Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, earlier this month, President Bush sent up another trade agreement to the House of Representatives. This agreement is a bilateral trade agreement with Colombia. He calls it a ``free trade agreement,'' a term we use around here--I am not sure why, except that it sounds good, because these trade agreements generally are--I don't have it in front of me, but it was too thick to bind in its original printing. It is about seven or eight hundred pages.

NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement--which the Presiding Officer opposed 15 years ago, as I did--was even longer than that. The way they sell these agreements is they say we are eliminating the tariffs on the trade relationship between--in this case it is Colombia, and Colombia still

has tariffs on American goods. We have eliminated tariffs on Colombian goods. If we were to pass a real free trade agreement, it would be three, four, five, six pages long and eliminate the tariff schedule, making a real free trade agreement.

These are not free trade agreements the President sends us, nor are they free trade agreements that Presidents in the past sent. They are hundreds and hundreds of pages of protectionism, pages outlining protections for the drug companies, protections for the energy companies, for financial services companies, banks and others, and protections for the pharmaceutical industry. That is what these supposed free trade agreements are.

It is interesting that those of us who oppose these ``free trade agreements'' because they don't protect our communities, frankly, are called ``protectionists.'' If we are going to write these agreements and build in protections for the drug companies, the oil industry, and the other energy companies, the financial services companies, the banks, and the insurance companies, we also should build in protections for our workers in New Jersey and in Ohio, protections for our communities in Lima, and Mansfield, and Tiffin, OH, protections for food safety, and build in protections for consumer product safety.

But that is not what they do. What is most curious about these agreements that the President has sent up--in this case the most recent is Colombia--it reminds me of the old Einstein saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

We have seen, in almost 15-plus years in the House of Representatives, and now in the Senate--and it is roughly the same period of the Presiding Officer--we have seen our trade deficit go from $38 billion in 1992, to in excess of $800 billion last year. It is hard to know exactly what that means. A $38 billion deficit--that means we buy $38 billion more in this country than we sell to other countries. It is $800 billion more that we buy in this country than we sell to other countries. That is a huge amount of dollars, obviously.

That $800 billion--it was boiled down by the first President Bush, who said that a billion dollar trade surplus, or deficit, translated into 13,000 jobs. So if you have a trade surplus--in other words, if you are selling more than you are buying as a nation, a billion dollars, according to President Bush the first, would add up to about 13,000 new jobs--net gain of jobs in your country. But if you have $1 billion deficit, it means it is a 13,000 net job loss in your country. We have not a billion dollar trade deficit but an $800 billion one. Do the math. What does that mean in lost jobs? It means an awful lot of lost manufacturing jobs in my State, from Cleveland, to Dayton, to Lima, to Canton, to Kent, to Ravenna, to all over our State. It means a lot of other lost jobs, not just manufacturing jobs. When American Standard shuts down in Tiffin, and when a company shuts down in Bucyrus, or in Ashland, it means fewer firefighters, fewer schoolteachers, fewer restaurant workers, fewer realtors, and fewer people who serve those jobs--those people who had the manufacturing jobs.

So it is pretty clear that the trade agreements, in addition to other damage they have done, clearly--when you have a trade deficit that goes from $38 billion to $800 billion in a decade and a half, they have done significant damage to our country and, most importantly, to our communities and our families.

I will close on something specifically unique to the Colombia trade agreement. We know that in Colombia they have had a significant number of murders committed against union activists. I heard a Member of the House say today there were more union activists--organizing union leaders--murdered in Colombia than anywhere in the rest of the world combined.

Although President Uribe of Colombia says union violence has come down and his spokespeople in this body say the same, the fact is that union murders, deaths of union activists in the first 3 months of 2008 are almost twice what they were in 2007. Adding insult to injury, we have seen fewer and fewer convictions. Only about 3 percent of these murders have resulted in convictions of the people who have been guilty of the murders. To add even further insult to this whole issue, the American Government, the State Department has said the paramilitary vigilantes who are allied often with the Uribe Government who have killed the union activists are classified by our State Department as terrorists. We, in essence, are supporting the Uribe Government that is allied with paramilitary vigilantes who are called terrorists by our own Government.

I don't quite see why we would want to reward that Government. I want President Uribe to succeed. I think he has done decent works. But I don't think we should reward him with a trade agreement and lose the leverage we have to try to get the activist murder rate down and also so that the people have the opportunity to join unions in Colombia. Fewer than 5 percent of the Colombian workforce is unionized. That is the lowest or second lowest in the Western Hemisphere.

They are not doing what they need to do to bring working families into the middle class, as we have seen in our country. The reason we have a prosperous Zanesville and a prosperous Springfield, OH, in part is because of people's ability to join a union and bargain collectively for better wages, health care, and pensions.

In the country of Colombia, they do not have those opportunities. For us to put the imprimatur of the U.S. on a free-trade agreement for that social structure and government to me makes little sense.

