Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this amendment does what 400 public health organizations around the country say is vitally needed. It increases function 550 health spending by 12 percent. That is $6 billion in the next fiscal year and $30 billion over 5 years. It also provides for $9 billion in deficit reduction over the same 5 years. The amendment pays for this needed investment with a revenue measure that delivers more public health benefits. We raise the current Federal tax on cigarettes by 61 cents a pack, from 39 cents to $1 a pack. This would provide $30 billion for public health over 5 years, and $9 billion of deficit reduction. I showed this chart earlier. If you think $1 a pack is a lot of money, I point out in much of the history of the Federal excise tax on cigarettes we were as high as 49 percent of the average wholesale price on a pack of cigarettes. We are now down to 14 percent. This amendment would only raise it to 30 percent of the average wholesale price. I ask unanimous consent a letter supporting this amendment be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I would like to take a few minutes to comment on the recent retirement of Elaine Raubach. Elaine served for many years as the director of the Budget and Analysis Group of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In that role, Elaine was responsible for putting together the budget and performance plan for CMS, as well as running the agency's financial management system. Elaine previously played a lead role in the development and implementation of a major reorganization of the agency, then known as the Health Care Financing Administration. She also served the agency in information resources management. Elaine began her Federal career in 1973 with the Social Security Administration and, soon thereafter, began working with the Medicare program. She remained with Medicare when the Health Care Financing Administration was formed in 1977, and continued with work in Medicare, Medicaid and other Federal health programs. Elaine graduated from Rutgers University and received her Master of Arts Degree from the University of Virginia and an Executive Master of Business Administration from Loyola College. For the past several years, she provided invaluable service as liaison to the Appropriations Committee in the Senate and the House of Representatives. She has met each and every challenge given her with the utmost ability and professionalism. Elaine has been an asset in every position in which she has served. On behalf of the members of the Appropriations Committee, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Elaine for her dedicated service, of her vision which so often guided us in formulating creative solutions to funding issues, and in caring for the people we serve. Best wishes for an enjoyable and well-deserved retirement.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the University of Northern Iowa's men's basketball team on their Missouri Valley Conference Championship. The Panthers vanquished Southwest Missouri State in double overtime, clinching a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Coach Greg McDermott has proven his mettle in his 3 years as head coach, and now UNI is heading to the Big Dance for the first time in 14 years. I wish them luck there, and will be cheering for them alongside all Iowans.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I wanted to ask if the other side would be willing to have a time agreement on the Bunning amendment and the Grassley amendment that was added thereto. Then maybe we can get to the overtime amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, point of order.

Mr. HARKIN. I object.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I thank the Senator. I wanted to alert fellow Senators what is going on. It is obvious that the Republican side of the aisle does not want to vote on the overtime bill. For some reason, they are afraid to confront this issue. I don't want to take a lot of time. I would agree to a half hour evenly divided. We have debated this issue before. But make no mistake about it, the Department of Labor is about to issue regulations that will strip overtime pay protections from 8 million workers in this country. This Senate, last year, on a bipartisan vote, passed my amendment to disallow those regulations. The House of Representatives also, on a bipartisan vote, voted to uphold what we did in the Senate. And the administration stripped it out on the Omnibus appropriations conference report. They say this is a jobs bill. How about the jobs of people who are working overtime in America? How about the men and women who have given up their premium time with their families and with their kids, after work, on weekends, to work overtime? What about them? These are jobs, also. How about the people unemployed right now who would be employed but, if employers can work people over 40 hours a week and not pay them a cent more, why would they hire anybody else? Last, as I said the other day and I pointed out, this is a dagger pointed at our veterans. You can look in the old regulations. There is nothing in there about training in the military causing you to be exempt from overtime pay protection. Here, I blew it up on this chart. I am not going to read the whole thing, but basically it puts in these words: ``training in the Armed Forces.'' What does that mean? It means if you get specialized training as a veteran and you come out and go to work, you can be exempt from overtime pay protection simply because you got that training in the Armed Forces. You aren't called a ``learned professional'' without a four-year specialized degree otherwise. But not if you are a veteran. The regulations would substitute veterans' training for university education, at least to take their overtime away. What it does is it makes a veteran who got specialized training in the Armed Forces less eligible for overtime pay than his or her counterpart who never served in the military who otherwise has the same education. That is why we feel so strongly about disallowing the proposed regulations of the Bush administration that will strip these overtime pay protections from 8 million workers. Make no mistake about it, the Department of Labor is about to issue these regulations. They say they are going to issue them this month. Perhaps that is why the Republican side doesn't want to vote on them. They want the Department to issue the regulations, get them in force and effect. Then they know it is harder to overturn them, once those rules and regulations are out there. I hope the working men and women around America are paying attention to what is happening on the floor of the Senate right now. The other side has known full well; they were told earlier on if they were going to call this a jobs bill, we ought to be allowed to offer our amendment for an up-or-down vote on whether the administration ought to be allowed to issue these regulations stripping overtime pay, regulations on which they have never had one public hearing, not one. Yet the other side is not letting us even vote on it. Not even vote on it. That is the charade. That is the game that is going on around here. Are we stopping this bill? We are not stopping this bill. I heard someone say if the Harkin amendment on overtime pay is adopted it will kill the bill. Why, I ask, would it kill the bill? This is a jobs bill. We are trying to protect jobs in America. At some point we will vote on this amendment. Maybe not on this bill, because I can see the writing on the wall now. They are going to keep second-degreeing this amendment to death. Then they are going to go off the bill and go onto the budget. But I will be back. I don't want to quote the Governor of California, but, ``I'll be back.'' I will be back and I will be back and I will be back. Whenever there is an opportunity for this Senator to offer this amendment to stop the taking away, the stripping of the rights of our working people in this country to overtime pay, I will be here. If there is an opportunity on this bill, I will do it, but I can see what is happening. The other side does not want this brought up for a vote, and they will do everything they can to preclude me from bringing it up. I say to the other side: I will be back.

Mr. HARKIN. Will my colleague from Iowa yield for a question?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes this morning to address the issue of Haiti and the events that occurred there over the last few weeks. Haiti, a country, as colleagues know, is just off the coast of Florida. Sunday morning, the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced to leave office and his country on a U.S. aircraft. The armed rebellion, led by former members of the Haitian army, which I point out to colleagues was disbanded by President Aristide in 1994, and members of the paramilitary rightwing group called FRAPH, made it impossible for the Aristide government to maintain law and order. Unfortunately, President Aristide had little choice but to leave office, as the U.S. and international community made it very clear to him they would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs and convicted murderers who had taken over most of the major cities in Haiti and terrorized and killed many people. I point out to my colleagues that President Aristide's departure is hardly a voluntary decision to leave. I had several communications with President Aristide, high-ranking members of our administration, and other Members of Congress over the weekend. On Monday, I had a very lengthy conversation with President Aristide, who had called me from the Central African Republic. I was very disturbed about reports that were circulating that he had been forcibly removed from the President's palace, put on an aircraft, and flown out of Haiti. Some of this now has been talked about in terms of whether or not he was at gunpoint or how was he forced out. The administration is taking the position that he voluntarily resigned and got on the aircraft and they flew him out of the country. There are others who are saying that perhaps he was forced out at gunpoint. After my long conversation with President Aristide on Monday afternoon, I am convinced of at least three things. One, President Aristide was not put in handcuffs. He was not marched at the end of a rifle and told to get on the airplane or they would shoot him. No, that did not occur. So in that contextual framework he was not ``forced,'' ``abducted,'' or ``kidnapped'' out of the country. On the other hand, during the late afternoon of Saturday, after I had spoken with him, in the evening hours of that same Saturday, he was contacted by our ambassador in Haiti who, according to Mr. Aristide, told him he had basically three options: He could stay in Haiti and be killed and thus precipitate a bloodshed that might cost thousands of lives because we would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs and the killers; secondly, he could leave with bloodshed, that is, he could leave after precipitating a crisis that might cost thousands of lives; or he could leave without bloodshed. Confronted with those options, if a President such as Aristide, who is democratically elected, leaves, is that voluntary? As Congressman Rangel said yesterday in a hearing: Under a threat to his life, Mr. Aristide had little choice but to sign a resignation letter. I would have signed one, too, Congressman Rangel said. That is the essence of what happened. Our Government basically left Mr. Aristide, a democratically elected President, with no options. Either leave with bloodshed or leave without bloodshed, but in either case he was leaving. As President Aristide told me, he had an obligation to the Haitian people. He did not want to see bloodshed. He did not want to see thousands of innocent people killed. So, therefore, under that kind of duress he was forced to leave. I was asked why