Michael Enzi

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Chair. I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Massachusetts and the diligence with which he has worked on this issue and the number of times we have debated it. I appreciate the majority leader making it possible for us to consider amendments on this bill. I understand how some people would like to have this as a clean amendment, that we just do the increase. The debate the last three times we have done it has been about whether we can have some provisions for small businesses to offset the impact of the raise in the minimum wage. I want to bring a more personal face to this small business. We confuse that sometimes even with General Motors and some of the airlines. Those are big corporations. In fact, the ones I am particularly concerned about are the ones with 50 employees or less, and even more concerned about the ones that only have 2 or 3 employees. The impact and their ability to adjust is much more limited. We are talking about the inventors in their garages who have an idea and who will employ another person to help put their product together and market it. We are talking about the corner grocery store. We are talking about the laundry. We are talking about the little shoe store, the independent one. These are families that are eking out a living. These are not families that are getting rich. These are families that took on a lot of risk for the American dream. They are hoping that with all of the loans they put in place to be able to do this business that they always dreamed of doing, they might make a return on their investment and enough to keep their family going. But there is no guarantee. These are the people who--and I know; I used to be a small businessman. I used to own shoe stores. One of my definitions of a small businessman is the guy who wakes up, sits up straight in bed in the middle of the night and says: Tomorrow is payday; how do I meet payroll? And they figure out a way because the employees get paid first. These are people worrying about how to stay in business, how to make a living, and taking on a whole lot of risk to make sure other people have jobs. We have to remember that the small businessman will be forced to come up with additional funds to pay his or her workers on what we are mandating today. Those funds don't come from a money tree or some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They come out of the pockets of the Nation's small businessmen. It is the penalty they pay for taking the risk associated with running a small business. I have about 3 minutes. I yield the remainder of the time to the Senator from Maine.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I echo what the Senator from Massachusetts said, that this does provide for authorization. There is room for that to be included, and we can help look for the resources to do something on that. I commend both Senator Roberts and Senator Dodd for their tenaciousness and their active work to be able to bring this to the Senate at this point in time. I note that Senator Roberts has been working on this for about 10 years. Six years is the average for a bill around here. That should qualify. I ask we make this part of that package.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, on behalf of Senator Ensign, I call up amendments Nos. 152, 153, and 154.

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

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, in a while, we will take some action on Senator Sessions' amendment. I would like to make a couple comments on that amendment before we get to that point. This might be an appropriate time. Last year, Congress undertook the most sweeping changes to pension law since the enactment of ERISA. It was a major milestone and resulted in the most comprehensive change to workers' and their families' pension and retirement savings in the past 32 years. The Pension Protection Act could not have been enacted without bipartisan cooperation, but it took more than Republicans and Democrats working together. The Pension Protection Act resulted from a deep commitment toward cooperation between the Finance Committee, which oversaw the tax provisions of the bill, and the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which oversaw the pensions provisions. On the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, we had previously taken a strong bipartisan look at retirement issues and retirement savings as part of our pension oversight duties. The new chairman of the committee has stated he will continue the committee's strong pension oversight responsibilities in order to protect and strengthen the retirement savings so that workers and their families may prosper long into their retirement years. The sense-of-the-Senate resolution before us expresses the sentiment that saving for retirement is important. We all agree with that point. The fact is that savings opportunities are available almost everywhere, but many workers do not take advantage of it. By this sense-of-the- Senate resolution, we are not advocating any particular retirement programs or initiatives over others on the books already or proposed to be introduced. We are simply saying that people ought to save enough to maintain their standard of living during their golden years, and they ought to invest prudently so that their savings will be safe when they do retire. Better financial education and investment advice is needed. Automatic enrollment rules that were enacted in the Pension Protection Act will help people learn to save. New default investment regulations, when finalized, will help too. In that respect, progress has been made in saving for retirement, but much needs to be done. I am happy to join with my colleagues in reiterating the commitment by supporting the sense-of-the-Senate resolution. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, too often when we debate the issue of minimum wage, we focus on abstract ideas and proposals and fail to consider the impact of our actions on the small business community that lives and breathes in the real world. I appreciate the cooperation with Senator Reid and others, focused around Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, working in a very bipartisan way to put together a package that would help to relieve some of the impact of the minimum wage increase. I hope everyone has noticed that in the minimum wage debate we have been having, the debate has not been over whether to raise the minimum wage. The debate has been on what we can do to alleviate some of the impact on small business. I hope that is the way we can continue the discussion on this, too. I mentioned earlier today that you need to meet some of these small businessmen. They are in your neighborhood. You can meet them easily. They run the laundry, corner grocery, little retail stores. For the most part they are families who are eking out a living while they are taking on a lot of risk. They do have these moments that they wonder why they undertook that risk and how they are going to continue to fund that risk. Sometimes they are paying employees when they can't even afford to pay themselves, and their families are relying on the business to support them as a family, too, particularly considering all the risks they are taking. Sometimes they are forced to come up with additional funds to pay their workers on what we will be mandating. Those funds do not come from a money tree or some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They come out of the pockets of the Nation's small businessmen. It is the penalty they pay for taking the risks associated with running a small business. The first hearing I held in Wyoming was as part of the Small Business Committee. We had a hearing on some of the problems of small business. When it was over, one of the reporters came up and said: You only had about 100 small businessmen attend this. Why do you suppose it was such a poor turnout? I said: That wasn't a poor turnout from small business. If small business had an extra employee to send to a day's conference, they would fire him. They can't afford extra