Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from California is absolutely correct. It has always been the case that there are certain things you cannot predict in the coming year. You can budget for expected expenditures and programs you want to fund, but there are some things you probably cannot predict; for example, Hurricane Katrina is probably the prime example or a devastating drought or torrential rains or ice storms in California this spring. So what we have always done is we have always done emergency supplemental bills to try to respond to those. Only in this Presidency have those emergency bills overwhelmingly been defense bills because the President decided to move our armies overseas. We got involved with respect to Afghanistan and Iraq, and we asked for no expenditures, except he would later ask for emergency funding for it. We have passed roughly $450 billion in emergency funding for defense. That is not the basis, generally, of what emergency supplemental bills have been about. They have been to respond to the unanticipated events in this country, such as agricultural disasters and other things. I said yesterday, when I spoke on the floor, I thought it curious that in the Senate, when we did an $18 billion emergency funding for reconstruction of Iraq, nobody stood up, that I am aware--and Senator Wyden and I cut it by about $1.8 billion--and said: OK. You are going to invest in health clinics. If you do that in Iraq, it is national security; if you do it in America, it is pork. You are going to invest in road programs. In Iraq, it is for national security; in America, it is called pork. You are going to invest in any number of dozens of other things, and as long as it is in Iraq with the reconstruction programs, that is OK, that is part of our national security issue. But if it is doing it in this country, they say, no, no, no, no, you cannot do that. I observe one thing. Some of what we do is flatout spending. I understand that. We need to tighten our belts. But some of what we do is investing in this country's future. I think investing in this country's future includes saying to family farmers that this country values having you on the farm. You are the seedbed of family values that nourishes our country from the small towns to the big cities. Culturally and economically, you matter to this country. When we pass a disaster bill that includes disaster help for family farmers, I think it represents the best instincts of this country and, frankly, it is what we must do if we are going to maintain a network of family farms producing America's food. Finally, we understand, all of us, that big corporations could probably farm from California to Maine--buy up the whole country and farm it. We know what would happen to food prices. Our country is much better served by having a network of family farmers out there, with their families living under yard lights, producing America's food supply. That is why I think the best instincts of this Congress is to do what we did in this legislation, to provide disaster help for those who need it. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I hope the Senate will oppose this measure. The agricultural disaster program that was put in the supplemental bill is a bipartisan piece of legislation. Senator Conrad, myself, Senator Kit Bond, Senator Dianne Feinstein--many of us worked together to put this in the legislation. It is very simple. It reaches out a helping hand to those farmers, in many cases who lost everything, to say: You are not alone. This country wants to help you during tough times. We have always--we have always--provided disaster relief on an emergency basis, except for the last several years; it has been blocked. This is the opportunity, on a bipartisan basis, for us to say to family farmers: You matter to this country. We want to help you. When you have had a weather-related disaster, we are here to help. I hope we will turn down the amendment offered by my colleague from Oklahoma.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, before my colleague from Missouri, Senator Bond, leaves the floor, I wonder if I might just engage him in a colloquy for just a moment.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak about agriculture disaster provisions in the emergency supplemental bill. We had some people on the Senate floor yesterday questioning whether they are valid, whether they are necessary provisions to help family farmers. I noted the Senator from Missouri was a cosponsor of mine, as we worked together to put the agriculture disaster program in the emergency supplemental bill. Let me make a point and then ask a question of my colleague from Missouri. First of all, I appreciate very much his help. I know Missouri has been hit with a devastating drought and other weather-related disasters for family farmers. It has been the case in other parts of the country as well. We have been working for some long while just to reach out a helping hand to those farmers out there struggling who got hit with weather-related disasters to say: You are not alone. As is the tradition in this country when you get hit with a weather-related disaster and lose everything, this country wants to help you some. We help everyone around the world. It is time to take care of things at home. That is what this provision is about. I ask the Senator from Missouri about his motivation for being a part of those of us who worked together to get this put in the emergency supplemental bill. I know he strongly supports it.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for his leadership on this issue as well. Let me say that the Congress did help farmers in the gulf region who lost their crops. I understand we helped cities that were devastated and lost buildings and lives and so on. We also helped farmers who lost their crops. My point is--and I think the point of the Senator from Missouri is-- there is no difference between a person who loses their entire crop in Missouri or North Dakota or in the gulf region because of a hurricane. We do not name droughts. We name hurricanes. But if Hurricane Katrina took your entire crop away, this Government would say: We want to help you. So, too, should we help in the case of a drought or ice storms, as the Senator from Missouri just described. I certainly appreciate his help on these matters. I wanted to come to the floor because yesterday there was some discussion by several Members of the Senate referring to the agriculture disaster piece as pork. Now, our farmers know about pork, and they know you do not legislate pork, you eat pork. There is a big difference. I am just curious, why is it every time you try to do something in this country to help people who need help, it is called pork. Well, if you invest, for example, in public policy, as we have, to say build a road in Iraq, that is national security. If you have a provision in an appropriations bill that says build a road in this country, it is pork. If you build a health clinic in Iraq, that is national security. If you build it here, it is pork. If you build a water project in Iraq, that is national security. If you build it here, it is pork. Why is it, to someone in this Chamber, investing in this country is always pork, but as long as it is investing somewhere else in this world, that is just fine. Mr. President, $18.1 billion went out of this Chamber in unbelievable ways for reconstruction in Iraq. Let me tell you, any time someone is sending one-hundred-dollar bills out of the back of a pickup truck, you don't think there is going to be graft and fraud and corruption? You take a look at what has happened with respect to the taxpayers' money and the way it was spent in Iraq. I described some of that on the floor of the Senate previously. We paid a corporation $220 million to reconstruct 142 health clinics in Iraq. Twenty got done. The rest--122--never got done. A courageous Iraqi doctor went to the Iraqi Health Minister and said: Well, can I see these Iraqi clinics that were supposed to have been rehabilitated with American taxpayer dollars? The Iraqi Health Minister says: Well, those were ``imaginary clinics.'' The money was not imaginary. The American taxpayer got fleeced. The money is gone. But why is it when we come to this Chamber and talk about investing in people's lives in this country--a farmer, his wife, and two kids, who live out under a yard light, who planted in the spring, trying to make a go of it, hoping it would not rain too much, hoping it would rain enough, hoping it would not hail or they would have crop disease or insects, hoping they would raise a crop. Finally, when they get a crop, they hope the price is sufficient so maybe they can make a living. Then, along comes a storm, an unbelievably devastating storm-- perhaps an ice storm, perhaps a torrential rain--that wipes out their entire crop, washes it away. Or maybe it is a drought. All of a sudden, that farmer has nothing. Oh, they put the seeds in the ground, but nothing came up, or they put the seeds in the ground, and it washed away. The farmer ends up with nothing. Look, the grand tradition in this Chamber has always been to provide some disaster aid to farmers who lose everything. Why? Because