[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 130 (Monday, October 11, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11276-S11282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              OVERTIME PAY

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I also want to talk about a few of the 
things that have happened here this year in the course of our 
deliberations and debate on legislation in the Senate and in the 
Congress.
  One of the issues I would like to talk about--and it came to a head 
here at the end--has to do with agriculture. But before I get into 
that, I want to talk about overtime pay. Then I want to talk about 
agriculture and conservation.
  Last week, in a replay of what happened almost a year ago, the Bush 
administration used a conference committee to kill my provision to stop 
the Department of Labor's new rule on overtime pay, a new rule which, 
if it is allowed to stand, will strip 6 million workers of their right 
to time-and-a-half overtime pay.

  Once again, the overtime provision I offered and which was adopted by 
the Senate was killed in conference, despite votes in both Houses of 
Congress demonstrating strong bipartisan support for my amendment to 
stop these onerous rules of the President from going into effect and 
denying the right of overtime pay to some 6 million Americans.
  Now, yesterday, we in the Senate, yet again, voted to protect hard-
working Americans' right to earn overtime pay. That bill we passed--as 
the amendments I have offered before that we passed four times--serves 
the simplest of purposes. It lets stand the new threshold of $23,660, 
below which anyone who is working is automatically guaranteed the right 
to overtime pay, and it guarantees that no worker who currently 
receives overtime pay would lose the right to overtime under the new 
rule. That is what this Senate voted to keep four times, and the House, 
twice.
  This is a subject I feel deeply about, and I know I am not alone. 
Wherever I travel in the United States, people come up to me and talk 
about what overtime pay means to them and their families. They can 
become quite emotional about it. They know what this administration is 
trying to do. They are angry that this administration wants to roll 
back this new overtime rule.
  It is a simple matter of honoring work. People believe that when they 
put in more than 40 hours of work in a week, that they are giving up 
their premium time, their time with their families, and that their 
employers should provide them with premium pay if they are giving up 
their premium time.
  Also, many Americans rely on that premium pay as a substantial part 
of their income--to put a little bit aside for a college education, a 
rainy day fund, or perhaps maybe to buy a better house, move up the 
ladder a little bit, buy a new car.
  Other people, to tell the truth, would just rather not work a lot of 
overtime hours. They believe a 40-hour workweek is a full workweek. 
That is what the Fair Labor Standards Act established when Congress 
passed it in 1938. It established in law the principle of a 40-hour 
workweek, that anyone basically who works over that gets time-and-a-
half overtime pay. That was 1938.
  But get this, in 1933, this Senate, right here in this very Chamber--
in 1933, after lengthy debate--passed a bill to establish not a 40-hour 
workweek, or 50-hours, as it was then, but a 30-hour workweek--a 30-
hour workweek, in 1933. Think about that. They voted here to establish 
a 30-hour workweek in 1933.
  Congress fought about it for about 5 years, and finally, in 1938, 
they compromised at 40 hours. It has been that way ever since. I will 
bet we couldn't pass a bill in this Senate today to establish a 50-hour 
workweek. By letting these rules go into effect, we are telling people, 
hey, you can work over 40 hours a week, but don't expect time-and-a-
half overtime pay. That is exactly what we are talking about.
  Again, we know that if overtime is free to the employer, if they 
don't have to pay anymore, they will work people overtime. This chart 
illustrates that. The red block is those who have no overtime 
protection. The green represents people who do have overtime pay 
protection. Of those who have overtime protection, only 19 percent work 
more than 40 hours a week, about one out of every five. These are 
people who get paid for overtime. But if you are not eligible for 
overtime pay, 44 percent work more than 40 hours a week, almost one out 
of every two. So if you don't have overtime pay protection, you are 
twice as likely to work overtime.
  How about working more than 50 hours a week? If you have overtime pay 
protection, only about 5 percent work more than 50 hours a week, but if 
you don't have overtime pay protection, three times as many--15 
percent--work more than 50 hours a week.
  That tells the whole story right there. That is what is happening. If 
this new rule is allowed to stand, we will be back here 5, 6, 7 years 
from now, and you are going to see this red mark way up there, 50, 60 
percent or more of people without overtime pay protection working more 
than 40 hours a week.
  Last year, the Bush administration launched an assault on the time-
honored principle of time and a half pay for over 40 hours. Actually 
the proposal of the President came out in a set of proposed rules from 
the Department of Labor. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 has been 
amended and changed a number of times since 1938, but it has always 
been done through the legislative process, not administrative 
rulemaking.
  Ordinarily, the administration comes to Congress. They say they would 
like to modify the Fair Labor Standards Act for one reason or another. 
The appropriate committees have hearings. They bring in witnesses. We 
work it out. We bring it to the floor. We pass it. It goes to a 
conference with the House, and it is sent to the President for 
signature. That is the way it ought to be done.
  This time, for the first time, this President issued a proposed set 
of regulations drastically changing the overtime pay rules without one 
public hearing. They issued these proposed rules without having one 
public hearing. It actually took us several weeks, kind of plodding 
through the proposed rules, to see what they were proposing. The 
magnitude was breathtaking.
  Some of the most harmful provisions were not discovered until months 
later. Frankly, we were shocked when we first saw in these proposed 
rules of the administration that they were proposing to strip overtime 
pay from police officers, firefighters, veterans, nurses, and many 
others--radical stuff. Of course, once the true intent and extent 
became known, many of those affected were in open rebellion. We talked 
about it, and I talked about it here on the Senate floor.
  When the Department of Labor issued the final rule just this spring, 
the White House seemed to have an election year conversion. Under 
extreme pressure from labor unions as well as us here in Congress, the 
administration backed off its attempt to strip overtime from certain 
high-profile groups such as rank-and-file police officers, 
firefighters, emergency medical technicians. I salute the efforts of 
many individuals and groups who fought hard and who forced the 
administration to abandon several of these most offensive and egregious 
proposals.

