Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I want to take 60 seconds to respond to Senator Thune. He says he doesn't want to point fingers. He is pointing fingers all over the place. He says we are here today talking about a trillion dollars. Let me tell my colleagues what we are talking about: the deepest recession since the Great Depression, jobs being lost at 500,000 and 600,000 a month. All of a sudden some of our Republican friends have said: Whoops. Now that we can't give tax breaks to the people who are earning over a million and now that the Iraq war is winding down, we are not that interested in spending money. Democrats, when we were in control, had our priorities straight. We said: Put families first. We balanced the budget, and we will do it again. But we must restore this economy. When I use the phrase ``Herbert Hoover,'' which has become kind of a symbol for doing nothing in the face of the middle class crumbling, I know what I am saying. I hope we will vote for the Murray amendment. It will create thousands of jobs. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am pleased to offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Ensign. We have a number of cosponsors, so this is truly a bipartisan amendment, and I think it is worthy of everyone's consideration. It is pretty simple what this amendment would accomplish. It provides an incentive for companies to bring back foreign earnings into the United States, and those foreign earnings must be invested in our U.S. economic recovery. Right now there is about $800 billion sitting offshore because companies do not want to bring it in because it would be taxed at a 35- percent rate. This means, first and foremost, if you think about it, that our banks do not have any of these funds at a time when they are desperate for capital. This means that at a time that we want to inject dollars into this economy, those dollars are sitting offshore. Now, we tried this once before. You are going to hear Senator Levin and others attack us for that last attempt. So to preempt that attack-- I will have more to say about it later--I wish to show you what actually occurred last time that we did this. We saw in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, before we passed our repatriation, all of these dollars, almost more than $350 billion, sitting offshore, not doing the American economy any good. When we passed this, those funds came back. Now, what you are going to hear from some of my colleagues is that some of the companies did not live up to the spirit of the amendment. The spirit of the amendment was to bring the money home and invest it here at home in job-producing activity. It is true. That is why, in this amendment we are offering, we have tightened the strings of what the companies can do, and we have required an audit of each and every company that takes this particular tax break. We have said that you only can use these funds to create or retain jobs, to make capital improvements in your business, to buy other businesses that will otherwise fail, to invest in clean technology. We do not allow these companies to use any of these funds for golden parachutes or high CEO pay. We do not allow these funds to be used for dividends. We do not allow these funds to be used to buy stocks. Now, I can tell you a lot of the companies would like to see fewer strings. But Senator Ensign and I have agreed, in order to pass this, we are going to put some tough strings on it. That is what we have done. Now, I do not have to go through the litany of job losses we have seen in our great Nation. Last month, there were 500,000 jobs lost. Laura Tyson, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton, says: In the current crisis, even credit-worthy and profitable companies face liquidity and credit constraints. And she said, in essence, that the repatriation policies provide a short-run stimulus. People, if you vote against this, know you are voting against a stimulus because those funds will be available to support the domestic operations of U.S. companies. If you do not want to listen to Laura Tyson, listen to Robert Shapiro, chairman of Sonecon, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs under Bill Clinton. See what he says: $421 billion in foreign-sourced income currently held abroad could be repatriated. We project that nearly $97 billion of the $421 billion would go to retaining or creating employment. And he goes on to say: Additional funds used for employment could save or create an estimated 2.6 million jobs, including 2.1 million jobs in manufacturing. That is a Democratic economist. Now, last time, everyone said: Oh, nothing is going to come back in. No taxes will be paid to the Government. That was wrong. As a result of this repatriation in 2004, $18 billion in revenue was received by the U.S. Treasury, six times what some experts predicted. Now, 62 percent of the funds were spent on worker hiring and training, R&D, and capital investments. You are going to hear horror stories, and I say to my cosponsor from Nevada, you are going to hear a litany of horror stories. Well, I am going to tell some of the good stories. Oracle, a California high-tech company, used the funds repatriated in 2004 to outbid foreign competitors to acquire two