Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.

Mr. HARKIN. There may be a point in time when I would agree with the chairman on this. It is Monday, and I know people are working diligently in their States, and they are headed back. There may be a couple of amendments that Members want to offer. I think perhaps 4:15 might be a little early for third reading. But if the chairman will yield further, I believe the chairman is right. It is Monday. We are in business. Senator Frist, the majority leader, said that we are going to be doing business today. If Members have amendments, they should come over and offer them. I agree with the chairman. It is ridiculous to sit here in quorum calls when we have an important bill like this and Members have amendments.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the amendment offered by Senators Collins and Reed to add $3.1 billion in emergency funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. I emphasize this is, indeed, emergency funding, not to come out of something else but emergency funding because it really is a crisis. During the cold winter months, LIHEAP is indispensable for low-income families, people with disabilities, and seniors on fixed incomes. Last Friday, I held a roundtable discussion in Hiawatha, IA, to hear firsthand from some of these citizens. They are not just concerned about high home heating costs this winter, they are right now almost in a state of panic. They told me they face a choice between staying warm and cutting back on necessities, such as medical care and prescription drugs. Their testimony is backed up by hard data. According to a statewide Iowa survey, more than 20 percent of households receiving LIHEAP report going without medical care or prescription drugs. More than 10 percent reported going without food in order to pay their heating bills, and those numbers are going to skyrocket this winter. Last winter, about 86,000 Iowa households received an average of $317 in LIHEAP assistance. Most years, everyone who applies gets some level of assistance, but this year we are headed for big problems. As I learned in Hiawatha, the applications for home heating assistance have jumped by 50 to 70 percent this year. The director of the local Community Assistance Program that administers LIHEAP in that part of Iowa told me that LIHEAP funds are likely to be exhausted by mid- January, right in the dead of winter. Community services agencies all across America are being deluged with calls from panicked senior citizens and others who don't know how they are going to pay their bills or heating bills. Many have had their utilities cut off and cannot make past-due payments to get them turned back on. Others are being threatened with cutoffs just as we head into winter. This is something I learned in Hiawatha, but not too many people here know. The Catch-22 situation is this: If your gas or electricity has been cut off, then you do not qualify for LIHEAP. Let's say you are someone who has a past bill that you have not paid; they say, We are not going to deliver your home heating oil, you cannot qualify for LIHEAP. So we are facing a real crisis. We know what the price of fuel oil has done and what the price of natural gas has done. In Iowa, I heard that heating oil has doubled since last year, and natural gas has gone up by almost 50 percent. It will not be unusual to have a $400 or $500 increase in an average heating bill this winter. For an elderly person, a low-income family, and people with disabilities, that is not a problem, it is a catastrophe. It boggles my mind that in the face of this overwhelming need, President Bush's budget proposed to cut LIHEAP funding by nearly 10 percent. We have been given abundant warning that local LIHEAP funding will be running out, as I said, as early as the middle of January. But earlier this month, we voted down an amendment to provide a boost in emergency funding. Last week, a reporter asked the Secretary of Energy, Mr. Bodman, if the administration plans to ask Congress for more funding for LIHEAP, given the big runup in energy costs. Secretary Bodman answered: At least at this point in time, that's not on the agenda. LIHEAP may not be on Secretary Bodman's agenda, and it may not be on the President's agenda, but it is on the Senate's agenda. We have an obligation to do the right thing, to make sure our senior citizens and those with disabilities are not left out in the cold. Again, we have to do the right thing. We have to do what is fair. We know what has happened to the price of heating oil and natural gas and electricity. We know from the past how many people use LIHEAP and depend on it. It does not take a genius to calculate that we have to come up with more money this year or people are going to get cut off. What are we going to do? Are we going to wait until January when all of a sudden we get reports about people being cut off? And we will not even be here; we will be out of session. I suppose we will come back the third week of January. We can do better than this. We have to do better. America can do better than this. We are a better people than that. We need to support this amendment to provide this emergency funding so those who need the help the most are not left out in the cold. People are concerned. They are worried. They don't know what they are going to do. The least we can do today is say: Don't worry, we are going to put the money in for LIHEAP; you are going to be able to buy your gas, pay your electricity bills, and stay warm this winter. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, are we under a time limit right now?

