Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, this week the Congress and the White House have spent a fair amount of time talking about the subject of gasoline prices. Gas prices are now averaging over $2 a gallon across the country. It is a serious problem for American families, for American businesses, and for industries such as the airlines. I will talk a bit about that. Elbows and wrists and hands are nearly out of joint from every side of the political spectrum pointing fingers during the last week about who is responsible for this or that or the other thing, who is responsible for high oil prices. That is counterproductive. However, we cannot, all of us, decide that this is not happening on our watch. It is. We cannot decide that it is not of consequence. It certainly is of great consequence to our country, to our economy, and to American families. I pulled up behind an old Chevrolet one day at a 40A stop in North Dakota some while ago. This 15- or 20-year-old Chevrolet had a bumper sticker on the back bumper, half of which was sort of tilted downward from previous beatings. The bumper sticker said ``I fought the gas war and gas won.'' I thought to myself, that is a prophetic bumper sticker. It is hard to fight a gas war and win when we have all of these events conspired against us. We have OPEC countries that control a substantial amount of product which have formed a cartel and they decide what they are pumping and what they will send to the oil pipelines around the world. In addition to that, the oil companies themselves have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, behemoth companies that control substantial amounts of product. Then we have the consumer at the end of the line. They take the gas hose out of the socket at the gas station, they put it in the gas tank and start pumping, and there is not a thing they can do except pay the price, whatever the price is. Why is this important, especially for rural States? I come from a rural State in this country. In rural States, we drive a lot more. We use a lot more fuel. I come from a State that is 10 times the size of Massachusetts in landmass. North Dakota is 10 Massachusetts in landmass. Yet we have 642,000 people spread out in that big old landmass. It is not much of anything to drive 50 miles or 100 miles or 200 miles to do a piece of business or to see relatives. Do that on the east coast, and they want to pack a tent in case they have trouble driving 50 miles. But in our State we drive a lot, and we have a farming industry that uses a lot of fuel. So in the State of North Dakota, for example, per capita, we use twice as much gasoline as they would in New York per capita. That means the burden of these increased gas prices is double in a rural State such as ours what it is on other drivers in some of the more populous States where they use less and drive less. I am not saying all Americans are not having problems pulling up to the gas pump and paying $2 a gallon, but I am saying this especially hurts rural States whose consumers per person pay a much higher amount of the gas tax because they use more gasoline. So what do we do about all this? Well, we can do as we have done for the last week or two, and keep pointing back and forth, or we can decide to take some action. A couple obvious things we ought to do are: One, we are putting nearly 150,000 barrels of oil a day underground in Louisiana in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that is 96-percent full. I support what is called SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We ought to have that in case of an international problem, a national emergency. That is why we are putting that oil away. But in times of tight supplies, when the price of gasoline has gone to $2 a gallon, it makes no sense to take 150,000 barrels off the supply and put it underground in Louisiana. Step one, I think the President ought to immediately--right now, today--stop that. That will add to supply, take some of the pressure off increasing prices. That ought to happen now--right now. Second, there is a meeting this week in Amsterdam. The Secretary of Energy is going to Amsterdam. We need to jawbone--really jawbone--the OPEC countries and say to them: You need to increase production during this intermittent period. During this summer period, you need to increase production, get more oil into that pipeline. The Saudis have called for that. But I must say, the Saudis have also been part of the problem in the past. When you have the amount of oil that is controlled by a few countries, which control a substantial amount of the oil in this world, and they make decisions about supply, it can have a profound impact on this country. We ought to have, immediately, the President jawboning these OPEC countries. The Secretary of Energy ought to apply diplomatic pressure to these countries to say we need additional oil in that pipeline now. Let me also say this. This is about the tenth wake-up call we have had on this issue of being held hostage to the OPEC countries. We get much of our oil to fuel the American economy from very troubled parts of the world. God forbid some morning we wake up and terrorists have severed the oil pipelines that send a substantial amount of oil to our country and our economy becomes flat on its back. We need to understand this cannot work. Sixty percent of the oil we need to run this country's economy comes from off our shores, and much of it from very troubled parts of the world. We need a project--I don't care; I call it an ``Apollo'' project, some call it a ``Manhattan'' project--we need a project that says: In the coming years we need to find a way to stop running gasoline through American carburetors. We have been driving cars for 100 years, and 100 years ago, you pulled up to a gas pump and put gasoline in your car the same way you do with a 2004 Ford or a 2002 Chevy. Nothing has changed. New cars are fueled the same way old cars were fueled. Nothing has changed in a century. Everything about us has changed except we are still dependent, we still have this addiction to oil that comes from the OPEC countries. Why? Because we need to run it through a carburetor someplace in order to make our car go. Well, look, hydrogen fuel cells are in our future. Do you know what you put out the tailpipe of a hydrogen fuel-cell car? Water vapor. You don't pollute the air. You put water vapor out the tailpipe. You have twice the effective power going to the wheels with hydrogen fuel cells. Why aren't we doing it? Because this country has not ratcheted up the energy and the decision to say, on a ``Manhattan'' project basis or an ``Apollo'' project basis: We are going to do this. This ought to be equivalent to saying we are going to send a person to the moon. But somehow we are not there. So we need to take short- term steps and longer term steps, but we need to understand this is urgent, this is an emergency. There are few things as important to this country as an energy policy that works, one that incentivizes production, one that provides for conservation, one that provides for renewable forms of energy, greater efficiency of all the things we use in our daily lives. While I do not want to point the finger here today, I do want to say that which I have heard all week is a little disturbing. The White House spokesman comes out every day and says: Well, the problem is down there. They did not pass an energy bill. Well, everyone knows why we did not pass an energy bill. It failed by 2 votes in the Senate. We did not pass an energy bill because of a pernicious provision put in that bill, put in by the majority leader of the House, which he knew would derail that bill in the Senate, providing a retroactive waiver of liability for MTBE. That provision was put in in a manner that he knew would cause the Energy bill to fail in the Senate. So that yoke of responsibility ought to lay where it is appropriate, in my judgment. Partisanship Madam President, I have been talking about gasoline and gasoline prices. We have a lot of challenges in our lives at the moment. We have a war in Iraq. We have a continuing war in Afghanistan. We have a range of both domestic and international issues that require our attention. I was distressed yesterday to read in a newspaper a little piece that kind of describes the dilemma we have. We have this problem, and the problem is an incessant amount of partisanship around here. We have people who come to this town and say: We are going to bring people together. I see no evidence of it. The suggestion is the only way we can do business is to have one party do it, and exclude the other party. We made some progress this week. It is interesting, the highway bill is a very important piece of legislation for our country. It should have been done last year. It was not. It is going to be done this year, I hope. Only yesterday we appointed conferees. I want to show you what bothered me yesterday about all of that. Quoting the article, it says: . . . conservative leaders said the White House and the Senate leadership committed a tactical error by compromising with Daschle, which they say has undermined what had been their strategy on judges. . . . The spokesperson, Connie Mackey, is the vice president of government affairs at the Family Research Council. ``We don't see the point,'' said Mackey, who declined to discuss the specifics of the meeting. ``The strategy all along has been to show the obstructionist tactics of the Democrats. [Now] we've lost that tactic.'' What are we going to do? Our goal has been to be able to call somebody obstructionist, but all of a sudden we have this cooperation going on, and we have lost this ability. What are we going to do? This describes the rancid partisanship that exists around here, and I hope it will stop. My colleague, Senator Warner from Virginia--I don't know that I have ever heard anyone ever call him partisan. He and my colleague from Michigan, who bring this bill to the floor of the Senate to manage, are models of what we ought to do in this Congress, in this Senate. The Senate is almost evenly divided. So is the House. This President won by a whisker in 2000. So we have a divided Government, almost right down the middle. And those who suggest that what we ought to do, in terms of the way we run things around here, is to have the majority party decide what happens, and then say to the minority party, you do not count, you are excluded, get lost--which is what happened all of last year, by the way, in these conferences; we appoint conferees, and then we are told the Democrats are not welcome to participate in the conferences, despite the fact they were a conferee--the fact is, we need to do better than that. This country deserves the best of what all of us have to offer, the best of what both parties can offer, instead of the worst of what each will offer. There is a lot to be gained, it seems to me, by bipartisanship, by working together, by deciding that good ideas are not the exclusive property of whatever party is in the majority at the moment. There is a lot to be gained by that. My hope is what happened yesterday is the first step of a long trail of bipartisanship and the first step in developing consensus on issues, in which we all understand we are serving the same interests. We want what is best for our country. But there are some--there are some--who have no interest in trying to find ways to work together. They want open, partisan warfare. I brought to the floor last week a couple of charts that showed the origin of that, charts an organization put together that said: Oh, by the way, here is the way you do this. If you have an opponent, here is what you should say about your opponent because we have tested these words. This organization, called GOPAC, said: Use words like ``liar,'' ``sick,'' ``pathetic,'' ``traitor,'' ``treason,'' ``antichild,'' ``antifamily,'' ``antiflag,'' when you describe your opponent. Be sure and use those words because we have tested them, and they work. That was the kind of rancid partisan ignorance that represented the foundation of what has been built for too long. My hope is that perhaps we can reject all of that. Understanding that when a country is at war, when a country has energy problems, when a country has fiscal policy problems, that it makes good sense to get the best of what Republicans have to offer and the best of what Democrats have to offer and form a consensus to govern and achieve the goals that all of us aspire to. That is what the American people expect. I don't think aggressive debate at all hinders or hurts this country. In fact, I think it strengthens us. But aggressive partisanship, having as a goal not just winning but making sure the other side is destined to lose, that does hurt this country. My hope is that yesterday, as we created a conference for a