Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the story of our failure to foresee--and prevent--the crack cocaine epidemic is one of the most significant public policy mistakes in modern history. Although warning signs of an outbreak flared over several years, few took action until it was too late. We now face similar warning signs with another drug--methamphetamine. Without swift action now, history may repeat itself. So today, Senator Hatch and I, along with Senators Feinstein, Specter, Harkin, Wyden, D'Amato, and DeWine are introducing legislation to address this new emerging drug epidemic before it is too late. Within the past few years the production and use of methamphetamine have risen dramatically. Newspaper and media reports over the past few months have highlighted these increases. I have been tracking this development and pushing legislation to increase Federal penalties and strengthen Federal laws against methamphetamine production, trafficking, and use since 1990. And what I and others have found is alarming: From 1991 to 1994 methamphetamine-related emergency room episodes increased 256 percent-- the increase from 1993 to 1994 alone was 75 percent--with more than 17,000 people overdosing and being brought to the emergency room because of methamphetamine. A survey of high school seniors, which only measures the use of ``ice''--a fraction of the methamphetamine market-- found that in 1995 86,000 12th graders had used ``ice'' in the past year, 39,000 had used it in the past month, and 3,600 reported using ``ice'' daily. This same survey found that only 54 percent of high school seniors perceived great risk in trying ``ice''--down from 62 percent in 1990. And 27 percent of these children said it would be easy for them to get ``ice'' if they wanted it. The cause for concern over a methamphetamine epidemic is further fueled by drug-related violence--again something we saw during the crack era--that we can expect to flourish with methamphetamine as well. Putting the problem in perspective, drug experts claim that ``ice surpasses PCP in inducing violent behavior.'' In addition to the violence--both random and irrational--associated with methamphetamine users, there is also the enormous problem of violence among methamphetamine traffickers and the environmental and life-threatening conditions endemic in the clandestine labs where methamphetamine is produced. The bill we are now introducing addresses all of the dangers of methamphetamine and takes bold actions to stop this potential epidemic in its tracks. The Hatch-Biden methamphetamine enforcement bill will take six major steps toward cracking down on methamphetamine production, trafficking, and use, particularly use by the most vulnerable population threatened by this drug--our young people. First and foremost, we increase penalties for possessing and trafficking in methamphetamine. Second, we crack down on methamphetamine producers and traffickers by increasing the penalties for the illicit possession and trafficking of the precursor chemicals and equipment used to manufacture methamphetamine. Third, we increase the reporting requirements and restrictions on the legitimate sales of products containing these precursor chemicals in order to prevent their diversion, and we impose even greater requirements on all firms which sell these products by mail. This includes the use of civil penalties and injunctions to stop legitimate firms from recklessly providing precursor chemicals to methamphetamine manufacturers. Fourth, we address the international nature of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking by coordinating international enforcement efforts and strengthening provisions against the illegal importation of methamphetamine and precursor chemicals. Fifth, we ensure that methamphetamine manufacturers who endanger the life on any individual or endanger the environment while making methamphetamine will receive enhanced prison sentences. Finally, we require Federal, State and local law enforcement and public health officials to stay ahead of any potential growth in the methamphetamine epidemic by creating national working groups on the protecting the public from the dangers of methamphetamine production, trafficking, and abuse. The Hatch-Biden bill addresses all of the needs with a fair balance between the needs of manufacturers and consumers of legitimate products which contain methamphetamine precursor chemicals and the need to protect the public by instituting harsh penalties for any and all methamphetamine-related activities. This legislation is the crucial, comprehensive tool we need to stay ahead of the methamphetamine epidemic and to avoid the mistakes made during the early stages of the crack-cocaine explosion. I want to thank Senator Hatch and my other colleagues who share my desire to move now on the problem of methamphetamine. I also want to thank the Clinton administration, which also was determined to act now on this issue and worked with us in developing several of the provisions in this bill. I urge all my colleagues to join us in protecting our children and our society from the devastations of methamphetamine by supporting this vital legislation.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Bumpers amendment to the Defense appropriations bill. This amendment would save American taxpayers 234 million dollars by eliminating funding for six F/A-18C that the Pentagon has not requested. Mr. President, the Defense appropriations bill allocates money for 12 more F-18's than the President requested. It appropriates funds for six more F-18C's than the Senate authorized. It commits us to spend 234 million dollars on six aircraft that the Navy does not want. Mr. President, at a time when we need to cut Government spending, how can we justify throwing away 234 million dollars of the taxpayers' money on these soon-to-be outdated aircraft? Within this bill is 1.8 billion dollars to purchase the first 12 new F-18E/F fighters for the Navy. The Navy has said that the F-18E/F will be the backbone of its carrier-based forces in the future. This aircraft is to replace the F-14 and older F-18's, so that by 2009, the F-18E/F will comprise a majority of the F-18's in the Navy's inventory. If we are worried about a future military threat, we should direct our procurement to systems of the future, not to aircraft like the F-18C/D that will be obsolete soon after they are manufactured. Mr. President, we cannot continue to squander our Nation's resources on aircraft that are not needed to defend this country. We must look for areas where we can cut spending while not jeopardizing our national security. The Bumpers amendment represents such an opportunity. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I wish to discuss the Defense authorization bill, which passed the Senate yesterday. The bill contains several provisions that I have strongly advocated and worked hard to advance. First and foremost, the bill authorizes funds for three military construction projects in my home State of Delaware that will add to our military preparedness. The first of these is a C-5 aerial delivery facility at Dover Air Force Base that will allow the base to fulfill the strategic brigade airdrop mission, enhancing Dover's leading role in meeting our new military requirements in the post-cold war era. Second, $12 million for new visiting officers quarters will ease a severe housing shortage at Dover and also allow for a much-needed transportation upgrade at the base. Third, an operations and training complex for the Air National Guard will improve readiness by replacing several outdated and dilapidated facilities at the Air Guard's headquarters at the New Castle County Airport. I am grateful to my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee for including these projects, which I had requested. I am also pleased that the bill provides for the transfer of the last parcel of military-controlled land at Cap Henlopen to the Delaware State Park System, completing a long-standing project I began when I first arrived in the Senate. In addition, the bill restores two important provisions that I fought hard to include in the antiterrorism act, but were removed by the conference committee. First, the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici amendment, of which I am an original cosponsor, gives authority to the Armed Forces to assist local law enforcement, should we ever face an emergency involving a chemical or biological weapon. The Armed Forces alone have the capacity and equipment to respond to such an incident. In addition, this amendment will improve our ability to interdict weapons of mass destruction before they reach American soil. It will help ensure the security of all Americans by expanding programs to safeguard nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. The second antiterrorism provision is a Feinstein-Biden amendment to prohibit the distribution of bomb-making information on the Internet. The Senate had overwhelmingly approved this amendment to the antiterrorism bill, but it was not included in the final conference report. I am pleased that these two crucial antiterrorism provisions are included in the Defense authorization bill. Another important amendment to this bill calls for a study of the benefits and costs of enlarging the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to include the new democracies of Central Europe. While I believe that the addition of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia may well strengthen our own security, that or our allies, and that of Europe as a whole, we must understand in detail what we are undertaking before asking these countries to shoulder the burdens of NATO membership. The mandated study will answer the relevant questions. Despite these significant achievements, Mr. President, I cannot support a bill that is fiscally irresponsible. If we are serious about balancing the budget, no area of Government--including defense--should be immune to a critical review of spending. Between 1981 and 1992, the annual Federal deficit quadrupled--from $74 billion to $290 billion. Since 1992, the deficit has been cut by more than half--the Congressional Budget Office now projects that the Federal deficit will be about $140 billion this year, down from $290 billion at the end of the Bush administration. This marks the first time in modern budget history--since we demobilized at the end of WWII--that the deficit has gone down 4 years in a row. The deficit is now less than 2 percent of our Nation's output--we have the best budget record of any of the advanced industrial economies. Today, Federal spending as a share of the economy is the lowest it has been since 1979. This is a record that owes a lot to the hard choices we made in 1993 and to the discipline it has taken to stick with those decisions. We cannot--we must not--put this record in jeopardy. We certainly should not throw more money at the Pentagon than it says it needs. For every dollar wasted on exotic weapons systems that the Department of Defense is not asking for, there is less for crime prevention, for the infrastructure that underpins our economy, and for education and research that will be the key to tomorrow's productivity growth. We have to balance our priorities carefully and to use our scarce resources efficiently. The Defense budget should not become the new way to keep old habits alive. The overwhelming majority of the money added to the President's Defense authorization request would go toward procurement and development of weapons systems that the Pentagon does not believe are necessary to ensure the security of the United States. In fact, $3.8 billion of the additional money is for programs that are not even in the Pentagon's long-range plan to defend our country. Mr. President, my distinguished colleagues argued for this unnecessary spending on the grounds that the readiness of our military was at stake. This ignores the fact that American military readiness today is at an all-time high. We cannot take an additional $11.4 billion our of the pockets of the taxpaying American people to buy airplanes and ships we don't need. We cannot continue to borrow from our grandchildren's future to pay for additional weapons at a time we face no major military threat. In short, we cannot afford this bill. Mr. President, I could not in good conscience vote to spend $11.4 billion more than the military itself believes is necessary to defend our Nation. It is my hope that the conferees will work to bring down the spending in this bill to an acceptable and responsible level, so that at time, I can support the bill.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I stand in strong support of the Feinstein- Biden amendment, which would make it a Federal crime to teach someone how to make a bomb if you know or intend that it will be used to commit a crime. This seems pretty simple and straightforward to me. Many Americans-- no, I think most Americans--would be absolutely shocked if they knew what kind of bone-chilling information is making its way over the Internet. You can access detailed, explicit instructions on how to make and detonate pipe bombs, light bulb bombs, and even--if you can believe it--baby food bombs. Let me give you just a small sample. A guy named ``Warmaster'' sent this message out over the Internet about how to build a baby food bomb. Here's how his message goes: These simple, powerful bombs are not very well known even though all the materials can be easily obtained by anyone (including minors). These things are so [expletive deleted] powerful that they can destroy a car. The explosion can actually twist and mangle the frame. They are extremely deadly and can very easily kill you and blow the side of the house out if you mess up while building it. Here's how they work. And then the message goes into explicit detail about how to fill a baby food jar with gunpowder and how to detonate it. The thing about this bomb, The message observes, Is that the glass jar gets totally shattered and pieces of razor sharp glass gets blasted in all directions. Warmaster's recipe also elaborates on how you can make the bomb more effective still: Tape nails to the side of the thing, It says. Sharpened jacks (those little things with all the pointy sides) also work well. The good thing about those is any side it lands on is right side up. If the explosion doesn't get'em then the glass will. If the glass don't get'em then the nails will. Now, I'm