The House of Representatives delayed the bill for several months. If it gets to this body, I am hopeful Members will do the right thing and say to President Bush: It is not time to do a trade agreement. This trade policy in our country has failed. It is not working for our country, it is not working for our national security, it is not working for our communities, it is not working for our families, and it is not working to build the middle class in this society the way we should.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 516, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, April 16; that following the prayer and the pledge, the

Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for use later in the day, and the Senate then proceed to a period of morning business for up to 60 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each and the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 1195, the highway technical corrections bill.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, at the conclusion of my remarks, I will yield to Senator Stabenow of Michigan who will also talk about trade adjustment assistance in Michigan and Ohio and all that our States are going through in large part because of misdirected trade policies.

Yesterday, President Bush announced he would send a proposed Colombian Free Trade Agreement to Congress for a vote. He does this over the opposition of the Democratic leadership in the House and in the Senate, in defiance of our desire to work on a bipartisan basis, and in direct opposition to the desires of a growing number of Ohioans and Michiganders and Americans all over this country. In doing so, President Bush has nailed shut the fast-track coffin.

As my colleagues know, this agreement was negotiated under the so- called fast-track provisions. It is an extraordinary procedure provided only for trade agreements, not for any other kind of legislation. Trade is that special and that important to a very narrow but very powerful, very influential group of people in this country. Congress decided years ago to delegate an enormous amount of power to the executive branch to negotiate trade agreements. In nothing else does this body, charged under the Constitution with specific duties and responsibilities, give that much power to the executive branch as it does with these trade agreements.

Under the fast-track provisions, once presented to Congress, a so- called free-trade agreement triggers a 90-day clock for consideration of the agreement. No

amendments can be offered to improve it, unlike anything else here. Congress is given a take-it-or-leave-it decision.

Much of the talk about this agreement centers around the violence and impunity in Colombia, especially as it relates to trade unionists, and for good reason.

International organizations and human rights groups look at Colombia's record with urgency and alarm. Human rights defenders, trade unionists, and community leaders in Colombia are today receiving death threats from the rearmed paramilitary group, known as the Black Eagles, and are reeling from a new wave of violence.

This leaflet blown up, of course, was distributed at a March 6 rally in Colombia. The beginning says: Death to the leaders who march for peace and justice. This was a peace and justice rally. The Black Eagles handed out this leaflet to state their point of view, if you will. Before, during, and after this countrywide rally on March 6 against paramilitary and all forms of violence, at least two march organizers were killed.

Union leaders Carlos Burbano and Carmen Cecilia Carvajal were killed for trying to voice their views. At least three other leaders were killed in events also associated with the march. March organizers all over the country received death threats such as these. One organizer's house was attacked with gunfire a week before the rally on February 29.

These human rights issues are exceedingly serious. Yet the administration cavalierly casts them aside, barely acknowledging the culture of violence and impunity.

Just the merits of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement is another fundamentally flawed trade pact in the long line of trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA, in the long line of bad trade policies such as PNTR with China. If these are really ``free'' trade agreements, if it did what its supporters tell us, simply knocking down trade agreements, it would be a smaller document. It would be a couple of pages, just getting rid of tariffs. Instead, it is many more pages, such as NAFTA. NAFTA was 900 pages of rules and regulations, having little to do with trade because instead of simply eliminating tariffs, which we would like to do, these agreements are packed with rules on investment, services, procurement, telecommunications, drug patents, and more.

So why do we get thousands of pages of seemingly nontrade issues in a trade agreement? Because these trade agreements are rules to protect corporations, not rules to protect workers. These trade agreements are rules to protect the drug companies, not to protect the environment; rules to protect hedge funds, not rules to protect consumers; rules to protect Wall Street, not rules to protect Main Street.

Notice the word ``protect.'' They--the editorial writers, the Harvard economists, the CEOs, the Wall Street bankers, the corporate lobbyists, the big-time lawyers, the hedge fund managers--try to label people such as us ``protectionists.'' I guess it depends on whom, Mr. President, you want to protect.

NAFTA, CAFTA, and Colombia protect the drug companies and the investment banks. They protect the corporate interests. Theirs is sort of a high-class protectionism. But protecting labor, protecting consumers, that is not protectionist. That is the duty of Government.

Many in this Chamber will recall the debate on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. We had a coalition of religious people, consumer advocates, environmentalists, small business, medium-size manufacturers, and organized labor in opposition to CAFTA. CAFTA's proponents said if it did not pass, poverty would get worse in Central America. CAFTA, they promised, would promote economic growth and curb the violence in Central America and would serve as a model for strengthening democracy.

The U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Zoellick, said ``if CAFTA stumbles, labor rights in Central America will not be strengthened,'' as if anybody in this administration really wanted to strengthen labor rights. The reality is that there have been disturbing developments in the region, including the recent passage by the Honduran Government of a law to create exception zones that will allow foreign factories to pay less than the national minimum wage.

How does that help Honduran workers that there is a zone in which they pay a subminimum wage?

