[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 30, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3347-S3359]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
While some of us in this body have not shared the administration's
view on the war, we are united when it comes to supporting our troops.
These young men and women from Active Duty, from the National Guard,
and from the Reserves, are all volunteers. They exemplify the very
essence of what it means to be patriotic.
It is extremely important that we take action. Many in this body will
remember that we proposed to do this last year as we were considering
the Defense authorization bill. Our effort was not successful, although
many Senators voted to go ahead with this legislative provision. The
administration was not in favor, and the amendment failed.
I am glad we are able to reintroduce it this year. I urge my
colleagues to cosponsor this legislation and work with us to find an
appropriate time when we can bring it up for a vote, or we can add it
as an amendment to one of the bills that will be working its way
through the Senate later this year.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I want to speak on the welfare reform bill.
This has been an extraordinarily successful initiative which we began
a few years ago. Its success is tied with the fact that States have
been given a great deal more flexibility in the area of how they handle
their welfare account. The fact is, we have set up as a purpose, as a
government, that people who are on welfare will be given the
opportunity, the skills, and the incentives to move off of welfare and
move into a work environment, which is something that gives them
personal credibility and personal self-respect, and at the same time
assists us in reducing the public welfare rolls. It has been a huge and
overwhelming success.
One of the elements of moving off of welfare, of course, is the need
of parents to have transitional support, especially single mothers as
they go into the workforce while dealing with their children during the
time they are working; in other words, some sort of childcare
assistance.
As part of this bill, we intend to offer an amendment for
reauthorization of the Child Care Development Block Grant Program,
called the Caring for Children Act of 2003.
This amendment came out of the committee which I chair, the Health,
Education, Labor and Pension Committee, unanimously. It came out with
bipartisan support, obviously.
It is an attempt to update our childcare block grant initiative and
make it more meaningful for the issues of today. It also gives the
dollars it needs to be effective.
The bill will not only stress increased spending, it has $1 billion
of new funding from the discretionary accounts.
Earlier today, there was a vote on an initiative to add $6 billion
over 5 years to the childcare development grant. That money would be
mandatory, and it was not paid for; it was outside the budget. There
was a euphemistic attempt to pay for it--a superficial attempt--
actually, what amounted to the ultimate shell game attempt as an offset
which was cited and which has been used on, I believe, 17 different
occasions as a claimed offset in this body.
The real effect of the bill was to go way outside the budget and add
a huge new tranche of dollars beyond the budget which would be fine had
it been realistically offset. But it wasn't.
This bill has in it a true increase which is an appropriate increase
of $1 billion over that period of the bill. That is a significant
infusion of new funds. Plus it addresses some of the concerns of the
program, one of the concerns being as children are getting childcare
they should also be getting some sort of development in the capacity of
learning. Obviously, these are very young children. But they should
have a learning component in their childcare experience, something that
will put them in a position where they will be able to be at a level
where their peers are--other young children who are receiving
childcare.
It has language in it which encourages the States to include a
voluntary guideline initiative in the area of prereading and language
skills. The absolutely critical essence of learning is language skills
and the ability to do phonics and identify letters and be able to get
ready for reading. This bill has in it that language.
It also has in it a commitment to low-income parents. At least 70
percent of these dollars has the flow-through stage, actually, to the
parents--in many cases a single parent. So the parent is getting the
benefits. And we aren't simply siphoning it off into the bureaucracy,
which often happens, regrettably, through administrative overhead but,
rather, directing this money to the hands of the parents, especially
the low-income parent so the parent can use this to assist them in
transitioning off the welfare rolls by taking care of their children
during the workday.
It gives parents a significant amount of choice. They can use
different daycare types of facilities. Some which are faith-based are
allowed to be used, or they can use it even if it is being provided by
relatives and neighbors. That is important.
Further, the bill addresses a need to make sure that States focus on
improving the quality of childcare. This is a very significant concern
that many of us have, which is that a lot of the childcare today is,
unfortunately, not of a quality that gives the child the support
services they need or the academic assistance they might need in order
to be brought up to speed with peers who are in different childcare
delivery systems.
It allows States to set aside a certain percentage of the money in
order to assess quality and try to improve quality. This gives the
States more flexibility in this area, but it also gives them an impetus
to go in the right direction.
It is, therefore, a bill which does a lot of good.
As I mentioned, it was reported out of our committee unanimously. It
will be, hopefully, added to the base bill either by a formal vote or
as part of the managers' amendment.
But we have to get back to the fundamental quandary which confronts
us today, which is that the base welfare reform bill that is pending
before the Congress is being held up by the other side of the aisle.
This is becoming a pattern of obstruction which we have seen
throughout this session of the Congress, and it appears its intensity
is actually increasing. Bills are coming to the floor
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now which are important pieces of legislation on which there is a
general consensus.
As I mentioned, this language reported out of our committee to
strengthen the block grants for childcare was reported unanimously. Yet
these bills are being stopped dead in their tracks by the insistence of
the other side of the aisle to put on these bills extraneous issues
which are of a politically charged nature, the purpose of which is not
to pass them but simply to generate a political vote which can be used
in the coming election.
We all do that. We all set up the political votes. But they should
not be used as aggressively as they are today by the Democratic Party
as a means of stopping legitimate legislation. The obstruction coming
from the other side of the aisle is unconscionable.
Last week, for example, a bill which would have corrected the
problems which many of our manufacturers in this country are going to
confront, specifically a duty that is going to be assessed on their
goods sold overseas, a duty which could go up as high as 18 percent--
and that duty was a function of the fact we lost a World Trade court
decision which allows this duty to go forward--that bill which would
have corrected that, put an end to the duty and thus allow
manufacturing jobs and service-oriented jobs in the United States to
continue to expand and flourish, that bill was killed in this Senate
because of extraneous issues which the other side of the aisle, the
Democratic Party, decided they wanted to bring forward. They would not
allow the bill to go forward without those extraneous issues being
voted on.
The bill had absolute consensus. There was a belief, there is a
belief, there should be a belief, that American jobs should not be lost
as a result of our tax laws being found illegal by a body which we
subscribe to, the World Trade Organization, and that we should correct
that problem, and we can correct it rather effectively, and that
correction will save jobs in the United States. That will not happen
now because of the obstruction coming from the other side of the aisle.
It is one in a series of obstructions.
Now we see the exact same thing happen in the area of welfare reform.
Literally, in the last 5 years, there have been very few laws as
successful that this Congress has passed as welfare reform. It was so
successful--it was an idea put forward on this side of the aisle--once
it passed and started to work, it was immediately adopted by the other
side of the aisle as theirs.
President Clinton had the right to take credit; he was President when
the bill was passed. He was President and takes credit as one of the
strong elements of service of his Presidency. And I am glad he takes
credit.
Now when we try to reauthorize and improve it significantly through
the block grant proposal which we brought out of our bipartisan
committee, now when we try to move the bill forward so we can continue
with the welfare reform experience of the last few years and make sure
that experience continues to allow people to move from public
assistance to work and give people self-confidence, self-respect, and
self-esteem as a result of attaining work, that bill has been stopped
once again by the Democratic membership of this body coming forward and
saying they want to cast a political vote on an unrelated issue.
It is these actions that one has to question the purpose. Why, when
bills have been agreed to which will significantly improve the
lifestyle of Americans, the number of jobs Americans have in the case
of the tax bill which was just stopped last week, or the number of
people moving from welfare to work, which is getting good jobs and
moving out of a public assistance situation and getting self-respect,
why are these bills being stopped for purely political purposes by the
other side of the aisle bringing forward extraneous amendments.
It is an unconscionable action, in my opinion. It is regrettable that
the childcare block grant proposal, the reauthorization of which came
out of our committee unanimously and which represents a significant
improvement, especially in this area of trying to get learning into the
childcare experience, trying to get quality in the childcare
experience, giving States more flexibility and putting more money into
the program in the context of a responsible budget bill, why that would
be stopped also is beyond me. It is not beyond me; it is fairly
obvious. The purpose here is to make a political statement. It is a
political statement, come heck or high water. It does not matter that
the making of the political statement will cost people jobs and make it
harder to move from welfare to work, creating a poorer and a less well-
financed childcare block grant program.
It is unfortunate. It is the politics of the day. I know the American
people do not focus too much on what we do in the Senate in the day-to-
day regime. I hope the American people take the time to learn what has
transpired in this body in the last 6 to 8 months. The obstructionism
on the other side of the aisle has become the cause of the day, the
purpose of every event. This obstructionism continues and grows as we
move closer to the election. The practical effect of this
obstructionism coming from the other side of the aisle is that good
things which help working Americans keep jobs, move from welfare to
work, ensuring their kids have quality daycare, good things like that
are being stopped as a result of this unrequited obstructionism coming
from the other side of the aisle.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Nevada Champions
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, my colleague from Nevada, Senator Reid,
and I will take a couple of minutes and exercise our privileges as
Senators to brag a little bit about our State and the recent
accomplishments of the University of Nevada basketball team and their
rise to the Sweet 16.
