I rise to pay tribute to Loret Miller Ruppe, a woman of uncompromising dedication for peace at home and abroad, who died at the age of 60. In addition to her remarkable career as the Director of the Peace Corps from 1981 to 1989 and…

more than 6 months ago, President Clinton came before the Congress and called for a modest increase in America's minimum wage--from $4.25 to $5.15 an hour. And for the past nearly 6 months, 12 million Americans woke up every morning, went…

I hope that cooler heads will prevail in this campaign season and that suggestions like this will be put in the trash bin where they belong, at a time when we are moving forward and achieving deficit reduction numbers, the economy is…

it is with reluctance that I rise in opposition to this amendment, because of my respect and affection for the Senator from Tennessee. But, this amendment would allow for waivers across the board in 16 States without any idea of what is in…

I respect that. My colleague knows, as well, that innocent children should not be penalized because their parents may be irresponsible. That is the net effect of this amendment.

I do not disagree with the thrust of what my colleague is saying, that parents should be responsible for immunizing their children. But I am afraid that we are aiming at the parents, but hurting the child. If the child is not fully…

If it is a 5-percent decrease, why should an innocent child pay for the irresponsibility of a parent? That does not make sense. We ought to encourage immunizations, promote and do what we can. The 6-year-old or 2-year-old child whose…

The proposal offered by the distinguished Senator from South Dakota and the Senator from Louisiana offers a safety net for children that I urge my colleagues to look at. The voucher system that allows for that safety net for children. The…

I hope those who understand this bill would look carefully at the suggestions our colleague has made, because, as I understood it, this is the kind of thing which none of us intended to be the case. We are talking about a category of…

As I understood it, those were the parents of citizens who would come in legally, and under the deeming process their children assumed, as my colleague from Pennsylvania properly described, the financial responsibility of those parents…

In regard to the issue of the vouchers, obviously the States and localities can do what they want. But we are talking about our Federal involvement here. We prohibit the use of the Federal funds, of our money, Federal money, if you will…

If the parents go to work, we are trying to provide a setting for those children in that situation. Rather than have them go onto the streets, there is some child care setting for them.

I commend them for it. I draw my colleagues' attention to the exchange between our colleagues from Pennsylvania and Louisiana that comes to one of the critical elements as far as I am concerned. It is the critical distinction between what…

My concern is children. Again, on the health and safety standards, on the quality, on the vouchers and food, it seems to me we ought to try to correct these mistakes. Again, remember, we are talking about putting 2 million adults out of 4…

So, Mr. President, the health and safety standards, the quality of our child care settings, again, this ought not be a question of partisan disagreement here. As I said, if we are going to have quality controls on automobiles and pets…

there is also an amendment. The Senator from North Carolina, Senator Faircloth, had an amendment he was going to propose, and it has to do with child care and the question of whether or not child care workers could be considered in the…

The Senator did not hear me suggest I was going to offer an amendment to add additional funds for child care. I said health and safety standards. And I appreciate the fact we are going to be able to get more on child care. I say to my…

Mr. President, let me say categorically and unequivocally to you, Mr. President, as well as to our colleagues, there is nothing in the managers' amendment that reverses the Harris decision by the Supreme Court--nothing at all. To put it…

I am saddened by this day that we are involved in a lengthy debate about the increase in the minimum wage. This should not be happening. It really should not be happening. We are talking about a 90-cent increase over 2 years. It has been 5…

I would note, however, the current situation is that the SEC collects in total more through fees than the agency's total budget. Of course, a majority of these funds go to the Treasury as general revenues.

My friend makes many good points. I know the pressures that the Appropriations Committee faces and we are all too familiar with the Government shutdowns that occurred this year. I would note that our goal on the Banking Committee is to…

Mr. President, let us be very clear. I think we all get a sense of what is going to happen here in about 3 hours and 45 minutes, and that is cloture, instead of being invoked, is not going to be invoked. Everyone ought to understand this…

I have long supported maintaining the level of military funding necessary to advance American interests, to honor our commitments abroad, and to continue to be an effective advocate for democracy and freedom throughout the world. In my…

I want to begin by trying to, if we can, get back to some basic information here, because you can get lost in a lot of the data and charts and numbers that get thrown around. Let us just remember we are talking about the President's…

Under the 4 years President Bush served as President, we created on average of 608,000 jobs per year, and in the last 40 months, from January of 1993 through December of 1995--it does not include these last 4 or 5 months, but my colleagues…