Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Ten minutes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the status of the floor situation?

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, most Americans are very familiar with Head Start. This popular preschool program was created in 1965 to provide education, health, nutrition and family support services to low-income, 4- and 5-year old children. Head Start enjoys strong bipartisan support and is widely recognized as a success. In response to the growing body of research about the critical development which occurs during the first 3 years of a child's life, Head Start was expanded in 1995 to serve infants and toddlers. The Early Head Start Program provides comprehensive child development and family support services to infants and toddlers from birth through age 3 and pregnant women. Currently, 10 percent of Head Start funds are set aside for Early Head Start. An estimated 60,000 children currently receive services nationwide. In Iowa, 1,259 children are served by Early Head Start. Numerous research findings, including a 7-year national evaluation, show that Early Head Start is a success. Early Head Start made positive impacts in children's cognitive, language, and social-emotional development. It was also found that compared to a control group, parents in Early Head Start not only read to their children more often but also provided additional resources to support greater language and literacy development. These types of outcomes for our Nation's most vulnerable infants and toddlers are tremendous considering how critical the early years are for children's development. Data from the National Academy of Sciences shows that the first 3 years of a child's life are the most important-- 80 percent of brain development occurs by age 3. Children have unlimited potential to learn many things during this critical time. Research conducted over the last several years shows how important it is for parents to read to their young children, talk with them, and stimulate learning through play. Children who do not have enriched learning experiences during these important years can be stunted for life. Babies and toddlers living in high-risk environments need additional supports to foster necessary intellectual, social, and emotional development that lays the foundation for later success in school and life. Early Head Start provides this proven effective, targeted care, yet only 3 percent of those eligible are being served. As a result, today I am introducing legislation that would increase the current set-aside to 20 percent in 2008--to double the number of participants. Investments in early intervention programs must become a national priority. This is the right thing to do for the young children of our Nation, but it is also the most cost-effective thing for us to do. Every dollar invested in quality pre-school programs saves $7 in future costs for special education, welfare or corrections. In 1991, the Committee for Economic Development, CED, called on the Nation to rethink how we view education. This group of business leaders urged Federal policy makers to view education as a process that begins at birth, with preparations beginning before birth. I strongly support this objective and have always been a strong advocate in early intervention activities such as Head Start, the WIC nutrition program and early intervention programs for infants and toddlers with disabilities. We must dedicate ourselves to making the CED vision a reality and build a strong foundation for education in this country. That begins with ensuring that all children get off to a good, strong start and enter school ready to learn. The legislation I am introducing today takes another step toward building this foundation by doubling the set-aside for the Early Head Start Program for children ages zero to three by the year 2008. This action will continue to improve access to education and development services for our youngest children to provide a good start in life. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the government leadership exemplified by Angela Connolly, the Chairwoman of the Polk County Board of Supervisors, in Des Moines, IA, who has been selected the National County Leader of the Year. American City and County, a national magazine about local government, honored Angela at the 2003 Annual Conference of the National Association of Counties that took place earlier this month. I have known Angela many years, and can testify to her commitment to the use of government in making people's lives better. Angela has exercised her leadership on a number of issues that have greatly impacted Iowa's capital city in a positive way. Her advocacy and tireless work on the Iowa Events Center will bring a premiere entertainment and athletics venue to central Iowa, and she was key in securing Vision Iowa funding for the Capital City Vision Projects, which include a new science center, a higher education learning center, a riverwalk, and a home for the World Food Prize. Angela also led the board of supervisors through a reorganization that significantly reduced a budget deficit and brought about efficiencies in the delivery of county services. Angela Connolly was elected to the Polk County Board of Supervisors in 1998, and is currently serving her second term and is the 2003 chairperson. Prior to her election, Angela served more than 20 years as a Polk County employee. Angela is active in many civic and community activities, serving on a dozen boards and commissions and nearly 20 additional committees and community organizations. A champion of health and human services, she serves on boards advocating for services for children, persons with disabilities, and mental health treatment. Among the boards she serves are: the Metro Mayors Group, Greater Des Moines Partnership, Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau, Polk County Housing Trust Fund, Metropolitan Advisory Council, Polk County Health Services, Polk County Correctional Services, and the Des Moines Arts Festival. Angela Connolly is an exemplary leader in county government, who serves her constituents with honor and integrity. I look forward to continuing to work with her to make Iowa a great place to call home.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, today I extend my appreciation to my summer 2003 class of interns: Anne Wilzbacher, Joanna Busch, Angela Wilson, Cliff Sullivan, Nick Herbold, Alex Nelson, Omar Ul Haq, Theresa Reilly, Derek Wulf, Kalsoom Lakhani, Dave Townsend, Haley Wallace, Josh Craft, Ermira Babamusta, Becca North, Abby Smith, Michael Kuehner, Charles Monterio and Carolyn Timberlake. Each of them has been a tremendous assistance to me and to the people of Iowa over the past several months, and their efforts have not gone unnoticed. Since I was first elected into the Senate in 1984, my office has offered internships to young Iowans and other interested students. Through their work in the Senate, our interns have not only seen the legislative process, but also personally contributed to our Nation's democracy. It is with much appreciation that I recognize Anne, Joanna, Angela, Cliff, Nick, Alex, Omar, Theresa Derek, Kalsoom, Dave, Haley, Josh, Ermira, Becca, Abby, Michael, Charles and Carolyn for their hard work this summer. It has been a delight to watch them take on their assignments with enthusiasm and hard work. I am very proud to have worked with each of them. I hope they take from their summer a sense of pride in what they've been able to accomplish and an increased interest in public service and our democratic system and process.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, most Americans are very familiar with Head Start. This popular preschool program was created in 1965 to provide education, health, nutrition and family support services to low-income, 4- and 5-year old children. Head Start enjoys strong bipartisan support and is widely recognized as a success. In response to the growing body of research about the critical development which occurs during the first 3 years of a child's life, Head Start was expanded in 1995 to serve infants and toddlers. The Early Head Start Program provides comprehensive child development and family support services to infants and toddlers from birth through age 3 and pregnant women. Currently, 10 percent of Head Start funds are set aside for Early Head Start. An estimated 60,000 children currently receive services nationwide. In Iowa, 1,259 children are served by Early Head Start. Numerous research findings, including a 7-year national evaluation, show that Early Head Start is a success. Early Head Start made positive impacts in children's cognitive, language, and social-emotional development. It was also found that compared to a control group, parents in Early Head Start not only read to their children more often but also provided additional resources to support greater language and literacy development. These types of outcomes for our Nation's most vulnerable infants and toddlers are tremendous considering how critical the early years are for children's development. Data from the National Academy of Sciences shows that the first 3 years of a child's life are the most important-- 80 percent of brain development occurs by age 3. Children have unlimited potential to learn many things during this critical time. Research conducted over the last several years shows how important it is for