Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I was told I had 2 minutes and then 1 minute before the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, on behalf of myself and Senator Smith of Oregon, I call up the motion at the desk to instruct conferees regarding cuts to Federal food assistance programs.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, the Senate has considered cuts to food assistance programs this year on a bipartisan basis. It rejected such cuts. I commend my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, especially Chairman Chambliss for his leadership. This motion is simple. It instructs the Senate conferees to insist upon the underlying Senate position of no cuts to Federal food assistance. First, we are at a time when hunger and food insecurity in the United States is increasing rapidly. The number of Americans experiencing food insecurity has increased by approximately 7 million people. This is no time to cut the food stamp program. Secondly, with all of the emergencies this year with the hurricanes, we have been reminded again of how the food stamp program works in emergencies. There were 2.2 million individuals affected by these hurricanes who got critical food assistance within days. Finally, again, this has nothing to do with waste, fraud, and abuse. The error rate is at an all-time low in the food stamp program. We have worked on this for over 20 some years to bring it that low. It is working very effectively. The fact is, the House reconciliation bill does not go after fraud, waste, and abuse, but they cut 250,000 people off the food stamp program. That is the wrong way to go. I thank my colleagues for standing up for hungry families earlier this year. Especially at this Christmas season, let's stand up for them once again and say we are not going to take the food out of the children's mouths. I urge my colleagues to agree to the motion, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we are now going to vote on a motion to instruct conferees. Stick with the Senate's position dealing with cuts in the Food Stamp Program. I know arguments have been made about waste, fraud, and abuse. What the House does does not cut waste, fraud, and abuse but cuts 200,000 people off the food stamp rolls. They are working poor. They work every day. They have children. This sends them back on welfare rolls. I point out there was a letter sent to Senator Chambliss on December 8 from 15 Republican Senators saying, please stick with the Senate position. I compliment those Senators. I publicly thank Senator Chambliss for his great leadership both on the Agriculture Committee and in the full Senate on this issue. This is not the time to cut food stamps from people who are working and struggling with their children.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. He would have taken me to task for talking so long. He would have said: You could have said that in 2 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Chair. I commend my colleague from Minnesota for taking the time to speak about an old friend, a remarkable politician, a remarkable Senator, Gene McCarthy. In my younger days in Iowa, when they still had a bounty on Democrats in my State and Republicans ran everything, we always had the Democrats from Minnesota come down--McCarthy and Mondale and Humphrey, people such as that. But Gene McCarthy was a very rare, a unique individual. I was listening in the cloakroom to what the Senator from Minnesota was saying about Gene McCarthy. He had a way about him that was like Mark Twain. He had a great sense of humor. He could, like Mark Twain, say very succinctly what it might take others a paragraph to say. That was one of the qualities I always envied about McCarthy. I always thought, Gosh, why can't I say it like that? He had a great way with words. Like Mark Twain, Gene McCarthy had the ability, with very few words, to puncture the inflated egos of puffed-up politicians. If you were on the other end of it, you didn't feel good about it. He had a way of doing it without being mean, but when you heard him--and he never attacked anyone but he did it in terms of what they stood for, what they were saying--you heard it and you realized McCarthy was right. He had a refreshing and disarming way about him in his approach to politics. He made his point and he made it well. I do not know if my friend from Minnesota repeated the quote that was attributed to him in the newspaper that I read the other day, which I thought was McCarthy at his best. He said one time that being a politician is sometimes like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to know how to play the game but dumb enough to think it's important. Those of us who think all the things we do here are so grandiose should realize we pass on and others take our place. A lot of the things we do here, we may think are important and they are not that important. So that was Gene McCarthy. He would say things that made you smile, made you think about things. I say to my friend from Minnesota, I got out of the Navy in November of 1967 and I returned home to Iowa in 1968. At that point I was not active in politics. But like so many of my colleagues and friends in the Navy, I lost a lot of my friends in Vietnam. Slowly but surely over the 5 years that I was on active duty, I became convinced that the war in Vietnam should not go on, that it was wrong, that we ought to get out of there. But, of course, I was in the Navy at the time. I couldn't say anything about it. I was a Navy person. So I thought, well, now that I am out maybe I can do something. I was looking for someone to give me advice. I was looking for someone out there who would stand up and take the lead on this--Gene McCarthy. Gene McCarthy was the first politician