[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 21422-21432]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 2660, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2660) making appropriations for the 
     Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and 
     Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2004.

  Pending:

       Specter amendment No. 1542, in the nature of a substitute.
       Byrd amendment No. 1543 (to amendment No. 1542), to provide 
     additional funding for education for the disadvantaged.
       Akaka amendment No. 1544 (to amendment No. 1542), to 
     increase funding for the Excellence in Economic Education Act 
     of 2001.
       Mikulski amendment No. 1552 (to amendment No. 1542), to 
     increase funding for programs under the Nurse Reinvestment 
     Act and other nursing workforce development programs.
       Kohl amendment No. 1558 (to amendment No. 1542), to provide 
     additional funding for the ombudsman program for the 
     protection of vulnerable older Americans.
       Kennedy amendment No. 1566 (to amendment No. 1542), to 
     increase student financial aid by an amount that matches the 
     increase in low- and middle-income family college costs.
       Dodd amendment No. 1572 (to amendment No. 1542), to provide 
     additional funding for grants to States under part B of the 
     Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
       DeWine amendment No. 1561 (to amendment No. 1542), to 
     provide funds to support graduate medical education programs 
     in children's hospitals.
       DeWine amendment No. 1560 (to amendment No. 1542), to 
     provide funds to support poison control centers.
       DeWine amendment No. 1578 (to amendment No. 1542), to 
     provide funding for the Underground Railroad Education and 
     Cultural Program.
       Harkin amendment No. 1580 (to amendment No. 1542), to 
     protect the rights of employees to receive overtime 
     compensation.

  Mr. ENZI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

[[Page 21423]]


  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to 
speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Overtime Pay

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, America, of course, is the land of 
opportunity. Americans know that if we are willing to work hard, we can 
realize our dreams.
  Hard work has built America. Hard work is what has enabled 
generations of us to own a home, make a stronger community, and give 
our children a good education.
  Americans have always been willing to work hard to reach their goals, 
and they are working longer hours today than ever before. About one-
third of the labor force regularly works longer than a 40-hour week, 
and 20 percent work longer than 50 hours.
  Fifty years ago, we established the principle of overtime pay which 
came as a result of passing the Fair Labor Standards Act. Basically, 
one of the provisions of that act was the establishment of overtime pay 
rules, and it was for those who work more than 40 hours a week. This 
principle recognized that the normal workweek would be five 8-hour 
days. This principle recognized the value of hard work and rewarded 
those who worked the hardest.
  Families who work hard depend upon overtime pay. For the families who 
earn overtime, it makes up one-fourth of their total salary.
  Having said all this, I can't understand, as I indicated earlier 
today, why the President is proposing to change the rules on overtime 
pay. What this legislation we would like a vote on does is prevent the 
President from changing the rules as to the number of people who are on 
overtime; that is, he cannot lower the number of people on overtime. 
The rules could increase the number but he could not lower the number. 
That is simply what the amendment does.
  The President's proposal would eliminate overtime wages for 8 million 
workers, among whom would be nurses, firefighters, police officers, 
flight attendants, preschool teachers, cooks, secretaries, and fast 
food shift managers.
  The proposal would amount to a pay cut for those hard-working people 
and others. It would mean fewer jobs because companies would simply 
force their employees to work longer hours without paying overtime 
instead of hiring new workers. In the current economic situation, when 
millions of Americans are out of work, it doesn't make sense to do 
something that will stifle the creation of new jobs.
  Even for the workers who would still qualify for overtime, this is a 
bad rule. Why? Because big companies will just force the overtime-
exempt workers to put in longer hours and cut the hours of those who 
qualify for overtime.
  The rule is bad for so many reasons. It punishes working families by 
cutting their pay, it prevents the creation of new jobs, and I think it 
dishonors hard work, which is one of the things that made America 
great.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sessions). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we are presently on the Labor, Health and 
Human Services, and Education appropriations bill which is the funding 
bill for next year for all three of those Departments plus others--NIH, 
for basic medical research, and for a number of other independent type 
agencies, libraries, and things such as that.
  Perhaps the biggest part of this bill in terms of where we ought to 
focus our energies and our attention is in the area of education. We 
know that without a good education, our hopes for the future of this 
country are much dimmer if we do not provide a class 1, world class 
education for all of our kids. Our future will be bleak indeed if in 
fact we start leaving some kids behind.
  Thus, when the President talked a couple years ago about his proposal 
to leave no child behind, that sounded like something we could support 
and move ahead on because we do not want to, nor can we afford to, 
leave any children behind.
  Now that we are here this week after Labor Day, it is back to school 
time. Back to school time means one thing: More claims from President 
Bush that he is serious about leaving no child behind.
  When the President signed the No Child Left Behind Act nearly 2 years 
ago, he promised to give schools the money they need to improve. He 
said:

       We are going to spend more money, more resources, but they 
     will be directed at methods that work.

  Most people probably believed him. I know I did. There were long 
negotiations. I also serve on the authorizing committee that worked out 
the agreements with the White House on the No Child Left Behind Act. 
One of the major reasons I voted for it was that I trusted the 
President. I took him at his word that in fact we were going to have 
the resources.
  In the No Child Left Behind Act, we made a major departure from what 
we had been doing in the past in terms of Federal funding for 
elementary and secondary education. This was the biggest mandate ever 
put upon local public schools by the Federal Government. The biggest 
mandate ever put on our local public schools by the Federal Government 
was Leave No Child Behind.
  So I believed then, and I believe now, that if we are going to 
mandate certain performance levels for our schools, and we are going to 
penalize these schools for failing to make adequate yearly progress--if 
we are going to do that--then we must, by all rights, give them the 
money they need to meet these mandates and to improve.
  President Bush seemed to agree. We took him at his word. But ever 
since he signed that law, the President's record on education has been 
long on spin and woefully short on spending. Saturday was a 
characteristic example of what I am talking about. The President used 
his radio address on Saturday to boast about how much funding he has 
provided for schools since he became President. He said--and again I 
quote; this is an exact quote from his radio address on Saturday--

       My budget for next year boosts education funding to $53.1 
     billion, an increase of nearly $11 billion since I took 
     office.

  Keep these figures in mind: $53.1 billion, his budget for next year; 
and he says: ``an increase of . . . $11 billion since I took office.''
  Well, first, the statement is factually correct. The education budget 
has increased $11 billion during the Bush administration. And it is 
factually correct that next year's budget does call for $53.1 billion. 
But let's take a look at those two. The $11 billion increase during his 
administration has taken place, but no thanks to President Bush. The 
budgets increased $11 billion because Democrats in Congress insisted on 
it over the White House's strong objections. It is like I was saying 
last week about the weather, it has rained a lot around here during 
President Bush's administration, sometimes it has been hot during his 
administration, sometimes it has even snowed during his administration, 
but his administration did not actually have anything to do with the 
weather.
  The same thing with education funding: President Bush deserves as 
much credit for the recent education funding increases as he does for 
the weather outside. This chart will explain what I mean.
  In fiscal year 2001, the last budget of the Clinton administration, 
education funding was at $42.2 billion. The next year, President Bush's 
first year, in his budget he asked for an increase to $44.5 billion. 
That would be about an increase of $2.3 billion.
  Now, at the end of the day, at the end of the year, the actual 
funding went up to $49.9 billion. Why? Did President Bush come down 
here and ask for more money? No. Education got up to $49.9 billion 
because we Democrats insisted on it during the negotiations for the No 
Child Left Behind Act. We said, if you are going to have these 
mandates,

[[Page 21424]]

let's get the money in there. And since the President wanted to get 
votes for his bill, he agreed. But he never asked for it. We insisted 
on it. So the next year we went up to $49.9 billion.
  Now, the next year, President Bush asked for $50.3 billion. That was 
an increase of only $400 million from the previous year, seven-tenths 
of 1 percent. That is what he asked for. That is all he asked for. 
Again, we got it up to $53.1 billion. Again, why? Because Democrats 
insisted on it. We fought for it hard. We fought for it on the floor of 
the Senate, and we got it up to $53.1 billion.
  Now, the real kicker is this: In his radio address, the President 
said:

       My budget for next year boosts--

--``boosts,'' ``boosts''--

     education funding to $53.1 billion. . . .