  But what did the change do? They took us from an estimated 8 million 
people hurt by these overtime rules to 6 million. So basically we went 
from a proposed set of rules that were profoundly terrible to a set of 
rules that were just plain terrible.
  The administration said they fixed it up. Sure, I admit there are 
about 2 million fewer people who were affected in the final rules, 
policemen and others. But make no mistake about it, up to 6 million 
hard-working Americans earning as little as $23,661 a year will lose 
their right to time-and-a-half overtime pay.
  Mr. FRIST. Will the Senator yield for a question? It is really an 
inquiry about tonight's schedule. About how

[[Page S11277]]

long do you think you will be? You are the last speaker. I know you 
outlined all the things you will be talking about. Just so I can plan 
personally.
  Mr. HARKIN. I have been guaranteed 2 hours today. I spoke 10 minutes 
earlier. I assumed I had about an hour and 50 minutes.
  Mr. FRIST. I can come back later tonight. My son's birthday is 
tonight. I have been here for the last 3 days. I wanted to plan for my 
dinner. Again, I can come back later tonight.
  Mr. HARKIN. I have probably about 10 more minutes on overtime. I want 
to talk about the conservation program and just a little on the 
economy, so maybe 45 minutes.
  Mr. FRIST. OK.
  Mr. HARKIN. Frankly, at this point the administration has zero 
credibility. As I said, when the proposed rule was issued more than a 
year ago, it took months of reading the fine print before we realized 
just how destructive it was. Only belatedly did we discover that the 
administration was giving tips and advice to employers as to how they 
could avoid paying overtime to employees. Right in the rules there is 
advice to employers how they can get around it. I had never seen that 
before, either.
  Here we go again. The administration is all smiles and happy talk. 
Again the administration is assuring workers they won't lose their 
overtime rights. When the Bush administration smiles and says it only 
wants to fix overtime, I have five words of advice to American workers: 
Hang on to your wallets.
  What I am telling you about this new overtime rule is not just 
according to me. Just a couple of months ago, the top three people who 
administered these regulations over the course of the last two decades 
released a report detailing their indepth review of these rule changes. 
Of all the people in the universe of labor experts who have weighed in 
on the Bush overtime rule, I would have to think that the credibility 
of these three persons is unparalleled on this issue. Why do I say 
that? They have no ax to grind. They worked for Republican and 
Democratic administrations, going clear back to President Reagan, the 
first President Bush, and President Clinton. One of them worked for 
this Bush administration. These are the three experts who administered 
this program. If you have any reservations about my interpretation or 
criticism, I invite you to read their analysis.

  These three career officials have said:

       In every instance where DOL [Department of Labor] has made 
     substantive changes to the existing rules, it has weakened 
     the criteria for overtime pay exemptions and thereby expanded 
     the reach and scope of the exemption.

  Let me repeat the administration's central claim. They are saying 
that no workers earning less than $100,000 a year will lose their right 
to overtime pay. Well, one of these career DOL officials was quoted in 
the New York Times as saying by his analysis, 3 to 5 million Americans 
would lose their eligibility.
  This other chart I have shows the impact of this new rule. It is 
clear that employees earning $100,000 a year or more can be exempted 
because they are exempted under the highly compensated employee 
provisions, if they make more than $100,000. Then if you earn less than 
$23,660, you are automatically nonexempt. You have to be paid time and 
a half. Who is in between? Well, a lot of people but especially team 
leaders. I will talk a little bit about team leaders.
  Under the new rule, a worker who leads a team of other workers loses 
his or her right to overtime. Under the old rule, there was no 
provision concerning so-called team leaders. There wasn't even such a 
term. But the new rule, section 541.203(c), states:

       An employee who leads a team of other employees assigned to 
     complete other projects for the employer meets the 
     requirements for exemption even if the employee does not have 
     direct supervisory responsibility of the employees on that 
     team.

  This team leader loophole is big enough to run an Amtrak train 
through. Team leaders are commonplace throughout the manufacturing and 
service sectors. They are especially common in factories, refineries, 
chemical plants.
  MIT professor of management Tom Kochan estimates that this team 
leader loophole alone could deny overtime rights to as many as 2.3 
million workers. Again, the administration claims that no worker making 
between $23,660 a year and $100,000 a year will be denied overtime. 
That statement is just plain false.
  When Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, it 
anticipated there would be a number of less than honorable employers 
who would try to cheat workers out of their overtime pay. So Congress 
included a penalty provision that would act as a strong deterrent. Here 
is what it was. Under the old rule, if an employer was cheating 
employees out of overtime pay, the penalty could be massive. All 
employees in the enterprise--all employees, including even salaried 
employees who were exempt from overtime--had to be paid time and a half 
overtime for the period that the improper practices took place. It was 
known as the nuclear deterrent. It was very tough.
  Now, by contrast, under the new rule, the penalty is limited to the 
work unit where the violation was detected. This ignores the fact that, 
in nearly all instances, overtime violations are not limited to a 
renegade supervisor. They are almost always as a result of companywide 
practices. In other words, we have gone from the nuclear deterrent of 
old to the new sort of pussycat deterrent under the new rule. Under the 
new rule, many workers will legally lose their right to overtime pay. 
That is one part of it. And employers who cheat workers out of overtime 
pay illegally will receive a penalty that is nothing more than a slap 
on the wrist. No wonder the Wall Street Journal called the new rule a 
victory for business groups. No wonder this new rule is so strongly 
supported by corporate America.
  It is time for the Bush administration to listen to Main Street, not 
just Wall Street; listen to ordinary working Americans. One of their 
highest concerns is economic security. Not only do they fear losing 
jobs, health care, and retirement; they are now afraid they will lose 
their right to time and a half compensation. They have good reason to 
fear that. They fear they will work a 50- to 60-hour week, with zero 
compensation. That is what is going to happen under these new rules. 
Last week, in 17 cities across the country, thousands of workers, who 
are angry about these new overtime rules, rallied in parks and outside 
Federal buildings. They delivered scores of boxes full of postcards to 
the Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters, asking the President to take 
back this overtime pay cut.
  Dixie Harms, a long-time trainer of nurses in Des Moines, said:

