Floor Statements

Mr. President, I will take 1 last minute to thank Secretary Chao for the work she did on overtime. We had a lot of discussions about the proposed overtime rule that was put out for comment. What you saw on this floor was an action to try to stop reviewing the 80,000 comments that have come in. We allowed her to look at those 80,000 comments. I commend the Secretary for the work she did in paying attention to what people were saying. We don't see much of that in the Government, but the Department of Labor, under Secretary Chao, took a look at what people have been saying and made corrections in the rule before the final rule was published.

She raised the amount to the maximum. We had already raised the amount on the minimum. She made sure that first responders would not lose overtime; that nurses would not lose overtime; and that veterans trained and going into the job force would not lose overtime.

I commend her for reading those 80,000 letters. I commend her and the Department for taking the corrective action. Doing the process makes a difference. She did the process and she made sure they responded.

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Nation's medical litigation crisis. I begin by explaining where we are in this process. It is the right of the majority leader to bring a bill up for debate. On the Senate side, it requires unanimous consent to have that debate. We have been denied unanimous consent to debate the medical litigation solution.

What are the options? We can have a cloture vote. We will have that tomorrow afternoon. The cloture vote requires 60 votes of approval in order to debate the medical litigation crisis solution. On most of the bills we see brought up, the unanimous consent is almost automatic. However, on this particular bill, we are not even able to debate the bill. We can debate it, but it has no effect. There can be no amendments. There can be no votes until the filibuster is broken.

What happens when the filibuster is broken? Technically there can be 30 hours of debate on that particular right to debate before the actual debate begins. Then when we actually do get to the debate, every single amendment can be filibustered and the bill can be filibustered. Supposing we make it past those roadblocks and the House passes the bill and there are differences between the two, there has to be a conference committee. At that point, there can be three more filibusters.

Our Founding Fathers intended for the Senate to be the cooling saucer for legislation. I don't think they intended it to become a stagnant pond. I do think they intended the bills would be debated and conclusions reached, there would be some time taken, but not all time taken.

We have a medical litigation crisis in this country. The system is broken. We need to start working to fix it. I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture on the Gregg-Ensign bill. It is time to stop filibustering and to start working. We should not be having this filibuster on whether to debate. We need to pass the motion to proceed and get into amendments on the bill if amendments are needed.

This is the third time in this Congress we have brought a medical litigation reform bill to the Senate. We need to pass this legislation. We need to pass some legislation that deals with this crisis. Passing this bill would be the best thing we can do to stabilize medical liability premiums in the short term, which will allow us to retain doctors in states like Wyoming, which will allow people to have access to doctors.

I proposed legislation aimed at solving this problem over the long term and I will speak to that later. But right now, we need to vote in favor of ending this filibuster against this bill so we can begin to debate the bill. I am willing to consider any amendments my colleagues in the minority might have, but we cannot consider any of their amendments until they agree to end this filibuster and begin debate on the bill.

I understand some Senators are concerned this bill would limit the ability of an injured patient to get fair compensation. This bill would do no such thing. This bill will not limit the ability of an injured patient to get fair compensation. This bill would permit full and fair compensation to patients for their economic losses. This is an important point for everyone to keep in mind. If a judge and jury were to decide a person suffered an injury due to a doctor's mistake or a hospital's negligence, that person would still be entitled, under this bill, to receive full compensation for their economic loss, including everything from rehabilitation to lost wages resulting from their injury.

I cannot stress this point strongly enough. This bill would not limit awards for economic losses. What the bill would do is place a ceiling on noneconomic damages. The bill would limit the maximum award for noneconomic damages to $250,000 in States that do not have their own limits on such awards. Noneconomic damages are those for pain and suffering.

I want to ask, How much pain and suffering do you have if you cannot even see a doctor? And if you cannot see a doctor, and you die, who do you sue? The trial lawyers? Maybe so. They are a part of the problem. I am not going to try to cover all of the parts of the problem. We are trying to fix one specific part of the problem. This bill will not take care of the whole thing.

But I want to ask you, How much pain and suffering do you have if you cannot even see a doctor? This is not primarily a city problem. You can have the problem in the city, and doctors are leaving cities as well. But in cities it gets glossed over a bit because there are so many doctors. There are so many doctors everybody anticipates they can find a doctor. Well, there are also more people in cities, so there are

more people waiting in lines to see the doctors. There is a limit to how long you want to wait in line to see a doctor, particularly if you are having an emergency.

This bill only covers two categories; one is emergency medical services, and the other is people who deliver babies. So I ask again: how long do you want to wait in the emergency room?

Is this proposal for a limit of $250,000 for noneconomic damages way out of line? I do not know. I do know California passed this limit. California put a limit of $250,000 on noneconomic damages, and it has made a difference. They are one of the few States in the Nation that is not having the problem.

Now, California, viewed by Wyoming folks, where I am from, is considered to be very liberal. So if they did it, this could not be a conservative move. If California can have a $250,000 limit, why shouldn't other places be able to? You may say: Well, States could pass their own. California did. States can. It is a very long procedure for some States. Wyoming has very limited legislative time, and then a lengthy procedure for having votes of the people before it then comes back to the legislature for additional work. So there are limitations in the States.

This can be handled on a national basis. If you hear this bill would limit an injured patient to receiving $250,000 in compensation, though, you can say that is simply false. There is no other way to put it. That contention is false.

This bill would also only apply, as I mentioned, to obstetrical services and emergency medical services. These are two of the areas of medicine where patients are in the most danger of losing their access to these services.

Once more, I ask, how many will be harmed by not getting to see a doctor? What do you do if you are a woman and you cannot see a doctor to deliver your baby? Baby doctors are particularly hard hit because the child can sue when the child reaches age, so the tail on their insurance is extremely long, and that provides additional opportunities to sue, which means additional cost for the insurance.

But we are also talking about the emergency medical services. In an emergency, as Senator Frist, the doctor of the Senate, pointed out, every single moment counts. There is, at most, a ``golden hour'' in emergency treatment. So if you have to spend that golden hour traveling 750 miles--as the Senator from Texas showed on his chart of Texas showing how far some people have to travel for specialized care--it could be too late.

Physicians are being hit with six-figure annual premiums in the medical specialties of obstetrics and trauma care. As a result, they are curtailing their practices, retiring early, or moving to States with better legal environments, because a better legal environment means lower insurance premiums.

In Wyoming, we have one of those bad legal environments. We do not have limits on noneconomic damage awards. We do not have limits, despite evidence that shows reasonable limits on noneconomic damage awards have helped control the rising cost of medical liability insurance premiums in other States.

As a result, people in Wyoming are losing access to affordable health care in their communities. The rising cost of medical liability insurance in my State of Wyoming is forcing doctors to curtail their practices or close them entirely. We have a shortage of doctors in Wyoming as it is, and the cost of medical liability insurance is making a bad problem even worse.

I want my colleagues to know we have a full-fledged medical liability crisis on our hands in this country, and particularly in Wyoming. Just last month, the largest of the three insurers in Wyoming announced they would be leaving the Wyoming market later this year. As a result, 381 doctors and 7 hospitals are going to have to find new insurance coverage. Of the two companies that are left, one of them is not writing new policies for emergency and trauma care physicians. So the few emergency room specialists we have in Wyoming soon will have only one company to choose from for their professional insurance.

These insurance company executives are not dumb people. Just as doctors are moving to States with better legal environments, so are the insurance companies.

As I mentioned, some have left Wyoming. People say, well, yes, there go those rich insurance companies. They are going to move somewhere else where they can make a lot more money. Did you know some of them are going broke? If the profit is all that prolific, why are some going broke?

One of the doctors in Wyoming was doing his calculation about whether to stay in business or not, whether to deliver babies anymore or not. He ran a calculation based on the rise in insurance premium costs he had, despite that he has not been sued at all. He found out $25 of each doctor visit goes to pay the insurance. If you are paying $100 for a doctor visit, $25 of that is going to pay for the insurance. The other $75 is not all profit either. It has to go to pay for the nurses, the supplies, the building--all of those things. But $25 of each visit goes to insurance.

I do not care which insurance companies are writing policies in my State, as long as there are some. But I do care when good doctors leave the State. Wyoming is a big State with a lot of small communities. In fact, people out here in the East cannot even comprehend the small communities we have. If you grew up in a small town, you probably got to know your family doctor pretty well. Doctors are part of the fabric of life in the small towns that dot the map of my State. It is not easy for them to pick up and leave, but that is what is happening. As hard as it is for the doctors to leave, it is even harder on the families they serve--the families who have grown comfortable with the care these doctors provide.

I commend Senators Gregg and Ensign and our majority leader, Dr. Frist, for trying again to pass a sensible short-term solution to this Nation's crisis. They have developed a bill that is focused on providing relief to the doctors who serve mothers and their babies, and the doctors who save lives in our Nation's emergency rooms.

Every day, thousands of patients depend on these doctors when it comes time to bring a new life into the world or to save a life that is already here.

I hope we can all agree to support this short-term solution that will maintain access to the services these doctors provide.

I have noticed something interesting during the debate on the issue of medical liability reform. While we have been debating the pros and cons of reform, no one is standing up to defend our current system of medical litigation. I have yet to hear a rousing defense of our medical litigation system. Even some of the lawyers in this body have agreed that frivolous lawsuits are a problem and that our medical liability system needs reform. Why aren't we hearing anyone defend the merits of our current medical litigation system? It is because it is indefensible. Our system does not work. It does not work for patients, nor does it work for their doctors.

The bill we are debating today is a good bill. It will help us stabilize insurance premiums and preserve access to critical medical services. But even the sponsors would probably admit it is a short-term measure that does not address the fundamental problems with our medical litigation system. This is an important bill, but it is just a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. It is not going to heal our broken system.

It reminds me of the town that lived on the edge of a cliff. The town had a tremendous problem because kids fell off of this cliff, and the fall killed a lot of them. They decided they needed to do something about it. After extensive meetings and committee work, they purchased the finest ambulance that could be found, and they put that ambulance at the base of the cliff. They hired the best EMTs they could get so the person could be loaded on to the ambulance and served while they got to the nearest hospital. Somebody then suggested: Why don't you just put a fence on the cliff. And they said: No, we don't do fences.

That is what we are doing with this medical litigation crisis. We are avoiding putting up the fence for the short-term solution and we are letting people fall off the cliff; then we are trying to provide them with the best possible service we can after they fall. What are we going to do when they use this fine ambulance and these great EMTs and they get to the hospital and there is no emergency room doctor? We need the fence and the emergency room doctors

too. This bill is designed to make sure there is medical liability insurance so the doctors can continue to operate.

We like to say that justice is blind. With respect to our medical litigation system, I would say that justice is absent and nowhere to be found.

Every Member of this body wants to make sure that someone who is truly injured by a medical error gets the compensation they deserve. But a number of studies have shown that many patients who were hurt by negligent actions received no compensation at all for their losses.

I have also seen studies that suggest that those who receive compensation end up with about 40 cents on every dollar in insurance premiums, once the lawyers' fees and their courtroom costs are subtracted. So the victim gets 40 cents on the dollar. Somebody else is getting the other 60 cents. I don't think that sounds fair.

What is more, studies have demonstrated the likelihood of a doctor or hospital being sued, and the result of such a suit, bears little relation to whether the doctor or hospital was at fault.

These facts led the congressionally chartered Institute of Medicine to issue a report in 2002. That report called upon Congress to create demonstration projects to encourage States to evaluate alternatives to current medical tort litigation.

In response, I have introduced a bill that would turn these expert recommendations into action. My bill, the Reliable Medical Justice Act, would authorize funding for States to create alternatives to current tort litigation. The funding would cover the costs of planning and initiating proposals. My bill would require participating States and the Federal Government to work together in evaluating the results of the alternatives as compared to the traditional tort litigation. This way all States and the Federal Government could learn from new approaches. We could see if there is not a way to get people fairly and justly compensated, compensated more quickly, and to actually receive the majority of the money, not just a small pittance.

The bill outlines some model approaches States could employ. For instance, one State might want to evaluate the idea of health care courts where judges with special expertise could hear medical cases. This concept is similar to the special courts we have for taxes, domestic violence, drugs, and other complex and emotional issues. That way we would get some fairness between cases. One person with the same kind of hurt would get compensated the same way, approximately, that somebody else with that same hurt had, not based on who picked the best lawyer or who picked the best injury--with fairness, quickness, and the victim receiving the money.

Another State might want to test an administrative approach. For instance, a State could set up classes of avoidable injuries and a schedule of compensation for them and then establish an administrative board to resolve claims related to those injuries. A scientific process of identifying preventable injuries and setting appropriate compensation for them might offer better results than the randomness of the court system.

Another State might want to provide health care providers and organizations with immunity from lawsuits if they make a timely offer to compensate an injured patient for his or her losses. This could give a health care provider who makes an honest mistake the chance to make amends financially with a patient without the provider fearing that their honesty would land them in a lawsuit.

The point of my bill is there are plenty of ideas for better ways to resolve medical disputes. One of the best ways Congress can help fix the flawed litigation system in the long term is by encouraging States to test alternatives and to learn from them.

As I speak, some States are already looking into alternatives. My State of Wyoming is one of them. Another is Massachusetts, where the Governor is working with Harvard University on an innovative project. Another is Florida, where the Governor's task force recommended projects for which my bill could provide support.

Believe it or not, both Newt Gingrich and the editors of the New York Times have endorsed this idea. If Newt Gingrich and the New York Times can agree on something, maybe we can find enough support for it in this Chamber as well.

I want to remind my colleagues that I support the Gregg-Ensign bill. It will provide some short-term relief for this medical liability crisis. We don't have time just for testing at the moment. We are losing the doctors who provide emergency care and the doctors who deliver babies. In my own State, several of the doctors have quit delivering babies because they can't afford the insurance. Others have had to cut back on the number of babies they deliver to be able to afford the insurance. That means ladies having babies are not able to get doctors with the necessary expertise.

