Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. How much time do we have?

Mr. DODD. Let me take a couple of minutes and, first, explain what has transpired in the last number of seconds. It is rather a quick action on a number of hours of discussion. First, let me thank Senator McCain and Senator McConnell for their willingness to work on some language. I thank the leader, Senator Daschle. Senator Baucus, of course, has worked tirelessly, and Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and many others have been involved in their comments. This is a significant breakthrough occurring with the adoption, I hope we will have now, of my amendment. It says you should not be using Federal taxpayer money to subsidize the outsourcing of jobs. The McCain amendment is something we fundamentally agreed to in the underlying amendment, but it reinforces the notion that certainly, when national security issues are involved and there is a conclusion that we, in effect, have a waiver or have an exception with that being involved, certainly we are not suggesting there should not be the outsourcing of a job if national security is in jeopardy. That was not the intention. The adoption of the McCain amendment reinforces that idea. We incorporated it anyway. I am grateful to Senator McCain and Senator Warner who talked about that issue. There was no disagreement, even with the initial proposal I made on that issue. So we accept. It strengthens the issue for those who were concerned this may have been a vulnerability. We welcome that addition. The language with Senator McConnell, which we worked on as well, invites the Secretary of Commerce, within 90 days of the passage of the legislation, to certify that in fact there are no job losses in the country occurring as a result of outsourcing. So we look forward to their involvement in furthering discussion. But we have for the first time established at least one principle and that is we believe, generally speaking with some exceptions, we ought not, with Federal taxpayer money, be subsidizing the outsourcing of jobs that could be done here at home. This is a significant accomplishment if it is adopted in the coming minutes before the conclusion of this debate. I welcome the participation of all. I think all of us are concerned. We read about a continuing flow, accelerated flow of jobs going offshore, particularly nations that do not recognize our right to compete for government procurement. We exempted 28 countries with which we have reciprocal arrangements. So when the argument was made earlier in the day by one of our colleagues that this amendment was somehow going to jeopardize American jobs in the United States for people who are working for foreign corporations located here, the fact is, most of those foreign corporations, the overwhelming majority of them, come from the 28 countries, many of which are among the European nations and Pacific rim countries, to the exclusion of Japan, with which we have reciprocal arrangements on procurement. So those nations were excluded. We are focusing our attention on where some of the major outsourcing is going where you don't have those kinds of protections, where the level playing field does not exist in our country for our ability to compete for jobs. For those of us who support fair and free trade, we want those options to exist. They don't today in too many places. This legislation is designed to try to address part of that. There are other issues we need to talk about, but this is one significant piece, we think, of that puzzle. With that in mind, I am happy to yield the floor and listen to others who may want to discuss this before we actually vote on the Dodd amendment in a few minutes. But I, again, thank all of those involved who made it possible for us to achieve what I think is a good result and one that will invite further involvement. Needless to say, in the months ahead if we find out there has been a lot more erosion in this area, we may have other ideas to address this issue, but for the time being we think this is a major step forward.

Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield?

