John Ashcroft

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair. I commend the Senators from Mexico and Tennessee each for mentioning this important component of reform which is literally pressing and demands that the system will require it. We must undertake those reforms immediately. I am struck by the fact that our debate is not a debate about restructuring a government program. Our debate is about rescuing our culture from a tragedy, a tragedy the dimensions of which have been eloquently outlined and defined by speaker after speaker on this floor. The Senator from New York eloquently and tragically defined the problem. He said that 75 percent of some of the births in some cities in this country are births to incomplete families. The welfare system, which has been designed or hoped for as a way of helping people, has become a way of ensnaring people. A net can be something that saves you from a fall. It can be something in which you are caught. I believe we have a system where we have seen that the welfare system is one where people are caught. It is not where people are saved. When he rather dramatically ended his speaking earlier, the Senator from New York talked about the children. What about the children? I think we have to ask the question. What about the children? What about the one- third of all children in this country who are born to incomplete families without fathers in the home? What happens to those children? I was reminded about one child whose story I read. Her name was Ariel Hill. She was one of five children of a welfare family that lived in an apartment beyond description in Chicago public housing. The parents were 22-year-old, drug-using high school dropouts. They did not have jobs. The mother had her first child as a teenager, obviously. She was one of five children. The father grew up on welfare. The source of the income to the family was the $900 per month in public aid checks. What tragically impressed me was after she died at the hands of her mother, the investigators came in to look around the apartment to see what they could find. They went into the apartment and found a paper listing the welfare dollars that each child had brought into the family. We are literally living with a system which has taught people to value children for the kind of incomes those children could attract to the family through the welfare system. This is not something that recommends our future. It is not something upon which we should build. It is something which we must change. The Senator from Pennsylvania made it very clear and eloquently argued that we may not know everything about what we want to do and we maybe cannot be assured that it will work completely. But we do know one thing with a certainty. That is that the current system of welfare is a tragedy. It has entrapped individuals. It has seen the skyrocketing rate of individuals born into homes without families. It has found more and more people in circumstances of dependence. The War on Poverty, started years ago, addressed the situation where fewer children were in poverty then than are in poverty now. It seems to me that we must take action to change the status quo. We are dealing with a tragedy. If every time we say, ``Well, we cannot reform welfare, we are not sure that what will happen will be a perfect solution,'' we are allowing the potential for perfection to paralyze us. And to say that we will not act at all, it is pretty clear to me with individuals who have begun to make careers--and not only careers for one individual but careers for individuals generation after generation in families--of a system which has ensnared them and not saved them, that we have the wrong kind of net here and that we have to restructure it. We have to provide some of the very tough motivations for people who lead this system to be involved in the ladder of opportunity rather than the net of ensnarement. I believe that is what welfare has to be. It has to be a transitional system. So I think it is time for us to limit the amount of time that people can be on welfare. It is time for us to provide disincentives to bear children out of wedlock. It is time for us to provide powerful incentives for people to go to work. It is time for us to say that, if you are on welfare, you should be off drugs. It is time for us to say that, if you are on welfare, your children should be in school. It is time for us to say that, if you are on welfare, your children should have the immunizations that are available to them free of charge. You have to be responsible for what you are doing. We are not going to continue to support you in a way in which you abdicate, you simply run from, you hide from, your responsibility as a citizen. As we look at where we are, we see a system the carnage of which is written in the lives of children. It is written in the lives of adults who have been ensnared by a net which was designed to arrest their fall. But instead of being a net of saving, it tends to be a net of trapping, a net of ensnarement, and it is time for us to make this system one of transition. It is time for welfare to be a ladder of opportunity, and I believe the measure that is before us today gives us the opportunity to make that the truth for the American people. They are asking us to reform the welfare system. It is time to get about the business and get it done. I thank the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ASHCROFT. If it is possible, I would like to defer the vote until perhaps 8:30.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, if my time has not been consumed, I would reserve the remainder.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Thank you, Mr. President. I am pleased to have this opportunity to participate in the debate that relates to the compensation levels received by American workers. It is an important debate, in my judgment, because it allows us to address the problem which is understood by people across the political spectrum and around the country. The fact is that take-home pay has declined by 6.3 percent since its 1989 level. Americans' tax burden has been going up while their take- home pay has been going down. Currently, we charge people more for government than we have at any other time in history. That troubles me. Americans spend more on taxes than they do on food, clothing and shelter combined. This concept of wage stagnation, of the flatness of wages, has really caused the American people to be troubled. The Senator from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone, recently--in fact, just a few moments ago--talked about the fact that families are struggling to make ends meet, are worrying about how they get their kids to college, are worrying about being able to move into the work force and are worrying about getting the kind of experience which is necessary in order to become productive, long-term workers in our economy. So I think there is an important condition to be addressed. It is a condition of wage stagnation, of a flatness in terms of take-home pay. As I spent the last couple of weeks, or almost a couple of weeks, home in Missouri, I worked with workers side by side. I worked with a group of workers in the Eagle Pitcher Corp. which manufactures batteries for use in satellites. I did assembly line jobs and those workers are concerned about their take-home pay. I worked in the food service industry. And, yes, those workers are concerned there about their take-home pay. One day I worked in the apparel industry--in manufacturing of clothing and uniforms. And those workers also are concerned about their take-home pay. While individuals are concerned about their take-home pay--none mentioned an increase in the minimum wage. They understand that the minimum wage is something that would address only between 4 and 5 million people in this country, and many of those individuals are not full-time workers. I think we need to address this problem of wage stagnation far more substantially than we would if we were to increase the minimum wage. There are problems attendant with increasing the minimum wage which would intensify the economic difficulty for individuals, not relieve it. For instance, the Congressional Budget Office indicates that a 90- cent increase would create employment losses in the country from 100,000 to up to 500,000 jobs lost. I do not think we want to craft relief that will cause a significant number of American workers to lose their jobs. Seventy-seven percent of the American Economists Association responded that a minimum wage increase would have job losses that are substantial. Even the Democratic Leadership Council opposes a minimum wage increase. Even the Clinton administration understands this concept. Secretary Reich, in a letter to President Clinton, dated July 20, 1993, wrote: ``A full assessment of where to set the minimum wage should consider a wide range of factors beyond its income effects on the working poor. After all, most minimum wage workers are not poor.'' So if we really want to try to increase the take-home pay for individuals, I do not think the minimum wage is a very good way to do it. First, many of those who are on the minimum wage are not poor people. About 57 percent of these workers are in households with income of over $45,000. Second, we do not want to shrink the job base for this country in the process of helping people. So what kinds of alternatives are there for helping people with flat wages which also do not shrink the job base but grow the job base, which do not just address 4 to 5 million people but address 70 or 80 million people? What are the kinds of things that we can do to provide relief that really would help families--generally--across the board, rather than focus on less than 5 percent of the American work force? I believe that there is such an opportunity, and I have offered it in the U.S. Senate. Almost all of the individuals who speak so eloquently in favor of the minimum wage voted against this proposal. But the truth of the matter is this proposal would help almost 80 million workers instead of 4 million workers. It is something that would grow the job base of the United States by a half million jobs instead of shrink it by a half a million jobs. It would be something that would allow a broad base of Americans to have more take-home pay rather than just helping a few. It is this-- right now, as Americans pay more in taxes than we have ever paid in history, we pay double taxes on the Social Security taxes which we have deducted from our paychecks. It is money we never see. The money actually is taken by our employer and sent to the Government. It is the Social Security tax of 6.2 percent of our income. Then we are later charged income tax on that same tax which we have already paid. If we were to allow this tax to be deductible to ordinary workers like it is deductible to corporations which pay the other half of the Social Security tax, we would have a $1,770 impact on the average two- earner working family, and that would benefit 77 million-plus workers instead of 4 million-plus workers. It seems to me, if we want to address this challenge in our