Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I yield the floor at this time.

Mr. DOMENICI. What are they related to?

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, is that inconsistent with any order we have entered at this point?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes. I am very pleased to introduce a minimum wage amendment on behalf of myself and many other Senators. With reference to the minimum wage, this coming January under the amendment Senator Kennedy introduced, minimum wage goes up 50 cents; 12 months later it goes up 50 cents again. Under the proposal which I offer today, it will go up 35 cents, 35 cents, and 30 cents each March 1. It is also a $1 increase in minimum wage. It takes 12 months longer, so this will be completed in 2002. At that point, it will be $6.15. I think Senator Nickles made a point. If the economy, or if training people for jobs, or if employers being able to pay for the services employees render, if none of that was relevant, then everyone would like a minimum wage bill that might be higher than either of these two. That is what we would wish for everyone. Up front, I remind everyone the best economic advice we have is 50 percent of the minimum-wage jobs affected have to do with teenagers. Half of the minimum-wage jobs we are talking about are the young men and women who are working while they are attending school--afterschool and in the summer months--at either the McDonald's drive-ins or various places across America. It seems to this Senator, a minimum wage that applies to 50 percent of the minimum-wage earners in America, who are students, and that goes up 35 cents, 35 cents, and 30 cents, respectively, over the next 26 months, since it far exceeds inflation, it is good for the teenagers of America, good for those who hire them, and an excellent way to make sure that portion of the American population in their first entry jobs in our marketplace-oriented economy get a chance to earn that money, to learn what it is to work, and at the same time make that large group of young American men and women a part of the marketplace. If we make it too high, businesses won't be hiring them and they will be looking to others to fill the jobs. We still need in America a place for people to start. If we had a minimum wage bill and that is all we did, knowing what we know about welfare reform, we would not have a very good bill. The work opportunity credit, where employers give welfare men and women a job, is now a temporary work incentive credit; we make that permanent. That means as we have reduced the assistance for welfare in the United States by 48 percent, down to 2.7 million people, we want the employees of America to make a living wage. We want them to have a chance, but we also want to encourage them to be hired, even if there is some additional training and some skills that have to be added along the way. We are increasing opportunities for the young people, and we are increasing many of the welfare-related jobs with this additional minimum wage we are adding. Many in this body worked hard on the work opportunity credit. I can recall back in the 1970s when I first came here, we started that as a work incentive program for the disadvantaged, disabled, and others by giving a tax credit. It was highly abused later. People wanted to get rid of it, but the idea remained to give American small business an opportunity to hire people who may need a little extra help, a little more guidance, a little more skill and training. We give them credit for that. We have done that. We have two provisions in this amendment directed at health care. One of them is a very dramatic change from the way we have treated health care in the past. It is not going to cost very much because we are not so sure how many people will understand it. We are going to say to American men and women if they are not getting health insurance on their job, we give them an opportunity to buy their own health insurance and they can deduct every single penny of their health insurance from their pay before paying income tax. Heretofore, we were letting them pool those expenses along with other health care costs and if that exceeded 7.5 percent of the income, they could deduct it. There are many people who work for small businesses and others would don't furnish insurance, and perhaps they could buy their own insurance. But right now, they don't get to deduct the premiums. We add that to the basket of opportunities for health insurance. Then, there are the independent employees who work essentially for themselves. Under this bill, we finally make the health care costs 100 percent deductible. I think health insurance deduction is very important for the self-employed. We increase the small business expensing, which means there are certain items they can deduct, up to $30,000 under this new law in the year of the expanse rather than having to charge it off over time, which is desired by small business that will bear the brunt of this added minimum wage. We reduce the unemployment surtax, and we make permanent the work opportunity tax credit. A number of pension plans are reformed in this legislation so that more of the small businesses in this country will be able to take maximum advantage of their employees creating pension plans under the auspices of their employer as we currently have them in numerable places in the Tax Code. We can talk about how this affects our individual States. I will have for the record how the Domenici plan will affect New Mexicans on the tax side once we have it figured out, as well as on the minimum wage side. In summary, we will increase the minimum wage in the Domenici amendment--which the occupant of the Chair is a cosponsor, and I thank him for that--increase it $1, but it will take 12 additional months before we get to that. It will be 35 cents, 35 cents, and 30 cents. Senator Kennedy does it in two installments. Senators have to decide which best fits the needs of our country. If we were wishing and hoping, we would pay everybody a lot more. I repeat, half of the minimum wage earners in America are young people who are in part-time jobs, such as afterschool and summer jobs. We believe the 3-year installment increase, which far exceeds inflation annually as it applies to the current minimum wage, is probably good for the teenagers of our country, good to keep them employed, get them that entrance job and not have so many owners looking around for other employees who have more experience, which they will if we make the minimum wage too high. In addition, many of those getting off welfare--and we know there are thousands--they need some training and some extra skills preparation and the like. We are hoping they will get jobs. We are increasing their take-home pay so they can, indeed, have a better chance of succeeding off the rolls and move up the employment chain and get better and better jobs. The other things I mentioned in the health care field will be welcomed by millions of Americans, and in particular millions, millions of self-employed business men and women across America. With that, I know there are others who would like to speak, if not tonight, we obviously will share time with them tomorrow. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Is there any time before the vote or are we supposed to vote now?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, if we pass this minimum wage bill that I offered today with the taxes we have on it, we would welcome the President vetoing it. As a matter of fact, I do not believe he would. We have not only the minimum wage, but these are the right kinds of tax cuts to go along with it, and they are very desirable for the American economy right now.

