Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will take only a few moments. I know the chairman of the Appropriations Committee has pending business. Mr. President, I wanted to comment a little bit on the continuing resolution that we just passed--and to express my dismay and perhaps a little bit of frustration at what has happened here in the last week or so, and with this continuing resolution. I took the floor a couple of weeks ago. I said March madness is in full swing around the country with all of the basketball games going on with the men's final four and the women's NCAA. But beyond that, Mr. President, in school after school in Iowa and across this country school administrators and school boards are wrestling with the decision about which teachers will lose their jobs and which students will not get title I reading assistance. They are contemplating what vocational educational activities will go by the wayside; how to deal with the cuts in the Safe and Drug-Free School Program. The list goes on. In my State of Iowa, school districts must send the layoff notices by April 30, a mere 6 days after this resolution expires. That means school districts will have less than a week to make important decisions about how many teachers they will be able to keep on the payroll, how many kids will be denied the opportunity to improve their reading and math skills. In the next 4 weeks, the uncertainty about the level of funding for our schools will cause problems for many families. Teachers and their families are worried about their jobs and parents are worried about their kids and about being denied the most basic help they can get. Mr. President, I am not going to read the whole letter, but I have here a letter from a parent of a child who is in the title I program. The letter is dated March 7. These parents are saying that their son has had tremendous help and tremendous improvement because of title I, and she said: I wish you could personally follow our son's progress. This program has truly been a godsend for him and for us. We feel confident he can attend future grades with an excellent attitude toward school because of what title I has gained for him--most importantly, his self-esteem and attitude. Yes, he is still going to struggle some but not as severely as it would be without the aid of chapter 1. For these parents and for our children and school boards and school districts across the country what we are doing today really is not much help. I have here two articles that were in the newspaper in Cedar Rapids, IA, the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The first one is dated February 27, and it says ``6 Schools To Lose Remedial Reading.'' ``Cedar Rapids district cites expected $350,000 cut in Federal funds,'' in the title I program. That is February 27. Shortly after that, the Senate adopted the Specter-Harkin amendment, which was supported, I might add, on this floor with a strong bipartisan vote, 84 votes in favor of the Specter-Harkin amendment, to put the money back in for title I and other education programs. So now here is the followup article on March 14 in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. ``Senate Restores Reading Funds.'' And it talks about the Specter- Harkin amendment, that it was approved 84 to 16. Well, I guess tomorrow there will be another story in the Cedar Rapids Gazette; they will go right back to this: ``Cedar Rapids To Lose Remedial Reading.'' What kind of a yo-yo is this to these people? These are parents like the one who just wrote me this letter about their son who has been in title I, still in title I. What are they to think? What are the teachers to think? How about the school boards? Pink slips are going to be going out pretty soon. I had the Farm Bureau in here this week. I talked at a breakfast to my Farm Bureau members. After it was over, I had a couple of the people who were there at the Farm Bureau meeting come up to me. They did not want to talk about farm programs. They wanted to talk about what we are going to do about title I, because they serve on the local school boards and they saw what was happening to their funding cuts and how much they needed this program. Their basic question was, ``What should we do?'' I had to answer, ``Well, I thought we were going to get the appropriations bill through that would have the funding for you.'' I was confident we would do that. Well, today, with this short-term CR, we do not have it. We go back down to the lower levels on title I funding. Mr. President, that is why I voted no on this--not that I wish to shut the Government down, but we were very close to having an agreement. This is the 12th CR of this year--the 12th one. It is a prescription for disaster for our kids. If the cuts in this bill are allowed to continue, the Iowa Department of Education estimates that across the State, 7,300 fewer students will get title I assistance; 200 teachers will be laid off. This scenario will be repeated in every single State and school district across the country: 40,000 teachers will be laid off nationwide as a result of this $1.1 billion cut in title I. Mr. President, the sixth national education goal calls upon us to ensure that by the turn of the century every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in the global economy, but the deep cut in job training programs in this bill is a retreat from that goal. These cuts could not come at a worse time. You can hardly pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news without seeing yet another story about downsizing some company, workers are put out of work, dislocations caused by downsizing. Last year, JTPA assisted 105 workers who lost their jobs in the small town of LeMars, IA; 85 individuals employed in the small town of Sergeant Bluff, IA. The cuts in retraining for dislocated workers means that next year 300 fewer Iowans will benefit from such assistance. In the Senate, we acted in a bipartisan manner to correct these problems. As I said, Senator Specter and I worked together with the assistance of Senator Hatfield. We crafted a bipartisan compromise to restore most of the cuts to these education and training programs. Again, as I said, the Senate passed the amendment 84 to 16. It was a powerful signal from this body on a bipartisan basis that we wanted to move ahead and fund these programs, get the money out, and send a clear signal to our schools, our teachers, and our parents across the country that we were going to fund these programs. Well, we were meeting, and I must say that Senator Specter sat there day after day in meetings with our House counterparts. I would join him. We had already worked out our differences. We did not have any disagreements. But we could not quite seem to get over a lot of these hurdles. Finally, we worked out our differences. We had our agreements made. But there were some riders that were attached, riders that more appropriately belong in the authorizing committees, not the Appropriations Committee, that held this up. Therefore, we could not reach an agreement. But we were very close. Again, I wish to pay my respects and my thanks to the chairman of our Appropriations Committee. I was there last night. We were all dogged tired at about 1 a.m. in the morning, and he wanted to continue. He wanted to finish it, because I know the Senator from Oregon realizes how important these programs are. And he was reflecting the will of this body, the 84 votes that we had, to make sure that we reached an agreement and moved ahead. I daresay, I do not know how many hours and how many days the Senator from Oregon put in in the last 2 or 3 weeks trying to get this thing put together, working, as I said, to the midnight hour and beyond last night, to make sure we did not have these draconian cuts. All of that work we have done, all the work that we did in a bipartisan fashion in the Senate, all of the work that Senator Hatfield has done has now been thrown overboard. All of us lost in this bill which continues the draconian cuts of the previous 11 continuing resolutions. We were close. I am deeply disappointed. I heard last night--we had a break in our conference last night, and I heard some rumblings from people that there was going to be a short-term CR. So I expressed my opinion in the conference last night. I said: Here we are; we are working trying to reach these agreements, coming very close, but if the rug is going to be pulled out from underneath us by a short-term CR, then why are we here? I feel that if we are going to continue like this, then what use is it of the Appropriations Committee to try to hammer out these agreements. These are tough negotiations. And yet we reached all the numbers. We had no problems with our numbers. We had agreed on all of the numbers. We had agreed on the offsets. We had a few items, as I said, some disagreements on riders which more appropriately belong with the authorizing committee, not the Appropriations Committee, and as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee knows, if the authorizing committees would do their work and get the authorizing down, we would not have the riders on our bill holding us up. So I thank Chairman Hatfield for his doggedness and his determination, and I am just sorry that the rug got pulled out from underneath us. Those are not his words; those are mine. But that is exactly how I feel. I hoped before that that would be the last CR. I hope this is the last CR. If it is not, we are really going to be in tough shape, and I think a lot of our school districts around the country now are just going to throw up their hands in despair; they thought they were going to have the cuts. Then they thought they were going to be restored. I know from talking to people in Iowa that they thought they could now go ahead and plan for their schools next year because of that overwhelming vote we had in the Senate. Well, now they do not know what to do. Mr. President, this is no way to run the Government. This is no way to govern. It is totally and absolutely irresponsible. And all I can say is, I sure hope this is the last short-term CR. I hope the good work we have done on appropriations we can hold onto, that when we come back from the Easter break, rather than starting all over again, we can pick up where we were and hopefully have this resolution done expeditiously so that we can get our funding out for education, worker training, dislocated workers, Head Start, and all the other programs so vital to the future of our country. Mr. President, I thank you, and I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, there are really two parts to this farm bill. One component was in general put together in a very bipartisan and cooperative manner. That process has produced a number of sound provisions that deserve broad support. There are many good features in the titles of this bill dealing with conservation, for example, the continuation of the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and improvements in the wetlands conservation rules. The wetlands rules are something that has concerned me greatly. They have been very confusing and frustrating to many farmers in Iowa, but there some positive changes in this bill that should make wetlands conservation rules more reasonable and workable for farmers. One of the wetlands changes involves farmland that has been converted in the past and drainage tiles have been put in, but for one reason or another, such as tile plugging up, the land has returned to wetland again. Farmers in this situation have had problems with the rules in trying to reopen their drainage systems. This bill will allow farmers to go in and unplug their tiles and go ahead and drain those fields, if they have already been previously converted. That is very important. This bill also provides that farmers can take a wet spot, a small spot in the field, and go ahead and convert it and farm it if they mitigate the loss through improving, restoring or creating wetlands in the area. Sometimes that is the best thing to do, because there may be a better area for a wetland than where it is existing right now in the middle of a field. And the bill also calls for clarifying the rules on the types of wetlands that are so insignificant that they are not subject to wetlands rules. So these are very good changes for our farmers. Although there are a number of positive