       If overtime is changed for hospital nurses, we will see a 
     mass exodus of registered nurses from the hospital setting, 
     because they will get fed up and refuse to volunteer so many 
     hours to do what they really love doing.

  It is bad enough to deny American workers overtime pay rights, but 
what is striking is the mean-spiritedness of the Department of Labor. 
As I said, the Department offered employers what amounts to a cheat 
sheet, giving helpful tips on how to avoid paying overtime to the 
lowest paid workers. For example, the Department suggests cutting a 
worker's hourly wage so any new overtime payments will not result in a 
net gain to the employees. It also says you can take a worker's salary, 
raise it up a little bit so that it meets the threshold. Say an 
employee is making $23,600 a year. All you have to do is give them a 
$61 increase, and guess what. You don't have to pay them overtime; you 
can exempt them. That is in the Department's rule, those tips. I liken 
that to the IRS giving helpful hints to tax cheats, saying if you want 
to cheat on your taxes, here are some tips on how to do it. We would be 
up in arms if the IRS were to do that. But we let the Department of 
Labor do it. Here are helpful hints on how to cheat your workers out of 
their legitimate right to overtime pay.

  It happened recently. According to an article in the Detroit News 
last month, 2 managers out of 150 at Rozwell's Metro Detroit Burger 
King franchises became eligible for overtime. Listen to this. Rather 
than make them hourly workers, the company gave them a $20 a week raise 
to maintain their salary status. Two managers out of 150 are eligible 
for overtime under these new rules. What a deal.

[[Page S11278]]

  I want to close my statement on this by saying there is one group 
disproportionately harmed by these new overtime rules: working women. 
Why? Because women tend to dominate the workforce in retail, services, 
and sales positions, which would be particularly affected by the new 
rule. Three in 10 working women earn all or almost all of their family 
incomes. Three in 5 earn about half or more of their family's income. 
Four in 10 women work evenings, nights, or weekends on a regular basis. 
One-third work shifts different than their spouses or partners. From 
1979 to 2000, married women increased their working hours by nearly 40 
percent. Their contributions are especially important to lower and 
middle-income families.
  Yet, now the administration's new rule will take overtime pay 
protection away from millions of American women. They will have to work 
longer hours for less pay. This means more time away from their 
families, more childcare expenses, with no additional compensation. 
Listen to what Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA, says. She is a single 
parent, working hard to support her family. When she leaves work after 
a difficult 8-hour shift, she says:

       My second shift begins. There is dinner to cook, dishes to 
     wash, laundry, and all the other housework that must be done, 
     which adds another 3 or 4 hours to my workday. My time at 
     home with my kids and family is truly my premium time. It is 
     personal time. It is the most valuable time of the day. So if 
     I am required to work longer than 8 hours, if I have to 
     sacrifice that premium time with my family, then I ought to 
     receive premium pay. That is overtime pay.

  I have never heard it said better. Sheila Perez is right. If she is 
going to sacrifice her personal time, premium time, with her kids, it 
is only fair that she be compensated on the premium basis, with time 
and a half overtime pay.
  Later this week, we will have another debate between President Bush 
and Senator Kerry. It is going to be on domestic issues--that is what I 
understand--the economy and domestic issues. I hope we will hear about 
this issue of overtime pay.
  I am sure the President will say: Look, we expanded overtime pay. 
Why, we raised the base from $8,000 to $23,660.
  Yes, with one hand, they raised up the base for low-income workers; 
and with the other hand, they took it right back. What a nice shell 
game. I gave you examples of how employers are getting around it, and 
the fact that the Department of Labor put out a cheat sheet on how to 
cheat workers out of overtime pay legally. How about the workers making 
$24,000, $25,000, or $26,000 a year? That is barely poverty wages. They 
are above the threshold. They will be exempt from overtime pay. Senator 
Kerry has stated that if he is inaugurated President in January, the 
next day he will rescind those onerous Bush administration rules. We 
will keep the base raise; we will raise the base from $8,000 to 
$23,660. That is what my amendment did. But we will guarantee that 
every worker in America who is eligible for overtime pay this last year 
will be eligible next year and the year after and the year after.
  If President Bush is reelected, up to 6 million Americans will lose 
their right to overtime pay. To me, this is a gut issue. This affects 
our working families. We want to protect our overtime rights in 
America, getting time and a half over 40 hours. Senator Kerry, the day 
after he is sworn in as President, will rescind those onerous rules and 
put us on the right track.
  I want to close my comments on this legislative year today regarding 
a couple of other matters, including the insistence by this 
administration that we take money for disaster assistance out of USDA 
conservation programs. Now, I have here a statement of the President of 
the United States, George W. Bush, that he made when he signed the farm 
bill.
  I was there. I was chairman of the Agriculture Committee at that 
time. He touted the new farm bill for what it did on conservation. He 
said:

       This bill offers incentives for good conservation practices 
     on working lands.