We need short-term relief from the medical liability crisis, and I know many of my colleagues will join me in voting for it. But I know that some will vote against it. Regardless of whether you feel this is the right solution for the short term, let's acknowledge that our medical litigation system is failing us and that we must work together to find a long-term solution.

Medical lawsuits are supposed to compensate people fairly and deter future errors, but most patients don't get fair and timely compensation. There is nothing to show that lawsuits are deterring medical errors or making patients safer.

I urge Members to vote for the Gregg-Ensign bill. I also ask that Members take a serious look at S. 1518. My basic reason for introducing S. 1518 is that most patients don't want to sue their doctors. If their doctor made a mistake, they want an apology. They want to be compensated for their loss. They want the situation to be resolved quickly and fairly. I believe most physicians want the same thing. They want to apologize. They want to make amends financially.

If patients and their doctors want the same thing, what stands in the way? Our legal system, that is what.

Our legal system pits doctors against their patients. Doctors cannot apologize to their patients because admitting a mistake might end a doctor up in court, and probably would. As a result, doctors order more expensive tests and spend less time getting to know their patients-- anything to protect against a career-threatening lawsuit.

Patients feel this distrust, and they respond in kind. If a patient has a bad medical outcome, they assume their doctor was at fault, even if there was nothing their doctor would or could have done differently.

Sometimes bad outcomes happen in health care, and no one is at fault. But if a doctor doesn't feel free to say ``I am sorry'' when he or she makes a mistake, how will a patient know whether their doctor is at fault? It is hard to blame the patient for assuming the worst.

This is a fundamental flaw in the way we resolve medical disputes today. The courtroom stands between the people who matter most--the patient and the doctor. The courtroom ought to be the last resort for resolving disputes, not the only resort. Patients and doctors ought to be on the same side, working together; but fear of the legal system puts them in opposite corners and pits them against one another.

There has to be a better way. My bill would be another step toward replacing the medical lawsuits with a better and fairer system for compensating and protecting patients. But it is a long-term solution, and we do have a short-term solution, the Gregg-Ensign bill. I hope we can work together to find the long-term solution, but that we will do the short-term solution now.

Again, our debate now is whether we get to the debate the bill. Unless we have cloture tomorrow, we won't actually get to debate the short-term solution.

I want to recap and remind you that this bill doesn't limit economic damages. It will assure that we can have emergency care, that doctors who deliver babies can continue to deliver babies.

If you don't get care at all, how much pain and suffering will you have? How much injury can be caused if you cannot go to a doctor in your community and you have to travel extensively to do it?

This bill is a limit on noneconomic damages, similar to the limit in California, where the crisis has been averted. I ask my colleagues to support cloture on the motion to proceed so we can proceed to pass the Gregg-Ensign bill, so we will have a short-term solution to the medical liability crisis we face in our country, which keeps us from getting the medical treatment we need, when we need it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about an amendment I wish to offer to the bill currently under consideration to reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. This program is one of the largest Federal programs ever designed to help families reach self sufficiency. I believe this amendment is a strong addition to the current bill, and one that

this body should pass. I thank my friend and colleague from Iowa, the chairman of the Finance Committee, for his hard work in preparing this bill for floor consideration and for making important improvements to the 1996 welfare reauthorization. The 1996 reauthorization is one of the greatest success stories of the recent past. Even now, it continues to produce positive results far beyond what many thought was possible. Now it only makes sense for us to pass this legislation to continue the reforms we began 8 years ago.

Mr. President, as I mentioned, the key principle of this welfare reauthorization is self-sufficiency. As this body considered welfare reform in 1996 we found that families could end their dependence on Federal assistance if we provided the incentives to help them find jobs and start providing for themselves. It was the most important change we could have ever made. In response, families went out and found good jobs that provided them with the resources they needed to make ends meet today and prepare for their future needs.

Even today, the results of that effort continue to speak for themselves. As my colleague from Pennsylvania has pointed out, child poverty has declined significantly since 1996. Families receiving welfare assistance have found a renewed sense of confidence and self worth by meeting life on their own terms. Their newfound jobs have given them a sense of security many have never had before.

We congratulate all those who have been able to work themselves off the welfare rolls and we encourage those who are trying to do the same not to be discouraged. That is why this legislation is so important. It enables us to continue that piece of the reform we started, to get people into work and on to self-sufficiency.

I don't think there is any more vital aspect of self-sufficiency than making sure that these families know how to budget and manage their money wisely so they can maintain their financial independence and work toward financial security. That calls for education in financial literacy.

When I served as mayor of Gillette, WY, I saw firsthand the effectiveness of helping individuals understand the importance of financial planning. This is a skill that is essential to self- sufficiency, and it should be a part of the welfare assistance program.

My amendment would permit welfare recipients to participate in a limited amount of financial literacy training that would allow them to learn about personal finance management, credit counseling, budgeting, and debt management. This important course work and study would then count toward the work requirement under the Financial bill. As my colleagues are aware, the Finance bill separates the permissible work hour activities into two groups: core work and work preparation activities, and allowable activities. Both are required for a recipient to meet the work hour requirement. My amendment would add financial literacy training as an allowable activity.

Financial literacy and education is an essential tool that must be mastered to fully participate in today's society. Only an educated individual consumer will be able to fully unlock the financial markets available to them. A basic understanding of the credit process and managing personal finances will prepare consumers and their families for making major financial purchases like a home, saving for college and planning for retirement. All of these are part of achieving self- sufficiency because they require people to create a plan that will enable them to meet short term needs and still reach long term goals.

It is essential that welfare recipients be given an opportunity to receive this training and that states have an incentive to provide it. The Federal Government operates several financial literacy and education information programs designed to help individuals make smart decisions about their finances. It is my hope that by including financial literacy training in the welfare reauthorization we will improve and build upon the growing Federal recognition of the importance of this training.

I thank the Chair.

Madam President, I thank my colleague from Georgia for his outstanding comments. There is a war going on and he made some outstanding points. I have heard several of his speeches and learned a lot from each of them.

I am going to speak now on, I believe, the pending amendment, the Boxer-Kennedy amendment. I will share my thoughts about raising the Federal minimum wage. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle keep talking about the loss of American jobs, but their actions don't match up to their words.

If my colleagues are so concerned about unemployment, why would they do something that would eliminate jobs in this country? If my colleagues are so concerned about helping poor families, why would they do something that hurts poor families the most? Their effort to increase the minimum wage, while attacking the President on job creation, is not based on sound policy and economics.

There is an effort underway to put a smokescreen of unrelated amendments that mask election year politics in misleading rhetoric. It is being done on the reauthorization of the welfare bill.

It is time for us to look beyond the smokescreen and see who is really helped and who is really hurt by Senator Kennedy's amendment to raise the Federal minimum wage.

Every student who has taken an economics course knows if you increase the price of something--in this case, the minimum wage job--you decrease the demand for those jobs. A survey of members of the American Economic Association revealed that 77 percent of economists believe that a minimum wage hike causes job loss.

For small businesses, where most of the job creation in this country is generated, a minimum wage increase is particularly harmful. Having owned a small business in Wyoming, I can speak from personal experience about how detrimental a minimum wage increase would be for small businesses and job growth.

I need to explain something. Very few people in the shoe business I was in were working at the minimum wage, which my wife and I preferred to call the level of minimum skills. Those are the people who first came in and did not have any capability in the kind of job they were going to be doing and we had a starting wage, a starting skills wage. Anybody who was in that wage more than 3 months was not paying attention, and that is the way with most of the businesses in this country.

The minimum wage is the minimum skills wage, and it is the starting wage. It does have an effect on other wages as well. When we raise the minimum wage, then to keep the proper spread between employees of different skills, other jobs get raises, too. Of course, when that happens, there has to be a way to pay for it, and the way to pay for that almost always comes from raising prices. If you raise prices and wages, there is not much gain.

How do I explain to my constituents, most of whom rely on small business for their livelihood, that Congress wants to do something that would foster job loss instead of job creation?

Every day I read letters to the editors of the Wyoming newspapers. One appeared in the Casper Star from one of my constituents about his concerns in September 2002. I came across this letter again. It was written by Imo Harned of Douglas, WY, about the effects of a minimum wage increase. It is a reminder about the true cost of minimum wage increases.

I ask unanimous consent to print this letter in the Record.

Madam President, I have listened to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who support a minimum wage increase. I have seen their charts and heard their arguments. However, none of their charts or arguments can refute the commonsense and real world observation of Imo Harned from Douglas, WY.

Mr. Harned writes--I am quoting part of it and the whole letter is printed in the Record. I am sure my colleagues will want to read it:

. . . I have made it a habit from time to time to ask an

employer if raising minimum wage makes a difference to his

business. No matter if he pays one person or dozens, the

answer is always the same: ``There are X number of dollars in

the budget and I can't exceed that amount. If it means

cutting hours or firing workers, I have to do it to stay

within the budget.'' Personal observations show that within a

week of a raise in minimum wage, groceries will raise enough

to absorb the increase. Also, people who make more than

minimum have to pay the increased costs, too, so it amounts

to a cut in pay for those who make more.

Mr. Harned saw through the phony economics of a minimum wage increase. He reached the same conclusion as two Stanford economists: A minimum wage increase is paid for by higher prices that hurt poor families the most. Some argue that we need to increase the minimum wage to help poor families. However, the 2001 study conducted by Stanford University economists found that only one in four of the poorest 20 percent of families would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage. Three in four of the poorest workers would be hurt by a wage hike because they would shoulder the costs of resulting higher prices. A Federal wage hike will hurt the very people the underlying welfare reauthorization bill is designed to help: America's poor families.

I have held on to Mr. Harned's letter as a reminder of the dangers of a ``Washington knows best'' and a ``one size fits all'' mentality. An increase in the Federal minimum wage is a classic lesson that Washington does not know best and one size does not fit all.

A Federal wage mandate does not account for the cost of living that varies across the country. It costs over twice as much to live in New York City than in Cheyenne, WY. However, a Federal minimum wage hike that applies coast to coast is like saying a bag of groceries in New York City must cost the same as a bag of groceries in Cheyenne. Local labor market conditions and the cost of living determines pay rates, not Federal minimum wage laws dictated from Washington.

I support an increase for all wages, but that increase should be fueled by a strong, free market economy, not by an artificial Federal mandate that hurts business and workers alike. Artificial wage hikes drive prices up. We should not trick workers into thinking they are earning more when they still cannot pay the bills at the end of the month. We should not trick the American people into believing that the phony economics of a minimum wage increase will improve the standard of living in this country. Nor should we trick the American people into believing that a minimum wage increase is without cost.

The smoke and mirrors of a minimum wage increase is not the way for American workers to find and keep well-paying jobs. We have to encourage, not discourage, job creation, and we have to equip our workers with the skills needed to compete in the new global economy.

It is one of my goals to make sure that the unfilled higher paying jobs can be filled by Americans. I talked about the minimum wage being a minimum skills wage. There are higher paying jobs out there, but you have to have the skills for them. How do you get the skills for them? We have a bill. It is called the Workforce Investment Act. It reauthorizes the Nation's job training and employment system, and it updates it to the modern jobs. It allows people to be working in the areas of highest need in this country, instead of forcing those jobs overseas.

That bill passed out of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee unanimously. We passed it on the Senate floor by unanimous consent last November. That means nobody wanted to amend it and nobody objected to what was in the bill. That is as bipartisan as you can get.

Where is that bill now? It is languishing around here because the minority party will not let us get a conference committee appointed to resolve the differences with the House, the final step for the bill. The House has passed a bill. It is a little different from the Senate bill. But we need to meet and work out the differences and get that final bill.

What does this mean in the way of jobs? Training for 900,000 jobs a year. That is pretty significant, training for 900,000 jobs a year. I kind of get the feeling we do not want to resolve that until after November so that it can be a part of the politics of the Presidency. That is wrong. It ought to be worked out now. We ought to have a conference committee. We ought to get it done. If we want to take care of jobs in this country, if we want people to be making more and to be making more real money, we ought to get them trained into the skilled positions in the jobs that are vacant in this country right now before we ship them over to another country. We need to have a conference committee. That would provide jobs. That will provide increased wages. That will provide real increased wages, not just inflationary wages that will drive up the price of all of the goods and absorb, as Mr. Harned said, in 1 week the amount of the raise.

I owe Mr. Harned and all my constituents sound policy, not election year rhetoric. I owe it to Mr. Harned and all of my constituents to remove the smokescreen around the minimum wage debate and expose its true cost.

The Boxer-Kennedy amendment to raise the Federal minimum wage ignores the true cost of a minimum wage increase on America's workers and businessmen.

I hope we can put this debate, which is unrelated to the underlying bill, behind us. I hope we can move beyond election year theatrics and get to the real work of helping America's low-income families.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the Boxer-Kennedy amendment and to read the letter of Mr. Harned in full.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in closed session to receive testimony on the Second Interim Report of the Iraq Survey Group.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 2 p.m., to conduct a vote on the nomination of the Honorable Alphonso R. Jackson, of Texas, to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and to conduct a markup of S. 2238, ``The Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2004.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 2:30 p.m. on the nominations of Theodore W. Kassinger, to be Deputy Secretary of DOT, Deborah Hersman to be a Member of the NTSB, Thomas Moore to be a Commissioner of the CPSC, Joseph Brennan, to be a Commissioner of the FMC, Paul Anderson to be a Commissioner of the FMC, and Jack McGregor to be a Member of the Advisory Board of the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, in

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on

Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 30, at 10 a.m.