features in the bill, there is one aspect of the bill that outweighs everything else, and for that reason I cannot support this farm bill. I am speaking about the commodity program provisions in this bill. They are the most substantial part of the bill: $35.6 billion in direct payments alone. Commodity programs involve by far the largest amount of Federal agricultural outlays, and they will have, naturally, the largest effect on the agricultural economy of my State of Iowa. So, if the commodity programs in the farm bill will not be good for the farm families in my State, I simply cannot support the bill. Regrettably, that is the case with this bill. It is true it is late in the season. This farm bill is at least 6 months late--more like 9 months late. Farmers, at least in my area, are starting in their fields. They are wondering why the leadership of this Congress could not get its work done to pass the farm bill on time. I will not be forced into voting for a farm bill simply because the Republicans could not get their act together and get it done last year. I have here the Congressional Record from July 26, 1990. I was here. I was working on the farm bill at that time, the 1990 farm bill to take effect with the 1991 crop. Here is what the minority leader, Senator Dole, said at that time, July 1990: Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching the August recess, and back in my home State of Kansas farmers are preparing for the seeding of the winter wheat crop. Even as they reflect upon the record Kansas wheat crop recently harvested, uncertainty lies ahead. That is because Congress again has been unable to finish the farm bill in a timely manner so that producers of fall crops will know their program in advance. Here is the Senator from Kansas, Senator Dole, complaining in July 1990, that we do not have the farm bill done in July 1990 to cover 1991 crops. Here it is March 1996 and we do not have the 1995 farm bill done to cover 1996 crops. Again, it was the other side that was in charge. We could have had a farm bill out here on the floor last fall. We passed commodity provisions out of our committee last September. We could have had a farm bill on the floor in October or November or December. We sat here and twiddled our thumbs, waiting to try to get some kind of budget deal that was never agreed upon. We could have had the farm bill done at that time, but the leadership did not bring it up. So now we have a gun held to our heads, saying we have to pass it now, it is awfully late. I do not like to operate in that atmosphere, and I will not vote for it on that basis--just on that basis. I cannot support the bill because it sets up a farm program with payments that have no relationship to commodity prices, crop production, or farm income levels. This bill has it exactly backward. It will provide far less protection against low farm income than previous farm bills. But then it turns around and makes substantial payments to farmers in good times, when there are good prices and high incomes. What this is going to mean is it will hurt agriculture's image and undermine support for any sound farm policy in the future. A sound farm policy is one that promotes good farm income from the market, but helps farm families survive circumstances beyond their control, when the market goes down or they have a disaster. The farmers I know want to farm for the market and not the mailbox. This bill says no matter what the market does, no matter how good your income, you are going to get a check in that mailbox. Most farmers I know do not want to farm like that. I want to make it clear that I want reform in farm programs with full planning flexibility, less paperwork, less redtape, less hassle. We can do that. There was general agreement on both sides of the aisle, in a bipartisan fashion, to make those reforms. We can provide that planting flexibility without adopting the payment scheme in this bill that will send checks to farmers, even when they have a good income from the market. I want farm programs that work better for farmers, but this bill goes far beyond reasonable reforms to destroy the farm income safety net. It is absolutely unnecessary to take the radical approach in this bill in order to achieve the commonsense reforms that farmers have told me they want. The proponents of this farm bill are not really telling farmers the whole story. The payments may look good now, but if commodity prices and farm incomes fall--and past cycles in the farm economy show how quickly and devastatingly that can happen--this bill sets farmers up for a big fall. By the time we get to the later years in this farm bill, the maximum payment for corn is about 28 cents a bushel--no matter how low the price may fall, 28 cents a bushel. Have no doubt about it, what this bill does is it shifts risk. It is a tremendous shift of risk onto farmers. They are being told to produce all they can so that grain companies will have plenty of grain to trade, but if surpluses and low prices develop, as they most certainly have many times before, it will be the farmers who get the short end of the stick. They will have much less help in working out of that low-price situation than we have had in the past. There will be no farmer owned reserve, for example, because this bill specifically takes it out, and the bill also raises the CCC interest rate by a full percentage point above the cost of money to CCC. I offered amendments here on the Senate floor to put the farmer owned reserve back in and take out the CCC interest rate hike. Only two Republican Senators voted for those amendments and neither was approved. To see how the farm income safety net is slashed in this bill, let us take, for example, an Iowa farmer with a 350-acre corn base. If the price of corn, let us say, is $1.90 in 2002, that farm will have about $23,000 less income protection under this bill than it would have under the 1990 farm bill. That is because this bill will not respond to low prices. I suppose some of you might say, ``Well, $1.90 a bushel, we won't get to that price.'' I have been around long enough to remember when Earl Butz in the 1970's said that American farmers should plant ``fence row to fence row'' to meet burgeoning world demand for U.S. agricultural exports. In my State of Iowa, we plowed up a very large share of the hills in southern Iowa, planted soybeans and planted corn. I tell you, we had a ride. There was a boom. Farmers had a good ride and a lot of them went deeply into debt. Why shouldn't they? There was supposed to be no end to it. Land prices skyrocketed. A lot of big new tractors and combines were bought. Many young farmers, in particular, took on a lot of debt to get started or to expand. Then in a few short years the crash came and out went the young farmers. We had a devastating time in the 1980's. I am very concerned this bill is setting farmers up for that same kind of situation again, because it does not have enough protection against low prices and farm incomes. This bill also imposes a new cap on loan rates for wheat and feed grains, which is another weakening of the farm income safety net. The loan rate for corn cannot go above $1.89 a bushel, but it can go below $1.89. I offered an amendment in conference, backed by the National Corn Growers and the National Association of Wheat Growers, to lift the cap on loan rates for wheat and feed grains, but, again, I could not get one vote from the Republican side of the aisle. To illustrate the lack of farm income protection in this bill, I did some rough calculations and determined that if this bill had been in effect in Iowa for the last 5 years of the 1980's, Iowa's farm families would have had about $2 billion less in farm income than they had under the farm bill in effect at that time. That would have been devastating for Iowa's farm families and rural communities. That kind of situation could develop again, and if it does this bill will be woefully inadequate. I am convinced this bill will hasten the trend to larger farms and the decline of the family farm. The largest share of these contract payments will go to the larger farms, and there will be much less income protection for the smaller farms against low prices and incomes. Do not take my word. Here is an article that appeared in the March 24, 1996 Sunday New York Times: The new approach, called Freedom to Farm by its supporters, would accelerate the ongoing consolidation of smaller less profitable farms into larger, more efficient corporate farms. That has serious implications, not only for the face of farming in America but also for the livelihoods of rural communities. That is from the New York Times. I might also point out, Mr. President, that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal have all editorially endorsed this so-called freedom-to- farm type of program. I tell farmers in Iowa, any time the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post all editorially endorse a farm program, I get worried, I get really worried. Let us talk about fiscal responsibility. Here we are trying to reduce the deficit. We want to get a balanced budget. I support that. We ought to be as tight as we possibly can with taxpayers' dollars. If someone needs help, yes, that is when you come in with some assistance. But if you do not need help, why spend taxpayers' dollars? This bill will spend $35.6 billion on direct payments to farmers, even if prices are high and farm incomes are high. Those payments, made whether they are needed or not, hold huge potential for embarrassing farmers and those who support sound farm policy. We should save that money for farmers when and if they need it. Going back to the example of the Iowa farm with the 350-acre corn base, that farmer would get a payment of about $13,000 in 1997, even if corn is $3 a bushel and yields are good. No matter what that farmer makes from the market, the Government will send out a check for $13,000. I just do not see how that is fiscally responsible when we are trying to balance the Federal budget. Here is another example: a large Kansas wheat and grain sorghum farm, with 1,800 acres of wheat and 600 acres of grain sorghum. Let us assume wheat is selling for $5 and grain sorghum for $3 in 1998. That farm would have a net income of about $195,000 after costs. That is net farm income. On top of that, Uncle Sam will write a check to that farmer for just under $40,000. Furthermore, if a farmer arranges his or her business carefully to take full advantage of the programs and maneuver around the payment limitation, that one individual farmer could receive as much as $80,000 in a year in direct cash payments from Uncle Sam, even if the farmer makes a net income of over $195,000, as in the example, or more. That money will be paid out regardless of how much money that farmer makes in the market. I want someone to explain to me why the taxpayers--especially taxpayers living in rural communities across this Nation trying to make ends meet in small businesses or working at low wages--should be asked to pay for a farm program that makes sizable payments to farmers, even if they are making a good income from the market? Where is the fairness in a system of income transfers from taxpayers who are struggling to make a living if that money will be spent in providing payments to other people when they do not need the help? And the impact of this bill on taxpayers could be substantial. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated this bill will send out over $5 billion more in direct farm payments during fiscal 1996 and 1997 than would be the case under the 1990 farm bill. USDA estimates that this bill will result in direct income support payments of about $25 billion more over the 7-year period than would have been the case if we had just continued the 1990 farm bill. Mr. President, here is the conference report on the farm bill. I know not too many people read these documents. I just want to read one sentence out of section 113. It is titled ``Section 113. Amounts Available for Contract Payments,'' and it spells out for every fiscal year how much money would be available. It amounts to about $35.6 billion. But listen to this: The Secretary shall, to the maximum extent practicable, expend the following amounts to satisfy the obligations of the Secretary under all contracts. ``The Secretary shall, to the maximum extent practicable'' make these payments. Wait a minute. I thought we were trying to save money for the taxpayers. I thought we were trying to reduce the deficit and balance the budget. Here is a bill that says USDA has to pay it out no matter what happens, no matter how much money farmers make; to the maximum extent practicable, it has to make those payments. I would like someone to show me one other bill passed by this Senate or House that says, for example, that the Secretary of Health and Human Services has to pay out, to the maximum extent practicable, a sum of money for welfare payments. Or let me see a bill stating that the Secretary of Education has to pay out, to the maximum extent practicable, money for title I. I do not believe you will find such a provision anywhere. I certainly have never seen anything like this in an agriculture bill in all the time I have been here. I just do not see how anyone who claims to be a conservative can be in favor of mandating that the Secretary shall make the maximum payments possible no matter what commodity prices or farm incomes are. I offered an amendment on this very point. My amendment said that payments under this bill could not be any higher than they would have been under the 1990 farm bill, except in the case of a farmer with a disaster loss. Farmers with disaster losses would receive the whole contract payment. Any money saved in a fiscal year through my amendment would be rolled over and reserved for payments to farmers in later years when they may have a greater need for them. Here is an article from the front page of the Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman dated November 18, 1995, quoting Dean Kleckner, the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Mr. Kleckner is not a member of my political party, and we have disagreed on issues in the past. But here he is, quoted just a few months ago, expressing opposition to the payment mechanism that is in this bill, just as I have: ``In order to provide a long-term safety net, the conference committee should develop a program that maintains a price-payment linkage and allows budgeted funds not expended in years of high prices to be available in years when farm income is low,'' the Rudd, Ia., farmer said in a letter to House and Senate budget conferees last week. ``Failure to resolve this issue will render farm programs either an ineffective income support mechanism or subject them to being an irresistible political target,'' Kleckner said. Mr. President, I offered an amendment in the conference committee to do just that. It would have kept the money in reserve in times of high prices; USDA would not have paid out any more than under the 1990 farm bill unless the farmer had a disaster. Any money that was not paid out would have been rolled over for use in making payments in future years when the need may be greater because of lower prices or disaster losses. Again, my amendment was rejected along strict party lines. Every Republican voted against it. Some people get pretty edgy and touchy when they hear it said that this farm bill makes farmers vulnerable to criticism that they are receiving welfare payments. If this bill becomes law, I can only say, get used to it; get used to it. The national press, who have never been friendly to agriculture, will have plenty of new material. There will be television stories and the same editorial writers at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others will go to work. You mark my words. There will be editorials about USDA making large payments to large farmers no matter how much money they are making from the market. The editorial writers do not understand what is going on in agriculture anyway, but what I am concerned about is the damage this bill threatens to do to the public's image of farmers and of agriculture programs. Farmers do not want to be perceived as receiving something for nothing, regardless of whether they need it. I do not believe farmers receive welfare, or that farm programs are welfare. Farmers work very hard for their money. They are proud people. They want to get their income from the market and not from the mailbox. There is real potential for this bill to contribute to an impression among the public that farm programs are welfare. What I am saying is that I firmly believe and most sincerely believe that those who support this program are doing a great disservice to farmers because it sets up farmers for this kind of attack, that they are receiving welfare, getting payments even though they are making good money from the marketplace. It is setting up farmers, I think, for a big fall. Not only are farmers going to have a greatly reduced farm income safety net under this bill, they are also likely to suffer damage to their public image because of the payment scheme in this bill. We should not pass a bill that gives critics of farmers and sound farm policies more ammunition to fire away in the national press. It can only be damaging to hard-working farmers in Iowa and across our land. It is hard enough sometimes to explain to our urban counterparts why we need a decent farm policy, without having to overcome the image created by this bill. Mr. President, farm programs should be there as a safety net to provide adequate protection when times are hard, not to pay out over $35 billion to the maximum extent practicable even when commodity prices and farm incomes are high. This bill slashes the farm income safety net, and it is not fiscally responsible. For those reasons, I cannot in good faith support this farm bill. I hope we can come back next year, perhaps, and readjust this bill so that we will have enough money available for farm programs in the years when it is really needed. I hope and pray this radical so-called freedom-to-farm approach will not devastate our farm families. I am very concerned that the payments made in the next year or so will create a political liability. When we do have a downturn in the farm economy and there is a real need for an adequate farm income safety net, the political capital required to pass the necessary legislation will have been used up. Those of us who care very deeply about family farms and about rural America will not be able to get anything through here to help them through their tough times. For these reasons, Mr. President, I cannot support this farm bill. I see the train is on the track expect this bill will pass. I understand the President has indicated he will sign it reluctantly. I must say, in all candor, I am disappointed that the President did not rely upon his authority under the existing law to carry out a decent farm program and avoid being cornered into signing a bill as objectionable as this one. Farmers should not be in the position of having an entirely new farm bill enacted at this late date. We should not have been in a position of writing a farm bill with a gun held to our head, instead of working together in a bipartisan fashion to hammer out a really good, sensible farm bill for farmers. I am just sorry the President did not use his authority to avoid this situation. I yield the floor. Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN. Parliamentary inquiry: This Senator would like to know what the speaking order is that is coming down the pike?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the Equal Pay Act, passed in 1963, made it illegal to discriminate against women when determining pay levels for the same job. Since then, we have made some progress in reducing employment discrimination against women. But we cannot have equality of opportunity in the workplace without equality and fairness in wages and salary. Even though many women have moved up and out of traditionally female jobs, stereotypes and historical discrimination remain firmly imbedded in pay scales. Current law has not done enough to combat wage discrimination when employers routinely pay lower wages to jobs that are dominated by women. That is why I am introducing the Fair Pay Act of 1996. The Fair Pay Act is designed to pick up where the Equal Pay Act left off by paying women equally for equivalent work. The heart of the Fair Pay Act will make it illegal to discriminate against employees on the basis of sex, race, and national origin by requiring equal pay for work in jobs that are comparable in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Women and minorities make up 57 percent of the workforce and their salaries are an essential component of family income. It is a fundamental issue of fairness to provide equal pay for work that is of equal value to an employer. Wage gaps can result from differences in education, experience, or time in the workforce and the Fair Pay Act does not interfere with that. But, just as there is a glass ceiling in the American workplace, there is also what I call a glass wall--where women are on the exact same level as their male coworkers. They have the same skills, they have the same type of responsibilities, but they are still obstructed from receiving the same pay. It is a hidden barrier, but a barrier all the same. And it is keeping out equality, opportunity, and above all fairness. The Fair Pay Act is about knocking down the glass wall. To illustrate, consider a study done in the county of Los Angeles that compared the job requirements and salaries of children's social service workers who were mostly women and probation officers who were mostly men. The two jobs required the same skills and education, and the working conditions were similar. However, the social service workers were paid an average of $35,000 a year while the probation officers were paid an average of $55,000 a year--a $20,000 difference in salary. Over a lifetime, that kind of wage gap adds up. The average woman loses $420,000 over a lifetime due to unequal pay practices. Such gaps in income are life changing: it can mean the difference between welfare and self-sufficiency, owning a home or renting, sending your kids to college or to flip burgers, or having a decent retirement instead of an uncertain old age. The Fair Pay Act is a commonsense business issue. Women and minorities make up over half of the work force and fair pay is essential to attract and keep good workers. The Fair Pay Act is an economic issue. Working women, after all, don't get special discounts when they buy milk. They can't get a special rate buying clothes for their kids. Bread and gasoline don't cost less for working women than working men. And women and minorities are certainly taxed at the same rate as men are, yet they don't get any break when April 15 rolls around. The Fair Pay Act is a family issue. Family budgets are getting squeezed by the day. When women are discriminated against in their pay, they aren't the only ones who lose. When women aren't paid what they're worth, husbands and children get cheated too. Now, I've heard the critics. Some say there is no discrimination in the workplace. It's just the natural economic forces paying workers their fair share. Others say that this is a decision that should be left to the private sector alone. If the private sector wants to discriminate, they say, that should be their right. Well, we as a society have said discrimination in any form should not be tolerated and that's what this bill is about. There is perhaps no other form of discrimination that has as direct an impact on the day-to-day lives of workers as economic discrimination. The Equal Pay Act was designed to end that. And it has helped. But we need to go further to address economic discrimination for equivalent work. And most importantly, the American people want fair pay legislation. The Fair Pay Act has already been endorsed by a wide variety of groups and organizations. In addition, polling data consistently show that over 70 percent of the American people support a law requiring the same pay for men and women in jobs requiring similar skills and responsibilities. Please join me in supporting the Fair Pay Act of 1996. I welcome your ideas and suggestions. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that additional material be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the Equal Pay Act, passed in 1963, made it illegal to discriminate against women when determining pay levels for the same job. Since then, we have made some progress in reducing employment discrimination against women. But we cannot have equality of opportunity in the workplace without equality and fairness in wages and salary. Even though many women have moved up and out of traditionally female jobs, stereotypes and historical discrimination remain firmly imbedded in pay scales. Current law has not done enough to combat wage discrimination when employers routinely pay lower wages to jobs that are dominated by women. That is why I am introducing the Fair Pay Act of 1996. The Fair Pay Act is designed to pick up where the Equal Pay Act left off by paying women equally for equivalent work. The heart of the Fair Pay Act will make it illegal to discriminate against employees on the basis of sex, race, and national origin by requiring equal pay for work in jobs that are comparable in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Women and minorities make up 57 percent of the workforce and their salaries are an essential component of family income. It is a fundamental issue of fairness to provide equal pay for work that is of equal value to an employer. Wage gaps can result from differences in education, experience, or time in the workforce and the Fair Pay Act does not interfere with that. But, just as there is a glass ceiling in the American workplace, there is also what I call a glass wall--where women are on the exact same level as their male coworkers. They have the same skills, they have the same type of responsibilities, but they are still obstructed from receiving the same pay. It is a hidden barrier, but a barrier all the same. And it is keeping out equality, opportunity, and above all fairness. The Fair Pay Act is about knocking down the glass wall. To illustrate, consider a study done in the county of Los Angeles that compared the job requirements and salaries of children's social service workers who were mostly women and probation officers who were mostly men. The two jobs required the same skills and education, and the working conditions were similar. However, the social service workers were paid an average of $35,000 a year while the probation officers were paid an average of $55,000 a year--a $20,000 difference in salary. Over a lifetime, that kind of wage gap adds up. The average woman loses $420,000 over a lifetime due to unequal pay practices. Such gaps in income are life changing: it can mean the difference between welfare and self-sufficiency, owning a home or renting, sending your kids to college or to flip burgers, or having a decent retirement instead of an uncertain old age. The Fair Pay Act is a commonsense business issue. Women and minorities make up over half of the work force and fair pay is essential to attract and keep good workers. The Fair Pay Act is an economic issue. Working women, after all, don't get special discounts when they buy milk. They can't get a special rate buying clothes for their kids. Bread and gasoline don't cost less for working women than working men. And women and minorities are certainly taxed at the same rate as men are, yet they don't get any break when April 15 rolls around. The Fair Pay Act is a family issue. Family budgets are getting squeezed by the day. When women are discriminated against in their pay, they aren't the only ones who lose. When women aren't paid what they're worth, husbands and children get cheated too. Now, I've heard the critics. Some say there is no discrimination in the workplace. It's just the natural economic forces paying workers their fair share. Others say that this is a decision that should be left to the private sector alone. If the private sector wants to discriminate, they say, that should be their right. Well, we as a society have said discrimination in any form should not be tolerated and that's what this bill is about. There is perhaps no other form of discrimination that has as direct an impact on the day-to-day lives of workers as economic discrimination. The Equal Pay Act was designed to end that. And it has helped. But we need to go further to address economic discrimination for equivalent work. And most importantly, the American people want fair pay legislation. The Fair Pay Act has already been endorsed by a wide variety of groups and organizations. In addition, polling data consistently show that over 70 percent of the American people support a law requiring the same pay for men and women in jobs requiring similar skills and responsibilities. Please join me in supporting the Fair Pay Act of 1996. I welcome your ideas and suggestions. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that additional material be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the time has come to close one of the most outrageous tax loopholes on our books today. In fact, it is so outrageous, it's hard to believe. But today a small number of very wealthy individuals--often billionaires--can renounce their U.S. citizenship in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. And under current law, those same individuals can still live in the U.S. for up to half a year--tax-free. That's right. Amazingly, the current tax code has a loophole big enough for the super rich to fly their private jets right through. I call it the Benedict Arnold loophole. You can turn your back on the country that made you rich--to get even richer. In many cases, those same people come right back to the United States. They spend up to 6 months here and claim to be citizens of another country just so they can skip out on their tax bill. In one case, for example, a very wealthy American acquired citizenship in Belize, a small country along the Caribbean coast. Soon thereafter, Belize tried to set up a counsel's office in Florida where their new citizen had his factories. That way their new ``counsel'' could live in the U.S. for a large part of the year without paying his U.S. taxes. Ultimately, this was not allowed, but these types of games should be stopped once and for all. Hard working, tax paying, middle-class Americans have every right to be outraged by these tax loopholes. They are costing Americans about $1.5 billion. And the money these wealthy tax cheats fail to pay is adding to our debt and to the bill that our kids will one day be forced to pay. That's unconscionable. The bill I am introducing today says enough is enough: It's time to close the Benedict Arnold loophole. My legislation provides that if these so called ``expatriates'' spend 30 days in the United States they must pay their full taxes as a resident alien. Essentially, they would be treated like a resident alien, similar to how a U.S. citizen is treated. In addition, my bill provides that--upon renouncing their citizenship--these individuals would pay taxes on all of their gains, including those not yet sold. Under current law they can effectively escape paying their fair share of taxes by delaying the sale of their assets through available loopholes. The Senate passed a provision in last year's Budget Reconciliation bill, but it was gutted in conference. Where there is a problem with a bilateral tax treaty, the Secretary of the Treasury may waive the provision for that individual. I hope that the bill I am introducing today become law this year. I urge the Senate to support and pass this common sense measure that will save taxpayer $1.5 billion.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the time has come to close one of the most outrageous tax loopholes on our books today. In fact, it is so outrageous, it's hard to believe. But today a small number of very wealthy individuals--often billionaires--can renounce their U.S. citizenship in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. And under current law, those same individuals can still live in the U.S. for up to half a year--tax-free. That's right. Amazingly, the current tax code has a loophole big enough for the super rich to fly their private jets right through. I call it the Benedict Arnold loophole. You can turn your back on the country that made you rich--to get even richer. In many cases, those same people come right back to the United States. They spend up to 6 months here and claim to be citizens of another country just so they can skip out on their tax bill. In one case, for example, a very wealthy American acquired citizenship in Belize, a small country along the Caribbean coast. Soon thereafter, Belize tried to set up a counsel's office in Florida where their new citizen had his factories. That way their new ``counsel'' could live in the U.S. for a large part of the year without paying his U.S. taxes. Ultimately, this was not allowed, but these types of games should be stopped once and for all. Hard working, tax paying, middle-class Americans have every right to be outraged by these tax loopholes. They are costing Americans about $1.5 billion. And the money these wealthy tax cheats fail to pay is adding to our debt and to the bill that our kids will one day be forced to pay. That's unconscionable. The bill I am introducing today says enough is enough: It's time to close the Benedict Arnold loophole. My legislation provides that if these so called ``expatriates'' spend 30 days in the United States they must pay their full taxes as a resident alien. Essentially, they would be treated like a resident alien, similar to how a U.S. citizen is treated. In addition, my bill provides that--upon renouncing their citizenship--these individuals would pay taxes on all of their gains, including those not yet sold. Under current law they can effectively escape paying their fair share of taxes by delaying the sale of their assets through available loopholes. The Senate passed a provision in last year's Budget Reconciliation bill, but it was gutted in conference. Where there is a problem with a bilateral tax treaty, the Secretary of the Treasury may waive the provision for that individual. I hope that the bill I am introducing today become law this year. I urge the Senate to support and pass this common sense measure that will save taxpayer $1.5 billion.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator. I have listened very carefully to the preceding colloquy, and I must say that I read both the House and the Senate version of that, and I read what came in afterward in the conference report. Quite frankly, I was opposed to this bill before, and now even more so, because I think it is clear what happened in conference. As we have said now, 44 States, as I understand it, have strict liability laws. Now those utilities will come under the purview of this bill and, therefore, it will cap damages to the extent that it is my understanding now that, under this bill, for example, the Seminole pipeline and natural gas facility in Texas, exploded in 1992, killed three, injured a lot, caused a lot of damage in two counties, and a jury awarded $46 million in punitive damages. It is my understanding that now, under this bill, that will not be able to happen after this. So I thank the Senator from North Dakota for bringing that out. I had not focused on that before. Mr. President, I want to say that the debate over product liability has been clouded by misinformation and anecdotal evidence, which is substituting for a careful consideration of the facts. Mr. President, you know, every time a jury is impaneled, they are told by a judge they should consider only the facts, not hearsay, not speculation, but only the facts. Well, Mr. President, we are sort of sitting as a jury here. We ought to consider the facts. But what we have before us in this legislation--what we are hearing is hearsay, speculation, and a distortion of the truth. If, in fact, this Senate finds in favor of the conference report, and we were a jury, the judge would be well within his purview to dismiss the jury for not adhering to the instructions of the court and following the facts of the case. It is wrong for a jury to decide on anything other than the facts, and it is wrong for us to legislate based on anecdote and misinformation, but that is what we are doing. This is not commonsense reform. This is nonsense regression. This bill ought to be called the caveat emptor bill of 1996, throwing us back to the old days when it was buyer, beware. If you bought something and it hurt you, tough luck--buyer, beware. That is what this bill is about. It turns back the clock years. In the midst of all the legalese, it is hard to sort out what is really at stake here. It is really very simple. We are talking about