Tom Daschle

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am delighted that he has taken the speech that I put in his desk from George Mitchell from about 2 years ago and used it almost verbatim. Obviously, as leaders, we face these frustrations with some frequency. I have learned that now myself over the last 18 months. I say to the distinguished majority leader that there are many things that he has done since he has taken this office that many of us have found to be very productive, and we appreciate his willingness to cooperate on so many things in the short time that he has been majority leader. I have been asked almost daily by members of the media how I view the first few weeks of the majority leader's tenure, and I have given him very high marks because of his determination to continue to find ways to deal with the many issues that he has listed. There have been times in this Congress when we have been able to accomplish a number of things. We passed the unfunded mandates bill last year. We passed the line-item veto. We passed the congressional accountability legislation. We passed telecommunications reform. We passed in the Senate a couple of bills that may or may not ultimately become law, including welfare reform. We might be able to do that again. On those occasions where Democrats and Republicans have worked together, we have had overwhelming votes. Just this week we passed the minimum wage bill by an overwhelming vote in part because the leadership has been able to find ways to work together. The majority leader made a point that he has had to file--he used the words ``had to file''--a number of cloture motions. I must tell you that I do not know why he and his predecessor have felt compelled so often to file cloture motions on the very day they lay a bill down. How many times have we seen bills laid down and cloture motions filed on the very first day? What kind of a message for bipartisanship does that send? How many opportunities are we going to have to participate in the legislative process when that happens? I would like to go through that list of all of those bills and find out how many times on the first or second day a cloture motion was filed. That is not the way we used to do business around here. I hope we can get back to the good old days when we legislated. He mentioned conferences. He mentioned the fact that we have been reluctant to go to conference. There is one very simple reason for that. We have been unable to go to conference because we do not know they exist once we agree to them. There have been occasions--I cannot tell you how many--when we have agreed to go to conference, then discover that House and Senate Republicans find some room to meet and agree, and then they tell the other Democratic conferees what they have agreed to. That is the conference. We're not even told about it until it's over. Mr. President, that is not the way to legislate. In the good old days it took Democrats and Republicans to make a conference. The majority leader has at least expressed a desire to see more bipartisanship in conferences. I am very hopeful that happens because once it does, we will be in a much better position to agree to go to conference. Talk about kicking the ball. How about when you feel like you are the ball? [Laughter.] That is really what we are talking about here. It is not a question of where the ball is. The ball is here, and we are getting kicked. [Laughter.] It is not a very advantageous position for us to be in. Let me talk briefly about the health care reform conference. The majority leader says conferees have been blocked for 80 days. Maybe it has been so long that the majority leader has forgotten what happened 80 days ago. Eighty days ago, the Senate voted on MSA's. The Senate voted not to include MSA's in this portability bill. Why? Because we all agreed we wanted to keep our eye on the ball, so to speak. [Laughter.] We wanted to be able to say, ``Look, we know that if expand this bill to include other kinds of things, nothing will get done.'' I had my own list of thing I wish could have been added. In fact, one of the toughest votes I have had to cast in a long time was against the measure offered by the Senator from New Mexico and the Senator from Minnesota on mental health. I did not want to vote against that. But I can recall so vividly the distinguished chair of the Labor Committee and the distinguished ranking member saying, ``Our plan is to oppose all amendments regardless of how good they may be because we know that, if this bill gets loaded up, nothing is going to get done.'' I do not know how much more visionary they could have been. How prophetic it was, because that is exactly what has happened. Eighty days later, the bill languishes. Do you know what we are hung up on? We are hung up on the insistence of the minority that the majority accept its position and make sure it prevails in the conference. That is really what we are talking about here. They