Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Senator has been very generous with his time. I bring two matters to the attention of the Senator and ask whether he agrees; I have listened to the exchange between the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from South Dakota. This chart I have points out that middle-income mothers are working 55 percent more hours today than 20 years ago. This chart shows 1979 up through 2000. We have seen this dramatic expansion of the number of hours that women are working in the workforce to provide for their families. At the same time we are seeing this dramatic increase, we are finding out that there is a reduction in terms of overtime. As the Senator pointed out earlier, we are finding out that American workers--this column on the chart indicates the number of hours Americans are working in relation to other industrialized nations. So workers are working harder, they are working longer hours, they are more productive, and all they are asking is to be able to get decent pay. But the question I ask the Senator is in relation to this particular chart. This is enormously interesting. Workers without overtime protections are more than twice as likely to work longer hours. If you take those workers who do not have overtime protection, they work more than twice as long as those who have the overtime protection. If you take away this kind of protection, the word ought to go out to workers that they are going to have to work longer and harder for less pay because that is what is happening today. And that is what is happening for 40 hours a week. And for 50 hours a week, you work three times as long if you don't have any overtime protection than if you have it. It is very clear that the Business Roundtable and others are correct as they understand that by eliminating the overtime pay it is affecting the bottom line. Earlier I heard the Senator talking about what is happening in terms of the police and the firefighters. I bring this chart to the attention of the Senator and see whether he agrees. This is from the National Association of Police Organizations. The Bush proposal would deny overtime: Under such regulations, America's State and Local law enforcement officers, already strained by countless overtime hours ensuring community safety against terrorist threats, could lose this basic benefit accorded to them for their efforts. This is from the International Union of Police Associations: The alterations would also provide a strong disincentive for agencies and municipalities to hire additional first responders, as they seek ways to operate under the growing constraints of historic financial burdens. The implementation of these rules would mark a critical step backwards for our public safety. . . . I just wanted to reaffirm what the Senator said in his excellent comments about the impact this would have on women, the impact this would have on first responders, and the real threat and danger this poses to the hardest working men and women in industrial society. They are the American workers and they have the most to lose. I thank the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if I could ask one more question of the Senator, the Senator is very familiar with the fact that our Republican friends refuse to permit the Senate to have a vote on increasing the minimum wage. If we don't increase the minimum wage, it will be the lowest in terms of purchasing power in the history of minimum wage. Republicans won't permit that. They oppose the Davis-Bacon provision which permits construction workers to be able to have a decent income. They have effectively also withdrawn--listen to this--the tuberculosis standard in OSHA which is so essential in order to protect people who have contamination in their lungs. We have seen the pensions of working families collapse over the period of the last 3 years. What in the world has this administration got against working families? This seems to me to be symbolic of their attitude about working families: Let them eat cake. Let them eat cake. As the Senator has pointed out time and time again, it is the working families who have been the backbone of our economy historically when things have gone well and it is the working families who have taken the brunt when we have had mismanagement of the economy. Does the Senator share my view? Is that a fairly good indicator of the kind of contemptuous attitude the administration has generally with regard to working families?

Mr. KENNEDY. I want to just bring to the attention of the Senator from West Virginia the results of the scores that are taken in my own State of Massachusetts, which really began this effort, which is very similar to what I have just outlined here, 5 years ago. Let me just read the front page on September 4, 2003 of the Boston Globe: Scores show broad gains on MCAS test. That is the statewide standard test, which is basically equivalent to what we call the NAEP test. Let me read this. More Massachusetts high school students passed the MCAS graduation test on their first attempt this year, as scores climbed in nearly every grade, every subject, and every racial group, statewide results released yesterday show. About 75 percent of the class of 2005, or about 52,000 students passed both the English and math portions of their 10th-grade test on their first try this spring. That is significantly better than 69 percent of students in the class of 2004 and 68 percent of students in the class of 2003 who passed the first time they took it. Jubilant state officials hailed the scores at a State House news conference yesterday as ``extremely impressive'' proof that the Massachusetts 10-year effort to improve public schools is bearing fruit. Curriculum reform, better teachers, smaller class size, afterschool programs--this is just what has happened in one State, I say to Senator Byrd. These were the same things we were committed to for every State in the country, to see this kind of progress. We have not solved all the problems. We still have many others. I will not take the time of the Senate to review all of the different categories, the ethnicity, the student status, all the different categories. I ask unanimous consent to have this article printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY. But I want to ask the Senator this last question. In the Budget Act, the budget for fiscal year 2002, the conference report-- this is what bothers me. We have seen the increase in the education budget going from 1997 to 2001 up to 13 percent, to 2002, to 16 percent. That is when Democrats and Republicans worked with the President to try to begin the downpayment on this effort. This is when we had the bipartisan agreement. Then the next year, as the Senator has pointed out, after the television lights had faded and the crowd had disappeared, we have in the budget, with the Republicans in charge: For the years beyond 2002, this report assumes the 2000 discretionary function level grows by inflation. It grows by inflation. Therefore, under the Republicans, it was going to be zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. That is what was in the Republican budget. After we passed the bill and we saw the bill increase, this is what they were saying. Many of us were saying that might have been, but we will hope for the next year from the President of the United States, who specifically negotiated those increases--we thought: That's a mistake--we will find something different. But instead what we have effectively found, as this chart here indicates, under the Bush budget, it leaves millions of children behind. We are going to be leaving 6.2 million children behind; 5.89 in 2005; 5.8 million in 2006; 2007, more than 5 million; 5 million; 5 million. Effectively, under the Byrd proposal, if we continued that progress we achieve what the No Child Left Behind committed us to, and that was we were going to have, at the end of 12 years, proficiency in the public schools for the disadvantaged children of this country. That is what the Byrd amendment puts us on a pathway to. That is why it is so important, so essential. If the Senator would permit me one more moment? We attended the Armed Services Committee meeting earlier today. Does the Senator not agree with me the investment in education is essential if we are going to have the best fighting men and women in the world; that investing in education is essential if we are going to have the strongest economy in the world; and that investing in education is absolutely necessary if we are going to be able to preserve democratic institutions in the greatest country of the world? That this is the core value? Parents understand that. You and I understand it. Senator Harkin and Senator Murray understand that. That is what the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia commits us to here, at a time when we are being requested $87 billion, to say we can have a downpayment of $6 billion for the children of this country.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator very much.

