Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

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

Mr. DeMINT. We have done this before. We did it with spinach a while back. It is not unusual for us to disallow the use of funds for things not in our bill. It is important we do it as a Senate; otherwise, it will end up in the final bill.

Mr. DeMINT. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DeMINT. My amendment strips this out. Some have said it is not in the Senate bill, so we don't need to do it. We do that all the time; we disallow the use of funds for particular reasons because that is not what a bill is intended for. Some have said we name things after Senators all the time. But it has only been after they have retired that we have done that. We do it for judges after they retire. We have to stop this insidious problem of becoming a favor factory where we are giving away taxpayer money for things we are not supposed to do, despite how worthy they might be. Please support my amendment to strike this egregious provision.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for another 30 seconds since no one else is speaking.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I have been in the Senate about 3 years, and I have become increasingly concerned that many of my colleagues and good friends, whom I deeply respect, now believe it is our purpose here in the Senate to take tax dollars from the American people and then give them to our favorite causes back in our States. There are many wonderful causes back in South Carolina. I could spend a whole national treasury on them if I could get my hands on it, but that is not what I am here for. Americans expect us to work for the good of the country, of everyone and our future as a whole, not to create slush funds for ourselves and give them to our favorite causes back home. My amendment addresses a particular cause, and my purpose is not to embarrass a Member of Congress but to point out that it is particularly egregious if we, as Members of Congress, take taxpayer money and give it to some project that has been named after us, and in this case Mr. Rangel has gotten $1 million or $2 million.

Mr. DeMINT

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

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, this is another simple amendment designed to get more accountability in Federal agencies. The Government Accountability Office recently published a report that has been in the media all over the country, pointing out that millions of taxpayer dollars are being wasted as employees of the Federal Government are flying all over the world in premium business class or first class, when the rules of these agencies specifically say that should not be done. My amendment does not change any rules of the Federal agencies; it says the rules have to be complied with or the money that is in this bill cannot be used. I will read this amendment as well: None of the funds made available under this Act may be used to purchase first class or premium airline travel that would not be consistent [with the number of sections that are listed] of the Code of Federal Regulations. Again, we are not changing any regulation. We are demanding that the Federal agencies comply with their own rules and save the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I actually have two amendments this morning. I will speak briefly on both of them. I believe both sides have agreed these are good ideas, and I believe one will be accepted, and the other we are going to have a vote at 12, as I understand it. But the first amendment relates to earmarking and the wasteful earmarks we have talked about often on the Senate floor. Much has been done to make earmarks more transparent, to have more earmarks disclosed. I think as we do that, we are probably getting a better focus as a Federal Government of how we should be spending our money. But old habits die very hard. It has been very difficult for a number of Members of the House and the Senate to give up this practice of being able to send money wherever they want back in their own State or anywhere in the country. As we have made it harder to do earmarks in the open, we have found that a number of Members of Congress or their staffs have been calling agencies to request that earmarks be done without Congress's approval at all. This type of ``phone marking'' has created a new loophole. This amendment we are offering would disallow any use of funds for that type of earmarking. If I can read the amendment it is very simple. Again, I believe both sides agree on it. It says: None of the funds made available under this Act may be used to circumvent any statutory or administrative formula-driven competitive awarding process to award funds to a project in response to a request from a Member of Congress (or any employee of a Member or committee of Congress), unless the specific project has been disclosed in accordance with the rules of the Senate or House of Representatives, as applicable. That is all there is to this amendment, is to disallow this whole idea of picking up the phone and deciding where taxpayer money should go. I understand the other side is prepared to accept or have a voice vote on this amendment.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I neglected to add a cosponsor of this amendment. Senator McCaskill would like to be our lead cosponsor on this amendment. I appreciate her support as well as the chairman's.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 3289.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 3286.