Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as of today, 2,000 American soldiers have been killed in combat in Iraq. Since last January's election in Iraq, we have lost 565 American soldiers; 74 of those soldiers have been killed in October--an average of three a day. An additional 15,220 have been wounded, and more than 7,000 of whom were unable to return to combat. The youngest of America's fallen soldiers was just 18. The oldest was 59. Nearly three quarters had not even celebrated their 30th birthday. They came from every State in the Nation. This includes 38 soldiers from my own State of Massachusetts. They are the best of America, and we are proud of each one. Although I disagree with the President about Iraq, I honor the service and sacrifice and dedication of each of these brave men and women. Our Armed Forces are serving ably in Iraq under enormously difficult circumstances and the policy of our Government must be worthy of their sacrifice. Unfortunately, it is not, and the American people know it. Our soldiers in Iraq need more than happy talk about progress from the President. They need more than a public relations campaign. They need an effective plan to end the violence, and stabilize Iraq, so they can come home with dignity and honor. Reality is hard medicine to swallow. Facts are stubborn. As the Valerie Plame case makes increasingly clear, the administration stopped at nothing to cover up its misguided and dishonest decision to go to war, and our servicemen and women, their families, and friends are paying an unacceptable price. They deserve better--much better from their President and so does the Nation. It was wrong for the President to rush to war for such a deeply questionable cause. President Bush once said that the war in Iraq was a catastrophic success. He's half right in one sense. The war has been a catastrophe--for our soldiers and their families, for the war on terrorism, and for America's standing in the world. It has made the United States more hated in the world than at any other time in our history. Beyond the cost in human lives and to our national security, there has been an enormous financial cost. American taxpayers are spending $195 million each day in Iraq. For the cost of fighting the war in Iraq for one day, we could make significant improvements in homeland security. We could provide 4 million American households with emergency readiness kits. We could close the crisis communications technology gap for 41 small cities, 36 mid-sized cities, or 6 large cities, so that Federal, State and local first responders can talk to one another during an emergency. We could purchase 780 fire trucks for improving local emergency response capabilities, and we could employ 5,000 fire fighters, 4,000 police patrol officers, or 7,000 paramedics and emergency medical technicians for one year each. For the cost of fighting the war in Iraq one day, we could double the Federal budget for nuclear reactor safety and security inspections to ensure that these potential terrorist targets are adequately protected. We could pay for 1,100 additional border patrol agents to better guard our borders against potential terrorists. We could provide 9,700 port container inspection units to detect hazardous materials being trafficked into the country. Obviously, the $195 million a day we spend in Iraq could be better spent on the all-important areas of jobs, education, and health care, which the Senate is debating today. Instead of spending those funds in Iraq, we could spend them on better teachers, better financial aid for college students, better health care for families, and countless other priorities whose budgets are being cut back because of Iraq. I ask unanimous consent that a document I've prepared outlining the various ways $195 million dollars a day could be spent on pressing priorities at home be printed in the Record. Instead of covering up mistakes in Iraq, it is time for the President to admit them, to adopt an effective strategy to end this war and begin to bring our troops home, and to stop ignoring the very real priorities facing the Nation and the many many challenges facing us at home and abroad.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with the passing of Rosa Parks, the Nation has lost a courageous woman, a true American heroine, and an icon of the civil rights movement. All of us mourn her loss. Half a century ago, Rosa Parks stood up not only for herself but for all future generations of Americans. Her quiet resoluteness in the face of segregation inspired America, transformed the civil rights movement, and roused the moral conscience of the Nation from its long slumber on civil rights. We will never forget her, and our hearts and prayers today are with her loved ones. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, AL, on her way home by bus from her work. Under the law at that time in Montgomery, and in many other places in the South, Rosa Parks, as an African American, was ordered to give up her seat for a white passenger when the bus became crowded. She refused, was arrested, and lost her job as a result. But her courageous act prompted the African American community to begin a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, which eventually broke the back of the Jim Crow rules in the system, and Montgomery buses were desegregated the following year. Her later life continued to demonstrate her quiet moral resolve and her extraordinary commitment to doing what is right. She continued her civil rights work after moving to Detroit in 1957, working with the office of Congressman John Conyers for over 20 years, and later starting the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, a nonprofit organization that motivates youths to reach their highest potential. In 1996, Rosa Parks was honored by President Clinton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and she received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999. I join my colleagues from Michigan, Senators Levin and Stabenow, in support of a resolution honoring the life and accomplishments of Rosa Parks. Her courage, dignity, and determination symbolize the best of America, the spirit of patriotism that challenges us whenever we fail to live up to the highest ideals of our society. Today, as we mourn the passing of Rosa Parks, we are reminded how much has been accomplished because of her sacrifice, and how much work America still has to do to fully live up to her ideals of equality. We are grateful for her example, and proud to carry on her mission of hope, opportunity, and equal justice for all. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about her courageous step towards equality, ``[N]o one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, `I can take it no longer' ''. Let those words in honor of Rosa Parks be our guide today.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the distinguished Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I commend our Chairman, Senator Enzi, for his leadership throughout this process. The hearings and meetings he convened to enable us to hear directly from the persons most affected by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina have been invaluable to the development of this bipartisan legislation. I also commend Senator Alexander and Senator Dodd for their leadership in working with us to draft this one-time, temporary impact aid for displaced students attending public and nonpublic schools. We all agree that all displaced students deserve help in continuing their education, and we all agree on the extraordinary circumstances and unprecedented scope of this disaster. The aid provided by this bill flows through the public school system to ensure greater accountability for the money. It enables these schools to make payments to accounts set up for displaced students in nonpublic schools, as well, which can then use those funds to provide services to the displaced students enrolled in their schools.

Mr. KENNEDY. Certainly.

Mr. KENNEDY. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I agree with the sentiments of my colleagues and want to point out that we have clearly stated in the bill our intentions with regard to the temporary nature of this program. Would the Senator from Tennessee please explain the provisions we have included to ensure that the program is not extended?

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator from Tennessee. Would the Senator yield for a follow-up question?

Mr. KENNEDY. Isn't it true that in addition to these provisions in the bill, we have all agreed to stand together against attempts to extend this program beyond this school year or beyond this context?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we need to address the urgent school needs of the hundreds of thousands of children affected by the deadly storm that hit the gulf coast, and the bill that Senator Alexander, Senator Dodd, Chairman Enzi and I have introduced will begin to do so. As we continue to see images of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita and the troubled process of rebuilding along the gulf coast, we are reminded that we are all part of the American family, and we have a responsibility to help members of that family when they are in need. Part of that responsibility is to do all we can to see that children and youth do not lose a year of their education. Hundreds of thousands of school children attended classes in buildings that have been damaged or destroyed. In Mississippi, 271 schools have been damaged; and in Louisiana over 130,000 students have been affected. Hurricane Katrina alone displaced 372,000 children, and damaged or destroyed 700 schools. Our legislation will provide urgently needed resources to help these schools get back on track and help these displaced students to resume their education, wherever they've temporarily landed. People across the country have opened their homes. Communities have opened their schools. We owe a great debt of gratitude to all the principals and superintendents who stepped up to the plate so quickly. But they need realistic help from Congress as they struggle to accommodate these students. We need to do all we can to assist already hard-pressed schools as they attempt to meet the massive new challenge of including hundreds or thousands of new students in their local schools. This bill will provide the relief necessary to support the instruction, after-school programs, and other school services the students need, when everything in their lives has been turned upside- down. It provides needed funding to help schools on the gulf coast to reopen soon, so that these children can return to their own schools as quickly as possible. The bill provides $900 million for special school reopening grants for affected districts. These grants will supplement FEMA funding to assure effective use of Federal funds. They can be used to re-purchase textbooks and instructional materials, establish temporary facilities while repairs are being made, help reestablish the data that was destroyed, and pay the salaries of teachers and other personnel who are working to reopen these schools. The bill also provides $2.4 billion to help ease the temporary transition of students into new school districts and relieve the financial burden on these schools through one-time emergency impact aid for receiving districts. Districts will report the number of affected public and private school students they have enrolled, including students with special needs, and receive supplemental aid in quarterly payments, for a maximum of $6,000 a pupil, or $7,500 a pupil for those with disabilities. These funds will be used to help the districts cover the additional costs they have incurred as a result of enrolling displaced students, and can be used for purposes such as supporting basic instruction, purchasing educational materials and supplies, and helping schools