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator from West Virginia was here at the time we had the debate on the No Child Left Behind Act and remembers it very clearly. I remember one of the finest education talks I have heard in the Senate was where the good Senator from West Virginia reviewed for the Members of the Senate his personal experience--it was shared by a few others--in terms of the value of education as a young person when he was growing up in the State of West Virginia. As he remembers the debate on the No Child Left Behind Act and the debate we had the year before when we were looking at the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, there was a general recognition in this body that just providing resources without reform was not meeting our responsibility to the children of this country. But if we were going to have reform, we were going to have to have resources. As I remember the discussions we had with the President of the United States on this point, this was a simple concept, but a rather basic concept, one which gathered broad bipartisan support and was the keystone of the whole No Child Left Behind Act. I am wondering if the Senator remembers at least that general debate and discussion in which this body said, OK, we have not been able to use the resources we have used in looking at title I and elementary and secondary as effectively as we would like to, but we are strongly committed toward reforming our educational system because education is so important to the future of our country, and that was a debate that took place, that resulted in No Child Left Behind, and it is to that issue that the Senator from West Virginia is addressing the Senate, as I hear him this afternoon; that we have put in place the reforms but what is not there are the resources to give life to the reforms. This is what is at the heart of the Senator's amendment, as I understand it and as I interpret it. Am I correct?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the White House and the Republican Congress see a perfect storm coming. Our policy in Iraq is crashing, the Federal budget is crashing, and so are State and local budgets. Family budgets are crashing, too. The administration and the Republican Congress are worried that their power to stay in office is crashing along with the electric power grid. The overtime issue should be an embarrassment for anyone who supports the Republican position. It's a symbol of all that's wrong with so many of their other policies. Three million Americans have lost their jobs since President Bush took office. Ninety-three thousand more were lost in August alone--the seventh consecutive month of job losses. This is no time to end overtime. It's precisely the wrong time. We need to create more jobs to bring this troubled economy back to life. But under the Bush proposal, businesses can raise their profits by asking employees to work harder for lower pay, and avoid hiring new employees. Especially in times like these, the right to overtime pay is a clear incentive for firms to create jobs, because it encourages employers to hire more workers instead of asking current employees to work longer hours. We know that employees across America are already struggling hard to balance their family needs with their work responsibilities. Requiring them to work longer hours for less pay will impose an even greater burden in this daily struggle. Protecting the 40-hour work week is vital to protecting the work- family balance for millions of Americans in communities in all parts of the nation. The last thing Congress should do is to allow this anti- worker administration to make the balance worse than it already is. What can the administration be thinking, when it comes up with such a shameful proposal to deny overtime protections on which millions of workers rely? According to the Congressional General Accounting Office, employees without overtime protection are twice as likely to work overtime as those covered by that protection. Americans are working longer hours today than ever before--longer than in any other industrial nation. At least 1 in 5 employees now has a work week that exceeds 50 hours, let alone 40 hours. Congress cannot sit idle while more and more Americans lose their jobs, their livelihoods, their homes, and their dignity. Denying overtime pay rubs salt in the open wounds. The 8 million Americans who will lose their right to overtime under the Bush administration regulation include police officers, firefighters, nurses, and EMTs the heroes of September 11. With the anniversary of that tragic day just 2 days away, we can't help but remember the horrifying images of that day. The many lives lost. The exhausted firefighters raising the American flag. And we recall the long, grueling hours so many of our first responders invested to protect and save their fellow Americans. Today our first responders work long hours keeping our Nation safe from terrorism and other threats. President Bush wants to take away their overtime pay. Cutbacks in overtime pay are a nightmare that no worker should have to bear. Overtime pay now makes up a quarter of the total pay of workers who receive it. The administration's proposal will mean an average pay cut of $161 a week for them. Hard-working Americans don't deserve this pay cut, and it's wrong for the administration to try to force it on them. Our Democratic amendment is clear. It says that no worker now eligible for overtime protections can lose it as a result of the new regulation. The overtime protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act have been a fundamental right of the Nation's workers for more than half a century. That basic law was enacted in the 1930s to create a 40-hour workweek. It requires employees to be paid fairly for any extra hours. I urge my colleagues to support this essential proposal to keep the faith with the Nation's working families. We will continue the battle to restore jobs, provide fair unemployment benefits, and raise the minimum wage, and we will do all we can to preserve the overtime protections on which so many Americans families depend.