the United States did not honor the Santiago treaty in 1991 signed by the United States, which clearly states that any government democratically elected in the Western Hemisphere that seeks the support of other Organization of American States member nations, when threatened with an overthrow, will be assisted? That agreement was signed by the first President Bush in 1991. I point out a couple of things. When President Aristide was first elected in 1990, he served for a total of about 8 months, from about January through August of 1991, and then was overthrown by a military coup. What did the first President Bush administration do? Absolutely nothing. They let the military take over and throw out a democratically elected President, at the same time that the first President Bush was signing the Santiago Resolution saying we would come to the assistance of a democratically elected government in our hemisphere if they were threatened with an overthrow. Then President Clinton came to office the following year and we restored President Aristide to office. He had about 1 year left, because he agreed that the 3 years he spent in exile would count toward his 5-year tenure. Under the Constitution of Haiti, a President cannot succeed himself. Mr. Aristide agreed that he would abide by the constitution. So when he came back to Haiti, he served about 1 more year and then elections were held in 1995 and he did not run, of course, because the Constitution would not let him do so. During the year he was back in Haiti, he did one significant thing. He disbanded the Haitian Army, the army that had been used for probably as much as 100 years to repress and suppress the people of Haiti. The Army had been used by one dictator after another to suppress the legitimate aspirations of the Haitian people. After he had done that, he called me up. I remember that phone call very well when President Aristide called and said he was soon to leave office and had decided to disband the Haitian Army. I remember him telling me he did it for a couple of reasons. President Aristide told me that Haiti did not need a military. The military had been used to repress the people. No one is going to invade us. He said they wanted to be like Costa Rica, that did not have an army and they did not need one. Secondly, he said the military in Haiti did nothing but repress people. The military had been using up about half of the GDP of Haiti to pay for these military thugs. Well, guess who is leading the insurgency against Aristide now? Former leaders of the old Haitian military, many of whom had left the country, at least one of whom had been Chamblain. He had been convicted in absentia because he fled the country. He had been convicted of at least two murders, one of Guy Malary, who was a Justice Minister assassinated on the steps of the justice building in broad daylight by Mr. Chamblain and his thugs. Mr. Chamblain, who was convicted in absentia of murder, is now one of the rebel leaders in Haiti. Guy Philippe who we keep seeing on television, is also a rebel leader. Amnesty International said he had turned a blind eye to many extrajudicial killings and murders committed by police under his command. Well, I hope and trust that we do not support these people. I noticed in the hearing the other day in the House, Mr. Noriega, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere, said we did not support the violent overthrow of that man, referring to Mr. Aristide. Well, I am sorry, Mr. Noriega, you are wrong. The United States aided and abetted, in more ways than one, the overthrow of a democratically elected government. We need some investigations. What happened to all of the arms that we sent to the Dominican Republic in the last couple of years to patrol the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti for drug smuggling? Reports are coming out that many of these arms we sent down there are now in Haiti in the hands of these killers and thugs: flack jackets, helmets, rifles, night vision goggles. I don't know if it is true or not, but I am saying there are many reports that these arms we sent down there are in the hands of the armed insurgents, former members of the former Haitian military. How did they get their hands on these arms? As Richard Holbrooke, our former Ambassador to the United Nations, said on a Sunday morning talk show, these individuals have a long history of murder and terror when they were members of the Haitian military. He said they have a long history of involvement with our intelligence services in the United States. This needs to be investigated. The New York Times today reported that the political crisis in Haiti is deepening. Prime Minister Neptune has declared a state of emergency and has suspended many of the rights to the Haitian people guaranteed by their constitution. The Bush administration withdrew its support from the Aristide government because it said it was a ``government of failed leadership.'' I guess we get to decide whether a democractically elected government is failing or not. And if we don't like them, we have the right to go ahead and let armed thugs take over that government. I tell you, the Bush administration has a lot to answer for, and will have a lot to answer for because of what has happened and what is happening in Haiti today. President Aristide is gone, forced out of office, and the Bush administration continues to sit on the sidelines and wring its hands while innocent people in Haiti continue to be killed. I call on the administration to truly make a commitment to stabilize the security situation in Haiti by first instructing the Multinational Interim Force to collect the weapons used by the rebels who said they would disarm. If this vital step is not taken now, we are only setting ourselves and the Haitian people up for another disaster. The mandate is clear. The Multinational Interim Force should immediately disarm and arrest these thugs. The failure to disarm the disbanded Haitian military and the paramilitary forces called FRAPH in 1994 after President Aristide had come back to office has been one of the root causes of ongoing political violence in Haiti. We know who these thugs are and we have the mandate to arrest and turn them over to the Haitian authorities. We have arrested Baathists members of Saddam Hussein's party. We have arrested them and turned them over to the Iraqi courts. We also did this in the Balkans. Why can't we do it in Haiti? We cannot go out and arrest Mr. Chamblain, convicted of two murders? Why don't we go out and arrest him and turn him over to the Haitian courts to stand trial? Let us show the Haitian people we are committed to ensuring that the democratic process works--not just in Iraq, not just in the Balkans, but also in Haiti as well. The Bush administration can no longer sit on the sidelines. It is my hope the Bush administration shows the same dedication and commitment to supporting the new interim government as it did to stand by and actively destroy President Aristide's duly elected democratic government. What has happened in Haiti should be a blight on the American conscience--the poorest country in this hemisphere, the poorest of the poor, struggling decade after decade under brutal dictatorships, repressive military regimes, finally becoming free in 1990, only to have its President overthrown in a coup. What signal are we sending to the Haitians? I guess if you are poor and you don't have oil and you are not strategically important, we don't care what happens to you. We will let the thugs take over. We will let the few wealthy elite rearm the military to protect them and to keep them in power. I saw a newspaper article late last week which pointed out that this Congress had appropriated $18 billion for reconstruction in Iraq. It went on to say how $4 billion of the money that was appropriated for Iraq was for clean water and sanitation--$4 billion of our taxpayers' money going to one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Iraq. Iraq is not a poor country. This is a very rich country with oil reserves. It is either the first or second in the world in oil reserves. Yet we are taking $4 billion in taxpayer money to build a water and sanitation system. Why can't we build clean water and sanitation systems, roads, hospitals and schools in Haiti? To me, that is the moral imperative of what we should be doing in our hemisphere--not trying to destroy democratically elected governments. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the privilege of the floor be granted to Rob Sand of my staff for the duration of the day.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Chair. America is stuck in a jobless recovery and this jobless recovery is not an accident. It is in large measure the result of failed economic policies, policies that the administration stubbornly clings to despite the loss of nearly 3 million private sector jobs over the last 3 years. This administration has embraced outsourcing. It is against extending unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed. It is adamant against raising the minimum wage. And it is determined--any day now--to eliminate time-and-a-half overtime pay for millions of American workers. It is time for Congress to step in and chart a new course. It is time for Washington to listen to ordinary working Americans. They are telling us loudly and clearly that their No. 1 issue is economic security. They are telling us that they fear losing their jobs, health care, and retirement. Now they also fear losing their right, which has been their right since 1938, to time-and-a-half compensation for work over 40 hours a week. They fear, with good reason, that under the Department of Labor's new rules, they will be obligated to work a 50-, 55-, 60-hour week with zero additional compensation. For millions of working Americans and their families, this is unacceptable. It is, indeed, the last straw. Accordingly, at the appropriate time, I will offer an amendment to this bill that will stop the administration from implementing its proposed new rules to eliminate overtime pay protection for millions of American workers. This amendment will be very familiar to my colleagues. Late last year a similar amendment I offered passed the Senate by a vote of 54 to 45. It was endorsed in the House by a vote of 226 to 203. It also won the overwhelming support of the American public. Yet despite this clear expression of the will of Congress and of the public, my overtime amendment was stripped from the omnibus appropriations bill in conference. Today this overtime amendment is back by popular demand. It amazes me that wherever I travel, anywhere in the country, people come up to me to talk about this overtime issue. They know now what the administration is trying to do. They are upset. Working families are angry and they want action. They want us to take action to stop the implementation of these new rules that will take away their protection so that they can get time and a half when they work overtime. Frankly, at this point the administration has zero credibility on this issue. The Department of Labor claims that it simply wants to give employers clear guidance as to who is eligible for overtime pay. But ordinary Americans are not buying this happy talk. They know that the administration is proposing a radical rewrite of the Nation's overtime rules. They know these new rules will strip millions of workers of their right to fair compensation. The people are right. They are correct. Plain and simply, the new overtime rules are a frontal attack on the 40-hour workweek, pushed aggressively by the administration without a single public hearing. Yes, that is correct. Last year these proposed rules came out, drastically changing our overtime pay protections, the rules that had been implemented since 1938, without one public hearing anywhere in the United States. These new proposed rules could effectively end overtime pay in dozens of