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, might I ask, is the Senator speaking on his time on the Domenici amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, can we have order? The Senator deserves to be heard.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President do I have some additional time?

Mr. DOMENICI. I note Senator Landrieu is here from Louisiana. I won't take that much time, and I will yield back the remainder so she may proceed in morning business, if that is her desire. Let me just say, it is absolutely amazing that some group proposes that the minimum wage should be increased because the poor families in America, who are out there working at jobs, are the ones it will help, only to find that every study reveals that isn't the case. I am going to talk a minute about CNN. They proceeded with a very intense analysis of their own, and they have been running it on television. It is sort of shocking to hear what they find versus what we are hearing in justification of a $1 increase in the minimum wage in the next 13 months-14 months. First, let me start and read the dialog that occurred on CNN with reference to their research and who is helped and not helped by the minimum wage: Highlight: Next week, Congress will be raising the minimum wage by $1 to $6.15, which could benefit perhaps 10 million low-wage workers. A look at who a minimum wage increase would benefit. Body of the report: Jim Moret, anchor. There were fewer Americans out of work last month. The jobless rate dropped to 4.1 percent, the lowest it has been in 3 decades. Also in the Labor Department's report, average hourly earnings rose by only 1 penny last month to $13.37. That is the average per hour. Next week, Congress considers a minmimum wage of $1 which could benefit perhaps those 10 million low-wage workers. But who are they? Our Brooks Jackson has some answers that may surprise you. He says: Who would be helped if the minimum wage went up to $6.15 cents? The answer is: Not these workers. The ones they have been talking about. Bob Seidner, owner, Classic Auto Salon: I wouldn't even consider paying somebody that level, because we're not going to get the level of employee. Jackson: In today's hot job market, Bob Seidner says he has to pay $8 an hour to get an experienced car washer in Maryland. And in his Atlanta restaurant, nobody stays at the minimum wage for long. They all move up rather rapidly. Greg Vojnovic, Restaurant owner: If you look at the economy today, there is so much pressure on the labor marketplace that you can't pay anybody a minimum wage for any period of time. Our typical dishwasher, who is typically the lowest position, is making [more than the minimum wage today. In fact, he is making] $7 an hour. Jackson: So who would be helped? Experts say fewer than one worker out of every ten, most of them part-time workers, and mostly not in poverty. Let me repeat that: So who would be helped? One out of every ten, and most of them are part-time workers and mostly not in poverty. I am going to jump away from this for a minute and say, who do you think those part-time workers are? They are the teenagers of America who are working in restaurants, drive-ins, and all the kinds of places where they want to get jobs to learn how to work. Let's be honest about it; it would be nice if we could give them a 50-cent increase in the minimum wage in January and 50 cents the next year. But let's also be honest that they are not the poverty people of America; they are teenagers breaking in at their new job. And it is most interesting, for these comments and others that I have read say that even they are getting paid more than the minimum wage these days. Teenagers like Sara Schroff, a 19-year-old student making $5.15, but only the start. She'll be promoted in a week. Even McDonald's offers more than the minimum wage. Says another who has looked out in the job market. In fact, teenagers make up 28 percent of those who would gain, and only 23 percent of the gainers are the main earners in their families. Opponents say there's still a good reason to raise the minimum wage. And the Economic Policy Institute says: It's true that while the increase is not perfectly targeted, most of the benefits do go to lower-income working families. Fifty percent of the benefits, of the gains from this next increase, will go to families whose income is $25,000 or less; that's lower middle income. . . . Those working poor households would get only 17 percent of the gain from raising the minimum wage. Frankly, we have heard all kinds of numbers on how many minimum-wage people we have in America. I am just going to be rebutting their comments for a moment, and then I will tell Americans about our bill. To get to the 10 million they are bantering around here on the floor, let me tell you where that comes from. Minimum-wage earners are 1.6 million of this 10 million that is being bantered around. Workers making between the present minimum wage and the new wage of $6.15, under these amendments, are 5.9 million. Workers making less than the minimum wage and who are not going to be affected by the minimum wage because they are tip people, or the like, are 2.7. So, in summary, 1.6 million are really minimum-wage earners working under the minimum wage as a means of recompense for an hour's work. Nonetheless, we have an amendment that I believe is far superior to the Democrat amendment. I am very pleased to have been part of putting it together. We want to raise the minimum wage to keep steadily ahead of inflation, and it will