Floor Statements

Madam President, on our side we have 40 minutes, with the first 15 minutes yielded to the Senator from Connecticut and the second 15 minutes to the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords. My counterpart is in the Chamber and wishes to speak. The Republicans have the first division of time this morning. Thank you for yielding.

No objection. That would be yielded on both sides.

Madam President, I would say I agree with my friend that the situation in Iraq is not a Vietnam. But it is Iraq. I would hope the comparisons made to Korea and Japan and Germany do not apply. We, of course, in Korea lost 55,000 troops there who died, with hundreds of thousands wounded and in Japan and Germany there were over half a million dead.

I agree with my friend from Kentucky that we have to do what we can to come out of the situation we have in Iraq. We certainly are there. We have to give our troops everything they need. They are under tremendous pressure. The situation there in the past week has been very difficult. We have to, as a Congress, do everything we can to let them know we support everything they are doing, and to make sure they have all the equipment and supplies they need to do the very best they are trained to do.

Madam President, we have worked very hard on this side of the aisle to pass S. 1637, which is the bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code to comply with World Trade Organization rulings, the so- called FSC bill. I want everyone to understand on our side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle that Senator Daschle made to the majority leader, last night, I think, a proposal that should have been accepted last night; that is, from the 75 amendments that have been proposed on our side, that has been reduced to approximately 20 amendments, with very short time agreements on the 20, nothing more than 30 minutes, and one amendment is for as little as 5 minutes.

I also suggest that if we look at what has happened with this piece of legislation, there has been nothing on our side that has been dilatory. We have wanted to move forward on this bill, but in the entire time we have worked on this bill we have voted once. If you go back to years past, when a tax bill comes before the Senate, it is not unusual to have more than 100 amendments offered and disposed of here in the Senate.

I think the good-faith offer made by the Democratic leader to the Republican leader is something that should be accepted. This is a proposal that would be good for the country, and it is in keeping with what we have tried to do on this piece of legislation--let the Senate act in accordance with the traditions of the Senate. It is a far cry from what we should have been doing this past 2 weeks. We could have worked our way through all of these amendments, but that has not been done.

I would suggest it would be in the best interests of the country that the offer made by the Democratic leader to the Republican leader be accepted at the earliest possible date.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Akaka), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) are necessarily absent.

I ask if the Senator would yield for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that during the debate time, with respect to the cloture motions today, that Senator Byrd be allowed up to 40 minutes of the Democratic time for the purpose of speaking as in morning business and that Senator Dayton be allowed 10 minutes. Each side has an hour so this is our time.

Mr. President, I agree with the chairman of the committee. The committee has done a tremendously important job on this bill. It is something we need to do.

As indicated, this patient safety bill--I should say as indicated by the chairman--is something that is so vitally important. There are news articles about the fact of patients not being treated properly. One of the reasons is simply we don't have information from various institutions as to what has happened.

To make a long story short, we have a bill before us. There is an amendment. We have had a couple of Members on our side who want to simply look at the amendment. I am confident this is something that can be done in the near future. I look forward to working with the chairman and the other members of the committee to make sure we can move this as quickly as possible. Therefore, I object.

I will meet sometime or visit with the ranking member, Senator Kennedy, later today and try to get a timeframe. I think we can do this fairly quickly.

If the Senator will yield for a unanimous consent request, we have 10 minutes left on our side on the debate on the cloture motion. I yield that final 10 minutes to the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin.

We are just giving our final 10 minutes to the Senator from Illinois. Forty minutes to Senator Byrd, 10 to Mr. Dayton, and now we are giving 10 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman), and the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) are necessarily absent.

I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``nay.''

Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate the rifle team from the University of Nevada Reno on its terrific season this past year.

The Wolf Pack finished the regular season undefeated, making it one of only eight squads eligible for the NCAA Rifle Championships in both the air rifle and small bore disciplines. The Wolf Pack finished third and fourth respectively in these two categories and placed second overall in the two-day competition.

Developing excellence in marksmanship requires countless hours of practice and tremendous skill. The UNR rifle team's accomplishments reflect a lot of hard work and dedication by the individual members and their coach Fred Harvey. The university and the State can take great pride in their achievements.

Once again, congratulations to the Wolf Pack Rifle Team on a tremendous year, and best wishes for continued success next season.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, you would think----

Mr. President, the situation we have here is just like Las Vegas. This resolution is 333, just by chance. This is the third year in a row the women have won the national championship. Those two teams have been so lucky, maybe they should spend a little time in Las Vegas.