occupations, including nursing, police officers, firefighters, clerical workers, air traffic controllers, social workers, journalists. Indeed, the new criteria for excluding employees from overtime are deliberately vague and elastic so as to stretch across vast swaths of the workforce. Listen to Mary Schlichte, a nurse in Cedar Rapids, IA: Many nurses just like me work long hours in a field with very stressful working conditions and little compensation. . . . Our patients rely on us. Our families depend on us. We need overtime pay so we can stay in the profession we love and still make our ends meet. Ms. Schlichte told me about her Cedar Rapids nurse colleagues who also rely on overtime pay. One nurse is married to a struggling farmer. She relies on her overtime pay to cover their insurance premiums. They already fear losing their farm, and now they fear losing their health care coverage also. Dixie Harms is a longtime trainer of nurses in Des Moines. Ms. Harms told me: If overtime is changed for hospital nurses, we will see a mass exodus of registered nurses from the hospital setting because they will get fed up and refuse to volunteer so many hours to what they really love doing. Two and a half years ago, after the terrible September 11 attacks, many in this body spoke eloquently about the heroism of our firefighters, police officers, public safety workers. Ever since, America's first responders have worked long hours to protect us from terrorists threats. But now the administration apparently wants to deny them time- and-a-half compensation for those longer hours. Simply put, this is wrong. Since passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, overtime rights and the 40-hour workweek have been sacrosanct, respected by Presidents of both parties. But nothing, it seems, is sacred to this administration when it comes to workers' rights. For 65 years, the 40-hour workweek has allowed workers to spend time with their families instead of toiling past dark and on weekends. At a time when the family dinner is becoming an oxymoron, this standard is more important than ever. These radical revisions are antiworker and antifamily. Given the fact we are stuck in a jobless recovery, the timing of this attack on overtime could not be worse. It is yet another instance of this administration's economic malpractice. Bear in mind that time-and-a-half pay accounts for some 25 percent of the total income of Americans who work overtime. With average U.S. incomes declining, the proposed changes would slash the paychecks of millions of American workers. Moreover, the proposed new rules are all but guaranteed to hurt job creation in the United States. This is basic logic. If employers can more easily deny overtime pay, they will push their current employees to work longer hours without compensation. With 9 million Americans currently out of work, these proposed regulations will give employers yet another disincentive to hire new workers. Why hire a new worker if you can get your present workers to work overtime and not have to pay them time and a half? That would be cheaper than hiring a new worker. It is bad enough to deny 8 million workers their overtime rights, but what is really striking about these proposed rules is the mean- spiritedness of the language included in these proposed rules from the Department of Labor. For example, the department is offering employers what amounts to kind of a cheat sheet--helpful hints on how to avoid paying overtime to the lowest paid workers, the same workers who are supposedly helped by the new rules. Let me be clear about this. There is a part of the proposed changes that we all support, and that is raising the minimum pay level by which a worker would not be exempt from any overtime rules. For example, right now, if you make below about $7,000 a year, no matter what your job is, you cannot be exempted from overtime, from overtime rules--even if you are a professional or if you fall into one of the exempt categories. If you make below about $6,900 or $7,000 a year, you have to be paid time and a half overtime, no matter what your job is. The administration is proposing to raise that to about $21,900, close to $22,000 a year. It has not been raised for a long time, so that is all well and good. But, in so doing, the administration has put out technical advice to employers on how they can get around paying the lowest paid workers time and a half. For example, the department suggested in writing that an employer might cut a worker's hourly wage so that any new overtime payments will not result in a net gain to the employee. It also recommends if the worker's salary is close to the threshold, you might want to raise their salary slightly to meet that threshold and then their protection for time and a half would end, and then they could be exempt. This is kind of disgraceful. This would be like the IRS putting out advice to would-be scofflaws, or people or entities that might want to get around paying their fair share of taxes, telling them how to avoid paying their taxes, saying here is how you can effectively cheat. What would we say if the IRS started putting out advice to employers, saying here is how to get around paying your fair share of taxes? That is what they are doing on overtime. They are putting out advice to employers, saying here is how you get around it. It is disgraceful. There is one part of this new proposed rule that I find probably more disgraceful than just about anything. I know that when I say this, people are going to say: Harkin, this cannot be right, this cannot happen. The more I dig into the nuts and bolts and fine print of this proposed rule for changing overtime, the more astounded I am at what we are finding, in terms of who is now being exempted, or trying to be exempted from overtime pay. Would you believe it if I told you that the administration, for the first time since 1938, is changing the rules to make it harder for veterans to get overtime pay than their counterparts who did not serve in the military? Let me repeat that. Mr. President, generally, people would not believe me if I told them this administration, in their proposed rules, is making it harder for a veteran to qualify for overtime than someone who didn't serve in the military. People say: Harkin, that cannot be right. Read the proposed regulation. I have the old one. Here is the old rule that covers overtime pay. There is a section called ``Learned Professions,'' and it is talking about who basically would be not barred from exemption. It talks about members of the professions, such as graduates of law school and different things like that. It says here the word ``customarily'' implies that in the vast majority of cases a specific academic training is a prerequisite for entrance into the profession. It makes the exemption available to the lawyer, the chemist, and things like that. But it does not in any way mention veterans in the old rule. There is no mention of veterans. Here is the new rule. I have it blown up on the chart. It says: However, the word ``customarily'' means that the exemption is also available to employees in such professions who have substantially the same knowledge level as the degreed employees, but who attained such knowledge through a combination of work experience, training in the Armed Forces, attending a technical school. Et cetera, et cetera. These words, ``training in the Armed Forces'' have never been in the rules before. In other words, since 1938, we have gone through World War II, the Korean war, cold war, Vietnam war, the gulf war, Dominican Republic war, Grenada, and a whole bunch of other things. And our veterans--people who have served in the military, who went in there, who the Army asks to ``be all that you can be in the U.S. Army.'' How many ads do we see enticing young people to come into the military because they can get training which will increase their ability to earn more money later on in life, after they get out of the military--specialized training that will make them more desirable in the workforce? Well, guess what. They are running those same ads to be all you can be, learn a specialized training, and be more valuable in the workforce, and at the same time the administration is promulgating a rule saying: Wait a minute, if you get training in the Armed Forces, guess what. You are now covered under this new rule that says you can be exempted from the overtime pay protection because now you fall into the same kind of category as lawyers and architects and people who went to school for a long time to receive specialized training. Again, don't take my word for it. Read it. ``Training in the Armed Forces''--those five words have never been in the rules before, never. We said before if you get training in the Armed Forces, you can now be exempt from overtime pay. That is what is coming down the pike. That is what is in these rules. That is why so many of us feel so strongly that this proposed overtime rule should not be adopted. According to the proposed rules, employers can consider specialized training and knowledge gained in the military as equivalent to what is learned in professional schools. This will allow employers to reclassify veterans as ineligible for overtime. I started looking at some of the comments made regarding this. I wondered where it is coming from. Here are comments on behalf of the Boeing company: Boeing observes that many of its most skilled technical workers received a significant portion of their knowledge and training outside the university classroom, typically in a branch of the military service, where through a combination of classroom training and field experience they become ``learned experts'' on very sophisticated aerospace products or services. Oftentimes, such experts are actually more knowledgeable than colleagues with advanced degrees-- Master's degrees and Ph.D.s. and are viewed by the customers as the company's experts on the product. Boeing thus supports the Department's-- That is the Department of Labor-- focus on the knowledge used by the employee in performing her job, rather than the source of the knowledge or skill. What Boeing is saying is we have a lot of people who work for us who got their training in the military. They have become skilled in their profession. But because they did not go to graduate school, because they got their training in the military, we still have to pay these people overtime. We have to pay them time and a half, and we do not want to pay them time and a half. We want to treat them just like Ph.D.s and all those other people. So, therefore, they support the proposed rule change that would allow them, Boeing, to reclassify these former veterans as being exempt from overtime pay protections. This is a letter from Thomas Corey, the national president of the Vietnam Veterans of America: Therefore, we would like to make you aware that the proposed modification of the rules would give employers the ability to prohibit veterans from receiving overtime pay based on the training they received in the military. . . . The proposed rule changes will make these veterans and their families unfairly economically vulnerable in comparison with their non-veteran peers. Let me repeat that: The proposed rule changes will make these veterans and their families unfairly economically vulnerable in comparison with their non-veteran peers. We hope you will agree that the men and women who have served our Nation so well in military service should not be penalized for having served. That is Thomas Corey, national president, Vietnam Veterans of America. I think that is the crux of it. You could have two people, both skilled in a certain area, let's say aerospace or whatever it might be. One got his training in the military and one got his training in some other way outside the military. So the person outside the military would be covered under overtime. The person who served in the military would not be covered