Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. No. I am only saying I will stop 2 minutes ahead in order to reserve that time for the Senator from Florida or the Senator from Minnesota. If they are not able to come, then I think we should close the debate because Members are waiting to vote.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Would it be possible for the Senator to let me have 2 minutes, perhaps, toward the end, in case Senator Graham of Florida and Senator Grams from Minnesota, who have both requested time, arrive? We are getting down to the end, so I do not want to foreclose them if they do show. If they do not, I think we should go forward.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, let me inquire of the Senator from Wisconsin if he is ready to finish. I will go ahead and close out the debate if we are ready to close earlier. What was his intention?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield 2 minutes.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, how many minutes remain on our side?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to be notified in 5 minutes because I have two other speakers who have asked for time. I know we are running the clock down now. Let me just refute a couple of the points that have been made. First of all, for over 100 years in this country, States have been able to determine what the homestead exemption would be. In some States a homestead would be valued at $15,000 while in other States it might be $215,000. California and Florida have higher valuations on homesteads. So I think a one-size-fits-all approach is not in anyone's best interests. The Senator from Alabama, who is my friend, talks about a $50 million mansion. I do not know of anyone who has a $50 million mansion on one acre of land, because the standard in Texas happens to be on the number of acres rather than on valuations. That was put in our Constitution. This would be overriding our Constitution. It would override the Kansas Constitution. There are other States that believe so strongly in the right of a person to be able to keep a homestead for children or for an elderly person that they do not put in a dollar valuation, they put in an acreage valuation. In Texas, it is one acre. That is for urban homesteads. I think you can talk about a $50 million mansion, but that is not reality here. What I think we ought to do, when we are making policy that is this important, is say: How much damage are we going to do to people who are trying to restructure their lives in order to get a few people who may abuse the system? We have had GAO studies, we have had all kinds of studies, that have showed that maybe 1 percent of the people are not doing right by the system. But we have taken one important step to stop that abuse, which will apply in this bill if it is passed, and that is that you cannot declare a homestead exemption on a home that is bought within 2 years of declaring bankruptcy. So the idea is if someone is going to leave all their debts in Florida and move to Alabama to buy a house and claim bankruptcy, there are safeguards against that by requiring that the person live there 2 years before they can declare bankruptcy. So they cannot flee bankruptcy to go buy a homestead and be protected. And, second, the bankruptcy laws today and in the new law always provide for fraud, that you can go after someone who has fraudulently transferred assets. I do think we have fraud addressed in this bill. We get down, though, to the bottom line. That is, this has been a States rights issue for 132 years. People in Alabama may do it differently from people in Florida. People in Wisconsin may do it differently from the way they do it in Texas. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with people in Idaho having the ability to set their own standards for homestead exemptions? What is wrong with a rural- dominated State having a different standard from an urban-dominated State? This country was formed with the thought that States would have the right to make State laws where they are closest to the people. Only a very few laws are made at the Federal level. I think that is a good standard. I think it is good the Federal Government has allowed the States, for over 132 years, to set homestead exemptions. I hope we will keep that 132-year precedent. I think it has worked. I would love to support this bill. I want debtors to have to pay the people they owe. I have been in a small business, and I have had people stiff me. I know what it is. I know what it is to have to pay my workers regardless of the fact that I am not being paid by people to whom I have supplied products. I will not support this bill unless we allow the States the right to have the homestead exemption be set State by State. I want to tighten up the laws. I think that is the right thing to do. But we do not have to preempt the States rights in this area. I think it will be a better bill if we do not. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I was diverted. I didn't hear the unanimous consent request.