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am going to speak on the Reed amendment, and I ask to be recognized to speak at this time.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the managers of the bill. I have an amendment to send to the desk.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have about 5 minutes at the most.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the ranking member for his leadership on this issue and so many issues that affect working families in America. Senator Kennedy has been trying for years to get some measure of justice for the working poor in this country, trying to get the minimum wage raised. Senator Kennedy has been out here each of the last 7 or 8 years trying to get this done. Every year the other side turns him back. But this year we cannot turn him back. We have to adopt this increase, this modest increase in the minimum wage. We debated this amendment by Senator Kennedy last March on the bankruptcy bill, to raise the minimum wage. It failed on a largely party-line vote 46 to 49. We are back at it again. You would think after what we saw with Hurricane Katrina, where the mask was ripped off of George Bush's America, an America where the poor are out of sight and out of mind, you would think that Katrina brought home to us that they are very much present all over this country. By the poor, we don't mean those who are just not working, who are loafing or sloughing off; these are people who work. They go to work every day. They work hard. They try to raise their families. Yet, our minimum wage law says they are only worth $5.15 an hour, the same wage it was over 8 years ago. We have not raised it in 8 years. Thirteen percent of our people are living in poverty. I say to my friend from Massachusetts, there is always this talk about all the people who got off of welfare in the last decade. They may have gotten off of welfare but they didn't get out of poverty. They are the working poor. They are working every day but they are not out of poverty. They may be off of welfare but they are not out of poverty. You would think those of us here in the Senate who have had our pay increased several times over the last 8 years to adjust for the increased cost of living would at least raise theirs. Right now minimum wage workers are earning $10,712 a year. I don't know if any of you have ever read the book by Barbara Ehrenreich called ``Nickel and Dimed,'' where she went out and tried to live on minimum wage jobs and what it was like. I commend it for your reading. It will give you an idea of what people go through as they try to work and raise their families. We keep hearing the age-old argument. I have heard it every time in the last 30 years I have served in both the House and Senate every time the minimum wage comes up: These are teenagers flipping hamburgers; nobody else makes that. But we know what the facts are. Facts are stubborn things. We have a lot of doubt--don't trust me, trust your own Department of Labor. Trust the one that is run downtown right now. Here is what they will tell you: 35 percent of those earning the minimum wage are their family's sole breadwinner--35 percent. It doesn't sound like a teenager flipping burgers to me. Sixty-one percent are women and one-third of those are raising children--61 percent of those are women. This is a women's issue, too, when you think about it. Most of them are stuck. Many of them are single parents. Many of them are not receiving child support, and they are doing their darnedest to raise their kids. They are working and they are making $5.15 an hour. Last March, when we voted on the Kennedy minimum wage increase, there was talk that the Senate Finance Committee would move a markup of a welfare reauthorization bill. I heard the words on the other side of the aisle--let's not do it now; we will wait for welfare reauthorization. We have been waiting. There is no welfare reauthorization bill. There is none. So now is the time to do it. We cannot wait any longer and neither can the working poor. The minimum wage needs to be raised to a level that is not just a subsistence wage but a wage that respects work, honors work, and rewards work at a reasonable level. Listen to this: Franklin Roosevelt, when we passed the first minimum wage law in the 1930s and Republicans were opposed to it--I assume that comes as no surprise to anyone here--President Franklin Roosevelt said: No business which depends for existence on paying less than the living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. He went on to say: By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level. I mean the wages of a decent living. President Franklin Roosevelt had it right. America can do better than what we are doing right now, a poverty wage of $5.15 an hour. Senator Kennedy went over some things I think bear repeating when you look at what is happening. I was in Iowa this weekend. What I am hearing more than anything else is the cost of natural gas prices, heating oil prices double. I heard testimony from a man that his heating oil prices have doubled. Low-income people have to go pay their heating bills. There is another little quirk in the law. The Senator from Massachusetts mentioned the LIHEAP program. We need to put money in the LIHEAP program. There is a little quirk in the law that even I didn't know about, and I have been working and supporting LIHEAP for all these years. If you are cut off of your supply, you are then ineligible for LIHEAP. Imagine that. Let us say you get heating oil. It is a deliverable commodity. It is not like a natural gas pipeline. Let us say you can't pay your bills. You have some bills left over, you can't pay