The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet in open Executive Session during the session on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, to consider favorably reporting the nomination of Donald Korb, to be Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service and an Assistant General Counsel in the Department of the Treasury.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing on nominations.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 9 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office building to conduct an oversight hearing on the Inter-Tribal Timber Council's Indian Forest Management Assessment Team Report. Immediately following the close of that hearing, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on S. 868, a bill to amend the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Restoration Amendments Act of 2003.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a closed hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Airland of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2004, at 2 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on Army aviation programs, in review of the Defense authorization request for fiscal year 2005 and the future years Defense program.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Aviation Subcommittee on Commerce, Science and Transportation be authorized to meet on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 9:30 a.m. for a closed hearing on Aviation Security, in SR-253.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Financial Management, the Budget, and International Security be authorized to meet on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., for a hearing entitled, ``The Federal Government's Role In Empowering Americans To Make Informed Financial Decisions.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 2:30 p.m.

The purpose of this hearing is to conduct oversight on National Heritage Areas, including findings and recommendations of the General Accounting Office, the definition of a National Heritage Area, the definition of National Significance as it relates to national heritage areas, recommendations for establishing national heritage areas as units of the national park system, recommendations for prioritizing proposed studies and designations, and options for developing a national heritage area program within the National Park Service.

I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Washington. This amendment is a sweeping expansion of Federal employment law without a hearing, without committee debate, without committee amendments, and without any potential for floor amendments. We never legislate like that. This bill does not just have one concept in it; it has many concepts in it. It is 158 pages. That makes it evermore unworkable to do in the Senate. This just is not how we legislate.

As chairman of the Subcommittee on Employment, Safety, and Training, I am compelled to discuss the implications of such an unprecedented and misguided expansion of current law.

Let me begin by saying I share Senator Murray's concern about domestic violence. Domestic violence shatters families and with it the very foundation of our society. My opposition to the amendment is not based on a lack of concern for victims of domestic violence. A good title does not make a good amendment. I am opposing this amendment because it is an unprecedented expansion of workplace laws without any consideration for the committee of jurisdiction.

This amendment greatly expands workplace laws without any hearings or Committee consideration. The amendment creates a new set of laws requiring businesses--including small businesses--to provide employees with additional leave and special accommodation. However, the amendment has not been reviewed by the Committee of jurisdiction. It creates new workplace requirements without considering the impact of its implementation or its relation with existing laws. The process is flawed and irresponsible.

The amendment creates broad, vague workplace requirements that conflict with existing law and invite litigation. It creates new rights to leave and prohibitions against employment discrimination against domestic violence victims that are inconsistent with current employment laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act (the FMLA), the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The nondiscrimination provisions extend to ``perceived'' victims of domestic violence who have never been subjected to domestic violence. The Murray amendment defines a victim of domestic or sexual violence to include family members of domestic or sexual violence victims. Under this definition, abusers such as parents who molested their own children would be protected under the Murray Amendment.

This amendment creates unprecedented Federal workplace regulation on small business. Congress has recognized the burden of workplace regulation on small businesses with limited resources. The FMLA exempts businesses with fewer than 50 employees from coverage. The Murray amendment would cover all employers with 15 or more employees.

The lack of administrative alternatives increases litigation and burdens courts. Unlike existing federal anti-discrimination laws, the Murray amendment allows claimants to bypass the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC, and file a private suit directly in court. This undermines the efficacy of the EEOC and this amendment.

These are unlimited damages for employment discrimination caused by someone else. Unlike existing Federal laws which cap damages for employment discrimination, the Murray Amendment allows unlimited compensatory damages, and punitive damages of up to 300 percent of actual damages. Why should a victim of domestic violence discrimination be able to recover greater damages than a victim of race or disability discrimination?

The amendment imposes an unfunded Federal mandate on State unemployment compensation. The Murray Amendment imposes a Federal Mandate to cover domestic violence under

state unemployment compensation programs. This requires states to pay the tab, but gives them no voice in whether or now to do so. Employers in States that fail to comply must pay huge penalties in the form of higher Federal Unemployment tax. Unemployment compensation is--and should remain--a state issue.

With vague, broad language that conflicts with current employment law, lawyers--not domestic violence victims--will be the biggest winners under the Murray amendment.

The Senator from Washington is the ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Employment, Safety, and Training. Many of the provisions in this amendment fall within that subcommittee's jurisdiction. The rest of them fall under the jurisdiction of the Senator from Utah, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, who just spoke from that perspective.

The first time we are considering this major expansion of Federal employment law is on the Senate floor on a bill totally unrelated to employment and, I have to add, unamendable. There is an agreement between the two sides there would be two amendments today, and those amendments would not be amendable, nor would there be allowed any intervening action. What we have is what we get. I have to say, no one is going to want to get that.

The overly broad and vague provisions of this amendment conflict with and undermine existing employment laws. The committee process is so important because that is where we carefully evaluate in a much less formal situation the impact of pending legislation and its relation with current law.

Let me explain a little bit more how that committee process works. Besides the hearing part where we get to bring panels of experts before us and ask them extensive questions so we have a better understanding of what is going on and to give them an opportunity to speak on the provisions that are before us, we also have what we call a committee markup.

The committee markup is where most of the work for this Chamber is done. It is a much smaller group; it is a much more informal group. People turn in their amendments ahead of time so that they can be reviewed by all. Even on the day of the markup people can get together and work on amendments to get agreement. It is fairly successful. The amendment process usually results in a bill coming from committee with about 80-percent agreement.

The unfortunate thing for this country is that the bill comes to the floor, and what we usually debate is the 20 percent we do not agree on. That is not the case on this particular item. This has not even been discussed in committee, so the 80-percent agreement is not there. The ability to work out issues with some flexibility is not there. I am sure there are provisions in this bill that are written in a way that the author probably wishes were different. I certainly wish they were different.

The first bill I ever did in the Wyoming legislature was only a three-sentence bill when I took it to the legislature. In committee, it got two amendments. On the floor, it got three amendments. When it went to the Senate side, it did not get any in committee but it got one on the floor. What I learned through that process was that every step of that made an important difference. It turned out to be a far better bill because all of the opinions of all of the people serving in that body were injected and they could see a lot more different directions than any one member of that body.

That is how we work it here. We work it so that the 100 Senators have an opportunity to take something as complicated as this and make changes to it. Then the House looks at the same thing. Again, there are a lot more opinions that get into the bill.

The committee process is so important because that is when we carefully evaluate the impact of pending legislation and its relationship to current law. We did not do that here. What we have here is a 158-page proposal which is not related to the underlying bill, and that proposal rewrites employment law without the benefit of hearings or committee consideration. That process is flawed and irresponsible.

So, more specifically, what will this amendment do? It creates a new Federal law that mandates employers, including small employers, to give up to 30 days of leave to an employee to address domestic or sexual violence. However, this proposal ignores important requirements that Congress applied to leave taken under the Family and Medical Leave Act,

She writes:

Although I very much appreciate the intent of the Murray

amendment, I cannot support it.

She gives an explanation and lists four very specific reasons: One, the potential for misuse and manipulation; two, the perpetuation of domestic violence; three, adequate time off from work already available; and four, the lack of due process for employers.

This is a person who has been there. This is a person who has been abused. She did find a way out. And incidentally, in her credentials, she has devoted most of her life to helping battered women in the Kansas City metro area and has an astounding record of doing that and is very concerned about us going this way.

Again, without a hearing, I am concerned, too. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I was going to speak on something else related to the bill, but I feel compelled to speak a little bit about the cloture vote and the smokescreen that is being put up there.

We have American manufacturing businesses being penalized by the World Trade Organization, and the bill before us would eliminate that. It would solve the problem and would create jobs in America, not outsourced, and it would allow the companies to have the competitive possibility in other countries. We are not able to pass that bill.

So when people talk about jobs, they need to be clear that those who are putting up the smokescreen amendments are not really interested in increasing jobs. They would prefer that none of that happened until after November. I think the American people will see through that and they will see through all of the motions and amendments that will be done between now and November and all of the delays done between now and November.

The overtime bill is one of those smokescreens. What we are talking about is a rule that has been written and published for public comment. It is not in place; it is not finalized; it is not finished. It is for comment, and 80,000 people commented on it.

What this amendment does is stop them from looking at the public comments. That is not American. We want the public to be able to comment. We want the comments from the public on any rule we are writing. We want the Department to have to take a look at those comments, and then we want to see what they are going to do with the comments. That is when the rule becomes important.

I can tell you, any Department that has made substantial changes based on the comments, I have applauded the Department and I have asked them to republish it for more comments, because it is a different rule after it has been changed. I am certain I would be doing that on this one as well. But there is a process.

The reason the Department of Labor looked at the rule is because they were told they had to look at the rule. They were doing their job. They wrote a rule, published the rule. Everybody doesn't agree with the rule. I expect any rule that is done, everybody would not agree with it. If they did, it would probably have some pretty big flaws in it or be worthless. So there are going to be some comments and changes. We need to let those happen.

We will never have a rule that is clear so that small business can operate, so that they can understand what is going on. That rule was written so long ago that jobs mentioned in there don't even exist anymore. But they still have to evaluate the jobs and see if they match up with that kind of description, to see if it falls under overtime.

What it has turned into is a bonanza for lawyers who want to sue. Anytime

they think there is one of those little gray areas, they see dollar signs and they go after the business that has those gray areas.

You would also get the impression from the overtime discussion that no business pays overtime unless it is clearly required to pay. That is not the fact, either.

You would also get the impression that businesses force people to do this overtime all the time. I have a son in the housing business and this is a good time of year to sell houses. They give all kinds of incentives to try to get the houses finished up. There is not only overtime but bonuses, and people still don't want to do overtime. So there has been a lot of rhetoric on this, and I will go through that one point at a time. If we are going to actually get to that debate, I would be happy to do that.

But the reason this cloture vote was killed was so it would still stay a part of the debate. Now, why would it not be a part of the debate? Because it is not germane. We are not talking about overtime in this bill. The word ``overtime'' isn't mentioned in the bill at all. It is about penalties that our companies have to pay because of the World Trade Organization decision. We need to solve that problem and make sure America keeps working. Yes, we need to work on these other problems; yes, they ought to be brought up. But we should not do it at the expense of industry in America and then say, oh, you are outsourcing. We are forcing companies to go overseas and build things; we are forcing them to do that because we don't want to make a decision on this bill because we want to bring in peripheral items.

Yes, it sounds like just one peripheral item. No, it is not; it is ad infinitum. You can keep drafting these amendments until the final vote. We have to vote on all of them until the final vote. So it is a filibuster by amendment. If you can make an amendment that is as unpleasant as possible, politically, I guess that is good.

What I prefer we do is work on the 80 percent of the legislation that we agree on, get it done, and keep America working, which brings me to the main point I wanted to talk about because we keep talking about this loss of American jobs due to increasing globalization.

We have talked about the loss of American jobs because of increasing productivity. Yes, the workers in the United States are the best at what they do. I have heard a lot of talk about job loss, but our actions do not match up with our words.

I want to point out one very important program we have that helps American workers who want to improve their skills and get a better job, to make a better life for themselves and their families. It is called the Workforce Investment Act. That act has been around. This is a reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act, bringing it up to date so that it matches the job problems of the country at the present time.

This workforce investment legislation will help over 900,000 unemployed workers a year get back to work. We keep talking about workers, but we cannot get this important bill into conference. The other side of the aisle blocks appointing conferees so that Republicans and Democrats--House and Senate--can get it all together so we can come up with an agreement.

Should this be a tougher agreement? This bill passed the committee unanimously. It does not happen very often in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. It also passed the Senate unanimously. That means we thought it was good enough that we did not need to put a single amendment on it. We are talking about 900,000 jobs, and we cannot meet to work out the differences with the House when this legislation passes a unified Senate.

For generations, the skills and ingenuity of the American workforce have fueled the greatest economy in the world. Today our challenge is to equip our workforce with the skills needed for jobs in the new global economy. Our prosperity rests with our ability to create and fill the high-skilled jobs of the 21st century, filling those 21st century economy demands.

There is a growing skills gap in this country that threatens our ability to compete and succeed in a more complex, knowledge-based economy. Many high-skilled jobs in this country remain unfilled because employers cannot find qualified workers. According to the 2003 survey conducted by the Center for Workforce Preparation, which is an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, half of the employers reported difficulty in finding qualified workers. The gap between the demand for high-skilled workers and the supply will only widen in the future unless we do something about it.

Looking ahead 2 years, only 30 percent of the employers surveyed believed that the skills of their workforce will keep pace with the demand. The current workforce development system is not effectively equipping American workers with the skills American businesses need. We need to match them up. Only a systematic reform of our Nation's job training system will enable American workers and businesses to compete and succeed in this global economy.

Our job training and employment system created under the Workforce Investment Act is intended to prepare our workforce for the good jobs that the evolving economy demands.

We need to improve our job training and employment system created under the Workforce Investment Act to better prepare American workers for the good jobs of today and tomorrow.

We need to link workforce development with economic development, recognizing that job training and job creation go hand in hand.

We need to partner the public workforce system with private sector employers, including, especially, small businesses, and with training providers to prepare American workers for jobs in high-growth industries.

We must improve access to job training and employment services in all parts of the country.

There is good news. As I have mentioned, we have a bill that does all of that. It is called the Workforce Investment Act Amendments of 2003. It is a bipartisan bill that passed out of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee unanimously. Check the record. See how often that happens. It passed unanimously last November. Unanimous is as bipartisan as you can get. It passed the Senate unanimously as well. Again, that is as bipartisan as you can get.