culture, which has recognized the flatness in take-home pay, we ought to do it on a broad base for Americans rather than a narrow base, and we ought to do it in a way that grows this economy rather than stunts the economy. As the economists have indicated, a mandated increase in the minimum wage could result in up to 500,000 jobs lost. However, the economists have indicated there would be 500,000 jobs gained if we were to provide this kind of tax relief to American families. I think we ought to find ways to grow ourselves into helping people out of wage stagnation rather than stunt the economy and hope there would be those who would benefit as a result, in spite of the fact we had substantial job losses. The reasons are substantial to provide deductibility of our Social Security taxes which we pay from our income taxes. First, it is necessary to eliminate this double taxation on American families. Second, corporations which pay the other 6.2 percent of a person's earnings in order to make the total combined 12.4 percent of earnings, deduct their share--yet, the average worker cannot deduct their share. This fundamental lack of fairness, this disparity in tax treatment between the corporate side and the individual side should be resolved. Finally, if we really want to help American workers. We ought to be looking out for workers generally rather than a very small segment of workers, many of whom are only part-time employees. Many of whom are the youngsters like my children. They began work in the fast food industry. Well, some 40 years ago I began work in the fast food industry myself, or at least in the ice cream industry. I do not think there was really fast food in those days. But I think we ought to find a way to help American families generally, and we can help American families generally by providing tax relief for American families generally. It is tax equity because it would give the American family the same tax break that the American corporation enjoys. It would be tax fairness because it would stop a double taxation on American families. And it would help grow the economy rather than slow the economy, which is the way we ought to try to move people ahead in terms of their own wages. That ought to really be the focus of our endeavor. We ought to try to benefit families generally. We ought to try to provide help and assistance to the 70 or 80 million wage earners that could be assisted from this proposal rather than limit our assistance to the 4 million or so individuals who are involved in the minimum wage category. I believe there has been an appropriate recognition, a diagnosis, if you will, of a discomfort in the American body politic. The diagnosis is for wage stagnation. I believe we can remedy that by providing tax relief for American families generally, rather than seeking to focus our efforts on a very small segment of the American population.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Senator from Kansas for her excellent work in helping us develop the capacity as Americans to be competitive and to be productive, and to maintain our standard of excellence around the world. There is no other nation that has the capacity, especially in areas of complexity, that the United States does, whether it is in pharmaceuticals or just in technological industry--whether it be computers, software, or hardware, the United States is No. 1. It comes as a result of the recognition of the importance of the human resource in the equation. You simply cannot be competitive without tapping every part of the resource that you have. When we think of this summer and the excitement that will surround the Olympic Games in Atlanta, it is unthinkable that we would send teams to Atlanta and forbid the coaches to talk to the players. What nonsense that would be, not to allow a player to come off the field or off the court and say to the coach: ``This is what they are doing. This is how we can make an adjustment to improve our performance, to make it possible for us to be winners instead of losers.'' It is a fundamental recognition of the fact that the people on the court will have a different perspective than the people off the court. The people on the field will have an awareness of how things are going that is special, different, unique, and of value. The same is true in industry. No matter how hard a compassionate manager tries to observe the process from outside, no matter how well the engineer from the design room tries to structure the environment for productivity, the fellow who is actually on the floor is going to have an ability to say, ``This doesn't work here. It may look good in theory, but it doesn't work in practice.'' We need to tap the resources of the broad spectrum of individuals on the American team for productivity in order to make sure that we continue to be winners, that we continue to forge a position for the United States which puts us at the top of complex industries, the most valuable services and goods in the world, and gives us the opportunity to maintain a standard of living that makes America a great magnet. Last I checked, people were still flocking to these shores. They were not leaving here to go elsewhere. They were still coming here because of the great opportunities that exist, because of the way in which this culture recognizes the contribution that can be made by citizens generally. I think that is what the TEAM Act is all about. It is about understanding and recognizing the tremendous resource that workers are, that they can be to their own future by guaranteeing productivity and thereby ensuring job security, that they can be to the competitive position of this country by outproducing and outworking and outthinking and outsmarting and outcooperating workers anyplace else in the world. Most Americans would believe, and it is because we are commonsense people, that it is OK for employees and employers to talk. If you would have listened to the debate in this Chamber, you would have heard from those on the other side of the aisle, ``Why, it's all right, it's all OK, it's perfectly legal right now. We don't need this.'' When they say it is perfectly legal now, we do not need this, it confounds me that they have amendments to this. Why would they want to have a substitute proposal for something that is perfectly OK? The truth of the matter is, it is not perfectly OK. Let me read from a list of things that have been ruled inappropriate for nonunion employers to talk to their nonunion employees on. Let us just let the American people have an understanding of what the law is here and whether it needs to be changed. If you discuss the extension of the employees' lunch breaks by 15 minutes, that is illegal, from the case of Sertafilm and Atlas Microfilming; The length of the workday, to discuss how long each workday is going to be, that is illegal, from Weston & Brooker Co.; A decrease in rest breaks from 15 minutes to 10 minutes, that is illegal to talk about with workers; What paid holidays you have. The Singer Manufacturing case held that was illegal to talk about; The extension of store hours during the wheat harvest season. The Dillon's company case said you cannot talk with workers about that to get their input. Who are we trying to kid? Workers know what kind of break they need. Workers know what kind of workday they would like to work. I know of one plant in my home State that decided they wanted to work 4 days of 10 hours a day instead of 5 days of 8 hours a day and have 3-day weekends every week. Why would Government stand between workers and manufacturers, between managers and employees or their associates to say you cannot discuss those things, and yet that is what the law is for eight out of nine American workers, because eight out of nine American workers are nonunion workers. You see, this is something that is totally and perfectly all right for union workers to talk with employers about. It is just not legal according to the National Labor Relations Board for nonunion. I could talk to you about other things. Safety labeling of electrical breakers is wrong for the managers to talk to the employees about. I hope they go ahead and talk about it anyhow. They ought to. Tornado warning procedures: Wrong, cannot talk about that. Purchase of new lifting equipment for stock crew: Wrong. Rules about fighting: Wrong. Safety goggles for fryer and bailer operators: Wrong. Wait a second. We do not want to rule out of the equation of American business the contribution that employees can make to the safety and productivity, to the efficiency, to the level of service. If the store workers want to mention to the managers that we should stay open later during the wheat harvest in the Great Plains of America, which turns out to be the bread basket for the world, it seems to me that we should not make that against the law. The sharpness of the edges of the safety knives: That is illegal to talk about. Pensions, profit-sharing plans, overtime pay: Cannot talk about that. Oh, it is said that, ``Well, if you talk about those things, the people will think you have a union when you don't. It will be a sham union.'' Frankly, I do not underestimate the American worker that severely. Over the Fourth of July, over the break of the last 10 days, I went and worked in about five or six places in Missouri, actually on the job side by side with people. I never met a single worker who did not know whether he or she was in a union. They know. Who are we trying to kid? Workers know whether union dues are being deducted. They know whether they are in a separate organization. It is not hard. This is not above the capacity of the American worker. What strikes me is that the American worker is bright. I was involved in some jobs which I thought, looking from the sideline, might be easy or simple, and I found out that to do them well, there were subtleties about how you did them, there were challenges, and the American workers develop those capacities and those subtle efficiencies and they know how to put them in the system. They should be able to talk to managers about them. The idea somehow that if we allow managers to talk to employees, employees will be tricked into thinking they have a union when they do not have a union is ludicrous. It underestimates the intelligence of the American work force. American workers know, they know for sure, they know surely whether or not they are in a union. A second objection from the other side is, ``Well, maybe if we allow people to talk, they will be just talking to certain employees who only have limited views, and they will not reflect the views of employees generally.'' There is a safeguard. If there is an unfair system established where workers and employers are communicating with each other and it is working against the interests of the workers, it is easy. Workers have every right to unionize. They can form a labor union. They can petition for a labor union. They can ask that unions come in if they think it is unfair. There is a structural guarantee of competition. If nonunion systems are not working well for employees, if these things are likely to be so distorted or so