  That is the Conservation Security Program. The President went on to 
say:

       For farmers and ranchers, for people who make a living on 
     the land, every day is Earth Day. There are no better 
     stewards of the land than the people who rely on the 
     productivity of the land. And we can work with our farmers 
     and ranchers to help improve the environment.

  That is what he said when he signed the bill. However, twice now--
once a little over a year and a half ago--the President has tried to 
take some $3 billion out of conservation funds. He succeeded in 2003, 
but then we put it back early this year.
  Here we are again with the legislation that passed today. The 
President has once again taken just short of $3 billion out of 
conservation after saying he is for conservation. He said this in the 
debate last Friday. In his debate with Senator Kerry, he talked about 
how he was for strong conservation. I about came out of my chair when I 
heard that because at the very time the President in St. Louis was 
making this statement in the debate about how much he supported 
conservation, his people were up here on the Hill trying to gut it, 
take money away from it. Amazing.
  Let me talk a little bit about this program. We have always had 
different conservation programs in America. We helped farmers who built 
terraces or grass waterways, for example. We supported practices to try 
to conserve soil and water, but much of Federal efforts entailed taking 
land out of production.
  For years, farmers and ranchers all over the country have said: It 
seems that the people who get the USDA money are mostly those who are 
the worst in protecting soil and water. They plow up the turn rows, 
they go up and down the hills. They plant one crop right after the 
other. They do not rotate the crops, and they do not worry about soil 
erosion. Those were the ones who got the USDA funds. The good stewards 
stop runoff. They do not allow the streams to be polluted. But there is 
not much help for them, and these are most of our producers. These are 
the people who produce our food and fiber, the most abundant food 
anywhere in the world at the lowest cost, and the safest food.
  Out of that came this idea that we ought to have an incentive 
program, as the President said in his statement, an incentive for good 
conservation practices on working lands.
  We put that into the farm bill of 2002. It was called the 
Conservation Security Program. The idea was to begin to reward farmers 
for adopting and maintaining good practices. Unlike the commodity 
programs that give more money the bigger you are--the bigger the 
farmer, the more money he gets--unlike that, this program said: We do 
not care how big or small you are, it depends on what conservation you 
do. The more conservation work you do on your working lands--we are not 
taking land out of production; it is how you farm--then that is how you 
will get incentive payments.
  The most any farmer, no matter how big you are, could ever get out of 
this is $45,000 a year. So it does help family-size farms. It helps all 
kinds of farms--vegetable farms, orchard and fruit farms. It helps 
corn, soybean, cotton, rice farms, and anybody else who wants to 
practice good conservation on their working lands. That was the 
cornerstone of the conservation title in the 2002 farm bill. And that 
is what the President talked about. That is what he touted. That is 
what he said he supported as recently as last Friday night in the 
debate.

  The farm bill had a major conservation initiative. The President and 
his administration keep talking about it, but the President's people 
are up here gutting the program. Soon, right after it became law, they 
moved to take $3 billion out. They succeeded for a little while, but we 
put the money back. For 2005, the President in his budget is cutting 
nearly $600 million in conservation programs. That cuts the 
Environmental Quality Incentives Program, called EQIP, the Wetlands 
Reserve Program, the Farmland Protection Program, the Grassland Reserve 
Program, the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, and the Watershed 
Rehabilitation Program, and, of course, the Conservation Security 
Program. All of those are cut in his budget, yet the President last 
Friday night said he was for strong conservation.
  For EQIP alone, President Bush requested a cut of more than $215 
million. That does not include the additional $75 million to $100 
million in cuts that will come from EQIP to pay for technical 
assistance, again a problem caused by this administration.

[[Page S11279]]

  President Bush claims he supports efforts to restore wetlands, but 
each year he advocates cutting acreage for the Wetlands Reserve Program 
by 50,000 acres below the farm bill level. The Wetlands Reserve Program 
is the best tool we have to restore and protect wetlands, and the Bush 
administration is leading the way in keeping the enrollment down. 
Again, words are not matching what the President is doing.
  In August of this year, President Bush announced in Minnesota--I was 
up there right about the time--he is going to direct the Secretary of 
Agriculture to offer early reenrollments and extension of existing 
contracts in the Conservation Reserve Program, those contracts that 
were set to expire in 2007 and 2008. Again, words do not match the 
deeds.
  There is no automatic or guaranteed enrollment in CRP for producers 
whose contracts are expiring. On the contrary, all these producers got 
was the right to comment on how USDA should enroll the expiring 
acreage. There was no guarantee that any of the currently participating 
producers would get back into the CRP program; no guarantee that all 
these acres will be reenrolled; and certainly no reenrollment any time 
soon. So what was the President talking about in August in Minnesota?
  In 2001 and 2002, we had a drought in many Western States. The Bush 
White House did not want to provide farmers and ranchers relief, as we 
have done in past emergency situations. They insisted if we are going 
to have disaster assistance, we have to get money out of the farm bill. 
What did they do? They went after the conservation funds to get the 
money to pay for it.
  The Conservation Security Program is about our future. Here is what 
the Des Moines Register said in an editorial:

       The CSP holds enormous promise to sustain the soil for 
     agriculture, to clean up rivers and lakes, to boost rural 
     development. People will want to live and visit a fresh, pure 
     countryside where wildlife and recreation flourish. Moreover, 
     the program could be the template for the farm programs of 
     the future, superseding the crop subsidies which are almost 
     certain to be outlawed some day under the rules of 
     international trade. CSP could give farmers an income safety 
     net based on how well they take care of the land instead of 
     how much they produce. It is shortsighted to fail to invest 
     enough in the conservation security program.