parents to read to their young children, talk with them, and stimulate learning through play. Children who do not have enriched learning experiences during these important years can be stunted for life. Babies and toddlers living in high-risk environments need additional supports to foster necessary intellectual, social, and emotional development that lays the foundation for later success in school and life. Early Head Start provides this proven effective, targeted care, yet only 3 percent of those eligible are being served. As a result, today I am introducing legislation that would increase the current set-aside to 20 percent in 2008--to double the number of participants. Investments in early intervention programs must become a national priority. This is the right thing to do for the young children of our Nation, but it is also the most cost-effective thing for us to do. Every dollar invested in quality pre-school programs saves $7 in future costs for special education, welfare or corrections. In 1991, the Committee for Economic Development, CED, called on the Nation to rethink how we view education. This group of business leaders urged Federal policy makers to view education as a process that begins at birth, with preparations beginning before birth. I strongly support this objective and have always been a strong advocate in early intervention activities such as Head Start, the WIC nutrition program and early intervention programs for infants and toddlers with disabilities. We must dedicate ourselves to making the CED vision a reality and build a strong foundation for education in this country. That begins with ensuring that all children get off to a good, strong start and enter school ready to learn. The legislation I am introducing today takes another step toward building this foundation by doubling the set-aside for the Early Head Start Program for children ages zero to three by the year 2008. This action will continue to improve access to education and development services for our youngest children to provide a good start in life. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am very pleased that the Senate is moving towards passage today of legislation that would name the Glenwood, IA, post office for former Iowa Congressman, William J. Scherle. Bill Scherle and his wife Jane live on their family farm just outside of Henderson, IA, in Mills County. Glenwood is the county seat of Mills County. Bill served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, beginning with three terms in 1967 in what was then Iowa's 7th Congressional District, and a term in the re-districted 5th Congressional District. I think it is appropriate that Glenwood's Post Office will soon permanently bear Congressman Scherle's name. Bill long served his Nation. He started with military service in the Navy and Coast Guard during World War II, then afterwards served in the Naval Reserve. He chaired the Mills County Republican Party for almost a decade starting in 1956. He served in the Iowa legislature from 1960 through 1966. He then was elected to the U.S. Congress and served through 1974, including service on the Education and Labor Committee and the Appropriations Committee. His public service continued in 1975 and 1976, when he was appointed to a senior position at the Department of Agriculture. In January 1968, North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, imprisoned and tortured the crew. Congressman Scherle led the effort in Congress to free the crew of the Pueblo. I have always admired Bill's tenacity in never letting the Pueblo crew be forgotten. Bill was the only Member of Congress invited to attend Pueblo reunions and as their health has allowed, Bill and Jane always have attended. Bill and I are at different places on the political spectrum, and I ran against him for Congress twice. He wont the first time, and I won the re-match. We disagreed on many issues, but I always understood that he acted on the basis of strong-held views about what he considered were the best interests of those he represented and of the Nation. Long after we ran as opponents, I got to know Bill and visited him on his farm. He is a good person who cares deeply about his community and rural America. Politics has always had a certain amount of rough and tumble. But while Bill was certainly a good Republican who wanted to see consistent victories for the GOP, he also could see the good in all people. One area of our mutual interest was the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs. Bill always did what he could for the school my brother attended years ago, and for deaf people in general. Congressman Scherle always cared about children and their welfare. He wrote a children's book. ``The Happy Barn.'' He gave away thousands of copies to schools, hospitals and individual families in Southwest Iowa and the Omaha area, reading to young children time after time. He had lots of fun reading to children, and I believe that there are few more valuable things we can do as adults than to read to children and get them started on that most important activity. Bill was a businessman and farmer, proud of both professions. He received the Alegent Health Mercy Hospital Heritage Award for his contributions to business in Southwest Iowa. He remains a good father to his two sons, and a good husband to his wife of 55 years, Jane. He is blessed with 6 grandchildren--five girls and a boy. Bill has lived a dedicated, patriotic, family and public service life. I am pleased that my colleague, Senator Grassley, joins me in sponsoring this legislation. Congressman King has introduced similar legislation in the House of Representatives.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, some of this week's news headlines and lead stories on the evening news, when looked at together, raise important questions about our direction as a country and about key Federal Government policy--both economic policy and foreign policy. The economic issues raised affect the quality of life of every American family and the future of our children. The foreign policy issues touch on the reasons that thousands of Americans are deployed today in perilous circumstances in Iraq. As we all know, our soldiers are risking their lives daily in Iraq, and daily American troops are being killed. On the economic front, the front page of the Washington Post reported earlier this week that the White House now projects that the Federal budget deficit will top $450 billion this year: ``Budget Deficit May Surpass $450 billion.'' That is 50 percent higher than the administration predicted just 6 months ago. In 6 months it has increased by 50 percent. The administration's Office of Management and Budget also predicts a $475 billion deficit for next year. Now, a couple times in my remarks this morning I will be talking about low-balling. I think the $450 billion budget deficit figure is a low-ball figure. I think the $475 billion budget deficit estimate for next year is also a low-ball figure. I think they are both going to be in the neighborhood of $\1/2\ trillion or more. Why could I possibly say that? One reason is that the projected $475 billion deficit for next year does not include any accounting for the cost of the war in Iraq, or for our continued operations in Afghanistan. It is simply not there, as though it costs us nothing. We now know, thanks to the recent hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the continued questioning of Secretary Rumsfeld, who at first did not have the figures for how much it was costing us on a monthly basis in Iraq, but was pressured by the Senators on the Armed Services Committee to get the figures during a break when the Senators came to vote--well, he came back, and what did we learn? We learned from Secretary Rumsfeld that the cost of our operations in Iraq are now running at about $4 billion a month. That is $1 billion a week. Again, to those of us who have been around here for some time, and have seen how these figures have been skewed in the past, I also think that is a low-ball figure. I think the figures of our operations in Iraq, when all is said and done, is going to be much closer to $5 to $6 billion per month. But we will take their figure, the administration's figure of $4 billion a month. Again, that number has been escalating. At the beginning of the war, the Defense Department said that the occupation costs would only be about $2 billion a month. In June, it rose to $3 billion a month. Now it is $4 billion a month. That is just in Iraq. In Afghanistan, we are spending another $1 billion each month. When you add up those two, that is about $60 billion a year. That is not even in our budget. We are on the Defense appropriations bill right now--a record $369 billion for defense and not one penny in there for Afghanistan or Iraq. So when you see the figure of a $450 billion deficit, hold your breath because it is going to go up. It is going to be bigger than that because of these costs in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there is another reason why these deficits are going up. The basis for the $450 billion deficit is certainly not the war in Iraq, and it is not what we are doing in Afghanistan; it is because of the President's massive tax cuts enacted in 2001 and this year--tax cuts that benefited the wealthiest in our society. Over one-half of the benefits of the tax break bill in 2001 went to those people making over $1 million a year. This