. We want them to have better jobs. Better jobs do not hit the inflationary core quite as much.

I want to be sure people understand we are not talking about whether to do a minimum wage, we are talking about whether to do a minimum wage increase and offset some of the impact for small businesses.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time.

Madam President, I wish to compliment both sides on working on amendments. We have not had any shortage of amendments being offered. In fact, we have a whole bunch of people who would like to offer amendments that have already been filed. So it is not the usual problem of trying to get people to come down and offer amendments; it is a problem of being able to get some agreements so we can have votes on those amendments.

Both sides are working diligently to try to get it set up so we can have a whole series of votes yet today and move along substantially on this legislation. Of course, what we are kind of waiting for is to get some assurance that there will be a small business tax package to offset the impact of this before we get some progress.

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

Mr. MARTINEZ addressed the Chair.

Yes.

Can I inquire as to the time remaining? I was under a little different impression on the time to vote, I guess.

I had hoped that the discussions that are happening on health care would continue to happen and that they would not be a focus of this particular bill. But, again, until we get some assurance that there is going to be a tax package that provides for some of the impact for small business, we will be discussing a variety of topics. I can tell by the amendments that have been put in.

I need to do some clarification on this particular amendment. While I encourage people to keep working across the aisle on a whole variety of proposals, this particular amendment deals with helping to pay premiums for high-deductible plans in the individual market, not in the group market. This is in the individual market. I think everybody who works with health care pretty much agrees that one of the difficulties we have with health care is that primarily the premiums are paid

for by companies that get a huge tax deduction for doing that. When the premiums are paid for that way, the insurance is paid for that way, there isn't nearly as much responsibility on the part of the individual to see that they are getting the best care at the lowest cost. It has allowed the system to blossom and grow.

But this particular amendment deals with the individual nongroup market. At the present time, while we allow companies to deduct anything they put in for premiums, we don't allow individuals to do that. We do allow individuals to buy health savings accounts. That means they pay a premium for a high deductible, which helps to bring down that premium and puts people in a market that they could not have been in before. But the part that they get the deduction on is the part that covers the deductible, the high deductible. They can put that in a savings account, and they can actually roll that over from year to year if they don't have to use the deductible on it. But nobody helps them with the tax on their premium.

For most people it is the premium that is the biggest cost. For individuals it is the premium that is the biggest cost. If they work for a company that provides insurance, they don't have that cost. But if they are an individual, they get taxed on the money they pay to pay their premium.

What this amendment is suggesting is that we need to level the field a little bit, and while they are paying a smaller premium on a high deductible and allowed to deduct the portion that would be the deductible, if they put that in a savings account, allowing them to take part of that savings account and pay it for the premium so that their premium would also be deductible.

I don't know where the $8 billion comes from. There is not a formal score on this, but there is a 2006 informal opinion from the Treasury staff. It indicates that the cost is probably going to be about $50 million over 5 years, which is pretty modest compared even to the cost of other proposals for HSA expansion. The intent and effect would be to make this HSA high-deductible option more easily available and affordable outside of the employment context.

We have to admit, if it is an individual buying the policy, it is the most portable there is in the United States. We also talked about the need for portability. When someone loses their job there are some ways they can still get insurance, but that runs out. But if you have a health savings account, that is completely portable. It goes with you. The whole works goes with you.

There are some small businesses that have been taking advantage of this and paying the premium for their employees and then paying a portion of the deductible that goes into a savings account. They found that this is the only mechanism by which they could afford insurance for their employees. So we are not even talking about those folks because this is about ones in the individual market, which limits it considerably.

Everyone recognizes the difficulties with health care costs and obtaining health care coverage in the United States, and real solutions to this growing problem has to allow individuals and families to make decisions based on their unique health care needs too. We can't just limit health care to those who work for particularly big corporations who, also, are having problems being able to fund the insurance they are buying for their people. The cost is dramatically escalating in the health care area. I think it is the No. 1 concern of people across the United States.

We have a lot of proposals that will help to bring down or at least stabilize those costs. I appreciate the help we have had from people on both sides of the aisle in coming up with those proposals. A lot of times we have agreed on principle and now we are trying to get down to details and the detail is always the tough part, but I think we can make some progress.

I am for choices. I am for individuals and families having more options for obtaining health care insurance. I think more options help to bring down the cost; it is a competition factor. For that reason, I support Senator Ensign's amendment to provide more choices to allow individuals and families who work--not the ones working for companies where the company is getting a tax deduction to buy their insurance. This is for the individuals and families so they will have additional options for obtaining health care coverage, especially when the employer does not provide adequate options for health insurance. Senator Ensign's amendment does that. It provides more choices by allowing individuals without employer-based health coverage to use funds from their health savings to pay for their high-deductible health plan premiums. Right now they only get to use the money they have in savings to take care of deductibles. We would like for them to be able to take care of some of the premiums, too, which takes some of the pressure off that end, and since most people in the country already get that benefit through their company, which gets the tax deduction, we thought it would be nice if individuals had that too.