by overtime. I wish someone would make some sense out of that. It is just a slap in the face to the men and women who served in the military and were told: Be all you can be, get specialized training in the military, but what they are not telling them is once you do that, they are going to take away your right to overtime pay once you get out of the military. This is outrageous--outrageous not just to our veterans but to most Americans. Veterans organizations are deeply disturbed by this, not just the Vietnam veterans but all veterans organizations. Picture this: The Commander in Chief has mobilized thousand of reservists and National Guard troops from Iowa and from across America. They left their regular jobs as police officers, firefighters, nurses, clerical workers, on and on, and are deployed in Iraq for a year or more. But if the administration has its way, when these troops come back home from Iraq or wherever to resume their civilian jobs, they are going to find that if they received specialized training in the military, they have been stripped of their right to time-and-a-half overtime pay. It is punishing veterans precisely because they were dedicated soldiers who pursued specialized instruction and training while in the military. The Department of Labor is preparing quite a welcome home present for many of the guardsmen and reservists returning from Iraq. It might read this way: Dear Returning Veteran: While you were away we reclassified your job so that you no longer qualify for time-and-a-half overtime pay. Thank you for serving our country. There is another group I talked about last year--and it is still true this year--who are disproportionately harmed by the proposed new overtime rules--women. The fact is, women tend to dominate in retail services and sales positions which would be particularly affected by the new rules. Married women in America increased their working hours by nearly 40 percent from 1979 to 2000. As women have increased their time in the paid labor market, their contribution to family income has also risen. These contributions are especially important to lower and middle-income families--important for housing, health care, heating bills and, of course, for sending kids to school. Yet now the administration's new rules would take away overtime protections from millions of American women. Women in the paid workforce would be forced to work longer hours for less pay and, of course, this means more time away from families, more childcare expenses with no additional compensation. Not surprising, prominent women's groups are adamantly opposed to the new overtime rules. The American Association of University Women, the National Organization of Women, the National Partnership for Women and Families, the YWCA, and Nine to Five, and the National Association of Working Women are all strongly supporting my amendment to stop the administration from implementing these new overtime rules. There is a broader context to this discussion of overtime. There is a bigger picture. As I said, the No. 1 issue for Americans today is economic security, and with good reason, because it is abundantly clear that America is stuck in a jobless recovery. Since this administration took office, nearly 3 million private sector jobs have been lost, including one in every seven jobs in manufacturing. George W. Bush has presided over the largest job loss of any President since Herbert Hoover. Yet the President remains wedded to policies that are making the problem worse. He remains wedded to policies that are destroying jobs, driving down wages, and threatening the economic security of the American people. A couple of weeks ago, the White House issued its annual economic report signed by the President explaining why we should welcome the ``offshoring'' of U.S. jobs. The President's top economic adviser assured us that the outsourcing of high-end, white-collar jobs to Asia is ``a plus for the economy in the long run.'' The President's economic report praises the virtues of a ``level playing field for goods and services,'' arguing that when a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make or provide it domestically. That is from the President's report. We have a very serious question to ask ourselves: Do we really want American workers competing on a ``level playing field,'' head to head with factory workers in China working for 20 cents an hour, with software engineers in India working for $10,000 a year, going head to head with countries that employ abusive child labor to make products? In reality, is this not a race to the bottom, with nations competing to slash salaries and benefits in order to win more jobs? Outsourcing is not the only thing hurting job creation and suppressing wages. These new overtime rules will have the same effect. Eight million workers will be stripped of their right and their protection to overtime pay. Of course, the employers can deny overtime pay. As I said, they simply push their current employees to work longer hours without compensation. This is a powerful disincentive to hire new workers. So as with outsourcing, the idea of sending so many of these jobs overseas, where they are paying 20 cents an hour, no health benefits, no retirement benefits, no Social Security, no environmental protections, killing overtime pay is the same thing. Just keep in mind if an employer can work an employee more than 40 hours and not pay time and a half, we can see that an employer would then say, well, why should I hire new workers? I will just work my present workers longer. If I can get 4 or 5 more hours a week out of each employee and not pay time and a half overtime, that is better than hiring somebody else. That is exactly what this proposed overtime rule is all about. It is terrible for job creation. I do not know why this administration does not see that. Yet in the face of facts, in the face of all of the reports we have gotten, in the face of what Americans are saying, which is that they want their overtime protected, the administration is surging ahead. They are going to strip people in this country of their right to overtime pay. Since we have had no public hearings on it, we are not certain why the administration is doing this. Why are they moving ahead with the most profound change in our overtime laws since 1938? Now, I use my words carefully. I said the ``most profound change.'' There have been changes in overtime rules and laws since 1938, since the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, of course. Many occupations that existed then no longer exist, and they were taken off. I understand. New occupations came in like computer software writers, computer engineers, which were not around in the late 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, or 1960s. So there have been changes. Every time we have made a change in the overtime rules, we have done it through open hearings, through open collaboration between the administration and Congress and labor, all working together to do what is right for our people and our country. So, yes, we have made a number of changes since 1938, but as far as my research shows, this is the first time since 1938 that an administration has made this profound a change, and it is the first time since 1938 that the administration has proposed these changes without having one public hearing. It is the first time since 1938 that any administration, Republican or Democrat, has proposed changes such as this in the overtime rules without consultation and working closely with Congress to develop a consensus as to what has to be done. I am left with, perhaps, some conclusions: The administration really does not want to create a lot of new jobs; that by driving down labor costs, perhaps we can increase corporate profitability. It allows corporations to export cheap labor overseas with outsourcing. The administration puts pressure on U.S. workers to accept lower wages, less generous benefits, longer working hours. This is true of outsourcing, and it is true of eliminating overtime. Right now, American workers work longer than any workers in any industrialized country in the world. We now work longer than workers in Japan, Germany, Great Britain, and our neighbor to the north, Canada. Guess what we are being told. Guess what our workers are being told by this administration. That they are going to work even longer, and they will not have any right to overtime pay. There is more. The President refuses to extend benefits for the long- time unemployed, and opposes any increase in the minimum wage. It has been frozen at $5.15 an hour for years. This is not a living wage; it is a poverty wage. It keeps downward pressure on wages all across the spectrum. All this means, again, is fewer jobs for U.S. citizens. It means downward pressure on wages for all of our workers. Something is missing. What is missing is ordinary, hard-working Americans are not participating in this so-called economic recovery. More and more Americans live in fear of losing their jobs, their health benefits, and losing their retirement. The truth is, we cannot build a sustainable recovery by exporting jobs, by driving down wages, and by making Americans work longer hours without compensation. Moreover, such a recovery, if it even could take place, is not desirable. As one individual said, my time with my family in the evenings and on the weekends is premium time. Yes, I work during the week to make a living, but the time with my family is premium time. If I am going to be asked to give up my premium time with my family, do I not deserve to have premium pay, time and a half, something out of the ordinary? As this person said to me, I get my wages, which are ordinary, for my ordinary working hours that I have agreed to work, but I should not get ordinary pay for my premium time, which is the time I spend with my family. That is why I say a recovery that means that our American workers are going to work longer, spend more time away from their families, and not get paid any more for it is not a desirable recovery. A true recovery must include all working Americans. It can only be built on a foundation of good jobs with good wages in America, not overseas. It can only be built on a foundation that includes a minimum wage that is a living wage, not a poverty wage. It can only be built on a foundation that preserves American workers' rights to time and a half overtime pay. Shortly, I will be offering this amendment. Obviously, this FSC bill is touted as a JOBS bill. That is all well and good. Let us have an open and good discussion about that. We have some amendments to offer that a number of us believe will help increase jobs in this country. The one I will be offering will be protecting the overtime rights of American workers. So I am hopeful we can move on to that. On this issue, the administration ignores the pleas of the public. It has brushed aside the clear wishes of both Houses of Congress. Last year, we passed the amendment in the Senate to disallow the Bush regulations on taking away overtime pay protections. The House emphatically approved of that. Yet it was stripped out in conference. Again, this is not acceptable. I hope we can have a strong bipartisan vote in support of my amendment that would disallow taking away overtime pay protection for American workers. We can save the administration from making a terrible mistake. We can protect American workers' time-honored right to overtime compensation, and we can support an economic recovery that includes all Americans, a recovery that respects and preserves the American way. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, just a parliamentary inquiry: I understand we are on the FSC bill, and we are on an amendment that has been laid down; is that correct?

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Are Senators allotted a certain amount of time?

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Presiding Officer.