year, we just added on to that. Based on the tax cuts enacted this year, a person making $1 million a year in America now will get over $93,000 a year in a tax cut. You wonder why we are having a $450 billion deficit. So those are the two paths our country is going down that I believe is putting us in dire jeopardy: The economic path of more and more massive tax breaks for those at the top--not investing in education, not investing in basic medical research, not investing in rebuilding our schools and our highways and bridges and roads, not investing in our infrastructure in our country, not investing in Early Start and Head Start, not investing in Well Start programs, not investing in higher education so our kids can get a chance to go to college, not investing in that--but taking the great wealth of this country and giving it, in tax breaks, to the wealthiest few. That is the basis for why our economy is in a shambles. Then you add on to it the foreign policy debacle of the last 2 years. The foreign policy debacle is now leading us to spend $60 billion a year on Afghanistan and Iraq, the foreign policy debacle that is leading to U.S. troops being killed every day in Iraq. The headline in this morning's Washington Post: `` `Guerilla' War Acknowledged.'' The U.S. military's new commander in Iraq acknowledged for the first time yesterday that American troops are engaged in a ``classical guerilla-type'' war against remnants of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and said Baathist attacks are growing in organization and sophistication. I guess we didn't learn anything from Vietnam, did we? I guess we just didn't learn a thing. No, we were so anxious to rush headlong into this war without getting the support of our allies, making this a United Nations effort, at least at a minimum a NATO effort, rather than a solo effort by the United States. Now when we look around and we need help in paying the bills, it is only the U.S. taxpayers who are being asked to pay. Make no mistake, the bills will be paid. We will pay those bills. And I will vote for this bill, too, because we can't pull the rug out from underneath our military. No one is talking about pulling our troops suddenly out of Iraq now that they are there. Certainly no one here in the Senate would suggest that we don't provide all that we can for their security and their success. But we have to ask the tough questions of what got us here, what led us here, what policy decisions put us in this terrible situation. As we consider defense spending, it is appropriate to examine the cause of why we are committing $1 billion a week in Iraq in addition to the cost of human lives. Again, we can look at a second story from Tuesday's Washington Post. President Bush on Monday defended his State of the Union remarks on Iraq by saying: I think the intelligence I get is darn good intelligence. And the speeches I have given were backed by good intelligence. ``President Defends Allegation on Iraq.'' Well, the President essentially, with these remarks, seems to be sticking with the story he told in his State of the Union Address. His spokesman days before had acknowledged that the President should not have claimed that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa; that this claim was based on bad intelligence, forged documents. But the President did not renounce this claim. In fact, he seemed to stand by it. President Bush also said the CIA doubts about the intelligence regarding Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Africa were ``subsequent'' to the State of the Union Address. That is what the President said. However, we know this is not true. The CIA insisted last October that similar claims be removed from a speech the President delivered at that time. And wonder of wonders, on July 14, the President said we went to war with Saddam Hussein ``after we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't allow them in.'' Just driving in this morning from home into the Senate, I was listening to the radio, and this was brought up on the radio. And you could hear the President's own words: We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't allow them in. That has got to be one of the most bizarre statements I have ever heard not only any President but any public official ever make. The fact is, last November, the inspectors were let in, led by Hans Blix. They went into Iraq on November 18 last fall. And they were there doing their job. But continually President Bush said they couldn't do it, that they couldn't find anything. We kept trying to support the inspectors, some of us, but the President kept saying, no, they couldn't operate. The inspectors only left Iraq just before the bombs started falling. And now for this President to say that Saddam Hussein wouldn't let them in has got to be something really bizarre. What could the President possibly be thinking? How could the President even utter such words? The administration's claims about Iraq's nuclear program have always been at the center of their justification for the war in Iraq. In a speech in Cincinnati last October laying out the case for the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, President Bush used the word ``nuclear'' 20 times in one speech. Perhaps his most dramatic statement raised the specter of a nuclear attack on the United States. President Bush warned in that speech: Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof--the smoking gun--that would come in the form of a mushroom cloud. In March, shortly before the war began, Vice President Cheney went further. He said: Hussein ``has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons.'' And here is what the Vice President said in all seriousness: And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. That is what Vice President Cheney said last March. We ask, where are the facts? We have yet to see any facts, only speculation based upon forged documents. That is a claim with absolutely no evidence behind it. And this is the Vice President of the United States. So we have to ask, does President Bush stand by his claim that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium, or was that statement a mistake? It is not enough to blame an aide who stopped that claim once but allowed it--attributed to another source--the second time. It is not enough to claim, as another aide did, that the statement was technically true because it said that ``the British Government has learned'' about the alleged purchase attempt even though our own Government believed the allegations wrong. It is time for President Bush to come clean. Does he believe his own claim? Did Iraq even have an active nuclear weapons program when we invaded? If so, then why have we not found any evidence for it in the months since the war ended? And if not, then why did we invade in the first place? This is not just about one statement. It is about a war justified by claims that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear weapons, by dire warnings about mushroom clouds. Yet the U.N. could not find any evidence of a continuing nuclear weapons program, and now apparently we can't either. The administration can't hide that fact behind conflicting statements and wrong information. They can't continue to mislead and misdirect the American public and the Congress. The cost in money and in lives and in reputation is too great. Is this really the culmination of a misguided policy started by a few individuals in the early 1990s, expounded and developed in the later 1990s, and now encompassed by some in this administration, a new doctrine called ``preemption''; preemption, that we can somehow go in and militarily invade a country based not upon evidence, based not upon hard facts but based upon a kind of feeling, a supposition, maybe a belief, just a belief that they may, in fact, some day come to harm us? George Will had a column in the newspaper on June 22 talking about the doctrine of preemption. He said something I thought was very interesting. He said: To govern is to choose, almost always on the basis of very imperfect information. But preemption presupposes the ability to know things--to know about threats with a degree of certainty not requisite for decisions less momentous than those for waging war. If I can interpret Mr. Will, I think he was saying that sometimes you can take certain actions, the consequences of which, if you are wrong, are not momentous. But to base military action under a doctrine of preemption on potential threats about which you do not have adequate facts, and based only upon a belief or a feeling, the results of that can be terribly momentous. Mr. Will goes on to say: Some say the war was justified-- That is what we are hearing now. --even if [weapons of mass destruction] are not found nor their destruction explained, because the world is ``better off'' without Saddam. Of course it is better off. But unless one is prepared to postulate a U.S. right, perhaps even a duty, to militarily dismantle any tyranny--on to Burma?--it is unacceptable to argue that Saddam's mass graves and torture chambers suffice as retrospective justifications for preemptive war. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Will's entire column of June 22 be printed at this point in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Well, again, there is one statement after another. Here is a speech that the Vice President gave on August 26, 2002, to the VFW national convention. ``Simply stated,'' said the Vice President, ``there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them. I think that is important. He is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.'' Well, if he was amassing them, where are they? What information did Vice President Cheney rely upon last August 26 when he uttered those words? Words have import. Words have consequences, especially when those words are uttered by the President of the United States or the Vice President--even more so than words uttered by us on the Senate floor. I believe the consequences of those words led us into a war in Iraq that, quite possibly, either could not have happened because we could have had inspectors and we could have weakened Saddam more and more over the months and years; or it could have been a war in which we were there with the world community. But, no, the President wanted to rush into this. The words he used and the words that were used by the Vice President were used to frighten the American people, to stampede the Congress into passing a resolution. Mr. President, I think, as we look at our duties here--and, of course, we have to support our troops and we have to pass this bill-- the hard questions need to be answered. What did the President know? When did he know it? What did the Vice President know and when did he know it? Why did they use the words they used when, in fact, the intelligence showed just otherwise? And why underneath it all do we continue a policy of getting further and further in debt in this country--to the point that it jeopardizes our children's future? These are the hard questions this President has to answer. With that, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I was inadvertently off the floor when the manager of the bill offered a managers' amendment that dealt with providing certain reparations to former U.S. servicemen who were held captive in Japan during World War II and were used as slave laborers in Japanese companies during the duration of the war. Had I been on the floor at the time that amendment came up, I would have spoken about it and might have taken exception to its inclusion. I would have done so not because I do not think the former slave laborers of Japan deserve compensation, but it is coming from the wrong source. Two years ago, Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire and I offered an amendment that basically would have stopped the State Department and the Department of Justice from using taxpayer dollars to defend the interests of Japanese companies. That passed 58 to 34 in the Senate. The House passed the identical amendment in July in an overwhelming 393 to 33 vote, same provision, both Chambers. Incredibly, it was stripped out of conference. Since then, the State Department has been wielding its influence on behalf of these Japanese companies, not the World War II POWs. I think this is unconscionable. The provision added tonight, basically, as I understand it, would give up to $10,000 to each former POW slave laborer, but that money comes from the taxpayers of America. Senator Smith and I said that money ought to come from the Japanese companies that are still in existence. Some of them are multinational, some of them huge, such as Mitsubishi, that actually used American slave laborers during World War II. Many of these POWs were packed into cargo holds from the Philippines. Four thousand American servicemen lost their lives during the Bataan death march. Those who survived were shipped off to Japan for more than 3 years to serve as slave labor for private Japanese companies. Throughout the war, Americans worked in mines, factories, shipyards, and steel mills, labored each day for as long as 10 hours a day in dangerous working conditions. They were beaten on a regular basis. Frank Exline of Pleasant Hill, IA, was one of those POWs, a Navy seaman, who was captured April 9, 1942. Frank Smith worked 39 months for Japanese companies in Osaka, Japan. He began on the docks unloading rock salt and keg iron and later found himself toiling in the rice fields. He was fed two rice balls a day and given very little water. During his time with the Japanese companies, he was tortured and beaten once for taking a potato. Upon being caught, the potato was shoved in his mouth and he stood at rigid attention, in the Sun, for 45 minutes. If he moved or blinked, he was beaten. There was Frank Cardamon, of Des Moines, a marine stationed in China. His ship was attacked, and he was captured at Corregidor and sent to Japan to work in an auto parts factory and in the mines and was never paid for his work. He was fed two cups of rice a day. He went from 160 pounds to 68 pounds in 3 years of capture. Margaret Baker, of Oelwein, IA, wrote a letter about her late husband, Charles Baker. Charles Baker, an Army private, survived the Bataan death march. He was sent to work in the mines for 3 years in Japan. He died at age 54 in 1973. In her letter she wrote: He suffered many injuries and hunger on the death march and during his imprisonment. We feel his early death was caused by the suffering he endured while working long hours in the mines without food, rest, and clothing. These men and 700 of their fellow prisoners of war and their families have been trying to seek long-delayed justice over the past several years. They have been to court to demand compensation from the Japanese companies that used POW slave labor. Yet our own State Department has come down on the side of the Japanese companies, not our POWs. The State Department took the view that a peace treaty signed in 1951 prohibits reparations from private Japanese companies for survivors such as Frank. In fact, State Department officials have submitted statements to the court in support of the view of these Japanese companies. Imagine our own State Department coming down on the side of the Japanese companies, not the side of our POWs. I don't think that is right and I don't think it is fair, especially when the State Department's assertion about the treaty is inaccurate. The State Department says the treaty signed in 1951 in San Francisco, article 14(b), exempts Japanese companies from these kinds of lawsuits. I will read the entire article 14(b): Except as otherwise provided in the present Treaty, the Allied Powers waive all reparations claims of the Allied Power, other claims of the Allied Powers and their nationals arising out of any action taken by Japan and its nationals in the course of the prosecution of the War. . . . It says ``except as otherwise provided in the present Treaty.'' Well, the present treaty provides in article 26: Should Japan make a peace settlement or war claims settlement with any State granting that State greater advantages than those provided by the present Treaty, those same advantages shall be extended to the parties to the present Treaty. What does that mean? It means article 14 says that U.S. citizens, such as Frank Exline, could not sue Mitsubishi for reparations. But article 26 says if Japan were to conclude a different agreement or arrangement with another country that is more advantageous to the nationals of that country, those same advantages apply to all the signatories of the treaty. Guess what. We didn't know this until the year 2000 when certain documents were declassified; we did not find out that Japan had concluded a separate treaty with the Netherlands, giving the Netherlands' national citizens the right to go to court to seek reparations. Under article 26, since the Netherlands got greater advantages than those under article 14, article 26 should be extended to those in the present treaty, including the United States. The State Department ignores this. I guess they do not want to upset Mitsubishi or some of the other large corporations in Japan. They have continued to intervene in court. The courts have come down on the side of the Japanese companies. The amendment Senator Smith and I offered 2 years ago and adopted by the Senate and the House basically said the State Department and the Department of Justice cannot intervene in these cases anymore. They cannot use the taxpayers' money to intervene in these cases. That amendment was stripped from the conference report, I guess by the urging of the State Department. This is why I am upset and stayed at this late hour to talk and why I will talk about it more. I did not know until yesterday that this provision was going to be slipped into the Defense appropriations bill. Otherwise, I would have been prepared with amendments of my own, amendments that this Senate adopted 2 years ago. It is not right. First, it was not right for Japan and these private companies to use United States POWs as slave laborers. There is a book that describes the torture and what they went through working for private companies as slave laborers. It is not right they were treated that way. Second, it was not right that the United States concluded a treaty that said you can never seek compensation from these companies. That is the treaty we concluded in 1951. But there was an escape clause that said if Japan concluded a treaty with another country more advantageous to that country, then those same rights would accrue to our citizens. But that was kept under seal from 1951 until the year 2000. Then we found out that article 26 applied and that our former POWs, used as slave laborers, should have the right to go to court to seek compensation. I am not saying they