I think this is a modest proposal, with an estimated score of $50 million over 5 years. There will not be a lot of people who will take advantage of it, but there will be some people who will take advantage of it, and it will provide additional options for individuals and families without employer-based health coverage.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I yield the remainder of the time to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. President, the flexible time proposals we are debating today could have a monumental impact on the lives of thousands of working men, women and families in America. There are some fortunate Americans, including most State and Federal workers, who already have the right to flexible time scheduling. In fact, according to a national study, some 43 percent of all U.S. workers have this right, and they love to use it. Seventy-nine percent of the women who have to use it, and 68 percent of the men who have to use it, Study on the Changing Workforce, Families and Work Institute)

But the majority of Americans do not have access to flexible time scheduling, and they deserve it, too. It could help the 67 percent of Americans who say they don't have enough time with their children and the 63 percent of Americans who say they don't have enough time with their spouses. At the very least, it would remove one of the barriers for achieving a work-life balance.

So who are the people who are prohibited access to this type of benefit? Well, it isn't any Member of this Senate. Salaried employees are not penalized for flexible work arrangements. Employers don't have to increase pay for these employees if they work more in one week and less in another. It isn't government employees, either. Flexible work arrangements have been available in the Federal Government for almost three decades.

In fact, this program has been so successful with government employees that in 1994 President Clinton issued an Executive order extending it to parts of the Federal Government that had not yet had the benefits of the program. President Clinton then stated, the ``Broad use of flexible arrangements to enable Federal employees to better balance their work and family responsibilities can increase employee effectiveness and job satisfaction while decreasing turnover rates and absenteeism.

I couldn't agree more, but now we need to go further and extend this privilege to private sector workers. It is long past time to give employees the choice--the same choice as Federal workers. There is no reason that government employees need greater flexibility in meeting and balancing the demands of work and family than private sector employees.

There are two proposals under consideration today. Senator Gregg has offered an employee option time amendment. This would give employees the option of ``flexing'' their schedules over a 2-week period. Basically, hourly employees who wish to could voluntarily have their work hours calculated on a biweekly rather than a weekly basis. This way a working mother could work 50 hours in one week and 30 hours in the next week, while her husband worked an opposite schedule and their children enjoyed an extra 10 hours a week with a parent. If such an arrangement were made and agreed to by both the employee and the employer, the employee would still be entitled to overtime for any hours beyond that agreement. For example, if an employee was asked to work 32 hours in a week that was scheduled to be a 30-hour week, the employee would be paid overtime for the additional 2 hours.

I have to emphasize again, because I know my friends on the other side of the aisle don't always understand this, that the flexible time arrangement is entirely voluntary. In fact, the Gregg amendment requires written consent from the employee, and only employees with at least a year's tenure would be eligible. No employee could be pressured to enter into one of these agreements. Such coercion is specifically prohibited and punishable with monetary penalties.

The second amendment which has been offered to this bill is a little different approach. Senator DeMint's amendment addresses the disparity between government and private employees that has existed since 1978. It essentially says government employees cannot exercise this benefit until private employees have the same right. I hope we will pass the Gregg amendment today and the DeMint will not be necessary. There is no reason this shouldn't be the case.

There is a long history of support for flextime on both sides of the aisle. I hope my friends won't mind if I remind them of a little of this history. Although Democrats may now be attacking flextime proposals and calling it a ``wage cut'', some seem to be forgetting that flextime is not a new issue but one with a long, bipartisan history.

In the early 1980s Senator Stevens led the effort to secure Federal worker access to compensatory time off and flextime. In 1985 former Senator Nickles shepherded a bill through the Senate that extended these positive benefits to State and local employees.

These Senators did not foist an unpopular program onto unsuspecting workers over the objections of Democrats. Both of those laws passed the Senate with overwhelming, bipartisan support. Senator Kennedy voted to ensure that Federal employees would have access to flextime to have the scheduling options necessary to balance work and family life.

Senator Kennedy, along with 11 other Democrats, cosponsored the Nickles bill to extend flextime and comp time to State and local employees. Flextime was not a pay cut for State and local workers when Senator Kennedy and other Democrats endorsed it in 1982 and 1985. And it is not a pay cut for private sector employees now.

We are coming together--Republicans and Democrats--to raise the minimum wage in this bill, and to do it with fairness for the employers who will be subject to this mandate. Let us

also come together to give fairness to the employees who have been left out in the cold for 28 years. Let's give private employees the same right to arrange flexible work schedules as government employees. I urge my colleagues to support the Gregg amendment and, if it becomes necessary, the DeMint amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, quickly, for the benefit of my fellow Senators, we are trying to get as much done as possible. I appreciate the cooperation we have had. Usually the problem managers have is getting people to offer amendments. We have many amendments that have been offered. We need to get votes on them. Some are: Senator Smith's on education tax incentives, which I think we will have in a moment; Vitter's on paperwork violations; Kyl's on extended depreciation provisions; Sessions' on Federal contract torts; Burr's on more flextime; DeMint's on involuntary donation collections, and an amendment regarding American Samoa. A lot of them are ready to go. If we lock in limited debate time and get votes, it will be helpful. I hope we move forward on that.

