[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 40 (Friday, March 26, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3205-S3207]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
20 minutes to make my remarks. I do not believe I will need all that 
time, but I would ask to have that available.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I say to my good friend from Texas, with 
whom I shared a very instructive tour of Iraq last July--we sweltered 
together in 115 degrees--I have the greatest regard for him in working 
with him on these various matters. I do respectfully say in response to 
his comment about the 9/11 questions that have been raised, and 
supposedly my colleagues wanting to have things both ways, his words, I 
cannot for the life of me figure out how he and others on that side of 
the aisle could suggest that President Clinton is to blame for 
something that occurred over 8\1/2\ months after he left office, but 
President Bush is not to blame for something that happened 8\1/2\ 
months after he took office and is not blamed for anything related to 
it since. I don't understand how that is anything other than trying to 
have it both ways and also not making much sense at all.

  I think both of us would be well served to let the Commission make 
its determinations and recognize that our most important task is to 
make sure it never happens again. We share that desire here, for all 
100 of us are Americans first and partisans second or third or 
somewhere else. Let's hope the truth all comes forth so that, most 
importantly, we can understand what we need to do to make sure this 
country is safe every day and night for the rest of my lifetime and 
yours and all the rest of our children to follow.
  I want to shift to another subject. Yesterday's Washington Post had 
an article about the famous magician, Henry Houdini, and the dispute 
whether or not his magic tricks should be disclosed to the public. It 
made me think, as I was looking back on the events that occurred in the 
Senate this last week, that we have our own magic tricks. One of them 
is this disappearing legislation trick. Unfortunately, it is one of too 
many, too clever sleight of hand tricks that are employed in this body. 
I think, in fact, we need more of a return to reality if we are going 
to serve the vital interests of the people I represent in Minnesota, 
and others around the country.
  At the start of the week, for those who may not have been following 
this moment by moment, we were considering a bill that was entitled a 
JOBS Act. If ever there was a situation facing America and the over 8 
million Americans who do not have jobs right now that needs a serious 
dose of reality, that is at the top of the list. Senator Tom Harkin, my 
colleague from Iowa, was offering an amendment that would either have 
this body choose to support or oppose the Department of Labor's taking 
overtime pay, the 1\1/2\ times an hourly pay required for those working 
overtime. In this case, this group would be over 8 million Americans 
workers--police officers, other law enforcement officials, 
firefighters, teachers, middle-class working Americans. These are hard-
working Americans working overtime to earn extra money to improve their 
lives or just to try to make ends meet; to raise their families, send 
their kids to college, or just get them through junior high school; 
take care of an aging or sick parent, help pay for the prescription 
drugs for those elderly parents or nursing homes for them, which costs 
about the same these days.
  We had an agreement reached before the bill came to the floor between 
the Republican and Democratic leaders that there would be a vote on the 
Harkin amendment. That was the promise that was made to all of us. But 
suddenly here was this Senate's disappearing act, this sleight-of-hand 
trick that even the famous Harry Houdini could not have matched. That 
bill just disappeared from the Senate floor and was replaced by another 
bill which was voted upon and passed last night.
  Monday, now, we are told we will be taking up another bill but not 
the JOBS Act. Where did it go? When will it come back? Will it come 
back at all? Actually, that pretty well describes the Republican job 
record under President Bush. Millions of jobs disappear. No one knows 
when they are coming back. No one knows if they are coming back. 
Secretary of Treasury John Snow, testifying before a congressional 
committee just 2 weeks ago, said the lack

[[Page S3206]]

of job recovery in this country was ``a mystery.''

  Vice President Cheney doesn't even seem to know the jobs are leaving. 
He said earlier this month:

       If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last 2 
     or 3 years, we would have not had the kind of job growth we 
     have had.

