[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2467-2478]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     FAIR MINIMUM WAGE ACT OF 2007

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 2, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2) to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 
     1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage.

  Pending:

       Reid (for Baucus) amendment No. 100, in the nature of a 
     substitute.
       McConnell (for Gregg) amendment No. 101 (to amendment No. 
     100), to provide Congress a second look at wasteful spending 
     by establishing enhanced rescission authority under fast-
     track procedures.
       Kyl amendment No. 115 (to amendment No. 100), to extend 
     through December 31, 2008, the depreciation treatment of 
     leasehold, restaurant, and retail space improvements.
       Enzi (for Ensign/Inhofe) amendment No. 152 (to amendment 
     No. 100), to reduce document fraud, prevent identity theft, 
     and preserve the integrity of the Social Security system.
       Enzi (for Ensign) amendment No. 153 (to amendment No. 100), 
     to preserve and protect Social Security benefits of American 
     workers, including those making minimum wage, and to help 
     ensure greater Congressional oversight of the Social Security 
     system by requiring that both Houses of Congress approve a 
     totalization agreement before the agreement, giving foreign 
     workers Social Security benefits, can go into effect.
       Vitter/Voinovich amendment No. 110 (to amendment No. 100), 
     to amend title 44 of the United States Code, to provide for 
     the suspension of fines under certain circumstances for 
     first-time paperwork violations by small business concerns.
       DeMint amendment No. 155 (to amendment No. 100), to amend 
     the Public Health Service Act to provide for cooperative 
     governing of individual health insurance coverage offered in 
     interstate commerce, and to amend the Internal Revenue Code 
     of 1986 regarding the disposition of unused health benefits 
     in cafeteria plans and flexible spending arrangements and the 
     use of health savings accounts for the payment of health 
     insurance premiums for high deductible health plans purchased 
     in the individual market.
       DeMint amendment No. 156 (to amendment No. 100), to amend 
     the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 regarding the disposition 
     of unused health benefits in cafeteria plans and flexible 
     spending arrangements.
       DeMint amendment No. 157 (to the language proposed to be 
     stricken by amendment No. 100), to increase the Federal 
     minimum wage by an amount that is based on applicable State 
     minimum wages.
       DeMint amendment No. 159 (to amendment No. 100), to protect 
     individuals from having their money involuntarily collected 
     and used for lobbying by a labor organization.
       DeMint amendment No. 160 (to amendment No. 100), to amend 
     the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow certain small 
     businesses to defer payment of tax.
       DeMint amendment No. 161 (to amendment No. 100), to 
     prohibit the use of flexible schedules by Federal employees 
     unless such flexible schedule benefits are made available to 
     private sector employees not later than 1 year after the date 
     of enactment of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.
       DeMint amendment No. 162 (to amendment No. 100), to amend 
     the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 regarding the minimum 
     wage.
       Kennedy (for Kerry) amendment No. 128 (to amendment No. 
     100), to direct the Administrator of the Small Business 
     Administration to establish a pilot program to provide 
     regulatory compliance assistance to small business concerns.
       Martinez amendment No. 105 (to amendment No. 100), to 
     clarify the house parent exemption to certain wage and hour 
     requirements.
       Sanders amendment No. 201 (to amendment No. 100), to 
     express the sense of the Senate concerning poverty.
       Gregg amendment No. 203 (to amendment No. 100), to enable 
     employees to use employee option time.
       Burr amendment No. 195 (to amendment No. 100), to provide 
     for an exemption to a minimum wage increase for certain 
     employers who contribute to their employees health benefit 
     expenses.
       Chambliss amendment No. 118 (to amendment No. 100), to 
     provide minimum wage rates for agricultural workers.
       Kennedy (for Feinstein) amendment No. 167 (to amendment No. 
     118), to improve agricultural job opportunities, benefits, 
     and security for aliens in the United States.
       Enzi (for Allard) amendment No. 169 (to amendment No. 100), 
     to prevent identity theft by allowing the sharing of Social 
     Security data among government agencies for immigration 
     enforcement purposes.
       Enzi (for Cornyn) amendment No. 135 (to amendment No. 100), 
     to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the 
     Federal unemployment surtax.
       Enzi (for Cornyn) amendment No. 138 (to amendment No. 100), 
     to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to expand 
     workplace health incentives by equalizing the tax 
     consequences of employee athletic facility use.
       Sessions (for Kyl) amendment No. 209 (to amendment No. 
     100), to extend through December 31, 2012, the increased 
     expensing for small businesses.
       Division I of Sessions (for Kyl) amendment No. 210 (to 
     amendment No. 100), to provided for the permanent extension 
     of increasing expensing for small businesses, the 
     depreciation treatment of leasehold, restaurant, and retail 
     space improvements, and the work opportunity tax credit.
       Division II of Sessions (for Kyl) amendment No. 210 (to 
     amendment No. 100), to provided for the permanent extension 
     of increasing expensing for small businesses, the 
     depreciation treatment of leasehold, restaurant, and retail 
     space improvements, and the work opportunity tax credit.
       Division III of Sessions (for Kyl) amendment No. 210 (to 
     amendment No. 100), to provided for the permanent extension 
     of increasing expensing for small businesses, the 
     depreciation treatment of leasehold, restaurant, and retail 
     space improvements, and the work opportunity tax credit.
       Division IV of Sessions (for Kyl) amendment No. 210 (to 
     amendment No. 100), to provided for the permanent extension 
     of increasing expensing for small businesses, the 
     depreciation treatment of leasehold, restaurant, and retail 
     space improvements, and the work opportunity tax credit.
       Division V of Sessions (for Kyl) amendment No. 210 (to 
     amendment No. 100), to provided for the permanent extension 
     of increasing expensing for small businesses, the 
     depreciation treatment of leasehold, restaurant, and retail 
     space improvements, and the work opportunity tax credit.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it has been a week now that the Senate 
has had on its agenda and before the Senate legislation to increase the 
minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. In that week, every Member of 
Congress has effectively earned $3,200, but we have not

[[Page 2468]]