I ever met who wasn't afraid to say the ``emperor has no clothes.'' And once he did that, people realized, you are right; that this war in Vietnam was nonsensical, that we ought to bring an end to it. He encouraged a lot of young people. And I can still remember, and I will bet the Senator from Minnesota has the same memory. I had one of those daisies on the trunk of my car, a blue and white daisy with ``McCarthy'' on it. That was in 1968. I think he brought a lot of young people in and gave a lot of young people encouragement that they could change the system and that they could make a difference. Through his later years I became a friend of Gene McCarthy. In fact, when I ran for President in 1991, he was running again. So we found ourselves running against each other. As we were both fading and Bill Clinton was winning everything, he drew me aside one time and said: Do you ever wonder why we are still here and what we are doing? I said: Yes; I do wonder that sometimes. He said: Well, we are here because the liberal position needs to be enunciated and fought for regardless of who the nominee is. I am paraphrasing, but that is the way I remember him saying that. I just wanted to take the time to commiserate with my good friend, Senator Dayton, about a wonderful human being, a truly remarkable U.S. Senator, one of the most intelligent individuals to ever grace the floor of the U.S. Senate, and to remember his legacy, the legacy of having the courage of your convictions, of standing up for what you think is right, and once in a while don't take ourselves too seriously. That was the Gene McCarthy I knew and loved. We will remember him always. I thank my colleague from Minnesota for taking the time today to remember our good friend and departed colleague.

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a second before he does yield the floor?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I know that a motion to appoint conferees has not happened yet on the reconciliation bill, but I understand that the majority leader will sometime today be making that motion. It is a debatable motion, and obviously an amendable motion. I think there are maybe four or five different motions to instruct our conferees regarding the reconciliation bill. I want to take the time now to talk about it, even though I have an amendment, but it is not timely to send the amendment to the desk. But I do want to talk about what that amendment will do and why I am going to be offering it. Basically, it has to do with funding cuts for food assistance programs. It has been a challenging year for all of us, especially here in the Senate. There have been many things upon which this Chamber disagreed. We have had some spirited debates and disagreements. The budget debate and ensuing reconciliation bill has been one of the most challenging of these debates. But there are also times when agreement rather than discord characterize our proceedings. While I disagreed with the underlying reconciliation bill passed by the Senate, I was pleased and proud of one of the sources of bipartisan agreement that we had both in committee and on the floor. It was the decision by the Senate not to cut food assistance programs for working Americans, for low-income working Americans. The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry considered such cuts. In fact, the President's budget included a proposal to cut the Food Stamp Program by nearly $600 million. But after careful examination of the Food Stamp Program, after deliberation in the committee, both Republicans and Democrats decided against any cuts to the Food Stamp Program. I commend today, as I did at that time, our chairman, Senator Chambliss, for listening carefully to committee members' concerns by looking at this and for his conscientious decision not to include any such cuts in the committee-passed measure. I commend as well many members of both parties who have objected to cutting food assistance programs through the reconciliation process. There are many reasons food stamp cuts should not be enacted. First, the Food Stamp Program is the first line of defense in the United States against hunger and food insecurity, providing food assistance to nearly 25 million Americans. It is also one of our largest child nutrition programs. Eighty percent of food stamp benefits--over $23 billion in 2005--go to families with children. Another reason cutting food assistance is not appropriate is because the need is growing and not diminishing. Just recently, a U.S. Agriculture Department study found that 38.2 million people lived in households that were food insecure in 2004, and that the number increased by nearly 2 million between 2003 and 2004. Since 1999, the number of individuals classified by USDA as food insecure rose by 7 million people. These are significant numbers. That any American should live in the shadow of hunger at the dawn of the 21st century is shocking and embarrassing. That the number has increased dramatically in the past 5 years is unacceptable. We have also been reminded of another reason we shouldn't have food stamp cuts. We have been reminded by the numerous hurricanes and disasters this fall of the tremendous role that the Food Stamp Program plays in times of emergency. The Food Stamp Program rapidly provided emergency food assistance to approximately 2.2 million individuals affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, allowing victims to obtain food assistance within days. Finally, the Senate Agriculture Committee chose not to cut the Food Stamp Program because there is not much to cut. It operates efficiently and effectively. For 5 years in a row, the error rate in the Food Stamp Program has declined to consecutive all-time lows. Frankly, if there were fraud, waste, and