  That is what the Des Moines Register said about it, and yet the 
administration keeps wanting to gut the program.
  There is uniform opposition to this action taken by the 
administration from farm, conservation, and environmental groups. When 
can anyone ever remember the commodity groups, the environmental 
groups, and the wildlife conservation groups being in such agreement?
  I have served on Agriculture Committees in the House and Senate for 
nearly 30 years, and I can never remember in my life all of these 
groups being so united in one cause. That tells us something. It tells 
us that the administration's actions are just plain wrong.
  The White House, through the OMB, insisted on taking money from the 
Conservation Security Program. Now we have heard a lot of talk that 
this program is spending more money than what was anticipated. Well, 
that is not really true. Here is what happened: In 2002, when we passed 
the farm bill, the CBO made an estimate as to how much CSP would cost 
over 10 years. They said it would cost $2 billion. OK, fine. We passed 
the bill. The President signed it. About 6 months later, not one rule 
has been written, not one regulation promulgated, nothing has been 
done, and now OMB comes out and says, well, they reestimated CSP's cost 
at $7 billion over 10 years.
  Where did they get that figure? They just plucked it out of thin air. 
But then they said, well, now that we have $7 billion there we can take 
$3 billion out. Right away that tells us they are up to something 
funny, but that is what they did.
  In so doing, they capped the program, changed the nature of the 
program, so it could not operate as intended by the farm bill. As I 
said, we reversed that, but just a few months later, just this month, 
they have come back and proposed it again. They reached in again, took 
nearly $3 billion out of it, put a cap on the program.
  Some are saying we need to put a cap on it; it might cost too much. 
Well, we do not know for certain what it is going to cost. But I think 
CBO is way out of line exaggerating the cost. That is from my own 
personal standpoint. We do not hear this call to limit other programs. 
What about food stamps? Food stamps is an uncapped entitlement program. 
If one qualifies income-wise, they are eligible for food stamps.
  We know as unemployment goes up, wages go down, more people apply for 
food stamps. When employment is up, wages are up, the cost of food 
stamps comes down. Medicaid is another program. It has no cap on it. If 
one qualifies, they get it. In agriculture, the commodity program has 
no cap. My goodness, the corn, the soybean, the cotton, the rice, and 
wheat, there is no cap on those programs. It depends on what kind of 
year one has.
  If prices are high, we spend less. If prices are low, we spend more. 
I thought it was pretty interesting also when the farm bill passed we 
had a milk income loss contracts program. It was estimated by CBO to 
cost $1.7 billion for the life of the program. After the bill passed, 
CBO raised its cost estimate to $4.2 billion.
  Now it looks like it may cost less than that, but it has already cost 
some $2 billion already, which is higher than the $1.7 billion 
estimate. We have another year to go under this program, and it may 
well spend more money, my point being that these are uncapped programs 
so that they can operate as intended. The CSP program was uncapped to 
operate as intended, that if one does certain things, if one meets 
certain requirements of conservation practices, they will qualify for 
tier 1, tier 2 or tier 3, anywhere from $20,000 to $45,000 a year for 
the life of the contract, which is 5 to 10 years.

  By what the administration has done, by taking the money out and 
capping it, they have turned a national program into a selective 
conservation program for only a few people, and it has led to all kinds 
of distortions and problems. What the administration did this year is 
they said, OK, certain watersheds will be eligible to get in the 
Conservation Security Program and only a few farmers in those 
watersheds. So there could be a farmer in a watershed who is eligible 
for CSP, and 2 miles away there could be a farmer who is a better 
conservationist, who is doing better work on his farm in saving soil 
and water, but is not eligible.
  The second abnormality is that even within a watershed, there could 
be farmers who are good conservationists, but they did not get 
accepted, they did not get in that little select group. And guess what.
  They have to wait 8 years before they can apply again. What signal 
are we sending to farmers? Forget about it, that is the signal. Forget 
about help for conservation unless you are part of this little select 
group. Maybe you will be in it; most likely you will not. That is what 
they have done to this Conservation Security Program.
  The President had the gall, last Friday, to say that he was strong 
for conservation. Well, I have just pointed out that they have been 
gutting conservation, and they continue to do so. To those who ask why 
they are opposed to the program because it is uncapped, I am sorry, 
that is what the Agriculture Committee voted. We hammered this out in 
long sessions and long negotiations between the House and the Senate, 
between Republicans and Democrats, between those from the South, the 
North, the West and the East. There is no surprise.
  This is what we voted. It is not right for OMB and the 
administration, through the Appropriations Committee, of which I am a 
member, to come in and unilaterally change this program. That is not 
the purview of the Appropriations Committee. It is the purview of the 
Agriculture Committee. That is why I kept the Senate in this week and 
that is why I stood here on Friday and Saturday because I am fighting 
for farmers and for conservation. I am fighting for the right of our 
farmers to rely upon what we passed in the farm bill, not having the 
Appropriations Committee take it away. So we passed a resolution on 
Saturday. We passed a resolution--I am not going to read all the 
``whereases,'' but here is the resolution.
  One of the things I negotiated to let some bills go through was I 
said, let us have another vote on whether the Senate wants to take 
disaster money out