acted on an increase in the minimum wage for hard-working American 
people who are earning $5.15, to raise their minimum wage to $7.25. We 
have had 1 week of talking here on the floor of the Senate without 
action.
  It looks to me as if we are going to have, thankfully, as a result of 
the action of the majority leader, a vote at least on cloture to try to 
terminate the debate. But there will be additional procedural issues 
that will mean that those who are opposed to an increase in the minimum 
wage will be able to delay the increase in the minimum wage for another 
week.
  As the parliamentary situation is playing its way out, there will be 
the possibility of 60 hours after the vote on cloture, which will take 
us effectively through the end of this week. So that will be 2 weeks 
where the Members of the Senate have then earned $6,400, but we have 
been unwilling to either vote up or down on the increase of the minimum 
wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour.
  For the millions of people at the lower end of the economic ladder--
men and women of dignity who work hard, those who are assistants to our 
teachers and work in the schools of this country, those who work in 
some of the nursing homes and look after the elderly, many of those of 
the great generation that fought in World War II and brought the 
country out of the time of the Depression--they are still earning $5.15 
an hour. They work in many of the hotels and motels that dot the 
countryside and the great buildings of American commerce--these people 
are working at $5.15. They will work for that tomorrow, and they worked 
for that the day before. And now, because our Republican friends refuse 
to permit us a vote, they are going to continue to work at $5.15 an 
hour. It has been 10 years.
  I went back and looked at the number of days we have tried to get an 
increase in the minimum wage since our last increase, and that was 16 
days. So we have effectively been debating an increase in the minimum 
wage for 23 days since the last increase in the minimum wage, and there 
has been opposition from our Republican friends.
  It is true that we have disposed of some 21 amendments, but there are 
almost 100 left from that side. We don't have any. We will have some if 
they insist on some amendments. But our side is prepared to vote now. I 
daresay the majority leader would come out here, if the minority leader 
would agree, and set a time--I bet even for this afternoon, in an hour, 
2 hours, perhaps even less. Perhaps some colleagues have been notified 
that we would not have votes today, so in fairness to them we could 
start the vote at the start of business tomorrow morning. There would 
not be any objection here. There are no amendments on our side. Still, 
there are 90 amendments on the other side, and they are exercising 
parliamentary procedures in order to get to delay the consideration of 
the minimum wage, including $200 billion in changes in Social 
Security--that was an amendment offered from that side--$35 billion in 
tax reductions and areas of education, some of which I support, but 
certainly with no offsets. They were never considered. They didn't 
include offsets, for example, with IDEA, the legislation that looks 
after the disabled children, or didn't increase the Pell grants. We 
didn't even have a chance to look at it. But no, no, let's do that, use 
this vehicle for that measure. Let's get those Members on your side and 
the Democratic side lined up to vote against providing additional 
assistance on education. Maybe we can use that in the next campaign.
  What about health savings accounts--that wonderful idea that benefits 
the medium income; the people it benefits are those making $133,000 a 
year. That is the medium income of the people who benefit from the 
health savings accounts. We are talking about raising the minimum wage 
to $7.25. They are talking about giving additional tax benefits to 
individuals in the health savings accounts of hundreds of thousands of 
dollars.
  The list goes on, Mr. President. These are matters which have 
absolutely nothing to do with the minimum wage. It is a delay, and it 
is to politicize these issues. We all know what is going on. The 
Republican leadership is opposed to the increase in the minimum wage. 
When they had the majority of the Senate, they constantly opposed any 
effort. Even though a majority of the Members of this body and the 
House of Representatives favored an increase, they refused to permit us 
to get a vote on it, and the President indicated he would veto it if we 
had.
  So that is where we are as we start off this week on the issue of the 
minimum wage. We find out our side--the Democratic side--follows the 
leadership that took place in the House of Representatives with Nancy 
Pelosi. They had 4 hours of debate, and 80 members of the Republican 
Party voted for an increase in the minimum wage. But here it is a 
different story. For the millions of Americans who say: My goodness, 
here is the House of Representatives; look, in 4 hours, it looks as if 
hope is on the way--and they didn't understand the strength of the 
Republican opposition to an increase in the minimum wage. I have seen 
it at other times. We have seen it at other times.
  It is always baffling to me, what the Republicans have against hard-
working Americans. What do they have against minimum wage workers? We 
don't hear about it. They don't debate it. They will debate other 
matters, but what do they have against them? What possibly do they have 
against these hard-working Americans? They are trying to provide for 
families, play by the rules, and work 40 hours a week, and in so many 
instances they are trying to bring up children. What is so outrageous?
  Some say that if we raise the minimum wage, we are going to have the 
problem of increasing unemployment. We have heard that argument out 
here on the floor. Let me, first of all, show what has happened 
historically with the minimum wage.
  Until recent times, we have had Republicans and Democrats who 
supported an increase in the minimum wage, starting with Franklin D. 
Roosevelt, Harry Truman, then Dwight Eisenhower. They raised it $1 in 
1955. Then President Kennedy increased it, Lyndon Johnson, Richard 
Nixon supported an increase, Jimmy Carter, George Bush I, and William 
Clinton. That was the last increase. We voted on it in 1996, and it 
became effective in the fall of 1997. There were two different phases 
to it.
  First, people say: When you raise the minimum wage, look what is 
going to happen in terms of unemployment. Unemployment will rise.
  If we look at what has happened with unemployment at the time we 
passed the last increase in the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour in 1997, 
we can see there have been small increases, but the whole trend has 
been down. So much for the argument of unemployment.
  They say: That chart really doesn't show it because it doesn't 
reflect what is happening in the economy in terms of job growth. Look 
at what happened when we raised the minimum wage from $4.25 an hour to 
$4.75 an hour, and then we raised it again to $5.15 an hour. Look at 
that red line showing steady and constant job growth after an increase 
in the minimum wage.
  Look at what percent the minimum wage is. Increasing the minimum wage 
to $7.25 is vital to workers, but it is a drop in the bucket to the 
national payroll. All Americans combined earn $5.4 trillion a year. A 
minimum wage increase to $7.25 is less than one-fifth of 1 percent of 
this national payroll. It is less than one-fifth of 1 percent of this 
national payroll. And we have heard from those who oppose the minimum 
wage about all of these economic calamities. These are the facts in 
terms of the national payroll. It isn't even a drop in the bucket. It 
isn't even a piece of sand on the beach it is so little. Yet they say 
the economic indicators say this.
  Look what has happened to States that have a higher minimum wage than 
the national minimum wage, and see what has happened in terms of job 
growth. This chart shows 11 States plus the District of Columbia with 
wages higher than $5.15 an hour. Overall employment growth has been 9.7 
percent;

[[Page 2469]]

39 States with a minimum wage at $5.15, 7.5 percent. Those States that 
have had an increase in the minimum wage have had more job growth, and 
it is understandable. The economic reports and studies show that if 
workers are treated fairly, there will be increased productivity. They 
are going to stay around longer and work. There will be less 
absenteeism, less turnover, more productivity, and you are going to 
increase your output. And this is all reflected in various studies.
  Look at small business. They say that is good for the Nation, but it 
doesn't really reflect what is happening to small businesses.
  This chart states that higher minimum wages create more small 
businesses. The overall growth in number of small businesses from 1998 
to 2003 is 5.4 percent and 4.2 percent. These are the small businesses 
about which we heard a great deal. We have the small business exemption 
that exempts 3.6 million workers who are working for the real mom-and-
pop stores, where their gross income is less than $500,000.
  This gives us some idea of the nature of the economic arguments. They 
don't hold water. They didn't hold water previously. We have seen a 
decline in the purchasing power of the minimum wage over this period of 
time. This chart is in real dollars. We can see where it was in 1960, 
1965, 1970, 1975, going to 1980 and then a gradual decline. Starting in 
1980, under President Reagan, it is going down. And we see the 
increases that came in the nineties under President Clinton. The 
purchasing power of $5.15, as this chart shows, was probably the lowest 
it had ever been. Its purchasing power has lost 20 percent. All we are 
asking is to get it back to $7.25 and to get the purchasing power back 
to where it was when we went to $5.15. Isn't that outrageous?
  What have we done in taxes for all the others? We are trying to 
restore the purchasing power. Let's look in the meantime at what we 
have done for companies and corporations. Let me go to this, Mr. 
President. Look at what has happened. Productivity and profits 
skyrocket while minimum wage plummets. Look at the profits. From 1997 
to 2006 profits were up 45 percent, productivity was up 29 percent, and 
the minimum wage was down 20 percent.
  Historically, in the sixties, seventies, all the way up to 1980, when 
we saw an increase in productivity, that was shared with the workers. 
Companies, corporations shared the increase in productivity with the 
workers. No longer. That doesn't exist any longer. They take all of 
that productivity, and it is now an increase in profits.
  This chart indicates what has happened to the real minimum wage and 
what has happened to productivity. See, going back to the sixties, 1960 
to 1965, even into the seventies, closer productivity, workers working 
harder, increasing productivity. They shared in the increasing 
productivity with wages. Not anymore. All of that productivity has been 
turned into profits.
  I want to spend my last few minutes--now that we have had the 
economic argument--reviewing quickly the most powerful argument, and 
that is what has happened in terms of these figures, how they translate 
into real people's lives. The charts reflect the growth of poverty in 
America. We are the strongest economic country in the world, and we 
find that between 2000 and 2005, we see that the number of people who 
are living in poverty in the United States of America has increased by 
over 5 million--5 million in the United States of America--during this 
period of the economy.
  I listened to the President talk the other night about how the 
economy is just going like gangbusters. Talk about the number of 
bankruptcies, talk about the growth of poverty--5 million. Let's look 
at what happened with regard to the number of children who are living 
in poverty. There were 11 million in 2000 and 1.3 million more at the 
present time.
  This country, of all the industrial nations in the world, has the 
highest child poverty in the world. Look at the chart and look at the 
end. Look at the red line. It is not even close. The United States of 
America has the highest child poverty in the world. That means the loss 
of hopes and dreams for these children, increasing pressures in terms 
of children dropping out of school because they are living in poverty 
and are not being fed in the morning. They are not getting good quality 
health care or any kind of health care. Their parents have two or three 
jobs and they are not getting the attention they need. The basic 
abandonment of so many children in our society.
  We read last week into the Record the New York Times article about 
the burden that is going to be on the American economy. That may get 
the attention of some of our friends on the other side. They expect 
that increased child poverty in this Nation is going to cost another 
$500 billion just because of what is happening to children in our 
society.
  Let me show what happens to child poverty in States which have a 
higher minimum wage. This isn't an accident. If the minimum wage is 
raised, it has an impact on child poverty. Alaska, Connecticut--all the 
way, the States that are listed here--New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, 
Vermont, the State of Washington--are above the national average 
poverty rate. They have higher economic growth, higher small business 
growth, less child poverty. That is what we have seen. National average 
child poverty, again, the high minimum wage States, again, have lower 
child poverty rates.
  Very quickly, we have seen two nations of the world that have made 
child poverty a particular issue--Great Britain and Ireland. Now the 
minimum wage is $9.58 an hour in Great Britain. They brought 2,000,000 
children out of poverty. They are a very strong economy in Europe.
  In Ireland, they have reduced child poverty by 40 percent. They are 
also a very strong economy.
  What we know is that the economic arguments don't hold water, and the 
adverse impact is particularly harsh on children.
  All during this time, we have seen this extraordinary explosion of 
tax breaks that have been given to large companies and small companies. 
They say these can't do it unless they get help. Over the last 10 
years, there have been $276 billion in tax breaks for corporations and 
$36 billion in tax breaks for small businesses, and our Republican 
friends are insisting that we add more tax breaks if we want any hope 
of getting an increase in the minimum wage.
  Americans understand fairness, and this is not fair. Trying to hold 
up an increase in the minimum wage for hard-working Americans, who are 
working and playing by the rules, is not fair. Americans understand 
fairness. There are no economic arguments. We have been out here now 
for 7 days. I haven't heard them. I have been willing to debate any of 
those arguments. No, no, we don't get into the economic arguments. We 
used to years ago. Now we don't get into them. We just have to use this 
vehicle for all these other add-ons in order to basically frustrate 
this body from getting an increase in the minimum wage.
  As I said before, I don't understand what it is that our Republican 
friends find so obnoxious about hard-working men and women who are 
working at the minimum wage, but evidently there is something because 
they will not let the Senate of the United States act on this 
legislation.
  This is about fairness. This is about the hopes and dreams of 
children. It is about decency and fairness to women because women are 
the primary recipients of the minimum wage. So many of them have 
children. Eighty percent of those who receive the minimum wage are 
adults; 40 percent of those who receive the minimum wage have been 
receiving it for 3 years.
  This is an issue that women are concerned about, that has an enormous 
impact on children, that is basically a civil rights issue because 
minimum wage jobs so often are the entry jobs for men and women of 
color. But it comes back to fairness. It is basically the issue of 
fairness, whether we are going to be fair to hard-working Americans. 
Our Republican friends refuse--absolutely refuse--they refuse to let us 
get a vote on this minimum wage, and

