Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator will yield for a question, I didn't read the Congressional Record of yesterday's debate, but I heard that the chairman of the Budget Committee had said that the contingency fund should be reserved for Medicare. At least that is what I thought I heard. Yet the Grassley amendment would take money from the contingency fund to pay for agriculture and take it out of Medicare. Did I hear correctly that they wanted to reserve the contingency fund for Medicare?

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.

Mr. HARKIN. The Senator has really encapsulated this. The Grassley amendment, first of all, does not meet the legitimate needs of agriculture. It falls far short of what we need. The Johnson amendment meets that need. Secondly, in terms of conservation, where we want to really move forward, the Grassley amendment does not permit us to support the kind of conservation work we need. The Johnson amendment does. And lastly, as the Senator pointed out, the Grassley amendment is not going to help us in agriculture, but it still raids Medicare. The Johnson amendment doesn't. Again, I thank the Senator for pointing this out. His explanation really encapsulates why the Johnson amendment is best for rural America and does not go after the Medicare trust fund.

Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator will yield?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I watched the occupant of the chair in his recent remarks on the state of agriculture in America. He had a chart purportedly showing, if I remember his words correctly, that spending was out of control on agriculture. Spending had gone up. I want to point out that in 1999, farm payments, Government payments to farmers in Iowa, equaled about 130 percent of their net farm income. Think about that. If it were not for the Government payments, Iowa farmers in the aggregate not only would have had no net farm income, they would have been far into the red--negative income. Think about it: Federal Government payments amounted to 130 percent of Iowa's net farm income. The Chair, in his comments, said spending is out of control. Was the Senator from New Hampshire blaming the farmers for this? I surely hope not because what is happening in agriculture today--high Government spending, yet farmers still being driven out of business--is a reflection of the misguided, defective farm program that we have called Freedom to Farm. I am proud to say I did not vote for it. These large Government payments in agriculture are a reflection upon a failed agricultural policy in America. We have to get our farm policy back on track again. But we cannot get it back on track by just pulling the rug out from underneath our family farmers and blaming them for the failures of this Congress to pass a farm bill that provides for better incomes from the marketplace. As I see the Grassley amendment, it basically takes us down the same pathway as Freedom to Farm did. It says, don't worry; be happy; sometime in the future the prices are going to go up, the markets are going to be there, and everything is just going to be fine. The failure of Freedom to Farm was that it told farmers to plant fence row to fence row for markets that did not materialize. Plant all you want. The consumption will be there, the demand will be there, trade will be there, and the foreign markets will be there; not to worry. Well, as we know, they were not there. I was in China last year. Last year China was exporting corn. We know what Brazil and Argentina are doing to compete with us in soybeans. We are awash in grain in the world markets right now. Yet our policy says keep on producing even more. I certainly hope we are not going to punish U.S. farmers by saying, get out of business, and get off the land because we have a failed farm policy that we have passed in the Congress. What we need to do is improve that policy. We have to write a new farm bill by next year. The so-called Freedom to Farm bill expires then--and we have to make some changes. The amendment of my colleague from Iowa will not permit us to make the kind of changes that are necessary to improve our agricultural policy. For example, I believe there is almost universal support for additional conservation spending and for rewarding farmers for being good stewards of our soil and other natural resources. With the support of both agriculture and conservation groups, as well as other members of Congress, I have a proposal for a conservation incentive program to provide farmers and ranchers the support they deserve for being good stewards of their land and at the same time keep them in business in agricultural production. But the amendment by my colleague from Iowa, the Grassley amendment, provides only $350 million a year in additional conservation funding. Much more than that is needed if we are going to have a sound, viable farm and conservation and conservation program. The Johnson amendment, on the other hand, provides a full $1 billion for added conservation spending. And it provides enough funding overall so that the Agriculture Committee can use its judgment to devote more than that to conservation if they need to do that. And I believe we are going to need to do that. The Grassley amendment fails to provide the funding to permit us to do in the Agriculture Committee what I believe most of us on both sides of the aisle want to do; that is, to have more conservation; to reward farmers for being good stewards of the soil, water and resources; to tell our urban cousins that they are going to get more conservation in return for farm spending--they will get cleaner water, cleaner air, healthier land, and more wildlife. But farmers cannot bear the whole burden of being good conservationists. It takes time, it