Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I, too, would like to speak on the line- item veto amendment. This body has made a lot of progress in being much more transparent in how we spend America's money. We can see, if we look back over the last couple of weeks, that America appreciates what we have tried to do to take these earmarks or these pet projects or designated spending, whatever we call it, and make it available for every American to see. We could tell from our e-mails and letters and the reports in the media that this was something which made Congress look as if we were genuinely trying to be much more open and honest about how we spend America's money. The amendment before us now, what we refer to as the line-item veto or line-item rescission, would actually make this whole process much more accountable. I was interested in hearing my colleague make his point that the President could take one good item and put it with a really bad item and send it over to us and force us to make a decision. But let's think about what the President's options are now. We can send thousands of earmarks over in a bill to the President, and he only has two choices-- to take it or leave it, to take the whole thing or veto the whole thing--and work that has been done here and in the House for months either has to be accepted in total or thrown out in total. That doesn't make any sense. I will use the exact argument my colleague did. We should not be able to package all this good with all this bad and try to force it down the President's throat without the ability to have the checks and balances, the discussions that are needed so the American people can see we have thoroughly vetted these ideas and we are spending their money wisely. This line-item rescission package I support because this Congress needs the interaction with the President and the working relationship that would be caused by this particular bill. It allows the President, no more than four times a year, to go through our spending bills and to send those things back which he thinks are not national priorities. This is not real complicated. He does not veto what we send him; he just gets a recommendation in the process. And since his agencies in the executive branch are charged with carrying this out and spending this money, the President needs to be engaged in the process in more than a take-it-or-leave-it type of relationship. So no more than four times a year, the President can put together those things which he thinks are not national priorities and send them to the Congress. And all this bill does is guarantee that they get a vote. If the President tries to use this against individual Members, I know this body well enough to know that we are not going to pass his request. Any President that tries to do that for political purposes will find his rescission package, or that his recommendations to Congress will be dispensed with very quickly. This is important not only for this President but for many Presidents in the future. We know as Senators and Congressmen that over the next several decades this country is going to be faced with incredible fiscal crises. We have no idea how we are going to pay for Medicare and Medicaid in the future or Social Security. It is going to become more important every year that we cut wasteful spending and that we work with the President and with the House to do everything we can to cut those things that are not necessary. In many bills--and we know it happens--many items, earmarks, are voted on for political reasons, and it is a good idea to allow the President to package those things and send them back to us so that we can vote on them and move them out if they are not national priorities. This is not dissimilar at all to the BRAC process we created to eliminate unnecessary military bases. We found that Congressmen and Senators were not going to vote on an individual basis to eliminate a base in one State because we knew that then the Congressmen or Senators could vote to eliminate one in our State. It was a political dilemma that caused us for years to leave bases open that should have been closed. It is the same with Federal programs and spending year after year. One project might be in my State and one in another Senator's State. None of us are willing to step up and eliminate projects one at a time. We cannot vote on them that way. This line-item rescission opportunity is for the President to take those things that we know are not national priorities, put them in a package, and send them back over for us to vote on. We should not lose this opportunity. We need the President working with the Congress to eliminate wasteful spending--not this year or next year but for decades to come. This may be our only opportunity in a long time to make it happen. We have made tremendous progress on identifying the problems with corruption, wasteful spending, identifying earmarks, and all this does is allow us to take it a step further and make sure we have the checks and balances from Congress and the executive branch to eliminate those things we know should not be in there and the President knows should not be in there.

Mr. DeMINT. Does the Senator yield?

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I will take a couple of moments to reexplain the amendment just in case we get to vote on it tonight or early in the morning. We just heard Senator Allard talk about the need for State flexibility because of the different costs of living, the different economies, the different situations. In the United States today, we have 29 States that have set a minimum wage higher than the Federal minimum wage. That action really reflects the cost of living in different parts of our country.