The Nevada Wolf Pack brought a lot of pride to our State. It is not a
school known for basketball. Certainly, they had more football success
in the years past. However, this year they surprised many in the
Nation. It was obviously a heart-breaking loss to Georgia Tech last
week. But Coach Trent Johnson, the whole Wolf Pack team and all the
people surrounded with the program deserve a lot of credit for the
season they put together. We expect big things from them in the future.
For a school such as the University of Nevada, a school that does not
have the reputation of the University of Connecticut or Duke, it is
more difficult to get the kind of players to go up to Reno to play
basketball. They have players from Virginia City, Elko, and some of the
other small towns around Nevada.
Coach Johnson crafted a team providing a good lesson for all of us to
learn. If you can work together as a team, you can achieve true
greatness. That is what his team did this year. Earlier in the year
they beat the University of Kansas, beat them very soundly. Then
through the March Madness, they made it all the way through the Sweet
16.
It was funny to listen to the various announcers talk about our team
and trash them, not even understanding how to pronounce ``Nevada.'' We
do not use their pronunciation. It was funny to listen to them saying
they did not have a chance; they did not know how to play basketball.
Certainly the coach from the University of Nevada and the rest of the
players proved them wrong.
I rise today to congratulate them on a great season and look forward
to their success.
I also wish the Lady Rebels from the University of Nevada Las Vegas
success tonight. They are in the WNIT championship. We have a lot to be
proud of in our State. I join my colleague, Senator Harry Reid, in
congratulating especially the Nevada Wolf Pack for what they have
achieved. Hopefully, we will be able to talk about the championship the
Lady Rebels will achieve tonight.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. I hope Senator Ensign and I are able to be on the same team
working here in the Senate as the University of Nevada at Reno was
during this basketball season. We strive to do that. They have set a
good example for us and for everyone.
We may be outnumbered in the State of Nevada. There may be a lot of
States with more people than we have, but Senator Ensign and I realize
every State only has two Senators. We believe as a result of that, of
our working together, we can have the same
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strength and power some of the more populated States have. I have
enjoyed and appreciated working as a team with Senator Ensign during
his tenure in the Senate.
I also today want to extend my congratulations to Coach Trent Johnson
and the basketball team at the University of Nevada. We have in recent
years reached goals in our athletic programs at the University of
Nevada, but for Coach Ault and his football team, they have been good.
I remember going to Georgia Southern to watch UNR play them for the
national championship, in Division II. And though we lost that game, it
was a great thrill to reach that level, which was significant for the
university.
Since that time, the University of Nevada football has moved into
Division I. Basketball has always been Division I.
Now, many years ago, the Wolf Pack was known all over the country. It
had, at one time, three All-Americans on its football team. We had
Marion Motley, who is now a member of the Football Hall of Fame, who
played football at the University of Nevada, at Reno. And we had other
great players, Dick Trachok, Tommy Kaminer, and many others, but that
is many years ago.
So what Senator Ensign said about the Wolf Pack Basketball Team is
significant. They had not been to an NCAA tournament for 19 years. They
had never, in the history of the school, won an NCAA game.
This year they were forecast, by all the prognosticators, to continue
that ``never to win a game.'' The first team they played was the great
Michigan State. They beat Michigan State. Then the prognosticators
said: Well, that was a fluke. There is no way in the world they will
beat the highest ranked Gonzaga team. Gonzaga, all year, had lost one
game. That game was not close. UNR moved through there very quickly.
Then they moved on to the Sweet Sixteen. They played Georgia Tech.
They led Georgia Tech at half time, and it was really an exciting game.
They lost. But other than my being disappointed because they did not go
to the Final Four, I join my colleague in expressing my congratulations
to this great basketball team.
We have focused so much attention, in years past, with the UNLV
basketball team, the Runnin' Rebels, that has overshadowed the
accomplishments of the University of Nevada, at Reno. But that will no
longer ever be said as a result of the great accomplishment made by
this team.
I want to say something about the importance of coaching. Trent
Johnson came from Stanford. He was an assistant coach over there. He
came 5 years ago. He accepted the challenge of being a head coach of a
Division I school. But, frankly, the record that he was given was
pretty dismal. The year that he took over, he looked back to see that
the prior year they had won 8 games and lost 18. This year they won 24
games. That is the turnaround.
As Senator Ensign mentioned, they beat Kansas, which was ranked No. 1
at the time. Early in the year, people knew they would be pretty good
because they almost beat Connecticut, which, at that time, was also
ranked No. 1.
Few people thought they could make the strides that they did except
their coach, Trent Johnson. He is an outstanding coach. It is my
understanding and my hope that the people in Reno have done everything
they can to make him happy. He is a great coach, and this record of his
will only continue.
I want to reflect a little bit on this team. It was led by the player
of the year in the Western Athletic Conference, a man by the name of
Kirk Snyder. He is a junior. If he wants to go pro, he will be drafted
in the first round.
During the times I have watched him during the games this year, and
listened to the games, the sportscasters always focused on this man who
was so good.
They also had a point guard by the name of Todd Okeson, someone who
is a senior, and was the sparkplug of that team. He was the point
guard, but he also scored very well.
There were other fine players on that team. They may not have scored
over 20 points a game as did Kirk Snyder, but they did many other good
things. Gary Hill-Thomas was a great defender. Kevin Pinkney was one of
the great rebounders. And then there was a young man by the name of
Nick Fazekas, who is almost 7 feet tall, a freshman, and has a soft
touch. He stepped in at very crucial times during the tournament and
made key baskets, and came to the free throw line and always came
through.
But we also had players from Nevada. They are not all out-of-Staters.
For example, Sean Paul, the ``Elko Enforcer,'' comes from the town of
Elko in northeastern Nevada. And there were other players: Jermaine
Washington and Marcelus Kemp.
These players have made Coach Johnson proud. I am confident that is
one reason Coach Johnson is going to stay at the University of Nevada,
at Reno. We want him, and I certainly hope he stays. I am confident
that he will.
All these players, and especially the coach, have made Nevadans
proud.
Sometimes when a team loses in a tournament, people say: ``Wait until
next year.'' But I think everyone in Nevada is going to dwell on the
fact that this team did well, and we are going to savor this remarkable
season by UNR, and not dwell on next year.
Senator Ensign mentioned, and I also want to mention, that we also
have a great coach at UNLV. She coaches the UNLV Runnin' Rebels. The
Lady Rebels are very good. They came within one point of going to the
NCAA tournament. They are now in the National Invitation Tournament,
and they are in the finals. They are going to play Creighton tonight
for the National Invitation Championship. They have done great.
I love to watch the Lady Rebels. I have gone and met with these young
women and have spoken with the coach. So I congratulate Coach Miller
and her Lady Rebels for the great notoriety they have focused on the
University of Nevada Las Vegas this year and wish them well in their
tournament game tonight.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Amendment No. 2945
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would like to say a few words about the
pending amendment offered by the Senators from California and
Massachusetts; namely, the minimum wage amendment. I would like to
point out the effect of the current minimum wage on people today, and
particularly as to where they are with respect to poverty in America.
Let me refer to this chart. This chart represents the relationship
between the minimum wage and the poverty line for a family of two,
beginning in the year 1988, and up through the year 2002.
From this chart you can see, quite visibly, frankly--with the minimum
wage represented in green and the poverty line being the line just
below the blue--that as the minimum wage increased in 1989, and in a
step sort of function up to 1998, that for a person who had a job, with
a family of two--let's say a single mom had a full-time job but made
the minimum wage--they were still below the Federal poverty level,
until about 1998, and then they could just barely surpass the poverty
level.
I point this out because it does not seem right that a person who has
a full-time job at a minimum wage still lives in poverty.
Now, that is bad enough. But let me show you how much worse it gets.
This next chart shows the relationship between the minimum wage and
poverty for a family of three: let's say a mom and dad and a child. By
this chart one can tell very easily that the gap between the poverty
line and the minimum wage is much greater for a family of three than it
even is for a family of two. In fact, if I have my numbers correct, the
amount is about $3,681. That is the gap.
I point out, again, for a family of three, with one breadwinner--say
with a father who is at the minimum wage--that family of three will
find itself, on average, over a year's time, about $3,600 of income
less than the Federal poverty level. That family is living in poverty
even though the breadwinner of that family is working full time.
And it gets worse, as you might expect.
Let's take a family of four, say a father and a mother, and two
children. Say one parent is working full time at a minimum wage job.
Because the increase in the minimum wage has been
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so slow, the gap between what that family earns and the Federal poverty
level is even greater.