takes equipment, and it takes money to do that. Farmers are not making much if any money now. They cannot really afford more expense for conservation. I believe it is in our national interest to shift the agricultural program to put more money into conservation. That will help farm income and while delivering conservation and environmental benefits for all of us. The Johnson amendment will allow us to do that. The Grassley amendment will not. Right now the Natural Resources Conservation Service of USDA estimates that at least five times as many farmers apply for funds under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program than can be approved. Farmers want to enhance their stewardship of land and natural resources. We ought to be encouraging them--not turning them away. Again, the Grassley amendment does not provide the money we need to strengthen our farm programs and help our farmers be good stewards of land, water and natural resources. The amendment doesn't even provide for the core funding that we are going to need in agriculture over the next 10 years. For 2002, the underlying amendment will only provide about $7 billion against a short fall in farm income of some $10 billion. It provides only $5 billion for 2001, which is far, far too low. The Grassley amendment makes the same fatal mistake as Freedom to Farm. It bets on the hope of expanding markets and rising prices for farm commodities. Again, as we transition in agriculture, as we get off of the failed Freedom to Farm bill, as we move into a stronger conservation mode-- which will help farmers and ranchers not just in the Midwest, but in the Northeast, in the Northwest, the Southeast, and all over America-- and meet the requirements and needs we have for environmental and environmental practices and allow farmers to stay in business. The Grassley amendment simply does not provide for that. Lastly, let me say that especially in Iowa--I am sure it is true in South Dakota also and North Dakota--we have a very high proportion of elderly in our State. I believe Iowa is No. 1 in the Nation in proportion of people over age 85. And we rank near the highest in the proportion of our citizens who are over age 65. Medicare is critically important to my constituents. It is critically important. Yet the underlying amendment takes money away from Medicare to help pay for agriculture. The last thing I want to do is to pit our elderly, who rely on Medicare, our rural hospitals and our rural providers that rely on Medicare, against our farmers. But that is exactly what the Grassley amendment does. It pits the interests of older Iowans against those of farmers. That is the last thing I want to see happen. The Johnson amendment is much more forthright. It says we don't need to give all of these tax breaks to the superrich. We will take a little bit out of the tax breaks that are given to the upper 1 percent in our country to help meet our needs in agriculture. There are a lot of reasons to be opposed to the Grassley amendment, but I submit to you that perhaps the single most important reason is that we should not be taking away from Medicare to pay for agriculture and pit the elderly in my State against farmers. That I cannot support. There is enough money if we do not give tax breaks to the wealthiest in our country--at least not 43 percent of the tax reductions. We can give them a little bit. The Conrad amendment provides for a lot of tax reduction, but not the huge amount of tax breaks in this budget proposed by President Bush which prevent us from adequately funding agriculture and other priorities. The Johnson amendment is one that makes sense. It will help us get our agricultural house in order without going after Medicare.

Mr. HARKIN. May I have 5 or 7 minutes?

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I seek time to speak on behalf of this amendment of my colleague.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to stand with my colleague and subcommittee chairman, Senator Specter, to offer this important amendment to the budget resolution. We stand at the cusp of a revolution that I believe will result in the overthrow of disease and disability in this country. At no time in our history have we been so close to major advances in the fight against killer diseases. Every day we read about major breakthroughs in medical research: AIDS vaccine, decoding the DNA letters that make up the human genome, new therapy for breast cancer, less invasive surgical techniques. This resolution is a direct result of our investment in medical research. Four years ago the Senate went on record 98-0 committing to double the NIH budget over 5 years. We are well on our way to doing that. Over the past 3 years, Senator Specter and I have made good on that pledge by providing the biggest increases ever for medical research. Last year we were able to provide an unprecedented $2.5 billion, or 15-percent increase, for NIH. We worked hard to make it happen, and I thank all of my Senate colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, who worked with us on this historic accomplishment. Unfortunately, if we pass this budget resolution as it is, we will fall short of the 15-percent increase needed to maintain the commitment that 98 Senators made to doubling the NIH budget over 5 years. But if we pass this budget resolution as it is, we will fall short of keeping that commitment. This budget resolution in fact shortchanges Americans' health. At the same time, this budget skimps on basic investments in America's health care. It also cuts taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans by almost $700 billion. What this budget should do is spend the additional $3.4 billion needed to ensure that all Americans, no matter what income, can live healthy and productive lives. In this budget, that is only .4 percent of a tax cut for the wealthiest; .4 percent of the tax cut just for the wealthiest Americans would help us fulfill our commitment of doubling medical research at NIH. In the next 30 years the number of Americans over age 65 will double. Medical research and its discoveries are essential to reduce the enormous economic and social toll posed by chronic diseases that impact our elderly, from Alzheimer's and arthritis, to cancer, Parkinson's, and stroke disease. Let's take Alzheimer's disease. Just the other day Senator Specter chaired a hearing with researchers doing cutting-edge work on Alzheimer's, and we also had patients there, some of whom were diagnosed as having Alzheimer's. One of the witnesses was John Wagenaar of Georgia, IA. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 60, at the prime of his life, working at a manufacturing plant, taking pride in his children and grandchildren, looking forward to retirement. But in spite of this devastating diagnosis, he is a lucky man. Thanks to medical research, he can now take a pill that has slowed the course of the disease so now he can even continue to work and enjoy his family. John Wagenaar can hope, along with the rest of us, that a drug will soon come on the market that will not just slow Alzheimer's disease but actually stop it. Researchers have made extraordinary advances in recent years. A decade ago--just 10 years ago--there were no Alzheimer's drugs on the market. Today there are four, and more are on the way. Scientists have developed a vaccine. We saw startling pictures of this at our hearing yesterday. When tested on mice, it takes away, it wards off, the brain- clogging deposits that are associated with Alzheimer's. Plans are now underway to test this vaccine in humans. We are clearly on the verge of breakthroughs on Alzheimer's and in other areas. At no time in our history have we been so close to major advances in the fight against killer diseases. Now is the time to boost our investment to make sure our Nation's top scientists can turn these dreams into reality. The amendment Senator Specter has offered, which I am proud to cosponsor, is very simple. It ensures the budget resolution will include $3.4 billion for the National Institutes of Health for fiscal year 2002. It is a commonsense amendment. It is bipartisan. It is the right thing to do. We have gone too far now to cut back and to slow down. Millions of Americans, our families, our loved ones, our friends, and our neighbors all over this country are counting on us not to back down in this fight against the diseases that still plague us. As I said, we have made major strides against Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, stroke disease. We have made great strides in doing things that help alleviate the struggle many people have with mental illness. We have come a long way. Now we are on the cusp of finding the interventions, the vaccines, the drugs that will alleviate this human suffering and make life better for so many people. Now is not the time to turn back. This budget resolution before us would say that investing in NIH is not that important. This budget resolution says investing in medical research is not as important as giving a big tax cut to people who make over $1 million a year. I disagree with that priority. I believe the priority is elsewhere. Mr. President, .4 percent, that is all it takes. Four-tenths of 1 percent of the tax cuts of those Americans in the top 1-percent bracket would pay for us keeping our commitment to fund medical research at NIH. I wholeheartedly support this amendment. I hope it has strong bipartisan support on the Senate floor. I yield my time.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined today by Senators Murray, Mikulski, Boxer, Stabenow, Kennedy, Durbin, Torricelli, Leahy, Inouye, Akaka, Kerry, Wellstone and Feingold to reintroduce the Fair Pay Act, a bill to combat pay discrimination against women. You might think since Congress passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the wage gap wouldn't exist. Unfortunately, however, women continue to be paid only 76-cents for every dollar a white man earns according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women of color experience the most severe pay inequities: African American women earn only 62-cents on the dollar, Hispanic women only 54 cents. Earlier today, I released a draft report by the Department of Labor's Women's Bureau that helps to explain the wage gap and gives us insight into fixing it. This report was done based on my request in the FY 2000 Labor-HHS Appropriations bill. I asked the Women's Bureau to analyze wage data from federal contractors collected over the last two years, focusing on the causes of the wage gap between men and women. This is the first time in at least a decade that such a comprehensive review and analysis of wage data was conducted. This three-part draft report, finalized by the Department of Labor in January, used updated wage data, including detailed data gathered from a sample of nearly 5,000 of our nation's federal contractors. This report confirms that the wage gap is real, it's caused in large part by discrimination and women in female-dominated jobs suffer the most. Specifically, the report found that at least one-third, or about 11 cents on the dollar, of the pay gap is caused by pay discrimination against women. How'd we get there? The study found if you compare women and men, in the same jobs, in the same firm, with the same experience and skills, they are still only paid 89 cents for every dollar a man earns. That 11-cent gap is unexplained, and is what we believe is pay discrimination. But if you look at women's overall pay against men, when you take into account all of the women who are segregated into