Mr. KENNEDY. I appreciate what the good Senator has said in his comments. These figures might get complex for people who are watching this debate. Basically, the No Child Left Behind Act said, No. 1, we are going to let the States develop their own curriculums. No. 2, we are going to have well-trained teachers who are going to learn that curriculum and be able to teach the students. No. 3, we are going to have smaller class sizes so a well-trained teacher in the classroom is going to be able to interact with the students in those classrooms. No. 4, we are going to find out how much those children learn over the course of the year by giving them not just robot tests and situations where teachers teach to the test but really inquire about what these children are learning in the classroom. No. 5, we are going to have supplementary services to help those children if they fall behind so they will be able to keep up. That is effectively what we were looking at in the No Child Left Behind proposal. We demanded accountability, as the Senator remembers. We demanded accountability from parents because we gave parents the report cards not only about how the children were doing but how their school was doing. We gave accountability to the teachers that they were going to have to upgrade their skills in the courses they were going to have to teach. We gave accountability to the school systems that unless the school systems were going to perform, if they were going to effectively abandon their children or not perform for their children, that they would effectively be taken over by the State. And we were going to insist on a good quality education. Does the Senator, in his comments today, agree with me that we are getting accountability with the students who are working in America and the teachers who are trying hard and those in local communities who are trying to get the small classes, but we do not have the accountability by the President of the United States and the administration providing the resources to let them do it and that the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia would meet our accountability and our commitment when we voted on behalf of that bill? Would the Senator agree that is effectively what we are trying to do? That is the way I read the Senator's amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator from West Virginia be kind enough to yield for a question?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a special honor to take this opportunity to congratulate the Teamsters Union on the 100th anniversary of their formation. On that historic occasion a century ago, the merger of two smaller unions of local delivery men using vehicles drawn by teams of horses launched the extraordinary union we know today as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In those early days, such workers were often fired for union activity, and some were even killed. But the Teamsters persevered and began to thrive. By the 1930s, inter-city truck drivers had become the predominant members of the union, and they fought hard for legal protections, especially the National Labor Relations Act and basic laws setting minimum wages and maximum work hours for their work. In World War II, the Teamsters were a key part of the war effort. They served with great courage in the armed forces. They vigorously promoted war bonds and the collection of scrap metal and rubber. When the war was won, they came home and took up the great cause of social justice in communities across the land, fighting for civil rights and striving to see that America's workers received their fair share of the Nation's amazing post-war prosperity. Now, on this remarkable centennial, the Teamsters are one of the Nation's largest, most vital and most effective unions. They are at the forefront of ongoing major battles for the fundamental rights and dignity of all workers, especially on key issues such as jobs, civil rights, and worker health and safety. I am proud to have worked with them on so many of these important issues. I congratulate them on this very auspicious centennial, and I look forward to working with them in the years ahead as they begin their new century.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is quite correct. There is a panoply of different issues that affect working families. On each and every one of them, I think any fair assessment is that the administration comes down on the wrong side of it. Today it is overtime. And this is a debate at the core of what policy this administration is focused on. But I think, as Senator Dayton and others have pointed out, there are a whole range of issues that shortchange American workers, and we have every intention of continuing the battle for them. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly on another subject. I know there are others who want to speak. But I will just take a moment of the Senate's time to address an education issue which, hopefully, we will have a chance to address and debate further. But I think it is important that we have it out in the Record so our colleagues are aware of it. Mr. President, many of us are deeply concerned about the continuing failure of our appropriations for education to fulfill to promise that the Congress and the administration made to pay for the school reforms of No Child Left Behind signed just a year and a half ago. Make no mistake, the bill before us continues to have harsh cuts in education that will hurt families, students, and teachers throughout the country. These are the children of these workers we were just talking about. The President and Congress promised to reform and improve public education, to leave no child behind over a year ago. We said to the parents and teachers: Help is on its way. But if we pass the school budget before us, the message to parents and teachers and schools would be: You are on your own. A pattern is emerging. Each year the President picks a large area to work on in a bipartisan fashion and promises compassion and help. In the past, that area has been in education. This year, it is the global AIDS crisis, and we hope that the promised support will happen. But on education, the promises made consistently have been broken. In fact, the bill before us contains a litany of broken promises on education, because the Republican Congress refuses to keep them: In January 2002, President Bush promised that ``America's schools will be on a new path of reform . . . our schools will have greater resources to meet those goals.'' But the bill before us cuts funding for the No Child Left Behind Act by $200 million. We have raised standards and raised expectations on school children. We hold schools accountable for better performance. Yet now, the Republican majority wants to cut funding for school reform. President Bush promised that we would ``leave no child behind,'' and that became the title of the landmark school reform bill he signed into law over a year and a half ago. But the bill before us leaves 6 million children behind. It underfunds the Title I program for needy children by over $6 billion. Under the Republican education budget, some 6 million needy children