unfair, nothing in this law, nothing in this proposal in any way derogates, undermines, erodes or otherwise lessens the right of a worker to petition for an election to organize or unionize a plant. If the teams are unfair representatives or if they are shams or if they are in some way defrauding or abusing the workers, it is clear there is a remedy, and there is every incentive for employers and companies not to engage in that kind of activity, because this law does nothing, does absolutely nothing to change the right of workers to ask that they be represented, if they choose to, by a union. There are about 30,000 employers that would like to have such plans. Why is it they would like to have such plans? Because they have seen that when we work together we succeed. Strange to me, that is basically a quote from President Clinton's State of the Union Address. He said, and I agree, and I quote, ``When companies and workers work as a team, they do better, and so does America.'' The real truth of that matter is understood in the hearts and minds of everyone who has ever worked on a team, knowing that when you work together, you do better than when you work at odds with each other. Yet we see this administration and its representatives in the Department of Labor opposing this opportunity, and they should not. When I was Governor of the State of Missouri I had the opportunity to work with companies. Like I do today, I would go and work on the assembly line. I would go and work with people to learn about their jobs to see what was happening. One of the companies that was hauled into the justice system of the Labor Department for cooperating with its employees was a company called EFCO Corp. It was a small company in Missouri, had about 60 jobs. Now it has over 1,000 jobs. Much of its capacity was to increase its on-time deliveries, which went from the low seventies up into the high nineties, and which allowed workers to start working 4 days a week instead of 5 days a week, get their 40 hours in in 4 days and have long weekends, spend more time with their kids, accommodate the demands of their families. It all came from these programs. What was most distressing was that when EFCO wanted to be involved, it was said to have dominated its discussion groups or teams because they provided employees with pencils and pens and allowed them to have access to the financial records of the company. That was what the NLRB said was a violation. You would say this company is bending over backward. It opens up the books to the workers and says: How can we do better for you and how can we, as a team, do better, how can we as a company have the kind of performance and productivity that will recommend us to the world? And indeed they are now a world-class company. But because they provided the pens and pencils and they allowed the workers to have access to the company's financial records, the NLRB filed charges against the company. This is not the kind of thing that recommends America for leadership. It is the kind of thing that takes correction. The ability of union workers to collaborate with employers is well ensconced. It is fought for by the unions and protected by the employers, recognized as a great benefit. But why should we limit that great benefit to 11 or 12 percent of our society, to the one out of nine workers in America that are in unions? Why not extend this benefit to all the workers in America saying that it is entirely appropriate for nonunion workers, as well as union workers, to be involved in collaborating and cooperating, in providing their good judgment of how best to improve the situation for workers and to improve the productivity and profitability of the business? A great deal has been made by those who apparently resent this potential, saying how terrible it would be if the employer chose which workers to talk to. Frankly, most employers want to get a good sampling. But it seems to me that what they want to do is impose a rule that says there will be no talking at all for fear that someone might chose the wrong person with whom to talk. It totally ignores the fact that if there are really misrepresentations involved in the situation, there is always the opportunity for those in the plant to ask that there be a union certified. And that election would proceed under the new law that has been proposed here just as readily as it does under the old. No. I do not think we would send our teams to Atlanta forbidding the players to talk to the coaches. We have too much sense to do that. No, I do not think that union companies are going to stop having team discussions between employees and the company owners and managers. They have too much sense to do that. And, no, I do not think that this Government should stand between the owners of corporations and their managers and the employees who work hard and want to succeed and want to be productive and keep them from talking to each other, because I believe the American people have too much sense to do that. I urge my colleagues to extend this benefit which now inures to the benefit of one out of nine workers in America to the rest of the working population. Let us give everyone an opportunity to contribute to a winning effort, to succeed. That will maintain America's position as the most productive and most profitable and most rewarding place, not just for companies, but for citizens, not just for institutions, but for individuals. It is in fact a reason that America continues to draw people from around the globe. It is the fact that we have recognized the worth and value of individuals. And for us to deny their value in a commercial setting would be a substantial error which we must not make. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mrs. KASSEBAUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, the Feingold amendment would impair the capacity of our defense to continue to bring on line the F/A-18E/F program which needs to be delivered on schedule--and which will deliver on schedule--a tactical carrier-based fighter capable of deterring the most technologically advanced threats currently available to any of our potential adversaries. The Feingold amendment would introduce delays in the system which would certainly be very costly, be counterproductive, and be expensive not only in terms of our economics but it could be costly in terms of our ability to defend our Nation. The expendability of the E/F will keep this fighter at the forefront of combat technology until the advanced Joint Strike Fighter becomes available and operational. Let me discuss some of the differences between the F/A-18C/D and the E/F aircraft. The F/A-18C/D only has 0.2 cubic feet of space available for new equipment while the E/F has 17 cubic feet of space available making it able to incorporate new weapons system advances within the next 20 years. Common sense tells us that if we are building a new fighter aircraft, we should build one that is capable of accommodating future advances in technology. The increased flight range of the E/F cannot be recreated on the C/D merely by attaching larger fuel tanks. Doing so does not give the C/D sufficient deck clearance for operations on carriers and further restricts the maximum payload. Adding larger tanks to the C/D requires stronger wings and landing gear. These modifications to the C/D are not cheap, either in dollars or in time for design, manufacture, and modification. I do not think we can accurately predict what advances there will be in weapons, in avionics, in electronics--and as yet unknown breakthroughs--that will be developed in the next two decades over which the life of one of these fighters is expected to be utilized in our Navy. We need maximum flexibility to ensure compatibility with future technology. The E/F has greater maximum payload and greater mission range by 40 to 50 percent than the C/D regardless of configuration. The technology that increases combat survivability of the E/F, such as the radar cross-section, the ``stealthiness'', also greatly exceeds that of the C/D, thus keeping the Super Hornet ahead of the advanced weapons that are easily available to all of our potential adversaries. So the difference between these aircraft is substantial, significant, and meaningful. The procurement of more F/18C/Ds is not a viable option at this time. Growth within the C/D program has taken advantage of the potential originally designed into the aircraft, saving the Defense Department money as they made changes to the aircraft as technology advanced. Now the time is right to move to the next generation of this successful program. The Joint Strike Fighter, the JSF, is too far off in the future to consider it as a replacement for the C/D. By the time the Joint Strike Fighter is available the C/D will be far outdated and that would open a technological window of vulnerability in our national defense. The F/A-18E/F is already built. The program is on cost, on schedule, and 900 pounds underweight, making this a vital and necessary component of our defense capacity. The program is not a research and development project, but it is an already successful flight test program--it is ready to enter full-scale production. The Navy just finished a comprehensive review of the F-18E/F program. In May of this year, the Navy reported to Congress that the program had met or exceeded all their requirements concerning cost, schedule, and performance. This program as been a model for other aircraft acquisitions by any measure. To interrupt this program on the basis of one GAO study, is in my judgment, unwise at this time. The amendment would cause delays in a program that has been running successfully, which has been running on time, that will create a technology that is up to date. The Super Hornet program will deliver a carrier-based tactical aircraft at one-third to one-half the cost of designing yet another aircraft with the same capabilities from scratch. I believe we should continue with the program. I oppose the amendment as proposed by Senator Feingold because it would cause costly delays, and impair our ability to take advantage of this program. Clearly, this aircraft is a fighter with the capacity to accommodate the developments of the future--the technology, the avionics, the survivability, and the armaments. And if we were to impair our ability to go forward in that respect we would find ourselves substantially disadvantaged in the capacity to provide for the defense of our Nation. I thank the Chair. Mr. BROWN addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I would like to make some comments on the Feingold amendment which is not the pending business, and I ask unanimous consent to be able to make up to 5 minutes of comments on that amendment.