would have gotten it. At least they could have gone to court to press their rights, to exercise their rights to seek compensation. What the amendment tonight did is it said now American taxpayers are going to pay them, American tax payers are now going to pay $10,000 to each of these former POWs who are dying every day because of old age and infirmities. Why should the American taxpayer pay them? These Japanese companies have a lot of money. A lot of the money they have was made on the backs of slave laborers during World War II, and these companies still exist today. That is why I found the inclusion of this amendment so offensive. It is a slap in the face to these former POWs, these slave laborers, saying: We are going to give you $10,000; now shut up. I understand there was a previous amendment that would have given $30,000 or $20,000 to the widows. That was taken away. I understand it is only $10,000 now. Not only is that a slap in the face, but it is a slap in the face to the U.S. taxpayer, that somehow our taxpayers have to pay for what these Japanese companies did during World War II. So this is not the last I will have to say about this. I will seek other avenues and other venues, bills coming across the floor of the Senate, to make sure our POWs have the right to seek compensation from these private companies. If the Dutch could get it done, if they had the right to do it, then our American citizens ought to have that same right under article 26 of the treaty of 1951. So while this amendment may have been adopted, I will seek other avenues, as I said, later on. And I will ask for record votes on it because Senators voted on it 2 years ago and House Members voted on it 2 years ago overwhelmingly. Maybe it is time to express, again, our displeasure at the State Department for what they have been doing, for interfering with the rights of our citizens to seek redress in our courts. With that, again, I put the Senate on notice that this amendment will be coming down the pike whenever I find the first opportunity. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, two weeks ago, the company Hydroform USA, its subsidiary Temperform, and three company managers were indicted for conspiracy and making false statements. This is just the latest event in a long horror story that may still threaten the safety of both military and civilian aviation. And it raises serious questions, yet again, about our ability and commitment to root out defense fraud that attacks our taxpayers and our troops. The story is told at length in a special issue of Defense Week dated July 3 and written by John Donnelly. It starts with a company called West Coast Aluminum Heat-Treating Company, which had a plant in La Mirada, CA. Many aluminum parts on airplanes and rockets are heat- threaten to stengthen the parts, reduce corrosion, and prevent cracking and fatigue. West Coast was paid to do this by a large number of airplane manufacturers and suppliers. But beginning in 1981, they did the heat treatment for far less time and at lower temperatures than required. They didn't falsified testing of the parts. This fraud went on undetected, on hundreds of thousands of parts, for fifteen years. The parts ended up on a long list of military airplanes, helicopters, and rockets from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and other contractors, as well as on many commercial planes and helicopters from Boeing, Airbus, and other manufacturers. In 1996, a West Coast foreman finally blew the whistle to Boeing. Boeing, observed by the Federal Aviation Administration, eventually tested 1,634 parts for hardness and electrical conductivity. They found that 18 percent of the parts were critical, and that 11 percent of the parts did not meet specifications because of the fraudulent heat treatment. Tests on hundreds of other parts had similar results. But these tests may not reveal the full extent of the problems. Other, more informative tests that destroy the parts are needed to assess heat treatment well. And even parts supposedly tested may not be good, although Boeing claimed that subcontractors had tested many parts, the FAA found that six of the subcontractors could not document such testing; the other three subcontractors they contacted did have test records showing the parts were good, but when the FAA tested the parts, they found the parts did not in fact meet specifications. Even though the fraud was revealed in 1996 and Boeing disqualified West Coast as a vendor in 1997, it took another year before Boeing and the Government bothered to let other customers know that the parts could be defective. They finally issued alerts on the Government- Industry Data Exchange Program called GIDEP, in 1998. For those two years other defense contractors continued to use West Coast. In addition, the alert that Boeing finally issued focused on ``discrepancies'' in paperwork, and claimed that the parts were fine. Government oversight was equally weak. Although the FAA concluded that Boeing had violated federal regulations because it did not adequately supervise its subcontractors, it said the statute of limitations had expired and hence it could not pursue enforcement action. Worse, the Defense Logistics Agency wrote reports suggesting that West Coast-treated parts were fine, based on a database of 253,736 parts. But they did not actually know which parts were from West Coast, and they knew that many of the parts in the database were not even made of aluminum. In 1998, West Coast was sold, and in 2000 its two executives were convicted, sentenced, and fined. The plant was bought by Temperform, which proceeded to commit the same fraud on tens of thousands of additional parts. It has been said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. The Temperform replay of West Coast would be amusing if it weren't still tragic. Temperform fired the West Coast employees so that Boeing would approve the company as a vendor, then promptly rehired them. The same heat-treating fraud continued undetected, and another employee finally blew the whistle again in 2000. Despite the plant's history, Boeing did not audit Temperform until this time, and then allegedly found 37 deficiencies in their quality assurance processes. To this date, neither Boeing nor anyone else has ever issued a GIDEP alert to let other companies know of the Temperform fraud. A Government safety alert, issued only in 2002, went only to Government agencies. Thus, Lockheed Martin continued to buy parts from Temperform for more than two years. Again, the Government accused Boeing of mismanagement but declined to do anything about it. The plant again was sold in 2002, and, as I mentioned, three company executives were recently indicted. One of those three, the manager in charge of heat-treating procedures, was one of the West Coast employees who were rehired. That is all history. But I have not yet explained a key reason why this remains a continuing threat. Almost all of the testing of parts I mentioned was of commercial parts. The military services claim that they cannot identify which parts were treated by a particular company, even for safety critical parts. Typically major weapon system programs are now managed by private contractors, which then have a large number of subcontractors supplying parts. West Coast and Temperform contracted with many of those subcontractors. Apparently we cannot negotiate this maze to find which parts, even safety critical parts, were fraudulently treated. Thus, few military parts have been tested, and if they were found unsatisfactory, it is not clear how they would be replaced. This is not the first time this problem has come up. Not long ago the Pentagon bought 780,000 chemical protective suits from a company called Isratex. We cannot find 250,000 of those suits either. And last year the Navy could not find 42,000 defective oxygen masks. My amendment attempts at least to examine several of these systemic issues. It requests that the Secretary of Defense report back to Congress by March 31, 2004, on efforts to find and test the parts that have been improperly heat-treated, and on notification of other customers that their parts may be defective. The report also is to look at how to implement a system for tracking safety-critical parts, and at standards and procedures for notification on future safety issues. The amendment also asks the General Accounting Office to submit a report on issues regarding the prime contractor system that may be partly at fault here. The GAO is to look at both the oversight of subcontractors by the prime contractor--which is what they are paid to do--and the oversight and enforcement of prime contractors by the Department of Defense. Hunderds of thousands of aluminum parts that are in our airplanes and helicopters today have not been properly strengthened. Many of these parts are safety-critical. Millions of people, civilian and military, may be at risk if a plane crashes due to a failure of one of these parts. We are at risk not only because of the fraud, but also because of the failure all the way down the line--by small subcontractors, huge plane manufacturers, and the Government--to catch the fraud, stop it in a timely manner, notify others at risk, track or test the parts, or hold anyone accountable for the oversight failures. We must do better. This amendment is a small step toward fixing the problems, and I intend to pursue this until I am confident such abuse cannot happen again. amendment no. 1316

