Mark Dayton

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. I thank my colleague. I think we are in a position where we can come to an agreement on that. I am not sure many of our colleagues would agree, but the Senator is right. In fact, I read over the weekend that the women's semifinal basketball games outdrew the men's in the national televised audience. That is not to say anything disparaging about the men because they had an outstanding tournament as well. It shows the popularity of the sport among all Americans. Certainly, the skill level to which it is played is something that anybody, even a couch potato like this Senator, can enjoy. The Senator is right, also, that the President has been extremely gracious in hosting these teams. I think he recognizes how much of a thrill it is for the teams that have dedicated themselves all year to this level of national proficiency to be able to be recognized by the President of the United States; it is a great achievement for all of them. I look forward to the President's invitation. He has been very gracious in the past, and I look forward to joining my friend, the Senator from Connecticut. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Minnesota, the Presiding Officer, for a letter I just signed with him to the employees of Northwest Airlines and also the steel companies in northeastern Minnesota on his initiative. This letter indicates both of us support the pension conference report which, fortunately, is going to be voted upon tomorrow in the Senate. I thank the Senator for his initiative on that, his calls imploring me to do what is in the best interest of important companies in Minnesota and the thousands of employees whose pensions depend upon those companies. I concur with my colleague and appreciate his giving me the opportunity to send that joint communication out to the thousands of Minnesotans for whom we will be acting tomorrow, in a bipartisan way, to protect for the future.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. If the Senator will yield, I thank the Senator for the update on the overtime situation. I look forward to improved provisions from the Secretary of Labor. I thank the Senator also for his involvement and support to extend unemployment benefits. I know people in his State of Ohio, my State of Minnesota, and many States desperately need that. So I thank him.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I will take my time after the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I am troubled by some of the comments made earlier as we debated whether to continue with this bill before us. In particular, one of the leaders on the other side of the aisle is quoted in today's paper as saying--this a direct quote--``Why put our Members through the whole litany of Democratic political votes for no discernible gain?'' I am amazed at the implication these amendments we in the Democratic caucus are trying in vain to have voted upon by the Senate are political votes. I am even more astonished it could be said they are for no discernible gain. For whose gain are we talking? Not, perhaps, for Republican Members of the Senate. But that is not the purpose of our amendments. These are amendments to benefit the American people. We are talking about extending unemployment benefits for the over 1.1 million Americans who have exhausted those benefits since December of last year. The Children's Defense Fund, originators of the No Child Left Behind concept, are committed to seeing it carried out and have estimated 622,000 American children live in families whose parents have exhausted their unemployment benefits. They estimate each of those families loses an average of $1,100 a month in income when their unemployment benefits run out. It drives over a third of them below the poverty level. Over two-thirds of those families lose their health care coverage. No discernible gain from a vote on extending unemployment benefits? Perhaps not to the Republican caucus. But it would surely make a huge difference to 1.1 million American adults and their 622,000 children. No discernible gain to a vote on protecting overtime pay for some 8 million Americans who stand to lose those benefits through the unilateral action of the Secretary of Labor? These are not idle political gestures. These are real decisions affecting the lives of millions of Americans. It may be inconvenient for some Members to vote on them, but that is our responsibility in this body. Education Funding As another illustration of how these votes and these decisions really do affect people's lives, about a month ago we were holding rollcall votes regarding the budget resolution for the next fiscal year, and just about that same time the Secretary of Education was in my State of Minnesota, where he met with educators and with State officials, and with, evidently, some of the Members of the Minnesota congressional delegation on the other side of the aisle--I was not invited to either of those meetings, which seemed a shame since they were being billed as nonpolitical meetings, but, nevertheless, they did occur--and at that meeting--again, I was not invited, so I was not there--according to the reports of those who attended, the Secretary assured these Minnesota educators that No Child Left Behind is adequately funded. Well, there had been rumors that there were going to be cutbacks affecting Minnesota in the title I program, which is the major source of funds under the so-called No Child Left Behind. So the Minnesota educators were temporarily relieved by that, until just a few weeks later--scarcely a month later, in fact--when the actual title I allocations for the next fiscal year, 2005, became known. Lo and behold, Minnesota will experience a reduction of over $2.5 million. Only two States in the Nation are going to experience cuts in title I funding from the year 2004 to the next year, 2005: Massachusetts and Minnesota. Now, I am not running for President or anything else, for that matter, this year, so I am shocked that Minnesota would be paired with Massachusetts as being the only two States to be cut back in title I dollars at the same time we are experiencing an increase in the children who are eligible for title I funding. As that reduction gets spread across our school districts, some of the consequences are very severe. Quite a number of districts will be taken off of title I funding whatsoever. They will not be able to serve any of the children in those school districts who are eligible, individually, for title I. One of the school districts, Anoka-Hennepin, is going to experience a 40-percent reduction in funding for title I programs at the same time the number of children eligible for title I is going up. Now, how can we say that there is no child going to be left behind under this program, and that it is adequately funded, when a school district such as that is going to experience a 40-percent reduction in funding? How is it that two States in the Nation--Massachusetts and Minnesota--are going to see a reduction in funding while the overall program nationwide is going to receive a $1 billion increase? Why are we being punished? Why are we being penalized? Why are we being singled out for those reductions? Why does the Secretary of Education come to our State one month earlier and assure our educators that there is plenty of money, that these reductions are not going to take place, when either he did not know--in which case he was unbelievably ill-informed--or he knew and did not speak honestly to our educators? And either one of those I find enormously reprehensible. Mr. President, $2,727,000 is a huge loss in money for the disadvantaged children of the State of Minnesota, meaning that less than half--less than half--of all the children in my State who are eligible for title I funding are actually going to get services provided to them. And that is no child left behind? That is a fraud. That is adequate funding for No Child Left Behind? That is a lie. That is a lie. In this room I have heard it said several times: There is plenty of money for title I. There is plenty of money for No Child Left Behind. Not for Minnesota. We were underfunded before, and it is being cut back now. We are one of two States being cut. I ask the Secretary of Education: I want to know why. Come back to Minnesota, Mr. Secretary, now that you have the facts, evidently. Come back to Minnesota and meet with those educators and tell them why, why our money is being cut back. The chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has stood on this floor--and I have had this debate with him; he is not here presently, but I look forward to that opportunity again in the future--saying there is additional money available to the States under No Child Left Behind. In fact, there is so much additional money that some States don't know what to do with it all. Well, I can see why that distinguished Senator made that statement, because in his home State, over the last 5 years, they have experienced a 44-percent increase in funding under title I. In this next year, they are going to receive an increase of almost the same $2.5 million which Minnesota is going to lose. They will receive an 8.1-percent increase in title I funding, whereas we will experience a reduction of over $2,727,000. So I guess for some States this is a good deal because they are getting more money. I am glad they are, if they have that additional need. But the State of Minnesota has the additional need, also. More children are coming in from all over the world; children who need English second-language skills; children who are without any education from countries that have been war ravaged for years; children coming from other States with educational achievement levels grades behind the students in Minnesota. We cannot offer the services they are entitled to under Federal law that existed before No Child Left Behind? We cannot offer the services that were promised to them and to us as a condition for voting in favor of No Child Left Behind? I voted against that, I will confess, as did my colleague at the time in the Senate. Maybe that is why Minnesota is being singled out and punished. I do not know. I do not understand why, except that I know the two Senators from Massachusetts--one is the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and he certainly made a commitment to this program at the time because he was assured there was going to be full funding; the other Senator, of course, is now the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. I find it really not coincidental that is one of the two States that is singled out to be cut back in funds. But I do not understand why Minnesota--why Minnesota--is suffering accordingly. It is wrong. It is wrong to be cutting back funds when you are saying to the American people that no child is going to be left behind and then you turn around and make that a lie. It is wrong. It is unfair to the State of Minnesota. Mr. Secretary of Education, you owe it to our State to come back and explain to our educators why it is that they are going to have to do more with less next year. Why is it that we are one of two States being cut back? I am deeply offended. On behalf of the people of Minnesota, I am enraged that we are being treated in this unfair way--and on behalf, most of all, of the children in the State of Minnesota who are not going to be receiving the special services to which they are entitled. We are going to force cutbacks in educational services affecting all of our schoolchildren. They are being left behind, Mr. Secretary. Mr. President, they are being left behind. What are you going to do about it? Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I join with my more senior colleagues in paying my respects and tribute to the great Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd. It is a mark of his greatness that he has had such a powerful effect on not only the most senior of his colleagues who have been here the longest, but also the more junior Members of the Senate, such as myself. When I arrived here in January 2001, just a little over 3 years ago, I was one of 12 freshman Senators from both sides of the aisle. We were given many words of encouragement from our colleagues, but basically left to find our own way or flounder along the way. It was Senator Byrd who took it upon himself to convene tutorials with the 12 of us. We convened promptly at 4 o'clock in his office, and he shared with us his perspective on the Senate. From the four volumes he has orated and published as the history of the U.S. Senate, as well as the volume he orated from his own direct knowledge and reading about the Roman Senate, there is no one who possesses more wisdom and a broader understanding of the historical role and the responsibility of this body and this great democracy and Republic. Those of us who had the benefit of those tutorials learned more from those sessions about how to conduct ourselves in the Chamber where he has served with such greatness than from anything else. When the time came for us to preside, as we took the majority, I had the opportunity, through many hours, to watch and listen to Senator Byrd, particularly in the fall of 2002 when we were debating the resolution to give the President authority to make the final decision on whether to commit this Nation to war in Iraq. Senator Byrd was heroic in standing forth and taking a stand which I supported because of the compelling wisdom of his words and the power and the eloquence to remind us that we had a constitutional responsibility in this body which we were forsaking by abdicating that responsibility to the President. I believe Senator Byrd received over 20,000 phone calls from his fellow citizens around the country. Back in my State of Minnesota, I heard time and again from those who were so admiring of his courage and his steadfastness as I was then, too. I learned more about the U.S. Constitution during that time than I had ever learned before in my life, and I learned more about the proper role of the Senate than I possibly could have learned through years of experience, just by having the benefit of serving with and listening to and learning from Senator Robert Byrd. I am very proud to pay tribute to him today. He has been the most influential Member of this body in my development here, and I am grateful beyond words for the privilege of serving with him. I yield the floor.