Where is that bill now? As I have mentioned--here is the bad news--we cannot appoint a conference committee; that is, a committee made up of Republicans and Democrats from the Senate and we would meet with the House and we would work out the differences. If we can work out the differences in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and if we can work out the differences on the floor of the Senate, we certainly ought to be able to work them out between the Senate and the House. There is no reason not to have a conference committee except, in case you haven't noticed, we are not doing any conference committees. They said: We are not going to conference on anything, unless that side of the aisle gets to write the bill. It has never happened in the history of the United States. It is not going to happen now.

If we really want to take care of jobs in this country and make sure jobs stay in this country, we would appoint a conference committee for the Workforce Investment Act and enact this vital legislation.

How long do we want to wait to get those 900,000 people trained and into the workforce? Obviously, after the November elections. If we really want to keep high-paying jobs and American factories and American businesses on American shores, particularly in small businesses, we would appoint the conferees to that legislation reauthorizing and improving the Workforce Investment Act. We would modernize that legislation, get it on the road, and get people employed.

I think it is a crime that we cannot appoint a conference committee. American workers deserve a conference committee on workforce investment. They should be demanding it, and we should be doing it because it is doable.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 24, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., on Port Security.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on

Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on Wednesday, March 24, at 11:30 a.m., to consider pending calendar business.

Agenda Item 1: To consider the nomination of Sue Ellen Wooldridge, to be Solicitor at the Department of the Interior.

Agenda Item 10: S. 1910--A bill to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out an inventory and management program for forests derived from public domain land.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 24, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing to examine the environmental impacts on the U.S. natural gas supply. The meeting will be held in SD- 406.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 24, 2004, at 11 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing on S. 1529, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act Amendments of 2003.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, March 24, 2004, at 9:00 a.m. on ``Judicial Nominations'' in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226.

Witness list

Panel I: Senators.

Panel II: Paul S. Diamond to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 24, 2004, at 9:00 a.m., for a hearing entitled ``Profiteering in a Non-Profit Industry: Abusive Practices in Credit Counseling.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Airland of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 24, 2004, at 2:00 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on Navy and Air Force aviation programs, in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2005 and the future years defense program.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 24, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing on ``The Real Estate Appraisal Industry.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 24, 2004, at 2:30 p.m.

The Purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 433, A bill to provide for enhanced collaborative forest stewardship management within the Clearwater and Nez Perce National Forests in Idaho, and for other purposes; S. 2180, a bill to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to exchange certain lands in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in the State of Colorado; and H.R. 1964, a bill to assist the States of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania in conserving priority lands and natural resources in the highlands region, and for other purposes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 24, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to receive testimony on strategic forces and capabilities, in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. President, I yield myself 15 minutes off the amendment. It should not take me longer than that to debunk the rhetoric I have heard on the budget for the last hour or the last hour and 45 minutes. It actually hasn't been on the budget. It has been an attempt to say they care more about jobs than the Republicans do. That is not true. There isn't anything that would bear that out. I have to get this in the Record because I am afraid the college students might read this stuff or may have been listening. If they use some of the information they heard, they could fail economics class. I don't want that to happen.

It has been very depressing listening this hour and 45 minutes. This is a 20-minute amendment. That is a long time on a 20-minute amendment. But it is the way this process works. It was 50 hours of time, equally divided, and each side can spend it however they want. We will probably yield ours back, portions of it, to be able to get to some final votes and get this completed.

This has been depressing and wrong. The budget document is a few assumptions that we use. Granted, it is based on a pile of documents, probably 20 pounds worth of paper. There are all kinds of ways to work the assumptions, but when it comes down to it, we set up a few targets. The specific committees get to arrange the bull's eye in that target for the priorities. Then, finally, the Appropriations Committee, if we ever get to that point, will be able to shoot the real bullets at the target, spend the real money.

This is not spending the money. This is coming up with some assumptions or some real numbers based on assumptions. You can use any assumptions you want, obviously, if you have been listening to the discussion.

If you listen to the discussion and what I have said about assumptions, you might think what they are trying to do is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. It is not the real operation of the ship. What we are doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the deck of the finest cruise ship in the world.

I want to be a lot more positive about what the possibility is for this country and the people of this country and what they can do.

First, I want to know how we pay for it. Then I will go into the jobs part. We need to know how most of these amendments work, where they tell us how to pay. The way they will pay is a tax increase. They can say this is going to be a tax increase just on the rich. From the discussions I have heard around here, the Democrat definition of ``rich'' is anyone who makes enough money to pay taxes. If you pay taxes, worry about it; you are part of the rich.

They will say it is those who make over $1 million. It would not be the first time we did something against those who make more than $1 million. Congress once passed a law--this fascinates me--that said a CEO could not make more than $1 million in cash compensation. How could anybody possibly do that? If the American dream is to make money--I really hope that is not the American dream--but to make enough to provide for their family, to buy a home, and to contribute to their community, until we get this country going down that road, we have problems. Right now the emphasis is on how much you make. We try to limit that severely. We have done it with laws.

Now we are saying if you get rich, we will take part of your money, and we will put it into the economy where we think it will do the most good. It does not matter what you think. It does not matter that you have been investing and creating jobs. That does not count. The Government will do it for you. By golly, we have some great programs. These programs will create jobs. Yes, they do create jobs because we hire a bunch of people to run the programs, who tell the successful businessmen how to do it better, and a lot of it goes into regulation. I will talk more about regulation in a bit.

In order to do a tax increase, the Finance Committee has to do it. The only thing we have allowed so far are things that deal with the family. What we would be directing them to do is take away any family benefits.

Who are these rich? Some of them are the small businessmen. Every dime of revenue that is net revenue for a small businessman becomes part of their bottom line taxes for that particular year. They have to pay taxes on that. When they pay taxes on it, they are pulling out a third. Some would like it to be a half; some would like it to be three- fourths. What do they do with what is left? It does not go in their pocket. If their business is growing, it goes right back into the business. If we did not tax them as much, they would put more back into the business. When they put more back into the business, that grows jobs.

Do not tell me you will increase the economy by ripping money away from people who are creating jobs already.

Who cares about jobs the most? Who wants outsourcing? None of us want outsourcing. Why does outsourcing happen? Part of it will be because of a lack of confidence we create in the Senate. We have been talking for 2 hours now about the rotten economy and how jobs are being outsourced. We are creating an impression among every businessman out there that if he is not outsourcing his jobs, he is cheating his investors. Did anyone hear a message different than that? That is not right. That is absolutely not right. We do not have to have the jobs go overseas.

When we keep talking about a bad economy, we help create a bad economy. I am reminded of the 1960s ad that used to run on television that I think was partly responsible for pulling us out of a recession. It was a story about a guy who had a hot dog stand. People loved his hot dogs. So he added on to his hot dog stand. Pretty quickly he had more hot dog stands.

Then his son came home from college and said: Dad, don't you realize we are in the middle of a depression? How can you be expanding? He quit expanding and he laid people off and pretty soon he was out of business.

If we keep telling people they should not hire because it is tenuous, save your money, put it in the mattress, we will have a little problem in this country. We expect to be paid the highest wages in the world, and we expect to buy everything for the lowest prices. Where do you think you are going to buy those things from? I hope everyone out there does a quick inventory on

what they are wearing and where it was made; what they are driving and where it was made; what they are listening to and where it was made.

You have a responsibility, as well. Government does not solve these problems. You solve these problems. You buy what is made in America, the jobs come back to America, and our people get paid more.

Make a law. Right, we can make a law that says you cannot send the jobs overseas.

I listened for almost 2 hours to the other side ask a bunch of questions. I would like to get my statement completed in 15 minutes so we can move on to the vote. There should have been more fairness on give-and-take at the time. There was not. So I will reserve my time to finish my comments.

Another reason the jobs go overseas is regulation. What do we specialize in? Regulation. We pile on regulations that make it extremely difficult for businesses in the United States to do work in the United States.

Lastly, one of the reasons we lose jobs overseas is skills. There are jobs out there that are not being filled because American people do not have the skills to take those. The ones who do are already employed in that field.

I want to tell about a little company in Powell, WY. This is what I am hoping for the world. This little company in Powell, WY, makes tachometers, highly specialized ones for race cars, and very durable ones for heavy equipment that vibrates. The guy who designed these and originally made them had the parts manufactured in Taiwan and the construction of them, the manufacturing of them, in Taiwan.

He said: Now, wait a minute. Maybe I can reduce the error rate putting these things together and make more money if I use American labor and those great people in Powell, WY. He tried that, and he was right. Then what does he say? He said: Let's see, I am having to manufacture them over there, but they have an error rate. Maybe I could manufacture them here. And he is going to do that. Wyoming--the United States--is going to steal a job from Taiwan. That is the creative capability of the people in this country. That is what we can do if we give the people a chance.

On a more basic level, how can we give them the chance? We passed the Workforce Investment Act. We got it out of the Labor Committee, which is usually very contentious, unanimously. We passed it on the floor unanimously. Where is that now? Well, the House has already passed one, too, but we cannot do a conference committee on it. This would be training for 900,000 jobs a year, better jobs, more skilled jobs, the skilled jobs people overseas are getting because we cannot fill them.

What is happening to that bill? We are letting it languish because we will not appoint a conference committee. So what are the reasons given for not appointing a conference committee? Well, we don't trust the Republicans to invite us to the conference committee.

I want to tell you, I worked with the Senator from Washington State and the Senator from Massachusetts in putting together a bill that passed the committee unanimously. I worked with them to get it through this floor unanimously. You do not do that without some degree of trust. I have to believe they would trust me to do a conference committee and include them in the conference committee, and anything else is bunk. You do not have to do every bill, but I cannot believe we will talk about who cares about jobs the most in this country and not get a conference committee on the Workforce Investment Act that will train 900,000 people a year for better jobs.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, this bill provides $250 million for the Workforce Investment Act training, and it takes it out of 920.

Mr. President, I support the budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 95. Let me begin by commending Chairman Nickles for his outstanding leadership as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. He has fairly and respectfully brought both sides of the aisle to the table on an issue that is inherently partisan. He has done so in a manner that encouraged cooperation, if not agreement. Last week, we completed a difficult markup in less than 2 days. We could not have done so without the leadership of both the chairman and the ranking member and the hard work of all of the Republican and Democrat members on the Budget Committee.

After more than 20 years on the Senate Budget Committee, this will be Chairman Nickles' last floor debate on the Congressional Budget Resolution. We will miss him as both our chairman and as one of the Senate's most responsible and trusted protectors of the taxpayer dollar. Chairman Nickles has built a reputation for being fiscally conservative not by saying he's a fiscal conservative, but by actually being one. I applaud him and his dedication to fair budgeting and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

I would also like to thank the ranking member for the technical knowledge he brings to the table during these debates. Last week, he explained very succinctly how the budget caps and assumptions work. I was pleased to hear my friend from North Dakota talk about the importance of the caps versus the assumptions. Both the Republicans and Democrats have stacks and stacks of assumptions that identify our funding priorities, but these assumptions don't set in stone the specific levels of funding. They just help us set targets. Sometimes those targets are higher, sometimes those targets are more to the left or more to the right, but they never shift downward partly because we pass dozens of amendments every year that wrongly focus on the individual programs, not the overall limits.

Despite attempts by my colleagues to turn this into a debate on appropriations, I'd like to remind everybody that we are not taking shots at the targets yet. The appropriators are the first ones who actually get to do that. Today, we're talking about the targets

set by the President and the committee-reported budget resolution. Like last year, when the President released his budget in February, I read the entire thing. I read the summaries and studied the tables and analyzed the assumptions; and, I truly believe the President laid the foundation for a good budget. Some people disagree with the underlying assumptions of the President's proposal and the budget plan that it was built upon and some want to turn it upside down. But, these arguments are more political than substantial, and they hinder our progress toward appropriations.

I believe the Budget committee rightly built upon the strong foundation laid by the President with respect to the Committee-reported resolution. We reported a resolution that will cut the deficit in half in three years and allow America to continue down the road to economic recovery. Yet, we did not have much luck passing this resolution in the committee in a bipartisan fashion. The vote was 12 in favor and 10 opposed.

Why the split? Because we, as Republicans, voted to hold the line on spending and live up to our promise to provide tax relief for all Americans. In contrast, we had more than 30 amendments from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who wanted to increase spending and raise taxes to pay for it. Again, these amendments were more political than substantial, and they delayed our progress tremendously. The proponents of these amendments were trying to tell the Finance Committee how and when to raise taxes, but they cannot do that. Raising taxes is firmly under the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, and they certainly do not need to take our advice on the subject.

In most cases, these proposed amendments would have increased discretionary spending and increased the deficit. During a time when deficit spending is higher in nominal terms than ever before, wouldn't it make more sense to decrease spending rather than increase it? We have a huge deficit and yet we still cannot control the spending of our colleagues. The debate on the floor this week is turning out to be similar.

Throughout the week, too many amendments have been introduced that would certainly have increased the size of the Federal government and blown the Federal deficit out of the water. Many of these amendments have also proposed to simply shift funds from one program to another based on budget ``assumptions.'' Let me again remind my colleagues that the budget resolution does not set spending levels for individual programs. Unfortunately, I don't think this message is getting through to some people. As such, I have no doubt that many more amendments like those we've seen so far will be offered before the final vote.

For example, an amendment that proposes to increase funding under function 450 for Firefighter Assistance Grants by eliminating tax relief for working Americans does not guarantee that funding will actually find its way into those grant accounts. That decision will be made by the appropriators and the Senate during the debate on appropriations. That means much of the rhetoric we've heard throughout the debate is political, not practical. Right now, we can only decide the amount of money, not where it will end up.

We are not making the decisions this week as to which individual programs will be funded. We are setting the spending limits for our Appropriations Committees. We are setting the limits that will hold our colleagues in check when it comes to spending. The whole process reminds me of the cartoon that shows two bears in the woods--one has a target on his chest and the friend is saying ``rotten birthmark.'' Thankfully, we are not shooting at the bear today. The Appropriations Committee will do the shooting.