abuse to go after, I would be the first in line to do so. I say that because I have been on this Agriculture Committee in both the House and the Senate--this marks my 30th year. We have gone through a lot in the Food Stamp Program in that time. We have cut and trimmed. We have gone from food stamps to an electronic benefits card to cut down on fraud, waste, and abuse. It has worked well. We have a program that by any measurement operates efficiently. The farm bill we passed in 2002 included a major reform to the quality control system. Just last year, Congress made improvements to Federal child nutrition programs. Again, because of this bipartisan approach, which I believe kind of goes back to the Dole-McGovern years when they forged an alliance to ensure we had a bipartisan agreement on the Food Stamp Program, we have a sound, efficiently, effectively run program. There just is not any--I would not say there isn't any, but to go after what little abuse there may be would cost more than what is happening. We have tightened down on this program over the last 30 years. There is not much fraud, waste, and abuse to go after, so if Congress wants to make any cuts in the Food Stamp Program, they have to go after benefits. I am pleased to say that was not an option either in the Senate Agriculture Committee or that the Senate wanted to consider. However, not so across the Capitol. The House of Representatives passed a reconciliation bill that makes significant cuts to the Food Stamp Program of approximately $700 million. According to CBO, the Food Stamp Program cuts contained in the House reconciliation bill would eliminate food stamp benefits for at least 250,000 individuals. These are mainly working families with children and legal immigrants. Right now in the Food Stamp Program, if you are a legal immigrant-- forget about illegal immigrants; illegal immigrants have no access to the Food Stamp Program. I hear that all the time, but they have no access to it and they cannot get an electronic benefit card. But a legal immigrant must be here 5 years before that person can qualify for food stamps. That is the law right now. Now, they still have to meet standards. In other words, they still have to meet the standards of anyone else to be eligible, such as income standards, asset standards, and work requirements. They still have to meet these standards. Even if they meet these standards, they still have to wait 5 years. The House extended it to 7 years. These are legal immigrants. These are people we want here. What does the sign on the Statue of Liberty say? Give me your tired, your poor. A lot of these people are tired, they are poor, but they are here to build a better life. They are working, they are legal, and their kids are in school here. Yet we want to make it even tougher. The second thing they did is they changed the system whereby States have said, Okay, if you qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, then you automatically qualify for food stamps. It makes sense. In the 1990s we made a change to allow the States to align their programs. If you qualified for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, then you used to have to go to another office to qualify for food stamps. It was twice the paperwork, twice the administrative burdens. We said, Why go through all of that? So we made a change that streamlined the program. The House takes that out. The House bill takes a step backward from welfare reform. We put this in there for welfare reform back in the 1990s; they take a step backward. We tried to change it so we would move low-income families from welfare to work. One of the provisions was to provide allow TANF recipients to automatically qualify for food stamps. The House now takes that away. It makes no sense. In fact, it will increase the burden on States. They will have to spend more money, and we will probably have to take people that now qualify off the food stamp rolls. These are low-income people who work and make money who now qualify because they qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Yet these are the very people for whom we want to build a bridge. We want to get them off welfare and get them to work. A lot of times, part of that bridge is food stamps and making sure families have enough food to eat. So all of the cuts the House made retreat from the bipartisan agreements Congress made in recent years to streamline and make the Food Stamp Program more effective and to make welfare reform work. When the majority leader makes his motion to instruct conferees, I will be back in the Senate to offer a motion to instruct conferees on the reconciliation conference committee to reject cuts to Federal food assistance programs. I might add that we should have a lot of bipartisan support. Senator Smith of Oregon and I are joining together to offer this amendment to instruct. There was also a letter written by a number of Republican Senators recently asking that we not make cuts in the Food Stamp Program. I hope we can have a strong vote on this. We should have a recorded vote. I will ask for a recorded vote to send a strong signal to the House of Representatives that the Senate will not accept their food stamp cuts. By voting for this motion to instruct, the Senate can show that it stands side by side with working families, that we do not want to retreat from welfare reform. We do not want to retreat from the changes we have made to make this program meaningful and effective. I will offer that motion at some point, I hope today--whenever the majority leader makes a motion to instruct the conferees.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN. Parliamentary inquiry: I understand I had 20 minutes to speak and there is no time on the other side to speak on this amendment?