them, and they refuse to deliver heating oil to your home. You are not now eligible for LIHEAP. That is right. You have to get the money upfront. That is what we are trying to get, more money for LIHEAP. Yet the other side will not allow us to do so. I had testimony from a young mother who got LIHEAP in this past year. You hear these stories. They tear your heart out. She is a single mother with a small baby. She said because they ran out of money, she put her baby in the bathtub in the small bathroom with a space heater during the day. Then at night, she puts her baby in two snowsuits and covers her up hoping that they would be warm all night as she put her in bed next to her. Real people live this way. It is hard for some of us to imagine. Real people live that way. They are making the minimum wage. That is what she was making, minimum wage. If you look at the price of gas, up 74 percent; health insurance, up 59 percent; housing, up 44 percent; college tuition, up 35 percent, yet the minimum wage is stuck where it was 8 years ago. Who can afford to pay all of these increases? Obviously, if you are one of these big corporate CEOs, here is where you are, up here. Here is where workers' wages and benefits are, down here. Listen to this. I don't mean to pick on any one person. Mark Hurd took over as CEO of Hewlett-Packard in March of this year. He may be a fine, decent person. I do not know. I am casting no aspersions on him. I am just talking about what he got: an employment agreement worth $20 million in cash, stock, and perks. Included in his pay package was a $2 million signing bonus, a $2.7 million cash relocation allowance, free housing for a year, and a 4-year mortgage interest subsidy. With housing costs up 44 percent in the last 4 years, imagine what it would mean to a low-income family to have a year's worth of rent or mortgage-free housing. Imagine that. But Mr. Hurd, who got $20 million, got that. In 1999, Mercer Human Resources Consulting began tracking the proxy statements of 100 major U.S. corporations. In 2004, according to Mercer's survey, CEO bonuses rose 46.4 percent to a median of $1.14 million, the largest percentage gain and the highest level in the last 5 years. CEOs in this study enjoyed median total direct compensation of $4,419,300 per year. That CEO compensation figure in excess of $4 million is 160 times the income of the average U.S. production worker last year. All we are asking for is a paltry $1.10 increase in the minimum wage. You would think this would be adopted unanimously in the Senate. So you can see the ``suits'' are taking care of themselves in our society. But the working poor, forget about it. They are left on the side of the road in the shadows. President Bush in New Orleans after Katrina said: ``We should confront poverty with bold action.'' Where is the bold action? Where is the strong voice in the White House asking this Congress to step up to the plate to increase the minimum wage and do what is right. You have just the opposite. We have the White House supporting the Republicans in the Senate saying no to this small increase in the minimum wage. I think it is unconscionable. Have we in the Senate finally joined the Neiman Marcus crowd? Have we become so totally insulated from real families who shop at Wal-Mart and Kmart? Have we become so insulated from families who struggle to get by day after day that we can't even see the necessity of raising the minimum wage $1.10 an hour? Is that what we have become? I certainly hope not. I am sorry that somehow it becomes a partisan issue. It should not be a partisan issue. I would have thought the other side would join and say, yes, we have to do this together. We wouldn't be standing here having this debate. I urge my colleagues to support the Kennedy amendment. It is the right thing to do. It is long overdue. I hope when people come to vote they think of those families out there who have nowhere else to turn. If we don't increase the minimum wage, they are going to be colder this winter, they are going to be sicker, they are going to go to the emergency rooms, and we will pick up that tab, too. Their kids are going to be less healthy. They will not learn as well in school. Anxiety levels will rise and families will disintegrate. To me, raising the minimum wage is a small price to pay for domestic tranquility, to say to those 37 million Americans out there--as I said, most of whom are women, many of whom raise families on the minimum wage--we can do better, and we have to do better. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I thank my leader and my colleague from Massachusetts, not only for today but for all of the battles he has waged for so many years on behalf of basic justice and fairness for America's working families. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for yielding me this time. I thank him for his great leadership on this and many other issues of basic justice.