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank the chairman. Mr. President, I just want to clarify something to make the record as clear as I can. Earlier in my remarks, I had said the President, traveling in Africa, had stated that he wanted the full $3 billion for the AIDS funding in Africa for this year. The chairman of the committee had asked me about that, and I had said that I would come up with the documentation. Well, it is sort of half of this and half of that. I will admit now that the President did not specifically say: ``$3 billion.'' I wanted to admit that for the record. However, the President did say--and I will quote his words exactly-- on July 12, in Abuja, Nigeria: The people of Africa are fighting HIV/AIDS with courage. And I'm here to say, you will not be alone in your fight. In May, I signed a bill that authorizes $15 billion for the global fight on AIDS. This week, a committee of the House of Representatives took an important step to fund the first year of the authorization bill. And the Senate is beginning to take up debate. And here is the key language: The House of Representatives and the United States Senate must fully fund this initiative, for the good of the people on this continent of Africa. . . . Well, to ``fully fund this initiative.'' I have a copy of the authorizing language. The authorizing language says, specifically, under paragraph A(2): Authorize the appropriation of a total $15 billion for fiscal years 2004 through 2008. Specifically, the act authorized $3 billion to be appropriated in fiscal year 2004 for HIV/AIDS and related programs. So, specifically, the authorizing bill authorized $3 billion in this coming fiscal year. The President said: The House and the Senate must fully fund this initiative. He may not have said $3 billion, but what he said must mean $3 billion because that is full funding of the bill for next year. It is right, he didn't use $3 billion, but he said he wanted it fully funded. If it is fully funded, it must be $3 billion for this next year. Secondly, the Secretary of State, on a briefing in South Africa, was asked a question: The House Appropriations Committee today cut back the first year's funding from about $3 billion to about $2 billion. And Secretary Powell answered: I would, of course, have preferred full funding of the President's request to make the best use of the money that Congress has provided for this. And I'll wait and see the congressional action and see how this ultimately emerges from the Congress. So here we have the President saying he wanted it fully funded. He says: The House and Senate must fully fund this initiative. That can only mean that we must come up with the $3 billion. So while the President didn't specifically say $3 billion, that is the full import of his words that he spoke in Africa. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. I will get my staff to run it down. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the amendment offered by Senator Byrd. This amendment fulfills a promise we made to the entire world to fund the global AIDS initiative. When I say ``we,'' I mean all of us--the Congress and the President of the United States. President Bush made this promise to fund the global AIDS initiative at $15 billion, $3 billion per year for 5 years, in his State of the Union Address last January. I was there. I remember when he said it. I remember after the President made that commitment, everyone-- Republicans and Democrats, House Members and Senators--all stood and gave him a prolonged standing applause for that commitment. The President even signed a bill authorizing this money. We passed a bill saying, yes, we authorize it. Recently, the President has traveled through Africa restating this commitment, and I was quite taken by the President's words in Africa saying we were going to meet our commitment and we would provide the $3 billion this year. Yet the President neglected to include this full funding in his budget for this initiative. Rather than calling for $3 billion in 2004 that was promised and authorized, the President's budget calls for a mere $1.9 billion, falling far short of the promises he made and we made. Yet the President is in Africa saying we are going to provide $3 billion. Basically, I think he said we have provided $3 billion. That is what is authorized. We know around here you can authorize anything but until the Appropriations Committee appropriates the money it is meaningless. Here is the President saying we came up with the $3 billion to fight AIDS in Africa, the African leaders applaud him, thanking him for that, and yet he only put $1.9 billion in the budget. Millions of people experience pain and suffering caused by the AIDS epidemic. People around the world are being robbed of healthy and productive lives. This epidemic is ravaging families, communities, and economies across the globe, nowhere more so than in Africa. The United States has a responsibility to fulfill the promise we made. The amendment offered by the Senator from West Virginia would uphold our commitment, our promise, to fight the AIDS epidemic and our promise to adequately fund the initiative. This amendment offered by Senator Byrd provides the full $3 billion for 2004, the full $3 billion that the President was taking credit for and touting in his recent trip to Africa. This would be offset by taking the $1.1 billion from the amounts appropriated for the Defense Department procurement and research account. The amendment by Senator Byrd would add to the $1.9 billion the amount of $1.1 billion to bring it to the $3 billion level promised by President Bush on his recent trip to Africa. Let me be clear: This money is not coming out of the salaries of our troops or the support for our troops. It is not coming out of our work in Afghanistan. This money comes from two titles of the Defense appropriations bill that include $1.25 billion more than the President's budget request. We are spending in this bill about $1 billion a day for the Armed Forces, for defense. There is no excuse to deny the AIDS initiative that we promised, the President promised, the President touted so earnestly on his trip through Africa. There is no excuse to deny the $1.1 billion more a year to bring it to the $3 billion level. Again, sometimes I am sure people wonder about what we are doing. The average American probably does not understand the difference between an authorization and appropriation. What is the difference? That is where the confusion is. Last week the Senate overwhelmingly voted 78 to 18 in support of a sense-of-the-Senate resolution stating that the global AIDS initiative should be fully funded. That means we should fund it at the $3 billion level. Now the Senate needs to put its money where its mouth is. This is the amendment by which we can do it. It does not detract anything from our troops. It comes out of an account that is even $1.25 billion more than the President's budget request. We all just returned from a joint session of Congress and we listened to Prime Minister Tony Blair speak. I thought it was a fine speech; maybe even more than that. I thought it was a very good speech in all of its aspects. But there was one aspect that pertains to what this amendment is about. Prime Minister Blair said at one point in his speech that we cannot--we, being the United States--walk away from our other commitments in the world aside from national security. He mentioned specifically the AIDS catastrophe that is happening throughout Africa. He said we have to meet our commitments and our responsibilities there, and he got a standing ovation for that. It is nice to give standing ovations to the Prime Minister of Great Britain when he says we should meet our responsibilities to meet the AIDS crisis. It is nice to vote for a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that says we should fully fund it. It is nice to even vote for the authorizing bill authorizing we fully fund it. But there is another thing that Prime Minister Blair said that I thought was worth noting. I am paraphrasing because I don't have the speech; I am just remembering it. He said something about our reputation, about making sure we stood strong for what we believed in and that we stand up to what we have committed to. If we do not, then what is the rest of the world going to think? They will think, OK, that is what the United States says but the only thing the United States ever backs up is military action. I hope it does not boil down to that, that the only thing we ever back up in terms of commitments is a military commitment. We ought to look upon the other commitments in the same light. Once we make the commitment and we make the promise, we fulfill it and we keep it. This is one that compels us to give an overwhelming vote to the amendment offered by Senator Byrd. This is the amendment that does it. I know there will be arguments saying we cannot take it out of defense. As I pointed out, it comes out of an account that is $1.25 billion more than what the President even requested. Now is the time to stand up and be counted. Now is the time to back up our reputation for being a caring nation and for being a nation that stands behind its word. We gave our word. The President, 2 weeks ago, gave his word in Africa for $3 billion and yet we have only come up with $1.9 billion. Now is the time to come up with the full $3 billion.

Mr. HARKIN. I yield.