I yield the floor.

It is my understanding they do not wish to speak. I would like to reserve the time until I hear some of the other comments. I have nothing to say at the moment.

Madam President, before the Senator yields back his time, I need to say that Senator Smith is on his way to the floor to make a couple more comments.

Mr. President, I ask the chairman that the 10 minutes be divided between Senators Burr, Chambliss, and Allard.

So the unanimous consent request is to divide the 10 minutes, or the time until 4:45, between Senators Burr and Chambliss, and after the vote, 7 minutes for Senator Allard.

Mr. President, I have been listening to my colleagues on this issue of the minimum wage and thinking about a time 70-some years ago that I read about when there was an initiative on the floor of the Congress

dealing with the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted, was considered radical. They said it was going to injure business and there would be trouble in this country. That provision said, on behalf of America's workers, that employers ought to keep time records, ought to pay overtime for over a certain number of hours--the kinds of things you would expect. But once again, the sky was going to fall if this sort of thing was embraced. We have heard this every time we have had something on the floor of the Senate.

My colleagues have talked about initiatives that are important. I think many of these initiatives are important. What about the initiative to help the people at the bottom rung of the economic ladder? It has been almost 10 years since the minimum wage has been increased. Yet it is unbelievable how difficult it is to pull it through this Chamber. The price for pulling it through the Chamber is to add additional tax breaks.

There was a time when in this Chamber we considered tax breaks, saying to the biggest corporations in America that moved many of their jobs overseas: We want to give you the right--the only people in the country--to pay an income tax of 5\1/4\ percent. It will cost us $104 billion in lost revenue to our Treasury, in my calculation. That went through like greased lightning. Did you hear anybody say: If we are going to give a $104 billion tax break to the biggest companies, maybe we ought to help the people at the bottom of the economic ladder. Oh, no, nobody wanted to leverage that because nobody cared about that.

As I have described before, it is like the lyrics of the Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys song; it is the same thing that plays out in every situation. The lyrics are, ``The little bee sucks the blossom and the big bee gets the honey.'' In this case, the big guy gets the money. It is always the case in these debates.

What about a maximum wage? We hear about a minimum wage, and the people at the bottom who have not had a raise for 10 years.

This notion that I have heard all week, which is that this is impacts just a bunch of teenagers, is just not true. This is not a bunch of teenagers. Well over 70 percent of the workers who will benefit from the minimum wage are adults; 60 percent are women; 6.4 million children will benefit because their parents are working for the minimum wage. For a third of them, that is their sole family income. So it is just not true to come to the floor and banter around and say it is just a bunch of teenagers working.

But if we are so concerned about the people at the bottom getting too much, let me make this point to you: Wages and salaries, which is the compensation given to workers in this country, are at their lowest levels as a percentage of GDP since they started keeping score in 1947. They are the lowest since they started keeping score. Now, why is that the case? There is plenty of income in this country, but it is going to others.

I mentioned the maximum wage. Is there a maximum wage? Did anybody rush to the Senate floor to express concern when we read in the paper one morning that the head of Exxon got a $400 million buyout, or $400 million in benefits, as he left his job? That is $150,000 a day in income. What is the minimum wage these days? It is about $40 a day. There is a lot of concern about that on the floor of the Senate. Maybe it will go to $50 a day for the folks at the bottom of the ladder in this economy of ours. Does anybody come over here and say: You know what, when I read that somebody gets $150,000 a day, I am concerned. No, it is just quiet; you can hear a pin drop in the Chamber about the issue of the maximum wages. It is unbelievable.

The other day, $180 million was given to a person who was leaving a company because the company was displeased with his performance. I could spend a couple of hours here talking about those kinds of payouts. Nobody is talking about a maximum wage. I am not here talking about a maximum wage. Why so much concern about a minimum wage for the folks who work at the bottom in this country?

I support expensing for small business investments in equipment and machinery, but why is this bill being held hostage for that sort of thing? I voted for that in other circumstances and will again. Why is it so hard to pull a minimum wage through this Chamber? It is really pretty bizarre.

You know, I have watched people work in circumstances that are very difficult. We have a lot of people who work two and three jobs and work very hard. One day, I talked to a woman who was an unbelievable success story. She was working for very little money at the bottom of the ladder, cleaning toilets and the hallways of a very small college--a single mother with four kids, working right at the bottom. She thought: You know, somehow, some day, I want to graduate from this college. I was there when she did. I was a speaker at the commencement. She was 42 years old and had four kids. She was wearing a cap and a gown and a smile, and she did it because we cared enough for Pell grants and the kinds of things that can give someone hope.