[[Page 2470]]

they have basically filibustered by amendment.
  As I said, we have over 90 amendments remaining. Democrats on this 
side are prepared, ready, and willing to vote. We thank our leader for 
bringing up this legislation. We are going to continue to battle on.
  We give assurance to those who are looking to us to represent them, 
to speak for them in the Senate, that we will speak for them. We will 
stand for them. They should know that we are on their side, and we 
don't intend to fail.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  Iraq

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I, too, am anxious to get on to the debate 
about the resolutions that deal with Iraq. I will speak to that for 10 
minutes.
  My position is clear. I think we ought to give the President's 
strategy a chance to work. We asked him to come up with a new strategy. 
He has done so, and it seems to me that it is our responsibility as a 
Senate to give that a chance to work or to provide an alternative--not 
an alternative to leave but an alternative to win. There are plenty of 
ways to leave. We can begin leaving now and have it done in a year. We 
can leave in 6 months. We can leave to the border but not beyond. There 
are a lot of different ideas about how to leave, but an alternative is 
not how to leave but how to win.
  The President has presented such a strategy and I believe we ought to 
give it a chance to work.
  Resolutions that are nonbinding nevertheless have consequences. They 
can't change the policy that is already being effected, the strategy in 
Iraq, but what they can do is send very powerful messages. First, they 
can send a message to our enemies. It seems to me the last message we 
want to send to the enemy is that the Congress does not support the 
mission in Iraq. Obviously that emboldens the enemy. That is what GEN 
David Petraeus said in his testimony before the Armed Services 
Committee last week. It sends a message to our allies that we are not 
in it to the end, and they begin to wonder whether they should start 
hedging their bets.
  By the way, it sends a message to a country such as Iran, which is 
already beginning to offer, now, to in effect take our place in Iraq: 
They will do the training of troops, they will do the reconstruction if 
the Iraqis will simply invite them in. That obviously would not be in 
our best interests, not to mention the Iraqis' best interests.
  Most importantly, a resolution such as this sends a message to our 
troops. It is a very powerful message and a very negative one. It is a 
message that in effect says we support you, but we don't support your 
mission. We are sending you into a place where you could well die, but 
we don't support the cause for which you are dying. We don't think you 
can win. As a matter of fact, I have more respect for those who 
advocate voting on whether we should continue to support the effort 
monetarily--the legitimate function of the Congress, to cut off the 
funds if we don't like the war--than I do for those who simply want to 
``send a message.'' At least the others would be willing to have the 
courage of their convictions, that if this is not a winnable war, we 
better stop it now as opposed to simply trying to send a message.
  Let me tell you what this message does. Last Friday night I was 
watching the NBC ``Nightly News.'' Brian Williams was the broadcaster, 
and he called on Richard Engel, reporting from Iraq, to talk about what 
was going on there. Richard Engel talked about the Stryker Brigade, 
Apache Company, setting out on a mission to find bases for U.S. troops. 
I will quote what he said in the report.
  He said:

       It's not just the new mission the soldiers are adjusting 
     to. They have something else on their minds: The growing 
     debate at home about the war. Troops here say they are 
     increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the war. 
     Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism of 
     what they've been fighting for.

  He goes on to say:

       Twenty-one-year-old Specialist Tyler Johnson is on his 
     first tour in Iraq. He thinks skeptics should come over and 
     see what it's like firsthand before criticizing.

  And here is what Specialist Tyler Johnson said:

       Those people are dying. You know what I'm saying? You may 
     support--``oh we support the troops,'' but you're not 
     supporting what they do, what they share and sweat for, what 
     they believe for, what we die for. It just don't make sense 
     to me.

  Back to Richard Engel:

       Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun has served in Afghanistan and 
     is now on his second tour in Iraq. He says people back home 
     can't have it both ways.

  And then Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun says the following:

       One thing I don't like is when people back home say they 
     support the troops but they don't support the war. If they're 
     going to support us, support us all the way.

  Engel then says:

       Specialist Peter Manna thinks people have forgotten the 
     toll the war has taken.

  And Specialist Peter Manna says:

       If they don't think we are doing a good job, everything we 
     have done here is all in vain.

  Engel concludes the report by saying:

       Apache Company has lost two soldiers and now worries their 
     country may be abandoning the mission they died for.

  Richard Engel, ABC News, Baghdad.
  That report struck me. I immediately talked to my wife about it, and 
I said those three soldiers have said more eloquently than I and my 
colleagues have, than we have, in making the point that you can't have 
it both ways. You can't both support the troops and oppose the mission 
we are sending them on, putting them in harm's way. And can we say that 
their colleagues who died did not die in vain if the Senate goes on 
record saying we don't support your mission?
  This is the conflict that has to be in the minds of the families of 
those who are putting their lives on the line and the very soldiers and 
marines who are doing the same.
  Last Friday, this Senate confirmed GEN David Petraeus to take command 
of that theater, and there were all kinds of expressions of support for 
him. He is, indeed, one of the finest military officers ever to come 
before the Senate for confirmation. No one said otherwise. Yet at the 
same time we are talking about passing a resolution that would say to 
him: We don't believe in the mission we have just sent you on.
  He testified he needed more troops in order to carry out the mission 
and that he supported the President's new strategy, one component of 
which is to add some troops so that he has the capability, in 
conjunction with the new Iraqi troops, to stabilize and pacify the city 
of Baghdad as well as the Al Anbar Province, which is currently being 
threatened by al-Qaida terrorists. He said he needs those new troops. 
Yet Congress would go on record as saying we do not believe you should 
have those new troops.
  Again, at least some number of my colleagues, maybe half or 
thereabouts on the other side of the aisle, would cut off the funding 
for the troops in order not just to send a message but to end the 
involvement. At least that is a position that has action attached to 
it. I disagree with it, but simply sending the message by sending David 
Petraeus on the way, patting him on the back, saying, ``Go do a good 
job but, by the way, we don't believe in the mission,'' it seems to me 
is starting off on the wrong foot.
  He said something else in his testimony that I thought was telling. 
He said: Wars are all about your will, your will and your enemy's will.
  When asked a question by Senator Lieberman, he said passage of these 
resolutions would not be helpful, among other things, because you need 
to break the enemy's will in a conflict, in a war. This kind of 
resolution would inhibit his ability, General Petraeus's ability, with 
our great military, to break the enemy's will to fight. How can you 
break the enemy's will to fight when the people who are allegedly 
running the war back home have already signaled that they think it is 
lost and it is simply a matter of bringing the