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, if I could take a moment to explain the amendment. We have agreed to 30 minutes equally divided. I would then turn it over to Senator Kohl to explain the underlying amendment. Basically, Senator Kohl and Senator Sessions are going to try to put a cap on the homestead exemption that would apply uniformly to every State. I think that is a mistake because every State is different. The valuation of property is different in every State. This does not make any allowance for those variations in property. The Kohl-Sessions amendment has a $100,000 cap in bankruptcy proceedings on homestead exemptions, but the median value of a home in California is over $215,000; in Oklahoma it is $92,500. So right there you can see there are differences in America. Secondly, 11 homestead exemptions around the country would be immediately overturned if we have a Federal standard for a homestead exemption. The States of Florida, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Texas, Minnesota, Nevada, Oklahoma, California, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island would all have their caps lifted in favor of a Federal rule that would attempt to be one size fits all. In my home State of Texas, it is actually a constitutional provision; it is not a statute. It does not refer to money at all. It refers to acreage. There is the urban acreage and there is the rural acreage. So I think it is very important that we have the ability to address this by every individual State. For 130 years in our country, the Federal Government has allowed the States the ability to set its own laws in this area. The homestead exemption does differ State to State. For 130 years, the Federal Government has said the States may do this. The Kohl-Sessions amendment would overturn the 130 years of precedence and have a national standard, a one-size-fits-all approach. That reminds me of a lot of other Federal Government programs. I am sure it rings true with other Americans because that is the Federal approach: One size fits all. We do not need one size fits all. For 130 years, we have not had it. In this country the States have done very well in setting their own homestead exemptions--what works for them, what works for the elderly in their States, what works for families in my State of Texas--and they do not want to take homes away from the elderly who are most susceptible to having health crises. That would take away their savings. That might put them into financial difficulty. They do not want to throw the elderly people out of their homes, even if their homestead might be valued at over $100,000, the median value. Secondly, what if it is a young family where the wage earner gets into financial difficulty? Do we want to put a family out on the streets? This has been sacrosanct in my State and in many other States; that whatever we were doing to try to make people pay their debts--and we do want people to pay their debts--we don't want to make them wards of the State. We want their families to be able to continue to have a roof over their heads while they are working out of their financial difficulties. I support the concept of this bill. I commend Senator Grassley for working hard to improve the bankruptcy laws in our country. But the amendment that is before us today would take away 130 years of preemption by the States to create their own homestead exemptions, especially rural States where farms may have a bigger valuation. They don't want to make people who are in financial difficulty wards of the State. Let me show two very important letters from the State leaders of our country. The National Governors' Association, in a letter signed by Governor Jim Hodges and Governor John Rowland, wrote: We also urge you to resist efforts to impose a uniform nationwide cap on homestead exemptions. The ability to determine their own homestead exemptions has been a long- standing authority of states. Furthermore, the median price of a single family home varies widely from state to state. A one-size-fits-all approach is simply not appropriate when the median home price may be more than two-and-a-half times as high in one state as it is in another. The second letter is from the National Conference of State Legislatures. It says: The [National Conference of State Legislatures] is concerned, however, that an amendment may be offered during Senate consideration that would preempt state laws by setting a cap of $100,000 on homestead exemptions, thus forcing debtors with over $100,000 in homestead equity to sell their homes and farms. Recent real estate trends have shown that in all but four states, the median price of a single family home is well over $100,000. While state legislators believe that the bankruptcy code should strongly encourage consumers to pay their debts to the extent possible, my colleagues and I would be equally concerned about the disruption to family life, particularly the harsh impact on the children of debtors that may result by the establishment of such a limit on homestead exemptions. We have the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Governors' Association speaking for the State leadership saying this is an area that should be left to the States. It has been left to the States for 130 years. We do not need to overturn 130 years of laws that are working in individual States. I hope we can pass this bill. I certainly will support the Kohl amendment, if we have the State ability to opt out. That is the key. I think if we can have that kind of accommodation, then it will be a good amendment. Let the States decide for themselves if $100,000 is right for them. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. KOHL addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I offer a second-degree amendment to the pending amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with my colleague, Senator Stevens, the Child Support Enforcement Options Act of 1999. This bill will give parents the tools and options they need to made sure their children have the resources they need to get a good start in life. This bill will provide local public agencies and private attorneys access to certain child support enforcement procedures and information not currently available to them. To obtain this access, however, a local public agency or private attorney would first have to obtain a certificate of registration from the Secretary of the Federal Department of Health and Human Services and agree to certain federal requirements and procedures in using the enforcement tools. Mr. President, in recent years Congress created a number of new information gathering and child support enforcement tools to enable some child support enforcement agencies