Some of that shooting will be monitored down the road. My friend and colleague from Pennsylvania established a spend-o-meter last year that shows exactly how much our colleagues across the aisle want to increase spending on appropriations bills and under authorizing legislation. Most recently, the spend-o-meter proved useful during debate on the omnibus bill when the other side of the aisle proposed amendments that would have increased spending from $341 billion to almost half a trillion dollars in less than 24 hours. My friend and colleague has been using the spend-o-meter to keep track of how the proposed amendments on the budget resolution would impact the deficit, and let me tell you, the results are just as troubling. According to the charts presented by the Senator from North Dakota, he adds $5 billion and $6 billion and only gets $1 billion more spent. When I add $6 and $5 billion, I get $11 billion in budget requests.

If we were talking about a business, and we were the owners, we would be looking for areas of waste and unnecessary costs so we could trim costs and reinvest the money. The President did suggest the same kind of cuts based on GPRA in over 60 programs, resulting in $4.9 billion of savings. Not much you say? Show me your cuts. The economy grew while we constrained spending. We balanced it by growth of the economy, not by cutting a dime.

Constraining spending and shifting the targets we've been talking about can happen at the same time. Although few in number, some of the amendments offered today, including one I intend to offer, would actually shift the targets to a better position that will help us grow the economy. But, I think it's safe to say that most of the amendments offered by the other side will be outrageous attempts to raise taxes under the guise of increasing appropriations for very popular programs. Again, let's be clear that we will not be passing an appropriations bill today.

We will continue working on the budget resolution, which I believe sets forth a good budget. This year we had to make tough choices about our priorities. This budget reflects those priorities. Of the 3.3 percent increase in discretionary funding, 92 percent of it goes to the soldiers and citizens protecting our men and women overseas and at home. This budget gives our men and women serving in the Armed Forces and our diplomatic corps the tools they need to fight for democracy and win the war on terror.

This budget, however, isn't just about defense and homeland security. This budget is also about creating a better and brighter future for our kids. The committee-reported resolution supports the President's efforts to provide more funding for education than ever before in the history of the United States.

We have heard many arguments and we will continue to hear many arguments today and throughout the week, claiming that this budget resolution is an attempt to sell our education system short. That is simply not true. Under this budget, we assume that the Appropriations Committee will invest billions more in Title I grants under the No Child Left Behind Act, in Part B grants for individuals with disabilities, and Pell grants to students who want to take their education one step further.

Writing this budget resolution was not an easy process. It is never easy to cut or freeze spending. But we had to make tough choices this year. We had to freeze spending in most categories and limit percentage growth in all others. We had to clamp down on the tax relief we could provide to working Americans. We had to set spending caps at a responsible level that would allow our Appropriations Committees to pass 13 appropriations bills. To the credit of the Budget Committee, we made these tough choices. We produced a resolution that will allow Congress and America to move forward without overstepping the authority of the Budget Committee. We do not make the decisions on where to spend the money, just on how much is spent, although many amendments would give you the opposite impression.

I said this during the committee markup and I'll say it again today-- this budget is about moving forward. We've faced some tough times in recent years. The huge spike in spending during the last year of the Clinton administration set the stage for troubled times in 2001. With the technology bust of the late 1990s and the year 2000, many of our healthiest industries were struck down to the point of barely breathing. But, that was just the beginning.

The terrorist attacks of 2001 and the international war against terror have forced us to address the decisions by previous administrations to gradually weaken our Armed Forces. Now, we are paying the price. We are playing a

catch-up game--a catch-up game that costs billions, not millions, of dollars.

That's why we need to pass a budget this week that will rein in spending while allowing our defense sector and our economy as a whole to continue to recover. The budget resolution before us today makes some general, but critical assumptions. One of the most important assumptions focuses on preventing attempts by our colleagues to raise taxes on our working families.

The committee-reported resolution proposes to extend the personal tax relief currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2004. Contrary to the statements made by my colleagues, this tax relief helps middle- and lower-income taxpayers. The $1,000-per-child tax credit, the 10 percent income tax bracket expansion, and the marriage penalty relief are three of the most important tax provisions passed in decades. These provisions put more money back into the hands of our neighbors, families and friends.

This week, we have an opportunity to pass a budget that plans for the future, while taking care of our present-day needs. This budget aims to cut the budget deficit in half in just a few short years. I believe we can do it.

The tax relief put in place last year has already resulted in growth in almost every sector of our economy. Our gross domestic product increased by more than 4 percent last quarter and robust spending on technology, infrastructure and equipment points to strong continued growth through the next year. This growth will lead to more companies paying into the Federal pot and more money flowing from the private sector to the public sector and back again.

That is what this debate should be about--passing a budget that will help, not hurt, America's recovering business sector and job markets. We have heard the scare tactics on Social Security and unemployment and outsourcing, but what we haven't heard a lot about is how to help address the problems. This debate should focus on progress, not politics. I have been working with my colleagues from both sides of the aisle on an amendment that would propose a step in the right direction. My amendment would add $250 million to the Nation's job training programs.

For generations, the skills and ingenuity of the American workforce have fueled the greatest economy in the world. Today, America faces an emerging challenge that threatens the prosperity of generations to come. Our challenge is to equip our workforce with the skills needed for jobs in the new, global economy. Our prosperity rests with our ability to create and fill the high-skilled jobs that the 21st century economy demands.

We have talked about the loss of American jobs because of increasing globalization. We have talked about the loss of American jobs because of increasing productivity. I am here to talk about how we can keep high-paying jobs in America's factories, in America's businesses, and on America's shores. As we consider job creation in this country, we must address the growing skills gap that threatens our ability to compete--and succeed--in a more complex, knowledge-based economy.

As the country continues its economic recovery, people are asking: ``where are the jobs?'' It may surprise you to learn that many high- skilled jobs in this country remain unfilled because employers can't find qualified workers. According to a 2003 survey conducted by the Center for Workforce Preparation, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, half of the employers reported difficulty in finding qualified workers. The problem is greatest for small employers. Nearly 60 percent of employers with 11 to 50 workers report having a hard time finding qualified workers. Small employers--our greatest source of economic growth--can't create jobs if they don't have the skilled workers to fill the jobs.

The gap between the demand for high-skilled workers and the supply will only widen in the future. Looking ahead 2 years, only 30 percent of the employers surveyed believe that the skills of their workforce will keep pace with demand. According to the 2003 study by the Center for Workforce Preparation, the manufacturing industry--which has faced some of the most severe job loss--faces the greatest skills gap. Manufacturers predict that by 2005 only 21 percent of their workforce will have the necessary skills. Almost 80 percent of American workers won't be qualified for American manufacturing jobs.

Without any action, technology and other advances will outpace the ability of American workers and business to update skills needed to compete in the new economy. But there is good news. There is action we can take to retrain workers to fill the jobs needed in this country, now and in the future. First, we can increase budgetary resources for job training programs under the Workforce Investment Act. Second, and more importantly, we can make sure the Nation's job training system created under the Workforce Investment Act effectively prepares our workforce for good jobs that the evolving economy demands. This amendment will do the first. To do the second, my Colleagues must agree to send legislation reauthorizing and improving the Workforce Investment Act into Conference.

I am offering this amendment to increase job-training budget authority because I agree with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that: ``what will ultimately determine the standard of living of this country is the skill of the people.'' Job training under the Workforce Investment Act will help our workers get back to work or find better jobs. It will improve the lives of our workers and help them achieve the American Dream for themselves and their families.

This investment in our Nation's job training and employment system is an important investment in our future. Like any investment of the taxpayers' money, the investment in Federal job training programs must be fiscally responsible and generate results. While I support an increase in resources for job training, it cannot come at the expense of fiscal discipline. Therefore, my amendment is offset fully from account 920. My amendment will increase resources for Fiscal Year 2005 in the job training function. It will responsibly shift the target in this area. Beyond that, we must improve the workforce development system to better meet the needs of American workers and businesses before investing additional resources.

We cannot meet the challenges of the 21st century economy by simply throwing more money into the existing workforce development system. We have to improve the Workforce Investment Act to better prepare American workers for the good jobs of today and tomorrow. Again, there is good news. We have a bill that does this. It is a bipartisan bill that passed out of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee unanimously. We passed it on the Floor unanimously last November. That's as bipartisan as you can possibly get.

Where is the bill now? Here is the bad news. We can't appoint a conference committee, which is the committee made up of Republicans and Democrats who would meet with the House to work out differences between what they passed and what we passed. The Workforce Investment Act can help more than 900,000 dislocated workers a year find the well-paying jobs in this country that are available. That is 900,000 opportunities that can help fill the skills gap and make American workers and businesses more competitive. I have heard a lot of talk about losing American jobs. If we really want to take care of jobs in this country and make sure jobs stay in this country, we would appoint a conference committee for the Workforce Investment Act bill and enact this vital legislation.

Last week, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing that addressed the skills of the American workforce. Dr. Diana Oblinger, executive director of Higher Education for Microsoft--an American company that symbolizes innovation and growth--presented some of the best testimony I have ever heard. She said that being able to ``outthink the rest of the world'' may be the most important competitive advantage. In this knowledge-based, global economy, I agree with Dr. Oblinger that the brainpower of our workforce is our greatest resource.

This amendment recognizes that the first priority for workers who have lost their job is finding a new job. But this

amendment is only a band-aid. It will not fix the Nation's job training programs. If we are going to continue to ``outthink the rest of the world'', we must improve the job-skills and training of our greatest resource now and into the future.

With that, I believe this budget is a fiscally responsible measure and I urge my colleagues to work together to pass both my amendment and the resolution by the end of the week. Once again, I thank Chairman Nickles, Ranking Member Conrad, and all of the committee members for their work so far and hope we can move to final adoption of the Congressional Budget Resolution before the April 15 deadline.

Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I really appreciate the comments of the Senator from New Hampshire where he went over the No Child Left Behind legislation and what it really does. The No Child Left Behind legislation is to get kids to be able to read and do math, hopefully by the time they are in third grade but definitely by the time they graduate from high school, and to have some confidence in it. Every State has the right to set their own standards and they have to follow them, but the idea is to get them to do reading and math.

We held some hearings in Wyoming. I had the Department of Education come to Wyoming and talk about some of the rules and there were concerns about the law and some of the ways it affected Wyoming. We are a very rural State. We have a large State. We have very small populations. We have some different classrooms than in other places and we needed to be sure when the rules were written they would work for Wyoming, which has a very tough law that was already in place before No Child Left Behind even came along.

It has increasingly difficult standards that have to be met over the next several years, and they adopted that as their No Child Left Behind standards. I do not want people to have the impression No Child Left Behind forced the States to do all of these things. Yes, it did force some of the States to do some of these things, but a lot of the States were already doing things to make sure no child got left behind.

I appreciate the President joining those States and encouraging in a very forceful way the other States to do that, too.

Incidentally, I had people drive as far as 200 miles to come to one of these hearings and we are going to hold two more of them in Wyoming yet. But I did have one person stand up and say there is not anything in No Child Left Behind about improving physical education and that is very important. If people are not healthy, they cannot do well in school.

I pointed out there also is not anything in No Child Left Behind that says they have to have competence in science until several years from now, and that is very important. We are starting with some very basic points. If a child cannot read and do math, they do not stand much of a chance. Their choices in life are very limited, and the President recognized that.

He did not say: On the average, we want everybody to be able to read and do math. He said: I want every child in this country to be able to read and do math.

That is where we are starting. Now, we have places we can go with that, science will be added in, and other things can be added in, but we are trying to do something very basic. We also get the impression from this discussion the Federal Government provides all of the money for education. That is not true and it never was true. I do not think it was ever intended to be true. We used to provide about 7 percent of the education dollars in the United States. The local people provided the rest of it.

It always fascinated me that for the 7 percent in education funding we provided, we caused 50 percent or more of the paperwork. Yes, we really tie a lot of things to our money that does not have anything to do with local control. It has to do with jobs in Washington because if we have a lot of reporting that has to be done, somebody has to make sure those reports are filled out.

I had a school superintendent who came out for one semester. He spent some time in my office, and actually I had him go down to the Department of Education and look at where his reports were going and what was done with them. He was fascinated to find out they read all of them. He was tremendously disappointed to find out that is all that happened to them, and he did not see why we were filling out reports that just provided people with a job to make sure the report was complete.

There is a lot of room to eliminate paperwork. That would save time and money at the local level, which is absolutely essential.

I also wish there was more in the bill that dealt with parental responsibility. When the parents are involved in a child's education, the child does better. Again, we focused on reading and math and what the schools could do because that is where the money goes.

We held a hearing last week and one of the people present mentioned that in one area of the country, Washington State, there was a high school that forced the parents to sign up the courses for the kids. That is a fascinating concept. Kids in high school can go sign up for their own courses, and when they do they will say: This one looks easy, and this teacher is easy for an A, and I like doing this because it is a little more outdoors. But when the parents look at it, they say: I want my kid to excel and these are the things he or she will have to do or be able to do to excel in the school. It makes a whole lot of difference in what the kids take. The biggest difference is the parents have to pay attention to what they want their kids to be able to do and make sure the plan they are signing their kids up for will make that kind of progress.

In the discussion over our priorities on the current budget, my colleagues continue to suggest funding for education is being ignored. Well, we have had some charts that show it is not being ignored; it has been greatly increased under the Bush administration.

We had a fascinating display of a chart on the other side that gave the impression the reason the Clinton administration had declining amounts going into education funds was because there was a deficit and they were trying to overcome the deficit. I remember when I arrived here 8 years ago we were trying to force that balanced budget constitutional amendment. We failed by one vote, but it had a positive effect. The positive effect was both sides of the aisle understood we needed to do a better job on balancing the budget, and we did. That helped grow the economy, and the economy's growth is really what provided the money. We did not cut programs. We increased programs. We did not eliminate programs. We added new programs. The growth of the economy kept ahead of the spending.