Mr. HARKIN. I don't have the quote but I will get it for you in a short amount of time. The President, if I remember right, said in Africa that we have--again, I am paraphrasing; I don't know if I have the right word--but we have pledged $3 billion this year to fight AIDS in Africa. He said that in Africa.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that David Townsend of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kalsoom Lakhani and Alexander Nelson of my staff be granted floor privileges during the duration of this debate.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President. Today, I am introducing legislation called, ``The Access to Medical Treatment Act, AMTA'', on behalf of myself and my colleagues, Senators Hatch, Inouye, Grassley, and Daschle. This legislation is important for thousands of Americans who suffer from illness or disease for which conventional medical treatments offer little or no promise of cure or relief. Many Americans are plagued with the hopelessness of debilitating pain caused by illness. For some of these patients, non-conventional treatments could offer much needed relief. Thousands of other Americans live with potentially fatal diseases that are unresponsive to traditional medical treatments. Increasing the options for treatment by utilizing unconventional therapy could provide newfound hope for lifesaving results. AMTA addresses limits placed on unconventional medical care and would allow Americans access to many promising, even proven, treatments that are currently restricted. For example, the bill would lift some restrictions on treatments that have been approved and used in other countries. The bill would also allow access for many additional patients to drugs or therapies otherwise available through the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, human clinical trials. This legislation establishes parameters for the use of such non- conventional therapies. A health care practitioner may provide the medical treatment requested by a patient under certain guidelines. First, the health care practitioner must personally examine the patient, the treatment must be within the practitioner's appropriate range of practice, it must not violate any existing licensing laws, and the treatment must comply with the Controlled Substances Act. Next, there must be no reason for the practitioner to conclude that the treatment will cause danger to the patient. The patient must be informed, in writing, of the contents and methods of treatment, its possible side effects, anticipated benefits, results of prior use of treatment on other patients, and any other information necessary to fully meet the requirements for informed consent of human subjects in FDA regulations. I believe we have some of the best medicine, technology, and health care providers in the United States. However, there are vast amounts of information yet to be learned on disease and treatment. We must not allow ourselves to be exclusively, perhaps, myopically, focused on traditional forms of treatment when some Americans find no relief from them. Those with debilitating pain and disease should have access to new options for relief, especially when conventional treatments fail. We owe it to the American people to engage in this crucial discussion on access to non-conventional forms of medical treatments. There are many questions that need to be addressed. We must begin to address them by exploring the new and innovative forms of therapy that exist, and by engaging in an educated dialogue on this issue.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President. Today, I am introducing legislation called, ``The Access to Medical Treatment Act, AMTA'', on behalf of myself and my colleagues, Senators Hatch, Inouye, Grassley, and Daschle. This legislation is important for thousands of Americans who suffer from illness or disease for which conventional medical treatments offer little or no promise of cure or relief. Many Americans are plagued with the hopelessness of debilitating pain caused by illness. For some of these patients, non-conventional treatments could offer much needed relief. Thousands of other Americans live with potentially fatal diseases that are unresponsive to traditional medical treatments. Increasing the options for treatment by utilizing unconventional therapy could provide newfound hope for lifesaving results. AMTA addresses limits placed on unconventional medical care and would allow Americans access to many promising, even proven, treatments that are currently restricted. For example, the bill would lift some restrictions on treatments that have been approved and used in other countries. The bill would also allow access for many additional patients to drugs or therapies otherwise available through the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, human clinical trials. This legislation establishes parameters for the use of such non- conventional therapies. A health care practitioner may provide the medical treatment requested by a patient under certain guidelines. First, the health care practitioner must personally examine the patient, the treatment must be within the practitioner's appropriate range of practice, it must not violate any existing licensing laws, and the treatment must comply with the Controlled Substances Act. Next, there must be no reason for the practitioner to conclude that the treatment will cause danger to the patient. The patient must be informed, in writing, of the contents and methods of treatment, its possible side effects, anticipated benefits, results of prior use of treatment on other patients, and any other information necessary to fully meet the requirements for informed consent of human subjects in FDA regulations. I believe we have some of the best medicine, technology, and health care providers in the United States. However, there are vast amounts of information yet to be learned on disease and treatment. We must not allow ourselves to be exclusively, perhaps, myopically, focused on traditional forms of treatment when some Americans find no relief from them. Those with debilitating pain and disease should have access to new options for relief, especially when conventional treatments fail. We owe it to the American people to engage in this crucial discussion on access to non-conventional forms of medical treatments. There are many questions that need to be addressed. We must begin to address them by exploring the new and innovative forms of therapy that exist, and by engaging in an educated dialogue on this issue.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am very pleased we were able to maintain continued strong funding for the Army Peer-Reviewed Breast Cancer Research Program, BCRP, and for a number of other medical research programs in this bill. The BCRP has made a real difference in supporting innovative, effective research to help the many women and men who get breast cancer in this country. Because of its success, other medical research programs have been added, and there is always interest in adding more. The chairman has expressed concern about the potential effect of these new requests on the Defense budget, and the committee report includes language requesting the Department to look at possible additional sources of funding. I look forward to working with the Department, the Institute of Medicine, and others to ensure that this review strengthens the medical research programs and does not undermine or bias them, and I look forward to working with the chairman to ensure continued strong funding for these important programs.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent during the confirmation vote on Samuel Der-Yeghiayan to become a Federal district judge for Illinois. Had I been in attendance, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I compliment Senator Kennedy on the statement he made regarding the minimum wage. I wanted to engage in a colloquy about that, but I was called off the floor on other matters. I think Senator Kennedy has made it quite clear that, rather than this being one of the throwaway issues that maybe we will address as we go through the year, increasing the minimum wage for the people of this country ought to be No. 1 on our agenda. We ought to be doing this right now. We had the medical malpractice bill up earlier this week. We spent a couple of days on it. Everyone knew it was not going to go anywhere. Even by their own admission, some Republicans, in the newspapers at least, said it was a political exercise--according to some, in the newspapers. Whether it was or not, everyone knew it wasn't going to go anywhere. Yet here so many Americans are making the minimum wage which, I am sure was pointed out, is now less than the poverty level. It is about $4,000-some less--I think $4,500 below the poverty level for a family of three. It is unconscionable that over the last 7 years, the Congress--the Senate and the House together--has raised its own salaries, our salaries, by $21,000 a year. We have done that in the last 7 years. Yet a minimum wage in this country today is $10,500 a year, less than half of what we just increased our own salaries by over the last 7 years. That is what is unconscionable. These are working people; they are not on welfare. They are working. They are getting the minimum wage. Yet they are earning less than poverty level in this country. If nothing else, at least the minimum wage ought to get you above the poverty level. That is what we ought to be about. So I compliment Senator Kennedy for bringing this to the floor. I hope we can have this amendment on a bill here very soon, so we can express ourselves in a realistic way. Another myth on the minimum wage I hear all the time is that so many of the people making minimum wage are just part-time earners; they are young kids just starting out, on and on. I hear that all the time. The fact is that 70 percent of those affected by the minimum wage are adults, working adults; 35 percent--one out of three--are their family's sole earner. As Senator Kennedy pointed out, almost two-thirds of the time these are women. These are single mothers; they are working; they are making the minimum wage; and they are the sole supporter of their family. So these are not just young kids getting a minimum-wage job