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Madam President, I rise today to condemn the June 25 cowardly terrorist attack which claimed the lives of 19 United States Air Force members at the Khobar Barracks near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The explosion which killed these men and injured 106 others was a heinous crime for which those responsible must be held accountable. The message must be sent that the United States will not tolerate conduct of this nature and our commitment to preventing future terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere must be stronger than ever before. Today, we honor the service and sacrifice of those who were killed or injured in this attack. We mourn the loss of some of our Nation's finest service members and pray that God will comfort those closest to them in time of grief. We are also thankful for those who continue to serve in a land far from their own in the defense of the United States and its allies and we commit ourselves to taking whatever action is necessary to ensure their continued safety.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, families are the cornerstone of America. The data is undeniable: individuals from strong families contribute to the society. In an era when nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``till death us do part'' seriously, demonstrating successfully the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity. These characteristics make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor Mr. Gene and Mrs. Vieta Ragsdale of Marshfield, MO, who on July 13, 1996, will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. Gene and Vieta's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, families are the cornerstone of America. The data is undeniable: individuals from strong families contribute to the society. In an era when nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``till death us do part'' seriously, demonstrating successfully the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity. These characteristics make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor Mr. David and Mrs. Hazel Trimble of St. Charles, MO, who on June 16, 1996, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. David and Hazel's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, when Abraham Lincoln walked onto the battlefield at Gettysburg to commemorate what had been done there, he succinctly encapsulated the understanding that deeds far surpass words in terms of value. He said, ``The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.'' We are not talking this morning just to be talking, to be saying things, but it is a way of helping people understand what Bob Dole has done, who he has been, the depth of his care, and the breadth of his knowledge of how we need to proceed in America. It has been properly said that the world does not care how much you know until they know how much you care. And because Bob Dole has not been a person to sound his own trumpet, to tell people about himself, I think people have mistaken him. They have not understood how much he cared, because Bob Dole has been a person who has answered the call every time the call has come. He has not only answered the call, he has answered the call with everything--everything--at his disposal, the entirety of his existence. In 1945, Bob Dole nearly gave up his life--and there would have been those who said it was gone--to the call of duty. And, today, he relinquishes the power and prerogatives of policy development in the Senate because he, similarly, will pursue a call from his country, a call that we are pleased that he hears, a call to shape the tomorrows in which we live, a call to reestablish the fundamental values of American greatness, to align himself with the virtues of the American people, rather than the vices of a system that has really guided us down the wrong path. In 1945, Lt. Bob Dole volunteered to lead his company to take out a German machinegun nest. He scrambled out of a shell hole in order to rescue a fallen comrade. The Germans sighted Dole and blew apart the right side of his back. Few people would have had the courage to live as he has lived. He willed himself to recovery, with God's help, and with the help of his neighbors. He willed himself to law school, and he willed himself to run for office. Many of the medical experts at the time had given up on Bob Dole. A doctor from Chicago decided to try some things that were virtually experimental and gave his services. The people of Russell, KS, donated their nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars in the cigar box at the pharmacy down on the corner to cover the expenses. Bob Dole made a commitment that he would be an individual of service. We need that kind of determination. We need that kind of grit. We need individuals who have looked the very most serious of all circumstances in the face and have said, ``With God's help, we can overcome, we can prevail.'' And that is Bob Dole. Well, America needed Bob Dole when, in 1945, he was willing to give himself totally. They needed him when he went to the U.S. House of Representatives, they needed him when he became a Senator, and it needs him today. All of us know the statistics. A child born today will end up paying $187,000 in interest on the national debt if we do not do something about it. Bob Dole has devoted himself not just to a balanced budget-- sure, he sent two balanced budgets to the President this year--but to the structure of a balanced budget; that is a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Bob Dole knows that American families spent about 3 percent of their income on taxes in the 1950's, and now we spend almost 40 percent. He understands that Americans have an ability to spend on themselves and to do for themselves, if Government will stand aside. He understands that, for a long time, Washington has acted as if Government were the answer--faith in Government, governmentalism. He knows that is not the solution, that Washington's one-size-fits-all solution is not the way to solve this Nation's problems. He knows that when we placed that faith in Government, instead of ourselves, we injured ourselves. Bob Dole really is going to go to the American people and say: You have the quality, the character, and the capacity to do those things that are necessary to shape the next century constructively. I am delighted that he has so much commitment to this responsibility that he would say, ``I walk away from the U.S. Senate in order to offer myself to the American people.'' When the American people learn about Bob Dole and get to know him the way we in the Senate know him, they will ask and demand that he be President of the United States. It will be a pleasure, as a Member of the U.S. Senate, to remember his outstanding service to the people, not just in the military, in the House and the Senate, but as the leader of this Republic. I am grateful for the opportunity to make these remarks regarding our majority leader. I yield the floor.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Ashcroft pertaining to the introduction of S. 1854 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I have the opportunity to speak for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, it seems like the latest incomprehensible tragedy is only the next newspaper away. Today we have an epidemic of juvenile crime. It means that frequently students are unable to focus on their lessons as they seek to enhance their capacity to be of service to themselves, their family, and fellow man as they are in school. They are diverted and distracted because they have concerns about their own safety. They fear they might be robbed or raped. It is not a question of someone throwing spit balls. As a matter of fact, an 8-year-old girl from St. Louis wrote me that crime is real. It has to do with weapons. It has to do with people losing their lives. Young children are afraid. Citizens are afraid to leave their homes because they fear the senseless, mindless attack of predatory youngsters who have become a major threat to the personal security and integrity of individuals in our culture. We rejoice in the fact there has been some drop in overall crime rates. Frankly, crime rates had nowhere else to go, in general, but down. But they are coming down, and I am pleased by it. But I think it is important we not be deluded, we not be fooled. The fact that, overall, crime rates are coming down should not mask something which should alert us and should literally prompt us into significant response, and that is that, while, overall, crime rates are going down, juvenile crime rates have been skyrocketing. So those components of the crime rate which would signal what we can expect in the future are telling us to beware, to be alert, to brace ourselves, because between 1988 and 1992, juvenile arrests for violent crime increased by 47 percent while adult violent crime arrests increased only by 19 percent. So we had a 2.5-to-1 higher increase, higher explosion in growth in juvenile crime. Juvenile murders increased by 26 percent, forcible rapes by 41 percent, juvenile robberies by 39 percent, aggravated assaults by 27 percent--an exploding, growing, expanding threat to the safety and security and integrity of the population. Frequently, because we are talking about juveniles, we are finding these individuals are being sent back into classrooms. Teachers do not know what these individuals have done because juvenile records are most frequently sealed. Other students are not aware of the specific conduct, though they frequently know someone has been in trouble. So you get a tremendous wave of insecurity in the classroom. I think most of us understand, when we work on legislation here, we need a secure environment. We invest substantially in a secure environment here. Yet, when we are preparing the next generation to literally lead America, we have students in our public schools, and teachers, who are having constantly to look over their shoulders, unaware, not knowing, not confident, distressed, discomfited by the fact that we have frequently sent these folks right back into our schools. And our schools are unaware. I talked to a teacher who indicated she knew there were several people in her classroom who were being housed in a residential juvenile detention facility, sent into the school, some of them even having these electronic shackles, the bracelets they have to wear around their ankle that allows the law enforcement community to monitor their whereabouts. But these students would refuse to tell the teacher the kinds of crimes or offenses which they have been convicted of, so a teacher in the classroom looks at the student and the student says: You know I have been convicted of a crime but I am not going to tell you whether I raped someone or murdered someone or assaulted someone. You just cannot know that. I submit to you that is not a healthy environment. But it is not just the school environment for which we must be concerned. It is the environment in which we maintain our homes. It is the streets of America, which we must literally reclaim. I believe the Dole-Hatch bill, which I have just sent to the desk, is a much needed effort to curtail these astronomical growth numbers and to fulfill the first duty of government. We have gotten awfully expansive of government. We teach people how to raise flowers. We address a wide variety of issues--research. But the first, the fundamental duty of government, the reason for