want to put MSA's back in the bill. We said, ``We are prepared to put MSA's back in the bill. But let us simply test it first. We have been debating about whether we can figure out a way to have a test that meets with both sides' satisfaction. But why should we agree to go to conference with the likelihood that we would not even be in the room, based on past performance? That has happened, and it is likely to happen again, given the makeup of the committees.'' Now the leader has come up with a new MSA formula, and it is certainly encouraging. But I am guessing that the Senate conferee will still be in favor of MSA's. In fact, I am sure that will be the conference position under the plan proposed by the majority leader. So if the Senate is on record in opposition to MSA's, again, it seems to me we feel like we are the football, and we're getting kicked again. We are just not going to do it. If we can work out a way to ensure that we can reach an agreement in a bipartisan fashion, I am all for it. The last thing--the majority leader talked about the taxpayer bill of rights. Well, we may have amendments to the taxpayer bill of rights; that's a matter we have been unable to work out up until today. As a result of our negotiations, I think we can now work out our differences. He talked about the White House Travel Office. Again, we have amendments. We would like to be able to work out an arrangement that would allow these amendments to be taken up. The majority leader mentioned that he still cannot get the Gambling Impact Study Commission done. I want the Record to show that this is the first request we have ever seen to clear the Gambling Impact Study Commission. The distinguished majority leader mentioned the stalking bill. The distinguished Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Lautenberg], proposed an amendment to the stalking bill weeks ago. Republicans have that amendment for weeks. The reason the stalking bill does not come up--because they do not want that amendment added to this bill. So that is the issue, Mr. President. We can deal with any one of these bills. But it has to be in a bipartisan way. That is all we are hoping we can do. We will continue to work with the majority leader to make his tenure as majority leader less frustrating and more productive. And I stand here ready to do it this afternoon. I yield the floor.

Mr. DASCHLE. On that point, if the majority leader will yield briefly, there are three categories: Amendable vehicles, motions to proceed, and conference reports. Now, on the motions to proceed and conference reports, we will compare notes here, but let us look at amendable vehicles and see what the record is between Democrats and Republicans. I would like to put that in the Record.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I take back the floor. Let me just say that is not the case. And the Senator from Utah certainly knows is not the case. That is not what happened, and I hope we could make sure that the Record at least would be accurate as we address the circumstances involving this matter. But the issue is are we willing to establish a new precedent here; that every time somebody is investigated, every time somebody is found to be innocent of some charges, the Government then automatically reimburses that person for whatever legal fees they have incurred. If we are prepared to do that, I think this side would have a very significant list of people that we may want to address. Shall we do that for Congress as well? Where does it stop? I think all of this needs to be considered much more carefully than we have done thus far. We have amendments we want to talk about. We think a good debate may be in order before we set this precedent. Before we are asked to put our names on the line and vote affirmatively or negatively on this issue, ultimately I think a much better understanding of the facts and a far better understanding of the complications regarding the unprecedented nature of this legislation ought to be considered. So for those reasons, we are not prepared to go to the bill today. I yield the floor. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.

Mr. DASCHLE. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President. We have not seen this amendment, to my knowledge. I do not know that anyone has shared it with us. I have not seen it. But I say that, beyond the issue of the Hatch amendment, there are Members on this side who believe that it is important that we have a good debate about this bill and about this issue. They have amendments that they may be interested in offering. They want the opportunity to offer those amendments, or to at least have the right to offer them at some point. So we would not be in a position to agree today to pass this piece of legislation. We would need to look at the Hatch amendment. We need the opportunity, at least, to offer amendments. I think it is important that that be done. So, on that basis, we object.