people. With that realization, it was a good turnout and there were a lot of good suggestions. I always like to go back to Wyoming and meet with the people and actually talk to the guy on the end of the shovel because he usually has the best suggestions for changing the shovel. I found that to be true of the small businessmen. This afternoon we agreed to an amendment that will provide for easier compliance with Federal rules and regulations, and I appreciate the bipartisan action that was taken. That will make a huge difference to small businessmen. We could consider that the action we are about to take will be making it bad business for people to hire people who need some help and support in developing their skills by that method, making them higher wage workers. That cannot help but cost some people their jobs. In other instances, the hours they need will be cut back, hours that they need to get a good paycheck. We cannot leave the floor today feeling better about having helped ease the income strain for many of the workers of our States but having left the employers wondering how to pay for the increases we have mandated. Once again, we have the best of intentions, but, once again, we have to remember one simple rule: It is not our money. We are, once again, reaching into the pockets of the small businessmen in our community and taking their money and telling them the amount of wages they will pay their employees without regard to the talents and abilities of the employees they can hire. We have this huge job training corps out there. It is called small businesses. They take people who don't have the skills that are necessary for the small business they are operating and they teach them how to run a cash register, how to count change, how to interact with a customer, how to dress appropriately. You might think these are all things that might be covered in school classes, and they are, if you take the right classes. But there are a lot of people who not only don't take the right classes, they drop out of school. They need to earn a living and they have to start somewhere earning a living. To earn that living they have to have some training, some basic job training. A lot of these small businesses are where they get that basic business training, and they kind of get it for free. The businessmen provide that information, and most of the people in the minimum wage level move up rather quickly. As they learn those skills, they get paid more. I know a lot of businesses where they have the minimum wage situation that lasts about 3 weeks if the people learn enough to advance so they can actually wait on the customer. What we are talking about is a blanket increase that will warm the hearts of those who lack the skills for higher wage jobs as it leaves the employers out in the cold, unless we do the Reid package. Any increase in the minimum wage must be offset by a small business tax incentive package. As a former small business owner of mom-and-pop shoe stores, let me walk through the realities of how business owners may address a mandated Federal minimum wage hike. Raising the minimum wage to $7.50 imposes a 41-percent increase in labor costs for a small employer with minimum wage workers. Every employer must face the very real issue of how he or she will deal with this increase in the costs and still meet the payroll week after week. These are very real and difficult questions that impact our smallest employers most heavily. These increases must be paid for by employers and, as I said before, the money doesn't grow on trees. An employer must make hard decisions about how to meet these increased payroll obligations. When costs go up, most businesses first look to cut expenses. The choices they have can be difficult and have often already been used. To meet higher mandated payroll costs, a small employer may be forced to consider cutting back on benefits such as health insurance, retirement, or leave plans--although a lot of small businesses can't afford to provide those in the first place. It is simply too easy to forget that fringe benefits have a significant cost. Most employees don't realize the benefit they are getting when they get those. If a small employer has to reduce expenses to meet payroll, those are often the costs that go. I know of a video store--I was talking to a young man who works in the Senate now, and he used to work in the Senate and part-time in a video store. When the minimum wage went up last time, what the video store did was instead of having two people at the store at the close of business, they only had one, and only having one isn't nearly as safe as having two. But that was the choice that the owner had to make in order to be able to meet the payroll. We have seen some charts where, in States where there has been a raise in minimum wage, there has been an increase in number of jobs as well. I appreciate those charts and believe those charts to be accurate. What those charts are doing, though, is aggregating for the entire State. What we are doing is imposing this on one business at a time, one employee at a time. It really gets down to as local as politics ever gets. Those small businessmen believe that individuals matter, that people matter, and they are forced into some of these choices. There are not a whole lot of ways they can compensate for the change. I have a chart that shows how to cut costs when there are none to cut. This came from the Washington Post. It says: We're at the bottom. If the minimum wage went up, I don't know how we would make the cuts to cover it . . . the employee said. The lone salaried employee, she works 80 hours a week to make up for the lack of workers. ``I have mixed feelings,'' she continued. ``I know that people can't afford to live on $5.15 an hour. But on the business side, small businesses can't afford to pay it.'' There are examples like that that are real-life situations that do make it difficult. That is the lone employee in a store. Beyond cutting fringe benefits, small businesses may need to consider cutting back work hours, eliminating overtime, or laying off workers. Such actions are traditional and often necessary responses to meeting increased costs--not just the increased costs of the minimum wage. Unfortunately, these actions ultimately hurt the very workers the minimum wage increase is designed to help. Some would say raise the prices. That is not always possible in the short run. In the long run there may be some flexibility because this is going to be imposed on everybody and will drive up prices. Of course, when it drives up prices, it kind of eliminates the benefit of the increase in the minimum wage. In the real world, small employers have to consider these types of options to cope with mandated increases in wages. Small business owners who themselves favor a minimum wage increase nonetheless recognize that any increase may result in having to make these tough choices. In a recent front-page Washington Post article, the owner of a discount store in Kansas noted that, while he felt a wage of $7.25 seemed fair, he also noted that his profit margin was thin and that wages are his biggest controllable expense. He said: If wages go up, hours will have to come down. And the question will become: Whose, his stockman who works 6 hours a day and takes care of a wife who is blind and arthritic or should it be another worker who is ill and is on a waiting list for an organ transplant and needs more hours rather than fewer or yet another employee who is 22 years old and pregnant? These are hard realities that are faced by many small employers and those who work with them. I ask unanimous consent that an article from the Washington Post that came out recently--I congratulate the writer of that article--be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI. The author of the article is really a master at showing how all of these things are intertwined. It is very revealing and makes a good case for the increase in the minimum wage. But it does show some of the decisions that will have to be made and how that will affect other people, some of whom will be in a similar situation. In a similar vein, when