will not get smaller classes, will not get supplemental services, and will not get the special attention they need to meet high standards. In March of last year, President Bush promised to support teachers, making sure they ``get the training they need to raise educational standards.'' But the bill before us cuts 20,000 teachers from professional development programs. It completely eliminates training for teachers in technology. We need to upgrade and expand teacher quality efforts, not downgrade teacher training. The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to give every classroom a high quality teacher. They need more resources, not fewer resources, to reach that goal. President Bush promised that his Administration ``will promote policies that expand educational opportunities for Americans from all racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.'' The bill before us undermines support for non-English speaking children and undermines support for many of the nation's neediest children. The bill before us cuts 32,000 children from English as a Second Language programs. It cuts 40 percent of funding for the children of migrant workers struggling to get their GED and go to college. It eliminates dropout prevention funding. It eliminates the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship program. This legislation basically does nothing to help families afford college, at a time when the rising cost of college is keeping minority and low-income students out. Average public college tuition rose almost ten percent this past year. The average public university's annual costs now equal more than 62 percent of a working class family income. Each year, over 400,000 college-ready, low-income students do not pursue a four-year college degree, because they cannot afford the cost. Yet this bill has a zero increase in individual student Pell grants, zero increase in the campus-based financial aid program, and zero increase in the college work study program. After all the promises made and all the public visits to schools, how can we possibly approve a cut to the No Child Left Behind Act? If we intend to hold schools and students accountable, Congress and the Administration have to be accountable too. We know what works in school reform. When we provide the resources, we know that schools can be turned around. They can upgrade their curricula, provide diagnostic tests that identify learning needs early, train teachers in the latest and best instructional techniques, and give students the after-school academic help and English language instruction they deserve. We have seen hundreds of high-poverty schools across the country turn themselves around with exactly these reforms, because they have the necessary resources to do. We need more, not fewer, resources for school reform, so that the reforms we say we care so much about can actually succeed. Sadly, the Senate is suddenly starting to move even more harshly in the wrong direction. For the first time in eight years, the Senate education budget is lower than the House proposed education budget. And the House Republican bill falls short by over $8 billion, compared to the amount needed to fully carry out the No Child Left Behind Act. The Senate bill before us is even worse. This bill actually cuts funds for the No Child Left Behind Act. Obviously, money is not the answer to all the problems of our schools. But the way we allocate resources in the federal budget is a pretty clear expression of our view of the nation's priorities. And the priorities on education reflected in the bill before us--the product of a Republican-only budget process--are profoundly wrong. I hope a bipartisan group of colleagues will come together as we consider this legislation, and keep the promises we made to help these schools. Our nation and our nation's schools and students deserve no less. I want to talk about the issue of higher education, specifically. In the area of education, the amendment I offer with Senator Collins increases the maximum Pell grant by $500, increases other financial aid to keep pace with the soaring tuition costs college students and their families are now facing. A coalition of 56 higher education and student organizations throughout the country supports it. The $2.2 billion is offset by the same mechanism the majority uses in the underlying substitute to offset their funding levels. We rescind $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2004 advanced appropriations made in fiscal 2003 and reappropriate those funds in fiscal 2003. Our Nation faces a growing crisis in higher education because of the soaring costs of tuition in recent years. The crisis is now far worse because State and local budgets are in crisis, too. Cash-strapped States are dealing with $80 billion in deficits by cutting higher education funds and forcing public colleges to raise tuition. According to a USA Today report last week, over 40 percent of public colleges in America, which educate three-quarters of all college students, are raising tuition by more than 10 percent a year. There has been a $1,750 increase in tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts. Northern Virginia Community College, which has the most community college students in Virginia, has raised tuition by 45 percent. Iowa has raised tuition by 19 percent at all public colleges. The University of Arizona has raised tuition by 28 percent; the University of Missouri by 18 percent. Unless this amendment is adopted, over 100,000 current college students are in danger of dropping out because of higher tuition costs and zero increased financial aid. Hard-working students are threatened, students like Tawn Pham at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. Tawn is 21 years old. He works at the local courthouse. He is a Pell grant recipient. He borrows Stafford loans. His family came to America from Vietnam in 1987. Without financial aid, he would never have gone to college. Without increased financial aid, his college education is threatened by recent tuition and fee hikes. The American dream we all pay homage to is threatened for young students like Tawn Pham because of our threatened failure to increase financial aid. The answer is not simply to allow students to borrow more and more. Vast numbers of college students are already borrowing, for example, tens of thousands of dollars to pay for their education. Twenty years ago a typical aid package was 40 percent loans, 60 percent grants. Today the figures are reversed. The typical package is now 60 percent loans and 40 percent grants. And students who are pursuing graduate work confront upwards of $120,000 in student loan debt. Yet the banking industry proposed that students borrow even more at higher interest rates to go to college. Last year the Bush administration proposed to make consolidated student loans more expensive. No young person should have to mortgage their future in order to go to college. They should be paying off the loans they have at lower interest rates, not higher interest rates. Vast numbers of students are already taking jobs to defray the costs of their education. Half of all college