not making this stuff up. And what this amendment says is that if Warmaster gives his recipe to some young kid--intending or knowing that the kid will go build one of these bombs and blow it up over at the local school playground--then Warmaster should be put behind bars. Right now, that's not a Federal crime. It should be--no ifs, ands, or buts. I take a back seat to no one when it comes to the first amendment, and the protection of our most cherished rights of free speech. But there is no right under the first amendment to help someone blow up a building. There is no right under the first amendment to be an accessory to a crime. And there is nothing in the first amendment that says we must leave our good sense at the doorstep. This is not the first time that Senator Feinstein and I have tried to put this crime on the books. We tried to add it back to the terrorism bill in April. But our Republican colleagues derailed our effort. Evidently, there were those on the House side who didn't like this provision--who for some reason didn't think that intentionally teaching someone how to build a bomb should be a crime. I'm glad that our Republican colleagues here in the Senate have come to their senses. And I hope--and urge--that they will do all that they can to make sure their House counterparts do the right thing this time. This amendment is simple and straightforward. If you're one of these guys who has made a name for himself writing manifestos like ``The Terrorist Handbook'' or ``How To Kill With Joy''--and if someone comes to you and says: ``Tomorrow morning, a group of police officers is going to be meeting in the 5th Street precinct--and I want to blow it up.'' And if you then say: ``Here you go--I've got just the recipe for you.'' It seems to me that that should be a crime. And I'm glad the Senate has seen fit to join Senator Feinstein and me in our effort to make it a crime.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise as an original cosponsor of the proposed amendment by Senators Nunn, Lugar, and Domenici to better protect our Nation against the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction. Here is a Defend America Act that we should all support because, unlike the bill which bears that title, this amendment responds to a clear and present threat. In my mind, the possibility that weapons of mass destruction could be acquired by rogue states, criminal organizations, or individual terrorists and used against American targets is the single greatest security threat to our Nation in the post-cold war world. I commend my distinguished colleagues from Georgia and Indiana for their tireless resolve in exposing the potential magnitude of this threat, and for their diligence in crafting legislation that addresses it head on. The legislative package has four important sections that together make up a comprehensive and strategic response to the threat of weapons of mass destruction. First, the amendment would improve our domestic preparedness. This is really the last line of defense against weapons of mass destruction. In the horrible case that our prevention and non-proliferation efforts fail, we need to be prepared to deal with a biological, chemical, or nuclear emergency here in the United States. The amendment includes an important counter-terrorism provision to authorize the Department of Defense to provide badly needed training and advice to local, State, and Federal officials. These are the men and women who would be the first to respond to a nuclear, chemical, or biological emergency. The extensive hearings held by the Senator from Georgia earlier this year demonstrated that police and fire departments in our cities are not trained and equipped to detect or contain biological or chemical agents used in a terror attack. Indeed, local officials would be risking their own safety while attempting to respond to such an attack. At present, only the Armed Services have the expertise and equipment needed in locating, neutralizing, dismantling, and disposing of such weapons or deadly material. Only the military can impart this desperately needed training on the urgent basis that it is required. This bill, moreover, gives the Armed Forces the authority to actually assist law enforcement if, God forbid, we should ever face an emergency involving a chemical or biological weapon. This is a provision that I worked hard on last year with Senator Nunn on the Anti-Terrorism Act. The provision was included in the Senate version of the act but taken out by Members in the House of Representatives. The Nunn-Lugar-Domenici amendment provides an opportunity to restore this important anti-terrorism measure. Right now, the Armed Forces have the authority to provide assistance when it comes to a nuclear attack. But that authority does not extend to an emergency situation involving a chemical or biological weapon of mass destruction. It should. This is a carefully tailored provision. It doesn't give the military the power to make arrests or to conduct searches or seizures--unless necessary for the immediate protection of human life. What it does is make sure that--if we were ever faced with such a nightmare--the people who are best trained, best equipped and most capable will be on the scene assisting our State and locals. Mr. President, I want to make clear for the record that I intend to seek additional vehicles to restore the other two key provisions excluded from the Anti-Terrorism Act--those dealing with wiretapping and prohibiting information on the Internet about making bombs. The second section of the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici amendment addresses our ability to interdict weapons of mass destruction before they reach U.S. soil. The Department of Defense would provide to the U.S. Customs Service specialized training and equipment capable of detecting weapons of mass destruction. Additional funds for the Departments of Defense and Energy would help develop new technologies to better detect such weapons and material. Mr. President, the border controls throughout the former Soviet Union are notoriously weak. This amendment also seeks to assist the Customs officials of these countries in improving their ability to detect and interdict nuclear weapons or material. The third area this amendment addresses is the need to continue the important work of the Nunn-Lugar programs that over the past 4 years have quietly worked to enhance the security of all Americans by dismantling nuclear weapons and protecting material at its source in the former Soviet Union. These prevention programs form our first line of defense. Mr. President, in many ways the world has never seemed a safer place in which to live for our citizens. Our democratic way of life prevailed over totalitarian communist ideology in the cold war; Soviet nuclear missiles no longer point at American cities; we are the undisputed world power. But these events should not give us a false sense of security. Russia and other States of the former Soviet Union are literally strewn with nuclear weapons and material. By some estimates there is at present enough nuclear material in the former Soviet Union to make over 100,000 weapons. It only takes a tiny fraction of this abundant supply, finding