confronted by higher labor costs, employers will naturally gravitate toward filling positions with their most highly skilled, experienced, and productive workers available. Once again, this phenomenon of replacing low-skilled with high-skilled workers in the face of rising labor costs winds up harming the very workers an increase in the minimum wage seeks to help. The minimum wage positions are very often the entryway into the world of work for those who lack skills and experience. I can't say that enough. I am hoping the Workforce Investment Act will kind of come out of this whole process, too, and provide some additional training so people with less skills can have more skills and get some of the choice jobs that this country has to offer. But mandated increases in the minimum wage run the risk of closing that entryway to many. Another option, of course, for employers that has to be considered is automation as an alternative to a paid employee. Does this sound farfetched? Consider how the automated teller machines, the ATMs, have replaced tellers, how the self-checkout lane at many establishments has replaced the clerk, and the drive-through has replaced the waiter, and in toll booths the EZ Pass has replaced the toll collector--not all of them, but a lot of them who use the EZ Pass eliminate toll collectors. We have seen some charts on how productivity goes up when the minimum wage goes up. Sometimes productivity goes up when machines are instituted in place of people. They can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We don't pay them any health benefits. We may have a little bit of maintenance done on them. They don't get any vacation. Employees are still necessary. I keep telling people that you can't outsource the fact when your toilet is plugged and you need some help or when your electric switch doesn't work, there are a lot of hands-on things that absolutely require people. But they are figuring out ways to automate a lot of these things. In Gillette, WY, where I am from, we have this huge worker shortage, and as I have said a number of times, I keep encouraging people to go west and find the new frontier and get some good jobs. But when they are pinched, they come up with some other ways of doing things. The drive-up for our McDonald's is actually handled out of California. When you drive up to the little window and you order your Big Mac, you are actually talking to someone in California who uses the Internet to send the order back to the people who are putting it all together to give to you when you get in your car. They have been able to increase the number of drive-throughs substantially using lower paid--this kind of amazes me--out of California. So automation is one of the answers. Beyond these cost-cutting measures of eliminating benefits, reducing hours, downsizing, laying off employees, reducing low-skill and entry- level employment, and automating, employers may also have to face up to the prospect of increasing the price of their goods and services. Price increases caused by mandated cost increases bring their own catalog of ills. Such increases drive inflation and cause all consumers to ultimately pay the price of these mandates. The irony is that as the cost of these labor increases is passed to the consumers, it affects everyone, including the minimum wage worker, whose recently increased wages are suddenly devalued by the increased price for goods and services that impact them as well. So on this ladder of success, we have kind of removed the lower rung of it. So it is a little bigger step to get up there, and some of them aren't going to be able to make the step because of some of the ways that it has to be adjusted. In the same Washington Post article I mentioned earlier, another small employer who owns two convenience stores noted that he simply does not have the option of cutting hours to meet his increased payroll burden. Instead, he noted: I am going to have to raise my prices. He indicated if he had the chance to talk with Speaker Pelosi about the minimum wage, he would ask one question, and that is: Where does she think the money will come from? Of course, it can be argued that his customers, if he raises the price for the candy bar or the cup of coffee, will go somewhere where it is cheaper, and that is a good possibility. That means that in order to maintain the business, if he is going to raise those prices, he has to have employees who give better service, quicker service, and that goes back to the on-the-job training I was mentioning that a lot of these small businesses do. They have to have the good service in order to keep their loyal customers. Sometimes that doesn't just hinge on the price of the candy bar or a cup of coffee. I believe almost all of us recognize these economic realities and that none of us want them to come about. It is for those precise reasons that the substitute amendment contains provisions designed to enable our smallest employers to meet the obligations imposed by a minimum wage increase without resorting to the difficult personnel choices, the consumer price increases or all of the other things I mentioned. Yesterday, I spoke briefly about the fact that in legislating, it is often important to find a third way. In this instance, the third way is one that will provide an increase in the minimum wage but also provide relief to the most affected small businesses so that they don't experience employee dislocation, a reduction in employment opportunities for low-skilled and entry-level workers or an increase in consumer prices that takes away the real value of any wage increase. The third way is represented by the real value of any wage increase. The third way is represented by the substitute amendment that was the product of extensive bipartisan support, Democrats and Republicans working together, acknowledging the fact that mandated cost increases can have negative economic effects. So together we developed a means of addressing those concerns in the form of a bipartisan substitute amendment. I can't emphasize enough how pleased I am with the cooperation I saw as people worked out different alternatives. There were certainly a wide variety of them that were done and I think with some concentration particularly on how they would affect small business. I would reiterate the bipartisan support of that small business tax incentive package. There are key Democratic leaders who have acknowledged the need for the package to offset any wage increase in order to not disenfranchise the employers and their workers. So I hope we won't make this partisan now. As I mentioned yesterday, the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, and I have gone head to head on raising the minimum wage three times in the past several years. Each time, the votes were set up for each side to fail. This time around, we worked to come up with a third way in order to get the job done. I hope that all efforts to try and unravel this third way that will most likely result in a minimum wage increase isn't abandoned for the sake of making partisan messages. I urge my colleagues to continue to support the small business incentive package as a much-needed offset to the increased Federal wage. I think this is a tremendous opportunity for us to do the right thing in all aspects, and I hope there will be good bipartisan support. I understand the desire to have a clean minimum wage, but that is what we have been going through for a couple of years now, and we are finally talking bipartisan. I think that was something that came out of the elections. I am pleased to see it is operating, and we will see how long it continues. I hope it continues through the entire session. Amendment No. 108, as Modified

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Sessions amendment No. 108 be modified with the changes at the desk, and I urge its adoption, as modified.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Sessions amendment No. 107 be withdrawn.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. ENZI. I yield back, with the consent of both sides, the 2 minutes that was to be available on both sides. I yield back that time.

