Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. From the Hospice Association of America: . . . . I am requesting your support to reject a proposed amendment to S. 1625 that would apply civil monetary penalties for false certification of eligibility for hospice care. I have a letter from the Federation of American Health Systems urging opposition to the Kennedy amendment. I have a letter from the National Association for Home Care, also in opposition. It says: We would encourage the Senate to oppose this provision, generally, and in particular, because it is contained in a nongermane legislative effort to increase the minimum wage. The foreseeable result of the proposed amendment would be to further discourage physicians from utilizing hospice services for terminally ill patients. Do we want to do that? I don't think so. Certainly we shouldn't do it in this legislation. Let's have hearings to find out more about this. Let's do it in Medicare reform. Let's do it when we have a chance to know exactly what we are doing because this is strongly opposed by hospice organizations. I encourage my colleagues to oppose it for all the above reasons. I urge them to vote yes to table the Kennedy amendment. We will move to table it at the appropriate time.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first, I commend my colleague from New Mexico for the work that he has done in providing a more realistic substitute. But the first vote we are going to have today is voting on a motion to table the Kennedy amendment. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Kennedy amendment for a lot of different reasons, one of which is that it dramatically increases the minimum wage--about 20 percent over the next 13\1/2\ months. That is a big hit for a lot of small businesses. I am afraid it will prevent a lot of people, low- income people, who want to get their first jobs--they may not be able to get them. Estimates by some of the economists, CBO, and others, are that it could be 100,000 people; it could be 500,000 people that lose their jobs. It is a big hit. There are a lot of other reasons to oppose the Kennedy amendment. How many of our colleagues know it has a $29 billion tax increase, that it extends Superfund taxes? We do not reauthorize the Superfund Program, but we extend the taxes. Many of us agree we need to extend the taxes when we reauthorize the program, but not before and that is in there anyway. There is a tax increase on business. I received a letter from all the business groups opposing it. It is practically an IRS entitlement program, so they can go after anything they want. It deals with ``Noneconomic attributes,'' whatever that means, it is a $10 billion tax increase. It may sound good and some people say that it is just to close loopholes. But it is to give IRS carte blanche to go after anything and everything they want. We reformed IRS and curbed their appetite somewhat, and regardless of those efforts this would be saying: Hey, IRS, go after anybody and everybody. There is also a provision in the Democrat proposal that hits hospice organizations right between the eyes. I have put letters from outside organizations addressing this very issue on Members' desks so they may see it for themselves. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record three letters from various hospice organizations.

Mr. NICKLES. Four or 5 minutes.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that Senator from Texas (Mr. Gramm) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I have no objection. Amendments Nos. 1696 and 2755, En Bloc

Mr. NICKLES. Might I inquire what they deal with?

Mr. NICKLES. Might I ask my colleague, are the two amendments she is trying to offer right now germane to the bankruptcy bill?

Mr. NICKLES. We also stated under the unanimous-consent agreement that all other amendments had to be relevant to the bankruptcy bill; is that correct?

Mr. NICKLES. Under the unanimous-consent request we have entered into, there were three nongermane amendments basically offered by Democrats and Republicans; is that correct?

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. NICKLES. Reserving the right to object----

Mr. NICKLES. I didn't hear the request. Will the Senator repeat it.