be raised 30 cents in January, 35 cents the following January, and 30 cents the following--$1 in a period of 26 months instead of a period of 14 months. In addition, very simply put, we change some provisions in the tax law, which I now hear we should not do because it cuts taxes. Well, does anyone seriously believe that with the kind of surpluses we have projected in the United States, we are not going to give the taxpayers back some of that money? I can say, with surpluses that are approaching $3.4 trillion, does anybody believe there is a better time to give the American people a tax reduction, give them back some of their money? If we can't do that now, I ask you, when can we? These are the largest deficit, largest surpluses we could have predicted in the best of times. The budget is under control. It is growing at the lowest rate in all categories in the past 40 years on an annual basis. We take some credit for that. The President deserves some credit for that. But that is success. That is building a surplus. In the last year, we have not spent one penny of the Social Security trust fund money--in the year that just passed. The Congressional Budget Office says, as a matter of fact, we have a surplus of a billion dollars. That has not occurred in 40 years. We want to say to the Social Security trust fund, you keep all that is yours. That is about $2 trillion. What do we do with the other $1.3 trillion to $1.4 trillion? Do we leave it around here so we can spend it? Does anybody doubt, if we don't make appropriate tax cuts, or tax reductions, that it won't be spent? We have already heard that the worst thing to do with the surplus is to spend it. The best economic advisers that our country has say the worst thing you can do is spend it. So we have, in the first 5 years, $18.5 billion in tax relief, mostly for small businesses so they can continue to be the driving force behind America's growth. I am going to just quickly, in a moment, tick off three or four of those tax proposals that I think are very good. Somebody said this is a waste of effort because if the Republican package passes--and I hope it does because I think it is a very good package--the President will just veto it. Well, I am not too sure of that. Let me make sure the Senate understands that the tax package included in this Domenici, et al., proposal is 12.5 percent of the tax package we passed some months ago. It is 12.5 percent--not 50 percent of it, not 75, but 12.5. If you can't get that through, what can you get through? I believe the President would sign it in a minute because it does the kinds of things that even he has talked about as being necessary for American business to retain its energizing effect and its competitive qualities. For a moment, let's quickly go through the amendments we have attached and put in the tax amendments in this package. One: For the first time, we really help workers in America pay for health care insurance. Heretofore, if a worker bought his own insurance, he could not deduct it. He would have to put it in a large pot called health expenditures. Only if it exceeds 7.5 of his income could it be included in the deduction. We have said let's try this out. Let's see what would happen if workers who buy their own health insurance--for whatever reason-- deducted the whole thing the same as a company today deducts the whole thing under an exclusionary rule that we have established by precedent around here, and then we made it part of the rule of law. That is in there. Self-employed men and women have had a raw deal on health insurance. Everybody in this Chamber knows it. If we have a surplus, we ought to make that right. Let self-employed Americans deduct 100 percent of their insurance costs--not some percentage. That is built in with a rather rapid curve where they will be able to deduct the full amount. This is a work opportunity tax credit. Almost everybody in this Senate wanted that when we put it in before and made it temporary. It runs along with welfare reform. We have reduced welfare by 48 percent, and we cry out to business to hire welfare trainees. Yet the credit they get for doing that is temporary. We want to make it permanent. So a welfare trainee is more apt to get a job if the employer can get some incentives up front while they are training them and helping them. Who can be against that? Will the President veto that? I can't believe it. There is an item where small business can do an expensing of certain capital improvements. But we have a limit on it. Otherwise they have to depreciate it over time. We have increased that to $30,000 a year. It will be marvelous for small business to deduct those kinds of expenses that are encapsulated in that amendment. It will make their businesses grow and prosper. There are two or three others that go with this. But essentially, I believe when you put that package together you are saying there will be fewer minimum-wage workers in the future, small business will have a chance to profit more, and they will pay higher wages because the marketplace will force them to. In the meantime, we also increase minimum wage by $1. We just take 12 months longer to do it. I believe it is a good package. I hope the Senate passes it tomorrow. We will have a few more minutes of debate tomorrow before the vote. In the meantime, I hope everyone looks at the package in their offices and will get briefed on it because it is a very good package. I not only yield the floor, but I yield back any time that I had on my amendment. Amendments Nos. 2768 And 2772 En Bloc