to better enforce support awards. Unfortunately, these new tools are not available to hundreds of governmental and a growing number of private collection entities which many parents must use or choose to use. These so-called ``non IV-D'' entities have limited or no access to some new and effective federal collection tools. This legislation will extend these tools to so-called ``non IV-D'' entities that are properly approved and monitored by the Department of Health and Human Services. Specifically, the bill will allow non-IV-D government agencies and private collection firms to be able to submit cases for the interception of Federal and State tax refunds for the collection of unpaid child support, in accordance with Federal and State statutory guidelines; to seek passport sanctions against delinquent parents; to report unpaid child support to credit bureaus; and to obtain current location and asset information on parents who owe child support. In addition, the bill provides that unemployment compensation benefits would be subject to income withholding for child support obligations in all child support cases, not just those enforced by a IV-D agency, as current law allows. Mr. President, my bill will cost the Federal Government minimal or no additional funds. Nor will it impose any significant obligation on state or local child support agencies, since all government agencies would be allowed under the bill to charge necessary fees to non-IV-D agencies with which they share this information. What this bill will do is take a significant step toward collecting on the estimated $57 billion in overdue child support owed in this country. Many states and local child support agencies are simply overwhelmed and unable to effectively and timely enforce the tens of millions of child support awards in this country. Far from undermining their role in this process, the Child Support Enforcement Options Act will help them accomplish the mutual goal of making sure that child support is collected and delivered to where it is needed the most--to the children to whom it is owed. Particularly for families on welfare or other public assistance, child support is often critical to make ends meet. It helps put food on the table, clothes in the closet, and gas in the car. When a non- custodial parent reneges on his or her obligation to provide that support, it is incumbent upon the government to help enforce that award, through whatever means are available to the struggling custodial parent. In my opinion, any other consideration is secondary, and I am hopeful and confident that my colleagues in the Senate will agree and will work to pass this important legislation.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Bonus Incentive Act of 1999. I am joined in introducing this bill by my colleagues, Senators Nickles, Brownback, Voinovich, Ashcroft, Craig, Enzi, and Thomas. This important legislation will give America's hourly wage workers the same ability to receive performance-based bonuses that salaried employees currently have. Mr. President, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers who give performance-based bonuses (usually at the end of the year) must go back and recalculate each employee's hourly base rate of pay and thus any overtime pay they received must be adjusted accordingly. Often, the employer must spend many hours of accountants' time for relatively minor adjustments in overtime pay. This unnecessary and overly burdensome requirement discourages many employers (those who even know about this obscure provision) from providing a performance-based bonus system to their hourly wage employees, while salaried or ``exempt'' employees can enjoy such bonuses. Other employers attempt to comply with the law by reclassifying bonuses as not being performance-based. The net result of this law has been to hamper the productivity of the American worker and to trap unwary employers with unnecessary paperwork and even fines. My legislation, the companion of which has been passed by the House Education and Workforce Committee, would allow performance-based bonuses to be paid to employees without the need to recalculate overtime pay, provided that employees are made fully aware of the requirements of receiving such bonuses and provided that such bonuses are not used as a substitute for hourly pay. Mr. President, when the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was enacted in 1938, over 60 years ago, employers typically rewarded only their management personnel for the level of their achievement with performance-based bonuses. Such bonus programs for employees were very rare. But times have changed, and so has the American workplace. With the rise of the service-sector, post-industrial economy, increased competition from overseas, and the growing importance of workplace productivity and efficiency, ``gainsharing'' and other performance- based bonus programs for workers are commonplace. Such programs are as varied as they are common. The model that comes first to mind is a bonus based on the number of items a factory worker produces in a month, quarter, or year. But gainsharing programs are equally effective in the service sector. Pam Farr, former senior vice president for Marriott Lodging and now president of the Cabot Advisory Group, recently testified before the House Education and the Workforce Committee that Marriott used gainsharing plans for housekeeping and customer service personnel that rewarded employees for the cleanliness of rooms, and customer service evaluations. Cordant Technologies, which makes solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle, rewards its workers for achieving goals involving workplace safety, customer satisfaction, and indirect cost reduction. Whatever type of gainsharing arrangement an employer may have, there can be no doubt that these programs increase workers' pay, productivity, and contribute