Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, this is a very complex scoring issue. It may take some work after it leaves the Chamber tonight to get this right. We very much appreciate the fact that all the parties have worked together to avoid a rollcall vote.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. Chairman, I think it would be useful to do that. This has a bit of a complexity.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CONRAD. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, this has been 4 long days and 4 difficult days in which the two sides have worked together with a remarkable spirit of cooperation and good will. I would call on my two colleagues--both Senator Kyl, whom I like and respect, and Senator Durbin, about whom I feel the same way--and ask them both to allow those two votes to go away. They can come back on other vehicles at a later point. Here we are, at 12:30, with an amendment that has a political agenda and calls for a political response. I think it is not appropriate, at 12:25, after we have worked together for 4 days with substantive disagreements which we have dealt with in an orderly and cooperative way. Can't we just withhold on this budget resolution and deal with this issue on a later vehicle?

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I could yield 10 minutes off the resolution to the Senator from Michigan. How much time does the Senator from New Jersey seek?

Mr. CONRAD. He did say that. It is a rather remarkable statement. He thought it was good for the country that jobs were outsourced overseas.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I yield myself such time as I may consume off the resolution.

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I thank the Senator from California for this very important amendment. It is becoming increasingly clear jobs are very much an endangered species in this economy. It is the No. 1 subject. When I go home and go from town to town, the No. 1 subject is economic opportunities, jobs, economic growth, and a deepening concern that we are not seeing the kind of economic growth and job opportunities all of us would like. We saw yesterday in the very steep selloff in the stock market an increasing concern that economic growth is already stalling out. We have seen in the jobs reports that job growth is badly lagging behind what all of us would like to see, and badly lagging behind what we have seen in other recessions. On March 9 in the New York Times, Paul Krugman, the noted economist, had this headlined article: ``Promises, Promises.'' The subheadline was ``Wishful Thinking on Jobs.'' He went back and looked at the job history from 1999 to 2004 and then looked at the forecasts of the administration. He pointed out that back in 2002, the administration said by this time, or January of 2005, we would have 138 million jobs. Obviously we do not have 138 million jobs. We are at 130 million jobs now. Then in 2003 they refined that estimate and lowered it substantially and said, Well, no, we will not have 138 million jobs; we will have 135 million jobs. Now this year they revised the estimate again and said, Whoops, we were wrong again. We are not going to have 135 million jobs; we are going to have 132.7 million jobs. As of the end of February, we are nowhere close to that. We are at 130.2 million jobs. I will go to this chart that shows what has happened in every recession since World War II. In every one of these recessions, we have seen on average, 17 months after the business cycle peaked, the job recovery really took off. That has been the pattern of the nine recessions since World War II. Let's compare it to what is happening this time. That is the black line. Here we are 36 months since the business cycle peaked and we still see almost no jobs recovery. Something is wrong and it is seriously wrong. We are now 5.4 million jobs short of the typical recovery going all the way back to World War II. Look at nine previous recessions. In those other recessions, the job market was soaring by this time. Not now. Something is wrong. Even when the administration dramatically altered and lowered their projection of jobs by January of next year, they still said there would be 2.6 million more jobs by the end of 2004 than 2003. If that forecast is to come true, they will have to generate 520,000 jobs a month between now and the end of the year. The most recent month was not 520,000 jobs; it was not 420,000 jobs; it was not 120,000 jobs; it was 21,000 jobs and every one of them was a Government job. There was no growth in the private sector. Something is wrong.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the Senator from Connecticut is next in our queue. I am wondering if we might enter into a time agreement on the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut. I would suggest 20 minutes equally divided. We provided that amendment to the other side.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I say to the Senator from California, I would be happy to yield time off the resolution to the Senator from Michigan so it would not come out of her time.

Mr. CONRAD. An entirely reasonable request. Thank you, I say to Senator Byrd.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I now yield to Senator Lautenberg for the purpose of sending forward his amendment that we earlier discussed I will give him a minute off the resolution to send his amendment to the desk, and then go to Senator Bingaman for 5 minutes to discuss his amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. Would the Senator prefer to do that at this moment?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair. I yield 2 minutes off the resolution to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. CONRAD. I would say in response to the inquiry of the Senator, in terms of what I found at home, North Dakota has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the Nation. We have a very low rate of unemployment in our State. Yet job anxiety is growing there. Why? It is not because the unemployment rate is high; it is because good jobs are not available. It is because people who are more highly educated, more highly trained, are not able to get jobs commensurate with their training and education, and this is creating a whole level of people who are what we would call underemployed--underemployed based on their previous job experiences, underemployed in terms of their education and training. I say to my colleagues, there was a cartoon in the New Yorker magazine that my wife drew to my attention the other day. The cartoon was two guys who kind of looked like deadbeat guys. One guy says to the other: You know, you are out of work, aren't you? He said to the gentleman: I have quit looking. I understand that's good for the economy. No, it is not good for the economy. That I think is what is increasingly of concern to people. These are middle-class people, people with good education, with good training, who had good jobs. I have a relative who was very advanced in a major corporation and his entire division was laid off. These are very highly skilled people, very highly trained, very highly paid. They found all of their jobs were being shipped to India. To add insult to injury, they were asked to go to India to train the people to take their jobs.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the Senator makes a very good point. I think I speak for everybody when I say our hearts and minds are with the people of Spain after the terrible tragedy they suffered. We will seek to find a way to express our condolences to the people of Spain before we complete our work before the break. I thank the Senator for bringing that matter to our attention.

Mr. CONRAD. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to again send a message out to our colleagues just as strongly and as clearly as I can. We are very close, I believe, to having presented our major amendments. I believe very strongly that this year less is more. I hope colleagues will refrain from offering additional amendments unless they are just extraordinarily important and they are able to convince the managers and the leadership they simply must be offered. We are now on the fourth day of deliberations on the budget resolution. We have had an opportunity to debate this in a full and virtually complete way. We are on the brink of having been able to complete the offering of all our major priority amendments. I am asking my colleagues, please refrain from offering additional amendments. I hope very much we will have a meeting on our side to discuss how we proceed from this point. I thank all of our colleagues who have debated. I thank all of our colleagues who have offered these key amendments. I want to especially thank Senator Byrd for his courtesy and his willingness to accept the limitation on time. The next Member in our order is Senator Lieberman. I see the chairman has returned. Again, I am asking all of our colleagues who have pending amendments on our side, please review them with a fine-tooth comb. Unless they are absolutely essential, I ask you, I urge you not to offer the amendment. And for the first time I have ever done this on a budget resolution, I am very close to the point where I will begin opposing amendments because I feel so strongly we should not offer substantially more amendments than we already have. I am very close to the point of taking the position that I will oppose amendments. We have had a good opportunity to debate. We have had a good opportunity to consider major amendments. We can have some additional high priority amendments. But 50 additional amendments, no. That is not reasonable. It is not fair to our colleagues. Please, let us show some restraint. I thank the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I yield an additional 20 minutes off the resolution to the Senator from California.

Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield 5 minutes off the resolution to the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. CONRAD. We have a lot of amendments that the chairman might feel that way about.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from California.