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, today things are peaceful in Washington, DC, and around the United States. We are all enjoying our time at home with our families knowing that we can walk outside and go to our local grocery store or to a shopping or a local theater, and knowing that we are reasonably assured we can do so with the assurance that we will not be subjected to being killed or be subjected to a violent activity. But today, as we are here, a reign of terror has descended upon a small and impoverished country a few hundred miles off our coast, the poorest country in this hemisphere, Haiti. A reign of terror has descended upon Haiti. It is a crisis of immense human proportions. As I take the floor today, the people of Haiti are living under the threat of anarchy--under the threat that a few well-armed thugs and killers who are well known to them because of their past involvement in plotting coup d'etat in Haiti because in the previous years they have been convicted by the courts in Haiti of murder. These same individuals now have guns, modern weapons, flak jackets, helmets, and communication gear. They are threatening to take over the democratically elected Government of Haiti, and they are going to do it by killing thousands of people. Today, stores and shops are closed in Port-au-Prince. The situation is deteriorating by the hour. Commercial airlines have cancelled all flights in and out of Haiti. Private charter flights have been halted. Parts of the main port are reportedly on fire. U.S. diplomatic representatives are hunkered down in the embassy compound guarded by some Marines. France, Canada, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic have withdrawn their personnel. What is our response? Silence, nothing. We are a pitiful, helpless giant when it comes to averting a humanitarian crisis in a small impoverished country in our hemisphere a few hundred miles from our shores. We can send $160 billion to Iraq. We can send our young men and women to Iraq to die. We can send billions of taxpayer dollars to Iraq to build their infrastructure. But we can do nothing to stop the bloodshed and the anarchy descending upon Haiti today. I find this inexcusable. We have a moral obligation, a moral imperative because of our past relationships with Haiti, because it is a neighbor of ours, because it is in our hemisphere, because we are the most powerful country in this hemisphere, let alone the world, and because we believe in democracy, we believe in the rule of law, we believe in human rights and human dignity. Do we only believe in it for Iraq? Do we only believe in it when it suits our convenience? Do we only believe in these principles when the country has a lot of oil, for example? Are these just so many words we utter about human rights, democracy, and rule of law? When it comes to a small, black, impoverished nation where people are poorer than dirt, where they have been subject to centuries of dictatorial rule, where they have been ignored by their neighbors and by us for centuries, where they have been ground down for a couple of hundred years, I guess when it comes to a country like that, like Haiti, democracy, human rights, rule of law does not mean much. I guess it just means we can turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to what is happening. The situation in Haiti cries out for us to do something. The poorest people in this hemisphere are crying out to us to help them. Somehow, we are saying we cannot do anything. Talk about a lack of moral spine. Where is the moral spine of this administration when it comes to Haiti, when it comes to a poor, black, impoverished country like that? What is our response to the situation? I read in the newspaper this morning that Powell puts pressure on Haitian leader to resign, that Secretary Powell is questioning whether he should stay in office, and as Secretary Powell even said: He is the democratically elected president, but he has had difficulties in his presidency. United States officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a resignation would be in order, that Aristide should resign. He has been democratically elected. He has had some difficulties, and therefore he should resign. Let us take a look at that record, because I find this totally unacceptable and the American people ought to find this unacceptable. These statements, combined with our inaction, have encouraged and emboldened a lawless insurrection by armed thugs and murderers. This is no legitimate uprising indigenous to the people of Haiti. These are a few killers and thugs who got their hands on guns, who were in the old army Aristide disbanded, and now they want to come back and take over Haiti again. Guess what. We are helping them by our inaction. Human Rights Watch has said these insurrections are by the very same people who are responsible for widespread killings and abuses that occurred during the military rule in the early 1990s. Who are these people? We see them in the Post. They get pictures taken. They give interviews. Guy Philippe is quoted all the time. Kind of a handsome-looking guy. Guy Philippe has given all these interviews. He said in the paper he is going to get Aristide. We are going to get him. He said, No way, Jose, will he be allowed to stay in office. This Guy Philippe knows how to use colloquial English. Who is Guy Philippe? Who is this individual who now says he wants to run the country, that he wants to take it over, who has the guns and the arms? Well, not a very savory character. Guy Philippe was convicted of drug trafficking in Panama. He was extradited to the Dominican Republic, put in jail in the Dominican Republic. Somehow--we do not know how--somehow he got out of jail last year and, lo and behold, now he is in Haiti with guns and with his old thugs from the military. Louis Jodel Chamblain, one of the main leaders of this FRAPH, the Revolution Front for Haitian Advancement Progress. It means ``hit'' in Creole. Again, where does he come from? Well, you do not have to go very far back. In the early 1990s during the military government this guy was very active--in killing people. In fact, he was convicted in absentia in September of 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Antoine Izmery, a well-known prodemocracy activist. Chamblain has been notorious for killing people in the past. Yet he is in Haiti right now, one of the guys who is going to liberate Haiti. And you have Jean Tatoune, Jean-Pierre Baptiste, also a FRAPH leader, also in Haiti, one of those responsible for the massacre in Raboteau in 1994. Again, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is back again. He will liberate Haiti. These three individuals-- and there are only three I mentioned; there are more who used to be in the military--want to take Haiti back. They do not want democratic government. They do not want to run for office. Again, a little history is in order. We all know Haiti was one of the first countries where there was a slave uprising in 1804 and they threw off the French rule and defeated Napoleon, defeated Napoleon's forces and became a free country. It was kind of unsettling because we still had slavery in America and a lot of Senators and Congressmen at that time in the Congress of the United States were very upset about this slave revolt in Haiti. We had to be very careful it did not reach our shores. After that, Haiti devolved into one dictatorship after another. For the better part of the last century, most of the dictators were supported by us, the Duvalier regime being the most infamous of them all. Finally, after the Haitian people had been tortured and enough people killed, they rose up in the 1980s and they got rid of not only Papa ``Doc'' Duvalier, who died, but also his son, Baby ``Doc,'' and ran him out of the country. They had an electoral process and had an election in 1990 everyone said was fair, and a guy by the name of John Bertrand Aristide won the Presidency in 1990. He was inaugurated, if I am not mistaken, in January of 1991. How long was he President? Eight months. In 8 months the military came in and threw him out. There was a coup d'etat and they threw him out of the country. And thus began a ruthless killing field in Haiti. Of all those people who had supported Aristide, the military went out and killed them. Some of these guys like Chamblain and Tatoune were involved in this. The international community came down pretty hard on Haiti at that time. Under President Clinton, we sent about 20,000 troops to Haiti to restore order and to bring Aristide back as the elected President, which was accomplished. It took 3 years, but we accomplished it. He came back, if I am not mistaken, in late 1994 or early 1995. One of the things that was agreed upon with Aristide is that the 3 years he was out of the country would count as part of his presidency. For the good of Haiti, and to move democracy along, President Aristide agreed to that. Though he only served 8 months as President, he agreed they would count all the time he was out of the country as part of his presidency. He came back, and he had about a year in office before he had to leave, on a 5-year term. Before he left office, though, he did one thing: President Aristide, in 1995, disbanded the military. He said: Haiti does not need a military. No one is going to invade us. It uses up a lot of the money that should go for hospitals and education and things like that, paying all these soldiers. We do not need soldiers. He was right. Haiti did not need a military. So he disbanded the military. Since that time, there has not been a military in Haiti. A lot of these military people left the country, Guy Philippe being one of them, who went to Panama and got involved in drug trafficking and got caught. He got put, as I said, in prison in the Dominican Republic. Now he is out. Now he is back with a gun. A little history is important to see what happened. Aristide was out for 5 years because he also agreed he would abide by the Constitution and he would not seek a consecutive reelection. The Constitution of Haiti says for a 5-year presidential term, you cannot have two consecutive terms. You can come back and run later on, but you cannot have two consecutive terms. President Aristide agreed to that. From 1995 until 2000, there was another President in there named Preval. I will not go into that. Aristide basically was not heard of much during that period of time. He formed a new political party. He ran again in 2000 and was reelected in what was deemed a fair election. Some people say only 5 percent of the people turned out, but there are other accounts that as many as 60 percent of the people turned out to vote in that election. But the opposition wanted to boycott it, would not participate. Aristide was reelected for another term. Since that time, the Bush administration has put an embargo on financial aid and assistance to Haiti. So when Secretary Powell says he has had difficulties in his presidency, sure, when we pull the rug out from underneath him, and we cut down aid and support to a democratically elected government, of course they are going to have difficulties. This is a poor country. This is a country where the military wants to take over again. This is a country that for 200 years had no democracy whatsoever and is still struggling to try to figure out how to make democracy work there. Of course there are difficulties. So I question Secretary Powell's and our administration's insistence somehow that Aristide has to go. One other thing is important. Recently the CARICOM nations--this is the Caribbean community of nations--met in Jamaica to come up with a proposal to help try to solve the impasse in Haiti, the political stalemate in Haiti. They met. They invited the opposition to come. They invited Aristide to come. Aristide went to Kingston, Jamaica. The opposition boycotted it. The CARICOM nations decided on a plan they promoted for a political settlement in Haiti. Guess who backed that plan. Our State Department, I assume speaking for the President. Our Secretary of State, the same Secretary Colin Powell, supported the CARICOM proposal, which was a power-sharing arrangement Aristide would have to give to the opposition. For the benefit of Haiti, to promote, again, democratic principles, Aristide agreed to that. He did not have to, but he agreed to it. Guess who did not agree to the CARICOM proposal. The opposition. Let's get this straight. The Caribbean community comes up with a proposal for political settlement. Aristide agrees to it; the opposition does not. Our own Secretary of State promoted the CARICOM proposal, the settlement, and now our Secretary of State is saying it is Aristide who has to go. Wait a minute. He was the one who agreed to the proposal. It was the opposition who did not agree. What is going on here? One has to ask, what is going on? I see this, and I say, there is a disconnect here. There is something wrong here. There is something wrong here when all of the focus is being put on Aristide to leave the country. When you have murderers and thugs, ex- military people convicted in absentia of vicious killings and murders in Haiti, who left the country, who are now coming back in with guns, modern weaponry, one has to ask, where did they get them? This is a country of 8 million people. How many people are we talking about in Gonaives or in Cap-Haitien or places like that? The best estimates are maybe a