[[Page S11280]]

of conservation or whether they want to treat disaster money as an 
emergency like we ought to and have before.
  This is the resolved clause of that resolution: Resolved that it is 
the sense of the Senate that the 108th Congress should provide the 
necessary funds to make disaster assistance available for all 
customarily eligible agricultural producers as emergency spending and 
not funded by cuts to the farm bill.
  Guess what. It passed the Senate 71 to 14. Seventy-one Senators said, 
you are right, it ought to be treated as an emergency. But the 
President of the United States says, no; no, we will treat some 
disaster losses as an emergency but not the drought that hit Iowa or 
the floods that hit North Dakota or the drought that hit Colorado. No, 
they are going to be treated different. What the administration said we 
are going to do is we will take money out of conservation, out of 
agriculture to pay for that.

  The junior Senator from Pennsylvania was here on the floor the other 
day arguing heatedly that disaster assistance should be taken out of 
the farm bill. I pointed out that Pennsylvania is one of the States 
covered by hurricane assistance. The hurricane money is not taken out 
of the farmers' pockets. Why should their disaster be different than 
the ones out west?
  I heard one Senator say: They have had a drought for 4 or 5 years, 
and we cannot be putting emergency money into those States where they 
have a drought year after year.
  Wait a minute. It seems to me that Florida gets hit by a hurricane 
every couple of years. That is hurricane alley. We don't get hit by 
hurricanes in Iowa, but Florida does. Maybe we should not have 
hurricane assistance because Florida gets hit year after year by 
hurricanes? What kind of nonsense is that?
  Again, we passed that resolution on emergency funding 71 to 14.
  Also, an agreement was struck between the leadership, the Republican 
leadership and the Democratic leadership, on another resolution that 
passed today. Since it passed by unanimous consent--that means no one 
objected--I want to read it because it was not read today. Here is a 
resolution:

       To instruct conferees to the Agriculture, Rural 
     Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related 
     Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2005, or on a Consolidated 
     Appropriations Measure that includes the substance of that 
     act.
       Resolved that, for the purpose of restoring the provisions 
     governing the Conservation Security Program to those enacted 
     in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act--

  That is the farm bill of 2002--

       and restoring the practice of treating agricultural 
     disaster assistance as emergency spending, the Senate 
     instructs conferees to the Agriculture, Rural Development, 
     Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies 
     Appropriations Bill, 2005, or a Consolidated Appropriations 
     Measure that includes the substance of that act, to insist 
     that the conference report contain legislative language 
     striking subsections (e) and (f) of section 101 of division B 
     of H.R. 4837. . . .

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent a copy of these resolutions be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record,

                              S. Res. 454

       Whereas, agriculture has been the cornerstone of every 
     civilization throughout history and remains the driving force 
     behind the nation's economy;
       Whereas, American farmers and ranchers help keep food 
     affordable in this country and also help to feed the world;
       Whereas, America's farmers and ranchers produce the food 
     and fiber that is so vital to our economy while protecting 
     our soil, helping to keep our waters clean, and reducing air 
     pollution across the country;
       Whereas, all sectors of our country rely in some way on a 
     successful, strong and vibrant agriculture industry;
       Whereas, it is the nature of agriculture that farmers and 
     ranchers will suffer production losses because of the 
     vagaries of weather;
       Whereas, Congress has responded to natural disasters by 
     providing assistance to those affected including the nation's 
     farmers and ranchers to help restore financial stability in 
     times of such losses; and
       Whereas, Congress has traditionally provided such 
     assistance on an emergency basis without cutting programs to 
     the class of those suffering.
       Resolved, That it is the Sense of the Senate that the 108th 
     Congress should provide the necessary funds to make disaster 
     assistance available or all customarily eligible agricultural 
     producers as emergency spending and not funded by cuts to the 
     farm bill.

                              S. Res. 465

       Resolved, That for the purpose of restoring the provisions 
     governing the Conservation Security Program to those enacted 
     in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act and restoring 
     the practice of treating agricultural disaster assistance as 
     emergency spending, the Senate instructs conferees to the 
     Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, 
     and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2005, or a 
     Consolidated Appropriations Measure that includes the 
     substance of that act, to insist that the conference report 
     contain legislative language striking subsections (e) and (f) 
     of section 101 of division B of H.R. 4837, An Act Making 
     Appropriations for Military Construction, Family Housing, and 
     Base Realignment and Closure for the Department of Defense 
     for the Fiscal Year ending September 30, 2005 and for Other 
     Purposes.