what's considered ``women's work'' and receive lower wages, the pay gap becomes 28 cents. If this kind of occupational segregation were eliminated, the wage gap would close between 10 and 40 percent, according to this report. It doesn't have to be this way. We can start closing the pay gap right now by simply paying women what they're worth. That's where the Fair Pay Act comes in. The Fair Pay Act would require that employers pay their workers based on skills, effort, responsibility and effort, regardless if the job is considered so-called ``women's work.'' Millions of women today work in so-called ``women's jobs,'' as secretaries, child care workers, social workers and nurses. These jobs are often ``equivalent'' in skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions to similar jobs dominated by men. But these women aren't paid the same as the men. Work that women have traditionally done continues to be undervalued and underpaid. That's what the Fair Pay Act would address. Our bill says that pay discrimination based on the number of women in a job is not only un-American, but it is also illegal. It doesn't make sense that a nurse practitioner earns less than a physician's assistant. Or that a lead administrative assistant makes less than a city bus driver. Or that a social worker earns less than a parole officer. I've heard the argument that we don't need the Fair Pay Act, that ``market forces'' will eventually take care of it. The market can't and isn't supposed to take care of everything. You can't fix discrimination with the ``invisible hand.'' Take a look at this chart of the wage gap over the last 20 years. If we continue to rely on ``market forces,'' it will be another century before there's true pay equity for women. In fact, this study accounts for market forces, and it says that pay in women's jobs has increased, but not nearly enough. If we had relied on market forces in the past, our country never would have set a minimum wage and we wouldn't be taking Family Medical Leave to care for our newborns or loved ones. We never would have had the Equal Pay Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act. Some argue that its impossible to compare the wages of different jobs. But, it's done all the time by labor consultants who use ``point systems'' based on skills, responsibility and effort required to determine the value of a job. Jobs that are different may still receive the same total score, meaning, the jobs should be paid about the same. Companies would also develop their own evaluation systems and set their own wages. My state and 19 others have ``fair pay'' laws and policies in place for their public employees, and my state has never been stronger. Fair pay is not just a women's issue. It's a working family issue. It's a retirement issue. When women aren't paid what they're worth, we all get cheated. And national polls show that fair pay is a top priority for women. So I urge my colleagues to support the Fair Pay Act, we owe it to America's working women and their families.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined today by Senators Murray, Mikulski, Boxer, Stabenow, Kennedy, Durbin, Torricelli, Leahy, Inouye, Akaka, Kerry, Wellstone and Feingold to reintroduce the Fair Pay Act, a bill to combat pay discrimination against women. You might think since Congress passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the wage gap wouldn't exist. Unfortunately, however, women continue to be paid only 76-cents for every dollar a white man earns according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women of color experience the most severe pay inequities: African American women earn only 62-cents on the dollar, Hispanic women only 54 cents. Earlier today, I released a draft report by the Department of Labor's Women's Bureau that helps to explain the wage gap and gives us insight into fixing it. This report was done based on my request in the FY 2000 Labor-HHS Appropriations bill. I asked the Women's Bureau to analyze wage data from federal contractors collected over the last two years, focusing on the causes of the wage gap between men and women. This is the first time in at least a decade that such a comprehensive review and analysis of wage data was conducted. This three-part draft report, finalized by the Department of Labor in January, used updated wage data, including detailed data gathered from a sample of nearly 5,000 of our nation's federal contractors. This report confirms that the wage gap is real, it's caused in large part by discrimination and women in female-dominated jobs suffer the most. Specifically, the report found that at least one-third, or about 11 cents on the dollar, of the pay gap is caused by pay discrimination against women. How'd we get there? The study found if you compare women and men, in the same jobs, in the same firm, with the same experience and skills, they are still only paid 89 cents for every dollar a man earns. That 11-cent gap is unexplained, and is what we believe is pay discrimination. But if you look at women's overall pay against men, when you take into account all of the women who are segregated into what's considered ``women's work'' and receive lower wages, the pay gap becomes 28 cents. If this kind of occupational segregation were eliminated, the wage gap would close between 10 and 40 percent, according to this report. It doesn't have to be this way. We can start closing the pay gap right now by simply paying women what they're worth. That's where the Fair Pay Act comes in. The Fair Pay Act would require that employers pay their workers based on skills, effort, responsibility and effort, regardless if the job is considered so-called ``women's work.'' Millions of women today work in so-called ``women's jobs,'' as secretaries, child care workers, social