Mr. DeMINT. I understand we just have a few minutes. A few minutes ago, we thought we would be voting on one of the DeMint amendments, and we are still not sure if that is going to happen.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues here on the floor for allowing me to offer these amendments. I know the leadership on the other side is anxious to end debate on this bill and move on to other things, so I will keep any remarks as brief as possible. I would be happy to work with the managers of the bill, the Senators from Massachusetts and Wyoming, to work out additional time for debate if that is necessary. The minimum wage is a debate about fairness. Many Americans see a minimum wage as a fundamental right and something that should be increased to keep up with rising costs. Many economists see it differently. They understand it is only an entry wage and that with on- the-job training, most people do not stay at the minimum wage for very long. Economists also understand that very few people in America actually earn the minimum wage which is currently at $5.15 per hour. Those who do are mostly teenagers, part-time workers, second earners in a home, or workers with very limited skills. Nevertheless, this debate has become a measure of how much we care for workers, and that is what this debate should be about. If we are going to be serious about helping Americans earn higher wages and helping them keep more of what they earn, we must consider additional measures to ensure American prosperity. That is why I am offering these amendments today. They will not only ensure fairness for workers, they will also help protect small businesses that employ them. Americans realize that if we pass laws here in Washington that are aimed at helping workers but end up eliminating their jobs, we have done more harm than good. My first amendment, No. 158, would raise the effective minimum wage in each State by $2.10 per hour. Now, I know most people listening believe that is what this amendment does, but far from it. Without this amendment, the underlying legislation will partially exempt minimum wage workers in high-cost States that already have State minimum wage rates greater than $5.15 per hour, and it will completely exempt minimum wage workers in the highest cost States that have State minimum wage rates greater than $7.25. Many States--actually, 29 States--have already recognized that their cost of living is much higher than other States, and these States have passed their own minimum wage increases. So the cost of living all around the country is quite different. If you look at some high-cost cities and States, such as Boston, MA, for instance--35 percent higher cost of living than the national average--and contrast that with Alabama, Mobile, AL--it is minus 11 percent of the national average--you have a large swing in the cost of living. Effectively, what we have is while Massachusetts now has a minimum wage of $7.50 an hour, that does not do a worker as much good in Massachusetts as $5.15 does for a worker in Alabama; the cost of living is significantly different. As we look around the country, we see the highest cost States are Massachusetts and Connecticut and Vermont and New York. You can go over to Illinois at 17 percent. We get down in the Southern States, and we see minus 10 percent of the national average in Texas or minus 11 in Arkansas or minus 12 in Oklahoma. The States and the cost of living across our country are very different. Thankfully, a number of States-- 29 of them--have recognized that and raised their minimum wage. But if we are going to make a promise to American workers that we are going to raise their salary, particularly minimum wage workers, then I believe we should do it for all workers. We should look at how this underlying bill is really going to affect workers. The blue States here are States that get a small increase or less than 10 cents from this $2.10 we are talking about. A few minutes ago, the Senator from Washington State was giving a passionate plea that minimum wage workers get an increase, but Washington State minimum wage workers will get no increase from this bill. The same for Oregon and California. Our dear colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, is one of the most passionate advocates of increasing the minimum wage. Yet this bill we are going to pass today will not give one minimum wage worker in Massachusetts an increase. They get nothing. All of the blue States, the high-cost States where an increase is the most important--Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island--they get no increase. Illinois gets less than 10 cents from the $2.10 increase. So the blue States where workers really could use an additional increase, particularly minimum wage workers, get little or nothing. When we look at the white States, these are the States which don't get the whole $2.10 increase. The red States are the only States where the whole $2.10 increase will actually go to minimum wage workers. So in effect, we are making a lot of false promises here today. A lot of the debate, the most passionate debate, is coming from Senators who represent States which will get little or nothing from this minimum wage increase. I believe we should do what the States do and recognize that the cost of living is different. My amendment is very simple. It says: Let's make all of the States the same color. Let's make them red or blue. But every minimum wage worker in this country should get a $2.10 increase, and that is what my amendment would do. It would be fair to all workers. That first amendment was actually my first and second amendment. We have two versions of that, Nos. 158 and 159. My third amendment, No. 155, would expand access to affordable health care to millions of Americans. It would do three things. And we do need to keep in mind that one of the biggest costs for workers, particularly those working at the minimum wage level, is health care. Very few have health insurance. Many are part-time workers. This amendment would do three things: First, it would allow workers to purchase less expensive coverage anywhere in the country. It would also allow them to use the funds in their health savings accounts to pay for their health insurance policy, and it would allow them to roll over, or keep, $500 in unspent benefits in their flexible spending accounts. Many Federal employees now have flexible spending accounts, and they are starting to realize that even though it is their own money, the way this law is set up, if they don't spend it all, they lose what is left at the end of the year. This amendment would fix that. If Congress is serious about helping American workers, it must do something to address the rising costs of health care. By allowing Americans to purchase health coverage across State lines, they would gain access to less expensive health plans. My fourth amendment would pick up on part of the other amendment and focus specifically on flexible spending accounts, allowing workers to keep up the $500 that is unspent in those accounts at the end of the year so they do not have to spend it on something they do not need or actually lose it. Again, it is their money. We should not take it from them. My fifth amendment is tax deferment for high-growth small business companies. Most of the jobs in this country are actually created by small companies that are growing at a 10-percent rate or higher. We have identified--and this is something we have been working on for years--what is called a capital funding gap that prevents a lot of small businesses from getting the capital they need to continue their growth. Actually, if you go back to the 107th Congress, I worked on this when I was on the House side with Senator Kerry and Senator Snowe who introduced this same legislation to help small businesses keep some of their cash in order to grow their business. It simply allows them to defer Federal taxes if they are plowing it into the growth of their companies. This is very relevant to low-income workers because many low-income workers, even minimum wage workers, work for small businesses that are growing. This would help those companies grow by deferring taxes. They have to pay all this money back with interest, but it allows them to continue to grow, using their own cash flow. My sixth amendment, No. 159, is an important amendment for a lot of hourly workers who are union members. It prevents labor unions from using members' union dues to lobby Congress without prior separate and written consent of that member. Union dues, like taxes, are compulsory for union workers. This is the same amendment I offered to the lobby reform legislation, but since it was not given consideration, I am offering it again. This is not only an ethics and lobbying issue but a fairness issue for millions of union members in America. If they were not forced to pay for things they do not support, they could save a lot of money with lower union dues. My seventh amendment is updating the small business minimum wage exemption. The last time this exemption was raised, the minimum wage was $3.35. This simply allows small companies not to pay the minimum wage, particularly those offering other benefits--tips or health benefits--and gives an exemption. Right now, it is only $500,000 a year. We raise that to $1 million with this amendment, allowing the small businesses some flexibility in hiring teenagers and other workers at the trainee level. The last amendment, my eighth amendment, and the final amendment, repeals flextime benefits for Federal employees after 1 year if comparable benefits are not extended to private sector workers. A lot of people who are opposed to this flextime idea don't point out in the Senate that all Federal workers have this flextime benefit. Most will say it is truly a benefit. So it gets back to an issue of fairness. This amendment simply says if we do not apply this same benefit to all American workers in the private sector, we should not grant it to Federal workers. Americans are tired of us giving special benefits to Federal workers that are not offered in the private sector. In conclusion, I thank the managers of this bill, again, for allowing me to offer these amendments. I am happy to work out other items and debate them individually, if that is necessary. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside and that I be permitted to offer amendments Nos. 155 through 162, en bloc.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, before I engage in my business, I also would like to say to Senator Kerry that I, too, am honored to serve with you, and I appreciate the remarks that have been made about you today. Amendments Nos. 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, and 162, en bloc, to Amendment No. 100

