Robert Bennett

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. I ask the Senator, if he is interested, if I gave him the names of another 400 economists who were in favor of the Bush tax cut if he would put them on his chart? Such names are available.

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I thank the chairman of the Finance Committee for his support. We continue to hear about jobs in this debate and the question of what creates job. We heard the assistant Democratic leader say for every $1 billion we put into the economy, we get 47,000 jobs. I am not sure what study produced that number, but if it were absolutely true, any time we wanted we could say, let's appropriate another $1 billion and get another 47,000 jobs. If we need to put 470,000 people to work, appropriate $10 billion and go buy the jobs--as if jobs are used cars sitting in a car lot which can be purchased if you have enough money. Unfortunately, the economy is not that simple and does not work that way. Jobs are created by two things. No. 1, enterpreneurism, risk taking, somebody does something. A human activity is required. No. 2, accumulated capital. Jobs come because somebody accumulates enough capital to fund the risk taking. In many instances the risk that is being taken is that the capital will be lost. If we look at the creation of jobs through this prism, that it requires risk taking and it requires accumulated capital, we see things a little differently. It is not a matter of the Federal Government spending $1 billion to purchase 47,000 jobs. It is a matter of the Federal Government creating an atmosphere in which those who are willing to risk their accumulated capital--or in the case of borrowing, somebody else's capital--and produce the jobs that come out of that activity. If I may be personal, I will outline my own experience as an entrepreneur in risking some accumulated capital and creating some jobs. I was given the award as Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc Magazine in 1989 for the Rocky Mountain area. Frankly, I had not thought of myself as an entrepreneur prior to that time when I received the award. I sat down and said to myself, Self, let's draw up a little tally of whether or not I have, indeed, been involved in entrepreneurial activities in my life. Because I had not kept track before, I did that inventory. I was a little surprised at what I found. I had been involved in 11 different startup or turnaround activities. That is, 11 different attempts to create new economic activity where none had been before. Then I tallied up the record of success. Four of these efforts failed outright. The money represented by the accumulated capital being risked in our attempt to create new jobs did not work. The money was all lost. Four of these efforts were sold without having succeeded or failed. In other words, we started it, we got it going, we decided to bail out before we found out whether or not we were going to make it, and someone else took us out. We neither made money nor lost money. We lost money in the sense of our opportunities in the period of time we were working on these efforts was gone, but at least we did not lose the accumulated capital with which we went into the venture. That left only 3 out of the 11 that had been successful. Interestingly enough, enough money was made out of those three to cover all of the expense of the other eight. Enough jobs were created out of those three to compensate for everything that went down the drain with the other eight. I decided, having done this 11 times in my life, I guess I did deserve to be called an entrepreneur, a risk taker. Now, I will focus on one of those companies with which I was involved, to make the point that cannot be stressed too often or too strongly in this debate. I was recruited to be the chief executive officer of a company that at the time had four full-time employees. It was doing somewhere between $250,000 and $300,000 per year. Frankly, its long-term prospects were not all that bright, if you looked solely at where it was. It was not making any money. It was just barely able to support those four full-time employees, and it probably couldn't have afforded me. Indeed, when I became the CEO, I was part-time and I was paid a consulting fee rather than a CEO's salary because the company couldn't handle that. That was in 1984. The reason I point out that year is because that is the year many of our friends who are discussing this bill in apocalyptic terms would describe as part of the Decade of Greed. The Decade of Greed, as that phrase is used--usually in the Democratic Party and on the editorial page of the New York Times--refers to that period of time when Ronald Reagan was President of the United States and the top marginal tax rate was ultimately brought down to 28 percent. Think of it, how greedy rich Americans were that they demanded, and Ronald Reagan and the Republicans responded, a tax rate of 28 percent. Why, that is terrible. We should clearly have moved away from that, and we have. The tax increase that occurred under President Bush the first, and then the tax increase that occurred under President Clinton, has brought us up to the rates they now insist are right and proper, an effective marginal tax rate--when combined with the Medicare tax--of 42 percent on the Nation's highest paying taxpayers. They say 42 percent is about right; 42 percent shows the rich are paying their fair share. They say 28 percent is giving in to the demands of the greedy and isn't life much better when the effective rate is 42 percent. Now they say President Bush the second is trying to bring us