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, in June of 2004, an article appeared in the Des Moines Register outlining serious systemic abuses of the section 8 program by a number of wealthy athletes at the University of Iowa. For example, Brian Ferentz, a Hawkeye football player, was found to be living in subsidized housing despite the fact that his father, Kirk Ferentz, lives in a million- dollar mansion in the same town and is paid $2 million a year to coach his team. To add insult to injury, Brian's scholarship actually included a $700-per-month stipend for housing, yet he was living in section 8 housing. After reading about this abuse, I immediately wrote to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, urging him to close this loophole, which was the unintended consequence of a 1995 regulation allowing students to qualify for section 8, in order to help people of modest means have a chance at an education and to better themselves. Unfortunately, HUD's response was far from adequate. HUD's solution allowed students who live away from home for just a year into the program, if their parents stopped claiming them on their taxes. It is a pretty easy calculation to see that a simple deduction is worth less than a year's rent, so it is easy for parents to decide to stop claiming their otherwise dependant children in order to save money. Fortunately, language was included in the final omnibus appropriations bill last year closing a little more of this loophole. It said that if you get an athletic scholarship, anything above tuition should be counted as income. Unfortunately, this doesn't go far enough. This doesn't address people who are getting housing stipends from other kinds of scholarships, and doesn't address students whose millionaire parents decided not to claim them on their taxes, but have those kinds of resources available to them. Recently, the Des Moines Register took another look at who is living in the notorious housing project that has housed so many student athletes in the past. The problem is still there, in full force, well over a year after my first letter to HUD. The Register's Lee Rood reported the following: While other students foraged this month for new apartments, at least three dozen Hawkeye athletes--many of whom receive $6,560 annually for room and board as well as free tuition-- returned to one of the best low-rent housing deals in this notoriously high-rent city: Pheasant Ridge Apartments. It is time to solve this problem once and for all. These students are taking up housing that is meant for truly needy people--people who typically have to wait 2 years for housing assistance, despite the fact that they may have the means to pay rent. My amendment would simply require students' parental income to be considered in determining their eligibility unless they are independent students under the same qualifications that the Department of Education uses in their Free Application for Student Financial Aid. That is to say, students' parental income would count against them unless they are over age 24, married, have kids, or are veterans. Further, it would require a student's scholarship above the cost of tuition to be counted as income. Clearly, students who are truly needy should have access to section 8. Help with housing often makes the difference between being able to get an education and not being able to make ends meet. However, kids whose parents have the means to help them should not be living in this housing. And if they are getting a housing stipend, some of it should actually be spent on housing. That's all I ask. We cannot allow our system to be abused by people who take taxpayer dollars inappropriately, and then go off to sign multimillion-dollar NFL contracts. People who do need the help--including our most frail elderly, people with disabilities, and genuinely disadvantaged folks-- are getting displaced. This has been going on for well over a year, and despite pleas to HUD to fix this, the abuse has not stopped. There is no other way to put a quick end to this fraud. My amendment will end it with the stroke of the President's pen. This amendment will finally close all those loopholes. I thank the manager of the bill and the ranking member for their consideration. I urge acceptance of this amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that Cathy Poon of my staff be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of this debate.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, Experience Works is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping seniors get the training and assistance they need to find good jobs in their communities. Each year, Experience Works uses its Prime Time Awards program to recognize exemplary older workers. This year, two Iowans have been honored. Dwight Hauff of Sioux City, who is 100 years old, has been selected for a national award as America's Oldest Worker. And Milt Roth of Waterloo, who is 87, has been selected as Iowa's Outstanding Older Worker. Mr. Hauff is the owner of a chain of sporting goods stores that includes Hauff Mid-America Sports, Dakota Sports, Inc., and the Iowa Sports Supply Company. He opened his first sporting goods store in Sioux City in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression. For 73 years, Mr. Hauff has supplied schools, athletic leagues, and businesses with quality sports equipment and apparel. In the 1960s, Dwight served as president of the National Sporting Goods Association. He is a past president of the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, and is a current member of the Iowa High School Girls and Boys Athletic Association. At age 100, Mr. Hauff is still going strong. He spends 6 days a week at his sporting goods store in downtown Sioux City, where he is a much respected and beloved member of the community. Mr. Roth is the owner and operator of Roth Jewelers, which his father founded in 1931, and which is now the second oldest retail business in downtown Waterloo. During the Second World War, Mr. Roth served in the U.S. Army and was initially assigned to the Armored Cavalry Unit at Fort Riley, KS. He attended Officers Candidate School, was commissioned as a lieutenant, and served with an ordnance unit in the European Theater. After the war he returned to Waterloo, and took over ownership of Roth Jewelers from his father. These days, well into his ninth decade, Mr. Roth still regularly puts in 40 or more hours a week at his store. He remains very much engaged in his community, where he has served on the Allen Memorial Hospital Board of Directors, and has been an active member of the Waterloo Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club. He has been a generous supporter of scholarships, local colleges, and the performing arts. Someone once said that we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. Dwight Hauff and Milt Roth have been blessed with work that they love, and, in return, they have given so much to their communities. I congratulate them on their richly deserved honors from Experience Works. And I wish them many more years of continued service.