Mr. HARKIN. How much time on the other side?

Mr. HARKIN. How much time total?

Mr. HARKIN. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HARKIN. I might reserve a little bit of time. I may have other colleagues who will come over to speak. Just to refresh memories, when this continuing resolution was passed at the end of September, I came on the floor and offered an amendment that would have kept whole the Community Services Block Grant program. That is a program that administers the LIHEAP program, administers a lot of Head Start programs, Even Start programs, Older Americans Act programs, elderly transportation programs, emergency shelter programs, weatherization assistance--you get the idea. Most of the programs really help a lot of poor people in this country. Last year's level was $636.8 million. The amendment I offered in September would have kept the funding of the Community Services Block Grant program at that level. You might say that was a continuing resolution. A continuing resolution keeps things at last year's level. Therein lies the problem. The House sent us a continuing resolution that said: We will continue programs at last year's level or at the level of the House budget, whichever is less. The House budget cut the Community Services Block Grants Program down to less than $320 million. They cut it in half. That is the level it was in 1986. I said in September that it was unfair for poor people to have to have theirs cut right away down to that level because winter was coming and you need the heating energy assistance and things like that. At that time, at the end of September, there was a lot of talk. We couldn't accept this amendment because the House had gone out. As long as the House was out and if we changed the continuing resolution, that meant the entire House of Representatives would have to come back to Washington, DC, and do something about this. I said at the time on the floor, big deal. They came back for a lot of other things; they could come back for this, too. Obviously, my arguments did not prevail. The amendment was defeated; whereupon, however, the chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens, said that he was going to take my amendment that continues the community services block grants at last year's level and put it on the Defense appropriations bill, which he did and for which I commended him. We all thought that the Defense appropriations bill would zing through here right away. Fine. Here we are. It is November 18, and the Defense appropriations bill has not been passed--and we don't know when; probably next month, I suppose, before the end of the year. We have another continuing resolution. The continuing resolution expires today at midnight. We know that. The continuing resolution is the same. It is at either last year's level or the House budget level, whichever is less. That means the Community Services Block Grant program is still cut down to the level it was in 1986. The amendment I am offering today basically says--it is the same amendment, basically--for the purposes of this continuing resolution, the community services block grant shall be based on the rate that it was last year, which is $636.6 million. On November 8, barely a week and a half ago, 58 Senators from both sides of the aisle cosigned a letter saying we want to keep the Community Services Block Grant Program at the Senate level, at last year's level. That is what we did in our bill, and 58 Senators a week and a half ago signed this letter to keep it at the same level. Yet today we are going to pass a continuing resolution that cuts it in half. This continuing resolution is until December 18. There is another unique feature about the Community Services Block Grant Program that I wish to bring to the Senate's attention. Unlike a lot of programs, such as education, for example, wherein the money goes out basically next summer, if we use that language--the lower of the House level--it doesn't mean a lot because the money is not going to go out until next summer, and we probably will fix this prior to going home for Christmas. I think. I don't know. We have had CRs going into January and into February. That is not unusual around here. So we have a continuing resolution before us today that says until December 18, and we think it will be done by then. It may not be. I don't know how many people around here would like to bet a dollar to a dime on that one. Maybe yes; maybe no; get it done by December 18. It could go into next year. Here we have a situation, unlike education, where the money goes out next summer, and we will fix it before then, certainly. The Community Services Block Grant program goes out quarterly. Every quarter, the money goes out and is used. That means right now we are about 7 weeks into this quarter, and the entire nationwide Community Services Block Grant program has been operating at the level of $320 million. That is bad enough. If we extend that another month, it could be disastrous, or another 2 months, because it is not like they can draw down some money somewhere and say: We are going to get it next year, we will make up for it. They can't just go to the bank and borrow the money. They do not have it. If they don't have the money for weatherization or for Head Start programs or for low-income