The fact is that people who work at the bottom of the economic ladder for minimum wage have been lost and forgotten, particularly here. They are the people who make the beds in the hotels in which we sleep. They are the people who serve the food at the fast food places we frequent. They are people who work hard. They want an opportunity and a chance. After 10 years, this bill isn't a major policy change; this is an obligation this Congress has had for years, which it has ignored. Now we bring it to the floor of the Senate, and we are told that the price for this is additional tax breaks. The only way you will help somebody at the bottom after 10 years is to give additional tax breaks.

Go back and look at the tax breaks that have been given. I just mentioned one, by the way--a 5\1/4\ percent income tax rate. There is no one listening to this debate who is paying 5\1/4\ percent. Everyone is paying more than that. But the biggest corporations in America got to pay 5\1/4\ percent on income they earned overseas in plants where often they sent American jobs. They get to pay 5\1/4\ percent on income they earn there. That is the break they get. Nobody else gets that. That went through here very easily. Nobody is going to hold that hostage; my gosh, that benefits the folks at the top.

Let me make one other point that I think is important. The very people who are opposed to a minimum wage--George Will says the minimum wage ought to be zero, by the way. That is all right for him because he is not earning the minimum wage. But the very people in this Chamber who are opposed to a minimum wage, if you go back and check the votes, are the ones who have voted for a tax incentive or tax break for the companies that ship their jobs overseas.

That is easy to track, by the way, because we have had four votes on that--to shut down that pernicious, unbelievable tax break. We say to a company: Shut your manufacturing plant down, fire your workers, move your production to China, and we will give you a big fat tax break. We have tried to get rid of that four times, and four times we have failed.

The same colleagues who are so concerned about helping people at the bottom with a very reasonable adjustment in the minimum wage after 10 years are the very same people who said: We want to continue a tax break to ship American jobs overseas.

I am just telling you that everybody has a right to their opinion, and I will respect it. But I certainly have a right to say I believe it is wrong. I believe it is bad policy for this country. This economic engine works best when everybody works. There is no social program in this country as important as a good job that pays well. We all understand that. We also understand there are a lot of jobs in this country with substantial downward pressure on income because of this so-called globalization by which the largest enterprises can go find the lowest paid workers anywhere in the world and move their jobs, putting downward pressure on American workers' income. We know what is happening in the workplace.

Let me end as I started, by saying that salaries and wages, which is the income workers in this country get, are at their lowest percentage of our economy since they started keeping score in 1947. It doesn't take a rocket

scientist to interpret that. If the interpretation of that doesn't persuade one that we have an obligation to do something for the people working at the bottom of the economic ladder for the minimum wage, then I don't know what would persuade them.

Finally, this is not about teenagers. No matter how often you say it, that does not make it true.

This is not about teenagers. Over 70 percent of the people on the minimum wage are adults, many of them with children, 60 percent of them women, a third of them working as their only job and their only income for their family. Those are the facts.

There is one other fact that is certain. There is no one in this Chamber--no one in this Chamber--who puts on a dark suit in the morning and goes to work for a minimum wage. No one in this Chamber understands the requirement to work for a minimum wage at two or three jobs to try to keep your family going. But there are a lot of people in this country who do understand, and they wake up every morning hoping and praying that somehow they will get a fair break and get a fair wage.

Productivity is going up in this country, and we are blessed by that. But the income for workers who have become more productive has lagged way behind. And I wonder why. I guess we know the answer. This country is a better country if we understand that the share of wealth and the share of income in this country ought to go to those who deserve it. And if American workers are much, much, much more productive--and they have been--then they also deserve a fair share of this country's income. That has always been the case.

In the last century, the kinds of things we have done to make this a better place in which to work--safe workplace, child labor, minimum wage, the right to organize, and a range of issues--have strengthened this country and made this a better country.

This legislation that we are considering today is also legislation that will strengthen this country and do the right thing.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have been listening to this debate. I am curious and somewhat disappointed that we have not been able to move to a conclusion. This is, after all, a vote on the minimum wage. It has been nearly 10 long years since the minimum wage has been increased, and my hope is that we have a number of amendments, debate, and be able to move this legislation forward. It now seems obvious to me this is not a priority for some.

In 1916, a man named James Fyler died of lead poisoning. That is a different way of saying he was shot 54 times. He was shot 54 times because he believed people who went underground in this country to mine for coal should be paid a fair wage and work in a safe workplace. He lost his life for that. We fought for a century for the rights of workers in this country--for the right to organize, to work in a safe workplace, for child labor laws--a whole series of things that have made life better for workers. Some are at the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

Some in this Chamber have said those are just teenagers. That is not true. Some teenagers certainly do work at the minimum wage. But well over 70 percent of those working at minimum wage are adults; 60 percent of them are women, and for one-third of them, it is the sole income for their families. Many are working two and three jobs trying to make ends meet. They make the beds in the hotels and motels. They work at the counter of the convenience store when you stop to get gas, or get some candy or something at the convenience store. They are the people we see every day. They are working at the minimum wage that has been the same for 10 long years.