highway bill which is very important--it is important in the context of jobs and progress for the economy--I hope that was the first step in moving towards this consensus. Senator Daschle, Senator Reid, so many others want to play a constructive role in good public policy. That has always been our goal. I believe this country deserves better than we have seen in recent months, especially in the last several years. I hope what happened yesterday might put us on that road. I will come back at another time and talk about the specific bill we are considering, the Defense authorization bill. It is very important. We tried this week, Senator Lott and myself, to alter some of the base- closing provisions so that we could force a responsible result in what we are going to do with overseas bases first and then make a judgment about domestic bases. We came up two votes short on that. But while we were two votes short, there were four votes missing that we expect would have voted for us. So I think there is a majority in the Senate who actually support that position. There are some provisions in this bill that we must have an aggressive and full debate on. They have to do with the authorization of the spending of money to begin producing a new category of nuclear weapons, low-yield, bunker-buster, earth-penetrator nuclear weapons. A series of discussions need to be held, aggressive discussions around that subject. Should we begin developing new nuclear weapons with the understanding that they are just like other weapons and perfectly usable tactically? I don't believe that is the case, but some in this Chamber do believe that we just ought to have nuclear weapons available so we can drop one of them on a cave someplace, and if Osama bin Laden is holed up in the cave, we can deal with him with a nuclear weapon. Our goal as a nuclear power needs to be to try to make certain that never again is a nuclear weapon used in anger, and our job as a leader is to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries that don't now have them and try to find a way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons that exist. Some 30,000 nuclear weapons now exist. The absence of one of them, the stealing of one nuclear weapon or the access to one nuclear weapon by a terrorist would make 9/11 seem small by comparison in terms of what a nuclear weapon could do in the hands of a terrorist. This is a provision about which I speak more. It is an important provision, one I would like to see removed in support of an amendment to be offered by one of my colleagues. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is said that we inherit this great country of ours from our parents and we borrow it from our children. Yet, for all of us, it is what we do with this country, in what shape do we leave it for our children? All of us aspire to give our children something more, leave a country to our children that is a better one, a stronger one, with better jobs and growth and opportunity. My colleague asked the question: Are you better off today than 4 years ago? That was a question President Reagan asked repeatedly many years ago. It is a fair question. We have some serious challenges: the challenge of responding to the threat of terrorism; the challenge we now find in Iraq and Afghanistan; the challenge in this country of finding a way to create new jobs, to pay our bills and avoid running up very large deficits, and to deal with our trade imbalance. These are very significant challenges. In many ways the answer to these challenges relates to our values. David McCullough wrote a wonderful book about John Adams, who traveled a great deal as they tried to put this new country together. He was in London and France. He would write right back to Abigail and he would ask the question in his letters plaintively: Where is the leadership? Where will the leadership come from to help put this country of ours together? Then he would answer his question by saying: There is really only us. There is Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, me, Mason, Madison. In the rearview mirror of history we know the ``only us'' represents some of the greatest talent in human history. But for every generation, the question has been, Where will the leadership come from? Now more than ever the question is, Where will the leadership come from? Let me talk for a moment about some of the challenges we face. I mentioned terrorism, the war in Iraq, Afghanistan. Let me talk about this country's fiscal policy and specifically trade policy with respect to large and growing and dangerous deficits. This year we will have the largest Federal budget deficit in history, the largest ever in the world by any country. Last week we saw a story in the Washington Post that says: ``U.S. Trade Deficit Grows Unchecked,'' $46 billion gap in March is the biggest monthly trade deficit in our history. Think of that, $46 billion in 1 month, over $10 billion of it to China alone. This is at a time when the dollar is weakening, and they expect that our trade deficit will begin to shrink. Our trade deficit grows. We have the largest budget deficit in history, the largest trade deficit in history, and the administration acts as if this is just routine. They say: What problem? This is not a big issue. What problem? Ultimately, our children will repay this trade deficit with a lower standard of living. They will inherit the budget deficit and have to repay it. As important as that is, the combination of these deficits that are choking our economy mean we will have fewer jobs and less opportunity and a less robust economic growth in the future. That is a fact. Where are the values that deal with these questions? Should we not as a country begin to address this? Where is the leadership? I know conservatives who say this is not true. It is true. The President says: Let's increase spending. He says: Let's increase defense spending by well over $100 billion a year. Let's increase homeland security spending. Let's increase spending on health care issues because health care spending is increasing. He proposes we pay that. So we have very large spending increases and at the same time he says, Let's cut taxes and cut taxes again. Yesterday's CQ Daily talks again about an additional tax cut campaign. The question is, How do you pay for all this? Does it add up to have budgets proposed by this President that say, let's increase spending in category after category and then, by the way, let's cut revenue and let's have the kids pay for all this? Now we have a proposal for $25 billion in additional funding for Iraq. That is on top of the nearly over $80 billion we appropriated recently just months ago. Part of that money, incidentally, which is not paid for and that is charged to the kids, is to reconstruct Iraq. We have a program in this country offered to us by the administration for Iraq, a domestic program. They have a roads program for Iraq. They have a jobs program. They have a health care program for Iraq. They have an energy program for Iraq--all paid for by the American taxpayer. Is that what we ought to be doing? Iraq has the second largest reserves of oil in the world. I had a soldier tell me he was standing on some sand in a low spot one day in Iraq and his boots got black with oil. It was seeping out of the sand. They have the second largest reserves of oil in the world. I believe the Iraqi people ought to sell Iraqi oil to pay for Iraq reconstruction. That is not the job of the American taxpayer. Yet this administration again, even on this issue, says: Let's borrow money and let the kids pay for it in order to provide a domestic program to reconstruct Iraq. In my judgment, it is fundamentally wrong. It means fewer jobs in our country, less economic growth, and less opportunity here. Unless we get our hands around these issues, a reckless fiscal policy that has now given us the largest budget deficit in history and a trade policy that seems oblivious to fairness for American producers and workers, when you hear people talk about trade policy who espouse these things, you wonder whether the tongue is in any way connected to the brain. What on Earth could they be talking about, setting up trade policies with other countries that undercut our producers and undercut our workers? I could give you examples. I have done it in recent weeks. Huffy bicycles are made in China; the little red wagon, that is made in China, not in America. You want to buy Mexican food, go buy a Fig Newton. Fig Newton used to be an all-American cookie. That is now made in Mexico; Fig Newton is Mexican food. You wear Fruit of the Loom underwear? You are not wearing American underwear anymore. It is made in Mexico and China. And Levis, that isn't all-American. They are gone, too. This country has to have a trade policy that begins to ratchet these huge deficits down. Instead, they are going up. This administration doesn't care. Their interest? Go do another trade deal with another country, just do another deal. It undercuts the interests of our country. It is perfectly appropriate, as the Democratic leader said, to ask: Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago? The answer with respect to this country's economy and long-term outlook is, no, we are not. The answer to John Adams' question, Where will the leadership come from, is the leadership needs to come from an administration that says we have to pay for that which we consume. Why are we not asking in this country that we begin to pay for that which we are spending? If we want to increase defense spending $100 billion a year, as the administration has done and Congress has approved, should someone pay for that? If homeland security needs, in order to deal with the threat of terrorism, have increased, we must increase spending in homeland security, should someone pay for that, or is this all the obligation of our children? We need leadership, and we need it now. This administration understands, or should understand, that in fiscal policy and trade policy, these large deficits--large, abiding, and growing deficits-- will choke this economy, and that is not what we should aspire to want for our country's future. We can do better than that. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on our side in morning business?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield back that time.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. It sounds to me as though we are left with 3 or 4 minutes, as I understood it. I don't think that accomplishes it. I will speak only 2 or 3 minutes at the moment. I know I have two colleagues who perhaps would like to speak for a couple of minutes. I would be glad to come back after our caucuses----

Mr. DORGAN. Let me do 3 minutes, and then I will yield the floor so my colleagues might also say a word or so. My colleague, Senator Lott, explained the reason for this. Let me explain what this bill is not. This amendment is not an amendment that would obliterate or abolish next year's BRAC Commission. It does not do that. It does say next year's BRAC Commission should make judgments and recommendations to the Congress on the overseas base structure. It makes good sense that we would understand and try to think through what our basing structure should be internationally before we decide what our needs are here at home. If, for example, at some point we do not have 100,000 troops in Germany and we bring home 50,000 of those troops to this country--incidentally, we ought to consider that because it is very expensive to keep 100,000 troops in Germany--if we did that, where would we put 50,000 troops? At which base? What set of bases? So we propose something that would make good sense, make judgments in next year's BRAC Commission about the overseas bases, where we should retain overseas bases. Since we authorized the BRAC round, we have had the continuing war on terrorism, a war in Afghanistan, and a war in Iraq. We have had a series of things that have altered in many ways what our responsibilities are around the world. The cold war is over. We have new challenges and new responsibilities. The question we should answer first is, What should our base structure be internationally and from that, then, what kind of needs do we have to house troops at home? My colleague mentioned several other features of this bill. Let me leave it at that. I will come back this afternoon after the caucus lunch and discuss in greater detail why we have offered this amendment. We do not intend to trip up the Pentagon or trip up the managers of the bill. We intend to see if we cannot have the base-closing process happen in an orderly way, figure out what the overseas structure should be, and from that, then if the Congress considers a 2007 round, have an affirmative vote to do that and make that judgment with respect to domestic bases.

Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN. I will respond, of course. I must point out, to proceed as current law anticipates, we should anticipate it will cost us money in the short term. We are struggling around here to find money but we will actually expend more money in the short term with respect to the 2005 BRAC round, and we do not propose we obliterate this entire process. What we propose is to establish an order that makes sense. The order that would make sense would be to evaluate where we would house overseas troops, given the new realities of the world, and then from that understand what our domestic needs are. That seems to me to be the logical and right approach. I don't think it poses any additional risk for anyone. The current 20-year plan, the unclassified portion of the 20-year forecast for the threat and for basing, apparently assumes the same size force as we now have and apparently assumes the same forces that are based overseas, which largely remain based overseas. I don't think that is likely to be the case. We are proposing a structure which would put the horse in front of the cart. That is the amendment we have offered.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would be happy to but I wonder if the opponents might want to use some of their time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Mississippi for his leadership on this amendment. Let me address a few of the issues that have been discussed. First of all, 5 days before September 11, 2001--5 days before September 11--the first vote occurred in the Senate on this BRAC round. It was September 6, and it was a vote in the Senate Defense Authorization Committee. That first committee vote, 5 days before September 11, 2001, is what propelled a base-closing commission proposal to the floor of the Senate. The opponents of this amendment are quite correct when they say the final vote of the Congress occurred after September 11. But the origin of this, including the vote in the authorizing committee, occurred before September 11. The reason I make that point is this: Things are changing. The world has changed. I will bet on September 6, 2001, there was not one member of the Armed Services Committee or a Member of the Senate, and I will bet not one person serving in the Pentagon, who would have predicted that within a matter of months we would be occupying an old Soviet air base in Uzbekistan in order to house our troops to prosecute a war in Afghanistan. No one would have predicted that. No one would have had the foggiest idea that was in front of us. Yet the world has changed. We now fight a war against terrorism. We fought a war in Afghanistan, quite successfully. We are now fighting a war in Iraq. The world is changing. So our force structure will likely change. Our basing decisions will change. We no longer have a cold war with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is gone, it has disappeared. So what next? Well, my feeling, and the reason I support this amendment and have worked on this amendment, is we ought to do first things first. I have voted for four previous base-closing rounds. My colleague from Oklahoma said we have voted to close some 97--nearly 100--military installations. I have voted for all of that, as I believe have most of my colleagues. So I am not a bit unwilling to vote to close military installations. We have done that on four occasions. In this case, however, as I said, the world is changing very rapidly. I would ask the question of my colleagues if, in fact, there has been all of this activity about reevaluating overseas bases, given the changes in the world, and the fact we are no longer in a cold war, why, then, do we have nearly 100,000 troops still in Germany? Why? My colleague from Alabama said, well, we could bring a lot of those folks back. I think he said we could probably bring a half to two- thirds of them back to this country. Well, here is what the Congressional Budget Office said. It said: The U.S. Army has little or no excess capacity at bases in the United States. The need to house forces in the U.S. that are now stationed overseas could preclude some base closures. So if that is the case--and it is--wouldn't you do first things first? Wouldn't you decide what it is you are going to do with overseas bases first so you understand what your obligation is with respect to bases here at home? If you are going to bring 50,000 Army troops from Germany back to American soil, where are you going to put them? Wouldn't you want to make those decisions before you have a base- closing commission here for domestic bases? And one other point, I wonder if perhaps, with respect to the international war on terrorism, and the substantial need for homeland security, which we did not spend so much time thinking about years ago, I wonder if when we talk about domestic military installations whether we might not think about them in a slightly different way. Perhaps we need more. I don't know. I would sure like all of these to be handled and discussed and debated and thought about in a logical way. Frankly, that has not been the case. We have a very large Federal budget deficit. We are now going to be asked for a $25 billion reserve fund to fund the war in Iraq. The Congress is going to provide that. We are not going to ask the American men and women in uniform to go in harm's way and then not provide the funds that are necessary. But at a time when we have a very large Federal budget deficit and the need to provide funding to prosecute the war in Iraq, a base-closing commission next year will result in us spending more money, not saving money, spending more money. If you question that, look at all the previous rounds and ask yourself what the result has been of those rounds in the years following the round. It cost us more money to proceed with the recommendations of the BRAC Commission. The Senator from Oklahoma asked the question: What is this amendment? The amendment is very simple. The amendment says the 2005 BRAC round shall proceed, but it shall proceed to evaluate and recommend realignment and closure only with respect to overseas bases. Why is that the case? Because that ought to be done first. First things first, but put the horse in front of the cart, evaluate what are the international, what are the worldwide needs and interests of our country with respect to our military troops and installations, and then from that you will determine what kind of military installations and needs you have in this country domestically. That is what our amendment does. It provides for the 2005 round to proceed with respect to overseas bases. Then secondly it says, following that report and disposition of its recommendations by the Senate, a motion will be in order by someone who wishes to propose a motion for a new BRAC round. Under expedited procedures, that motion shall be considered, and there shall be a vote of the Senate on whether to implement another BRAC round. The Senator from Oklahoma, with respect to the question he asked, was absolutely correct. I have great respect for the chairman and ranking member of this committee. They do outstanding work. They are both wonderful legislators, and I regret that we find ourselves on different sides of this question. I have great respect for their position. But I believe, as do many of my colleagues who have spoken today, that the better course for this country, given what we face, our challenges and the circumstances that now exist, would be to proceed with the amendment, have an overseas BRAC round next year, decide what it is we want to do internationally with overseas bases, and then proceed from that basis and make further judgments. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains on both sides?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, on behalf of Senator Bingaman, that Jonathan Epstein, a fellow in his office, be afforded floor privileges during consideration of this DOD authorization.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to support the amendment to strike this section. I do that because the Senator from South Carolina is absolutely right. So is the Senator from Florida. The fact is, there are several provisions that incentivize the movement of U.S. jobs overseas. At a time when we are trying to create new jobs in this country, to say to companies--which, by the way, have moved their jobs overseas already--``Repatriate your income to this country now, and we will give you a 5.25-percent tax rate,'' how about a 5.25-percent tax rate for every American? How about a 5.25-percent tax rate for those who live in North Dakota or South Carolina or Florida? Why should we provide incentives for companies that want to move their jobs overseas? I have talked at length about Huffy bicycles. They are gone. They are now made in China. They used to be made in the United States. Radio Flyer, the little red wagons, they are gone. They used to be made in the United States. Those little red wagons are now made in China. The U.S. taxpayers provide an incentive for those companies to close their U.S. plants, fire their workers, and move their jobs overseas. Now this bill comes to the floor of the Senate and says to those companies that moved their jobs overseas: We will give you a good deal. Repatriate some of that money, and we will lower your tax rate to 5.25 percent. Well, that sends a signal to everybody that when you decide next to move your jobs overseas to access lower labor costs, at some point in the future somebody will get behind a closed door and come up with this goofy idea that they will reduce your tax rate again--maybe to 5.25 percent, maybe to 1.25 percent. How about zero? My question is this: If it is good enough for these companies, why is a 5.25-percent tax rate not good enough for every American? Why is it not good enough for working families? But the Senator from South Carolina has it right. We ought not, in any circumstance, provide any additional incentive to move more American jobs overseas. They are moving overseas to access lower labor costs and less restrictions with respect to safe plants and environmental restrictions. Why on Earth would we want to give them a tax benefit as they leave this country? This makes no sense to me. There are some provisions in the international tax section which I think are all right. But there are some that are, in my judgment, a colossal waste of money and fundamentally the wrong incentive with respect to American jobs. Because of that, because of this pernicious provision that reduces the tax rate to 5.25 percent for the repatriation of earnings for those that have already moved their jobs overseas, I am going to support the amendment that is offered by the Senator from South Carolina. He is right on track. As you know, we had a vote a few days ago on my amendment that would have done more than this amendment, essentially. My amendment was taking out of existing law the provision that encourages companies to move overseas. The Senator from South Carolina supported that. The Senator from South Carolina now says they are creating a new piece of legislation that, in the long run, will have even more incentive to move American jobs overseas. He says: Let's stop that. Let's not do that. I agree with him completely. I think the Senator from South Carolina does a service to this Chamber by offering this amendment. I intend to support his amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, like all of my colleagues, I am enormously proud to serve in the Senate. It is a unique and special privilege. I come from a small town of 300 people in the southwestern ranching country of North Dakota. Some of my colleagues come from big towns, some of them from family farms. We come from different parts of America to convene here and do public policy. I am enormously proud of this institution, but there are times when I see what is rancid, partisan, bare-knuckle politics played in this town that begin to bother me. I am big enough to understand politics can be tough. I have been in politics a long while and I think most of my colleagues understand politics is a tough business, but the Senate is different. It does not mean there ought not be politics in the Senate, but it means we ought to be reasonably serious about doing good things for our country and creating good public policy. Last week we had a visit to the Senate floor by some colleagues, and I noticed an article in the National Journal that said the following: ``House, Senate Republicans coordinate anti-Daschle message, Pryce''--I believe this is the chairperson of the Republican Conference in the House--``acknowledged Wednesday that the respective conferences are coordinating their current message against so-called Democratic obstructionism . . .'' Today, I want to talk a little bit about this targeting that goes on, about the notion of obstructionism, because we had a discussion last week by one of our colleagues that talks about the ``price for obstructionism,'' ``the pain of obstructionism,'' and Democratic obstructionism specifically. Then we see this, the anti-Daschle obstructionism plan. I will talk about some of