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I comment briefly again on the pending matter while he is still in the Senate. I say to the Senator from Oklahoma regarding the asbestos legislation, something I have been involved in for a number of years, as late as last evening I met with asbestos study group people. The insurance industry is deeply involved, as is organized labor, relating to a large extent to some of the victims of exposure to asbestos. I am very hopeful, still hopeful we can reach a conclusion. There are some 700,000 pending cases. I don't know if the Senator mentioned that number specifically, but it is a staggering number of cases. Some 60,000 or 70,000 new cases are being filed each year of people claiming harm and injury as a result of exposure to asbestos. There have been at least 70 bankruptcies declared by businesses directly related to the exposure of people who have been exposed to asbestos, and claims filed against them. There is a danger of many more occurring. This is a matter that does cry out for solution. We think we have a potential solution, not that anything is perfect, but there have been a lot of people working on this over the last number of months, most intensely the last year or so. I thank Senator Frist, the majority leader of the Senate, and his staff, for working very hard along with Senator Hatch. Senator Leahy has been terrific. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, has made strong commitments and is interested in seeing a bill we can support. It is almost like a three-legged stool. We will have to reach an agreement between the manufacturers, the insurance industry, which will end up paying the lion's share of this, and the victims themselves or groups that represent them. No one wants a situation where we try to come up with a solution that would take the matter out of the courts, having medical criteria established so people who are really sick will get the help, and those who are not sick obviously would not be able to take advantage of this. But we do not want, at the end of the day, a Johns Manville situation, a resolution of people who have been exposed to products of Johns Manville Corporation where ultimately the amount of money set aside results in 5 cents on the dollar for victims. No one wants to see that happen at the end of the day. The medical criteria question has been resolved. Thanks to Senator Specter of Pennsylvania and work he has done, the administration of how this would work has largely been agreed to by all the major three groups, the people involved. We are still some distance apart on what the final amount of money ought to be to put in a fund that would adequately provide for those who would meet the medical criteria laid out in the legislation. If people are committed to this, we can get this done. While there may be a lot of bills around here people want to take credit for, as being major accomplishments, I cannot think of anything more important as an economic message than to come up with a good resolution of the asbestos problem. I commend my colleague from Oklahoma for coming to the Senate and talking about this.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I express my gratitude to my friend from Kentucky for his eloquent description of my less than eloquent remarks. I appreciate that.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I may not use all of my 20 minutes. I have been talking at some length this afternoon, although it is my custom to do so. I might point out, for those who are interested, this is not a filibuster. I am prepared to vote on this amendment right now. I was prepared to vote on it an hour and a half ago, but there are those who want to analyze what I am proposing. I suppose it is more than analysis that is occurring. They are trying to figure out how to defeat it, and I regret that because I do not think it is complicated. I think it is straightforward. I think it makes sense. I would not be offering this if this was not a problem sweeping across the country. Concerns are being expressed everywhere by Americans of varying incomes and positions. I know in my own State I have had meetings with people I could not put in the same town or county together a year ago who are coming to us now and saying, would you please do something here. I am talking about my chambers of commerce. I had a meeting last week at a Teamsters Local that included the chambers of commerce, the Manufacturers Association, the International Association of Machinists and Teamsters. I do not need to remind the Chair what a unique circumstance that is when a crowd like that gets together--by the way, all asking me to do the same thing. They were not just asking me but asking us what we were going to do, because they have watched the alarming decline of manufacturing jobs in the country, and it seems to be accelerating at a dramatic pace. Also the problem they foresee, and I agree with them on this outsourcing of jobs, which is very appealing, and I understand it from a corporate standpoint, when one sees their competitors, neighbors, and businesses are outsourcing and cutting their budgets by huge amounts because they can hire someone for $7 a day or $2 an hour, as opposed to paying them $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 a year, then the lure is remarkable. As we know, in fact, the Indian government is providing tremendous incentives to lure call centers, providing corporations with tax exemptions and building western-style technology parks fitted with telecom infrastructures. What are we doing? Are we doing anything to try and compete with that or are we just saying that is the way the world is and we better get used to it because that is what is going to happen for the foreseeable future, and maybe something will come along that will all of a sudden fill this vacuum, that will restore these manufacturing jobs or information technology and the like? I can only hope that would be the case because in the absence of doing anything else, we are going to find a continuing decline in this area. I worry about this from the standpoint of national security. In my State, I have over 5,000 small manufacturers. I have major corporations as well. I probably have more large Fortune 500 corporations in my State than any other State in the country on a per-capita basis, given the size of my State. My State is the home of major corporations. Many of them are major defense contractors, and those 5,000 small manufacturers in many cases are suppliers of very sophisticated technologies for my defense contractors and others who produce sophisticated products. I do not need to tell the Presiding Officer, we have lost 35,000 jobs now in 36 months in this area. When those are lost, they are not reconstituted. Once they are gone offshore, the idea that you are going to rebuild that, my experience is--and I am prepared to listen to others who want to contradict me--I think it is unlikely. So the question I have to ask, as we stand here and receive this news almost on a daily basis, is there not some danger in losing this manufacturing capability for a time in the 21st century when we may find ourselves confronted with the fact these jobs we gave away are now being held by people in countries that do not agree with us on certain matters, and all of a sudden they do not want to supply us with certain component parts that may be necessary to build jet engines, submarines, Black Hawk helicopters or something else my State or the State of Tennessee or some other part of the country produces? We are watching this tremendous outflow occurring. The Presiding Officer was the former Secretary of Education, as I pointed out earlier, and again I understand the budget constraints. This is a very difficult time. Putting aside whether one agrees or disagrees on how we got to this situation, we have a terrible fiscal situation on our hands and yet even in the area of job training and assistance we are wiping out the manufacturing extension partnerships; we are cutting the SBA by millions of dollars; we are cutting vocational education by $316 million; we are cutting the Workforce Investment Act by $448 million. We are not only not trying to compete with what India is doing on its creation of call centers, by offering tax incentives for businesses to stay here, we are even cutting back in the area that might offer some hope to someone in this area who is losing their job because it has been outsourced some place. On every front, we seem to have nothing to say to this issue right now, except this is the way life is; get over it, America. You just have to live with this. This is the way the world is going to be. I do not think it has to be that way. I think we can do better. I think that is what the American people ask us when we come here--try to do better. I have to look in the eyes of my own child, an infant, and I wonder what kind of a century she is going to grow up in. She will look back someday and ask herself, or hopefully me, what did you do back at the turn of this century when you knew this was going on, when you saw thousands of jobs leaving our country, when you saw manufacturing declining, what did you do? This was not some sneak attack. You were all aware of it. Your local papers wrote about it every day. Did you offer any ideas and suggestions on how we might compete in a global marketplace--because we should, we must--while simultaneously not losing the human investments, the human capital, that are critical for any successful society to succeed? What did you do? I am afraid if we go back and she looks at what we are doing at the outset of this century, then she would be startled to learn we are cutting back in the areas that might provide some educational opportunity for people in vocational areas, that we had nothing really to say to a hemorrhaging of jobs going out of the country, and that we were basically silent except to bemoan the fact that 2.8 million manufacturing jobs in 36 months disappeared in the country. And there is every indication those numbers are going to increase, and the impact on other sectors of our economy will be very profoundly affected. I mentioned already we are now being told the outsourcing of American jobs will probably exceed 3 million, close to 4 million over the next decade, unabated. That is a loss of $136 billion to $140 billion in salaries and wages in the United States, not to mention the human and societal impact. So I do not apologize to my colleagues for feeling as strongly as I do about this. I am a free trader. I voted for NAFTA. I thought it was the right thing to do. I voted to give fast track authority. I voted for the Jordanian agreements and others. I have opposed some