I said this morning that it is puzzling to me how quickly and easily legislation moves through this Chamber when it supports the big interests. If it is a $104 billion benefit to allow big companies to repatriate income they have made abroad by, in many cases, moving their jobs abroad and being able to bring their income back and pay a 5\1/4\ percent income rate--yes, this Congress did that. We said bring that income back and you get to pay a 5\1/4\ percent income tax rate. How many Americans would like to pay 5\1/4\ percent on their income taxes? Nobody gets to do that. Some of the biggest enterprises in this country--names everybody would recognize--were told by this Congress a couple years ago that you can bring all that money back and pay 5\1/4\ percent income taxes. Yes, you moved your jobs overseas and decided to get rid of your American workers, close your American plants, and hire foreign workers; but when you bring your income back, we will tax you at just 5\1/4\ percent.

What a deal, bargain basement tax rates. That went through the Congress like greased lightning. Do you think anybody was blocking that? Well, Fritz Hollings, who used to sit back here, was trying to, and I was. The fact is it moved through here as quick as anything you have ever seen because it represented the big interests. Now all of a sudden people who work at the minimum wage have their issue on the floor of the Senate. Is the hallway clogged with people demanding a vote on the minimum wage out there? Is anybody in the hallway in the front of this building representing people who work on the minimum wage? No, I am afraid not. Is this Congress moving as quickly on behalf of the little guy as it is for the big guy? I am afraid that is not the case.

I mentioned this morning the lyrics in Bob Wills' and the Texas Playboys' song some 70 years ago. It plays out all the time, yes, here in the Chamber of the Senate: ``The little guy picks the cotton and the big guy gets the money; the little bee sucks the blossom and the big bee gets the honey.''

One wonders whether on this issue, as simple as it is, if maybe we can get to a vote, for Members of the Senate to stand up and answer the question: Whose side are you on? Maybe we can get enough to stand up to say I am on the side of the people who are working for a living, working hard, working two and three jobs at minimum wage, without an adjustment to that minimum wage in nearly 10 years, during which time the value of the purchasing power of that minimum wage has dramatically eroded. One wonders whether we can get a majority of the Senate, or 60 Senators, to stand up and say let's do this. It could not be done that way, so it was brought to the floor with tax breaks for business.

Look, I am a big supporter of big business. They represent an engine of opportunity for this country and create jobs. I support businesses. Almost all of the things in this bill, such as expensing--I have been involved, as have other colleagues, in trying to provide more expensing opportunities for businesses. I have voted for that many times, and will again. But it doesn't belong on this bill. As a price, apparently, for bringing this bill to the floor, it has to have tax breaks for businesses. Even with that, we cannot get it passed; even with that, we are sitting here day after day waiting to see whether the Senate will decide to increase the minimum wage for those

folks working at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Well, Mr. President, it is an interesting thing to watch--this process of legislating. Everybody talks about watching sausage being made and watching legislative processes in work, and I understand it is difficult, not easy. I understand these issues are, in many cases, controversial. But this ought to be the first baby step in the direction of fairness for these workers. We, after all, live in a time now of what is called the ``global economy,'' where there is downward pressure on income for American workers.

Former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Blinder said, with respect to the pressure on American workers, that there are 42 million to 56 million American jobs that are tradeable and, therefore, outsourceable. We have lost 3 million jobs to overseas factories, where you can hire somebody for 33 cents an hour, and he said there are 42 million to 56 million more. This is not somebody who is radical. This is a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He said not all of those jobs will leave our country, but those that remain will have downward pressure on income because they are competing with people in China, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, who work for 30 cents or 40 cents an hour.

There are 250 million workers who are kids age 5 to 14. Our workers are told to compete with that. You cannot. There is downward pressure on income of people in this country.

This bill deals with one part of that--the workers at the bottom of the economic ladder, those who get up in the morning and are trying to get their kids ready for school, and trying to figure out how to put gas in the tank of the car to drive to work; and they work 8 hours and they earn a little over $40. I said this morning, what about a maximum wage? We have trouble getting a minimum wage through the Congress. George Will, that columnist who writes in the Washington Post, says the minimum wage ought to be zero. Of course, it never would affect him, so it is easy for him to write that it ought to be zero. He would like to take us back, I assume, just as we had great debate when the Fair Labor Standards Act was created and people said that is socialism, but it was standing up for workers, requiring employers to keep track of hours of work, overtime, and provide basic protections for workers. So some people think the minimum wage ought to be zero.