temporarily expand facilities to avoid overcrowding. Given the extraordinary circumstances and unprecedented scope of this disaster, we need to support the families whose lives have been destroyed by this storm by helping them to continue their children's education. We should do so even if their children ended up in a private school. But we must do so in a way that is non-ideological and responsible. Our bill is a bipartisan compromise to support children who enrolled in the private schools that opened their doors to students displaced by Katrina. Through this temporary, one-time emergency impact aid, funds will go to public school districts, which will make payments on behalf of dislocated children enrolled in private schools in their area. Under current law, Federal funding is available in certain circumstances to support the education of disadvantaged and disabled students in private schools. Our bill follows that model, which will expedite relief to affected families and provide accountability for public funds. The aid provided by the bill flows through the public school system, not to parents. States must establish income eligibility criteria for aid to students enrolled in private schools. Under the bill, the public school makes payments to an account set up for displaced students in a private school. The private schools can then access those funds to provide services on behalf of the displaced students enrolled in their schools. Our bill contains strong civil rights protections. Schools that participate in the program are not allowed to discriminate in enrollment on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, or sex. The bill explicitly states that existing civil rights laws apply to recipients of these funds, and it prohibit Federal funds from being used for religious purposes. The bill explicitly states that this type and level of aid to public and private schools is being provided only because of the unprecedented circumstances and massive dislocation of students caused by the hurricanes. As sponsors of the bill, we agree that this will be a temporary program, and that it is not intended to be a precedent for anything except another disaster in which over 370,000 school children are displaced. The bill sunsets at the end of the school year, and funds provided can be used only for expenses incurred during the 2005-2006 school year. The bill also includes $100 million for after-school programs and supplemental services for displaced children, and $50 million to help children who are newly homeless as a result of the hurricane. In addition, the bill creates a new one-year authority for a program for high school juniors and seniors. Grants will go to state and local education agencies alone, or in partnership with colleges and community-based organizations, to offer alternative programs that provide instruction, test preparation and assistance with college applications, and job readiness skills. Our bill will relieve the immediate and short term needs of these schools and children. But we may need to do more to help the communities along the gulf coast rebuild. We must ensure that schools and communities have adequate resources to meet their construction needs, and we must ensure that communities are able to bring their quality teachers and workforce back home. As the process of rebuilding moves forward, we will continue to look for ways the Federal Government can help make these communities better than ever. Our bill is a bipartisan, compromise that will give relief to schools and children as soon as possible. I urge Congress and the administration to enact this legislation as soon as possible, so that these funds can do their job. The children and schools affected by the hurricanes cannot wait any longer.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I take a moment of the Senate's time to reiterate my very strong support for the amendment offered by my colleague and friend, Senator Reed of Rhode Island, and my colleague, Senator Kerry, and myself on increasing emergency funding for the LIHEAP program. This program is a lifeline to many poor individuals on fixed incomes in my state of Massachusetts and across the nation. It is the help and assistance that is provided to low-income, elderly and disabled households to defray the steep costs of home heating. The average LIHEAP household has an income of less than $10 thousand. These individuals are trying to make ends meet. According to the Energy Information Administration of the Energy Department, this year natural gas prices for heating one's home will increase by almost 50 percent over last year, home heating oil will increase 32 percent, electricity will increase 5 percent. In Massachusetts, the current average price per gallon of heating oil is $2.51. This is an increase of 30 percent over the average price per gallon last October. These aren't just abstract numbers. They represent huge burdens on real people. Just last week, Mayor Menino and I met with low-income seniors at the Curtis Hall Community Center in Massachusetts. These families are caught between a rock and a hard place about how they are going to pay their heating bills. Are they going to cut back on food? Are they going to cut back on prescription drugs which are so necessary? Are they going to try and continue to put the temperature level down to such a low degree that it threatens their health and well-being? Those are the cruel choices they are faced with today. So many senior citizens are looking into the future, they are looking at the impact of sky-rocketing heating bills over the course of the winter, and they are frightened and scared. They are wondering who is going to give them some help and assistance. Our amendment increases emergency funding for the LIHEAP program by $3.1 billion. This funding on top of the President's budget request for $2 billion would bring the program to $5.1 billion -the level authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Funding