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like the record to show that I was necessarily absent during today's vote due to a funeral which I attended in my home State of Iowa. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on the amendment.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, one of the greatest challenges we face--not just in Iowa but all across America--is preserving the character and vitality of our towns. This is about economics, but it is also about our culture and identity. After all, you won't find the heart and soul of Iowa at Wal-Mart or Home Depot out in the strip malls. No, the heart and soul of Iowa is in our family farms, and on Main Street in communities all across my State. That is why we need to be as generous as possible--and creative as possible--in keeping our downtowns not just alive but thriving. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I am involved in funding many hundreds of programs every year. But the Main Street Iowa program--providing challenge grants to revitalize downtown buildings across my State--is in a class by itself. It is smart. It is effective. And it touches communities and people in very concrete ways. For example, the town of Burlington, IA, is making an effort to improve the aesthetics and function of its downtown area. So many of our rural communities are fading away, but with the assistance of Federal funding through a Main Street grant, Burlington is revitalizing its downtown. Downtown Burlington has been waiting for a grocery store for years, and all studies and market analysis done in the city for the past 10 years have shown that a grocery store would be a great asset to the area. Becky and Tom Shockley, two Burlington citizens, have led the charge to get this project completed, and will be investing almost $4 million into this project made possible through the Main Street Challenge Grant. This project serves the people of Burlington in more ways than just providing them a grocery store; it will create jobs, increase the tax base, and help to improve the community at large. The beauty of the Main Street Iowa program is that the ideas and initiatives come from our towns and rural communities. I have been pleased to secure $1.5 million in funding since 2002 for Main Street Iowa Challenge Grants. The Main Street programs of the Iowa Department of Economic Development help provide technical assistance, but, as we have seen in Burlington, success itself comes from local leadership, local teamwork, and home-grown ideas and solutions. This project is a shining example of new construction and a catalyst for future projects. With a continued increase in residents living in downtown Burlington, a grocery store is a much needed addition. When people see one of the anchor businesses on Main Street being renovated or expanded, this can change the whole psychology of a town or community. It offers hope. It serves as a catalyst for a far-reaching ripple effect of positive changes. So I congratulate Becky and Tom Shockley and the citizens of Burlington for putting together a winning proposal to secure a Main Street Challenge Grant. Their efforts to reinvigorate their historic downtown are setting a terrific example for other small towns across America, and for that, I salute them.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I agree with the Senator from Hawaii about the significant efforts made by the committee bill to address the well- being of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. Of particular interest to me is peer-reviewed medical research that examines gulf war illnesses and their relationship to chronic multisymptom illnesses. I believe this research could provide valuable insights into diagnosed post-deployment illnesses.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. HARKIN. Will you ask the question again?

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator please ask the question again? Is the question about the States making up the difference?

Mr. HARKIN. I will take 3 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator from Alaska. Look, we may make the House uncomfortable, but I plead with my colleagues, I plead with my colleagues, don't let this happen. Don't, in our haste to leave here and go home for the weekend, shrug our shoulders and say, well, someone will take care of it. Don't let our reticence or our reluctance to make the House come back and do what is right cause us to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the poorest in our country. I plead with my colleagues, let's do the right thing. Let's adopt this amendment. The House can come back later today. They can fix it. They can make it right. It may be a little bit uncomfortable for them to get on an airplane and come back here, but think about the discomfort of the poor in our country, think about that elderly person who needs the LIHEAP program. Think about their uncomfortableness. They need us. Let's not turn our backs on them at this point in time.