  Mr. President, we are already at $53.1 billion. You have asked for 
$53.1 billion for next year. That is not a boost. That is the same as 
we spent last year.
  Well, actually I want to be factually correct. His budget would 
increase funding by $26 million, .05 percent over last year. It is such 
a minuscule amount it does not even show up on a chart.
  As I said before, it is true education spending has risen $11 billion 
during the Bush administration, but President Bush has only asked for 
$2.7 billion of that $11 billion. All the rest resulted from Democrats 
here in Congress pushing for and fighting for increased education 
funding. So I wanted to make that record clear.
  Now, what is more, the President is trying to take credit for these 
education increases at the very same time the White House, this 
President, is working to defeat Senator Byrd's amendment, one of the 
pending amendments on this bill, that would fully fund title I at the 
fiscal year 2004 authorized level. The title I program is the key to 
the success of No Child Left Behind because title I helps the students 
who need the help the most, the millions who are now being left 
behind--low-income, poor kids, kids from low-income areas. It is the 
program also, under the No Child Left Behind Act, that will hold 
schools accountable for improving student performance. So title I is a 
program that has been in existence for a long time, and it funnels 
Federal funding to those most in need, the kids who are now being left 
behind.
  In the No Child Left Behind Act we put in there the mandates that 
will hold schools accountable, that will penalize schools if they do 
not improve student performance.
  President Bush and Members of Congress spent a lot of time 
negotiating over how much money was needed year by year for title I. 
This was part of the negotiations process when we passed No Child Left 
Behind. What we settled on was a figure of $18.5 billion for fiscal 
year 2004. That is the second year after the law went into effect. That 
is the authorized level.
  Unfortunately, the bill before us provides $12.35 billion for title 
I. That is the amount requested by President Bush. Again, some on the 
other side want to play games with the numbers. They argue title I 
funding has risen by $2.9 billion during President Bush's 
administration, again, as if the President deserves the credit for it. 
The fact is, President Bush requested only $1.3 billion of the $2.9 
billion title I has increased between 2001 and 2003. Again, the only 
reason title I increased more than he asked for was we Democrats here 
in Congress insisted on it.
  Again, this chart shows the story. In fiscal year 2001, title I got 
$8.8 billion. In fiscal year 2002, the President requested a minuscule 
increase of just $300 million to $9.1 billion. The authorized level was 
$13.5 billion. Again, we Democrats in Congress fought hard, and we got 
it up to $10.35 billion.
  Some on the other side have said, well, the Democrats ran the Senate 
for fiscal year 2002, and they didn't fund title I at the authorized 
level. Well, that is true, but remember, we only controlled the Senate, 
we did not control the House, and we did not control the White House 
like the Republicans do now, and we managed to get more for title I 
than the President requested.
  In fiscal year 2003, the year we are in right now, the President 
requested $11.35 billion for title I, when the authorization level had 
risen to $16 billion. Again, thanks to Democratic pressure here in 
Congress, we got it up to $11.7 billion.
  Now for fiscal year 2004, the President has requested $12.35 billion, 
$6 billion short of the authorized level of $18.5 billion.
  People have said: That is the authorized level. We hardly ever fund 
to the authorized level.
  In most cases that is true. But in this case, we have a different 
situation. We have mandates. Schools, you have to do this, this, this. 
You have to meet annual yearly progress of this, this, and this. We 
have now mandated it. We never did before. And, in the negotiations on 
No Child Left Behind, we agreed on these figures: $13.5 billion for 
2002, 16 for 2003, and 18.5 for 2004, and so on. So this is not just 
like something else. This is the biggest Federal mandate ever on our 
public schools.
  The biggest part of No Child Left Behind is title I, and the 
President has shortchanged it by over $6 billion this next year. I 
think we need to help President Bush keep the promise he made when he 
signed the No Child Left Behind Act by approving Senator Byrd's 
amendment. The Byrd amendment, more than any other, will show the 
Nation how serious we are about leaving no child behind. Do we give the 
schools the money they need to improve? Or do we just give them a bunch 
of mandates and hang them out to dry? That is what is at stake with the 
Byrd amendment.
  I emphasize, the Byrd amendment is not just about dollars. If you 
want to hire good teachers, it takes money. If you want to reduce class 
sizes so teachers can teach, it takes money. This Byrd amendment would 
provide enough funding to hire more than 100,000 highly qualified 
teachers for the students who are at most risk of being left behind. 
That means over 2 million disadvantaged students would be taught in 
smaller classes. They would receive the full range of instructional 
services called for under the No Child Left Behind Act.
  In his radio address on Saturday, the President said:

       Schools are getting the Federal resources and help they 
     need to improve.

  I am sorry, Mr. President. That is factually incorrect. They are not 
getting the Federal resources. They are not getting what you promised 2 
years ago when you signed this bill into law. So I say let's help the 
President keep his promise. I urge my colleagues to support the Byrd 
amendment when it comes up for a vote. All we are asking for is $6.2 
billion to get it up to the authorized level.
  The President says he doesn't have the money for that. We have this 
huge deficit. We don't have the money to get out to these schools to 
fully fund this. We don't have the money.
  Last night when I turned on my television set to watch the President 
address the country, he said he is going to send up a supplemental 
appropriations request for $87 billion for reconstruction in Iraq and 
Afghanistan--mostly Iraq. We had an earlier bill this year that was $79 
billion, of which $70 billion was for Iraq and Afghanistan. So 70 and 
now 87; in the space of 6 months this President has asked us to take 
taxpayers' dollars and put $157 billion into Iraq and Afghanistan. And 
we don't have $6 billion to leave no child behind, the poorest kids in 
the poorest areas, the low-income areas. We don't have it. Somehow we 
don't have that.
  Mr. Bremer is talking about rebuilding schools in Iraq. They are 
going to rebuild schools or build schools. I don't think we bombed 
schools in Iraq. Maybe we are going to build new schools. I don't know. 
What about the schools here in America? What about our kids here who 
are being left behind?
  One hundred fifty-seven billion dollars? At the beginning of the Iraq 
war, the Department of Defense estimated we were going to be spending 
about $2.2 billion a month after the war. In June, that went to $3 
billion. As of July, they said they were spending about $3.9 billion a 
month in Iraq, and another $1 billion in Afghanistan. Well, if I am not

[[Page 21425]]

mistaken, there are 12 months in a year. If we assume that is the end 
of it for the whole year, 12 months, $87 billion, it seems to me that 
comes down to more than $7 billion a month. And they told us earlier it 
was going to be $2.2 billion for Iraq, and going down quickly. And now 
it is up to $6 billion in Iraq and $1 billion in Afghanistan, if we 
assume they are not going to ask for any more. And I would not make 
that assumption. So in 1 year, $7 billion a month for Iraq and 
Afghanistan.
  In February, the administration said Iraq's oil reserves would help 
shoulder much of the burden for its own reconstruction. Mr. Wolfowitz 
said on April 6:

       There are enormous resources available from other sources 
     than just the American taxpayer to help the Iraqi people in 
     reconstructing their country. And the oil revenues of Iraq 
     now for the first time in decades will be dedicated to the 
     welfare of the Iraqi people.