There have been a number of things that have affected the economy lately, but a very important part of this discussion is, we are on the U.S. budget. We are not appropriating. We are not doing Finance Committee work of figuring out what the taxes should be. We are doing a budget. The purpose of a budget is to set targets. Maybe that is not a good word to use on this floor, but I think it is a very important word to use. It reminds me of a cartoon that I saw of a grizzly bear that had this big target on his chest, and the other bears gathered around and said: Oh, rotten birthmark, rotten birthmark.

Targets are important, and all the budget does is set targets up. We do not shoot at them. We do not decide how big the rings are going to be. But we set targets up.

Now, if my colleague will listen to the debate we are having, sometimes we are suggesting the target be moved a little higher. Sometimes we suggest the target be moved a little to the left. Sometimes we suggest the target be moved a little to the right. Listen carefully and see if anybody ever suggests moving the target down. No. That is not good politics. It is important politics, but it is not good politics.

What we are going to do is set the budget, the targets. Once those targets are set, the authorization committees get to work with them. They are the ones who actually work with the rings of the budget. They decide what the priorities are and how big each of those ought to be, and then the money gets turned over to the Appropriations Committee. They are the first ones

that get to shoot at the target. When that comes to the floor, we get to shoot at the target. Everything before that is setting up targets.

A lot of the discussion we have heard this morning is based on three assumptions I believe are mistaken. The first assumption of my colleague from Washington State is that raising taxes, by repealing some or all of the recent tax reductions, will not have a negative impact on the economy. I noticed that the discussion changed a little bit to loopholes, and it was pointed out that in the budget there are some loopholes. We talked very specifically about some loopholes, how big those loopholes are and whether they could be achieved in the budget assumption. I think in order to add to that, a person would have to figure out what those other loopholes are. There is a limited amount of loopholes. There are some real ones that can be identified. They can have a price put on them. But if that is not done, what is being talked about is the common campaign tactic of saying we are going to take it out of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Yes, probably in many of the Government programs there is waste, fraud, and abuse. If you add it up, there is a limited amount of it. Finding it and eliminating it is a whole other problem. The same with loopholes.

So when they talk about the money here, they are talking about raising taxes, which would repeal all or some of the recent tax reductions, and it would have an impact on the economy.

The truth is, a tax increase would hurt economic growth, which is the most important factor in terms of revenue. I mentioned that how we were actually able to come up with surpluses was growth, not reducing programs.

The second assumption my colleague is making is that the Federal Government is somehow responsible for creating new jobs. As a former small business owner, I know firsthand that expanding Government is not the best way to create jobs. Taxing small business is not the best way to create jobs.

We keep talking about these rich people out there. A lot of those rich people are not rich at all. They have businesses and, because they are single proprietorships or partnerships or subchapter S corporations, whatever profit shows up on the balance sheet goes to the bottom line on their taxes. It is considered to be money they have earned on which they need to pay taxes.

But having been a small businessman, this is how that really works. Yes, your business shows a profit at the end of the year. Yes, it is honest accounting. But you don't get to take the money out. Hopefully, you have a growing business, and a growing business needs ever more amounts of revenue. That is what the big corporations do, too. Their profits don't get paid out every year in the way of dividends. They stay in the corporation to grow the corporation.

The difference is, if you are a regular corporation you pay a small tax on the money that stays in there. When the dividend gets paid out, there are additional taxes that get paid on it. So it is not very appealing to the small businessman to use that form of corporation. But if they go with the subchapter S, or single proprietorship, there are some advantages to that, but the big disadvantage is they pay the tax in the year the balance sheet shows they earn it and they don't get to take that out.

When we are talking about raising taxes on the rich people in this country, that is a nice phrase people like to use but most of those business owners I know don't consider themselves to be rich. They do consider themselves to have a good business and they are employing a lot of people.

When we are talking about businesses, we are talking about small businesses, we are talking about 90 percent of the businesses in this country, and we are talking about the vast majority of jobs in this country. I can tell you for a fact when somebody works for a small business, they understand how tenuous their job is. They understand how fragile some of these small businesses are. They don't have the vast market to fall back on. If there is a small change in their market, it can mean the end of their job; the same as a change in taxes can make a difference in whether that person stays in business or goes to work for somebody else, abandoning the business and losing jobs.

When we are talking about taxes, we have to keep that in mind. The Federal Government can leverage resources. We were talking about job training, too. They can leverage resources to help train individuals for available jobs, but job creation is something done best by the private sector in this economy and it functions best when the Federal Government is not taxing these small businesses beyond the point where they are sustainable.

It has been interesting. When we were back in the times of the mega mergers, when the big companies would combine together to form an even bigger company, and then have what they called a downsizing, or a ``right sizing''--that is when they would lay off 6,000 or 9,000 people; I called it laying people off--when that happened, the small businesses of the country picked up those employees. So it is not the big businesses of this country that do the job for us; it is the small businesses in this country. And a change in taxes affects those small businesses.

I am also confused as to why my colleagues argue for additional funding for programs that they argue will help generate jobs, yet they continue to oppose naming conferees to the Workforce Investment Act, which would help train individuals for jobs that are already available.

The Workforce Investment Act passed last year. Senator Murray and I worked on that, along with Senator Kennedy. We got it out of committee unanimously. We got it through this body unanimously. Now we can't name a conference committee. Until a conference committee is named and we can work out the differences with the House, improvements to that bill are not available.

Training for 900,000 people is in jeopardy. Training for people who could upgrade their skills to fill in the kinds of jobs that are available in the country versus the jobs they are trained for. It is 900,000 jobs a year and we can't have a conference committee to get that done. It makes more sense to me that we would try to fill the jobs that are available now rather than spending more Federal dollars to try to create jobs.

The third assumption my colleagues are making is that this Congress is not maintaining its commitment to education. I would like to point out to my colleagues that under this Federal budget resolution, Federal education funding will be at its highest level in history. It will come close to doubling since the year 2000--doubling. We doubled the National Institutes of Health's budget over a period of about 8 years, but this President has nearly doubled the education budget since 2000-- nearly doubled it. It amazes me.

The opposition, of course, is upset with that because this President has had the audacity to take the leadership on education. Leadership in education used to be from the other side of the aisle. But this President said, We are going to do it, and he put the dollars behind it to do it. It amazes me that, despite these increases every year, we hear about how this administration and the current congressional leadership failed to support adequate funding for educational programs, particularly title I of No Child Left Behind.

The truth is, these programs have seen enormous increases over the past 4 years. Even so, my colleagues assert that we are somehow undermining our commitment to education.

I am reminded of the debate this body had over last year's budget resolution. We heard over and over from our minority colleagues that the Federal commitment to education was too small. Despite all of the discussion surrounding our failure to support education funding, the current Senate leadership has increased spending for title I and other educational programs more than any other Congress in history. Yet my colleagues argue that is insufficient. They argue we need to raise taxes to support more education spending.

What is the impact of all this new spending on education? State and national studies show that funding for No Child Left Behind is adequate. I would like to remind my colleagues from Massachusetts that a study in their State suggested that more than enough funding is available for implementation of the law. Opponents of the budget resolution might suggest that other

States have found that funding for No Child Left Behind is insufficient and that more money is needed. Many of these estimates are based on some risky assumptions. Some of these studies are anticipating costs more than 10 years into the future.

As an accountant, it strikes me that these studies are missing the point, because they are suggesting that current funding is inadequate for challenges that are not even going to appear for 5 or 10 years in the future, if they appear at all.

I asked for some information about the title I grants for local educational agencies to see what kinds of increases we have had between 2001 and 2005. I was fascinated to see Louisiana, which has been part of the discussion this morning, had a 46.9-percent increase in funding. Massachusetts got a 24.1 percent increase in Title I. New York got an increase of 65.2 percent. Rhode Island got an increase of 76 percent. Washington State got an increase of 47.9 percent.

The Senator from Louisiana also mentioned they didn't have enough money. It is kind of fascinating to me that out of the discretionary funds, those that weren't used reverted to the U.S. Treasury. I have the list by State. Louisiana surrendered 6.37 million to the United States Treasury. All together more than $154 million was returned to the Treasury. All of it isn't being used.

I spoke to one Wyoming superintendent. He said the biggest problem with title I was they needed more flexibility to be able to shift that money to salaries because they already have all they can possibly buy with title I. I thought that was interesting.

I also would like to point out to my colleagues that the ``wealthy'' individuals who would be paying for these increases couldn't possibly afford to fund all the additional spending my colleagues in the minority are recommending. They would have to earn much more than $1 million a year. As my colleague from Utah has pointed out repeatedly, it is the small business owners who will be paying the bulk of these taxes.

I don't believe you want to send the message to the people who managed to achieve the American dream and finally have financial security that the Federal Government will then turn to them and ask them to surrender a much larger portion of their income and call it their ``civic duty.'' I shouldn't have to remind my colleagues that the highest tax rates in this country already apply to the wealthiest Americans. The graduated tax scale relies largely on the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans for most of the Federal Government's revenue already.

The ``wealthiest'', as I have explained, are the people who are business owners who are putting most of that back into a business. My colleagues are suggesting these Americans don't contribute enough and if these Americans were truly interested in their country's well-being, they would agree their taxes should be even higher. I think that is simply ridiculous.

I don't believe the tax increase is the only option we should consider. We are discussing a budget that would provide $814 billion in discretionary spending. My colleagues are saying that simply is not enough money.

Reflecting on my experience as an accountant again, when a company is running deficits there are two things that can be done: They can raise revenue or they can cut spending. This body has shown an insatiable appetite for new spending, but there is a genuine lack of support for reductions in spending. We talk about tax loopholes, we talk about fraud, waste, and abuse, and we talk about tax increases, but we don't talk about truly cutting because we haven't got the will to do it. Even when we talk about increases, it is not enough.

I mention the targets we put up for the budget, the targets the appropriators actually see. We talk about raising them, moving them to the right or moving them to the left, but never lowering them.

In the President's budget, there was some tremendous leadership. The President actually suggested cutting some programs. Why did he suggest cutting programs? He suggested it because Congress imposes on the Federal Government the Government Performance and Results Act. We said every federal program in this country has to do a report every year. In that report they have to show what their application is, what their goals are, how they are going to accomplish it, and how that fits with the money they are spending. They have to tell us what the job is they are doing and how they are getting it done.

It might be interesting to people who are listening, that in some of the agencies some of their programs failed those reviews. They aren't doing what they said they would do. According to the reports those people are writing, they are not doing their job. The President said if they are not doing their job, let us cut the program.

I can tell you that on the Budget Committee we did not do that. That is not in the budget. We didn't cut any of those programs no matter how bad the Government Performance and Results Act showed them to be. That would have been $5.9 billion. I hear that is not enough to do anything, but it would be a big part of what we are trying to do in this amendment for education. We are not cutting those programs. We will have constituents and interested people who will try to prove the Government Performance and Results Act reports were absolutely wrong.

We need to have some courage to cut some things, to revise some things, and to consolidate some things. That is what businesses would be doing. Businesses have to make cuts when revenues go down unless they can figure out a way to get those revenues to come up. They usually do both. They try to figure out a way to get the revenues to come up, but they also cut programs that don't work. They get rid of products that aren't selling.

For some of those programs, the products are only selling to the people who are employed by the programs--not to all of them. For some of them, it was probably a gross error in writing their report. But if we ever cut some of those, I would bet there would be a lot more attention paid to their own reports on performance and goals. That is something we ought to be doing.

Even under the current budget circumstances, my colleagues are asking for even more spending. At what point can we say enough is enough? How much Federal spending is adequate? I think I have said enough about raising taxes and why this body must oppose any effort to finance additional government spending by levying further taxes on our citizens.

Discretionary education spending has increased by 64 percent since 2000. In real dollars, there has been more than a $13 billion increase in discretionary program funding since 2000. Of that total, $4.5 billion has been in title I alone. More than enough has been dedicated in spending to cover the mandatory expenses of the No Child Left Behind Act. Additional increases are both unnecessary and irresponsible given the current budget situation. As we speak, States are waiting on new increases even though they have nearly $6 billion in unobligated funding to them. Almost $2 billion of that total is title I funding. It is time we stop taxing and spending to meet needs that have not presented themselves yet.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on ``Review of Current Investigations and Regulatory Actions Regarding the Mutual Fund Industry.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 10 a.m., on steroids.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 10, at 11:30 a.m., to consider pending calendar business.

Agenda

On Wednesday, March 10, at 11:30 a.m., the Committee will hold a Business Meeting in Dirksen 366 to consider the following items on the agenda:

Agenda Item 1: To consider the nomination of Susan Johnson Grant, to be Chief Financial Officer at the Department of Energy.

Agenda Item 8: S. 1307--A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Reclamation, to assist in the implementation of fish passage and screening facilities at non-Federal water projects, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 9: S. 1355--A bill to authorize the Bureau of Reclamation to participate in the rehabilitation of the Wallowa Lake Dam in Oregon, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 10: S. 1421--A bill to authorize the subdivision and dedication of restricted land owned by Alaska Natives.

Agenda Item 12: H.R. 620--To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to provide supplemental funding and other services that are necessary to assist the State of California or local educational agencies in California in providing educational services for students attending schools located within the Park.

Agenda Item 17: H.R. 2696--To establish institutes to demonstrate and promote the use of adaptive ecosystem management to reduce the risk of wildfires, and restore the health of fire-adapted forest and woodland ecosystems of the interior West.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 9:25 a.m., to conduct a business meeting to consider a GSA resolution and S. 1904, S. 2022, and S. 2043, and to conduct a hearing on the proposed FY 2005 EPA budget.