  Mr. HARKIN. What does all that language mean? It means that the 
Senate went on record today to instruct conferees, those of us on the 
Appropriations Committee, to undo what the administration did, to 
restore what was in the farm bill for conservation, and to not take the 
money out of conservation for disasters but to treat agricultural 
disaster assistance as emergency spending, as it should be.
  So 71 Senators voted that way on the earlier resolution to treat it 
as emergency spending. Now we have an instruction to conferees. Can we 
get any plainer than that?
  We will see. We come back in November. We have to come back in a 
lameduck session because we have a continuing resolution to keep the 
Government running until November 20. So sometime before November 20 we 
in the Appropriations Committee and the Congress, we have to come back, 
are going to meet to either pass what is called an Omnibus 
appropriations bill or something of that nature, and we have 
instructions from the Senate to undo what the administration called for 
to cut conservation. We will see. We will see if Senators on that side 
of the aisle have the courage to stand up to this administration and to 
follow the will of the Senate and tell the President, no, you are not 
taking the money out of conservation. We will see. We have the 
instructions. We have 71 Senators who voted that way.
  I will say about the future consequences to agriculture if this cut 
to the farm bill stands, this will set a precedent that will be used 
time and time again. Today it is conservation. Next time what will it 
be? How about the commodity programs? Those are uncapped entitlement 
programs. They go to rice and cotton and corn and soybean and wheat 
farmers. Someone will point out payments that go out to farmers and 
they will say: Wait a minute, we ought to cap that. If we cap it, we 
will have a lot of money to do other things. That is next. Or payment 
limitations. That has been fair game out here on the floor before.
  My message to the farm groups in America is this is just the first 
step in reopening the farm bill. Reopen it here, and look out, it is 
fair game.
  Shame on those in this administration who just 2 years ago loudly 
touted the farm bill. We signed off on it. We hammered out our 
agreements. Now they want to reopen it and take money out for disaster 
assistance. Look out. They will be coming after it again because there 
is money there. Commodity programs are uncapped entitlement programs. 
They are going to want to take that money for other things because 
people will look at this. There is a lot of staff around here. There 
are a lot of people looking at, where can I get money for this program 
and where can I get money for that? Those of us who represent farmers, 
are in the minority around here, aren't we?
  There are a lot of good programs out there that maybe need money. 
Some of them I would even support myself. People are going to want to 
get money for them. Guess what. They are going to come after the farm 
bill because Congress and the White House now opened it. It is opened 
up wide. That barn door is open, and they are going to come after it. 
Mark my words. What are we going to say? We didn't protest enough? We 
didn't take strong stands against this administration when it refused 
to protect conservation, to protect our farmers? We will see when we 
come back. We will see when we come back in November whether we have 
the courage to override the administration.

[[Page S11281]]

                              The Economy

  Mr. President, I will take a few minutes to talk about the economy 
and what is happening to American families. There is one question I 
never hear the President of the United States ask of anyone. I never 
hear it when I see him in all of the rallies. I never hear him asking 
one question: Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago? You 
never hear that question. Are you, your families, or is the country, 
better off than they were 4 years ago?
  I want to talk briefly about why the answer to that is obvious. We 
are not better off, either personally, our families, or the country as 
a whole. If there is one word that describes the Bush economic policy, 
it is ``reckless.'' If there is one word to describe the President's 
foreign policy in Iraq, it is ``reckless.''
  This President has recklessly pursued tax cuts for the most affluent 
in our society above other priorities. He has recklessly squandered the 
surpluses he inherited from President Clinton. He has recklessly 
supported outsourcing of our jobs. The President has recklessly ignored 
45 million Americans without health insurance, and he has recklessly 
set us on a course to run up nearly $5 trillion in new debt over the 
next 10 years.
  Last month, the Congressional Budget Office announced that this 
year's budget deficit will hit around $422 billion, a new record. What 
was the President's response? Let's cut some more taxes and run the 
deficit up even more. When it comes to fiscal policy, President Bush is 
simply out of control. He is driving this country the way he would be 
driving recklessly down a road.
  For him, these tax cuts are practically theology, not ideology. 
Unfortunately, we don't have a prayer getting our economic house in 
order under his leadership.
  Last year, the President's Council of Economic Advisers said that 
with the 2003 tax bill, the economy would create 306,000 jobs every 
month. In the past 4 months we have created jobs at a third of that 
rate.
  We have suffered a net job loss of nearly a million since Mr. Bush 
took office, the only President since Herbert Hoover during his 4 years 
who has not created one net new job.
  The unemployment rate, they will say, went down in September. Why? 
Not because people were getting jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics, the labor force shrunk by 152,000. Why? People gave up on 
looking for work. Therefore, conveniently they are no longer counted as 
unemployed.
  Recent data released last month by the Census Bureau shows that since 
this President took office, real household income has fallen by $1,535. 
That compares to a gain of $5,498 during the Clinton years. Families 
were better off after Bill Clinton was President; with this President, 
a $1,535 loss in household income.
  How about what consumers are paying for gasoline now. I filled up my 
car yesterday. It was $1.99 a gallon for regular. Today oil hit a new 
high--53-something dollars a barrel. I understand it may go as high as 
$60 a barrel. Gasoline prices are going up. Families have to drive 
their cars to work. Rural Americans have to drive a long way. Farmers 
have to fill up their combines and tractors with diesel.
  The farm prices have come down, corn prices are down, bean prices are 
down, wheat prices are down. Guess what. Their fuel prices are up. Our 
farmers are hurting.
  The number of Americans living in poverty has risen by nearly 4.3 
million people. That is the number of people newly living in poverty 
under this President. During the Clinton years, we reduced those who 
lived in poverty by 6 million. You were better off after 4 and 8 years 
of Bill Clinton.
  Over the last 4 years, the cost that employers paid for health 
insurance has climbed an extraordinary 59 percent. We wonder why so 
many of our small businesses are no longer covering their employees' 
health insurance. They simply can't afford to.
  But this administration demanded a provision in the new Medicare law 
that expressly forbids the Government from negotiating lower drug 
prices, even though virtually every other developed nation negotiates 
lower drug costs with the pharmaceutical companies. But we have one 
agency of our Government that is allowed to do so, and that is the 
Veterans Administration. Guess what. The veterans get the cheapest 
drugs in America. God bless them. I am all for them. But why don't we 
let Medicare do the same thing as VA is doing? This administration says 
no. They wouldn't let them do that. This administration won't do it 
because they are joined at the hip, like Siamese twins, with the big 
pharmaceutical companies.
  As I mentioned earlier, they have turned the clock back more than 60 
years in taking away overtime pay rights of 6 million American workers. 
The President keeps saying we turned the corner. Maybe we have turned 
the corner and we are headed back to the 1930s. We are going back to 
the 1930s.
  Remember the Depression? There had been all of these tax breaks for 
upper income people. We got into the Depression. People were working 
50, 60 hours a week to try to make ends meet, if they could even get a 
job. So we put in a 40-hour workweek. We raised salaries and wages of 
people.
  This administration has turned the corner. Mr. Bush says we have 
turned the corner but in fact it is back to yesterday, back to the 
1930s.