which government was initially convened, is to provide for the safety and security and the integrity, the dignity of individual human beings, so we can be free from assault, so we can have the potential of reaching the level of achievement for which God created us and for which God placed in us this potential. I believe we have to return to that fundamental. The Dole-Hatch bill is a bill which is designed to address violent juvenile criminal activity. It is designed to sweep away the sort of idea that it is something we can ignore or simply patch over. We have to address it constructively. It will remedy misguided Federal efforts to excuse juvenile behavior because people are just juveniles. It will begin to provide a basis for accountability. I have to say I understand there are a number of juveniles who will not become career criminals. We do not want them to. We would not make that any more likely with this bill. But I think, for very serious juvenile offenders, we have to send a serious signal to them about the nature of their activity. President Clinton yesterday warned of a potential wave of juvenile crime in the next 5 years. The truth of the matter is, it is not a wave, it is an explosion. The President recommended a so-called gentle combination of laws and prevention programs to deflect this onslaught of violent teens. I have to say I believe a gentle combination will not get the job done. I think we have to begin to treat criminals as criminals. For those individuals who commit rape, armed robbery, murder, armed assault, major drug offenses, we cannot have any more gentle approaches. We have to say you are going to have to stand for trial as an adult. The Federal Government's response, and President Clinton's response, his solution, is always to offer more money for social programs such as delinquency prevention, treatment, recreation. I have held hearings around my State. I know the Senator from Iowa has held hearings around his State. We have talked to juvenile officials, those who deal with the juveniles. We have talked to sheriffs. We have talked to prosecutors. We have heard them tell us how juvenile individuals who are involved in criminal acts are simply playing the system. They sometimes look forward to a juvenile detention facility. They know they can hide behind their status as juveniles, that they do not have to be really answerable for their activities. The administration has not been active in prosecuting those who have offended the Federal laws. There have only been 233 convictions in the Clinton administration of juveniles as adults. I think for the major categories of criminal activity when juveniles are committing crimes which, if committed by adults, would be felonies, we need a serious approach. One of the things that stunned me about the testimony of Prof. John DiIulio from Princeton, one of the leading criminologists in America, is his report that when he interviews inmates of major prisons, their main worry is about the young prisoners who are going to be sent in. They are so hardened as criminals and have been allowed to be so indiscriminate in their violence before they finally get thrown into jail that the old-time criminals are scared stiff. They are afraid of what is happening. Those on the inside, the old-time, long-time criminal element in our Nation's prison systems, are fearful because they see what we have done by turning our heads to activity, so long as it is conducted by a juvenile, and allowing individuals to harden their approach to the safety and security and integrity of other individuals, and they are afraid. America needs to respond, and it needs to respond dramatically. The Dole-Hatch bill, also cosponsored by Senator Lott and myself and, I am pleased to say, Senator Grassley is to be added as an original cosponsor of the bill, is a measure which would begin to focus the energy and resources of the Federal Government on this part of crime, which is exploding, this part of crime which is growing at an incredible rate: juvenile crime; violent repeat juvenile criminal behavior. The estimated total amount of Federal appropriations used for at-risk and delinquent youth was more than $4 billion last year. Of these billions sent to the States, a very few million were to be used for investigation, prosecution, and detention. It is time we looked carefully at how we can assist States and how we can carry our share of the load in the Federal Government as it relates to actually prosecuting those individuals who are guilty of committing acts which, if committed as adults, would be clearly and simply felonies. They threaten the lives of people, they undermine the security of their property, they destabilize and disrupt our educational process. It is something which we cannot tolerate, it is something with which we cannot be coddling, it is something with which we must be forthwith. We can do much more, and the Dole-Hatch bill is an enormous step in the right direction. Let me briefly give you some of the things that are important about the Dole-Hatch bill which I believe make it a very promising way to address this most serious problem. One of the difficulties in the area of juvenile laws is the fact that juvenile records frequently have been sealed. Proceedings of juveniles are closed proceedings. Records are not available. Teachers who have to deal with these individuals in schools do not know what they have on their hands. I talked to the sheriff--and I am sure my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, has talked to local officials--but I talked to the sheriff in Moniteau County, MO. The biggest town in Moniteau County is California, MO. People say they are going to California in central Missouri. People do not think you are going to the west coast, they think you are going to California, MO. It is not a big town. I asked what his No. 1 crime problem was, and he said it was juveniles coming in from out of State trying to set up a drug operation in Moniteau County and he could not call the States from which these juveniles came and get their records, because there was a big blanket of security, security for the criminal but not for the society, a blanket of nondisclosure over juvenile records. I think it is high time that when people commit felonious acts, when they are criminals, that we have an understanding of what they have done and then when they move on to another jurisdiction, we have to be able to find out what their history is. I talked to a judge not too long ago. He said he was sentencing an 18-year-old for murder. He thought it was the individual's first offense. Inadvertently did he discover the individual was originally from the west coast and had a juvenile record that included other murders. I do not think it is fair to expect a judicial system to operate in relation to repeat offenders, repeat violent predators and to allow those repeat violent predators to have the presumption that they are first offenders when they have a rap sheet as long as from here to Chicago. The truth is, if those people do criminal acts, those acts ought to be made available to law enforcement officials, judges, schoolteachers and school officials, not only because we will know how to take steps to protect the other students and the school environment--that would be enough of a reason--but we can do our best to change the way people operate, we can do our best to help them redirect their lives if they are not allowed to hide under a shield of juvenile laws that keep their records from being known. A significant part of the Dole-Hatch proposal is that such records can be maintained and developed at Federal expense if such records are made available to law enforcement and school authorities, including those outside the State. The juvenile community in America is very mobile. The Bloods and the Crips are no longer focused on the seaboards of this country. I am sure they are in Oklahoma City, like they are in Kansas City and some, from time to time, are found in smaller cities of Missouri and across the United States of America. It is fundamentally important that we not provide this blanket of security for criminal activity; that we expose to the light of day the acts of individuals whose conduct threatens the very security and integrity and dignity of the American public and also threatens substantially our ability to operate our public schools. I, for one, am loath to see us fail to protect our public education system. Second, this measure provides States will get 50 percent more in funding if they prosecute as adults juveniles 14 or older who commit murder, rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and distribution of controlled substances. The funding will be substantially greater to States who decide to get serious. I do not think it is unfair at all for the Federal Government to say we are not interested in providing resources just for social programs. If we are really worried about the threat to the integrity, to the security, to the safety of our citizenry, then for States who are really serious about protecting them, we will provide more funding. States who are serious enough to provide real prosecutions will get additional funding. The bill establishes an Office of Juvenile Accountability to assist the States in the prosecution of offenders and in combating youth violence. To get funding, States would have to make reasonable efforts to ensure by 2002 that juvenile proceedings will be open to the public, that juvenile records will be made available to schools and law enforcement agencies, and that fingerprint records will be kept for all juvenile offenders. The idea that we have repeat, serious predatory criminals who are not fingerprinted because they are juveniles and we do not have the capacity to follow their activities and to monitor what they are doing is an idea whose time has passed. It is time for us to understand that it is not spitballs in the hall and it is not just truancy. We have major criminal activity, and we should respond to it as such. Reform of the Federal juvenile justice system would be included here. It would hold juveniles 13 or older accountable as adults for the commission of violent crimes, such as murder and robbery, drug trafficking, or if they have been adjudicated delinquent on three previous offenses which, if the activity had been committed by an adult, would have been felonies. What we are really talking about here is focusing our attention on those juveniles who have been extremely disruptive and violent and who have decided that they can game or take advantage of the system, and, when they take advantage of the system, to hide under it as juveniles. We have to say there is no hiding place down here. We simply have to say very clearly, ``If you're going to make a conscious decision to be involved in criminal activity, then you'll be treated as a criminal, not as a juvenile.'' Note what we do not do here. We do not say that everyone's first encounter with the law, if it is for some kind of activity which is not serious, automatically puts them into the adult criminal system. Ninety percent of all the juveniles that encounter