to higher customer satisfaction and better workplace relations. Studies have demonstrated that employees who participate in gainsharing arrangements on average receive about 5 to 10 percent more pay from such participation, and many bonus programs allow employees to increase their base pay by as much as 50 percent. Employees who participate in these programs also report being more satisfied on the job and to have a more positive attitude toward their employer. A 1981 survey by the General Accounting Office found that over 80 percent of firms they interviewed reported improvements in labor-management relations from such programs. Grievances in such companies dropped 50 percent, and absenteeism by 20 percent when gainsharing was offered to workers. Unfortunately, the majority of performance-based bonus programs are offered only to one segment of the American workforce: those employees who are salaried and therefore ``exempt'' from many of the strictures of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The other 70-plus million Americans who get paid by the hour are precluded from fully participating in these programs. Why is this? If performance bonuses work so well, why aren't they offered to more hourly wage workers? The answer is that the 61-year-old FLSA requires that when such bonuses are provided to hourly workers, the employer must then re- calculate each employee's ``regular rate'' of pay, which in turn requires a recalculation of worker's overtime pay. This process of recalculating employee overtime can consume substantial administrative time, often for very little in the way of additional overtime pay. One human resources director testified before Congress that it took four people 160 hours to calculate the bonuses for 235 employees. This requirement can be particularly burdensome for many of the nation's millions of small businesses that may not have computer hardware and software that can run these types of calculations. For employers who must try to do these calculations by hand, it can be such a headache that the employer will either drop the bonus program altogether or simply ignore the law, both of which are obviously undesirable outcomes. The Bonus Incentive Act I am introducing today will alleviate this unnecessary and counterproductive requirement, and allow all employees to participate equally in gainsharing programs. In fact, by extending these programs to hourly wage employees who, on average, make less than their salaried counterparts, this bill could be a significant shot-in- the-arm to their take home pay. The Employee Policy Foundation reports that a median wage U.S. worker could earn between an additional $17,000 and $26,000 over a 20-year period by participating in a performance- based bonus plan. Why would anyone oppose this bill, Mr. President? It is good for employers and employees alike. It means less paperwork and more pay, less bureaucracy and more productivity. Some have raised the concern that employers may somehow attempt to disguise regular hourly pay as gainsharing bonuses. While it would take a very ambitious employer to make such a scheme profitable, particularly considering the impact such conduct would have on employee morale, there are protections in the bill against such a possibility. First, the employer must provide all employees, in writing, a detailed description of what the requirements and benefits of the gainsharing plan will be. The actual formula by which the bonus is to be calculated must also be spelled-out. There can be no doubt about what the employee would be required to do and what he or she would stand gain. Second, the employer is absolutely prohibited from using a performance-based bonus to in any way replace the hourly wage pay the employee would otherwise have received. In fact, the bill requires that the plan be ``established and maintained in good faith for the purpose of distributing to employees additional remuneration over and above the wages and salaries that are not dependent upon the existence of such plan.'' If an employer should violate this and, for example, but workers pay and substitute that for bonus pay, that employer would be subject to the same civil and even criminal sanctions as he would for any violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is vigorously enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division. But the truth is, Mr. President, that there is very little reason for employers today to abuse this provision, and every reason in the world to use it for the betterment of employees and to the long-term success of the company. If the tremendous economic revolution and growth we have witnessed in the last two decades has taught us anything, it is that wealth is not a zero-sum game. Our economy continues to outstrip that of the rest of the world not because we have more natural resources: other countries have more oil, gold, timber, and other resources than we. It is because the productive capacity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship of the American people is allowed to flourish under our system. Outdated laws such as this must be revised if we are to continue to enjoy the growing fruits of our labor. The Bonus Incentive Act will help accomplish this goal, and I urge my colleagues to support and pass it.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with my colleague, Senator Stevens, the Child Support Enforcement Options Act of 1999. This bill will give parents the tools and options they need to made sure their children have the resources they need to get a good start in life. This bill will provide local public agencies and private attorneys access to certain child support enforcement procedures and information not currently available to them. To obtain this access, however, a local public agency or private attorney would first have to obtain a certificate of registration from the Secretary of the Federal Department of Health and Human Services and agree to certain federal requirements and procedures in using the enforcement tools. Mr. President, in recent years Congress created a number of new information gathering and child support enforcement tools to enable some child support enforcement agencies to better enforce support awards. Unfortunately, these new tools are not available to hundreds of governmental and a growing number of private collection entities which many parents must use or choose to use. These so-called ``non IV-D'' entities have limited or no access to some new and effective federal collection tools. This legislation will extend these tools to so-called ``non IV-D'' entities that are properly approved and monitored by the Department of Health and Human Services. Specifically, the bill will allow non-IV-D government agencies and private collection firms to be able to submit cases for the interception of Federal and State tax refunds for the collection of unpaid child support, in accordance with Federal and State statutory guidelines; to seek passport sanctions against delinquent parents; to report unpaid child support to credit bureaus; and to obtain current location and asset information on parents who owe child support. In addition, the bill provides that unemployment compensation benefits would be subject to income withholding for child support obligations in all child support cases, not just those enforced by a IV-D agency, as current law allows. Mr. President, my bill will cost the Federal Government minimal or no additional funds. Nor will it impose any significant obligation on state or local child support agencies, since all government agencies would be allowed under the bill to charge necessary fees to non-IV-D agencies with which they share this information. What this bill will do is take a significant step toward collecting on the estimated $57 billion in overdue child support owed in this country. Many states and local child support agencies are simply overwhelmed and unable to effectively and timely enforce the tens of millions of child support awards in this country. Far from undermining their role in this process, the Child Support Enforcement Options Act will help them accomplish the mutual goal of making sure that child support is collected and delivered to where it is needed the most--to the children to whom it is owed. Particularly for families on welfare or other public assistance, child support is often critical to make ends meet. It helps put food on the table, clothes in the closet, and gas in the car. When a non- custodial parent reneges on his or her obligation to provide that support, it is incumbent upon the government to help enforce that award, through whatever means are available to the struggling custodial parent. In my opinion, any other consideration is secondary, and I am hopeful and confident that my colleagues in the Senate will agree and will work to pass this important legislation.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Bonus Incentive Act of 1999. I am joined in introducing this bill by my colleagues, Senators Nickles, Brownback, Voinovich, Ashcroft, Craig, Enzi, and Thomas. This important legislation will give America's hourly wage workers the same ability to receive performance-based bonuses that salaried employees currently have. Mr. President, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers who give performance-based bonuses (usually at the end of the year) must go back and recalculate each employee's hourly base rate of pay and thus any overtime pay they received must be adjusted accordingly. Often, the employer must spend many hours of accountants' time for relatively minor adjustments in overtime pay. This unnecessary and overly burdensome requirement discourages many employers (those who even know about this obscure provision) from providing a performance-based bonus system to their hourly wage employees, while salaried or ``exempt'' employees can enjoy such bonuses. Other employers attempt to comply with the law by reclassifying bonuses as not being performance-based. The net result of this law has been to hamper the productivity of the American worker and to trap unwary employers with unnecessary paperwork and even fines. My legislation, the companion of which has been passed by the House Education and Workforce Committee, would allow performance-based bonuses to be paid to employees without the need to recalculate overtime pay, provided that employees are made fully aware of the requirements of receiving such bonuses and provided that such bonuses are not used as a substitute for hourly pay. Mr. President, when the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was enacted in 1938, over 60 years ago, employers typically rewarded only their management personnel for the level of their achievement with performance-based bonuses. Such bonus programs for employees were very rare. But times have changed, and so has the American workplace. With the rise of the service-sector, post-industrial economy, increased competition from overseas, and the growing importance of workplace productivity and efficiency, ``gainsharing'' and other performance- based bonus programs for workers are commonplace. Such programs are as varied as they are common. The model that comes first to mind is a bonus based on the number of items a factory worker produces in a month, quarter, or year. But gainsharing programs are equally effective in the service sector. Pam Farr, former senior vice president for Marriott Lodging and now president of the Cabot Advisory Group, recently testified before the House Education and the Workforce Committee that Marriott used gainsharing plans for housekeeping and customer service personnel that rewarded employees for the cleanliness of rooms, and customer service evaluations. Cordant Technologies, which makes solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle, rewards its workers for achieving goals involving workplace safety, customer satisfaction, and indirect cost reduction. Whatever type of gainsharing arrangement an employer may have, there can be no doubt that these programs increase workers' pay, productivity, and contribute to higher customer satisfaction and better workplace relations. Studies have demonstrated that employees who participate in gainsharing arrangements on average receive about 5 to 10 percent more pay from such participation, and many bonus programs allow employees to increase their base pay by as much as 50 percent. Employees who participate in these programs also report being more satisfied on the job and to have a more positive attitude toward their employer. A 1981 survey by the General Accounting Office found that over 80 percent of firms they interviewed reported improvements in labor-management relations from such programs. Grievances in such companies dropped 50 percent, and absenteeism by 20 percent when gainsharing was offered to workers. Unfortunately, the majority of performance-based bonus programs are offered only to one segment of the American workforce: those employees who are salaried and therefore ``exempt'' from many of the strictures of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The other 70-plus million Americans who get paid by the hour are precluded from fully participating in these programs. Why is this? If performance bonuses work so well, why aren't they offered to more hourly wage workers? The answer is that the 61-year-old FLSA requires that when such bonuses are provided to hourly workers, the employer must then re- calculate each employee's ``regular rate'' of pay, which in turn requires a recalculation of worker's overtime pay. This process of recalculating employee overtime can consume substantial administrative time, often for very little in the way of additional overtime pay. One human resources director testified before Congress that it took four people 160 hours to calculate the bonuses for 235 employees. This requirement can be particularly burdensome for many of the nation's millions of small businesses that may not have computer hardware and software that can run these types of calculations. For employers who must try to do these calculations by hand, it can be such a headache that the employer will either drop the bonus program altogether or simply ignore the law, both of which are obviously undesirable outcomes. The Bonus Incentive Act I am introducing today will alleviate this unnecessary and counterproductive requirement, and allow all employees to participate equally in gainsharing programs. In fact, by extending these programs to hourly wage employees who, on average, make less than their salaried counterparts, this bill could be a significant shot-in- the-arm to their take home pay. The Employee Policy Foundation reports that a median wage U.S. worker could earn between an additional $17,000 and $26,000 over a 20-year period by participating in a performance- based bonus plan. Why would anyone oppose this bill, Mr. President? It is good for employers and employees alike. It means less paperwork and more pay, less bureaucracy and more productivity. Some have raised the concern that employers may somehow attempt to disguise regular hourly pay as gainsharing bonuses. While it would take a very ambitious employer to make such a scheme profitable, particularly considering the impact such conduct would have on employee morale, there are protections in the bill against such a possibility. First, the employer must provide all employees, in writing, a detailed description of what the requirements and benefits of the gainsharing plan will be. The actual formula by which the bonus is to be calculated must also be spelled-out. There can be no doubt about what the employee would be required to do and what he or she would stand gain. Second, the employer is absolutely prohibited from using a performance-based bonus to in any way replace the hourly wage pay the employee would otherwise have received. In fact, the bill requires that the plan be ``established and maintained in good faith for the purpose of distributing to employees additional remuneration over and above the wages and salaries that are not dependent upon the existence of such plan.'' If an employer should violate this and, for example, but workers pay and substitute that for bonus pay, that employer would be subject to the same civil and even criminal sanctions as he would for any violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is vigorously enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division. But the truth is, Mr. President, that there is very little reason for employers today to abuse this provision, and every reason in the world to use it for the betterment of employees and to the long-term success of the company. If the tremendous economic revolution and growth we have witnessed in the last two decades has taught us anything, it is that wealth is not a zero-sum game. Our economy continues to outstrip that of the rest of the world not because we have more natural resources: other countries have more oil, gold, timber, and other resources than we. It is because the productive capacity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship of the American people is allowed to flourish under our system. Outdated laws such as this must be revised if we are to continue to enjoy the growing fruits of our labor. The Bonus Incentive Act will help accomplish this goal, and I urge my colleagues to support and pass it.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to support the Domenici substitute for the Kennedy amendment because I think it strikes the balance we need to have. We have a strong economy today. We want to make sure it stays strong. We are talking about a minimum wage increase that is $1 over a period of 3 years. This should not be a shock to the small businesses, the farmers, and the ranchers who are concerned about having base costs go up--not even people who don't pay minimum wage but people who are concerned about paying at the higher levels and increasing the potential for inflation. I think stretching it out over 1 more year makes sense. I also think we need to look at the small business tax cuts we tried to give to small businesses in the tax cut package the President vetoed. We have brought some of those back. It provides a balance of adding more to the working person, especially the part-time worker, but also giving a little bit of tax help to the self-employed and small business people who might get hit by having the whole wage scale increased. What we are looking for is balance. I will talk about a few of the tax cuts with which we are going to try to help small business. First is an amendment from a bill I introduced that is called the Bonus Incentive Act. Today, employers can give a performance-based bonus to a person who is exempt, a salaried employee, and that person will be able to take that bonus, pay their withholding taxes, and go on their merry way; an employer can't do that for an hourly employee. If they give a performance-based bonus to an hourly employee, the employer has to go back and figure the whole year's wages and refigure any overtime pay that has been given to that employee. Many employers say it is just not worth the trouble, or they try to disguise the bonus as something else. Employers have come to Congress and testified they want to be able to reward hourly employees for good service. At the House Education and Workforce Committee, Pam Farr, the former senior vice president for Marriott Lodging, recently testified that Marriott used game-sharing plans for customer service personnel that rewarded employees for friendly treatment of customers. Cordant Technologies, which makes solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle, rewards their workers for reaching goals, for workplace safety, indirect cost reduction, and customer satisfaction. Many employers are concerned about all the paperwork that would have to be prepared if they gave this employment bonus. In other testimony from a human resources director, it took 4 people 160 hours to calculate the bonuses for 235 employees. What has been incorporated into the Domenici amendment makes it easy for employers to give performance-based bonuses to hourly employees. There is no reason we should have a big, mumbo-jumbo set of regulations that make it difficult. We want to make it easier for those employees to be rewarded for merit. Other tax relief in this bill is an above-the-line real deduction for health insurance expenses for individuals who don't have health care coverage. I know people who don't have insurance who have huge medical bills. Why shouldn't they be able to deduct all of their medical expenses if they don't have employer-provided insurance coverage? It also provides 100-percent deductibility for health care insurance for the self-employed. I think it should be the goal of everyone in this Chamber to encourage employers to be able to give health insurance to their employees and for the self-employed or the individual to buy health insurance. Why wouldn't we give incentives for people to buy health care insurance? We have been talking about that for the last 5 years. Why don't we put our incentives where they can make a difference? It also accelerates an increase in small business expensing. This is particularly helpful for farmers with direct expensing and accelerating the expensing, especially for small businesses. It reduces the Federal unemployment tax that small businesses pay from 0.8 percent to 0.6 percent. It makes permanent the work opportunity tax credit. This is a very important tax credit that is an incentive for people to hire people off welfare. It gives a tax credit of up to $2,400 for wages paid to employees who are hired right off the welfare rolls. We think this is a wonderful opportunity to give the people whom we want to give a chance at contributing to their families, coming off welfare, to have that incentive for the employer to hire the person off welfare and give that person that first chance to be a contributing member of society. These are some of the tax relief parts of the bill I think are so important. There is one more area I want to talk about because it is my amendment. This is an amendment I have introduced before. It was in the bill the President unfortunately vetoed. In fact, I introduced this bill 2 years ago. It allows women over 50 to have makeup payments to their pension plans. How many women do we know who have left the workforce to have their children or to raise their children until they go into elementary school, or perhaps they stay home and raise their children all the way through high school; then they come back into the workforce. Perhaps they lose their spouse and they don't have a good source of income. They go back to work, and they are penalized in their pension systems and their stability in their retirement years because they lost all those years that would allow them to start building that pension plan. Women who leave the workforce to raise their children and then come back are penalized in this society. These are the people who need retirement stability the most. These are the people who live the longest and who don't have the same opportunity for a pension plan because they haven't been able to establish a pension over the years because they have stayed home and raised their children. Senator Domenici's amendment allows women over 50 who are coming back into the workplace to make up the payments they have lost when they left the workplace. The Domenici amendment is a good amendment. It is a balanced amendment. It provides a minimum wage increase over a 3-year period, and it gives