Mr. ENZI. I request the yeas and nays.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, at this point, I have permission to lay down an amendment on behalf of Senator Snowe. I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Chairman for his kind words. I admire him for the passion he puts into every issue he works on, and people will notice that he works on a lot of issues. He and I have had this debate three times over the last 2 years. We have varied a little bit on the amount of the increase, and I have always tried to get something in there for small businesses to take care of the increase, or to offset the increase a little so that these small businesses can continue to function and provide employment opportunities. I come from a small business background. But not from small business as defined by the Federal government. The Federal definition is a business with less than 500 employees. Any business that we had in our State that was that large--and I am not sure we have any headquartered in our State--would be considered big business. I am talking about the mom-and-pop shops where the person who does the accounting also sweeps the sidewalks and cleans the toilets and waits on customers--definitely not in that order. This is a significant segment of small business across this country. They generate 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs annually over the last decade. Raising the minimum wage will affect them more substantially than businesses with as many as 500 or more employees. In the context of a minimum wage increase, I have always asked that actions be taken to offset the impact of an increase for small businesses. I want to thank Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley for their work in the Finance Committee to come up with such a package. That package is now contained in the Reid amendment that has been submitted. I think this package makes a substantial difference and makes a raise in the minimum wage possible. I think had we worked toward this kind of a situation earlier, the minimum wage might have happened earlier. Unfortunately, the times that the minimum wage issue arose in the past 2 years were situations where it was unamendable. It had to be a take-it-or-leave-it--my proposal or Senator Kennedy's proposal, and we left them both. Any proposal on which the two of us have been able to reach agreement has been very successful in making it through the Senate and the House and getting signed by the President. It is not an easy task to pass a bill. I don't have to tell the Senator from Massachusetts that. He has been around here practicing the art of legislating a long time. I am one of the newcomers; I have only been here 10 years. I have noticed, however, that legislating means either finding a compromise, or finding a third way. On this particular bill, we may find that third way. There will no doubt be additional amendments to this bill. I like situations where bills can be amended. I have been in situations where they could not. I have been on the side with the majority of votes in those situations and have not always felt comfortable. So I thank Majority Leader Reid for having a situation where there can be amendments. I ask my side of the aisle not to make amendments that are onerous or wide-ranging but that stick to the subject and see what the best possible package is that we can come up with. I will speak first to the underlying substitute that has been laid down on this bill. There hasn't been any comment on that yet, even though we have had 2 hours 40 minutes worth of debate. Of course, we started first with Senator Gregg's amendment. I want to mention that this first amendment was an agreement to keep the ethics bill from having a different approach. I appreciate the effort of both parties to allow that to come up. While that will be voted on as a part of the minimum wage, it is not a part of the minimum wage. It allows a vote on that as an up-or-down vote. I am pleased there was some compromise on that and some ability to do that. I listened to the hour and a half of debate on that amendment and the concern over whether trading votes would happen. Something this body ought to consider, perhaps, is a law that we have in Wyoming that prohibits the trading of votes on any issue and makes it a felony that has to be reported by both sides if an offer is made. It makes each issue stand on its own. So I will speak first to the underlying substitute that was laid down on this bill because it provides the tax relief we have been talking about for a long time, and this is tax relief that has been agreed upon in a very bipartisan way. Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus often work together, and that is why the Finance Committee is so successful in moving things along. They have come up with tax relief for very small businesses that will aid them in meeting their burden of a minimum wage increase. I have long advocated that we must provide a measure of tax and regulatory relief to businesses that will face these higher mandated costs. The substitute amendment consists of the following provisions: First, it would increase current section 179 expensing by extending the increased expensing of qualified business property allowed for small businesses until 2011. Without an extension, the amount which may be expensed will drop by more than 75 percent. If we pass this extension, we will allow small business owners who are making investments in the future of their business to retain more of their earnings, and these additional funds can be used to retain and hire new employees, thereby balancing out the effect of the minimum wage increase. Now, we have talked about families and children, and I want to tell you the small businesses that we are talking about are the small businesses that are run by families that, in most instances, have children. Quite often, the small businesses are run by young people. In my own case, I got married, and a week later we started a shoe store. We had kids, and the kids got to learn a little about the retail trade by having to work and help us out. So I have some personal background and experience in running a small business. Second, the amendment would provide a 15-year recovery period for leasehold improvements and certain restaurant buildings and related improvements. This provision improves current law by including new restaurants, retail space, and improvements by extending the broadened provision. Restaurants and retail employ a very large percentage of minimum wage workers and are most impacted by mandated increases in the Federal wage. This portion of the amendment extends relief to these businesses and seeks to avoid dislocation and decreased employment opportunities for restaurant and other workers. Third, the amendment would allow noncorporate taxpayers with annual gross receipts of less than $10 million to use the cash method of accounting for purchases and sales of merchandise. Under current law, those small business taxpayers are generally required to use the accrual method for such purchases and sales, even though they may use the cash accounting method for overall accounting. This simplification and clarification of accounting methods would assist small businesses by reducing their administrative costs, which would free up more resources to maintain employment levels. I realize most people in America may not know the difference between cash accounting and accrual accounting. I can tell them, accrual accounting is a lot more complicated because one