Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Hollings), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg) are necessarily absent.

I further announce that if present and voting, the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg) would vote ``yea.''

That is without any intervening action.

Mr. President, as happens around here a lot of the time, the real

substance of what we do does not appear out here. What we have done is extremely important. We should be able to finish this bill tomorrow.

This morning on our side, Mr. President, we have people who wish to speak. Senator Akaka is in the Chamber at this time. We would ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes, Senator Jeffords for up to 15 minutes, Senator Wyden for 15 minutes, and Senator Corzine for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, we discussed at some length our desires to have the few amendments that we have debated and voted on. It would take just a short period of time. There is no need to go into that again. We feel it would be appropriate to do that. This bill could have been completed yesterday had we spent yesterday on these amendments that we talked about.

Of course it goes without saying that I am very confident that cloture will not be invoked unless there is an opportunity to vote on the unemployment matter. Even if that is disposed of, there is no guarantee cloture will be invoked.

I have said on two separate occasions yesterday and I say today, with our managers on the bill here, how hard they have worked. Certainly, what has happened on this bill or has not happened does not reflect in any way adversely on the good work they have done. They have done an excellent job.

With all due respect to the distinguished majority leader--and I know the burdens of his office are significant--I really believe the Senate should be treated as the Senate, as we have done for all these many years. I think it would be much better if we work that way. We are not the House of Representatives. We do not have to have a rule from a rules committee to tell us what is going to happen on the floor.

We have had hundreds of amendments on bills we wind up finishing. We don't have hundreds of amendments here, even though we started out on our side with 75 and we have been able to dispose of some. We have a couple of amendments that will be relevant and debatable postcloture. We know that. Those are the Hollings amendment and the Landrieu amendment, and there may be some others we can work in there. But I just think to avoid some contentious issues we are causing the Senate a lot of undue problems. As I said here last night, this legislation is going to pass; it is only a question of when. This is ``must do'' legislation. It has to pass before we leave here this year.

I, again, recognize the problems the majority leader has. All his problems are not on our side, I say with some degree of understanding. He has problems on his side. This bill is certainly an example of that.

So we will do whatever we have to do to meet the demands of our slight minority here. As you know, the Senate is almost equally divided. That is one reason everything we do here is made more difficult. It is 51-49 on every issue that comes up. We are all looking for a little advantage.

I think unemployment compensation, where we have more than a million people who would receive this money immediately, certainly makes our case strong.

While the distinguished manager of the bill is on the Senate floor, I direct a question to him through the Presiding Officer.

Hearing the statement of the Senator from Montana, I wonder, would the Senator vote to bring debate to a close if we do not have a vote on the unemployment compensation matter, the Cantwell amendment?

I accept that answer.

Mr. President, I express something I know sounds like heresy: One thing we could do is work more days. I came here many years ago. The distinguished manager of the bill has worked in the House of Representatives, as I. I still use the House gym. I say to everyone, I own the gym. They are never there. They are there Wednesday and Thursday morning. That is about it. And late Tuesday night. They left yesterday afternoon. They were out at 2. When we worked there, we worked Mondays, Fridays, all night.

I say to my friend, the distinguished majority leader, I know people are campaigning. When we were in the majority, we got tremendous pressure from Members wanting to leave and catch airplanes, but maybe we could try working a little bit longer around here and get judges confirmed and other things that need to be done. I know it is heretical asking for longer hours, but that is something we should consider.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I am not much for giving advice to the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, but here is some advice I would like to give you.

In the morning, when you get up, just as I do--I grab the newspaper, but I go immediately to the sports page. That way, there is good news. I feel pretty good then. And then I work my way to the front page. I would suggest you do that because there is always good news on the sports page.

I go right to the front page of section C. Usually all of it is the sports.

Reserving the right to object, at this time I am not able to make a statement; so, I will make a statement when our time comes. I object.

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

Madam President, how much time is left on the majority side in morning business?

Will the Chair notify me when that time has expired?

Madam President, is the time for the Democrats to begin now?

Madam President, when time comes for the Democrats, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kohl be recognized for 5 minutes, Senator Feingold be recognized for 8 minutes, Senator Kennedy for 5 minutes, Senator Leahy for 5 minutes, and Senator Corzine for 5 minutes. I further ask that the time remaining on this side, which I understand would be 17 minutes--is that right?