  When Mr. Bush took office we had the largest budget surplus in 
American history. Think of that. The largest budget surplus in American 
history.
  According to all estimates, we were working toward a cumulative 
surplus of $5 trillion in this decade. Think about what a strong 
position that would have put our country in as the baby boomers began 
to retire. In less than 4 years, all of that has been turned upside 
down. This year we are running the largest budget deficit in American 
history; as I said, $422 billion.
  What about this decade? We were going to have a $5 trillion surplus. 
But we are now looking at a cumulative deficit of $5 trillion. We went 
from a $5 trillion surplus to a $5 trillion deficit.
  I am sorry. This President simply can't handle money. I don't think 
he could handle money when he was in the private sector either. But it 
is obvious this President can't handle our money either.
  The Congressional Budget Office projects that by 2009 we will be 
paying roughly $1,000 for every man, woman, and child just in interest 
on the public debt. That is $4,000 for a family of four.
  President Bush says he has cut your taxes. That is wrong. We are 
paying more in property taxes, sales taxes, and everything else.
  But think about this: By 2009, every family of four will be paying 
about $4,000 a year in taxes to pay the interest on the national debt. 
Guess what. You can't cut that tax. We have to pay the interest on the 
debt.
  As soon as a baby is born in the year 2009, that baby owes that 
year's interest on the national debt. I don't know how that 1-year-old 
baby or her family is going to earn enough.
  Some keep talking about a death tax around here, an estate tax as a 
death tax. How about the birth tax? That is going to hit in 2009. For 
every child born in America, $1,000 that first year they will have to 
pay to cover interest on debt. Why? Because we took their money and we 
gave the tax breaks to the wealthiest in our society today. That is 
wrong. That is just simply wrong.
  One last thing: As I said, those bonds must be paid, and that 
interest must be paid. Who is buying the bonds? Who will be paying 
interest? More and more foreign governments and their central banks.
  Since Mr. Bush took office, Japan and China have more than doubled 
the U.S. debt that they own. Our Government now owes just those two 
countries $854 billion. Pretty soon it will hit $1 trillion.
  We have all learned who pays the piper. It is called the consumer.
  Just ask yourself. Would you rather be a creditor or a debtor? Which 
position would you like to be in, creditor or debtor? Think about our 
country being in debt to China and Japan to the tune of $1 trillion. 
What happens if we want to negotiate a little trade deal that is better 
and more fair? Who is holding all the cards then? They are the 
creditors and we are the debtors.
  These are the realities that we have today: Massive tax cuts, rapid 
increases in Federal spending, record budget deficits, record trade 
deficits,

[[Page S11282]]

skyrocketing public debt. But the credit card bill will come due. You 
can't repeal the laws of economics. Eventually, massive Government 
borrowing will squeeze out private investment and force interest rates 
up.
  Eventually, massive indebtedness to foreign nations will cause the 
dollar to fall even more dramatically than it has so far on Mr. Bush's 
watch. Instead of making the needed adjustments to meet our 
responsibilities to retiring baby boomers and our children, this 
administration undercuts those responsibilities.
  The President just does not get it. He continues on his reckless way, 
reckless and stubborn, cutting funding for veterans and public 
education and other domestic needs but he wants to send some people to 
Mars.
  Priorities, priorities, reckless priorities. Reckless in economics 
and stubborn in continuing to do the same thing over and over again and 
expecting a different result.
  The President seems to say as long as we keep cutting more and more 
taxes for the wealthy, as long as we continue on this reckless course 
in Iraq, as long as we continue this reckless deficit spending, well, 
then it will all work out. It will be different sometime down the road.
  I am sorry, it is going to dig us deeper and deeper in the hole. 
Someone once described insanity as doing the same thing over and over 
and over again and expecting a different result. But we cannot keep 
doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. 
We know what the result will be.
  Public opinion polls show the majority of Americans believe the 
country is headed in the wrong direction. They are right. We are headed 
in the wrong direction economically. We are headed in the wrong 
direction for our kids and our grandkids. It is time to end this 
reckless course that we are on, to get back to a sound fiscal and 
economic policy in this country. This President will not do it. He is 
just stubborn. He is going to continue his war policy. He is going to 
continue his policy in Iraq, and he is going to continue his domestic 
economic policy because he believes it is right. He may believe it is 
right, but the majority of Americans do not think so.
  That is why we need to chart a new course for America. That is why, 
under a President John Kerry we will turn this country around. We will 
turn around the mess in Iraq. We will save young American lives. We 
will set right our economic policies. We will invest in education and 
the health care of our people. We will do it in a sound manner and 4 
years from now we will stand here and say truthfully: You are better 
off today than you were 4 years ago because John Kerry has been 
President of the United States.

                          ____________________