Mr. DeMINT. Two minutes. Senator Allard has made a good case for the need for States to have flexibility to adapt the minimum wage to their particular State's cost of living. That is one option. The amendment I have is quite different. It recognizes that we do have very different costs of living, such as in Massachusetts, Boston is 35 percent above the national average cost of living. If you go south to Mobile, AL, it is 11 percent less than the average cost of living. So the current $5.15 minimum wage which is in Alabama actually has more buying power than the $7.50 minimum wage which is now in effect in Massachusetts. We are proposing that we be fair with this Federal minimum wage increase. The Senator from Massachusetts knows that, despite his passion for low-income workers and raising the minimum wage for workers, workers in 29 States will not get the full benefit. In fact, workers in Massachusetts will get no raise at all. Workers in Washington, Oregon, or California will get no raise, as will the minimum wage workers in Vermont or Connecticut or Rhode Island. All the States here in blue, the highest cost of living States in our country, will get either no increase or less than a 10-cent increase from this $2.10. The States in the white get some increase but, again, not the full increase. Really, most of the States that would get the full $2.10 increase are low-cost-of-living States around our country, again where the cost of living is more in tune with the $5.15 minimum wage. Frankly, I would like every worker to be making a lot more money, and there are a lot of other things we can do to make that happen. But if we are going to have a Federal minimum wage, let it reflect the cost of living in every State. Let's give every minimum wage worker in this country a raise when we pass this bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. We will talk until the next vote, how about that? What time is the next vote?