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I certainly agree with my colleague, the Senator from Michigan, about the need to deal with our present situation which affects my State, as well as everyone else. I also want to point out to my colleagues that the ultimate solution to our oil dependency needs is not going to come from more oil, more tax breaks for oil, more searching for oil, or extracting oil from environmentally sensitive areas. It is going to be in developing viable alternatives to oil, one of which is right in front of us, available to us now, and is barely being tapped by this Nation. And that is ethanol. I have a Ford Explorer I drive all over Minnesota on a fuel called E- 85--85-percent ethanol, 15-percent regular gasoline. The engine is produced by the manufacturer with a very slight modification. Last summer in southern Minnesota, E-85 fuel was 22 cents a gallon less than regular unleaded. I have not checked in the last couple of weeks, but given the price of gasoline, I suspect it is even less expensive now. Just imagine if we were to take half or more of the $115 billion that we spend every year to import foreign oil--over half of all the oil we consume--and instead of spending it overseas, we were to put it in the pockets of American farmers, who then would spend their dollars in their local communities. Those dollars would multiply, and we would fuel an economic resurgence of rural America far greater than any Government program could possibly devise. It is a cleaner burning fuel, so we would improve the quality of our environment. We would reduce our dependency on foreign oil. We would raise the price of commodities such as corn and soybeans for soy diesel and some of the other agricultural products, so farmers could make a profit in the marketplace at those higher prices rather than have to be subsidized by the American taxpayer. It is basically a policy grand slam, and yet in this country right now less than 2 percent of the gasoline supply consumed is ethanol. In Minnesota, my State, 7 or 8 years ago the legislature passed, with much controversy, a mandate that required that every gallon of gasoline sold in our State contain 10-percent ethanol. Prices have been slightly lower than those States nearby which do not have that requirement. The fuel supplies have been consistent. As I said earlier, that only touches the surface of what is possible for ethanol as a substitute fuel for gasoline. Yet, Minnesota, despite all those gains and no difficulties, is still the only State in the Nation that has a 10-percent ethanol mandate. We can fill up reserves, and we can try to bring in more. We can jawbone the Saudis, and we will keep paying through the nose regardless until--and only until--we shift our use of fuels from what we are depending on now to what we can use or must use for the future. Here for the first time in my public career--and I was commissioner of energy and economic development for Minnesota 20 years ago and served in the Governor's office in Minnesota almost a decade before then and worked on energy policy. In the span of those 30 years, this is the first time I have seen a real opportunity that every American can in their vehicle be consuming a fraction of the gasoline they are using now, and we do not have any interest in pursuing it. Senator Daschle and Senator Grassley, through their efforts, have put and kept some energy measures in the Energy bill which is now stymied. Senator Grassley has done a terrific service to the ethanol-production States wherein the current transportation bill passed by the Senate takes away that penalty for using ethanol that is in the formula for the highway trust fund. Even with those measures, we are looking at barely doubling the increase of ethanol in consumption nationwide, so it would be less than 4 percent in a decade. Again, Minnesota has been at 10 percent for the last 8 years. When those prices keep going up and staying up, I want my colleagues to keep in mind we have an alternative. We have an opportunity to make a significant and immediate transition. It will take a few years, but it is right there. But we have to get beyond where we are today.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I also wish to comment on what happened last week to the so-called JOBS Act which disappeared from the Senate floor. One minute last week we were voting on the JOBS bill, and the next minute it was gone--outsourced, I guess. It was replaced by other legislation which we acted upon last week. Today we are on to yet another measure before the Senate. We have not been told when this JOBS Act might reappear or even if it is coming back at all, which means, I guess, the JOBS Act has suffered the same fate as some 2.25 million jobs during President Bush's term because they, too, have disappeared. No one knows when or even if they are coming back. It is clear now that the President's previous proposals enacted by Congress--tax cuts for the rich and the super rich and for large, multilarge corporations--have not stopped the loss of American jobs, and they have not brought them back. One out of every six manufacturing jobs in the United States has disappeared in the last 3 years, and the number of manufacturing jobs in this country is now the lowest it has been in 53 years. Over 8 million Americans are unemployed. The average length of unemployment is the longest it has been in 20 years in this country. So the administration must have a plan, a policy, to stimulate job creation in this urgent situation; right? Wrong. The Secretary of the Treasury Snow testified before Congress just 2 weeks ago that the lack of job recovery is ``a mystery'' to him. The President has stated that his No. 1 priority is to make his tax changes permanent when they expire in the year 2011. In the debate over the budget resolution on the Senate floor 2 weeks ago, our colleagues across the aisle said their No. 1 priority was to accelerate the date for eliminating the estate tax from 2010 to 2009. So the No. 1 economic problem facing the Nation today is the loss of jobs and the lack of their recovery, and Republican priorities are more tax treats for the rich and the super rich in the years 2009 and 2010. I guess the rich and the super rich do not really need more money anyway, so they can afford to wait 5 years or more to get it. But the 8 million Americans out of work cannot wait that long. So there is this cloud of complete unreality surrounding Republican economic policies these days. It is as though all the country is on reality TV and they are still on Fantasy Island. Meanwhile, our Democratic caucus is being blocked from even voting on measures that would provide help and jobs to Americans who need them right now. No. 1, we need to extend unemployment benefits because 786,000 Americans exhausted their unemployment benefits during January and February alone. In just those 2 months, over three-quarters of a million Americans exhausted their unemployment benefits, meaning they and their families have no source of income right now. In the name of humanity, how can we do nothing to relieve that kind of human pain and suffering? Secondly, the House of Representatives must pass the transportation funding bill, and the President must either sign it or veto it so that we can override that veto now. The Senate bill we passed almost a month ago would mean significantly more construction projects, and therefore thousands more jobs all over America, starting now, in this construction season, which does not last very long in northern States such as Minnesota, are just about to get underway. The President and the House have been tossing that bill back and forth like it is a Sunday Frisbee game. Here is an immediate job- creating opportunity, and they are dawdling and dickering because I guess it is not their jobs, at least not yet. The third measure we must undertake is to protect the jobs and incomes of those who are now working, especially the 8 million workers the Secretary of Labor has decided all by herself no longer have to be paid overtime. That number includes police officers, nurses, firefighters, and laborers. What do we tell them and their families? Sorry, you did not contribute enough to the necessary reelection committees, but the people who employ you do? The Congress has already cut their personal taxes, their dividends tax, their capital gains tax, and now they are going to be eliminating their estate tax even earlier than before. They are a greedy bunch and they want more. This is an election year and campaigns are expensive so, sorry, now in America you will not even be able to earn extra money by working harder. You cannot get ahead because those special friends want to get farther ahead without having to work at all. Fourth, we need to bring back the JOBS Act, which reportedly was pulled from the Senate floor last week because it would have involved a vote of the Senate on this very protection of overtime measure. The truth is, as that evidences, the sponsors of the so-called JOBS Act do not want votes on that and other amendments because, in fact, the secret is that bill is not about jobs at all. Only in Washington would something named the JOBS Act have nothing to do with creating jobs, and I mean absolutely nothing. The people who wrote that bill only want the American people to think this is a JOBS Act. They want the 8 million Americans who do not have jobs right now to think this is a JOBS Act so they will think: Oh, what a Congress. Our country needs jobs, so Congress passes a JOBS Act. Well, as Abraham Lincoln said, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and what better time to try than right around election time. The truth is, this bill is a tax cut for already profitable businesses, and the largest tax reductions take place, once again, in those years 2009 to 2012. So, obviously, it has nothing to do with providing jobs now. That is the bill's best part. Other parts increase the tax avoidance schemes for foreign business operations. There are $36 billion in tax breaks for profits made producing goods and providing services in other countries, employing foreigners not Americans. Now that sure makes sense. We are losing American jobs in record numbers to foreign operations so the Senate is going to give more tax advantages to those foreign operations so they can take away more American jobs? Is the JOBS Act intended to add American jobs or eliminate them? I hope my colleagues will take a look at some of the foreign business favors in this bill before we vote on them. It increases the kind of commodities hedging that is exempt from U.S. taxation. It eliminates rules that are meant to restrict the deferral of foreign income by foreign investment companies and foreign personal holding companies from U.S. taxation. It eliminates withholding taxes on dividends paid by certain foreign corporations. There are many more of those foreign favors in the bill. As I said, $36 billion worth of tax avoidance or tax elimination schemes which benefit wealthy Americans who invest in them, or American companies who own and operate them, which reward foreign business production and sales, not American production; increase jobs outside of our country and decrease jobs or job opportunities for American workers. The JOBS Act, as it is presently written, is a fraud. It is not an American JOBS Act. It is not even an American business act. It is a special-favors-for-special-friends act. In the 3 years I have been in the Senate, Congress has tried fooling the American people with some mighty foolish legislation, such as No Child Left Behind, pretending to improve the quality of education for all schoolchildren. Additional testing was to be accompanied by additional Federal funding, especially for those students most in need. Well, Minnesotans will not be fooled anymore, not now that we have learned just this last few weeks that title I funds in Minnesota will be cut by as much as 40 percent in school districts that have an increased number of eligible students. The prescription drug bill that was passed last year pretended to offer comprehensive coverage and substantial financial assistance to seniors and others on Medicare. That prescription drug bill will not fool the seniors, not in Minnesota for sure, and I do not think in America, when in a few more months the prescription drug discount cards come out and when the shamefully inadequate coverage finally begins in January of 2006. But do not try to fool unemployed Americans that the JOBS Act is a jobs creation bill, and do not try to fool working Americans that it is a jobs protection bill. As President Lincoln said: You cannot fool all the people all the time. Congress is badly out of touch with the American people. So let's return to reality. Let's return to the reality that Americans need more jobs. Let's pass a JOBS Act that really is a JOBS Act, where every provision is designed to reward American companies for adding American jobs now--not in the year 2009, not in 2012, but now. I strongly urge the majority leader to bring back the JOBS Act for Senate action now. I urge my colleagues to remove every section that does not add jobs in America right now and replace them with ones that do. We need jobs in America for Americans now. Let us stop trying to fool people and let us help put them back to work. I yield the floor.