to supplement the family income. As I said, more than 60 percent are women, one-third are mothers of children. So I thank Senator Kennedy for bringing this issue to our attention. I just find it unexplainable. How do you explain to people of this country we took all this time this year, we had this big tax break for the most wealthy in our country, yet we cannot even take a half a day, 2 hours to debate and pass an increase in the minimum wage? President Bush has spent a lot of time talking about tax breaks, getting his tax break bill through--which helps mostly the most wealthy in this country, yet not one peep from this President in almost 3 years about increasing the minimum wage, not even one peep from this President on it. So I am hopeful sometime before we break in August we can bring this up and pass it and get it to the President's desk. I know that is probably wishful thinking but hope springs eternal. I think that is what we ought to be doing here in the month of July. One other thing: I said earlier we had the medical malpractice bill up. Really, what we ought to be talking about is the economic malpractice of this administration. That is what I call it--President Bush's economic malpractice. The victims of this malpractice are working Americans. I just talked about the minimum wage and the need to increase that. Look at the unemployment rate. It is now 6.4 percent, the highest level since April of 1994. That amounts to 9.4 million people looking for work who cannot find any. Under President Bush's leadership, we have lost 3.1 million private sector jobs. This week the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, offered an amendment to extend emergency unemployment assistance to the 1.1 million long-term unemployed. These are people who have been laid off since the recession began--early last year. They made futile searches for jobs that were not there, and then, unfortunately, we lost the job assistance amendment Senator Murray offered. We are still losing jobs every month; 33,000 last month. The economy is limping along. Now we are going to have a $400 billion deficit facing us this year. I read in the paper this morning that we now have some estimates on what it is costing us in Iraq--$4 billion a month; $4 billion a month. I have to tell you, if history shows us anything, those figures are lowballed. If this administration--I say it about any administration-- comes up with figures this, you know they are lowballing it. I bet you when the facts are in and when all the costs are in, by the end of the year when we look back at the cost of our being in Iraq, it will approach $5 billion a month. That is somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion this year. That is not counting Afghanistan. Afghanistan is costing us somewhere over $1 billion a month. Again, I think that is lowballing it. I think it is probably a lot more than this. When you take Afghanistan and Iraq and put them together, you are talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of between $60 billion and $75 billion this year on top of a $400 billion deficit. What is the administration's response? Don't increase the minimum wage, pass record tax cuts for the wealthiest, and then they push through a sham Medicare prescription drug bill that is going to force seniors to pay more out of their pockets before they can get their prescription drugs. Right now there is a rule being written and proposed by this administration that will take money out of the pockets of hard-working Americans. This has to do with the issue of overtime pay. This spring, the Labor Department proposed a regulation that would exempt perhaps up to 8 million workers from overtime pay. Overtime pay means up to 25 percent of a worker's annual income. Who are we talking about? We are talking about nurses, police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, retail managers, journalists, medical therapists, paralegals, managers of fast food restaurants, among others who will now be put in a different category. Just by a new regulation they are going to be put into a new category so they will not be paid overtime pay. Last week, 43 Senators sent a letter to the Secretary of Labor asking that the administration back off of this proposal. What does this proposal do? It expands the overtime exemptions by making it easier for employers to reclassify hourly workers and make them salaried workers, and then dramatically lowering the bar on which salaried workers are exempt from overtime pay protection. The result is millions of Americans earning--get this--more than $22,100 year--we are not talking about people making $100,000 $200,000 a year. We are talking about people making $22,100 a year and currently eligible for overtime who will be denied overtime pay under the proposed changes. What it means is the end of the 40-hour workweek. It means workers will spend more time away from their families because they will be forced to work longer hours. But guess what. They won't be compensated for it. At least now, if someone is spending over 40 hours a week working and they are away from their family, they get time and a half overtime and compensated, which may help make up for a little bit of time they spend away from their families. Now they will be working more than 40 hours away from their families, and they will not be compensated for that. It is not only bad economic policy, it won't create one new job. But it will also harm families by keeping the breadwinner away from their family for longer periods of time without giving them adequate compensation. According to the U.S. Department of Labor estimates, the proposed rule changes would mean between 2.1 million and 3.3 million workers would face unpredictable work schedules because of an increased demand for extra hours for which the employers would not have to pay time and half. It just makes sense. If you are an employer and the people working for you work over 40 hours, they are paid time and a half. You have to think about this. Does that justify keeping them on at time and a half? However, if by a little stroke of the pen you can reclassify them from hourly wage earners to salaried wage earners, you can get them to work 45 hours a week and not have to pay them one red cent more. Again, with one stroke of a pen, I can get them to do more work and not have to pay them one additional penny. Why wouldn't you do that? Of course, you would do that. This regulation will open the floodgates for employers to help their bottom line by getting more work out of employees without paying them any more money. That is why we passed the 40-hour workweek. We are actually turning the clock back. Senator Kennedy pointed out this morning that we passed the minimum wage bill in 1938. By exempting these people from overtime pay we are turning the clock back even pre-1938 in terms of working conditions. According to the GAO study, employees exempt from overtime pay-- understand this--are twice as likely to work overtime as those covered by overtime pay. That is a GAO study. There you go. It makes sense. You are covered by overtime, and maybe you won't get that overtime. But if you are not covered by overtime, why not work a few hours extra every week because you are not being paid for your labor? Yesterday, in the House of Representatives there was an amendment by Congressman Obey of Wisconsin that would block the administration's proposal to deny millions of Americans overtime pay. Sadly, that lost by three votes. I was watching the vote last night. I noticed that they held the vote open. Actually, the proposal by Congressman Obey won. The vote was held open, and I saw some switches being made. Finally, they got three people either to switch or something. So the vote, if I am not mistaken, was 213 to 210. The proposal to block the administration from making these changes failed by three votes in the House. I think one of the reasons it lost was there was a lot of misinformation about what the amendment would do. I have an amendment that is almost a mirror image of what Congressman Obey offered in the House. I will be offering it at the first opportunity we have to do so on the Senate floor. Basically, my amendment would prohibit the administration from exempting more workers from overtime pay who are currently eligible under the law. That is it. It is very simple and very straightforward. I look forward to offering this amendment to protect the 40-hour workweek, and to protect hard-working Americans who sometimes are caught between whether they want to spend more time with their family or maybe work overtime. At least if they work overtime they get compensated for it. This amendment would protect them and their families. The administration's proposal will not, as I said, create one additional job. It will not do anything to put money back into the pockets of working Americans. Couple that with their intransigence on raising the minimum wage, and what you have is what I call ``President Bush's economic malpractice''--economic malpractice on hard-working Americans. We need a real job growth plan in this country. We need to increase the minimum wage. We need to provide a real Medicare prescription drug benefit. We need to provide real incentives for businesses to create new jobs--not these kinds of incentives that will not create additional jobs but will allow employers to work employees longer than the 40-hour workweek without giving them just compensation. It is bad policy. It is economic malpractice. I look forward to offering this amendment at the earliest possible time so the Senate can speak on this issue, and hopefully we will have enough votes in the Senate so the administration will back off this ill-timed and ill-advised proposal. I would like to know who really came up with this idea that somehow we are just going to, with the stroke of a pen, exempt people from overtime pay who are now getting it; we are just going to reclassify them. Well, I would like to know who that misguided ``genius'' was behind that decision. And whoever it is ought to have no place in this Labor Department or in this administration or anywhere in government. So I hope we can take this amendment up as soon as possible, and I hope the Senate will approve it. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.