[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 54 (Thursday, April 3, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2137-S2151]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROTECTING VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS AND EMERGENCY RESPONDERS ACT OF 2014
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order the Senate
will resume consideration of H.R. 3979, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 3979) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to ensure that emergency services volunteers are not
taken into account as employees under the shared
responsibility requirements contained in the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act.
[[Page S2138]]
Pending:
Reid (for Reed) amendment No. 2874, of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 2875 (to amendment No. 2874), to change
the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 2877 (to the language proposed to be
stricken by amendment No. 2874), to change the enactment
date.
Reid amendment No. 2878 (to amendment No. 2877), of a
perfecting nature.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of the 2.3
million Americans, including the 140,000 New Jerseyans who have been
without a job for months and desperately need our help. These Americans
are Americans who are veterans who stood for us in the military and
Armed Forces. These are families and individuals with children. These
are our seniors. These are folks who have been working for decades and
suddenly found themselves in the worst economy of my lifetime without a
job.
I am very proud of this body. We are inching closer toward passing
legislation to restore Federal unemployment insurance. What this money
does is it takes families from crisis with these meager checks to give
a little bit of stability so they can do what is necessary to look for
work.
It helps them keep their car insurance so they can ride to
interviews. It helps them keep the cable service going so they can
apply online and actually file their reesumees as they look for jobs.
It helps them meet mortgage payments, so they can keep a roof over
their heads or rental payments as well.
I want to thank the incredible bipartisan leadership of Dean Heller
and Jack Reed. Senator Heller and Senator Reed have been working hard
together with a group of us relentlessly to bring us this far. I have
been so grateful for the leadership of those two Senators and others
because it made us so close in this body to getting unemployment
insurance extended.
This is a bipartisan bill. It involves compromise. It is what the
American people want us to do, Republicans and Democrats coming
together for millions of Americans that are in crisis right now through
no fault of their own, in an economy where there are three people
looking for a job for every single job that is available.
I want to express my gratitude to the entire bipartisan group
cosponsoring the bill. My colleagues, Senator Reed, Senator Heller,
Senator Merkley, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Durbin, Senator Susan
Collins, Senator Rob Portman, Senator Lisa Murkowski, and Senator Mark
Kirk, Republicans and Democrats alike who hammered out a compromise,
have done the difficult work and are pushing to move this forward.
I also want to thank people from New Jersey who have shared their
stories with me, who have been active and engaging from online posts,
letters, and phone calls--all of them fighting to find work. I have
heard from Republican New Jerseyans and Democratic New Jerseyans. I
have heard from military veterans and single moms. I have heard from
folks who are so hungry to work. But while they are looking, they are
looking to this body, to all of Congress to help them meet the basic
minimum needs so that they can continue to have some stability and not
be swallowed up by the quicksand of economic crisis and to be able to
continue to find a job.
They are living examples. Each and every one of those millions of
Americans are examples of what is at stake if we do not act. I have
heard painful stories of people facing real crises, from homelessness
to skipping medications, doing everything they can to keep some
semblance of stability so that they can find a job. Unfortunately, many
are falling through the cracks. Many are facing the darkest of days.
As the Senate prepares to vote on this incredibly vitally important
bill, I want to stress that this legislative body is only as effective
as both Chambers and parties being able to come together, to really
follow in that great American tradition that for the last 50 years,
Democrats and Republicans during times of economic crisis, have come
together and found a way to hammer out compromises to extend
unemployment insurance under Reagan, under Bush, under Clinton, and
under Carter. We found a way to get forward, both Chambers being there
for Americans in the economic crisis.
Today is a significant step in our fight to restore hope to America's
unemployed but only if this bill is also voted on and passed in the
House of Representatives.
I have sat in living rooms, diners, and soup kitchens all across the
State of New Jersey, and I can tell you the crisis is real. I am
hopeful that if my colleagues in the House of Representatives listen to
the voices--Republicans and Democrats, red and blue, North and South,
all across this country--of their unemployed constituents, they will do
what is right. They will shun that intellectually unreal idea that
Americans are lazy, that they don't want to work. We have millions of
Americans out there fighting for their hope of finding a job, and they
need the help of the House of Representatives, as I believe they will
get it from the Senate this week.
No matter our party, all of us have folks in our home States who are
unemployed and suffering because we have thus far failed to do what
every other Congress has done in the past when long-term unemployment
rates have been so high, as they are today. We must extend Federal
unemployment insurance. America needs our House of Representatives to
listen to the pleas of those who are barely making ends meet.
I remember Joan and her daughter, a recent Rutgers University
graduate. They live together and were both cut off from unemployment
insurance the same week in December. The modest unemployment checks
that Joan and her daughter were receiving had helped them to keep up
with mortgage payments. While they waited for us to vote, their home
was placed into foreclosure.
Then there is Lauren from Clifton, who wrote my office saying she had
sent out close to 1,000 resumes without luck and had reached the point
where she couldn't pay to keep the heat on in her house during this
brutal winter and she feared her phone was going to have to be cut off
next. She wrote:
I've been looking for work tirelessly. What does someone in
my situation do?
These folks have worked hard all of their lives. They have played by
the rules but unfortunately happen to be in a bad economy not of their
making, which they did not contribute to, and are caught in these
difficult times. They are doing everything right and so should their
representatives in Congress.
Today we are casting a vote for them. Today I am proud to say that in
the Senate we are coming together, Democrats and Republicans, hammering
out a compromise, meeting each other in the middle, and doing what is
expected of us by Americans--reaching out, lending a hand, in a time of
crisis. I implore my colleagues in the House of Representatives to do
the same.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise to speak to my amendment No. 2959 to
the unemployment insurance legislation that is before us. The amendment
is called the Good Jobs, Good Wages, and Good Hours Act.
Twelve times Congress has voted to extend emergency unemployment
benefits since 2008, and what do we have to show for those 12
extensions of these benefits. More than 10 million Americans remain
unemployed. Of those, more than 3.8 million Americans have been
unemployed for longer than 6 months. Millions more remain underemployed
or have simply dropped out of the workforce altogether, too discouraged
to even look for work in this stagnant economy.
[[Page S2139]]
Over that same period a Democrat-led Senate and the Obama White House
have done little but grow the size of the government and shrink the
size of the middle class.
In 2009, Congress passed a $1 trillion stimulus bill that poured
taxpayer dollars into projects such as Solyndra and a battery
manufacturer that is now owned by the Chinese. It failed to create the
jobs and economic growth that was promised by the White House, but it
succeeded in creating 5 straight years of record deficits.
In 2010 Congress enacted ObamaCare--essentially a government takeover
of one-sixth of our economy with 2,700 pages of new laws and 25,000
pages of new regulations. It didn't fulfill the President's promise of
lowering health care costs or letting families keep their doctors, but
it has succeeded in canceling health plans and raising taxes.
In 2010 Congress enacted Dodd-Frank. It hasn't fixed too big to fail,
but in one respect it has succeeded in creating jobs. It is estimated
that more than 30,000 employees will be required to file the paperwork
associated with the $18 billion in Dodd-Frank compliance costs for our
financial sector.
Meanwhile, Congress has failed to put a check on the EPA, which
continues pushing regulations that have record-setting price tags.
These regulations aren't creating jobs, but they are fulfilling the
President's promise to make energy prices skyrocket.
Five years into the Obama administration and the scorecard doesn't
look very good, with $456 billion in new regulations, $1.7 trillion in
new taxes, 10.4 million people unemployed, and economic growth far
behind the pace of other post-World War II recoveries.
So here we are debating the 13th extension of emergency unemployment
benefits in the past 5 years because we have 3.8 million people in this
country, workers who have been out of work for more than 6 months. If
enacted, these benefits would last until June. Then what? Are we going
to have a 14th extension, perhaps a 15th extension? Without job
creating policies, this 13th extension is just another bandaid that
doesn't address the true causes of chronic joblessness that plague the
Obama economy.
My Republican colleagues and I came to the floor yet again this week
to debate and to vote on amendment ideas that will change the course
the Obama administration has put the country on. We have offered dozens
of amendments that will stimulate private-sector investment, create
jobs, and make energy and health care more affordable. I have worked
with many of my colleagues on a package of job-creating ideas that we
would like to add to this 13th extension of emergency unemployment
insurance benefits. My amendment, as I said, is called the Good Jobs,
Good Wages, Good Hours Act, and it includes many of these ideas.
I would like to share a few of them with my colleagues in the Senate
so people understand that when we come to the floor to talk about
offering amendments and getting votes on amendments, we are serious. We
have real substantive ideas that we believe will address the
fundamental issue--the underlying cause of chronic high unemployment--
by getting people back to work through job creation, through an
expanding and growing economy.
My amendment includes a provision that has been pushed by Senator
Hoeven that would finally approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. After 5
years of delay, it is time to approve the pipeline and the 40,000 jobs
it will support. Senator Hoeven has been the leading advocate of that
here in the Senate.
The amendment I am offering includes Leader McConnell's legislation
to stop EPA's war on affordable energy. Leader McConnell's bill puts
consumers ahead of liberal and environmental groups by stopping costly
regulations that will make it even more difficult for the middle class
to make ends meet.
My amendment includes a provision pushed by Senators Barrasso and
Hoeven to approve more LNG exports to our NATO allies and to the
Ukraine, something that is especially timely in light of what is going
on in that part of the world. Now is the ideal time to create more
domestic jobs while breaking our allies' dependence on Russian energy
supplies.
My amendment also addresses the problems created by ObamaCare. It
includes a provision pushed by Senator Collins that will restore the
40-hour workweek. It will finally repeal the job-destroying medical
device tax, which Senators Toomey and Hatch have been tirelessly
fighting, which has cost us, by some estimates, 30,000 jobs already in
our economy because of this new job-killing tax.
My amendment ensures that veterans and the long-term unemployed are
not punished by the costs of the ObamaCare employer mandate. It
includes a provision Senator Blunt has authored that raised this issue
in the Senate on behalf of veterans, and in the House a similar bill
passed by a vote of 406 to 1. Certainly we can find few Democrats who
are willing to provide ObamaCare relief to veterans and the long-term
unemployed.