Mr. DAYTON. If the Senator will yield, I thank him for his encouraging words. I also point out he is, I believe, the only Senator, maybe the only Member of Congress, who has been an astronaut. The Senator's perspective on those resources and the need to conserve is certainly unsurpassed. I thank the Senator for his remarks.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I say to my good friend from Texas, with whom I shared a very instructive tour of Iraq last July--we sweltered together in 115 degrees--I have the greatest regard for him in working with him on these various matters. I do respectfully say in response to his comment about the 9/11 questions that have been raised, and supposedly my colleagues wanting to have things both ways, his words, I cannot for the life of me figure out how he and others on that side of the aisle could suggest that President Clinton is to blame for something that occurred over 8\1/2\ months after he left office, but President Bush is not to blame for something that happened 8\1/2\ months after he took office and is not blamed for anything related to it since. I don't understand how that is anything other than trying to have it both ways and also not making much sense at all. I think both of us would be well served to let the Commission make its determinations and recognize that our most important task is to make sure it never happens again. We share that desire here, for all 100 of us are Americans first and partisans second or third or somewhere else. Let's hope the truth all comes forth so that, most importantly, we can understand what we need to do to make sure this country is safe every day and night for the rest of my lifetime and yours and all the rest of our children to follow. I want to shift to another subject. Yesterday's Washington Post had an article about the famous magician, Henry Houdini, and the dispute whether or not his magic tricks should be disclosed to the public. It made me think, as I was looking back on the events that occurred in the Senate this last week, that we have our own magic tricks. One of them is this disappearing legislation trick. Unfortunately, it is one of too many, too clever sleight of hand tricks that are employed in this body. I think, in fact, we need more of a return to reality if we are going to serve the vital interests of the people I represent in Minnesota, and others around the country. At the start of the week, for those who may not have been following this moment by moment, we were considering a bill that was entitled a JOBS Act. If ever there was a situation facing America and the over 8 million Americans who do not have jobs right now that needs a serious dose of reality, that is at the top of the list. Senator Tom Harkin, my colleague from Iowa, was offering an amendment that would either have this body choose to support or oppose the Department of Labor's taking overtime pay, the 1\1/2\ times an hourly pay required for those working overtime. In this case, this group would be over 8 million Americans workers--police officers, other law enforcement officials, firefighters, teachers, middle-class working Americans. These are hard- working Americans working overtime to earn extra money to improve their lives or just to try to make ends meet; to raise their families, send their kids to college, or just get them through junior high school; take care of an aging or sick parent, help pay for the prescription drugs for those elderly parents or nursing homes for them, which costs about the same these days. We had an agreement reached before the bill came to the floor between the Republican and Democratic leaders that there would be a vote on the Harkin amendment. That was the promise that was made to all of us. But suddenly here was this Senate's disappearing act, this sleight-of-hand trick that even the famous Harry Houdini could not have matched. That bill just disappeared from the Senate floor and was replaced by another bill which was voted upon and passed last night. Monday, now, we are told we will be taking up another bill but not the JOBS Act. Where did it go? When will it come back? Will it come back at all? Actually, that pretty well describes the Republican job record under President Bush. Millions of jobs disappear. No one knows when they are coming back. No one knows if they are coming back. Secretary of Treasury John Snow, testifying before a congressional committee just 2 weeks ago, said the lack of job recovery in this country was ``a mystery.'' Vice President Cheney doesn't even seem to know the jobs are leaving. He said earlier this month: If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last 2 or 3 years, we would have not had the kind of job growth we have had. At the time he offered that compelling insight, the country officially had 2\1/4\ million fewer jobs than when he and President Bush took office just over 3 years ago. So I would have to agree with the Vice President on that point; if the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last 2 or 3 years, we would not have had the kind of job growth we have had. Perhaps he was confused and was referring to the kind of job growth Halliburton has had instead of the United States. The Vice President, by the way, has shown his own disappearing magic tricks. Just before he became Vice President, in the 5 years preceding that time, he was the chief executive officer of Halliburton Corporation, which is the world's largest oil and gas services company. It is also now the largest contractor for American forces in Iraq having received contracts worth over $11 billion in the last year, most of them without any competitive bidding. Vice President Cheney reported earnings of $44 million during his 5 years there. He claims he has ``severed all my ties'' with that company. Yet he continues to receive deferred compensation worth approximately $150,000 a year, and he has stock options worth more than $18 million. That is the executive version of overtime pay. He gets paid for hours he hasn't worked after he has left the company. The Vice President has announced he will donate the proceeds from his sale of the stock options at some point in the future to charity, and that is a good disappearing taxes trick because that charitable deduction eliminates taxes on that amount of future income, $18 million, which is presumably why he is waiting to give that money to deserving charities until he can make even more of that money again. But the even more curious magic trick, according to an article in New Yorker magazine by Jane Mayer last month, on the Vice President's own official biography posted on his White House Web site, he has been a ``businessman,'' but any mention of his 5 years as chief executive officer of Halliburton Corporation just before he became Vice President has disappeared. He got paid over $44 million, he has over $18 million more still to come, and it is not even worth mentioning? I guess that is what ``severing all my ties with the company'' means with the Vice President. He keeps getting paid but stops mentioning it. President Bush has his own missing jobs magic tricks. He tries to make more jobs appear than really exist. Last month, he released a report called the Economic Report of the President. It forecast 900,000 more jobs for that month than actually existed. That slight discrepancy was perhaps while the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, whose agency publishes the Economic Report of the President, tried to make President Bush's signature on the report disappear. She said 3 weeks ago, after the report was made public: ``He doesn't sign the report.'' She is going to have to make a lot of page 4's disappear where the signature, ``George W. Bush,'' or some version of that name, certainly looks to exist. But maybe the signature, like the 900,000 jobs, are just illusions. Secretary Chao, who has done some very good things on behalf of Minnesota, for which I am very grateful to her, was also reportedly one of the people who wanted the Senate's vote on the Harkin amendment to disappear. After all, it is her rule, by administrative fiat, that is the one revoking those overtime protections for 8 million of her fellow Americans. There is no magic in that trick, for those are real Americans and their families. It is a mean trick. It is an unfair trick. It is being performed by one unelected Cabinet official, although I suspect there are some elected officials behind her. And we, the elected representatives of those 8 million Americans, are told we will not be allowed to vote on that matter. Who claims to have that right to tell us that we can't vote, after we have been promised that we would have that opportunity to do so? Whoever it is may have the power under Senate rules, but they don't have the right. And they are wrong to do it. Meanwhile, the President is out looking, himself, for those 900,000 missing jobs that weren't there. Last month, at a carefully staged and scripted meeting with some business owners that was designed to show how the President's big tax cuts for the rich and super rich, which the majority of colleagues here passed--how they are fueling economic recovery and job creation across America, one business owner proudly disclosed that as a result of the President's tax cuts worth an undisclosed amount of money to him personally, he might be able to hire two or three people. The President, according to the report, seized that comment like a drowning man grabbing a floating leaf. The President said: When he [the businessman] says he's going to hire two more, that's really good news. A lot of people are feeling confident and optimistic about our future, so they can say I am going to hire two more. They can sit here and tell the President in front of all the cameras, I am going to hire two more people. That is confidence. That is pretty confident, inspiring stuff, isn't it? Of course, the President has an undergraduate degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard, and presumably knows math himself. But I will still point out it takes a lot more than a business owner feeling optimistic about hiring two people to make his job forecast for the last month reality. At two jobs per televised Presidential meeting--bear with me, I only have one Yale undergraduate degree, but it was cum laude--it will take 450,000 televised Presidential meetings to make up for the missing 900,000 jobs. That is the last month. That is only part of the over 2\1/4\ million jobs that have disappeared since the President started his job in January of 2001, which partly explains why he is applying for 4 more years of overtime. It also explains why, in the view of this American, he should not get it. This part of the act is a little confusing, even for a magic show. Bear with me and follow closely. For all of those lost jobs in our economy, we are not yet able to bring them back. Yet the Senate JOBS bill disappeared without being voted on. So the American people should be concerned. Right? The answer is no, because it is really not a jobs bill. It is called a ``jobs'' bill, but it is not really about creating jobs. It is about giving tax breaks to the corporations--$114 billion worth of tax breaks which they might or might not use to create jobs which might or might not be in the United States. It was given the title of the JOBS Act even though it was primarily not about restoring those missing American jobs. In fact, it was given that title probably because it is not a jobs bill, but its sponsors wanted the American people to believe it is a jobs bill. They will think, Wow, that is a good Congress. They just passed a JOBS Act, although we didn't pass the JOBS Act. It disappeared. But not to worry, because again it won't do that much to add jobs, anyway--at least not the way it is drafted. How is that for a sleight-of-hand trick? Masters of illusion right here in Washington. Houdini and David Copperfield would have to be amazed. But, unfortunately, all this hocus-pocus--now you see it, now you don't--leads us to believe one thing, but it is really something else. All of those deceptions do not deal with reality. As my colleagues know, each lost job is some American's very real nightmare. Being unemployed for so long they are using up their unemployment compensation, have little or no income and still can't find a decent job is no illusion. The average length of time for America's 8 million unemployed citizens who have been out of work is now the longest in 20 years. The number of manufacturing jobs and good, decent-paying jobs in this country is the lowest in 53 years. That is real. The hardships, the pain and suffering of those lost jobs have caused the real Americans, good people in Minnesota--and I am quite sure everywhere else in this country--people who want to work, who do not want a handout, who want jobs. They want the chance to work and earn their American dreams, and to work overtime and get paid for it. By the way, our colleagues should recall that overtime--the 1\1/2\ times or more requirement of additional pay for those additional hours worked--provides an incentive for expanding companies, to add new jobs, to replace old ones they have taken away, rather than paying the 1\1/2\ times for that additional work they need. Employers have a choice. They can choose to pay overtime instead of adding additional jobs. Overtime is good pay for those workers who want to earn more money. It is good for the economy because those additional dollars they earn are almost always going immediately right into spending for needed products and services. But it is also a good inducement for creation of new jobs to increase production. But even my Republican colleagues and evidently the Bush administration don't want us to even have a vote on this amendment on what they are calling a JOBS bill. They are also complaining to my colleagues and me on this side of the aisle that we want to offer some other amendments to change this bill. Yes, we do. They say our amendments are not germane. That is legislative language for not being relevant, not related to the content of the bill we are considering. Overtime pay is certainly relevant to the people in Minnesota I represent--police officers, firefighters, laborers, and nurses. Another amendment which Republicans