Mr. DASCHLE. Yes.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Utah raises a couple of points that I wish to take just a moment to respond to. I know there are others on the floor who want to go to the DOD bill. The Senator from Utah indicated that there are those who are asking questions from Dale in particular with regard to his legal fees, and that we were using that as the reason for holding this bill up. We are not using that as the reason. We have not said that until we get that information we are going to prevent the bill from coming to the floor. That is not our desire necessarily. But there are reports that Mr. Dale had a fee arrangement with his attorneys, and that fee arrangement was just a fraction of what this bill would provide with regard to reimbursement for legal fees. If that is the case, then to provide a fee or a reimbursement many times what the fee may have been for Mr. Dale it seems to us to be inappropriate. The second issue is how unprecedented the nature of this legislation really is. It is virtually unprecedented. I will not ask the distinguished Senator from Utah today if he can give me a list of all of those occasions when we have done this in the past. But I think he would be hard pressed to do that.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President. Let me begin by thanking the two distinguished colleagues from Nevada for their cooperation this afternoon in allowing us to get to this point. As the majority leader indicated, they care deeply about this issue. Nevada is well served by their representation and their determination on this issue. I also want to thank the majority leader for his effort to work with us. He has said again today what he said yesterday. He is prepared to try to work through these things in a way that would allow us to resolve all of the outstanding questions. He has given me his assurance again today that we will attempt--all we can do is attempt--to work through the list of the 23 judges that are currently on the calendar. This is the first downpayment. I appreciate his willingness to work with us on all of them. I believe that this is a good process. I think it is the way we should proceed. So I am very pleased that we have been able to reach this point. So I have no objection.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. I will use my leader time and only take so much time as may be required prior to the time we are prepared to go to the DOD bill, which I understand is imminent.

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

Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, as I understand, morning business has expired.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I wanted to call attention to the fact that yesterday, as we passed the important piece of legislation dealing with minimum wage, one of the issues that I do not think got the kind of attention that I had hoped it would receive, and really deserves, has to do with pensions and has to do with the significant new contribution we made to pension reform in the package of amendments that we added to the minimum wage bill. That legislation dealing with pensions has several categories, one of which is an issue which a number of our colleagues have expressed a great deal of concern about and are prepared to support in a series of amendments dealing with women's pension equity. There is a significant disparity among working people, between men and women, with regard to pension equity. Senator Boxer and Senator Moseley-Braun, in particular, added amendments to this package which would begin to address that disparity, which would begin to close the gap, the chasm, really, between men and women when it comes to pensions. I want to publicly commend them for their leadership and their willingness to work with all of us to find a way with which to begin making the effort to close that gap and to provide the kind of equity that I know all of our colleagues would like to achieve. Senator Boxer's provision will make it more likely that surviving spouses--typically women--will be able to avoid significant cutbacks in the level of retirement income provided while their spouses were alive. Senator Moseley-Braun's provisions will remove roadblocks that can prevent surviving spouses and former spouses from getting the benefits they are entitled to from both private sector pension plans and Federal retirement programs. Beyond women's equity, we also dealt with the issue of pension portability. We have a very significant problem in this country that exists every time someone wants to leave their job to go to another job. Pension portability is almost as serious a problem as health care portability. We need to find ways with which our workers can take pensions with them and keep increasing retirement savings without obstacles or cutbacks as they move from one job to the next. This bill will expand the PBGC's missing participant program to help ensure that retirees who have lost touch with their former employer never find their benefits unexpectedly forfeited when the pension plan terminates. It will also make it easier for new employees to enter their employers' 401k plan immediately, rather than waiting to benefit. Finally, there are a number of issues relating directly to pension security that have to be addressed. Security for pensions is something that increases in urgency for workers as they get closer to that date when they will retire. There is a pervasive sense of insecurity about pensions in retirement today. Working people, men and women, are very concerned about whether or not they will have the capacity to deal with the problems that they know they will confront with regard to their own income viability, their own ability to ensure some confidence that they will have the necessary means to live in some security and comfort during retirement. The way that we are going to be able to address that effectively is to put the kind of priority and attention on pension security that it deserves. We took an important step yesterday