My amendment also provides permanent targeted tax relief to millions
of small businesses. Small businesses create 65 percent of all new
jobs. Yet this administration has done little more than punish them
with more regulations and higher taxes. This amendment makes permanent
higher expensing levels, provides capital gains tax relief for
investing in small businesses, and expands options to increase cashflow
at Main Street businesses across the country. It allows small
businesses to deduct more startup costs, and puts the selfemployed on
an equal playing field when paying for health care costs.
This amendment also includes commonsense regulatory reform put
forward by Senator Portman that will ensure taxpayers know the true
cost of new regulations. It requires agencies to conduct a cost-benefit
analysis and provide advanced notice of any major new regulations.
Finally, this amendment includes the House-passed SKILLS Act, which
Senator Scott has introduced as an amendment to the UI bill. Currently,
we have 50 Federal worker training programs spread across nine Federal
agencies. Many of them are duplicative and few of them have been
evaluated for whether or not they are effective. This amendment would
combine 35 of those programs into one Workforce Investment Fund that
will empower governors to tailor programs to their States and benefit
employers and employees alike.
My point simply is that Senate Republicans stand ready to offer more
than just the status quo. We understand the long-term unemployed want
more than just 20 more weeks of unemployment benefits. They want a job.
We understand those who are struggling to adapt in a changing economy
want more than a morass of broken worker training programs. They want
relevant training that prepares them for the jobs that are in demand
today. We understand that low-income families want more than government
programs designed to help them just get by. They want more opportunity
and a better future for their children. We understand that Main Street
businesses across the country cannot afford endless regulations coming
from Washington, DC. They want a chance to succeed and to fulfill their
American dream.
I am hopeful that at least some of our colleagues on the other side
of the aisle understand that basic principle too and will join us in
including job- creating measures as part of this 13th extension of
emergency unemployment benefits. We can do better for the American
people. We should do better by the American people.
We have serious proposals, serious job-creating proposals that don't
get a chance to see the light of day because the majority party in the
Senate blocks amendments from being offered, blocks amendments from
being debated, and blocks amendments from being voted on.
So what do we have. We have the status quo. That means that for the
13th time we have to extend unemployment insurance benefits to people
who have been unemployed for way too long because we have failed to put
policies in place that are actually good for job creation, that are
actually the right types of incentives for our small businesses to
hire, that take away the burdensome cost of taxes and regulations that
make it more expensive and more difficult for our small businesses to
hire, and because we fail to take into consideration the impact that so
many of these things we do here in Washington have on hardworking
people in this country who are trying to lift
[[Page S2140]]
their families into the middle class and to provide a better future for
their children and grandchildren.
That is what every American wants. That is what every family in
America aspires to. We ought to do something about it. Another meager
government check that helps people get by isn't the way to a brighter
and better future. The way to a brighter and better future is a good-
paying job with an opportunity for advancement. That is what we ought
to be focused on, and that is what the provisions I just mentioned,
that are included in my amendment, would do.
My amendment incorporates many of the ideas Members on our side have
advanced, all with an eye toward creating jobs and growing and
expanding the economy in a way that will create those good-paying
opportunities and give people a better chance at a better future. So I
really hope we will get the chance to vote. We can't, evidently, get
individual amendments that have been offered by individual Members
voted on, so we have taken a number of ideas and incorporated them into
this amendment, an alternative to what is being proposed by the
Democrats, which simply treats the symptom of this problem but does
nothing to address the underlying cause of the problem.
We want to focus on the problem; we want to focus on the cause; we
want to focus on solutions; and we believe the Senate ought to be the
place where we have an opportunity to vote on those very solutions. So
I encourage my colleagues on both sides to open this process. Let us
allow the American people to have their voices heard--not just the
voices of a few but the voices of the many people in the Senate who
have good ideas about how to create jobs, grow the economy, and build a
better future for our children and grandchildren.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and 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. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak to the
Senate as if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Creating Real Value
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, in Kansas there is a company called Koch
Industries that is an important component of our State, its economy,
and many, several thousand Kansans work there. Unfortunately, in the
political discourse of our country, Koch Industries and its owners are
often subject to attacks.
I happened to be reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, and I
noticed a column, an opinion piece written by the chairman of the board
of Koch Industries, Charles G. Koch, and I wish to share that with my
colleagues today.
It seems to me the things that are outlined in Mr. Koch's opinion
piece, while not everyone would agree, they are certainly within the
wide mainstream of American thought and certainly reflect opinions that
are worthy of debate and discussion in our country and on the Senate
floor.
We all bring diversity, a different set of values, opinions, beliefs
of political philosophy to the debate on the Senate floor, and I wanted
to share one of Koch Industries owner's beliefs about those values and
his philosophy and how it affects Americans today.
This is an opinion piece from today's Wall Street Journal written by
a Kansan, Charles Koch. Mr. Koch says:
I have devoted most of my life to understanding the
principles that enable people to improve their lives. It is
those principles--the principles of a free society--that have
shaped my life, my family, our company and America itself.
Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity,
respect, equality before law and personal freedom are under
attack by the nation's own government. That's why, if we want
to restore a free society and create greater well-being and
opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight
for those principles. I have been doing so for more than 50
years, primarily through educational efforts. It was only in
the past decade that I realized the need to also engage in
the political process.
Again, Mr. Koch speaking:
More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned that this
could happen. ``The natural progress of things,'' Jefferson
wrote, ``is for liberty to yield and government to gain
ground.'' He knew that no government could possibly run
citizens' lives for the better. The more government tries to
control, the greater the disaster, as shown by the current
health-care debacle. Collectivists (those who stand for
government control of the means of production and how people
live their lives) promise heaven but deliver hell. For them,
the promised end justifies the means. A truly free society is
based upon a vision of respect for people and what they
value. In a truly free society, any business that disrespects
its customers will fail, and deserves to do so. The same
should be true of any government that disrespects its
citizens. The central belief and fatal conceit of the current
administration is that you are incapable of running your own
life, but those in power are capable of running it for you.
This is the essence of big government and collectivism.
Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists
strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in
character assassination. . . . This is the approach that
Albert Schopenhauer described in the 19th century, that Saul
Alinsky famously advocated in the 20th, and that so many
despots have infamously practiced. Such tactics are the
antithesis of what is required for a free society--and a
telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good
answers.
Rather than try to understand my vision for a free society
or accurately report the facts about Koch Industries, our
critics would have you believe we're ``un-American'' and
trying to ``rig the system,'' that we're against
``environmental protection'' or eager to ``end workplace
safety standards.''
These falsehoods remind Mr. Koch of the late Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan's observation, ``Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but
not to his own facts.''
Here are some facts about my philosophy and our company:
Koch companies employ 60,000 Americans; who make many
thousands of products that Americans want and need. According
to government figures, our employees and the 143,000
additional American jobs they support generate $11.7 billion
in compensation and benefits. About one-third of our U.S.-
based employees are union members.
Koch employees have earned well over 700 awards for
environmental, health and safety excellence since 2009, many
of them are from the Environmental Protection Agency and the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. EPA officials
have commended us for our ``commitment to a cleaner
environment'' and called us ``a model for other companies.''
Our refineries have consistently ranked among the best in
the nation for low per-barrel emissions. In 2012, our Total
Case Incident Rate--
That is a safety measure--
was 67% better than a Bureau of Labor Statistics average for
peer industries. Even so, we have never rested on our
laurels. We believe there is always room for innovation and
improvement.
Far from trying to rig the system, I have spent decades
opposing cronyism and all political favors, including
mandates, subsidies, and protective tariffs--even when we
benefit from them. I believe that cronyism is nothing more
than welfare for the rich and powerful, and should be
abolished. Koch Industries was the only major producer in the
ethanol industry to argue for the demise of the ethanol tax
credit in 2011. That government handout . . . needlessly
drove up food and fuel prices as well as other costs for
consumers--many of whom were poor or otherwise disadvantaged.
Mr. Koch says:
Now the mandate needs to go, so that consumers and the
marketplace are the ones who decide the future of ethanol.
Instead of fostering a system that enables people to help
themselves, America is now saddled with a system that
destroys values, raises costs, hinders innovation and
relegates millions of citizens to a life of poverty,
dependency and hopelessness. This is what happens when
elected officials believe that people's lives are better run
by politicians and regulators than by the people themselves.
Those in power fail to see that more government means less
liberty, and liberty is the essence of what it means to be
American. Love of liberty is an American ideal. If more
businesses (and elected officials) were to embrace a vision
of creating real value for people in a principled way, our
nation would be far better off--not just today, but for
generations to come. I'm dedicated to fighting for that
vision. I'm convinced that most Americans believe it's worth
fighting for, too.
That is the opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal this morning,
written by a Kansan, Charles Koch.
I commend that opinion piece and its thoughts to my colleagues in the
Senate.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
[[Page S2141]]
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I come to the floor today to address
the unemployment benefits legislation. This legislation is, frankly, an
admission that after 5 years of spending more money for costly
government stimulus--all of it borrowed--to try to increase employment
in America, we still have an unemployment crisis.
Not long ago at the White House, Mr. Sperling said that there are
three applicants for every job in America and wages are down. In
effect, this legislation is an admission that taxing, spending,
regulating, and borrowing has not worked. Indeed, those policies will
never work. More regulation, more taxing, more borrowing, and more debt
will not improve the economy. We know that. Despite what some so-called
experts say, we know that is not a policy that will work, but urgent
action is needed.
According to testimony we heard this week in the Budget Committee, if
you adjust for the retirement of the baby boomers, the labor force is
still short 4.5 million people, the equivalent of $500 billion in
national income lost each year. But the majority has circled their
wagons around this spend-and-borrow agenda.
For instance, our friends are blocking a Republican amendment
requiring companies to hire legal workers, not unlawful workers. The E-
Verify system should be required nationwide. It would simply check the
Social Security number of applicants, which would identify many people
who have no right to be employed in America because they are not here
lawfully. In a time of high unemployment, we ought not to be filling
our jobs with people who are not lawful and not lawfully able to work
in America, while at the same time financially supporting people who
are unemployed in the country. At the same time, congressional
Democrats have pushed for a bill that would more than double the future
H-1B guest worker visas that are frequently used for offshore jobs.
As ranking member of the Budget Committee, I have to inform my
colleagues that this unemployment bill is not honestly paid for, and
that it violates the Ryan-Murray budget agreement that was signed into
law just over 3 months ago. We said we were not going to spend above a
certain amount.