this partisanship that boils up and boils over. I came to the Congress when Tip O'Neill was Speaker of the House and I served in the other body. Bob Michel was minority leader. The two of them liked each other. They spent a lot of time together, played golf together, worked together, did good things for America together. That was a different time and a different era. They respected each other and worked closely together. In my judgment, that is the way it ought to be. I might say that changed about in the mid-1980s. My former colleague, Newt Gingrich, formed something called GOPAC. This is a letter signed by Newt, ``Dear friend,'' and the letter describes his version of American politics and says: I have also included a new document entitled ``Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,'' drafted by our GOPAC political director. The letter then describes the words that should be used to describe the opponent and the words that should be used to describe one's self, signed by Newt Gingrich. Here is what Newt then counseled back in the mid 1980s: When you are talking about your opponents, use words like destroy, sick, pathetic, lie, betrayed, incompetent, greed, anti-family, anti-child, anti-flag, anti-job, corrupt, shame, disgrace. That is what Newt Gingrich counseled candidates across the country to use when they described their opponent. He said, by the way, when you describe yourself you really ought to use words, which we have tested, like courage, children, family, liberty, vision, success. Again, the rancid ignorance of excessive partisanship has its root about two decades ago in GOPAC--my former colleague, Mr. Gingrich, describing how people ought to play their politics in this country. I wouldn't do that in a million years. It ruins the political system, in my judgment. We saw some of that recently in the last campaign for Congress. I had a colleague in the Senate who left three limbs on the battlefield in Vietnam. In his campaign, his courage, patriotism, his commitment to his country was questioned--a man who lost three limbs on the battlefield had his patriotism and courage and his commitment to his country and his country's national security questioned. Now, the standard bearer on the Democratic side of the aisle is a man who has three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star, and they question his patriotism. They question his commitment to our country. Let me talk a little bit about this message last week from those who concoct a political menu that says lets just try to be involved in this search-and-destroy mission if we can--how House and Senate Republicans coordinate the anti-Daschle message. Let me talk a little about this ``so-called Democratic obstructionism.'' Let me say, no one here--certainly not me--will ever apologize for deciding that our role in selecting people for a lifetime appointment on the bench is to say no when appropriate. We have said yes over 96 percent of the time when the President has sent us the name of a Federal judge he wants to sit on the Federal bench for a lifetime. But on those rare occasions when we say no, we have a constitutional right to do so and we will not apologize for keeping bad people off the Federal bench. No one on this side of the aisle, I think, is prepared ever to apologize for opposing bad fiscal policy, the kind of policy that has turned the largest budget surpluses in history into the largest Federal deficits in history. You won't hear an apology for not supporting or for trying to stop bad fiscal policy. You will not hear an apology from this side of the aisle. But I want to talk for a moment about this issue of obstruction. Senator Daschle doesn't need a defender on the floor of the Senate. His actions and his votes defend themselves. So is the case with my colleagues on the floor of the Senate. I respect differences of opinion. I think I served with some of the most talented and creative men and women in the Republican and Democratic caucus that I have ever had an opportunity to spend time with. I respect all of them. But let me talk for a moment about another kind of obstruction, and that is the obstruction of good public policy that ought to change this country for the better but that we can't get through the U.S. Congress because we have people who think they are just a set of human brake pads, that their sole mission in life is to stop good things from happening. No one here works at the bottom of the economic wage scale. No one here is on minimum wage. No one in the Senate understands what it is like to live on the minimum wage. Yet for 7 years there has not been an adjustment in the minimum wage. Yes, there are people who work long hours, many of them with two jobs at the minimum wage, trying to raise a family. Yes, there are people trying to raise a family on the minimum wage. They have not had an adjustment in 7 years. We can't get a minimum wage increase through this Congress. Why? Because it is obstructed by those who control the Congress--the House, the Senate, the Presidency. How about a simple little issue, country-of-origin labeling. We can't get that done. You know where your shirt was made; there is a label there. You know where your socks are made. You know where your shoes are made. You know where your belt is made. They are all labeled, except meat. Try to find out where your next piece of beef steak was produced. Did it come from a Mexican plant, Canada, the United States? You don't know. By the way, if you want a description of the FDA inspector who inspected the Mexican beef, I will give you the description. Then you really ought to want to know where that meat came from. Can you get labeling on meat? No, you can't get it done. Why? Because the administration and the House and the Senate don't want it done. Obstruction. How about the price of prescription drugs, the reimportation of prescription drugs. Why is that not now the law of the land, allowing the market system to work; allowing the American people to buy the less expensive, FDA-approved prescription drug from Canada; allowing the people who are on Lipitor, who pay $1.01 per tablet when they buy it in Canada, and for the same tablet, same pill, put in the same bottle, made by the same company, the U.S. consumer pays $1.81 per pill, and they ask the question why should the American public be charged nearly double for the same pill? Why haven't we fixed that? It is not because we on this side of the aisle haven't pushed and pushed and pushed. It is because the majority in the House and the Senate and the President don't want it. They have obstructed it. How about a highway bill. Last week I heard--in fact, the discussion on the floor last week about obstructionism on the part of this side of the aisle, and on the part of Senator Daschle, was about the highway bill. What a load of nonsense that is. The problem with the highway bill is not that anyone here is obstructing anything. We passed a highway bill. It passed with wide bipartisan support in the Senate. The reason we don't have a highway bill is because the Republicans--yes, I say Republicans--in the Congress and the Republican in the White House will not and cannot agree on what the number ought to be. So as a result of that, we don't have a highway bill, and we have people on the other side of the aisle come out here and want to blame Senator Daschle for it. What a load of nonsense. It is simply not true. We don't have a highway bill because the majority party that controls the Senate and the House and the Presidency cannot agree and are having this internal feud on how big the bill ought to be, how much we invest in this country's highways. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to continue for 10 additional minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. What about an energy bill. We ought to have an energy policy. You look at the price of gas at the gas pumps these days and ask yourself, Do we want to continue to be more and more dependent on foreign sources of oil? It went from 50 percent to 60 percent. Does that make sense for our country? Our economy will be belly up at some point if, God forbid, terrorists shut off the supply of oil to our country. Yet we rely on the Saudis, Iraqis, and so many others from troubled parts of the world for our supply of oil. We need an energy bill. Don't point at Senator Daschle and don't point at the Democrat Caucus with respect to that issue. That bill failed the Senate by two votes, and my colleague, Senator Daschle, voted for it, as did I and others. The reason that bill failed in the Senate by two votes was because the majority leader of the House stuck a provision in it that he was warned would kill that bill, a retroactive waiver for liability for something called MTBE, a pernicious provision that he knew--he should have known; he was warned--would kill the bill. So they stick in a giveaway provision that kills the bill because it costs them four or five votes in the Senate, and then they want to come to the floor and point at the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, as the problem. He is not the problem. The problem is the majority party that controls the House and the Senate and the White House. We need an energy policy. In fact, we should have had the energy bill back on the floor of the Senate 2 weeks ago, but we don't control the Senate. We don't schedule the Senate. Appropriations bills: I am a member of the Appropriations Committee. Last year we had to put seven appropriations bills into one big omnibus appropriations because we didn't get the appropriations bills done. Then in the middle of all that, the appropriations bill, with well over $300 billion--smack dab in the middle of that, those of us who were trying to overturn the FCC rules which would allow big broadcasters to become even bigger, and fewer and fewer people would control what you see, hear, and read in this country--they stuck right in the middle of this big appropriations bill something that upended our attempt to deal with the FCC rules. They stuck, right in the middle of this, something that interrupted the ability to affect the country-of-origin labeling for meat and other food products. I tell you, it is a hollow claim, it seems to me, that there is obstructionism from this side of the aisle. It is a hollow claim that Senator Daschle is somehow guilty of obstructionism. The obstructionism on things that would improve this country, public policy dealing with-- yes, the minimum wage increase, with country-of-origin labeling, with an energy bill, with a highway bill that means new jobs and new investment, with lowering prescription drug prices, with extending unemployment benefits to people whose benefits have run out during a time of economic trouble--all of those issues, all of those things that, in my judgment, would make this a better country and would improve things in this country have been stopped. They have been stopped because one party controls the House, the same party controls the Senate, the same party controls the White House, and they have stopped these things dead. It is as simple as that. Abraham Lincoln once said, ``Die when I may, I want it said by those who know me best that I have always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.'' I must say there are precious few thistle pluckers or flower planters these days in this political system. There are a lot of political flame throwers and those who decide everything they don't like ought to be put at the feet of the minority Caucus in the Senate and the minority leader of the Senate, Senator Daschle. The Constitution of this country begins, ``We the people.'' Some in the Senate think the Constitution is a rough draft--something they ought to change every month, every week. We are apparently going to vote on three constitutional amendments very soon in the Senate because that work which occurred over two centuries ago and which has been amended outside of the Bill of Rights only 17 times needs, according to the majority, to be amended again and again and again. I think that Constitution of ours is pretty important. That Constitution provides an opportunity for a minority in Congress to stop bad things from happening. But it also empowers the minority to push good public policy. We have as a Caucus offered a substantial amount of good public policy that would improve things in this country, provide hope and opportunity, and do what every American would want to have happen; that is, leave a country for their children that is better than the country they found when they were born into this great country of ours. All of us are lucky to be here and lucky to be here now. There is only one place on this Earth--only one place--named the U.S.A. This big, old globe of ours spins with 6 billion people on it. There is only one location on this big globe with 6 billion people called the U.S.A. We are lucky to be born here and lucky to be born now with all the opportunities and all the bounties that are offered to us as Americans. But with those bounties come responsibility. The responsibility is, in my judgment, to work together. I am weary and tired of those who continue to point the finger of obstructionism and who continue to organize these ``anti'' messages, anti-Daschle, anti-Democrat, anti-this, anti-that. I have no time at all for those who, as my former colleague Newt Gingrich did, put out word lists to pollute the political process in this country and say to those who aspire to serve in public service the way you ought to refer to your opponent is with words like ``sick,'' ``pathetic,'' ``betray,'' and ``poison.'' Shame on them. That is not the best this political system has to offer. John F. Kennedy used to say every mother hopes her child might grow up to be President as long as they do not have to be active in politics. But, of course, politics is the basis for making public decisions in our country. It is an honorable occupation. The practice, in the main, is by people who care a great deal about this country's future. I hope all of us will understand this isn't about trying to figure out who is setting up roadblocks and who is obstructing. Let us try to sort out between good and bad public policy and then pass the good. Let me say again this message--this organizing for anti-Daschle, anti-Democratic Caucus, obstruction message--to those who spend time doing that, this country is at war. This country has an economy that is still troubled. This country needs an energy policy. This country has so many needs that require so much attention from all of us. Stop this nonsense. Let us decide to work together to make this country work better for our children. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, yesterday President Bush announced he is going to devote more money, more resources, and more personnel to enforcing restrictions on travel to the country of Cuba. Let me describe the absurdity of what is happening with respect to the use of resources by this administration in dealing with the country of Cuba. First let me say that Fidel Castro is a dictator. No one here has time for Fidel Castro. That includes myself. The Cuban people deserve to be free. But it is interesting to me that at a time when we are confronted with the threat of terrorism in this country, we see the administration obsessed with Cuba, using resources that ought to be used in order to combat terrorism being used instead to enforce a ban against U.S. citizens from traveling in Cuba. It is an outrage. This administration ought to be embarrassed about it. Let me describe what I mean. There is an agency called OFAC--the Office of Foreign Asset Control--in the Treasury Department. Their job is to track terrorists and to track the money that goes to finance terrorism. That is their job, and they have people working full time to try to pull the cover off this web of money that moves back and forth to finance terrorists. What are they doing at OFAC these days? I have a report from the Department of the Treasury. That report is in response to questions from myself and from other Members of Congress. It says that OFAC has two people investigating Osama bin Laden's wealth--that is, tracking money Osama bin Laden would use to further his efforts to commit acts of terrorism against this country and the rest of the world. Two people. Do you know how many people they have tracking Americans who travel to Cuba? There are twenty-one people tracking Americans who travel to Cuba. Track them down, see if you can slap a big fine on them. They have 21 people working on that, and they have 2 people working on trying to find Osama bin Laden's money and shut down the ways he finances his acts of terrorism. It is unbelievable. They ought to be profoundly embarrassed down at the administration and the Treasury Department. Let me give some examples. This is a picture of a woman named Joni Scott. Joan Scott is someone who came to visit me. Joni Scott went to Cuba 4 years ago to distribute free Bibles to the Cuban people. Guess what. In recent months these 21 sleuths down at the Treasury Department who are supposed to be tracking money going to terrorists, tracked down this poor woman who was distributing free Bibles in Cuba and slapped her with a big fine. Shame on her for distributing free Bibles to the Cuban people. Has it come to the point where some American who travels to Cuba to distribute free Bibles is somehow considered someone acting outside the interests of our country? Someone who undermines this country's interest? Someone who is worse than a terrorist? Is that what they are saying in the administration? They tracked her down and they slapped a big fine on Joni Scott. But she is not the only one. This is Joan Slote. They fined Joan Slote 10,000 bucks. She is a bicyclist in her midseventies. She rides in the Senior Olympics; she rides bicycles all over the world. What a wonderful woman. I have met her. She went with a Canadian bicycle group to Cuba just to bicycle in Cuba. They tracked her down and fined her $10,000, and then they tried to attach her Social Security checks while the dispute was going on. When they finally settled for something less than $10,000 and she sent them a check and they did not realize she had sent the check and paid the bill, so they then tried to attach her Social Security payments. Tracking a little old lady riding bicycles? That is what they are doing down at the Treasury Department because riding a bicycle in Cuba somehow undermines American interests. Are they nuts? Are they just crazy? I don't understand this at all. If it is not Joni Scott or Joan Slote, what about these folks who participate in the international event for disabled athletes. We stopped them from going. They lost a lot of money because they had tickets purchased to go to the international games in Havana, but those ferocious folks down at Treasury who are supposed to be tracking assets that support terrorism, they stopped these disabled athletes from going to Cuba. That would have undermined American interests, I guess. Or the man from the State of Washington whose father died and was cremated. He previously had been a minister at a church in Cuba. His last wish was to have his ashes buried on the church grounds where he ministered, so his son dutifully complied. His son took his father's ashes to Cuba to bury them on the church grounds. Guess what. He got a fine from the U.S. Government because we have folks down at the Treasury Department tracking these people. Now, the Bush administration obviously is concerned about votes in Florida. This is not about sound public policy; it is about politics in Florida. They have actually trained 500 people in the Office of Homeland Security to try to track people getting on and off flights to and from Cuba so if an American tourist went to Cuba to travel, they could find them and slap them with a fine. They trained 500 people who are supposed to be doing work in the Office of Homeland Security. Let me show you what they did with this big, enhanced inspection with all these folks at the airports. They are going to grab them. They are going to nail them. We have not nailed Osama bin Laden. He is living in a cave someplace. He is probably not quaking in his cave, knowing there are only two people looking after his finances in the Department of Treasury and there are 21 of them chasing little old ladies who ride bikes in Cuba. But let me show you what they found with this big, enhanced inspection at the airports. At a time we are dealing with terrorism, we have this big crackdown on American tourists. This chart shows what OFAC found. Boy, we nabbed them. Cuban cigars--officers of the Office of Homeland Security worked overtime to find Cuban cigars coming in on the person of an American tourist who went to Cuba. That is going to safeguard our country, if we just get rid of those Cuban cigars. Then, of the 45,400 travelers who were inspected, 215 were suspected of attempting to vacation in Cuba. I don't know, I never heard of that charge: suspected of taking a vacation. Homeland Security inspectors found 283 alcohol and tobacco violations. Well, were those major seizures? No. The Homeland Security spokeswoman says no. Each violation included a small amount of rum or cigars that were found on people who had been in Cuba. There were 42 narcotics seizures. Oh, man, that ratchets up the importance--42 narcotics seizures. Is it heroin or crack? No. No, it is not that. It involves prescription drugs people had on their person. They were taking medications for high cholesterol or perhaps a runny nose. So they nabbed them. And then one hazardous material violation was discovered. Oh, man, that sounds ominous. These Homeland Security investigators found somebody coming back from Cuba, coming into this country, an American citizen who had the temerity to vacation in Cuba who came back with a hazardous material on them. So they had a hazardous material violation. Now, that sounds like terrorism. But no, apparently the hazardous material was a carbon dioxide canister used to put fizz in seltzer water. Presumably discoveries like these make it OK that we have 500 people tracking American tourists traveling in Cuba and two people tracking Osama bin Laden's finances. We have 21 people down at OFAC going over their books. They wear their suspenders and green eyeshades, wearing their knuckles white, so they can track down a little old lady riding a bicycle, or so they can track down a wonderful young woman distributing free Bibles in Cuba. Shame on these people. Shame on these people who decide that trying to track American citizens who are on vacation is a more important and a more urgent priority than tracking Osama bin Laden's financial network. Now, I am a Norwegian Lutheran, and I don't use that language very easily. But I tell you what, I get angry when I see what is happening. My colleague from Montana is in the Chamber. He was one of those who got this report. I asked the question of Secretary Snow: How many people are you using down at the Department of Treasury to track American tourists who travel to Cuba? Well, he did not know. I said: Give me the answer. They apparently did the same thing in the Finance Committee. They got the answer. Twenty-one people are tracking American tourists going to Cuba, and two people are tracking Osama bin Laden's finances. What on Earth are they thinking of? Is there not one person down there with one ounce of common sense? I do not understand it at all. Here is a chart: There are 100 times more enforcement cases on Cuba than there are on terror issues. And I mention Joni Scott. Let me just finish by again mentioning Joni Scott. Joni Scott is with a religious group. This wonderful young woman, a good-hearted woman, who cares deeply about her faith in God and wants to share it with others, she went, 4 years ago, to Cuba to distribute free Bibles. It was an enriching experience, she said. And was she surprised, not too long ago, to get something in the mail from the U.S. Treasury Department because they have these sleuths down here, not working on things that matter, not working on tracking Osama bin Laden and other terrorist networks, no; they are working on this young woman who is distributing free Bibles. I do not understand it. I say this, that when we have an opportunity, this year, to affect the financing of the Department of Treasury, I--and I hope others who will join me--will say to them that is not the way you are going to use the taxpayers' money. You have an obligation not to be soft on terrorism. You have an obligation not to be soft-headed. You have an obligation to use the funding we are providing to track terrorists, to crack the network of financing that Osama bin Laden and others use to commit acts of murder against American people, and against Spanish, and other people around the world, where people have been victimized by these acts of terror. So always, it seems to me, it is a case of choosing, making choices. What do you want to use the money for? What is more important? What is more urgent? What should we be doing? The administration's choice yesterday to put even more people into tracking down American tourists to Cuba is unbelievable. It is unbelievable to see an administration make such, not only an embarrassing choice, but a choice that is fundamentally so soft on terrorism, so soft on combating terrorism, and so hard-headed in trying to track American tourists down and slap them with a fine. This notion of trying to slap Fidel Castro around by injuring the rights of the American people ought to stop. It does not hurt Fidel Castro that we have told the American people you cannot travel in Cuba. You can travel in Communist China. You can travel in Communist Vietnam. But you cannot travel in Communist Cuba. If we spend all this money on TV and Radio Marti in order to put voices in Cuba over television and radio, to give them another voice other than Fidel Castro, what sense does it make to say to the American people that traveling to Cuba so that Cubans hear other voices is somehow not worthy, but putting up an expensive radio and television station so the Cubans hear other voices is worthy? The Europeans, the Canadians, and others, have used much more common sense than we have on this issue. And the President, rather than making things better, is making it much worse. I have no trust for Fidel Castro. I want him removed. I think the Cuban people ought to be free to choose their own government. But neither do I have any sympathy for a public policy that is so devoid of common sense, and it is getting worse every day, and was made worse yesterday by this President's announcement.