[[Page 2471]]

troops home, and that the mission is not supported by a majority of the 
Senate?
  Resolutions, even if they are nonbinding, have consequences. In this 
case the consequences are detrimental, to our enemy, to our allies, and 
to our soldiers and their families.
  We have some solemn responsibility here, but none is more serious 
than putting our young men and women in harm's way. All of us want to 
bring them home safe and sound. We all understand when we vote for 
that, people are going to die. Everyone who does that does so with a 
solemn responsibility. We are all looking for a way also to end the 
conflict so no more have to die. But the reason we authorized this in 
the first place was because we understood there was a mission to 
perform. Even those who disagree with the reasons to begin with 
appreciate the fact that we cannot leave Iraq a failed state. I think 
virtually everybody in this body would agree with that proposition. We 
cannot leave Iraq a failed state. The consequences, not just to the 
Iraqis and to the other people in the region but to United States 
security, would be devastating.
  Something else on which most people agree is that the Iraqis are not 
currently in a position to pacify Baghdad and Al Anbar Province all by 
themselves. They need our help. That is what the testimony before the 
committees was last week.
  If they need our help, if we all agree we can't leave Iraq a failed 
state, if General Petraeus is saying we need some time and some troops 
to get this job done in conjunction with a significant change in the 
way the Iraqis are approaching the war--finally backing us up now when 
we say we want to go into these areas and not just clear them but hold 
them, keep the bad guys in jail, the ones who have not been killed, for 
example--if we agree with all those things, then it seems to me the 
last thing the Senate should be doing is considering a resolution which 
would say we disagree with the mission, we disagree with the 
President's strategy, we don't think we should be sending any more 
troops, and we want to begin a process of withdrawing from Iraq.
  When the debate time comes, I am anxious to have it. The American 
people deserve a debate. I heard a message yesterday that the American 
people had spoken. Indeed they did. I had an opponent who said we 
should withdraw from Iraq. Yet I won the last election, saying we 
needed to stay there until the mission was completed, and I even 
supported the addition of more troops if that were necessary. In the 
case of Arizona, I think people have spoken.
  The reality is, however, I think it is a mixed message. They would 
all like to get out as quickly as possible, but if you ask them, Do you 
think we should leave before the mission is accomplished, do you think 
we should leave even though there is the strong probability of a failed 
Iraqi state, do you think we can say we support the American troops but 
we don't support the mission, I think we would disagree with that 
proposition.
  It is up to us as leaders to lead. That means to let them know we 
support not just them but their mission, that we want to see it 
accomplished, and we will not undercut that mission or their support by 
passing a resolution that disapproves of the new strategy.
  I hope my colleagues will agree we have to give this strategy a 
chance to work.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 8 minutes, and 
following that, the Senator from Alabama to speak for up to an hour.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have two amendments before the body I 
would like to explain briefly. Then I am impelled to respond to some of 
the argument we have heard from the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts. I guess the question he put was what do Republicans have 
against hard-working Americans? I will respond to that in a moment.


                           Amendment No. 135

  My first amendment has to do with the Federal unemployment surtax. In 
the 1970s, the Unemployment Trust Fund faced financial strains, so 
Congress imposed a surtax to bring money into the unemployment system, 
the unemployment compensation system, in order to meet its obligations. 
That debt was paid off in the 1980s. Congress has continued, however, 
to collect the unemployment surtax, proving the maxim once stated by 
Ronald Reagan that the closest thing to eternal life here on Earth is a 
temporary government program. I think this proves that.
  The Federal unemployment surtax should have expired 20 years ago. 
Since 1987, the surtax has taken approximately $28 billion out of the 
pockets of U.S. businesses. Is that $28 billion over 20 years worth the 
broken promise to eliminate it? I think not. Elimination of the surtax, 
which this amendment will do, will save businesses across the country--
and in my particular State, $135 million--but it will save businesses 
across the country proportionate amounts.
  This is an easy and logical way to trim payroll taxes. The FUTA tax 
without the surtax is sufficient to fund State and Federal unemployment 
administrations. Without the surtax, the Federal unemployment tax 
generates nearly $6 billion a year, and all accounts associated with 
the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund have ample balances.
  It is simply a matter of keeping the faith with the American people, 
when we tell them we have a temporary program and that program runs its 
course and serves its purpose, to eliminate it. That is what this 
amendment would do, and I ask the support of my colleagues for that 
amendment.


                           Amendment No. 138

  My second amendment addresses the issue of preventive health care. 
You might ask what does that have to do with regulatory and tax relief 
to small businesses and the minimum wage? Well, this amendment, which 
asks for the adoption of a stand-alone bill called the Workforce Health 
Improvement Program Act, would put small businesses on a level playing 
field with big businesses to provide health benefits to their employees 
that they can deduct but for which small businesses cannot deduct the 
same benefits they might want to give by outsourcing those to health 
clubs, for example.
  Let me explain where I am coming from. Public health experts 
unanimously agree that people who maintain active and healthy 
lifestyles dramatically reduce the risk of contracting chronic 
diseases. A physically fit population helps decrease health care costs, 
50 percent of which, by the way, are borne by the Federal taxpayer. A 
physically fit population reduces Federal Government spending, reduces 
illnesses, and improves worker productivity.
  The costs, though, are not just measured in dollars. According to the 
Surgeon General's ``Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight 
and Obesity'' published in 2001, 300,000 deaths per year in America are 
associated with being overweight or obese. Regular physical activity 
reduces the risk of developing or dying from some of the leading causes 
of illness and death in the United States.
  Additionally, Medicare and Medicaid programs currently spend $84 
billion annually on five major chronic diseases: diabetes, heart 
disease, depression, cancer, and arthritis. It is important we not only 
treat these diseases once they are manifested but that we also explore 
ways to prevent them in the first place. Consider this statistic--the 
numbers are staggering. This is from the American Diabetes Association:

       The total annual economic cost of diabetes in 2002 in the 
     United States of America was $132 billion. Direct medical 
     expenditures totaled $92 billion and $23.2 billion of that 
     was for diabetes care, $24.6 billion was for chronic 
     diabetes-related complications, and $44.1 billion was for 
     excess prevalence of general medical conditions related to 
     diabetes. Indirect costs resulting to lost work days, 
     restricted activity days, mortality, and permanent disability 
     due to diabetes totaled $40.8 billion.

  One NIH study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine showed 
that modest changes in exercise and

[[Page 2472]]

diet can prevent diabetes in 58 percent of the people at high risk for 
the disease. What is more, the trial showed that participants over 60 
years of age benefited the most, preventing the onset of diabetes by 71 
percent. Even assuming that intervention with modest changes in 
exercise and diet is only half that effective, they estimated the 
possible 10-year savings to the health care system would be $344 
billion.
  I think it makes enormous sense, as we look to try and level the 
playing field for small businesses as part of this comprehensive 
package, that we seriously consider leveling the playing field by 
providing an ability to prevent the occurrence--the incidence, I should 
say--of obesity-related diseases, namely diabetes, which causes so much 
human misery and so much unnecessary expense that could be avoided if 
we could encourage more Americans to a more active lifestyle and a 
better diet.
  So I ask my colleagues for their consideration of this amendment as 
well.
  Mr. President, could I ask how much time I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Durbin). The Senator from Texas has 1 
minute remaining.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if I may ask unanimous consent for an 
additional 2 minutes, for a total of 3 minutes, I would appreciate it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the Senator from Massachusetts a moment 
ago asked--because Republicans have asked for additional tax and 
regulatory relief for small businesses that employ 70 percent of the 
American people--what it is that Republicans have against hard-working 
Americans because of our desire to pass not just a minimum wage of 
$7.25 an hour, up from the $5.15 an hour. He said that this was an 
effort to politicize the issue.
  So I would have to ask the Senator, when the minimum wage affects 2.5 
percent of the workforce in America, mainly teenagers and part-time 
workers, people entering the workforce, is this the way to address the 
needs of hard-working Americans? Why is it we are so focused on a 
minimum wage, when what we ought to be focused on is maximizing the 
wages of American workers primarily, I believe, through increased 
training, workforce initiatives, working through community colleges 
with the private sector to train people for good wages, much higher 
than minimum wage, that exist in this country but go wanting for lack 
of trained workers. These programs exist in our communities in my State 
and throughout the country, and I think we would do better to focus our 
efforts to try to improve the standard of living for people across 
America.
  I simply disagree with the Senator from Massachusetts, if he says by 
focusing on 2.5 percent of the workforce and by trying to ameliorate 
some of the harm to small businesses that generate 70 percent of the 
jobs, we are doing anything that would harm hard-working Americans. To 
the contrary, what we are trying to do is make sure those hard-working 
Americans have jobs, not that they are put out of work by well-
intentioned but unsuccessful attempts for Government to mandate wages 
without taking into account the impact on small businesses, the primary 
employers in our country.
  Mr. President, I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Alabama, 
who was supposed to start speaking at 4 o'clock, allowing a couple of 
us to speak, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.