In fact, it is about twice as much, which means that a family of four
with one wage earner at the minimum wage is earning about half of what
the Federal poverty level is. I don't think that is right. I frankly
don't understand why some people do not want a significant increase in
the minimum wage.
Let me tell you a personal story. Personal stories sometimes are out
of context, but it meant a lot to me. One year I was walking across my
State in Montana campaigning. To be honest, I learned an awful lot just
by talking to people who I just happened to meet walking down the roads
and highways and visiting in people's homes. A lot of it had to do with
welfare. I remember talking to many people on welfare who told me they
did not want to be on welfare. They hated it. They wanted to be off
welfare.
One of the main factors they mentioned to me as to why it is so
difficult to get off of welfare is because of the minimum wage laws.
They are working maybe at McDonald's or someplace else in a minimum
wage job, but because the minimum wage rates were so low, they couldn't
make ends meet.
It is hard to know when to believe people. It is hard to know when to
think what people say is right or not, but you have to read between the
lines. You have to get a sense of what is going on. It was very clear
to me that these people were speaking the truth, certainly as they
perceived it. If there were a significant increase in their wages, they
could then get off of welfare.
It is tied to the earlier debate on childcare. I ran into a lot of
women, single moms who said the same thing to me. They were really
earnest. I wish you could have seen the expressions on their faces
saying that they wanted to stay off of welfare.
One young single mom explained to me that she slept on her mother's
sofa so she could avoid having to pay for a room someplace. She had a
minimum wage job. Her childcare expenses were so high she could not
handle it anymore and she had to go back on to welfare. She hated it.
In those few instances, people I talked to just by happenstance--
chance encounters--that is what they have said to me.
We have to make judgments sometimes. One of the judgments I have made
is that our current minimum wage is too low. For a civilized country,
the United States of America, we can do a heck of a lot better.
Sometimes you hear business people say it will increase their cost of
business. It probably will slightly. But if everybody is getting paid
more, more dollars flow into the economy. People are more likely to not
be on welfare, and they are more likely to have a little more self-
esteem. They are more likely to be able to advance themselves. Most
people want to advance themselves. They want a better life for their
families and their kids. Some just find themselves caught in difficult
situations.
I hope people will look at these charts and see how dramatic the
difference is between the minimum wage income on the one hand and the
Federal poverty level on the other. The income of someone on the
minimum wage is much below the Federal poverty level. It does not seem
right that a person working full time, whether he or she has one child,
or is married, or whether he or she has three in the family or four,
should live so far below the Federal poverty level. That is not right.
If they are going to work full time, they should be able to live
outside of poverty.
I urge Senators to support the amendment offered by the Senator from
California.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed
to speak up to 15 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The 9/11 Commission
Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, after watching the harsh acrimony
generated by the September 11 Commission--which, let me say at the
outset, is made up of good and able members--I have come to seriously
question this panel's usefulness. I believe it will ultimately play a
role in doing great harm to this country, for its unintended
consequences, I fear, will be to energize our enemies and demoralize
our troops.
After being drowned in a tidal wave of all who didn't do enough
before 9/11, I have come to believe that the Commission should issue a
report that says: No one did enough. In the past, no one did near
enough. And then thank everybody for serving, send them home, and let's
get on with the job of protecting this country in the future.
Tragically, these hearings have proved to be a very divisive
diversion for this country. Tragically, they have devoured valuable
time looking backward instead of looking forward. Can you imagine
handling the attack on Pearl Harbor this way? Can you imagine Congress,
the media, and the public standing for this kind of political
gamesmanship and finger-pointing after that day of infamy in 1941?
Some partisans tried that ploy, but they were soon quieted by the
patriots who understood how important it was to get on with the war and
take the battle to America's enemies and not dwell on what FDR knew,
when. You see, back then the highest priority was to win a war, not to
win an election. That is what made them the greatest generation.
I realize that many well-meaning Americans see the hearings as
democracy in action. Years ago when I was teaching political science, I
probably would have had my class watching it live on television and
using that very same phrase with them.
There are also the not-so-well-meaning political operatives who see
these hearings as an opportunity to score cheap points. And then there
are the media meddlers who see this as great theater that can be played
out on the evening news and on endless talk shows for a week or more.
Congressional hearings have long been one of Washington's most
entertaining pastimes. Joe McCarthy, Watergate, Iran-Contra--they all
kept us glued to the TV and made for conversations around the water
coolers or arguments over a beer at the corner pub.
A congressional hearing in Washington, DC is the ultimate aphrodisiac
for political groupies and partisan punks. But it is not the groupies,
punks, and television-sotted American public that I am worried about.
This latter crowd can get excited and divided over just about anything,
whether it is some off-key wannabe dreaming of being the American idol,
or what brainless bimbo ``The Bachelor'' or ``Average Joe'' will
choose, or who Donald Trump will fire next week. No, it is the real
enemies of America that I am concerned about. These evil killers who
right now are gleefully watching the shrill partisan finger-pointing of
these hearings and grinning like a mule eating briars.
They see this as a major split within the great Satan, America. They
see anger. They see division, instability, bickering, peevishness, and
dissension. They see the President of the United States hammered
unmercifully. They see all this, and they are greatly encouraged.
We should not be doing anything to encourage our enemies in this
battle between good and evil. Yet these hearings, in my opinion, are
doing just that. We are playing with fire. We are playing directly into
the hands of our enemy by allowing these hearings to become the great
divider they have become.
Dick Clarke's book and its release coinciding with these hearings
have done this country a tremendous disservice and some day we will
reap its whirlwind.
Long ago, Sir Walter Scott observed that revenge is ``the sweetest
morsel that ever was cooked in hell.''
The vindictive Clarke has now had his revenge, but what kind of hell
has he, his CBS publisher, and his axe-to-grind advocates unleashed?
These hearings, coming on the heels of the election the terrorists
influenced in Spain, bolster and energize our evil enemies as they have
not been energized since 9/11.
Chances are very good that these evil enemies of America will attempt
to influence our 2004 election in a similar dramatic way as they did
Spain's. And to think that could never be in this country is to stick
your head in the sand.
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That is why the sooner we stop this endless bickering over the past
and join together to prepare for the future, the better off this
country will be. There are some things--whether this city believes it
or not--that are just more important than political campaigns.
The recent past is so ripe for political second-guessing, ``gotcha,''
and Monday morning quarterbacking. And it is so tempting in an election
year. We should not allow ourselves to indulge that temptation. We
should put our country first.
Every administration, from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, bears some
of the blame. Dick Clarke bears a big heap of it, because it was he who
was in the catbird's seat to do something about it for more than a
decade. Tragically, it was the decade in which we did the least.
We did nothing after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in
1993, killing six and injuring more than a thousand Americans.
We did nothing in 1996 when 16 U.S. servicemen were killed in the
bombing of the Khobar Towers.
When our embassies were attacked in 1998, killing 263 people, our
only response was to fire a few missiles on an empty tent.
Is it any wonder that after that decade of weak-willed responses to
that murderous terror, our enemies thought we would never fight back?
In the 1990s is when Dick Clarke should have resigned. In the 1990s
is when he should have apologized. That is when he should have written
his book--that is, if he really had America's best interests at heart.
Now, I know some will say we owe it to the families to get more
information about what happened in the past, and I can understand that.
But no amount of finger-pointing will bring our victims back.
So now we owe it to the future families and all of America now in
jeopardy not to encourage more terrorists, resulting in even more
grieving families--perhaps many times over the ones of 9/11.
It is obvious to me that this country is rapidly dividing itself into
two camps--the wimps and the warriors: the ones who want to argue and
assess and appease, and the ones who want to carry this fight to our
enemies and kill them before they kill us. In case you have not figured
it out, I proudly belong to the latter.
This is a time like no other time in the history of this country.
This country is being crippled with petty partisan politics of the
worst possible kind. In time of war, it is not just unpatriotic; it is
stupid; it is criminal.
So I pray that all this time, all this energy, all this talk, and all
of the attention could be focused on the future instead of the past.
I pray we would stop pointing fingers and assigning blame and
wringing our hands about what happened on that day David AcUology has
called ``the worst day in all our history'' more than 2 years ago, and
instead, pour all our energy into how we can kill these terrorists
before they kill us--again.
Make no mistake about it: They are watching these hearings and they
are scheming and smiling about the distraction and the divisiveness
that they see in America. And while they might not know who said it
years ago in America, they know instinctively that a house divided
cannot stand.
There is one other group that we should remember is listening to all
of this--our troops.
I was in Iraq in January. One day, when I was meeting with the 1st
Armored Division, a unit with a proud history, known as Old Ironsides,
we were discussing troop morale, and the commanding general said it was
top notch.