has to guess on the percentages of expenditures and then later make corrections for actual amount, whereas under cash accounting, one takes the actual money coming in and the actual money that goes out. It is a much simpler accounting system. We want to make sure those small businesses have that opportunity. Fourth, the amendment expands work opportunity tax incentives. This allows employers credit against wages for targeted individuals, including those on welfare, qualified veterans, and high-risk youth. These populations, again, are most likely to lose jobs in an environment where employers are forced to bear increased salary costs. This program would be extended for 5 years. Fifth, the substitute also creates a voluntary certification program for professional employer organizations that meet the standards of solvency and responsibility and that maintain ongoing certification by the IRS. Lastly, the amendment provides for a series of clarifications and modifications to the tax and accounting provisions that govern subchapter S corporations. Many small businesses are organized under the provisions of subchapter S of the Internal Revenue Code. Incidentally, the ones that are organized under subchapter S pay taxes on the earnings each and every year as opposed to a corporation that only pays some corporate taxes and then on distribution has to pay the rest of the taxes. I can't leave this topic of small businesses without commenting briefly on a matter of great concern to these businesses, the employees, and the families that depend on them. I am speaking, of course, about the rise in cost of small business health insurance. Although cost growth has begun to slow a bit, premiums for small businesses have been rising unsustainably at near double-digit rates for more than half a decade, which is more than double the rate of inflation of wage growth. For much of the last Congress, my colleagues and I engaged in an aggressive and bipartisan effort to tackle this problem. Indeed, the small business health plan legislation I authored with Senator Ben Nelson came within just a few votes of overcoming a filibuster last May. Our legislation would enable small businesses to pool their negotiating across State borders to have a big enough pool to effectively negotiate against the big insurance companies and thus hold down costs and widen access to coverage while preserving the strong role for State oversight and consumer protection. Progress on this critical issue is moving forward. I have had interesting discussions with people from both sides of the aisle. I think the discussions have been promising. There is a long way to go, but I think we have built a solid foundation, and that foundation continues to grow as we move into a new year and a new Congress. Small business health insurance reform is vitally important, and I realize there may be some sentiment that the issue should be resolved in the context of the minimum wage debate. However, I firmly believe that offering a version of last year's small business health plan as an amendment to the pending minimum wage legislation would be premature and would not help us move forward toward securing meaningful small group health insurance relief in this Congress or minimum wage or help for small businesses. Rather, the best way to achieve real small business health care reform is to proceed forcefully to build on the significant progress we made last year. Development of small business health legislation is a process that is well along, and I believe success is in sight. We are on a promising track, and we should stick with it. That promising track, of course, is having bipartisan discussions about what needs to be done in health to keep the insurance rates down, to provide better access to people. Senator Kennedy and I have been having some discussions on principles. That is the way we have been attacking the pieces of legislation we do around here. We set down principles and then meet with stakeholders and talk about what difficulties those principles provide for them. Then we come up with a bill that will hopefully find a way through the maze. It is extremely difficult, but the increase in interest in health insurance has risen so greatly that I think this will be a prime topic for people in the next year and hopefully a solution within the next year. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention, as I have many times in the past, that while an increase in the minimum wage will be a kick- start for some workers, it doesn't address the fundamental issue of chronic low wage earners. Regardless of how we increase the minimum wage today, those who earn it will still be the lowest paid tomorrow. The minimum wage needs to be for all workers what it is for most--a starting point. Our policy should be directed at giving all workers the opportunity to move up the wage ladder, not merely moving the ladder's lowest rung up. As a former small business owner, I know these entry-level jobs are a gateway into the workforce for people without skills and without experience. Minimum wage usually goes to those with minimum skills. These skills-based wage jobs can open the door to better jobs and better lives for low-skilled workers if we give them the tools they need to succeed. My colleagues know that I strongly believe we must do more in this department. For the past two Congresses, one of my major priorities has been reauthorizing and improving the Nation's job- training system that was created by the Workforce Investment Act. This law will help to provide American workers with the skills they need to compete in the global economy. Education and the acquisition of job skills represent the surest path to economic opportunity and security in the global job market. Increasing skills increases jobs, increases wages, and lifts the lowest boat into a bigger boat. Over the past few years, this bill has received unanimous support in both the HELP Committee, which has reported it out twice, and the full Senate, which has passed it twice. But I have to say that election-year politics and political positioning have prevented this important bill from becoming law. We tried to preconference a lot of the bills that came out of the HELP Committee last Congress. We were successful on many. That means the House agreed with the Senate position with some changes prior even to the time the Senate passed a bill, and then the House would pass the same bill, and as a result, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee got 27 bills through the legislative process and signed by the President. That is quite a contrast to what happens with most committees. The Workforce Investment Act was not able to be preconferenced. I hope it can be now. I believe there is a little better understanding of some of the objections and also some of the benefits. I believe this bill will make it through the process and will start an estimated 900,000 people a year on a better career path. It can only happen if it is not a casualty of Congress's inability to overcome its worst partisan instincts. That would be inexcusable. Outside the glare of election-year politics, I hope we can quickly pass this job-training bill that will truly improve the wages and lives of workers in this country. The Senate has passed it twice. We have spent 4 years working on it. The potential skills gap facing American workers only deepens when we are compared to our competitors around the world. As chairman of the committee, I was able to travel to some of the foreign countries which are among some of our toughest competitors in the world market. I came home believing strongly that we must focus more seriously on the acquisition and improvement of job and job-related skills. While many of us feel good about what we are doing today when we raise the minimum wage, I intend to make sure we do not neglect to address the far more pressing concerns for American workers: the increasing skills gap and the availability of health insurance. I anticipate we will get to work on these issues at a separate time. Amendment No. 103 to Amendment No. 100