Well, what about a maximum wage? I am not suggesting there ought to be a maximum wage, but has anybody come to the floor to express outrage when you read that the CEO leaving Exxon Corporation was making $150,000 a day? Yes, that is right--a wage or income of a CEO of a corporation was $150,000 a day. Think of that. Did anybody come and complain about that? No, we just have columnists and colleagues complaining about somebody who might earn a few bucks an hour. Sixty percent of them are women, as I said, with children; 6 million children live in families supported by the minimum wage. So the question, I guess, that I ask at the moment is not whether we support small business--I certainly do, and I will in the rest of this Congress support the kinds of things that will be helpful to small businesses, which are engines of growth and opportunity. That is not the question. The question is, are we going to increase the minimum wage at this point? It appears there is this unbelievable snail's pace in the Senate. Glaciers move faster than this Chamber sometimes. Nobody ever accused the Senate of speeding, but this is something quite different. I am hoping that very soon--I know the folks who have been managing this bill join this hope--we can decide we have had enough amendments about things that have nothing to do with anything about the workers at the bottom of the ladder. And maybe we can get a vote to say as a Chamber, as the House has done without extraneous matters attached to it, that we stand for workers who have been working at the bottom of the economic ladder and have not had an adjustment in 10 years; that we stand for them and believe it is important to have this adjustment. We believe it will be good for our country. I hope that happens sooner rather than later.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to express my appreciation for my colleagues' efforts to do what, in their view, would help promote a better quality of life for the people of this great country. We are here to debate specifically a proposal to increase the minimum wage, but, in my view, we should aspire to more than a minimum wage for the workers across this country. Instead, we should work to provide the training and educational opportunities that will allow individuals across this great Nation to enter the workforce at perhaps minimum wage but, more importantly, to then move up the economic ladder.

When we put ourselves in the position of Government rather than the market dictating wages, we will most certainly see some unintended effects of less opportunity for some of the very American workers whom we are attempting to help.

Let's put this proposal in perspective. Research reveals that the negative effects of raising the minimum wage would, in fact, fall most heavily on the shoulders of the most vulnerable workers. Let me say that again. Research shows that the effects of raising the minimum wage--that is, of the Federal Government rather than the market dictating the wages at which employers must pay workers--that the burden would actually fall most heavily on the most vulnerable workers.

When employers are forced to raise their costs in order to comply with a government mandate, they are most likely going to reduce the hours their workers can work or perhaps even lay

people off in order to meet their bottom line. Of course, they will also choose, if costs go up because government has increased the wages which an employer must pay, to retain their most skilled and experienced and productive employees, not the less skilled or lower wage earners. That is important because teenagers and those who are working on a part-time basis or who are just entering the workforce are the ones who predominantly receive the minimum wage under the status quo.

So why in the world would government decide to put people out of work, presumably the very people whom this amendment is designed to help? We need to ask ourselves that question and come up with a better answer than I have heard so far.

I saw a cartoon, which was really not funny, distributed a couple of days ago where an employer is talking to an employee. He says: I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the minimum wage has been increased, so you are going to get a pay raise. The bad news is you are fired.

The point of the cartoon is--as I said, it is really not funny--that if fixed costs of employers go up, something has to give. And where that give actually impacts the workers is going to be, I am afraid, on the most vulnerable workers, the less educated, the less trained, and unfortunately, more often, on minorities and women, the very groups the advocates of this bill have said they want to help.

Consider this statistic: Of the 75.6 million Americans who are paid by the hour, 1.9 million workers earn wages at or below the minimum wage. In other words, that is 2.5 percent of all hourly paid workers. So the debate we are having this week--and, presumably, will carry over to next week--will affect 2.5 percent of all hourly paid workers. The largest share of minimum wage earners include teenagers and young adults who have only entered the workforce. Based on the most recent data available, approximately one-fourth of minimum wage earners are teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19, and about one-half are between the ages of 16 and 24.

Over the past few weeks, in anticipation of this debate, there have been a number of articles in national and State publications addressing this topic. Many of them have been very thoughtful and informative. One article that demonstrates the complexity of this issue, that there is actually more than meets the eye on this topic, was published by the Valley Morning Star in Brownsville, TX, a story about Belinda Campirano. Ms. Campirano, along with her sister, is an owner of Media Luna, a small restaurant in Brownsville, TX. Ms. Campirano has only one employee, whom she pays $6 an hour. And while she understands, from the standpoint of simple human compassion, the difficulty of getting by on $5.15 an hour, she also realizes that a government-mandated wage increase would put a significant dent into her operating budget, literally in her ability to keep the doors open and keep this individual, her single employee, on the payroll.

There was also another great series of articles in the Washington Post, one on January 10 entitled ``Life at $7.25 an Hour, As House Prepares to Vote on Minimum Wage Increase, Issue is Complex for Those Who Earn or Pay That Amount.'' That article does an excellent job of cutting through the rhetoric and exposing the reality of what it is we are debating.

I ask unanimous consent that both articles be printed in the Record following my remarks.