for LIHEAP has been stagnant for more than a decade. It has seen significant loss in terms of purchasing power. We have a program that has been stagnant for over 10 years, the program has lost purchasing power, and absolutely dramatic increases in heating bills. We need to provide help and assistance to low income families. This amendment provides that much needed assistance. I hope we have broad support. This is an essential amendment. We can talk about food; we can talk about medicines. We ought to put heat right in that same category. I will mention some of the low income individuals struggling to survive: Wilhelmina Mathis of Dorchester. Wilhelmina is 71 years old and lives alone. She keeps her thermostat set at 60 degrees to save money. She hopes the Federal Government will come through with more LIHEAP money before she runs out of a way to pay her heating bill. She says: I turn down the thermostat as low as I can and sometimes I turn it off and put on extra sweaters. I don't know now much longer I can keep doing this.'' Jacqueline Arroyo of Roxbury, MA, is a single mom who lives in Roxbury with her baby daughter Jessica. She is a nurse who lost her job in August 2004 and has been working temporary jobs ever since. Her salary has not been enough to cover all of her bills. Her electricity bill is now $4,000, and she worries about how she will pay off the debt before this winter. Emory Baily has MS, and it is hard for him to get around. Now the comfort of his home is in jeopardy. Any day the heating oil will run out. The assistance he receives from LIHEAP has run out as temperatures begin to fall. In Boston, a 79-year-old man lives with a sick wife. He worked hard on a loading dock most of his life and retired with a pension, but he has a hard time paying all the bills. He receives LIHEAP benefits, but the fuel oil assistance has been exhausted. We are not even halfway through the winter. In Haverhill, MA, a single mother lives with her 18-year-old son, who is handicapped, her 19-year-old daughter, and her daughter's child, who has a medical condition. Both mother and daughter are employed as school bus monitors. They have little or no income over the summer. Their rent is $950 a month. Their last gas bill was $1,729. Because they could not pay their gas bill, their gas was shut off. Even if they qualify for $600 in LIHEAP assistance, the gas company may refuse to reconnect the service unless the family comes up with another $400 to $800 toward the back pay. These are typical families. This is the issue we have before the Senate. It is truly a life-and-death situation. It certainly deserves the support of our colleagues in the Senate. I hope that will be reflected in the vote at 2:30.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as this bill now moves to conference with the House, I strongly urge our Senate conferees to reject an unfortunate amendment adopted by the House prohibiting the allocation of any funds for the District of Columbia to enforce its firearms registration law and its requirement for DC residents to keep their firearms unloaded and disassembled, or bound by a trigger lock. In effect, the House amendment would repeal the DC Government's longstanding ban on firearms and would be a disastrous blow to gun safety in the District. For almost three decades, DC's ban on handguns and assault weapons bans have helped reduce the risk of deadly handgun violence. City residents and public officials overwhelmingly support the ban, and the courts have upheld it. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mayor Anthony Williams, and Police Chief Charles Ramsey all strongly oppose the House amendment. Mayor Williams has called this effort to repeal the city's gun ban ``a slap in the face.'' Chief Ramsey has said that a repeal of DC's gun ban would have a ``scary'' impact. Without question, more guns mean more violence. More than half of the robberies and 20 percent of the aggravated assaults in the city are committed with a firearm. In 2004, nearly 80 percent of District homicides were committed with firearms. The youngest victim was only 7 years old. It is difficult to understand how weaker gun safety laws will make residents and visitors safer. This effort by Congress to prevent the enforcement of the DC gun laws will only serve to increase the number of homicides, suicides and accidental shootings. Greater availability of firearms will make it more likely that deadly handgun violence will erupt in public buildings, offices, and public spaces. Over 20 million visitors come to Washington each year, and this amendment puts the safety of all of them at needless risk. The amendment is also an attack upon the well-established principle of home rule for the District. It tramples the rights of the city's elected leaders and local residents to govern their homes, streets, neighborhoods, and workplaces. It is an insult to the 600,000 citizens of the District of Columbia. Statistics show that crime prevention is working in the District. Crime decreased 18 percent last year and homicides went down 17 percent. In the first 5 months of 2005, the Metropolitan Police Department confiscated more than 1,000 firearms on city streets. Only a tiny percentage of recovered firearms are registered in the District. The city continues to face serious concerns about firearms illegally brought into the city from other jurisdictions, and the House amendment would unfairly limit the ability of DC officials to combat this problem. Congress should respect the public safety efforts of this city's leaders and let the District decide what firearm regulations are best for its citizens. I urge my colleagues to oppose this reckless, special-interest amendment that will endanger the safety of all who live or work or visit here.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from New York may use.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have a question on time. How much time remains on either side?