our system encounter it once. They have learned their lesson. This system does not do anything to deal with those individuals unless they have committed murder, rape, armed robbery, armed assault, or major drug trafficking crimes. And you are pretty sure that is not a first encounter of someone with the system. So for the individuals in our juvenile justice system for whom the system has worked, this system does not affect them. But it begins to say, for those in the 10 percent that are involved in the serious, repeat, predatory, violent crimes of rape, armed robbery, armed assault, murder, major drug trafficking, those individuals are to be treated as criminals because they are involved in criminal activity. It is my judgment that it is beyond time for us to recognize that the times have changed, that criminal activity and juvenile delinquency is not what it once was. It is a new category of offense. It demands a new category of response. The same responses that have worked in the past will not work in the future, not unless we are willing to accept the tidal wave, this explosion of countercultural crime. It is against the culture which says crime is going down overall. It is countercultural because it is going up dramatically. We owe it to every man, woman, and child in America to do what we can to protect their integrity for their personal safety, the safety and security of their property as well as their persons. We owe it to every schoolteacher. We owe it to every schoolchild. We owe it to individuals who are trying to prepare themselves for a future in these United States of America so they can build these United States of America rather than tear down these United States of America. We owe them schools that are safe enough in which to learn. The Dole-Hatch bill, which addresses the core problem of violent, hard-core, repeat juvenile offenders, will do exactly that. It focuses the resources on investigation and prosecution. It does not focus the resources where we have had $4 billion spent previously, coinciding with the explosion of juvenile crime in the culture. It does not deny that effort that is being made to try to provide the right reinforcements and support for individuals who want to stay straight, but it says that effort can no longer characterize solely what we are doing. We must be willing to get involved in investigation, prosecution, detention, and punishment for individuals involved in predatory crimes which deprive us of our security, of our integrity and our safety. And we must treat those who choose to be criminals as criminals in order to address this serious problem. So I am pleased to have this opportunity to submit the Dole-Hatch measure addressing this serious problem of violent, repeat, hard-core juvenile offenders and to commend the majority leader and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for this farsighted measure, which will take serious steps to curtail this threat to the liberty which all Americans have a right to enjoy.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, it seems like the latest incomprehensible tragedy is only the next newspaper away. Today we have an epidemic of juvenile crime. It means that frequently students are unable to focus on their lessons as they seek to enhance their capacity to be of service to themselves, their family, and fellow man as they are in school. They are diverted and distracted because they have concerns about their own safety. They fear they might be robbed or raped. It is not a question of someone throwing spit balls. As a matter of fact, an 8-year-old girl from St. Louis wrote me that crime is real. It has to do with weapons. It has to do with people losing their lives. Young children are afraid. Citizens are afraid to leave their homes because they fear the senseless, mindless attack of predatory youngsters who have become a major threat to the personal security and integrity of individuals in our culture. We rejoice in the fact there has been some drop in overall crime rates. Frankly, crime rates had nowhere else to go, in general, but down. But they are coming down, and I am pleased by it. But I think it is important we not be deluded, we not be fooled. The fact that, overall, crime rates are coming down should not mask something which should alert us and should literally prompt us into significant response, and that is that, while, overall, crime rates are going down, juvenile crime rates have been skyrocketing. So those components of the crime rate which would signal what we can expect in the future are telling us to beware, to be alert, to brace ourselves, because between 1988 and 1992, juvenile arrests for violent crime increased by 47 percent while adult violent crime arrests increased only by 19 percent. So we had a 2.5-to-1 higher increase, higher explosion in growth in juvenile crime. Juvenile murders increased by 26 percent, forcible rapes by 41 percent, juvenile robberies by 39 percent, aggravated assaults by 27 percent--an exploding, growing, expanding threat to the safety and security and integrity of the population. Frequently, because we are talking about juveniles, we are finding these individuals are being sent back into classrooms. Teachers do not know what these individuals have done because juvenile records are most frequently sealed. Other students are not aware of the specific conduct, though they frequently know someone has been in trouble. So you get a tremendous wave of insecurity in the classroom. I think most of us understand, when we work on legislation here, we need a secure environment. We invest substantially in a secure environment here. Yet, when we are preparing the next generation to literally lead America, we have students in our public schools, and teachers, who are having constantly to look over their shoulders, unaware, not knowing, not confident, distressed, discomfited by the fact that we have frequently sent these folks right back into our schools. And our schools are unaware. I talked to a teacher who indicated she knew there were several people in her classroom who were being housed in a residential juvenile detention facility, sent into the school, some of them even having these electronic shackles, the bracelets they have to wear around their ankle that allows the law enforcement community to monitor their whereabouts. But these students would refuse to tell the teacher the kinds of crimes or offenses which they have been convicted of, so a teacher in the classroom looks at the student and the student says: You know I have been convicted of a crime but I am not going to tell you whether I raped someone or murdered someone or assaulted someone. You just cannot know that. I submit to you that is not a healthy environment. But it is not just the school environment for which we must be concerned. It is the environment in which we maintain our homes. It is the streets of America, which we must literally reclaim. I believe the Dole-Hatch bill, which I have just sent to the desk, is a much needed effort to curtail these astronomical growth numbers and to fulfill the first duty of government. We have gotten awfully expansive of government. We teach people how to raise flowers. We address a wide variety of issues--research. But the first, the fundamental duty of government, the reason for which government was initially convened, is to provide for the safety and security and the integrity, the dignity of individual human beings, so we can be free from assault, so we can have the potential of reaching the level of achievement for which God created us and for which God placed in us this potential. I believe we have to return to that fundamental. The Dole-Hatch bill is a bill which is designed to address violent juvenile criminal activity. It is designed to sweep away the sort of idea that it is something we can ignore or simply patch over. We have to address it constructively. It will remedy misguided Federal efforts to excuse juvenile behavior because people are just juveniles. It will begin to provide a basis for accountability. I have to say I understand there are a number of juveniles who will not become career criminals. We do not want them to. We would not make that any more likely with this bill. But I think, for very serious juvenile offenders, we have to send a serious signal to them about the nature of their activity. President Clinton yesterday warned of a potential wave of juvenile crime in the next 5 years. The truth of the matter is, it is not a wave, it is an explosion. The President recommended a so-called gentle combination of laws and prevention programs to deflect this onslaught of violent teens. I have to say I believe a gentle combination will not get the job done. I think we have to begin to treat criminals as criminals. For those individuals who commit rape, armed robbery, murder, armed assault, major drug offenses, we cannot have any more gentle approaches. We have to say you are going to have to stand for trial as an adult. The Federal Government's response, and President Clinton's response, his solution, is always to offer more money for social programs such as delinquency prevention, treatment, recreation. I have held hearings around my State. I know the Senator from Iowa has held hearings around his State. We have talked to juvenile officials, those who deal with the juveniles. We have talked to sheriffs. We have talked to prosecutors. We have heard them tell us how juvenile individuals who are involved in criminal acts are simply playing the system. They sometimes look forward to a juvenile detention facility. They know they can hide behind their status as juveniles, that they do not have to be really answerable for their activities. The administration has not been active in prosecuting those who have offended the Federal laws. There have only been 233 convictions in the Clinton administration of juveniles as adults. I think for the major categories of criminal activity when juveniles are committing crimes which, if committed by adults, would be felonies, we need a serious approach. One of the things that stunned me about the testimony of Prof. John DiIulio from Princeton, one of the leading criminologists in America, is his report that when he interviews inmates of major prisons, their main worry is about the young prisoners who are going to be sent in. They are so hardened as criminals and have been allowed to be so indiscriminate in their violence before they finally get thrown into jail that the old-time criminals are scared stiff. They are afraid of what is happening. Those on the inside, the old-time, long-time criminal element in our Nation's prison systems, are fearful because they see what we have done by turning our heads to activity, so long as it is conducted by a juvenile, and allowing individuals to harden their approach to the safety and security and integrity of other individuals, and they are afraid. America needs to respond, and it needs to respond dramatically. The Dole-Hatch bill, also cosponsored by Senator Lott and myself and, I am pleased to say, Senator Grassley is to be added as an original cosponsor of the bill, is a measure which would