Russ Feingold: “This has been a good debate. It appears to be winding down. Let me just add a couple responses to the comments of the…”

“This has been a good debate. It appears to be winding down. Let me just add a couple responses to the comments of the Senators from Wyoming and Massachusetts. One of the words that has been kicked around here is the word ``permission.'' Does this employer identification system, if it is fully implemented, require permission from the Federal Government for an employer to hire somebody? It has been sort of muddying the issue. I suppose you could call the current system, asking for ``permission.'' It is kind of a loose use of the word, because what is required now with the I-9 is the obtaining of a certain kind of identification card. But what it does not include--and this is the phrase I used when I spoke; I did not just say ``permission,'' I said, ``having to ask permission from Washington, DC.'' That is what this system that could arise from this proposal may create. What happens now is the employer does not have to get on the phone or through a computer to find out something from a national databank. That is a big difference. Ask anybody who tries to run a small business or a farm how they are going to like the idea that, in addition to everything else they have to do now to try to keep their business going, every time they want to hire somebody under one of these alternatives, they would have to either call Washington or they would have to communicate with Washington through some other system, such as a computer system. Who is going to pay for all those systems?…”