back down into the area of the Decade of Greed. He is not going as far as 28 percent, but he is going to bring us down to 35 or 32, depending on the brackets. He is going to bring us down away from the 42 and back toward the attitudes of the Decade of Greed. So, as I say, back to my own experience. We were building that business in the Decade of Greed. I can assure you, no one in our company was earning a six-figure salary. We couldn't afford to pay that on the amount of revenue we got. But we had high hopes. We were taking big risks. I signed a guarantee on the bank loan that would have cost me my house if we had not been able to pay it, and every other shareholder in the business did the same thing. We were on the line. At that point, that was the only real asset I owned. But I signed it because I believed we could make it go. We were on the line then, for losing our houses--talk about taking a risk--in order to get the accumulated capital that we needed to build that business in the form of a business loan. It was $75,000. Madam President, $75,000 doesn't sound like a lot of money, but when you are going to lose your house, $75,000 is a huge amount of money. It was added to $75,000 that had been there before I showed up, so the total debt of the company was $150,000, and they were going to take after me to take $150,000 out of my house and I didn't have $150,000 in equity in the house. We had to add it all up with everybody else's houses to get to the $150,000, and then the amount on top that the bank wanted. We were successful. I will not bore the Senate with the details of what happened, but we were successful. Madam President, 6\1/2\ years later, when I stepped down as the CEO of that company, prior to my decision to run for the Senate, we were doing $80 million a year. The debt had grown from the original $75,000 to $7.5 million, but we didn't care about the debt because we had more than enough money to cover it. As a percentage of our sales, as a percentage of our profits, the debt was now de minimis. I make that point because the argument has been made on the floor today that the debt of the United States is going to go from $6 trillion to $12 trillion and isn't that awful? The answer is, yes; that is awful if the U.S. economy is not going to grow. Then the debt is going to double. But if the U.S. economy is going to double in size in the period that the debt doubles in size, the debt will be no more of a problem in 10 years than it is now. And now the debt as a percentage of the economy is lower in the United States than it is in any other industrialized nation. The other countries of the world would kill to get the kind of debt-to-GDP relationship we have already. So I am not alarmed by the statistic that has been quoted on the other side because I have lived with it personally. I have seen the debt of the company over which I presided go from $75,000 to $7.5 million, and I recognize that the $7.5 million was a benign figure whereas the $75,000 was threatening to shut us down because the sales of the company had gone from $300,000 to $80 million. The margins had gone from zero--at $300,000 we weren't making any money--to 20 percent before taxes, so we had an aftertax margin of about 10 percent. Twenty percent of $80 million is $16 million. We had a $16 million pretax profit, which makes it very easy to service a $7.5 million debt. So let's not talk about the debt figures in the aggregate and scare everybody with relationships that make no sense. However, back to the point of the marginal tax rates. As we built that business from $300,000 a year to $80 million, we did it during the Decade of Greed when the top marginal tax rate was 28 percent. That meant of every pretax dollar we earned, we got to keep 72 cents of it to finance the growth of the business. We went from 4 full-time employees to over 700 in that period. We created 700 new jobs, and we did it without a dime of Federal money. Nobody walked out and said: Here is your portion of the $1 billion we are going to use to purchase 47,000 jobs. The way the Federal Government helped us was they said to us, for every pretax dollar you earn, you get to keep 72 cents. We funded the growth of that company, from 4 employees to 700 employees, out of the earnings of the company. Just for a moment, look at what would happen if we had founded that in 1994 instead of 1984. The Federal Government would have said to us, in 1994: For every pretax dollar you earn, you get to keep 58 cents because we are going to take 42 cents. The difference between 58 cents and 72 cents would have made, for that company, the difference between rapid growth and stagnation. I am not saying we couldn't have made it under the effective tax rate of 1994, but I am saying, with great certainty, that it would have been much more difficult and the growth, even if it had come, would have been much slower. In other words, the number of jobs created would have been substantially less with a marginal tax rate of 42 percent than it was with a marginal tax rate of 28 percent. In the spirit of full disclosure I should point out that once I left the company, it then grew from 700 jobs to 4,000, and I have to say there is a direct cause and effect relationship. Getting me out of there made it grow substantially faster. The point of focusing so firmly on a single firm and the experience is this: We were an S corporation. That is a tax designation which means that the profits of the company flowed through the company to the personal tax returns of the investors. I would show at some point in that situation a private tax return--a 1040--of over $1 million of personal income. You can say: Good Heavens, he is the richest man around. He is earning $1 million a year. No. I was earning my salary, which was $140,000. Then I was reporting my share of the company's income so that the income didn't get taxed twice. If the company had paid taxes at the company level, and then had given me my share of the income, the company would have paid taxes and I would have paid taxes. Does this sound familiar? That is what this debate is about with respect to the taxation of dividends. We could have avoided taxation of dividends because we had a small enough number of shareholders to qualify as an S corporation as opposed to the C, referring to the chapters in the Tax Code that describe all of this. But I was not taking home $1 million a year. I was not taking home after tax $1 million a year. All the company gave me of the million dollars that the company put on my personal tax return was 28 percent; in other words, enough to pay the taxes that were being reported on my form. But the company kept the other 72 cents to grow the business. That was true of every other shareholder in the company. We had five shareholders, every one of whom was reporting over $1 million a year in personal income but who were in fact receiving only their salaries and giving back to the company 72 cents out of every dollar they were reportedly receiving. That is how we were able to grow the company. That same pattern still exists even though it was badly damaged when we went to a 42-percent marginal tax rate in 1993. There are still S corporations and sole proprietorships and partnerships where the owners of the company receive a tax form saying they have $1 million or whatever their share of the profit of the enterprise might be, but they give back everything except that which is necessary to pay the taxes. That means there are small businessmen who have tax returns that very quickly get into the top marginal rate. They are small businessmen who are struggling, and increasingly small business women who are struggling to make the business grow, only being able to keep 58 cents out of every dollar they earn. They may report tax returns that put them in the top 1 percent of taxpayers, but they are not Michael Jordan or Donald Trump. They are doing their best to get along with a little business that employs 5 or 6 people and the business is earning $200,000 plus the salary they pay themselves. They need that $200,000 desperately back in the business to keep it growing. But Uncle Sam comes along and says: The business may be earning $200,000--that shows up on your personal tax return--we are going to take $84,000 of that $200,000 in taxes. Good luck making the business grow. If there are entrepreneurs good enough and working hard enough, they can make the business grow, but they have to delay hiring that extra person because they are paying $84,000 out of the $200,000 instead of paying at the 28 percent that we paid when we were making our business grow. When we talk about, the rich don't need this tax cut, the rich don't need to have their effective rate rolled back from 42 percent to, say, 35 percent, and Donald Trump doesn't need that, let's make him pay his fair share, or Michael Jordan doesn't need that, let's make him pay his fair share, we are ignoring the fact that it is the small businessman and the small businesswoman hiring the extra employee, be it in Alaska, Utah, or Colorado, or wherever it is, who will drive the opportunity for new jobs to be created all over the country. Most of the new job creation in this country comes from small business. That is a truth that has been repeated over and over on this floor. Everybody says they are in favor of small business. Everybody, regardless of where they sit on the floor, says small business is the backbone of the American economy. They are right. One of the reasons other industrialized countries, such as Germany, France, Japan, and others, have been unable to see their economies grow at the rate ours does is that they have been unable to see their job growth come anywhere close to the rate of ours because they don't have small business. They don't have anything like the network of small business and entrepreneurial activity that is the hallmark of the American economy. It is right and proper for us to come to the floor regardless of party and tell everybody how much we love small business. But it is deceptive to say that this is a tax cut for the Michael Jordans of the world when we realize that the primary economic activity of rolling back the top marginal rates will be for the small business men and women of this country, if they could ever get back to the level of effective tax rates during the decade of greed, who could create the kind of jobs that were created in that period, could create the kind of momentum that was created in that period. Back to my company, it was founded in 1984. They say when I stepped down as the CEO in 1991, we had gone from 4 employees to 700, and we had created the momentum that produced that growth in that period where the top marginal rate was 28 percent. That momentum carried forward into the 1990s. That carried forward to the point where they eventually got to 4,000 jobs instead of 700. We hear in this Congress that some of us in this Congress took credit for that. Some in this Congress looked at that and said: The Clinton increase to an effective rate of 42 percent has created jobs. This company went from 700 to 4,000; that was created by President Clinton; that was created in the Clinton administration. I submit to you it was created in the Decade of Greed. It was created when Ronald Reagan helped the Congress get the effective rate down to 28 percent when we laid the groundwork and sowed the seeds for the kind of explosive growth for which the harvest took place in the 1990s. I submit that by establishing a top marginal rate of 42 percent in the 1990s, when that momentum of growth was going on coming out of the 1980s, we are now harvesting an opposite kind of situation. Small business faced with an effective tax rate of 42 percent, where they can only keep 58 cents out of every pretax dollar to help grow the business, is growing more slowly than they were. Just as the excitement of the 1990s was harvest of the low tax period of the 1980s, now some of the problem in 2000-plus is the harvest of the high tax rates of the 1990s. What we have to learn around here is that there is a lag in fiscal policy. People ask me, What is the difference between fiscal policy and monetary policy? Very simply, monetary policy is what the Federal Reserve does about the monetary supply, and fiscal policy is what the Congress does about taxes. We can pass a tax bill and say, We handled this problem. But the reality is what we have done in a tax bill either for good or ill is sow some seed that will be harvested later on. As we look back over what was done in 2001, we begin to understand some of the things about the sowing of seeds. In 2001, we had a balanced tax cut--balanced politically, not economically. The political balance said: We have to put some money in people's hands immediately because there are those who insist that is the thing that will cause the economy to grow. So let's put money in customers' hands right away. That was the genesis of the $300-per-person rebate. Then there are those who said: No, we have to bring down the top marginal tax rate, for all of the reasons I have been discussing. For small business to create new jobs, for all those S corporations that are reporting on their personal tax returns the corporate income that is placed there, we have to see to it those people get back down into the level where they can create jobs at the same energy and same rate in which they were creating jobs in the late 1980s. All right. What have we learned in the 3 years since we passed the 2001 tax cut? We learned that amount of money that went out in the rebate had little or no impact on creating jobs. All of us took credit for it. We stood out in front of the Capitol, we waved the $300 check, and we had our pictures taken. We had people come up to us in airports and shopping malls and say: Thank you, Senator. I got my $300. That is terrific. But the economic impact of that, looking back on it, was negligible. Why? Didn't you want all those people to go out and spend that money? Yes. And a very large percentage of them did not. What do you mean? Did they put it in their mattress? No. They paid down their Visa card. They paid down their MasterCard. They lowered their own personal amount of debt, which was a prudent thing for them to do. But that did not produce very much economic activity. Also, if you take the total amount of money involved in that rebate, and then compare it to an economy of $11 trillion, you realize we were talking about a tiny percentage. There was no leverage in that amount of money. And while it was a good thing to do, and it helped a lot of people--and I am glad they got their credit card debt down by an extra $300--it did not produce any jobs. And that is what we are talking about. However, simply the promise that the top marginal tax rate would come down did, in fact, cause some small businesspeople to say: All right, the effect is not immediate, the relief is not here right now, but I can see it coming, and I can plan on it. The most important quality a small business man or woman has to have in order to succeed in business is the ability to somehow, some way correctly see the future because every business enterprise is involved in selling in the future. No business enterprise survives on the basis of what it did in the past. It is all tied to what it can see in the future. So as these small business men and women looked out into the future, they said: This 42-percent effective rate that came in with President Clinton is going to start to come down. And as I make my plans for what I will do, as I try to invest and I try to create jobs in the future, I can plan on that coming down. And the mere anticipation and sense of certainty that came out of being able to plan for a reduction in the amount of money that Uncle Sam would take out of their businesses caused some beginning stirrings in the small business community toward the creation of new jobs. But those stirrings were not enough. We are in recovery, but the recovery is far from robust. Chairman Greenspan calls it a ``soft patch.'' And the soft patch, unfortunately, has gone on longer than he or any of the rest of us would like. So how do we get out of this soft patch? The most important thing we could do is say to these small business men and women: Guess what. You were planning on this reduction in the amount of money Uncle Sam takes out of your entrepreneurial activity in a few years. We are going to make that reduction effective right now. As a matter of fact, we are going to make it effective January 1, 2003. All right. Now, as I make my plans as a small businessman, I can say: I am going to be able to keep more than 58 cents. I will be able to keep 60 cents, 62 cents, maybe even 65 cents. Now I can plan on having that much more money coming out of my enterprise. I can go hire that extra person. I can go buy that extra piece of machinery, which means that the manufacturer of the machinery can hire an extra person. Now that I see that marginal rate coming down, and coming down more rapidly than was promised in 2001, I can react accordingly. And now we can start to see the small business job machine get cranked up. We all need to understand this about economics: Economics turns on incentives. No one will invest in an enterprise where the Government would take 100 percent of the profits because there is no incentive. You say, all right, the Government will take only 99 percent of the profits, and there is still no incentive. So the Government says, all right, we will take 80 percent of the profits. Well, maybe you begin to get my interest now. The Government will only take 50 percent of the profits. All right, now there is an incentive for me to invest. In the 1980s, the Government said to small business, we will only take 28 percent of the profits, and you saw a period of job growth, job creation, and economic expansion unparalleled in our history. And, based on my own experience, I believe it was an impetus and an inertia of job creation that carried over into the 1990s, for which the Congresses and the President in the 1990s took credit. But the inertia, as I say, has changed because the incentive got a little less in 1991 when President Bush went to Andrews Air Force Base and said: Let's tell the small business man and woman we are going to take more of their pretax money away from them. And there was a sense: Well, we better not buy that new piece of machinery. We better not hire that new person. We are going to have a problem. And then President Clinton said: Let's tell the small business man and woman we are going to take even more in 1993, and bring the top marginal tax rate up to the level that I have described. You sow the seeds of incentive, you reap the fruits. If the incentive is to invest, if the incentive is to hire, if the incentive is to take risk, you get the benefits of higher economic activity and higher job creation. If you sow the seeds of negative incentive that says the Federal Government will take more of your money than it has been, you reap the rewards of higher unemployment and slower economic activity. It always takes time. It never happens, in fiscal policy, overnight. But I submit we are now in a position where we need to move clearly and firmly back toward the time when the incentive was to invest, when the incentive was to take risk, when the incentive was to build a small business. I think it disingenuous, therefore, to attack all of the reduction in the marginal tax rate as if every single tax return that shows income being taxed at the top marginal tax rate is coming from a Michael Jordan or a Bill Gates or a Donald Trump. It ignores the fact that the majority--I don't have the exact statistic; I have heard it as high as two-thirds, but it varies from time to time--of the tax returns filed in the top marginal tax rate are tax returns with small business income on them, tax returns such as the one I described for myself when I had my salary on there and then I had an extra million dollars as my share of the company's profits transferred on to my tax return, none of which money I saw, none of which money I got because all of which had to go back to the company to help it grow and help it create jobs. Let us understand that this is not a debate about whether Bill Gates should get a tax cut. This is a debate about whether small businessmen and small businesswomen all across this country should get an incentive to hire, an incentive to invest, an incentive to build for the future, whether to plant seeds of growth which will yield a significant harvest for us later on. I believe the sooner we can plant those seeds, the better off we will be. I believe the lesson of the tax cut of 2001 tells us that what we did there, however salutory, was not good enough and not strong enough, that it has not gotten us through the soft patch that it was supposed to help with, and we need to get on with this. For that reason, I will support a cut in the top marginal tax rate, and I will rejoice in the years to come as new jobs are created, new economic activity occurs, and, yes, new tax revenues start to roll in to the Federal Government. At that time whoever is in the Senate will take credit for those tax revenues, whoever is in the Senate will take credit for the good economy that we have. And whoever is managing Presidential campaigns will say it was President this or President that who was personally responsible for it. We should understand that the economy is much more sophisticated than that. We should do what we can to let the economy do its work by creating the incentives that will produce the two things that produce jobs: risk taking and accumulated capital. This bill moves in the direction of rewarding both. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNETT. I further ask, Mr. President, a question of the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. BENNETT. Reference has been made by the Senator from Illinois to the effect of a $2 trillion tax cut. Is it not true that what we are asking for in this bill is that the effect of that tax cut be made now because the effects of that tax cut, as you get up to the number of $2 trillion, was stretched out over a number of years and, in fact, the marginal tax rate cut that has actually occurred now, to which the Senator from Illinois referred, has been minimal and we are trying to accelerate the effect? It does not seem to me fair to say it failed and, by the way, we have not had any effect from it. The reason we have not had the effect is because they have not been put into effect.

Mr. BENNETT. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I take this opportunity today to pay tribute to a very distinguished servant of the legislative branch of the Congress. In May 2003, Dr. John Hardt will end his official service with the Congressional Research service after 32 years as a valuable resource to Congress in the field of international economics and foreign affairs. In many ways, Dr. Hardt's retirement symbolizes the ending of an era for the Congress; he is the only remaining CRS Senior Specialist now providing Congress with research and analysis in the field of foreign affairs. He has been a great asset to the Congress and to CRS throughout his long career in public service. Dr. Hardt received both his Ph.D. in economics and a Certificate from the Russian institute from Columbia University. Prior to joining the Congressional Research Service, he had already had the kind of illustrious career that serves as a lifetime achievement for many others. He served his country with distinction during World War II, receiving ribbons and battle stars for both the European and Asiatic Theaters of Operations as well as the Philippine Liberation Ribbon. He has been an educator--specializing in economics, Soviet studies, and Sino-Soviet studies--at the University of Washington, the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, the George Washington University, the Foreign Service Institute, and American military service schools. He has served in the American private sector, specializing in Soviet electric power and nuclear energy economics for the CEIR Corporation in Washington, DC, and as a director of the Strategic Studies Department at the Research Analysis Corporation in McLean, VA, where he specialized in Soviet Comparative Communist and Japanese Studies. He is a widely published author, with hundreds of research papers, journal articles, technical memoranda, and books and book chapters to his credit. Dr. Hardt joined the Congressional Research Service as the Senior Specialist in Soviet Economics in November of 1971. It is his work for CRS--and for us, the Members of this body--that I want to honor today. For the past three decades, Dr. Hardt has served Members of Congress, their staffs, and committees with his considerable expertise in Soviet and post-Soviet and Eastern Europe economics, the economy of the People's Republic of China, East-West commercial relations, and comparative international economic analysis. He has advised, among others, both the Senate and House Commerce Committees on East-West trade; the senate and House Banking Committees on the Export-Import Bank and other U.S. government financing programs; and the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees on U.S. trade policy. He frequently has traveled with congressional committee delegations, serving as a technical adviser on visits to the former Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, and Sweden, and then preparing committee reports for these trips. On many occasions, Dr. Hardt has been called on to advise directly Members of Congress and congressional staff on Russian Federation debt reduction and its relationship to nonproliferation concerns, and has provided support to the Russian Leadership Program, especially those events and activities that involved Members of Congress. The extent of his national and international contacts is breathtaking and includes senior members of foreign governments and leading multinational businesses. His most lasting legacy for Congress may well be his service as both editor and coordinator of a long series of Joint Economic Committee compendia on the economies of the PRC, Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe. The Congress can take pride in these important, well-known, and highly respected JEC studies, to which Dr. Hardt devoted so much of his talent and energies. The more than 70 volumes of this work include: China Under the Four Modernizations, 1982; China's Economy Looks Toward the Year 2000, 1986; The Former Soviet Union in Transition, 1993; East- Central European Economies in Transition, 1994; and Russia's Uncertain Economic Future, 2001. The series includes hundreds of analytical papers on various aspects of issues pertinent to Congress and to U.S. policy, all written by internationally recognized government, academic, and Private sector experts, and all coordinated and edited by Dr. Hardt. This work was not only a valuable source of analysis to the Congress but also to the policymaking and academic communities at large. For many years, these volumes were the most comprehensive sources of economic data and analyses on the economies of the Soviet Union, China, and Easter Europe. Let me make one final point to illustrate the loss that we, as Members of Congress, will sustain with Dr. Hardt's retirement. That point concerns one of the great strengths that CRS offers to Congress, and which Dr. Hardt's tenure and contributions at CRS epitomize perfectly: institutional memory. Of the 525 Members of the 108th Congress, only 11 were Members of the 92nd Congress when Dr. Hardt first assumed his official congressional duties. Most of the countries that he has specialized in have undergone astounding transformation during his working life--some, indeed, no longer exist. The members of this deliberative body in which we serve has turned over many times. Committees have come and gone. But through it all, John Hardt has been a constant fixture, a strand of continuity in an environment of continual change--part of the collective institutional memory of CRS which is of such value to our work in Congress. We wish Dr. Hardt well in the new ventures on which he will be embarking. He will be greatly missed by us all.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the ``National Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area Act of 2003.'' The story behind and about the Mormon pioneers' 1400 mile trek from Illinois to the Great Salt Lake Valley is one of the most compelling and captivating in our Nation's history. This legislation would designate as a National Heritage Area an area that spans some 250 miles along Highway 89 and encompasses outstanding examples of historical, cultural, and natural resources that demonstrate the colonization of the western United States, and the experience and influence of the Mormon pioneers in furthering that colonization. The landscape, architecture, artisan skills, and events along Highway 89 convey in a very real way the legacy of the Mormon pioneers' achievements. The community of Panquitch for example, has an annual Quilt Day celebration to commemorate the sacrifice and fortitude of its pioneers whose efforts saved the community from starvation in 1864. The celebration is in remembrance of the Quilt Walk, a walk in which a group of men from Panquitch used quilts to form a path that would bear their weight across the snow. This quilt walk enabled these men to cross over the mountains to procure food for their community, which was facing starvation as it experienced its first winter in Utah. Another example of the tenacity of pioneers can be seen today at the Hole-in-the-Rock. Here, in 1880, a group of 250 people, 80 wagons, and 1000 head of cattle upon the Colorado River Gorge. Finding no pathways down to the river, the pioneers decided to use a narrow crevice leading down to the bottom of the gorge. To make the crevice big enough to accommodate wagons, the pioneers spent six weeks enlarging the crevice by hand, using hammers, chisels, and blasting powder. They then attached large ropes to the wagons as they began their descent down the steep incline. It is because of such tenacity and innovation on the part of pioneers that the western United States was shaped the way it was and much of that has contributed to the way of life and landscape still found in the West today. The National Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area will serve as a special recognition of the people and places that have contributed greatly to our nation's development. It will allow for the conservation of historical and cultural resources, the establishment of interpretive exhibits, will increase public awareness of the surviving skills and crafts of those living along Highway 89, and specifically allows for the preservation of historic buildings. In light of the benefits associated with preserving the rich heritage of the founding of many of the communities along Highway 89, my legislation has broad support from Sanpete, Sevier, Piute, Garfield, and Kane counties and is a locally based, locally supported undertaking. I believe this legislation will provide an exciting platform from which a significant part of our Nation's history can be highlighted. The Senate passed this legislation last year as part of a larger national heritage area package. While the overall package was not considered by the other body before the last Congress adjourned, I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and the administration to pass this legislation during this session.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the ``National Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area Act of 2003.'' The story behind and about the Mormon pioneers' 1400 mile trek from Illinois to the Great Salt Lake Valley is one of the most compelling and captivating in our Nation's history. This legislation would designate as a National Heritage Area an area that spans some 250 miles along Highway 89 and encompasses outstanding examples of historical, cultural, and natural resources that demonstrate the colonization of the western United States, and the experience and influence of the Mormon pioneers in furthering that colonization. The landscape, architecture, artisan skills, and events along Highway 89 convey in a very real way the legacy of the Mormon pioneers' achievements. The community of Panquitch for example, has an annual Quilt Day celebration to commemorate the sacrifice and fortitude of its pioneers whose efforts saved the community from starvation in 1864. The celebration is in remembrance of the Quilt Walk, a walk in which a group of men from Panquitch used quilts to form a path that would bear their weight across the snow. This quilt walk enabled these men to cross over the mountains to procure food for their community, which was facing starvation as it experienced its first winter in Utah. Another example of the tenacity of pioneers can be seen today at the Hole-in-the-Rock. Here, in 1880, a group of 250 people, 80 wagons, and 1000 head of cattle upon the Colorado River Gorge. Finding no pathways down to the river, the pioneers decided to use a narrow crevice leading down to the bottom of the gorge. To make the crevice big enough to accommodate wagons, the pioneers spent six weeks enlarging the crevice by hand, using hammers, chisels, and blasting powder. They then attached large ropes to the wagons as they began their descent down the steep incline. It is because of such tenacity and innovation on the part of pioneers that the western United States was shaped the way it was and much of that has contributed to the way of life and landscape still found in the West today. The National Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area will serve as a special recognition of the people and places that have contributed greatly to our nation's development. It will allow for the conservation of historical and cultural resources, the establishment of interpretive exhibits, will increase public awareness of the surviving skills and crafts of those living along Highway 89, and specifically allows for the preservation of historic buildings. In light of the benefits associated with preserving the rich heritage of the founding of many of the communities along Highway 89, my legislation has broad support from Sanpete, Sevier, Piute, Garfield, and Kane counties and is a locally based, locally supported undertaking. I believe this legislation will provide an exciting platform from which a significant part of our Nation's history can be highlighted. The Senate passed this legislation last year as part of a larger national heritage area package. While the overall package was not considered by the other body before the last Congress adjourned, I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and the administration to pass this legislation during this session.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I am not in a position to give any definitive answer to the Senator from Nevada. It is my understanding, however, that intense negotiations are going on with the chairman of the Budget Committee and other Senators who have an interest about the conference report. It is my understanding that an agreement has been reached and that a conference report will, in fact, be available to be voted on, if not late tonight, sometime tomorrow. But in the absence of any absolute word about that, I will simply put that in the category of rumors. They may be true rumors, but rumors nonetheless, that I can pass on as my best understanding. I will, as a courtesy to the Senator from Nevada, and to the Senate, ask the majority leader to come forward with that information as quickly as it has been firmed up. But it is my expectation that there will be resolution of the budget situation before we go out for recess. Understand, again, that is my personal expectation. That is not an official statement on behalf of the majority leader.

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, this morning the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m. Following morning business, the Senate may address any of the following items: The FISA bill, if unanimous consent can be reached; the PROTECT Act conference report; the digital technology bill; the nomination of Priscilla Owen to be a U.S. circuit judge; the BioShield bill; and any other conference reports that may become available. Therefore, Members should expect rollcall votes during today's session.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 10 a.m., Wednesday, April 9. I further ask unanimous consent that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there then be a period of morning business until 11:30 a.m., with the first 30 minutes equally divided between Senator Hutchison and the minority leader or their designees and the remaining time, until 11:30, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; provided further that during the Republican-controlled time, Senator Dole be recognized for up to 15 minutes and Senator Kyl be recognized for up to 15 minutes. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that at 11:30 a.m., the Senate return to consideration of S. 476, the CARE Act, and there then be 30 minutes equally divided for general debate remaining, with all other provisions of the consent remaining in order.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. For the information of all Senators, the Senate will be in a period of morning business tomorrow until 11:30 a.m. Following morning business, the Senate will resume debate on the CARE Act. When the Senate returns to the bill, Senator Nickles will offer his amendment related to land sales. The Senate will vote on both the Nickles amendment and passage of the bill at approximately 12:30 tomorrow. Following passage of the CARE Act, the Senate may resume consideration of the nomination of Priscilla Owen. In addition to the Owen nomination, the Senate may consider the PROTECT Act conference report, if available, as well as the POW resolution. Therefore, additional votes are expected.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on today's Executive Calendar: Calendar Nos. 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, and 115. I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for his kind comments.

Mr. BENNETT. I would like to comment, Mr. President, about Mary Jane Ogilvie. Many public men are described in their own right for their own accomplishments, and then their wives are referred to casually. Senator Alan Simpson's wife, who took my wife under her wing when we first came here, described it this way. She said: ``We are just LWOs, which means `lovely wives of.' '' Mary Jane Ogilvie was indeed the lovely wife of our Chaplain, Lloyd Ogilvie, but she was far, far more than an appendage to her husband. She had her own contribution to make to this body and to all of the Members in it. Many wives of important men do not want to have anything to do with their husbands' careers and create areas of their own. They do not have an interest in what their husband does. Mary Jane Ogilvie was an incredibly important part of Lloyd Ogilvie's entire career. The two of them were a team, inseparable. Her faith was as strong as his. Her dedication to the ministry and to the Gospel, as they understood it, was as deep as his. And her friendships forged here in the Senate were as strong as his. She was, as I say, an integral part of the ministry he performed here. When she became too ill to carry on her portion of that ministry, he was unable to carry on his, which was very appropriate, in my view, because they were a team. He had his priorities straight, and he realized that, as important as his work here was, his duty to his wife was even greater. When it became necessary for her, as she sought to find treatment for her condition, to move to California, there was never a doubt in Lloyd Ogilvie's mind that he would move with her. They were a team. Some would have said: Well, she is hospitalized. I have a career. I will stay here. I will call her on weekends or get out there when I can, but I will let her go forward on her own. Lloyd Ogilvie is not that kind of a man, and their marriage was not that kind of a marriage. When she needed him, she had him, which is a manifestation of the fact that when he needed her, he had her. So this resolution is but a small token of the Senate's gratitude for the contribution that Mary Jane Ogilvie made to the lives of all of us. My wife and I were privileged enough to become friends of this team. We went to dinner together. We had conversations about our families. We had conversations about religion. We had conversations about the Senate and its spiritual health. As the leader of the Senate Prayer Breakfast during the time that Lloyd Ogilvie was our Chaplain, I got to know both of them extremely well. It is with great sorrow that we note her passage. But as I have said before of others to whom we have had to say good-bye in this fashion, we do not mourn for Mary Jane. We know where Mary Jane is. We know that all is well with her. Our sense of loss is for ourselves and the fact that we have been deprived now of her company, her spirit, and the joy of her life. I join with Senator Kyl and thank Senator Kyl for this resolution in paying tribute to a woman whose contribution to the Senate is not reflected in the payroll or any official record but is engraved in the hearts of all of us. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to this matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 110, which was submitted earlier today by Senator Kyl.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask if any number of hours would be sufficient for the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I modify the request to 10 additional hours.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that there be an additional 6 hours for debate on the Owen nomination, provided further that the time be equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, or their designees, and that following the conclusion of that time, the Senate proceed to a vote on the confirmation of the nomination, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period for morning business.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, that use is entirely permitted. I agree that we should do all that we can to help the Iraqi people and our farmers at the same time.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements regarding this matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 1; I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the Journal of the proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that notwithstanding the previous order, the Senate begin a period of morning business until 10 a.m., with the time equally divided between Senator Hutchison and the minority leader or his designee; provided that at 10 a.m. the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Timothy Tymkovich to be a circuit judge for the Tenth Circuit as provided under the previous order. I further ask consent that the Senate stand in recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. for the weekly party meetings.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.