  Well, it sure looks like the American taxpayer is footing the bill to 
me. I don't know when those oil drills are going to start coming back 
again and when we are going to start making money off that. Right now 
it is the American taxpayer.
  My point is, for Iraq and Afghanistan they have asked for $157 
billion in 6 months. Yet we can't fund title I. That doesn't make sense 
to me at all. We should have--we do have the resources. Quite frankly, 
if we don't meet those needs and if we don't fund No Child Left Behind, 
then obviously children are going to be left behind. And they are going 
to be the kids of the poorest, low income, because their schools will 
not meet the annual yearly progress reports, the mandates that are out 
there. We are going to lose teachers because schools won't be able to 
pay them what they are worth. Yet we are going to ask the American 
taxpayer to keep coughing up money for this quagmire that we are in now 
in Iraq.
  A lot of people have said: This isn't Vietnam.
  I am one of those who lived through Vietnam. I was in the military 
during the Vietnam war. This may not be Vietnam, but, boy, it sure 
smells like it. Every time I see these bills coming down for the money, 
it is costing like Vietnam, too. No one wants this country to be 
vulnerable to terrorists. We want to take all reasonable diligent steps 
that may be necessary to protect the American people. That is the duty 
of the Commander in Chief. But the Commander in Chief, being an elected 
person, also has to be accountable for how he has gone about ensuring 
the security of the American people. At what cost? At what impact on 
our society?
  So the President has to be held accountable for this. I don't pretend 
to have all the answers for what ought to be done in Iraq or 
Afghanistan, but I do know something--that if we as a nation decide to 
go it alone in the world in anything--but especially in the war on 
terrorism--if we decide to go at it alone, in our way and only in our 
way, without the concurrence of and the help and support of our allies, 
old and new, and of our friends in democratic countries around the 
world, then I think that two things will happen. One, we will not 
address the scourge of terrorism as fully and all-encompassing away as 
it needs to be done--globally--because we are going to need the help of 
other countries in finding terrorists, locating them, breaking up their 
cells, giving you advance warning and giving themselves advance 
warning. That will be the first. We will do it in a military rifle-
shot-type of manner. You may accomplish something for a little bit but 
that doesn't wipe out the terrorist network or the nests. That is the 
first result of our going it alone. The second result is what is quite 
obvious right now--the American taxpayer will foot the bill for 
everything.
  Those are the two things I see happening right now in the world. So I 
think it is time to have an accounting.
  Quite frankly, I think it is time we begin to reach out to other 
nations--our friends and our allies--to enlist their aid and support, 
and to vow that never again are we going to go marching off with just 
the word of the President of the United States. The threat of terrorism 
is not just at us; it is at people all over the world. It is not just 
up to our President--any President--to decide when and how to go after 
these terrorists. It is up to us globally. It is up to the United 
Nations. It is up to NATO, our allies and us working together to decide 
how and when to go after these terrorists.
  I say this because in this bill now there is a shortage of funding 
for education, for health care, for medical research. We are even 
shortchanging the National Institutes of Health on medical research. I 
think Senator Specter will have an amendment later on that, which I 
will support. But we are told we simply don't have the funds. But we do 
have $157 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. Well, it is all a matter of 
priorities. I think we have to get our priorities back in order.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SPECTER. 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. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have heard my distinguished colleague, 
Senator Harkin, talk about the funding on Iraq and the war on 
terrorism, and I agree with him about the desirability of involving 
other nations. I believe the President is trying to do just that right 
now at the United Nations.
  The decision to authorize the use of force was a tough decision back 
on October 11 of last year. The vote was 77 to 23. I don't want to, if 
avoidable, get into an extensive discussion about members of the 
Democratic Party who supported that authorization but they were 
considerable. It was a very substantial vote, with more than three-
fourths of the Senate voting in favor of the use of force. I supported 
the use of force and the objective of deposing an authoritarian 
dictator who had committed brutal acts against humanity, murdering tens 
of thousands, really hundreds of thousands, of his own people.
  Saddam Hussein conclusively had weapons of mass destruction in 
December of 1998, and there was never an explanation as to what he did 
with them. He had chemical weapons. He used them in the Iran-Iraq war. 
He used chemical weapons against the Kurds. He had bioterrorism. Now 
there are efforts to establish a democracy in Iraq and it is very 
difficult, admittedly, to secure law and order and maintain the peace 
there. The President is reaching out to other countries with the U.N. 
resolution, and I think the prospects are good that there will be a 
resolution.
  It is difficult to deal with the French and Germans. The French have 
always been difficult when it comes to a matter of U.S. leadership. The 
French backed out of NATO militarily decades ago. Behind the French and 
German opposition is an eye on the Iraqi oil. I think Russia will come 
along. I think China will not object. I think we will have a U.N. 
resolution and we will have a chance to get Muslim countries, Pakistan 
and Turkey, in and give more confidence to the Arab world and a broader 
base, perhaps ultimately in Egypt and other countries. We are working 
on that.
  If we can establish a democracy in Iraq, it will go a long way toward 
changing the complexion and face of the Middle East. I think there have 
already been significant changes in the attitude of Iran and other Arab 
countries with the tremendous demonstration of military power that the 
United States put on in winning the war so rapidly. And now the harder 
part, as it has eventuated, is to secure order in Iraq and move it 
toward democracy.
  We will have to wait and see the specifics of the President's 
proposal, and I will be interested in the vote of the Senator from Iowa 
and others. It will not be an easy vote to put up very substantial sums 
of money in Iraq but it will not be easy either way.
  The President is saying we have to stay the course, and I believe 
there is a very strong presumption in support of what the President 
will want to do as a matter of executive leadership when he

[[Page 21426]]

comes forward with the specification as to how much money he wants and 
what he wants to use the money for.
  We will see. It is certainly true that at any time on the budget of 
the United States, whether President Clinton, President Reagan, the 
first President Bush, the current President Bush or President Carter is 
in the White House, if either Democrats or Republicans did not spend 
money on defense, we could spend more money on education. There is no 
doubt about that.
  We have a budget. It is a large budget. It is $2,200,000,000,000. So 
we make allocations. We allocate so much for various areas. When the 
argument is made that President Bush should not be given credit for 
increases in the education budget, I think that simply belies the 
facts.
  The support for President Bush is really present in the request he 
has made on the budget, and when the budget for the fiscal year was at 
$40 billion for 2001 and the first request was made by President Bush, 
he asked for $44.5 billion. The next year, 2003, he asked for an 
increase to $50 billion. This year, the administration's request is for 
$53 billion, slightly in excess. So from the 2001 budget, which was the 
last year of his predecessor, to this year, 3 years, there has been a 
33 percent increase.
  If we take a look at the first 3 years of President Clinton, or the 3 
years from fiscal year 1996, when the budget was $26 billion, through 
1999, it went up to $32, a 23 percent increase. If we take the 3 years 
from 1998 through 2001, from $29 billion to $40 billion, there is a 33 
percent increase.
  There has not been any characterization that President Clinton 
shortchanged education, and I think similarly there ought not to be the 
accepted argument that President Bush has shortchanged education.
  When it comes to the question of money for title I, I think it is 
fair to note--and I called attention to these facts when Senator Byrd 
offered this amendment last Tuesday--that when the Democrats controlled 
the appropriations process in the year 2001, looking for the 2002 
budget, the authorization for title I was $13.5 billion. The 
appropriation made by the Democrats was $10,350,000,000, or 
$2,950,000,000 under what the authorization was. It is well known that 
the authorizations are characteristically much higher than the 
appropriations.
  When the argument is made that the authorization for title I is $6 
billion higher today than the appropriation requested by the President, 
that is right in line with what was done when the Democrats controlled 
the appropriations process for fiscal year 2002 on the authorization 
bill, which passed on December 18, at $13.5 billion, and the 
appropriations bill which passed 2 days later, on December 20, at 
$10.35 billion.
  So I believe there has been a recognition of the education needs. It 
is my hope that we will spend more time talking about the substantive 
needs of schoolchildren than the issue of attaching political blame.
  It is my hope that we can move ahead with the completion of this 
bill. Last Wednesday and Thursday, we were talking about compiling a 
list, a list has not been compiled, and there was also talk about 
having a vote on the amendment offered by the Senator from Iowa on 
overtime pay with a request by the Democrats that the vote be scheduled 
for Tuesday. We were trying to work toward that objective. At least in 
the early stages of that discussion, they were not tied together, as I 
recollect the discussions. Senator Harkin and I have very infrequently 
disagreed. I cannot remember any disagreements on the facts. If we do 
have different recollections, we are usually very gentle about it and 
do not press the point on what could be misunderstandings.
  I see we are heading for a tough stalemate that is going to boil down 
to what occurs from time to time as to who is running the Senate, to 
put it bluntly. Is there a Republican majority leader or is it a 
majority leader in name only? I would very much like to work it out.
  I must say I am not pleased to have to arrange the Senate schedule 
around the availability of Senators who are running for President. I 
have considerable sympathy for Senators who run for President. There 
are three Senators in the Chamber today, plus the Chair, and two of the 
four have run for President. So it is a matter where it is not uncommon 
for Senators to run for President.
  In one of the first columns I read by John Kilpatrick when I came to 
the Senate after the 1980 election, he wrote--I thought it was in jest 
but I think he was serious--that when somebody rises and addresses the 
Chair of the Senate and says ``Mr. President,'' 35 heads turn, which is 
the way the Senate operates.
  It is a little disconcerting, to be mild about it, to have to arrange 
our schedule on voting for when the aspirants are in town. I am not 
unaware that if any one Senator wants to start to talk, the Senate will 
not conduct any other business and we could go to regular order. I have 
examined the procedures and we could vote on the Byrd amendment on a 
motion to table, which would not get us too far. We could vote on 
another amendment on a motion to table. We have to have unanimous 
consent to set anything aside. We had hoped to vote this afternoon on a 
series of amendments.
  I received a call this morning, when I was in Pittsburgh--I have a 
day job in Pennsylvania--from the floor leaders, and it appeared we 
would not be able to vote this afternoon and we should make that known 
so that people would not be rushing back to an empty Senate Chamber 
without any votes.
  Let me inquire, if I may, through the Chair, to my learned, 
distinguished, eminent colleague from Iowa, what are we going to do 
about our schedule?
  Mr. HARKIN. Well, if the Senator will yield without losing his right 
to the floor, I will try to respond to his question about the schedule. 
I do want to respond also to my friend's earlier comments on education 
funding, but I will do that when I get the floor in my own right.
  To respond to the inquiry about the schedule, I say to my friend from 
Pennsylvania, there are two observations on who is running the Senate. 
The Senate right now is 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 1 
Independent. The Independent, Mr. Jeffords, caucuses with the 
Democrats, although he maintains an independent status. So it is not 
the case where we have a dictatorship. It is a case where the Senate is 
very closely divided and where there should be a comity in which people 
work together--as the Senator from Pennsylvania and I have done for 13 
years, by the way, I would note for the record--in terms of 
accommodating and trying to reach reasonable accommodations on votes.
  I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, I mentioned last week I was 
going to offer an amendment on overtime. It was no secret. I read it 
into the Record. It was not my side, nor was it this Senator's 
decision, saying that we would only have two votes on Friday morning 
and then go home. We could have stayed Friday and voted. It was not 
this side or this Senator's decision to have one vote on Monday and 
then later cancel it and not even have any votes on Monday.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania knows as well that on Fridays there is 
a vote or two in the morning, everybody takes off, and then we have 
maybe a vote at 5 or 5:30 on Monday--what we call a bed check vote. It 
was this Senator's judgment that most of the votes--and we have a 
finite list of amendments for this bill, I say to the Senator. We 
agreed. Senator Reid, our assistant leader on this side, got a finite 
list of amendments, which is very important because that tells us we 
can bring closure to this bill.
  So it became clear that the big voting day was going to be Tuesday. 
Everyone is going to be here. It will be a long day. We can wrap up. We 
can have a whole series of votes on Tuesday, maybe bring this bill to a 
close by Wednesday--certainly Thursday at the latest.
  I say further to my friend from Pennsylvania that the record shows 
that in the last several years about the average length of time spent 
on this bill, whether it has been in Democratic