Mr. KENNEDY. We have 24 minutes; is that correct?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 8 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield such time to the Senator from Connecticut as he has requested in his request, following the Senator from Illinois.

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

Mr. KENNEDY. I withhold my remaining 3 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I make a point of order. The Senator is entitled to be heard and I think the Senate is not in order.

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

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as I understand it, there is a general agreement among the leadership that the time between 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. be equally divided between myself, who offered an increase in the minimum wage, and the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi, who has offered a different approach. We will have an opportunity to control the time in that way. Mr. President, I yield myself what time I might use. At 4:30 p.m., we will have an opportunity to vote in this body on whether there ought to be an increase in the minimum wage, a minimum wage that has not been increased over the last 9 years. I am very hopeful that we will vote in this body in support of the proposal I have before the Senate which will increase the minimum wage by $1.10. This is the figure that was included in the Republican alternative of over a year ago. The Republican alternative had additional provisions, and we will have an opportunity to talk about those proposals. For the information of those people who might be listening to the debate, here is our amendment. It is 2 pages long, and it provides an increase in the minimum wage of $1.10. This is the Republican proposal, which is 87 pages long, which will change the whole concept of the minimum wage and effectively eliminate coverage of the minimum wage for up to 10 million Americans. The increase in the minimum wage is not complicated. We increase it $1.10. We do it over a 2-year period. It is all in the 2-page amendment I have offered. There is an alternative, which is the Republican alternative, which basically undermines, in a very significant and important way, the coverage for minimum wage workers and effectively eliminates coverage and protection, even for minimum wage workers. We will have a chance for this body to make a decision as to whether they want to see those workers in this country, who have been left out and left behind, get a modest bump in their income. I offered this measure on this legislation because this is the vehicle which carried the increase in the cost of living for Members of the Congress and Senate. It seems to me, if we were going to vote on that, we ought to vote on an increase in the minimum wage. It is the judgment--and one I support--that Members of Congress will not take a cost-of-living increase in their pay this year. We defer that increase. The fact remains that over the last 9 years, the Congress has increased its pay by $28,000 on seven different occasions. On seven different occasions, it has raised its salary, but we have not increased the pay for those who are at the lower end of the economic ladder who are making minimum wage. I think that is absolutely unconscionable. We will have an opportunity this afternoon to find out whether we are going to do that. In the institution that has raised its salary $28,000 over the last 9 years, we will have an opportunity to see whether we are going to increase annual income by $2,300. This chart is an indication of the tradition of the Senate since the increase in the minimum wage. This demonstrates very clearly the increase in the minimum wage. The initiation was by President Roosevelt back in the 1930s and then Harry Truman increased it and then Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, increased it. The history of the increase in the minimum wage has been bipartisan. Dwight Eisenhower increased it. President Kennedy increased it; President Johnson; President Ford, a Republican, increased it; President Carter increased it; President Bush 1 increased it and President Clinton. So this has been bipartisan. It is difficult for me to understand how the increase in the minimum wage has ended up as a partisan issue. It has been bipartisan. The reason it has been bipartisan is because of whom the minimum wage affects. The fact is minimum wage workers are men and women of dignity. They are hard workers. They are the men and women who clean out the buildings for American commerce. They help and assist our schoolteachers in schools all over this country. They work in our nursing homes to provide help and assistance for the frail elderly, the elderly who have sacrificed so much for their own children and have done so much to make this a great nation. Many of them are served by the minimum wage. First, these are men and women of dignity, working hard, more often than not having two or even three jobs, trying to provide for their families and having an increasingly difficult time to make any ends meet, and we will get to that. This issue primarily affects women because about 65 percent of all minimum wage workers are women. The majority of the women who earn the minimum wage have children. So it is a women's issue, it is a children's issue, and it is a family issue because we have families, heads of household in many instances, single moms or single dads, trying to provide for their children, working one or two or even three jobs, trying to make ends meet. So it is a women's issue because so many of the minimum wage workers are women and a children's issue because those children's lives are affected by obviously the circumstance of the one who is providing for them. It is a civil rights issue because so many of these jobs are open to men and women of color. So it is a