its way into the wrong hands to wreak unspeakable damage. We also know that there is demand for such material by, among others, dangerous rogue States, such as Iran and Libya. Once they have secured the requisite nuclear material, the rest is relatively easy. Bomb designs are not difficult to find. Transport of a device to its intended target in an open society such as ours is painfully simple, as terrorists have demonstrated in New York and Oklahoma City. The centralized Soviet system that prevented the possible theft or diversion of these tons of fissile material no longer exists. We regularly hear stories of nuclear facilities with no perimeter fences, no security monitors, and workers who have not been paid in months. The key challenges before the United States and Russia are to develop an accounting system for all nuclear material in the former Soviet union, to physically protect this material in a limited number of sites, to safely dispose of excess nuclear weapons and material, to prevent theft and smuggling of nuclear material, and to prevent former Soviet nuclear experts from selling their know-how to rogue states or terrorists. These are exactly the challenges that the Nunn-Lugar programs address. The Materials Protection, Control and Accounting Program has provided safe storage and security monitors at nuclear facilities in Russia. The Industrial Partnership Program has found productive employment for thousands of former Soviet technicians with the know-how to build nuclear weapons. These programs have proven effective and should be expanded. Under the amendment, funds would be provided to the Department of Energy to verify the dismantlement of Russian nuclear warheads and convert the plutonium removed from the warheads. Funds also would be provided to convert the remaining three weapons-grade plutonium reactor cores in Russia. Clearly, such efforts are in the interest of the United States. The fourth section of the amendment creates a nonproliferation coordinator, who will chair a committee on nonproliferation, and report to the President. The many levels of the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction do not fit neatly into our current bureaucratic structure. There are a plethora of agencies with some connection to the problem--including Justice, Energy, Commerce, Treasury--which do not immediately come to mind as traditional national security departments. The coordinator would ensure a clear, comprehensive U.S. policy toward proliferation, terrorism, and global crime. By bringing together these diverse agencies to form a common policy, we will be able to use their specific strengths and expertise in combating the greatest security threat to our Nation. I wish to add that although the amendment does not require it, I believe that the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency must play a central role in the coordinator's activities. Mr. President, the question will undoubtedly be asked as to whether we can afford to add funds for these efforts? I believe that we cannot afford not to. Over the last 5 years, funding for the Nunn-Lugar program has totaled $1.5 billion--an average of $300 million per year, or about one-tenth of 1 percent of our annual defense budget. The amendment today could lead to an additional expenditure of $235 million in the next fiscal year. These are meager sums when compared to the magnitude of the threat we face. This is not a giveaway program for Russia and other independent states of the former Soviet Union. These expenditures serve our interests. Mr. President, we are already on borrowed time. We are fortunate that an attack involving weapons of mass destruction has not yet occurred on U.S. soil. But we cannot continue to rely on fate to prevent the proliferation of these deadly weapons. This amendment offers us a substantive means to act, prevent, and prepare against the menace of weapons of mass destruction. I urge its adoption.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, one wouldn't have thought that 40 years after the Montgomery bus boycott, 35 years after the freedom rides, and over 30 years after this Congress passed the most sweeping civil rights legislation in history--we would be on the Senate floor discussing an epidemic of burnings of historically African-American churches in the South. But we are here, because what is happening is an affront to all Americans--whatever their race, whatever their religions. In the 5 years between 1990 and 1995, there were 29 fires at predominantly African-American churches in the South. In the past 18 months alone, there have been at least 43 such fires. While a handful of these have been deemed accidental, most of them were intentional acts of violence--acts of violence not just against any property, but against churches. The burning of a church is not merely a crime against a piece of property or even against an individual, as terrible as such violence may be. An attack on a church reaches deeper; it is an attack against an entire community. A church, like any house of worship, is sacred. The sanctuaries, the pulpit, the artwork, and the prayer books all hold special meaning for the congregants. To witness the destruction of a house of worship, to see its walls reduced to charred remains, is a wrenching experience. When you lose your church, your synagogue, or your mosque, you lose something that goes to the core of what it means to be human, and to the core of the most basic freedom on which our Nation was founded. For burning a church is a challenge to the entire concept of faith itself. I ask you, how could anyone who believed in God intentionally destroy a place where God is worshiped? On top of this layer of emotion, we must also consider the special context of these particular church burnings. For, in African-American communities, churches not only serve an important spiritual role, they also have served a predominant cultural, social, and political role throughout the past century. During the Jim Crow era, churches were the only institutions where African-Americans could choose their own leaders, participate in governance, and be treated with genuine equality. Not surprisingly, almost all the leaders of the civil rights movement emerged from the African-American churches and these leaders infused the movement with its spiritual, moral, and non-violent character. For this reason, when the segregationist or the men in white robes wanted to strike a blow against the civil rights movement, when they wanted to intimidate those who were taking to the streets to protest injustice, when they wanted to slow the change that was coming to the South, they attacked the churches. Think back to May, 1963, when over 900 children packed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. And as they filed out of the church to demonstrate against segregation, Bull Connor turned his powerful water hoses against them, and demonstrated, for all the world to see, the unmitigated ugliness of segregation. Four months later, a powerful firebomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church. Four young schoolgirls were killed. Again, the country watched in horror. So the violence against historically African-American churches in the South is especially meaningful and especially hurtful. These arsons hearken back to a time, when, to paraphrase Dr. King, people were judged not on the content of their character, but on the color of their skin. They remind us of a time when violence and hatred against African- Americans was the norm, and justice appeared to be reserved for only one part of society. These arsons represent not only attacks on spiritual institutions, but direct messages of exclusion to the African-American community. The purveyors of hate that are burning these churches are trying to say: You are different, you do not belong, we reject you. But by standing here today and voicing our opposition, it is the perpetrators of this violence who are being rejected. It is their message of hate that is being reviled by the entire country. And when we pass legislation to address church arson, the U.S. Senate will be standing on the side of the congregants of these churches and against those narrow-minded individuals who seek division and conflict rather than unity and harmony. Even though these church arsons have been denounced by the overwhelming majority of Americans, and the Federal Government is conducting a full-fledged investigation into these crimes, these incidents stand as a vivid reminder that we still have a long way to go in building the type of society to which we all aspire. We would all like to believe that we live in a color-blind society-- that our country is filled exclusively with people of good faith that no longer take race into account in their daily lives. But incidents like the Rodney King beating, or the Mark Furhman tapes, or the burning of three dozen African-American churches, hit us square in the face, like a splash of cold water, with the hard reality that, in America, race still matters. Racism has been a cancer in the body politic since the birth of this country. We took the first step toward treating this illness after the Civil War, and we took another big step during the civil rights movement of the 1960's. But even though the cancer has receded, it has not been eliminated root and branch. It continues to infect our society. If we pretend that we no longer need to be vigilant, if we accept the illusion that we live in a colorblind society, if we legislate or decide court cases on that basis, then racism will grow and spread--and we will see more churches burned and more manifestations of this lurking disease in years to come. I do not mean to suggest that there has been no progress--there has been. Thirty years ago, many stood in silence when the churches burned. States and localities saw Federal authorities as intruders bent on changing their way of life. Today, the public response has been overwhelming. Everyone opposes these church burnings; everyone wants to bring the perpetrators to justice. Over 200 Federal agents, working together with State and local law enforcement, are investigating these fires, making this the largest civil rights investigation in history. Nation's Bank has put up a $500,000 reward for information leading to the prosecution of the arsonists. Habitat for Humanity has promised to assist all the communities that have lost churches. Three decades ago, Southern legislators virulently opposed civil rights legislation. Today, the bill to address church burnings is being sponsored by Senator Faircloth from North Carolina and Senator Kennedy, whose brother was President during the tensest moments of the civil rights movement. So, we have made some progress, just not enough. As Dr. King said from the steps of the State capitol in Montgomery, AL following the historic march from Selma: ``The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.'' We must join together to face this violence, and through our collective efforts, bring it to an end. Let this violence serve to bring us together to fight the prejudice that remains, to prod us to redouble our affirmative efforts to bring the races closer together. Only through continued vigilance in our Government, in our schools, and in our homes, can we ensure that the ``arc of the universe'' will continue to ``bend toward justice.'' The legislation being introduced today, which I am cosponsoring, is a necessary response to the church arsons blotting our Nation. First, it will make it much easier to prosecute church arsons as a Federal crime. It provides that anyone convicted of burning a house of worship based on racial, ethnic, or religious bias will be facing a potential 20-year jail sentence. The bill also eliminates the current statutory requirement that $10,000 worth of damage must have occurred to trigger Federal jurisdiction for prosecuting a church burning. Under this bill, anyone who defaces religious property--whether by shooting out the windows of a church or painting a swastika on a synagogue wall--will have committed a Federal felony. The bill also authorizes the Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide loan guarantees for reconstruction projects to churches and other nonprofit organizations that have been victims of arson, and it provides additional funding for mediation services and training for local arson investigators. Senators Kennedy and Faircloth are to be commended for putting together this legislation. It has my unqualified support and I urge the leadership to bring it up for consideration as quickly as possible. Although I fully support this legislation, I want to emphasize that the best way to end these cowardly crimes is to apprehend a perpetrator, prosecute him, and lock him up. Swift action of this sort will send the message that this conduct will not be tolerated and that anyone who desecrates religious property will be punished severely. I am confident that the FBI and BATF are doing everything in their power to investigate these crimes and hopefully we will hear of some progress in the coming weeks. Together, the Congress, our Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials, or communities, and each of us as individuals, can make a difference. We can force this campaign of terror to come to an end--and in doing so we will reaffirm the equality and the religious freedom of all Americans.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, here we go again, Mr. President. Another chapter in the never ending effort to reform the way we finance political campaigns. I feel like I am driving a race car around a track and no matter how long and how far I drive, the checkered flag just never seems to come down. We never seem to reach the finish line. We are never able to finish what we start. And, now, today, the question before us is whether we will even be allowed to start--whether we will even be allowed to debate the issue of campaign finance reform. I have been on this track for almost 24 years now. One of the first things I did as a new Senator back in 1973 was to testify before the Senate Rules Committee on the need for campaign finance reform--on the need for spending limits and public funding of congressional campaigns; on the need for equal competition based on ideas, not money, between challengers and incumbents. Let me tell you, I did not make many friends. But, I believed then--and I believe as strongly today--that campaign finance reform is the single most significant thing Congress could do. The American people have come to believe the system has failed. The American people have lost faith in their leaders and in their Government. The American people feel alienated and distant from the very people who represent them. There are several reasons for this. But, the biggest--and probably what all others boil down to--is the way we fund our elections: the influence of money; the influence of special interests; the influence of everyone, it seems, except the average middle-class American. A middle-class American does not make a $1,000 contribution. A middle-class American does not hire a lobbyist to wander the Halls of the Capitol and make $5,000 campaign contributions. A middle-class American does not ask a Congressman to hand out campaign contributions on the floor of the House of Representatives. No. A middle-class American walks into the voting booth on election day, if he or she has not been turned off by that time, and engages in the most important exercise in a democracy. He or she casts a ballot for a person to represent them. But, when it is all said and done, many middle-class Americans feel that they are not being represented. They have become apathetic, cynical, and distrustful. And, I'm afraid this is not a whim or a passing feeling. It may be wrong in reality--it may be right--but it should not be taken lightly by those of us in Congress. There is a major crisis of confidence in the American electorate, and it puts at risk everything else we attempt to do. That is why I believe campaign finance reform is the crucial issue of our time. So, Mr. President, our mission is clear. We must restore integrity and confidence in the political process. And, to do that, we must have comprehensive campaign finance reform. Unfortunately, today, we are not even voting on a campaign finance reform bill. This is a vote on whether we will be allowed to vote on the bill. And, you wonder why the American people are so sick of this system. The special interests have circled the wagons. They are on the warpath to kill campaign finance reform. So, I implore my colleagues: stand today with the American people. Let us take up this bill--the first bipartisan campaign finance reform bill in nearly a generation. Let us debate the issue. And, let us decide the issue on the merits, not on inside-the-beltway maneuvering. The American people demand no less.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be able to proceed for 5 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

Mr. BIDEN. Sure.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to deplore in the strongest possible terms the brutal assault last Saturday on former Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic. For more than 4 years, I have protested the bloody aggression by Serbia and its Bosnian Serb proxies against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even today Senator Lieberman, Senator Lugar, and I are introducing a resolution calling upon our Government to give stronger support to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, including making it an urgent priority for IFOR to detain and bring to justice persons indicted by the tribunal. But, Mr. President, it was not Bosnian Serbs under the direction of the war criminals Karadzic and Mladic who attacked Haris Silajdzic. Nor was it carried out by the notorious Bosnian-Croat thugs from Herzegovina. No, the attack was carried out by Bosnian Muslims belonging to the ruling party of democratic action, the SDA, of Bosnian President Izetbegovic. Former Prime Minister Silajdzic was making an election campaign speech in the Bihac area of northwestern Bosnia when about 100 young toughs waving SDA flags reportedly began terrorizing citizens at the rally. Some of them struck Prime Minister Silajdzic on the head with a metal bar, opening a bloody wound on his temple. He was rushed off to a hospital. Many of my colleagues and I regard Haris Silajdzic as the single best hope for a multireligious democracy in Bosnia. For years he has fought against the vicious tribalism that unscrupulous politicians have used to stir up hatreds, even as he has tirelessly struggled to keep his embattled country alive. Undaunted earlier this year after he was forced out of the prime ministership, Haris Silajdzic founded the party for Bosnia and Herzegovina, a coalition of Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Serbs, and Bosnian Croats whose vision rises above the pathetic provincialism of the ethnic and religious-based parties intent on fragmenting the country. The reaction of the ruling SDA in Sarajevo was, sad to say, typical of people who learned their politics at the foot of the old Yugoslav league of Communists. Mr. Silajdzic has been harassed at every turn. Knowing of his broad international contacts, the authorities made it impossible for him to place telephone calls abroad. For example, when I have wanted to talk with him during the past few months, I have had to phone his home from Washington. And our conversations are routinely cut off in mid- sentence. This is the treatment that President Izetbegovic's government accords a former prime minister with a worldwide reputation for bravery and integrity. Moreover, Haris Silajdzic's multi-religious party for Bosnia and Herzegovina has been systematically denied a level playing field in the campaign for national elections, which according to the Dayton accords must take place by September 14. They have found it excruciatingly difficult to get television time with which to spread their message of tolerance and democracy. I have already described how the SDA hoodlums broke up their campaign rally last weekend. Mr. President, I would submit that the Bosnian people have no better friend in this Congress than this Senator. But let me be absolutely clear: The patience of even the strongest supporters of Bosnian independence has limits. President Izetbegovic and his party must understand that we have not sent young American fighting men and women at the head of an international force thousands of miles from home merely to make it safe for a power-hungry, narrow-minded Bosnian Muslim clique to mimic the vicious, antidemocratic behavior of their Bosnian Serb oppressors. The clock is ticking on the implementation of the Dayton accords. There are still many fundamental problems to solve. Until now the record of the Bosnian Government, though far from perfect, has been better than that of Serbia and Croatia and their respective Bosnian proxies. But this latest outrage against Haris Silajdzic is a terrible step in the wrong direction. I call upon President Izetbegovic to take heed: Either get your party to clean up its act, or the United States of America may have to reconsider its Bosnian policy. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I did not come to respond to my friends from Missouri or New Mexico, but I find it kind of interesting. You know, we deal with names and these issues so much, and we use the jargon so much, that sometimes it is pretty interesting and pretty confusing to the American people. I am not suggesting that the things that either of my colleagues have said is not substantively correct, but I would suggest it is out of context.

Mr. BIDEN. I will not yield until I explain what I said. Then I will be happy to yield. First of all, the Republican-appointed Director of the Congressional Budget Office states in the latest CBO report--and I quote from the summary page: Both the Congress and the President, however, have proposed changes in policies that would balance the budget in 2002. Let me read it again. Both the Congress and the President, however, have proposed changes in policies that would balance the budget in the year 2002. I am reading from the ``Economic and Budget Outlook, Fiscal Years 1997 to 2002, Report to the Senate and House Committees on the Budget, Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office.'' The second point that I will make: That does not suggest that what my friend said is not true, but it is kind of like you have to watch the pea and the shells here. The idea of these dual books, the President all along has said the economy is going to grow more robustly, has all along said that the CBO's estimates are too cabined, that things are going to be better than they say. So far he looks like he is right. But he said, ``You want me to do it according to the way you want the numbers,'' which I do not think are realistic numbers. I think they are too conservative. Business thinks they are too conservative. Everybody thinks they are too conservative except our conservative Republican friends. He said, ``OK, if that's the deal, I'll submit a budget based on that.'' And he submitted a budget based on that. Their Republican- appointed Director of the Congressional Budget Office said, ``Yeah, he submitted one on that, and it balances that way.'' It is not, then, inconsistent for the President to say, ``By the way, I submitted it,'' but basically saying, ``I am predicting to you things are going to be better than these economic forecasts called for. If it turns out the economic forecast is as bad as you all say it is going to be, then this is what we're going to have to do to balance it. I will balance it under those conditions.'' But what he is saying makes it sound sinister, this two-book thing. He is saying, ``But my prediction to you is, you won't have to do it this badly, you won't have to cut this much.'' He is not saying, ``I won't do it if the economic forecasts turn out this way.'' He is just saying, ``I don't think the economic forecasts are going to be that way.'' You know, it is kind of like my saying to my son or my daughter when they were teenagers--they say, ``Dad, I want to go away to camp, and I would like to go for 2 weeks to camp.'' I say, ``How much is camp, honey?'' They say, ``Well, it's $100 a week.'' I say, ``I don't have $200. I've got $100. We'll sign you up for camp for 1 week. You're going, but I think I'm going to find another $100, and I think before it's time to go to camp you'll get to go for 2 weeks because I think economically I'm going to find another $100. But if I don't, you only go for 1 week.'' These guys make everything sound so sinister. Like, you know, ``Well, let's find the fingerprints on budget No. 2.'' So all I am saying to you is, keep your eye on the ball. The bottom line in this budget debate, no pun intended, is the summary of the Republican-led Congressional Budget Office that says--unless they changed their mind in the last couple hours--both the Congress and the President, however, have proposed changes in policy that would balance the budget in 2002. Now, Mr. President, a number of our colleagues, including two who have just spoken, have once again attacked the President's budget as providing too little in appropriated spending. I find this a fascinating debate. They say, ``By the way, you are not going to balance the budget because you have two books. You really do not mean it. You are really going to cut something you have not told us,'' et cetera. But then they say, ``By the way, one of the reasons we do not like this President's budget is it provides too little in appropriated spending.'' They criticize the President's cuts as being too painful. It is true, the President's budget does make substantial cuts in discretionary spending. But the cuts in the Republican budget are far deeper. Over the 6 years of the budget, the Republican budget cuts appropriated spending by $68 billion more than the President's budget. In the year about which the Senator from Missouri most complains, 2002, the Republican budget cuts appropriated spending by $16 billion more than does the President's budget, using the assumptions that we are both using. If the Senator from Missouri and others find the President's budget cuts too painful, and they are painful, he must find the Republican budget positively deadly. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent two tables comparing the cuts in the Republican budget with those of the President's budget be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to proceed for 20 minutes.