[[Page 21427]]

hands or Republican hands, has been about 5 to 7 floor days because 
this is such a big bill. There is a lot in it. There are a lot of 
amendments, and usually a lot of debate on different aspects of this 
bill. So it would not be unusual for this bill, under the leadership of 
my friend, and very good leadership I might say, that we would be on 
the Senate floor for 5 or 6 days on this bill.
  We were on it Wednesday. We had no votes Tuesday--again not our 
decision. The decision was made by the majority leader that we would 
not vote on Tuesday. We were on it Wednesday and Thursday. That is 2 
days. We had two votes on Friday. Today, we are here talking but no 
votes. So Tuesday and Wednesday, that would give us about 5 legislative 
days that we would be on it. We can probably finish this bill by 
Wednesday night, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania.
  So that is the schedule. I am not holding up anything. We couldn't 
vote today anyway. We couldn't vote on anything. The majority leader 
made the decision that we were not going to have votes on this bill 
today.
  When I heard that, I said, OK, I am going to offer my amendment, and 
I will object to going off of my amendment for anything else until we 
vote on it because we can vote on it first thing tomorrow morning. We 
can come in tomorrow morning and vote on it, or tomorrow afternoon we 
could vote on this amendment. We will vote on it.
  I did not mean to go on. I yield.
  Mr. SPECTER. It was my understanding the Senator took the position 
Friday morning there would not be any unanimous consent to setting 
aside the pending amendment until there was an agreement to vote on the 
amendment of the Senator from Iowa on overtime pay on Tuesday.
  Mr. HARKIN. That is true.
  Mr. SPECTER. That was on Tuesday.
  Mr. HARKIN. That is true.
  Mr. SPECTER. So this morning when the floor staff was considering the 
matter, in the absence of any agreement to set aside the Harkin 
amendment so we could vote on other matters or take up other matters, 
it was not possible to do.
  There is not agreement on this side of the aisle to give a time 
certain. My view is to do so, as a matter of comity.
  Mr. HARKIN. I agree. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
  Mr. SPECTER. As a matter of power, in other contexts, in prior 
avocations, there were stronger terms which were used as to the 
situation. But I would call it concessions of power. That is a nicer 
characterization than others might be.
  But anger flares around this place pretty fast. There are a hundred 
Senators. This Chamber is barely big enough to contain the egos when 
people are calm, let alone when tempers flare. Right now there is a lot 
of flare over here, although you can't see it.
  Mr. HARKIN. I have a hard time seeing it over there.
  Mr. SPECTER. The other 49 Republican Senators are not here. But in 
absentia. They are flaring, invisible flares all around the Senate 
Chamber.
  So we are heading for a tough time, I am afraid.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will my friend yield for a question?
  Mr. SPECTER. I do.
  Mr. HARKIN. I don't understand why there is a flareup. This bill, we 
are moving ahead on it. Wednesday and Thursday we had good debates. We 
had amendments. We voted. We brought up amendments, most on our side. I 
think there were a couple on the Republican side that came up.
  I don't know why there should be a flareup. We have the amendments 
pending. We said let's set a time to vote on it. We can move ahead. 
That is the sort of comity you work out. We will work out a time. We 
know we are going to vote on it, so let's find a time that is 
agreeable. In fact, in the well Thursday night, I thought there was an 
agreed-upon time, for the afternoon, for two. I said that is fine; I 
don't care. Then when I came in Friday morning, I found out that had 
been blown out of the water--not by our side but by the Republican 
side.
  Mr. SPECTER. If the Senator from Iowa will yield, there is a flareup 
because some people on this side of the aisle think they are being 
dictated to. I heard the terrible word ``blackmailed'' used in the 
Senate cloakroom, and I rushed out of the cloakroom. I didn't want to 
be subject to listening to that kind of language. But there is a 
feeling that we are being told what to do.
  I do believe it is accurate and fair to say that when the Senator 
from Iowa and I, and the Senator from Nevada and I, were negotiating on 
the list, that it was a sea change to say we are not going to go ahead 
with the list and we are not going to go ahead with the Dodd amendment 
Friday morning. The Senator from Connecticut was waiting to give the 
amendment unless we have a commitment from Republicans on voting on the 
Harkin amendment on overtime pay on Tuesday. That was the proposition.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. SPECTER. I do.
  Mr. HARKIN. Thursday night--you don't have to take my word for it. We 
were in the well with the majority leader----
  Mr. SPECTER. I will take your word for it.
  Mr. HARKIN. The minority leader on our side, Senator Reid. I was 
involved in the discussion. We were just talking about moving ahead and 
getting a vote on this amendment on Tuesday.
  I wouldn't say that hands were shaken and it was agreed, but someone 
said 3 or 3:15 on Tuesday. I said--someone said that to me. I didn't 
say that--I said, fine, OK, let's work it out. We will have a time on 
Tuesday we can work.
  The Senator is right. Some of this does have to do with the fact that 
there are a number on our side running for President. We know that. 
They have been out. But everyone is going to be here tomorrow. The 
point is, not everyone is here today, Monday, not even on your side or 
our side, but everyone is going to be here tomorrow; so that Thursday 
night there was sort of a gentlemen's agreement--the assistant leader 
was there, too--that we would set a time on Tuesday to vote on this. 
That is the kind of thing we work out here.
  If I could just finish? Then, when we come in Friday, I find that has 
been yanked away from us, that we can't have a time agreed upon to 
vote.
  That is when this Senator decided, I am going to lay down my 
amendment and I am going to object to going off it until we get some 
kind of agreement worked out. It is not blackmail. It is just trying to 
move this process forward.
  Mr. SPECTER. If the Senator will yield--I think I still have the 
floor, but in any event I will make the next statement. I think we were 
heading to a situation where we would have worked out a Tuesday vote 
had there not been the sea change with the articulation of your 
position, the Senator from Iowa, about not going ahead unless there was 
a commitment. We were talking about it and we were working on it, but 
one of the great problems we have to avoid around here, so the so-
called cooler heads will prevail, is trying to get it in concrete, 
trying to get it worked out so we can move this process along.
  Here we are, 3:30 on Monday afternoon, and it looks to me it is very 
difficult to iron out this issue at this time.
  Mr. HARKIN. If my friend will yield further, I say why not? Tomorrow 
everyone is going to be here. If you want to agree on a time, you and I 
could agree on a time. I don't care. Everyone is going to be here 
tomorrow. We will agree on a time and we will move forward. There is no 
reluctance or resistance on our part to doing that. I don't know what 
the blocking is.
  Mr. SPECTER. If the Senator would yield--as our expression goes.
  Mr. HARKIN. You have the floor.
  Mr. SPECTER. If the Senator from Iowa would agree to set aside his 
amendment, he and I could agree on that and in the absence of objection 
we could then proceed with other amendments.
  Mr. HARKIN. I would be glad to set it aside. I would be willing to 
agree on a time tomorrow and set it aside.
  Mr. SPECTER. I am saying agree to setting it aside without agreeing 
to a time tomorrow.