workers and nurses. These jobs are often ``equivalent'' in skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions to similar jobs dominated by men. But these women aren't paid the same as the men. Work that women have traditionally done continues to be undervalued and underpaid. That's what the Fair Pay Act would address. Our bill says that pay discrimination based on the number of women in a job is not only un-American, but it is also illegal. It doesn't make sense that a nurse practitioner earns less than a physician's assistant. Or that a lead administrative assistant makes less than a city bus driver. Or that a social worker earns less than a parole officer. I've heard the argument that we don't need the Fair Pay Act, that ``market forces'' will eventually take care of it. The market can't and isn't supposed to take care of everything. You can't fix discrimination with the ``invisible hand.'' Take a look at this chart of the wage gap over the last 20 years. If we continue to rely on ``market forces,'' it will be another century before there's true pay equity for women. In fact, this study accounts for market forces, and it says that pay in women's jobs has increased, but not nearly enough. If we had relied on market forces in the past, our country never would have set a minimum wage and we wouldn't be taking Family Medical Leave to care for our newborns or loved ones. We never would have had the Equal Pay Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act. Some argue that its impossible to compare the wages of different jobs. But, it's done all the time by labor consultants who use ``point systems'' based on skills, responsibility and effort required to determine the value of a job. Jobs that are different may still receive the same total score, meaning, the jobs should be paid about the same. Companies would also develop their own evaluation systems and set their own wages. My state and 19 others have ``fair pay'' laws and policies in place for their public employees, and my state has never been stronger. Fair pay is not just a women's issue. It's a working family issue. It's a retirement issue. When women aren't paid what they're worth, we all get cheated. And national polls show that fair pay is a top priority for women. So I urge my colleagues to support the Fair Pay Act, we owe it to America's working women and their families.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this is a very simple amendment. All it does is provide that if the soft money ban is struck down in the courts, then the hard money increases now included in the bill will also be taken out. During the debate on raising the hard money limits, we heard a lot of discussion about, if we are going to ban all the soft money, then we at least ought to raise the hard money limits. I happened to personally oppose that, but obviously I was on the losing side of that issue. So the hard money limits were raised. There is some question as to whether or not the ban on soft money is going to be upheld in the courts. There are those who say that it can withstand constitutional scrutiny; there are others who say it won't. I don't know. It is sort of a tossup on that one. All my amendment says is that if the courts strike down the ban on soft money, then the increase in hard money that we included will go back to the limits we now have in law. It is very simple. I don't know that I need to describe it any more than that. We would be a laughing stock if, in fact, the courts struck down the soft money ban so that now we have soft money and an increase in hard money. What kind of reform is that? Obviously, if the soft money ban is found to be constitutionally secure, then we have the increases in the hard money. That is all this amendment does. There is more I could say about how much people give in hard money, but that has already been discussed. I don't need to go through that. It would cast a bad light on reform if in fact the courts struck down the soft money ban so now we have soft money and more hard money. That would be the total antithesis of what we are trying to do here. That is what the amendment is. It is very simple. It is straightforward. Again, my amendment says, if the courts strike down the ban on soft money, then the increases we have put in here on hard money will go back to the levels we have had for the last 25 years.

Mr. HARKIN. I am glad to yield.

Mr. HARKIN. I don't think it touches that. No, we did not touch on that provision with the amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the pending amendment is one I had sent up earlier. To summarize the amendment, which is now under consideration, it is simple and straightforward. It says if the courts strike down the ban on soft money, then the increases in the hard money limits we put in this bill would also go back to the levels we have right now. So we would not be faced with a situation later on that. If the court struck down the soft money ban, we get to raise soft money and also get the increases in the hard money limit. Senator Dodd pointed out that my amendment does not reach to the millionaire amendment that we adopted. It doesn't. I did not include that. These are the things I understand that are going to have to be worked out in conference with the House. I am hopeful that as we go into conference, the problem I just pointed out would also be addressed. We certainly don't want to wind up having both the soft money and the increases in hard money--at least I don't think. In talking with colleagues on this side, that is why I decided to offer this amendment. But I understand that it would not be adopted; I understand the lay of the land. I ask that we just proceed to a voice vote on the amendment and, hopefully, the managers would consider this when they get into conference.