I turned to the division's sergeant major, the top enlisted man in
the division, a big, burly 6-foot-3, 240 pound African American, and I
said: ``That's good, but how do you sustain that kind of morale?''
Without hesitation, he narrowed his eyes, and he looked at me and
said: ``The morale will stay high just as long as these troops know the
people back home support us.''
Just as long as the people back home support us. What kind of message
are these hearings and the outrageously political speeches on the floor
of the Senate yesterday sending to the marvelous young Americans in the
uniform of our country?
I say: Unite America before it is too late. Put aside these petty
partisan differences when it comes to the protection of our people.
Argue and argue and argue, debate and debate and debate over all the
other things, such as jobs, education, the deficit, and the
environment; but please, please do not use the lives of Americans and
the security of this country as a cheap-shot political talking point.
I yield the floor.
(Mrs. DOLE assumed the Chair.)
Mr. ENZI. 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.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
That's Like no Help at All
Editor: I first became interested in the effects of raising
minimum wage in the 1960s.
[[Page S3352]]
An employer I knew fired three men he'd employed as watchmen.
He remarked that it was worth something to have warm bodies
around, but not at 75 cents an hour. Since then 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.
Several years ago the Wall Street Journal did a study
showing that living standards have remained unchanged for
people earning minimum wage since that wage was 50 cents an
hour! The only difference was that those poor people were in
a higher tax bracket and had to pay more taxes.
A person who begins working at minimum wage, who works hard
and earns an increase in pay should not be penalized by being
returned to the beginning again. Neither should anyone be
penalized by having to pay the increased food and utilities
that follow every time the minimum wage is increased.
Imo Harned, Douglas.
Mr. ENZI. 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.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I appreciate the Senator from Iowa
giving me the opportunity to sit in this august chair he so ably
occupies on more than just a few occasions on the Senate floor where we
seem to have Finance Committee bills on a pretty frequent basis. He
works diligently. He has been called away to do some other things so I
am going to take this opportunity to speak, as we are stuck on an
amendment that is nongermane to this bill, and which was offered with
the full knowledge that this would severely jeopardize this bill being
moved to passage.
Earlier today we had a good debate on daycare funding. We passed an
amendment that added $6 billion more in daycare funding to this bill.
Current funding for the Child Care and Development Fund is $4.8
billion. The committee added $1 billion more. Why did we add this
increase in funding? Because in the bill we increased the work
requirement by 20 percent.
Now I would make the argument we did not actually increase it by 20
percent because we give partial credit to the States, so it is probably
not a 20-
[[Page S3353]]
percent increase. At most, we increase the work requirement in this
bill by 20 percent. So we also increased the daycare funding.
Candidly, there is probably not even that much of a direct
correlation. It is probably not even going to be required to have 20
percent more to meet this work requirement, but we did it, anyway.
The HELP Committee comes forward with a proposal that is $2.3 billion
more in childcare that will be in this bill, and then today we add $6
billion more. That is a 100-percent increase in daycare funding for a
20-percent increase in work requirements. I am starting to rethink the
work requirements at the rate this is costing us.
In addition, there is almost $1.5 billion in money the States now
hold that can only be used for cash assistance. When we passed the 1996
welfare bill, one of the concerns on the left was this money for cash
assistance be used for cash assistance and it is not to be taken out
and used for other purposes. So we have a pipeline which only funds
cash assistance.
What we do in this bill is allow this $1.5 billion to be used for
daycare. So it is not a $1 billion increase on top of a $2.3 billion
increase on top of a $6 billion increase, but on top of a $1.5 billion
increase on top of that. This is how much money we now have in this
bill for childcare. I oppose that. I think that is an extraordinary
expansion of a program that, while it has benefits and I certainly
support it, and in the 1996 bill I supported the final compromise which
added $1 billion to the daycare funding to get this bill originally
enacted, but this is excessive and unwarranted, and I would argue not
good policy for a variety of different reasons.
There is some good policy in this bill, and it is being blocked. I
think when the Senator from California offered this amendment, she
understood what was going to happen if she offered this amendment, and
that was this bill would be shut down, as the last bill was because of
a blocking amendment on the JOBS bill to create more manufacturing
jobs.
What we would like to see done is a limitation of amendments. I would
frankly be happy to deal with all relevant amendments to this bill, no
limitation on any relevant amendments, but a limitation on political
amendments. Clearly, minimum wage is a political amendment that has
been offered numerous times in the past, always seeming to wait until
right before election. We never see minimum wage increases offered in
odd-numbered years. I do not know if my colleagues noticed that, but it
seems to be offered in even-numbered years. So we have even-numbered
election issues that are brought up by Senators Boxer and Kennedy, who
said they would like to see this bill pass. They say they would like to
see this extended.
I tell my colleagues that the Senator from California in 1996 said: I
cannot support legislation--she was referring to the 1996 welfare
reform act--which will throw countless children into poverty. No one
expects us to solve the welfare problem by punishing children for being
poor. That is what she said in 1996.
So did this bill punish children for being poor? Let us look at the
black child poverty rate. The highest rates of poverty in America are
among black children, at least they have been. At the time Senator
Boxer made that statement, the poverty rate among African-American
children was 45 percent. She said this bill will punish children by
throwing them into poverty, will punish them because we are going to
require their mothers to go to work, we are going to require and put
time limits on the amount of time people can spend on welfare because
we have an expectation that if one is able-bodied they can work, they
should work, and it is beneficial to them and their children if they do
work.
So we did a whole bunch of things to create not only a stick to get
people to work, but a lot of incentives or carrots to make work pay. We
invested a lot of money: Daycare, yes; transportation; EIC. We can go
on down the list. We put in a lot of incentives over the last several
years to make work pay.
What happened? We have the lowest rate of black child poverty ever in
America. Now, one might ask, well, did the other side learn a lesson?
Did they understand that actually they were wrong? I know the Senator
from California had a picture, and I know the Senator from Illinois at
the time, Ms. Moseley-Braun, had pictures of people in breadlines and
people sleeping on grates. Have we now admitted this concept of work
and the concept of time limitations was, in fact, not a punishment but
the real punishment was locking people into dependency and poverty?
That is punishing. That is hopelessness.
What we provided in this bill was hope. Have they learned? Well, the
proof is in the pudding. The Senator from California comes forward and
offers an amendment, shuts down the bill. She will have ample
opportunities over the next several weeks to offer an amendment on this
issue.
By the way, there have been ample opportunities in the past 15 months
to offer a minimum wage increase, and yet on a bill everybody is for,
that we want to reauthorize--they say they are not trying to block this
bill--15 months go by in the session and we are going to offer an
amendment to try to sink this bill.
I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to offer germane
amendments, to withdraw this amendment, let's get to the substance of
this issue. This is an important battle to provide hope and opportunity
for the poor in our society, to bring dignity into the lives of
communities that have been struggling to make ends meet.
Let's stick to this issue and get it done. Let's show the Senate can
work on important issues of the day.
One of the things I wanted to talk about--I had talked at length
about the general welfare bill and I had mentioned the issue briefly,
but I wanted to focus a little more attention on it, the issue the
President proposed on marriage.
There has been a lot of debate about marriage in America over the
past several months. What I am talking about here is the role of the
Government to encourage and promote healthy marriages. The President
has a healthy and stable marriage initiative he has put forward.
Why do we want to do this? Do we want to force people into bad
marriages? Or bring out the shotgun again and get people to marry even
though they may not want to? No. That is not what this is about. No one
is suggesting or has suggested we force anybody into marriage. But here
is what we have done. The President, and many of us who have been
working on this issue for a long time, actually decided to look into
the benefits of marriage to children and to women and to men in
poverty, and determine what and if there are any benefits. Should the
Government be neutral on this issue? Should we stay out of it? Or are
there things we can look to that would encourage us to encourage
marriage?
Here are some of the benefits we have identified in looking at the
data. Children in married homes do better in school. They drop out
less. They have fewer emotional and behavioral problems, less substance
abuse, less abuse or neglect, including physical abuse, less criminal
activity, less early sexual activity, and fewer out-of-wedlock births.
If I said I had a drug that could accomplish all these things for
children, we would prescribe it for every child in America. Yet when we
say we want to have a program in the welfare system where we are
dealing with the poorest children in America who, in most cases, are in
some of the worst neighborhoods of America, in the roughest communities
in America, who are living in many cases in very difficult family
situations--if we say we want to provide these benefits to them, you
get the responses: Why do you want to force some rightwing religious
agenda on us?
There are actually people who are opposed to the President's
proposals, who are opposed to the President's proposals in the face of
the benefit to those who we hear a lot about here on the floor of the
Senate, how we need more for children. We get a lot of proposals from
the Senator from Massachusetts that we can help children by increasing
the minimum wage while in fact he provides absolutely no evidence that
is the case. In fact, when we had the discussion today, the Senator
from Massachusetts said things were better in the 1960s and 1970s and
1980s, when the minimum wage was high.