Actually, Ryan-Murray raised the amount the Budget Control Act had
limited spending to when we were in a tight fix. I think this year in
particular was probably the toughest year under the Budget Control Act,
so relief was provided and it raised the spending limits for a fifth
year and it helped. Just 3 months ago we reaffirmed those spending
limits and said we were not going to go above them.
Yet just this past Monday, the Senate passed the so-called doc fix
which exceeded the Ryan-Murray spending limits by $6.1 billion this
year alone. We adopted a limit, and what do we do? We want to help our
doctors, but instead of reducing spending somewhere else in this
massive government, we come up with a gimmick argument to say we are
paying for it and add, in effect, $6.1 billion to the expenditures this
year. We objected to that, but people voted to waive the budget with an
up-or-down vote. Do you want to stick by the agreement we reached 3
months ago or do you want to raise it and spend more? The majority in
the Senate voted to spend more, and this is why we have such an extreme
debt threat in America today.
The bill that is before us now is the unemployment insurance
legislation, which exceeds the 2014 limit on spending by another $9.9
billion. Our Federal budget is $3.5 trillion--$3,500 billion--and we
can't find some other reductions if we want to fund a new expenditure,
such as unemployment compensation? We can't find someplace that we can
tighten our belts and pay for it?
My colleagues say that while spending increases this year, the bill
is paid for over the next decade. They promised that although we will
spend more this year, a decade later--10 years--we are going to get
around to paying for it. There are three major problems with this
contention, and we just have to address them so there is no mistake
about it. This is not legitimate, and it threatens the financial
integrity of the country.
The Ryan-Murray budget deal established spending limits. You cannot
get out of those spending limits by raising fees and taxes. Taxing more
to spend more was not the deal. The deal in the Budget Control Act said
that we are going to reduce the growth in spending. We were on track--
over 10 years--to grow spending $10 trillion. Under the Budget Control
Act, we were going to allow spending to increase, but it would only
increase $8 trillion, not $10 trillion.
Now we are told that the Budget Control Act, which includes the
sequester--we can't live with it. Growing and spending $8 trillion is
not enough; we have to grow spending even more. Every time some worthy
cause is brought before the Senate, we take the easy way out. We come
up with a gimmick pay-for or we just violate the budget and spend the
money anyway. What good is it to have a Ryan-Murray budget agreement or
a Budget Control Act if nobody adheres to it?
Second, one of the big reasons our country is going broke is the
philosophy of ``spend today and promise to pay for it tomorrow.'' Here
is what a new Bloomberg analysis--an independent group--concluded:
Since December 2013 [three months ago] the Republican House
and the Democratic Senate have approved more than $40 billion
worth of spending ``offsets'' in the form of cuts that would
take place in 2023 at the earliest or timing shifts in policy
to bring savings into the 10-year window . . .
Both of these gimmicks are not legitimate, will not work, and have
been criticized by independent groups that are concerned about the
future of the Republic.
Third, the promised revenue offsets are phony savings. The offsets
come from something called ``pension smoothing''--wow, what is
``pension smoothing''?--and ``prepayment of premiums to the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corporation.'' These are two popular schemes--double
counting and timing shifts--that allow companies to prepay their
payments for up to 5 years. In good times companies can pay ahead to
the PBGC trust fund and Congress can take the money out the backdoor
and spend it on--in this case--unemployment. In bad times this will
leave the taxpayer further on the hook if PBGC has to take over a
failed pension plan. It is taking money out of the plan that was
supposed to be set up to guarantee and insure pensions.
I realize some of this sounds complex, but that is the problem: the
big spenders in Washington have turned bilking taxpayers into an art
form. Some spend their whole time trying to come up with a gimmick to
get around the actual requirement, which is for us to set priorities
and to recognize we cannot fund everything we would like to fund.
If we have a new idea for a new program, the Budget Control Act says:
OK, do it, but you have to do it within the spending limits. You have
to find some spending reduction to justify a new spending increase.
That is what we agreed to, and that is what the President of the United
States signed into law. He also signed Ryan-Murray into law. Is he here
advocating responsible action? No, he is here supporting the Democratic
leadership to push these budget-busting provisions and is not properly
paying for them. Frankly, that is a disappointment.
The President of the United States is the chief person who talks to
the American people. He has yet to look them in the eye and tell them
we are on an unsustainable course, and we are going to have to tighten
our belts. Instead, every time he talks, he talks about a new spending.
A new program that spends more, in essence, is borrowing more and
increasing our debt even further.
In the few months since Ryan-Murray was passed, the Senate--driven by
a Democratic majority--has passed five bills that busted through the
Ryan-Murray limits. There have been five bills that busted the budget.
We just agreed to it, and they just voted for it 3 months ago.
They say these are all important measures and we have to pass them,
so we should disregard those prior promises we made to the American
people. The whole point of a spending limit is to make Congress set
priorities. If you feel you have legislation that needs to pass, it is
your duty to find a way to pay for it within the limits of spending we
agreed to.
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This is not a radical concept. This is responsible governance. It is
done in cities and States all over America. They are living within
their means. They are tightening up their efficiencies in productivity.
People holler and wail whenever they make those cuts, but those cities,
counties, and States are still standing. They have not been sucked into
the ocean. They are still operating. They are going to be leaner, more
efficient, and more productive as the result of going through a tight
budget time. As money rises, and hopefully the economy bounces back,
they will be in a better position in the future to serve the taxpayers
of their communities efficiently.
Here are the budget violations in the pending bill, and these budget
violations were all confirmed. I am the ranking Republican of the
Budget Committee, and the Democratic chairman, Senator Murray, is a
fine and fair chairman of the committee. Her team has acknowledged
these violations of the budget, and as a result, it is subject to a
budget point of order. There is not a dispute about what I am saying
today.
There is $9.9 billion in spending in excess of the top-line outlays
for fiscal year 2014 set by the Ryan-Murray spending agreement. There
is also another violation of the Budget Control Act because there is
$9.9 billion of spending in excess of the Finance Committee's
allocations.
The committees have certain allocations. The Finance Committee has a
certain allocation, and now it is spending $9.9 billion more. How much
is $9.9 billion? Well, in Alabama we have a lean State government, and
I am proud of it. My State's budget is about $2 billion. This is $9.9
billion, and it is in violation of our agreement.
Also, there is a $10.7 billion increase in long-term deficits in the
decade beyond the budget window that is subject to a budget point of
order, and that is in violation of the budget.
Ordinarily, we would be able to raise a point of order to enforce all
three of these violations. However, two of these points of order were
wiped away by a loophole created in the language of the Ryan-Murray
legislation. I warned them that it was in there, and I urged my
colleagues not to adopt it, but it was adopted anyway. Two of the
budget points of order I just mentioned are not subject to floor action
and have been eliminated, basically, through the use of the deficit-
neutral reserve fund. At the time of the Ryan-Murray deal's
consideration, the Budget Committee staff--my staff--did the work and
we warned that the 57 deficit-neutral reserve funds in the Ryan-Murray
bill would be used to increase spending above the spending limits. We
warned that would happen. The way that works is the majority can get
around the budget rules that limit spending if they propose to offset
new spending with new higher taxes.
So we are witnessing today exactly what I warned would happen: The
minority has lost the procedural tool to block spending increases as
long as they pay for it with more taxes.
What we agreed to under the Budget Control Act was that we couldn't
spend above this limit, and if we raised taxes, it would be used to
reduce the deficit. So now we have been able to switch that around so
the raising of taxes is allowed to increase new spending.
These deficit reserve funds have been used by Senator Reid and the
majority to pass a proposed additional $13 billion in spending above
the caps already. However, the unemployment bill still triggers a long-
term deficit point of order because it uses revenue timing shifts to
conceal long-term deficit impact. So it is still in violation of the
budget, even though two of the points of order are gone.
We do need to look at the long-term deficit picture. It is good that
we still at least have that point of order we can raise. We can't just
spend today because it fits within the 10-year window and somehow looks
OK, when we know in the outyears it is going to add to the deficit of
the United States. So the budget drafters and the BCA people have
language in to prohibit that, rightly so. The problem is we won't
adhere to it.
Last year, we paid our creditors $221 billion in interest payments--
$221 billion on our roughly $17 trillion debt. That is a huge amount of
money. The Federal highway bill is $40 billion. Aid to education--a
whole bunch of programs we have--$100 billion in total. The Defense
budget is $500 billion. We paid our creditors last year $221 billion in
interest alone on the debt. That is enough to pay for 172 weeks of
unemployment benefits for everyone collecting at the end of last year.
Over the course of the next 10 years, according to CBO, we will spend a
cumulative $5.8 trillion in interest payments on our debt. Over the
next 10 years, CBO--our accounting firm that tries to do the right
thing every day and tells us what is going to happen with our budget--
tells us we are going to spend over $5 trillion, almost $6 trillion, in
interest in the next 10 years--money that could be used to help people,
to rebuild our infrastructure, to fix crumbling roads and bridges. At
today's levels, that $5.8 trillion could pay for a great amount of
great things.
The CBO also told us that 10 years from today, the 1-year annual
interest payment will not be $221 billion, it will be $880 billion--
$880 billion, an increase of over $650 billion in interest payments
each year--not one time, but that year alone we will pay $600 billion
more in interest. So how can we fund programs? Isn't it going to crowd
out spending we need?
Washington is squandering our national inheritance. We are a nation
deeply in debt. I would say to my colleagues that every time you
violate our budget limits--because I am not voting for it--every time
you add more to the Nation's credit card, you are increasing the
interest burden that is crushing America, and you reduce the amount of
money that will be available to spend on whatever program you would
like to spend it on as the years go by. Interest costs represent the
fastest growing item in our budget. How much money will there be left
over for your chosen government projects when our interest payment
reaches almost $1 trillion a year? CBO says that by 2024, it will hit
$880 billion. How many more years will it take, 2 or 3, to reach $1
trillion?
We must help the unemployed, no doubt about it. We need to help them
get better jobs, more jobs, and better pay, and we have to do so
without adding more to the debt. That is what is placing a wet blanket
over the American economy.
We need to produce more American energy. We can do that.
We need to streamline our Tax Code to lower rates, close loopholes,
and boost economic growth. We need to eliminate regulations that are
reducing productive activities and sending jobs overseas.