Labor ministries in Central American countries still lack the staffing and the resources to implement their programs. In many cases, budgets have actually been reduced since the passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Consistent with its history of repeating the same act and expecting different results, the administration now wants Congress to approve a deal with Colombia, a country where there are increased and continued death threats against labor activists, followed by assassinations of labor activists, followed by nothing, followed by no prosecution, no attempts to find the killers, continued excuses from President Uribe, and continued excuses from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Trade Representative and, frankly, yesterday, President Bush himself.

The administration has shown no willingness to enforce labor and environmental rules at home, so it is hardly surprising it would ignore violations among our trading partners.

There have been well-documented abuses of sweatshops in Jordan, despite the supposedly better labor standards in that agreement. Jordan, to its credit, has taken steps to crack down on these companies and work with nongovernmental organizations and others in promoting the standards intended in that agreement.

It is important to note that the Bush administration, however, did not use the enforcement tools available to it in that trade agreement to require labor compliance. So why do we think they will use the provisions in this trade agreement, the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, to require labor compliance? Of course, they won't. But when there is a commercial dispute or a drug patent dispute, the administration comes down on a country with all the fury it can muster. Protect the drug companies? The administration says yes. Protect workers? No thanks. Protect oil interests? The administration says, of course. Protect the environment? The administration says, no thanks. Protect the banks and the financial institutions? The administration says: Where do I sign up? Protect food safety for our children, protect toys for our children, food safety for our families? The administration is not particularly interested.

Why then should we consider a trade agreement with a country such as Colombia which is known as the most dangerous country in the world to be a union activist? In fact, Colombia has an unbroken record in recent decades of leading the world in trade unionist killings. Violence against unionists continues at extremely high levels. The vast majority of trade union assassinations remains unsolved.

Preliminary figures show that between 12 and 17 trade unionists were killed in the first 3 months of 2008. Among those murdered was Carmen Ramirez, a teacher and member of the teachers union. She was killed on her way to work on March 4.

Gomez Rozo Leonidas, the director of the National Union of Bank Workers, disappeared on March 5 and was found dead 3 days later.

A subunit of the attorney general's office was established in 2006 in Bogota to accelerate resolutions of assassinations of trade unionists. Despite more resources for these cases, convictions have lagged behind murders, leaving the unsolved murder/conviction rate at 98 percent. Of the 2,283 murders between 1991 and 2007--2,283 murders of union activists in that 17-year period--there have been 50 convictions. There have been 50 convictions out of 2,283. Does that sound like the Government really is interested in going after hate groups like this?

We need to craft trade policies that deliver the long-term results we need, not just the short-term profits a few multinational companies crave. When it comes to trade and the Bush administration, idealogy trumps outcomes. Special interests always--always--trump U.S. interests.

Congress needs to reject this agreement. The Senate needs to make a clear statement that we stand for a better approach to trade, one based on using our market as leverage to raise

living standards in Latin America, in Michigan, in Montana, in Ohio, and our whole country.

Mr. President, joining me today is Senator Stabenow of Michigan, who, during her almost 7\1/2\ years in the Senate and time in the House, has been a stalwart advocate for workers in Michigan and across this country, and she is particularly interested in this trade adjustment work, with the problems in Michigan. She has stood strong, and we are joining together today.

I yield to Senator Stabenow.

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

Thank you, Mr. President.

China Human Rights Violations

Mr. President, in a little more than 4 months, the world will witness one of its great quadrennial events: the Summer Olympic Games.

The games have been billed as a way for China to reintroduce itself to the international community. China has done everything, virtually, to prepare. It has pulled out all the stops: $38 billion in infrastructure improvements, including a brand new 91,000-seat stadium, 300 miles of new roads, and an entirely new terminal at Beijing's international airport--all done for the Olympic Games.

What China will not be highlighting is its human rights record. That is because its human rights record is abysmal. Last year, Amnesty International, the nonpartisan, nonaligned, highly respected international group that monitors human rights, said of China that:

An increased number of journalists . . . were harassed,

detained, and jailed. Thousands of people who pursued their

faith outside officially sanctioned churches were subjected

to harassment and many to detention and imprisonment.

Thousands of people were sentenced to death or executed.

Migrants from rural areas were deprived of basic rights.

The report went on to say:

Severe repression of the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang

Uyghur Autonomous Region continued, and freedom of expression

and religion continued to be severely restricted in Tibet and

among Tibetans everywhere.

Acts of repression include indiscriminate use of the death penalty, torture, kangaroo courts, arbitrary detention, and the policy of cultural, religious, and linguistic eradication.

Beijing will continue to attempt to paint its repressive regime in the best light possible, as we have seen them try to do in the last month with the unnerving tragic events in Tibet.

Our Nation must not implicitly condone human rights abuses by ignoring them. Our Nation must not implicitly condone religious persecution by minimizing it. Our Nation must not implicitly condone economic exploitation by perpetuating it.

The repression in Tibet is, unfortunately, nothing new. For close to 60 years, Tibetans have survived under Beijing repression. The Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have been subjected to the same grueling conditions.