say is not germane would extend unemployment benefits. During the last 2 months alone 760,000 Americans have exhausted their unemployment benefits. That is no illusion. That is real-life hardship and pain for real Americans and for their families. I think the sponsors of this so-called JOBS Act should explain to those 760,000 of their fellow citizens why restoring their unemployment benefits is not germane or is not relevant to their bill. I think those 760,000 Americans would then see clearly this so-called JOBS Act is not relevant to jobs--not to their jobs, not to restoring jobs, not to replacing jobs, not to preventing more jobs from being sent overseas. In fact, one of my amendments, which I think is highly germane, would eliminate the $36 billion for tax breaks for U.S. corporations for their overseas operations. Why in the world would we want to provide more tax incentives for U.S. corporations to create more jobs in other countries? We can't prevent it, but we certainly shouldn't encourage it. We shouldn't use more American tax incentives to put more Americans out of work and add to budget deficits their children will have to pay for, if they are lucky enough to have jobs. My amendment would eliminate that lunacy. It will demand every dollar in this $114 billion of corporate tax cuts be justified according to one clear measure: How will it result in more jobs, new jobs, and restore jobs in the United States for our citizens now? Not maybe, not probably, not next month, but definitely and provably and now. That is the kind of JOBS Act America needs. That is the JOBS Act Americans need, and they need it done now. People losing overtime need this bill now. People who have lost their unemployment benefits need this bill now. People who are losing jobs still at this time in America overseas need this bill now--not the JOBS bill, but the one we want to amend to make a real jobs bill for America. I am for the majority leader bringing this bill back to the floor next Monday. We are scheduled to bring up welfare reform. That is an important subject. But the experts would tell me the No. 1 key to the successful welfare program is a job at the end of the program. Let us bring the JOBS Act, so-called, back first and scrutinize every single dollar it proposes to spend for its job effect for Americans now. No more magic tricks. This is the time for honest, truthful reality. Let us get to work starting next Monday in the Senate putting America back to work--all Americans. That would be real bipartisanship. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 20 minutes to make my remarks. I do not believe I will need all that time, but I would ask to have that available.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, this amendment has three parts. First, it increases the Federal funding for special education to the 40-percent share that was promised for the last 27 years. This year the Federal funding for special education is less than half of what was promised 27 years ago. In my State of Minnesota, this broken promise for special education means cuts in Federal programs that occur across all schools for all students, and it also means higher property taxes for the citizens of my State. I can't believe the other States in this Nation don't encounter the same problems when the Federal Government doesn't fund one of its two most important commitments to education at even half the level it has promised for over a quarter of a century. The second amendment would reduce the Federal deficit by $1 million a year for each of the next 5 years. To pay for this, I would increase the top tax rate from 35 percent to 38.5 percent. The average income of Americans in that top tax bracket is over $1.1 million. Of course, they don't pay that top rate. Their income from dividends and from capital gains is now taxed at 15 percent. With the lower rates and other loopholes, most of America's multimillionaires and billionaires pay lower tax rates than most middle-class working Americans. The question is, Whose needs are more important america's schoolchildren who have the greatest needs or America's superrich who have the greatest connections? The answer is we have seen at least a dozen times tonight that the superrich are the best connected people in America. All of these phantom family farmers and struggling small business owners of companies the size of Lockheed whose incomes exceed over $1.1 million a year, none of whom are located in Minnesota, but they are out there somewhere. I call up my amendment and will agree once it has been read to accept the decision on a voice vote.

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

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, on rollcall vote 45, I voted ``nay.'' It was my intention to vote ``yea.'' Therefore I ask unanimous consent that I be able to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I commend my colleague, the Senator from Washington, for her amendment, along with Senator Kennedy, and for her dedicated and lifelong efforts to improve the quality of education for all of our Nation's children. She has been a pioneer and a champion in the Senate, as she has been in her career as an educator. She knows whereof she speaks. Once again, we are encountering the same old arguments from the other side of the aisle. Personally, I am tired of going back to 1993 or 1994 to try to explain or excuse what it is we are doing or not doing right now for education in this country. I want us to do what is right for now, to respond to the needs that exist now. I have said it in other debates on education funding, and I will say it again: If President Bush proposed more money than President Clinton, then President Bush deserves that credit, in my eyes. If the 108th and the 107th Congresses provided more money for education than previous Congresses, and more than President Bush has proposed at times, then this Congress deserves that credit, in my eyes. But we are not doing this for ourselves. We are not trying to keep some scorecard. We are not trying to fiddle around with percentages or other things. We are doing this for America's children. The important question we ought to all be asking ourselves is, Are we doing enough? Are we providing the money needed to do what we all said should be done to leave no child behind? That is this President's proclamation. He set that standard for us and for the country. That is the law we passed. It is a great standard. It is an important standard, and we all seem to agree that should be the standard. So the question we need to ask ourselves is, Are we budgeting the money necessary to achieve that result? When the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff have said they needed more money to win the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have provided that money, with bipartisan support, overwhelmingly. When the President and Secretary Ridge have said they needed more money to protect our homeland, to provide protection and safety for all our citizens, we have done so on a bipartisan basis. Some of us, including Senator Murray, has urged we do more. We have set the objectives in the Congress along with the administration. We defined the standards of military victory and national security, and we have provided the money necessary to succeed, because that is what is important, that we succeed at these most important goals we set for our Nation. Now, we have also increased the Federal deficit enormously to do so. We cut taxes very significantly, especially for the wealthiest people in this country. People whose annual income is greater than $1 million are receiving, this year, on average, a tax reduction of $113,000. It has not bothered the majority enough to make any of those adjustments. When I hear these concerns expressed about these onerous tax burdens that are imposed on the superrich, the multimillionaires and billionaires of America, or the large corporations that Senator Conrad pointed out are not paying their fair share of taxes, not paying the percentage of their taxes owed as our small business owners pay, then I must say, I think some of that is crocodile tears. With all deference to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, whom I admire enormously and who has dealt with these matters, as somebody who comes from--or at least before I got mixed up in politics--the category of the wealthy, I would be glad to sit down with him and go through it to discover how easily we can find the money to pay for what he said he wants to do on taxes and what Senator Murray is proposing to do on education. It is not an either/or. Nobody on this side wants to jeopardize the increase in the child tax credit which was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. In fact, it was originally a recommendation from this side of the aisle, but it has bipartisan support. The same with eliminating the marriage penalty and expanding the 10-percent bracket. We are not going to do one thing to affect those extensions. This is about education. Somehow that is treated differently by the other side. We can't close any of the tax loopholes. We can't allow the millionaires or billionaires to escape one penny of taxes they owe. We can't increase the deficit. Once again: Gee, we can't find the money we need for education. We are also told there is extra, unused money in the Federal pipeline going to State and local governments for public schools. I have heard that in the years I have been here: Head Start has positions for kids that are unfilled because there isn't a need or demand. Special education has more money than they know what to do with. For No Child Left Behind, there is more than enough money being provided. When I tell this to educators and school board members and others in Minnesota who are involved with education, they think I am joking. They think Congress must be seriously out of touch with reality. Where is this pipeline, they ask, and if some States have more money than they need or know what to do with, would they please send it on to Minnesota. I doubt my State is alone because all the national organizations involved in these matters have said for years, Head Start is being funded about half for the kids who are eligible. Again, Congress set these standards years ago. Congress defined what the eligibility was for these programs. We are not making these numbers up out of whole cloth. We are supposed to be setting the measure of what qualifies a child for Head Start, the kids who need it. Almost 30 years ago the Federal Government promised to pay for 40 percent of the cost of special education. It is less than half of that today. President Bush has increased it. This Congress has increased it every year. Still it is less than half. So the question is not what is the percentage; the question is, are we keeping a promise we made almost 30 years ago. At least in Minnesota, when it is not being met, it has to be met, in most cases, with higher property taxes or cutbacks in the quality of education for all students. Title I, again, is seriously underfunded and has been for years. In Minnesota's case, less than half the students are eligible by the Federal definition of what qualifies the child in poverty, with all those disadvantages, for title I funding, the additional funding that is supposed to give that child the chance he or she deserves and certainly is now entitled to by law under the President's initiative-- less than half of those students in Minnesota, and we are going to lose money under the new formula. In all these major areas of Federal Government responsibility for the education of our children, we have been providing far less than enough, far less than our own laws and our own statements of intent have called for. I don't know whose fault it is. I don't think that is relevant. I know whose responsibility it is today. That is what matters. It is our responsibility. It is our responsibility to provide the funds necessary to fulfill our part of the bargain with States and local governments and school boards and the schools and, most importantly, with the children of America. If we are not willing to do that, then let's change the law. In Minnesota we have laws against consumer fraud. I would say if we don't address these funding shortfalls, to call this No Child Left Behind violates the spirit at least of that law. If we are not going to do more than we are doing now, let's at least have the honesty to tell the truth to the American people. We didn't mean it. It sounds good; great slogan, but, sorry, it is not enough of a priority for us. Tell the States: You come up with the money for these unfunded mandates, for the additional part of special education, which in Minnesota costs our schools about $250 million a year, real money. No pipeline I am aware of can come up with that kind of money the schools in Minnesota need. Let's tell school boards: Yes, you keep on raising local property taxes in order to make up for what the Federal Government has promised but isn't providing. Then let's have the honesty to tell the children, the future of America: Sorry, you are not important enough. I can only speak for Minnesota, but in my State schools are cutting classes, opportunities. They are laying off teachers. Class sizes are increasing; sports and extra curricular activities are being cut back. You have to pay a special fee just to be a student. We know here in Washington that money is needed and should be spent and would be spent, but, sorry, we are not going to provide it. We have other, more important priorities. That is what the Murray amendment is about. It is a moment of truth for this body, the Senate. Do we mean what we say, no child should be left behind? Do we mean it? Are we willing to fund that as we funded other important national priorities, or is it not important enough in the scheme of things to do what we promised to do? Senator Murray has given this Senate, before the eyes of the Nation, this moment of truth. What are our priorities? Do we keep our promises? Do we do what we know should be done and say must be done, and what every child in America deserves to have done, which is provide the funding necessary for quality education to leave no child behind? I thank the Senator from Washington.