people's lives. We are talking about their health, and we are talking about their happiness and about families. This bill is about as antifamily, antihuman rights as I have ever seen. What the bill does is places economic worth on a higher plateau than individual work. I find that totally objectionable. We have heard a lot of words about the need to promote values of greater responsibility and accountability. If you believe in those values, you ought to oppose this bill because it absolves wrongdoers from responsibility and does not hold them fully accountable for their actions. We have heard a lot of talk about sending more power to the States. If you are for that, you ought to oppose this because this puts power in Washington. We have heard a lot of talk on the floor about putting more power in the hands of the people. If you believe in that, you ought to oppose this legislation because this takes power out of the hands of citizens and juries and puts it in the hands of big Government. Plain and simple, this bill is big Government, big business, and it is a big mistake. Now, of course, most businesses do not set out to harm consumers with their products. Obviously not. But sometimes faulty products do make it to the market, and sometimes they make it to the market through carelessness or through sheer disregard of the public safety by those manufacturers. Sometimes people get hurt and die because of it. In the zeal to pass this conference report, let us not pass over the victims. There is a lot of talk about the victims. Let us talk about the victims--the children severely burned by highly flammable pajamas, women who die from toxic shock syndrome, women with silicone breast implants who have now lupus and scleroderma. Again, I want to make it clear that most businesses are responsible. Most businesses take due care and concern. But there are those who do not. The current product liability system is based on a fundamental premise that we want to make sure that people--average citizens of this country--have the assurance that when they buy a product, when children consume a product, when they travel on our highway, they can be reasonably certain that what they are using, consuming, or buying is not going to harm them. Part of that is our responsibility, and that is why we have health and safety and food inspection laws. That is why we have left untouched in our country the common law that we inherited from Great Britain that goes back several hundred years, the concept of tort feasor, the concept that someone must take due care or concern that his actions do not harm others, and if they do, that person must be held accountable and responsible. Those are the core values embodied in our Nation's laws. It is the essence of the common law. It goes back several hundred years. My friend from North Dakota said we have too many lawyers in this country. I do not know about that, but I do believe that more knowledge of law and a love and respect of law--and especially the common law that we have inherited--makes us a more decent and a more law-abiding citizenry. That is what we are forgetting here. We are forgetting the history of tort feasance. For the life of me, I do not understand how people argue about we ought to be personally responsible and now saying we do not have to follow that admonition. With this legislation, we all know that punitive damages awarded for grossly negligent behavior are capped. But in their efforts to make the product liability system uniform across the United States, supporters have fashioned a one-way preemption: This legislation strikes down only those aspects of State law that give citizens more protection from defective products. That is a one-two punch. The bill passed by the Senate last year was bad, and this conference report is worse. It is far more extreme. It preserves some of the worst provisions of the Senate bill, like the elimination of joint and several liability and the cap on punitive damages, and expands other areas resulting in a bill that is the consumers' worst nightmare. Let me talk for a couple of minutes about the elimination of joint and several liability for noneconomic damages. Again, it violates the golden rule of responsibility and accountability. You do not have to worry about being accountable and making sure the victim is wholly compensated unless the victim has a high-paying job. The Senator from Louisiana talked about that earlier. Eliminating joint and several liability for noneconomic damages eliminates the protections particularly for women, children, and elderly, because noneconomic losses constitute a greater proportion of their total losses. So, again, this bill is antiwomen, it is antichildren, and it is antielderly. I do not understand that. We are supposed to be for individual workers. And, yet, what this says is that if you have a high-paying job, you are worth more than a child or worth more than an elderly person who has been a homemaker. You are worth more than they are. Under current law, joint and several liability enables an individual to bring one lawsuit against the companies that are responsible for the manufacture of a dangerous, defective product and have the defendants apportion fault amongst themselves if the jury finds for the plaintiff. Under joint liability, victims are compensated fully for their injuries even if one or more of the wrongdoers is insolvent. Our civil justice system is founded on the principle that the victim deserves the greatest protection. This bill turns that basic value on its head. It says we should protect the wrongdoer. This bill says they deserve protection. Mr. President, consider one case, the Claassen family of Newhall, IA. Bill, Jeanne, his wife, and their 4-year-old son, Matt, were returning home from a family gathering on November 6, 1993, in their 1973 Chevrolet pickup. Another driver failed to stop at a stop sign and rammed into the passenger side of their pickup at a speed of about 30 miles an hour. Eyewitnesses confirmed that the Claassen's pickup immediately burst into flames on impact. The flames raced up the outside of the passenger door and engulfed Jeanne Claassen's face in flames. The Claassen's son, Matt, was seated between Bill and Jeanne in the pickup. Bill struggled to get Matt out of the truck before returning to rescue his wife. He was unable to rescue her and was convinced that she had died in the fire. Witnesses who arrived on the scene immediately after the collision heard Bill telling his son that his mommy had died and gone to heaven. Jeanne Claassen survived and is still recovering today. Her face and head permanently disfigured, she has not been able to return to her job as a medical technician. They are reluctant to take her back because of her appearance. She continues to undergo painful surgery to regain some semblance of her former self. Her young son Matt often relives that nightmare in his school drawings, once drawing an igloo engulfed in flames. He sometimes has trouble relating to the different way his mother now looks. The Claassens are currently in litigation to recover damages from the two parties involved in this accident, the driver of the other car and the General Motors Corp. that manufactured the truck. The driver of the other car has no personal assets, and her insurance will only cover some of Jeanne's many continual medical expenses. General Motors has been under criticism for refusing to recall the 1973 and later models of the C/K pickups. These model trucks have the fuel tanks outside of the frame rail of the vehicle, making them more susceptible to the type of accidents like Jeanne Claassen's. By eliminating joint and several liability for noneconomic damages, this legislation will make it potentially more difficult for Jeanne Claassen to be compensated for her loss if the court rules in her favor. The driver of the other car is insolvent, and once the insurance money runs out, GM will not necessarily have to chip in to cover expenses. But Mrs. Claassen's pain and suffering will continue. This legislation says that it really does not matter about her, it does not matter about the exploding fuel tank when awarding noneconomic damages. If one of them cannot pay, if one of the defendants cannot pay, we will just stick it to Mrs. Claassen. But--and here is the rub in this bill--if Mrs. Claassen was a CEO making millions of dollars a year for a major corporation, this bill would not hesitate to take care of her economic losses. She does not have a big economic loss, but she has personal losses. She has pain and suffering. She has a lot of loss in her life. This bill says, tough luck. If she had been the CEO of a major corporation making 20 million bucks a year, this bill would have been for her. But not for this Mrs. Claassen. What kind of discrimination against human beings are we about to engage in if we approve this conference report? Mr. President, there are a lot of things I object to in this bill, but that is what I find most objectionable--economic losses are more important than human losses, pure and simple. If you have money, this bill is for you. But if you suffer the loss of consortium, if you suffer the loss of one of your family, pain and suffering, disfigurement, sorry, you are out of luck. Under this bill, Mrs. Claassen would be out of luck. The elimination of joint liability for noneconomic damages forces our legal system to make a value judgment based upon your economic worth, and that is why this bill is so antiwoman and antifamily. Last, let me just talk about capping punitive damages. I think I heard earlier the Senator from Connecticut saying $250,000 is a lot of money. Mr. President, I have here a list of the amount of money made by CEO's of our major corporations. I figured out how long it would take to reach the cap of $250,000. The CEO of Boeing makes $1.4 million a year. It would take 9 weeks of his salary to reach this cap. Do you think that is going to be a deterrent to Boeing? IBM, it would take 5 weeks. Sears & Roebuck, it would take 1 month. That is not a deterrent. When this bill first came to the floor, in good faith I offered an amendment which I thought would tend to balance things out. I am opposed to caps, but I said if you are going to have a cap, let us put the cap at twice the annual compensation of the CEO of the corporation. That way it protects small businesses because, if you are a CEO of a small business, you do not have much money every year so you would have less exposure, but if you are a CEO making $20 million a year, well, then twice that would be the limit on the cap. I lost on that amendment, but to me it still makes better sense than what we have in this bill of saying $250,000 or twice the compensatory damages, whichever is greater. This defeats the purpose of the deterrent effect of the product liability laws. They have made a difference. Ford Motor Co. redesigned the Pinto only after a $125 million lawsuit was awarded in which a 13-year-old boy was severely burned when the Pinto he was riding in burst into flames.

Mr. HARKIN. Yet evidence showed Ford Motor Co. knew it was a faulty design, but they went ahead anyway because they said it would cost less to have to pay it out in damages than to redesign the car. Mr. President, what this bill does is it lets those tort feasors off the hook. I know my time is up. I could go on and on. Quite frankly, we should not say that simply because you make a lot of money you are going to get awarded more damages, more punitive damages will be assessed against someone if you make more money than if you are a homemaker or a child or an elderly person. That is discrimination of the worst sort. I hope and I trust we will not invoke cloture on this bill and that we can continue to abide by the principles of individual work and responsibility and accountability in our country. I thank the Senator for yielding me this time.

Mr. HARKIN. I have never heard of this. Can I ask a question?

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. Chairman, I concur with your remarks. It would be appropriate to continue these efforts to secure effective telemedicine services for rural communities and to use existing, approved projects where possible. hcfa research and demonstrations

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I thank my colleague.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield?