[[Page 21428]]


  Mr. HARKIN. What happens to the amendment? Will the Senator 
absolutely assure me if I set it aside that we will vote on this 
amendment tomorrow afternoon?
  Mr. SPECTER. I do not have that authority to make that assurance, as 
I think the Senator from Iowa knows.
  Mr. HARKIN. Well, there you go.
  Mr. SPECTER. I think we have aired it thoroughly. We will try to see 
if the world's greatest deliberative body can undertake some 
deliberation. I yield.
  Mr. HARKIN. I say to my friend, we will work it out. I am sure it 
will be worked out.
  Mr. SPECTER. I yield the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I know my friend from Louisiana wishes to 
speak. I want to take a couple of minutes to respond to the remarks of 
my friend from Pennsylvania about the education bill.
  I am constrained to, once again, point out some facts, as I did with 
this chart. I want to hold it up again. Perhaps my friend wasn't on the 
floor when I held this chart up before. This is education funding from 
fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2004. In his radio address on Saturday, 
President Bush was boasting about the fact that he had an $11 billion 
increase in funding in his administration. That is true. It went from 
$42 billion to $53 billion. That is $11 billion. But no thanks to him.
  As I pointed out before, in fiscal year 2001 it was $42.2 billion, 
and in 2002 Bush asked for $44.5 billion--a very slight increase.
  In negotiations with the President on the No Child Left Behind Act, 
Democrats insisted and got it up to $49.9 billion. The next year 
President Bush asked for $50.3 billion--a $400 million increase, a .05-
percent increase.
  We Democrats fought hard and got it up to $53.1 billion. Now the 
President said in his radio address that he has a boost in education 
funding for next year. As I pointed out, this year it is $53.1 billion, 
and he asked for $53.1.
  Those are the facts. Facts are stubborn things. You can have all the 
rhetoric and dress up your words but facts are stubborn things. The 
fact is, of the $11 billion increase for funding in education since 
this President came to office, the President has only asked for $2.7 
billion of that increase. That is the fact. Facts are very stubborn 
things.
  My friend from Pennsylvania dresses it up. But as we say in Iowa, you 
can put an apron and a pink ribbon on a pig but it is still a pig. You 
can dress this up in all kinds of fancy language. Quite frankly, we are 
leaving education funding behind.
  I wanted to, again, bring out the facts and make sure that people had 
the facts in education funding and why we need to get the Byrd 
amendment agreed to on title I.
  Again, when we negotiated No Child Left Behind, the President and the 
Congress agreed on these funding levels for title I. Now we are $6 
billion less than what we agreed upon earlier.
  Facts are very stubborn things.
  That is why we need to adopt the Byrd amendment.
  I thank the Senator from Louisiana for her patience. I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor to support Senator 
Harkin in his call for additional funding to support the reform 
underway for education.
  I would like to speak a minute about the reforms, the importance of 
living up to our promises and meeting the requirements of the quite 
historic act of Leave No Child Behind, as well as to support Senator 
Harkin in his call to scuttle an unneeded, untimely, and in many ways 
unsettling and disappointing rule that the Labor Department is 
proposing to strip away overtime pay for 8 million workers.
  Since the Senator spoke in just the last moment on education, let me 
start with that. I listened during the last several weeks to so many 
different speeches about the level of education funding. Let me be the 
first to say as a Democrat that I am proud to have led the effort to 
come up with a bipartisan bill that holds out hope and promise to every 
child in our country for a better education.
  I tire of the criticism this side of the aisle receives when people 
say all the Democrats care about is more money and more money. Let me 
remind people about the fact that many of us on this side of the aisle 
rejected the call for more funding just being dumped on the same old 
system. We stood our ground and argued with some Republicans--not all--
whose initial efforts were in many ways to just abandon the public 
school system, eliminate the Department of Education, remove all 
Federal involvement in education, walk away from our Governors, walk 
away from our legislators, and say: Fine. The school system is yours. 
But luckily there were enough Republicans so we rejected that wrong-
headed thinking. We came together and said it is not a straight voucher 
system that is going to solve public education and we don't need to 
abandon public schools. Then some Democrats said it is not just more 
money which we need. It is accountability with added investment and an 
expectation of results that are going to work.
  People would ask me: Senator, how do you know this? Why do you feel 
so strongly about it? How can you be so confident about it? It is not a 
concept for me and for Senator Breaux who represent the State of 
Louisiana that it would be 3 years down the road of reform and 
accountability before we passed the Federal law. We started out--along 
with about five other States--pioneering this new effort to identify 
through strong testing the schools that are working and those that 
aren't; when we identify those that aren't, to give added resources, 
whether they are urban areas or rural areas, to help them turn around 
and improve; when they can and when they fail.
  Then we have the power at the State and Federal levels to close those 
schools or reconstitute those schools so we can provide better 
leadership, a better framework, and better opportunity so the children 
in those schools, along with better qualified teachers, more committed 
administrators, and more involved parents and communities can learn and 
get the job done.
  But all of those new requirements for every child to take a test and 
pass, for teachers to have certification and not willy-nilly 
certification--not the old-fashioned certification but the new kind of 
certification--obviously a college degree but also nontraditional 
certifications such as teachers and executives who have been successful 
and perhaps retired and want to come into the classroom--new and 
innovative ways but still a standard to be met and teachers coming into 
the classroom with good skills and good requirements. We said if we are 
going to raise the bar and increase the mandates and require 
accountability and certification, then we will fund those efforts.
  The other side of the aisle wants to keep saying that all Democrats 
want is more money. We don't just want more money. But we do want this 
administration and we want the President to commit and live up to the 
promises he made to fund the reforms.
  Yes, the amount of money for education has increased, but it does not 
increase because the President has asked for enough money to meet the 
new and rigorous demands that he and we are expecting from our school 
system. We have deadlines in the bill to require States such as 
Louisiana--and in some parishes 40 percent of the teachers are 
unqualified and uncertified, not because people do not want to teach 
but because the salary levels are so low; because of the underfunding 
and the traditional ways we fund education, which is not at all 
equitable throughout this Nation--for any number of reasons we are not 
able to keep those teachers' salaries up. Yet the new law which we all 
supported requires that we have certified teachers.
  While we have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled the mandate, or the 
expectation, or the standards--however you want to define them--we have 
not quadrupled or tripled funds. Therein lies the problem.
  As we raise the standards and expect higher accountability and, as 
Senator Byrd from West Virginia has pointed out a number of times on 
this floor, refuse to step to the plate and fund