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague is here to speak, but I do want to make another comment about the health care policies on our Indian reservations, an important concern. I want to first say that we have to, in my judgment, deal with these issues in a manner that we have not previously done. On our Indian reservations in this country, in most cases, we have conditions that reflect Third World countries. We have four Indian reservations in my State of North Dakota. American Indians today have a life expectancy that is 6 years less than all the rest of the American people. Their rate of alcoholism is seven times the rate of the rest of the American people. Their rate of tuberculosis is over seven times the rate of the rest of the American people. Their rate of diabetes is four times the rate of the rest of the American people. For accidents, there are nearly triple the fatalities on reservations. For suicides, the rate is twice that of the rest of the American people. For homicides, the rate is more than double the rest of the American people. The fact is, we have a very serious problem on these Indian reservations. There is, in my judgment, despair and little hope. A young girl named Tamara Demaris, some years ago, was put in a foster home by a social worker who was handling 150 cases. She did not have time to investigate the home. At that home, there was a drunken party, and little Tamara was beaten severely. Her hair was pulled out at the roots. Her nose was broken. Her arm was broken. That little girl will probably never get over the scars of that terrible beating. That situation has changed. There is no longer one social worker with 150 cases. We now inspect and investigate where a three year-old child will be placed. But that is the kind of circumstance that happened because the resources did not exist. We were supposed to protect that child and we did not. I am talking about our society--yes, our society. I will give you another example. The child in this picture died a few weeks ago. This young child's name is Avis. Avis missed 90 days of school this school year. She stayed in bed for many days curled up in a ball. She desperately needed help. All of her actions cried out for help. Avis, by all accounts, was a young girl who loved to ride horses, loved animals, and loved her family. But several weeks ago, Avis died. On that reservation, they had one psychologist, one social worker, and no automobile to take anybody to seek treatment. So when you talk to the relatives and the people whose lives intersected with this young girl named Avis, you understand the tragedy of her situation. Avis needed help and didn't get it. At a critical time in the life of this young 14-year-old girl, she didn't get the help she needed. The Indian Health Service budget for this year recommends cutting back on mental health services provided on these reservations. There is not enough as it is. It is painfully thin in terms of the amount of resources. The federal government has direct responsibility for the health care of several groups of people in this country, including Federal prisoners and American Indians. We protect American Indians, and we have a trust responsibility for their health care. With respect to Federal prisoners, it is our obligation. We spend almost twice as much money per person on health care for Federal prisoners as we do for American Indians. The result is that wonderful young people such as Avis lose their lives. It should not happen. I wish to mention one other thing and then I will conclude. While there is great despair about these issues--and we must confront them this year--there are some areas of hope. The one area of hope, in my judgment, is tribal colleges on reservations. The stepladder up and out to opportunity is education. I want to read something I have read before on the floor, because last year we made enormous progress in increasing the funding for tribal colleges around the country. I want to read from a letter from a woman I know named Loretta. She says this: I grew up poor and considered backward by non-Indians. My home was a two-room log house in a place called the ``bush'' on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. I stuttered. I was painfully shy. My clothes were hand-me- downs. I was like thousands of other Indian kids growing up on reservations across America. When I went to elementary school I felt so alone and different. I couldn't speak up for myself. My teachers had no appreciation for Indian culture. I'll never forget that it was the lighter-skinned children who were treated better. They were usually from families that were better off than mine. My teachers called me savage. Even as a young child I wondered . . . What does it take to be noticed and looked upon the way these other children are? By the time I reached 7th grade I realized that if my life was going to change for the better, I was going to have to do it. Nobody else could do it for me. That's when the dream began. I thought of ways to change things for the better--not only for myself but for my people. I dreamed of growing up to be a teacher in a school where every child was treated as sacred and viewed positively, even if they were poor and dirty. I didn't want any child to be made to feel like I did. But I didn't know how hard it would be to reach the realization of my dream. I almost didn't make it. By the time I was 17 I had dropped out of school, moved to California, and had a child. I thought my life was over. But when I moved back to the reservation I made a discovery that literally put my life back together. My sisters were attending Turtle Mountain College, which had just been started on my reservation. I thought that was something I could do, too, so I enrolled. In those days, we didn't even have a campus. There was no building. Some classes met at a local alcohol rehabilitation center in an old hospital building that had been condemned. But to me, It didn't matter. I was just amazed I could go to college. It was life- changing. My college friends and professors were like family. For the first time in my life I learned about the language, history and culture of my people in a formal education setting. I felt honor and pride begin to well up inside me. This was so unlike my prior school experience where I was told my language and culture were shameful and that Indians weren't equal to others. Attending a tribal college caused me to reach into my inner self to become what I was meant to be--to fight for my rights and not remain a victim of circumstance or of anybody. In fact, I loved college so much that I couldn't stop! I had a dream to fulfill . . . or perhaps some would call it an obsession. This pushed me on to complete my studies at Turtle Mountain College and to ultimately earn a Doctorate in Education Administration from the University of North Dakota. I've worked in education ever since, from Head Start teacher's aide to college professor. Now I'm realizing my dream of helping Indian children succeed. I am the Office of Indian Education Programs' superintendent working with nine schools, three reservations, and I oversee two educational contracts with two tribal colleges. My life would not have turned out this way were it not for the tribal college on my reservation. My situation is not unique and others feel this way as well. Since 1974, when Turtle Mountain College was chartered by the Turtle Mountain tribe, around 300 students have gone on to earn higher degrees. We now have educators, attorneys, doctors and others who have returned to the reservation. They--I should say, we--are giving back to the community. Instead of asking people to have pity on us because of what happened in our past, we are taking our future into our own hands. Instead of looking for someone else to solve our problems, we are doing it. There's only one thing tribal colleges need. With more funding, the colleges can do ever more than they've already achieved. We will take people off the welfare rolls and end the economic depression on reservations. Tribal colleges have already been successful with much less than any other institutions of higher education have received. That is why I hope you will continue to support the American Indian College Fund. I'm an old timer. The College Fund didn't exist when I was a student. I remember seeing ads for the United Negro College Fund and wishing that such a fund existed for Indian people. We now have our own Fund that is spreading the message about tribal colleges and providing scholarships. I'm so pleased. I believe the Creator meant for this to be. But so much more must be done. There still isn't enough scholarship money available to carry students full time. That is my new dream . . . to see the day when Indian students can receive four-year scholarships so they don't have to go through the extremely difficult struggle many now experience to get their education. I hope you'll keep giving, keep supporting the College Fund, so that some day this dream becomes reality. I know it can happen because if my dream for my future came true, anything is possible. Thank you. This wonderful woman describes hope and opportunity through education and achievement. Her letter proves that when we invest in the right things, when we care enough to give people the opportunity to step up and out of poverty and despair, toward hope and opportunity, then this is a better country for them and for all of us as well. That should be true with respect to our investment in the Indian Health Service. It is true with our respect to investment in tribal colleges. We must do much better as we approach these subjects this year. I will have more to say about the Indian Health Service later. I make the point that health care funding for American Indians is an issue, as we turn to the appropriations process, to which we must pay attention. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. My understanding is that we are now turning to the amendment I have offered along with my colleague, Senator Mikulski; is that correct?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was sitting here wondering how someone would actually support a tax provision that incentivizes the moving of U.S. jobs overseas. I thought: That is hard to support. I am going to call this defense the banana defense because my colleague talked a couple of times now about bananas from, I believe, Costa Rica. So we will call that the banana defense. I have great respect for my colleague from Iowa. I enjoy his work and I think he is a good legislator. But in my judgment, some of the statements that have just been made are not accurate, and I would like to at least give a response to them so people understand. First of all, this is not a tax increase. What a bunch of nonsense. This eliminates a tax break for those companies who want to move jobs overseas. This is very simple. If we are going to shut down loopholes that incentivize the moving of jobs overseas and have people call it a tax increase, I am sorry; it is not. That is not the purpose of it, that is not the intention of it, and not the effect of it. My colleague talks about the 35-percent corporate tax rate. I am sorry, he knows that is a statutory rate. He also knows very few corporations pay a 35-percent tax rate. Mr. President, 61 percent of the U.S. domestic corporations in this country pay zero--not 5 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent, or 35 percent; they pay zero. That is according to a recent GAO report. The rest that do pay do not pay the 35-percent statutory rate. They pay substantially less than that. About 40 to 50 years ago, corporations paid 40 percent of the total taxes paid in this country. They now pay less than 9 percent, and the American people, individuals, pick up the rest. My colleague says this defers taxes; it doesn't mean we forgive taxes. Of course, it does. This very bill brings to the floor of the Senate the most generous provision I have ever heard of. It says repatriate all your earnings from overseas that have never been taxed, and we will let you be taxed at 5.25 percent. You repatriate it and we will reduce your taxes to 5.25 percent. I say how about my constituents in North Dakota? Why don't we give all those constituents--regular people, family farmers--an opportunity to pay a 5-percent tax rate? Why just the folks who decided to invest overseas? Why not everybody? If 5 percent is good enough for those who have over $600 billion in unrepatriated income, and you say bring it back and we will cut your tax rate to 5 percent, let's do it for the folks from Iowa and North Dakota. Let me get their names and let's give them a 5-percent tax rate. This notion we are not forgiving taxes is wrong. Of course we are forgiving taxes. This bill forgives taxes of those that