Mr. President, first, I very much appreciate the Senate coming in when it is. We have a very important meeting at 9 o'clock with Secretary Rumsfeld. I appreciate that. I say that on behalf of the entire Senate.

Senator Stabenow wishes to speak for 20 minutes tonight, just so everyone understands. I do not know how long the Senator from North Carolina is going to speak.

Mr. President, does the Senator from Michigan mind if the Senator from North Carolina goes ahead of her?

I object.

I object.

Mr. President, for 38 months, the Bush administration has had job loss. We join in the celebration that we have had jobs created, and the President during the next 7 months until the election will have to create another 2.5 million jobs to not be known as the only President since Herbert Hoover who created no private sector jobs. So he has 2.5 million more jobs to go, and we hope that he beats Herbert Hoover's record.

Let me also say, the numbers that came out today indicate the unemployment rate went up this month. It was not stable. It went up. It went up from 5.6 percent to 5.7 percent. This number is not an irrelevant number.

I will also say that when Senator Kerry spoke, of course, he was dealing with what took place in the Clinton years. When President Clinton took office from President Bush 1, the unemployment rate was 7.4 percent. During President Clinton's administration, as a result of the very difficult deficit reduction vote that took place in 1993 where not a single Republican voted in the House or the Senate for the deficit reduction plan, the deficits disappeared and unemployment dropped downward significantly, from 7.4 percent to 4 percent. That is where we were when this man, the President of the United States George Bush, took office. Senator Kerry was talking about how good things were when it was 5.4 percent because it had dropped 2 percent from Bush 1 to Clinton 1.

The number of people unemployed in America today--5.7 percent--is not irrelevant. It is not irrelevant to the millions of Americans who are out of work. So many are out of work. The unemployment rolls are around 9 million or 10 million, but there are millions no longer listed on the unemployment rolls because they are taken off after they are unemployed for such a long period of time. The average time a person is unemployed in America today is almost 1 year. I do not think we should be doing high-fives out here.

I join with my friend, the senior Senator from Kentucky, in talking about it is good we have had for the first time in a long time a significant rise in the number of employed. But we have to go forward because during this President's term of office, we will have to gain about 2.5 million more jobs for him not to be considered a President in the same category as Herbert Hoover.

Speaking of ignoring past claims, the administration, as we know, claimed there would be millions of jobs created with these tax cuts, and we have lost jobs. Let me also say this: Of course, there are more jobs now than there were because we have millions more people in this country today. That is the reason.

As happy as we are with the creation of new jobs last month, let's understand we have a long way to go. We have gas prices that are high. Nevada has the second highest gas prices in America. We have to focus on the fact that we had nine Americans killed in Iraq yesterday. We have to focus on the fact that the number of dead in Iraq is now over 600. We have to focus on the fact now that casualties in Iraq are more than 3,500, with people missing arms, legs, and being paralyzed.

So we still have lots of problems. I have no doubt, and I join with my friend from Kentucky, about the greatness of America. We believe in the greatness of America, but as legislators we also believe we have an obligation to make our country even greater. That is why we think it is wrong that 8 million Americans are not going to be able to have overtime under the Bush rule that has been promulgated. We also think it is wrong that people who are on minimum wage are not going to get an increase as other people in America are getting. We think that is important. We also believe those people who are going off the unemployment rolls every week deserve extended unemployment benefits, as was done during the Reagan administration and during the first Bush administration.

So there is a lot of work we have to do. I hope next month we can again be talking about the increased jobs. Certainly it is something we should be happy about.

No objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Corzine for 10 minutes following that.

Mr. President, is this the unanimous consent agreement you are going to offer?

If the Senator will yield for a brief comment, every Thursday morning Senator Ensign and I hold a breakfast for Nevada constituents. Today we had a very large crowd. Probably there were 60 people there, plus our staffs. I opened it by calling on a doctor who just returned from the USS Boxer, from sea, introduced our Cherry Blossom Princess, and then I asked this gentleman to come up. I said: John, you remember this thing we talked about--and gave him this certificate.

The man's name was a mixture between a Hungarian and a Hawaiian name--real long. And John stumbled through that reading, but what a hero he was. You can tell John was so flustered. When he stopped for a second I said, ``April Fools'.''

I have to say, it was probably the greatest April Fools' joke I have ever been involved in.

Senator Daschle just came on the floor. He, Senator Frist, just offered what we would accomplish today. It was just an April Fools' joke, even though he meant it sincerely.