The hearing will be held in SD 406.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 2 p.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``United States Economic and Trade Policy in the Middle East.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 10, 2003, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing on Nonproliferation and Arms Control Strategy.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday. March 10, 2003, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a hearing on ``A Fresh Start for Haiti? Charting the Future of U.S.-Haitian Relations.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on the proposed reorganization of major agencies and functions related to Indian trust reform matters without the Department of the Interior.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 10 a.m. on ``Letting the People Decide: The Constitutional Amendment Authorizing Congress to Prohibit Physical Desecration of the flag of the United States,'' in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226.

Witness List:

Panel I: The Honorable Daniel J. Bryant, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

Panel II: Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, Chairman of the Board, Citizens Flag Alliance, Recipient, Medal of Honor, Summer, WA; John Andretti, NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Driver, Mooresville, NC; Richard D. Parker, Williams Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA; Gary E. May, Associate Professor of Social Work, University of Southern Indiana (1981-1985), Evansville, IN; and Lawrence Korb, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Navy Veteran, Alexandria, VA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 2:30 p.m. on ``Judicial Nominations'' in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226.

Witness List:

Panel I: Senators.

Panel II: Peter W. Hall, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit.

Panel III: Jane J. Boyle, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas; Marcia G. Cooke, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida; and Walter D. Kelley, Jr., to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the scope and operation of organizations registered under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, for a joint hearing with the House of Representatives's Committee on Veterans' Affairs, to hear the legislative presentation of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The hearing will take place in room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Joint Economic Committee be authorized to conduct a hearing in Room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Wednesday, March 10, 2004, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in open and closed session to receive testimony on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Programs of the Department of Energy and the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program of the Department of Defense, in review of the Defense Authorization Request for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 1 p.m. to conduct a hearing on ``Argentina's Financial Crisis.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on public lands and forests of the committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 10th, at 2:30 p.m.

The purpose of the hearings is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 1354, to resolve certain conveyances and provide for alternative land selections under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act related to Cape Fox Corporation and Sealaska Corporation, and for other purposes; S. 1575 and H.R. 1092, to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to sell certain parcels of federal land in Carson City and Douglas County, NV; S. 1778, to authorize a land conveyance between the United States and the City of Craig, AK, and for other purposes; S. 1819 and H.R. 272, to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to convey certain land to Lander County, NV, and the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain land to Eureka County, NV, for continued use as cemeteries; and H.R. 3249, to extend the term of the Forest Counties Payments Committee.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on Seapower of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2004, at 2 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on the posture of the U.S. Transportation Command, in review of the Defense authorization request for fiscal year 2005 and the future years defense program.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, at 2:30 p.m. on NASA/Mars Exploration Program.

Mr. President, today is, and will always be, a special day in the life of one of my staffers, Sujey Kallumadanda. For on this day, Sujey has successfully completed all the requirements, passed all the tests, completed the interviews and officially taken the oath as a new citizen of the United States. I appreciate having this opportunity to congratulate him on his effort and to wish him well on his acceptance of this wonderful new title he will carry with him for the rest of his life, United States Citizen.

Sujey's story is quite a remarkable one. It begins with his emigration from India when he was young and his arrival in the United States with his family. He is the latest of his family to become a citizen of the United States,

and he couldn't be more proud of his new status.

The journey that began in India brought him to Texas where he graduated from Texas A&M with a bachelor's degree in Economics. He then graduated from Michigan State University with his law degree, and from there he went on to Georgetown University where he received his Master of Laws in Securities and Financial Regulations.

Sujey is a member of the New York Bar and his background and understanding of banking and financial matters made him an invaluable source of information for my staff. He has also proved to be an important asset as we have worked on and studied issues of importance to the small business community.

My staff and I have greatly enjoyed having Sujey on our team and I would like to think we have taught him some valuable lessons about American life. For instance, thanks to my staff, Sujey has developed an appreciation for the finer things in life like Wyoming Honey Candy. I haven't been able to convince him to read fiction novels or that Wyoming is the center of the sports universe but that will come with time. All in all, I don't think he'll ever be the same. But one thing is for certain, and that is the drive and focus he placed on achieving his dream of life in the United States.

Now his apprenticeship is over, and he has received the greatest honor our Nation has to bestow--American citizenship. I know he will carry it proudly and with purpose in the years to come.

Sujey knows full well that being an American Citizen is not only a great honor, but that it brings with it both great freedoms and rights--and great duties and responsibilities. He will become very familiar with them both as he continues to take part in one of the greatest experiments in government the world has ever known--the American democracy.

Congratulations, Sujey. By your example you have reminded us that we are very fortunate to be American citizens. By your heartfelt dedication and commitment to earning your citizenship you have taught us that citizenship is a great honor and we should never take it for granted. Good luck and God bless.

I will talk about an amendment that has not been laid down. There were comments about overtime a while ago, and I want people to know the rest of the story.

The bill we are on has the catchy name of FSC/ETI. What we are trying to do is comply with some World Trade Organization requirements that allow penalties to be put on our exports overseas and agricultural products are a big one. They always get targeted when this sort of thing happens. We need to correct our law so we are not being penalized, so we do not eliminate business that the United States can have.

Penalties went into effect on March 1 and go up 1 percent per month on U.S. businesses if we do not change the law. We are trying to change the law. It needs to be done quickly. It should be done pretty cleanly. It obviously is not going to be.

We keep talking about jobs, but our actions do not match our words. I point out one very important jobs program we have that affects Americans who want to improve their skills and get a better job. We have the Workforce Investment Act, and that has the potential each and every year to retrain 900,000 people so they have the skills and talents to handle the jobs available, the well-paying jobs available in this country that we are having to fill from overseas.

Do you know what has happened to that bill? Let me give Members a brief history. We passed it out of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee unanimously. How often do you think that happens in that committee? It can be a very contentious committee. It passed out of the committee unanimously. What happened in the Senate? We passed it in the Senate by

unanimous consent. That means not one person in the Senate wanted to amend the bill; not one person in the Senate wanted to vote against the bill. It was unanimous. That is as bipartisan as we can possibly get.

Where is that bill now? We cannot appoint a conference committee. That is the committee made up of Republicans and Democrats who would meet with Republicans and Democrats from the House to work out differences between what they passed and what we passed. We cannot have a conference committee to do that.

That is 900,000 jobs in this country that are being stalled out; 900,000 opportunities we are not going to give to Americans. Instead, we are going to talk about a whole bunch of amendments to this bill that are going to slow down this bill and increase penalties on American businesses trying to ship goods overseas. In fact, all American businesses.

Keep that in mind. If we want to take care of jobs in this country and make sure jobs stay in this country, we would get a conference committee appointed on the Workforce Investment Act and get that thing resolved and get people trained and to work.

One of the examples of what will happen on this is the overtime amendment that we have been promised. I could wait until it actually came up, but there were some comments made and there is a need to respond on the 40 minutes we have already heard about the overtime amendment.

It is time to strip the rhetoric from the reality and consider who is really helped and hurt by this amendment which prohibits the Department of Labor from updating the rules exempting white-collar employees from overtime pay. It is not all that simple.

When I am back in Wyoming, I like to hold town meetings to find out what is on the minds of my constituents. At each town meeting, there is usually someone in attendance who is quite concerned about government regulations. I am often told to rein big government in, keep the rules and regulations simple, keep them current and responsive, and make sure they make sense in today's ever changing workplace.

Most of the people I talk to are small businessmen, but that is most of business in this country. They are being killed by the rules and regulations, and, in some cases, by trial attorneys.

Today we are reviewing an amendment that takes the opposite approach. Instead of keeping it simple and current, it will prohibit the Secretary of Labor from updating the rules exempting white-collar employees from the Fair Labor Standards Act and overtime requirement in some cases, an attempt to reject the new, turn back the clock, and look to yesterday for the answer to tomorrow's problems. It is an approach that is doomed to failure before it is even applied. I am opposed to the amendment.

There is no question that the workplace has dramatically changed during the last half century. The regulations governing white-collar exemptions remain substantially the same as they were 50 years ago. The existing rules take us back to the time when workers held titles such as straw boss, keypunch operator, legman, and other occupations that no longer exist today.

Our economy has evolved. New occupations have emerged that were not even contemplated when the regulations were written. A 1999 study by the General Accounting Office recommended that the Department of Labor: Comprehensively review current regulations and restructure white-collar exemptions to better accommodate today's workplace and to anticipate future workplace trends. That is precisely what the Department of Labor's proposal to update and clarify the white-collar regulations will do.

While the Department's proposal will update and clarify, this amendment will do neither. Instead, it will set the clock back to 1954 and try to force the square peg of the 21st century jobs into the round hole of the workplace of 50 years ago.

I am a former shoe salesman and I know how to tell when something will not fit. This just will not fit. It is like trying to force a size 10 foot into a size 6 shoe. It will not fit no matter how hard you try.

Through the course of the debate on overtime over the next several days, we will hear a lot of numbers. Some of them are statistics and we know how statistics work. I am an accountant so I will try to give some good numbers and hope you will put up with me with the numbers, but there are numbers you need to know.

Let us be clear about what this amendment will do. The amendment will undermine the Department of Labor's efforts to extend overtime protection to 1.3 million low-wage workers. Under the current rules, only those rare workers earning less than $8,060 a year are protected for overtime pay. That is how old this rule is. You are protected if you are making less than $8,060 a year. Now the administration's proposed rule will raise that threshold to $22,100 a year.

Doesn't that sound more common sense in today's market? Doesn't that sound like a number that covers more people? If the old rule covered those making less than $8,060, a new rule, covering those making less than $22,100, would cover more people.

As a result, 20 percent of the lowest paid workers would be guaranteed overtime pay. The overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act were originally intended to protect lower income workers. The proposed rules will provide lower income workers with the protection they deserve.

That also makes it easier for businesses to know when they are complying with the law. And that is important, particularly for small businesses. They need to know. They should not have a bunch of different criteria that they need a special accountant or attorney to interpret for them so they can tell whether they are violating the law.

This rule, the one proposed--proposed; it is not finalized yet--by the Department of Labor will make it easier for businesses to know when they are complying.

By undermining the administration's efforts to better protect lower income workers, who will this amendment protect? The supporters of the amendment--the amendment that is going to be laid down, I guess--claim that an estimated 8 million workers will become ineligible for overtime under the proposed rules. However, this estimate is based on a study by the Economic Policy Institute, and it is riddled with errors. For example, the study includes in its calculations at least 18 percent of the workforce who work 35 hours or less a week. These part-time workers do not work more than 40 hours a week and, therefore, they do not receive overtime in the first place.

The study also claims the proposed rule will deny overtime pay to white-collar employees earning more than $65,000 a year. However, not all the employees earning over $65,000 are exempt under the proposed rules--only those performing office or nonmanual work and one or more exempt duties. This means workers, such as police officers, firefighters, plumbers, Teamsters, carpenters, and electricians will not--will not--lose their overtime pay. The Department of Labor acknowledges the possibility that 644,000 highly educated workers making over $65,000 a year might lose their overtime. Mr. President, 1.3 million get picked up on the bottom end; 644,000 drop out on the top.

Supporters of this amendment claim that the proposed rules will strip overtime pay for first responders and nurses. If we look behind the rhetoric, we find there will be virtually no change in status for first responders and nurses under the Department of Labor proposal. Under both the current and proposed regulations, only registered nurses are exempt from overtime pay.

Supporters of this amendment claim that military personnel and veterans will lose their overtime pay under the proposed rules. However, military personnel and veterans are not affected by the proposed rules by virtue of their military status or training. Nothing in the current or proposed regulation makes any mention of veteran status.

Who will this amendment protect, if not low-income workers, first responders, nurses, veterans, or millions of other working Americans? The antiquated and confusing white-collar exemptions have created a windfall--a windfall--for trial lawyers. Ambiguities and outdated terms have generated significant confusion regarding which employees are exempt from the overtime requirements. The confusion

has generated significant litigation and overtime pay awards for highly paid, white-collar employees. Wage and hour cases now exceed discrimination suits as the leading type of employment law class action. Let me repeat that again. Wage and hour cases now exceed discrimination suits as the leading type of employment law class action.

This amendment--the amendment that Senator Harkin is going to put in--will not preserve overtime for millions of working Americans. The amendment will not help employers and employees clearly and fairly determine who is entitled to overtime. The only clear winners from this amendment will be the trial lawyers who will continue to benefit from the current state of confusion. We are spending taxpayers' dollars sorting through what could be solved with clarity.

I stress that these are proposed rules--proposed rules. The Department of Labor has received, and is currently reviewing, around 80,000 comments to their proposed regulations. We should allow the regulatory process to continue and give the Department a chance to complete its review of the proposed rules. Once the review is completed, the Department will align the white-collar regulations with the realities of the 21st century workplace, the intent of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and--this is most important--what they have learned from the comments.

They have 80,000 comments. I expect them to read those. I expect them to react to those, and make sure that it becomes a part of the rule.

Now, supporters of this amendment are, in effect, denying the public a voice in the regulatory process. This amendment will deny the Department of Labor an opportunity to respond to public comments. I happen to believe that public comments play a critical role in the regulatory process.

I will tell you, I go back to Wyoming most weekends. I go out on Friday, travel to a different part of the State, and come back on Sunday. It is the most valuable thing I do around here, and that is because I get to talk to the person who has the problem firsthand. Do you know what? They are working on that all day, every day. And the advantage is they have usually thought of some kind of a solution. Now, when I bring it back, quite often, the comment is: It is too simple. It will never work. Where did you come up with a crazy idea like that? And I have to explain: From the guy with the problem who works on this every day and knows the commonsense approach to solving that problem.