energy assistance programs, they just do not do it. We have had vote after vote here when Members supported the Low- Income Energy Heating Assistance Program. It is vitally needed. But if you do not have the people to administer the program and get the goods and hire the people to administer it, what good does it do? That is what the Community Services Block Grant program does. You may hear talk that the Community Services Block Grant program is just one part of the picture because there are State and local governments that help. That is true. There are private charities that help. That is true. That is the good thing about this program--it brings a lot of different stakeholders into play. But there is the anchor, there is the anchor of the money. If that is not there, they do not even have the people to go out and do anything. I ask Senators to think about this. Here is a program that is widely supported; 58 Senators signed a letter a week and a half ago. We passed it in our Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee when it was on the floor at last year's level, $636.8 million. No one talked against that. It just passed. We all supported it. As a matter of fact, if I am not mistaken, I think it was later supported by the House, even though their numbers were less. The conference report that was rejected by the House at least had this high figure in it. So we find ourselves in an odd situation with another continuing resolution in the dead of winter when the homeless need a lot of help, when poor people are put to the extreme in terms of buying enough food, energy to heat their homes, get clothes for their kids, finding enough money for rent, going to food banks when the food stamps run out. Any Senator here who has been to the food banks in their State knows that the food bank demand is up over what it has been in the past because food stamps are running out about the third week of the month, and poor families are going to the food banks to get food. I say to any Senator, go to your food bank--any State, I don't care which State it is--go to your food banks, food pantries, and ask them whether the demand for food is up over what it was last year or just a few months ago. That is the program administered by the Community Services Block Grant program. The argument that was made in September is we could not do this because the House would have to come back, and they cannot do it, la- de-da, and all that stuff. Well, the House is in session today--they may be in session tomorrow, I don't know. But they are in session today. We could pass this amendment; say, no, the one program we are going to exempt from the 50-percent cut of the House of Representatives is Community Services Block Grant program. Send it back to the House, let them bring it up and pass it and send it to the President. The argument that we could not do it because of the time pressures does not hold any longer. This is just a matter of simple justice. If this were a program that could make up the money later on next year, it would be different. This is now. People need help now for housing, for rental assistance, food banks, heating energy assistance, Head Start, foster grandparents, rental assistance. One of the things the Community Services Block Grant program does for people includes if they are evicted and they need someplace to stay. Think of the single mother with two or three children. The husband has left her and gone off someplace. They have been in an apartment, maybe there has been an illness in the family for which they are not covered--who knows what kind of calamities could have hit--and they find themselves evicted. They can go to the local community action agency in their area. One of the things they will do is they will find them a place to live. They will give them rental assistance to get them established and a place to live. That is what this program does. What I just described happens 10 times a day in 1,000 cities across America-- 100,000 times a day. I hope we can pass this amendment. It is very simple and straightforward. Leave the Community Services Block Grant program at last year's level. We have all said that is where we want it. We need to get that money out there. The House is in session. They can pass it and send it to the President. How much time remains?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand that under the order, I will be recognized for 20 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I call up my amendment, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. HARKIN. There are a couple of other points. The amendment is a straight failure. Senators understand it. But I will point out, because of a quirk in the law, there are some States that are cut more than others. Here is what that means. This gets a little complicated, but I think the States that are going to be voting need to know this. If the total funding for a fiscal year is less than $345 million, then no State shall receive less than one-fourth of 1 percent. Now, last year, since we cut it back to $320.6 million, that means there are 13 States-- Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming--that are not cut by 50 percent; they are cut by 75 percent. Because of a quirk in the law, 13 of our smallest States have a 75-percent cut. That