                                  Iraq

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I thank Senator 
Cornyn and Senator Kyl for their remarks. I share with Senator Kyl his 
concern over the resolution that we will be apparently addressing later 
this week or next week. He quoted an NBC News report in which soldiers 
in Iraq in harm's way said that, in their view, you can't support the 
soldiers without supporting the policy we sent them on, and that is a 
troubling thing.
  Today I talked to a businessman from Alabama--quite a fine, 
upstanding leader in the community. His son is in Iraq right now. They 
already heard about the Senate Foreign Relations Committee resolution. 
It was very troubling to them. They didn't know how to read it, 
according to him, or what it meant to them. I talked to a lady not long 
ago, within the last week, and she told me her son was in his second 
tour there, and he believed in what he was doing. He was proud to 
serve, but he didn't know what we were doing here. He said he: ``Didn't 
want to be the last soldier to die if we weren't going to follow 
through on a policy that we have set here.''
  So we are in a difficult time, and we need to remember those things 
as we set about our policy. I don't know all of the answers. I don't 
disrespect people who would disagree with me on this. I know there are 
a lot of people with a lot of different ideas about what to do in Iraq. 
But my observation is and my thought is that we, as a Congress, ought 
to affirm the policies we are asking our soldiers to execute. They say 
we are not asking them, but the President is, and the President speaks 
for us, until Congress withdraws that power by reducing his funding. 
The President executes the policies as Commander in Chief. So it is a 
big deal and we need to be careful about what we do and I am 
disappointed we will be dealing with those resolutions.
  Mr. President, I remember during the immigration debate last fall, 
last summer and spring, Senator Kennedy and I were on the floor one 
night, and I talked about how I believe the large amount of immigration 
we are seeing today, much of it illegal, was adversely affecting the 
wages of American workers. Senator Kennedy didn't object to that, but 
he stood up and in response basically said: Well, we are going to offer 
a minimum wage bill, and that is going to take care of it. If anyone 
heard Senator Lamar Alexander's speech on Friday--and not many people 
did; it was after the vote had been cast--but he went into some detail 
and with great care explained how the minimum wage is not reaching poor 
working people in this country in the ways most people think it is but 
that most people making minimum wage are part of a household whose 
income exceeds $40,000 a year, I believe was the figure he cited, and 
there are a number of studies on that. The point being that usually it 
is a transition period for young people or others--maybe they are part 
time and that kind of thing.
  I am not saying people would not like an increase in the minimum 
wage, but the working poor, the people who are every day out giving 
their best to try to raise their families and who need to have a higher 
income, people who have been out there for years and working, they are 
already above $7 an hour, for the most part. If they show up on time 
and are reliable and give an honest day's work, as almost all of them 
do, then they are going to be above $7 an hour now. Do you follow me? 
So this is not the panacea we are concerned about. What we want and 
what we care about, fellow citizens and Members of the Senate, is 
having better wages for working Americans, having all the people be 
able to go out and get a better wage they can take home and take care 
of their families with. That includes how much taxes are taken out, how 
much insurance is taken out.
  President Bush has a great proposal that is going to help a lot of 
people. I assure my colleagues a lot of people will feel a substantial 
benefit from this health care tax credit plan he has proposed. That is 
a way to help working people, a real significant way.
  Senator Alexander mentioned the earned-income tax credit, and he went 
into some detail about it. Economists and experts are quite clear: The 
earned-income tax credit more appropriately benefits working Americans 
than a minimum wage at much less cost. We spend $40 billion a year on 
the earned-income tax credit. That is what the credit amounts to in 
terms of benefits to working Americans. Their wages are lower, and, at 
certain levels, they don't qualify for other benefits. And as a result, 
they do qualify for the earned-income tax credit. So I would like to 
talk about that.
  I offered an amendment that would have required the earned-income tax 
credit to be paid on individual's paychecks, when they get their 
paycheck

[[Page 2473]]

each payday. That is correct, in my view, as a matter of policy. It is 
a complex thing. Some are concerned about the mechanics of it. So I 
offered another amendment that was accepted by the Democratic 
leadership and the Republican leadership that required the Department 
of the Treasury to review what would happen and how it could be done if 
we allowed people to get their earned-income tax credit on their weekly 
or biweekly paycheck. It can be done now. In fact, a little less than 2 
percent of the people get their earned-income tax credit, or at least a 
portion of it, on their check each week.
  So we would like to talk about that because as we debate the minimum 
wage, the real debate is how to help working Americans, middle-class 
Americans, lower income Americans get more legitimate pay for the work 
they do.
  Now, that is what we are all about; not some fetish with having an 
increase in the minimum wage, particularly when it is not going to be 
as effective in meeting the needs of the working poor, as is being sold 
to this Congress and the American people.
  In 2004, more than 22 million Americans--get this--more than 22 
million Americans claimed the earned-income tax credit, putting $40.7 
billion into the pockets of the working poor. This is a very large 
program. It is a very large shift of resources to the working poor. The 
amount of the credit for each recipient depends on several factors, 
such as the worker's income and the number of dependent children they 
claim.
  Nonetheless, a low-income worker with one child will be eligible to 
claim up to $2,853 for tax year 2007, while a worker with two or more 
children could receive $4,718 on a 2,200-hour work year. The average 
earned-income tax credit for a beneficiary with a qualifying child was 
$1,728 in 2004. That is almost $1 an hour on average.
  Many have criticized the earned-income tax credit over the years, 
saying it is another welfare handout and it has far too much fraud in 
it. Some numbers have shown fraud as high as over 30 percent, but the 
tax credit is here to stay. I don't see any real movement to eliminate 
it. Why don't we see if we can make it work better?
  The idea is to reward work. It is a benefit of the Government, an 
earned tax credit, earned by working. That was the purpose of the 
earned-income tax credit from the beginning, to encourage welfare 
recipients and others who were not in the workforce to decide that it 
was beneficial for them to work. Some of this came from Milton 
Friedman, the great free market economist who recently died, calling 
for a negative income tax. That is sort of what inspired this.
  All is not perfect. The earned-income tax credit has provided real 
money for low-income Americans working hard to pull their family out of 
poverty. As Senator Alexander demonstrated in some detail, remarkably 
and ably, it gets to the working poor far better than an increase in 
the minimum wage.
  An important feature added to the earned-income tax credit occurred 
in 1978, a few years after the law was passed. That allows the credit 
recipients to receive the benefit on their paychecks rather than as a 
one-time lump sum tax refund. Now, you work all year. Most people have 
no idea if they are earning any earned-income tax credit. They are not 
receiving extra money for their work. And next year, they file for a 
tax refund and get a big check, disconnecting, in their minds, the 
receipt of that check with the work they did the year before. 
Therefore, it ceases to be the kind of incentive to work we want it to 
be.
  Receiving an advanced payment under the law is simple. Workers 
believing they will be eligible can fill out a form or W-5 with their 
employer, and once completed workers will receive part of their EITC 
benefit on their paycheck based on the amount they are expected to 
receive over the year based on their income. So despite a number of 
campaigns by the IRS to increase the number that sign up for this 
advance payment, only a few do, less than 2 percent. The majority, 
unaware they can receive the credit in advance, receive it in the form 
of a tax refund in the spring of the next year.
  Recipients earn the tax credit by working throughout the year. Yet 
they do not receive the benefit until months after when they file their 
tax returns. For most workers who receive the EITC as a lump sum at the 
end of the year, they never make that connection between the increased 
work and the increased paycheck, as they simply receive a fat check.
  How can it encourage work if there is no correlation for most 
recipients between the work they do and the money they receive?
  An amendment, which the Senate has already accepted, challenges the 
Secretary of the Treasury, the Department of the Treasury, to get us a 
report on how we can do this effectively. It is important. It will 
ensure the taxpayers who are giving this benefit to working Americans 
get the second part of the benefit that the taxpayers intended them to 
receive.
  The first part, of course, is helping the working poor have more 
money for their families. We want to help them. The second benefit we 
want to occur is for the overall economy and health of America to 
encourage people to work, to make work more rewarding. If you are 
making $7 an hour and you get $1 an hour pay raise as a result of the 
earned-income tax credit, you have received a substantial increase, 
well over 10 percent increase in your take home pay, especially since 
there are no taxes taken out of that part that has accrued as a result 
of the earned-income tax credit.
  That encourages work. That makes work more attractive. That helps 
meet the needs of America today. That is what this is about. A worker 
who is making $6 an hour would be making closer to $7. Workers making 
$8 would be making closer to $9. It adds up to real money as the years 
go by.
  We can do a much better job of utilizing the existing program without 
any cost beyond what we are already expending, but in a way that gets 
money to people when they need it, right then on their paycheck. They 
may have a tire blow out and they need a new tire. The transmission may 
have broken in their car. A child may need to go on a trip at school. 
They need the money as they earn it so they can apply it in a sound way 
to their family's budgetary needs instead of one big fat check sometime 
in the spring of the next year. That is a suggestion I have for 
improving the quality of life for American workers.
  Another sense-of-the-Senate amendment I offered, that was accepted, 
we voted on 98 to 0, was to call on Congress to state that it is a 
sense of the Senate that we should do a better job in Congress of 
establishing a uniform savings plan for Americans. We in the Government 
have a wonderful plan called the thrift plan. It allows every Federal 
worker, in any department or agency, to put money in the thrift plan 
and the Federal Government would match up to 5 percent of their 
contributions.
  Many young people starting to work for the Government today, if they 
contribute 5 percent each paycheck, with the Government matching it, 
will retire with $1 million in the bank--trust me on that--with the 
power of compound interest. It is an exciting program.
  Many private companies have similar programs, 401(k)-type programs, 
but many don't. Half of the workers in America today work for a company 
that does not have such a retirement plan. A chunk of those, even if 
they do, don't take advantage of it. This is particularly concerning to 
me because I have learned from Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao that the 
average American has nine jobs by the time they are 35. What does that 
say to the practical men and women of the Senate? It says they are 
bouncing around a lot. They may go to a company that has a plan and 
they may invest in it a little bit, then they go to a company that 
doesn't. Or they go to a company that says they have to work for 6 
months or a year before they can participate in their plan, or they 
decide not to put into that plan. Or, if they put in some money and 
they change jobs and the account is $500, $2,000, $1,500--we have 
statistics that show that over 40 percent of them cash in those 
accounts