I appreciate the numerous ways in which many of our colleagues have worked to improve this bill; significantly, the bipartisan work of the Finance Committee, Senators Grassley and Baucus, certainly the good work of the minority manager of the bill, Senator Enzi, and numerous others to try to improve it, to try to ameliorate some of the unintended consequences of government-mandated wages. I support the small business package which is part of what we are attempting to do to provide a better bill, one that rounds out the provisions of the bill and one that actually produces intended effects, which are not to hurt small businesses, the primary engine of our economy.

The fact is, small businesses employ about 70 percent of the workers in America today. Why would this body do anything that would actually put more people out of work? Well, the provisions of the legislation that came out of the Finance Committee, as modest as they are, represent a real attempt to try to round out and improve the bill in order to reduce the unintended impact, which would be to put people out of work, and to provide some regulatory and tax relief for small businesses, the employers that employ 70 percent of the people in the American workforce.

Small business expensing allows mom-and-pop shops and entrepreneurs to reinvest in their businesses and grow and, in so growing, hire more people and create jobs, not just in my State of Texas but across the country. It will help locally owned businesses and other small enterprises make much needed improvements in their infrastructure, which will help them compete and improve their productivity. I have concerns, however, that while the minimum wage increase in this legislation is permanent, the regulatory and tax relief that is part of the package is only temporary and not permanent as well. Nevertheless, these fixes are necessary.

But don't take it from me. Take it from people like Jonathan Meller who e-mailed me recently. Mr. Meller is the owner of Papa Murphy's pizza restaurant in Burleson, TX. He talked about the economics of a wage increase and what it would mean for his small business. Like a majority of employees slated to earn the minimum wage, Mr. Meller's employees are, true to the statistic I mentioned a moment ago, under 20 years of age. Like many business owners, Mr. Meller operates in a free market. He believes in free enterprise. He believes in competition. Frankly, he doesn't appreciate the fact that government sticks its big finger right in the middle of his business and mandates that he pay wages that are above the market. Any government-mandated wage hike will have a dramatic impact on how he is able to do business and on the number of employees he is able to hire.

Then there is William Goodman, the owner of Scooters in El Paso. Mr. Goodman has only one employee. If the minimum wage is raised, where does that leave him? Mr. Goodman says he will have no employees, if the government, rather than the market, forces him to increase the wages he pays his one employee. He says--and I take him as his word--he will not be able to absorb the additional cost that would go along with this legislation.

My point is this: Raising the minimum wage and the taxes that come with it will similarly leave many employees without jobs. We need to think long and hard before we choose to impose this sort of regulation on small businesses. In the end, my hope is that we can come together with a sensible package that will enjoy bipartisan support; that will, according to the intentions of the authors, increase the minimum wage but also soften the blow on small business and thus protect the jobs of many workers who might otherwise be laid off.

The important point, though, that this legislation misses is that the best way to increase the quality of life for workers in America is not just to raise the minimum wage. That puts a patch or a Band-Aid on what is a much more serious and larger problem. Education and workforce training are the best ways to increase the quality of life for America's workers instead of a wage increase that could hurt small businesses and consumers and, indeed, some of the very employees we are trying to help.

We all understand--it is a given--that every American should receive a good-quality education. We must continue to pursue policies to ensure that this is not merely a dream but a reality. No one, though, should end their education just when they receive a diploma or degree. Indeed, the world has become so complex, competition has become so globalized, that we need to think of education as a lifelong learning experience. In that vein, I emphasize the importance of providing workers with the kinds of skills and talent and training they need, not only to earn the minimum wage but to earn

good living wages much higher than the minimum wage and the important role our universities, community colleges, trade schools, and workforce development centers play in providing the training and education necessary for thousands and thousands of people across this great country to improve their standard of living and to achieve their dreams.

I strongly believe that joint workforce-education projects are critical to our efforts as our economy continues its upswing and as competition increases on a global scale. It is imperative that we focus our efforts not only on setting a wage that may be out of sync with market forces but literally on liberating people to achieve their dreams by giving them the skills necessary to earn higher wages which will allow them to enjoy the American dream. It is imperative that we do everything we can to provide this training through our colleges and universities, working with the private sector to try to develop programs relevant to the local economy and, hence, jobs that are available in the local economy, and thus increase our competitiveness.

This is not just a temporary or passing interest of mine. I have traveled across my State, as have many of my colleagues, to community colleges and have seen some of the effective partnerships that community colleges have entered into with local employers. Frankly, employers are wanting for lack of trained employees to fill job vacancies at much higher than the minimum wage. One stands out in my mind--a young woman I met at the Bell Helicopter plant in Amarillo, TX, by the name of Jeanette Hudson Gibbs. The reason I remember Ms. Gibbs is because she works on the assembly line for the V-22 tilt rotor at Bell Helicopter at their Amarillo plant. This is a young Hispanic woman, a single mother with a special needs child, who, before she went to work at Bell Helicopter on the assembly line for the V-22 tilt rotor, was a prison guard, a single mom. You can imagine the concerns her family had, not just about the fact that she was earning much lower wages but, in fact, the dangers associated with that job. Thanks to the great partnership Bell Helicopter had entered into with Amarillo Community College, Ms. Gibbs is now earning $16 an hour, and that was the last time I heard from her. It could be she is even doing better now because of the job skills she acquired through this partnership between Bell Helicopter and Amarillo Community College. This is a great success story of which I am proud. I know she must be proud of her accomplishments. And it is exactly the sort of emphasis we ought to be placing through legislation we pass on the floor.