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

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

Mr. HARKIN. That is correct.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. You are getting that anyway.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am proud to have as my cosponsor the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone. I want to recap where we are in this week-long debate on campaign finance reform. We have come a long way in the last week and a half on this campaign finance reform bill. We have debated a wide range of amendments, accepted some, rejected others. The good ones we have adopted are: To stop the price gouging on TV ads, the Torricelli amendment; to require up-to-date inspection of all reports on the Internet, the Cochran-Landrieu-Snowe amendments; stronger disclosure rules by the Senator from Nebraska, Mr. Hagel; bringing all organizations under the issue ad ban; the Wellstone amendment. And we rejected some amendments. Attempts to preserve soft money were rejected; an attempt to dramatically increase hard money was rejected; provisions to silence the workers of America, paycheck protection, were rejected. I am a little disappointed that yesterday we did, unfortunately, increase the amount of hard money we can raise for campaigns. I do not believe increasing the amount of money one can raise from hard dollars is reform, but that was adopted by the Senate. But, there is something missing in this debate. There is something that has been missing for a week and a half from this debate. It is like the crazy uncle in the basement who no one talks about. What kind of reform can we have when all we are talking about is how we raise the money and how much one can raise when we don't talk about how much we spend and what can be spent? What I am talking about is the kind of reform that includes some limits on how much we can spend. With the increase in the amount of hard money we can raise --and we have banned soft money, which is good; I voted to ban soft money--that just means all of us now will be running our fool heads off raising more hard money. We do have the Torricelli amendment that says TV stations have to sell us their ads at the lowest unit rate based upon last year, and that is fine; I am all for that. It just means we can buy more ads. We will raise more money, and we will buy more ads. It has gotten so that now we hire ad agencies. They write the ads and sell us like soap. We are just a bunch of bars of soap to the American people; that is all we are. They see these ads, one ad after another come election time, and it is just like selling soap. Can we be surprised when the American people treat us like soap, that we are no more important in their lives, for example; that we are irrelevant except when we annoy them by ban barding them with ads in the weeks before the election. What I hear from the American people time and time again is: When are you going to talk about the issues in your campaigns rather than having all these ads out there? We are really missing a serious part of campaign finance reform by not talking about it and doing something about it. I do not know about any other Senator, but one of the things I hear a lot in Iowa and other places around the country when people talk to me about campaign finance reform is: When are you going to get a control on how much money you spend? In the last election cycle, just in Federal elections, we spent over $1 billion, I think about $1.2 billion. The American people are upset about this. Are they upset about raising soft money and corporations and special influence? Yes, they are. They are equally upset about the tremendous amount of money we are spending in these campaigns, buying these ads and flooding the airwaves. We have to think about how we can limit how much we spend on campaigns so all of us aren't running around, weekend after weekend, week after week, month after month, to see how much hard money we can raise to hire that ad agency to buy those ads. That is what this amendment Senator Wellstone and I have offered does. It is very simple and straightforward. It puts a voluntary limit on how much we can spend in our Senate campaigns. The formula is very simple. It is $1 million plus 50 cents times the number of voting-age residents in the State. Every Senator has on his or her desk the chart that shows how much you would be limited in your own State. With that limitation, there is a low of $1.2 million in Wyoming to $12 million in California. My own State of Iowa would be limited to $2.1 million for a Senate campaign. I say to the occupant of the Chair, in Virginia the limit would be $3.6 million. I don't know how much the Senator spent this last campaign, but I know for myself in Iowa, $2.1 million runs a good grassroots campaign as long as your opponent does not spend any more than that. I bet the same is true in Virginia at $3.7 million. The amendment also says if you have a primary, you can spend 67 percent of your general election limits. If you have a runoff, you can spend 20 percent of the general election limit. I'd like to stress that this is a voluntary limit. Why would anyone abide by the limit? You abide by the limit because the amendment says if one candidate goes over the voluntary limits by $10,000, then the other person who abided by the limits will begin to get a public financing of 2-1. For every $1 someone would go over the limit, you get $2. For example, in Virginia, if