[[Page 2474]]

paying the penalties--they think it is not enough money to worry about.
  Whereas, if they set aside a small amount of money from the day they 
start working at age 18, or out of college, every day, every paycheck, 
a small amount of money set aside as is done by most of the thrift 
account savers, they could retire with hundreds of thousands in the 
bank, which would allow for an annuity, if they purchased it at age 65, 
to pay someone $2,000 a month for the rest of their life, easy. Those 
things are realistically possible.
  It is a great tragedy, it is a tremendous national tragedy, that in a 
time where we have relatively low unemployment--in my State it is not 
much over 3 percent, maybe 3.6 percent in Alabama--and most people are 
working, the wages have gone up, although not as much as we would like, 
but our wages are beginning to edge back up, that most Americans are 
not saving. They could be setting aside even a small amount that would 
transform their retirement years from retirement years that depend 
solely on Social Security, the retirement years can be supplemented by 
a substantial flow of money.
  Finally, I talk about another subject, our general concern that wages 
have not kept up in America. I share that concern. I have heard the 
economists make the argument--many in the business community are people 
I respect--make the argument that wages tend to lag behind. Gross 
domestic production growth goes up for a while and wages do not go up, 
but they catch up, and there is some truth to that. I don't deny that.
  But if you look at the numbers and how middle-class and lower income 
workers are getting along today, you cannot be pleased with what is 
occurring, particularly in certain areas and certain fields. It is from 
that perspective I say, as part of this debate over minimum wage which 
we are told is designed to help people have more money to take home, to 
take care of their families, and if you think this is not the right way 
to do it, you don't love families and you don't want to help poor 
people; that is not correct.
  I hope to be able to vote for this minimum wage bill. I voted for 
several to increase the minimum wage. I am just saying the minimum wage 
has been demonstrated by analysis, by top-flight econometric firms, 
that it does not reach the poor people in a way that most people think 
it does. It oftentimes helps young people who are children of some 
corporate executive who may be working.
  Our motivation, and I think it is universal in the Senate, through 
the legislation moving through the Senate now, is designed to improve 
the take-home pay of Americans so they can more ably benefit from the 
great American dream and take care of their families effectively.
  Significant economic evidence indicates the presence of large amounts 
of illegal labor in low-skilled job sectors is depressing the wages of 
American workers. That is an important statement if it is true, right? 
If that is true, isn't that important? First of all, we are a nation of 
laws. We think the laws ought to be enforced.
  Overwhelmingly the American people agree with that. But if it also is 
depressing the wages of working Americans, that is a double concern, 
particularly as we are asking ourselves in this debate: How can we help 
low-wage workers do better? I will talk about that. We have to talk 
about this.
  Harvard economist George Borjas, who testified before the Senate 
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Lawrence Katz, 
also of Harvard, estimate that the influx of low-skilled, low-wage 
immigration into our country from 1980 to 2000 has resulted in a 3-
percent decrease in wages for the average American worker--that is all 
workers--and has cut wages to native-born high school dropouts--those 
who have not obtained a high school degree; unfortunately, we have 
quite a number of those in our country--who make up the poorest 10 
percent of our workforce, by some 8 percent. Eight percent, if you 
figure that out on a yearly basis, amounts to $1,200 a year. That is 
$100 a month.
  Now, for some people in America today, $100 a month is not a lot. But 
if you are making near the minimum wage, $100 a month is a lot of 
money.
  Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry 
Council Educational Foundation, says:

       [T]he most important statistics available show conclusively 
     that, far from easing shortages--

  Shortages of labor--

     illegal immigrants are adding to labor gluts in America. 
     Specifically, wages in sectors highly dependent on illegals, 
     when adjusted for inflation, are either stagnant or have 
     actually fallen.

  Now, he is referring to Labor Department data and information from 
the Pew Hispanic Center. For example, he cites data from the U.S. 
Bureau of Labor Statistics that indicates the following: inflation-
adjusted wages for the broad Food and Services and Drinking 
Establishments category--they have a category for that: the broad Food 
and Services and Drinking Establishments category; and they monitor the 
wages for it--between the years 2000 to 2005 fell 1.65 percent.
  The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that illegal immigrants comprise 17 
percent of food preparation workers, 20 percent of cooks, and 23 
percent of dishwashers, about a fifth of those workers; three-fifths, 
four-fifths being legal native citizens. But contrary to what we have 
been told, that you cannot get workers at the wages they are paying, 
and paying fair wages, it looks as though the wages have fallen, which 
is a matter of interest.
  Inflation-adjusted wages for the food manufacturing industry--the Pew 
Hispanic Center estimates that illegal immigrants comprise 14 percent 
of that workforce--fell 2.4 percent between 2000 and 2005.
  Inflation-adjusted wages for hotel workers--the Pew Hispanic Center 
estimates illegal immigrants make up 10 percent of that workforce--fell 
1 percent from 2000 to 2005.
  Inflation-adjusted wages in the construction industry--Pew estimates 
that illegal immigrants make up 12 percent of the workforce there--fell 
1.59 percent between 2000 and 2005.
  Inflation-adjusted wages in the animal processing and slaughtering 
subcategory--and Pew estimates that illegal immigrants comprise 27 
percent of that workforce, the highest percentage--fell 1.41 percent 
between 2000 and 2005.
  So if these numbers are correct--and they come from the objective BLS 
and are supposed to be accurate, and we rely on them for our business 
around here--something is amiss if people say they cannot get workers, 
yet they are getting the work done, and they are paying less in 2005 
than they were in 2000.
  Now, you tell me.
  Others studying the same issue have found similar trends. According 
to a recent City Journal article by Steven Malanga, a senior fellow at 
the Manhattan Institute:

     . . . low-wage immigration has produced such a labor surplus 
     that many of these workers are willing to take jobs without 
     benefits and with salaries far below industry norms. . . .

  Well, let me go on. Day laborers--these are people who gather at 
certain known locations within areas, and they hang out until somebody 
comes out and hires them--who work in construction in urban areas 
``like New York and Los Angeles . . . sell their labor by the hour or 
the day, for $7 to $11 an hour . . . far below what full time 
construction workers earn.''
  You see, we want Americans to be able to have a job that has some 
permanency to it, that pays a decent wage, that has retirement 
benefits, and has health care benefits. But our workers who might be 
interested in construction--and more are than most people think--are 
having to compete against people who will work by the day for $7 and 
$11 an hour and do not demand any benefits.
  Robert Samuelson, a contributing editor of Newsweek, has written a 
column for the Washington Post since 1977. In his column last spring he 
summed up the impact of illegal immigration on the unskilled American 
worker this way:

       Poor immigrant workers hurt the wages of unskilled 
     Americans. The only question is

[[Page 2475]]

     how much. Studies suggest a range ``from negligible to an 
     earnings reduction of almost 10 percent,'' according to the 
     [Congressional Budget Office].