[[Page 21429]]

that level, we leave our schools and our local communities--whether it 
is out in the mountains of Montana in big sky country or the bayous, 
flatlands and lowlands of Louisiana, or whether it is an urban center 
like New York or Chicago, we leave our schools and our administrators 
struggling with a mighty task and limited resources. It is wrong.
  Finally on education funding, several decades ago we said to the 
States, we will help you identify special-needs children. The deal is 
if you put up X amount of dollars we will put up X amount of dollars 
because we believe even if children are visually impaired, hard of 
hearing, or have some mental incapacities, they still should receive a 
quality education. We submit to the States, if we identify these 
special-needs children, we will pick up the tab. Again, that was an 
empty promise because today we are picking up much less than the 40 
percent we promised--I think perhaps 10 percent when we promised 40, 
50, or 60 percent.
  Yes, we do need a higher level of commitment from this President and 
from the administration, not to throw money at the old system but to 
help build the new system he and the Republican leadership helped to 
craft. But it is like putting up the framework of a skyscraper and not 
providing the rest of the money necessary to make those changes real 
and to make them stick.
  I know Governors and administrators are struggling. I want them to 
know that at least this Senator and many Democrats, some Republicans, 
are in Washington trying to do what we can to squeeze out additional 
dollars to live up to the promise we made.
  A final point. I am tired of the other side saying, we never meet 
authorization levels. What are you talking about? We authorize X in 
housing, yet we only fund X. We authorize X in research but we only 
fund X. I know that is normally what we do. But Leave No Child Behind 
is not just routine business. It is not just another day at the office. 
It is not just, we will do it when we get to it, and when we don't, we 
can't. This is a national priority this Congress resolved to commit to, 
saying yes, we believe it is an American birthright not just to be able 
to walk into a school but to be able to walk out with a diploma that 
means something. It is in the family's interest, the individual's 
interest, and in the Nation's interest to have that kind of school 
system. We will fund it. And then the next year we didn't.
  The President and the administration deserve and should stand up and 
take the criticism they deserve for not funding it fully as was 
implied, if not directly promised.
  It brings me to, interestingly, in this debate over education 
funding, which the underlying bill helps to focus on, another 
interesting fight or debate about the District of Columbia. This is a 
school system of 500,000 people, a school system with about 75,000 
children. We have been debating in Washington a proposal by the 
original sponsors, Republican leaders in the House. Their basic 
solution to the fact this school system is not quite doing what it 
should do was not, why don't we fully fund what we promised in Leave No 
Child Behind? Why don't we fully fund Title I for the District of 
Columbia? Why don't we fully fund special education? Why don't we 
really hold these teachers and the school system accountable and make 
sure these schools that are failing are closed?
  No. Before the ink was dry on the Leave No Child Behind Act, there 
was a group that said, Vouchers are the answer.
  With all due respect to well-meaning colleagues, vouchers are not the 
answer to education challenges in America. Full funding for Leave No 
Child Behind, funding teacher certification, smaller classroom size, 
funding to repair dilapidated school systems, and funding research and 
innovation, and giving flexibility at the local level is what will help 
our local school system.
  If there was an opportunity under Leave No Child Behind, if a school 
was identified as needing reform and it had to be closed and there are 
several hundred children or perhaps even 1,000 in some of these 
schools--it is allowable now, permissible now at the local level, 
without any action Congress might take with that local school system, 
to use a voucher proposal; not federally mandated, not federally 
required, not contingent upon getting any new funds, but it is allowed 
now for those students in failing schools to opt out to either higher 
performing public schools or charter schools or to a private school 
that is accredited with that money. And that maybe if it is designed 
specifically for children in failing schools, if there is the same 
accountability requirements--in other words, children in public schools 
have to take certain tests to make sure the public dollars being spent 
are being spent well--if those accountability measures are followed by 
the accountable voucher proposal, then perhaps that is something that 
should be considered, but in the context of more full funding for Leave 
No Child Behind and in the context of supporting other admirable reform 
efforts in the schools like charter schools and the transformation of 
some of the public schools that are going on today.
  I was recently criticized by the Wall Street Journal for my position 
in this particular debate. Although it is not worth putting it into the 
Congressional Record, the article was factually incorrect on so many 
different points, including criticizing me for changing my position. My 
position on this has been constant over the last several years. Again, 
I don't believe a mandate in public schools of going to a system of 
vouchers helps to strengthen the public school system. However, I 
believe when failing schools are identified, children from families 
with limited resources should be allowed but not required, if the 
vouchers meet the same accountability standards as Leave No Child 
Behind allowed, to be able to move to a higher performing school.
  My position has been consistent. I ask unanimous consent to have 
printed in the Record a beautiful letter written by the head of the 
Georgetown Day School, Peter M. Branch, where my children attend. This 
letter is in response to the Wall Street Journal editorial.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                September 5, 2003.
       Dear Editor: In a Wall Street Journal editorial on 
     September 5, 2003, you described Georgetown Day School of 
     Washington, D.C., which is attended by Senator Mary 
     Landrieu's children, among many others, as ``one of the 
     district's toniest private academies.'' It is clearly 
     purposeless to quarrel with the media's generic description 
     of independent schools as ``tony'' or ``elite,'' but the not 
     so subtle comparison to private segregationist academies that 
     arose post Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) is repulsive 
     in view of the well known history of our school. Founded in 
     1945 by black and white parents who did no want their 
     children to attend the legally segregated public schools in 
     the District of Columbia, Georgetown Day was the first 
     integrated school in our Nation's capital. That commitment to 
     a quality education for a diverse student population has been 
     central to the mission of GDS throughout our history. It is 
     the reason that Thurgood Marshall, Walter Washington, Harry 
     Belafonte, Roger Wilkins, Walter Fauntroy, and, I believe, 
     Senator Mary Landrieu have sent their children to this 
     school.
       As a school that is nearly one third students of color and 
     provides financial aid to 17 percent of our students, GDS is 
     a strong supporter of school choice for all children. 
     However, the proposed vouchers for D.C. will not cover our 
     tuition without financial aid, will require us to forfeit any 
     selection process, and will subject us to governmental 
     interference which will jeopardize the independence of action 
     that enabled us to exist in the first place. For perhaps 
     2,000 district students, this bill may give them an 
     opportunity to move out of the public schools. But there is 
     no indication that there will be sufficient space in the non-
     public sector or that the schools willing to sacrifice their 
     independence will offer greater quality. And this bill will 
     be of no help to the 64,800 students who will remain in the 
     public schools of D.C. which still require reform and 
     adequate funding. Your editorial described the voucher bill 
     as ``the bill to liberate D.C. children.'' I fear that 
     description is as inaccurate as your description of 
     Georgetown Day School.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Peter M. Branch,
                            Head of School, Georgetown Day School.

  This letter is from Mr. Peter Branch, a very dignified and able 
administrator in the District. My husband and I are

[[Page 21430]]

proud to send our children to a school that was formed specifically to 
fight segregation. To this day, it is one of the most integrated 
schools in the District of Columbia.
  All of us who pay a pretty steep tuition to send our children there 
are pleased and proud that a portion of that tuition goes to one of the 
most aggressive scholarship programs that allows other families who 
don't have the same kind of economic opportunity to send their children 
to a school of this quality.
  I can tell you, there is not a day I walk into that school that I 
don't say thank goodness I can finally see what excellence really is. 
It gives me a view and a vision for what can be accomplished in our 
public schools, in our public charter schools. And through the Leave No 
Child Behind Act--if followed, if implemented, if funded, and if 
adhered to by our Governors and by our superintendents, and embraced by 
our teachers and our administrators, and embraced by our parents, and 
followed through on behalf of our children--we can indeed provide a 
quality public education, a charter education, a magnet school 
education; and then, in the event those options fail, yes, a private 
school or parochial school choice for children who are in schools that 
are absolutely not working.
  This approach provides more choice and more opportunity and more 
competition for people of all stripes and backgrounds and situations. 
That is what this debate is about. It is about full funding--not just 
throwing more money at the system but full funding of the reforms and 
the promises we made. It is about making the right decisions when it 
comes to choice and to scholarships. And if we are going to have 
accountability in the public school sector, then let's most certainly--
before we take a step in the direction to have accountability in our 
voucher proposal for failing schools and designed specifically--if it 
is truly meant to help children in failing schools, then let's at least 
have the proposal directed to children in failing schools and not the 
broad sweep as currently under the Gregg-Feinstein language.
  So I join my colleague Senator Harkin in his plea for stronger 
funding, better policies, and more and better implementation of the 
Leave No Child Behind Act in this bill.