Mr. HARKIN. I understand. I do not want to add to the problems our distinguished chairman has with this bill. I was hoping perhaps the Finance Committee and others would approve of this and let it go on through. As I said, I know it is authorization, but we have other authorizing things that are in this bill, too. But I understand for some reason there are some who do not want this on this bill. I had hoped we could have prevailed on this, but I understand the chairman's position on this. I know he is in a position where he has to try to get this bill through. We do not want to hold it up any longer. We want to get it through as soon as possible. There are some very important things in this bill, like education and other things that we got in it, that I hope we can hold. With the assurance of the chairman that perhaps we can find some other vehicle to get this thing through this year, Mr. President, I then ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am back on the floor today to try to attack the problem I have spoken about many times over the years, a problem I have been working on, first as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee dealing with labor, health, human services, and education, and now as ranking member of that under the able leadership of Senator Specter. I have been for years working on the waste, fraud, and abuse situation, particularly as it pertains to the Medicare Program. I have asked for and obtained over the last several years many investigations by the GAO and by the Inspector General's Office of HHS. Quite frankly, Mr. President, what they have come up with is just startling. I am not going to take the time of the Senate here today. I have spoken about this many times before on the Senate floor. Again, every day that we put off attacking this problem and making the necessary changes is a day that wastes, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse, money that is going out and not coming back, money of our taxpayers that is being wasted. How extensive is this, Mr. President? The General Accounting Office and others have estimated that up to 10 percent of health care expenditures in Medicare is lost every year to fraud, waste, and abuse. Well, 10 percent of what? Medicare this year is spending about $180 billion. So 10 percent of that is $18 billion. GAO has said about up to that much is being lost every year. As we know, we are trying to find some savings in Medicare to reach a balanced budget, to make the Medicare system more secure, to make sure that it meets its obligations through the next 7 years. Quite frankly, the trustees have said we need about $89 billion to do that over the next 7 years. Obviously, if we are wasting $18 billion a year and we are talking about 7 years, we are talking about $126 billion going out for waste, fraud, and abuse during that period of time. Assuming that we cannot save every dollar, we cannot end every iota of waste and abuse--which I wish we could--if we could only save 60 percent of it, or 50 percent of it, we would be well on or way toward finding that $89 billion. Common sense dictates that waste, fraud, and abuse should be the first target of any responsible plan to reduce Medicare expenditures. I am pleased, on a bipartisan basis, the Appropriations Committee--and I especially want to pay tribute to the good work of Senator Specter and our chairman, Senator Hatfield, for their help in doing this--the Appropriations Committee agreed to my amendment to this bill to restore the cut in funding for the HHS inspector general to tackle this problem. The amendment I am offering today builds on that. It is very similar to an amendment I offered last year, I regret to say, unsuccessfully, to the budget reconciliation bill. However, we did get, I believe, 44 votes on that, and I know that a lot of Senators I talked to since that time now, I think, have a deeper appreciation for the magnitude of what we are talking about in terms of waste and abuse. I am hopeful that we might gain even more votes on this amendment yet. This amendment I offer would significantly expand the abuse-fighting activities that have been proven to save money, strengthen the penalties for committing fraud, cut waste in Medicare payments by insisting on greater competition, as well as through the use of state- of-the-art private sector technologies. It would provide new incentive to consumers and providers to expose Medicare abuses and would reduce excessive paperwork and duplicative forms. Mr. President, this proposal just makes common sense. It would reduce the budget deficit. The CBO estimated the nearly identical amendment I offered last year would have reduced the deficit by $4.8 billion over 7 years. I am convinced, however, based on years of analysis by the GAO and the inspector general and others, that this would save much more money than that. For example, every dollar invested in antifraud activities by the inspector general and the Justice Department results in significant savings to taxpayers. I have a chart here to show that. Mr. President, this is a chart showing the savings per employee. From 1991 to 1995; this is from the inspector general's office, HHS: If you take every employee, including the secretaries, that are in the inspector general's office, the savings per employee, 1991, was $4.8 million, and it has gone up to $9.7 million last year. Now, talking about the savings per dollar spent. For every dollar we put into the inspector general's office last year, they returned $115 to the taxpayers of this country. Let me reemphasize that: For every $1 that we put into the inspector general's office, they returned back-- this is real money; this is not phony money; this is money they actually brought back or stopped from being paid out--$115 they returned to the taxpayers for every $1 we put into the inspector general's office. Yet their efforts to stop Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse are underfunded. In addition, efforts to combat health care fraud and abuse are not coordinated adequately between Federal, State, and local agencies. As a result, many fraud schemes move from State to State to avoid detection. I point out, Mr. President, because of the underfunding of the inspector general's office, right now there are 24 States in which there is no presence by the inspector general's office. Not only that, Mr. President, you wonder why there is so much waste, fraud, and abuse? Right now, less than 5 percent of the payments are audited. If you have 24 States in which there is not even an inspector general's presence, and you only audit, say, 3 to 5 percent of the claims, you can see the chances of being caught are pretty slim. That is why we need to invest more in fighting waste, fraud, and abuse. This amendment would change that by more than doubling our investment in fighting fraud and abuse. The Medicare trust fund would invest directly in these efforts, providing a stable, adequate source of funding, and reaping a huge return in savings to Medicare. The amendment would also require greater coordination of Federal, State, and local law enforcement efforts to combat health care fraud. All agencies investigating health care fraud and abuse will share information and otherwise coordinate activities, since fraudulent schemes are often replicated in different health programs. The fight against Medicare fraud and abuse is also limited by inadequate sanctions and loopholes in the law that make it easier for offenders to escape any penalty. This amendment would strengthen sanctions against providers who rip off Medicare. Those convicted of health care fraud and felonies related to controlled substances would be kicked out of Medicare. Penalties for those found to have provided kickbacks, charged Medicare excessive fees, or submitted false claims or otherwise abusive activities--the penalties would be increased. Maximum fines would be increased from $2,000 to $10,000 for violation. In addition, fines could be imposed on HMO's and other managed care plans for abusive activities. No such penalty exists under current law. Mr. President, think about this: Right now the maximum fine if you submitted a false claim or otherwise abusive activities is $2,000. That is hardly an incentive for someone to stop this practice when they may be filing false claims for thousands and thousands of dollars a year. Again, Mr. President, a lot of times these claims come in, and if they are ever caught they just claim they made a mistake, just made a mistake. Well, the fines and penalties is just a slap on the wrist, and off they go. I must tell you, Mr. President, after looking at this for the last almost 7 years now, I am convinced that there is absolutely near zero kind of a sanction or a threat of sanction against anyone filing false claims or abusive activities. Lastly, right now a managed care plan that submits the claims for the group itself, right now, no fine or no such penalty can be imposed on those HMO's, an invitation to raid the Medicare trust fund. Mr. President, this amendment would also strengthen criminal remedies available to combat health care fraud and abuse by creating a new health care fraud statute, authorizing forfeiture of property gained through the commission of health care fraud. Well, if we can have forfeiture of property for controlled substances, then if people commit fraud against the health care system and they gain property by doing so, we ought to have that right of forfeiture. It creates a criminal statute prohibiting obstruction of criminal health care investigations and provides other legal tools to go after criminal health care fraud cases. This is all in my amendment as a result of, as I have said, over 7 years of investigations by my subcommittee and by the GAO and the inspector general's office. These hearings, along with the IG's office, have repeatedly documented massive losses to Medicare due to excessive payments for equipment, services and other items. For example, Medicare pays over $3,000 a year to rent portable oxygen concentrators that only cost $1,000 to buy. Mr. President, I was on a radio program, a call-in radio show, as I am sure all of us do in our own States, WMT radio in Cedar Rapids, several weeks ago. I was talking about this Medicare fraud and abuse. I had a caller call in. We found out who he was and we later got hold of him. He has been on an oxygen concentrator now for 4 years. The rent has been $300 a month. Medicare pays it. He has been on it for 4 years. Medicare pays $300 a month, or $3,600 a year for 4 years. They paid over $14,000 in rent. They could have bought it for $1,000. That is the kind of abuses that are taking place. We found cases where Medicare is paying up to $2.32 for a gauze pad that the Veterans Administration purchases for 4 cents. Also, a recent series of reports by the HHS inspector general found that Medicare had been billed for such outrageous items as a trip to Italy to inspect a piece of sculpture, country club memberships for executives, golf shop gift certificates, and Tiffany crystal pictures for executives. These items are not specifically disallowed as indirect costs to Medicare. My amendment closes that loophole. That is a fact. Right now, an executive or health care provider can take a trip, write it off, and have Medicare pay for it. My amendment would also end Medicare's wasteful reimbursement practices with regard to durable medical equipment, medical supplies, and other items by requiring competitive bidding to assure Medicare gets the best price possible. This system has been successfully used by many in the private sector and the Veterans' Administration. For example, take the oxygen concentrator I just spoke about. While Medicare pays over $3,000 a year to rent it, the Veterans' Administration pays less than half that much every year for the same oxygen concentrators, many times from the same company, the same supplier. Why? Because the Veterans' Administration engages in competitive bidding and Medicare does not. When I tell audiences that in Iowa and other places around the country where I speak about this, they are dumbfounded. They say, you mean the Veterans' Administration puts out for competitive bids certain items that Medicare does not? I say, yes, Medicare has no competitive bidding, none whatsoever, zero. Well, now, it would seem to me that if you really want to have a really conservative approach to this, what we ought to do is mandate competitive bidding, like the Veterans' Administration does. I want to make this clear, also. Some people say, well, you cannot have competitive bidding because it would reduce the quality. Well, under my provision, quality standards would have to be maintained and access could not be reduced. In other words, we issue the quality standards and then say, OK, now you competitively bid on it. For the life of me, I cannot understand why, after all of these years, after all the documentation, after all the hearings and investigations that have gone on year after year, this Congress cannot pass legislation mandating competitive bidding for Medicare. I tell my audiences that, and they do not believe it. They absolutely do not believe that Medicare does not engage in competitive bidding. Well, they do not and, to this day, we have not mandated that they do so. Last year, I finally got the Director of HCFA, Health Care Financing Administration, who administers Medicare, to agree that, yes, they