the limit is $3.6 million and the Senator from Virginia voluntarily agrees to abide by that limit, if the person running against the Senator from Virginia went over $3.6 million--say they spent $4 million, which would be $400,000 more--the Senator from Virginia would get $800,000. Two for one. Now, that is a great disincentive for anyone to go beyond the voluntary limits because the other person gets twice as much money as the person who went over the limits. I point out the difference between my amendment and the one offered earlier by Senator Biden and Senator Kerry. Their amendment included public financing from the beginning. This amendment does not. This amendment says, raise money however we decide to let you raise money. That is the way you raise it. PACs, personal contributions, whatever limits we decide on around here, you raise that money. There are no public benefits. The only time public benefits kick in is if someone went over the voluntary limits. My friend from Kentucky said the other day on the floor that all of the polls show the American people don't like public financing. They don't want their tax dollars going to finance Lyndon LaRouche and other such people. First of all, the money we use here to counter what someone might spend over the limits is not raised from tax dollars; it is a voluntary checkoff and from FEC fines. Second, if the Senator from Kentucky is right, and I think he may well be--I don't know--that the American people don't want public financing of campaigns, then that is a second hammer on discouraging someone from going over the voluntary limits. If someone goes over the voluntary limits, that person is responsible for kicking in public financing. That person is responsible for kicking in public financing, not from a tax but from a voluntary checkoff and from FEC fines. There are two prohibitions here to keep someone from going over the voluntary limits. One, your opponent gets twice as much money as whatever you spent over those limits; second, there would be a built in public reaction against someone who did it because it would cause public financing to kick in. Another issue was raised regarding this limit. Someone said: You have the voluntary spending limits, but what about all the independent groups out there? They are buying all the ads running against you; you are limited but they are not. With the Snowe-Jeffords provision and the Wellstone amendment we adopted and just reaffirmed this morning, that is not the case. Those independent groups cannot raise that kind of money from the corporations and they cannot run those ads with your name in them. Someone said: That is all well and good, but what if the Supreme Court throws out the Wellstone amendment, throws out Snowe-Jeffords, and says that is unconstitutional? Then we are left with your limits and these independent groups can go ahead and raise all this money and run those ads. The amendment says if the Supreme Court finds the Wellstone amendment or the Snowe-Jeffords provisions unconstitutional, my amendment falls. It will not be enacted. It will not be part of the campaign finance reform law. If the Supreme Court finds the Wellstone amendment is unconstitutional and these groups go ahead and raise that money and run those ads against you, then the limits in my amendment do not pertain. All bets are off. But as long as Wellstone is constitutional, as long as Snowe-Jeffords is constitutional, then the voluntary limits would be there and the provisions of a 2-for-1 match, if you went off, would also pertain. Bob Rusbuldt, executive vice president of the Independent Insurance Agents of America, said recently, ``campaign finance reform is like a water balloon; You push down on one side, it comes up on the other.'' I think that is what will happen. We ban the soft money; we increase hard money. Push down one side, it goes up the other side. Who are we kidding? We are going to continue to raise hundreds of millions, billions of dollars for these campaigns. My amendment will burst that water balloon and make the existence of loopholes irrelevant, by creating voluntary spending limits and providing a strong incentive for candidates to comply with them. That is what this amendment is about. Again, I am going to be very frank. The voluntary limit for my State of Iowa would be about $2.1 million. In 1996, when I ran for reelection, I spent $5.2 million. Can I abide by $2.1 million? You bet I can. As long as my opponent has to--fine. We can run our campaigns the old fashioned way--at the grassroots. Then we will not have to be buying ad after ad after ad, countering back and forth and all that stuff. Then maybe we will get down to real debates about issues and things people care about, without just hiring ad agencies to buy all these ads. On each desk is a copy of basically what the amendment does, and a list by State of what the limits would be. I conclude this portion of my remarks by saying, again, this is the crazy uncle in the basement no one wants to talk about. Everybody wants to talk about stopping how we raise money, getting rid of soft money, but no one wants to talk about cutting down on how much we spend. Let's start talking about it. Now is the time to do something about it. This voluntary limit is constitutional and it will answer the other side of the campaign finance reform debate that heretofore we have not addressed. I yield whatever time the Senator from Minnesota requires. How much time do I have remaining?