U.S. companies--one in California, the other in Minnesota, and to keep the companies and their intellectual property in the United States. Oracle has increased jobs at both firms. Intel, another California company, used repatriated funds to help build new fabrication plants. Now, some of the things you are going to hear I do not like to hear. I do not like that some companies did not act in the spirit of the amendment. But the amendment was not tightly drawn. Let me say, loudly and clearly, if any company or any individual in the United States of America does not live up to the law, they should be gone after by the IRS and have to pay their back taxes. That is what is going to happen to companies that disobey this law. That is clear in our amendment. I tell you what we do, we guarantee that there will be an audit of these companies. Now, I would say to any of my colleagues who oppose it, show another case where we pass a tax break and we require every company that takes advantage of it to get audited. As a matter of fact, I think it is a fantastic precedent to set around here, so maybe Chairman Levin does not have to hold hearings if the IRS did its job and go after the bad apples. We address the issue of fungibility. We require that foreign funds must be spent in addition to the current spending level, not to displace money. We require that. We assure transparency and accountability. I am proud that Senators Ensign, Bayh, Specter and Inhofe and I have come together across party lines. I am proud. This is a good amendment. I would ask my friends, where we have an opportunity such as this in the current environment, to inject $300, $400, $500, $600, up to $800 billion into this economy. Now, people are going to say it costs money. Joint Tax says it is a few billion dollars over the first couple of years. Let me say, only in the Government would there be a cost of something that actually increases revenue. Those revenues were not coming in. We have proven it. These revenues sat out there all these years until we passed the bill. Then they came home and they paid their taxes. I believe it brought in 16 billion--between 16 and 18 billion came into the Federal Government. So this amendment means job creation, it means funding for the banks that need capital injection. I am tired of voting for public money to fund banks. I did it. It was tough. Taxpayer money. I wish to see some of this money that is sitting out there get injected into the banks. You are going to hear horror stories, you are going to hear populist arguments. I would put my populism to the test. I do not stand here every day and endorse tax breaks. I am very cautious. But common sense says, you have hundreds of billions of dollars sitting offshore, we are not being paid taxes on the money. They will pay taxes on the money when it comes in. We have heavy strings attached. We require an audit. We have transparency attached. We have support from the National Taxpayers Union, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we have support from industry. They very much would like to bring this back but do not want to bring it back in a circumstance where they are so heavily taxed. So we have a choice: We can walk away from this amendment and we can let $800 billion sit offshore or we can learn from our experience the last time, where we did take in $18 billion into the Treasury. But no question, we could have had some tighter strings. Senator Ensign, I have to thank him, because I am sure he had some other ideas for some of the uses, and I prevailed upon him. I said: Let's allow for a few uses. I see that the Senator from New Hampshire is here. I wanted to close right now in this argument by telling you the uses that would be allowed because I think those are very important. Here is the chart, folks. I ask Senator Shaheen to take a look at this: These are the sole permitted uses of repatriated funds. I hope my colleagues who stand and bash this tell me why these are not good. Why is it not good to hire workers and train them? Why is it not good to do more research and development? Why is it not good to do capital improvements which will put people to work? Why is it not good to acquire distressed businesses to avoid layoffs, shutdowns or bankruptcy? Why is not good to allow these funds to be used for clean energy initiatives? Now, I ask that rhetorically. Maybe the answer comes back, we do not trust these companies. Well, let me tell you, we have added an audit. Every company that does this has to be audited by the IRS. It is automatic. So I am very pleased to present this admendment tonight. I am looking forward to hearing from Senator Ensign. I know we have a debate for which we will stick around, but at this point I will yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Will my colleague yield?

Mrs. BOXER. I have been advised by my staff that Joint Tax today told us that in the first 2 years we will get revenues of $5 billion. Then they go off and speculate as to what is going to happen in 2017. So we can tell our friends here, in the first 2 years, Joint Tax tells us we are going to gain $5 billion. Obviously, they are off on that. We got $16 billion the last time. But even they are saying in the early years we gain revenue. I wanted to make sure my friend knew that.