  At the time he offered that compelling insight, the country 
officially had 2\1/4\ million fewer jobs than when he and President 
Bush took office just over 3 years ago. So I would have to agree with 
the Vice President on that point; if the Democratic policies had been 
pursued over the last 2 or 3 years, we would not have had the kind of 
job growth we have had. Perhaps he was confused and was referring to 
the kind of job growth Halliburton has had instead of the United 
States.
  The Vice President, by the way, has shown his own disappearing magic 
tricks. Just before he became Vice President, in the 5 years preceding 
that time, he was the chief executive officer of Halliburton 
Corporation, which is the world's largest oil and gas services company. 
It is also now the largest contractor for American forces in Iraq 
having received contracts worth over $11 billion in the last year, most 
of them without any competitive bidding.
  Vice President Cheney reported earnings of $44 million during his 5 
years there. He claims he has ``severed all my ties'' with that 
company. Yet he continues to receive deferred compensation worth 
approximately $150,000 a year, and he has stock options worth more than 
$18 million. That is the executive version of overtime pay. He gets 
paid for hours he hasn't worked after he has left the company.
  The Vice President has announced he will donate the proceeds from his 
sale of the stock options at some point in the future to charity, and 
that is a good disappearing taxes trick because that charitable 
deduction eliminates taxes on that amount of future income, $18 
million, which is presumably why he is waiting to give that money to 
deserving charities until he can make even more of that money again.
  But the even more curious magic trick, according to an article in New 
Yorker magazine by Jane Mayer last month, on the Vice President's own 
official biography posted on his White House Web site, he has been a 
``businessman,'' but any mention of his 5 years as chief executive 
officer of Halliburton Corporation just before he became Vice President 
has disappeared. He got paid over $44 million, he has over $18 million 
more still to come, and it is not even worth mentioning? I guess that 
is what ``severing all my ties with the company'' means with the Vice 
President. He keeps getting paid but stops mentioning it.
  President Bush has his own missing jobs magic tricks. He tries to 
make more jobs appear than really exist. Last month, he released a 
report called the Economic Report of the President. It forecast 900,000 
more jobs for that month than actually existed. That slight discrepancy 
was perhaps while the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, whose agency 
publishes the Economic Report of the President, tried to make President 
Bush's signature on the report disappear. She said 3 weeks ago, after 
the report was made public: ``He doesn't sign the report.''
  She is going to have to make a lot of page 4's disappear where the 
signature, ``George W. Bush,'' or some version of that name, certainly 
looks to exist. But maybe the signature, like the 900,000 jobs, are 
just illusions.
  Secretary Chao, who has done some very good things on behalf of 
Minnesota, for which I am very grateful to her, was also reportedly one 
of the people who wanted the Senate's vote on the Harkin amendment to 
disappear. After all, it is her rule, by administrative fiat, that is 
the one revoking those overtime protections for 8 million of her fellow 
Americans.

  There is no magic in that trick, for those are real Americans and 
their families. It is a mean trick. It is an unfair trick. It is being 
performed by one unelected Cabinet official, although I suspect there 
are some elected officials behind her. And we, the elected 
representatives of those 8 million Americans, are told we will not be 
allowed to vote on that matter. Who claims to have that right to tell 
us that we can't vote, after we have been promised that we would have 
that opportunity to do so? Whoever it is may have the power under 
Senate rules, but they don't have the right. And they are wrong to do 
it.
  Meanwhile, the President is out looking, himself, for those 900,000 
missing jobs that weren't there. Last month, at a carefully staged and 
scripted meeting with some business owners that was designed to show 
how the President's big tax cuts for the rich and super rich, which the 
majority of colleagues here passed--how they are fueling economic 
recovery and job creation across America, one business owner proudly 
disclosed that as a result of the President's tax cuts worth an 
undisclosed amount of money to him personally, he might be able to hire 
two or three people.
  The President, according to the report, seized that comment like a 
drowning man grabbing a floating leaf. The President said:

       When he [the businessman] says he's going to hire two more, 
     that's really good news. A lot of people are feeling 
     confident and optimistic about our future, so they can say I 
     am going to hire two more.

  They can sit here and tell the President in front of all the cameras, 
I am going to hire two more people. That is confidence. That is pretty 
confident, inspiring stuff, isn't it? Of course, the President has an 
undergraduate degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard, and presumably 
knows math himself. But I will still point out it takes a lot more than 
a business owner feeling optimistic about hiring two people to make his 
job forecast for the last month reality. At two jobs per televised 
Presidential meeting--bear with me, I only have one Yale undergraduate 
degree, but it was cum laude--it will take 450,000 televised 
Presidential meetings to make up for the missing 900,000 jobs. That is 
the last month. That is only part of the over 2\1/4\ million jobs that 
have disappeared since the President started his job in January of 
2001, which partly explains why he is applying for 4 more years of 
overtime. It also explains why, in the view of this American, he should 
not get it.
  This part of the act is a little confusing, even for a magic show. 
Bear with me and follow closely. For all of those lost jobs in our 
economy, we are not yet able to bring them back. Yet the Senate JOBS 
bill disappeared without being voted on. So the American people should 
be concerned. Right? The answer is no, because it is really not a jobs 
bill. It is called a ``jobs'' bill, but it is not really about creating 
jobs. It is about giving tax breaks to the corporations--$114 billion 
worth of tax breaks which they might or might not use to create jobs 
which might or might not be in the United States. It was given the 
title of the JOBS Act even though it was primarily not about restoring 
those missing American jobs.
  In fact, it was given that title probably because it is not a jobs 
bill, but its sponsors wanted the American people to believe it is a 
jobs bill. They will think, Wow, that is a good Congress. They just 
passed a JOBS Act, although we didn't pass the JOBS Act. It 
disappeared. But not to worry, because again it won't do that much to 
add jobs, anyway--at least not the way it is drafted.
  How is that for a sleight-of-hand trick? Masters of illusion right 
here in Washington. Houdini and David Copperfield would have to be 
amazed.
  But, unfortunately, all this hocus-pocus--now you see it, now you 
don't--leads us to believe one thing, but it is really something else. 
All of those deceptions do not deal with reality. As my colleagues 
know, each lost job is some American's very real nightmare. Being 
unemployed for so long they are using up their unemployment 
compensation, have little or no income and still can't find a decent 
job is no illusion.
  The average length of time for America's 8 million unemployed 
citizens who have been out of work is now the longest in 20 years. The 
number of manufacturing jobs and good, decent-paying jobs in this 
country is the lowest in 53 years.
  That is real. The hardships, the pain and suffering of those lost 
jobs have caused the real Americans, good people in Minnesota--and I am 
quite sure everywhere else in this country--people who want to work, 
who do not want a handout, who want jobs. They want the chance to work 
and earn their American dreams, and to work overtime and get paid for 
it.