We must not allow the pomp and circumstance--as it comes over the broadcast networks in our country--we must not allow the pomp and circumstance of these Olympics to obscure the real China, the China that too often represses its people, the China that too often manipulates its currency--as the senior Senator from New York, the Presiding Officer, has worked on--the China that makes a mockery of its trading partners.

Communities across America feel the reverberations of this policy. We have lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs in the United States. My State of Ohio has lost 200,000 in the last half dozen years.

Our trade deficit with China was only about $12 billion when I first ran for the House of Representatives in 1992. Now it exceeds $250 billion, and it hits new records almost every month.

Massive Government subsidies, slave wages, and lax worker safety and environmental laws--if they ever actually enforce them--enable Chinese manufacturers to undercut U.S. companies.

We are certainly not innocent, as U.S. companies outsource jobs, devastating American communities, with the damage they have done to places such as Tiffin and Bryan and Toledo and Lima and Marion and Mansfield. The American companies go to China and subcontract with Chinese subcontractors who do not observe any kind of wage, environmental, or worker safety laws.

By minimizing the importance of these anticompetitive tactics, our Nation is walking down a dangerous road, and by dismissing the importance of human rights violations, we are treating our own values as negotiable and arbitrary. Americans are far more resolute in our beliefs than that, and as their elected officials we should be too.

The Olympic Charter states that the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind. The Olympic Charter makes clear the goal of an Olympic spirit which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play.

The charter is a good blueprint for the way leaders should treat their people and countries should treat one another. That is the underlying and fundamental purpose of the Olympics. Instead of giving China a pass during the Olympic games, we should use the games as an impetus to hold that country accountable on fair trade, on religious freedoms, on human rights.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER [Mr. Pryor]. The clerk will call the roll.

Madam President, this weekend the Department of Defense confirmed the death of SSG Keith ``Matt'' Maupin, an American patriot from Batavia, OH, near Cincinnati, who bravely served our Nation in Iraq. Sergeant Maupin had been listed as missing and captured for nearly 4 years. He went missing on April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy, the 724th Transportation Company, was ambushed just west of Baghdad. Since that tragic day, Sergeant Maupin's mother and father, his family, have worked tirelessly to locate their son. My prayers are with them, those who have endured years of gut-wrenching uncertainty and unfathomable heartache. We owe this family a tremendous debt of gratitude, not only for their extreme sacrifice but for their determination to prevent other parents from experiencing an information vacuum when their deployed son or daughter goes missing.

There are three other soldiers currently missing and captured in Iraq. The nightmare is not over for their families. On their behalf and in honor of Sergeant Maupin, our Nation must find those soldiers. Time must be perceived as the enemy. There can be no pause in the search, no ebb in the sense of urgency.

Upon finally hearing news of their son a few days ago, Sergeant Maupin's father said:

Matt is coming home. He's completed his mission.

His words echo those of a grateful nation.

the housing crisis

Madam President, for months and months almost every newspaper in the country has been filled with stories of the tremendous toll the housing crisis has taken on communities across our Nation. My State set an unenviable record for foreclosures last year--more than 83,000, according to Ohio's Supreme Court. That is more than 200 every day of the week--Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Every week 1,500 families lose their homes. Almost 4 percent of all home loans in Ohio are in foreclosure, the highest rate in the Nation. The end is nowhere in sight.

In Ohio, there are another 120,000 home loans that are delinquent. Nationally, one rating agency is now predicting a 50-percent default rate for subprime loans made in the fourth quarter of 2006, many of which will reset in the fourth quarter of this year. Think about that. One of every two subprime loans made in the fall of 2006 will go bad. That is not lending, that is gambling with someone else's home.

In the face of this crisis, the Bush administration has largely taken the view that prosperity is around the corner; the Government need not do anything; voluntary efforts and market forces will be enough. Last summer and earlier in the year, the Bush administration was still arguing that the problem was contained. So long as the problem was contained to places such as Ohio and Michigan, to Nevada and California, the administration was content to do almost nothing. But what a difference an address makes. When the problems moved from America's Main Streets to Wall Street, the administration sprung into action. In a single weekend, the executive branch jumped to rescue the investment bank Bear Sterns from bankruptcy. If the Government can leap into action to prevent the bankruptcy of a single bank, how can we turn our backs on the tens of

thousands of Ohio families and the millions of American families who need our help?

Congress must act in the face of this crisis. Majority Leader Reid tried a month ago to bring legislation before the Senate that would take several steps to help homeowners faced with foreclosures in the communities in which they live. We are trying again today. We seem to be able to afford to spend $3 billion in 1 week, every week, 52 weeks a year, in Iraq, but the President hasn't been able to find $4 billion in 1 year to help the towns and cities across the country that are being gutted by foreclosures. We are able, it seems, from Chairman Bernanke, to spend $30 billion buying a basket of mortgages from Bear Sterns that JPMorgan wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. Why can't we help cities rebuild?

The needs of communities are critical because this crisis has an impact far beyond just the people who lose their homes, as big as those numbers might be. Whenever a home goes into foreclosure, the value of neighboring properties is reduced. In many areas, local vandals move in quickly to strip the copper pipe and the aluminum siding from a home. Crime goes up just when property tax revenues in these cities are plunging and the resources of a city and town are stretched to the limit.