help and relief to the small businesses of our country that are going to be hit by the minimum wage increase. This will offset it. These are good reliefs. It is relief for health insurance coverage. It is relief for people who have medical expenses, who don't have health care coverage. It is relief for small business expensing, relief for women who are discriminated against in the pension systems when they leave the workplace to raise their children and then cannot continue to contribute to their retirement systems. It reduces the Federal unemployment tax that is a huge burden on small businesses, and it makes permanent the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, the credit that gives a $2,400 tax credit to people who hire people off welfare. I urge my colleagues to support this balanced approach, giving help to the workers, giving help to the small business people who may be affected by this added expense in their business. It is a fair approach. It is a balanced approach. I think it will have the best chance to keep our economy strong by keeping the people in business who are creating the jobs that keep this economy going. We want more opportunity for more workers, and that is what this amendment will do. I urge support for the Domenici amendment. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have heard the most amazing rhetoric on the other side. I am told by my colleague from Minnesota we have cut all the increases the Senate put in this bill. What is wrong is the facts. We haven't cut the increases. In fact, we haven't cut them out at all. We have increased in the areas where we have prioritized. Education: $2 billion more than in last year's budget. What does a 1- percent cut across-the-board mean? It means $1.8 billion more than we spent last year. NIH: We are committed to giving NIH double the funding for medical research in this country. We are keeping our promise. We are increasing NIH $1.8 billion over last year. Head Start: We increased it $600 million. A 1-percent cut means we are increasing it $594 million. We are keeping a promise. We have said the most important thing we are going to do in this Congress is keep our Social Security surplus intact. We are doing it by making sure we do not go into that surplus. We are making a 1-percent across-the-board cut in increases because we have given so much more than we did last year. Let me talk about what happens in a 1-percent decrease. Any person who has ever run a corporation or an agency or even an office knows a 1-percent cut does not go in the programs. We are not going to lose teachers. We are not going to lose people who are getting veteran benefits. They are going to cut travel budgets, office supplies; they will cut in the bureaucracy; that is, if they have the responsibility to make the right decisions. We are going to keep our promise to keep social security intact. We are going to do it in a responsible way so they can take cuts in travel budgets, they can take cuts in their bureaucracies to make sure the programs are funded at the increased levels that Congress is requiring them to do. This is the most responsible act Congress has taken. I am stunned the other side will not step up to the plate and do what they promised also; that is, keep Social Security intact. I yield my remaining time to Senator Domenici.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, as I understand it, the Senator from Pennsylvania has 5 minutes and I have 5 minutes. Is that correct?

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order in further memory of our dear colleague, Senator John Chafee.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1791 and the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I want to end this session of this week by once again remembering our colleague, John Chafee. We started this week, Monday morning, with the tragic news of the passing of clearly one of the most beloved of all Senators sitting in this Chamber. During the week, Senator Chafee's desk has been draped in black with flowers on his desk. We have all talked in this Chamber about this wonderful man. We have all related so many of the great deeds he did, from his service in World War II to his service in the Korean war as a marine who truly exemplified what ``Semper Fi'' means. We have talked about what a wonderful human being he was and I think have renewed our efforts to make this a more civilized Senate because of him. Today the people of Rhode Island began to pay their respects to their former Governor and their three-term Senator. He is lying in state as I speak in the capitol he loved so much. All of us remember when he announced that he would not seek reelection. He simply said: ``I want to go home.'' John Chafee is home.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. For the information of all Senators, the Senate will be in a period of morning business from 12 noon to 2 o'clock p.m. on Monday. Following morning business, the Senate will resume debate on the conference report to accompany the D.C./Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Debate on the conference report is expected to consume the majority of the day. However, it may also be the majority leader's intention to resume consideration of the Caribbean Basin Initiative/ African trade bill or resume discussion on the nuclear waste bill at some point during Monday's session of the Senate. As a reminder, cloture was filed on the substitute amendment to the African trade bill as well as on the bill itself. Under the rule, those votes will occur on Tuesday, 1 hour after the Senate convenes or at a time to be determined by the two leaders. By previous consent, a vote on the D.C./Labor-HHS appropriations conference report has been scheduled to occur at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, and the majority leader has announced that vote will be the first vote of the week.