civil rights issue, a family issue, a women's issue, a children's issue, but most of all it is a fairness issue. The American people understand fairness. They understand if someone is going to work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year, they should not have to live in poverty. Republicans have understood that, Democratic Presidents have understood it, and I cannot for the life of me understand why our Republican friends on the other side of the aisle, when we have changed our increase in the minimum wage from $2.10 down to $1.10 over the next 2 years, refuse to be willing to accept it. What is it that they have against working poor people, men and women who are trying to get the first rung on the economic ladder? What is it about it that is so offensive to this body that we do not give them an increase in the minimum wage and we give ourselves repeated increases? That is the issue. And at 4:30 this afternoon, this institution will have a chance to express itself. The American people understand this. The American people understand the minimum wage. There are a lot of complex issues, and men and women across this country are working hard every single day. They have little time to spend trying to figure out a lot of different kinds of challenges, but they understand an increase in the minimum wage. They understand what difference this makes. They will have an opportunity to hear about it because this issue is not going away. No matter how this turns out this afternoon, the Senate, and most importantly the workers at the minimum wage, can be confident that I am going to continue to raise this as long as I am in the Senate. We will have an opportunity to vote on this repeatedly. So we can find those of our colleagues who want to try and confuse the issue all they want with 87 pages, but this is an increase in the minimum wage which consists of 2 pages. That is what the vote is for this afternoon. Some of my colleagues want to rewrite the labor laws on this. Fine, let us get to it. But why are we doing that on this particular bill? Increase in the minimum wage, one can ask, why on this bill? Very simply, it was a good enough vehicle to increase the salary of the Members of Congress until yesterday when we neutralized it and it ought to be a good enough vehicle to provide some assistance to those on the first rung of the economic ladder. That certainly makes sense to me. That is not what the Republican alternative is about. So we have seen that this has been historically something Republicans and Democrats, when they are at their best, have supported. Over a period of years, we have seen what has happened on the issues of productivity. We hear frequently that we cannot afford an increase in the minimum wage unless we are going to have an increase of productivity. It is an old economic argument we do not want to add to inflation, but if we have an increase in productivity, of course, then we can consider an increase in the minimum wage because it will not have an inflationary impact in terms of the economy. All right. Let us take that argument and see what has happened in terms of productivity over the period of recent years. We have seen now, over the period of the last 40 years, productivity has gone up 115 percent. Notice that going back into the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the minimum wage and productivity lines were always intersecting because we kept the increase in the minimum wage and productivity together. That was an argument that was made. There is plausibility to it. If that argument was good enough for the 30 or 40 years that we first had the minimum wage, look what has happened in recent times. Workers have increased their productivity 115 percent, but the minimum wage has declined some 31 percent. So one cannot say we cannot increase the minimum wage because we have not had an increase in productivity. So this is certainly one of the factors. This chart is enormously interesting because it shows that Americans' work hours have increased more than any other industrial country in the world. Look at this chart. This is an indication of the changes in hours worked per person over the period of 1970 to the year 2002. Actually, in a number of the countries in Western Europe, the percent has gone down, but we have seen in Australia, Canada, and most of all in the United States, it has gone up. Americans are working longer, they are working harder, they are producing more, and one would think that their paychecks would reflect it, at least at the lower economic end, or in all areas it ought to reflect it, but, no, it does not work that way. We refuse to give that kind of a recognition. Unfortunately, when the President was asked about the challenges that people working for the minimum wage face, the individual conversation between the President and Ms. Mornin, who is a single mother of three, one of whom is disabled, Ms. Mornin said this was on February 4, 2005, in the Omaha Arena in Omaha, NE--I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute. President Bush: You work three jobs? Ms. Mornin: Three jobs. President Bush: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. Get any sleep? (Laughter.) That is an indication that there are people in this city who just do not understand what is happening to people who are earning the minimum wage level. They are not getting any kind of recognition. People do not understand what their particular challenge is, but they ought to. I think more Americans do today than they did several months ago. One of the most moving covers of any magazine was this September 19 cover of Newsweek. It shows a child with tears on her face: Poverty, race, Katrina, lessons of a national shame. In this rather extensive article about the enormous tragedy that took place in the gulf and in New Orleans, it talks about the other America: An enduring shame Katrina