Senator Reid's bill would include some $4 billion in funding for the Community Development Block Grant Program, so communities that have been the hardest hit could renovate or rebuild or even in some cases raze these properties.

The bill would provide an additional $10 billion to housing finance agencies to be used to refinance mortgages, to help first-time home buyers, and to create more multifamily rental housing.

The majority leader's legislation would also provide $200 million on supporting the efforts of nonprofit agencies across the country to counsel homeowners on how to work with a lender to stave off foreclosure.

We have great neighborhood counseling organizations in Columbus and in Toledo and in Dayton and in Cincinnati and all over my State.

This is no easy task. Once upon a time, you took out a loan with your local bank to buy a home. If I borrowed money from a local bank, the banker had just as much interest in my paying down my loan, my staying up to date on my loan, he had just as much interest as I did in making sure I paid my mortgage. You knew the people at the bank. They knew you. You had that kind of relationship.

Today, especially for subprime loans, that is seldom the case. So help in navigating the mortgage maze is essential. That is why those neighborhood counseling organizations are so important.

The majority leader's bill would also improve disclosure of the terms of a mortgage. In the last year--the last 14, 15 months since I came to the Senate--I have held about 95 roundtables in 60 of Ohio's counties talking to people about what issues matter to them the most in their communities. I heard from one Ohioan after another, from Marietta to Lima, from Bryan to Chillicothe, from Zanesville to Youngstown. I have heard from one Ohioan after another who never understood the real risks and dangers of the mortgages that were sold.

Senator Reid's bill also provides bankruptcy judges the ability to modify the mortgage on a primary residence in the same way that a judge can today with a vacation home or investment property or even a boat.

We know lenders and their servicers cannot keep up with the flood of foreclosures they are facing. Much has been made of the number of loans that have been changed as a result of voluntary efforts. I do not discount those efforts at all. But tacking late fees and penalties on the back end of a loan does not do much to help a family make their monthly payment.

One woman who called me reported a loan modification that reduced the interest rate on her loan from 11 percent to 10 percent. With the late fees and penalties folded in, her monthly payment barely budged.

Modifications like these are simply not going to help. It is essential that we permit the bankruptcy courts to serve as their backstop.

My Republican colleagues apparently think it is OK for a bankruptcy judge to modify the mortgage on a multimillion-dollar vacation home, but it is not OK to provide the same relief to a family facing bankruptcy in their $100,000 home.

When lenders are only recovering 35 cents on the dollar in my State-- it is a little higher nationally; only 35 cents in my State on the dollar--on a foreclosed property, I do not think they have anything to fear from an alternative process supervised by the bankruptcy courts that may result in avoiding foreclosure.

The bankruptcy provisions are a significant change in our law, to be sure. But they are a responsible reaction to some extraordinarily irresponsible underwriting.

I understand the importance of protecting contract rights. But think for a minute about the contracts that are in question. The vast majority of subprime loans went to refinance homes. They were designed to do three things--to generate fees, strip out equity, and quickly become unaffordable.

Do we really want to take the position that these contracts should be beyond the reach of a bankruptcy judge? I think not.

We have much work to do in dealing with this foreclosure issue. Every day we delay more than 200 people--more than twice the membership of this body--lose their home in my State. They deserve more from us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, a great son of Ohio, Senator Howard Metzenbaum passed away March 12, in Florida. He was personally inspirational to so many. He changed the lives of Ohioans. He changed the lives of so many Americans through his lifetime commitment to public service. I am honored to hold his seat in the Senate and I am honored to follow in his footsteps. Senate tradition dictates that many Members of the Senate carve their names in the desk drawers of the desks that have been lining the rows of the Senate. Whoever has Senator Metzenbaum's desk can, with all of us, share in the legacy of his greatness.

Senator Metzenbaum and Senator John Glenn, who served together for almost two decades, made an unparalleled team for Ohio. In the Senate, as Senator Reid mentioned, Metzenbaum was a child of poverty. He was a child of prejudice growing up in the east side as a Jew and suffered both from his family's poverty and anti-Semitism, in all too many cases. He worked his way at a job, as a 10-year-old. He worked his way through Ohio State.

In the Senate, Senator Metzenbaum was a master of a constant presence in an often empty Chamber. Once, when a 2-week filibuster was cut off, Metzenbaum was still determined to block action on lifting natural gas price controls. He and a partner sent the Senate into round-the-clock sessions by demanding rollcall votes on 500 amendments. He didn't care if he angered his colleagues. He didn't care if he was liked every day by his colleagues. What he cared about is fighting for economic justice and social justice for the 10 million citizens whom he represented and for the 250 million Americans or so when he served in the Senate.