is what they are operating at right now in those States. I say to the Senators from those States, this may not be knowledge to a lot of Members. I happen to know about this program because I am on both the committees that administer it, but this is a program that helps the poorest in our country. I anticipate there may be some other reasons people do not want to vote for this, but as long as 58 Senators signed the letter a week and a half ago, as long as the House is in session, it seems to me we could vote on this and let the House do it. As I said, this is the dead of winter. We were told at the end of September that the Defense appropriations bill would be acted upon. This amendment was included. But it has not been acted on. We are now told we have a continuing resolution until December 18, but will we really act on it by December 18? As I said, who can bet on that around here? These are the poorest of our poor people. Can't we at least say we are going to hold them a little bit harmless in this? It is not that we are holding them harmless, we are holding them at last year's level, which means it is cut a little bit simply because of the cost-of-living increase. But to be cut 50 percent, and in 13 States to be cut by 75 percent, is grossly unfair. Let's do the moral thing. Let's do the right thing. This is a very small matter, a small thing to do, to pass this amendment and send it to the House and have them pass it on. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter I discussed.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, as the editorial points out, we have a big stake in delivering much more generous relief to Pakistan. Largely because of the war in Iraq, America's standing in the Muslim world has fallen dramatically in recent years. According to a recent Pew Center poll, only 22 percent of Pakistanis expressed a favorable view of the American people. So clearly the aftermath of the earthquake is a chance for us to put our best foot forward, demonstrating our compassion, generosity, our friendship for the Pakistani people. By reaching out to them in their hour of need, we can show the people of Pakistan that we see their country as more than a base for operations against terrorists. To that end, I urge President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, and the Government to take a more assertive leadership role in rallying the international community to assist Pakistan. We can begin tomorrow at the International Donors' Conference in Islamabad. To date, the international community has only provided a quarter of the emergency relief that the United Nations requested for earthquake assistance in Pakistan. Let me repeat that. The United Nations has appealed for $550 million in assistance for Pakistan, but donor nations have pledged only one- fourth of that amount. In contrast, 1 month after the Indian Ocean tsunami, the U.N.'s emergency appeal was 99 percent filled. Now it is only a quarter filled. Some good things are happening. For example, as I pointed out, the International Labor Organization has set up an emergency cash-for-work program in the earthquake region. People are being put to work making infrastructure repairs, removing debris, improving sanitation. This is a picture of the International Labor Organization and their emergency employment and what they are doing. The aim of this program is to inject cash back into the local economy, while helping people get back to work to support themselves. According to my former staff member, Mr. Afribi, one of the participants in this program said to him, ``For every rupee we get for this work, it feels like 10 because we have earned it.'' So clearly these are people of pride and dignity and they are willing to work hard. They are looking for a handup, not a handout. It behooves us to be more generous and forthcoming than we have been to date. We need to continue to provide immediate emergency humanitarian relief. But we also need to tend to the longer term needs of the survivors. Many children, as I have shown, have had amputations. They need to be cared for. Safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that their disabilities do not get in the way of their education. Past experience tells us that such children are vulnerable to being exploited in the workplace. In closing, we have an important mission here--to come to the aid of the Pakistani people in their moment of maximum need. I have many good friends in the Pakistani-American communities. I have many good friends in Pakistan. I was privileged to visit there this September, the third time I have been to Pakistan. I traveled quite extensively in the country. The Pakistani people are wonderful. They are highly educated and skilled. The Pakistanis in America, who have come to make a better life for themselves, are doctors, surgeons, engineers, and so on. Many of them have called me, eager to get involved in the relief in Pakistan. We ought to be looking for ways for the USAID to provide a way for these people to go to Pakistan, under the American flag, for a period of weeks or months so they can put their talents to use in assisting the earthquake victims. This would send a powerful message of friendship and good will of the American people to the Pakistani people. I urge my colleagues to