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the amendment offered by Senator Snowe. This amendment would provide some measure of relief to those small businesses which bear the economic burden of nearly 41 percent of the increase in the Federal minimum wage. Small businesses not only employ the bulk of the minimum wage workers, they have also been the engine for economic growth. Small business has been responsible for the majority of new job creation, generating between 60 and 80 percent of the net new jobs annually over the last decade, and it is small businesses which have traditionally provided the only entry port for new workers into the job market. I congratulate Senator Snowe for her persistence on this amendment. She has worked on it a number of times and revised it to the present situation. I suspect if there are any objections, we would be willing to work on it additionally. But we must recognize that raising the Federal minimum wage, whatever else effects there may be, significantly increases the costs for many of these businesses. I mentioned that an increase of 41 percent in labor costs has to be accounted for somehow. Curtailing services, reducing employee complements, and forgoing expansions are some of the many options considered by these businesses in the face of increased costs. The inescapable fact is that increased labor costs heighten the risk of both employment dislocation and decreased job opportunity for the very individuals an increase in the minimum wage is designed to benefit. Unless we are prudent and balance such mandated cost increases for some measure of relief for affected small businesses, we risk serious unintended consequences. Simply put, an increase in the minimum wage is of no value at all to a worker who does not have a job or a job seeker who has no prospects of employment. As a Senator from a rural, low-population State, I would like to point out another reality. In many cases, heavily populated areas with high costs of living have already, in fact, adjusted their minimum wage levels either by law or by market forces, which actually work. The town I am from is a boomtown, it is an energy center. If one drives by the Arby's restaurant, the lit-up moving marque sign says: Now hiring, $9.50 an hour plus benefits; you name the hours. If you go in and apply, they will tell you that if they can pick the hours, it is $10.50 an hour. In many areas, market forces are working. There are construction companies that go from one site to another hiring people away from other construction companies. We have a shortage of people to work in Wyoming. Of course, that requires relocating to the frontier, which is what a lot of people consider Wyoming. Horace Greeley said: Go west, young man. I would say: Go west, young man and young woman. There are coal operations out there, primarily surface mines. They need people to drive coal, or haul trucks. These trucks are 28 feet long, 28 feet wide, and 28 feet tall. They haul a lot of coal. We move 1 million tons of coal a day out of our county. How can we do that? We have a coal seam that is 50- to 90-feet thick, and it is only under 60 to 90 feet of dirt. When I was mayor and Senator Rockefeller was Governor, he came out to see our mines. Taking him back out to the airport, I always remember what he said: You folks don't mine coal here. I said: What do you mean? He said: You just back up trains and you load them. We have coal which is low in sulfur and other chemicals, which makes it useful across the United States. Some of the States also known as coal States take our coal and mix it with their coal, and they can help meet the clean air standards that way. We are low in Btu, so they increase the Btu by using their coal. If someone has a clean drug record and no experience and can drive anything, they can be trained to drive one of these coal haul trucks and make $60,000 to $80,000 a year, and even more with overtime. It is a very flexible market. So there are job opportunities out there. But they may be nontraditional jobs, and they may require moving to another part of the country. One will find Wyoming can use a little bit more population. We are trying to reach a population of half a million people. We are 350 miles a side on our State, so we are bigger than most of the States. At any rate, there are areas which would be most dramatically affected by the minimum wage increase and those are lower cost of living areas. They are often rural and sparsely populated. In those areas, employers will feel the most pressure on their bottom lines. In those areas, employees will have the fewest opportunities to find other employment if they are let go. So a reasonable approach to the minimum wage issue must take those realities into account. If we are going to dramatically increase the costs for some businesses by a wage mandate, we should provide some measure of relief to those same businesses. If we do not, we harm not only those small businesses, we ultimately harm the individuals they employ. The sound and well-reasoned amendment that is offered by Senator Snowe accomplishes these ends through reasonable and targeted regulatory relief for those small businesses that are most negatively impacted by a wage increase mandate. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of the amendment along with Senator Landrieu. The Snowe amendment provides some regulatory relief by requiring that the Federal agencies which issue new rules and regulations which impact small businesses also provide those employers with plainly written and readily available guidance that explains what employers must do to be in compliance with these rules and regulations. All employers incur costs keeping up with the obligations Government imposes on them and determining how to meet those obligations. Small businesses regularly incur administrative costs in monitoring Federal regulatory changes and developing compliance programs. There is no question that the burden of Federal regulations falls more heavily on small business. This chart shows the cost of complying with Federal regulations. The per-employee compliance cost for firms with 20 or fewer employees is $7,647. The per-employee compliance cost for firms with 500 or more employees is only $5,282. So the per-employee compliance costs are 45 percent more for our smallest employers than they are for our largest. Congress has previously recognized the necessity of providing small businesses relief from those compliance and monitoring costs, yet a GAO study has shown the goal of providing small businesses relief from high compliance monitoring costs is far from fully met. The regulatory provision in this amendment seeks to ensure that goal is finally realized. The need for this type of compliance assistance was recognized by my colleague from Maine, Senator Snowe, the author of this amendment and proponent of this proposal in this Congress as well as the last two Congresses. I am pleased to again cosponsor the bill