[[Page S3207]]

  By the way, our colleagues should recall that overtime--the 1\1/2\ 
times or more requirement of additional pay for those additional hours 
worked--provides an incentive for expanding companies, to add new jobs, 
to replace old ones they have taken away, rather than paying the 1\1/2\ 
times for that additional work they need. Employers have a choice. They 
can choose to pay overtime instead of adding additional jobs. Overtime 
is good pay for those workers who want to earn more money. It is good 
for the economy because those additional dollars they earn are almost 
always going immediately right into spending for needed products and 
services. But it is also a good inducement for creation of new jobs to 
increase production.

  But even my Republican colleagues and evidently the Bush 
administration don't want us to even have a vote on this amendment on 
what they are calling a JOBS bill. They are also complaining to my 
colleagues and me on this side of the aisle that we want to offer some 
other amendments to change this bill. Yes, we do. They say our 
amendments are not germane. That is legislative language for not being 
relevant, not related to the content of the bill we are considering. 
Overtime pay is certainly relevant to the people in Minnesota I 
represent--police officers, firefighters, laborers, and nurses.
  Another amendment which Republicans say is not germane would extend 
unemployment benefits. During the last 2 months alone 760,000 Americans 
have exhausted their unemployment benefits. That is no illusion. That 
is real-life hardship and pain for real Americans and for their 
families.
  I think the sponsors of this so-called JOBS Act should explain to 
those 760,000 of their fellow citizens why restoring their unemployment 
benefits is not germane or is not relevant to their bill. I think those 
760,000 Americans would then see clearly this so-called JOBS Act is not 
relevant to jobs--not to their jobs, not to restoring jobs, not to 
replacing jobs, not to preventing more jobs from being sent overseas.
  In fact, one of my amendments, which I think is highly germane, would 
eliminate the $36 billion for tax breaks for U.S. corporations for 
their overseas operations. Why in the world would we want to provide 
more tax incentives for U.S. corporations to create more jobs in other 
countries? We can't prevent it, but we certainly shouldn't encourage 
it. We shouldn't use more American tax incentives to put more Americans 
out of work and add to budget deficits their children will have to pay 
for, if they are lucky enough to have jobs.
  My amendment would eliminate that lunacy. It will demand every dollar 
in this $114 billion of corporate tax cuts be justified according to 
one clear measure: How will it result in more jobs, new jobs, and 
restore jobs in the United States for our citizens now? Not maybe, not 
probably, not next month, but definitely and provably and now.
  That is the kind of JOBS Act America needs. That is the JOBS Act 
Americans need, and they need it done now. People losing overtime need 
this bill now. People who have lost their unemployment benefits need 
this bill now. People who are losing jobs still at this time in America 
overseas need this bill now--not the JOBS bill, but the one we want to 
amend to make a real jobs bill for America.
  I am for the majority leader bringing this bill back to the floor 
next Monday. We are scheduled to bring up welfare reform. That is an 
important subject. But the experts would tell me the No. 1 key to the 
successful welfare program is a job at the end of the program.
  Let us bring the JOBS Act, so-called, back first and scrutinize every 
single dollar it proposes to spend for its job effect for Americans 
now. No more magic tricks. This is the time for honest, truthful 
reality. Let us get to work starting next Monday in the Senate putting 
America back to work--all Americans. That would be real bipartisanship.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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