  That is a lot: 10 percent. Five percent is a lot.
  To put this impact into a larger perspective, one might ask how much 
native workers have lost as a whole due to competition with low-skilled 
immigrant laborers. Although only a few studies have ever looked at 
this issue, a 2002 National Bureau of Economic Research paper written 
by Columbia University economics professors Donald R. Davis and David 
E. Weinstein is on point.
  Using complex methodology, they aggregated the total loss to the U.S. 
native workers and found that the magnitude of losses for U.S. native 
workers equates roughly to $72 billion a year, or .8 percent of GDP. 
Now, I don't know if that figure is correct, but the earned income tax 
credit is just $40 billion a year, and they say it amounts to $72 
billion a year. The economics professors at Columbia University also 
said immigration is as costly to the United States as all trade 
protections.
  When wages are suppressed, people drop out of the workforce. In 
addition to the evidence that low-skilled American workers--and 
particularly African-American workers--are suffering wage suppression 
due to the competition they face from illegal alien labor, we also know 
competition is causing some Americans to drop out of the labor force.
  Steven Camorota, last spring, of the Center for Immigration Studies, 
analyzed the steady decline in the share of less-educated adult natives 
in the workforce between March 2000 and March 2005.
  Prior to Hurricane Katrina, there were 4 million unemployed natives--
those looking for jobs who were unable to find them--with high school 
degrees or less in the workforce. An additional 19 million natives with 
high school degrees or less existed but were not actively looking for 
jobs.
  Between 2000 and 2005, the number of adult immigrants--legal land 
illegal--with only a high school degree or less in the labor force 
increased by 1.6 million.
  During the same time period, unemployment among high school graduates 
and less educated native Americans increased by nearly 1 million--so 
unemployment among our high school graduates or high school dropouts 
increased by nearly 1 million--and an additional 1.5 million left the 
workforce altogether.
  Although jobs grew in the United States from 2000 to 2005, natives 
only benefited from 9 percent of the total net job increase. That is an 
important factor. Although jobs grew in the U.S. from 2000 to 2005, 
natives only benefited from 9 percent of that total. The number of 
adult natives holding a job grew by only 303,000, while the number of 
adult immigrants holding a job increased by 2.9 million. So it is 
303,000 compared to 2.9 million among high school graduates or high 
school dropouts.
  Steven Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recently 
explained:

       [M]any of the unskilled, uneducated workers now journeying 
     here labor . . . in shrinking industries, where they force 
     out native workers, and many others work in industries where 
     the availability of cheap workers has led businesses to 
     suspend investment in new technologies that would make them 
     less labor-intensive. . . . [T]he unemployment rate among 
     native-born ``unskilled workers is high--about 30 percent.''

  The unemployment rate among native-born, unskilled workers is about 
30 percent, I repeat.
  To me, those numbers do indicate a significant problem. It is a 
problem we need to talk about as we talk about how to help working 
Americans get a better wage.
  Mr. President, I will note a few more points before I wrap up.
  Professor Richard Freeman--the Herbert S. Ascherman Professor of 
Economics at Harvard--testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 
I participated in that hearing last spring. He said:

       If you're a poor Mexican, your income in the U.S. will be 
     six to eight times what it is in Mexico.

  Robert Samuelson explained in a March 2006 column in the Washington 
Post:

       They're drawn here by wage differences, not labor 
     ``shortages.''

  American workers, I think it is fair to say, cannot compete with the 
wage gap between their country and other countries. I was in South 
America last May with Senator Specter. We visited Peru, and we saw a 
poll that had just been published in Nicaragua while we were there that 
said 60 percent of the people in Nicaragua would come to the United 
States if they could. I mentioned that to the State Department team 
there in Peru, and they told me that a poll in Peru had recently shown, 
just about this time last year, that 70 percent of the people in Peru 
would come to the United States if they could.
  So I guess what I am saying to my colleagues is, we need an 
immigration policy that allows immigration and that is consistent with 
our historic values as a nation that welcomes immigrants, but the 
numbers and the skill sets that they bring ought to be such that they 
do not depress wages of our lower income people because we cannot 
accept everybody in the world who would like to come here. It is not 
physically possible to any degree that we could accept that.
  We have a lottery section that does not have any requirements of 
skills in it. You apply to it if you want to come to America. It allows 
for 50,000 to be drawn out of a hat each year. And those who are drawn 
get to come to America on a random basis. We had 5 million people, 
according to Professor Borjas at Harvard, who applied for those 50,000 
slots. I do not blame people who want to come here. I am not demeaning 
them. Most of them are good and decent people who want to get ahead. 
But we have such a higher wage base that we could attract people from 
all over the world in virtually unlimited numbers, and it does have the 
impact, if allowed to be too great and too concentrated in certain 
industries, to pull down American wages.
  While we are thinking about how to increase the wages of American 
workers, we need to think about that. That is all I am saying. And we 
are going to talk about that if we talk about immigration this year, as 
I expect we will. We can have immigration, but it needs to be done 
right.
  How do we level the playing field? Let's consider the advice given by 
Dr. Barry Chiswick. He is the head of the Department of Economics at 
the University of Illinois in Chicago. He testified before the Senate 
Judiciary Committee last spring, stating:

       [T]he large increase in low-skilled immigration . . . has 
     had the effect of decreasing the wages and employment 
     opportunities of low-skilled workers who are currently 
     residing in the United States.

  He goes on to say:

       Over the past two decades . . . The real earnings of low 
     skilled workers have either stagnated or decreased somewhat.
       [W]e . . . need to . . . provide greater assistance to low-
     skilled Americans in their quest for better jobs and higher 
     wages. [O]ne of the best ways we can help them in this regard 
     is by reducing the very substantial competition that they are 
     facing from this very large and uncontrolled low-skilled 
     immigration that is the result of both our legal immigration 
     system and the absence of enforcement of immigration law.

  That is pretty much indisputable. I haven't heard a professor who 
would dispute that yet, or anybody who can seriously object to those 
numbers.
  Professor Harry Holzer, associate dean and professor of public policy 
at Georgetown University, a great university here, also testified at 
that same hearing. He believes American workers do want jobs currently 
being held by illegal laborers.
  I don't agree with this idea that these are jobs Americans want to 
take. Americans are not interested in a job that is only going to last 
for 3 months, that pays the minimum wage and has no health care and no 
retirement benefits. I will say that. And neither do we want them to 
take those jobs.
  Professor Holzer believes that absent illegal immigrant competition, 
employers would raise wages and improve working conditions to attract 
the American worker:


[[Page 2476]]

       I believe that when immigrants are illegal, they do more to 
     undercut the wages of native-born workers, because the 
     playing field isn't level and employers don't have to pay 
     them market wages.
        . . . [T]here are jobs in industries like construction 
     that I think are more appealing to native-born workers, and 
     many native-born low-income men might be interested in more 
     of those jobs. . . . Absent the immigrants, the employer 
     might need to raise those wages and improve those conditions 
     of work to entice native-born workers into those jobs.

  That is true. That is all I am saying. As we discuss the minimum 
wage--and I am confident somehow we will work our way through this, but 
there are some amendments and votes that need to be taken--it should be 
done only as part of a serious evaluation of what is happening to the 
wages of low-skilled workers and middle-class workers. If we do that 
and think it through, we will see we ought to reform the earned income 
tax credit so people can receive that benefit while they work. We will 
conclude we ought to create a savings program every American worker can 
put money into throughout their working career, from the first paycheck 
they get until the day of their retirement. It would transform the 
retirement years of those people. We have that in our capability.
  As we craft an immigration policy, we cannot craft that policy in 
such a way that it only benefits corporate profits. It must be done in 
a way that considers the impact that is occurring on our own low-
skilled workers. If we do a good lawful system of immigration that is 
in harmony with our history of immigration in America but at the same 
time provides protection to the least of our American workers, we will 
have done something worthwhile.
  Unfortunately, I have to say the bill that passed the Senate last 
year would have been a disaster. It would have increased legal 
immigration in this country, skewed mostly to low-skilled workers, by 
almost three times the current rate. How can that have done anything 
other than hurt our workers?
  Those are some thoughts. I appreciate the opportunity of sharing 
them.
  I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and 
that amendment No. 147, which I have offered, which deals with 
increased fines for employers who hire illegal immigrants, be called 
up. That fine currently is $250. I think that is too low. I ask that 
that be called up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). Is there objection?
  Mr. DURBIN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair.
  I think that is relevant to the issue we are talking about: How to 
help people get more take-home pay for their labor. One of the reasons 
that is not happening to the degree we would like is the large flow of 
illegal labor. One of the problems we have is that enforcement in the 
workplace is not adequate. Most employers want to do the right thing, 
but a $250 fine is too low. We will be dealing with that again later 
on.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


                 Amendment No. 221 to Amendment No. 157

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I call for the regular order with 
respect to amendment No. 157 and send a second-degree amendment to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 221 to amendment No. 157.

  Mr. DURBIN. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end of the amendment add the following:
       Section 2 of the bill shall take effect one day after date 
     of enactment.