I will yield myself such time as I may consume. If I get up to 15 minutes, I would ask the Chair to advise me.

I thank the Chair.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Democrats' time be allocated as I have indicated.

Madam President, I want everyone to listen. I know the best defense is good offense. That was learned long before I used those words. But that is what we have going on here today. We now have and have worked all week on a bill that is extremely important to this country. We refer to it as FSC. It is a tax bill that deals with corporate America.

As we speak, corporate America is being assessed penalties as a result of trade sanctions that have been placed on them by the World Trade Organization. We are trying to work our way out of that, and we are very close to being able to pass a bill. But the majority, as they do all the time, will not let us finish the bill.

Do you know what is holding up the FSC bill? Because the slow walk started last night. Four amendments. Four amendments: One by Senator Feingold, which basically says we should buy American products. He wants 5 minutes. Senator Cantwell wants to extend unemployment benefits, 30 minutes; Senator Frank Lautenberg wants corporations that have foreign subsidiaries not to do business with terrorist countries. It does not sound too outlandish to me. Senator Corzine wants to impose 301 actions, which basically is called super 301, which simply says the President has to enforce our trade laws.

Those are the four amendments, taking a total of an hour and 35 minutes, the majority will not let us go forward with on this bill. That is it, an hour and 35 minutes. Tough votes by some. I don't know why it would be hard to vote ``buy America'' or extend unemployment benefits or say foreign subsidiaries should not do business with terrorist organizations or countries, and enforce our trade laws. That is what they are.

But now we will hear the speeches: The Democrats are not allowing us to go forward with this most important--

they call it the JOBS bill; I will call it the JOBS bill. It is a way of kind of diverting our attention away from the real jobs problem, but it is a jobs bill. I acknowledge that. But that is what we are faced with here.

The same good defense is being used offensively here because my dear friend, the Senator from Missouri, has come to the floor and said: The Democrats won't let us do our highway bill.

I have here--and I am not going to bring out all three charts, but they are here--oh, I am sorry, we couldn't get them on three--there are four charts of the 390-plus organizations that are saying: We agree with the Democrats. We should not go to conference. They want $318 billion in funding.

Now, why don't the Democrats want to vote on this? Are we being partisan? Maybe we have memories. Maybe we can reflect back on what happened to the Energy bill. We went to conference with the Energy bill. We not only were not allowed to go to the conference, we did not know where the conference meetings were held.

Medicare. We also remember that. We at least knew where the meetings were held because the Republicans told us: You can have two people. We asked others to come to the meeting. They closed the meetings. That is not what a conference is all about.

Yes, we do have memories. And through all this: Oh, they won't let us do a highway bill. They are filibustering.

If a conference were appointed 5 minutes from now, what would happen is what we want to happen. If a conference were appointed 5 minutes from now, we would have the staffs of the Senate--majority and minority--meet to decide what actually should be done. It would be easy because it is a bipartisan bill. Then we would go over and meet with our counterparts in the House, and the staffs would meet.

This is a big bill. It would take weeks, at least 2 solid weeks, with 20-hour-a-day, 6-day weeks, to get us to that point. They will not let us do that. The majority will not allow the staffs to meet on this bill. For people to say the only way to do a bill is to have this conference is foolishness--foolishness. We have passed lots of bills, in fact, scores of bills without going to conference. We have something we call a preconference, and it is just as I described would happen following the appointment of conferees.

So we understand, if we were working with an administration like this that is so unreasonable, so impossible to deal with, and I were in the majority, and I had a President like they were dealing with, I would probably come out and do the same thing. It is all they can do. They are desperate. But we have the necessity of coming up with legislation that is truly legislation that is good for the country, not necessarily good for the President's reelection.

Madam President, I want to read the first two paragraphs of an editorial that appeared in the New York Times today, written by Thomas Friedman.

We are in danger of losing something much more important

than just the war in Iraq. We are in danger of losing America

as an instrument of moral authority and inspiration in the

world. I have never known a time in my life when America and

its president were more hated around the world than today. I

was just in Japan, and even young Japanese dislike us. It's

no wonder that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale

of the sitcom ``Friends'' right now. They're the only friends

we have, and even they're leaving.

This administration needs to undertake a total overhaul of

its Iraq policy; otherwise, it is courting a total disaster

for us all.