Those are the people writing in with comments. Those are the people who are saying: This is where it is right. This is where it is wrong. Fix it where it is wrong. Leave it in the new context where it is right. That is how the process is supposed to work.

We want the Department of Labor to look at those comments and respond--respond by changing the rule, or respond by letting the people know how that will not work or how it is covered a different way. We have to have that process work.

Now, I hope if there are substantial changes it gets put out one more time for comments. There is not anything around that says they cannot reissue them for comment. The public comments are what help us get it right. We do not do these jobs, so we do not know all the right answers. But the people out there working on them do. The answers can be made right.

Now, if the final rule has gone astray, after all of this process, we can use the Congressional Review Act to reverse it. And we have done that before. That is where we say: You did not pay attention to the process. You did not pay attention to the comments. We are going to jerk you back to reality. But now is not the time or the vehicle for making that determination.

I hope my colleague will not put down the amendment, but if he does, I hope my other colleagues will support me in allowing the Department to move forward with the review and response that they need to be doing. They do need to be paying attention to all of this debate. But we do need to bring that rule into the current century and make sure people are working at jobs and the rules are understandable, particularly with small businesses that are trying to provide a service, not figure out Government regulations.

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

Madam President, our Nation's medical litigation system is broken and we need to start working to fix it. I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture on the Gregg-Ensign bill. It is time to stop filibustering and to start working.

I just got back from Wyoming. They are having this same debate there. They don't trust us to finish it here. They are trying to finish it on a local basis. They are having a debate on a constitutional amendment to be able to do medical tort reform.

I tell you, that is a very difficult thing. Litigation reform requires a constitutional amendment in Wyoming. That means there may be a vote of the people, but that can't happen until at least November and we are in a crisis in Wyoming right now. We are not the only State in a crisis.

Last year, we brought a medical litigation reform bill to the Senate. The legislation would have placed reasonable limits on the amount of money attorneys can take from a verdict or a settlement in an injured patient's favor. The bill also would have limited awards for punitive damages and noneconomic damages. In other words, the pain and suffering awards.

The bill would not have limited awards to compensate patients for economic losses. This is an important point for everyone to keep in mind. If a judge and jury were to decide a person suffered an injury due to a doctor's mistake or a hospital's negligence, that person would be entitled to receive full compensation for their economic loss, including everything from rehabilitation to lost wages resulting from their injury. I cannot stress this point enough. The bill would not have limited awards for any part of economic losses.

What the bill would have done is place a ceiling on noneconomic damages. The bill would have limited the maximum award for noneconomic damages to $250,000 in States that do not have their own limits on such awards.

In Wyoming, we do not currently have limits on noneconomic damage awards. We do not have limits despite evidence which shows limits on noneconomic damage awards have helped control the cost of medical liability insurance premiums in other States.

As a result, people in Wyoming are losing access to affordable health care in their communities. The rising cost of medical liability insurance in my State of Wyoming is forcing doctors to curtail their practices or close them entirely. We have a shortage of doctors in Wyoming as it is and the cost of medical liability insurance is making a bad problem even worse.

To address this problem, I cosponsored the medical litigation reform bill we offered for debate last year. We needed 60 Members in this body to vote in favor of working on the bill to get past a filibuster, but only 49 voted in favor. So it was back to the drawing board.

Here we are again, 9 months later, with a new bill. It is ironic we are here 9 months later because this bill focuses on mothers and babies.

Medical liability crisis affects many patients and doctors. Those it affects most are the expectant mothers and their obstetricians.

Doctors who deliver babies have a dubious honor when it comes to medical liability insurance. The typical obstetrician pays more in annual premiums for professional liability insurance than almost any other type of doctor. Part of the reason is that in some states the child has the right to sue when they get to adulthood. That is a pretty long tail on the liability. If the parent fails to sue, the child can sue.

Some of my colleagues have pointed out the statistics and numbers on this crisis, so instead I will tell a short story about an obstetrician in Wyoming. I told this story in July so I apologize if you have heard it before, but it is worth retelling.

There was an article in the Washington Post about a year ago about the medical liability crisis. The reporter for the Post had gone to Wyoming to

see how the crisis affected a State already struggling to keep enough doctors as it is.

According to the article in the Washington Post, the doctor in Wheatland, WY, went to a high school basketball game between the Wheatland Bulldogs and the nearby Douglas Bearcats.

Here is Wheatland on a map; here is Douglas. Wyoming is a pretty big State. This map shows about a quarter of the State. Each of the counties on this map is bigger than Delaware, and the distance between Wheatland and Cheyenne is pretty close to the length of Delaware. We are talking about a lot of distance, but not many people. One of these counties the size of Delaware has 2,500 people living in it total, so we have a lot of land, few people, and consequently not many doctors. Wheatland and Douglas are 60 miles apart. That qualifies as nearby in my State.

Now the doctor had just announced he would not be delivering any more babies in Wheatland or Douglas because of the cost of liability insurance. The irony is he delivered just about every player on both teams at that basketball game.

I would like to read a section of this story. The name of the doctor is Willard Woods:

The national malpractice insurance crisis . . . hit home

for Wheatland this winter when Woods' insurance company

joined a number of national malpractice carriers in declaring

bankruptcy.

I emphasize that last part. Malpractice carriers are declaring bankruptcy. Some people say these companies are making out like bandits on medical liability insurance. If they are, they would not be declaring bankruptcy. These insurance companies are in crisis. They are raising their rates to cover the costs from legal cases and settlements.

Back to the quote.

That left only two firms selling malpractice insurance in

Wyoming, and neither one was willing to take on a new

obstetrical coverage. Woods did get insurance for his

gynecological practice--a branch of medicine that spawns far

fewer lawsuits than delivering babies--but the annual premium

cost him $116,000, three times what he paid the year before.

In this wheat-growing region of eastern Wyoming, where

medical services are sparse and scattered, the impact is

acute. Platte County, with a population of less than 9,000,

has five doctors, equal to the number of veterinarians.

Women with normal pregnancies can still have their babies

delivered in the hospital; Woods's two partners, both general

practitioners, share the delivery duties.

``But if you have any kind of problem like I did,'' said

Wheatland mother Kori Wilhelm, who has a genetic blood

mutation that makes pregnancy dangerous, ``you have to go to

Cheyenne now''--and that's a 140-mile round trip--``to get

the specialized treatment we used to get right down the

street at Dr. Woods's clinic.''

Put yourself in that woman's shoes. Until the cost of medical liability insurance drove Dr. Woods out of obstetrics, a woman experiencing a difficult pregnancy in Wheatland could get specialized care in her own community. Now that woman has to drive 140 miles round trip for proper prenatal care and to have a specialist deliver her baby.

Madam President, 140 miles is a long way for anyone to travel to see a doctor. It is even a longer 140 miles for a pregnant woman. And it is truly a long 140 miles for a pregnant woman in the middle of winter when high winds and blowing snow often force the highway department to close the interstate between Wheatland and Cheyenne.

I wish this were the only story I could tell about the crisis in Wyoming, but it is not.

I could talk about Dr. Jack Richard, an OB/GYN who reluctantly retired last year due to his high cost of medical liability insurance. Dr. Richard served the people of Casper, WY, for more than 30 years, but he was not ready to retire at the age of 61. Dr. Richard had already stopped providing routine obstetrical care in 2000, but even as a part-time physician, his premiums had doubled since then.

I could talk about Lisa Minge, an OB/GYN who left my hometown of Gillette in November and moved her practice to Boise, Idaho. She cited the high cost of liability insurance as one of the factors in her move to Idaho, which has a $250,000 limit on noneconomic damage awards.

I could talk about Dr. Bert Wagner, an OB/GYN in Cheyenne who stopped delivering babies this year to avoid the high cost of insurance for the obstetrical side of his practice.

Or I could talk about a group of family practice doctors in Cheyenne who are trying to decide whether they can keep delivering babies. The four doctors in this group saw their premiums go from $65,000 in 2003 to $110,000 in 2004. This is despite the fact they had already limited the number of babies they would deliver to 30 per doctor per year to avoid having to pay the full obstetrical rate. I don't know what you do if you are the mom who needs the 31st baby delivered.

I have more stories I could tell, but I am not sure what good it would do. I am an optimist by nature, but I am afraid I am pessimistic about the outcome of this vote.

Nevertheless, I commend Senators Gregg and Ensign and our majority leader, Dr. Frist, for trying again. They have developed a bill that is focused on one of the most critical parts of this nationwide crisis-- the plight of expectant mothers who depend on obstetricians to provide a safe and healthy delivery for their babies.

What Senators Gregg and Ensign have proposed is a modest approach that will provide some measure of relief to doctors who are squeezed by the high cost of medical liability insurance. The bill puts reasonable limits in place on the amount of money attorneys can take from settlements and verdicts awarded to injured mothers and babies.

The bill does not limit the amount of money juries and judges can award to cover lost wages, rehabilitation, special services, and other economic losses an injured mother or child might face. It simply puts a reasonable limit on what judges and juries can award for punitive and noneconomic damages, which are the types of unpredictable awards that are contributing to this health care access crisis.

I have noticed something interesting during our debates on this issue. While we have been debating the pros and cons of reform, no one is standing up to defend our current system of medical litigation. No one is standing up to defend our current system. We are talking about limits on noneconomic damages, or the role of the insurance industry, and Senators are saying: Yes, there is a problem, but the bill before us doesn't solve it.

One thing I have not heard is a rousing defense of our medical litigation system. Even some of the lawyers in this body have agreed frivolous lawsuits are a problem and our medical litigation system needs reform.

Why aren't we hearing anyone defend the merits of our current medical litigation system? It is because it is indefensible. Our system does not work. It simply does not work for the patients or for the health care providers.

The bill we are debating today is a good bill for mothers and babies and the doctors who serve them. But even the sponsors would probably admit it is a short-term measure that does not address the fundamental problems with our medical litigation system. This is an important bill, but it is just a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. It is not going to heal our broken system.

I would like to share with my colleagues a brief analysis of our medical litigation system. It comes from this book, ``Fostering Rapid Advances in Health Care, Learning From System Demonstrations,'' published by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Let me quote a section of this book:

There is widespread agreement that the current system of

tort liability is a poor way to prevent and redress injury

resulting from medical error.

Most instances of negligence do not give rise to lawsuits,

and most legal claims do not relate to negligent care. Many

injured patients do not know they have suffered an injury

resulting from error, and those who go through the legal

process often do not even recover the cost of their continued

health care.

A few plaintiffs and their attorneys, however, win large

sums that may be disproportionate to their injuries or

unrelated to the defendant's conduct. Prolonged, adversarial

haggling over claims by plaintiffs' attorneys and liability

insurers alienates both providers and patients, and generates

legal fees and administrative expenses that consume more than

half the cost of liability insurance premiums.

The apparent randomness and delay associated with this

pattern of accountability not only prevent severely injured

patients from receiving prompt, fair compensation, but

destabilize liability insurance markets and attenuate the

signal that liability is supposed

to send health care providers regarding the need for quality

improvement. Fear and distrust breed inefficient ``defensive

medicine,'' and lead to missed opportunities for information

exchange and apology that might avoid lawsuits in the first

place.

The shortcomings of the current malpractice system

therefore come from three directions, all of which have

contributed to the present crisis: inefficient and

inequitable legal processes for resolving disputes,

problematic responses by clinicians to the threat and cost of

liability, and volatile markets for liability insurance.

Although some states face greater insurance instability than

others as the result of different legal standards, public

expectations, and professional cultures, no state is immune

to the threat of service interruptions affecting physicians,

hospitals, and other health care providers.

These are not my words. They are not the words of personal injury lawyers. They are not the words of tort reform advocates either. As I pointed out earlier, these words are from the National Academy of Sciences, specifically the Institute of Medicine. This organization was created by the Federal Government and chartered by Congress to provide unbiased and evidence-based advice on health policy.

This congressionally chartered body issued a report in 2002 that called upon the Federal Government to support demonstration projects in the States to evaluate alternatives to current medical tort litigation. In response, I have introduced a bill in the spirit of this report.

This bill, the Reliable Medical Justice Act, would authorize funding for States to create alternatives to current tort litigation. The funding would cover the costs of planning and initiating proposals based on models outlined in the bill or other innovative ideas.

My bill would require participating States and the Federal Government to work together in evaluating the results of the alternatives as compared to traditional tort litigation. This way, all States and the Federal Government could learn from new approaches.

As I speak, some States are already looking into alternatives to medical litigation as we know it. My home State of Wyoming is one of them. Another is Massachusetts, where Governor Romney is working with Harvard University on an innovative project. Another is Florida, where the Governor's task force recommended the implementation of projects along the lines of those suggested in my bill. We should encourage and support these States and others that are considering similar ideas.

Believe it or not, both Newt Gingrich and the editors of the New York Times have endorsed the idea of creating and evaluating alternatives to medical litigation. If Newt Gingrich and the New York Times are in the same tent on an issue, maybe there is room in that tent for most of my fellow Senators to support it as well.

I support the Gregg-Ensign bill. It provides some short-term relief for mothers and babies and their doctors. A lot of my colleagues will be voting with me, and a lot will probably vote against me. Regardless of how we vote on this legislation before us, we must acknowledge there is a medical liability crisis, and we must work together to find a solution.

Our medical litigation system is failing us. Medical lawsuits are supposed to compensate people fairly and deter future errors. But most patients do not get fair and timely compensation, and there is nothing to show the lawsuits are deterring medical errors or making patients safer.

I hope my colleagues will vote in favor of providing mothers, babies, and their doctors with some immediate relief through the Gregg-Ensign bill. I also hope they will look seriously at my legislation, S. 1518, which would put us on the road to replacing medical lawsuits with better and fairer systems for compensating and protecting patients. We need to pass both of these bills before we can say we have begun to solve this medical liability crisis.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.