We need to endorse a trade policy that defends the American worker
from unfair trade practices. Too much of that is occurring. We don't
need to lose a single job to unfair trade practices.
We need an immigration policy that serves the interests of the
American worker. At a time of high unemployment, the very idea the
Senate would pass a bill that would permanently double the number of
guest workers who can enter the country boggles the mind. That, in
addition to the fact they would legalize 11 million and increase the
annual flow of immigrants into the country from 1 million a year--the
most generous of any Nation in the world--to 1.5 million. In effect,
under the bill that passed this Senate, we would be providing permanent
legal status to about 30 million people in the next 10 years. Our
current law allows for 1 million a year--about 10 million over the next
10 years. Is it any wonder people are having a hard time getting a job
today?
There is not a tight labor market out there; there is a loose labor
market. How do I know? Because wages are going down. If employers are
desperate and need more workers and can't find them, why aren't they
having to pay higher wages to get good workers?
We have to stand up. The American people need to know what is
happening to them.
What is the solution, our colleagues say? Well, unemployment is too
high and wages are not going up; let's borrow more money and spend it
by sending out unemployment checks to people who are unemployed because
somebody illegally here took a job they could have taken.
There is no doubt about this: We need to create and transform the
welfare office into an office that transforms the lives of people who
are struggling today. We have 40 job programs, at least. We have more
than 80 different
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means-tested social programs. Those all need to be consolidated. There
needs to be one central place where an American who is hurting, who is
out of work and needs help, may be given financial help, but also
counseled and provided training in the things they might need to get a
job. Maybe instead of a subsidy while they're unemployed, individuals
need help with transportation to go to work. Maybe they need help
relocating to another town where the jobs are readily available.
This idea that we just continue to spend more and more on attempting
to help people by giving them money without helping them transform
their lives and become productive has to end. In fact, all the means-
tested programs all added up amount to more than $750 billion, which is
more than all the other individual programs we spend money on--more
than Social Security, more than Medicare, more than Medicaid, more than
the Defense Department.
This country has some challenges in front of it. If we would respond
with classic American values of hard work, individual responsibility,
and our technology and training, we could turn this country around. But
we don't have any leadership in that regard. Any change, any
suggestions that we would reduce a subsidy program in order to fund job
training or even fund unemployment compensation is a nonstarter around
here, it appears.
I am worried about where we are. This unemployment insurance violates
the budget. We should not pass it. We should do it within the budget
and we need to analyze it carefully to make sure we are doing it in a
way that actually helps those we intend to help.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I came to the floor today with the
intention of asking unanimous consent to pass H.R. 3521, which we have
heard a lot about on the floor lately between Senator Vitter and
Senator Sanders. This bill would authorize the construction of 27
veterans clinics--2 of them in our State, Louisiana, 1 in Lake Charles
and 1 in Lafayette.
It is a long and sad story about why these clinics have not been
built. I will get into that in a minute. As you can see, Texas,
California, Florida, Georgia, and other States are affected. I know the
Senators from those States support what we are trying to do.
Yesterday or the day before, my colleague came to the floor to call
me ``ineffective.'' I would like to say that I was a little bit shocked
to hear that. I have been called many things on the floor of this
Senate--hardheaded, stubborn, tenacious, the Senator who never quits. I
have never been called ineffective, so it was a little bit shocking.
What I can say is that I think I have spent 18 years on the floor of
the Senate and here working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle
and developing very strong friendships, very good relationships and
trusting friendships that I think have accrued in large measure in a
very beneficial way to the State I represent and to the region of the
country I am also so proud to represent, the gulf coast.
Maybe my colleague was having a bad day. I am going to let it go, but
it was a little shocking to hear that word.
Back to the issue. The issue is quite serious. The issue is that we
have had a process of building veterans clinics in this country a
certain way for a very long time. About 3 years ago CBO kind of out of
the blue decided to change the scoring mechanism--instead of the way we
were doing it through a leasing process, change the scoring system to
cause the budget problem, the constraints in the budget to not allow us
to move forward with the construction of these veterans facilities.
But added to that change, what is really happening in Louisiana and
why this is such an important issue for us is that we were scheduled to
build our two clinics and had waited in line patiently for many years.
Our clinics were getting ready to be built in Lafayette and Lake
Charles, which are a very important part of our outreach to the tens of
thousands of veterans in our State.
The Veterans' Administration itself made a very serious mistake,
which they have admitted in writing, verbally. General Shinseki has
been down to our State to visit these sites, to talk with many of us in
Louisiana about how unfortunate it was that mistakes in the bidding
process were made--not by us, not by the State, not by the locals, but
by the Federal Government. Because of these mistakes, our process of
building these clinics was delayed.
That is why House Member Boustany--a wonderful colleague and a dear
friend and a great leader--has been leading the effort. These are
basically in his district. He and I have been working very closely to
try to bring to the attention of the leadership here the fact that they
made the mistake, not us. We should not have to pay the penalty because
of that.
Then, in the midst of that fight, this new scoring mechanism came
down.
Now we cannot get out from underneath either the offset required or
the new process required to get our clinics built. It has nothing to do
with need--we are at the top of that list. We have the need. We have
the veterans. We have the commitment of the Federal Government to get
these built.
All of our delegation has been working very closely to try to get
these clinics built. I am happy to say that I am here today--as I have
always been on this issue--supporting it and will ask in just a
minute--I wanted to ask but will not ask in just a minute--for
unanimous consent to build these clinics without an offset, just as the
House bill passed. It is a $1.6 billion charge. It would move without
an offset. That is what the House voted on. It was a huge vote, 346
votes, Republicans and Democrats. I think when we have a vote like
that, we need to really pay attention over here. They voted to build
these clinics at a cost of $1.6 billion without an offset.
That is what I am going to ask for. Senator Coburn will object. He
has let me know he will object. Unfortunately, because of personal
reasons, he is unable to be here today. So out of respect for the
process of the Senate and out of courtesy, I will not be asking for
that unanimous consent now, but I will be asking for it early next
week.
Just to be clear, it will be a unanimous consent to build these 27
clinics based on the House vote without this bill going back to the
House, going straight to the President's desk for signature by the
President.
The offset the Senator from Louisiana offered is a bogus offset. We
have a letter from CBO that I would like to read into the Record. The
junior Senator from Louisiana offered his offset to supposedly raise
the $1.6 billion that will pay for this. This is from the CBO analysis.
It says: Based on preliminary estimates of the amendment offered by
Senator Vitter, based on the information of the Department of Defense
and the Department of Veterans Affairs and their current practices and
joint purchases of prescription drugs, I do not estimate any savings
for drug purchases relative to current law. My preliminary estimate of
the amendment would be a minimal discretionary cost of less than
$500,000.
There is no money to be saved by the amendment offered by Senator
Vitter, so I would be offering the bill to build these clinics with no
offset, and that is what the House passed. It will go directly to the
President's desk, and we will resolve the problem for these States.
Then we will finally figure out a way to get back on track building
clinics that we need and figure out a way to pay for these clinics in
the future, but these clinics got stuck in kind of a technical
bureaucratic mess in the recalculation. Ours, in particular, were
caught because they should have been built in the 2 years before this
new scoring process came to be, which is why Louisiana is having a
particularly difficult time.
But as the record will show, our entire delegation has supported this
effort. I honor the leadership of Congressman Boustany from the House,
who has literally worked on this tirelessly for 6 years. I thank the
House delegation for sending this bill over.
I will not require an offset. The offset Senator Vitter offered is
bogus.
[[Page S2144]]
As soon as Senator Coburn can get back, which will be early next
week, I will be offering this unanimous consent. Unfortunately, I
understand he will object to it because he believes we should find a
way to pay for it. There might be other objections as well, but I am
looking forward to the debate with Senator Coburn next week.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Ms. Hirono). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
GM Recall
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, yesterday's hearing of the commerce
committee's subcommittee on consumer safety provided a powerful and
important moment in our legislative process, and I want to thank my
colleague, the chairman of that subcommittee, Chairman McCaskill, for
enabling us to come together, as well as my other colleagues on both
sides of the aisle, Senators Klobuchar and Boxer and Ayotte, for their
very insightful and significant questions and comments on a challenge
that should unite us on both sides of the aisle--the tragic events,
death and life-changing injuries to unsuspecting drivers who were
victims of a defective ignition switch in automobiles manufactured by
GM; a car defect that should have been fixed, disclosed, and remedied
before these deaths occurred.
I want to thank the families of the victims of these defective cars
for coming forward and being at that hearing yesterday and sharing
their stories with me and others. They are doing a great public service
through their courage and strength.
I want to also thank Mary Barra, the CEO of GM. As I said to her
then, and I will repeat now, I admire her fortitude and her service in
coming forward to face the questions of our committee and be the face
of General Motors on the issues that confront us now in car safety. I
admire her career at GM--an engineer who has risen through the ranks, a
second-generation employee at an iconic, great American manufacturing
company.
I have long admired that company and the products it has produced.
They have enriched the lives of so many Americans over the years. My
hope is this hearing and this process will be a turning point for the
company in facing these car safety challenges.
I admire greatly also its dealers and employees. Some of them have
contacted me, especially Connecticut dealers, telling me how they are
reaching out proactively to the drivers of these defective vehicles,
asking them to bring them to their company so they can be repaired
before they do further damage.
This great company can reclaim its iconic brand and luster by
breaking with its past, and Mary Barra has the opportunity for this
historic contribution. As I said to her yesterday, she may be
surrounded by a phalanx of lawyers and public relations people who will
advise her to be cautious, to be timid, and to be reactive, but now is
the time for her to seize the initiative and take three simple steps as
a beginning.
No. 1, establish a compensation fund for all who have suffered damage
from this defective ignition switch which caused cars to crash, some of
them to burn--victims who have suffered injuries and death as well as
economic damage. No. 2, provide a warning--a clear, strong warning--to
drivers still behind the wheels of vehicles that still have this
defective ignition switch. The cars are under recall but unrepaired.
People are still driving them, many not knowing the full risk they have
undertaken by continuing to drive. A strong warning to ground those
vehicles until they are repaired is what is needed now.
Third, support our legislation. Senator Markey and I have offered
legislation that would provide for better reporting by car companies, a
stronger accountability system, and better disclosure through a
database to consumers so they will know what the risks are before they
take them and can make informed choices about what they drive and when.