we want to maintain a network of family farms in this country. This is not new. We have been doing it for some long while. When we have devastating weather-related disasters hit family farmers, we help them with a disaster bill. It is only recently that has become controversial. Twice I have run that disaster bill through the Appropriations Committee. Senator Conrad, myself, and others put together a bipartisan bill. As an appropriator this year, I offered it with my colleague, Senator Feinstein from California, and Senator Bond from Missouri-- bipartisan. We offered it a third time. It is going to come to the floor now. It is in this bill, and we have people complaining about it. This is investing in our country's strength. This is the best notion of our country to say to family farmers: You had some trouble. It wasn't your fault. We want to help you through this difficult time. Now, we have usually done this without great controversy. The controversy this time is because the last two times I got this through the Senate, I was a conferee and I went to the conference. The President was threatening to veto a bill that had agriculture disaster help in it for family farmers. So twice we went to conference and the U.S. House conferees, at the request of the then-Speaker of the House, Mr. Hastert, blocked it on behalf of the President. Well, it is here a third time and we will go to conference. This time I will be a conferee and my colleague Senator Feinstein will be a conferee, Senator Bond will be a conferee, and there will be bipartisan support on the Senate side. The difference this time is we go to the conference and the House conferees will come to conference having passed their own disaster bill for family farmers. This time we are going to get this to the President's desk, at long last. Some say: Well, why just farmers? Why family farmers? There is something unusual about those who produce from the land in this country. It goes back to the homestead days in sod huts out there, alone, trying to raise a family, raise a crop, make a living. We could do, I suppose, without family farmers, but it wouldn't be the same country. You could have corporate agri-factory farms from California to Maine, but it wouldn't be the same country. Once they control food production, then ask yourselves: What is going to be the cost of food in this country? Someone once wrote, and I have mentioned him on the floor a few times--Rodney Nelson, in fact, a North Dakota rancher who wrote a piece of prose about ranching and farming. He asked this question, and I think it is important for the country. He said: What is it worth for a kid to know how to plow a furrow, how to teach a newborn calf to suck milk from a pail? What is it worth for a kid to know how to weld a seam? What is it worth for a kid to know how to build a door, to build a lean-to, to grease a combine, to pour cement? What is it worth for a kid to learn all of those things? There is only one university in America where you learn all of that, and that is the family farm, America's family farm. It is an unbelievable asset to this country. We are asking for something very simple that has been done routinely prior to this President beginning to block it, and that is when trouble comes, when weather disasters wipe out an entire crop, we say to families living out there under the yardlight, trying to raise a family and raise a crop: You are not alone. This country wants to help. That is why we brought this in this bill to the floor of the Senate. It won't make anybody whole, but it does say to farmers: Maybe you will have a chance to keep going. They live on hope. How else could you plant a crop and do anything other than hope that things will work out? This country has a rich tradition of supporting family farmers, because it is in this country's interests. The seedbed rolls from big cities to small towns and enriches and nourishes this country. We have always known that and we have always done the right thing. Family farmers have been hard hit in the last couple of years with weather-related disasters. This Congress took action with respect to one facet of those weather-related disasters. We said farmers in the Gulf of Mexico who lost their entire crops due to a hurricane named Katrina, you are going to get some help. The rest of you, we are sorry. Well, listen. I was supportive of saying to those farmers we are going to give you some help. It doesn't matter to me whether it is a Katrina or a drought that doesn't have a name or an ice storm that is not named, weather-related disasters that destroy farmers' crops, in my judgment, ought to be responded to by this Congress to say to those family farmers: This has destroyed your crop, but not your hope. We want to give you hope to be able to continue farming. That is what this disaster piece is all about. I am proud to stand here and support it. Those who believe this is some kind of pork do not understand what essential investment in this country's strength is all about. An investment in America's family farming is a good investment in this country's future. My colleague from California who worked with me in the Appropriations Committee to get this done is on the floor, so let me yield the floor to her and thank her for her leadership in responding to these needs as well. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are considering the supplemental appropriations bill. I spoke earlier about the agricultural disaster piece in that bill. I believe other colleagues will be over to talk about that as well. My colleague, Senator Feinstein from California, just finished discussing it. She was a major cosponsor of it. I have indicated previously that my colleague, Senator Conrad, is coming. He worked to create a coalition of interest and support of the agricultural disaster piece. So when others come, I expect we will have more discussion about this important issue. I wish to talk for a moment about the supplemental appropriations bill and the issue of Iraq. Earlier, one of my colleagues was describing the issue of Iraq and the controversy that the Congress might get involved and somehow interfere and that there cannot be 535 commanders in chief. I understand that. I wish to make a couple of points about Iraq, however. The issue of Iraq, as you know, casts a shadow on virtually everything else in this country. We are spending, in terms of the lives of American soldiers and America's treasure, an unbelievable amount with respect to the war in Iraq. All of us want this country to succeed. There is nobody here who doesn't want America to succeed in whatever we are involved in. I wish to make this point: The National Intelligence Estimate has just been completed. There is a classified and an unclassified version. The unclassified version tells all of us and the American people that what is happening in Iraq is largely sectarian violence. It is not a fight against the ``terrorists.'' It is sectarian violence--Shia trying to kill Sunni, Sunni trying to kill Shia. That is a civil war by classic definition. That is what we face in Iraq. There is an al-Qaida presence in Al Anbar Province. We understand that. What is happening there is largely a civil war. Now, the head of our intelligence services in this country testified twice. The former head, Mr. Negroponte, and the current head have testified within the last 2\1/2\ months. Both of them have said exactly the same thing. They have both said the greatest terrorist threat to this country is al-Qaida, its networks around the world, and its determination to strike us in our homeland. So the greatest threat to our homeland is from the terrorist group al-Qaida. Both have described al-Qaida as operating in a safe hideaway in northern Pakistan. If the greatest threat to our country is al-Qaida, if the leadership of al-Qaida is directing threats against our homeland and they are in a secure hideaway in northern Pakistan, if that is the greatest threat to our homelend, and if, in fact, what is happening in Iraq, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, is a civil war, then I think the question is, What better protects our country? Is it beginning to extract from a civil war? After all, the Iraqi people have seen Saddam Hussein executed. They have seen the opportunity to vote for their own new Constitution. They have been given the opportunity to vote for their own new Government. The only question remaining is, Do those same people have the will to provide for their own security? So the question is, What better protects our country? Is it the opportunity to extract from a civil war at some point soon or is it the determination to ignore the presence of the al-Qaida leadership in northern Pakistan? If we begin to withdraw and extract from a civil war in Iraq, do we then have a better capability to keep our eye on the ball, the greatest threat to our country, the leadership of al-Qaida and their network around the world? If that were the case, wouldn't this country wish to begin to take action against the greatest threat to our homeland and threat to our security, the leadership of al-Qaida? That is not me describing that. That is from the National Intelligence Estimate, the combined judgment of the intelligence communities in our Government. You can make a pretty strong case that Osama bin Laden, who boasted about murdering innocent Americans on 9/11/2001--he still speaks to us from time to time from a ``secure hideaway,'' as described by the head of our intelligence. Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, after all of these years having passed since 9/11, still exist. Their leadership apparently is still intact, according to the head of our national intelligence services. We generally know where they are. They are apparently in a country that is supposed to be cooperating with us-- Pakistan. The question is, Why have we not brought to justice the leadership of al-Qaida, if that is our greatest threat? The answer, I suppose, is because this country has 140,000-plus soldiers in Iraq prosecuting a war in the middle of what is now a civil war in Iraq. We can debate forever, perhaps, the conditions that got us to this point--terrible intelligence, the most unbelievable intelligence failure, perhaps, in the history of this country. This country told the world that the country of Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that threatened America. Now it turns out, we understand, to take one example, that the issue of mobile chemical weapons laboratories--that intelligence was given to us by German authorities. That came from a fabricator who is now alleged to have been a drunk--a single source, perhaps drunk, fabricator persuades this country to tell the world Iraq has mobile chemical labs. But it turns out they didn't. I could go on at great length about the intelligence failures. Whatever the intelligence failures were, we went to Iraq. This country went to Iraq, and a number of things have happened. We have unearthed mass graves. Several hundred thousand Iraqis were murdered by a brutal regime headed by Saddam Hussein. There are a number of brutal regimes in this world. We don't take it upon ourselves--unless it is in our national interest--to send troops to those brutal regimes. But Saddam Hussein was, in fact, a brutal dictator. He has been executed. The world is better for that. The country of Iraq has shed itself of a brutal dictator. His execution comes amid other opportunities for the people of Iraq. They have a constitution, a brandnew one; they wrote it and voted for it. They have a new government. They have created and voted for that government. And now we have tens and tens and tens of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq, in the middle of a civil war. We have taken our eye off the ball because the issue really is the terrorist organizations that wish to commit acts of terror against our country. The head of our national intelligence says that al-Qaida is the greatest terrorist threat to our country. They are in secure hideaways in northern Pakistan. It seems to me that the ability to begin to extract ourselves from the middle of a civil war in Iraq gives us the opportunity to put pressure on and work with other countries to bring to justice the greatest terrorist threat to this country, the terrorist organization that murdered Americans on 9/11/2001. That ought to be our overriding goal. If that is the greatest terrorist threat, it seems to me our most important job is to eliminate that threat, and sooner rather than later. So I end where I began. No one in this Chamber has a difference of opinion about whether we want our country to succeed. We love our country, and we want to succeed. We honor our soldiers, and we insist, when we send America's sons and daughters to war, that they have all the things they need and the support they need to do their job. But from a policy perspective, I believe this President has made very serious mistakes. One of my colleagues, this morning, said the general will tell us whether things are going well. I cannot tell you how many briefings I have been in--top-secret briefings--month after month after month and year after year in which the top generals have come to us and said things are going really very well, when, in fact, that hasn't been the case. Only later have we discovered it was not the case; it never was the case. It seems to me that this country has to evaluate what it can do at this point to begin to find a way to withdraw and extract from a civil war in Iraq. Perhaps there needs to be partitioning, I don't know. I know that is a tough subject to introduce these days. But if there are no alternatives, perhaps you have to partition the parties fighting each other, the Sunnis and Shias, and try to find another device to deal with the issue. In any event, it seems to me it is in this country's best interest to keep our eye on the ball, and the ball here is, according to head of our intelligence, that the greatest terrorist threat to our country is the leadership of al-Qaida and their network. We have not, in my judgment, with respect to al-Qaida and the deepening problems of the Taliban in Afghanistan, kept our eye on the ball. That is one of the reasons there needs to be a change. This notion of ``stay the course'' or ``cut and run,'' which was the slogan--there is the slogan of the week or the slogan of the month. The administration's slogan of the month last year was ``stay the course'' or ``cut and run.'' It was always a false choice that was never a substitute for thoughtful debate. It was a thoughtless chant of things that mattered very little. What matters most to this country is that we are engaged in pursuits which will provide opportunity to strengthen this country, which do honor and justice to the efforts of our soldiers, and which relate to responding to the terrorist threat because the threat against this country is a very serious, abiding, long-term threat. All of us want to succeed in dealing with that threat. Mr. President, one of my colleagues, Senator Conrad, has arrived. I think he intends to speak on this agricultural disaster issue. Let me at this point yield the floor, and I think other colleagues will speak on the agricultural disaster piece I spoke on earlier. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, some would believe, and perhaps should believe, that this budget issue is very complex, very difficult and is hard to resolve. I accept all that. But there ought to be some things all of us would agree are very easy to deal with. The slam-dunks, as it were; the issues that all of us ought to say: Enough, we are not going to put up with this on the revenue side. Let me tell my colleagues the taxes I believe we ought to be getting that we are not getting. Should we increase them? Absolutely. Those are the taxes that would have been paid under normal circumstances but now are not being paid because companies have decided they want to run their income through a tax-haven country. They want to produce in China, sell in America, and run their income through the Cayman Islands. What is the purpose of that? To avoid paying U.S. taxes. They want all the opportunities of being an American company but none of the responsibilities to pay the taxes to help this country run, to help this country do what it should do. So let me go through some of the examples. First, let me show a picture of the Ugland House. An enterprising reporter named ``David Evans'' did some research. This picture shows a five-story building on Church Street in the Cayman Islands that is home to 12,748 corporations. Now, we have talked about that. I have spoken about it in previous months on the floor of the Senate. Why do I do that? Everyone understands that in this little building on a quiet street on the Cayman Islands, there aren't 12,748 companies. That is a legal fiction created by some lawyers to allow companies to use this address to avoid paying U.S. taxes. That is what is inside this white building: fictional addresses so companies can park income here and avoid paying taxes to the United States. Should we shut that down? You bet your life we ought to shut it down--just like that. It ought not be controversial. Do we not believe that everybody ought to pay their fair share of taxes as a part of living in this great country? So that is one issue. That, by the way, is a current tax scam that exists and is robust. I could go through the names of companies that have many subsidiaries in tax-haven countries. I mentioned Halliburton the other day. They have 17 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, a country that has never imposed a corporate income tax. They also have two subsidiaries in Liechtenstein, for God's sake. But it is not just that company. I could go through a whole list of companies that have dozens and dozens of subsidiaries they have created in tax-haven countries to avoid paying taxes in this country. Let me give some other examples of what has been going on. This is Dortmund, Germany. This is a picture of a streetcar in Dortmund, Germany. It is interesting. Actually, an American company leased the streetcars in Dortmund, Germany. Why? Because an American company wants to run streetcars in Germany? No, not at all. These belong to city government in Germany. An American corporation leased them, and immediately leased them back to the German city, and then the company is able to claim large tax deductions that lower its tax burden in the United States. Here is what the city councilman, Manfred Jostes, said: It's absolutely unbelievable. I still to this day can't believe that something like this works. A German city councilman trying to think through how is it we can lease our streetcars to an American company, they lease them back, we get a premium and never lose the opportunity to use them. The only thing that is valuable to the American company is they don't have to pay taxes because they can claim large deductions relating to this streetcar system in Germany. It is not just streetcars. How about American companies buying town halls? Here is a picture of a town hall in a German city that I can't even pronounce. That is a huge, old town hall owned by an American company. Why? Because they like town halls in Germany? No. Because they want to be able to claim large deductions in an abusive cross-border leasing transaction with a German city for the purpose of reducing their tax obligations in this country. Here is a railroad in Belgium owned by an American company. Because they like to run trains in Belgium? No, no. It is about reducing their taxes in our country. How about an American company buying a German sewer system. This one--Wachovia Bank has been pretty aggressive. They bought a German sewer system, and they reportedly get $175 million in U.S. tax savings by owning a foreign sewer system. The city in Germany--Bochum, Germany, doesn't lose the use of its sewer system. The American corporation didn't buy a German sewer system because they wanted to use the sewer; they bought it because they wanted to lease it back to the German city so the U.S. company can depreciate it and reduce its tax burden to the U.S. Government. Sale and leaseback. Pretty unbelievable. FleetBoston Financial and another investor bought Chicago's 911 emergency call system. Think of that. Chicago sets up a 911 emergency call system, then sells it to two corporations. It is a city-owned system. The companies buy it, and lease it back to Chicago. Chicago still has it. It is a sale and leaseback transaction by which an American corporation can now own and lease back the 911 emergency call system in Chicago and be able to depreciate it to save money on their tax bill. It is unbelievable to me. When are we going to put a stop to this? Well, the Finance Committee took a look at these sale and leasebacks and owning foreign sewer systems and they said: We will stop it as of this date, but everything else is OK. It is not OK with me. It is not OK with me that we still have companies that decide they want to move their profits to a controlled offshore foreign subsidiary, despite the fact that the subsidiary doesn't do any real business there. It is not OK with me that we still provide large tax breaks to U.S. companies that close down a manufacturing plant in this country, fire its American workers and move those good-paying jobs to countries like China. When U.S. companies close down a U.S. manufacturing plant such as Huffy bicycles or Radio Flyer little red wagons, fires its American workers and moves those good-paying jobs overseas, U.S. tax law actually gives companies like these a large tax break. This is a slap in the face of domestic companies that do not get this break. It is a slap in the face to hardworking Americans whose jobs are cut and moved overseas. I have forced the U.S. Senate to vote to repeal this perverse tax break several times but it still remains in place. I will offer my proposal to eliminate this ill-advised tax subsidy again and again until it is gone. So I have legislation in three areas that will shut these things down and shut them down for good. All of that, I understand, is able to be accomplished and has a fit in this budget proposal. Senator Conrad, I believe, has in this budget proposal provided room for the three proposals I have offered, the kinds of proposals that will finally and irrevocably shut down this nonsense. Now, we are short of money. The fact is we are short of revenue, so how are we going to get it? Are we going to go ask some people who go to work all day and take showers at night. You know, they get dirty and work hard at a construction site, come home and have to take a shower after work rather than before work. We are going to go back to those folks and say: You know what. Our Government is short of money. We would like you to pay some more in taxes. Or are we going to go to these companies who have decided they want to own a sewer system in Germany? They want to have a ``fictional'' address on Church Street in the Cayman Islands or they want to engage in transfer pricing. Transfer pricing schemes, by the way, where companies have their own subsidiaries and buy and sell from them and charge things such as $50 for a tractor tire or $18 for a toothbrush; dramatic overpricing on the one hand or underpricing on the other. They use this accounting scam to try to demonstrate they have earned no money in the United States and therefore owe no taxes in the United States when, in fact, they earned a lot of money and transfer-priced those profits out of our country. Another scheme. It is wholesale tax avoidance. The question for this Senate ought to be now: Are we going to get the revenue that is owed to us from some of the largest enterprises? I have not named a lot of them. I could name a lot of them, and they should have the opportunity to be named so that their shareholders know what they are doing. It wasn't long ago, by the way, when some of us came to the Senate floor and named the companies who decided they wanted to renounce their American citizenship. I was a part of that. The late Paul Wellstone was a part of that. Paul sat right over there at that desk at the end of that row and I remember it as if it were today, the speeches Paul would give about this issue. The companies have decided: You know what. We want all the benefits of being an American. We were chartered here. We exist here. We appreciate being here, but we don't want the responsibility of paying taxes. That is the origin and the roots of some of this tax avoidance. But then, it went even further. There was a time when companies said: You know what. We appreciate being an American, but we can save a great deal of money if we renounce our American citizenship and move our citizenship to, let's say, the Bahamas. My thought was: You want to move your corporate citizenship to the Bahamas for the purpose of not paying American taxes; then when you get in trouble, why don't you call in the Bahamian Navy. My understanding is they have a force of 20 people. Perhaps I have understated it. But maybe then you ought to call the Bahamian military when you get in some trouble, when someone tries to expropriate your assets somewhere around the world. I come to the floor today because I am flat sick and tired of these schemes: The hood ornament on excess here is the schemes by which town halls are now for lease or for sale, sewer systems are now for sale. Yes, action has been taken to shut some of that down prospectively. Yes, that is good. But we still have circumstances under which American corporations are owning these assets, depreciating the assets that clearly are government assets for one single purpose, and that is to avoid paying the taxes that they would otherwise owe to the United States of America. So then who pays taxes? Well, there is the infamous woman who once said: Only the little people pay taxes. She sort of sniffed: Only the little people pay taxes. Well, we know who does pay taxes. It is people who work, who get a W-2 form which says: Here is your income, here is your withholding, here is the obligation you have to the United States of America. No flexibility. You work, you earn an income, you pay taxes. The word ``tax'' is not a dirty word. It is part of the price of a civilized society. We build roads. We operate schools. We provide for the defense of this Nation. We have a Center for Disease Control. We have the National Institutes of Health. We run Bethesda Hospital and Walter Reed for the veterans. We do a lot of things that are pretty wonderful, and we have built a pretty spectacular country through private sector and public sector initiatives. But in order to do that, we need a revenue base. Some of the biggest interests in this country have decided: We want to be a part of everything America has to offer, but we don't want to be a part of the revenue base. We want to find ways to own a foreign sewer system or run our income through a fictional address in the Cayman Islands. We want a large tax break for shutting down a U.S. manufacturing plant and moving those jobs overseas. We want to find a way to transfer price so that we are pricing safety pins at 100 times their value, or underpricing pianos, selling pianos for $40. That sort of transfer pricing is unbelievable. That transfer pricing has allowed some corporations to scam the Federal Government and avoid paying the taxes they owe this country. So I came to the floor today only to say this: Part of the process of a budget is to make plans about spending. What is it we need to spend? What do we have to do to invest in our country's future to strengthen our country? Then also, what kind of revenue can we expect and who shall contribute that revenue? Who is responsible for paying taxes? It is not, as the socialite sniffed, ``the little people''; it is a responsibility for all of us in this country to pay taxes. I think when we see what has been going on with tax avoidance on a massive scale--and I see those who might criticize Senator Conrad for saying: Let's capture some of this in this budget, and they say: Well, that is not real--you bet your life it is real. You bet your life it is real. This tax avoidance is large, and it is growing. We have a responsibility to say to those interests: Pay up. Be a part of this country. Being a part of this country is to make money in this great economy of ours, but also the responsibility to pay some taxes to this country as well. As I indicated, I have three provisions that will be provided for as a result of the way this budget is structured. I intend to offer those as legislation in this coming year. I expect that ought to be a noncontroversial portion of the debate in this country. It ought to be the first baby step to do what is right. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 489

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased today to be joined by Senators Grassley, Durbin and Collins in re-introducing the Restitution for Victims of Crime Act. This legislation will give Justice Department officials the tools they say are needed to help them do a better job of collecting court-ordered Federal restitution and fines. It is virtually identical to the bill we introduced in June of last year. Recent information from the Justice Department suggests the many victims of crime and their families continue to face a significant challenge in trying to recover a sense of emotional and financial security after a crime has been perpetrated against them. By law, victims of Federal crimes are generally entitled to ``full and timely restitution'' for losses from a convicted offender. Unfortunately new Justice Department data show that the amount of uncollected Federal criminal debt is still spiraling upward--jumping from some $41 billion in fiscal year 2005 to nearly $46 billion at the end of fiscal year 2006. This is a hike of some $5 billion in uncollected Federal criminal debt int he past fiscal year alone. Criminal debt ordered by Federal courts in North Dakota that remained uncollected at the end of fiscal year 2006 totaled $18.7 million, up almost $4 million from the preceding year. Crime victims should not have to worry if those in charge of collecting court-ordered restitution on their behalf are making every possible effort to do so. We believe that passing the Restitution for Victimis of Crime Act would greatly help Federal criminal justice officials in this task. Our bill includes provisions that will remove many existing impediments to increased collections. It will also provide new tools to help Federal criminal justice officials prevent criminal defendants from spending or hiding their ill-gotten gains and other financial assets by setting up pre-conviction procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution. I hope that my Senate colleagues will help us get the legislation enacted at the first available opportunity. This will send a clear and much-needed message to white collar and other criminals: if you commit a crime you will be held accountable and will not be allowed to benefit in any way from your criminal activity and ill-gotten gains. I also believe this bill will reassure many innocent victims of Federal crime that the justice system is working hard to recover court-ordered restitution that is owed to such victims. I understand that criminal debt collection can be a tough job. It may be impossible to collect the full amount of restitution owed to victims in some cases. Clearly criminal debt collections may be more difficult in cases where convicted criminals are in prison, ill-gotten gains are already gone or these criminals are without any other financial means to pay their full restitution. However, victims of crime in this country should expect Federal law enforcement officials tasked with collecting outstanding restitution to do a better job. At the very least, crime victims should not be concerned that their prospects for financial restitution are being diminished because criminal offenders are frittering away their ill- gotten gains on lavish lifestyles and the like. But, as I have mentioned before, past Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigations rightly give many crime victims real reason to worry. GAO's work made clear that more financial assets could be recovered but for a failure of some criminal justice officials to make criminal debt collection a top priority. At my request, the GAO reviewed five white-collar financial fraud cases and concluded that the Justice Department's prospects were ``not good for collecting additional restitution from offenders'' owed to the victims--even though one or more of the criminal offenders involved had reported earning millions of dollars in income, having millions in net worth and/or were spending thousands of dollars monthly on entertainment and clothing prior to the judgments entered against them. In addition, the GAO found that certain offenders had taken expensive trips overseas, had fraudulently obtained millions of dollars in assets and converted those assets for personal use, had established businesses for their children, or held homes worth millions of dollars that were located in upscale neighborhoods. Despite all of this reported wealth, GAO found that only a small fraction of court-ordered restitution owed to victims had been collected. The legislation that Senator Grassley and I are re-introducing today is based on a comprehensive package of recommendations by the Justice Department that stem in large part from the work of the Task Force on Improving the Collection of Criminal Debt. Justice Department officials believe these changes will remove many of the current impediments to better debt collection. For example, Justice Department officials described a circumstance where they were prevented by a court from accessing $400,000 held in a criminal offender's 401(k) plan to pay a $4 million restitution debt to a victim because that court said the defendant was complying with a $250 minimum monthly payment plan and that payment schedule precluded any other enforcement actions. Our bill would remove impediments like this in the future. This legislation will address another major problem identified by the GAO for officials in charge of criminal debt collection; that is, many years can pass between the date a crime occurs and the date a court orders restitution. This gives criminal defendants ample opportunity to spend or hide their ill-gotten gains. Our bill sets up pre-conviction procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution. These tools will help ensure that financial assets traceable to a crime are available when a court imposes a final restitution order on behalf of a victim. These tools are similar to those already used successfully in some States and by Federal officials in certain asset forfeiture cases. Key provisions of the bill would do the following: Clarify that court-ordered Federal criminal restitution is due immediately in full upon imposition, just like in civil cases and that any payment schedule ordered by a court is only a minimum obligation of a convicted offender. Allow Federal prosecutors to access financial information about a defendant in the possession of the U.S. Probation Office--without the need for a court order. Clarify that final restitution orders can be enforced by criminal justice officials through the Bureau of Prisons' Inmate Financial Responsibility Program. Ensure that if a court restricts the ability of criminal justice officials to enforce a financial judgment, the court must do so expressly for good cause on the record. Absent exceptional circumstances, the court must require a deposit, the posting of a bond or impose additional restraints upon the defendant from transferring or dissipating assets. Help ensure better recovery of restitution by requiring a court to enter a pre-conviction restraining order or injunction, require a satisfactory performance bond, or take other action necessary to preserve property that is traceable to the commission of a charged offense or to preserve other nonexempt assets if the court determines that it is in the interest of justice to do so. Under the bill, a criminal defendant is allowed to challenge a court's pre-judgment asset preservation order. For example, a defendant may challenge a post-indictment restraining order if he or she can show that there is no probable cause to justify the restraint or the order does not provide the accused with adequate resources for attorney fees or reasonable living expenses. Permit the Attorney General to commence a civil action under the Anti-Fraud Injunction Statute to enjoin a person who is committing or about to commit a Federal offense that may result in a restitution order; and permit a court to restrain the dissipation of assets in any case where it has power to enjoin the commission of a crime, not just banking or health care fraud as permitted under current law. Allow the United States under the Federal Debt Collections Procedure Act to use prejudgment remedies to preserve assets in criminal cases that are similar to those used in civil cases when it is needed to preserve a defendant's assets for restitution. Such remedies, including attachment, garnishment, and receivership, are not currently available in criminal cases because there is no enforceable debt prior to an offender's conviction and judgment. Clarify that a victim's attorney fees may be included in restitution orders, including cases where such fees are a foreseeable result from the commission of the crime, are incurred to help recover lost property or expended by a victim to defend against third-party lawsuits resulting from the defendant's crime. Allow courts at their discretion to order immediate restitution to those that have suffered economic losses or serious bodily injury or death as the result of environmental felonies. Under current law, courts can impose restitution in such cases as a condition of probation or supervised release but this means that many victims of environment crimes must wait for years to be compensated for their losses, if at all. The Restitution for Victims of Crime Act has previously been endorsed by a number of organizations concerned about the well-being of crime victims, including: The National Center for Victims of Crime, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Organization for Victims Assistance (NOVA), the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Parents of Murdered Children, Inc., Justice Solutions, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators (NAVAA). Most recently, the National Crime Victim Law Institute shared its support for our bill. Last year, United States Attorney Drew Wrigley in Fargo, North Dakota said this legislation ``represents important progress toward ensuring that victims of crime are one step closer to being made whole.'' Senator Grassley and I look forward to working with these groups and others to move this bill forward in the legislative process. With the Justice Department's help, we can make criminal debt collection a top priority for all Federal criminal justice officials once again.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased today to be joined by Senators Grassley, Durbin and Collins in re-introducing the Restitution for Victims of Crime Act. This legislation will give Justice Department officials the tools they say are needed to help them do a better job of collecting court-ordered Federal restitution and fines. It is virtually identical to the bill we introduced in June of last year. Recent information from the Justice Department suggests the many victims of crime and their families continue to face a significant challenge in trying to recover a sense of emotional and financial security after a crime has been perpetrated against them. By law, victims of Federal crimes are generally entitled to ``full and timely restitution'' for losses from a convicted offender. Unfortunately new Justice Department data show that the amount of uncollected Federal criminal debt is still spiraling upward--jumping from some $41 billion in fiscal year 2005 to nearly $46 billion at the end of fiscal year 2006. This is a hike of some $5 billion in uncollected Federal criminal debt int he past fiscal year alone. Criminal debt ordered by Federal courts in North Dakota that remained uncollected at the end of fiscal year 2006 totaled $18.7 million, up almost $4 million from the preceding year. Crime victims should not have to worry if those in charge of collecting court-ordered restitution on their behalf are making every possible effort to do so. We believe that passing the Restitution for Victimis of Crime Act would greatly help Federal criminal justice officials in this task. Our bill includes provisions that will remove many existing impediments to increased collections. It will also provide new tools to help Federal criminal justice officials prevent criminal defendants from spending or hiding their ill-gotten gains and other financial assets by setting up pre-conviction procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution. I hope that my Senate colleagues will help us get the legislation enacted at the first available opportunity. This will send a clear and much-needed message to white collar and other criminals: if you commit a crime you will be held accountable and will not be allowed to benefit in any way from your criminal activity and ill-gotten gains. I also believe this bill will reassure many innocent victims of Federal crime that the justice system is working hard to recover court-ordered restitution that is owed to such victims. I understand that criminal debt collection can be a tough job. It may be impossible to collect the full amount of restitution owed to victims in some cases. Clearly criminal debt collections may be more difficult in cases where convicted criminals are in prison, ill-gotten gains are already gone or these criminals are without any other financial means to pay their full restitution. However, victims of crime in this country should expect Federal law enforcement officials tasked with collecting outstanding restitution to do a better job. At the very least, crime victims should not be concerned that their prospects for financial restitution are being diminished because criminal offenders are frittering away their ill- gotten gains on lavish lifestyles and the like. But, as I have mentioned before, past Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigations rightly give many crime victims real reason to worry. GAO's work made clear that more financial assets could be recovered but for a failure of some criminal justice officials to make criminal debt collection a top priority. At my request, the GAO reviewed five white-collar financial fraud cases and concluded that the Justice Department's prospects were ``not good for collecting additional restitution from offenders'' owed to the victims--even though one or more of the criminal offenders involved had reported earning millions of dollars in income, having millions in net worth and/or were spending thousands of dollars monthly on entertainment and clothing prior to the judgments entered against them. In addition, the GAO found that certain offenders had taken expensive trips overseas, had fraudulently obtained millions of dollars in assets and converted those assets for personal use, had established businesses for their children, or held homes worth millions of dollars that were located in upscale neighborhoods. Despite all of this reported wealth, GAO found that only a small fraction of court-ordered restitution owed to victims had been collected. The legislation that Senator Grassley and I are re-introducing today is based on a comprehensive package of recommendations by the Justice Department that stem in large part from the work of the Task Force on Improving the Collection of Criminal Debt. Justice Department officials believe these changes will remove many of the current impediments to better debt collection. For example, Justice Department officials described a circumstance where they were prevented by a court from accessing $400,000 held in a criminal offender's 401(k) plan to pay a $4 million restitution debt to a victim because that court said the defendant was complying with a $250 minimum monthly payment plan and that payment schedule precluded any other enforcement actions. Our bill would remove impediments like this in the future. This legislation will address another major problem identified by the GAO for officials in charge of criminal debt collection; that is, many years can pass between the date a crime occurs and the date a court orders restitution. This gives criminal defendants ample opportunity to spend or hide their ill-gotten gains. Our bill sets up pre-conviction procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution. These tools will help ensure that financial assets traceable to a crime are available when a court imposes a final restitution order on behalf of a victim. These tools are similar to those already used successfully in some States and by Federal officials in certain asset forfeiture cases. Key provisions of the bill would do the following: Clarify that court-ordered Federal criminal restitution is due immediately in full upon imposition, just like in civil cases and that any payment schedule ordered by a court is only a minimum obligation of a convicted offender. Allow Federal prosecutors to access financial information about a defendant in the possession of the U.S. Probation Office--without the need for a court order. Clarify that final restitution orders can be enforced by criminal justice officials through the Bureau of Prisons' Inmate Financial Responsibility Program. Ensure that if a court restricts the ability of criminal justice officials to enforce a financial judgment, the court must do so expressly for good cause on the record. Absent exceptional circumstances, the court must require a deposit, the posting of a bond or impose additional restraints upon the defendant from transferring or dissipating assets. Help ensure better recovery of restitution by requiring a court to enter a pre-conviction restraining order or injunction, require a satisfactory performance bond, or take other action necessary to preserve property that is traceable to the commission of a charged offense or to preserve other nonexempt assets if the court determines that it is in the interest of justice to do so. Under the bill, a criminal defendant is allowed to challenge a court's pre-judgment asset preservation order. For example, a defendant may challenge a post-indictment restraining order if he or she can show that there is no probable cause to justify the restraint or the order does not provide the accused with adequate resources for attorney fees or reasonable living expenses. Permit the Attorney General to commence a civil action under the Anti-Fraud Injunction Statute to enjoin a person who is committing or about to commit a Federal offense that may result in a restitution order; and permit a court to restrain the dissipation of assets in any case where it has power to enjoin the commission of a crime, not just banking or health care fraud as permitted under current law. Allow the United States under the Federal Debt Collections Procedure Act to use prejudgment remedies to preserve assets in criminal cases that are similar to those used in civil cases when it is needed to preserve a defendant's assets for restitution. Such remedies, including attachment, garnishment, and receivership, are not currently available in criminal cases because there is no enforceable debt prior to an offender's conviction and judgment. Clarify that a victim's attorney fees may be included in restitution orders, including cases where such fees are a foreseeable result from the commission of the crime, are incurred to help recover lost property or expended by a victim to defend against third-party lawsuits resulting from the defendant's crime. Allow courts at their discretion to order immediate restitution to those that have suffered economic losses or serious bodily injury or death as the result of environmental felonies. Under current law, courts can impose restitution in such cases as a condition of probation or supervised release but this means that many victims of environment crimes must wait for years to be compensated for their losses, if at all. The Restitution for Victims of Crime Act has previously been endorsed by a number of organizations concerned about the well-being of crime victims, including: The National Center for Victims of Crime, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Organization for Victims Assistance (NOVA), the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Parents of Murdered Children, Inc., Justice Solutions, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators (NAVAA). Most recently, the National Crime Victim Law Institute shared its support for our bill. Last year, United States Attorney Drew Wrigley in Fargo, North Dakota said this legislation ``represents important progress toward ensuring that victims of crime are one step closer to being made whole.'' Senator Grassley and I look forward to working with these groups and others to move this bill forward in the legislative process. With the Justice Department's help, we can make criminal debt collection a top priority for all Federal criminal justice officials once again.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is the Senator from Iowa has this half hour. I ask the Senator from Iowa if he will yield me 10 minutes?

Mr. DORGAN. I am pleased to be a cosponsor, as I have been in the past. The Senator from Iowa is offering a budget amendment. It is a good amendment. The Senator from Iowa will join me in introducing some legislation on this subject following this discussion. Some will say: Let's have this during the farm bill. We will have this debate then, too, I assume. Let me say, I don't think there is a bigger supporter or stronger supporter in this Chamber for family farmers than I am. I know my colleague from Iowa is a family farmer. It goes without saying he has been supportive. But I am not interested in supporting the corporate agrifactories that have grown up this country. That is not the purpose of a farm program. I come from a rural State. I am proud to stand here and support farmers who have names, in my State: Olsen, Larson, Christianson, Johnson, Schmidt, Schmaltz, Cooper. I am proud to support them. They are out there living under a yard light, struggling, trying to make a living. They plant a seed and hope it will grow. If it grows, they hope it doesn't hail. They hope it rains enough and it doesn't rain too much. Finally, when they get in and get the seed off and the crop off and after that seed has grown into a plant, they put it through a combine, take it to the elevator, and then they hope and pray there is a decent price, so in the end, if everything went right, maybe they made a living for themselves and their families. It is a big struggle for them. What is the value of having these families living out there? A friend of mine from North Dakota wrote a piece about that. He said: What is it worth? What is it worth for a kid to know how to fix a tractor, to plow a field, to hang a door, to butcher a hog, to pour cement, to weld a seam? What is it worth for a kid to know all those things? That university is on a family farm; that is where kids learn it. What is that worth to our country? We have on the floor of the Senate this issue of a farm program. A farm program is a safety net, a bridge over troubled times when prices collapse, when the crops are destroyed. This is a bridge over price valleys, a bridge over difficult times. Regrettably, it has grown to become a set of golden arches for some of the biggest enterprises in the country, and we propose that we put some payment limits on here that are reasonable payment limits. I am pleased to be a cosponsor along with my colleague, Senator Grassley. I think this is common sense. Let me give some examples of what persuades us to come to the floor of the Senate. Ten years ago, the top 10 percent of recipients of farm program payments received just over half of all farm payments. Now, 10 to 11 years later, the top 10 percent get 72 percent. It has grown from about half to about three-quarters for the top 10 percent. The top 1 percent receive nearly a quarter of all farm payments. Mr. President, a 61,000-acre operation in a southern State got $38 million in farm payment programs over 5 years. I didn't come to fight for that. I don't support that. The farm was organized into 66 separate corporations so its 39 owners could avoid payment limits. That is not farming the land. That is farming the farm program. I don't support that. A 12,000-acre cotton farm took in $2.1 million, a cotton factory in California, $16 million over 8 years. This is not the farm program we ought to be supporting. The U.S. Department of Agriculture pointed out that they paid $400,000 each to 55 farmers who were dead; 27 of the dead farmers received payments every year for 9 years--$400,000 each for dead people. That is unbelievable. I support a farm program, one I can be proud of, one that says to families living out there: We want to help you. We know you take unbelievable risks, and when you run into trouble, into tough times, we want to reach out our hand to say we are with you, we want to help you. That is what the farm program is supposed to be about. But it is becoming a perverse program when millions of dollars are taken from taxpayers in the form of taxes and then transferred to big corporate agrifactories who get millions of dollars. From the Government Accountability Office: Eleven partners ran an 11,900-acre farm and collected a million dollars, and every single one of the farmers lived outside the State where the farm was located. The only engagement they had in the farm was a telephone conversation. Six partners received $700,000 in farm payments for a 6,400-acre farm. They said they provided daily management, living several hundred miles away. I don't think we need to say more. It does not take much more to illustrate the absurdity of what is happening. My colleague and I are offering--get this--a proposal that limits program payments to $250,000. Let me say again, I come from farm country. No one here cares more about family farmers than I do. I believe in the farm program. I fought for a good farm program. But I have not fought for a program that hands over millions of dollars to people who reorganize into farm factories in order to farm the farm program and suck money out of what we put aside to help people during tough times. It is beyond me why we would not take this step quickly and easily, to say payment limitations that would be effective are the right thing for us to do. This should not be controversial at all. This ought to be accepted by unanimous consent. That is what ought to happen. We ought to have a unanimous consent request. I will say this. If there are those who argue that multimillion dollar operations need millions of dollars from the American taxpayer to continue their operations, then there is something horribly wrong with the farm program that accedes to that request. That is not why we created a farm program in this country. We said we want America's landscape to be dotted by yard lights that represent a farm. I understand that big corporate agrifactories could farm from California to Maine. I understand we have operations that milk 3,000 to 4,000 cows a day, three times a day. That has nothing to do with family farming. I understand you could farm from the west coast to the east coast and you would not have to have people living out there. But I also understand that there is value to this country, cultural value to this country, where the seedbed of family values began, on the farm and in small towns, and rose to our big cities as a set of family values that this country has always appreciated. That is the cultural value of having family farms. It is the economic value of having family farms. The way we will keep family farms is to have a decent farm program that says, when you are in trouble, when you have prices collapse, you have a safety net. That is what we are trying to do. We will try to save it. What will happen is we will lose the farm program one day with stories that say this program gives millions of dollars to people with millions of acres who do not need this help. I am pleased be a cosponsor with my colleague, and I look forward to working with him on these issues. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. I have listened with interest for the last little bit while my colleague from Iowa was on the floor. It appeared to me he was defending some of these tax breaks. I couldn't quite figure that all out, but I will ask the Senator, who is the chairman of the committee, is it true you are having trouble convincing people, or are we having trouble convincing people that having Wachovia Bank buy a sewer system in Germany for the purpose of reducing their U.S. income tax burden is a bad idea? If the Senator from New Hampshire wants to talk about where we would get some additional revenues, maybe we could start now a dollar at a time. Let's take at least the first dollar and decide that U.S. companies that buy and immediately lease back sewer systems, streetcars, or city halls in foreign countries, or in this country for that matter, for the purpose of depreciating an asset that otherwise wouldn't be depreciable, for the purpose of reducing their U.S. income taxes and agree that is a bad idea. Let's shut it down. Let's decide today, on Tuesday, that is over. Can we at least agree on that piece? If so, my colleague Senator Conrad has us on the road to at least beginning piece by piece to putting the system together to get the revenue we need. This is not about raising taxes, it is about asking those who ought to be paying taxes to start paying them. I have been on the floor talking a lot. In fact, the chart my colleague is putting up now--and David Evans, who is a very enterprising reporter from Bloomberg put this story together--states that 12,748 companies exist in that one five-story building on a quiet little street called Church Street in the Cayman Islands. They are not in that building, of course. It is a legal fiction to allow them to reduce their U.S. tax burden. I ask my colleague Senator Conrad, are we having a hard time convincing our colleagues of these simple baby steps we ought to be taking to get the revenue people ought to be paying without allowing them to depreciate foreign sewer systems, for gosh sakes?

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, if the Senator will yield for one additional question. What I want to do is come tomorrow to the floor and spend a little time responding to what was offered today by the Senator from Iowa on deferral, transfer pricing, and a whole range of things on those tax issues. If I can arrange with my colleague to do that tomorrow, I also have a picture of several sewers, actually.

Mr. DORGAN. I don't have that picture, but I have several pictures of several sewers owned by American corporations, not because they are in the sewer business, not because they like sewers, not because they have some sort of attachment to sewers, but because they do not want to pay U.S. taxes, so they buy a sewer system and depreciate it. I also have pictures of streetcars and rail cars and a picture of a city's 9/11 emergency response system sold by the city to a private investor in order that the private investor could depreciate it and, therefore, reduce their taxes. Now, whether it is the 9/11 emergency response system, sewer systems, or city hall--and I have pictures of city halls I will show tomorrow as well, that have been purchased and leased back--all of these are scams, and they ought to stop. No, they ought not stop gradually. That is not the way you stop this addiction. You shut it down, right now. I understand there will be people coming to the floor of the Senate saying: You can't do that. You have to be competitive. That is such a load of nonsense. You don't have to be competitive in these kinds of escapes from the reality of having to pay taxes you rightfully owe on your income. I say to my colleague Senator Conrad that I wish to come tomorrow at a time we can conveniently arrange and talk about these issues of deferral, transfer pricing, and SILOs and LILOs and so on.

Mr. DORGAN. That would be fine, because I have a lot to say. If we can't take the first baby step in shutting down this sort of perversity, there is nothing more pernicious in the Tax Code, and nothing more perverse to common sense than this sort of nonsense. So I wish to come talk about it tomorrow. Perhaps we could get a majority in this Chamber to say, yes, you know what, people ought to pay their taxes, corporations ought to pay their taxes, and they ought not own foreign sewers in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes. It is very simple. If someone on the other side would call that a tax increase, I would say it is actually increasing the tax paid by those who should have paid more, but that is a different kind of circumstance, isn't it? So I want to talk about that tomorrow, and I thank my colleague, Senator Conrad. He is steeped in experience in these areas, and he is right. I think it is a wonderful opportunity, finally, because we don't have quite enough opportunity in some of the committees, to finally on the floor of the Senate begin exposing this. This exposure is very important so the American people understand who is paying the taxes and who isn't. One of our primary responsibilities is to say to those who aren't, you apparently want all the benefits of being an American except the responsibility of paying your fair share of taxes to this country. Senator Conrad says it should stop, and so do I, and I look forward to being back on the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Senator Conrad has the time.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I say I don't do four-part questions. I will be glad to answer the first, however. I happen to believe a tax code ought not penalize work and reward investment. I happen to believe those in this Chamber who have perverted the Tax Code that says if you work, you get penalized, because you pay taxes, but, by the way, if you don't work and get to clip coupons, if your income comes exclusively in dividends and capital gains, guess what, you are in luck because this Chamber thinks you don't have to pay taxes. So, do I believe at some point we ought to recognize working people in this country and recognize they ought to be paying taxes in a fair way? Yes, I believe that strongly. I observe, however, that the Senator from New Hampshire changed the subject. The subject, of course, was sewer systems, foreign streetcars, foreign city halls, and the sale of 9/11 emergency systems of an American city for the purpose of avoiding taxes by corporations that want to purchase them. That is a subject about which I wish to visit.

Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. Very brief. Senator Kennedy is waiting. I would point out, given all this revenue consternation, I know where there is $104 billion. That would have been the tax paid on that amount that was repatriated that my colleague and some of the others offered a 5.25 percent income tax rate to recently. They said to the biggest enterprises in the country: If you have done business overseas, you bring that money back, and we will give you a 5.25 income tax rate. No other American gets to pay that low a tax rate. But the result was about a $104 billion giveaway. So I know where there is some revenue perhaps. I wish we had been quite as concerned about revenue back then when it was given to the largest companies in the country.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 9:45 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on Indian Housing. Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 224-2251.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Would the Senator from Rhode Island yield?

Mr. DORGAN. I was wondering if we could determine the timing for debate, and I was wondering who is arranging debate on this side of the aisle.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I could be added following the last Democratic speaker who was mentioned, I would appreciate it.