authored by Senator Snowe. The bill continues to enjoy broad bipartisan support from our colleagues, including Senators Kerry and Landrieu. This regulatory amendment will not only have the benefit of decreasing administrative costs for small employers, it also has the further benefit of increasing compliance levels by ensuring that all employers know the rules of the road and the means to comply with them. Through the Banking Committee, on which I also serve, we have been able to suggest and get several advisory committees started. Those advisory committees have small businesspeople on them who advise how different statutes as well as rules and regulations affect them, and their input has had considerable impact. This amendment is one of the type things those groups would suggest. When we write Federal regulation, we often make it very complicated and it is in a very legalistic form. I helped Senator Sarbanes on the Sarbanes-Oxley bill. I brought an accounting perspective to that. I was pleased he listened to it. But one of the factors we missed in that legislation, or you cannot cover in that broad of a bill, is the impact of small business versus big business. Again, the advisory committees have said what is needed is a better explanation for small business that they can understand. They do not have the specialists big business has. They can't afford them. Consequently, they do not have easy accessible advice on how these legalistic terms actually work. It is the significant difference in cost that we are concerned about here. It is a relatively simple amendment, but one that could make a significant difference. The substitute amendment to the underlying bill, as I mentioned, went through the Finance Committee. It did not go through the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and it did not go through the Banking Committee, so there was no opportunity to suggest this kind of amendment at either of those points. But it is something the Small Business Committee has worked on a number of times. Senator Snowe has been the chairman and is now the ranking member of the Small Business Committee. I hope we will recognize her effort as well as the bipartisan effort coming out of that committee to provide this kind of a change. I think when the week is done, or maybe even less time than that, we will be at a point where there will be both a minimum wage increase and some help for small businesses that will offset the impact and keep the economy moving. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I rise today to honor SSN 773, the USS Cheyenne, for her 10 years of service in the U.S. Navy in defense of our freedom. On July 6, 1992, the keel was laid for the USS Cheyenne in Newport News, VA. She was launched on April 16, 1995. On September 13, 1996, Mrs. Ann Simpson sponsored the USS Cheyenne. I am pleased to now occupy the seat of Ann's husband, Senator Alan Simpson, in the U.S. Senate. Since September 11, 2001, the USS Cheyenne has been engaged in important missions as part of the global war on terrorism. The USS Cheyenne earned the distinction of the first to strike when she was the first ship to launch Tomahawk missiles in Operation Iraqi Freedom under the command of Commander Charles Doty. She would go on to successfully launch her entire complement of Tomahawks, earning a clean sweep for combat actions in the final three months of her nine month deployment. That level of excellence continues today from her homeport in Pearl Harbor, HI. The USS Cheyenne is the last Los Angeles class submarine built and the third ship in our Nation's fleet named in honor of the city home to Wyoming's State capital. The first USS Cheyenne, a tugboat, entered service in 1898. The second USS Cheyenne, BM 10, was originally the monitor class USS Wyoming. In 1909 it was renamed USS Cheyenne to make the name available for the battleship BB 32, the new USS Wyoming. Fiction writer Tom Clancy further cemented the legend of the USS Cheyenne when he made the submarine a central player in a battle for the Spratly Islands in his novel ``SSN.'' Cheyenne, Wyoming's motto is ``Live the Legend.'' The 145 submariners who are aboard the USS Cheyenne have adopted the motto ``Ride the Legend.'' The city of Cheyenne has formed a special bond with the crew of her namesake. Each year the outstanding sailors of the USS Cheyenne are the guests of the city of Cheyenne for Cheyenne Frontier Days, the world's largest outdoor rodeo, and the ``Daddy of them All''. Many of the sailors have never been out West or been to a rodeo. For a week the submariners enjoy Wyoming hospitality and have a chance to live the legend. It is a small chance for Wyoming and the people of Cheyenne to repay a debt of gratitude to the crew of the USS Cheyenne. Commander Michael Tesar assumed command of the USS Cheyenne on June 4, 2006. I wish him well in his new command and thank Commander Richard Testyon Jr. for his time at the helm. Commander Tesar brings extensive experience to the USS Cheyenne and will lead SSN 773 well. The best skippers are complemented by outstanding crew; I would like to honor the crew of the USS Cheyenne. They include EM3 Richard Akins, LTJG Andrew Alvarado, MM1 Cory Alvis, STS3 John Andrada, YNSA Alfonso Angel, STS2 Andrew Aubry, STSSA Raynor Barton, STS2 Adam Baugh, LT Brett Bayer, MM3 Gregory Benedict, ET1 Charles Berger, MM3 Tyler Bird, MMC David Blake, MM2 Steven Bolek, EM2 Nicholas Brechtel, MM3 Daniel Breedlove, ET3 Jeremy Brown, MM3 Jeremy Bruner, ENS James Bucklin, SK3 James Burnett, LTJG Rene Cano, LTJG David Ciha, MM2 Shayne Clemens, LTJG Christopher Clevenger, MMFN Clyde Comstock, FTC Jonathan Consford, CSSA James Couch, STSSN Colt Couture, MM1 Falanda Culp, LT Michael Darby, LTJG Drew DeWalt, MM3 Juan Diaz, ET3 Lucas Dunbar, MM1 Jack Durand, MM2 Jon Espinoza, YN1 Gregorio Familia, ET3 Joseph Filbert, ET3 Chad Fogler, STSSN Abraham Freet, MM2 Steven Frey, SKSN Christopher Fuller, ET3 Shane Garrod, MMFN Robert Gauld, LCDR John Gearhart, ET1 Christopher Ghramm, MM3 Warren Givens, FTC Russell Goltry, LT Parrish Guerrero, ET1 John Guthrie, ET3 Cory Hall, ET2 Long Han, MMFN David Harper, STS2 Christopher Heffernan, CSSN Jacob Holder, ET3 Stilling Horton, EM2 Angier Hsu, ETC Barry Hudson, EM3 Benjamin Huelle, CSCS Kenneth Hughley, ETC David Ingalls, ET3 John Ingle, EM3 Nicholas Jessee, MM2 Christopher Johnson, ET2 Robert Johnson, ET3 James Johnson, STSC Alan Jones, MM3 Edward Ketheley, EM1 William Lawrence, FT2 Sean Little, MM3 John Livengood, MM2 Justin Lynn, MM3 Jonathan Mac Dula, STS2 John Marsh, FT2 Xavier Martinez, ET3 Shaun McCarthy, STS2 Ryan McClure, MM3 Brian McEndree, MM2 Jeremy McLean, FT1 Nicholas Messina, SN Kenton Metzler, EM2 John Miranda, MM2 Thomas Mitchell, EM2 Ambrose Montera, EM3 Matthew Nesbitt, MM3 Hung Nguyen, MM3 Erik Nielson, ETSN Matthew Noland, STS2 Matthew Odom, MM3 Chad O'Hagan, ET1 Jonathan Okert, HMC Nathaniel Olipas, ET3 Steven Pack, CS1 Ted Paro, STS3 Brandon Pash, FT2 Donald Peachey, ET3 Errane Pearce, CS3 Wesley Peltier, ET1 Steven Perry, ETCS John Perryman, EM3 Michael Proskine, ET2 David Purser, ETC Raul Quintana, LTJG Eric Rasmussen, SKC Randall Riley, CS1 Harry Robinson, MM1 Alvin Rodriguez, FTC Damean Rogers, MM2 Douglas Ross, FT2 Anthony Rossi, LTJG Nicholas Saflund, ET3 Jacob Saylor, STSSN Charles Scaife, ET3 Derek Scammon, ET2 Kevin Scharkey, LCDR Ian Schillinger, ET2 John Schmidt, MMC Timothy Schreyer, LTJG William Sheridan, MMFR Grant Shirley, STS3 Levi Shockley, ETCS Gregory Silvey, STS1 Michael Simonds, ET3 Tim Simson, EM1 Jerome Smallwood, YNSN Michael Smith, ET2 Anthony Spartana, MMC John St. Clair, EMC David Stephens, MM3 Kevin Stewart, MMC Gary Strong, MM3 Jesse Swain, EM2 William Tabata, CDR Michael Tesar, MM3 Joshua Tomlinson, LTJG Christopher Topoll, CSSR Joshua Towles, LT Carl Trask, MMFR Justin Trickett, ET2 Eric Trumbull, FT2 Landon RG, MM1 Christian Watson, ET3 Kevin Watson, MM2 Robert Wehrmann, ETC Michael Willison, MM3 Nicholas Wittmann, STS2 Robert Wood, EM2 James Workman, CMDCM Andrew Worshek, and MM3 Charles Wreede. Again I congratulate the USS Cheyenne and her crew on the 10th anniversary of their service and thank them for their sacrifices in defense of our great Nation.