Mrs. BOXER. Before the distinguished chairman of the committee might leave the floor, he said some things that are not true, so I wish to point out to him that I am holding in my hand a report done by Robert J. Shapiro and Aparna Mathur. Robert Shapiro was a former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs under Bill Clinton. He says that almost 2 million jobs were created the last time we brought the money home. Let's take a look at that chart again, because I think it is worth looking at. He shows where they were created. Job creation or retention: 1.6 million manufacturing. They either retained it or created it. He goes through how many of them were food industry, paper, chemical. I can tell you about Oracle, which was stated by my distinguished cosponsor, that Oracle went in and bought companies that were going downhill and were going to be bought up by a foreign company and saved those jobs. I can tell you, because we have the list of things that were done. We will take a look at Cisco. And then my friend, the chairman of the committee, talks about these companies as if they are some terrible people. Cisco Systems, we should be proud of Cisco Systems. Intel, we should be proud of these companies. Cisco brought back $1.2 billion in 2004. They were right here. And it was used to create 1,200 R&D engineering jobs in the United States. Cisco says they have added 8,500 jobs in the United States, excluding employees added through acquisitions. So my friends who are opposing this are going to stand up and throw out the horror stories and numbers. We have the studies. It doesn't take a degree--although I have one--in economics to understand that if money is sitting offshore and it isn't coming in in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and then in 2005, it jumps up and comes in, gives $18 billion to the Treasury, and according to Robert Shapiro and Laura Tyson, we see millions of jobs saved, then you can stand up and demagog this thing to death. I could do it. They are going to demagog this to death. But I have the facts. I also want to say that there were abuses the last time. The spirit of the law was not followed. The law was weak. That is why this is a very strong amendment. We tie down what they can spend. They have to have maintenance of effort. And any company that does this must be audited. It is in there. You show me another amendment that gives a tax break that does that kind of due diligence. My friend can stand up there and say it didn't work the last time and it won't work this time. We have evidence to the contrary. We know what happened. Even Joint Tax says in the first 2 years we are going to make $5 billion. The whole notion that these companies are going to bring the money in out of the goodness of their hearts, I wish they would. Believe me, I wish they would. So you will hear more of this attack, and I hope you will put it into perspective, because the facts are otherwise. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I love this debate and I love my colleague from North Dakota. I am going to start off by saying I have a 9.2- percent unemployment rate in my State. People are struggling and suffering. That is why I support this amendment, which I was proud to work on with Senator Ensign, Senator Bayh, and Senator Specter. First, my friend has it wrong. He has it absolutely wrong. We are bringing money home to America. We are not sending money out. It is already gone. Look what happened the last time we did this. The money came home. Now, you can argue theoretically in any way you want, but we have the proof. Here it is. We passed a law in 2004 and this money came home. I say to my friend from Michigan, eloquent on the point of defending the Joint Tax Committee--and I ask my friend from Nevada to back me up on this point. I say to my friend from Michigan, if I can get his attention, that we can worship at the altar of the Joint Tax Committee. I don't. I don't because they were wrong. They were wrong. It is not a theoretical argument. They were wrong.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes.

Mrs. BOXER. I was aware. The Senator is absolutely right. They said it would cost $3 billion from the Treasury and, in essence, $16 billion was added to the Treasury, and even now they are saying over the first 2 years there will be $5 billion added to the Treasury. My friends don't talk about that; they talk about the long range. I also say to my friends who oppose us so vociferously, on the other side of this, you will find very respected economists who believe that the Boxer-Ensign-Bayh-Specter amendment makes sense. They are Alan Sinai--I don't know how my friend says he backtracked. He said this in December. Maybe he backtracked in the last 2 weeks. In December, he said that repatriation has spurred $280 billion in capital investments over a 5-year period, increased R&D development by $7 billion a year for 5 years, increased Federal revenue by $82 billion, and will create or save up to 425,000 jobs by 2012.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes.

Mrs. BOXER. Joint Tax ought to backtrack. They were flat wrong. They said maybe $200 billion will come back, and $360 billion came back. They said we would lose money. We wound up with $16 billion added to the Treasury. So it is very easy to demagog. It is very easy. But my friend has it wrong. Then my friend says that effectively the corporate rate is only 17 percent. Well, if that is true, then this is less of a tax break than he is making it out to be. You cannot have it both ways and say, look at this giant tax break and then say the effective rate is 17 percent. I suggest to my friend, as he went through the phone book in his State, thank goodness, because of the work of this Congress, people in the $40,000 to $50,000 range don't pay any taxes. I will tell you something. I am rarely standing up here and saying a tax cut to the business community is stimulative. But this one is, because it was stimulative. We have it right here from Robert Shapiro, who worked for Bill Clinton. He said that jobs saved or created were 1.6 million from the last tax break. So my friends come here and quote Joint Tax as if we have to say they are right, when they were wrong-- just wrong--wrong on estimating what would come back, wrong on estimating what would come into the Treasury. If you read these economists, whom I have heard colleagues on this side quote constantly--Laura Tyson, Alan Sinai, and Robert Shapiro--they are saying how to stimulate the economy, and this is one way to do it. To stand up here and be against it is fine. I don't mind that one bit. But to stand up here and be against it because you were for the fact that there are corporations that have earnings offshore, I abhor that, too. I want to bring them home. No matter what my colleagues say, guess what. This is a free marketplace, and they don't have to and they won't unless they have an incentive. That is a fact. We may wish it to be another way. Look at this chart. Year after year after year, very little came back. When we took action, all of this came back. The reports are in from these economists--and most happen to be Democrats--that it worked.