couple hundred. One town got overrun with 40 people. Forty people with guns came in, shot the police chief, killed him, burned the police station down, and left the town. Out of 8 million people, you have 200 or 300 people who have these guns causing this trouble. That is a popular uprising? You might say, well, why don't the Haitian people, then, confront these people? Because the Haitian people do not have an army because Aristide disbanded the army. The police forces he set up are ill-trained, ill-equipped to deal with it because we did not come in to help them set up a professional police force in Haiti. So when you come in with guns blazing, and you have the guns, who is going to stand up to you? That is why I opened my comments by saying, the people in Haiti are in a reign of terror right now. And make no mistake about it, if Guy Philippe and Chamblain and those armed thugs are able to take over Port-au-Prince and either kill President Aristide or somehow run him out of the country, there will be a killing field in Haiti. Thousands of people will lose their lives because this army, vicious as it was in the 1990s, will be even more vicious now in seeking retribution against those who supported Aristide in disbanding the Haitian military. It is devolving into anarchy in Port-au-Prince and the rest of Haiti. People are fearful. They are fearful for their children, for their families. Businesses are closed. Food aid. We were feeding 300,000 people a day--malnourished, starving people. That now is not happening. Think about the implications of that. Think about it. Don't we have a moral obligation here? The Bush administration, justifying inaction, says it does not want to choose sides. I am not asking anyone to choose a side. What we are asking the administration to do is to--right now, this weekend, tomorrow--join with the OAS and send in a peacekeeping force to bring some order to let people know they cannot run roughshod, they cannot come in and shoot police stations up and burn buildings down, to help create some stability. The side we should choose is the side of democracy. That is the side we should choose. These armed thugs were not elected. President Aristide was elected, not the armed thugs. It is clear that the administration's unwillingness to get involved is paving the way for the destruction of Haiti's fledgling democracy. What about all this talk of spreading democracy? What about the forward strategy for freedom? Can you imagine how this must sound to Haitians as we embolden and encourage the gunmen, criminals, and thugs who are now trying to overthrow the democratically elected Government of Haiti? The administration speaks about democracy halfway around the world. What about democracy 600 miles off our shores? To be sure, the fledgling democracy in Haiti is imperfect. I am the first to admit that. But it would be a profound mistake of historic proportions that I believe would have deep moral implications for our country if we abandon this fledgling democracy to the likes of these gunmen. Well, maybe the administration says this is an easy way out. We don't do anything, we just let it go. Talk about an abdication of our position in this hemisphere. We have a responsibility in Haiti--a responsibility based on our democratic values, a responsibility based on humanitarianism. Mr. President, there is one other thing. There are now 20,000 U.S. citizens in Haiti. We have a responsibility to protect them also. What about those 20,000 American citizens in Haiti? Why are we not protecting them? I ask that question. Why are we not protecting the 20,000 U.S. citizens living in Haiti? Maybe you can draw your own conclusions. I don't know. Well, what needs to be done? Right now, there is a debate on how we got there. Who is right? Who is wrong? Did Aristide do this, or did he not do that? Did he keep out the opposition? There is all this talk about how we got here. When your house is on fire, you put out the fire first. You don't go around saying, How did it start? Get the fire out, then we can have the debate about how we got there. Haiti is on fire. It is burning right now. Innocent men, women, and children are being killed right now. We can stop it. We have the power to stop it--with very little involvement on our part. We have the power to stop it. Tomorrow, the United States should deploy a stabilization force in Haiti along with the Organization of American States. The Organization of American States has a history in this, by the way. They have sent peacekeeping operations to places like Yugoslavia. The Caribbean countries are one-third of the OAS. They have sent people, too, as peacekeepers. They have experience in this. They can be involved with us in setting up a stabilizing force this weekend in Haiti. If we were to send that signal now, that would stop these thugs and gunmen and murderers in their tracks. But I can tell you, from conversations I have had on the phone with people in Haiti today, that the people in Haiti are thinking that we are on the side of the thugs and the killers. Why? Because we are not doing anything and they have the guns. If we were to send in a stabilization force, the people of Haiti would know we are on their side. That would give them courage. But right now, the poor people of Haiti believe that they are alone--alone, forgotten, abandoned, as they have tried to implement a democratic form of government in their country. The administration says they don't want to act until there is a political settlement. Mr. President, you cannot have a political settlement until you have some stability. You cannot have a political settlement when people are being gunned down in the streets, when armed thugs are burning down police stations. Think about that. The people who want to ``liberate'' Haiti are the people with guns. What are they doing? They are burning down police stations. Does that give you an idea of what they want to do after they take over? The administration says they are reluctant to act without a political settlement. You cannot have a political settlement without stability. Stability first. That is why I say this administration, tomorrow, needs to send in a peacekeeping force to Haiti, along with the Organization of American States. It can be done in less than 24 hours. It would stop the bloodshed immediately. Then we can work on the CARICOM proposal or other proposals for a political settlement. How are you going to have a political dialog, a political settlement in this environment right now? Our own embassy staff cannot even leave the compound or move around. How can we work on dialog and a resolution? You have to have a secure environment in order for a productive dialog to take place. Is it this administration's intent to totally destabilize the Aristide government, the democratically elected government of Haiti, and let the gunmen take over and hope somehow we can deal with them later? Is that their intent? Because that is who is going to take over. It will not be the political opposition. It will be the people with the guns. The most lethal element in Haiti will be the ones who will take over. Don't take my word for it. Read the paper. What are Guy Phillipe and Jodel Chamblain and others saying to the press? They are going to run things, not some civilian opposition. After we would send in a stabilizing force this weekend, we would work with OAS, the CARICOM, to mediate a political solution, one that respects and preserves Haiti's emerging democracy. On February 20, I joined with a number of my colleagues in sending a letter to Secretary Powell saying the CARICOM initiative offers the best vehicle for a peaceful resolution of this critical situation. If we fail to act, there will be real consequences. Consider what happened in 1993 and 1994 when we didn't act at that time. Thousands of Haitians were killed, torture chambers were set up. There was raping and pillaging and looting. Many more fled to the U.S. and other neighboring countries. That was in 1993. That is when we had a military dictatorship in Haiti. The same people are now trying to overthrow the Aristide government. But today we are on the brink of even a bigger catastrophe. The World Food Program, which I have mentioned, is feeding about 300,000 Haitians a day. This distribution, for all intents and purposes, is stopping. A humanitarian crisis of immense proportions is happening on our own doorstep, and we do nothing. What kind of signal do we send to the children of Haiti? Is it our signal that the only way to get anything done is to pick up a gun, to kill, to intimidate? The issue is not about partisanship. The issue is about a humanitarian crisis. This small impoverished country, the poorest in our hemisphere, a nation with this long history of dictatorial regimes supported a lot by us is crying out for help. We have a small, diminutive man, a former Catholic priest, Jean- Bertrand Aristide, a hero to his people, elected freely twice, overthrown once by a murderous coup in the nineties who has come back fearlessly to try to engender a political democratic solution to the problems in Haiti, this very small diminutive man who disbanded the military in Haiti is asking for our help to save the democratic system. Every time we have called upon President Aristide to take a step back to do something for the democratic process in Haiti, he has done so. As I said, when he was in exile in the nineties, in our dealing with the military in Haiti, we made Aristide agree that the 3 years he was in exile would be counted as part of his Presidency, even though he was not there, even though he served only 8 months as President. For the good of democracy and his constitution, he agreed to those requests. Even though he would have been reelected in a landslide in 1995, he abided by the constitution and did not seek reelection, as the constitution provides. So this little man without an army, without any oil, without some strategic importance in the world community, this little diminutive man, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Catholic priest, who, back when he first started in the eighties, only wanted to increase the educational level, the health level, the living standards of the poorest people in Haiti--it has been his life's work--is crying out for our help to save democracy. What are we saying to him? Leave the country. You leave the country and turn it over to the gunmen. That is not saving democracy. That is destroying it. That is killing the fledgling democracy in Haiti. President Aristide said he would serve until his term is up, I believe it is February of 2006, but when Secretary Powell and the CARICOM nations went to Aristide and said, Look, to save your fledgling democracy, you have to agree upon powersharing, upon this, all the elements they put into that package, what did Aristide say? OK, to save democracy in Haiti, he would do it. The opposition, to save democracy, would they come halfway and meet him? They said, no, they would not agree to that. The only thing they would agree to is Aristide going completely out of the country and them taking over. One has to wonder what is going on. This is a seminal moment, I believe, in the history of our country and in our relationship to the rest of this hemisphere because what we do or do not do in Haiti this weekend and immediately speaks to what the American character is, what we really stand for. The moment is now. Haiti could descend into anarchy at any moment. On the radios in Port-au-Prince, opposition people are getting on the air saying Aristide is fleeing the country; right now he is fleeing the country. The poor people who were counting on Aristide to protect them now are frightened, and it emboldens the gunmen and the thugs to take over because they do not see us anywhere, and not seeing us anywhere must mean we are on the gunmen's side because they have the guns. Now they are trying to say this is some kind of a popular uprising. These gunmen, these murderers, these ex-military people were not even in Haiti. They had been convicted by the courts in Haiti of murder, sentenced to life in prison in absentia. There is no popular uprising. These are armed thugs coming across the border from the Dominican Republic taking arms, communications equipment, and everything with them and terrorizing people, killing policemen, and burning down police stations. They are well equipped. They have big weapons. They move at night. They know how to communicate. This is an uprising of Haitian people? Not a bit. The people of Haiti are crying out to us. It speaks to our moral values. Are we going to pay attention to the poorest country in this hemisphere, one of the poorest in the world, almost an entirely black country where they have been beaten and trod upon for so long and where they saw a little bit of hope and finally getting out from under military rule, under dictatorial regimes, such as the Duvaliers, being able to have some power to vote for who they wanted to see in office, not who we wanted to see in office? Are we just now going to turn our backs on them? I hope not. I hope that somewhere in this State Department, somewhere in this administration there is a spark of conscience that says we cannot stand by, that we must send a peacekeeping force to Haiti immediately, and we have to work upon a political settlement rather than a settlement at the end of a gun barrel held by thugs and murderers. I hope there is a spark of conscience someplace because if there is not, a lot of people are going to die, a lot of innocent people, poor people, people who do not have much to begin with. They are going to get in their boats. They are going to want to flee the country. What did our President say? If they come out, we will pick them up and send them right back. Think about that. Poor people trying to flee the killing fields, and we are telling them if they get in a boat and try to go someplace, we will send them back. Is this America? Is this the country my mother came to as an immigrant? There is a lot to ponder in our relationship with Haiti at this point in time. It is a seminal moment. I believe what happens within the next 24 to 48 hours will determine the fate of democracy in Haiti. It will determine the fate of thousands of innocent Haitian people and it will determine our moral standing, not only in this hemisphere but in the world. I hope that spark of conscience happens very soon somewhere in this administration, because anarchy, murder, and killings are going to happen very soon unless that spark of conscience happens somewhere in this administration. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill, the Menu Education and Labeling Act, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, Senators Kennedy, Lieberman and Cantwell. More than 65 percent of American adults are overweight, and more than 30 percent are clinically obese. We lead the world in this dubious distinction, which is growing worse. In the past 20 years, obesity rates have doubled among American adults and children, while they have tripled among teens. If we do not change course, kids attending school today will be the first generation in American history to live a shorter lifespan than their parents. The issue is far from merely cosmetic. It is medical and economic. The obesity epidemic has huge consequences. Overweight people have an increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and other illnesses. Sixty percent of overweight youth already have at least one risk factor for heart disease which is the No. 1 killer of adults in the U.S. Obesity also causes or contributes to $117 billion a year in health care and related costs, more than half borne by taxpayers. There is no single solution to the complex problem of obesity, but we must start taking meaningful steps to address this growing problem by giving people the tools necessary to live healthier lifestyles. That is why my colleagues and I are introducing this bill today to extend nutrition labeling beyond packaged foods to include foods at chain restaurants with 20 or more locations, as well as food in vending machines. This common-sense idea will give consumers a needed tool to make wiser choices and achieve a healthier lifestyle. It is a positive step toward addressing the obesity epidemic. In 1990, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, NLEA, requiring food manufacturers to provide nutrition information on nearly all packaged foods. The impact has been tremendous. Not only do nearly three-quarters of adults use the food labels on packaged foods, but studies indicate that consumers who read labels have healthier diets. Restaurants, which are more and more important to Americans' diet and health, were excluded from the NLEA. American adults and children consume a third of their calories at restaurants at the very time when nutrition and health experts say that rising caloric consumption and growing portion sizes are causes of obesity. We also know that when children eat in restaurants, they consume twice as many calories as when they eat at home. Consumers say that they would like nutrition information provided when they order their food at restaurants, yet, while they have good nutrition information in supermarkets, at restaurants they can only guess. Vending machine food sales also plays a large role in contributing to the diets of Americans. Over the last three decades vending machine sales have shot up eighty-five percent after inflation. Most vending machine sales include foods of low nutritional value. The Menu Education and Labeling Act will require fast-food and other chain restaurants, as well as vending machines, to list basic nutritional information clearly--so consumers can make better choices about the foods that they eat. Let there be no doubt: obesity is indeed an epidemic, and it is continuing to grow. This is a public health crisis and we must address it. Although this bill alone will not halt rising obesity in its tracks, it provides consumers with an important tool with which to make better choices about the food that they and their children consume. In the coming weeks I will be offering additional initiatives to give Americans the tools they need to stay healthy and address risk factors like obesity and mental health that are associated with the rising medical and financial costs of chronic illnesses. The common thread will be an emphasis on preventing unnecessary disease and illness.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill, the Menu Education and Labeling Act, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, Senators Kennedy, Lieberman and Cantwell. More than 65 percent of American adults are overweight, and more than 30 percent are clinically obese. We lead the world in this dubious distinction, which is growing worse. In the past 20 years, obesity rates have doubled among American adults and children, while they have tripled among teens. If we do not change course, kids attending school today will be the first generation in American history to live a shorter lifespan than their parents. The issue is far from merely cosmetic. It is medical and economic. The obesity epidemic has huge consequences. Overweight people have an increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and other illnesses. Sixty percent of overweight youth already have at least one risk factor for heart disease which is the No. 1 killer of adults in the U.S. Obesity also causes or contributes to $117 billion a year in health care and related costs, more than half borne by taxpayers. There is no single solution to the complex problem of obesity, but we must start taking meaningful steps to address this growing problem by giving people the tools necessary to live healthier lifestyles. That is why my colleagues and I are introducing this bill today to extend nutrition labeling beyond packaged foods to include foods at chain restaurants with 20 or more locations, as well as food in vending machines. This common-sense idea will give consumers a needed tool to make wiser choices and achieve a healthier lifestyle. It is a positive step toward addressing the obesity epidemic. In 1990, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, NLEA, requiring food manufacturers to provide nutrition information on nearly all packaged foods. The impact has been tremendous. Not only do nearly three-quarters of adults use the food labels on packaged foods, but studies indicate that consumers who read labels have healthier diets. Restaurants, which are more and more important to Americans' diet and health, were excluded from the NLEA. American adults and children consume a third of their calories at restaurants at the very time when nutrition and health experts say that rising caloric consumption and growing portion sizes are causes of obesity. We also know that when children eat in restaurants, they consume twice as many calories as when they eat at home. Consumers say that they would like nutrition information provided when they order their food at restaurants, yet, while they have good nutrition information in supermarkets, at restaurants they can only guess. Vending machine food sales also plays a large role in contributing to the diets of Americans. Over the last three decades vending machine sales have shot up eighty-five percent after inflation. Most vending machine sales include foods of low nutritional value. The Menu Education and Labeling Act will require fast-food and other chain restaurants, as well as vending machines, to list basic nutritional information clearly--so consumers can make better choices about the foods that they eat. Let there be no doubt: obesity is indeed an epidemic, and it is continuing to grow. This is a public health crisis and we must address it. Although this bill alone will not halt rising obesity in its tracks, it provides consumers with an important tool with which to make better choices about the food that they and their children consume. In the coming weeks I will be offering additional initiatives to give Americans the tools they need to stay healthy and address risk factors like obesity and mental health that are associated with the rising medical and financial costs of chronic illnesses. The common thread will be an emphasis on preventing unnecessary disease and illness.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor the Fairness and Individual Rights Necessary to Ensure a Stronger Society: The Civil Rights Act of 2004, known as the Fairness Act. In recent years. the Supreme Court has worked to chip away at civil rights laws. This legislation is designed to address many of these decisions, particularly with respect to statutes governing recipients of federal assistance. This bill is important to all Americans because it ensures that everyone will be treated with fairness and equity under the laws of this country. As a longstanding advocate for disability rights, I am particularly pleased that this bill will reverse some decisions that have limited civil rights protections for people with disabilities. For example, this legislation will reverse some Supreme Court cases which limit the damage awards for intentional discrimination. A recent egregious example is Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U.S. 181, 2002. This case was brought by an individual who used a wheelchair and was forced into a police van that was not equipped with the proper restraints. Despite his objections to the officers, the individual was strapped in with improper belts that came loose, throwing him to the floor. The Supreme Court held that this individual could not seek punitive damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for this mistreatment. The Fairness Act will restore his rights and those of others who have suffered discrimination. It will also reverse Buchannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dep't of Health & Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 2001. In that case, the defendant had been sued under the ADA and the Fair Housing Act. The Court held that even if the lawsuit causes the defendants to voluntarily make changes, the plaintiff cannot recover attorneys' fees unless he or she has been awarded relief by a court. This case has made it extremely difficult to find attorneys to take disability cases. The Fairness Act will also clarify that passengers with disabilities may sue for violations of the Air Carriers Access Act, ACCA, and its regulations. A circuit court recently applied the Supreme Court's decision in Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. to prohibit suits under the ACAA. Congress intended that individuals have the ability to seek redress for violations of this statute. The bill, however, does not address individuals with disabilities in some areas because Congress already has provided clear protection for them. So, for example, Congress has clearly indicated that a private right of action exists to enforce disparate impact disability-based discrimination under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Congress approved of the regulations promulgated to implement section 504 and incorporated these regulations into the statutory requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The bill also does not address the disability-specific negative decisions of the Supreme Court. These decisions have undermined the ADA by dramatically narrowing those who are covered under the Act and imposing other restrictions. As the lead sponsor of the ADA in the Senate, I believe that these cases directly conflict with congressional intent. I am working with the disability community and others to address these cases. The Fairness Act is aptly named. It is designed to ensure that everyone is treated equally under the law and that America will be a Nation that protects and enforces the civil rights of all its citizens.