                           Amendment No. 1580

  In addition, Mr. President, I want to say a word about another 
amendment that is pending on this bill. It does not have to do with 
education, but I guess it does have to do with the health of our 
workers, the health of the American people. That has to do with the 
overtime regulation the Bush administration is putting forward.
  I really couldn't think of a more wrongheaded change of a law at a 
worse time than this particular regulation, which seeks to undermine 
the 40-hour workweek for 8 million workers, most of those workers being 
women, but affecting many workers--white, black, Asian, and Hispanic. 
As I say, the way the rule is proposed and crafted, many women would be 
affected.
  Right now, if you make the minimum wage--and this administration and 
the Republicans have refused to raise the minimum wage. Although plea 
after plea has been made to raise the minimum wage, they have refused. 
The minimum wage is still $5.15 an hour. If you work 40 hours a week at 
the minimum wage, you make the whopping salary of $10,400. How someone 
in America is to send their children to the doctor, send their children 
to school, buy groceries, pay rent, or buy a house on $10,400 a year, I 
don't know. But the Republican administration, led by the President, 
refuses to agree to a gradual increase in the minimum wage. Luckily, 
minimum-wage workers are exempt from this draconian rule the 
administration is proposing.
  But for workers making between $30,000 and $65,000 a year, many of 
whom are nurses, policemen, firemen, dental hygienists, postmasters, 
motor service carriers, preschool teachers, welfare eligibility 
workers, agricultural inspectors, zoning inspectors, conservation 
agents, white-collar workers--because of this rule, because of the 
Labor Department's insistence or determination that these workers no 
longer need or deserve the protection of the 40-hour workweek, they 
will be stripped of their ability to earn overtime.
  I don't know what the Labor Department was thinking. When they wake 
up in the morning, the administrators, do they read the headlines of 
the paper? Are they following the situation where many people are out 
of work? As an example, perhaps in a particular family, one spouse is 
out of work. The Republican administration is saying, well, we know 
your wife is out of work or your husband is out of work, and you are 
now basically making ends meet with overtime, but our new rule in 
Washington says we are going to take the overtime from you.
  I don't even understand why we would be considering a rule at this 
time. We should be encouraging small businesses to expand opportunities 
for workers. If they can pay these workers the same amount of money for 
60 hours as 40 hours, there is no need to hire additional workers. If 
we take this overtime requirement away, there is no reason why a small 
businessperson would go out and hire a new worker. So it does not help 
us increase the number of jobs in this country. It is unfair to the 
workers who are earning the overtime. And it is very unfair to the 
middle class, particularly women--in many instances single women 
raising children.
  In conclusion, I find it very ironic that just last Friday, September 
5, we adopted a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, S. Res. 210. This 
sense-of-the-Senate resolution expresses that October should be 
designated as National Work and Family Month. It is a resolution that 
was submitted by Senator Hatch and several other Members. We 
unanimously adopted this resolution last week. It expresses ``the sense 
of the Senate that supporting a balance between work and personal life 
is in the best interest of national worker productivity. . . .''
  It says:

       Whereas the quality of workers' jobs and the supportiveness 
     of their workplaces are key predictors of job productivity, 
     job satisfaction, commitment to employers, and retention;
       Whereas there is a clear link between work-family policies 
     and lower absenteeism;
       Whereas the more overworked employees feel, the more likely 
     they are to report making mistakes, feel anger and resentment 
     toward employers and coworkers, and look for a new job;
       Whereas employees who feel overworked tend to feel less 
     successful in their relationships with their spouses, 
     children, and friends, and tend to neglect themselves, feel 
     less healthy, and feel more stress. . . .

  And it goes on and on. And it says:

       Resolved, That--it is the sense of the Senate that--
     reducing the conflict between work and family life should be 
     a national priority; and the month of October should be 
     designated as ``National Work and Family Month''. . . .

  So I guess in honor of National Work and Family Month, we now decide 
it is going to make people less cranky if they can work 60 hours a week 
and not get paid overtime for 20. They are working 40 hours, and we 
would pay them for that, but now we are to require them to work 60 
hours and not pay them overtime and expect them to be happier, less 
grumpy, and more fulfilled at work and at home.
  May I suggest we stop adopting resolutions such as this if we are 
going to start promoting rules such as the one that is proposed by the 
Labor Department, and let's just be honest with ourselves.
  So I hope we won't go to another amendment. I hope we won't vote on 
anything else until we either withdraw this sense-of-the-Senate 
resolution, which makes no sense considering we are just about ready to 
pass a rule that says you can work but we are not going to pay you 
overtime, we are going to require that you work and we are not going to 
pay overtime, and we want you to be happy doing it--that is basically 
what we would be saying--I suggest we either repeal the sense-of-the-
Senate resolution or not pass the overtime rule that is being proposed 
by the Bush administration and by the Secretary of Labor at this time.
  So for all these reasons, let's stay on this bill. It is an important 
bill for education. It is an important bill for our

[[Page 21431]]

children. It is a very significant issue I hope we can resolve. If we 
do give the opportunity for children in failing schools to move to a 
higher performing school, let's do it the right way, with accountable 
vouchers, remove the Federal mandate, and not be sidetracked with a 
siren song about how supporting a few children in schools is going to 
correct the fact that President Bush refuses to fund Leave No Child 
Behind.
  Let's not pass this new labor amendment which would strip overtime 
from 8 million workers. That paycheck for overtime that many of those 
workers are picking up is helping them to pay a mortgage and make ends 
meet at a time when the economy is not as strong as it should be and 
could be with different leadership.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Rebuilding Iraq