by increasing the guaranteed benefit provided to retirees from multiemployer pension plans that become insolvent. Several months ago, we laid out our desire to see an action agenda addressed. That action agenda has four components. The first was personal security and the need to ensure that people are safe in their neighborhoods. The second was paycheck security and the real desire that working people have to earn more income. The third was health security. And the fourth is pension security. Madam President, we are now at a point where we have been able to address all four of those security questions. We have been able to protect the cops on the beat program. We have made a downpayment in providing better personal security out on the street than we had before. Yesterday, we passed the minimum wage bill. We are working on both sides of the aisle, hopefully, to resolve our differences in the Kennedy-Kassebaum legislation. I hope we can, at some point, put that bill back before the Senate in an effort to resolve what remaining differences there are, in an effort to move it forward and to have a Presidential signature and, at long last, declare our victory with regard to the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill. Health insurance portability is something we all ought to support, and, in fact, have supported. The Kennedy-Kassebaum bill passed by a vote of 100 to 0. There is no reason whatever that we cannot finish that legislation this month. I hope we can continue to keep our eye on the ball. Our eye on the ball in this case is clearly portability for health insurance. All the other issues, as important as they may be, can be resolved, as well. But the important issue, the one matter that unites us all, is the need to have that portability. We ought to use this legislation to get that job done. Now, finally, pension portability and pension security--it is critical we get that legislation passed. I am hopeful with the action taken yesterday that will happen. This is part of a larger agenda the Democrats have laid out, having three components--security, which I have addressed, opportunity, and responsibility. We will have a lot more to say about those three components in the weeks and months ahead. I know that we are now prepared to go to the pending matter. For that, I yield the floor. (Mr. DeWINE assumed the chair.)

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me emphasis that I want to give the distinguished majority leader plenty of benefit of the doubt, and I want to work with him in good faith. Obviously, he is attempting to work through a number of challenging scheduling questions. I applaud him for making that effort. To the best of my ability, I intend to work with him as closely as I can. He has indicated that he does not know whether we can get through them all. I hope that he would say, ``At least I am going to try.'' That is all I am asking at this point, that the leader attempt to work with me to try to deal with all 23. If we fail for a lot of reasons, we may fail. But I think my colleagues would like very much to know that at least at some point between now and the August recess, given the fact that we are hoping to cooperate on a whole range of issues--the distinguished leader gave me a two-page, single-spaced list of legislative items that he wishes to bring up between now and the August recess. That is going to take a lot of cooperation on both sides of the aisle for us to get it done. We have a defense bill that he wants to bring up this week. Hopefully we can work through that. But the degree to which there is bipartisan cooperation has everything to do with how much cooperation there is on both sides on issues that we both care about. My colleagues care very deeply about this list of judicial nominees. I have said it before, but in 1992, with the same set of circumstances, even in September, I am told, our colleagues--the majority of my Democratic colleagues--passed out 66 district and circuit court judges--66. In this session of Congress, so far it is zero. We have not confirmed one judge in this entire session of Congress. So, I will not belabor the point, except to say that so far there has been very little cooperation. We are on a new watch. I know the majority leader wants to work very closely with us to try to resolve this matter. All I am saying is what we would simply like is his commitment to work with us, at least to take up the 23 and work through them one by one as he has proposed. We are not going to object as long as we know that all 23 at least will be considered. So I expect to work with the leader, and perhaps tomorrow we can make some more progress. But at this point we have some more work to do.

Mr. DASCHLE. Because, for the record, I think we ought to see if we can resolve at least our understanding of where both sides are. We have expressed a desire to work with the majority in terms of putting a list together whereby at least a Senator, if not having cleared the nominee, at least would know that his nominee would come up sometime between now and the August recess. The distinguished leader will acknowledge that we have talked about at least scheduling for purposes of consideration a given nominee. Everyone recognizes that in order for this system to work, we are going to have to have cooperation on both sides.

Mr. DASCHLE. No. What I said was that the majority leader had indicated to me that he was not prepared to consider at this point the final six judges which were added to the Executive Calendar. Yet, we find on Tuesday, July 16, Calendar No. 678 is one of those judges who were reported out most recently by the Judiciary Committee, and is a component of that final six. He happens to be a Republican. Now, I do not imply by that that the majority leader had special design on just this Republican nominee. But if we are willing to do it for the Republican nominee just reported out of committee, it would seem to me that we ought to do it for the five Democrats as well. That was the issue I attempted to raise.