  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I want to speak a few minutes about what 
we are doing. I also have several things I would like the American 
people to see. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the minimum 
wage and kind of the farce of what we are doing here. If we tell people 
we want them to have a real minimum wage, the debate ought to be about 
$13 an hour. If we, as the Government, are going to tell the States and 
the employers what they ought to be paying, giving them a real minimum 
wage, then surely they deserve to earn $28,000 a year. That is a 
livable wage. You can make it on that. The fact that nobody wants to do 
that and it will be voted down proves they know how onerous that would 
be on the economy. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to so disrupt 
wages. But it is OK to do it in a small amount. That is what we are 
talking about.
  The first poster I have shows that 29 States and the District of 
Columbia have a minimum wage that is higher than the Federal minimum 
wage.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. COBURN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Dr. Coburn is such a thoughtful commentator on many 
issues, but he is an expert and has done a lot of work on the health 
care issue. I know he has some of his own ideas. But one of the ways 
you could help low-income workers would be to reduce the health care 
burden they pay in terms of health insurance. For example, the 
President's proposal of tax deductibility that he made in his State of 
the Union Address would be a rather sizable benefit to a lot of low-
income workers, if it were passed, would it not?
  Mr. COBURN. It will be a benefit but not to the extent a direct tax 
credit to them would be. Right now the average American, if you are in 
the upper income scale, gets $2,700 worth of tax benefit from our 
income tax code. And if you are on the lower scale, you get $103 worth 
of tax benefit.
  Mr. SESSIONS. This is for health insurance deductibility.
  Mr. COBURN. Under the President's proposal, that would be narrowed. I 
believe it ought to be the same for every American. Every American 
ought to get the same tax benefit. I also believe every American ought 
to be covered. There ought to be access for anybody with disease. There 
are ways to do that, and I will be introducing a global health care 
bill within the next month that attacks every aspect of health care and 
what we need to do about it.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wanted to say I am interested in the 
earned income tax credit, immigration, and in savings. The Senator has 
mentioned health care. All of those are ways, apart from mandating a 
salary or minimum wage increase, to help workers. The bill the 
President proposed would not go as far as Senator Coburn would like to 
see--and I am impressed with his analysis--but it would, in fact, 
provide a good benefit for working Americans.
  Mr. COBURN. The Senator from Alabama is correct.
  You can see from this chart that 29 States currently have a minimum 
wage higher than the Federal minimum wage, and you can also see from 
the next chart that 14 other States are in their legislature right now 
considering increasing their own minimum wage. One of the things our 
Founders thought and planned and hoped we would stick with is having 
the States be laboratories of experimentation with respect to our 
democracy. So if you have 14 plus 29, you have 43 States out of 50 and 
the District of Columbia that have already answered this question. We 
are going to go through and answer it for them again.
  There are a lot of problems associated with this. I want to put up 
another slide that shows what has happened since 1998 as far as the 
number of people on the minimum wage. It is a precipitous decline from 
over 4 million to less than 1.9 million workers presently. You need to 
break that down. When you break that down, when we say we want to help 
single moms with kids or four-person families, those working at the 
minimum wage, what happens is, when you run the numbers, in many 
instances we are going to hurt people who are making the minimum wage. 
Let me prove my point.

[[Page 2477]]

  In Oklahoma today, if you are earning the minimum wage, you have 
access to the following benefits: A State tax credit--I am talking 
about families with children on the minimum wage, and there are 40,000 
of those in Oklahoma--a school lunch program, which is federally 
sponsored; temporary assistance to needy families; childcare subsidies; 
Medicaid, which is called SoonerCare in our State; the earned income 
tax credit, which is over $4,400 per year; food stamps; housing 
vouchers; plus what they earn on the minimum wage.
  What happens is, if you are a family of four in Oklahoma today 
earning the minimum wage, your aftertax net benefits, taking advantage 
of what we are supplying supporting people making the minimum wage, is 
$36,438 per year. The median household income is only $38,000 and that 
is pretax. So the average person receiving the benefits we have offered 
for people who have less means in Oklahoma today actually has more 
benefit than the average Oklahoma family. What is going to happen when 
we pass this minimum wage for that person in Oklahoma? What is going to 
happen is, on the childcare, they are going to go from $22 a month 
copay to $95 a month. That is what is going to happen to families in 
Oklahoma. TANF, they are going to go from $3,500 a year to $2,600 a 
year, based on this minimum wage bill. On food stamps, they are going 
to go from $3,588 a year to $2,808 a year. Under this very bill, that 
is what is going to happen to families earning the minimum wage in 
Oklahoma. Their housing subsidy is going to go from $4,140 a year to 
$3,096, a 25-percent reduction. Their Medicaid, if they are a family of 
four, they are not going to qualify for the whole family anymore; only 
their children will be qualified. So, in essence, what they are going 
to lose is $4,600 a year in aftertax benefits.
  Net net, when you think about the median household income in Oklahoma 
being $38,000 and they are paying a State income tax of less than 6 
percent, and an average Federal income tax of about 18 percent, what 
you are going to see is they are going to lose.
  In the name of helping them, they are going to lose. The vast 
majority of the people we want to help, which is not the vast majority 
of the people on minimum wage anywhere in this country--the people who 
we really want to help the most, not the teenagers or the kids living 
in a family who have a minimum wage job as a first job, but those in 
Oklahoma and in 19 other States--you are going to actually decrease 
their income with this bill. It is not going to have any effect.
  Put Massachusetts up there on the chart. The Senator from 
Massachusetts wants Oklahoma to have his minimum wage bill. The median 
household income in Massachusetts is $52,354 a year. The total income 
for somebody making the Massachusetts minimum wage, they are making 
$45,416 if they take advantage of the benefits available to them in 
Massachusetts. So his State won't be impacted because he is already 
above the minimum wage which is being proposed in the minimum wage 
bill.
  How smart is it for us to decide that we want to take away from the 
families of 19 States--those people who we say we really want to help 
but, in essence, we are going to cut their aftertax income by about 
$1,000, a net/net loss for them? Is that what we intend to do? That is 
the unexpected consequence of what we are going to do. Nobody is 
considering the fact that the 19 States that have lower minimum wages 
which will be impacted by this bill--their needy families, single moms 
with kids, are going to lose under this bill in the name of them 
winning. It is because we didn't think it out.
  The reason we didn't think it out is because this isn't about minimum 
wage; this is about wage compression. This is about raising the wages 
of those people above minimum wage. It is not about minimum wage. We 
come down here and say it is, but it is not. It is designed to raise 
the wages of anybody under $15 an hour. That is what it is going to do. 
We know wage compression. If you have 100 people working and the 
highest is making $12 and the lowest is now making $6, and you say they 
are going to have to make $7.25 or $7.50, what is going to happen to 
the other wages? They are going to have to be bumped up. The minimum 
wage is no longer designed to protect people as far as their income.
  You can see it from this chart and you can see it in California--and 
I have it for every State--where the vast majority of the benefits 
don't come from what we earn in terms of a salaried job; they come from 
the other benefits the country put in as a social safety net. So in the 
States in which we would raise the minimum wage that have not done it, 
in 19 States what is going to happen is we are going to hurt the very 
people we say we want to help.
  How is it we can do that? Why is it we will do that? We will do it 
because there is a very powerful interest group that is behind this 
called the labor unions in this country. For every dollar increase in 
labor rates paid through the labor unions, what happens to the union's 
fees? More money. So is it about helping those people who need our help 
or is there another agenda here?
  I have great respect for Senator Kennedy. He is very eloquent on the 
floor. But when you see his charts, there are false questions asked. He 
showed the increase in the level of income in this country since we 
raised the minimum wage. It doesn't consider all of the other things 
that have happened over the last 20 years that, through productivity 
increases, have raised wages. Mandating a minimum wage in any market by 
any economist will not increase the market. That is not the reason. It 
looks good on a chart. But you don't consider all of the other benefits 
and factors that might have considered that. You just say this must 
have been it because it looks like it. I can show that on anything that 
we do in the Senate.
  Here is a chart for New York. The State of New York is another 
example. The wage per-job average is $51,165. A single mom earning 
minimum wage under New York's level, which is at $7.15 right now, and 
taking advantage of all of the benefits there, aftertax income is 
$49,000 a year in benefits. I am not saying cut the benefits; I am 
saying don't do something that will cut the benefits to those people 
you say you are going to help.
  It is interesting when you look at this number, knowing that taxes--
if you look at New York City's tax, you pay a city income tax, a State 
income tax, and a Federal income tax. Those people making minimum wage 
have more aftertax income in terms of benefits and salary than the 
average household in New York City. We have to ask the question, do we 
want to help people?
  The Senator from Alabama talked about making sure that the earned 
income tax credit comes as a part of your wage every month instead of 
at the end of the year. It is a great idea and ought to be something we 
want to do. I want to show again what is going to happen to families 
earning the minimum wage in Oklahoma. There is a net loss of $232, but 
that doesn't include the taxes. So the net loss for Oklahoma families 
who are on minimum wage under the new minimum wage, in essence, will be 
about $1,200. Is that what we want to do to Oklahoma and 18 other 
States? I don't think so. We have to take the lid off of this pressure 
cooker. For us to pass a minimum wage that undermines the very people 
we are saying we want to help does not, in the long run, do anything 
except help organized labor, 1; No. 2, it makes certain jobs go away; 
we know it will, No. 3, send more jobs out of this country.
  I believe and I hope the Senator from Massachusetts will look at our 
data. I hope he will try to amend his bill in such a way so that we 
have either a safe harbor or some other mechanism so the people in 
these 19 States don't lose the very benefits we say we want to give to 
them. In fact, that is what will happen if this bill passes.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page 2478]]


  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________