According to the Washington Post, in 1982, the Senator saved $10 million by blocking special interest tax breaks and porkbarrel programs. I remember watching him. I served in the House, the beginning of my House career and the end of his Senate career, and I watched him as a younger elected official in State politics. He stood in front of an audience; the energy just burst from him, and the fiery passion for economic justice and social justice poured forth from him. He would start on the podium, the first politician I saw do this, and as he worked his way into the speech, he would come from the podium and he would walk into the audience. People would always respond with the same kind of passion and be inspired by him. That is my clearest, favorite memory of him.

His legislative record, of course, was so important too. One of the most important things he did was the plant closing legislation, giving a 60-day notice to workers who, too often, have seen their jobs disappear with nothing to show--pensions and more. He fought for people who had less privilege than he did, and he always fought for opportunity for people of both genders. That is what he will be remembered for.

I particularly admire his family. Howard was a great family man, a man who cared very much about Shirley, his wife, and four daughters, Shelly, Amy, Susan, and Barbara. He will be greatly missed. He later became head of the Consumer Federation of America, never giving up his passion for fighting for ordinary people and being a warrior for social and economic justice.

Mr. President, Senator Kennedy and Senator Metzenbaum were so often fighting for same causes and the same issues and showed the same courage. They both were and are heroes to many. I thank the majority leader for the time.

A great son of Ohio, Senator Howard Metzenbaum, passed away last night in Florida. He was personally inspirational to so many. He changed the lives of Ohioans, as he changed the lives of so many Americans through his lifetime commitment to public service. I am honored to hold his seat in the Senate and to follow in his footsteps.

According to Senate tradition, many Members of the Senate carve their names in the drawers of the desks that line the rows. Whoever has Senator Metzenbaum's desk can, with all of us, share in the legacy of his greatness.

As different as they were, Senator Metzenbaum and Senator John Glenn, who served together for almost two decades, made an unparalleled team for Ohio.

Senator Reid mentioned that Howard was a child of poverty. He was a child of prejudice growing up as a Jew on the east side of Cleveland and suffered both from his family's poverty and antiSemitism in all too many cases. He worked his way in jobs, starting as a 10-year-old, through Ohio State.

Senator Reid told us that in the Senate, Senator Metzenbaum was a master of the rules, a constant presence in an often empty Chamber, who would, when leaving the Chamber, post an aide to scout for an unexpected amendment or hastily scheduled floor action on various bills. Once, when a 2-week filibuster was cut off and Metzenbaum was still determined to block action on lifting natural gas price controls, he and a partner sent the Senate into round-the-clock sessions by demanding rollcall votes on 500 amendments. He did not care if he angered his colleagues. He did not care if he was liked every day by his colleagues. What he cared about was to fight for economic and social justice for the 10 million citizens whom he represented in Ohio and for the 250 million or so Americans when he served in the Senate.

The Washington Post, in 1982, said that Senator Metzenbaum singlehandedly saved at least $10 billion by blocking special interest tax breaks and pork-barrel programs.

I remember watching Senator Metzenbaum when I served in the House, at the beginning of my House career and at the end of his Senate career. I watched him as a younger elected official in State politics. Even as he was getting older and he began to show his age, when he stood in front of an audience, the energy just burst from him. Fiery passion for economic justice and social justice poured forth from Howard Metzenbaum. He would start at the podium--he is the first politician I saw do this--and as he would work his way up into his speech and begin to inspire people, he would come away from the podium and walk out into the audience, and he had a strong, powerful voice even when he was no longer speaking into the microphone. People would always respond with the same kind of passion and be inspired by him. That is my clearest, favorite memory of him. His legislative record, of course, was so important too. One of the most important things he did was the plant closing legislation, giving 60 days' notice to workers who too often have seen their jobs disappear with nothing to show for it--pensions, health care, all that.

Howard Metzenbaum always fought for people who had less. He always fought for people who had less privilege than he had. He always fought for opportunity for people of all races and both genders and all social classes. That is what he will be remembered for.

I particularly admire his family. Howard was a great family man--a man who cared very much about Shirley, his wife, and his four daughters: Shelley, Amy, Susan, and Barbara. He will be greatly missed.

After his service in the Senate, as Senator Reid said, he became the head of the Consumer Federation of America. He never gave up his passion for fighting for ordinary people and for being a warrior for social and economic justice.

Mr. President, I yield to Senator Kennedy, who was a comrade in arms in so many ways with Senator Metzenbaum.

There are now 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to the vote on the Graham amendment, No. 4170.

Who yields time?

We are going to have 2 minutes of debate on each amendment. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4155 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, this amendment is cosponsored by Senators Snowe, Stabenow, Feingold, and Clinton.

To increase employment in manufacturing, Congress needs to address training and retraining of manufacturing workers. This amendment does that.

More than 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000, more than 200,000 in my State of Ohio alone.

Susan Helper, a business professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, wrote in the Washington Post recently about ``paving the high road'' for American manufacturing. The high road manufacturing agenda includes significant Federal investment in Federal tax credits for research in the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and in worker training and retraining programs, which is what this amendment does. Manufacturing training is a tool to help businesses succeed, especially small manufacturers.