are big enough to earn billions overseas, and says to them: If you want to repatriate it, we will give you a huge, big tax break. Let me say with respect to the issue of a company that has never been located here with a manufacturing plant, deciding to manufacture in China versus here--my proposal, and the amendment we have introduced, deals only with sales back into this country. So the question that will be asked by someone who is building a manufacturing plant for the purpose of producing the little red wagon called the Radio Flyer, for a company to decide where to manufacture this, what the underlying provision in law does is to say: Make a decision. Either build it here or build it there. By the way, if you decide to build it there--in this case China--we will give you a tax break. My colleague says this bill closes all these things--not true. In fact, it produces a very generous, juicy, big tax break at 5.25 percent, and in addition it leaves untouched this tax break. I can quote a good number of economists who say there is embedded in this tax law a provision that says build it here or build it there. Make a decision to build it there. Take it offshore. Take it outside this country. In my judgment, it ought not be a significant choice for this Congress to change this. This is a loophole that ought to be closed. With respect to competition, my colleague talked about competitiveness. Let me ask this question. Let's assume that you are the corporation that stays in this country to build a bicycle. Your manufacturing plant is here. Now you are competing with the Huffy bicycle company that moved to China. The difference? They pay less in taxes than you do because you stayed here and they left. What about that competitiveness? What about the competitive issue of the company that stayed and now pays higher taxes than the company that left? Incidentally, this company did leave. They fired the workers. Why? Because it cost too much at $11 an hour to have them keep making bicycles in our country. This cannot be obfuscated so much that we can't see what this question is before the Senate. Do you want to continue to have a Tax Code that incentivizes the movement of jobs overseas, or do you want to close the loophole? This is not an attack on all ``deferral.'' This is a much narrower amendment. The Senate is going to vote on this, and it is not going to be able to waltz around and tap dance. This is not about having an American corporation with a foreign subsidiary in Bangladesh that is producing a product to ship to South Korea, and therefore it must be competitive with a company from France. That has nothing to do with this amendment. So in addition to the banana defense, we now have the French defense, I guess, or the U.S. corporation against French competition. I don't understand that. That is not what this amendment is about. We could debate that at some later point, but it is not what this amendment is about. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, thanks to the Senator from Maryland for her comments and her hard work on this amendment. I hope we will be able to pass this amendment. I expect we will vote on it later today. I wanted to make a couple of additional points. First of all, on this broader issue of deferring tax, Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, and Carter all tried in vain to actually end deferral. In 1975, the Senate voted to end it. In 1987, the House voted to end it. But in each case, of course, it never got to the President's desk for signature. So we have this thing called deferral. That sounds less ominous than it really is. With respect to the products manufactured abroad to be sold in our marketplace by U.S. corporations, this deferral is a title that says there is a tax break for U.S. companies to move jobs overseas in order to sell back into our marketplace. There is now $640 billion in foreign earnings that have not been repatriated. Many of them, of course, are parked in tax havens indefinitely--$640 billion. My colleague also talked about some products. What is more American than Levis? Well, Levis are gone. Before, when you put on a pair of pants, you were putting on an American pair of pants. Not anymore. You are putting on Mexican or Chinese pants. Then there is Fruit of the Loom. It is one thing to lose your shirt, but Fruit of the Loom is gone. They used to be manufactured here. They are manufacturing them in Mexico and, I believe, some in China. By the way, if you want to order up Mexican food, order Fig Newtons. We all grew up with them. Fig Newton cookies used to be American. Now this cookie is made in Mexico. Next time you order Mexican food, ask whether they will bring you some Fig Newtons. The point is, we are not only shifting these jobs out of our country for the purpose of manufacturing to sell back into our country, our Tax Code says please do this and we will give you a $6.5 billion benefit over the coming 10 years. If the Congress cannot take this baby step in addressing this perversion, then the Congress cannot find its way through public policy in a way that reflects any modicum of common sense. I wanted to mention that while I think there is much to criticize in the underlying bill, there is a provision in the underlying bill that addresses so-called ``inversion.'' I commend the committee, Senator Grassley, and Senator Baucus for that position. The inversion is a circumstance where a U.S. corporation says I want to renounce my American citizenship for the purpose of saving tax money. Well, we have seen some of that. My colleague from Maryland asks, where is the economic patriotism? The committee, in my judgment, did the right thing with respect to this issue of inversions in the underlying bill. I congratulate them for that. My hope is we will this afternoon have some additional debate on this amendment. I don't know what is going to be offered as a substitute, but, hopefully, we will have votes on both, and we will be able to continue and complete this debate this afternoon. I hope when the dust settles Congress will have done something that meets some basic commonsense test. My understanding is Senator Graham of Florida is going to be involved in the coming 2 hours. He is in the Chamber. Let me at this point yield the floor with the understanding I will continue this discussion this afternoon when we return to this amendment. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 3112

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, tempted as I am to respond to the last comments just offered by the Senator from New Mexico, I will refrain and do that at a later time. Suffice it to say it provides little benefit to come to the Senate and say, they are responsible for us not having an energy bill. We all understand why we do not have an energy bill. I was one who signed the conference report, worked on the bill, voted for the bill in the Senate. We do not have an energy bill because it failed by two votes. It failed by two votes because the majority leader of the other body insisted on a retroactive waiver for liability of MTBE. He was told it would kill the bill, and it killed the bill. I don't have much patience with Members who point to one side or the other and say they killed the Energy bill. The Energy bill should be in the Senate right now and should have been in the Senate last week. We ought to do an energy bill. I said I would refrain from commenting. I just commented. There is no Republican or Democrat way to pay inflated gas prices. The way you pay inflated gas prices is stick the hose in the tank and you have to fork over a bunch of bills when you are done filling the tank. We ought to get a bill through here. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle believe that. In my judgment, it ought to be a priority. Amendment No. 3110 Having said that, I have come to the Senate floor to speak to an amendment I offered yesterday on behalf of myself and Senator Mikulski. The amendment is supported and cosponsored by other Members of the Senate. Senator Mikulski and I offer an amendment that deals with the issue of the embedded tax incentive in our Tax Code that actually incentivizes companies to shut down their U.S. operation, move jobs overseas, and then send the product from those jobs back into the United States. Let me describe the amendment and let me describe why I believe it is important. The amendment offered by myself and Senator Mikulski is also cosponsored by Senator Harkin, Senator Feingold, Senator Kennedy, and Senator Edwards. This amendment partially repeals a tax subsidy called deferral. This subsidy is only partially repealed because it is repealed for those U.S. companies that move their operation to a foreign subsidiary, produce the same product, and ship the product back into this country. They lose deferral on that kind of economic activity. The amendment has several other provisions that require notification of communities, agencies, and workers when jobs are going to be lost and jobs are going to be offshored. It requires the Department of Labor to supply statistics on jobs sent overseas. The key part is to shut down the perverse provision in tax law that incentivizes the movement of jobs overseas. If you look at this Tax Code, which itself is a Byzantine set of complexities, there is not a section that says: In this part of the Tax Code, this chapter is entitled ``Incentive for Sending U.S. Jobs Overseas.'' There is no such part of the Tax Code. There is no chapter, title or provision that says this is the benefit you get from sending jobs overseas. But that benefit does exist in the Tax Code, and I intend to describe how and why it exists.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, this is a picture of a little red wagon. On the side of this little red wagon it says ``Radio Flyer.'' Most of us understand what this little red wagon is because we have actually had one of these red wagons. I had one. My guess is the person now occupying the Chair has had a little red wagon. Even in Nevada they have little red wagons. Senator Reid, no doubt, has ridden in one of these. I didn't know until recently much about the red wagons, but that they were wonderful and fun, and if you turn the front wheels too sharp, sometimes they tip over. This little red wagon is enjoyed by these two young children as it has been enjoyed for decades and decades. This wagon is called the Radio Flyer. It comes from a company created in 1917 by an Italian immigrant woodworker named Antonio Pasin. He had a one-room workshop in New York City where he made wooden wagons by hand. He called them Liberty Coasters, after the Statue of Liberty. He later renamed them ``Radio Flyers'' because he always had an admiration for airplanes. That is how Radio Flyers came on the side of little red wagons sold all over the country. The company was inherited by Antonio's children and then inherited by his grandchildren located in Chicago, IL. For almost a century, they turned out these marvelous little red metal wagons made here in this country by working men and women who are proud to make them--that is, until earlier last month. They announced these little red wagons would now be made in China. These American Flyers, these red wagons, will now be sent to our country to be enjoyed by our children, but they will no longer be made in America; they will be made in the country of China. That is an American icon, moving to China. Huffy bicycles. Huffy bicycles have 20 percent of the American marketplace. Everybody knows about Huffy bicycles. Buy them at Sears, Kmart, Wal-Mart. In fact, for many years, Huffy bicycles had a little decal between the handle bars and the front fender. That decal was of the American flag, made by proud men and women working in a manufacturing plant in Ohio. Those men and women made $11 an hour, but they don't work there anymore. They lost their jobs. They came to work one day to find out they were fired. Why? Because Huffy bicycles were moving to China. Why were they moving to China? Because $11 an hour was too much to pay an American worker when you could hire a worker in China for 33 cents an hour. By the way, when you move the little red wagon to China and you move Huffy bicycles to China, you also get a tax break. By the way, if you just close your manufacturing plant in the United States and move it to China, you get a tax break. Huffy bicycles are not here anymore. They are in China. They are made by people who make 33 cents an hour. They work 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. Both of these companies get a tax cut for going to China. How does that work? How do they get a tax cut for doing that? We have something in our Tax Code called deferral. It is a foreign language to most people unless you are an accountant who works in all these areas. Deferral. It says: Tell you what, if you have two bicycle manufacturers side by side in the same town competing for the same marketplace, they pay the same wage; they hire the same number of workers; they produce the same number of bicycles, one of them decides to move to China or just move overseas, the bicycle manufacturer that stays in your hometown in this country will pay higher taxes than the bicycle manufacturer that leaves because the bicycle manufacturer that leaves to go produce in China is not going to have to pay U.S. income taxes on its income until and unless it is repatriated into this country. That is called deferral. So it will earn income that is untaxed under something called deferral. We are told from the latest estimates we received recently that this deferral benefit for companies that move overseas to produce the same product and ship it back into our marketplace in the U.S. is over $6 billion in 10 years. Now I am not talking about an American company, for example, that is in the suburbs of Toledo, OH, and it decides: I am going to move a manufacturing operation to Sri Lanka or Indonesia so I can, less expensively, produce a product to market in Japan or South Korea. That is not what I am talking about. That is not what this amendment Senator Mikulski and I are offering is talking about. We are talking about an American company that decides it should be benefited with rewards from our tax system for producing a product overseas that is going to come back into our marketplace to be sold in this country. It is unfair to U.S. domestic companies to compete against another company that decides to send its production overseas, get rid of its American workers, and then end up competing against its former competitors that stayed in this country, but compete in a way that provides this company that left this tremendous advantage because they now pay lower taxes. They got a tax incentive for leaving. We are going to hear, I think, a lot of obfuscation about this issue and huffing and puffing and blue smoke in the air over all this. But I think there is a simple proposition to understand. If two companies that make bicycles exist in the same city, and one goes to China to make bicycles to ship back to the United States, the one that left gets a tax break. That is in current law. You can either vote to support current law and say, ``I support continuing to give this insidious tax break to those who want to move offshore to ship back into this marketplace,'' or you can decide this is wrong. Those companies that stay here, those companies that produce here, ought not to have to compete against others that now have a lower tax rate because they left. That is a simple proposition. There is a lot more we should do, but we don't do it in this bill. I will give you some examples. Companies that want to run subsidiaries through tax havens, what we ought to do is decide if you don't have a business operation, you just want to run your business accounting through a tax-haven country, we are going to treat you as if you never left this country. That is what we ought to do. And this last goofy provision that is in the underlying bill says to companies, Oh, by the way, you left, and you now have deferred income, for which you have never paid a tax; why don't you bring it back here and pay a 5-percent tax on it. What an incredibly goofy idea. You think there would be some embarrassment about putting that in the bill, but there is not. There is no embarrassment, apparently. But Tom Paxon, many years ago, wrote this song ``I'm Changing My Name to Poland.'' That is when Poland got some sort of bailout loan from the United States. ``I'm Changing My Name to Poland.'' Maybe the American people ought to get the same benefit that is being proposed in this bill of a 5-percent income tax rate. If it is good enough for people who have $10 billion in deferred income overseas, to repatriate it and pay a 5- percent rate, why shouldn't every single American working family pay the same 5-percent rate? Are they unworthy? Are they less worthy? Why not give them the same opportunity? There are a dozen things we ought to do to this Tax Code to make it fair. With respect to this issue of international provisions in the Tax Code, we do one, narrow thing. It is very simple. In my judgment, no one here will be able to say I did not understand it. It is very simple. If you are an American corporation and you decide to produce overseas for the purpose of selling into our country, we are not going to give you a tax break any longer for continuing to do it. We are not going to give you a tax break. Now let me just go through a couple of things that describe the circumstances that exist in this country. Imports from foreign affiliates of U.S. corporations have doubled since 1993. Is a lot of this happening? You bet. Is it happening in a much more accelerated way? Of course. And the perverse thing is, we have a Tax Code that incentivizes this to happen. Here is employment in U.S. manufacturing. It has fallen by 2.7 million jobs since the year 2000. You see what is happening to the manufacturing sector in this country. No country is going to long remain a world economic power without a robust, healthy manufacturing sector. I used Radio Flyer wagons--and Huffy bicycles. I could have used any number of products to describe what is happening to the manufacturing base of the country. And our Tax Code subsidizes it. It says: If you have a plant, shut it down and move. We will give you a tax cut. Employment in foreign affiliates as a percent of U.S. manufacturing has gone from 23 percent to 34 percent. I do not need to make the case any more than this, except to say when we do this--and I often come to the floor to talk about trade issues--it relates to a whole myriad of issues. I mentioned Radio Flyers and Huffy bicycles going to China. I have not visited the plants where they are made. I regret, and am enormously disappointed, after a century of making little red wagons in our country, the company that makes them has decided to make them elsewhere. I regret bicycles that were made here are made in China. But let me describe the circumstance of all of these issues. And I have talked about this before. This is a Washington Post article. It is about labor provisions in China. This gets to the issue of fair trade. But this is not just fair trade. It is also the perverse tax incentive that says: Oh, by the way, ship your jobs overseas. It says: On the night she died, Li Chunmei must have been exhausted. Co-workers said she had been on her feet for nearly 16 hours, running back and forth inside the Banain Toy Factory, carrying toy parts from machine to machine. This was the busy season, before Christmas. They worked 7 days a week. The exact cause of her death remains unknown. They found her after the lights went out: Her roommates had already fallen asleep when she started coughing up blood. They found her in the bathroom a few hours later, curled up on the floor, moaning softly in the dark, bleeding from her nose and mouth. Someone called an ambulance, but she died before it arrived. The exact cause of [her] death remains unknown. But what happened in this industrial town in southeastern Guangdong province is described by family, friends and co-workers as an example of what [Chinese] newspapers call ``guolaosi.'' The phrase means ``over-work death''. . . . They actually have a term for it in China. So these people, who used to make Radio Flyers, the people who used to make Huffy bicycles are supposed to compete with that? We are supposed to believe this is the way competition works in the world? I do not think so. But aside from that, aside from the perversity of setting up a competition in circumstances where kids are worked to death, and paid pennies, and live 12 to a room, work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, aside from that, we, in this Tax Code, have an incentive that says: If you do this, you pay less in taxes. If you do this, move your jobs elsewhere, you actually get a tax break. My colleague Senator Mikulski and I think that is perverse, as I have said. This proposal is very carefully targeted. It ends tax deferral only where U.S. multinationals produce goods abroad and ship those goods back into the U.S. marketplace. For others who might be surprised by this amendment, let me say to them, it is not new. President John F. Kennedy tried to shut down deferral--a much larger proposition than ours in this amendment. Richard Nixon supported shutting down deferral. The House of Representatives actually voted in the 1980s to shut this down. This is not new. I might also say, the Senate has previously voted on an amendment very similar to this about 8 years ago. But if we are dealing with international taxation--and we certainly are with respect to the underlying bill brought to the floor by the Finance Committee; and we are doing it in some ways that are quite disappointing, some ways that are fine--if we are dealing with that subject, we cannot fail to deal with the subject of incentives that now exist for companies to eliminate U.S. jobs and shipping those U.S. jobs overseas. I am not someone who believes our country ought to put up walls. We have a global economy; I understand that. I don't think the rules for globalization have nearly kept pace with globalization. That is why you can't hold discussions on trade anywhere where there is a population center these days, so they take them to Qatar, someplace where there are no hotel rooms. The fact is, we are now increasingly a global economy. But as we globalize, the rules must keep pace. As we globalize this country, this world economic power needs to be concerned about its future, its job base, and its manufacturing base. Precious little attention is paid to it. We will have Members come to the floor this afternoon aggressively supporting the proposition that deferral is good for our country, good for our taxpayers, good for our job base. Nonsense. Sheer nonsense. It is not good under any set of circumstances for us to say if you have two companies, one that stays in America, and one that leaves our country, both to produce products to sell in our marketplace, that we will advantage the company that left. We will give an advantage to the company that fired its workers and left to take its jobs to Sri Lanka or to Indonesia or Taiwan or China or Bangladesh. It makes no sense. It never has. And it makes no sense today to decide that we will provide significant financial incentives to those who make the decision to shut down American jobs, shut down manufacturing plants, move them overseas, and reward them for doing so. This country ought to stand up for its economic interests, not to the detriment of others but for its economic interests. That is what this amendment does. It is about jobs. It is about economic strength. It is about a manufacturing base that needs to be strong and vibrant and growing. And it is about fairness. Finally and most importantly, it is about common sense. I come to this Chamber from a very small town, 300 people in southwestern North Dakota, a sparsely populated State. One heavy dose of common sense here would be that we would pass this amendment and say that this defies logic. Go to the cafe in my hometown and ask folks: Do you think it makes sense for us to have an embedded provision in the American Tax Code that rewards a company that leaves and puts the company that stays at a competitive disadvantage? Try defending that. If you will defend that in any cafe, any city in this country, let me be there while you do it so I can tell the other side of this story. There will come a point when this Congress--perhaps it is today when we start down this road--has to decide to stand up for the economic interests at home, take care of matters at home. This is a first step. Let me end where I began, with bicycles and wagons, just as a symbol. Both have now decided that they will not produce in the United States. They will produce instead in China. Those jobs, these wheels, these pedals, those handlebars, and this red paint used to be applied by American workers. They are not any longer. I am not saying we ought to keep every job here. I am not saying it is not a global economy. But I am saying we can take the first commonsense step to say we will no longer have an embedded perverse incentive to reward companies to move their jobs overseas. If we can't take that step, this is going to be a mighty short journey for this country's economy. At a time when we worry about jobs, people worry about security; they sit around the supper table at night and talk about their lives ``What kind of job do I have? Do I have job security? Does it pay well?'' At a time when we discuss these things and know we have lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs in a few recent years, the question for this Congress is: Will you decide to end the perverse incentive in the Tax Code that actually ships jobs elsewhere? Yes or no. There is not ``maybe'' as a potential answer. It is yes or no. That is what we will vote on this afternoon. My colleague, Senator Mikulski, comes from a wonderful State, a different State than mine. She comes from more of an industrial State, the State of Maryland. But she has worked with me tirelessly in creating this amendment. I know she has a lot to say as well on behalf of American workers. Let me yield the floor to my colleague from Maryland.

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.