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. All right. Which Senator?

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order, except that there be time remaining for the distinguished Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions, and 10 minutes for Senator Wyden.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am prepared to recite the closing script, but I understand the distinguished Senator from Alabama wants to be recognized.

Mr. DOMENICI. All right.

Mr. DOMENICI

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I came down to make a few remarks about a bill that is in conference, a subject matter we have been talking about for some time, and that is the Balanced Budget Act and what kind of impact it had on skilled nursing homes, on rural hospitals, and other parts of the entire health delivery network in the United States. While I won't take very long today, I do come because I think it is very urgent to the conferees on what we have been calling a ``Medicare replenishment'' bill--a bill that goes back and says let's make a few adjustments to the Balanced Budget Act as that Budget Act sought to restrain the cost of health care in three, four, or five areas. Particularly, I want to talk about the House and Senate and the ultimate compromise on the legislation to increase payments for the nursing home patients and proprietors and owners of skilled nursing homes and that industry. In fact, the problems in the nursing home industry are as severe, if not more severe, than in any other part of the health care system in the United States. To talk about hospitals as if they are more important than skilled nursing homes, and that we should worry more about hospitals and less about skilled nursing homes, is not to address the issue properly, for there are literally hundreds of thousands of Americans, men and women, predominantly women, in the skilled nursing homes across this land. Some are Ma and Pa owners of one or two units; some are corporately owned, where hundreds of these particular skilled nursing home facilities are owned by a company. A couple of weeks ago, a very large nursing home company with headquarters in my home State filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. That was a second nursing home chain to file for bankruptcy protection in the last 2 months. These two nursing home chains own hundreds of facilities all over the country. So every Senator should be concerned about what is happening to this industry and to these facilities and their ability to care for our senior citizens. The Senate Finance Committee, which got input from many Senators and many parts of America's health delivery system, reported out a very good bill in the area of skilled nursing homes and, likewise, in the other delivery components of American health care. In it, there are two provisions which are particularly important. First, it provides, over the next 3 years, for $1.4 billion in higher payment rates for skilled nursing facilities. These increases are targeted at what everyone agrees is the problem--that current rates do not cover the high costs of medically complex cases. In other words, skilled nursing homes and the population of these homes have changed rather dramatically in the last 15 years, and there are more and more very sick people in the skilled nursing home facilities, and we call these medically complex cases. The reimbursements we are now giving skilled nursing homes do not cover the care for the medically complex cases. Secondly, it put a moratorium--that is, the Senate bill--on the $1,500 therapy caps that have been so disruptive to care to many seniors. Quite frankly, one of the messages I would like the Senate to hear today is that the House bill is completely inadequate in this area. In fact, the House bill puts only $100 million--one-tenth of $1 billion-- directly into the payment rates to correct the problem of high cost cases. That is $1.3 billion less than the Senate bill. Obviously, there is a problem, or there isn't a problem. If there is no problem, then the House is right. Fund it with $100 million, which is almost nothing. But if there is a problem, obviously $100 million over 3 years will not solve that problem. The Senate is more apt to be right at $1.3 billion for skilled nursing homes. The House bill tries to salvage the concept of putting caps on therapy services, which is the wrong way