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor the Fairness and Individual Rights Necessary to Ensure a Stronger Society: The Civil Rights Act of 2004, known as the Fairness Act. In recent years. the Supreme Court has worked to chip away at civil rights laws. This legislation is designed to address many of these decisions, particularly with respect to statutes governing recipients of federal assistance. This bill is important to all Americans because it ensures that everyone will be treated with fairness and equity under the laws of this country. As a longstanding advocate for disability rights, I am particularly pleased that this bill will reverse some decisions that have limited civil rights protections for people with disabilities. For example, this legislation will reverse some Supreme Court cases which limit the damage awards for intentional discrimination. A recent egregious example is Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U.S. 181, 2002. This case was brought by an individual who used a wheelchair and was forced into a police van that was not equipped with the proper restraints. Despite his objections to the officers, the individual was strapped in with improper belts that came loose, throwing him to the floor. The Supreme Court held that this individual could not seek punitive damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for this mistreatment. The Fairness Act will restore his rights and those of others who have suffered discrimination. It will also reverse Buchannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dep't of Health & Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 2001. In that case, the defendant had been sued under the ADA and the Fair Housing Act. The Court held that even if the lawsuit causes the defendants to voluntarily make changes, the plaintiff cannot recover attorneys' fees unless he or she has been awarded relief by a court. This case has made it extremely difficult to find attorneys to take disability cases. The Fairness Act will also clarify that passengers with disabilities may sue for violations of the Air Carriers Access Act, ACCA, and its regulations. A circuit court recently applied the Supreme Court's decision in Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. to prohibit suits under the ACAA. Congress intended that individuals have the ability to seek redress for violations of this statute. The bill, however, does not address individuals with disabilities in some areas because Congress already has provided clear protection for them. So, for example, Congress has clearly indicated that a private right of action exists to enforce disparate impact disability-based discrimination under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Congress approved of the regulations promulgated to implement section 504 and incorporated these regulations into the statutory requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The bill also does not address the disability-specific negative decisions of the Supreme Court. These decisions have undermined the ADA by dramatically narrowing those who are covered under the Act and imposing other restrictions. As the lead sponsor of the ADA in the Senate, I believe that these cases directly conflict with congressional intent. I am working with the disability community and others to address these cases. The Fairness Act is aptly named. It is designed to ensure that everyone is treated equally under the law and that America will be a Nation that protects and enforces the civil rights of all its citizens.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, my amendment concerns transportation enhancement projects, and the need to promote physical activity and healthy lifestyles. In particular, my amendment gives priority to transportation enhancement projects that include a coordinated physical activity plan. Over the last 20 years, new public health threats have emerged-- obesity and the chronic diseases associated with poor nutrition and lack of physical activity. In fact, chronic diseases now account for 75 percent of our Nation's $1 trillion annual health care costs. The health statistics on obesity are staggering. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two-thirds of Americans over overweight or obese, and the rates of obesity have doubled in children and tripled among teenagers since 1980. Obesity also increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, several kinds of cancer, and other health problems. Approximately 300,000 deaths a year in the United States are associated with obesity and being overweight. Spiraling rates of obesity don't just affect individuals, they place a burden on the average taxpayer and on the Federal Government. The U.S. Surgeon General estimates that obesity costs the Nation $117 billion a year in health care and related costs. Physical activity alone costs over $75 billion per year. There is no single solution to the problem of obesity and overweight. This is a complex problem, and it must be addressed creatively and comprehensively. One opportunity is before us today in the transportation bill. The amendment that I am proposing today concerns transportation enhancement projects, a long standing transportation program under which a large share of our hiking and bike trails on non-Federal lands are built. Such trails, paths, and projects can play an important role in promoting physical exercise in our communities. My amendment seeks to encourage transportation trail enhancement projects to include physical activity and healthy lifestyle programs. Very simply, within the applications a State or planning organization receive for trail or bike path funding, it gives priority to trail projects that encourage coordinated physical activity or healthy lifestyle programs. It does not shift the balance of funding to trail enhancement projects from other allowable categories. It certainly has no impact on the total dollars that go to enhancement projects. This amendment does not micromanage funds or tie the hands of States seeking to make choices that are most appropriate to their needs. I believe individual States and local planning organizations should have flexibility to make decisions about their transportation priorities. And my amendment preserves that flexibility. Possible examples of such efforts might include an exercise course on the side of a trail; or perhaps an exercise program run by a local recreation department. We have had tremendous success with local trails and bikeways. If we do not start seeking out opportunities to encourage healthier lifestyles for Americans, whether it be in an obvious place such as a child nutrition or health care bill, or in a less obvious bill such as this transportation bill, we will all pay the price--both in our health and in our budgets. I ask for the support of my colleagues on this commonsense amendment.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the assistant majority leader for yielding me 10 minutes in morning business. I rise to follow up on what the Democratic leader was talking about in terms of the statement of the chairman of the President's economic advisers saying: Outsourcing of jobs in this country is a good thing. I read the followup comments by White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, who said: The President's view is that American workers are the best workers in the world and he is committed to free and fair trade. He is committed to a level playing field. That all sounds very nice, but is it level when you have a worker in China making 61 cents an hour and a worker in America making $12 or $13, $14 an hour? What kind of a level playing field is that? As the leader said, this is a race to the bottom. You can always find someone someplace who is lower down on the totem pole, who is more hungry, more destitute, willing to work for less than you. If that is what we are looking for, we might as well go back to slavery. If you want to talk about efficiency, that is what they are saying: When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to provide it domestically. That has to do with efficiency, they said. Efficiency? Is that what we as human beings are now looked upon, as a machine, how efficient a machine we are or is there more to life than that. When I hear words like that, I say people have some sterile view of economics that counts people as just so many cogs in a wheel or so many units we can depreciate, use up and throw out on the trash heap after a while. It disturbs me greatly, the positions of these people in making such statements. I recognize free trade or fair trade is good for everyone as long as it does not lower people's standard of living but tends to raise people up to ours. That is what we ought to be involved in--not lowering our standard of living to others but trying to help them raise theirs. Couple that with this dance of the administration that outsourcing jobs, shipping jobs overseas is good, somehow good for our country, with the budget we have now in front of us and what it spells is a disaster for this country and especially for our young people. We have had the first recovery from a recession in modern time. There are still about 3 million jobs lost out there. This budget continues on that way. We have tax cuts for the wealthy. It does not create jobs. We have this proposal to eliminate overtime pay Senator Durbin brought up. Now we are going to create jobs in India and China and places such as that by outsourcing all of our jobs. Then you look at the budget, and the budget we have will continue deficits as far as the eye can see. It will increase deficits. What that means is we are now going to be paying a debt tax. As this administration increases the national debt, they increase the share of the Federal budget that goes to pay the interest on the debt. So every dollar we spend on interest is a dollar we are not spending on education or construction or health care, rebuilding our economy. This is the hidden tax in Mr. Bush's budget. He says he wants tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy. He wants to make them permanent. That will cost us another $1 trillion. But what about the hidden tax, the debt tax that is going to be put upon our workers and our children to pay the huge interest charges on this national debt that is running up? Right now interest payments are about $4,367 a year for a family of four. By 2010, because of these huge budget deficits, this debt tax rises to more than $8,000 for a family of four. That is just the interest every year. That means every family of four in America will be paying about $8,000 a year in additional taxes just to pay the interest on the national debt. Again, this is a formula for utter disaster. The baby boomers are on the verge of retirement--1946 being the first year of the baby boomers. They will retire basically at 65, so that brings us to the year 2011. When they start retiring, we will be in the hole with huge budget deficits. President Clinton set us on the right track to reach 2010 with zero national debt, in great fiscal shape to begin to finance the baby boomers' retirement and their health care. That inheritance from President Clinton, being on the right track and erasing the total national debt, has been squandered--squandered by tax cuts for the wealthy, squandered by the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, and destroying jobs in America. So we are going to reach 2010 with a crushing debt burden, higher interest rates, a weaker economy, and the baby boomers just retiring. We know we are mortgaging our future, stealing from the next generation. Why? So that the wealthiest can have a tax cut of $155,000 a year. This is not wise and it is not fair. The consequences are going to hit us right now, not just in the year 2001. Just look at the budget. It shortchanges No Child Left Behind by $7 billion. The budget cuts funding for local police by $1.7 billion. It cuts funding for firefighters by $800 million. There you have the essence of the Bush economic plan: huge tax cuts for the rich, skyrocketing deficits and debt, cuts in programs that serve children and working Americans, and outsourcing of our jobs to other countries, thus reducing the overall income of middle-class Americans. It is time for the Senate to come together and demand a change of course, demand fiscal sanity, fiscal integrity, and a change in our economic program. I believe this is the single biggest test we face in the year ahead. Quite frankly, I believe President Bush is out of control in demanding even more tax cuts. The House of Representatives basically will do whatever the White House says. So I say to my colleagues it is up to us. Quite frankly, if the Senate doesn't step in and provide some adult supervision in Washington, then nobody will, and we will, in fact, march down this path of huge deficits, bigger and bigger deficits, higher debt, more interest payments on the debt, and the increasing outsourcing of our jobs to other countries. It is time to stop this downward spiral. I believe only we in the Senate can do it.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. We had a vote here last summer to basically keep this rule from going into effect. It passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Well, the Senator is right. Again, this is mind-boggling. I will say this--and again to be as fair as possible--there was one part of the proposal that was good, which was to raise the low-income base from about $8,000 to about $21,000. That means that right now, no matter who you are in this country, if your pay is less than $8,000 a year, you are guaranteed overtime regardless of what you do. Well, that needed to be raised for some time. Nobody argues that. They wanted to raise it to $21,000. We agree with that. But in doing so, they issued advice to employers on how to get around it. They said we are going to raise the base to $21,000, but here is advice on how to get around it. No. 1, what you do is simply work your people longer and you build that into their base pay. So you work them longer, but you don't have to pay them any more. Secondly, they said if they are near $21,000--let's say $20,500--you may want to raise their pay to $21,000 and then they are exempt and you save by not paying overtime. There is gimmick after gimmick on how they can basically get around it. I said this on the floor. This is like the IRS issuing advice to tax cheats on how to cheat on their income taxes.