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last evening President Bush addressed the 
Nation about the situation in Iraq. I wish to comment briefly about his 
request for $87 billion in supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 
2004 request that he will soon send to Congress.
  I believe every single penny requested to support the troops who are 
now serving in Iraq ought to be appropriated by the Congress. When 
America sends its sons and daughters to war, it should provide all that 
is necessary for them to do their job, to protect themselves, and to 
carry out their missions. So speaking for myself, I believe every 
single penny requested and necessary for the soldiers who represent 
this country in the Iraqi theater and in Afghanistan and other areas 
must be made available.
  There are not a lot of good choices in Iraq. We understand that. This 
is a difficult situation. But this country cannot now leave Iraq. We 
are opening mass graves, football-field-size graves with 10 to 12,000 
skeletons in them. We know that what happened in Iraq was genocide. We 
also know that if we leave today, there will immediately be massive 
numbers of murders and revenge killings. We simply cannot allow that to 
happen. We are faced with a circumstance in which there are not a lot 
of good choices, but we must be there at this point.
  That said, it seems to me that the Administration ought to 
aggressively seek assistance from the United Nations, from NATO, and 
from other countries and get them to supply the troops and resources to 
help us carry out this mission. The U.S. military is stretched too thin 
to stabilize Iraq by themselves.
  Part of the $87 billion that the President is going to request from 
Congress will be for the reconstruction of Iraq. There need to be some 
significant questions asked about that. It is not that I question the 
need for reconstruction in Iraq. It is a precondition for the 
development of a new democracy in that country. But Iraq has the second 
largest oil reserves in the world next to Saudi Arabia. One question 
is, What kind of support shall these oil reserves provide in the future 
for reconstruction? How will the Iraqi oil now under the sands--again, 
the second largest oil reserves in the world--contribute to the 
reconstruction? And what kind of support will other countries provide 
for reconstruction? Who will provide what resources? Who will make what 
contributions?
  I ask all of those questions on behalf of the American taxpayer 
because I don't believe Americans should have the sole responsibility 
for paying to reconstruct Iraq. This in fact is a situation that 
affects not only our country but the entire world. Again, we need to 
seek aggressively the assistance of the United Nations, NATO, and other 
countries in meeting these obligations. It is important for us to ask 
the administration for detailed plans and an aggressive approach to 
address the issues with respect to future reconstruction of Iraq.
  Then the final question with respect to all of this is, how do we 
reconcile the President's request for $87 billion in additional 
spending for Iraq with last week's announcements that the President 
would like additional tax cuts? We know this year the Federal deficit 
will be somewhere around $475 billion, and next year it is expected to 
grow to over $500 billion. If we are talking, on the one hand, with 
this President, about additional tax cuts and, on the other hand, about 
additional spending, $87 billion at a time when we have the highest 
deficits in the history of our country, it is important to ask: How 
does this add up? How do we find this money? Where does it come from? 
What do we do to achieve the resources to do the job in Iraq?
  Again, stating the obvious, we must spend every penny requested to 
support the troops. Those men and women who have been called to serve 
our country do so willingly. They protect our liberty and our freedom, 
and this country can do no less than provide all that is necessary for 
their support.
  But, it is important for the people of America to ask the larger 
questions about what is the economic plan that provides the resources 
and the strength for the economic engine that makes all of this 
possible. What is happening in this country? How do we produce the 
revenue, restart the economic engine in order to make all of this 
possible?
  I noticed this weekend, on Saturday in the New York Times, ``Job 
Losses Mount for the Second Straight Month,'' 93,000 fewer jobs in this 
month than in the previous month. We have roughly 11 million people 
looking for work; some say 9 million. There are a couple million more 
at least who have been part of the unemployment rolls who have actually 
stopped actively searching, having not found a job for some long while.
  The question is, How do they find work? How do we employ those in 
this country who need employment?
  This headline suggests, once again, that while the economy seems to 
be growing, perhaps slowly--more slowly than we would like--it may also 
be the case that this is a ``jobless'' recovery. If that is the case, 
that is very troublesome. Paul Gregg Roberts, who was a Reagan 
economist in the 1980s, has written about the prospect of a jobless 
economy, and he said, in fact, that this economy is growing some and it 
is producing jobs--it is just that the jobs are not being produced in 
the U.S.
  There is something called ``offshor-
ing.'' That means companies are deciding increasingly to move jobs 
offshore--jobs that used to be American jobs, used to be jobs inside 
this country, which provided a living for a family with decent pay, 
decent benefits, working in a safe workplace, all of those things the 
American people have come to expect if you work hard and play by the 
rules. The fact is, too many jobs are now being sent offshore because 
you can perform these jobs much less expensively offshore.
  If offshoring is a way to export American jobs, even as the American 
economy expands some, the question is, What kind of an economy do you 
have in the future? Jobless recoveries do not solve the problem we face 
in this country. The reason it relates to the question that I think the 
President has raised last evening and last week of $87 billion in 
additional spending, at the same time that we increase the tax cuts or 
provide additional tax cuts at the request of the President, the 
question is, How does this add up?
  The fact is, our economy has a cycle called the business cycle. No 
one--no economist can repeal the business cycle.
  The business cycle means you have an expansionary phase of the 
economy and a contractionary phase. That is just as inevitable as the 
tides. What causes that? Is it because there are a bunch of economists 
who talk about monetary and fiscal policy and this ship of state of 
ours is somehow moving on the high seas and there is someone in the 
engine room and they are fine-tuning this, that, and the other thing--
dials, levers, gauges, M(1)(b) investment tax credit, accelerated 
depreciation, monetary and fiscal policy? No, that is not what causes 
the ship of

[[Page 21432]]

state to move forward. There is, in my judgment, an overblown sense of 
self-importance among economists who talk about what they know or don't 
know--mostly about what they think they know. Our economy moves forward 
when the American people are confident in the future.
  The expansion side is people being confident about the future. When 
they are confident, they do things that manifest that confidence--buy a 
house, buy a car, take a trip. That is the expansion side of the 
economy.
  When they are not confident about the future, they do the exact 
opposite. They decide not to buy the car, not to buy the house, not to 
take a trip because they are not certain about the future. That is the 
contraction side of the economy. As it is now, they see an economy with 
very large deficits--the biggest deficits in the history of our country 
by far. They see an economy that 3 years ago had very large surpluses 
that were predicted to exist for the next 12 years. In fact, the 
Federal Reserve Board--God bless them, they always have a great sense 
of humor--the Federal Reserve Board worried that the surpluses were 
going to be far too large and that would create a drag on the economy. 
I guess they are not so much worried about that these days because in 3 
years the largest surpluses in the history of this country have turned 
into the largest deficits for as far as the eye could see. There is 
nothing in the next 10-year projections that show us reaching a 
balanced budget.
  The reason this is important is, the people need to be confident 
about the future of this economy to expand, and this expansion of the 
economy must not be just in numbers, it must be in jobs as well. This 
offshoring must be abated somehow so that the expansion of jobs is also 
an expansion of jobs in this country.
  That is the only way this great economy of ours--the strongest on the 
face of the Earth--is going to provide the resources to sustain and 
provide that which we need to do what the President talked about last 
evening. So I just think it is very important for us at this point to 
begin thinking seriously about the larger questions of fiscal policy 
and confidence as well.
  In conclusion, I am going to support every single dollar requested 
that will support the troops we have sent abroad to fight for this 
country. However, that does not mean I am going to support every dollar 
the President requests for the Pentagon. For example, I expect we will 
soon have the opportunity to offer some amendments to save money by 
cancelling some new nuclear weapons that the administration has 
proposed in the budget.
  Let me describe a couple of them. These are things I will not support 
and hope to cut funding for. We have some people downtown in the 
administration who believe nuclear weapons should be treated like any 
other weapon and that we should have a policy to use them in certain 
circumstances. That is a very dangerous way of thinking. We have never 
used nuclear weapons, with the exception of at the end of the Second 
World War. Up to now, American policy has been to have nuclear weapons 
in order to prevent nuclear weapons from ever being used. That is 
called the mutually assured destruction concept, which we have lived 
with for 40 to 50 years. Now we have people who see them as any other 
weapon. They talk about using them, and they are suggesting we might 
need to use them first.
  Some would like to begin testing nuclear weapons again. We have not 
tested nuclear weapons for over a decade. The President's budget 
requests research and development money for the development of new 
earth penetrator, bunker buster nuclear weapons. The President has 
requested money for what are called low-yield nuclear weapons. 
Apparently, they are designer nuclear weapons that can be used more 
easily on the battlefield. I think this is horribly dangerous for this 
country. What kind of a signal do we send to other countries that have 
or want to acquire nuclear weapons? That nuclear weapons can be usable 
if you just design them in a different way? That if you want to find 
somebody holed up in a cave, you should just build a designer bunker 
buster nuclear weapon--not so little really--that you can lob in to 
destroy the cave.
  This is terribly destructive to this country's public policy. I think 
it is hard for me to find the adjectives to describe how shortsighted 
and dangerous I think this is. I intend to offer an amendment--and I 
know some of my colleagues will as well--to take some of that money out 
that would produce these designer nuclear weapons. We don't need them. 
After all, there are around 30,000 nuclear weapons on the face of this 
earth. A couple of years ago, there was a flurry of anxiety in the 
government when there was a rumor that terrorists had stolen one 
nuclear weapon. One stolen weapon would cause a seizure, and there are 
roughly 30,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons on the face of 
the Earth.
  We don't need to build more nuclear weapons. And, as the leader in 
the world, we ought to be striving to use our prestige to prevent the 
spread of nuclear weapons and to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. 
The last thing we ought to do is undermine nonproliferation efforts by 
saying that we need to build nuclear weapons to bust bunkers and for 
other uses.
  I think that is horribly dangerous and destructive. That is one area 
where we might save a little money and begin ratcheting down this 
deficit that we and the President have to come to grips with.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________