to be approaching and controlling the costs in this area. The Medicare relief package reported by our Finance Committee--I give the Finance Committee great credit and Chairman Bill Roth extraordinary credit--includes other provisions: $1.8 billion for teaching hospitals, all hospitals $2.5 billion more than today's plans, and for home health, $1.3 billion to delay a 15-percent cut. Many of us have looked at all of these and think they are needed and should be supported. But certainly to go to conference and tragically leave out of the package anything significant for skilled nursing homes, I tell you that we will rue the day. It will not be 6 months to a year when there will be closings across this land, and we will have sick senior citizens unattended in nursing home after nursing home across this country. Even if the other provisions survive the conference and the nursing provisions do not, let me repeat that I think we will have failed the No. 1 problem in the delivery system right now, especially for those who can do nothing for themselves. They are the very sick seniors in nursing homes. I don't know any other way than to say that the Senate voted overwhelmingly for these provisions. I hope that means they will carry this message into this conference and will insist that the House concede when it comes to skilled nursing home parts of this bill and put substantially more into reimbursing provisions; that is, the two that I have mentioned here today. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I discussed that report with one of the most eminent physicists in the world. What he said to me was: I looked from cover to cover, and since I could not find one word on nuclear power, I put the report down and said it cannot be one that is really objective and realistic. Now, that is better than I can say it. I think that is what the Senator has been saying and what my friend from Alabama, who has regularly talked with me about nuclear power and clean air, has said. It is amazing, if we can just come to the floor and talk about the other sources of energy and what they have done to human life in terms of deaths in mining, the deaths on the trains that have carried coal, and all of the other things related to producing energy that we use willfully and without great concern about the danger and the risks, and then put that up alongside nuclear power from its origin, it will look like a big giant heap of coal versus a little tiny package of salt over here that will represent the harm we have caused to people and the environment with nuclear power. They are not even in the same league in terms of damage to people, deaths to people, and the like. It has been a very safe industry, and in the United States, it has been truly miraculous that with this kind of engineering we have had two accidents and neither were fatal.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first, I wish to say I wasn't present in the discussion about clean air and the ambient air standards, as they might pertain to nuclear power in America and what might happen to the nuclear power we have, the powerplants, and what might happen in the future. But I know, even without being here, that it was a very enlightened discussion about the fact that if you are looking for a cleaner world and for the ambient air of the world and in America in the future, to sustain economic growth, for it to be clean and livable, anybody who leaves nuclear power off the map and doesn't even talk about it is absolutely missing the greatest opportunity we have to accomplish what all of those who want clean air set out to do. In fact, I think the Senator shares this observation with me. The Kyoto agreement, with all of its preamble work--the whereases--was totally void of a reference to nuclear power.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until the hour of 12 noon on Monday, November 8. I further ask consent that on Monday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then begin a period of morning business, with Senators speaking for up to 5 minutes each, with the following exceptions: Senator Thomas or designee, from 12 until 1 o'clock; Senator Reid or designee, from 1 to 2 o'clock.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Pursuant to the agreement on S. 625, I ask unanimous consent that the Record remain open until 5 p.m. for the filing of amendments to the pending legislation.