remember the pictures I have shown and to remember, this Thanksgiving week coming up, the millions of poor people in Pakistan whose lives were shattered in only a few minutes, one of the most devastating earthquakes to ever hit our planet. They are struggling to put their lives back together. We need to do more--again, both in terms of short-term relief and long-term reconstruction. Time and again, Pakistan has been there for us. Time and time again, from the beginning of the Cold War, when they allowed our U-2 flights to fly from Peshawar over the Soviet Union, all through the Cold War, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, Haiti, everywhere we have been, the Pakistanis have been by our side. Now it is our turn to be there for the people of Pakistan in their hour of need. During this Thanksgiving week, let us resolve to do better than we have done in the past. I urge the President and the Secretary of State at the Donors' Conference tomorrow in Islamabad to step forward to lead the international community to do better than they have done in the past. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, it has been nearly 6 weeks since Pakistan was devastated by one of the most powerful and deadly earthquakes in modern times. More than 140,000 people were killed or injured in the disaster. The earthquake left 3 million people homeless; hundreds of thousands of children were left without schools. More than a million jobs were wiped out. I have come to the floor this afternoon to remind my colleagues that as we are prepared to leave town to spend the holidays with our families, to enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with turkey and all the trimmings, as we sit around our dining tables and warm houses with family and friends close by, and we give thanks for all our blessings, let's also pause and remember those halfway around the world who will not even have enough to eat that day, will not have a warm house, and who are facing a winter ahead of cold and deprivation. These are the people of Pakistan, one of our most important strategic allies in Asia, especially in the war against terrorism. There are many difficult months and years ahead for the Pakistani people and the immediate danger is that the winter snows will now soon make relief efforts in Kashmir difficult and in some places all but impossible, even by helicopter. Americans can be very proud of the role our Armed Forces have played in relief operations in the earthquake zone. Immediately after the disaster struck, the United States offered Pakistan $156 million in aid. We deployed 950 soldiers as well as 24 helicopters. As I speak, a U.S. Army mobile surgical hospital is operating in Muzzafarabad, providing medical care to thousands of quake victims. To give our colleagues and viewers watching on C-SPAN a better idea of the devastation in Pakistan, I share several photographs taken by a former member of my staff, Mr. Sam Afridi, who now works for the International Labor Organization in Geneva. Earlier this month he visited some of the most hard-hit areas, including Muzzafarabad, and Balakot. These pictures speak for themselves. Here is Balakot police station with hardly a stone standing on top of another stone. Here is another--devastation in the local neighborhood. As you can see, the resilience of the people--they are already setting up their fruit and vegetable stands to help out one another. This is another indication of the devastation. Here you can see the U.S. Army Chinooks flying overhead in this picture. Here is a picture of the Hizwan public high school. The earthquake killed 50 students, including the principal's son. You see all the clothes and the backpacks still left there. Here is a project Mr. Afridi was involved in, the International Labor Organization Emergency Employment. They are hiring people to clean up the debris and move the debris out of the roads. They are working to clean up the devastation. Here is a young child caught in the rubble in a full body cast. We hope he is going to be all right, but the child may be disabled for the rest of his life. Here is a young boy, showing the crutches and the fact that, while we hope he can walk again, we don't know if he will ever walk again. These are some of the images from a country that has been a great friend of ours and a great ally of ours for a long time. Even back during all of the years of the Cold War, Pakistan we could always reply on--always. They have fought beside us, side by side, in every war we have had, from the Korean war on. We have done some things, as I mentioned, but we must do more. The Washington Post editorial pointed out this morning that, after the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 200,000 people, the United States sent nearly $1 billion in government aid, 16,000 soldiers, 57 helicopters, 42 aircraft, and 25 ships--$1 billion. Thus far we have offered Pakistan $156 million. We sent 16,000 soldiers after the tsunami. In Pakistan we deployed 950. After the tsunami, 57 helicopters, Pakistan 24. While I am sure that aid is welcomed, what I am trying to point out is the devastation here was every bit as devastating; there were 140,000 Pakistanis killed in the earthquake. Half that many are now homeless and facing a desperate winter without even as