I urge my colleagues to support the Brown-Snowe-Stabenow-Feingold- Clinton amendment.

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

They have been.

Mr. President, March is National Eye Donor Month. In fact, it's the 25th anniversary of that proud tradition.

Each March since 1983, the eye donor community has gathered to celebrate the gift of sight, to honor past donors and their families, and to raise awareness about eye donation.

I want to thank those who have given this amazing gift and to encourage more Americans to become eye donors.

Eye donation is an incredible thing. Precious corneas harvested from donated eyes can restore vision that's been lost to disease or injury or infection. Most of us take our vision for granted.

We read our books, watch our children grow, and find our loved ones in a crowded room--and don't give it a second thought. But what if you lost that ability, that gift of sight--or never had it at all. An estimated 11.4 million people have severe visual problems that are not correctable by glasses.

Eighty million people suffer from potentially blinding eye disease; 1.1 million people are legally blind. But there is hope. Through the miracle of transplantation, it is possible to restore sight.

Each year, 44,000 sight-restoring corneal transplants are performed.

Eye banks like the Central Ohio Lions Eye Bank change people's lives. Shirley Jacobs knows this first hand. Shirley was living with Fuchs dystrophy, a genetic degenerative corneal disease. The disease robbed her of clear vision. It limited her independence and her ability to do her job. Then she received a corneal transplant at the Central Ohio Lions Eye Bank. Her first words after the surgery were, ``This is a miracle! I can see you, I can see you!''

That is amazing. But so many more people are waiting.

In Ohio alone, 1,600 people each year could have their sight restored through corneal transplants. But there aren't enough organs available. We need to get the word out and reach people who would donate if given the choice. We must raise public awareness of the need for eye donors and the ways to sign up.

I encourage my colleagues to work with their local eye banks and the Eye Bank Association of America to promote the precious gift of eye donation. I also encourage Americans to consider designating themselves as organ donors on their driver's licenses. It is the best way to make your end-of-life wishes known and to give the gift of sight. I urge my colleagues and fellow citizens to consider becoming an eye donor. Thousands of people around the country are waiting for it.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak before Senator Coburn, my colleague from Oklahoma.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the budget resolution before us this evening. Governing is about choosing. This budget makes the right choices and at the same time maintains fiscal discipline.

Over the past year, I have held some 85 roundtables of 20 or 25 people each in communities across the State. I have held them in some 55 of Ohio's counties, listening to workers and business leaders, listening to teachers and sheriffs, listening to people running social service agencies and people served by those social service agencies. In every town I visited, Ohioans have asked to work together with the Federal Government, not for a handout, not necessarily for assistance, but to work together with the Federal Government in attacking the problems of our small towns, our rural areas, our inner-ring suburbs, and our big cities.

I have heard from employers who have good jobs that go begging because we have not trained or retrained people in the skills they need. I have heard from county commissioners, worried that their crumbling bridges may fall and that their water and sewer infrastructures are not sound. I have heard from doctors who think we can do a much better job of providing access to health care through their offices and their examining rooms rather than through the emergency room, and not just for the 47 million Americans without health insurance, including 9 million children, but for the millions of people in this country with inadequate health insurance.

Last month we saw the priorities of the Bush administration when he sent his budget to Congress. The Bush budget proposed to cut funding for job training and technical education. Today I met with people from Wayne County and Butler County, from Geauga County and Cuyahoga County, and all over my State, to talk to people who are teachers and administrators, and superintendents and students, who depend on vocational training, technical education, and who provide training for so many in our State.

The Bush budget proposed to cut the community development block grants by more than 20 percent. As big cities and small towns face the impending problems that are in the midst now of these problems with foreclosures, the Bush budget proposed to cut health care for seniors and for children, and these are the choices of the Bush administration. They are the choices of an administration that has gone in the wrong direction year after year after

year. They are the choices we must reject.

Our budget, by contrast, will increase Federal efforts to educate and train our citizens, young and old. Our budget will increase funding for economic development and for rebuilding our Nation's infrastructure. Our budget will improve the health care of families and of children. Our budget will help to create good-paying jobs here in America.

This administration either doesn't care or doesn't understand what it is doing to the middle class and what is happening to the middle class. Up until last summer--in front of the Presiding Officer in the Banking Committee--the Secretary of the Treasury and others in the administration assured everyone the economy was doing fine and the housing crisis was contained. Senator Menendez and so many others here spoke up for Federal involvement in trying to help the many people in New Jersey and Ohio and across the country who were threatened with this foreclosure problem in their homes and in their neighborhoods. But when the problems were mostly on Ohio's main streets, the main streets of Zanesville and Steubenville, the main streets of Toledo and Dayton and Lima and Marion, the administration was indifferent. They said the problem would go away. But when the problems migrated from main street Mansfield and main street Springfield to Wall Street, suddenly the problems became important to the administration.