Mr. DASCHLE. We are not asking today that everybody be cleared. All we are asking is that we have some assurance that every one of the nominees on the Executive Calendar will have the opportunity at least to be considered. Then we will go to the next step at a later date.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. First, let me commend the majority leader for his effort to try to resolve this impasse. I believe that he has attempted to act in good faith. He and I have had innumerable conversations about this and have tried to find ways in which to address it in a meaningful way and a satisfactory way to both sides. He mentioned the effort the day we left prior to the July 4 break. Through no fault of his, necessarily, we were left with trying to clear this list while everybody was on airplanes going in about 15 different directions. So it was not our lack of effort or some concerted desire on the part of Democrats to oppose the list. But given the fact that after the Chamber had cleared and people had gotten on airplanes, as we attempted to reach people to see whether we could clear it, it was virtually impossible from a practical point of view. He mentioned the fact that he has tried to bring up small groups and has found that it is difficult to get an agreement on even a small group, and so he is going to take them individually. Mr. President, the issue is not the size of the group, whether it is one, four, or nine. The issue is, what assurance do those who are not on the list, whether it is 1 of the remaining 22, or 1 of the remaining 19, or 1 of the remaining--in this case it would be 12--that they, too, will have an opportunity to have their judge considered? So, earlier today, I discussed with the distinguished majority leader whether or not it would be possible at least to lay out a calendar, whereby every judge could be assured that on a given day during this work period that particular nomination would be considered. The distinguished leader is not able to do that this afternoon. So then we talked about whether or not it would be possible to at least have the assurance that all 23 would be considered between now and the August recess. The majority leader again was unable to give me that assurance. Well, then, he did indicate to me that he would be willing to do the first 17. But I notice on Tuesday, July 16, Mr. Lawrence Kahn of New York, Calendar No. 678, is one of those beyond the first 17. It is in that group that was just passed out of committee in the final six. So if he is not willing to do all 23, but is willing then to do 100 percent of the Republican nominees--and there are only 3 or 4--and leave all of the balance on the Democratic list to be taken up at some uncertain time, with no commitment that we are ultimately going to at least be able to try to deal with these issues between now and the August recess, our colleagues have indicated to me as late as just a few minutes ago that, on that basis, on that limited assurance, they are not satisfied that they are going to be able to address their judgeships as well, and they are not convinced that this is a satisfactory way to go. I applaud the majority leader for his innovation. I do not think that it is necessarily the fact that they were in small groups that was the problem. So taking them up one-by-one may not solve the matter, so long as we find the uncertainty about what happens after July 19 and we have dealt with the first nine. So, Mr. President, based upon those concerns and the reservations expressed to me by my colleagues, as I said, just a matter of moments ago, I will have to object to this unanimous-consent request.

Mr. DASCHLE. Will the distinguished majority leader yield on that point?