begin to focus the energy and resources of the Federal Government on this part of crime, which is exploding, this part of crime which is growing at an incredible rate: juvenile crime; violent repeat juvenile criminal behavior. The estimated total amount of Federal appropriations used for at-risk and delinquent youth was more than $4 billion last year. Of these billions sent to the States, a very few million were to be used for investigation, prosecution, and detention. It is time we looked carefully at how we can assist States and how we can carry our share of the load in the Federal Government as it relates to actually prosecuting those individuals who are guilty of committing acts which, if committed as adults, would be clearly and simply felonies. They threaten the lives of people, they undermine the security of their property, they destabilize and disrupt our educational process. It is something which we cannot tolerate, it is something with which we cannot be coddling, it is something with which we must be forthwith. We can do much more, and the Dole-Hatch bill is an enormous step in the right direction. Let me briefly give you some of the things that are important about the Dole-Hatch bill which I believe make it a very promising way to address this most serious problem. One of the difficulties in the area of juvenile laws is the fact that juvenile records frequently have been sealed. Proceedings of juveniles are closed proceedings. Records are not available. Teachers who have to deal with these individuals in schools do not know what they have on their hands. I talked to the sheriff--and I am sure my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, has talked to local officials--but I talked to the sheriff in Moniteau County, MO. The biggest town in Moniteau County is California, MO. People say they are going to California in central Missouri. People do not think you are going to the west coast, they think you are going to California, MO. It is not a big town. I asked what his No. 1 crime problem was, and he said it was juveniles coming in from out of State trying to set up a drug operation in Moniteau County and he could not call the States from which these juveniles came and get their records, because there was a big blanket of security, security for the criminal but not for the society, a blanket of nondisclosure over juvenile records. I think it is high time that when people commit felonious acts, when they are criminals, that we have an understanding of what they have done and then when they move on to another jurisdiction, we have to be able to find out what their history is. I talked to a judge not too long ago. He said he was sentencing an 18-year-old for murder. He thought it was the individual's first offense. Inadvertently did he discover the individual was originally from the west coast and had a juvenile record that included other murders. I do not think it is fair to expect a judicial system to operate in relation to repeat offenders, repeat violent predators and to allow those repeat violent predators to have the presumption that they are first offenders when they have a rap sheet as long as from here to Chicago. The truth is, if those people do criminal acts, those acts ought to be made available to law enforcement officials, judges, schoolteachers and school officials, not only because we will know how to take steps to protect the other students and the school environment--that would be enough of a reason--but we can do our best to change the way people operate, we can do our best to help them redirect their lives if they are not allowed to hide under a shield of juvenile laws that keep their records from being known. A significant part of the Dole-Hatch proposal is that such records can be maintained and developed at Federal expense if such records are made available to law enforcement and school authorities, including those outside the State. The juvenile community in America is very mobile. The Bloods and the Crips are no longer focused on the seaboards of this country. I am sure they are in Oklahoma City, like they are in Kansas City and some, from time to time, are found in smaller cities of Missouri and across the United States of America. It is fundamentally important that we not provide this blanket of security for criminal activity; that we expose to the light of day the acts of individuals whose conduct threatens the very security and integrity and dignity of the American public and also threatens substantially our ability to operate our public schools. I, for one, am loath to see us fail to protect our public education system. Second, this measure provides States will get 50 percent more in funding if they prosecute as adults juveniles 14 or older who commit murder, rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and distribution of controlled substances. The funding will be substantially greater to States who decide to get serious. I do not think it is unfair at all for the Federal Government to say we are not interested in providing resources just for social programs. If we are really worried about the threat to the integrity, to the security, to the safety of our citizenry, then for States who are really serious about protecting them, we will provide more funding. States who are serious enough to provide real prosecutions will get additional funding. The bill establishes an Office of Juvenile Accountability to assist the States in the prosecution of offenders and in combating youth violence. To get funding, States would have to make reasonable efforts to ensure by 2002 that juvenile proceedings will be open to the public, that juvenile records will be made available to schools and law enforcement agencies, and that fingerprint records will be kept for all juvenile offenders. The idea that we have repeat, serious predatory criminals who are not fingerprinted because they are juveniles and we do not have the capacity to follow their activities and to monitor what they are doing is an idea whose time has passed. It is time for us to understand that it is not spitballs in the hall and it is not just truancy. We have major criminal activity, and we should respond to it as such. Reform of the Federal juvenile justice system would be included here. It would hold juveniles 13 or older accountable as adults for the commission of violent crimes, such as murder and robbery, drug trafficking, or if they have been adjudicated delinquent on three previous offenses which, if the activity had been committed by an adult, would have been felonies. What we are really talking about here is focusing our attention on those juveniles who have been extremely disruptive and violent and who have decided that they can game or take advantage of the system, and, when they take advantage of the system, to hide under it as juveniles. We have to say there is no hiding place down here. We simply have to say very clearly, ``If you're going to make a conscious decision to be involved in criminal activity, then you'll be treated as a criminal, not as a juvenile.'' Note what we do not do here. We do not say that everyone's first encounter with the law, if it is for some kind of activity which is not serious, automatically puts them into the adult criminal system. Ninety percent of all the juveniles that encounter our system encounter it once. They have learned their lesson. This system does not do anything to deal with those individuals unless they have committed murder, rape, armed robbery, armed assault, or major drug trafficking crimes. And you are pretty sure that is not a first encounter of someone with the system. So for the individuals in our juvenile justice system for whom the system has worked, this system does not affect them. But it begins to say, for those in the 10 percent that are involved in the serious, repeat, predatory, violent crimes of rape, armed robbery, armed assault, murder, major drug trafficking, those individuals are to be treated as criminals because they are involved in criminal activity. It is my judgment that it is beyond time for us to recognize that the times have changed, that criminal activity and juvenile delinquency is not what it once was. It is a new category of offense. It demands a new category of response. The same responses that have worked in the past will not work in the future, not unless we are willing to accept the tidal wave, this explosion of countercultural crime. It is against the culture which says crime is going down overall. It is countercultural because it is going up dramatically. We owe it to every man, woman, and child in America to do what we can to protect their integrity for their personal safety, the safety and security of their property as well as their persons. We owe it to every schoolteacher. We owe it to every schoolchild. We owe it to individuals who are trying to prepare themselves for a future in these United States of America so they can build these United States of America rather than tear down these United States of America. We owe them schools that are safe enough in which to learn. The Dole-Hatch bill, which addresses the core problem of violent, hard-core, repeat juvenile offenders, will do exactly that. It focuses the resources on investigation and prosecution. It does not focus the resources where we have had $4 billion spent previously, coinciding with the explosion of juvenile crime in the culture. It does not deny that effort that is being made to try to provide the right reinforcements and support for individuals who want to stay straight, but it says that effort can no longer characterize solely what we are doing. We must be willing to get involved in investigation, prosecution, detention, and punishment for individuals involved in predatory crimes which deprive us of our security, of our integrity and our safety. And we must treat those who choose to be criminals as criminals in order to address this serious problem. So I am pleased to have this opportunity to submit the Dole-Hatch measure addressing this serious problem of violent, repeat, hard-core juvenile offenders and to commend the majority leader and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for this farsighted measure, which will take serious steps to curtail this threat to the liberty which all Americans have a right to enjoy.