as well. I have not been exclusively for them, but I believe in free and fair trade. I also believe a self-respecting nation cannot allow its human capital intelligence to be lost without standing up and trying to do something about it. The subject matter of this amendment very simply says at this juncture, look, let's stop. At least when it comes to the expenditure of Federal taxpayer money, those dollars ought not to be used to pay for outsourcing jobs until we figure out a better way to answer this problem. I do not think that is complicated. Now, I gather K Street in town is going ballistic at this very hour because obviously major corporations, 400 out of 1,000 top ones in the country, are doing it. Forty of fifty States are doing it right now. So they want to continue doing it because it is a great saver of money if you are focused on quarterly reports. That is their job on K Street and that is their job in the corporate board rooms, to worry quarter by quarter by quarter. I don't think that is right, but that is what they do. Thank the Lord there are many corporations who do think longer than that. Our job is not to think in quarters, not to be unmindful that corporations should and must. But our obligation is to have a broader, deeper vision; to think about longer term effects of decisions we make, no matter how attractive and how appealing they may be to someone who has to explain to a group of shareholders why it is that they have or have not exceeded last quarter's profit margins--bottom line. Certainly outsourcing will help do that on any given day. If you can hire someone for a couple of bucks and lay off that person in Connecticut, Tennessee, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, you are going to save money, I promise you. Quarterly reports are going to look great. But my question is, What does America look like? What does our Nation look like in the coming generation? In fact, if we lose these jobs, which are critical to our own well-being and success, if we lose manufacturing that we cannot replace, if we squander the ability to produce vital components and parts that are essential to contribute to our national defense structure, what does my country look like in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years down the line? That is the question I am asking. That is why I am offering this amendment, to see if we cannot at least step up and say when it comes to the taxpayer's dime, that we should not be taking your tax dollar and subsidizing this outsourcing of jobs. If a private company, with its own money, wants to do it, that is their business. I regret it, but if they want to do it they have a right to do it. I think we ought to have tax incentives to discourage them one way or the other, but at the end of the day if they want to do it, they ought to be given the right to do it. I can't stop that. That is their dime. But on the taxpayer's dime, I think we ought to say something else. What my amendment does is say you cannot use that dime. You cannot use that dime to lay off somebody and hire someone 14 time zones away to do a job that a hard-working American ought to be able to hold and do in order to provide for their family. I don't think that is outrageous. I don't think that is isolationist or protectionist. I think that is standing up for the people of this country who expect nothing less from those of us who represent them in this Chamber. That is why I am offering this amendment. My hope is tomorrow morning we can get to it and vote on it and dispose of it one way or the other. If you want to vote against it, vote against it. But I ask you to join with my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Coleman, and others who have been a part of this effort, to say this is our way of saying to people out there we hear you. We are not suggesting this amendment is perfect. I would be the last person to say that. I am sure it is not perfect. But at least it says to voters and to constituents out there who are worrying every day whether they are going to become one of those statistics, that we are going to try to do something about this, so you need to know your Government, your Congress is doing what it can to stop this. Our obligation is not exclusively to them. We have obligations to others as well, including those who serve and work in these corporations. I am not against them at all, but they are making their decisions in what they determine is in their best interests and the best interests of their shareholders. I respect that. But I have a higher obligation. I have an obligation, not only to that shareholder but to the people who work for them as well. I respect those who only have to worry about the narrow constituency, but I wasn't elected by the people of Connecticut to come here and merely worry about that narrow constituency. I have another obligation. I serve in the Senate, not just a State legislature. When I am here and I vote and I cast ballots, they don't just affect the people who live in my State, that I represent; they are part of the 280 or 290 million people across this country. I look at the 2.8 million who have lost their jobs in manufacturing, the close to 3 million who will lose their jobs to outsourcing in the coming days, maybe as many as 14 million, we are being told, over the next couple of years. I didn't dwell on this particular chart at this moment, but 14 million additional jobs are in danger of being shipped overseas. Those people want to know whether or not we have anything to say to them. So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I don't know of another issue that is more important to the American public at this hour than this one. We have seen it all across the country in the last number of days. National news programs talk about it every single night and report nightly about corporations that are outsourcing more and more jobs. The American people want to know what we have to say to them. So I regret we have not been able to vote on this earlier. I didn't intend to take this time. I was prepared to vote 2 hours ago, 3 hours ago, but there are those who do not want to vote on this amendment right now. My hope is we will be able to do so first thing in the morning and say with a very loud, clear, and my hope is a unanimous voice that we stand with those who worry about whether America is squandering its wealth and its treasury, not just the treasury of dollars and cents but a far more important treasury, the human capital that is the American workforce. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. These charts belong to Senator Kennedy. He feels very strongly about these charts. I wanted to make sure the record reflects we are borrowing Senator Kennedy's charts. They are very good charts.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Nevada for his comments. He is absolutely right about changing the rules. I have worried about that, when all of a sudden--and I have seen it happen in the past--you don't like the numbers you have, so you come up with a whole new definition and expand the numbers. That is what it looks like when you start talking about what clearly are fast food service jobs, manufacturing jobs, and we have seen those efforts being made. This wasn't the first administration trying games like that. We have had others in the past doing that. I appreciate his comments, and I thank him for his support as well. I have just a couple of other points. My friend and colleague from Texas cited earlier some of the efforts in the area of job training, vocational education. I wanted to respond by saying I don't disagree. I think that is an important element. But the problem is that one of the frustrations is the outsourcing of jobs that is occurring at a rather remarkable rate now, and it seems to be accelerating and very little is being offered to try to do something about this. In fact, even in the area of protecting manufacturing jobs and doing something about retraining, let me share with my colleagues what is going on. In the manufacturing extension partnership, which is a very important issue for the manufacturing firms of this country, this is going to mean less help to an estimated 11,000 small businesses; 28,000 workers will either lose their jobs or not be hired as a result of these cuts. So there is cutting back in this area. Outsourcing is going to have a huge impact on the manufacturing sector. The Small Business Administration is being cut by $79 million, hurting hundreds of thousands of small businesses struggling to create jobs for Americans. There is a cut of $316 million for vocational education. This is in addition to the more than $1.5 million in proposed cuts to job training and vocational education made over the last 3 years. We are also cutting $448 million for the Workforce Investment Act programs. My point is, as we watch these outsourcing of jobs and the loss of 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, I would be heartened if I thought we were making an effort at least to commit additional resources to help provide training for people who find themselves under normal cyclical circumstances losing a job, but here we are in an abnormal situation where there is an extraordinary loss of manufacturing jobs occurring across the country in the last 36 months and we have an extraordinary acceleration of outsourcing of jobs occurring over the same period of time--I pointed out that now 400 of the top 1,000 businesses in America are outsourcing, 40 of the 50 States, all for a very obvious reason. You can save a lot of money right off the top by doing it. When you can hire somebody in India at $7 a day as opposed to paying someone a salary in Silicon Valley, you do not have to have a Ph.D. in mathematics to know the outcome. I understand the motivation behind it. The question I have is, are we going to sit back and allow this to continue at the expense of losing the kind of human investments that we ought to be making to guarantee that we have a workforce capable of doing jobs and providing the services that America ought to be providing in the coming years? In addition to that, even if we were not doing an amendment or were not going to support language that would say that Federal taxpayer money ought not be used for this purpose, I would like to think that in the area of vocational education, small business assistance, manufacture extension partnerships, and certainly Workforce Investment Act--all of these areas--that the administration would say: Look, this is our answer to this. We don't agree with you, Senator, about not using Federal funds. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that an article from the Los Angeles Times be printed in the Record.

Mr. DODD. The headline in the Los Angeles Times--it is a viewpoint-- says: ``Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas.'' It goes on to talk about the report that I talked about all afternoon, this economic report prepared by the Council of Economic Advisers, where they conclude that the outsourcing of jobs is a good thing. The author of that language apologized for his use of those words, but he has not apologized, and I understand why, because he believes it is good economic policy to be outsourcing. There are some of us--I do not know if it is a majority--who disagree with that conclusion, that outsourcing is necessarily good. I cited already from the Wall Street Journal companies that painfully discovered when they outsourced, while they thought they were going to save money, it actually cost them dearly. It is not only not good, but it fails to take into account--watching somebody's job be lost because there is a cheaper labor pool that you don't have to pay health care benefits to, despite the fact the person here is going to lose them--if it is really good for America. I am suggesting while this rush is occurring that we ought to put on the brakes and stop, look, and listen so we will not necessarily be caught up in a situation where a year or two or five from now we will look back and say: Why didn't somebody say something or do something when we knew this was happening, when we could sit, watch, and read on a daily basis the pouring of jobs out of this country to 14 time zones away, depriving people of benefits and income they needed for their families; what did you do on your watch? What did you do? If the answer is we thought it was a good thing for the American economy, then I think we will be suffering an indictment historically. I see my colleague from Kentucky who wants to move on to matters of the day. I yield the floor, with the right to be recognized at the conclusion of his remarks.

Mr. DODD. I will make two points. I appreciate my friend from Iowa telling me what the substantive concerns are about the amendment, one which I think we have addressed. On the second question he raised, we included language which very specifically makes clear that the government procurement agreements between the United States and 27 other predominantly western European countries would not be affected by this legislation. India and China are not part of that problem. The major culprit in all of this is outsourcing of jobs. But my colleague from Montana raised the question that we could be found in violation of World Trade Organization policies, if we didn't include this language. So I think we addressed the concerns about whether or not we are going to run afoul of some international agreements to which we are a signatory. The second part about mandating States, if you are going to use Federal money to lay off workers in your State and hire someone 12 time zones away to do the job, I don't consider that a mandate. That is Federal money. If you want to do it with State money, I can't keep you from doing that. That is your choice. If you are going to do it with Federal money that comes from grants and so forth, I think the American taxpayer would like to know that Federal dollars are being used to lay off one person in your State and hire someone 12 time zones away. You can call that a mandate, but I call it common sense at this particular juncture. I think we have gone as far as we can go on this issue. We have covered the ground. I thank my colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Kohl, for joining me in a bipartisan fashion on this amendment. Today, 40 States outsource jobs. That is pretty alarming. If you are unemployed in a State and you call up your unemployment office to find out about your rights, and you are talking to someone 14 time zones away to find out your rights, that is offensive to people in this country. They want to know what we are going to do about it. Do we understand what they are going through? This is the first opportunity we have had since we have been back over the last 5 or 6 weeks to raise the one issue here. Night after night, Lou Dobbs on CNN, to his great credit, is talking about this issue. He is not talking about it and speaking to an audience that is not interested. The audience across this country is deeply interested in this subject matter. They want to know whether or not anybody is doing anything about it. I can't stop a private company from outsourcing with their own money. But I can stop you from using Federal taxpayer money to fire somebody here and hire somebody 14 time zones away. That I can try. I may not win, but I can try to do it. And that is what we are trying to do.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I yield to my colleague from California.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I don't believe I yielded the floor.

Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague and the manager of this bill for his candor on the subject matter. He will certainly understand if I share with him--I know these were not his views, he is expressing the views of others who didn't understand the impact of this amendment. Let me say to him, my good friend--and he is a good friend. We have been in Congress together for many years--the impact of not doing something here is huge, on workers losing their jobs. I know my colleague knows that and shares my concern about it as well. It is not terribly complicated what I am suggesting here. It is straightforward. It says when it comes to taxpayer money, it can't be used to subsidize someone offshore at the cost of an American job. I know the coalition of the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers and some other groups out there don't particularly like this amendment because 400 of the top 1,000 corporations are now outsourcing jobs, and I am sorry if they are disappointed by this amendment, but there are an awful lot of people losing their jobs. That is the only reason I raise it. I have to wait until tomorrow. We will have to wait, obviously. I am disappointed because I thought it was pretty straight forward. Nonetheless, I appreciate my friend's candor. I see my colleague from California.

Mr. DODD. If my colleague will yield, in chapter 2, page 73 of the Economic Report of the President--this was prepared by the President's economic advisors--they raise the issue here as if it were a legitimate question. They say: The definition of a manufactured product, however, is not straightforward. When a fast food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a service or is it manufacturing a product? They think that is a legitimate question, that manufacturing a hamburger might actually be a manufacturing job. My colleague from Nevada is absolutely right to raise this point.

Mr. DODD. I appreciate her very much for raising that issue. Let me say I see my colleague from Iowa on the floor, and others. This Senator is prepared to vote. I talked about this. I have had colleagues come over and share some thoughts on it. I know there are other matters. I know Senators want to move on. I am certainly not engaged in any filibuster. I am prepared to ask for the yeas and nays and vote on this amendment and move on to other questions. Is there some opportunity? I don't want to go into a quorum call if other Members want to come over and discuss other matters, but if we want to vote on it, I would like to do it. What chance do we have, I ask my friend from Iowa?

Mr. DODD. I appreciate that.

Mr. DODD. There were 272,000 jobs lost.

Mr. DODD. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DODD. All sorts of medical information. We have provisions of law in this country that say you cannot share certain private medical information with insurance companies or employers without consent. Medical information is now being processed by someone who has been hired 12 time zones away--all of a sudden that information is no longer well-protected. So as we see the increase in these diagnostic support services and medical transcriptions going offshore, then the very protections we ought to have as Americans are also being lost. I don't cover that in my amendment here, but we may offer some language on this bill at some point that would say you have to give people at least the opportunity to say I don't want my medical records being processed or handled by someone offshore. I want it kept in the United States because I don't want someone to be able to go in and find out highly sensitive information about me and my family that could be used against me. Today the laws of the United States do not adequately protect you when this information is being processed and handled offshore. That is one of the major areas we are seeing these jobs moving.

Mr. DODD. Every time you try to stand up for an American job you are called an isolationist. There is a new coalition. They want to change the language, by the way. There was an article this morning that says, ``Business coalition rewrites lexicon for jobs outsourcing.'' They point out, they say the coalition is now rallying around ``worldwide sourcing'' as a less provocative term. I apologize for sounding provocative, but we didn't make this up. What ought to be provocative is the fact that people like my colleague from California have constituents who are losing their jobs because we are not doing enough to protect these jobs--not from a protectionist standpoint, but protect them when in fact there is no loss to be incurred as a result of standing up and saying we ought to be doing what we can to protect these positions in our country. I commend her for it. I thank you for raising it. It is an important point and I am glad our amendment covers it.

Mr. DODD. My staff gave me some other information. I have mentioned others. Tax experts now say Indian-chartered accountants, the subcontinent version of certified professional accountants, will prepare somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 tax returns this year. That is up from 20,000 last year. I am not making up these numbers. The trend lines are moving at a very rapid pace. In this case here I am not suggesting these are necessarily being paid for with Federal tax dollars. I don't know that. If it is not, obviously we are not covering the situation and these firms that want to continue doing it unfortunately will be able to continue. But if they were doing it with Federal tax money, I say no, just as my colleague from California says no. If someone with their own dime wants to decide they are going to ship rice or whatever products and use someone else offshore, that is one thing. But when they are using taxpayer money to do that, that is when we have an obligation to stand up and say no.

Mr. DODD. It is not free, and it adds tremendously to the cost of others as well. So the implications, in addition to laying someone off--as we see now the thousands of jobs that have gone--the Senator from Montana is very accurate in pointing this out when looking at this issue. Here we are taking Federal taxpayer money. That is what my amendment addresses. It says: With Federal taxpayer money you can lay someone off and hire someone else and pay them basically with Federal dollars. So we are, in a sense, not only causing that person to lose their job in this country but also their health care benefits and other benefits they may have, not to mention what it does to a family. Talk about keeping families together, the single largest reason why families break up is economics. Every study in the world that has been done on that institution says it is economics. As a matter of Federal policy, in effect we are saying we are going to outsource these jobs, causing a great disruption in America and families' lives. The Senator from Montana is so right to point out that the health care implications, because we have not yet sorted this out, are huge. Again, I come back to the point, I do not accept it, I do not like it, but if someone on their dime wants to lay someone off and hire someone else, I do not like it and I wish I could do something about it and I certainly want to support measures that I know of the Senator from Montana and the Senator from California, such as giving tax incentives to encourage people to stay here, but when someone does it with Uncle Sam's nickel, with the taxpayers' money, then I say, no. I have some control over that. I am offering an amendment today that says when it comes to U.S. taxpayer money, you are not going to lay somebody off and hire somebody else 12 time zones away to do the job. You may do it on your dime but not on their dime. I will mention one other subject matter that I know my colleague from Montana and my colleague from California care about, and that is privacy. That is one of the things we have not talked about at all on this issue. I pointed out earlier--I apologize to my colleague from California because she cannot see this chart, but I was talking earlier about where these jobs are going, from what sectors of our economy they are coming from, the 14 million additional jobs in danger of being shipped overseas. One of the areas we are talking about is in the area of medical, diagnostic and medical services. This covers a little more than almost 300,000 jobs in that area. We all know what is happening. Today, with information technology, x- rays can be transmitted at the speed of light or faster.

Mr. DODD. I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Montana. He is absolutely correct. I did not even get into the issue of what happens here. Obviously, when you fire someone, lay someone off, you hire someone offshore to do the job, there is absolutely no requirement that the fired or laid-off worker is necessarily going to be able to get any kind of health care coverage from the former employer. Even when you have retired with full benefits there is no guarantee, as we learned through the discussion of the Medicare bill that was before us only a few months ago. So in addition to the lost jobs and wages--that is all I have been talking about today--there are benefits that are incredible, and when people lose those benefits it adds to the roles of the 44 million people in this country who have no health insurance. They get health care. It might be showing up in an emergency room, which increases the costs of everyone else who has health care, as we all know. Fortunately, in this country if people get sick they can show up someplace and get some kind of coverage.

Mr. DODD. My colleague would be interested to know, in my conversations, very informally at this point, but I am finding a great deal of receptivity to the point the Senator from Montana is making; that, in fact, they should be insisting upon these points. The politics of their own countries are changing and they are insisting if you are going to enter these agreements, that this be a part of it as well.

Mr. DODD. And they should be more concerned about it.