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use just 2 minutes of my leader time prior to the vote.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, we are about to cast some very important votes this afternoon. I believe it is fair to say the American people are going to be watching very carefully. These are the ones they understand all too well. Many have not had a raise in 5 years. They have not seen an increase in the minimum wage more than once in the last 15. Many of them now have lost ground. The question before us is very simple: Should 13 million Americans get a raise? It should not matter where you work or how long you have been working. Anyone who works 40 hours a week should not have to live in poverty. We have all made our speeches as passionately as we know how about the need to improve our welfare system. There is no better way to get people off welfare than to give them a job that pays something beyond a minimum wage, so that they are not relegated to poverty for the rest of their lives. We have all talked about how pro-family we are. Nothing could be more profamily than to ensure parents have a working wage, that instead of working two or three jobs, they can work one and tend to their children at those times when otherwise they would have to work. So the choice is very clear. Either we vote for this increase or sentence millions of workers to even more poverty and family troubles than they are experiencing right now. No one should be confused about the amendments. The Bond amendment guts the minimum wage bill. As the National Retail Federation said, this is the best chance to defeat the minimum wage bill. The Kennedy amendment will strengthen it. We have a chance to do something positive today. We should do it in a bipartisan way. We have done it before and passed votes on the minimum wage in this Chamber. The House of Representatives did it just 6 weeks ago. We can do it, too, this afternoon. Let us vote to give millions of Americans the raise they deserve. I yield the floor. Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator from Massachusetts is absolutely right. In many respects, I think there are some of our colleagues who would like to have it both ways. They would like to say, ``Yes, I voted for a minimum wage increase,'' but then go tell some of their business constituents, ``But really I didn't. I really didn't. This is not a real minimum wage because we exempt virtually everybody.'' I was home last weekend, and I just took my own poll. I asked retailers, I asked people in just about every line of business I could find in South Dakota, ``What do you think? What do you think about raising the minimum wage? Is this something that you oppose? Would this hurt you badly? What are your thoughts?'' I was amazed, just amazed at the level of sophistication, about the compassion, about the recognition of the importance of this issue, about how troubled many of our employers are in watching their employees try to make ends meet by holding down two and three jobs, because they know that one job is not going to be enough. One employer told me, ``You know, Tom, I really don't know how these employees do it today. I go home and I watch the baseball game at night when I finish work. Some of my employees go to their second job. And their spouses are already at a second or third job. I don't know, but more and more I'm seeing their kids out in the streets because I know they're not home taking care of them.'' I had an employee tell me the only dinner--the only dinner--they have together is after church on Sunday once a week. The whole family now gets together for dinner once, on a Sunday, because they have no time during the week, no time because everybody is working even harder carrying out second and third jobs. As a result, the kids cook for themselves. The kids are doing whatever they have to. Hopefully they are doing their homework. But, Mr. President, that is exactly what we are trying to talk about here. We are trying to address a real and growing problem. If we are serious about family, if we are serious about trying to keep them together and teach our youngsters values, who is to do it if the family is not together? Can you teach all the values that you have to share with a young person growing up on a Sunday after church? I do not think so. So, while some of our colleagues would like very much to be able to say, ``I voted for a minimum wage,'' but then secretly, ``I voted to gut it,'' let me tell you, there are a lot of business people, at least in South Dakota, who see it for what it is, who recognize that we have to do what is honorable here. It is time we recognized that people on minimum wage need more than just $4.25 an hour to survive if they are going to take care of their kids. So I appreciate very much the distinguished Senator's raising the question. I yield the floor.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, if I could--I will use whatever leader time I may require. I know our time runs out at 2 o'clock. Given the fact no one else is here at this point, I will use leader time to the extent necessary to respond to the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. DASCHLE. Yes. I will be happy to.