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, we are getting ready to vote on a couple of amendments. One is Senator Durbin's which I believe improves the underlying amendment, which is my amendment No. 11. I thank Senator Reid and Senator Durbin and a number of Members on the Democratic side who worked with us to perfect this amendment in a way that will be good for the country and will be much more transparent in how we do business. I have asked to be a cosponsor of Senator Durbin's amendment, which will come up before mine. I again encourage all my Republican and Democratic colleagues to support Senator Durbin's amendment, as well as the underlying amendment. I remind my colleagues, I think these two amendments focus on the most egregious problem with this whole idea of ethics and lobbying reform. It makes all of the earmarks, all of the designated spending-- some folks refer to this as specific favors for interest groups-- everything we do to designate funds in a particular direction, it just requires us to disclose these, to disclose them in a way that the American people can see, can find them on the Internet, and can determine for themselves if this is a good way to spend their taxpayers' dollars. We believe, as I think the American people do, that if it is clear what we are doing while we are doing it and who is doing it, it will, first of all, limit unnecessary earmarks and unnecessary Federal spending, but it will also create a lot more accountability for this designated spending which we do attach to bills. I thank my Democratic colleagues for working constructively with us. We made progress and created a better bill. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote for both of the amendments tonight. I yield the floor. limited tax benefits

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I would like to make a few comments about a couple of amendments on which we are getting ready to vote. One is mine, and one is an amendment to my amendment by Senator Durbin.

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

Mr. DeMINT. Yes. I ask unanimous consent to speak. I apologize, Mr. President. I am getting ahead of myself today. I thank the Parliamentarian. Am I free to speak at this point?

Mr. DeMINT. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. The Durbin amendment is a product of a bipartisan agreement that I reached last week with the majority leader and the Senator from Illinois. The Durbin amendment contains bipartisan language that would require disclosure for all earmarks, including those directed toward Federal projects and those contained in report language. It also strengthens Internet disclosure so that bills shall not be in order unless their reports include a list of earmarks, limited tax benefits, and limited tariff benefits, which are posted on the Internet in a searchable format at least 48 hours before consideration. In addition, it is our understanding that if a spending bill is reported long before its consideration, the list of earmarks will accompany any committee reports for those bills. The Durbin amendment slightly modifies the definition of a limited tax benefit to ``any revenue provision'' that provides a benefit to ``a particular beneficiary or limited group of beneficiaries.'' This is similar to the definition used in the legislative line-item veto amendment. I thank the majority leader and the Senator from Illinois for working with me on this important issue. The purpose of the bill before us is to address the culture of corruption in Washington, and it cannot be a serious proposal unless we are completely transparent with the way we spend American tax dollars. This bipartisan agreement helps achieve that goal. We will be voting today at 5:30 on the Durbin amendment and I encourage all of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to support it. Following that vote, we will vote on my amendment as modified by the Durbin amendment. I encourage my colleagues to support it as well. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 70