students who take part-time jobs are now working 25 hours a week and trying to be full-time students, too. Their studies are clearly suffering, and so is their future. According to GAO, only 41 percent of students who work between 20 and 31 hours a week complete a college degree. For students who work 32 hours a week or more, the figure is even worse. Sadly, this bill provides virtually no new help for students and families struggling to pay the increased cost of higher education. In the bill before us, there is zero increase in the maximum Pell grant; zero increase in Perkins loans; zero increase in work-study aid; zero increase in campus-based financial aid; zero increase in support for leveraged State student aid. The amendment Senator Collins and I are proposing is a stopgap effort to provide assistance for hard-pressed college students and their families. It will help the 4.8 million Pell grant recipients whose median family income is $15,000 a year. There are 4.8 million students who are going to institutions of higher learning, and their family income is $15,000 a year. It will bring new Pell grants to 200,000 new recipients. It will expand the TRIO and the GEAR-UP Programs to enable historically underrepresented students to achieve the goal of a college education. It supports graduate students in the science, humanities, and public interest. It will bring us a step closer to guaranteeing all Americans a promise of education security. Just as we have made Social Security and Medicare a promise to our senior citizens over 60 years ago, we should make education security a promise to young men and women. If you work hard, finish high school, and are accepted for admission to college, we should guarantee you will have the opportunity to earn a college degree. I urge my colleagues to support the pending amendment. Surely we have reached the stage in America where we can say it and mean it--inability to pay the cost will never again be a barrier to the dream of a college education. I would just point my colleagues' attention to a statement from the administration, an administration policy. I will include the relevant parts--executive branch, September 2 statement, Pell grant programs: ``The bill provides $12.2 billion for Pell grants, $538 million less than the President's request for the high priority program.'' This is the administration saying that the underlying substitute is $538 million below what the President of the United States even requested. Under the Department's most recent estimates of Pell, the Senate level may be insufficient to cover the cost for student awards in 2004. That's true. We believe that this amendment that we're offering ought to be accepted. It is related obviously not only to those children who are going on to college, but it also helps and assists GEAR-UP children coming in--which are basically the children who would fit into this category, and helps the TRIO Programs. It gives general support for the education continuum for these children that would otherwise definitely not have the chance to attend higher education. I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside so that I might offer an amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Pensions.

Mr. KENNEDY. I have the floor, and after the Senator has finished, I will be glad to yield.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. KENNEDY. It is a privilege to join Senator Harkin on this urgently needed proposal to protect the 40-hour workweek and the right to overtime pay for millions of working men and women. The Bush administration's new regulations are an unfair scheme to prop up business profits by allowing firms across America to reduce their costs by denying overtime protections to more than 8 million hard-working men and women, including 200,000 in my own State of Massachusetts. Police officers, nurses, cooks, clerks, physical therapists, reporters, and many others would be required to work longer hours for less pay. Our amendment is very clear. It says that no worker now eligible for overtime protections can be denied overtime pay as a result of the new regulation. With a failing economy, with more than 9 million Americans out of work, with so many other families struggling to make ends meet, cutbacks in overtime pay are a nightmare that no worker should have to bear. Overtime pay now makes up a quarter of their total pay, and the administration's proposal will mean an average pay cut of $161 a week for them. Hard-working Americans do not deserve this pay cut, and it is wrong for the administration to force it on them. Overtime protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act have been a fundamental right of this Nation's workers for more than half a century. This basic law was enacted in the 1930s to create a 40-hour workweek. It requires workers to be paid fairly for any extra hours. Especially in times such as these, it is an incentive for job creation because it encourages employers to hire more workers instead of forcing current employees to work longer hours. The economy has lost more than 3 million private sector jobs since President Bush took office. The Bush administration is wrong to propose regulations that will enable businesses to require their employees to work longer hours and reduce the need to hire additional workers. According to the congressional General Accounting Office, employees without overtime protection are more than twice as likely to work overtime as those covered by that protection. Americans are working longer hours today than ever before, longer than in any other industrial nation. At least one in five employees now has a workweek that exceeds 50 hours, let alone 40 hours a week. We know that employees across America are already struggling hard to balance their family needs with their work responsibilities. Requiring them to work longer hours for less pay will impose an even greater burden to this daily struggle. Protecting the 40-hour workweek is vital to protecting the work/family balance for millions of Americans in communities all across the Nation. The last thing Congress should do is to allow this antiworker administration to make the balance worse than it already is. Sixty-five years ago the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt and established minimum wage and maximum work hours. It was in the midst of the Great Depression, and as President Roosevelt told the country: . . . if the hours of labor for the individual could be shortened . . . more people could be employed. If minimum wages could be established, each worker could get a living wage. Those words are as true in 2003 as they were in 1938. Our modern economy has lost more private sector jobs during this economic decline than in any recession since the Great Depression. What can the administration be thinking when it comes up with such a shameful proposal to deny overtime protections on which millions of workers rely? Congress cannot sit idly by when more and more Americans lose their jobs, their homes, their livelihoods, and their dignity. We will continue to battle to restore jobs, provide fair unemployment benefits, raise the minimum wage, and we will