could utilize competitive bidding and, yes, it could be implemented and, yes, it would save them money. So the head of the agency himself says it will save them money. He says they can do it. Yet, this Congress will not let them do it. So I say to people around America, if you are mad, if you are upset about all the waste in Medicare, do not take it out on Medicare because they are only doing what the Congress tells them to do. The Congress, so far, has told them you cannot engage in competitive bidding. I must say, Mr. President, this really is the heart of this amendment. It is the guts of this amendment. Oh, we can dance around the edges, we can provide increased penalties, which we ought to do, and which this amendment does, and we can provide for more computers and software to catch these practices, and this amendment does that; but if you adopted all those and still did not adopt competitive bidding, Medicare will be throwing billions of dollars away in wasteful spending because we would not be getting the best deal for the taxpayer. What would we do around here if the Defense Department did not engage in competitive bidding? What if they said they were going to go to contractors and say, ``What do you want for this piece of military equipment?'' And the contractor says, ``I want $1,000.'' We say, ``OK, that is what you will get.'' Now, if you think the stories about toilet seats that cost $600, and things like that which came up in the past are abusive, wait until you see some of the things that come out in Medicare. Well, I have a device--and we do not show things like that on the floor, but I have a blood glucose monitor, as small as the palm of my hand, which is used with people with diabetes; it tells them their glucose level. We found out Medicare is paying up to $211 for each one of these. I sent my staff to a local K-Mart, and they bought one for $49.99 Yet, Medicare is paying $211 for it. We got that one item stopped. It took a while to get it stopped. That will save about $25 million over 5 years. But that is just one item. Mr. President, we also found, thanks to the good work of the GAO, that while Medicare once led the health care industry in technology for processing claims and preventing waste and abuse, it has fallen way behind. A recent report by the General Accounting Office found that, in 1994, $640 million in improper payments could be prevented if Medicare had employed commercially available detection software that is already used in the private sector. In fact, many of the same insurers that administer Medicare use this software to stop inappropriate payments for their private sector business. I had a witness testify before my subcommittee--I think it was last year or the year before maybe. Their organization is the claims processor for Medicare in the Northwestern part of the United States. They also process for their own individual claims--in this case with Blue Cross-Blue Shield. They told me that they have one set of software for what they do privately and another set for what they do for Medicare. Yet Medicare will not adopt what they use on the private side to catch and stop these abusive payments. This is a study that I had done. It came out in May 1995 from the GAO: ``Commercial Technology Could Save Billions Lost to Billing Abuse.'' Here is what it said. It said HCFA could save over $600 million annually by using commercial systems to detect code manipulation. Also beneficiaries--the people themselves--would save over $140 million a year that they are paying out of pocket to this code manipulation. There are a lot of examples here of unbundling. Here is one where a physician was paid for interpreting two xrays because he unbundled. He put it under two codes. He was paid $32. When the GAO investigated it, he should only have been paid $16 rather than $32. That may not sound like a bunch of money. But that is twice what he should have been paid, and multiply that by thousands and thousands every day throughout the Nation it adds up to real money. The GAO came up with a lot of examples of this. Let me say at the outset, is this doctor who submitted two charges when he should have only charged once being fraudulent? Maybe; maybe not. It may have been an honest mistake on that doctor's part. Maybe the nurse, or his assistant, or maybe his secretary, or his administrator who takes care of his billing said, ``Well, he took one x ray here and another x ray here. So that is two different things. So we will apply under two different codes.'' It could have been an honest mistake. Yet, he got paid $32 when he only should have been paid $16. Using commercially available software that we have on the market today that would have been stopped. Blue Cross would not have paid that. They would not have paid $32. They would have paid $16. So, again, whether it is an honest mistake, or whether a fraudulent claim, we need the software that will stop that. I might point out that GAO found out that only 8 percent of doctors had billed inappropriately--8 percent. So 92 percent of the doctors are doing just fine. But the 8 percent are the ones that are really digging into our pockets. That is why we need the software. So even if we adopted the software there would not be any impact on the vast majority of providers out there. So, Mr. President, my amendment would require Medicare contractors to employ this private sector commercial software within 180 days--6 months. What is the cost of this? GAO estimated the cost of doing this would be $20 million the first year and savings of over $600 million-- not a bad deal for the taxpayers and for the beneficiaries under Medicare. So, Mr. President, we know that Medicare beneficiaries and other health care consumers are the front line in detecting and reporting Medicare fraud and abuse. Currently though they have little information and incentive to aggressively watch for and report such activities. Likewise the providers lack the incentives to report problems. Let me relate what happened to me a couple of years ago. Shirley Pollock's--a constituent of mine in Atlantic, IA--mother-in-law had been in a nursing home for a few weeks. And when she got the Medicare report which said ``This is not a bill'' because Medicare paid the claim. On that Medicare claim it reported that Medicare had paid for over $5,000 in bandages for about 3 weeks of nursing home care. Shirley Pollock looked at this. Of course, it said, ``This is not a bill.'' She went to the nursing home, and said, ``I have been here with my mother-in-law. I know she did not use $5,000 worth of bandages in 3 weeks.'' She was told, ``Do not worry about it. You do not have to pay it anyway.'' I tell you. If you want to get heads nodding if you ever go to a senior citizens meeting, relate a story like that and you will see a lot of heads nod because the same things have happened to senior citizens all over this country. They get the report of what Medicare has paid. It says, ``This is not a bill.'' A lot of times they just throw it away because it says ``This is not a bill.'' And if they ever question the payment they are told, ``Do not worry about it. You do not have to pay it. Medicare pays it.'' Thank goodness for people like Shirley Pollock. She was not going to take that for an answer. She said, ``Someone is paying it, and it is not right.'' She got hold of my office. We looked into it, and found that was right. They should never have paid that. So we got that taken care of. But there is not enough incentive out there for people to come forward like that. So what my amendment does is make it easier for Medicare beneficiaries to check their bills for errors--first of all, by giving them assured access to itemized bills. It would also require that when beneficiaries receive their statements from Medicare they are asked to carefully review it, and to report any suspected problems to a listed toll-free number. Third, it would establish rewards of up to $10,000 for reports by consumers that lead to criminal convictions for health care fraud and up to 10 percent of amounts recovered from abusive billings. Three things: The first thing is itemization. I do not know how many of you have ever looked at a Medicare claim form; payment form. When these things come into Medicare, no itemization is required. You do not have to itemize. So a lot of the times, as GAO pointed out, Medicare is paying for things and they do not even know what is there. So, Mr. President, let say you are a provider and you submitted a bill to Medicare for $1,000. You do not have to itemize what that thousand dollars is for. Medicare pays you. But you obviously have an itemized list someplace because it makes up $1,000. So if you, as a provider, have the list, it would seem to me that itemized account ought to also be made available to the consumer so the consumer can look at it and see whether or not they got something. That ought to be available to Medicare, too. I know some people say, well, this is more paperwork. The fact is that the provider who is putting a claim on Medicare for reimbursement already has to have that itemized list. With the modern computers that we have that can read all this data, that is not a problem at all. One constituent of mine said, you know, it is like when you go to a grocery store and you pile your cart full of groceries and you go through the checkout counter. What if they just added up all your groceries and they gave you a bill and said, ``Here, your groceries are $83.50, but you don't get a an itemized list of what you bought.'' You would not stand for it. So just as easy as it is for a checkout counter in a grocery store to give you a long list of everything you bought and the number and how much it cost, the same thing could happen in Medicare for the services, the equipment and devices provided. Second, a little bit of an incentive. There is nothing like a little bit of incentive, so we provide for up to a $10,000 reward for any person who provides information that leads to a criminal conviction of health care fraud, and up to 10 percent of amounts recovered from abusive billings. So there would be an incentive in there for people to take a very careful look at what they are being billed. Mr. President, I have taken a lot of time, but I wanted to lay this out because this is a comprehensive plan to combat waste and abuse in Medicare and other health programs. It is a commonsense approach. I hope we can adopt it. It will save us money for the taxpayers. It will save the Medicare trust fund money. It will save beneficiaries money because there is a lot of this money that is out of pocket that they have to spend. I pointed out that GAO said that by having this new technology, it would save beneficiaries $140 million a year. So any way you cut it, I believe this is an amendment that will help make the Medicare system more sound, more secure, and save us in fraud, waste, and abuse. I do not know the disposition of the managers of the bill as to this amendment. It is my understanding that if this amendment were adopted, it would be approved by the administration. Yes, I just have had reassurance of that, that the administration would accept these provisions. As I said, I have spent several years of subcommittee investigations and my own time on this. There is nothing in this amendment that has not been carefully thought out and looked at by the Inspector General's Office, the Justice Department, the Health Care Finance Administration, and others to make sure that it will really do the job. So I hope it can be adopted and sent down to the White House, whatever happens to this bill otherwise, and get it approved and save us a lot of money. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to restore funding to the Community Oriented Policing [COPS] Program. Law enforcement officials from all across the country have told us loud and clear, that the COPS Program is one of the 1994 Crime Act's most effective programs. To those who want to slash the COPS program by 50 percent in favor of a block grant, I have this to say: ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' Consider this: Serious crime is retreating all across the United States. Nationally, murder rates fell 12 percent in the first 6 months of 1995 and serious crimes of all kinds dropped 1 to 2 percent. Law enforcement across the United States credit community policing for contributing to these declines. Now is not the time to cut back on our efforts to fight crime. And more importantly, to my constituents in Iowa, it is rural America that will pay the price if this amendment is not adopted. The COPS Program made a special commitment to include small towns and rural areas. half of all COPS funding goes to agencies serving jurisdictions of under 150,000 in population. Block grant funding favors larger populations so that even small towns with high crime rates would lose out. In 1995, Iowa received over $14 million to hire over 200 officers. Over 70 percent of law enforcement officers surveyed in my State, supported the COPS Program. Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the proposal to slash funding for the COPS Program is the loss of local control. Proponents traditionally argue that block grants increase local control. The crime prevention block grant proposed in the continuing resolution does no such thing. This initiative replaces a highly successful program that responds to public desire for an increased police presence with a program that merely gives money to State governments that may keep up to 15 percent before distributing the remainder to local governments. This is a significant departure from the COPS Program which funneled the funding directly to the local law enforcement agencies. The block grant approach to crime prevention invites the abuse of funds the COPS Program was created to eliminate, as well as doing away with effective crime prevention programs that worked hand in hand with community policing initiatives set up under the COPS Program. The block grant approach is an ineffective response to our Nation's war against crime and a sad departure from the successful efforts started under the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act. Community policing works. It is a flexible program that is responsive to law enforcement needs. More cops on the beat have an undeniable effect on crime and a community's sense of security. Nationwide, the COPS Program serves 87 percent of America with 33,000 officers. We should heed the advice of the folks that are on the frontlines in the fight against crime. I urge all my colleagues to support this important amendment to restore funding to the COPS Program.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I again want to express my appreciation to Senator Specter for his leadership in this area and for working not only with me personally but our staffs working very closely together to craft this amendment. This really does bring us to the point--maybe it is not all of what every one of us wants. I mean, we never get that around here, but at least it fills the need for getting the money out now to the school districts so that they know what to do next year. For summer youth, there are all the things that Senator Specter spoke about that we have to get through. We have the offsets to pay for it. Again, I want to thank Senator Specter for all of his diligent work in this. I want to again join Senator Specter in thanking our staffs. I know they worked long hours in putting these numbers together and working with Senator Domenici and Senator Hatfield and Senator Byrd on our side. So I think it is a well-crafted amendment, and I agree with Senator Specter that it deserves the support from both sides of the aisle. Mr. President, let me just in way of talking about this amendment talk a little bit about the past weekend in Iowa. Right now all of the basketball tournaments are taking place in the State. There is a lot of anxiety about who is going to win and who is going to lose. I would like to deviate a little bit, if I could, from the debate on this amendment, just for a moment, Mr. President, to recognize the newly crowned State champions in what we call the premier high school tournament in Iowa, the annual Girls State Basketball Championships. Winfield-Mount Union in class 1A, Sibley-Ocheyedan in class 2A--I saw that; it was a great game--Carroll in class 3A, and that was also a great game that I got to see. I missed the last game because I was not there for it, but it is my alma mater, West Des Moines Dowling girls, who won the State championship in class 4A. So I just want to say to all the teams that competed in the tournament, congratulations on your accomplishments, and to the winners, congratulations on winning. I might add, this week the best high school boys basketball teams make their annual trek to Des Moines for the final winner tournaments for the boys basketball games. So, again, there is a lot of anxiety in the State right now about who is going to win and who is going to lose. But I must say, Mr. President, the anxiety extends well beyond the gymnasium. In school after school in Iowa and across this country, school administrators and school boards are worrying about which teachers will lose their jobs and which students will not get title I reading assistance. They are contemplating what vocational education activities will go by the wayside and how to deal with the cuts for the safe and drug-free schools program. The list goes on. In January, I worked as a title I teacher at Johnson Elementary School in Cedar Rapids. I learned firsthand the value of title I, and my concern about the cuts were heightened. Late last month this article appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette: ``6 Schools to Lose Remedial Reading: Cedar Rapids District Sites Expected $350,000 Cut in Federal Funds.'' Mr. President, if we do not pass this amendment to that Senator Specter and I have joined on, if we do not pass this, nine teachers in Cedar Rapids will lose their jobs; 350 students who need extra help with reading at six elementary schools in Cedar Rapids will not get it next year. In Council Bluffs on the other side of the State, five teachers will lose their jobs, 113 fewer students will be helped. Of equal concern is the fact that the district will lose the investment they made to train three teachers in reading recovery, a short-term, intensive, one-on-one teaching technique that is showing great promise of quickly bringing first graders up to grade level in reading. The Iowa Department of Education estimates that across the State 7,300 fewer students will get title I assistance and 200 teachers will be laid off if this amendment is not adopted. This scenario will be repeated in every State and school district across the country. Secretary Riley estimates that 40,000 teachers will be laid off nationwide as a result of the $1.1 billion cut in title I. Mr. President, the sixth national education goal calls upon us to ensure that by the turn of the century every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in the global economy. But the deep cuts in job training programs will not lead us toward this goal. It signals a fast retreat. Next year, without this amendment, funding for dislocated worker training will be cut by 29 percent, and summer jobs for youth is totally eliminated. These cuts could not come at a worse time. You can hardly pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news without seeing yet another story about worker dislocations caused by downsizing. Last year, Federal JTPA funds assisted 105 workers who lost their jobs at Tyson Foods in LeMars, IA, and 85 individuals formerly employed by MCI in Sergeant Bluff, IA. The planned cuts in retraining for dislocated workers means next year 300 fewer Iowans will benefit from such assistance. However, the number of worker dislocations has not abated in my State. FDL Foods has announced layoffs in Dubuque and Eveready Battery is closing its plant in Red Oak, IA. Unfortunately, with cuts of this magnitude in job training, many of these people will not get the assistance they need. Mr. President, the bill before the Senate restores many of these cuts, but only if we pass some other bill in the future to pay for them. That is the underlying bill. That is a mistake. Schools cannot budget based on a contingency. School districts need to know now what they will receive next fall. In Iowa, the final deadline for making decisions on teacher hires is April 30, but many districts are already making those decisions. Without a firm commitment now, across the country thousands of teachers will get the pink slip for next year. Mr. President, we should pay for this up front, not based on some contingency that might happen, but pay for it now. That is what this compromise bipartisan amendment does that Senator Specter and I are introducing. Again, Senator Specter and our staffs have worked long and hard to craft this compromise. It is certainly not everything that I would like or anyone else would like, but it is a giant leap from where we are. The offsets were difficult to come by this late in the fiscal year, but we did it. I wish we could do more, but I believe this is an honest and reasonable effort to avoid devastating cuts in education and job training. I urge all of my colleagues to support it. Mr. President, Iowa's schools stand to lose almost $12 million in education funds next year. Title I will fall by $8.6 million. These cuts would be devastating to my State. Those are not my words. In a February 27 news article announcing the plan to cut title I from Cedar Rapids' Van Buren School, this is what the school's principal, Mary Lehner, had to say: ``It's just going to be devastating for kids. I am very concerned about those students who need the extra help with those reading skills.'' These concerns are not only being expressed by school officials but by business owners. Mr. President, I got an interesting letter here from a business owner in Carroll, IA, Mr. Tom Farner, of the Farner- Bocken Co. It is interesting what he said: It has come to our attention that the Federal Government is planning to cut title I Reading Program by 17 percent. We feel this will hurt the quality of our labor force not only for the State of Iowa but in the Carroll region. Our business does not require a lot of skill but it does demand for our employees to be able to read picking labels and invoices. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent this letter from Mr. Tom Farner be printed in the Record, along with other pertinent correspondence from Iowa constituents.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, it is not just the teachers who are saying this, but business people say they need people who can read. Although they may not need highly skilled people, at least they have to be able to read and understand. Mr. President, our amendment will provide the offsets to pay for the increases in education and training programs recommended by title IV of this legislation. Again, we believe we have to provide for these now, not at some possible point in the future, as is in the underlying bill. The last thing we need to do is get mired down in the same old stuff that has already shut down the Government twice before. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, to match the desire to avert the education cuts with the resources to make sure the cuts will not happen. We need to make sure that the add-ons are paid for now so that teachers will not lose their jobs, children will continue to get title I services, and workers will get the training assistance they need to remain competitive. In closing, Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Specter for his work in this area and thank our staffs for putting this together. No one likes to make cuts, but we have made these offsets, and I believe the offsets are good and the money will go to all of the things that Senator Specter mentioned: Summer youth employment program, dislocated workers, school to work, Head Start, Goals 2000, of course title I, which I talked a lot about, drug-free schools, educational technology, Perkins loan and SSIG for higher education. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Wellstone be added as a cosponsor of this amendment.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I strongly support passage of the Hollings amendment. We need to keep our Nation on the cutting edge in technology and the amendment helps to do that. It helps businesses bring creative ideas into the international marketplace. It promotes finding more efficient technologies to reduce environmental problems and it helps educational institutions provide the tools they need to teach our children with the latest computer technology. I want to particularly note the debt collection provisions contained in the amendment. Because of those provisions, CBO has scored the amendment as fully paid for. The debt collection provisions are complicated. But, its goal is very simple: The Government needs to systematically do a better job of collecting the money that is owed to it. And, it does a pretty poor job of doing that now. Many may not like the debt collector. But, if the Government does not collect, other taxpayers must make the payment instead. That is not fair. The United States has billions of dollars in uncollected debts. School loans unpaid, businesses that did not pay back the SBA, farmers who did not pay their loans, all kinds of debts. Yet, the Government is writing checks to some of those same people month after month for various payments anyway. The Government is making new loans on top of the old ones. And, those who do not pay, usually suffer no damage to their credit ratings. Under this measure, that changes. First, the collection of bad debts are more centralized and given to staff who focus on collecting those debts, including when necessary private attorneys. Second, the Government can start garnishing most kinds of government payments. Third, the Government is not going to make new loans or loan guarantees to those who don't pay their debts. Fourth, the Government is going to act like most businesses and will pass the information on to credit agencies. Fifth, the Government is going to be able to more efficiently forclose on property. And, the measure provides for a lot of other provisions that makes it more likely that different parts of the Government will work together to make collecting bad debts a priority. The amendment also makes these methods available to collect delinquent child care payments. Few causes are more significant to the cause of children living in poverty and women going on welfare than the failure of parents to support the child. And, I very strongly feel that the Government should do more in that area.

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