Mr. NICKLES. I say that 100,000 to 500,000 lost jobs is too heavy a penalty. For that one person who might lose his or her job, it is a very heavy penalty. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, there would be from 145,000 to 436,000 lost jobs. These are independent studies, not branches of a Don Nickles study group that says this is a bad idea. The CBO and Federal Reserve state that this will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. If there is no job loss or negative economic consequence, why stop at $6.15 an hour? Why don't we make it $20 an hour? I want everybody in America to make $20 an hour. I do. If they work 2,000 hours a year, that is an average of 40 hours a week for 50 weeks. If everybody made $20 an hour, hey, that would be great. That would be $40,000. I would love for everybody in America to make $40,000. But guess what. Some jobs might not pay that. Does it make good economic sense to pass a law to say it is against the law for somebody to work for $40,000? I don't think so. Whether it would mean the loss of 100,000 jobs or 500,000 jobs, I don't know. But, I don't want to put even 100,000 people out of work. I don't want to discourage any young person or any person at all from trying to climb the economic ladder. We pulled it up. Sorry. We would rather have you unemployed than have you climbing the economic ladder. I think that is a huge mistake. I think this proposal is too big of a hit, too quickly. I think the tax increase in the Democrat proposal is completely unworkable and it is certainly unfair. The other side might claim that they paid for their tax cuts, and that Senator Domenici will have a proposal to benefit small business, and he didn't pay for his because it comes out of the surplus. I disagree, especially when we are looking at having significant surpluses in the next 10 years. Basically what our Democrat colleagues are saying is: We want no tax cut whatsoever. Less than 2 months ago, they voted for a $300 billion tax cut that was not paid for. Now they are saying we have to pay for this; even if it is only $18 billion over 5 years, we have to pay for every dime of it so we have more money to spend. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Kennedy proposal. I understand Senator Kennedy and his side have used their hour. If there is no objection, I will yield back the remainder of the time in opposition to the Kennedy amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, as I understand the parliamentary situation, we have 2 hours equally divided: One on the Kennedy amendment, and the other 2 hours on an amendment that will be offered by Senator Domenici. I wish to speak very briefly in opposition to the Kennedy amendment. Then I will yield back the time, and that will eliminate at least that round. Then there will be 2 hours equally divided on the Domenici amendment. People can speak on either proposal, as they wish. For the information of our colleagues, we will have one hour of debate tomorrow morning and a vote at 10:30 on both proposals. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the so-called Kennedy minimum wage proposal that is now before the Senate. I compliment my colleague from Massachusetts. He has offered this time and time again. I am sure he will be back next year and the following year to increase the minimum wage. If you ask the question: should there be an increase in the minimum wage, I am sure a lot of people would say yes because they want everybody who is making a low wage to make more. I happen to agree with that very strongly. It is very important for people to be able to climb the economic ladder. What people many times don't recognize is that if you have a very significant increase in the minimum wage--such as Senator Kennedy's proposal of approximately a 20- percent increase, increasing it from $5.15 to $6.15, a $1 over the next 13\1/2\ months. That is OK, I suppose, if everybody can just pass it along without any repercussions. But there may be some businesses that can't. If they can't, what are they going to do? They may hire less people. They may let some people go. I know it does not seem as if that would be the case, but frankly it is. It may not happen in every case, but it happens in many cases. There are some employers that may not be able to pay $5.15 an hour or $6 an hour. Senator Kennedy's proposal says in 13\1/2\ months you have to be paid $6.15 an hour or it is against the law for you to have a job. The Federal Government has determined that, in our infinite wisdom, in rural Montana or where ever, we don't care if pumping gas can only pay $5.50 or the corner grocery store can only afford to pay that amount, we don't care. We are deciding up here in Washington DC, that the Federal Government does not want you to have a job. It is against the law for you to have a job. The Federal Government has decided employers must pay at lease $6.15 an hour or they cannot hire anyone. Sorry, 15-year-old, 16-year-old, or 17-year-old trying to get a summer job, if there are no summer jobs available at that amount. It may be fine for the State of Massachusetts. That may be great in New York City. I can't help but think there are some areas of the country where maybe that does not apply and will not work. This idea that raising the minimum wage can only have a positive economic impact is grossly incorrect. The Congressional Budget Office has stated it would mean a job loss of between 100,000 and 500,000 jobs. That is a pretty significant hit. Maybe it is not a hit for everybody because we have millions of people working, but for between 100,000, and 400,000 people who could lose their jobs, that is pretty significant. If they find themselves unemployed because they couldn't get a job as a result of the minimum wage increase we have created a real injustice. Maybe they are looking for summer work, maybe they are looking for part-time work, or maybe they are trying to supplement a job working evenings. Why should we price them out of the market? Let me address a few other things that are in Senator Kennedy's proposal. There are some tax cuts. Senator Robb just spoke regarding those. Many of those are similar to ones we have in our package that Senator Domenici will be talking about briefly. I compliment them on those tax cuts. What I criticize them for are the tax increases. You didn't know they had a lot of tax increases in the Democrat proposal? Well, they do. The fact is, there are more tax increases than there are tax cuts. What tax increases do they have? They have two or three things. They have a little provision in here that reauthorizes Superfund taxes. We do not reauthorize Superfund because the program is flawed. Does it make sense that they are going to extend Superfund taxes without fixing the program? I am absolutely confident, 100 percent confident this Congress is not going to reauthorize and extend Superfund taxes unless we reauthorize the program. The program is broken. We are raising billions of dollars or have raised billions of dollars and we are wasting it. The lawyers and trial attorneys reap great benefits, but we spend very little money cleaning up the program. Many of us are in favor of fixing the program. Let's make sure 90 percent of the money that is raised for Superfund cleanup actually goes to cleanup, rather than the current situation in which two-thirds of it goes to legal fees. The Kennedy legislation also includes several other tax increases. There is a proposal that goes by the name of the Doggett proposal. According to a lot of different groups--including the Cattlemen's Association, Taxpayers Union, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and National Federation of Independent Businesses--this is a really big, bad tax increase. It is called the Abusive Tax Shelter Shutdown Act of 1998. Most people think of it simply as an IRS enhancement act. Well, they are quite mistaken. I mean, should we really give the IRS a blank check to go after lots of people for a lot of things because we think maybe we will disallow noneconomic tax attributes, whatever that means. It is essentially a $10 billion tax increase and we are going to turn the IRS loose. We spent a lot of time and passed, in a bipartisan fashion--my compliments to Senators Roth and Moynihan--last year a very significant IRS reform bill that curbed the appetite of the IRS. This legislation would say, forget about those reforms. It would give the IRS more power to go after what they consider noneconomic attributes. It is truly a bad idea. There are a lot of bad proposals within the Kennedy language. There are tax increases and the tax increases won't work. The tax increases will extend taxes that shouldn't be extended until the programs are reauthorized. It is a heavy hit, particularly on small business, too quick, too much, too early. A 20-percent increase in the next 13 and a half months, in my opinion, is too much. It would have economic ramifications that would cause many people to lose their jobs. How many? Hundreds of thousands. According to CBO, it says job loss would be between 100,000 and 500,000. I ask unanimous consent that this conclusion of the CBO be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. NICKLES. No.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Santorum) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is necessarily absent.