Mrs. BOXER. My friend is so right to ask that. Sometimes debates are difficult to follow. They are confusing and complicated. This is not complicated. We know the way the corporations were acting before, and we know what happened when we took this chance. We got arguments from people here that money won't come back and it will not be spent here. By the way, this is a tight bill. My friend from Michigan argues that we don't force the companies to spend the money. We don't force them to spend the money. I don't even think that is constitutional. But I have to tell you this: Even if the money sat in American banks, I say to my friend from Nevada, who is my pal on this one, wouldn't that be in and of itself a reason to do this? We are breaking the backs of taxpayers to take $770 billion, I think it is, through TARP to capitalize our banks. As my friend says, if they don't spend the money right away, they let it sit in these banks that need this capital and, hopefully, they will start lending, which we hope will happen so we can get back to an orderly market. It will make the banks healthier. My view is that this year there is more of a reason to do it than ever before--the terrible recession. We have a tight bill that will only allow this tax break to be utilized if the money is used to create jobs, where they bring the money home. That is it. Otherwise, they cannot get the break. We have a forced audit in here, and I defy my friends to find another piece of legislation that has such an audit--a forced audit.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, that is right. My understanding is they were way off by more than $100 billion. So for us to say: Oh, my God, don't vote for the Boxer-Ensign amendment because Joint Tax says A, B, and C, I say to my friend, Joint Tax has been so out to lunch on this. They didn't even come close to what happened. We can have lots of arguments, but I can tell you this: Nobody gains in America when that money sits offshore. They did not gain in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. We had Oracle buying companies that were failing. We had Cisco Systems expanding. Yes, we know there were job layoffs. Of course, we know that. If Pfizer has a problem-- let's just say they have a drug on the market that is causing a problem, they are going to lay off people. They are going to have problems. We do not allow funds to be used for dividends. We do not allow funds to be used for any kind of golden parachutes or CEO pay. We do not allow buybacks of stock. We tighten it up very much. I hope we can get to the 60 votes. I am very confident we will get a majority. I hope we get to the 60 votes. It sends a good message. The message is we do not like money sitting offshore. We want to bring it home and help the banks. We want to bring it home and help the workers. We want to bring it home and invest it in America. That is why it is called repatriation. You can get up and you can make every argument in the book, but when you do, I think you have to explain to people why economists such as Laura Tyson, Allen Sinai, Robert Shapiro are very clear, why they say that Joint Tax was off, why they say that even the last bill that was not as strong as this actually created and saved jobs, and why they predict that if we do this, it will stimulate the economy. I know my friends would like to have a time agreement. I have no problem with that whatsoever. If there is to be a time agreement, Senator Ensign and I are very happy to agree to it as long as we have full measure to respond to speakers.

Mrs. BOXER. I will take 1 more minute. Then I will retain. So I love a debate, but I would like to debate on the facts. The facts are that this is what happened until we had the tax holiday. Now there is a new hue and cry: You did it in 2004; never do it again. Well, I think it is a good thing that Oracle bought up two or three companies that were going to go belly up and that were going to be bought out by a foreign competitor. I think that was good. I think it was good that Cisco Systems added so many jobs--more than 1,000 new jobs. So when my friends stand and they lament the loss of jobs, I lament every job loss in this country. And I say to Cisco Systems: Good for you. You brought the money in and you did the right thing. Did every company do that? No. That is why we have tightened up this bill. I thank the Chair, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mrs. BOXER. We will call it 4, and I will take 2 and yield 2 to my friend, and we will close. First of all, this isn't a shop-worn argument. This is an argument that is going to create jobs, if we win it. Who says it? Laura Tyson: Repatriation policy provides a short-run stimulus and would make funds available to support the domestic operations of U.S. companies quickly. Robert Schapiro, Under Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton: The earnings currently held abroad would provide significant economic stimulus and financial market liquidity if a change in government policy could induce U.S. multinationals to promptly repatriate them and use them for certain purposes. You know, here it is. If you want to get the break, these are the things you have to do. You have to hire workers. You have to use it for research and development, for capital improvements. You have to acquire distressed companies and clean energy investments. Look, my friends. The world is the way the world is. I think Senator Ensign and I, Senator Bayh, and Senator Specter are realists. Yes, in many ways I would like to think I am an idealist. I don't like the fact that these companies are keeping their money abroad. But guess what. They are not going to bring the money back because Byron Dorgan or Barbara Boxer comes on the floor of the Senate and says: Please be good. Please be good. We need the capital in our banks. We need the capital to create jobs. We need to make it profitable for them, and that is what we are doing. We did it before. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a chart that was done by Mr. Schapiro proving that 2.1 million jobs the last time were either created or saved.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the 2008 Annual Report of the Select Committee on Ethics.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I yield the floor at this time and retain my right to respond.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, if I might have a moment before Senator Bunning speaks.

Mrs. BOXER. Let no one stand and say that unless we support the amendment of the Senator from Utah, a pregnant woman and the child she is carrying will not get coverage. That is false. What my friend wants is to codify George Bush's regulation that he correctly pointed out my State adopted. Why did my State adopt it? They were forced to adopt it if they wanted to cover pregnant women. They had to use that language of the unborn child. This is all about the abortion debate. It has to be. Under this bill I support, every pregnant woman is covered or is eligible for coverage. Under the amendment my friend is offering today, every pregnant woman would be eligible. So it is just about the language. That is the fact. Let me repeat that. Under the bill, every pregnant poor woman is eligible for coverage. Under the amendment of my friend, every poor pregnant woman is eligible for coverage. What he insists on is that you have to separate the woman from the child she is carrying in order to make a political point about when life begins. This is not the appropriate time to have that debate. Believe me, I look forward to the debate. We have had it on the Senate floor. Tom Harkin had an amendment a couple of times to say that Roe v. Wade ought to be codified. It should not be overturned. We had votes on that. By the way, we did win that vote. But that is not what this is about. This is about making sure every pregnant woman gets coverage. Instead of being happy about it, my friend is agitated about the language and wants to write it in his way so we can then get into a debate about when life begins. How you would ever separate a pregnant woman from the child she is carrying goes against nature. I have had two kids. I know. It is all about health care to the pregnant woman. When the child is born, it is about health care to the woman and, yes, the baby. My friend can stand here all he wants and say I am the one who is injecting abortion into this debate. I am not the one offering a divisive amendment. I am not the one raising the subject matter of when a fetus is a separate life from the mother. That is for another time. We have work to do. We have people struggling in this country. My friend attacked the stimulus bill. By the way, that debate is coming as well. But the one area I know we should be able to work together on is making sure our kids are healthy. We should walk down the aisle together being very pleased we have taken care of that in this bill. Believe me, the more people lose their jobs and they can't get another one, the more this program is going to be necessary. I hope we can have a vote on this in the near future. I guess I would like to ask my friend if he wants to continue this debate. I can stay all day. But I didn't know what his plan was.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, with great respect for my friend from Utah, I rise to oppose his amendment, not only as a Senator but as a mom and a grandmother. What the Senator is seeking to do essentially is separate the woman from the child she is carrying, separate her from her pregnancy. I think I can speak with authority here. I know my friend is a grandpa and a dad and has a magnificently beautiful family, but I gave birth to two kids. I can assure my friend that when you cover the pregnant woman, you are covering that child from the time that child is a fetus to the time that child is born. I would just say that it appears to me as if this amendment is a diversionary amendment from this very important bill to expand and improve the health of our children, including the health of our moms who are pregnant, a diversion to a debate about when does life begin-- let's fight about abortion. You know what, we will have many opportunities to have that argument. When we have that argument over Roe v. Wade, I think pro-choice will prevail. But this is not the place to have that argument. This is a place where my friend from Utah and I should walk down this aisle being very happy that under this law that is before us, this bill that is before us, States absolutely can choose to cover a pregnant woman. This is a big step forward, and this is very important. Again, I think the idea behind this amendment is to divert us from this very important bill. In my State, it will expand coverage to more than half a million kids and many pregnant women. The debate over when life begins and all of that is a very philosophical debate. My religion may teach something other than my friend's. I totally respect every view on that subject. I also respect the women of this country and the view they bring through their moral code and their religion and whatever else they bring to the table as human beings. On the day we debate that, I will be out here debating it, but I am not going to get into this debate with my friend today over when life begins. Today is a day where we are going to work on making sure that our children are covered with health insurance and that our pregnant women are covered with health insurance. The good news I bring to the Senate today is that under this bill, pregnant women will be covered by this. This is very important. Again, to try to separate the woman from the child she is carrying, from the fetus in her womb, is nonsensical. Maybe my friend sees it another way. But when you take care of a pregnant woman, you are taking care of her fetus, you are taking care of her pregnancy, you are working hard to make sure that baby is healthy. I just became a grandma 3 weeks ago, and my daughter had excellent health care. I want to assure my friends on the other side of the aisle that as she was being treated, so was the child she was carrying, my beautiful grandson. Let's not take a beautiful bill and start fighting over an issue that has been a philosophical argument forever--what is the point at which life begins? My religion teaches me one thing. My friend's religion may teach him another. Who is right? Who is wrong? All we, as humankind, can do is to give our best effort to figure that out. But in this bill, what we are trying to do is bring health insurance to pregnant women, bring health insurance to our kids. To divert it with this subject is a disservice to the bill that is before us. I know my friend is passionate on this point. I totally respect him for that. But I hope we will defeat this amendment because it is a diversion. It is a fight about Roe v. Wade. It is a fight about whether a woman has a right to choose, and it does not belong on this bill. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, my friend from Utah says he wants an honest debate, and then he says, and I am quoting him--not word for word--he says, pregnant women are not covered in this bill. That is a dishonest debate. States have the option to cover pregnant women, just as under the Bush regulation they have the option to cover the unborn child. Okay? So let's straighten it out. My colleague has mentioned my State several times. My State was so anxious to cover pregnant women that they did cover them under the unborn child regulation which was put into place by George Bush, because he injected the whole abortion debate into the CHIP program. What we do is we get away from that. In this bill we talk about covering pregnant women. So for anyone to stand up here and suggest that the only way to cover pregnant women is by codifying George Bush's regulation that, by the way, this Chamber voted down twice--let's be clear. My colleague says that this is a left-right issue. This is not a left-right issue at all. When my colleagues voted on this a couple of times before, it was bipartisan to reject the Allard amendment, which was to codify the very law that my friend is suggesting we do today. I will predict we will defeat this by a much bigger margin, because of the elections that were just held. I say again, with all respect, anyone who in their heart wants to cover pregnant women, which means covering the child they are carrying, should be very proud of this bill. Because that is what we do. So to stand up here and say we have to codify George Bush's wording on this, which was ``unborn child,'' saying if we do not pass this amendment, pregnant women and their babies are not covered, this is a straw man or a straw person. Pregnant women are covered. The fetus is covered from the minute that woman goes to the doctor until the minute she gives birth, and through all of those times in between. It is the ability of the States to do it. But we refuse in this bill, and I hope we will continue this, to put forward such a divisive issue and an argument that does not belong on this bill. If my friend was right, if he stood up here and said, right now pregnant women are not covered, I would go over there and say, well, let's work out some wording to make sure they are covered. But we do not have to do that. They are covered. What my friend wants is to codify what George Bush put into play, a political decision to inject abortion politics into a children's health bill. I think it is a sad day for the children of this country to be drawn into a debate. And, again, mentioning my State several times, when my State had no choice. If they wanted to cover pregnant women, they had to cover them under this. Guess what. Now they will not have to do it, because this bill corrects the problem. So I have to say, when my friend says it is a left-right debate, it has nothing do with left-right, and he knows it. In my State, some of the strongest pro-choice constituents are Republicans, and some of the strongest pro-life constituents are Democrats. This is not a left-right issue. It is an issue we all address in our own way using our own logic, our religion, our moral values, and we come to a conclusion. Do not inject it into this bill. I hope we reject this, because this is now the second abortion-related amendment my Republican friends have offered in as many days. If that is what they think this election was about, I think they are missing something. People want our kids to have health care. They want our families to have health care. They want to solve the economic problems. Today we learned there are even more jobless claims. Millions of people are unemployed. And we are having our second abortion-related vote. I think if this party, this Grand Old Party does that, I see several colleagues who may say, well, it is your right, it is your privilege, I will debate you. I think we will prevail today. But if every single bill we bring forward turns into an abortion- related debate, I do not know where my colleagues are coming from. Because let me reiterate, every pregnant woman has the right to have this health care option should their State choose it. We do not need to change the language and codify a very divisive amendment which was a regulation under George Bush. It should be a new day around here. We should not have to have this division. But I have already heard they may offer more abortion-related amendments on this children's bill. Who knows what is to come? But you know what, I think my leader, Harry Reid, is right. Let them come at us with these amendments. Let the American people see the priorities, when everyone knows every pregnant woman is eligible for coverage. To now indicate they are not unless my friend's amendment passes is simply, if I could say, an out and out falsehood. It is not true. It is not true. I have the bill. I will read the section, if my friend needs me to. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the last two votes we had on this very same subject where those trying to inject the abortion issue failed.