[[Page S3354]]
If you go back to the previous chart on black poverty, I will tell
you what else is high: Poverty among African-American children. So if
there were a connection between the rate of poverty and the minimum
wage, you would think during this time, when the value of the minimum
wage was actually going down, black poverty would be going up. Just the
opposite is the case. Why? Because most people who earn the minimum
wage aren't the heads of households so there is very little connection
between increasing the minimum wage and poverty. Why? Because poverty
isn't about a little bit more money.
You think: That makes no sense, Senator. Of course it is about more
money.
No, it is not. It is about a lot of factors. People who are poor have
lives that are just as complicated as those of people who are not. It
is about the status of their mothers and fathers. It is about the
family unit around them. It is about a whole host of issues that
determines whether they will be raised in or out of poverty. To look at
one little factor that has no correlation with poverty is the kind of
wrongheaded thinking we have suffered under for far too long in this
institution.
But in 1996 we changed it. We went to a different model in welfare.
Now we are trying to change it again. We know that work works. We also
know from the data families work.
If you look at child poverty, it dramatically increases outside of
intact marriages. If you have an intact marriage, the percent of time
in poverty for the average child is 7 percent, if that child's parents
are married.
As we all know, upon divorce many women end up with the children.
That is the case certainly the vast majority of time. Many times they
also end up on welfare, they end up in poverty, as a result of
separation and divorce. That is the case for children born out of
wedlock.
This represents children born within wedlock. Some stay, others get
divorced.
Here is the situation where children are born out of wedlock and the
mother subsequently gets married. The child poverty rate is high, but
not as high as in the case where mom never gets married. In that case,
the percentage of time children spend in poverty is 51 percent of their
childhood, on average.
So we have a situation where we know marriage has a positive impact
on poverty. Again, we want to focus on poverty and the health of
children. The Senator from Massachusetts spoke about the minimum wage
and how important it was, and provided no evidence as to how minimum
wage increases would help reduce poverty among children. Let's look at
what happens, when marriage is involved, to poverty among children.
Married families are five times less likely to be in poverty than are
single-parent families. Again, the poverty rate among those who are
married: Among all, 13 percent; among single families, 35 percent of
single-parent families in America are living in poverty.
Shouldn't we have a program that at least suggests when a mother has
a child and she is not married and the father is there in the hospital,
that we simply ask the question: Are you interested in being married?
If both say yes, refer them for counseling to a nonprofit in the
community, maybe a faith-based organization in the community, somebody
who is there to nurture that relationship at a very stressful time in
their lives where, without the proper support and help--and in many
cases in this situation you don't have a whole lot of family support,
you certainly don't have popular culture support for fathers nurturing
and caring for their children--can't the Government at least suggest
when someone expresses an intent to get married they be given a little
help in working through that process, given the demonstrable benefits
that would accrue to them and to their children from an economic point
of view?
But there is more than economics. Children living with two parents
are 44 percent less likely to be physically abused; 47 percent less
likely to suffer physical neglect; 43 percent less likely to suffer
emotional neglect; 55 percent less likely to suffer from some form of
child abuse than children living with a single parent.
There are people who will come here to the floor and say the
Government should be neutral with respect to this. In spite of this
rather strong statement in support of marriage being the optimal place,
a married household being the optimal place in which to raise a child,
they will say the Government has no business in this. Yet they will
come here and have the Government spend billions of dollars to get
results that are one-twentieth of what these results would be in the
life of a child.
We will spend billions here to reduce neglect by 2 percent, or 5
percent. That is OK if we spend billions. That is all right. But if we
do something as simple as to say, If you are interested in marriage, we
will refer you to counseling because we want to actually help you, if
you want to be married, to get married and to stay married, that is
wrong. Spending billions of dollars on violence prevention programs,
that is OK. But the best violence prevention program for a child is a
healthy marriage. Spending any money on that, Well, wait, this is a
right-wing religious attempt to influence people with a religious
agenda. I think we all know from the debate that is going on that
marriage is not just a religious event. It is a civil event. It is a
public event. It is a State-sponsored event. It is one that is vitally
important to the future of our society.
There is another piece of legislation Senator Bayh, Senator Domenici,
and I have been working on for quite some time. I am hopeful this will
not be as controversial as marriage--that is, fathers should
participate in their children's lives.
We actually are going to have some money in this bill that will
encourage responsible fathers. It is called the Responsible Fatherhood
Initiative which Senator Bayh of Indiana, Senator Domenici of New
Mexico, and I have been working on for several years. We are able to
get some money in this bill to promote that.
Why? I guess it is obvious. Obviously, we would like to have children
have some presence of a father in their lives. We understand there is a
potential benefit. We also understand there are a lot of fathers
unfortunately who are not necessarily good fathers, who may not
necessarily be a good influence on children's lives. But there is money
to help those fathers become a positive influence in their lives; to
take responsibility for not only providing for them economically, which
all the previous welfare bills had never focused on--which is getting
child support--but actually try to support them in ways beyond the
paycheck they happen to bring home that day.
Why? If you look again at the information we have been able to gather
about the difference between children being raised with fathers'
involvement as opposed to fathers being absent, if you have a father
involved in your life versus if you do not have a father involved in
your life--if you do not have a father involved, you are two times more
likely to abuse drugs and two times more likely to be abused. Why?
Unfortunately, in far too many relationships, the boyfriend tends to be
the greatest abuser of the child who is not his own. You are two times
more likely to become involved in a crime, three times more likely to
fail in school, three times more likely to take your own life, and five
times more likely to live in poverty.
Again, if we had a program we were funding here in the Federal
Government out of the Great Society program that could accomplish all
these things, we would be pouring billions in this baby. I mean, there
would be cries over here to say, if you have this program that can do
all of this, then we are going to spend--you can't outbid us on this
because we are going to go home and talk about how we are saving lives,
reducing drug dependency, reducing abuse, reducing crime, improving
education, and solving the poverty problem.
But then you mention, Oh, by the way, this program has to do with
fathers taking responsibility. No, wait a minute, we are not going to
do that. You are messing around with families here. No. If you have a
Government program that we can hire somebody to fill that role, fine,
but we can't encourage fathers. Why would we want to do that? Who are
we to be judgmental about getting fathers involved with children's
lives? That is not the role of the Government. What is the role of
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Government to mess around with the family?
Because we know what works. Americans know what works. We have known
it for 200-plus years. We know that stable families is the place which
has the greatest opportunity to produce stable young children and
adults. Yet somehow we can't be on the side to save the family, we
can't be on the side of marriage and responsible fathers. At least we
haven't been in the past.
I am hopeful that we have an opportunity in this bill to come down on
the side of the family, to come down on the side of mothers and fathers
taking responsibility for their children from the very beginning. And
the Government should be there to simply ask and encourage and provide
support if they want to, not to force anybody into anything.
We have an obligation if we know what works to do it. If we know what
works and we can have some positive impact on the lives of children,
then we have an obligation to do it. We are doing it here with a very
small amount of money. The marriage proposal I think is $100 million
Federal, $100 million matched by the States, and then a separate $100
million. It is $300 million. Excuse me. It is $100 million from Federal
and $100 million from the States over 5 years, which is $1.5 billion. I
argue that is a fairly modest sum of money for the tremendous benefit
that will accrue not just to the children, but which is going to accrue
to fathers who will take responsibility for their children.
Imagine the change in neighborhoods. Imagine the change in
neighborhoods where 70 percent of kids, 80 percent of kids are born out
of wedlock, and within a year 90 to 95 percent of those kids have no
father involvement in their lives. Imagine the change in the
neighborhood, which is permeated by single mothers and fathers who are
attached to nothing except other irresponsible fathers--we call those
gangs--or they are not attached to that neighborhood at all because
they are in jail. Imagine the neighborhoods with fathers in the homes.
Imagine the neighborhoods with role models of responsible manhood and
fatherhood.
I have talked to so many people who grew up in neighborhoods with
high concentrations of fatherlessness and how they were inspired by the
one or two fathers they knew who weren't their own, but the one or two
men in the community who were responsible fathers who gave them hope
and who taught them responsibility. Imagine how we could change
neighborhoods if we simply brought mothers and fathers back together in
those neighborhoods, and how that dynamic would change.
Dare we come down on that side? Dare we invest in trying to change
their pathology that has attacked so many neighborhoods in our society?
I say yes. I say we have an obligation to do that.
Let me get to the economics of this. Fatherhood involvement increases
child support. The States that, unfortunately as a result of the 1996
Wofford law, are concerned about establishing paternity and getting the
money, I say to the States, which will be the instrument by which these
programs will be implemented, they will have to play a part. They will
have to put up some money to do this.