Mr. DAYTON

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

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from the other side of the aisle for giving us this opportunity to discuss the matters surrounding the Iraq war, a war in which we are still engaged, a war in which Americans are losing their lives and their limbs on an almost daily basis. I am sure my colleagues have attended funerals, as I have in my own State, of brave men who did not return from that war alive. We all know the human cost that has been involved. A number of us were at Walter Reed Hospital 2 weeks ago for an evening with brave men and women who have lost limbs and health, and in some cases will not ever be able to live fully normal lives because of the terrible devastation wreaked on their bodies by the war in Iraq. So what we are talking about tonight is something of enormous importance, something we should have talked about far more often in the past months and year than we have. I attempted back in the first months of 2003 to get this body to address some of these critical issues, questions about the information we had been provided even though we had voted previously in October of 2002 on this resolution that the President requested the majority of this body authorize, along with the House, to initiate a war at a time of his determination. But in the weeks preceding that I tried in vain, as did some of my colleagues, to ask the majority leader to bring this matter before the Senate, before the American people again. Unfortunately we were not able to. The decision was made not to create the time and the opportunity to do so. Better late than never. This is much later than it should have been. I look forward to this opportunity in the weeks and months ahead because, as I understood from the Senator from Arizona, who was coordinating the time the Republican caucus used before we were given a chance to reply, that whenever the questions were raised, challenges were raised about the use or the misuse of intelligence information by the President of the United States and by his administration, there would be these occasions to discuss those matters again in the future. If that is the case, then I look forward to those opportunities because those questions should be raised. They have been raised before. The American people have a right to know the truth, the facts about these matters. Those who have lost sons and daughters over in Iraq, those whose sons and daughters are serving there now, all of us whose lives, whose children, and grandchildren will bear the consequences of these profoundly important decisions that have affected not only the United States and our national security but the stability of the entire world have a right to know the truth. Let's have these debates and these considerations as frequently as possible and air these matters fully, particularly since the commissions that have been established--the most recent one, by the President himself singlehandedly--are being precluded from addressing many of these issues like the misuse, as has been alleged, of intelligence information by high intelligence officials. That commission will not be allowed to investigate those matters. It will not have the authority to subpoena documents and information, investigating those matters. We will remain in the dark as those of us on the Senate Armed Services Committee on which I serve will remain in the dark despite our requests repeatedly to have that committee investigate these matters under its jurisdiction. At one point the distinguished chairman of that committee, Senator Warner, a man for whom I have the greatest respect, one of the finest of the men and women with whom I have had the privilege of serving in this body over my 3 years, suggested on a Sunday talk show that would be the appropriate purview of the committee and that should be investigated to its determination of the facts and truth and then, from all accounts, was forcefully dissuaded from that position by higher level officials in the administration who did not want that kind of investigation. So if we can't get the facts because we can't get committees of the Senate to look into these matters, if we can't get the facts because the President's own hand-picked commission is going to be prevented by him from investigating and reviewing these matters, then let's use these occasions here on the Senate floor, even if we are going to be, as the word was used, ambushed by the Republican caucus on these matters. That was reported last week. This was going to be a big surprise last Thursday. It was reported in one of the Hill newspapers and evidently it was decided to postpone it. Today, after we talked, even at our caucus lunch today, the Democratic caucus lunch at 1 o'clock today, based on the information the Democratic leader received from the majority leader, we were going to finish the resolution of the bill before us and then we were going to turn to another piece of legislation. Lo and behold, we found out literally as members of the Republican caucus took the floor this afternoon that this was going to be the subject for debate. But so be it. If you want to ambush us on this topic, then do it as frequently as possible so we can present to the American people all the facts, facts they may not receive in any other way. Let's go back a minute and review the bidding on this whole matter. Let's go back to January of 2002. Mr. Karl Rove, senior adviser to the President, political strategist, was quoted as telling a Republican political gathering that the winning issue for the Republicans in November of 2002, at the midterm election, would be ``the war.'' By that at the time he meant the war against al-Qaida, against the Taliban in Afghanistan. But evidently in June of 2002, according to published reports based on an interview with the chief of staff of the White House, Andrew Card, published in the New York Times on September 7 of 2002, but referring back to a decision that was, according to Mr. Card, made in June of that year, 3 months earlier, to bring the spotlight onto this supposed immediate, desperate, urgent threat to the national security of the United States and the safety of our people by Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq, the question was asked of Mr. Card by the reporter, why, then, was there this delay until then right before and then right after Labor Day of 2002, a good 3 months later, to bring this matter to the attention of Congress and to the American people. Mr. Card's answer, and I quote, was, ``Well, from a marketing standpoint you don't bring out your new products in August.'' About two sentences later he indicated also the President was on vacation in August. So, instead, we were all, I think, startled--this Senator was certainly surprised to hear from the Vice President, Vice President Cheney, at two conventions of former men and women of the armed services in the last week of August of 2002, where he spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and he announced, ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.'' The President himself then elaborated on these claims time and time again. He conjured up the most serious of threats to this country. On September 26 of 2002, at the time when this body was being pressured to rush to a vote about authorizing a war in Iraq, the President, after meeting with Members of Congress on that date, said: The danger to our country is grave. The danger to our country is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. . . .The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material, could build one within a year. He continued on that day to say: The dangers we face will only worsen from month to month and from year to year. To ignore these threats is to encourage them. When they have fully materialized, it may be too late to protect ourselves and our friends and our allies. By then the Iraqi dictator would have the means to terrorize and dominate the region. Each passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX or someday a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally. On October 7, just 4 days before the October 11 vote in the Senate on the war resolution, the President said: We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy--the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. He continued: We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints. He also elaborated on claims of Iraq's nuclear weapons program when he said on October 7 of that year: The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his ``nuclear mujahideen''--his holy warriors. If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly- enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. At that time, 4 days thereafter, the Senate voted historically and, I believe, having voted against that resolution, erroneously to authorize the war with the determination of the President--on a resolution which I believed and still believe is unconstitutional, was premature and, which has ultimately turned out to be the case, unfounded. These assertions continued during the fall and then into the new year. Of course, Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the United Nations and stated that there were thousands of tons of these strains of botulism, of nerve gas agents, of botox, and other substances that were of such enormous quantities that they would have been easily identified by satellite surveillance or by the United Nations weapons inspectors then in Iraq, though at the time none had been found. The Vice President again on March 16, just before the eve of the decision by the President to invade Iraq, leveled a serious new allegation that Hussein already had nuclear weapons. He said, ``We know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons,'' and ``We believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' Subsequent events, of course, have proven all of those assertions to be almost totally incorrect. Thank God. When United States and British forces invaded Iraq just a few days later, there were no chemical or biological or nuclear weapons used against them. None were found on the battlefield unused or in caches hidden and ready for use or even those weapons materials anywhere in Iraq, as the chief weapons inspector, David Kay, has now indicated in his public statements. He said to our Senate Armed Services Committee that he does not believe they will be found. But the more important fact, the irrefutable fact, is that they did not exist to be used against our Armed Forces. I am grateful for that. But that was the overriding premise--at least I know from a number of my colleagues on this side of the aisle--the overriding factor in their decision to support the resolution in October. Under the United Nations charter, under international law, the only justification legally for invading another country, for launching a preemptive attack against another country, starting war against another country, is either an actual attack itself or the imminent danger or threat of an attack against a country. It was certainly on that assertion by the administration repeatedly that Members of Congress were persuaded to support the resolution in October. It was that assertion that was made by the President himself and others leading up to and even in the speech the President gave to the Nation the night he authorized that invasion of forces. In his State of the Union Address, he made assertions that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. It was not until July 7 of 2003--almost 6 months later, or over 5 months later--that the administration acknowledged for the first time that the President should not have made that statement even though the reports were they knew conclusively as early as March. Some allegations are that they knew even prior to the time, or at the time of that statement, that that was not substantiated, or, in fact in March, a report even said it was false. There are other statements that have been made by former CIA intelligence officials, reports made by investigative reporters that refer to information that was available to the administration at the time these various assertions were made that were contrary to facts as they were being reported. The linkage to al-Qaida, between Iraq and al-Qaida, is one that I certainly can say from my own direct experience, being involved in probably two dozen top secret briefings in the fall of 2002 and early 2003 with members of the administration, that was something that was repeated, was raised in a most speculative way from other intelligence sources. Then it is reported in June of 2003, after all this has been underway, according to the New York Times, two high officials of al- Qaida now in U.S. custody told interrogators, told them before the war in fact, that the organization did not work with Mr. Hussein. Several intelligence officials said no evidence of cooperation had been found in Iraq. It caused the CIA Director, George Tenet, to state that: ``it was not at all clear there was any coordination or joint activities,'' a CIA source told the Washington Post. An article in the Baltimore Sun went on to say: Last fall, in a classified assessment of Iraq, the CIA said the only thing that might induce Mr. Hussein to give weapons to terrorists was an American invasion. But month after month, unconstrained by mere facts, the president trumpeted a danger that his own intelligence officials dismissed. Yes, there are very serious questions and a most profoundly serious matter reflecting on the veracity of the President of the United States and his officials at the highest levels. The debate should be undertaken here and the American people should have a right to all the facts but they will not get them. One of the most disgusting ploys tonight has been to blame President Clinton and Senate Democrats during the 1990s for the supposed curtailment of our Nation's military preparedness and its intelligence operations. Some people are masters at this kind of slander. In 2002, there were Republican campaign commercials that put Senator Max Cleland, a Democratic