much as a tent. The assistance we have offered Pakistan--one of our best friends and long-time allies, a crucial ally in our war on terror has been way too modest. I ask unanimous consent to have the editorial from this morning's Washington Post printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island for pointing this out. I cannot find anything about which I disagree with him. I think he is right. This is not the way to do business, normally. These are not normal times, however. We have a small space in which we might be able to get something done, and we have to take advantage of it. I say to my friend from Rhode Island, I think it is instructive for all of us that there is only one appropriations bill cut from last year's level--one. Not Commerce, State, Justice, not Transportation, not the Housing and Urban Development, not all of the rest--only one appropriations was cut. Guess what it deals with: health; human services; education; labor. That has been cut. What kind of message are we sending to Americans? We had a vote on whether to continue the Community Services Block Grant program at last year's level. I pointed out a week and a half ago, 58 Senators signed a letter--please keep it at last year's levels. A week and a half ago they vote to cut it, in some cases 75 percent. That is why I put the letter in the Record right after the vote. I want people to see the vote and read the letter and see how people signed the letter and then how they voted. It is one thing to sign the letter around here and I guess another thing to vote. I guess what I am expressing is this is a terrible appropriations bill that we have for the needs of the American people, for education, basic structure of health care and public health, for NIH, for basic medical research. This is the first time since 1970 that we have flat- lined funding for the National Institutes of Health--35 years. That is the bill that Senator Specter and I are faced with. What we are trying to do is find some way of getting some money for health, trauma care, rural emergencies--rural emergency medical services was completely eliminated--health community access program, community health centers--we will not be able to open one new community health center next year under the bill that we go to conference with. No Child Left Behind is underfunded; Pell grants are kept at the same level for the fourth year in a row. For kids with disabilities, IDEA, we are going backward. How many times have we heard, on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats get out here and say we have to fully fund IDEA. This bill actually goes backward, from 18.6 percent to 18 percent. That is why Senator Specter and I decided to take this step of having a motion to instruct the conferees to take the slightly less than $2.1 billion in LIHEAP and designate it as an emergency for this one time only in order for us to get to conference, to put pressure on the House to come up with some more money. I am not saying this will stay as an emergency in the final bill. My hope is we will be able to find the money and come up with something so it does not. But if it does, it is only for 1 year. I tell my friend from Rhode Island, I will do everything I can, everything humanly possible in the Senate to ensure that when it comes up next year, we do not have it as an emergency, that we get a better budget allocation. But again I have to say I do not want anybody around here hiding behind the skirts of the Budget Committee. They say the reason we got a bad bill, the reason our bill, the one that funds Health and Human Services and Education and Labor--the reason it is cut is because the Budget Committee gave us a bad budget. Fine. But did you vote for it? Did you vote for the budget? If you voted for the budget, you own this bill. Don't hide behind the skirts of the Budget Committee. If you voted for the budget, you own it. You bought it. So anyone who voted for the budget, this is what you got. I share a little frustration on this, also, as you can probably tell. But I think in this one case we desperately, drastically need to meet the human needs of the people of our country. We are up against almost an intransigent House and an administration I think, quite frankly, that does not care. If they cared, they wouldn't be treating us like this. To them, this is nothing. Community action agencies, LIHEAP? That is just poor people. They don't count because they probably don't vote anyway, and they certainly don't contribute any money, so therefore why even pay attention to them. I share the frustration of my friend from Rhode Island. Normally, this would not be the way to do it, but as I said, this is an abnormal situation in which we find ourselves. If we have to, as a one-shot deal, push this into the emergency column so we can help kids with disabilities, if we can help getting more health care up for rural emergency medical services, if we can help with Head Start, if we can help with community health centers--then, for one time, I think we ought to do it. That is why I support the Specter motion to instruct the conferees to put LIHEAP on an emergency basis for this one time only. With that, I yield the floor. I think I had 7 minutes, if I am not mistaken?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.