I worry that by looking at mandating minimum wages rather than focusing on workforce development and the kind of job training that is going to be able to produce more people like her, somehow we have not set our sights high enough.

Last April, I hosted an event back in my home of Austin, TX. It is something we call the Texas Workforce Summit. This was a gathering of community college leaders from all across the State. The purpose of that was to learn more about Federal grant opportunities and to learn more about the successes of partnerships such as the one I just mentioned between Amarillo Community College and Bell Helicopter. Because of this initiative, Del Mar College in Corpus Christi applied for and received a grant of nearly $2 million to improve employment opportunities for technical employees in the aerospace industry. This is an even better story because Del Mar College has the same kind of workforce training partnership that I described a moment ago in Amarillo but this time in Corpus Christi. This is a workforce development program which Del Mar has entered into at the Corpus Christi Depot. The Corpus Christi Depot, for those who don't know, is the place where the military refurbishes and refits the military helicopters that are damaged through use in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have a wonderful training program there through the same kind of partnership I mentioned a moment ago, which is creating a better way of life and a better opportunity for many workers there--and also, in a patriotic fashion, supporting our effort in the global war on terror.

As you can tell, I have been a long advocate of these initiatives. I have taken the opportunity to visit these community colleges all across my State, in cities such as Austin, Houston, Pasadena, Laredo, Beaumont, Sherman, El Paso, Lubbock, and Victoria, to highlight the very thing I am talking about here on the floor of the Senate today. So I hope that as we move forward, we will not forget about the great promises community colleges hold in terms of workforce training and look to maybe setting our sights a little bit higher than we have been last week and this week in talking about minimum wage, when we ought to talk about how we can prepare people to earn much higher wages and, frankly, wages and jobs that go wanting for lack of a trained workforce.

Just this last week, the National Journal highlighted community colleges as a true American success story. They have offered occupational skills training for decades and will continue to lead the effort to stimulate industry and job growth. This article says:

Bridging the gaps between high schools and four-year

institutions and between employers and workers, two-year

community colleges will help determine how America fares in

the global economic competition.

So I say it again, Mr. President: We should aspire to much more for the workforce in America, for the American worker, than just the minimum wage. Education and workforce training are the way forward to both increase the quality of life for more workers and provide a way for them to achieve their dreams.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

Raising Questions

many employers unsure about possible rise in minimum wage

(By Matt Whittaker)

Brownsville.--Restaurant owner Belinda Campirano is torn

when asked to weigh in on what Congress should do about

raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour from $5.15, where

it has been for a decade.

She has only one $6-an-hour employee at Media Luna, the

Brownsville eatery I she and her sister own. Still, a

mandated wage increase would put a dent in her budget, she

said.

But she empathizes with those supporting their families on

service industry wages. Her employee, who has a child and is

married to a waitress, sometimes works an extra job at

another restaurant to help make ends meet.

``I'm kind of sitting on the fence on it,'' Campirano said

of the minimum wage. ``I do believe we need to up it, but it

is going to impact small businesses. As an employer, it would

be tough for me if I had more employees.''

Of 5.5 million hourly workers in Texas, 176,000 earned at

or below $5.15 an hour in 2005, according to Labor Department

data. The liberal Economic Policy Institute, a Washington,

D.C., think tank in favor of increasing the nation's base

pay, estimates 863,000 Texas workers would be directly

affected by a federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 an hour.

More workers would be affected in the Rio Grande Valley

than in other parts of the country because the area has lower

wages, said Jose A. Pagan, a labor economist at the

University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg. In the second

quarter of 2006, Cameron County had the lowest average weekly

wages in the nation, at $484. Hidalgo County followed at $494

a week.

On Jan. 10, the U.S. House passed a measure that would

increase the minimum wage to $7.25 in three stages over more

than two years. Passage of a companion bill introduced in the

Senate could hinge on tax breaks for businesses.

The bill is expected to be brought up in the Senate this

week, and U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn,

both Texas Republicans, support an increase if it is coupled

with tax help for small businesses.

Proponents of the increase say it is a long overdue raise

for U.S. workers. A memorandum from the Economic Policy

Institute said business owners have received tax cuts since

1997 (when the last minimum wage increase took effect),

``while minimum wage workers have been kept waiting at the

back of the line.''

Opponents of a minimum wage increase say it would hurt

small businesses and the working poor alike and increase

unemployment.

``It's a bad thing for any area,'' said Jill Jenkins, chief

economist at the conservative Employment Policies Institute,

a Washington, D.C., think tank that opposes a minimum wage

increase.