But even then the response of the Bush budget to economic troubles and to the problems of foreclosure across our country speaks volumes. It proposes to cut taxes for the wealthiest people in the country, offset by cuts in Medicare. They want to pay for their tax cuts for the richest people in the country, but they do it by making cuts in Medicare. They propose to reduce benefits under the Social Security system while pushing a privatization program that generates big fees for Wall Street at the expense of seniors and disabled people in our country.

While families are struggling to afford the cost of sending their children to college, it proposes to cut Federal support for student loans. One of the greatest accomplishments of this new Democratic majority, right off the bat, is what we were able to do to increase Pell grants and what we have been able to do to bring down interest rates for student loans, and what the Governor of my State, Governor Strickland, has done by freezing college loans.

The Bush administration, it seems, as I said, either doesn't know, doesn't understand, or doesn't care about these middle-class kids who are struggling to go to college.

My wife was the first in her family to go to college. She got loans, she got grants, and she graduated with a debt of only a couple thousand dollars. That was almost 30 years ago. Today, it is very different, because the Federal Government has simply shrugged its shoulders and said, that is the problem of these middle-class students.

I am proud that our budget charts a much different course. Most importantly, we invest in America. We invest in its people and in its communities. And most importantly, we invest in America's future.

The President likes to tout the length of the economic recovery, but he seldom mentions its breadth or its depth, and for good reason. During the last 7 years, median weekly earnings have actually fallen, after adjusting for inflation. Most Ohioans make less today than they made when George Bush took office, in real dollars. Job creation has been the worst since the Hoover administration. And if you look at private sector jobs or manufacturing jobs, the picture is even worse. As bad as job creation and job growth has been, as I said, it has been even worse in the private sector and even worse yet in the manufacturing sector.

If there is a recovery, as the President likes to trumpet, heaven help us in a recession. Middle-class families are being squeezed by toxic mortgages and by gas prices that have doubled in the past few years. The President didn't know that gas prices had exceeded $3 and were approaching, in some places, $4 a gallon. Middle-class families are being squeezed by increases in the cost of food, education, and the cost of health care.

Our budget will extend tax relief to these families. The Democratic budget will prevent the alternative minimum tax from reaching millions of middle-class families. Senator Baucus's amendment, which I am cosponsoring, will provide further relief by extending the tax credit, the child credit, the dependent care credit, and other provisions, including several important provisions to our veterans and to our active duty military personnel.

At the same time, unlike the President's budget of the last 5 years, we maintain a path to a balanced budget. The Senator from New Jersey and I, and others, participated in the 1990s in passing a balanced budget under President Clinton. We moved toward a balanced budget, unlike what President Bush has unraveled in the last 6 years. This is an important difference between our budget and the President's.

Once upon a time, our Republican colleagues were concerned about balancing the budget. That was then. Now, this administration has piled up trillions of dollars of debt that our children and grandchildren will be forced to repay--a sorry legacy indeed. The public debt stood at $6 trillion--actually less than $6 trillion--when President Bush took the oath of office in 2001. By the end of this fiscal year, the debt will have grown to $10 trillion. That is a 4,000 billion dollar growth, from under $6 trillion to more than $10 trillion. Even at a time of low interest rates, we will spend $260 billion next year to pay interest due on that debt.

Many of my Republican colleagues have changed their tune because they do not seem so interested in balanced budgets anymore. They will say the cost isn't that great when measured against the size of the economy. But they ignore the opportunity cost. Think of that $260 billion and what we could have done with that money. Think of how it could be used to expand opportunity for better health care, for education, for roads, for bridges, for research, for infrastructure. Instead, we write checks to bondholders, many of them big contributors to my Republican colleagues, whose addresses are more and more often found, in some cases, in China and in the OPEC states and in the offshore banking centers.

The hundreds of billions in Federal debt financed by foreigners is swamped by the even larger size of the trade deficit, which has roughly doubled under the Bush administration, to more than $700 billion last year. Every day in this country, every single day of the year, we buy almost $2 billion in goods, importing more into this country than we export--almost $2 billion every single day. That translates into lost jobs, it translates into stagnating wages, it translates into communities that are, in many cases, devastated. Places particularly hard hit are smaller towns and industrial centers that have been hard hit by plant closings.

Our manufacturing sector has in too many cases been hollowed out. Companies that have been in business for centuries, surviving challenges from the Great War to the Great Depression, have been unable to weather this administration. The response: The Bush budget eliminates funding for one of the Government's most effective programs to help small business, the Manufacturing Extension Program, which assists American manufacturers to adapt to changing technology.

We can do better, and the Democratic budget does do better. Over the weeks ahead, in working with our colleagues in the House, we will write a budget that pays attention to the voices of the middle class and responds to the needs of the middle class. We will write a budget that increases funding for education and for health care, one that gears tax policy to the needs of struggling families and small businesses, and one that builds a foundation rather than undercutting that foundation for our future and doesn't take a mortgage out on it.

As an Eagle Scout many years ago, I was taught you should leave a campground better than you found it. I think that is not a bad description for our role as Senators too. Let us make the choices that will leave the country's fiscal situation better than it is today. Let's help the middle class, let's help working families and end the red ink. Let's invest in our future.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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