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, the United States of America was born of dislike and disgust of taxation. Unfair and burdensome taxation was the impetus for the Declaration of Independence. You would think we would have learned a lesson from this. Unfortunately not. Government taxes on the American people have reached all time high, choking off economic growth. Working Americans now pay 41.3 percent of their income in taxes--a 1.3-percent increase since President Clinton came into office. We spend nearly as much for interest on the national debt as we spend on the defense budget and 40 cents of every income tax dollar goes to interest. A child born today is destined to pay $187,000 in interest on the national debt during his or her lifetime. And these astronomical rates are not high enough to meet current spending needs. Future generations could see tax rates of up to 84 percent, if we don't stop this profligate spending. We have tried over and over again as a deliberative body to stop the cycle of deficit spending. We had the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, then we had Gramm-Rudman II, and then we had the budget deals of 1990 and 1993. Yet we have not been able to get one Senate to hold the next Senate on the path to a balanced budget. While one Senate cannot bind the next Senate, this Senate certainly shackles the next generation to this generations' debts. The result: the cost of current programs--from which we all now benefit--is being foisted upon the next generation. And that next generation of Americans, who haven't yet earned their first paychecks, can't vote-- they have no say in what we are doing. That is obscene; that is immoral; that is un-American. Beltway robber barons, elected and unelected, are addicted to spending. The only way to end this psychological dependence to pass the balanced budget amendment. The balanced budget amendment would outlaw deficit spending and force government to balance its books. It would return accountability to the Constitution and restraint on our spending --in short, integrity in our Government. It will rightly return the power of the purse to the people. The belief we can only control government by controlling its capacity to take our money is as old as the idea of democracy. Money was--and is--the source of the Government's basic power. The tale of history bears testament to this truth. The Magna Carta prescribed that the king could not impose taxes--except through the consent of the great council. Charles I was executed because he tried to govern without seeking the consent of parliament in spending public money. Congress today doesn't have to vote to raise more taxes in order to spend more money. Instead our legislature takes the debtor's path: spend and beg; spend and plead; spend and borrow. Our current system lets the Government spend on credit and sign the taxpayers' name on the dotted line. For too long this body has assembled to satisfy the appetites of narrow interests at the expense of the public. The American people are fed up with a Congress that spends the as yet unearned wages of the next generation. Thomas Jefferson was right when he proscribed in 1789, ``no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.'' The balanced budget amendment is not a quick fix. It is real reform that will end deficit spending except in times of war. Constitutional measures that enforce a balance budget have worked at the State level and will work at the Federal level. I know, from my service as Governor in one of 49 States that require a balanced budget. As Governor, I balanced budgets 8 years in a row. Not only did we balance the budget, we put into place a cash operating reserve fund of several hundred millions of dollars. We established a rainy day fund because we knew there would be episodes of fiscal crisis and financial difficulty in the future that we would need to meet. And we knew, since we were required by our constitution to have a balanced budget, that we would need to prepare for it in advance. Experience has shown that State constitutional balanced budget provisions force legislatures and executives to prioritize and cut spending. Passage of the balanced budget amendment would do the same for the Federal Government. During this debate concerning a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, we have heard frequently and forcefully that there is no need for us to amend the U.S. Constitution. It has been argued the constitution gives Congress the authority to balance the budget--for the Federal Government to live within its means. Mr. President, Congress does not lack authority. Congress lacks self-restraint. Congress doesn't need permission to balance the budget, it needs to be forbidden from doing otherwise. When it's time to stand firm, when it's time to prioritize spending, when it's time to make tough choices-- Congress seems to experience a collective collapse of will. Mr. President, last year you and I and other Members of this Chamber endured a balanced budget amendment debate, and ultimately we fell one vote short. We fell one vote short in March 1995 because a number of Senators reneged on their promise to vote for the amendment. We fell one vote short because six Senators who voted against the balanced budget amendment who voted for it 12 months earlier. We fell one vote short because many of our colleagues said over and over again: ``All we need is the will and the courage, and the determination to balance the budget.'' Well, I am here to tell you that that was just one more lame excuse. This profligate spending must stop. In 1962, the Federal Government's budget reached $100 billion. By 1971 it had doubled to $200 billion. By 1977, it had doubled again. By 1983, it had doubled again. The budget for next year, fiscal year 1997, will be more than $1.6 trillion--the budget doubled again. Of course, spending has far exceeded revenues, so much so that we have accumulated a Federal debt of over $5 trillion. In fact, we haven't seen a budget surplus for 25 years. And next year the Federal Government will spend around $240 billion just to pay for interest on the Federal debt--that is nearly $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. Mr. President, deficit spending is not only a threat to our prosperity and our children's future, it is the method by which Washington's imperial elite has circumvented the public, the law, and the Constitution. Deficit spending allows beltway robber barons to run this country without regard to the people. Whether it's pork projects or political payoffs, the Washington elite know how to play the game. That must end. A balanced budget amendment will compel the Members of this body to raise taxes if they want to spend more money--what better way to restrain spending than that. A balanced budget amendment will make clear to all that the special interest is rewarded when the citizen is penalized. What will a balanced budget amendment mean? Accountability to the Constitution and restraint on our spending--in short, integrity in our Government. It will rightly return the power of the purse to the people. The balanced budget amendment is not a quick fix, it is real reform and it will be felt. It will be felt first and foremost by an imperial elite who have long run this town. It will be felt by a brood of beltway barons--elected and unelected--who are robbing the next generation of their yet unearned wages. And most importantly, it will be felt by the American people who will have succeeded in restoring their right to self-governance.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, this amendment would eliminate an unfair tax on a tax paid by American workers. Every American worker pays Social Security taxes, but only after he or she has already paid taxes on that money. This is an unfair disparity. The corporations which pay the other half of that tax do not pay a tax on a tax. They get a deduction. Further, this amendment would promote and stimulate growth. The growth would be substantial--500,000 new jobs in the economy. It is a job-producing amendment that provides middle-class tax relief in a way that no other proposal does. I urge its adoption by the Senate. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment to amendment No. 4000. I send the amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I believe it is an affront to the American people to adopt and support drug habits in individuals by virtue of subsidizing the welfare payments to those who continue on drugs. It should be an option of States to be able to drug test effectively and to condition the receipt of welfare payments on people becoming and remaining drug free. I believe that we do not really help people as long as we finance them while they are involved in drugs. So, the sense of the Senate stated here is that the States should have the right and opportunity to condition participation of welfare recipients in programs based on their being drug free.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. So I have risen today to say that yes--we should think about reducing the deficit, but let us think about it by way of providing the restraint in spending which accompanies the tax break in my amendment, so that there would be absolutely no increase in the Government's debt burden. Second, the economic growth effects of my proposal to provide a deduction for Social Security taxes would help us pay off the debt much more quickly. Since we have already offset all of the loss in revenue, the growth in the economy would provide a tremendous opportunity to garner additional revenue from the 500,000 new jobs from the 0.5- percent growth in the gross domestic product, and that would accelerate our ability to pay the debt. For the Democrats who are loathe to allow people to spend their own money and prefer to have Government do all the spending, this should be a win-win situation. For modest cuts, a 1.8-percent cut in total Federal spending in fiscal year 1997, we give the people an opportunity to create 500,000 new jobs, 10,000 new jobs in every State, to boost gross domestic product by one-half of 1 percent, and to aggravate the deficit not at all. If the economic activity from the surge in jobs and the surge in gross domestic product resulted in the anticipated increase in tax revenues, we would accelerate paying off the debt substantially. Those who have said they have been around here for years and they have heard this song before should talk not about the proposal but should talk about their performance. Their performance in prior years has been, yes, on occasion to cut taxes, but, no, never on occasion to cut spending. On average, spending went up 1\1/2\ times for every one time that taxes were reduced. The truth of the matter is, you cannot overgrow spending and have reductions in taxes and expect the deficit to disappear, but you can combine the therapeutic impacts of spending cuts and tax cuts together to give a one-two punch to the deficit. It is time for us to say that the proposal to reduce the tax burden on working Americans by providing a deduction for Social Security taxes is a responsible one. There are offsets. It is not a set of offsets that are imposed only in the outyears. They begin large and they stay large, because this is substantial tax relief to the American people. It is not a budget buster, it is a budget booster, because the growth in the economy will help all American families. The average American family with two working adults will benefit by $1,770. For those Members of the opposition who would be interested in a responsible tax cut, I invite them to confer with me, because this is one that can be done and will work. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT. The Senator from Missouri notes the absence of a quorum and asks unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Reserving the balance of my time, I yield the floor.

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair.