The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND RESCISSIONS ACT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Senate section on pages S3926-S3928 on March 15, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND RESCISSIONS ACT
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask that the Senate return to regular order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am grateful for the attention that our colleagues gave to our presentation earlier this morning on the issues at stake concerning the amendment before the Senate. Now, we will have some additional time during the course of the day to discuss these issues before we have another Senate vote on this matter tomorrow.
During the course of the morning, there was an effort by my Republican colleagues to characterize the amendment by the Senator from Kansas that is before the Senate as being a rather limited measure that simply addresses a serious question about the authority, the power of the President to issue the Executive order.
I mentioned briefly before the vote that I thought what was really at stake in this debate before the Senate was really a broader issue than just the issue of whether the President has the authority to issue the Executive order which the amendment of the Senator from Kansas seeks to repeal. As I have stated, it is the President's judgment that implementation of this Executive order is in the Nation's interest and also in the interest of the American taxpayer, based upon the fact that the use of permanent replacements results in many instances in a diminution in the quality of work performed and the ability to perform on time. The President, based on legislative authority provided by the Congress, was acting within his power in issuing that Executive order.
But the point I was trying to make earlier was that the broader issue at stake is really the standard of living for working families, and what the impact of Senator Kassebaum's amendment would be on a significant segment of working families in this country.
I was pointing out that if you look at the period from 1979 to 1993, what you find, as shown on this chart--which is based upon data from the Department of Commerce--what you find is that it is the top tier of families that have done exceedingly well during this period of time. They are the ones whose incomes have been rising steadily and at significant levels.
I think all of us welcome the fact that those families are doing well and that there is increased opportunity for the very top-income families in this country, and that those that are just below the very top have also seen a significant increase in their income. But this chart also reflects the disturbing fact that the majority--60 percent--
of American families outside of this top 40 percent, have actually fallen behind in terms of real family income over this same period of time.
It is important to underscore that we are talking about family income, because what we saw during the period of the 1980's is not just a single member of the family working, supporting the family, but wives coming into the work force in record numbers and contributing their earnings to the family income. Even with the increased number of family members in the work force, we still have 60 percent of the families falling further and further behind those in the very top income brackets. That is the reality. That is what is happening out there.
It is relevant to note that at the same time that this decline in the incomes of the majority of families has been happening, there has been a dramatic and significant increase in the use of permanent striker replacements. Employers have used permanent replacements to displace well-paid workers and replace them with workers hired at significantly reduced wages.
And even the original wages of those workers who have been permanently replaced were in many cases of a very modest nature. As I pointed out earlier today, in many instances, workers who have been permanently replaced were earning not much more than the minimum wage to start with--earning $6 and $7 or $8 an hour. Those are the workers whom we are talking about out here on the floor of the U.S. Senate--the workers who some of our Republican colleagues suggest are some kind of special interest group.
The people the President's Executive order seeks to protect from exploitation are people that are ready to work, that do work and have worked all of their lives. They are prepared to continue to work for $7 or $8 an hour, and they are being displaced by permanent striker replacements who are being paid lower wages. The result is that there has been a significant diminution in income for a great number of workers.
Mr. President, if you were to go back and look at what has happened to the incomes of working families since 1950, you would find that during the period from 1950 through the end of the 1970's, you would find that the incomes of families in all of these income groups moved up together, and that families at the top in the middle and at the bottom all enjoyed about the same level of income growth. The whole country was increasing its standard of living. All families were moving up together, all participating in the benefits of economic expansion. But that is not what has happened since 1980. That is not what is taking place in the America of today. That is something that we should be very conscious of, as we are considering the President's Executive Order, which is responsive, in small part, to this phenomenon.
This second chart shows what has happened to those workers who are trying to provide for themselves and their families and are getting paid the minimum wage.
The principle behind the minimum wage, which was first enacted into law in the 1930's, was that work ought to be rewarded, that men and women in our country who are willing to work ought to be able to earn enough to provide for their children, ought to be able to put a roof over the heads of their families and put food on the table and maintain some degree of self-respect and dignity. That is a fundamental principle that has been supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, Mr. President.
Here on this chart reflecting the real value of the minimum wage, where we see a bump here in the purchasing power of the minimum wage, this was a result of legislation being signed into law by a Republican President, George Bush, providing for an increase in the minimum wage of 45 cents an hour per year for 2 years, in 1990 and 1991. And now we can see on the chart that since that time, inflation has eaten away at the real value of the minimum wage, and it is virtually back to where it was prior to the time President Bush signed that last increase into law.
What many of us have been arguing is that if we had then a Democratic Congress, a Democratic Senate, and a Republican President and we could work together in order to enact an increase in the minimum wage, then now when we have a Republican House and Senate and a Democratic President, we ought to be able to again work together to enact another increase.
This chart, Mr. President, shows the real value of the minimum wage in terms of constant dollars. This reflects that the minimum wage is currently at $4.25 an hour, in 1995 dollars. That is where it is today. And this shows where the minimum was in terms of real dollars at other periods of time going back to 1965, then 1975, when the minimum wage was worth $5.82 in today's dollars. What we are really seeing is a dramatic decline in the value of the minimum wage in terms of its purchasing power for families. A full-time worker today working year-
round at the minimum wage would make only $8,500 a year.
Both of these two charts are important in showing what is really happening out there in the work force in the United States of America; and that is, that far too many individuals who are working hard trying to provide for their families are falling further and further and further and further behind.
That is why I find it so disturbing that first issue directly affecting working families that we have considered on the Senate floor in this Congress--now that we have finished consideration of the unfunded mandate issue and the balanced budget amendment--should be a measure whose effect would be to ensure further diminution of workers' bargaining power in their dealings with employers.
We heard earlier--and I respect my friend and colleague, Senator Kassebaum--that in her view, her amendment is not really about the broader issues of working people. But I must say that it is difficult for me to accept that that is not what this amendment is really about. If the proponents of this amendment are so concerned about the scope of the executive power of the President--whether the President has the legal authority to issue such an order, whether he has the power to do it--that they felt they had to go ahead and address it on the defense appropriations bill, you might hope that they would still say look, OK, we have done the unfunded mandates bill and we have had a full debate on the issue of the balanced budget amendment, and we feel we must go ahead and address this issue of the President's executive authority on the defense appropriations bill. But we want you to know that we are concerned about what is happening to real workers and therefore we are proposing a sense of the Senate resolution to say that we are prepared to support an increase in the minimum wage, or we want to do something else for working families; we want to do something in terms of education for working families, or something for the children of working families in terms of their day care coverage. If that is what our Republican colleagues were saying, that would be great. But that is not the case.
Instead, we see cutbacks being recommended in day care, even though only about 5 to 6 percent of day care needs are being attended to at current spending levels. We are seeing cutbacks in the school lunch program and cutbacks in the summer jobs program. The Congress was not even in session 3 months before it eliminated the jobs programs for young people, not only for this summer but next summer as well. We are in that much of a hurry. The House of Representatives is voting to eliminate that summer jobs program, and they are also in the process now in the Labor/HHS appropriations subcommittee of cutting back the loan programs for working families. I do not know how it is in other Member's States, but in my State close to 70 percent of the young people that want to improve themselves and improve their lives and their abilities by attending college need some kind of student loan assistance. Well, we are raising the cost of that assistance between 25 and 30 percent under the proposal that is being acted on over in the House.
The people getting hurt are the sons and daughters of families in this group in here on this chart; not so much the families up here in the upper income brackets because they can afford the universities, they can pay the tuition on their own. It is these families in this area on the chart, the ones that are falling further behind that say, I know I have not been able to make it, but, by God, my daughter or my son has worked hard, has done well in school, has been a good student, and wants to go on to college or to the university. And with these cuts we are saying: No, your son or daughter can not go to college unless you are going to pay out of your pocket another $3,500 to $4,500 over what it now costs in terms of interest on their student loan. That is effectively what the impact of these cuts is going to be on working families.
So, Mr. President, the idea that somehow these matters are unrelated in terms of our priorities misses me.
I did not even mention, when I was talking about the increase in the interest costs on student loans for working families the fact that even if they were going to pay that extra average $3,500 and have that indebtedness and they were able to get to the school or college, our Republican colleagues want to eliminate the work-study program. That affects 70,000 young people in my own State. I do not know how it is in other States.
And who are these students? By definition you do not qualify for work-study unless you are in this area shown on this chart--unless your family is in this income bracket. So we are not only going to raise the cost of the education, we are going to make it even more complicated and difficult for you to participate in a work-study program to help you get some additional income as a result of working.
This is about working. We hear a great deal from our Republican colleagues about people that are not working. This debate is about Americans who are working, playing by the rules and working, and their futures.
[[Page S3928]] And that is why it is so important and why it is appropriate that the Senate really understand exactly where we are and what we are about.
We have had a long discussion about the steel mill seizure, about the scope of Presidential powers. We went through last week the various executive powers that exist inherently and those which do not. We went through the particular legislation which grants the President specific powers with respect to Federal procurement and the references that have been made to that in the excellent memoranda that was provided by Attorney General Reno. We have gone into considerable detail about exactly who was affected and impacted by the practice of permanently replacing striking workers.
And then we had a review for the Senate of the public policy issues in question, about why this Executive order makes eminently good sense in terms of the President's responsibility to oversee procurement by Federal agencies.
We heard a great deal around here some years ago, and I think many of us joined in the sense of outrage when we heard about the costs of ashtrays being $200 to $300, toilet seats at $1,500, $1,800, the abuses in terms of procurement policy, primarily in the Defense Department, but in other agencies as well. We have heard those stories and all of us are appalled by them.
Now we have a President that is trying to do something about making sure that the taxpayer is going to get a dollar's value for a dollar invested by making sure that the contracts are going to be delivered and delivered on time and that there is going to be good quality in terms of the purchases that are made primarily in the areas of defense and weapons and weapons systems and those contracts that are related to national security, but in other areas as well.
We have taken some time, although I intend to take a little more time later on this afternoon, to give examples of how productivity and quality have been adversely affected when permanent striker replacements were hired-- what happens when because of the replacement workers' lack of skills and experience, of the conflict that exists in the plant and factory, the quality and efficiency of work is impaired.
The President has taken notice of that and we will share those experiences with the Senate. He understands it and says: ``Look, on this issue, I'm going to side with the taxpayers to make sure that we are going to get a good product on time with good quality from skilled craftsmen and women in this country. I am not going to take a chance in the areas of national security to get an inferior product, either for our defense or in the other areas of procurement. And, also, I am going to make it very clear that we are not going to give companies like Diamond Walnut Company, for example, that have hired permanent replacements, additional financial incentives for sales overseas that result in millions of dollars of profit for them at taxpayers' expense. We are not going to reward companies that treat their workers this harshly.''
So, Mr. President, these are some of the points that we will have a chance to develop further during the course of the discussion and debate.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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