do all we can to preserve the overtime protections of which so many American families depend. I urge my colleagues to support this essential proposal to keep faith with the Nation's working families. I wish to take a few moments of the time of the Senate to review what is happening to American workers in relation to other countries around the world. It is reflected in this chart. The red columns indicate the number of hours workers are working and comparing it with other industrialized nations of the world. As you can see from this chart, American workers are working longer and harder than those in any other industrial nation of the world. That has been a phenomenon that has really developed in the recent times. This chart shows that U.S. work hours have increased while those in other industrial nations actually decreased. The United States--we see over here the increases; and the decline in other industrial nations. So here we have a workforce that is prepared to work and prepared to work long and hard. Yet we find the administration is attempting to penalize these workers for being willing to work and for working long and hard. This chart here is ``Workers Without Overtime Protections Are More Than Twice As Likely To Work Longer Hours.'' What does this chart say? That if the workers do not have the overtime protections, the employers work them more than twice what they would work if they did have the overtime protection. Why is that important? Because this particular proposal is taking away this kind of protection. The result will be that the workforce, which is working longer and harder than that in any other industrial nation in the world, is going to find they are going to have to work even longer and harder to make ends meet. This is true, even if they are working 50 hours a week. Then they are three times as likely to be required to work longer than if they had the overtime protections. So we have a situation where we see Americans working longer and harder. We have a situation that, if they do not have the overtime protections, they are required by their employers to work twice as hard as those with the overtime protections. In the instances of those who work 50 hours a week, they are required to work three times as hard. These are the facts. Nearly 3 in 10 employees already work more than 40 hours a week and one in five Americans work more than 50 hours a week. One in five Americans are working more than 50 hours a week. These working Americans don't have the time they need to meet their family responsibilities. Parents today define that biggest daily challenge as balancing work and family responsibilities and instilling values in their children. When parents have more time to spend with their children, they achieve more academically, improve behavior, and demonstrate lower dropout rates. This proposal by the administration is an antifamily proposal because it is going to deny essential resources for families to be able to meet their particular needs. The result will be all the additional social problems that impact families that do not have a chance to be together, to stay together, to work together, to pray together, to enjoy each other. The Fair Labor Standards Act overtime protection works. Workers are compensated time and a half their regular pay for hours worked in excess of the 40 hours per week. That is what the law is. Employers have a financial disincentive to work employees excessive hours. Employers have an incentive to hire more workers instead. As we see, that is the current law. This is the current employment situation where we see the loss of jobs for more than 3 million American workers over this period of time. So we are finding at the present time our workers are working longer and they are working harder in order to provide for their families. We have the greatest loss of jobs that we have had since the time of the Great Depression. What this particular proposal is saying is that isn't even enough. Even though you are working longer and working harder than at any time before, we are going to take away the protections which are going to effectively deny the average family who is receiving overtime about $161 a week. With all the challenges we are facing in this country, the fact that workers who are working longer and harder and are making $161 on average in overtime is not on the front burner. These Americans are working. They ought to be entitled to that protection. We have now more than 8 million workers--2.5 million workers are salaried employees and 5.5 million hourly workers--who will lose their overtime pay under the Bush proposal. Even some who are salaried workers are eligible for overtime. This is 8 million who would be eligible for overtime who will be denied that. Even the business community admits this will have widespread effects. According to the Society for Human Resource Management: This is going to affect every workplace, every employee, and every professional. This is widespread in its impact on working families in this country. This is a chart which should give you some kind of historical perspective of the number of workers who were protected in terms of overtime. The percentage of workers who were not protected was 17 percent in 1983. In 1998, it was 20 percent. Now, under the Bush proposal--here it is--33 percent. Thirty-three percent of the workers, effectively. It includes the 8 million who will not be eligible. The impact of this is very clear. That is sort of a major pay cut for workers. American workers are working longer and harder than any other industrial society in the world. Who are they? They are millions of workers who would lose overtime protections under the Bush proposal. Let us be clear for any who are watching this debate. Police officers will be affected. Nurses will be affected. Cooks and chefs and clerical workers will be affected. Firefighters and physical therapists will be affected. It is interesting that these are first responders--police officers, firefighters, and nurses. They are our first responders. We are talking about trying to give support to our first responders on the one hand, and on the other hand we are taking away the economic protections they need to provide for their families. We continue along with the various groups: Paralegals, reporters, dental hygienists, graphic artists, bookkeepers, lab technicians, and social workers. The interesting irony is that they are our first responders. We not only fail to give support to the local communities which they need for the first responders to terrorism, but on the other hand we are sending a message to the police officers, firefighters, and nurses that we are going to reduce their pay at the same time. What kind of message is that at a time when we are talking about homeland security? Millions of workers depend on their overtime pay to make ends meet. The most recent statistics show that overtime pay accounted for more than 25 percent of the income of workers who worked overtime which they depend on in terms of their income. The workers are stripped of their overtime protection, and they will be forced to work longer hours for less pay. That is what this is