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I commend my colleague, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, for his excellent remarks this morning in discussing the important issue of the minimum wage. Harry Truman once said: ``Republicans favor a minimum wage, the minimum possible wage.'' I think that a lot of what was said in the 1940's may be applicable today, with a 1996 twist, which is: The minimum possible wage for the minimum number of people to be affected. That, really, is the debate that we will have today and tomorrow with regard to the Bond amendment. I want to call everyone's attention to the Bond amendment for what it is and what it is not. The Bond amendment, in many cases and in many ways, could be described as a Swiss cheese approach to the minimum wage; Swiss cheese, because it has so many holes it does not provide for the kind of continuity, the kind of opportunity that everyone ought to have if the minimum wage is to be an applicable national wage. There are four very specific issues that it addresses in a very harmful manner, for those who are dependent upon the minimum wage. I want to discuss very briefly each of those four this afternoon. Suffice it to say, the Bond amendment is truly a vote against the minimum wage and against working families who depend upon it. It gives with one hand and takes with the other. It uses exemptions, denials, and delays to provide minimum wage increases to a minimum possible number of people. It is a more extreme version of this amendment than what was defeated in the House a couple of months ago. The Bond amendment, No. 1, effectively denies an increase to all workers for the first 6 months of employment. It does not matter whether you are young or you are old, whether you are working for summer earnings or have to feed a family, whether you are with or without any experience, that provision in the Bond amendment would simply deny, for 6 months of employment, any opportunity to benefit whatsoever from the minimum wage. The House-passed bill applies the subminimum to workers under the age of 20 for the first 3 months of employment. Already that is an extreme provision in some respects. The Bond amendment is even worse. The high turnover in these jobs is an inevitability, so many workers would never get an increase. I can see in some cases right now where someone will work for 5 months and 2 weeks and then find he or she is going to be left without work because to increase that person's wage would be something the small business owner may not want to do. So, in essence, you are going to get churning of people, regardless of what age they are; working for 5 months and 2 weeks or 5 months and 3 weeks, only to be denied a minimum wage job after that. I believe most employers are very honest, hard-working people who care a lot of about their employees. But how many unscrupulous employers will there be, people who will find ways in which to avoid the law, avoid paying the minimum wage, avoid living up to their responsibility and find a way to keep people at this extraordinarily low, subminimum level? The President feels so strongly about this provision alone that he said he would veto the bill if this provision is in the legislation when it reaches his desk. Second, the Bond amendment denies an increase for any employee of companies with less than $500,000 in annual sales. Mr. President, these companies employ 10.5 million people. They make up two-thirds of all workplaces today. They include not only retail and service establishments, but manufacturing firms as well. Their employees already are denied benefits of most Federal worker protection laws. They earn lower wages, get fewer benefits, and have less job security than virtually anybody in the country. They should not be stripped of their minimum wage protections as well. Over and above everything else, to say that a worker who only has the option of working in a company with sales less than $500,000, who probably does not get health insurance, probably does not get any other worker protection at the Federal level and probably has less job security, but at the same time now may also be denied even minimum wage protection is wrong. That is extreme, and that is something that we simply must oppose. A third provision denies any raise to waitresses or waiters or other tipped employees. Right now employers need to pay only 50 percent of the minimum wage, or $2.13 an hour for tipped employees. Instead of maintaining that 50 percent employer payment, the Bond amendment freezes it for all perpetuity at $2.13. We could be here 20 years from now, and if the Bond amendment were to be adopted, anybody who worked in a restaurant would be frozen at $2.13, dependent entirely upon tips for any kind of an increase in a living wage. This is especially a problem for women, because 80 percent of tipped employees today are women. In 1995, about half of full-time waitresses earned roughly $250 a week, less than the poverty level for a family of three. Just last year, half of the full-time people who worked on tips earned roughly $250 a week. So what we are going to tell all of those people, 80 percent of whom are women, is, ``You're going to have to live with a frozen minimum wage at $2.13 an hour for all perpetuity. There isn't any option for an increase. You don't have any opportunity to see your wages increase along with everybody else's. That $250 that you may be getting right now to feed your two kids, well, keep in mind we want to keep you off welfare, we're going to kick you off welfare, we're going to tell you to go get a job, go get child support, get health insurance, go find a way to clothe and house your kids, do all of that, but we're going to freeze your wage at $2.13 an hour.'' Mr. President, I cannot believe that this body is prepared to say that. If we want to reward work, if we want to protect families, if we want to find ways to ensure the children are going to grow in an environment that allows a mother to be home at least part of the time instead of getting three and four jobs, staying at home with children instead of working at wages that pay $2.13 an hour, then it would seem to me that they, above and beyond just about anybody else, ought to be entitled to some increase in the minimum