I have been married for more than four decades, and there have been a lot of things that I think have made our marriage a success. I married a girl I met in high school. The main thing that has been good for our marriage is the ability for both of us to say ``I'm sorry.''

Relations in other aspects of our lives are based on the same principles of relationship that couples have. For example, the foundations of nations, of countries are formed by relationships between people.

When I got home last night, my wife said words to me to the effect: I watched all the news today. Why couldn't the President say he was sorry?

I had no answer for that. I flipped on the television set. The first two people I saw on TV interviewing others asked the same question: Why couldn't the President say he was sorry. Why couldn't the President say he was sorry, not only for himself but for all Americans? This is expected in America.

I guess he couldn't say he was sorry for the same reason that in his last press conference he couldn't say he had made a mistake. I add this to the list of mistakes that are paramount, No. 1, when he claimed on the aircraft carrier, with his flight suit that he borrowed from somebody, that major combat was over, and had the banner ``mission accomplished.'' The mission was not accomplished. He should have acknowledged that as a mistake. Then just a few days later, when someone said there are problems going on in Iraq, he said: ``Bring it on.'' Well, we have almost 800 dead men and women. I think that was a mistake.

It was a mistake yesterday when he had the time and the ability to say he was sorry. I don't have the position and power of the President of the United States; I know that. But I have the ability to say that all America is sorry for what went on in the prisoner of war camps in Iraq. What went on in those prison camps does not represent America or its valiant military men and women.

We have so many reasons to be proud of what our Armed Forces have done for this country, not just over the last couple of years but since our founding. We are reminded of that heroic service as we look out on The Mall. We are going to dedicate in a couple of weeks a memorial to the 16 million men and women who served in World War II. On Memorial Day, during that dedication, we will not only remember the 16 million who served but the nearly 800 who have lost their lives in Iraq.

One of the hallmarks of our military in this great democracy is that our military is controlled not by soldiers, sailors, and airmen, but by civilians. We maintain this critical feature of our system with checks and balances by having a Commander in Chief who is a civilian. The Secretary of Defense and his deputies are civilians, so these remarks are directed to the civilian leadership of our military.

Harry Truman was a war President. He had a sign on his desk that said, ``The buck stops here.'' He knew that in any administration there would be mistakes, and he accepted responsibility for mistakes that occurred on his watch.

President Truman knew it was important to admit mistakes and take responsibility so the mistakes would not be repeated. He knew if we didn't admit mistakes, we couldn't learn from them.

The current administration has made some mistakes, and I have outlined some of them. We know in the first gulf war 90 percent of the war costs were paid for by other countries, and our allies provided about 200,000 troops. But in this war we are bearing 90 percent of the cost and taking 90 percent of the casualties. They said Iraqi oil revenues would pay to rebuild the country, but we keep appropriating more money and are being asked to come up with $25 billion more.

Vice President Cheney predicted that our soldiers would be greeted as heroes, bouquets would be thrown. Bombs are being thrown instead. We are now hearing that the administration received warnings about the treatment of prisoners months ago, but those warnings were not taken seriously.

Last week, when Secretary Rumsfeld was in the Capitol in 407, the room where we hear classified information, we weren't told that ``60 Minutes'' that very night would have a story about mistreatment of prisoners, with pictures of naked men, Iraqi prisoners, to humiliate them. Now it has humiliated America. We should have been warned about that. They knew or should have known that they were about to become public and that they would affect the course of events in the ongoing war on terror. After the civilian leadership has claimed for months that it needed no more money, we are now asked for $25 billion.

This is not to cast stones but to cast responsibility. Mistakes always have consequences. In war, the consequences are a matter of life or death. We talk in

the Senate about accountability. We want schoolteachers and public employees to be accountable. But we must look beyond that at why our civilian military should also be held accountable.

Our Founding Fathers believed that the civilian leaders of our military should be held accountable. I share that belief. I hope the President does.

The time has been allocated to my friends. Senator Kohl has 5 minutes; Senator Feingold, 8 minutes; Senator Kennedy, 5 minutes.

I request the time run equally against both sides.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) is necessarily absent.

Reserving the right to object, we would like 10 minutes following the Senator from Idaho as in morning business.

How much time is left under the control of the Senator from Idaho?

I yield our 10 minutes to the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin.

We are not under any controlled time now, are we? Is that right?

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