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I want to speak in favor of the Durbin amendment No. 44, which is a slightly modified version of my amendment No. 11 that was endorsed by a majority of Senators last Thursday on a 51-to-46 vote. I ask unanimous consent that my name be added as a cosponsor of amendment No. 44 offered by the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Senator. I welcome any input into this amendment. We have adopted the exact language that Speaker Pelosi insisted on just for the definition of ``earmarks.'' The most important part to remember is, in the Senate bill, no matter what we do with transparency, it only applies to 5 percent of the earmarks. It doesn't apply to Federal earmarks, the type of earmarks that got Duke Cunningham in trouble. Those need to be disclosed. It doesn't apply to report language in conference reports which include 95 percent of all the earmarks we do. So there is no way for the media or the public to look in on what we do, regardless of how we try to do transparency on that 5 percent and say that we are doing anything to make this place more transparent. That is the main difference. We can get into the tax provisions. We used the definition the House did, but we do include tax-based earmarks or tariff-based earmarks. Again, in conference, we have the opportunity to work together and change it. But if we defeat this bill with misinformation right now and it doesn't go to conference as part of the mix, the public is going to know from day one that this idea of being open and transparent is just a scam. If we are going to do it, let's do it to all the earmarks, and then let's discuss what the best way is to do it.

Mr. DeMINT. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT. The Senator has it right. We are not saying whether earmarks are good or bad. We are not saying that we have some and not others. All we are saying is that earmarks are designated spending. Whether it be Federal, non-Federal, or report language, it should be disclosed in the same way. This chart shows the number of earmarks in the 2006 budget of 12,852. The Senate bill would apply to only 534 of those. So if we are going to have disclosure of earmarks--and that is up to the Senate to decide--if we are going to say we are going to have disclosure, I think we need to include the 12,318 that we don't want to tell people about. People will not believe we are transparent. I think that is what both sides of the aisle want. That is the only thing this amendment does; it doesn't limit earmarks. It doesn't change anything except it defines them in a way that is open and honest.

Mr. DeMINT. I yield.

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I see that the majority leader was discussing this bill. While I have a number of Members sitting here, if I could respond to the majority leader. I very much appreciate his consideration. I appreciate what happened today. We had a good debate. Some of you listened. We had a good vote on the motion to table, and we won that vote. As any of you know, if you have ever been through the process of trying to get an amendment up and trying to develop the support you need, to win a vote like that, it is a good day in the Senate. I am afraid it is starting to feel a little like the House. I remember when I was in the House when the Medicare bill would not pass, the Medicare Part D, and we kept the vote open for 3 hours twisting arms, changing minds until the Republicans got what they wanted. I had hoped the Senate would be different. Our rules are different. We can't hold the vote open that long. But by using tabling and then bringing it back up, as we are doing now, we are doing exactly the same thing. I will take exception to the House and Nancy Pelosi not taking the time to work this through. I think anyone who looks at the language will see that the Senate version only deals with 5 out of 100, 5 percent of the earmarks that we pass. We have a chart from last year, when there were 12,800 earmarks. Under the Senate provision, only about 500 would be included. The public is not going to believe that we are disclosing earmarks. So if we are going to disclose earmarks, let's disclose them all. The House did have the good sense, after seeing what that did to the ethical appearance of the House, when the Medicare bill was held open for 3 hours until the majority got what it wanted, to have in their ethics rules that you cannot--I will just read the rule. It says: Clause 2(a) of rule 20 is amended by inserting after the second sentence the following sentence: A record vote by electronic device shall not be held open for the sole purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote. They know what that does to the appearance and the culture of the House. We didn't hold the vote open, but it has been less time than was held open for that Medicare vote, and we are back here revoting something after some arms have been twisted. If that is the culture we want in the Senate, I think we should stop saying that we have a higher culture than the House. I believe Speaker Pelosi is sincere in wanting to disclose what we are doing so the American people will know how we are spending their money. This is not a careless amendment. It is something that has been done with a lot of thought. We won this vote fair and square. It is going to happen to all of you. If this is how you want fellow Members treated, if any amendment we offer can be tabled and if you win your amendment, the majority can go off and twist some arms and change some minds and we can have another vote, if that is how we are going to do business, then I think it is time the American people know it, and we might as well set this whole ethics bill aside because it is all pretense anyway. I appreciate the opportunity to have a few people sitting here listening, but I can assure you that this amendment will improve this bill, and it will improve the perception of this Senate if we pass it. I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. DeMINT. I object.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.