wage. The final thing is, this amendment delays the date of the minimum wage for another 6 months. When the House Members passed their bill, they said it was going to go into effect virtually on Independence Day, on July 4--actually, July 1, a couple of days before Independence Day-- in the hopes that maybe some families out there could declare some independence economically, some opportunity to be a little freer than they are right now. The Bond amendment says, ``No, no, that's too fast. If you earn minimum wage today, we're going to ask you to wait until after next Christmas before you're entitled to any increase in the minimum wage. You're not going to get it in July, you're not going to get it by Labor Day, the day we set aside to honor working families. No, we're going to make you wait until after next Christmas. We're going to wait until next January before this wage goes into effect.'' This is on top of months of delay caused by a Republican filibuster to the minimum wage. Mr. President, minimum wage workers have gone without a raise now for 5 years. We have had raises. Most people have had raises in this country over the last 4 and 5 years. How remarkable it is that those same people who espouse welfare reform, who want to join with us in providing real opportunities for work, to encourage work, would say that the one thing that would probably encourage work more than anything else, an increase in the minimum wage, is something we just should not do. We should not do it for tipped employees, we should not do it for employees in businesses that have less than a $500,000 gross income, we should not do it for the first 180 days for anybody who is on minimum wage. Regardless of what else happens, we better not even do it until 1997. I must tell you, Mr. President, I have a hard time understanding the motivation for those who would want to say that to over 10.5 million people--actually close to 14 million workers--in this country. This delay equals the loss of more than $500 in pay, money that could go for the health care and the food and housing that kids are going to need. Every day on the floor somebody with good judgment and with good reason comes to lament the destruction of the family, comes to lament the destruction of this nuclear core that we think so much about and that we think really is the key to a civilized society. We cannot understand why there are teenagers out on the street making trouble for the rest of society. We do not understand why they lost their values. We cannot figure out why there is an increase in juvenile crime and truancy and all the other problems. Mr. President, I will tell you why. The reason is because more and more mothers and fathers are forced to leave their homes, unable to take care of their children, because they have three or four jobs they have to hold to make ends meet. That is what this is all about. So if we are ever going to get back to making sure that the family is protected, making sure those children have core values with which to ensure that they will be productive parts of society, then it seems to me we have to understand that it all starts with the paycheck and whether or not families have the dignity and the opportunity that they must be accorded to ensure that there is some paycheck security in their families. Minimum wage workers are not what many people think they are. Two- thirds of them are adults; 40 percent are sole breadwinners; 60 percent are women. Minimum wage workers' earnings account for almost half of the families' total earnings today. So, Mr. President, this is going to be, of all the votes we cast, one of the most critical votes we are going to cast this year, because it sends a clear message out there that we hear you, we know how insecure so many people feel today because of their inability to pay their bills. Not that they are not working hard enough; they are working harder and longer than other families in history. They are making the hard choices about going out and finding another job or staying home and taking care of their children. America is going to watch this vote. They are going to watch to see whether we vote for the Swiss cheese Bond amendment, the one with all the holes in it, the one that devastates the minimum wage law for the first time in decades, or whether we are going to stand up and say, at long last, America needs a raise after 5 years. Those who are on minimum wage deserve it. If we want to keep them off welfare, they deserve at least a 90-cent increase. That is all we are proposing here. It is time we do it. Inflation has eaten away 95 percent of the last increase. At the current level of $4.25 an hour, many minimum wage workers who work 40 hours a week do not earn enough to keep their families out of poverty. How sad that is today. So unless we act, the minimum wage is going to fall to the lowest level in 40 years. This does not have to be partisan. The last time we voted on this it was bipartisan. Six weeks ago, the House voted overwhelmingly in favor of it; 93 House Republicans voted for it. The vast majority, I am told, over 80 percent of the American people, want to see it increased. This is a chance to do something right. It is a chance for us to stop stalling, to send a clear message to people across this land that we recognize how important your paycheck and your long-term security is, we recognize how important your family is, we recognize that if we are going to urge you to stay off welfare and go to work, that you need a wage to do it. That is what this does. It is important we pass a minimum wage increase. It is important we defeat the Bond amendment. It is important at long last we sign the increase into law.

Mr. DASCHLE

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