These steps are well warranted by the past misconduct of GM, but they
are also potentially a model for other companies in doing the right
thing--facing the truth, telling truth to power, and making sure
innocent consumers are protected against harms that may not be known to
them.
She had the opportunity to break with the past culture--a culture of
deniability and of deception. Deception is what happened at GM. These
ignition switches were known to be defective. As early as 2001, year
after year there were reliable and material facts indicating to GM it
had a responsibility to fix these vehicles. Yet they took no action to
repair them, to recall them, to inform consumers. And the fix was not a
major costly one. It was $2 per vehicle--easily done. Yet in 2005,
2006, GM made a business decision that the price was too high, the time
was too long, and it continued to provide those vehicles for sale to
consumers.
Then it deceived the U.S. Government. I have already spoken on the
floor about section 612 of the agreement GM signed that indicated there
were no material adverse facts at the time it was bailed out in 2009 as
part of the reorganization. That deception is bad enough, but what
happened as a result of that reorganization was a shield from
liability, a form of immunity against legal accountability granted only
because GM failed to disclose to the United States and to the
bankruptcy court that it might well be liable and in fact was
responsible for these defective vehicles. That shield from liability
still bedevils the victims of injuries, death, and economic damage as
they seek to hold GM accountable because GM itself is invoking that
shield in courts today around the country and seeking to dismiss
actions brought against it, seeking to return them to the bankruptcy
court where the black hole of discharge will prevent recovery.
I welcome the independent investigation GM has undertaken by a very
credible and respected former U.S. attorney. I welcome the appointment
of consultant Ken Feinberg, also well respected, with experience and
expertise in providing compensation. But GM itself has still said there
is no compensation fund and it will not commit to one. And as able as
these two individuals are, the question remains, what will it take?
What facts or evidence will be required to persuade GM to do the right
thing?
I think there is more than ample evidence--in fact, abundant evidence
now--as to what the path should be, and I urged it yesterday on Mary
Barra. GM should very simply do the right thing now: Establish a
compensation fund sufficient to seek to make these victims whole.
Nothing will erase or even ease the pain and grief suffered by these
families and loved ones, but justice has its own virtue. GM has the
rare opportunity in American corporate life to do justice and not wait
for its consultants and its investigators to ``work through the issues
here.'' Working through the issues here means doing right by those
victims.
Yesterday I asked Ms. Barra about the safety of the vehicles still on
the road. She assured me they were fine to drive--as long as the key
was not overloaded, as long as the ignition switch was used alone
without additional keys. She assured me there was no more risk to drive
one of those vehicles than any other in use today.
I asked her about the contradiction of that statement with the recall
notice itself. I am going to display it here. It says that these
vehicles are risky to drive, in effect, if your keyring is carrying
added weight or--and I emphasize that it is an ``or''--there are rough
road conditions or jarring or impact-related events.
Unfortunately, too many of our highways and our byways have rough
road conditions or provide the opportunity for jarring events.
Ms. Barra may believe tests and analyses done by her company she
referred to yesterday assured her and GM that driving these defective
vehicles is safe as long as it is done with only the ignition key,
without the added weight of additional keys, but she must know, because
she has children--as do I and most Members of this body--that they will
drive with additional keys on that ignition switch. In fact, hundreds
of thousands--millions of Americans have no idea that driving these
vehicles with
[[Page S2145]]
added keys provides that kind of potentially fatal risk. When these
cars lose power, they lose steering, they lose their brakes, and they
lose their airbags. Losing power, brakes, and steering is terrifying,
but airbags are essential if power is lost and the car crashes, as
victims of these crashes have discovered, to their sorrow and the grief
of their families.
This kind of pothole, a rough road condition, a potentially jarring
event--how common are they? This photograph is from Surf Avenue in
Stratford, a beautiful town along the coast of Connecticut. I could
take hundreds of these photographs from Connecticut, which has better
roads than many other places in our State or country. They are as
common as the roads themselves.
Those risks are GM's responsibility to warn. It has failed to do so.
I asked Ms. Barra what evidence or facts would persuade her to issue a
stronger warning. The recall notice itself said that risk increases if
your keyring is carrying added weight--such as more keys or the key fob
itself; the key fob alone adds additional weight--or your vehicle is
experiences rough road conditions or other jarring or impact-related
events. What would persuade her to issue this warning to consumers:
Stop driving these cars until they are repaired.
I specifically asked her whether evidence about drivers who have, in
fact, experienced the power loss without adding additional weight to
their keyrings--if they encountered these kinds of conditions and their
cars shut down--would persuade her to change her view. She answered to
me:
Senator, if I had any data, any incidents where with just
the key, or the key and the ring, there was any risk, I
would ground these vehicles across the country.
Ms. Barra, let me tell you about Laura Valle. In March of 2014, Ms.
Valle, who owns a 2007 silver Chevrolet Cobalt, received GM's recall
letter instructing her to remove all items from her keyring, leaving
only the vehicle key. As the recall notice instructed, she continued to
drive her vehicle using only the vehicle key. Yet, while driving with a
friend, she lost power. Fortunately, she was on the right side of the
road and she was able to pull the vehicle to a stop.
There will be other instances. I know they will come forward to me,
to my colleagues, and to lawyers who may represent them.
Today I call on GM to issue that warning. There is more than ample
evidence or, as Ms. Barra said, ``data,'' ``incidents'' where the key
or just the key and the ring led to the vehicle stopping not because
there was added weight but because they encountered rough road
conditions or jarring events, which could consist of simply leaning the
wrong way or the driver's knee moving.
These vehicles create unacceptable risks before they are repaired.
The advice GM should give to people is this: Bring these cars to be
repaired immediately. Stop driving them. In the meantime, use the
loaners GM has offered.
GM has the opportunity to avoid another business decision. It may be
more costly to provide loaners, but in the long run they will save
lives and dollars.
Finally, I ask GM to do the right thing again by supporting the
legislation Senator Markey and I have introduced. This legislation is
critically important to the future. It can't correct the past, but it
can make sure that accidents are reported; that defects are made known
to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration; and that
there are not only incentives for reporting but there is increased
accountability for failing to do so; and require NHTSA to establish a
publicly accessible, searchable database that will allow drivers and
consumer safety advocates to connect the dots. Companies that are
unwilling to connect those dots will be brought to justice, will be
required to recall these vehicles and find out about defective models
in time to save lives.
Ms. Barra has not yet committed to supporting this bill. In my view,
it is her responsibility to do so. It is the responsibility of GM to
take this action now. She and GM have the opportunity to change
corporate culture not only in that company but in others by setting a
model--leading by example, not by their words at a Senate hearing or
letters of apology but by action. Action speaks louder than words.
Action speaks louder than the appointment of a consultant or an
investigator whose report may not be made fully public.
Ms. Barra was unwilling to make that commitment yesterday. It is a
corporate culture that refused to make a 57-cent change to car
ignitions--or a $2 change--even though that change would have saved
lives. Now is the time to hold GM accountable, for GM to issue that
warning that will help save others from a fate known only too well by
those families who came to be with us yesterday.
I look forward to working with Ms. Barra, GM, my colleagues, and with
all who are interested in improving car safety and to using this sad,
tragic, unfortunate experience as a turning point and a teaching
moment--a rare moment--of bipartisan action to make our roads safer.
Thank you, Madam President.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. SCOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Madam President.
I rise today to discuss my two amendments to the legislation we have
been debating this week. I think most of us would agree we need to give
folks a hand up. That makes a lot of sense. But we also need to ensure
they have a solid foundation on which it stands. The best way we can
help the unemployed is to help them find a job. My amendments aim to do
just that. First, we will restore the 40-hour workweek which was
destroyed by ObamaCare. The employer mandate currently requires
employers to provide health insurance to full-time employees, and the
new definition of a full-time employee is 30 hours per workweek. As a
result, employers are cutting hours for many of the employees to fewer
than 30 hours per week.
I have heard from several employers at home in South Carolina,
representing institutions as large as Clemson University and as small
as the local surf shop that are suffering the consequences of this new
30-hour definition.
A few weeks ago I was on a bus in Charleston talking with some of my
constituents. I started speaking with one young man who had just moved
to South Carolina from Georgia looking for new opportunities. He worked
for a restaurant and had recently received notice that his hours were
getting cut. After talking with this young man for a few minutes, it
became very clear to me that his pay was cut and his hours were
dwindling as a direct result of the 30-hour rule. Not only was he
losing 25 percent of his pay, he was losing the ability to work
overtime.
According to the Hoover Institution, 2.6 million Americans are
especially at risk of having their hours and wages cut like the young
man with whom I was speaking. Of those 2.6 million Americans, 59
percent of them are between the ages of 19 and 34, 63 percent are
women, and 90 percent do not have a college degree. Further, families
most at risk are those with a median income, $29,126.
Many of these millions of Americans who are earning hourly wages to
support their family will see a 25-percent cut in their pay as
employers struggle with the massive new costs forced on them by the
Federal Government--their Federal Government. Thanks to ObamaCare, not
only will these workers not have health insurance but they will no
longer have full-time jobs. We must--and I want to emphasize we must--
restore the 40-hour workweek, period.
My second amendment is the same as my SKILLS Act which I introduced
as a part of my opportunity agenda earlier this year. It provides much
needed reforms to modernize the government's bureaucratic means of
workforce development and training programs. With 4 million jobs
currently unfilled across our Nation today, including 65,000 jobs in
South Carolina, job skills training is critical for folks looking for
work. We have to make sure people are prepared
[[Page S2146]]
for continued success, and that starts with education and workforce
training.
Thanks to the leadership of my colleague, Mrs. Foxx in the House, the
SKILLS Act has already passed with some Democratic support on the other
side of the Capitol. It is well past time for that to happen in the
Senate, and I hope my colleagues will join me in providing more skills
and more opportunities to develop the skills to put Americans back to
work.
This is truly a conversation about jobs. How do we encourage job
growth and stop the government from blocking job creation? It is a
simple answer. These two amendments are steps in the right direction.
Let's not let politics dictate the future of these two amendments. We
can do better, and we should.
Thank you, Madam President, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:30 p.m.
today all postcloture time on the Reed of Rhode Island amendment No.