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for leading the national dialog on health care. I think Americans expect us to address this issue and not just fight about it, as the Senator from Texas has said. This national discussion is bringing us to some agreement, at least. I think all of us have decided in Congress--or at least most of us-- that every American should have access to a health insurance policy they can afford and own and keep. Where we disagree is how we get to that point. I think the disagreement in this body goes to how we do that. Do we do it more like Canada did, where we say, OK, everybody needs to have insurance, so let's let the Government take it over; let's have Government-run health care? Some are saying the Canadian system works fine, until you talk to doctors and patients from Canada and find out that every year the waiting lines get longer, every year the program gets more expensive, and every year the health care is of less quality. So now the people in Canada who have the means come to the United States to get health care. The reason we have had such good health care in the United States for most of our history is that it has been done by private doctors working with patients, hospitals that are independent of Government; our free enterprise system has worked to a great degree. Government programs, such as Medicare and the program we are talking about today, such as the children's health plan, have helped those in need to buy health insurance and have access to health care. But for the most part, Americans have resisted Government-run health care. We do know in the early nineties there was an attempt to move totally to Government health care. When that failed, we were able to see that the advocates of Government-run health care believed the best way to get to Government health care was to do it one step at a time with the children first because it is very hard to vote against expanding health care for children. Certainly, all children should have health care. They should have health insurance. But the fact is, every American should have health insurance, and it is not good enough just to expand a Government program from covering poor kids to covering middle-class kids. We do not need to mistake the fact that this is moving us toward Government health care. If my Democratic colleagues get their way on this children's health bill, over 70 percent of the children in this country are going to have Government health care. What happens to them once they become adults we have not discussed. We need to help every American own a health insurance policy. What Republicans want to do is continue this children's health plan, to add additional funding to cover inflation and additional children. We have some good proposals. One of them, by Senator Martinez, would continue the program as it is but also offer tax credits to children and families who are 200 and 300 percent of poverty so they can buy their own insurance, believing that the best thing we can do for families in this country is to help them have insurance they can afford, own, and keep. There are other Republican proposals that we will be talking about that include tax credits for every family who buys their own insurance. It would also allow employers to give money to individuals to help buy their insurance. We do not do that now. Employers are not allowed to contribute to an individual's health plan. We also have proposals that would allow individuals to shop for health insurance all over the country. A lot of folks don't know that we don't allow that now. You can only shop in your own State. There is a proposal that would allow people who put tax-free money in a health savings account to use that money to buy their own health insurance plan. It is pretty amazing that as a Congress, we will not allow people to use their own health savings account to pay for health insurance premiums. And there are proposals to allow small businesses to come together to buy health insurance that is less expensive than when they buy it individually. There is a lot we can do as a Congress that does not cost taxpayers any money but would make it easier for individuals to have health insurance they can afford, own, and keep. I hope this debate will continue to open this issue in a way that Americans can really understand. The goal is that everyone has affordable health insurance, good health insurance. The goal is not to turn more and more of our health care and health insurance over to the Government because we know that won't work, we know it is not efficient, and we know the children we are trying to help are eventually going to have to pay the debt we put on their heads by paying for something we cannot afford. The fact is, we can get better health insurance, better health care for less money, if we do it with private health insurance just by helping individuals buy health insurance they can afford, own, and keep. We started the national discussion on health care. I hope as we look at this debate, specifically children's health care, that we will see it as part of a larger issue and decide today that it is not good enough just to get a few more children insured. Every American needs a health insurance policy, and we can do it, first of all, by taking down the barriers that Congress has put in front of individuals when they are trying to buy their own insurance, but we can also look at those in need. Whether it is tax credits or tax deductions, we can help every American have a health insurance policy they can afford, that they can keep from job to job and throughout their life. We can have better health care, and it is better for our future. I thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to speak. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I am encouraged that the Senate is taking up the whole issue of health care in America. We know this is one of the most important issues to the American people. We know a number of Americans don't have access to health care, and it is very important that we debate this as a Senate, not just children but the American goal of how do we get every American insured. How do we make sure every American has access to good health care throughout their life and their children do as well? We can agree on that goal. It is not just about children, it is about health care in America and figuring out as a Congress how do we make sure every American has access to good health care. The question today and the question we need to continue to debate is: Do we want the Government to provide that health care or do we want to figure out how to make sure that individuals have access to a health insurance policy that they can own and keep? Because we know the best and most efficient delivery of health care is going to come through individually owned policies that people don't lose when they change