Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone Act

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT FOR EVERYONE ACT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, we are hopefully at a position today where there is going to be some decision made by leadership-meaning the Democrat leader and Republican leader-on proceeding on this legislation. In the meantime, we will proceed with amendments and hopefully move along as best we can without having a certain finality.

I had a chance to listen to my colleagues' statements. I will make this commentary. We have already said to the minority, the Democratic leadership, that we are prepared to vote on amendments that are before the Senate. So the issue is not voting on amendments before the Senate. There is some feeling that we are going to get this bill to finality. That doesn't mean not voting on a lot of amendments. That can be worked in as well. All we want is some certainty that we are going to get to finality. Finality means getting to conference.

We have a couple pieces of legislation that have been sitting around this body, after the body has finished work on them, not being able to go to conference. One is the CARE Act, an acronym for legislation that encourages charitable giving. Another one is the Workforce Investment Act. These are two pieces of legislation that have been before the Senate, and the minority, the Democrats, will not let us go to conference on these pieces of legislation.

So, in a sense, the Senate has worked its will, but the legislative process has been shut down. It seems to me if this legislation includes so much of what the Democrats want to accomplish in the way of reform of welfare-particularly the vote we had yesterday, very dramatically increasing by $6 billion the amount to be spent on childcare-that they would want this legislation to become law. So we need some assurance from the other side that if we agree to voting on some amendments that they want to vote on-that is no longer an issue-we want to move ahead with germane amendments.

There is not an argument about the number at this point. We can get to a vote on this, but most important is not have it stalled in the Senate as those other two pieces of legislation. It seems to me the issue isn't a whole lot different now than it was 2 years ago. The only difference is the Republicans were in the minority, then and the Democrats were in the majority. At that particular time, we saw an Energy bill taken away from the Energy Committee and brought to the floor. That bill never became law. We saw a prescription drug bill taken over by the leadership on the floor of the Senate, with the committee effectively cut out. There were 2 weeks of debate on an Energy bill but nothing happened. There was not a budget adopted that year.

We Republicans referred to the leadership at that time as having a graveyard in the Senate because they wanted issues for that election as opposed to products. We Republicans said to the electorate at that time that we want products, not issues. So when we took over in the majority in 2003, the committee system was allowed to work, developing bipartisanship. Nothing gets done in the Senate without bipartisanship. We could bring the issues to the floor and work the will of the Senate and get things through the Senate. That is what we are elected to do-get things through the Senate and let the process work.

So there is nothing that my colleague from Montana said that I disagree with, except we ought to see light at the end of the tunnel. Is there anything wrong with saying: Are you guys-meaning the Democrats-going to do what you did on the Workforce Investment Act and the CARE Act and let the Senate become a graveyard again just because something is happening that you don't like?

It seems to me there would be a lesson learned from the last election. When the Senate became a graveyard, the people of this country sent a message that they don't want the Senate to be a graveyard. They gave the majority to the Republicans. We show that we can produce. Yet look what we are running into-the CARE Act, after a year of not going to conference. I don't know how long the Workforce Investment Act has been waiting to go to conference. We were stalled last week on a bill the Democrats agreed ought to become law, the FSC/ETI bill. That stalled.

I would not say the Welfare Act is stalled. But what do we know is down the road? What is wrong with a little bit of transparency. The transparency is that they present an amendment on minimum wage and they want a vote. So we present a plan to get to a vote on that very important issue, but we cannot get some assurance that we may not be in the same boat as with the CARE Act and the Workforce Investment Act.

When it comes to the minimum wage being important for welfare, I suggest to the other leaders that, as chairman of the committee, in a letter I received from them last year, which is not dated-I received this letter, and it was signed by 41 Democrats-telling us the things they wanted in this legislation that the Finance Committee was going to be working on at that particular time. They were setting out priorities they believed we had not adequately dealt with. In this letter, there was never any mention of minimum wage being an important part of welfare reform legislation.