2874 be considered expired; that the following amendments be withdrawn:
Nos. 2875, 2877, 2878; that Senator Sessions or designee then be
recognized to raise a point of order against the Senator Reed of Rhode
Island amendment No. 2874; once the budget point of order is raised,
Senator Murray or designee be recognized to make a motion to waive; the
Senate then proceed to vote on the motion to waive; if the motion to
waive is agreed to, the Senate then proceed to vote on adoption of the
Reed of Rhode Island amendment No. 2874; that upon disposition of the
Reed amendment, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke
cloture on H.R. 3979; that if cloture is invoked on the bill, no other
amendments or motions be in order to the bill; that at 5:30 p.m. on
Monday, April 7, all postcloture time be considered expired and the
bill as amended, if amended, be read a third time and the Senate
proceed to vote on passage of the bill, as amended, if amended.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Washington.
THE MINIMUM WAGE
Mrs. MURRAY. There are a number of women who are going to be joining
me today. They are leaders in this Capitol who are working each and
every day, both here and back in their home States, to give more of
their constituents a chance to succeed. Today we are here to talk about
one small idea that stands to make a huge difference in the lives of
our constituents, and for women in particular, and that is the idea
that if you are putting in 40 or 50 or 60 hours of work per week you
should be able to put food on your table and pay your bills, and you
won't be stuck below the poverty line.
This idea could change the lives of millions of Americans if Congress
simply acted and raised the minimum wage. We need to act now because
right now one in four women--one in four women--is making minimum wage
today. That is 15 million American women who are making the equivalent
of about 2 gallons of gas per hour. Are we prepared to tell them that
should be enough to support themselves and their kids?
In fact, as I am sure you will hear repeated by others today, nearly
two-thirds of those who earn minimum wage or less are women. This is
coming at a time when more women are now depended upon as the sole
income earners in their families. Right now in cities and towns across
America there are millions of those women who are getting up at the
crack of dawn for work every day. They are stuck living in poverty.
They cannot save for a car, much less a house. They cannot pay for
school so they can get better skills and a better paying job. They
cannot even afford to provide their children with more winter clothes
or basic medical care. That is not how it is supposed to work in
America, the country where you are told if you work hard and play by
the rules you can get ahead.
So when we talk about the minimum wage, let's be clear: Raising the
minimum wage is about bringing back our middle class. I am proud that
in my State of Washington we are taking the lead. In our State our
workforce enjoys the highest minimum wage in the country, and I am glad
to point out to all of our friends on the other side of the aisle,
Washington State's economy has not been negatively impacted by our high
minimum wage. In fact, our economy has benefited from a high minimum
wage.
Job growth has continued at a rate above the national average.
Payrolls in our restaurants and bars have expanded due to people having
more money in their pockets to spend at dinner or a night on the town,
and poverty in Washington State has trailed the national level for at
least 7 years now. That is why I support making the national minimum
wage $10.10 for families from Washington to Wisconsin, from
Massachusetts to Minnesota and Hawaii and everywhere in-between.
It is not enough to make you rich, but it is a small raise for
millions of families who desperately need it. It is a small raise for
moms and dads who need help. We have to do more. Today, two-thirds of
families rely on income from both parents, but thanks to our outdated
Tax Code, a woman thinking about reentering the workforce as a second
earner in her family may face higher tax rates than her husband. That
is unfair, and it has to change.
Last week I introduced the 21st Century Worker Tax Cut Act which will
help solve that problem by giving struggling two-earner families with
children a tax deduction on that second earner's income.
My hope is that over the coming weeks we can all come together in
this Chamber on behalf of millions of American women who--like my own
mother when I was growing up--are the sole caregiver and breadwinner in
their families.
I hope our colleagues have gotten a sense of how the current $7.25 an
hour translates to a grocery trip for a family of four, shopping for
school supplies or even how it impacts people's daily commutes.
That is why we are here today--to give that mom or that dad a fair
shot at succeeding in America. I am proud to be joined today by a
number of my colleagues in the Senate who are strong women and fighting
for women and men in their home States.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schatz). The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, when my grandparents were raising me, I
learned that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able
to get ahead. As I traveled throughout the State of Wisconsin meeting
with Wisconsinites I know that my fellow Wisconsinites learned that
very same thing when they were growing up. Today people are working as
hard as ever, and they deserve to get ahead, but many are working full
time and even two jobs to make ends meet. Yet far too many are just
barely getting by or living in poverty.
As I have traveled my State, Wisconsinites have told me that the
powerful and the well-connected seem to get to write all of their own
rules, while the concerns and struggles of the working poor and middle-
class families go unnoticed here in Washington. They feel like our
economic system is tilted towards those at the very top and that our
political system exists to protect those unfair advantages. The House
budget introduced by Congressman Paul Ryan--from my own home State--is
a perfect example of that. Instead, we should make sure that everybody
gets a fair shot.
I am really proud to join my colleagues this afternoon to deliver our
own call for action. It is simple. The time is now to give hard-working
Americans a raise. We can do that if both parties work together to
reward hard work so an honest day's work pays more. We can do that by
raising the minimum wage.
I believe we need to build a fairer economy and grow the middle
class. I believe our economy is strongest when we expand opportunity
for everyone, and that is why I am an original cosponsor of the Minimum
Wage Fairness Act. Raising the minimum wage would improve the economic
security of families across the country and strengthen the overall
economy. It would give 28 million American workers a raise--including
over 595,000 Wisconsinites--and will benefit more than a quarter
million Wisconsin children who would have at least one parent getting
that raise.
It would mean workers in Wisconsin would have $816 million more to
spend
[[Page S2147]]
in local businesses, which according to the Economic Policy Institute
would boost Wisconsin's GDP by $516.6 million and generate 1,800 new
jobs after only 3 years.
Because women are disproportionately low-wage workers--making up two-
thirds of low-wage workers in the country--raising the minimum wage
would also directly impact millions of women across America.
Nadine, from Appleton, WI, would directly benefit from a raise.
Nadine is a 20-year-old woman who makes the tipped minimum wage. She
works as a server in a family restaurant. I probably need to remind
some people that the tipped minimum wage is only $2.13 an hour. Nadine
got her first job at age 14 so she could start saving for college. She
started college but had stopped attending because she simply could not
afford it. She even moved from her small hometown to a larger city in
search of a better job so she would be able to return to school.
In telling her story, Nadine writes:
Raising the minimum wage is not an abstract notion in my
life. It is a real factor that affects me in several
important ways. First, and most importantly, it is important
to me because I am a young woman and I am working to support
myself. I had to put going to college on hold because I
couldn't afford it. Without a higher income, I worry I won't
ever be able to transition from dead-end jobs into a long-
term career.
Nadine currently averages $200 to $300 per week. She spends $50 on
gas every week because she can't afford a more fuel-efficient car. She
eats simply in order to budget $30 each week for food. The rest of her
income goes to rent and other bills. Needless to say, it doesn't go
far.
Nadine picks up every shift available to her and doesn't rely on
government assistance of any kind. She worries she will never be able
to experience having a family and finishing college, traveling, and
just having a fair shot at building a stronger future for herself.
Women such as Nadine make up 72 percent of workers in predominately
tipped occupations. Workers in tipped occupations are twice as likely
as other workers to experience poverty, and servers are almost three
times as likely to be in poverty.
If for no other reason, we need to raise the minimum wage because in
America no one who works full time should have to live or raise a
family in poverty. Raising the full minimum wage and the tipped wage
will give 15 million women a raise--including 330,000 in my State of
Wisconsin. Women who make up 80 percent of America's 2.8 million
working single parents would benefit from an increase in the minimum
wage, thereby reducing child poverty among female-headed households.
According to the Center for American Progress, raising the minimum
wage to $10.10 an hour would reduce dependence on government programs,
including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which we
commonly call SNAP, which would see nearly 3.5 million fewer
enrollments and save $46 billion over the decade. Raising the minimum
wage will help make progress towards closing the gender pay gap.
I look forward to getting the job done and reward the hard work of
women across our great country.
I look forward to getting the job done and passing the Minimum Wage
Fairness Act so American women will get the raise they deserve.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am so proud to join Senator Murray, who
organized several of the women here, to speak out in favor of the
minimum wage increase for the workers of America.
My colleagues have said it well, but it bears repeating: No one in
America--male or female--should have to live in poverty after putting
in a full day's work. Yet that is the case today.
We should give hard-working Americans a fair shot to get ahead so
they can raise their families. Everyone deserves that fair shot, and
that is why Democrats have a fair-shot agenda. Right now we don't seem
to have many Republicans joining us in our desire to raise the minimum
wage so that it gets people above the poverty line when they work full
time.
I would argue that anyone who votes against that level of pay--which
is about $10.10 an hour to get a worker right above poverty--simply
wants to keep people in poverty, and that is not the American way.
Right now a mom who is working full time and makes minimum wage earns
just $290 a week. That is just $15,000 a year, which is below the
poverty rate for a single mom.
No mom or dad should come home from a full day's work and have to
worry about whether they can feed their children or whether they can
afford a roof over the heads of their kids.
I see Senator Warren is here, and she has brought such attention and
focus to the unfairness in the number I am about to say. There are 400
families in America that control as much wealth as 150 million
Americans. To hear people in this Chamber--who do just fine supporting
their families--oppose the minimum wage is absolutely, in my view, a
morally wrong position. They have their right to it, but I think it is
morally wrong.
The minimum wage is a two-thirds problem for women. Let's be clear.
Almost two-thirds of workers earning minimum wage or less are women,
two-thirds of tipped minimum wage workers are women, and in two-thirds
of American families, women are the breadwinners or co-breadwinners. We
have a two-thirds problem. Women are overrepresented in low-wage jobs,
and that is why I am so proud that next week Senator Mikulski is going
to lead us toward equal pay for equal work. It is a wonderful bill. I
think it is called the Paycheck Fairness Act.
When we lift the salaries of these workers, it helps entire families.
Senator Harkin's bill, which we are all supporting, will benefit 14
million children. We have to do it for workers like Wendy Arellano, who
works directing vehicles at an airport and has two other jobs, but she
still doesn't make enough to support her two daughters.
We should do it for women like Shareeka Elliot, who works all night
as a janitor scrubbing the floors and cleaning the toilets but still
doesn't make enough to get her kids above the poverty line.
We should do it for women like Nyah Potts, who is working so hard to
finish her college degree, but she is struggling to make enough to
support herself and her son. I joined Nyah at a press conference last
week.