about. It is just a major broadside against workers in America who are working longer and harder, attempting to maintain their jobs, hopeful that they won't be dismissed or fired as a result of the economic policies of this administration which has seen the greatest growth of unemployment since the Great Depression as a result of economic policy. The Senator from Iowa will remember when we had different economic policies. We had them during the period of President Clinton when we had the longest period of economic growth and price stability in this country since the early part of the 1960s. That was because of economic leadership at the national level. In the early 1960s, we had the longest period of economic growth and price stability than we had for better part of the century. National economic leadership is essential in terms of ensuring the people are going to work. We have a failed economic policy with 3 million people left out of work. And for those who are left in, we are cutting back on the pay of some of the hardest working individuals in the world. That is unfair. That is unjust. It is done by the issuance of a regulation rather than as a result of legislation and hearings. It will not stand. I commend the Senator from Iowa for his leadership in this area because he is involved in some other issues that affect working people and farmers and others on the forefront. I commend him for all he has done. I am proud to join with him in resisting this proposal because it is just wrong. It is wrong for the workers. It is wrong for our economy. It is wrong for families. This is a family issue. It is a homeland security issue. It is a children's issue. It is a women's issue because so many of these workers who work overtime in the economy are women. Make no mistake, the women will be hurt by this proposal. They are working hard and trying to raise their families. Make no mistake about who is being impacted on this. It has broad implications in terms of our economy. It is not right, it is not fair, it is not just, it is bad economics, and it is just lousy policy. There are those of us who will be joining together with the Senator from Iowa to see that we resist this proposal.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.

Mr. KENNEDY. I say to the Senator, I certainly agree. I know we are going to have an opportunity to address this and debate this issue, but I hope our colleagues, over the period of the next day or so, will really think long and hard and deeply about this proposal. We have been attempting in this body to raise the minimum wage for working families. Effectively, without raising the minimum wage this year, we will lose all of the gains of the last increase. And we are denied on the other side of the body. We indicated we would like to raise the minimum wage. In fact, there are millions of workers in this country who are working two or three jobs a day. These are primarily women. About 62 or 63 percent of those workers who earn the minimum wage are women. One- third of those women have children, so it is a children's issue. It is a women's issue. It is a civil rights issue because most of the people working at the minimum wage are men and women of color. And it is a fairness issue. The American people support overwhelmingly the fact that people who want to work hard, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, should not have to live in poverty for themselves and their children. We cannot get a vote on it. The other side will not let us have a vote on it. So they will not let you take care of those who are at the lower end of the economic ladder. Here they are going on to take the overtime away. They have assaulted Davis-Bacon, which is ways of giving protection to workers who are trying to do a decent job in terms of building and constructing the great parts of American commerce. And what in the world, we find out that on the issue of worker health and safety, they are now rescinding the proposed tuberculosis standards which have been in development for 10 years, when we have a dramatic increase in the problems of tuberculosis and other airborne diseases in this country. The list goes on and on. What is it about this administration? With all the challenges, with Iraq adrift, our grids and electrical systems crashing, the judicial nomination process in shambles, and the economy sputtering, they are spending their time attacking and assaulting working men and women in this country. Can the Senator possibly help me understand how this is a priority, given all the other kinds of needs we are facing in this Nation?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand there are a number of pending amendments, the order of which and the time of which will be worked out by the floor managers. We wanted to make available to the Members today this amendment. We will obviously work with the leadership and floor managers to have appropriate time for debate and discussion. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. The only answer I can reach is that it is the result of pressure being exerted on the administration by these business groups that do not want to be in a position of having to hire additional workers, and they don't want to be paying additional overtime pay that has been a part of the whole social balance in this country and society and recognized as such by Republicans and Democrats since the 1930s. Forty hours of work a week is what workers ought have as an opportunity for employment. Under special circumstances, if they are going to have to work longer or want to work longer, they get the time and a half. Now what we undermining is the age-old concept about the importance of protecting a 40-hour week. We are effectively eliminating that. Make no mistake about it. Effectively, the 40-hour workweek will be eliminated for millions of workers with this proposal because now employers will be able to require hours from the workers without having to give them fair compensation. But let me ask the Senator. The Senator from Iowa is a floor manager with the Senator from Pennsylvania on this legislation which has important funding for education programs, for health programs, for job training programs, for the NIH, and all the research we are doing in terms of cancer research--all kinds of research. Is it true that this administration has said, if their proposal-- which will deny millions of workers overtime pay--is eliminated, this administration and this President will veto the underlying bill which they feel so strongly about in terms of the income of working families who are working longer and harder providing for their children; that they are prepared to risk the funding of these vital services which are absolutely at the heart of the quality of life of the American people? Am I correct in understanding that this is the administration's position, that they feel so strongly about taking away the overtime pay for workers that they are prepared to risk the whole funding stream for education, for health, for NIH, and for job training, the range of different services that are so important to the well-being and health and education of people in this country?