reminded us, but the problem is not new. Why a rising tide of people live in poverty, who they are, and what we can do about it. There are the striking photos of people who were left out and left behind. The whole article is about hard-working individuals in that region of the country down in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Suddenly, the Nation was focused on their particular plight because when the floods came to New Orleans, we saw the tragic circumstances that they were subject to, the lack of preparation, the lack of organization, and the lack of outreach to them for so many days. These people are still struggling. Along the gulf coast, many of those communities were absolutely obliterated. I had the opportunity, with several of my colleagues, to visit those areas 3 weeks ago or so and to meet a number of the individuals, not the particular persons who are outlined in this article but individuals whose lives were absolutely the same. We find so many of our fellow Americans who are living in poverty. We find increasing numbers of Americans living in poverty. There are 5 million more people living in poverty. I have a chart that shows it, but it certainly does not tell the story that one sees when they visit the gulf area and visit New Orleans and meet some of these families or even visit with them. In my own State of Massachusetts at the Otis Base, where we had several hundred of the evacuees who came there, many of them rescued very late in the whole process because they had remained in their homes, some of them trying to help elderly and disabled people, and more than half of whom had arrived at Otis still in their damp and wet clothes, and they received an enormously generous and warm welcome, which they have expressed to our fellow citizens in Massachusetts. Their stories and their lives are stories of lost hope, lost homes, lost jobs, lost health insurance, lost every aspect, tangible aspects of their lives, separated families, and lost everything but their faith and a sense of hope, a desire to try and get back on their feet. I ask, How in the world is someone going to get back on their feet when they are getting paid $5.15 an hour? How are they going to get back on their feet? All they have to do is read through this magazine and read the life stories of these individuals who work and struggle in two and three different jobs. There is the case of Delores Ellis: Before Katrina turned her world upside down, this 51-year-old resident of New Orleans' Ninth Ward was earning the highest salary of her life as a school janitor, $6.50 an hour, no health insurance, no pension, and then she bounced around minimum wage jobs. Ellis said: I worked hard all my life. I cannot afford nothing. I am not saying that I want to keep up with the Joneses, but I just want to live better. Well, one of the ways that she can live better is an increase in the minimum wage. We cannot solve all of her problems, but we sure can provide some assistance by increasing her minimum wage. It is as simple as that. Americans can understand that. ``What can we do?'' they say. Well, there are a lot of things that have to be done. We cannot solve all of the problems, but we have to start someplace, and we are starting with an increase in the minimum wage. Here are the figures: 5.4 million more Americans in poverty over the period of the last 4 years. This is a fierce indictment, and we are going to see these figures have even expanded as a result of the terrible effects from Katrina. This is what has happened. As we look over history, we see at other times and other Congresses, when Congresses were controlled by Republicans and Democrats--look here, from 1960 all the way through 1980, we have the minimum wage effectively at the poverty level. This is in constant dollars. This was over a period of some 30 years, Republicans and Democrats alike. We say if you work hard, want to work and work hard, you are not going to have to live in poverty here in the United States. Look what has happened in recent years. Here were the last two increases we had in the minimum wage and here is the collapse again of the minimum wage in terms of its purchasing power. What did our brothers and sisters in the Congress, what did Republicans and Democrats know then, over a 30- or 40-year period, that we do not understand now? What is it, so that we are so unwilling to see a bump, a small bump of an increase in the minimum wage? Oh, no, we have an 85-page alternative, they will call it. This is an alternative filled with what we call poison pills, filled with taking people out of coverage, filled with new changes in overtime legislation to limit people from receiving any overtime. We know the importance of overtime to workers. Many of them use that overtime pay they receive to put away to educate a child. Here we have an attempt to undermine overtime for workers. An argument is sometimes made that we cannot afford a minimum wage because it will be an inflator in terms of our overall economy. Our economy is somewhat uncertain at the present time, and therefore we cannot afford to have an increase in the minimum wage because it will have an adverse impact in terms of our economy. This is an interesting chart: Increasing the minimum wage to $6.25 is vital to workers but a drop in the bucket of the national payroll. All Americans combined earn $5.7 trillion a year. A minimum wage increase to $6.25 would be less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the national payroll; one-tenth of 1 percent. You say this is an inflator; if we increase this to $6.25, this is going to add to the problems of inflation we are facing. Here it is, it is less than one-tenth of 1 percent. Look at what these working people are faced with. There is an increase in cost of gas of 74 percent. You ask so many of those people down in New Orleans why they were left trapped in New Orleans, and