In closing, I want to talk for a minute about the tipped minimum
wage. This is a disgrace because the tipped minimum wage at the Federal
Government is $2.13 an hour. We all know--because it has been studied--
that there are waitresses and there are waiters, and most of the less-
expensive restaurants hire women, and they don't get big tips. If there
is a storm, and suppose nobody comes into the restaurant that day, they
get paid $2.13 an hour. This bill does move us up to 70 percent of
minimum wage for tipped workers. Personally, I think there ought to be
no difference. In California, we pay our workers--all of them, tipped
or not--the full minimum wage. And no one can tell me that California's
restaurants are suffering. They are some of the most successful in the
country and in the world.
So let's be clear. History shows raising the minimum wage doesn't
hurt the economy.
Now we will hear our colleagues on the Republican side cite the CBO
study that said we could lose hundreds of thousands of jobs. That study
is an outlier.
In 1956, the minimum wage was a buck. I hate to say it, but I
remember those days. It was a dollar. And I remember, I worked my first
job as a telephone operator for Hilton Hotels, and I earned the minimum
wage. Actually, then, because I was a teenager, it was half the minimum
wage, so I worked for 50 cents an hour. I was not very good at that
job, but I tried hard. But let's say Congress had that attitude then:
We are not going to raise the minimum wage because we will lose jobs.
The minimum wage would still be a dollar an hour. How ludicrous.
Since then--since 1956--we have raised the minimum wage 18 times.
Guess what. Did we lose jobs? No. The economy grew by more than 80
million jobs.
I know others are waiting to speak. I am so excited to finally get to
vote on paycheck fairness and on minimum wage. All we Democrats are
saying is, let's give Americans a fair shot.
[[Page S2148]]
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will be making a point of order in a
moment against the bill before us because it violates the budget we
agreed to. I will share briefly for a few moments--the order is that we
are to commence voting at 2:30. I believe that is correct. I think I
was approved for 5 minutes. If the Chair would notify me when my time
is up, because others I see here might want to speak.
In August of 2001, this Congress--House and Senate, Republicans and
Democrats--along with the President of the United States, agreed on the
Budget Control Act. It limited spending--the growth of spending only.
How much did it limit the growth? Well, at that time we were projected
to spend $10 trillion more over the next 10 years than we were
currently spending. So the Budget Control Act didn't cut the budget,
really, although a few agencies in the short term have had reductions,
Defense being the primary one. But over the 10 years, under the Budget
Control Act we would grow spending $8 trillion instead of $10
trillion--not enough of a reduction in spending, I say to my
colleagues, to cause this country to sink into the ocean; that is for
sure. Really, not enough, because our deficits are so high.
In December of last year, this Congress passed the Ryan-Murray Budget
Act which amended the spending agreement we struck in the Budget
Control Act. The Ryan-Murray bill broke the budget agreement and
allowed more money to be spent than we had agreed to in the BCA, but it
capped overall spending for the next 8 years. So that was the
agreement. It passed, and the President signed it 3 months ago. It is
now the law of the land.
What I would say to my colleagues is this--today is the third or
fourth time we will vote on legislation, since the Ryan-Murray spending
agreement passed, that busts the budget--that busts the spending limits
we agreed to.
There are multiple budget violations against this bill. Two of them
are voided by loophole language in the Ryan-Murray legislation that
people didn't fully understand at that time. That loophole language
allows the use of a deficit-neutral reserve fund to, in effect, erase
budget points of order. So two of the budget points of order that lie
against this bill cannot be raised because a deficit-neutral reserve
fund--which I think is a gimmick--essentially erases them. But one of
the violations still remains, because this bill will add to the debt
outside the 10-year window.
One of the things we have learned is that when we pass laws today
that sound good--and sometimes those laws, even if they are within the
budget window, they may, indeed, in the out years add to the debt of
the United States. Kent Conrad, a Democrat and former chairman of the
Budget Committee--it was his language that created this long term point
of order, because he was concerned we were passing things that might be
OK within the budget window but were adding to the debt in the long
term. So that is why we have this point of order.
The cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office clearly shows
that this UI bill violates that principle of the budget, and lays out
the numbers that so say. Our chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator
Murray, has acknowledged that this bill does, in fact, violate the
budget.
But we need to stay within our budget. Violating the budget agreement
is simply a refusal to make tough choices. We spend $3,700 billion a
year, and we can't find $8 billion or $9 billion in savings to fund a
program that we think needs to be funded today like unemployment
insurance? People want to deal with that and help people who are
unemployed, and I understand that desire. But if we do so, we should do
it by finding offsets, not spending more than we agreed.
People say we can raise taxes to pay for the new spending. Well, that
violates the budget too, because our agreement says we can spend only
so much. And if my colleagues want to raise taxes, I believe we ought
to use that money to pay down the deficit, not grow the government.
This past year, we spent $233 billion on interest on the debt, an
amount that is virtually half the Defense budget. The highway bill is
$40 billion. In 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office--Dr.
Elmendorf testified before the Budget Committee a few weeks ago--says
that in 10 years, 1 year's interest payment on the debt of the United
States of America would be $880 billion. That is over $650 billion more
in 1 year on interest than we are paying today.
So you can see why we have to adhere to our promises to contain
spending. We cannot continue to vote time and time again to violate the
spending limits we agreed to. It just adds to the debt and to our
interest payments on the debt. No wonder the American people are
unhappy with us. This is irresponsible. I am confident we can find the
$9 billion or whatever we need to fund any program in this bloated
government of ours. But, no, it won't even be discussed. There is no
discussion about finding honest reductions in spending from places
where money is wasted. Instead, we just come up with a plan that
gimmicks the spending and adds to the long-term debt of the United
States.
In conclusion, I would say it is quite clear that this legislation--
the unemployment extension--will add to the long-term debt of the
United States.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has spoken for 5 minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the pending measure, amendment No. 2874
to H.R. 3979, the vehicle for the unemployment insurance extension,
violates section 311(b) of the fiscal year 2009 budget resolution by
causing a net increase in the deficit over $5 billion in the 10-year
period from 2024 to 2033.
Therefore, I raise a point of order against this measure pursuant to
section 311(b) of S. Con. Res. 70, the Concurrent Resolution on the
Budget for fiscal year 2009.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of
applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections
of that act and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the
pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays are ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote
occur at the time set under the previous order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an extension
of time for 6 minutes to be divided equally between myself and Senator
Stabenow.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I will keep my remarks short because I
know there are others who want to speak on why we need to raise the
minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. I will focus on Hawaii.
In Hawaii, nearly 100,000 women would get a raise if we were to do
this. That is one out of five women workers in Hawaii. The Presiding
Officer and I are both from Hawaii. We know the high cost of living in
Hawaii. Minimum wage amounts to about $14,500 a year. The average rent
for a one-bedroom residence in Hawaii is almost $1,300 a month. That is
more than $15,000 a year. It is no wonder people in Hawaii have to work
more than one job.
In Hawaii, tourism is our No. 1 industry. We have a lot of tipped
workers. They work in our restaurants. Do my colleagues know there are
many people who work in our restaurants who can't even afford to eat in
the restaurant in which they work?
When we raise the minimum wage, we are going to enable a lot of
families to not have to rely on various programs such as SNAP. In
Hawaii, over 15,000 workers would no longer need these kinds of
benefits.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, first let me say that we should be
congratulating everyone who has gotten us to a point where we are going
to be able to help people who have been
[[Page S2149]]
working hard to find a job and still have not found a job to put food
on the table for their families and pay their rent. To be able to allow
them to receive emergency unemployment assistance is incredibly
important. The votes we are doing here are very important to give
people who want a job and need a job a fair shot to be able to survive
until they can get a job.
The Minimum Wage
I also want to speak for just a moment, as so many of my colleagues
have today, about what it means for women to have a pay raise through
the minimum wage because the minimum wage is very much a women's issue,
as you have heard, because a disproportionate number of folks who are
earning the minimum wage are, in fact, women. And it is not college
students; the average age is about 30, 35 years old.
This is a critical issue for Michigan families, including 416,000
women in Michigan who would directly benefit from raising the minimum
wage to $10.10 an hour and another 141,000 whose wages would also
increase. This is not just about people earning the minimum wage; it is
about lifting up wages, increasing purchasing power, and helping
businesses large and small be able to get more customers because people
can buy things because they have money in their pockets.
Let me repeat, in terms of the numbers for Michigan, 557,000 women in
Michigan who are working hard and just want a fair shot--just a fair
shot--to get ahead would benefit from the legislation the Senate will
soon be voting on called the Minimum Wage Fairness Act.
Too many people, including far too many women, are simply trying to
stay afloat, let alone get ahead. The minimum wage used to be worth
more. Its value has eroded since it peaked back in 1968, and it is
harder and harder for people to put food on the table and a roof over
their family's heads.
Today, a single mom can clean houses and scrub floors for 40 hours a
week--working hard--and still find that she earns less than the poverty
level. There is something wrong with that. If you are going to work
hard 40 hours a week, you ought to be able to lift your family out of
poverty.
Work ought to be valued in this country. In fact, for a family of
three, you are $4,000 below the poverty line if you are working for the
minimum wage. It is just not right.
To add insult to injury, if you compare that to the average CEO's
salary today, you could put 933 minimum-wage workers, 933 women working
hard--and I would daresay maybe harder than the folks who are at the
top as CEOs--trying to put food on the table for their kids, buy them
cloths, make sure they can care for them, 933 minimum-wage workers
combined equals the salary of the average CEO.
So I would urge that we come together and look at this as Henry Ford
did 100 years ago in 1914 when he doubled the salary of his workers to
$5 a day. He lifted them up. The small businesses around his plant saw
increases in their business and hired more people because more people
had money in their pockets. They could come in and buy the food and
goods.
We are talking about people working hard, again, every single day--
moms who are cleaning hotel rooms and are on their feet all day; they
are mopping floors, preparing food; they go home; they take care of
their families. All they want is a fair shot to succeed and be able to
make their lives and their children's lives better.
Let's have a strong, bipartisan vote on raising the minimum wage.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise in support of increasing the
minimum wage. Congress needs to do away with wages that don't reward
hard work and workplace policies that belong in an episode of ``Mad
Men.'' This Congress needs to do two things to make sure we give a fair
shot to everyone and build a stronger middle class: raise the minimum
wage and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.