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Beyond that, as I understand it, some of the resources could be used to retain individuals actually in school rather than retraining young workers who drop out of school. This has an important relationship to what we have been trying to do in terms of focus, attention, and support for strengthening our education process to reach out to those individuals who may be tempted to drop out but can be retained in school and perhaps acquire some skills. This effort is reflective of a long experience--not that there shouldn't be some changes and alterations in a program. I see our good friend from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, on the other side of the aisle who is an expert in terms of training programs, OSHA, and otherwise. We have tried to work this out in a bipartisan way. This is really a key to our economic recovery. I thank the Senator from Washington for bringing this to the attention of the Senate. I hope we will have strong bipartisan support. We have had bipartisan support in the past. This certainly is an amendment that deserves it. I thank her for offering it on the appropriations bill.

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator also understands that we are talking about a different aspect in terms of the need for training. We have the youth, we have the adult workers, and we have those who are laid off because of skills. There are a variety of different challenges out there, are there not? What we want to try to do is make sure we are going to take scarce resources and use those resources in ways which will result in giving skills to individuals--whether they are young, whether they are dislocated, whether they are the adult workers--and get them back into gainful employment, paying taxes and really returning resources to the economy in a very constructive and productive way. I understand the Senator's amendment attempts to do that. Am I correct?

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator from Washington has just made an excellent presentation on an issue which is the heart and soul of our economic challenge; that is, to ensure that we are going to have continued upgrading of skills for workers to be able to compete in the world economy. On Labor Day, I heard the President of the United States talk about the importance of job training and the importance of continuing education in the employment field. Yet it is my understanding, in terms of the administration's request, that there was actually a reduction in funding for this program--not that money in and of itself is the sole answer. But the Senator is very aware that the job training program that has been worked out and is in place at the present time is really the result of a very strong, bipartisan effort by Senator Kassebaum, Senator Murray, myself, and others involved in trying to work out one- stop shopping working with labor, work, and business. We finally got a program that is effective, and now the resources are really needed. We find that workers getting the training are able to find employment. It is really a key issue in terms of our economy today and in terms of the future. Is the Senator not somewhat perplexed, given the statements by the President that we would have a reduction in funding of the program, which program reflects strong bipartisan effort, passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, and supported by the President, and which is so necessary in terms of having people getting the skills necessary for them to get back to work?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I hope our colleagues listen carefully to the statement of my friend and colleague from Nevada in outlining the factual situation regarding the consideration of Mr. Estrada. He states it quite accurately as a member of the Judiciary Committee. The real issue is whether the Senate is going to perform as our Founding Fathers expected us to perform. Any fair reading of the Constitutional Convention indicates quite clearly until the final few weeks of the Constitutional Convention that appointed power of all United States judges was in the Senate. Only in the last few weeks was the decision made to make it a shared power. It was never understood that we were to be a rubber stamp for anything that the Executive posed in terms of judicial nominees. The members of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate take that responsibility very carefully and closely. Part of fulfilling the responsibility after the President makes a nomination is for us to make a balanced and informed judgment. In order to make a balanced and informed judgment, we ought to know, the people ought to know, the Senate ought to know the information the White House knows; that the President knows when he is going to make a nomination to the district court, in this case. When the nominee comes before the Judiciary Committee and says, look, I am quite prepared to share that information, and where Members of the other side of the aisle implore the White House to make that information available so that there could be a complete understanding of the positions taken by Mr. Estrada, and then a movement toward the completion of the nominee, the White House indicated they were not going to comply with that particular request. They are the ones who made the judgment that it was more important for them not to have that information shared than the consideration for the Senate of the United States to make a balanced and informed judgment about the complete positions, understanding, and awareness of this nominee and how they view the Constitution of the United States. I am very hopeful, as the Senator from Nevada pointed out, since there has been sufficient and overwhelming acceptance of so many of the White House nominees, that in the future we will be able to work out the process so we can have someone who is qualified, someone who can command the kind of strong support in the Senate as so many other nominees have. And, in particular, this is an enormously important court, as the Senator from Nevada knows, the DC Circuit Court. It has very special jurisdiction. The considerations of the rights to workers, those appeals from the NLRB go to the DC Circuit Court. The interpretations of the environmental laws go to the DC Circuit Court. Protections and matters regarding the Patriot Act go directly to the DC Circuit Court. It has an extremely important role in terms of our whole judicial system which increases the responsibility we have in ensuring this information about the nominee is going to be available to the American people. I wish the best to Mr. Estrada. I agree with the characterization of the Senator from Nevada that he has been the victim of the decision made by the White House to refuse to cooperate with the Senate.