Senator from Georgia, upon the television screen next to pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, claiming that all three of them were enemies of the national security of the United States. Senator Cleland was a triple amputee and sat in this chair next to me during my first 2 years of the Senate, the most amazing demonstration of human courage I have ever heard. I could scarcely imagine a man who lost three limbs serving in the military in Vietnam, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who had voted for every single dollar of President Bush's requested military increases for military spending, for homeland security, every dollar, being smeared as an enemy of this Nation along with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Here they go again, smearing President Clinton and even Senator John Kerry. I heard President Clinton attacked by colleagues across the aisle from the day I joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in January of 2001 for supposed military weaknesses. That continued up until the military that President Clinton commanded for 8 years routed the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan 10 months later. Now he is accused of emasculating the Intelligence Agency, causing the failures to prevent September 11, 2001, and the failures to inform us properly about the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Unfortunately, we cannot find out who is and who is not responsible for whatever failures occurred. We cannot find out because President Bush has blocked the 9/11 Commission access to the information that bipartisan group of distinguished Americans has been requesting for months from the administration. We will not get to the truth about who misused intelligence information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because the President refused to appoint an independent commission, refused to grant them subpoena powers, and refused to authorize them to investigate the use of intelligence information by himself and his administration. If the former administration is the one that is so culpable and if the current administration is so blameless, why wouldn't this administration want those two commissions to have access to all relevant information? Why would this administration block the 9/11 information that its cochairman, former Republican Governor of New Jersey, Thomas Kean, has requested for months on behalf of his Commission? Why won't the President allow his own handpicked Commission to assess the misinformation about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that was provided to Congress and to the American people to investigate all the questions about that colossal misrepresentation of the truth as we later discovered it to be? Those are critical questions that affect the future safety of our country and our citizens, whatever flaws existed before September 11, whatever errors were made after September 11, whatever mistakes, whatever lack of communication, whatever misre- porting, misunderstanding, misrepresenting, exaggerating, or improper influencing of information, whatever or wherever it occurred, which weakened our national security, must know what that was in order to prevent it from ever happening again. That imperative should transcend partisan politics. It should transcend Presidential reelections. It should transcend any consideration except for the safety of this country and of the American people. If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to strengthen our national security, as I know they do--as we all do, because we are Americans first, and we are partisans after that--then I ask them to join us in insisting that the President unshackle those two commissions. Let them find the truth, the whole truth, whatever it might be, wherever it is, whoever it helps, whoever it hinders, so that we can know what we must do to ensure that the horrors of 9/11 never, ever occur again, and to ensure that the serious misinformation about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which influenced Members of this body to support a resolution to authorize the President to start a war against that country--to make sure that kind of misinformation used to justify a war to the American people never, ever happens again. So, yes, let's debate these matters as frequently as possible. Let's get out all of the facts. And then let's let the American people decide. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. I ask unanimous consent that the time be switched and I go after Senator Levin.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Thank you, Mr. President. I commend my friend and colleague from Ohio for his eloquent and very thoughtful statements on both the legislation before the Senate as well as the situation in Haiti. I commend his wisdom to the rest of my colleagues, as I will take it upon myself.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I wish to change the subject to another important matter that has arisen, because recently President Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment which would define marriage. While our majority leader, Senator Frist, wisely observed, last week, that one does not want to knee-jerk or respond too quickly to changing the Constitution--and I certainly agree with that observation--the Senate Republican Conference chairman recently said he hoped the amendment would pass out of the Judiciary Committee and be before the full Senate by mid to late April. So much for not knee-jerking or responding too quickly to amend the Constitution. This is one constitutional amendment that evidently is being put on the fast track. I ask my colleagues to compare that timetable with the proposed constitutional amendment to ban the burning or desecration of the American flag, which I support, which has been proposed for the 3 years I have been in the Senate. No votes scheduled on that. No statement by the President about the need to protect the American flag. For almost as long as that, there has been a proposed constitutional amendment to protect the rights of victims of violent crimes, which I also support. No vote planned on that. No statement from the President on protecting the victims of violent crimes--just a budget that cuts funding for local law enforcement programs, including almost eliminating the COPS program that puts more police officers on streets in cities and sheriffs in rural areas, in Minnesota and across the country, to prevent violent crimes. It certainly shows the priorities of this President and the Senate's majority that protection of the American flag and of the rights of victims of violent crimes are set aside, while the constitutional amendment to define marriage gets this priority treatment. In my opinion, it is the wrong priority and the wrong policy. The proposed constitutional amendment on marriage is un-American, un- Christian, and unwise. It is the wrong approach. We need to find a better answer. We also need to avoid the mean, ugly, dehumanizing, and divisive debate that a constitutional amendment would require. We owe the American people much better than that. In the Bible, Jesus says, ``Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and render unto God the things that are God's.'' Many of the Christian religions' marriage ceremonies proclaim marriage as an institution created by God. I agree. So let us leave the definition of marriage to the various religions as they interpret the Word of God, and Congress, the Federal Government, any government in this country, should keep its hands off of marriage. It belongs to God. That follows the words of Jesus and it also follows the founding principle of this country, the freedom of religion, the separation of church and state. Surely this body doesn't intend to tamper with that bedrock principle long enshrined in our Constitution, the free exercise of religion. It is the civil side of this overlapping term called marriage that we can and should concern ourselves with. First, we should clear up the confusion being caused by the dual usage of the word ``marriage'' to apply to both a religious ceremony and a legal contract. Let's find a term like ``marital contract'' or ``legal union'' or ``matrimony'' to describe the civil relationship for everybody. It will be perhaps a little awkward at first, as word changes always are, but they are far easier than constitutional amendments, and far less destructive than this one would be. Yesterday I was having lunch with my father, a wonderful man whom I love dearly. He expressed his concern about gay marriages, and then I explained some of the real-life rights and protections involved, like property transfers, inheritance rights, or hospital visitations. He said, ``I am for all that.'' That is the distinction which must be made. Not everybody will agree with my father about all of that. However, most Americans, I believe, would consider those issues differently and feel differently about them than about the term ``gay marriage,'' which should not be forced upon them. We have a choice. We can lead the consideration of these very personal, very sensitive, and very controversial matters toward a higher plain of respectful, rational discussion and resolution or we can drag them through divisive, destructive, and dehumanizing demagoguery on the Senate floor. Obviously, some people--starting, evidently, with the President of the United States--believe it is to their political advantage to do the latter. That is really a shame. Our Constitution should be above Presidential politics; it should be above partisan politics; it should be above any politics at all. It is the greatest document on governance ever written by the human race in all of recorded history throughout the world. Since the first 12 amendments were quickly added, it has been amended only 15 other times in the past 200 years. Those amendments were either to adjust how our Government functions, such as the direct election of Senators, or the succession after the death of a President, or as amendments to extend the founding principles of this country of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all our citizens fully and equally, like the abolishment of slavery, giving women the right to vote, and providing equal protections to all of our citizens. The Constitution doesn't define the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule. It doesn't define war, peace, family values, spiritual growth, or even good and evil. It is big hearted, not mean spirited. It unites rather than divides us. It expands human liberties, protects human rights, and it treats all of us as equals. Our Constitution affirms the best of the human spirit, tolerance, and acceptance of differences, and the rights of each of us as human beings--not the worst of human nature, prejudice, and hatred. The proposed amendment on marriage is the worst. It is that mean spirited, degrading, and divisive. It is un-American and it is unworthy of our Constitution. It is also un-Christian. I am not going to dwell on this point, but as a Christian I am offended by those false prophets who cloak their arguments with biblical references that simply do not exist. I recently reread the four Gospels of the New Testament--actually, the entire New Testament, the King James version. I cannot find anywhere that Jesus Christ condemns homosexual relationships or gay marriages. He makes no mention of them at all. Twelve times he condemns adultery. Six times he opposes divorce. No one is proposing a constitutional amendment to ban adultery or divorce. What Jesus does say repeatedly is to love thy neighbor as thyself. One of the ten great commandments is: ``Love one another as I have loved you. By this, people will know thee as my disciple.'' Jesus did not say to love only thy opposite sex neighbor, or love only thy same race neighbor, or love thy just like my neighbor. He said, ``Love thy neighbor as thy self.'' He also said to beware of false prophets who appear like sheep, but inwardly are raving wolves. How do you tell them apart? He said by those who preach love versus those who preach hatred. A simple test. This proposed constitutional amendment spews hatred and that is why it is un-Christian. This amendment is un-American, un-Christian, and it is unwise. It is ugly, divisive, and destructive. Some people like to promote the so-called culture wars. They try to build themselves up by tearing other people down, try to make them seem immoral or bad or wrong for being the way God made them, or however one comes to be who he or she really is. Ugly, divisive, destructive, hateful--that is what this debate will become right here on the Senate floor and spread all across America by false prophets who claim the moral high ground while they reach down into the emotional cesspool and hurl their slime at decent and innocent human beings--our fellow citizens. As I said earlier--and I will close by saying it again--we have the choice and the obligation to do better than that. We can and we must address these issues and the people affected by them respectfully and responsibly. We can render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and render unto God the things that are God's. We can leave marriage to God, treat it as a religious ceremony under the terms and conditions established by religions and, as Government, leave those matters to God. We can define the legal union of two people as a marital contract or matrimony or some other term, and either allow the States to define those terms, benefits, and protections of that contract or do so ourselves. I prefer we do the latter, consistent with the equal protections clauses in article 4 and the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution for everyone, by passing laws, not a constitutional amendment--laws which define a legal union or a marital contract for everyone but which leave marriage as a separate province of religions. By following this course, we will judge not that we shall not be judged; we will condemn not that we shall not be condemned. For it is said that with the same measure that we mete withal, it shall be measured to us again. The Founders of this country were wise enough not to inscribe their condemnations into the Constitution. Senators for over 200 years have been wise enough not to insert their religious interpretations or their personal condemnations into our Constitution. We would be most unwise to do otherwise. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I want to discuss a couple of amendments I intend to offer if the opportunity arises in the next couple of days. I thank the bill's managers, Senator Inhofe and the ranking member, Senator Jeffords, for standing up against what I believe are very misguided attempts to take a meat cleaver to this very important bill. It is terribly unfortunate that immediately following the most recent budget projections, which show enormous deficits for this year and for the years thereafter, the very first legislation that comes to the floor is this one that provides transportation funding for the next 6 years. This is not, I urge my colleagues, the place to economize. To do so in this bill would be penny wise and pound idiotic. It would be kind of like a person who was told by his doctor he has to lose weight and he decides to eliminate fruits and vegetables. These are public investments in our Nation's highways, bridges, rail lines, and mass transit systems. They are critical to our social and economic vitality--moving products quickly to market; moving people swiftly, smoothly, and safely to jobs, schools, and family activities, and then back home again. These are critical investments in the future of our country. They are termed capital investments, which means they are projects which themselves generate future wealth. People say we ought to operate Government more like a business, and I agree. They should recognize that successful businesses regularly go into debt to finance their capital projects. Building new plants, expanding or modernizing existing facilities are good and necessary reasons to incur debt. Most State and local governments also issue debt--public bonds to finance their capital projects. They use current receipts for ongoing operations or consumption. In the Federal Government, we are doing the opposite. We are going seriously into debt to pay for current programs and consumption and treating our capital improvement budget, such as this transportation bill, as if it were the same program spending. It is not. Bankers and brokers understand that difference. Homeowners, farmers, and business owners understand that difference. State government officials understand that difference. Why can't this administration and Congress understand that difference? That understanding is important because this is a bill where we need to think bigger, not smaller. Unless my colleagues' States are in very different conditions, and their highways, bridges, rail lines, mass transit systems are in much better shape than my State of Minnesota's, then they have the same critical shortage of funding as Minnesota. In my State, the conditions and capacities of our highways and other public infrastructure have been declining over the last decade, and they are going to continue to do so without this additional infusion of Federal money. Our State and local governments simply do not have, and they are not going to have in the future, the increasing amounts of funding necessary to keep up with or catch up with growing populations and increased usage. It is only here in the Federal Government that we have the resources--at least we did until a couple years ago, before the budget surpluses were turned into deficits. But even now, we still have the resources, though not to do everything. It comes down to what are our priorities. What and who do we consider most important? The President has made his priorities very clear. He has made making the 2001 and 2003 tax rates permanent the centerpiece of his budget and his economic recovery strategy. If so, we are going to be waiting quite a while for that recovery because the President's proposal won't even take effect until the expiration dates for the change now already in place; and for the 2001 tax bill items, that will be the year 2010. For the 2003 items, most of those won't be extended until the years 2006, 2007, and beyond. This bill before us today is the best economic stimulus bill and jobs creation bill possible for right now--not 2006 or 2010, but right now-- in Minnesota and across America, which is why the funding level for this bill ought to be increased, not decreased. I had an amendment I would like to offer--although it flies in the face of reality--to double the amount of Federal funding that was provided 6 years ago, which was $218 billion, to increase that to $436 billion. That contrasts with the Senate bill now of $311 billion and the House bill of $375 billion, although I would not increase the amount by increasing the gasoline tax as is being proposed in the House. I would fund mine through the general fund, dedicate the revenues from the highway trust fund into the purposes they are being used for, but not use that as a ceiling for funding the necessary public infrastructure. That would be a business such as Target Corporation deciding the number of new stores it is going to build in the next few years is going to be a function of some formula, such as the percentage or revenues from socks or shorts that are being sold; and if somebody, for fashion reasons, decides they are going to go sockless for a year, that number goes down and so does the investment in new stores go down. No sensible business would make future investment decisions based on this kind of formula and be dictated by that result. In this case, as well, we should be deciding as a body, with the House and the administration, what level of public investment we need to make in highways and mass transit systems over the next 6 years-- make that decision based on the needs and then decide how we are going to fund it. Again, we do these things backward here and, as a result, we don't make the commitment that will pay off for this Nation if we do it, and we will sacrifice the future of our highways and airports and rail lines if we don't do it. While recognizing it is unlikely to be adopted by this Senate, especially in the face of the President's insistence that even the Senate number be reduced further--again, I salute Senator Inhofe and Senator Jeffords for standing resolutely in favor of this and being the fiscal conservatives they are. They recognize these are public investments that are vital, and to fail to make them would be--at least for Minnesota--virtually catastrophic. I thank the Chairman and ranking member for their steadfastness in supporting this and the level of commitment it makes. I also am proud to be a cosponsor of the Build America Bonds Act, which is being sponsored by Senator Talent of Missouri and Senator Wyden of Oregon, because if we are not going to use public dollars directly for these projects, then another way to finance them would be for the Federal Government to issue bonds and provide tax credits to those who purchase the bonds. The proposal made by Senators Talent and Wyden would issue another $50 billion of Federal bonds that would be then used throughout the States to advance these projects. If we are not going to use general revenue dollars or highway trust fund dollars sufficiently to meet the needs, then we ought to incorporate bonding in addition to what is being funded elsewhere. I also thank Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, for his initiative in the legislation for correcting what is essentially a penalty to those States, such as Iowa and Minnesota, that have been using ethanol as part of their fuel. In Minnesota, we have had for the last 8 years a requirement that 10 percent of every gallon of gasoline sold in our State be comprised of ethanol. Right now, nationwide it is less than 2-percent ethanol in proportion to gasoline. If you listen to some of my colleagues, they would have you believe the use of ethanol is going to drive prices for gasoline or its substitute through the roof when, in fact, the opposite is true. I use in my car in Minnesota with a slight engine modification made by the manufacturer, a Ford Explorer, a fuel that consists of 85- percent ethanol and 15-percent gasoline. That is 20 cents a gallon cheaper in southern Minnesota than regular unleaded. It runs just as well. The vehicle performs just as well. If we want to reduce the $115 billion a year we send overseas to pay for the foreign oil we import, there is no more readily available way to do that than to increase the use of ethanol. I regret, because of some of the opposition to that, that Senator Frist's and Senator Daschle's amendment to increase the use of ethanol over the next decade in this country by a very modest amount is not going to be offered as an amendment to this legislation. Hopefully, it can be considered by the Senate and passed as a separate measure in the very near future. The use of ethanol in the current formula penalizes States for that consumption. Again, I thank Senator Grassley and also the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Baucus, for their initiative. It is going to be vital from my standpoint that the measure passing the Senate and the conference report include that correction. I also will have two amendments I hope I will have the opportunity to offer. One is a rural roads safety amendment which I developed with the support of the National Association of Counties. It will provide additional funding. The amendment itself calls for $1 billion a year over the 6-year lifespan of this bill. This would be additional funding to provide for programs to improve the safety of our rural roads across the country. More than 25,000 people die each year on our rural roads system. It is a fatality rate that is 2\1/2\ times greater than that for urban highways. In fact, it is the highest rate of fatalities per vehicle mile for any type of transportation in this country. Despite this need on some 840,000 miles of rural two-lane roads, funding directed from this bill in the past has provided very little direct assistance to rural communities which, in my State at least, have the least capacity to undertake these expensive projects. This funding would provide for improving roadway alignments, eliminating wheel way rutting, including skid resistance, widening lanes and shoulders, installing dedicated turn lanes--whatever the State and particularly the county and local units of government decide are in their best interest. It is also being introduced in the House by Representative Bob Ney who is the chairman of the House Administration Committee. I hope it will receive favorable consideration in the next few hours. The other amendment I would like to offer is a mandate for the Federal vehicle fleet to use either 10-percent ethanol-blended gasoline or biodiesel fuel, 2 percent or more where it is available and where it is at a generally competitive price. The amendment would apply to some 650,000 Federal vehicles everywhere except for the Department of Defense and the military, and it provides the opportunity for the Federal Government to take the leadership in encouraging the use of ethanol and biodiesel fuels by its own practices. These are, as I said earlier, fuels that will add to our rural economic recovery to increase the prices of commodities, such as corn and soybeans, in the marketplace which raises profits for farmers and lowers subsidy costs for taxpayers. They are cleaner burning fuels than oil-derived fuels, and they put money in the pockets of Americans rather than foreigners. This amendment, as well, I hope, will be considered favorably by this body. It is not going to increase costs. In fact, if anything, based on my experience with ethanol, it is going to lower costs, and it is going to provide a real boost to the rural economy of America. In closing, I wish to say again that this legislation is crucial for Minnesota. It is crucial for our Nation. That is why tomorrow I am going to vote in favor of the cloture motion to proceed to this measure and move to pass it in the Senate. Hopefully, the House will follow suit as well so we can get this bill passed and signed by the President and into effect and get this money to the States where it can be well used and be an economic stimulus and provide jobs. I hope during the course of that consideration I will have an opportunity to offer these amendments. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. It is with a heavy heart I rise to speak against, and later vote against, this bill before the Senate. I campaigned in Minnesota on the need for prescription drug coverage for senior citizens. I said consistently I would vote for a responsible bill. Something was better than nothing. I voted a few months ago for the Senate-passed bill despite considerable reservations. It was better than nothing. That Senate bill contained my ``taste of their own medicine'' amendment which would require Members of Congress to live with the same prescription drug coverage as we have for seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries. That amendment, which passed the Senate by a vote of 93 to 3, was stripped out of the conference report as, evidently, some Members were promised it would be. That should tell the American people everything they need to know about this bill. It is not good enough for Congress. Some Members of Congress are trying to sell this legislation as good for seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries of America, but it is not good enough for them to live under. That is the height of hypocrisy. It is good enough for the senior citizens of this country, it is the best we will vote to provide for them, but, sorry, we will pass on it for ourselves. Why is Congress opting out of this coverage if it is so good? Why is it only half as good as what Members voted to provide themselves and their families and their employees? First, the program does not begin for 2 years, not until January of 2006. Until then, the senior citizens of America are going to have their opportunity to get another drug discount card. There is a novel idea. There are only how many dozens available already to seniors? This one plays special favorites. A senior with an income above 150 percent of poverty, approximately $13,000 per year of income and approximately $16,000 a year for a couple--they get a drug discount card and nothing more. A single senior with an income just under that amount, by even a couple dollars, or a married couple with an income similar, just a few dollars under that cut off level, gets a drug discount card plus $600. It is all or nothing. Either $600 or nothing. I am strongly in favor of helping low-income retirees but certainly on a more equitable basis than $600 or nothing. That is all that is available for seniors for the first 2 years. I would think the administration and others who decry the bureaucratic ineptitude and want to dismantle whole structures of Government would say something about this kind of ridiculous delay. Two years from passage to inception, for what? To give insurance companies time to write insurance policies? Or to shortchange seniors for 2 years to get the 10-year costs of the bill down? What is the reason for this ridiculous delay? Whatever it is, if a program such as this cannot be initiated for 2 years, that is a compelling reason to junk this program and find one better. Seniors of Minnesota and America have waited too long already to get good comprehensive prescription drug coverage. They should not be told they have to wait another 2 years before the program can even begin. That should be reason itself to find another way. When it does begin, what does the average senior get? He or she pays an annual premium of about $420 with an annual deductible of $250 and a 25-percent copay for the next $2,000 in expenditures in that 1 year. In other words, $500 of the $2,000 of costs. So if you add those up--$420 premium, the $250 annual deductible, the copay of $500, the senior is paying $1,170 of the first $2,250 annual costs for prescription drugs. In other words, just over half. But the next $2,850 of the costs for that senior citizen in that single year have to be paid entirely by the senior, everything out of their own pockets. That means for the first $5,100 of annual expenses for prescription drugs--which is not, unfortunately, beyond the pale for many seniors--the senior citizen pays $4,020. The Senior pays for 80 percent of the first $5,100 of annual prescription drug expenses. Above that, catastrophic coverage kicks in and the program pays 95 percent of the balance for that year but then the next year it starts all over. Something is better than nothing, but to delegate $400 billion over 10 years for coverage that seniors have to wait 2 years to begin and then they have to pay $4,000 of the first $5,100--all of that to save a little over $1,080 is something but it sure is not much. If that were all the bill did, I still would support it reluctantly because something is better than nothing. Unfortunately, the bill does worse than that; 2.7 million seniors estimated by the Budget Office now covered under private plans will lose that private coverage and will be relegated to this coverage which is far inferior to what they have now. That would include an estimated 40,000 Minnesotans. People who worked all their lives for a private employer and are now covered under that plan would lose it and be shifted to something much worse for them and what they have now. For over 7 million low-income elderly, the poorest of our poor senior citizens, they will pay more as they get shifted from Medicaid to Medicare. Their copay will increase and their choice of prescriptions will be reduced. That will affect almost 90,000 people in my State of Minnesota. The worst result in this bill is a prescription for higher and higher drug prices for all Americans that all Americans will have to pay. All Americans will have to pay out of their own pockets for their own prescription drugs and they will have to pay out of their own pockets for this program and other Government programs because the way this bill is written, the drug companies profit and everyone else has to pay. There will be no drug reimportation from Canada permitted unless the Secretary of Health and Human Services certifies the safety of all, which is something that the Secretary's predecessors in the previous two administrations did not do and this Secretary has indicated he will not do either. It is a totally unrealistic requirement to put on a Secretary to give a blanket certification of the safety of everything that would transpire. If the Secretary of Transportation had to provide that kind of guarantee for all air travel in the United States, we would not have an airline network functioning because no one could be expected to give that kind of guarantee. But the people who wrote this bill were very clever. They will not prohibit reimportation themselves, even though that is the result they want. No. They pretend the opposite, that it is permitted if--if--the Secretary of Health and Human Services certifies safety, something they know he will not do. The irony--or the absurdity really--is that according to Congressman Rahm Emanuel, one of the coauthors of the reimportation bill in the House of Representatives, the United States imports $14 billion worth of foreign-made drugs into the United States every year--$14 billion of prescription drugs that are manufactured in countries such as Ireland and elsewhere that are imported into the United States and distributed to U.S. pharmacies and then sold to American citizens. Those exact same drugs are manufactured in exactly the same plants, in the exact same countries, such as Ireland, and are shipped into Canada and distributed to Canadian pharmacists; and the only difference--they are exactly the same; the same product, manufacturer, packaging--the only difference is in Canada the price is one-third what it is in the United States or one-fourth what it costs in the United States or even as little as one-fifth or less than what it costs in the United States. That is the only difference: the price. Yet all of my colleagues who are free trade proponents and those over in the House want to repeal NAFTA just for prescription drugs, which is one of the areas where the American consumer would benefit most decidedly, enormously, from NAFTA, from free trade, from the ability to go to another country and take advantage of those lower prices. No. Sorry. Under this legislation, the result will be you Americans must buy your drugs in the United States, and only in the United States, at prices two or three or four times the world market price. Now, why are the prices so much lower in Canada than they are in this country? It is because the Canadian Government stands up for its citizens and negotiates prices that are lower and will not agree to prices that are exorbitant. And their citizens are the beneficiaries of these prices that are one-third, one-fourth, one-fifth of what they are in the United States--not even close approximations. People say the Government ought to act more like a business, and they are right. What we are proposing the Government would do is exactly what large corporations which self-insure or HMOs do, which is to purchase volumes of prescription drugs at negotiated discounts of 30 percent, up to 50 percent. It is exactly what my colleague Bob Graham from Florida has pointed out, that the Veterans Administration does quite successfully, with fantastic savings for veterans and for the American taxpayers who pay for part of the cost of that program. But not under this legislation. This legislation would prohibit what they call Government interference in price setting negotiations. Why? Well, once again, the words of the bill belie the intent and the result. It says: ``in order to further competition.'' What deception that is. It says, let a bunch of small-competitor plans offer nickel- and-dime savings, but prohibit the Government from insisting upon and getting 5 times, 10 times that amount of savings, savings that would benefit everyone in America--seniors and everyone else. Those price reductions would be reflected in domestic market prices. The critics call it price fixing. Well, there is price fixing now in this country. It is the drug companies that are doing the price fixing. They are given monopolies, called patents, for 15 to 20 years or more. They set the prices, they raise the prices, and we have to pay the prices. But that kind of price fixing, I guess, is all right according to some who want to prohibit the Government from doing so. Does anybody really believe Americans are going to be upset about paying lower prices for prescription drugs? Does anybody think consumers in America are going to say: Government is acting in a way that I don't support? In fact, it will be the opposite. People will say: Wow, my Government is doing something for me. My Government is standing up for me against these big corporate entities that I don't have the ability to face by myself. I don't have that purchasing power. I can't go to a drugstore and negotiate price. Even as a pharmacist I can't negotiate a different price. My Government is standing up for me the way the Canadian Government is standing up for their citizens. By golly, my Government is doing something right. But the people who wrote this bill are so anti-Government that they will not even let Government do something right. They will not even let Government do something that would have enormous financial benefit for all the people of this country that would save them billions of dollars of expenditures because I guess it might contradict their ideological absolutism that Government does everything wrong. Well, it also might cost the drug companies, the largest contributors to the Federal political campaigns--it might cost them, I guess, some of their millions of dollars of profits, coming out of the pockets of people we are supposed to represent. It is a big victory, this bill, for the corporate drug dealers. You have to give them credit. All those lobbyists--what is it? They estimate there are six times the number of lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry for every Member of this body. Well, it sure paid off for them this time. They won everything. They got uncontained price increases for years to come, a market group, 39 million seniors who will have help pay them, who will pay those higher prices, and everyone else paying higher prices, and a captive market, where they are not even able to go someplace else and take advantage of lower prices elsewhere. The drug companies want everything. The Medicare manipulators, they are the other winners. This bill is supposed to be about providing the best possible prescription drug coverage for senior citizens. Now we find out all these ambushes of various aspects of Medicare are tossed in that were not considered by the Senate, for which there were no hearings. And there were not votes on these matters. They were either put in the House bill or stuck in the conference committee behind closed doors where no one else could see what was going on. The program reform in Congress has become like a drive-by shooting. With no forewarning, somebody picks a target, shoots a bunch of holes in it, and takes off. That is our version of reform. That is what we are doing here with no forethought. Another example is special education. We have waited 3 years for so- called reform of special education, which is always used as the reason we cannot spend the money that is necessary to fulfill a 27-year old commitment. And then suddenly, last week, lo and behold, there was unanimous consent for 2 hours of debate, evenly divided, on IDEA reform, and, boom, we are going to have it done, boom, in time to go home and eat turkey. Unfortunately, we produce enough turkeys right here with this legislation. Unfortunately, this bill we have before us is one of those turkeys. And I say that with no pleasure at all, given the importance of it. But this is a $400 billion turkey that gives first pickings and all the gravy to the corporate drug dealers and the big insurance companies and the big plan providers. Some seniors get the leftovers, and the American taxpayers get the neck and higher drug prices for themselves and higher payments through this program and others, subsidizing prices that are just exorbitant and that I would be ashamed to support. There is a better bill that could be written. There is a better bill that could be passed. There is a better bill that could benefit the people of Minnesota and the people of this country. With a 2-year delay, we could come back next year and pass that bill and still enact it and get it implemented sooner than this one. That is the course of action we should take. We should reject this conference report, not for nothing, but for something better because the American people deserve something much better than what is being foisted on them here. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DAYTON

Mr. DAYTON. I defer to the ranking member.

Mr. DAYTON. I thank the Senator and the chairman of the subcommittee. I know these two leaders have been under the greatest of pressures and financial strictures. They both have performed heroically in getting the money for veterans. My colleague is right. My former colleague, Senator Wellstone, would be happy beyond belief for the veterans of Minnesota and of America. I thank you for your extraordinary efforts. I salute the efforts of both distinguished colleagues and I thank them for this matter. I certainly meant no disrespect to anyone yesterday in my remarks. My distress was primarily because I felt that again my friend Paul's memory would not be well served by having the folks in Minnesota or anywhere else losing out. So his memory would be served, I wanted this memorial, this tribute from the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the President of the United States, and they have been very supportive and gracious throughout all this. We finally fulfill that. I thank the chairman and ranking member for making this possible, and I yield the floor.