jobs, they don't lose when they retire. I hope our focus will turn from Government health care to helping individuals have a policy that they own and can keep. We should all question, do we want the Government that ran the Katrina cleanup or runs the Post Office or spends $1,000 for a hammer at the Pentagon and wastes billions, literally hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse every year, do we want that Government to take care of our children, to take care of our seniors, and to run the health care system today? We are talking about health insurance for children. A number of people are saying individuals cannot afford to buy it. Before we consider that, we need to realize this Congress has made it very hard, if not virtually impossible, for individual Americans to have a health insurance policy they can own and keep. We need to be reminded that this Congress has created a Tax Code that gives tax breaks to businesses who provide health insurance but not to individuals who want to buy it. That means the cost of individual insurance is higher and many times unaffordable. We have proposed in Congress--unfortunately, my Democratic colleagues have fought back--to allow small businesses to come together and pool their resources so they can buy health insurance and make it available to their employees when they cannot afford it as individual companies. But this Senate killed that idea. It would have made it more affordable for individuals. Yet we complain about the uninsured. We know a number of States have added so many mandates onto their insurance policies, it is too expensive for citizens to buy it. Yet this Congress will not allow Americans to buy health insurance anywhere they want in the country. We have allowed individual States to create monopolies, where someone in South Carolina can't buy a policy from New Mexico unless it is certified in South Carolina. We know we could create a national market and make individual policies much less expensive, but this Congress would not do it. The fact is, this Congress has made individual health insurance unaffordable and unaccessible to Americans and now, today, we are going to ride in on our white horse and save the day with Government health insurance. Children should have health insurance. This whole plan of children's health insurance started for poor children whose families make too much for Medicaid but were still under 200 percent of poverty. Today we are proposing not just to reauthorize and continue this program for poor children but to raise it so children and families with incomes up to $82,000 are going to get free Government health care. When this plan is fully implemented, about 75 percent of the children who live in America today will be on Government health insurance, which means we as a Congress have made a decision that we want America to have Government health plans and not to have individual plans they can own and keep. Because if 75 percent of the children are on Government plans and our seniors are on Government plans and many of our military are on Government plans, there is no more room for private market health insurance policies to work. In effect, what we are doing is deciding today that we want national health care in America when we vote for this. I have heard this bill talked about as a compromise and that we can split the difference. But colleagues, you can't split the difference between freedom and socialism. You can't split the difference between Government health care and individuals owning their own health plans. We are talking about something that doesn't exist. What we have split the difference between is spending $80 or $90 billion more than we need for poor children, and we have brought that down a little bit. We have funded it with some bogus funding, and we think we are doing something to help America. This bill is not for children. This bill is selling out the future for every child in America because we are turning this country into a socialistic style of government, taking away people's freedom. We are here, once again, pretending we are doing something we are not. We are not taking care of children. We are selling their freedom away under the pretense of children. We have learned in this body that all we have to do is do it for the children and come down and say it applies to children, and we dare anyone to vote against it. I am going to vote against it because this is not for our children, and it is not for our country. We are selling out our future. If we would focus ourselves on helping individuals access private policies, we could get every American insured. If we made our Tax Code fair for everyone, if we allowed States to partner with us, we could have every American with a health insurance policy without the Government running this. We should not even pretend we expect this Government to run the health care system in an efficient way. Colleagues, I appreciate the debate on health care. We need to have it. We need to have an American goal that every citizen is going to have access to good health care and health insurance. This is not the way to do it. This is a decision to become more like socialized Europe, to sell out our freedoms, and to give Government control of our health care. I encourage all of my colleagues to rethink this decision to vote for this bill, and to vote against it. I yield back.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I would like to suggest that one of the reasons New Orleans was not prepared for Katrina is we have so many problems with our infrastructure in the way we politically meddle with the priorities of States, particularly with the Corps of Engineers that has a backlog of billions of dollars over many years. We refuse to clear out those backlogs so the Corps can focus on that which needs to be done, such as the levees in New Orleans. Instead, year after year, we add one earmark after another, until the Corps has no focus at all on what they are doing, and we are trying to direct from Washington what our water projects should be. The fact that we have plussed this bill up from $14 billion to over $23 billion, a 66-percent increase since this bill left the Senate floor, says we have to have some shame. We have to have some honor in this body. If we are going to do this, let's do it in a way that we all said we would, and that is to bring these to the floor so we can debate and vote on them instead of adding them in and trying to slip them by in a conference bill. I am very disappointed in this body, particularly after all the grand debate about ethics reform, the disclosure of earmarks, the fact that none would be added in secret. Over the last few weeks, we have pretty much backtracked on everything we have talked about, to the point where even liberal publications across the country are talking about the pork we are producing in the Senate. Instead of doing the Nation's business and delegating authority to States, we are in effect weakening our ability to have a national infrastructure that is safe and works for all Americans. I am very disappointed not only that this has been done but that a Member of the Senate is not even allowed to raise a point of order against the fact that it has been done. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my colleague. I would like to confirm what she has said. I take no issue with the authority of the Senate to designate spending, particularly in authorization bills. While this practice has certainly been abused, particularly in our appropriations bills over the years, my point today is not to suggest that our committee and the floor of the Senate do not have the right to authorize money for particular projects, but I believe, as Senator McCaskill has said and made clear, that in the debate on the Senate floor, it seemed we unanimously agreed these projects should be brought to the floor of the Senate and that if someone wanted to question them, we could have those amendments, and we could ultimately vote on the whole package. But it seemed clear we all agreed that new earmarks should not be added in conference and then for that conference bill to come back without any chance of amending it. That is not the type of business we talked about in the whole ethics debate. So my issue is not with our ability to earmark or even the practice of authorization bills designating spending but that they are added in conference when we all agreed that if it was not added in either the Senate or the House bill, it could not be added in conference. For that reason, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to raise a point of order under rule XLIV.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I rise to express my concerns and disappointment about a number of provisions that have been added to this bill, the Water Resources Development Act, the bill we refer to as WRDA, that were not part of the bill we passed in the Senate or not part of the bill that was passed in the House. These provisions are earmarks because they direct spending directly at the request of a Member to a specific entity in their home State or district. Unfortunately, these earmarks were not passed by either body in an open or transparent way. Instead, they were added behind closed doors in the dark of night, as we sometimes say here. As a result, these earmarks cannot easily be debated, amended, or removed from the bill. I am very disappointed these provisions were added in secret. That is not how we should do things here, and it is a direct violation of a stated goal of the ethics bill that was recently passed and signed by the President 10 days ago. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle came down to the floor one by one and praised the new ethics bill because they said it would stop earmarks from being added in the dark of night. I questioned the effectiveness of these provisions at that time because they had been watered down behind closed doors. Yet my colleagues on the other side said it was the most sweeping ethics reform in decades. They said there would be no more secret earmarks added to our bills in conference. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, this WRDA conference report contains numerous earmarks that were not part of either the House or the Senate bill. Unfortunately, anytime we talk about earmarks, it seems very personal because it usually has a Member's name on it, so I will start with South Carolina because one of the earmarks added in conference was for South Carolina. Obviously, I would like to do everything I can to help my own State, but this was not the time or the way to do it. There are a number of items for $10 million, $11 million, but, unfortunately, there is one item in here for $1.8 billion. That earmark alone is more than 10 percent of the total cost of the original bill. This was added in conference. It was not debated or voted on. Now it is coming back and it is unamendable. All of these projects that were added have added to the cost of this bill, and actually the cost has exploded. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the projects contained in this bill totalled some $14 billion when it left the Senate, but then it was taken to conference. Behind closed doors, amounts were raised, new projects were added, reforms were dropped, and the bill now costs $23.2 billion. That is right. The price of this bill has increased 66 percent since it left the floor of the Senate. I know my colleagues, the Senator from California and the Senator from Oklahoma, have worked very hard on this bill, and I believe there are some good things in it. I was very pleased to work with the Senator from California on some reforms that will help us deauthorize projects that have not been funded in 5 years or more and are currently inactive. As my colleagues know, the long list of backlogged projects makes it very difficult for the Corps of Engineers to focus on real priorities. I am looking forward to working with the Senator from California to get a good list of the inactive projects from the administration so the committee can deauthorize them in the next WRDA bill. The Senator has told me she will deauthorize these projects, but if for some reason we are not able to get that done, this bill provides an automatic mechanism to deauthorize by the end of the fiscal year, following the fiscal year in which the projects appear on the inactive list. This reform is more important than ever because the bill we are passing now or bringing back up now increases the backlog of projects from $58 billion to approximately $80 billion. So while this bill takes one step forward, unfortunately, it takes two steps back. The pricetag of this bill is too high, and it violates an important principle we need to honor. It includes new provisions that were not in the bills we passed, and that has to stop. That is why I offered an amendment, along with Senator Ensign and Senator McCain, to the ethics bill earlier this year that would clarify that earmarks added in conference were subject to rule XXVIII of the standing rules of the Senate, which prohibits what we call out-of-scope matter from being added to our bills in conference and which can only be waived by 67 votes. Further, the amendment we offered would have created a 60-vote point of order against earmarks added in conference. If this point of order was sustained, the provisions would be taken out of the bill. Even the liberal Los Angeles Times editorial board this weekend made their support for such a rule known. In a weekend editorial entitled ``The Value of Congressional Pork,'' the L.A. Times said such a rule was a worthy proposal that would make it harder for lawmakers to insert last-minute goodies during reconciliation of Senate and House bills. This is just plain good Government. Unfortunately, the clarification to rule XXVIII was eliminated from the final bill, even though it was unanimously accepted here on the floor in January. Even worse, the majority leader is now saying the 60- vote point of order against what we call airdropped earmarks should only apply to appropriations bills. This is very disappointing. There is absolutely no reason why we should restrict authorization earmarks. They can be as wasteful, as misguided and, I am afraid, as corrupting as appropriations earmarks. Authorization earmarks can be traded for bribes as easily as appropriations earmarks. After checking with the Senate Parliamentarian, I understand there is some confusion over the definition of earmarks for this particular rule. The rule says it applies to provisions that provide a level of funding to a specific project. What could be clearer? All the projects I read about earlier fit that definition, regardless of whether they are appropriations or authorizations. If people want to parse these terms and say authorizations are not actual funding, then I am afraid we are not being completely honest. We all know how the Corps of Engineers works. We pass WRDA bills that tell the Corps what projects to do, and then their annual appropriations bills provide money to complete these projects. But without an authorization in WRDA, the projects will not go forward. Authorizations are important, and we should be as open and as transparent about them as we are for appropriations. I intended to raise a point of order today against these new provisions under rule XLIV which was part of the ethics bill, but I understand the unanimous consent agreement we are operating under prohibits me from doing so. In a minute I am going to ask for unanimous consent to be allowed to make this point of order against the provision, and if I am allowed to do that and the Chair rules that the point of order is acceptable under the rule, then, of course, I would urge my colleagues to sustain this point of order so we can take these provisions out. But before I do this, I would like to ask how much time I have remaining of my 20 minutes.

Mr. DeMINT. I would like to reserve the remainder of my time but yield 5 minutes to my colleague, Senator McCaskill.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Could we hold for a moment to discuss this?

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I think I needed to ask for the yeas and nays, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT. I appreciate the debate. I think it is important to have. Davis-Bacon does not make sites safer. It does not have anything to do with skilled workers. What it does is forces particularly small companies to revamp how they bid projects, to change how they pay their people. The cost of that administration as well as waiting for the Federal Government--you can't just go to the Internet. The Federal Government is going to have to approve what the prevailing wage is. It has been deemed not functional, what is taking place. What we are talking about is not a suspension of Davis-Bacon forever, but a recognition in the next years we want a lot more dollars to be applied to bridge maintenance, and by waiving Davis-Bacon for 1 year our dollars will go further and the work will be done quicker. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. DeMINT. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to speak on my amendment. I do have an amendment to the Transportation bill that I would like to talk about for a few minutes this morning. I have listened to a lot of the debate this week. Obviously, transportation is a key issue for this country, and it has become clear that because of the tragedy in Minnesota, many of us are concerned about bridges and those that are deficient. We have talked a lot about how to fund those, and I am afraid, as Congress often does, we ignore a serious problem until it is too late, and then we decide we want to throw a lot of money at it and we come riding in on white horses to fix the problem. I think we do need to look at the problem and what we can do at the Federal level, and I have an amendment that I think will make the dollars we spend go a lot further that I would like to present to Members this morning. But, first, I think we need to review a little of the situation we are in. I think we have all heard in the debate that America has many bridges we have deemed structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. My amendment addresses these particular bridges. There are over 150,000 bridges in the country today--or over 20 percent of our total bridges-- that fall under the classification of structurally deficient and functionally obsolete. Every day in this country, right now, people are going to work and filling up their gas tanks. Over 18 cents of every gallon they put in their tanks is a Federal tax that comes to us. That tax was actually started many years ago when we wanted to build the Interstate Highway System in this country. It started at a much lower level. I think most of us know the Interstate Highway System is basically complete. Yet we have continued to take that tax and raise it over the years. So what we are doing is taking money from the States and bringing it to Washington. The problem is that very little of that actually gets back for the maintenance of bridges in our States. To start off with, a lot of States, the majority of States in this country, don't get back what they send. We call them donor States. South Carolina is one of the donor States. We will send our tax to Washington and, for years, we have gotten back less than 90 cents on a dollar. This clearly hurts our State. But what does come back comes back with a lot of red tape and regulations that prevent the dollars from going as far as they could. What has happened in South Carolina and many other States is that in order to get those Federal dollars back, we have had to match them with our State dollars. For years, we have taken money out of our maintenance funds for roads and bridges and used it to match the Federal dollars. But the Federal dollars have to be used in particular ways that are not necessarily for the maintenance of roads and bridges. Even more important are all of the earmarks we put in the Transportation bill, earmarks for bridges to nowhere or a Big Dig in Boston, and these earmarks usually have to be matched at a higher level to get those dollars, and they have to then be used in the way the earmark prescribes. We have looked through a lot of past bills and found very few earmarks that are to maintain and improve bridges. They are for new projects and things on which we can do press releases. But the bottom line is this: Less than 40 cents on a dollar that we send to Washington actually ends up helping to maintain roads and bridges. That is a problem. Now, there are a lot of things we can do, and I have identified one I would like us to focus on today. It is the old law called the Davis- Bacon provision. It actually started during the Depression, when many companies were hungry to get business, and so they sharpened their pencils and gave lower bids to cities, and the larger companies didn't like that. So they created the Davis-Bacon law, which actually allows the Federal Government to set the wages of companies when they are doing Federal work. What happens in most parts of the country, such as South Carolina, when a small company--perhaps a minority-owned company--may be trying to compete with a large company, they will come in with a lower bid, but then they have to allow the Federal Government to set the wages. We call it prevailing wages, but it may not be the prevailing wage in South Carolina. The American Association of Builders and Contractors has estimated that the Davis-Bacon provision raises the cost of construction from 5 percent to 38 percent. Just think of that. Think of that money and how it could be multiplied if that provision was not part of the equation for maintaining and getting these obsolete and structurally deficient bridges in better order. That is what this amendment is about. It is not an unprecedented idea. President Bush realized during Katrina that we had to do a lot of work and get a lot of firms in action--small firms. All these firms have already worked out the salaries with their employees. Some may be revenue sharing and not related to salary. But as long as Davis-Bacon is in order, those firms have to wait for the Federal Government to tell them what to pay their employees so they can then bid a job. It slows the whole process. So during Katrina, the President waived it, and during Hurricane Andrew, after that we waived the Davis-Bacon provision so that the money could go further and the rebuilding could take place quicker. My amendment is very simple in that it focuses particularly on bridges that have already been designated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. For 1 year only, we waive this Davis-Bacon provision so that the States and municipalities around this country can take the Federal money that is provided and make it go further to fix these bridges--to build new ones in some cases--and to allow them to move quicker and not wait for some Federal bureaucrat to tell them what to pay their employees in order to get a job from the city. Anyone in business, particularly in the construction-related business, knows that it sometimes is feast or famine; you either have too much work or you don't have any. Many times, a municipal government or State government can get a lot lower bid and get work done much quicker if they are allowed to take those low bids. Unfortunately, the way we have it set up with Davis-Bacon, we force such a bureaucracy, we force these particular salaries on these companies that may have different arrangements with their employees, and it slows the whole process. Just think--we are talking about a 38-percent increase in cost, in some cases, just because of Davis-Bacon. So I would encourage my colleagues to consider this amendment. We are not talking about getting rid of Davis-Bacon forever, although I think that is something we should perhaps consider. But this is just a 1-year waiving of Davis-Bacon specifically for the repair and maintenance of structurally deficient and functionally obsolete bridges. If we do this, I think the public will get a lot more for their tax dollars, we will get this work done a lot quicker, and it makes a whole lot more sense than raising the Federal gas tax. That is kind of the way Congress does things--we have a problem, so let's just raise taxes and spend more money. In this case, we have about $4 for every $10 we spend that doesn't go to what we say it does. If we can do a few things, like waive Davis-Bacon, the money we take from the public can go a whole lot further. I encourage Members to vote for this amendment this morning. I hope the majority will not table it, because we have seen in Katrina and other tragedies that our money goes a lot further, the work gets done faster, and our goals as a Congress are met a lot sooner. Mr. President, I thank the chairwoman for the time, and I yield the floor.