Mrs. BOXER. Again, I want my colleagues to understand, we are debating a children's health care bill. Happily, I can say every pregnant woman in this country is eligible for health care. It is a wonderful thing. We avoid the divisive language of my friend's amendment which is codifying something George Bush put into place. It was not supported in the Senate. It was not supported twice. I respect his right to offer it as many times as he wants and let the American people see what we are debating. My State wanted so much to cover pregnant women, they said: We will go along with this language. But now they will not have to. They don't have to get engaged in an abortion debate, when you are serving children. I view this, frankly, as a needless debate. If the issue is covering pregnant women and their children, we have taken care of it. If this amendment is about injecting abortion and when life begins, it definitely succeeds. I hope the Senate will speak loudly and clearly, regardless of how one feels about when life begins because that is not a partisan issue. Everybody comes to their own conclusion. This is an attempt to inject the abortion debate into a children's health care bill. It is diversionary. It is unnecessary. We should be so proud this bill covers every pregnant woman. It is one of those moments we could walk down the aisle together saying isn't it wonderful because pregnant women will get health care. That will lead to healthier children. We all know that. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the reason I want to respond to this, my friend is so eloquent, and he is such a great debater, but I have to bring us back to reality. If you are standing here today because you care about kids and you want to make sure pregnant women get all the health care they need so if there is trouble in the pregnancy, if there is a problem--there are so many miraculous things that can be done, and I have seen some of those in my own family, the things they can do to make sure a child is healthy. If the purpose of my friend, out of his love for his children and all children, which I know he has--if my purpose in supporting this bill is to make sure children are healthy, if that is our purpose, we could be very proud of this bill. This bill says--and I will reiterate this as long as I have to--every single poor pregnant woman in America today is eligible for health care during her pregnancy, from the first day to the last day. Then, of course, a poor child would continue to get that health care. So anyone else who says that isn't true simply hasn't read the bill. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record, so my friend can't say something that is without rebuttal, page 50 of the bill, section 2112, which talks about low-income pregnant women to be covered through a State plan amendment.

Mrs. BOXER. Thank you, Mr. President. Because some of the things that are said around here--and, by the way, we will have a whole list of Republicans helping us to defeat this, so I am not going to name people. But let me say this: To stand up and say we are pitting a woman against her child when we support this bill that makes eligible for coverage every pregnant woman is simply a hurtful and untrue remark, especially to say it to someone who adores her children and her grandkids, and I take great offense. It is the opposite. This amendment separates a woman from her child because instead of saying you are going to cover a pregnant women, you are saying you are covering the unborn child. And what about the woman? She is not even mentioned. I take offense at that line of attack. We say when you cover a pregnant woman, you cover her child, you cover that fetus from the moment that woman goes to get health care. What my friend does is separate the woman from her child by saying we are going to give the child health care while the child is in the womb and do not even mention the woman--do not even mention the woman. So who is separating the woman from her child? Again, it is very clear that this is about the abortion debate. And as many times as my friend says it--and he raises my State again, so let me say again, yes, many States did provide health care under this definition of unborn child. They had no choice because President Bush put a regulation in place, and if my State wanted to help pregnant women, they had no choice but to help them under that particular regulation. Well, what we are doing today is saying to States: You do not have to get into the abortion debate. If a woman is poor and she is eligible for Medicaid, and she is pregnant, she gets the health care as well as the baby she is carrying. So do not say that those of us who vote against this amendment are separating women and children. It is the total opposite. For whatever reason, under that old regulation, the child was mentioned and not the woman. That defies science. That defies reality. You treat the woman and the child she is carrying. So, again, I take offense at this. I do not want to be jumping up every time, but I will if there is something said here that is not true. I have total respect for the other side on the abortion debate-- complete respect for them. And that is what this is about, and they know it. Because if they only cared about the pregnant woman and her child, they are taken care of in this bill. Mr. President, I thank you very much, and I yield the floor.