so many will tell you they were trapped because they couldn't afford a car or they couldn't afford the gasoline to get out, and therefore they were trapped. A number of them lost their lives. Others lost everything, because we have seen the increase in the cost of gasoline, 74 percent; health insurance is out of sight for any of these families, up 59 percent; housing and rental gone up through the roof, and college tuition--it has gone up 35 percent, effectively eliminating those possibilities to so many. Now over this coming winter here, we have now at the end of October a chance to raise the minimum wage $1.10, the figure the Republicans had suggested last year. Here we have what is going to happen in our region of the country. In the colder region--not only the Northeast but in many of the colder regions--we are going to see a 50-percent increase in the cost of natural gas for heating, we are going to get about a 27 to 30-percent increase in the cost of home heating oil, and about an increase of 5 to 7 percent in the cost of electricity. Our part of the country uses 40 percent natural gas, 40 percent heating oil, and this is the rest. We see what is happening in the home heating oil. Now we can say at least Congress is going to help some of these families because they are going to recognize the explosion of these costs of heating and keeping warm in these homes. In many instances it is as important as their prescription drugs and the food they eat. They are going to have to make some hard choices. This is the reality. We are saying at least give them $1.10. You are going to find out if any of the minimum wage workers, maybe working a couple of jobs and maybe with a home up in New England--their heating bills are going to go up $600 or $800 or $900 over the course of the winter. What is Congress doing? Basically it authorized the $5 billion to try to help provide some relief. We hear the explanation for the increase in these costs is because of what has happened to refineries in the gulf. That is an act of God. We couldn't control it. So those refineries are down. Now we find out that the gas and heating oil have gone up and it is going to be particularly harmful to needy people, to poor people, to people earning the minimum wage. Are we giving them any help and assistance? The answer is no to that. We are not seeing any increase in the home heating oil program, the LIHEAP Program. We are not seeing any increase in that. They are getting the short shrift every single way: No help and assistance in facing a cold winter, no help and assistance we can provide by approving a $1.10 increase. I see my friend from Iowa here on the floor. I want to point out to him, as someone who has been such a strong supporter on these issues, here is a two-page increase for the minimum wage in $1.10. Here is the Republican alternative, 85 pages. It rewrites the whole of labor laws, 85 pages. If you are going to be against it, why don't you just be courageous enough to say no? No, no, they want to say: Oh, no, we have a real alternative in here. We are going to exclude a number of people who are covered with the minimum wage. That is where we are going to start, so they are not even going to get the $5.15 an hour. And we are going to make many people work overtime and not get overtime pay. Oh, yes, we will do that. You know what else, I say to Senator Harkin. There are provisions in here that say if you are an employer and you effectively violate what they call a paper report in here, you will get a nonmonetary fine. You will get no monetary fine, even though that might be an oil spill, that may be contaminated food. Why are we pulling that here in the Senate this afternoon? What is it about it that we suddenly know so much about that particular issue here on this particular legislation? If you are going to be against $1.10, be against $1.10. But they have all of the other shenanigans in that legislation that are going to provide additional short shrift for the neediest people. I will be glad to yield some time to my friend and colleague from Iowa.

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator very eloquently pointed out the fact that we haven't seen an increase in the minimum wage in 9 years. Inflation has eaten away from that $5.15 as costs and prices have gone up. Is the Senator aware of the increase in the minimum wage that has taken place, for example, in Great Britain? They have the second most successful economy in Europe; Ireland being No. 1. They were at $8.56 an hour. This year they have gone to $8.85 an hour. Next year, in October, they will likely go to $9.44 an hour. From 1999 to 2003, Great Britain has brought more than 1.8 million children out of poverty. That is what has happened in another economy that says that the increase in the minimum wage and providing at least a living wage for individuals is not adverse to the economy. It is important to an economy. And most importantly, it has been crucial to lifting children out of poverty and avoiding the kinds of circumstance that we have seen after Katrina. Why is it that they can understand this and be so successful, and we, 9 years later, are still on the floor of the Senate for an hour and a half, and I bet we will still be unwilling to provide an increase of $1.10 for some of the hardest working Americans?

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is correct. Effectively, what this does is preempt all 50 States from being able to enforce any of the Federal laws which they are mandated to enforce. I don't know where we get this idea. That could be on safe water, environmental, toxic substances. It could be on oilspills. It could be on any other matter. They preempt the States. Where is this idea coming from? Where did this idea come from? Preempt the States from any kind of enforcement, what in the world has that to do with an increase in the minimum wage?