The minimum wage is at an historic all-time low. It has lost 30
percent of its buying power compared to its peak buying power in 1968.
The minimum wage only pays $15,000 a year. That is $4,000 below the
poverty line for a family of three. Increasing the minimum wage to
$10.10 per hour would pay $20,200 a year--lifting that family of three
out of poverty.
What does increasing the minimum wage mean for Maryland? Increasing
the minimum wage will give 450,000 workers in Maryland a raise.
Increasing the minimum wage will improve the lives of 210,000 Maryland
children because their parent just got a raise. When we raise the
minimum wage, we all move a rung up on the opportunity ladder.
I am on the side of economic fairness and building a stronger middle
class to bring opportunities to families across the Nation. That is why
I am an enthusiastic cosponsor of the Fair Minimum Wage Act. This bill
raises the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 an hour over 3
years and indexes the minimum wage to inflation in the future.
Everyone who works hard and plays by the rules deserves a fair shot
at the American dream. That means raising the minimum wage so that hard
work is worth it--because a full-time job shouldn't mean full time
poverty.
The minimum wage for employees who earn tips is barely over $2 per
hour. The Fair Minimum Wage Act will slowly increase that base wage by
less than $1 a year until it reaches 70 percent of the regular minimum
wage. Women are nearly three-quarters of workers earning tips at their
jobs. For a hotel housekeeper in the western Maryland mountains, a
hairdresser on the Eastern Shore, or a restaurant server in Baltimore
or Bethesda, this raise is economic security so that a slow week in an
off-peak season doesn't mean below-poverty wages.
The minimum wage is a women's issue. Women make up two-thirds of
minimum-wage workers nationwide. Congress needs to raise their wages
and make sure they are not being redlined or sidelined by outdated
policies or harassed and intimidated when seeking justice for pay
discrimination.
Being a woman costs more, and women pay more for everything. Women
pay more in medical costs than men--an estimated $10,000 over a
lifetime. Women are often responsible for child care. Women even get
charged more for dry cleaning. We are charged more for our blouses than
men's shirts, and we are tired of being taken to the cleaners. When we
earn less, we are asked to pay more.
Women are almost half of the workforce and 40 percent of them are the
sole breadwinners in their families. They are tired of being paid
crumbs.
Women continue to make less. Women are still making only 77 cents for
every $1 a man makes. Women of color suffer even greater injustice. If
you are African American, you earn 62 cents for every $1 a man makes.
If you are Hispanic, you earn 54 cents for every $1 a man makes.
Everybody likes to say to us: Oh, you have come a long way. But I
don't think we have come a long way. We have only gained 18 cents in 50
years.
By the time she retires, the average woman will lose more than
$431,000 over her lifetime because of the wage gap. That affects your
Social Security and pension. It weakens your retirement security.
This is not about men versus women. It is about building a middle
class. Wages have been flat for everyone. Men need a pay raise too.
When they get it, we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them--because
we all need a raise to raise our families.
The Fair Minimum Wage Act is about putting change in the lawbooks and
change in family checkbooks. Women of America, it is time to suit up,
square our shoulders, put on our lipstick, increase the minimum wage
for everyone, and fight the fair pay revolution.
Amendments Nos. 2878, 2877, and 2875 Withdrawn
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, amendments Nos.
2878, 2877, and 2875 are withdrawn.
Vote on Motion to Waive
Under the previous order, the question is on agreeing to the motion
to waive.
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the
Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr.
McCain).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn)
would have voted ``nay.''
[[Page S2150]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 60, nays 36, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 99 Leg.]
YEAS--60
Baldwin
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Walsh
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--36
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Cochran
Corker
Crapo
Enzi
Fischer
Flake
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
Lee
McConnell
Moran
Paul
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NOT VOTING--4
Coburn
Cornyn
Cruz
McCain
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 60, the nays are 36.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Vote on Amendment No. 2874
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on
agreeing to amendment No. 2874.
The amendment (No. 2874) was agreed to.
Mr. REID. For the knowledge of all Members, we are going to have one
more vote today and the next vote will be Monday at 5:30 p.m.
I just want to tell everyone, sometimes people get upset at Senator
McConnell and me because we don't know what is going on. Well, I hate
to admit this, but sometimes he and I don't know what is going on. It
is hard to get, sometimes, where we are. So I appreciate that even
though Senator McConnell and I have a few little dustups on the floor
in front of everybody, whenever we are in private we work well together
to try to do the best things for this body.
To get to where we are today wasn't easy, and we should have a good
week next week. I know there is a lot of angst on both sides with the
things they want to get done, but everyone should be patient. We are
trying to work through the process.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will
report the motion to invoke cloture.
The bill 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,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on H.R. 3979, an act
to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to ensure that
emergency services volunteers are not taken into account as
employees under the shared responsibility requirements
contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Harry Reid, Jack Reed, Patrick J. Leahy, Thomas R.
Carper, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Edward J.
Markey, Christopher A. Coons, Tom Harkin, Cory A.
Booker, Tom Udall, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Barbara
Boxer, Angus S. King, Jr., Christopher Murphy, Al
Franken, Bernard Sanders.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on H.R.
3979, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to ensure that
emergency services volunteers are not taken into account as employees
under the shared responsibility requirement contained in the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn),
the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr.
McCain).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn)
would have voted ``nay.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 61, nays 35, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 100 Leg.]
YEAS--61
Ayotte
Baldwin
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Walsh
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--35
Alexander
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Cochran
Corker
Crapo
Enzi
Fischer
Flake
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
Lee
McConnell
Moran
Paul
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NOT VOTING--4
Coburn
Cornyn
Cruz
McCain
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 61, the nays are 35.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen having voted in the
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
The Senator from Montana.
Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2259
Mr. WALSH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 314, H.R. 2259; that the bill
be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or
debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I want to
inform the Chair that two of our colleagues have concerns about this
legislation--Senators Coburn and Cruz--and would like to address those
concerns with the sponsors. So on their behalf, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Montana.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 255
Mr. WALSH. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to
Calendar No. 173, S. 255; that the committee-reported amendment be
agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and
the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening
action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, this is the same legislation, and so for
the same reason, on behalf of Senators Coburn and Cruz, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Montana.
Mr. WALSH. Madam President, in the far northwestern corner of Montana
is one of the most special places on Earth--the North Fork of the
Flathead River. The North Fork is a spectacular gravel-bed river that
starts in British Columbia and runs along the western half of Glacier
National Park before arriving in Flathead Lake.
The North Fork is a world-class trout fishery, with bulltrout and
cutthroat trout sharing the same winding waters that grizzly bears rely
on for huckleberries. It is the most important wildlife corridor
between the Great Plains and the Cascades, and Montanans have always
enjoyed rafting, hiking, fishing, and hunting in it.
Today, about 2 million people visit Glacier National Park each year,
bringing $170 million into the local economy and supporting 2,750 jobs.
For 40 years, Montanans have fought to keep the North Fork pristine.
My colleague Senator Jon Tester and I are committed to taking this
across the finish line.
[[Page S2151]]
Four years ago, Montana and British Columbia reached a historic
agreement to protect the river on both sides of the border. Two years
ago Canada upheld its end of the bargain. Today, the U.S. Congress has
the opportunity to do the same. The entire Montana congressional
delegation is in bipartisan agreement that the North Fork deserves to
be withdrawn permanently from future mineral development. Montanans of
all stripes have endorsed this action, including the local chambers of
commerce and energy companies such as ConocoPhillips.
In fact, the primary interest in more than 80 percent of existing
Federal leases in the watershed have voluntarily been relinquished.
Everyone recognizes how important it is to keep the North Fork
pristine. It is just the right thing to do.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the North
Fork Watershed Protection Act with no opposition last June. The House
passed the North Fork Watershed Protection Act by voice vote last
month. This bill is our chance to leave a jewel in the crown of the
continent in better shape than we found it.
I ask my colleagues to join me and all Montanans in that effort. We
can send this bill to the President to sign today.
Mr. TESTER. Madam President, will the junior Senator from Montana
yield for a question?
Mr. WALSH. I will.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Montana.
Mr. TESTER. Madam President, when my colleague's motion was objected
to, the good Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, said he
understood Senators Coburn and Cruz wished to have further
conversation. Has my colleague had a chance to visit with Senators
Coburn and Cruz already about this bill?
Mr. WALSH. Yes, I have.
Mr. TESTER. So that has already been done.
I want to thank my colleague Senator Walsh for attempting to bring up
the North Fork Watershed Protection Act for a vote. I also want to echo
his frustration that once again politics is trumping good policy.
The North Fork bill is a Montana-made bill. Folks back home who
support this bill are from all political sides of the spectrum. It has
wide bipartisan support. Members of both parties, as Senator Walsh
pointed out, voted it out of the Energy and Natural Resources
Committee. Yet today two Senators--whom I would challenge to find the
North Fork on a map--have decided to hold this bill up.
Let me remind them what this bill does. It ensures access along the
North Fork for hunters and anglers who contribute to Montana's $6
billion outdoor economy. If you want to talk about economic
development, this is an incredible driver.
The bill also honors a commitment to our neighbor to the north,
Canada. Three years ago British Columbia signed an agreement to retire
oil and gas leases on their side of the border, expecting us to protect
the region as well. This bill guarantees we hold up our end of the
bargain, and it ensures we pass along our outdoor way of life.
I should also point out that Exxon and Conoco both have also given up
their leases in this region. Why? Because this drainage feeds Flathead
Lake, which is the largest freshwater body of water west of the
Mississippi. It is an incredible ecosystem.
I think what has happened today is a loss not only for Montana, not
only for America's great outdoors, but for this entire country.
This fight is not over. For far too long in this body we have had
people who obstruct just because they can. It is time to start working
together and doing what is right, whether we are talking about
conservation issues, tax issues, unemployment issues, or whatever it
might be. It is time to start moving the country forward because people
are suffering out there.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Montana.
Mr. WALSH. Madam President, I am so disappointed my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle are blocking the desire of Montanans to protect
the North Fork. This bill is a no-brainer. I invite my colleagues to
visit Montana and see the North Fork for themselves. Their actions
today show why Washington is broken. Despite years of bipartisan hard
work, narrow interests can trump responsible leadership.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________