I did take what they said in this letter very seriously, and they dealt with issues such as universal engagement, ending the caseload reduction credit, strengthening child support, extending TMA, providing additional State flexibility, issues dealing with postsecondary education, no superwaiver, no increase in work without State flexibility. Of all of those provisions they raised concern about, none dealt with minimum wage. I and the majority tried to accommodate the minority members who signed this letter and put these things in this legislation. These provisions are all in this bill.

Other priorities, as stated by the Democrats, included some additional funding for childcare, and we passed that overwhelmingly yesterday. It wasn't something I could get done in committee. I, obviously, agreed with that approach because I voted for it yesterday.

We also had a request from the Democrats in this letter to increase vocational education eligibility for legal immigrants. We have not dealt with that, but that is going to be an amendment before the Senate.

What we have tried to do in this whole process of Republicans gaining control of the Senate and letting the committee system work, as opposed to 2002 when very major legislation, such as prescription drugs and the Energy bill, was taken away from the committees and brought to the floor-we do not develop bipartisanship on the floor, and they never became law-we have tried to make the committee system work. When specific requests are made, such as 41 Democrats sending us a letter raising concerns about their issues, we try to put them in the legislation and accommodate them so that we have a product instead of an issue.

The other side ought to tell us if we are going down the same road we went down in 2002 to have the Senate become a graveyard for important legislation because they need issues instead of product. Did they learn a lesson from the last election? Do they want to lose more seats in the Senate? I don't think they do. But I think they have to get a better game plan than shutting down the Senate because we are in the majority to make this place work.

I know there are a lot of Democrats who are intent upon making this place work, and I know Senator Baucus, my ranking Democrat, is committed to making this place work. There should not be any reason we have to have a cloture vote, particularly when we made overtures to the other side to vote on a lot of important issues on which they want to vote. All we want to know is that we are going to get an opportunity to develop a product. This Senate is not the only body that passes legislation that goes to the President; it also takes the House of Representatives. We do not get to finality until there is a conference committee if there is a difference between the House and the Senate, and in most major pieces of legislation, we have to have a conference committee.

I do not understand why we can't get to conference on the CARE Act, a bill to encourage charitable giving by people who fill out the short form of the income tax by giving above-the-line deduction, or having the tax-free rollover IRAs for people who want to give some of their lifetime savings to charitable giving. There are a lot of other good provisions in that legislation as well.

Do you know what is wrong with that, Madam President? What is probably wrong with that legislation is it is one of the No. 1 goals of the President of the United States, and maybe the other side can't let him have a victory. Yet in the scheme of what the President of the United States has to do, it may be a No. 1 goal of his, but it is a very small part of the total agenda that this President has of leading this Nation and being the Chief Executive Officer for our Government.

What is wrong with the Workforce Investment Act? One would think that with the other side crying all the time about outsourcing-forgetting about insourcing; we have a $58 billion favorable balance of trade on insourcing versus outsourcing-but we all ought to be concerned about outsourcing. What does Senator Kerry, as a Democratic candidate for President, say we need to do about outsourcing? Educate our workforce. And we have opportunities to move legislation that does that, and we cannot get to conference. What is the game?

We have offered to the other side votes on important legislation they want. Can they let us see light at the end of the tunnel so we know there are not games being played? I would hope there are people on the other side of the body who want this place to work, and there are. I would hope people who want product instead of issues will rise to the top, as cream does, and as cream of the crop remind their leadership of what happened in the last election, and do they want to be a less significant minority than we presently are because I think what is good about the Senate is that it keeps the extremes from governing in America-the extreme on the left and the extreme on the right.

The Senate, when it cooperates and gets things done, governs from the center. Whether that is 60 votes or 70 votes or 80 votes, we govern from the center.

This is a body that is going to make sure that Nazis do not take over America or Communists take over America, and there are none of them in the Congress. But when you do not have the center rule, as Germany learned or as Korinsky learned and tried to show the people of Russia in 1917, when the extremes take over, democratic values are lost.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield the floor.