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

Mr. HARKIN. I received this morning an article from the Salt Lake Tribune: Utah poor will suffer from U.S. budget cut. Utah's nine Community Action Programs stand to lose almost half a million over the next three months under a temporary budget approved by the U.S. Congress . . . The 50 percent cut . . . that fund the programs nationally is temporary; lawmakers could restore the money when they approve the final budget, possibly in December or January. Or they might not. In Utah, the losses that take effect Saturday are already forcing layoffs, a scaled-back food and pantry operating hours and the suspension of meal deliveries to thousands of families in crisis. Cathy Hoskins, director of the state's largest Community Action Program, located in Salt Lake city, said they stand to lose $250,000, which translates to 6,000 orders of three-day food supplies for 4,500 households. She has laid off six workers and reduced by a fourth the number of hours that advocates can devote to helping families navigate Medicaid, welfare and other social service programs. Continuing: ``It hurts,'' said Road Home director Matt Minkevich, whose agency could lose $37,000. ``That's the equivalent of about two front-line staff or 3,000 shelter nights.'' This is the time of the year temperatures are starting to drop. Food pantries are running low, and people need help. Katrina hit. We now see there are a lot of poor people in this country, a lot of people that are at the end of their rope. One might say: What the heck. It is just 2 or 3 months. Put yourself in the position of a low-income family who has just been evicted. They cannot pay their rent. They are out. They need some help in finding a place to live. Where do they go? They go to their community action centers. They go to East Ozark or they go to East Missouri to get that help. Now they are told, We can't, we do not have the people, we do not have the funds. Maybe they need some money to tide them over for a few days to find some shelter. Sorry, the money is not there. One may think this does not happen in America. Think about New Orleans. Think about the poor who were caught who did not have cars, did not have transportation, did not have bank accounts, did not have any hope or any way of getting out. There are a lot of Americans out there who do not live like we do, who do not have nice homes. We just go in and turn up the thermostat whenever we want to or go down to the local Safeway and pull out our credit card and buy groceries or go down to the local doctor and our insurance picks up the tab. We are talking about 6.5 million Americans served by these programs. We are talking about the poorest of the poor. Let me give some more examples of what community service block grants do: Transportation for the elderly to medical appointments at community health centers, in-home chore services for the homebound elderly, congregate meals, child care, domestic violence programs, energy assistance, weatherization, emergency shelter, rental assistance, homeless assistance, eviction prevention, transitional housing, and I mentioned the all-important Low-Income Heating Energy Assistance Program. This is what this money goes for. We are being told now we have to go back to 1986 levels. By doing that, because of the formula in the law, 13 States that I mentioned--Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming--13 States will lose over 75 percent of their money--not next year, tomorrow. It is not, well, hang on, continue your programs, continue doing things, we will get the money to you starting in January when we finally get our budget figured out here. I am sorry, people need food now. They need shelter assistance now. They need to pay their heating bills now. They need transportation to the doctor now. They cannot wait until January to have someone pick up the tab. They do not have credit cards. They do not have bank accounts. They do not have someone who says we will give you the money and you can pay us back later. They do not have that opportunity. Let me repeat for the sake of emphasis who we are affecting with this. Who are these people? Community service block grants serve 22 percent of all people in poverty. So one out of every five individuals in America below the poverty level is served by CSBG. They do not serve more because we do not fund more. But now we are going to cut it below that, more than 15 million individuals, members of 6 million low-income families. There were 2.7 million families with incomes at or below the poverty guidelines, 1.1 million with incomes below 50 percent of the poverty guidelines. Think of that, 1.1 million families affected by what the House of Representatives did if we do not correct it; 1.1 million families had incomes below 50 percent of the poverty guidelines. That is below $7,000 a year. It is 3.7 million children, 1.8 million adults who have not completed high school, 1.1 million people who are disabled served by community services block grants. That is who we are talking about. We are not talking about people like us who have all this money. We are talking about the poorest of the poor. I will repeat again that 13 States, because of a formula in the law, will have a 75-percent cut tomorrow: Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming. Tomorrow there will be a 75-percent cut in the community block grants that go to Wyoming. But it will be more because there is a set-aside for tribes. I am sure the LIHEAP program is as important in Wyoming as in Iowa and it is getting cold in October and November. What the House did is thoughtless, heartless. It is cruel and totally irresponsible. That does not mean we have to be thoughtless and heartless and irresponsible. We can adopt this amendment, get it back up to last year's level as a continuing resolution ought to do. We do not add any money. We just keep it at last year's level. The House can come back and correct this mistake today. Well, you say that is a burden on the House; the Members have probably caught their planes and gone home. I remember when the House came back on Palm Sunday to pass a resolution on the Terri Schiavo case. If they can do that, they can come back and correct this. They can come back today and say we are not going to leave 6.5 million Americans dependent on LIHEAP programs, people who will be evicted, we will not leave them in the dust. Think about what we are doing. Think about this. Think about next month. A low-income family, a mother with two or three kids who have been in an apartment, and they have not paid their rent because they ran out of money. Maybe they had an illness. They had to pay out of pocket. So they are evicted. Where do they go? Don't tell me that doesn't happen. We saw what happens in New Orleans. We know now the poor are not out of sight and out of mind any longer. They are here. What happens? How uncomfortable will it be for that family? What kind of discomfort will they suffer? What about an elderly person whose utilities have been turned off?

Mr. HARKIN. I don't care. If I can just get 5 minutes, I will end.