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I would like to make a few brief comments. Then there will be others who will join me and Senator Coburn as well. Currently there are over 40 million caregivers in the United States providing informal care or support to a disabled elderly relative. This represents about one out of every five homes in the United States. The Lifespan Respite Care Act would help these caregivers by authorizing competitive grants to aging and disability resource centers in collaboration with State respite coalitions and organizations. That would make quality respite care accessible to family caregivers regardless of age or disability. Respite care provides family caregivers with the time to maintain their own health, bolster family stability, and keep marriages intact. It also allows family caregivers to avoid or delay police intervention and nursing home or foster care placements. Over 180 national and State organizations have endorsed this important legislation, including the Alzheimer's Association, the MS Society, Easter Seals, Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, the ALS Association, and the National Patient Advocate Foundation, to mention but a few. The House of Representatives passed the Lifespan Respite Act by voice vote without objection on December 5, 2006. In the Senate, a similar version passed unanimously in 2003 and has twice passed the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in previous Congresses. The bill has strong bipartisan support in the Senate. I thank my good colleague, Senator Warner, for his leadership and work on this important legislation during this Congress and previous Congresses. It was his bill that we moved through the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Without his perseverance we would not be here today to pass this bill and send it to the President for his signature. I would also like to thank Senator Clinton, the cosponsor of this important legislation, who has worked diligently on it. I respectfully ask my Senate colleagues to approve this legislation and send it to the President to be signed into law.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the following lineup: 10 minutes for Senator Dorgan; 15 minutes, Senator DeMint; 10 minutes, Senator Lautenberg; Senator DeWine until 3:15; Senator Lincoln at 3:15 for 45 minutes; Senator Durbin for 15 minutes.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, today the Senate has once again affirmed its commitment to strengthen the National Institutes of Health and its important research to find better treatments and cures for all diseases. Today, the Senate passed H.R. 6164, the National Institutes of Health Reform Act of 2006. This important piece of legislation provides needed reforms to the crown jewel of the Nation's biomedical research enterprise, the National Institutes of Health. This reauthorization builds upon the great initiatives and vision of Dr. Zerhouni, the Director of NIH, by creating a common fund to support cross-cutting trans-NIH research initiatives, such as those initiated as part of Dr. Zerhouni's ``roadmap initiative''. This reform bill also brings more transparency to the spending of this important agency. As we recently doubled the NIH budget, it is important that the NIH and Congress can plan and evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of that spending. NIH is the steward of this Nation's biomedical research enterprise and it is important we reevaluate the inner-workings of the agency to ensure they are meeting this responsibility. The legislation passed today is a fulfillment of our critical obligation to evaluate, strengthen, and improve the NIH so that they can shoulder this burden. This bill also includes the substance of the NIH Foundation Improvement Act, which ensures the foundation has the resources and ability to aid researchers in fulfilling NIH's mission to find better treatments and cures for our most serious diseases. Most significantly, these provisions clarify membership in the foundation's board of directors and assures that the foundation receives funds to support its operating expenses. Every member of the House and Senate takes pride in the NIH and its grantees. Through their work and vision, America has become the world leader in biomedical research, and Americans benefit from the fruits of these labors every day. I am confident that this legislation will help NIH continue to be the engine that drives our understanding of biomedical science and continue to be a source of pride. Before closing, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge, thank, and congratulate the people who have worked hard to craft, draft, and pass this legislation. First, I would like to thank my colleagues in the House and their staff for their hard work in passing this critical legislation. It is hard to overstate their dedication and work in getting this bill done. Specifically, Chairman Barton and Representative Dingell worked tirelessly crafting this legislation for months and getting the House to pass it nearly unanimously. They have continued to work for the last 3 months to address every concern from Members here in the Senate. Their staffs, Cheryl Jaeger, Katherine Martin, Ryan Long, John Ford and Jessica McNiece, have worked patiently and persistently to reach consensus that this bill is right policy at the right time. We appreciate their dedication and cooperative work. Further, I would like to acknowledge the Senate and House Legislative Counsels, who worked hand in hand with staff to draft language as the House and Senate worked to accommodate concerns. They worked many long hours and all through the night last night to draft this language. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Pete Goodlowe, Warren Berg, and Bill Baird for their dedication and hard work which enabled us to pass this bill. I want to thank all the members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, especially my friend and ranking member, Senator Kennedy, for his hard work and determination in seeing this bill become law. I would also like to thank all of the staff, without whom much of our progress would not have been possible. I would also like to thank David Noll, Derrick Scholls, Caya Lewis, and David Bowen of Senator Kennedy's staff for their hard work and late nights. Finally, I would like to thank my own staff, including Katherine McGuire, my staff director, Ilyse Schuman, Greg Dean, Stephen Northrup, Dave Schmickel, and Shana Christrup for their diligence and determination as we worked to reach consensus on this important and essential bill. We anticipate the House will pass this bill later today, after which it will be sent to the President's desk. I look forward to the exciting biomedical breakthroughs that will result from the continued commitment of the NIH to critical, lifesaving research.