I make the argument it is to their financial benefit to do it. Even
though it will cost some money for the programs, I make the argument to
the States that if you can get fathers involved in the lives of their
children, you will not have to spend as much time chasing down fathers
to provide child support, and in many cases not getting that child
support, but you will have a better connection with your children which
means a better life, and we will actually save the States some money.
I hate to make the economic arguments to the States, but those are
the facts. I am hopeful the States will understand this is not just
good for their neighborhood, this is not just good for men, it is not
just good for women and for children, and for society at large, it is
also good for their bottom line and their ability to provide services
to the poor.
This is a good piece of legislation. It is not perfect. There are
things in this bill I do not like. But we move the ball forward. We
increase work a modest amount, a responsible amount. As someone who was
in this chair leading the fight in 1996 for this bill and wanting the
tough requirements on work, I am not someone who believes we need to
dramatically increase that requirement. I know there will be an
amendment potentially if we ever get to this bill to increase the work
requirement to 40 hours. I will vote against that. The reason is
because we do in this bill increase the actual work requirement from 20
hours to 24.
What does that mean? That means the amount of hours someone must be
in work in order to be eligible for this program, assuming they did not
get off the program to work themselves, they are actually on welfare
but working, is increased from 20 to 24 hours. Then we have an
additional 10 hours that was in the 1996 act that stays the same, an
additional 10 hours to bring the total up to 34 hours. That 10 hours
being sort of wraparound issues, whether it is job search or other
types of improvement that individuals may be working on to get a better
job, to increase their educational skills, get their GED, whatever the
case may be.
It is important to have a tougher work requirement to take single
mothers out of the home for 40 hours a week, of which 16 of those hours
will not be actually working--I don't see the benefit. What we have
seen from all the studies is the thing that works the most is work.
While these women--it is predominantly, overwhelmingly women--are not
in a job outside of welfare, not on a payroll outside of welfare, they
still are working and getting work experience.
The additional time is well spent to actually find a job outside of
welfare, but I don't think at least at that point in time, because of
the transition of a 40-hour requirement, that is going to be beneficial
in the long term for these women. I will not support that.
I would have supported a modest increase in daycare funding. What we
have done is fundamentally change the expectation of what daycare is.
This is more money than people on welfare could ever hope to need when
it comes to daycare. This is a whole other agenda trying to be advanced
on the bill in the name of welfare to work. But it is simply universal
daycare under a different guise. I will not support that.
But we have a lot of steps taken in the right direction in this bill.
I am hopeful, again, we can get bipartisan cooperation from people who
understand the importance of this legislation in getting it passed and
putting those work requirements back on 28 States that right now do not
have them so we can begin the process again in turning lives around and
improving the quality of lives of children in the poorest neighborhoods
in our society.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
HARRY BURK REID, MY 15TH GRANDCHILD
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I wish the people I work with in the Senate
knew my father. My father was named Harry Reid, the same name I have. I
always looked up to my dad. My dad was uneducated. He didn't graduate
from eighth grade, but he was very smart. My father read a lot and he
could do things people in college could not do.
For example, he was a miner and he could go underground with a
compass, come above ground and do a map. People in college cannot do
that. He could do underground mapping. He was a carpenter. He could
completely overhaul an engine, a valve job, the whole works. He was a
blacksmith, hit tempered steel, all that kind of stuff. And he was a
much bigger man than I. I always admired his physical strength. He
could put a 50-gallon drum full of water or gas, whatever, in the back
of a truck by himself.
The reason I mention Harry Reid tonight, my father, is last night my
15th grandchild was born, a little boy. As I said, I have 15
grandchildren now. The reason I mention my father is because my son
told me, this morning, that they have named my grandson after me. So I
have a little grandson named Harry Reid.
I hope, as the years go by, that little boy will look at his
grandfather in the same way that I looked at my dad.
I am proud of the name Harry Reid. I even sign my ``H'' like my dad
did. My
[[Page S3356]]
dad said once he saw on a window an ``H'' like that, like I sign my
name. So that is the way children are in looking up to their parents
and grandparents.
As I said, I hope I can set an example that my grandson will respect
and admire. I know it is a burden, and I say this seriously, to have
the name Harry Reid, because I have a lot of people who like me, but I
have a lot of people who do not like me because of my political stands.
But separate and apart from all that, I hope my grandson will have an
example set by me that is one he will believe in--family and keeping
families together--and being a young man who conducts himself in a
proper manner, and that, hopefully, some of the things I have done and
will do will be something he will look to as a role model that maybe he
will adhere to.
So I want the Record to reflect how much I appreciate my son Josh and
his lovely wife Tamsen for giving me this great honor and to have
someone who, through all generations of time, will be the third Harry
Reid. I am not a junior because my dad had no middle name. And this
little boy is not a junior, or could not be anyway, because I am not
his father. His name is different. He has a different middle name,
Burk, named after his other grandparents, their last name.
So anyway, I am flattered and respectful of my son and daughter-in-
law for naming the child after me. I want the Record to reflect how
much I love and appreciate my son Josh and all my children who have
done so much to honor me with their exemplary lives, at least from a
parent's perspective.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant journal clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Senator Kerry's Record
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we are currently discussing plans both for
later tonight and tomorrow and the next 2 weeks. I had the opportunity
to talk to the Democratic leader, and that discussion will go on for a
while. While we are in, and have been in a quorum call, I wanted to
take the opportunity to address an issue that has to do with gasoline
prices, energy policy, something that every single American who drives
or benefits from driving is feeling; that is, the price at the gasoline
pump.
The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts was in the news this
morning expressing his concern about rising gasoline prices. He is
right to be concerned. We are all concerned. But what he should be
concerned about is his own dismal record in terms of addressing this
very issue. Again and again, he has taken positions that result not in
what Americans want--that is, lower gas prices--but again and again in
his position as a Senator and before, he has been on the other side and
engaged in policies and supporting policies that drive the price of
gasoline higher and higher.
The Senate record is familiar to most, but in 1983, when he was
Lieutenant Governor in Massachusetts, the Dukakis-Kerry administration
supported a $50 million gas tax hike on the citizens of Massachusetts.
In 1993, in the Senate, he voted for the largest tax increase in
American history, the Clinton tax bill, which increased the Federal
gasoline tax by 4.3 cents. He also voted twice for the Clinton-Gore Btu
tax which, had it been signed into law, would have increased gas taxes
by another 7.5 cents per gallon.
The following year he backed a 50-cent increase in the gas tax for
all Americans. He wrote a letter at that time to the Boston Globe
expressing his disappointment that a scorecard issued by a deficit
reduction organization in Washington did not accurately reflect his
support for this half-dollar gas tax increase.
The list goes on. The Senator from Massachusetts also wants the
United States to accept the Kyoto Protocol which, according to Wharton
Economic Forecasting Associates, would raise gasoline prices an
additional 65 cents per gallon. And just last year, Senator Kerry voted
for climate change legislation which would have imposed a Kyoto-style
regulation on 80 percent of the U.S. economy and would have raised
gasoline prices by 40 cents a gallon.
That is a little bit of the history and the background for this new
concern about gasoline prices by the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr.
Kerry.
Put aside a moment the impact that these proposals would have had on
an issue that we have talked a lot about on the floor today, and that
is jobs and the importance of job creation. The most immediate impact,
the most immediate result of Senator Kerry's positions would be to
force America's consumers to pay at least a dollar more for each gallon
of gasoline they purchase, and that is a conservative estimate.
It is also worth noting that Senator Kerry has consistently opposed
any increase in domestic production of energy and any proposal that
would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The Energy bill, which we
all know fell two votes short in the Senate last year, is probably the
most recent example. Senator Kerry has expressed opposition to this
measure, although he was not present in the Senate when we cast that
critical vote on the conference report.
In opposing the Energy bill, Senator Kerry is opposing not just the
creation of 800,000 new jobs, he is opposing the development of new
domestic resources, new resources that come in the United States,
including such things as renewable resources such as wind and solar
energy. To that you could add clean burning ethanol, and to that you
could add advanced coal technology or zero emission nuclear energy and,
yes, the development of domestic oil and gas resources as well.
I come to the floor to mention all of this, especially mentioning his
record on the floor of the Senate, because it is simply very difficult
to take seriously Senator Kerry when he says he is concerned about high
gas prices and then blames others for not having addressed them.
Throughout his career, Senator Kerry has consistently taken positions
that will result in even higher gas prices and lower domestic supplies
of energy and jobs lost.
If the Senator from Massachusetts, indeed, wants to engage in a
serious discussion about energy policy, I ask that he come back to the
Senate and help us do what we should be doing, and that is pass an
Energy bill which he and his party unfortunately have been blocking for
months.
I appreciate the opportunity to review the record since we had this
available time. I do challenge Senator Kerry to engage in a serious
discussion about helping us pass that very policy which we know would
lower gasoline prices in the United States.
I yield the floor and 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. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Senator Kerry's Record
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, having just heard the majority leader come
to the floor of the Senate and discuss the record of my colleague,
Senator John Kerry, I thought it might be useful to respond just a bit.
This Chamber, given some of the dialog--and especially the dialog I
heard a few minutes ago--only lacks the balloons, the buttons, and the
brass band for being a political convention in a full-scale support of
a candidate in a Presidential operation, a Presidential campaign.
It is not my desire nor my intent to talk about the Presidential
race. But when I hear people come to the floor and decide to talk about
John Kerry's record on energy as a Member of the Senate, I think it is
important to respond.
There are a great many allegations being made about Senator John
Kerry's record and many--most that I have heard recently--have been
flat out untrue, just wrong. One of the great things about the First
Amendment in this country is you can say whatever you want to say and,
in politics, you can misrepresent someone's record and nobody seems to
care very much.
[[Page S3357]]
Let me talk for a couple of minutes about these issues. First of all,
let's talk about the energy bill. We don't have an energy bill right
now. Do you know why? It failed by two votes in the Senate. I voted for
it. So did the minority leader. Do you know why it failed by two votes
in the Senate? Because the majority leader in the U.S. House stuck a
provision in that bill that cost him four, or five, or six votes
against the bill in the Senate. Now I hear the majority leader of the
U.S. House blame Senator Daschle for us not having an energy bill. I
looked at that in the paper and I thought, what on earth can he be
thinking about? He killed the energy bill by sticking in this insidious
provision, a retroactive waiver on MTBE liability. He stuck that
provision in. He demanded it. It was killed on the floor of the Senate
by two votes.
That bill would have passed the Senate easily without that provision
stuck in by the majority leader of the U.S. House. So to have him talk
about Senator Daschle as somehow holding up the energy bill in this
country doesn't make much sense to me. It is just wrong. He is the one
who killed that bill on the floor of the Senate with this provision
that he inserted.
As to the comments this evening, we have the majority leader come to
the floor of the Senate and he seems to imply that my colleague, John
Kerry, is against production, against conservation, against efficiency,
against renewables. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. I can tell you what
Senator Kerry is for. I sat in meeting after meeting with him over
recent years on energy policy, most of which I agree with him on.
Sometimes we disagreed.
I will tell you something. This is a man who is very concerned about
energy policy in this country. When we talk about these issues, it
seems to me it would best behoove us to talk seriously about serious
issues.
That has not been the case with respect to Senator Kerry's record on
energy, as misrepresented on the floor of the Senate this evening. So
let's talk about a couple of these issues.
Renewable energy: Senator Kerry supports renewable energy--wind
energy, biodiesel energy, a whole series of areas of renewable energy--
that will improve this country's energy supply and extend America's
energy supply. He supports it.
Efficiency titles in the Energy bill: Senator Kerry very much
supports improved efficiency of all the appliances we use every single
day.
Conservation: Senator Kerry has a very strong record on conservation,
and the same is true with respect to production.
There has been a lot of misrepresentation. In fact, I heard some
misrepresentation recently that Senator Kerry voted for a 50-cent-a-
gallon gas tax increase. That is totally untrue, just wrong, flat out
wrong.
Talk is cheap so people can come here and assert whatever they like,
but when I hear it, I am going to come to the floor of the Senate and
say it is not true.
The fact is, this country chooses its leader by going to the ballot
box, and this country is owed a serious debate about serious issues.
Regrettably, it too seldom gets a serious debate about serious issues.
Yes, energy is a serious issue and we have a very serious energy
problem and we need an Energy bill passed in the U.S. Congress. Do not
blame Democrats for the failure to pass an Energy bill. It failed in
the Senate by two votes. It passed the House and failed in the Senate
by two votes, and everyone here understands that at least four or five
of those two votes that would have been used to pass that bill resulted
in a negative vote because of what the majority leader in the House
did. Everyone understands that. All you have to do is read a newspaper
and you will understand that. People are concerned about the price of
gasoline in this country, and they should be. When I say we need an
energy policy, we are now close to 60 percent of our oil coming from
off our shores, often from troubled parts of the world. That is
dangerous. The fact is, our economy is reliant on energy sources from
parts of the world that are very troubled. If we want to keep importing
oil from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela, and other parts of the
world, the fact is it will injure us inevitably, it will injure our
economy, and it will injure our opportunity to create new jobs, expand
and provide hope and opportunity for the American people.
We need to go much further than the kind of debate we traditionally
held on energy issues, and that is where Senator Kerry talked about the
future. We need to talk about issues such as hydrogen and fuel cells
and pole-vault over some of this to talk about how we are going to
avoid in the future putting gasoline through carburetors and being
dependent on OPEC countries.
Tomorrow there is a meeting of OPEC ministers. They already cut
production and are talking about cutting production again. This country
ought to jawbone and use the leverage we have to say we need increased
production. We have gas prices that are going through the roof.
I do not know what the President is going to do, whether he is going
to involve himself and try to jawbone OPEC, but I think he should. We
have a serious problem, and it is not just the current spike in gas
prices. That happens. It is now happening because of a series of
factors. One is the cutback in OPEC production. The second is an
imbalance with respect to fuels that are coming into refineries and the
lack of refinery capacity. There is a whole series of factors. Even as
we address the shorter term, we have to think about the longer term.
I will say to those who want to be critical of Senator Kerry's
record, there is nobody in the Senate, in my judgment, who has cared
more and worked harder for longer term solutions for an energy policy
in this country. It does not serve the country or responsible political
debate to come to the Senate and slap people around with bad
information. I am sick and tired of that. If you want to turn this into
a political convention, get some balloons, bunting, put up crepe paper,
hire a brass band, and pretend this is a political convention. But it
is not a political convention. This is the Chamber of the United States
Senate, and we ought to, it seems to me, talk about what the real
policy positions are of the respective candidates and have a
competition of ideas.
I, frankly, think both political parties have something good to offer
this country, and the interaction of both parties and responsible
debate over a long period of time strengthens our country. But I get a
little weary of this machine that is so relentless in trying to
misrepresent someone's position and slap that misrepresentation around
for a while. That is not the way this Presidential campaign ought to be
waged. It is not fair to Senator Kerry, who is not in this Chamber, for
people to come and mischaracterize his record. I understand people have
the right to do it. I am just saying it is not fair. So I hope as we
begin to think through some of these issues in the future that we
understand there is a place for a political campaign for the Presidency
in this country. It is in Ohio, New York, Nevada, North Dakota, Texas,
and California--all around America--and there the bands do play, and
there the balloons are used to great effect, and people love the
political system. That is fine. But I worry a lot about the Senate
Chamber being used to misrepresent someone's position on an issue that
is as important as this.
What bothered me and persuaded me to come to the Senate floor this
moment are two things: One is something I read in the newspaper about 2
or 3 days ago in which the allegation by the majority leader of the
other body was it was Senator Daschle who was holding up an Energy
bill. Nonsense. The majority leader of the other body is the one who
killed the Energy bill by putting in this insidious provision, a
retroactive waiver of MTBE liability. That is a plain fact.
Second, I heard a speech on the floor of the Senate a moment ago that
was just a pure campaign speech that had nothing to do with the merits
on one side. It had everything to do with misrepresenting the merits on
the other side. That is unfair. I am going to come to the floor again
when I hear this done.
I hope the American people are treated to a serious debate about
serious issues. Energy is a serious issue. John Kerry is a serious
candidate for the Presidency, and he has strong positions, I think
defensible positions, on energy dealing with production, conservation,
efficiency, renewables, and more. I am sure if he were here to
[[Page S3358]]
stand up and speak in response to the majority leader, he would want to
do that.
I came to the floor simply to say I hope the American people are
treated to a debate that is accurate about energy positions and energy
policy by the two candidates. I, for one, feel very comfortable with
the long-term view of energy policy as advocated by Senator John Kerry.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question
through the Chair?
Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield for a question.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have not been able to hear all of the
statement of the Senator from North Dakota, but I am sure, as always,
it was right on the point. There is something I would like to direct in
the form of a question to him.
I was asked to appear on a television show this afternoon, and I was
happy to do that. The reason I appeared on the show was to respond to
some TV ads that are starting tomorrow where the Bush campaign is
paying millions of dollars to run an ad around the country that is
absolutely fabricated. The ad said Senator Kerry voted for a 50-cent-
per-gallon gas tax increase. Is the Senator aware that this statement
is baseless, never happened, and that millions of dollars are going to
be spent starting tomorrow saying Senator Kerry has previously in the
Senate voted for a 50-cent-a-gallon increase in taxes for gasoline?
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I say in response to the question from the
Senator from Nevada, I have done what little research I could, because
I understood this ad was being set to run across the country that said
Senator Kerry has voted for a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase. My
understanding is it is simply untrue. If somebody has evidence of which
I am not aware, bring it to the floor. My understanding is it is not
true.
It is similarly not true that Senator Kerry is opposed to renewable
fuels, opposed to conservation, opposed to increased efficiency of
appliances which was alleged a few minutes ago on the Senate floor.
They are not grounded in fact.
As I said, everybody has a right to say these things. It is the
political system. This is the floor of the Senate, and those of us who
hear something we know is demonstrably false also have a right to come
to the floor to say this is not the best of what this system has to
offer the American people. This ought to be a competition of ideas of
both sides using facts and saying here is where one stands and here is
where the other stands, and here is why and take your pick. That is
what the political system ought to be about.
To the extent there are exaggerations--and there sure are in
politics; they occur on the political stage all around the country--
that is fine as well; that is politics.
It is a bit different especially to come to the Senate floor and
misrepresent the record of Senator Kerry.
I yield the floor.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 2943
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss amendment 2943, which is
the Cornyn-Bingaman amendment. I ask unanimous consent that Senator
Kennedy be added as a cosponsor to that amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. This amendment is very simple. It would correct a
technical problem caused during the passage of the Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996. Section 411 of the welfare
law reads that State and local governments may not use their own
resources to provide nonemergency health services to nonqualified
immigrants unless the State has passed new legislation authorizing such
expenditures.
This provision has caused quite a bit of confusion. As a matter of
fact, when I was Attorney General of Texas I was asked to interpret
this provision. It was during the course of that official action that I
discovered the Federal law, because our State legislature had not
acted, had unintended consequences. It is safe to say this provision
has been read by State and local governments with varying
interpretations.
Essentially, the current law imposes a double standard on State and
local governments. Because certain Federal public health programs are
exempt from this requirement, identical State and local government
health programs are not. The end result is more legal and
administrative costs on State and local governments, even though the
provision has no enforcement mechanism. Even without the confusion,
section 411 makes no practical sense. We should not put up more
roadblocks for those who want to provide preventive treatment,
especially when it comes to potential community problems such as
infectious diseases.
By giving localities control over preventive services, here again at
their own expense, not at Federal taxpayers' expense, we ensure local
funds are spent where the people who know best believe they should be
spent. Ultimately, this will have the effect of driving down health
care costs by preventing treatable illnesses before they become acute
and before they require expensive taxpayer-supported care, usually in
an emergency room where anyone, no matter who they are, knows they can
be treated and indeed must be treated according to a Federal mandate
which I know is an interest of the presiding Senator, particularly
because it is an unfunded Federal mandate.
Our amendment would simply strike the word ``health'' from section
411 of the welfare law. This step clarifies that State and local
governments can use their own funds to provide health services to
immigrants, including primary and preventive health care and infectious
disease services, without enacting a new law. It is a commonsense step
and one I hope my colleagues will support.
This amendment is also widely supported by several well-respected
national associations, including the American Hospital Association, the
National Association of Public Hospitals and Public Health Systems, the
National Association of Counties, and the Catholic Health Association.
Amendment No. 2942
I also want to briefly discuss another amendment, No. 2942. I ask
unanimous consent that Senator Lieberman be added as a cosponsor to
this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. The Senator from Connecticut has a deep understanding of
the importance of child support enforcement, and I like me, learned
about how critical that issue is during his service as his State's
attorney general, as I did during my service as attorney general of my
State.
This amendment features two positive reforms for child support
enforcement. It encourages States to adopt electronic payment systems
by 2008. While States can opt out of that if they choose to, it will
help get payments to custodial parents more quickly than is currently
done now. It creates an option for States to centralize all child
support payments to reduce confusion among employers who withhold child
support payments from the wages of their employees, and it will ensure
children get the financial support they need on time which, of course,
is our universal goal.
I hope my colleagues will support this second amendment as well.
I ask unanimous consent that letters of support from each of these
organizations be printed in the Record, and I yield the floor.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
National Association
of Counties,
March 30, 2004.
Hon. John Cornyn,
Hon. Jeff Bingaman,
Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Cornyn and Bingaman: On behalf of the
National Association of Counties (NACo), I would like to
express our support for the Cornyn-Bingaman amendment to the
Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of
2003. The amendment, as you know, would clarify that states
[[Page S3359]]
and counties may use their own funds to provide critical
preventative health care services to immigrants.
NACo is the only national organization representing county
governments. Many of our country's 3066 counties own and
operate hospitals and other health care facilities. Without
the passage of this amendment, county governments are placed
in a precarious position if they decide to provide
preventative care to unqualified immigrants in order to
protect the local community's health. As has been repeatedly
demonstrated, the provision of preventative care is less
costly over time than providing evasive services in emergency
rooms. However, the cost savings to preventative care are far
outweighed by the protection provided to the community's
public health as a whole.
Counties serve as safety-net providers, ultimately
financing and providing care for our Medicaid ineligible and
un-enrolled populations. We support the ability to finance
this care in the most appropriate manner.
Thank you for your leadership and efforts to ensure that
counties are able to protect the health of our local
communities. We look forward to working with you on this
important issue.
Sincerely,
Larry Naake,
Executive Director.
____
The Catholic Health
Association of the United States,
St. Louis, MO, March 30, 2004.
Hon. John Cornyn,
Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington DC.
Dear Senator Cornyn: On behalf of the Catholic Health
Association of the United States (CHA), the national
leadership organization of more then 2,000 Catholic health
care sponsors, systems, facilities, and related
organizations, I am writing in support of your efforts to
ensure that state and local governments have the ability to
use their funds to provide non-emergency health services to
legal and undocumented immigrants.
Specifically, CHA supports your amendment to strike the
word ``health'' from Section 411 of the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of
1996 (PRWORA), which has been interpreted by some states to
prohibit the use of any state and local funds to provide
lifesaving health care to immigrants. This interpretation
stands in sharp contrast to the thrust of PRWORA, which
generally gave states greater authority to determine welfare
rules, and the resulting confusion has had a negative impact
on the health of immigrants in many states.
By clarifying that states and local governments may use
their own funds to provide health services to immigrants,
including important preventive care, your amendment can help
ensure that hospitals and clinics have the clarity they need
to serve the best interest of all of their patients. As
organizations founded in a faith tradition and committed to
the principles of Catholic social justice teaching, Catholic
hospitals recognize and affirm the inherent dignity of every
human being. Your amendment helps to further that principle.
Thank you again for your efforts to ensure that state and
local governments have the certainty they need to use their
own funds to provide appropriate health care to all
immigrants. If we can be of any assistance, please do not
hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Rev. Michael D. Place, STD,
President and Chief Executive Officer.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I would like to commend the Senator from
Maine, Ms. Snowe, on the passage of her amendment to increase the
mandatory funding levels for the Child Care and Development Fund by $6
billion over 5 years. I enthusiastically support this amendment, as it
is designed to help so many families with young children by ensuring
that those children are properly cared for while their parents are at
work.
Unfortunately, we know that more than 10 million children in the
United States are left unsupervised after school on a regular basis. We
know that the welfare rolls have been cut nearly 60 percent since 1996,
and therefore, this statistic will only continue to grow as more and
more parents work. Further, with cuts in State childcare funding, many
working families are faced with no care for their children due to
waiting lists and higher childcare costs.
But, with the passage of this amendment, my home State of Ohio alone
would receive over $34 million in additional childcare funds next
fiscal year and more than $266 million over the next 5 years. This
translates into more children receiving care and more parents with the
peace of mind that their children are being properly attended to while
they cannot be at home.
Again, I commend Senator Snowe for her leadership on this issue.
Mr. President, 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. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we are in discussion now determining the
best pathway to completion on the underlying bill, the welfare bill, an
important bill that I know both sides of the aisle do want to
appropriately address, through amendments and through the debate
process, and we are working on the best way to accomplish that.
As I set out really 3 weeks ago, but in the early part of last week,
we have set this week aside to address welfare and we are doing just
that. But I really need to do everything possible to see that we do
complete it this weekend. To help accomplish that, I will be sending a
cloture motion to the desk on the pending committee substitute.
cloture motion
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the substitute
amendment to Calendar No. 305, H.R. 4, an act to reauthorize
and improve the program of block grants to States for
temporary assistance for needy families, improve access to
quality child care, and for other purposes.
Bill Frist, Charles E. Grassley, John E. Sununu, Conrad
Burns, Lamar Alexander, Peter G. Fitzgerald, Larry E.
Craig, John Cornyn, Robert F. Bennett, John Ensign,
Orrin G. Hatch, Mike Enzi, Mitch McConnell, Ted
Stevens, Norm Coleman, James M. Inhofe, Kay Bailey
Hutchison.
Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent the quorum under rule XXII be
waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________