Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see the prime sponsor of the amendment, the Senator from Maine. I ask unanimous consent to follow her when she completes.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I know the pending amendment is the Snowe-Dodd amendment. I join with the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Connecticut in hoping that the Senate will welcome and support this amendment. I pay tribute to the Senator from Maine for her longstanding work in support of child care, and, of course, I commend my friend and colleague from Connecticut who unfortunately is not here today but wanted very much to be here today. He will be speaking in strong support of this amendment during its consideration tomorrow. As we know, Senator Dodd is the leader on children's issues. A number of those issues go through the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and all of us on that committee welcome his leadership on this issue as well many others. I commend our leaders, and I commend the floor managers. This will be the first amendment that we will consider. And, hopefully, it will have strong support. I will take the time at another time to outline the extraordinary needs of child care in my own State. But I rise for a different purpose at this time. I see my friend and colleague from Iowa on his feet. I intend to speak briefly about the minimum wage issue, and then to offer it not as a substitute but to get in the queue for consideration of amendments as we are considering this welfare reform program. The Senator from North Dakota was here a moment ago and desired the opportunity to be able to speak. I don't know whether there is any reason to object. He wanted to have an opportunity to speak for up to 20 minutes, I believe, following my statement. Generally, I wanted to talk to the floor managers about that, but I didn't have the opportunity to do so. If there is a Republican who wants to speak after I speak, then he could be the one who might be recognized after that.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that he be able to follow for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I listened with interest to my friend and colleague from Iowa talking about this legislation. And one of the phrases he expressed was that no one who works in this country ought to live in poverty. I agree with that. I think one of the best ways of doing it is to ensure that work pays. One of the best ways to make sure work pays is to make sure that those who are on the bottom rung of the economic ladder--those who make the minimum wage--are going to have a livable wage. What we know is that we have not increased the minimum wage for some 7 years. As a result of the failure of increasing the minimum wage in 7 years, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has decreased dramatically. If we are interested in making work pay, we have to make work pay, and that means an increase in the minimum wage. At the appropriate time during the course of this debate, we will have the opportunity to vote on an increase in the minimum wage to make the minimum wage go up from $5.15 to $7 an hour for those families working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year. Let me share with the Members what has happened to the purchasing power of the minimum wage. If we go back to 1968, the minimum wage today would be $8.50 an hour. It is now $5.15. If we look at the consistency, the purchasing value, it will be $4.98 in the next few years if we don't act now. Look at this chart. The minimum wage no longer lifts a family out of poverty. Look at this red line indicating what a family of three would need in order to be able to rise out of poverty. In 1968, we were able to--and, again, briefly around 1980--get the minimum wage up so families could live outside of poverty. If you look at the flat line, you will see that the lines are going down. The poverty line is here. People are working longer and harder and have difficulty making ends meet. Every day that we delay the minimum wage, workers fall farther and farther behind. All of the gains of 1996 in minimum wage increases have already been lost. This welfare bill is about workers. It is about moving people from welfare into work. It is very interesting. Of those single mothers who moved off welfare into work before the recession began, one-half of those jobs have now been lost due to the recession. I don't know what percentage of those people used up all their benefits, but a good chunk have. I don't know what those individuals are doing, but we do know that the amount of poverty, child poverty and hunger in the families across this country, is continuing to go up. We lose sight of the fact that over the history of the minimum wage, this has been a bipartisan effort. If you look back over the number of times this has been raised--10 or 11 times--go back to Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, President Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and President Ford, President Carter, and then it was President Bush, then it was President Clinton, this has been a bipartisan effort. Republicans and Democrats alike understand if people are going to work hard, we ought to be able to make sure they are treated fairly. The increase in the minimum wage that we are talking about in this amendment would mean $3,800 in additional income once it's fully phased in over the period of the 2\1/2\ years. That would be more than 2 years of child care; it would be 2 years of health care. It would be full tuition to a community college for a child who is the son or daughter of a minimum-wage worker. It would be a year and a half of heat or electricity for a family. It would be more than a year of groceries, and more than 9 months of rent. That may not sound like much to many around here, but those are the facts. It would make an enormous difference to people who are working. What we see is 3 million more Americans today are living in poverty. There were 31 million in the year 2000, and now it is 34.6 million, which means 3 million more people are living in poverty. We can do something about that by increasing the minimum wage. One of the saddest comments that I discovered as we looked through the various factual material in preparation for this debate is, according to the Families and Work Institute, three of the top four things children would like to change about their working parents is they wish their parents were less stressed out by work, less tired because of work, and could spend more time with them. This is a family issue. We hear a great deal in this body about family issues and family values. Increasing the minimum wage is a family issue. Who are these people? Who are these people who earn the minimum wage? Well, first of all, they are the men and women who work in buildings all over this country at nighttime from which American commerce has their offices. In large buildings and small, they work in long, difficult, tough jobs, but they are men and women of pride. They are men and women of dignity. They take pride in doing a job well. They are not only cleaners, but they are also assistant teachers in many of the schools across this country. They also work in nursing homes helping to take care of parents-- parents who have served in the Armed Forces, fought in the Korean war, perhaps even in Vietnam, and maybe going back to even World War II--men and women who brought this country out of the Depression, men and women who have suffered and sacrificed to benefit their children. Many minimum-wage workers work in these nursing homes--men and women of dignity. Sixty-one percent of those who receive the minimum wage are women. This is a women's issue because the great majority of recipients of the minimum wage are women. It is a children's issue because many of those women have children. They are single heads of households, and many of them have children. So it is a women's issue, it is a children's issue, and it is a civil rights issue because so many of those who work at the minimum wage are men and women of color. And, most of all, it is a fairness issue. The issue that is going to be before the Senate is whether we believe someone who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year, ought to have a living wage. And if there is one issue Americans understand, it is the issue of fairness. This is about fairness. This issue is about fairness. That is why we welcome the opportunity to offer this amendment. It should not be a partisan issue. We should not be denied the opportunity to have the vote, and we are going to stay after it until we have the vote. So I wanted to take a few moments on this issue because it is a matter of such importance. I am going to go over the statistics in greater degree about what has been happening to women and to children in poverty in this country. I am going to do that at a time when I will have the chance to have the full debate for the consideration of this amendment. I have the amendment. I indicated to the floor managers that I intended to offer it. I ask unanimous consent that after the consideration of the Snowe-Dodd amendment, that the amendment which I send to the desk now, on behalf of myself and Senator Daschle, be considered.

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be considered within the first four amendments that we have on this bill.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, since the Senator from Iowa has talked about delaying the legislation, I ask unanimous consent that the debate on the minimum wage amendment be no more than 20 minutes, with 10 minutes to each side, and that we have consent that we vote on this amendment up and down before final passage--that we have 20 minutes on the amendment, since there has been the thought that we are trying to delay this legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I remind my good friend--and he is my friend--about the report from the Finance Committee. If we go to page 4: ``STRENGTHENS WORK''--``STRENGTHENS WORK.'' This bill is about work. And here we are asking for a minimum wage. To do what? To work. What is possibly the reason or the justification to object to us even considering increasing the minimum wage? What we have here is objection to even considering an increase in the minimum wage, which is at its lowest level in history, for 7 million Americans. They are talking about getting Americans out of welfare into work. We are trying to make work pay, and there is objection. Look what it says on page 21: The Committee bill recognizes that the success achieved by TANF and Work First programs are a result of a sustained emphasis on adult attachment to the workforce. What more could be relevant to the workforce and strengthening work than an increase in the minimum wage? I do not know what this objection is. Why does the majority even refuse us the opportunity to vote? That is what I am asking. Call the ace an ace. What is the objection to having accountability, to find out if you are for it or against it? We are giving a 20-minute time limit, 10 minutes on each side. I will take 5 minutes. I will take 2 minutes. I will take 1 minute, then call the roll. What can possibly be the objection to calling the roll when we have increased it 11 times under Republican and Democratic administrations in the past? Where is the delay tactic? Where is the objection? Where is the fact that this is not relevant to the substance at hand? This, of course, is the substance at hand. Of course it is. It is about making sure that people who work hard--men and women of dignity--are going to be able to receive a livable wage. And we are denied--at least at the outset--the opportunity to even have this amendment considered. I say to the Senator, this amendment ought to be voice-voted this afternoon. That is what it should be: It should be voice-voted. Republicans, in the history of the minimum wage, have voted for increases in it, and now we have instructions--evidently, instructions--not to permit even a short time limit on increasing the minimum wage: No, you can't vote on that issue. We are not going to let you. We control the Senate. We heard from the Senator from Iowa: We want no one who works to have to live in poverty. I remember listening to the Senator from Iowa just about an hour and a half ago: No one who works ought to live in poverty. He gave that speech. Now he will not even let us do something about getting people out of poverty. He objects to us having it within the next four amendments--to even consider it prior to the time of passage, with a 20-minute time limit--refuses. Talk about arbitrariness and the abuse of power. This is it. This body ought to be able to vote on questions affecting working families. We ought to be able to vote on the minimum wage. We ought to be able to vote on overtime. We ought to be able to vote on unemployment compensation. What in the world is wrong with the other side to try and prohibit this institution from taking positions on these issues and to vote up or down? What were we sent here for? I say to my friend--and he is my friend--this issue is just not going to go away. He has given his response that he is going to do everything that is parliamentarily possible to deny this institution considering an increase in the minimum wage. He just stated that. He made the point that it was not relevant, that it was somehow going to delay, that it was somehow not pertinent, even though we are talking about jobs and trying to get people to work. That is the thrust of the whole bill. And he would deny us the opportunity to consider this amendment for 15 minutes, 16 minutes, what we offered. I think we are on notice now. Are we supposed to assume the majority is only going to permit amendments which they approve? Is that going to be the new rule of the U.S. Senate? After 230 years, we are only going to permit votes which we, the Republicans, approve? That is what we are saying. Is that the institution the American people thought they had in the U.S. Senate? Is that what they thought we were doing here? Come on. Come on. That is not the Senate I was elected to or that I believe in and that the American people do. We can either do this nicely and try to work out some kind of agreement and accommodation or we are going to use all of the other kinds of parliamentary rules that we know how to use and do it in ways which will insist on a vote. But if the Republican leadership thinks that we are going to go on and on and on without an increase in the minimum wage, I want to clear them of that thought because this is coming at you. People have waited too long, worked too hard, and children are being disadvantaged. I listen to the speeches about children. There are children out there, sons and daughters of minimum wage workers, whose lives would be significantly and dramatically advanced. Maybe that parent would be able to buy a birthday present, take the child to a movie. But no, no, no, we are the Republicans, and we are not going to let you vote. We are not going to let you vote in the Senate. That is what you are saying. Well, we are going to come back to it. I am going to speak to one other issue, and then I see others who want to address the Senate. I will then yield the floor. White House Responsiveness to the 9/11 Commission

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in my lifetime, there have been national catastrophes of such magnitude that they are seared in the collective American memory forever. In each case, the Nation was able to draw on the strength of its institutions and its leaders to carry on with the strong support of our citizens. The attack on Pearl Harbor, for example, plunged us into war, but unified us as a people, and brought out the best in our elected leaders. In Watergate, on the other hand, the integrity of our most basic institutions was threatened by an executive run amok. But the legislative branch, acting on a bipartisan basis, and the judicial branch, led by a unanimous Supreme Court, vindicated the Framers' trust that a nation based on checks and balances and the separation of powers could survive one branch's abuse of power. Two and a half years ago we suffered another tragedy of historic dimensions. In one brief morning nearly 3,000 of our people were killed by an enemy who had openly declared war against us, had already struck at us in a variety of forms and places at home and abroad, and had put our government, if not our people, on notice that they would strike again. The families and friends of the dead and injured were not the only victims. We all suffered. Our peace of mind suffered; our trust in our surroundings suffered; our liberty to move freely around the Nation and the world suffered. And our confidence in the public institutions which protect and defend us suffered. The quality and integrity of our response as a Nation and as individuals will determine how history views us as defenders of America's ideals. Can we restore security without sacrificing liberty? Can we identify and fill the gaps in our defense against known and unknown enemies, without reducing the essential quality of life and freedom in our Nation? We in Congress have begun to answer those questions, and the 9/11 Commission is a key element of our answer. Over the initial objections of the executive branch, and with the help and support of the victims' families, we have delegated to that distinguished group of Commission members the continuation of the essential fact-finding process begun by our own Intelligence Committees. We have also asked the Commission to suggest solutions for the problems they identify. We have invested extraordinary powers in that Commission to meet the extraordinary demands of their assignment. This Commission is as eminent and experienced a body as anyone could hope for. Some have complained that it is too ``establishment.'' It includes two former Republican governors, a former Republican Senator, a former Republican Secretary of the Navy, a former Reagan White House Counsel, a Navy veteran who was both a governor and Senator, a former General Counsel of the Department of Defense and Deputy Attorney General who sits on a CIA advisory Committee, a former chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, a former member of the House Intelligence committee, and a former Watergate investigator now at a distinguished law firm. Its executive director served on the National Security Council under former President Bush and on the transition team for the current President Bush. The Commission is entitled to respect and cooperation from everyone it deals with in all parts of the Government, especially the White House. The Commission has properly chosen to operate in public to the fullest extent possible. Secrecy will only sow seeds of suspicion and dilute the Nation's confidence in its independence and its conclusions. It has done nothing to suggest to anyone that it will not be fair and just and sensitive to the needs of the individuals and institutions it deals with. On the other hand it is operating on an extremely tight, Congressionally mandated, time schedule. It does not have the time or the inclination, and should not have the need, to fight in the courts of law or in the court of public opinion to obtain the information it deserves and the public deserves. Thus the current controversy over the testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice can and should be resolved quickly. The public and the Congress should not stand for anything less than full and prompt cooperation from the White House. For a national tragedy of these proportions, the buck stops at the White House. Three thousand people died on our shores and on their watch. There should not be the slightest question that any White House staff member asked by the Commission to testify under oath and in public must do so. As Colin Powell said yesterday, the presumption must be that everything be done in the open, so that sunshine can infuse the process. It is not a question of law; the law fully permits members of the White House staff to testify. It is not a question of precedent. As former Navy Secretary Lehman, a Commission member, said yesterday, many previous Presidents have permitted such testimony on important matters, and the importance of the issue here makes clear that this President should do the same. Surely, 9/11 is more important than Richard Kleindienst's confirmation, Billy Carter's activities, or who said what to whom about an Arkansas bank. Yet in those cases, and many others, top White House officials testified in public and under oath. It is not a question of principle. That line was crossed in this case when the National Security Adviser went before the Commission in secret. If the White House genuinely believes that the Commission is a creation of the legislature, she has already subjected herself to the legislature's inquiries. As Secretary Lehman has said, it is ``self-defeating'' for the White House to refuse to allow Condoleezza Rice to testify fully in public. That course leads to suspicion that they have something to hide. Mr. Lehman says there is no smoking gun in what she has said in secret, so unless the White House is afraid she may say something different in public under oath, why are they holding her back? It is an insult to Ms. Rice to deny her the chance she says she wants, to testify in public. She has proven herself an articulate spokesperson for the President over the past 3 years. Unless the White House fears that she will disclose some dire secret, she should be free to respond in public to the Commission's questions, as she has responded on numerous occasions in press interviews in recent days. Television interviews are no substitute for answering the Commission's questions under oath. There need be no compromise of executive privilege if she testifies, If she is asked a question that she thinks the President, rather than she, should answer, she can and will say so, and leave it to him to do. But otherwise, as Colin Powell also said yesterday, the presumption ought to be for sunshine, openness, light. The Commission has also asked unanimously for an appearance by the President and Vice President in public under oath. They refused and offered in essence to meet in private for a brief conversation with the Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission. The public outcry at that minimal proposal led the White House to suggest some flexibility on the time, but not on anything else. The President faces a difficult decision about whether to testify in public and under oath. He was our leader when 9/11 occurred. That may well turn out to be a benefit to him in the months to come, but with that benefit goes a heavy burden. It is his responsibility to answer questions that only he can answer, admit failings if there were failings, apologize if apology is called for, and reassure us all that whatever was broken has been fixed. It will take courage and leadership for him to step forward, face the Commission, and risk the consequences. I urge President Bush, as the Nation focuses on the question of his own appearance, to remember the example of President Gerald Ford. One of the most difficult decisions he made as President was to pardon President Nixon. President Ford had the courage to defend that decision under oath and in public before a congressional committee. His pardon was not popular at the time, and it may well have cost him the presidency in the 1976 election. But he felt strongly that the public needed to hear from him personally about why he thought the pardon was essential to the national interest. So he made the truly unprecedented decision to come to the Hill to testify under oath himself. As he later said, ``The bigger the issue, the greater the need for political courage.'' The current White House political staff has chosen a different approach. They have pressed the attack button on their quick-response machine in an attempt to destroy Richard Clarke and destroy his credibility about the events leading up to 9/11 under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, and the President's Republican allies in Congress are aiding and abetting this new and obscene example of the politics of personal destruction. It is sheer hypocrisy for the White House to encourage Condoleezza Rice to appear on television to dispute Mr. Clarke's testimony to the Commission, and then prevent her from presenting her views to the Commission itself. Many of us in the Senate will propose a resolution tomorrow urging that Dr. Rice be permitted to testify in public and under oath. There will be ample opportunity after that for the President to decide whether he himself is willing to testify in public and under oath as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I support Senator Murray's amendment, and I want my colleagues to support it too. Violence against women-- especially those who are pregnant--is a tragic example of violence in our society, and we need to do all we can to prevent it. Congress is right to address this issue and do more to protect women. But if the administration and Congress are serious about addressing the issue of domestic violence, let us do it effectively, and not turn it into yet another battleground in the debate over abortion. As domestic violence experts and advocates make clear, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act will do nothing to provide the protection that battered women need to be safe. Instead of protecting women, the bill focuses solely on the fetus and what happens after the crime. It does nothing to prevent domestic violence, and it punishes only one of the many possible consequences of such violence. The harm to women at the hands of their abusers and attackers is not addressed anywhere in this bill. The support and services they need to avoid violence in their homes or escape from it are not addressed. It offers no financial safety net for women who move away from their homes to escape from abusers. It does not address children affected by the abuse. It offers no health care assistance for abused women. The real purpose of this bill is obviously not to protect and support women who are victims of abuse. Its real purpose is to give new legal rights to the fetus, in a blatant effort to undermine women's rights under the Constitution and Roe v. Wade. In other words, this bill is a threat to women, not a protection for them. Proponents of this measure also call it the Laci Peterson Act, but this bill would have done nothing to prevent that tragedy. Federal criminal jurisdiction over violent crimes is very limited. The bill would apply only to federal and military crimes. It would have no bearing on the law of California or any other State. Today, 95 percent of all criminal prosecutions, like the prosecution of Laci Peterson's murderer, take place at the State or local level. A majority of States already have laws that enable prosecutors to file fetal homicide charges. In Massachusetts, the courts have treated the fetus as a separate victim of crime if the developing fetus has reached the stage of viability. That view is consistent with the careful balance between women's rights and fetal rights established by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This bill completely ignores the Supreme Court's viability standard. In cases where federal law or military law applies, prosecutors and judges already have ample discretion to impose longer sentences for flagrant crimes committed against vulnerable victims. Courts have regularly held that the Federal Sentencing Guidelines provide for a sentencing enhancement based on the victim's pregnancy or injury to a fetus. The military also makes clear that the pregnancy of the victim can lead to a harsher sentence. The administration says it wants to prevent violence against women and children. But that priority is not reflected in the budget. The President's budget is cutting or starving key violence-prevention programs. If Congress genuinely intends to do more to prevent such tragedies, we should be discussing ways to strengthen the Violence Against Women Act and its funding. Since its enactment in 1994, violence against women has been reduced by 21 percent, so we are clearly making progress. We are on the right track, and there's no excuse for making a u-turn. The most urgent priority is the need for additional funds. The services available today to victims of domestic violence come nowhere close to meeting the obvious need. The New England Learning Center for Women in Transition in Greenfield, MA, has to turn away ten families from its shelter for each family it is able to serve. Life-saving services such as hotlines and emergency shelters for battered women are funded $48 million below the level authorized by Congress. Women across the country are not obtaining the help they need when they face these dangers or suffer from them. We can do far more than we are doing to see that women do not suffer from domestic violence. Senator Murray's amendment will do that. Unlike the underlying bill, her proposal will genuinely help to combat the serious problem of domestic violence in our country. Incredible as it seems, nearly one-third of all American women report being physically or sexually abused by their husbands or boyfriends at some time in their lives. A shocking 25 percent to 40 percent of all women who are battered are battered when they are pregnant. One study found that 37 percent of all women who visited a hospital emergency room for violence-related injuries were injured by a current or former husband or boyfriend. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, murder is actually the leading cause of death among pregnant women. Over 3 million children are exposed to parental violence in the United States every year. According to a report of the American Psychological Association, a young boy who sees his father abusing his mother is the strongest risk factor for future violent behavior by that child. Far from preventing such violence, the so-called Unborn Victims of Violence Act will actually prevent victims of abuse from seeking help. Juley Fulcher, Public Policy Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, testified before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution last July. She said that if a battered woman is financially or emotionally dependent on her batterer, she is less likely to seek medical assistance if she thinks it may result in the criminal prosecution of her batterer. The underlying bill contains none of these urgently needed protections for battered women. The Murray amendment will give them the security and support they need to leave an abusive relationship before it's too late. According to a GAO report in 1998, between a quarter and a half of domestic violence victims report that they lost their job at least partly because of domestic violence. A victim who was forced to change her name and Social Security number in order to escape her abuser testified before the Massachusetts Commission on Domestic Violence. She said that when she met with the human resources officers at her workplace to explain why she needed help, she lost her job because they thought her abuser might attack her in the office and be a safety threat to her co-workers too. Victims of domestic violence need job stability. They need economic independence in order to leave their abuser. Without a viable source of income, victims to often have no way to escape from their abusive relationship. Senator Murray's amendment helps these victims by guaranteeing them access to emergency leave to obtain medical attention, counseling or other services without fear of losing their job. It provides unemployment compensation. It supports the specific training for medical providers to recognize the signs of abuse, so that frightened women who arrive in the emergency room with tell-tale bruises will know that help is available and will be more likely to reveal and seek the further support they recall is available. It will ensure that children who witness violence in the home will receive the help they need in order to break the tragic cycle of violence before it consumes the next generation in their families too. We need laws that genuinely protect women in all of these ways, as Senator Murray's amendment will do. And it does so without undermining a woman's fundamental right to choose. The Murray amendment provides long and overdue support to victims, employers, public health professionals and families to combat violence against women, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Will my amendment be allowed on the bill that is then before the Senate?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join the Senator in cosponsoring the Harkin amendment. Is the Senator familiar with the fact that the Republican leadership has now done a parliamentary maneuver so there is absolutely no opportunity for this institution to act on the Harkin amendment dealing with overtime; that they have taken the rules of the Senate and are so unwilling to address the amendment of the Senator from Iowa that they have effectively foreclosed any opportunity for the Senate of the United States to act this afternoon, late afternoon, this evening, or at any time until after the cloture motion? Can the Senator from Connecticut possibly tell us why the Republican leadership would want to deny the people's representatives in the Senate the opportunity to express their view on an issue that affects approximately 8 million workers in this country?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as the Senator remembers, we had a vote on this measure on September 10, 2003. To substantiate what the Senator has pointed out, they voted 54 to 45 in the Senate to retain overtime, and in the House of Representatives it was 221 to 203. This was a matter of 7 or 8 months ago when we had this body speak in a bipartisan way and the House of Representatives speak in a bipartisan way. Still we find the Republicans are denying the Senate an opportunity to express its will. Does the Senator not agree with me that this is sending a message to every working family in this country that we have Republican opposition to the increase in the minimum wage, Republican opposition to extending the unemployment compensation, and Republican opposition to halting the proposal that will eliminate overtime for some 8 million Americans; that one can conclude this administration is not on the side of working families?

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. I am glad to yield.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator not agree with me that for the first time in the history of the overtime laws this administration has stated if individuals in the military--I am reading from their proposed regulation of March 31, 2003. They talk about training in the Armed Forces, stating if you are a member of the National Guard and are called up to go over to Iraq, you take a training program in order to try to provide greater protection and defense for the men and women in your unit, you come back here to the United States, you go back to your workplace, and you think you are entitled to overtime, under their proposal, make no mistake about it, you are excluded. I draw the attention of the Senator to the comments of the very distinguished head of a veterans organization. The Senator has mentioned the categories of those who will be made ineligible for an increase in overtime. This is a letter to Secretary Chao from Thomas Corey, national president of the Vietnam Veterans of America, dated February 17, 2004: [We] would like to make you aware that the proposed modification of the rules would give employers the ability to prohibit veterans from receiving overtime pay based on the training they received in the military. This legitimizes the already extensive problem of ``vetism'' or the discrimination against veterans. There it is. That is what their proposal is all about. I don't blame the other side for not wanting to have a vote on it. Has the Senator ever heard of such a time when we have American servicemen spread all over the world being called on--and the National Guard and Reserve--to get some training, and they come back and go back to work, and there comes the boss who says, Well, you have some training in the military, and you are out?

Mr. KENNEDY. I draw the attention of the Senator to the comments from the National Association of Manufacturers. The NAM applauds the department for including this alternative means of establishing that an employee has the knowledge required for the exception [from the overtime protections] to apply . . . For example, many people who come out of the mili- tary . . . There it is again, the National Association of Manufacturers praising that part of the Bush proposal. We are talking about those who are serving in the Armed Forces now, and we know 40 percent of the combat arms in Iraq are National Guard reserve units. We find out that those individuals who get that extra training, which is essential in order to help protect the lives of their fellow servicemen, are told when they come back home, too bad, you are not going to get your overtime pay. I ask the Senator if this has been his experience. I have a chart, as well, regarding workers without overtime protections being more than twice as likely to work longer hours. The point I have heard the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from Illinois make is, if you do not have the protections, some think you will have to work a little bit longer, but it will not make much difference. This chart from the Labor Department shows what happens in the two cases: where workers are paid time and a half for overtime and where they are not.

Mr. KENNEDY. I had requested to be recognized following the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this is on my time. This chart shows if you do not have overtime protections, you are twice as likely to work more than 40 hours a week and three times as likely to work more than 50 hours a week. Without overtime protections, hold onto your seat, employers will make you work twice as hard after hours. Does the Senator agree with me that the Bush Administration is not only denying fair compensation on a proposal that has been in effect since the 1930s, but the message ought to go out to workers across this country they are going to work a great deal longer, a great deal harder because without the overtime protection, that is the record. They will be exploited in the workplace.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask a final two questions of my friend from Connecticut. When we are talking about police officers and nurses and firefighters, they are the categories we rely on for homeland security. They are the backbone of homeland security. Here we are in the Senate effectively saying to those workers, we are going to take away your overtime pay. The Republicans are saying that because they will not let us get a vote on it. We have a lot of problems in this country, but I don't believe one of the problems is that we are paying our firefighters, our nurses, and our police officers who are on the front line of homeland security--I don't think the principal problem we have is we are paying them too much. The Senator from Connecticut is the leader in this body with regard to children and children's issues. I have a chart that looks at the number of children hungry in this country. We are seeing an expansion of hunger in this country. We do not talk about it a great deal in this body, but it is a direct result of the fact working families are having a hard time making ends meet. They have not gotten an increase in the minimum wage, unemployment compensation has been denied, they are facing the threat of loss of overtime. We have 13 million hungry children. I ask the Senator, we have the other problem with 8 million unemployed, 8 million workers who will lose overtime, the low minimum wage for 7 million, 3 million more Americans are living in poverty because of the economic policies of the last 3 years, and 90,000 workers a week are losing their unemployment benefits. Regarding the impact of all these economic policies on children, I am wondering if the Senator would address this issue briefly. It is important when we are talking about these issues, we are not just talking about technical questions of overtime; we are talking about real people with real lives and people who are facing some very challenging times.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I underline once again what the Senator from Connecticut has been saying about the average wage in 2001. The average wage of the jobs we lost in 2001 was $44,570, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average wage of the jobs we are gaining today is $35,000, down 21 percent. This is outside of the overtime. These are the new jobs. This is the average wage today of the new jobs being created, $35,000; $44,000 of the jobs we lost in 2001. This is what is happening, and we are saying to these workers: Well, that is not bad enough. We are going to deny you overtime pay. We have been denying you an increase in the minimum wage for 7 years. We are going to deny you unemployment compensation--90,000 people a week. These are the facts. The average wage of jobs lost was $44,570 to but only $35,410 for the jobs gained. As this chart shows you, American workers are working longer and harder than workers in any other industrial nation in the world. Look at this line right over here. The United States is right at the top. Americans are working longer, they are working harder, and they are falling further and further and further and further behind. And what is the answer of this administration? Cut overtime. We can do better. What is the answer of the Republican leadership? Deny us a chance to do something about it. That is what we are faced with. Well, it seems to me that hopefully Americans will have their answer sometime soon. If we are not able to on this bill, I know the Senators from Connecticut and Illinois share my view. I know the Senator from Iowa does. This is just the beginning. This is the opening shot. I tell our Republican friends, this issue is coming at you again and again and again. Make no mistake about it. You don't like to vote on it? Too bad. These families are suffering out there, and we are going to keep bringing this up, again and again and again and again, until you do vote on it.

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, it is beyond comprehension, I say to the Senator, that in this proposal the administration has yielded to the recommendation of the National Association of Manufacturers, that those who get special skills in the military would not qualify for overtime. And I read that particular provision in the proposed regulation. I ask unanimous consent to print the paragraph in the Record, dated March 31, of the proposed rules that talk about training in the Armed Forces. [From the Federal Register Mar. 31, 2003] (d) The phrase ``customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction'' generally restricts the exemption to professions where specialized academic training is a standard prerequisite for entrance into the profession. The best prima facie evidence that an employee meets this requirement is possession of the appropriate academic degree. However, the word ``customarily'' means that the exemption is also available to employees in such professions who have substantially the same knowledge level as the degreed employees, but who attained such knowledge through a combination of work experience, training in the armed forces, attending a technical school, attending a community college or other intellectual instruction.

Mr. KENNEDY. It is right in there. And it was requested by the National Association of Manufacturers. They made a comment about how happy they are it is in there. It is one of the most offensive proposals this administration has made. I want to just make a final comment and respond to what the Senator has mentioned with regard to the nurses because this is so important, as I know the Senator is concerned about the issue of the quality of health care. This is from Cathy Stoddart of Mingo Junction, OH, a nurse at the Allegheny Regional Hospital in Pittsburgh: . . . President Bush and the Republican members of the House and Senate are trying to take away the one thing that discouraged hospital administrators from forcing nurses to work overtime. If you think nurses are running away now, just wait until their employers start telling them they have to work a 20 hour shift and aren't getting overtime pay for a single minute of it! This proposal affects the quality of health care. We talked about the standard of living for working families and the challenges they are facing over a lack of an increase in the minimum wage, over the lack of unemployment compensation, and now there is the overtime proposal. This is going to have a dramatic impact and adverse effect on the quality of health care in this country. And for what? And that is because of the urging of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce urging the administration to find a way to cut back on overtime for 8 million workers in this country. I thank the Senator from Illinois for raising not only what this issue is going to mean for working families, but what the impact is going to be on, in this case, health care and other vital services. We have talked about veterans. In that regard, I bring to the attention of the Senator Randy Fleming, who writes: I am also proud to say that I am a military veteran. I have worked for Boeing for 23 years. The training I received in the Air Force qualified me for a good civilian job. The second thing is overtime pay. With the overtime, I have paid for my kid's college education. The changes this administration is trying to make in the overtime regulations would break the government's bargain with the men and women in the military, close down the opportunities that working vets and their families thought they could count on. When I signed up back in 1973, the Air Force and I made a deal that I thought was fair. They got a chunk of my time and I got training to help me build the rest of my life. There was no part of the deal that said I would have to give up my right to overtime pay. You have heard of the marriage penalty. I think what these new rules do is create a military penalty. If you get your training in the military, no matter what your white-collar profession is, your employer can make you work as many hours as they want and not pay an extra dime. If that is not a bait and switch, I don't know what is. I have no doubt employers will take advantage of this new opportunity to cut our overtime pay. They will say if they can't take out our overtime pay, they will have to eliminate the jobs. It won't be just the bad employers because these rules will make it very hard for companies to do the right thing. The veterans and other working people will be stuck with less time, less money, and a broken deal. There it is, in real life, Randy Fleming, a veteran who looks down the road in the eyes of his children, hard working, played by the rules, served our country, acquired some skills, and he is looking to the future. This is a lousy proposal. It doesn't deserve to be favorably considered. But our Republican friends are refusing us, denying us the opportunity to get a vote on it. I know the Senator from Iowa would be willing to agree to an hour of debate, a half hour of debate, 15 minutes of debate--we know what the issues are--to get a vote. The idea to use the rules of the Senate to deny the Senate the ability to express its will on this issue is an enormous insult to working families all across the country and one they will not forget easily.

Mr. KENNEDY. I am glad to yield.