Mr. BIDEN. If you let me complete, I will take 12 minutes and respond to any questions you have. I know that if I start to respond--I did not come to make the statement I just made. I am just responding to what I heard. Let me make the statement I came prepared to make and then yield to the Senator for anything he wants to say or ask. Mr. President, to state the obvious, a budget, whether it is a household budget, whether it is a company's budget, whether it is the Nation's budget, is the formal expression of our priorities as a company or as a family or as a nation. It tells us, after all the talk is over, where we decided to spend our hard-earned money. In this case, the hard-earned money of taxpayers like all of us. Unfortunately, Mr. President, the budget resolution before the Senate, in my view, fails to address the most fundamental issues before the country. It fails to take care of the basic priorities that have made our Nation great, the priorities that can help us meet the challenges of the future. Again, I think we can all agree on one thing. I used to be on the Budget Committee. I am delighted I am no longer on the Budget Committee. I was on it for a long time. When I used to be on the Budget Committee and had to give it up to move over to other committees, new members come and say, ``What do you think about getting on the Budget Committee?'' Or I speak to university groups or constituents at home and they say, ``What about the Budget Committee?'' I say that the single most important thing a new Member of the Congress can do is be a member of the Budget Committee. Just like the single most important thing you can do if you go with a big company is look at the company's budget. When all the rhetoric is gone, and everything is stripped aside, where we spend our money says volumes about what our real priorities are. If we say we care about education and do not spend money on education, then we obviously do not care about it very much. If we say we care about crime in dealing with crime and do not allocate our resources there, we do not care about it very much. If we say we care a lot about a national defense, and we do spend our money on it, it establishes we do care a lot about national defense. We say to students, if you want to know what a company really does, what a family really cares about, what a nation cares about, go look at its budget, its budget. I do not think anybody could disagree with that, have any reasonable disagreement with that. It lays out our priorities as a nation. The point I want to make in the next few minutes, I think we have in the budget before the Senate, the Republican budget, our priorities out of whack. It is not a bad budget. It is not an awful budget, not a draconian budget. We can say a lot of political things about it. The real debate on this budget is no longer about no matter what you hear people say here, we are going to balance the budget, are we committed to balance the budget; it is how we balance a budget, how we balance a budget. It is just like a family can decide if your child gets into Harvard University whether you are going to spend $25,000, meaning that you cannot buy a car for the next 4 years. Or you can buy a new car for the next 4 years and send your kid to my alma mater, the University of Delaware, which will cost $7,000. There are priorities. I happen to think a Delaware education is better than a Harvard education, but that is a personal thing. It is real important when we talk all the mumbo jumbo out of this and understand what this debate is about. It is about where we are going to spend money, and even more importantly in this environment, where we will cut. There is no way to get from here to balance under anybody's numbers, anybody's numbers, any assumptions, short of divine intervention by the Lord, without cutting. It is a question. You can measure one's value system based on how much more they spend on something, how much more they cut. When you have to cut, who do you cut it from? Do you cut it and decide you are going to cut it from your children's education and still go to the beach for 2 weeks, or are you going to decide to cut the beach and spend it on your children's education? It says something about how much a family values education. It says something about how much they value vacations. I am not making a value judgment. A vacation for one family may be more therapeutically needed than an education for another child. That is literally what it does. That is what this fight is about. That is the difference between Democrats and Republicans here. It is not that we both decided to say, ``I like being with a party that has a letter that begins earlier in the alphabet.'' That is not the reason why I am a Democrat or why my friends are Republicans. We have different priorities here. How do you best make the Nation function? I do not doubt for one second the positive patriotic intentions of my Republican colleagues. They proposed this budget not because they are mean-spirited. They proposed it because they believe this is truly the best way for the most Americans to do the best. We have a disagreement. I think America will not prosper spiritually, morally, economically, politically, as well, under their set of budget priorities than they do under mine or my parties or the President's. That is what this is about. You all are going to get the smokescreen out. ``There are a secret set of books buried somewhere in the Capitol, and in the year 2002 we will open them and you will find the fingerprints of John Q. Wilson who worked for the FBI in 1974''--what are we talking about? We should have a straight up-and-down fight. They do not want to spend as much money on education as we want to. They do not want to spend as much on the environment as we want to spend. They do not want to spend as much money in law enforcement as we do. We do not want to spend as much on defense, or as much on the wealthy as they do, and so on. They are legitimate, fundamental, disagreements. I think we should do the American people a favor. Have a referendum on what they want, which theory they buy into. My comments, the remainder of them, are directed at why I think my theory, my party's theory, my party's priorities, are better not only for average Americans but for the community of America, than are those of my Republican friends. I do not doubt their good intentions, I want to make it clear. I do not think they sit in the Cloakroom and say, ``You know, how can we make sure that John Kluge makes more money?'' Some of my left-wing friends think they sit there and say, ``Well, how are we going to get the wealthy to do better at the expense of the poor?'' I no more believe that than I think this chair can get up and levitate. They believe the way to help the poor the best is to see that those who have the most have the greatest freedom and prosperity to invest. I found that theory does not necessarily follow. I have a disagreement. Let me make it clear, lest anyone come out here. I do not question the intentions, motivation, or sincerity of any of my Republican colleagues. I think they are wrong--not morally wrong--wrong. They will not turn out as you predict. Mr. President, each year education becomes ever more important to keep our economy growing and to enable our citizens to become productive members of society. This budget in question cuts, in my view, too much from education. (Mr. BROWN assumed the chair.)

Mr. BIDEN. By eliminating the guaranteed student loan program it makes college education even more expensive, in my view. And far from increasing our commitment to a better-trained work force, the budget provides less and less money for education and training as we move into the next century. In real terms, adjusted for inflation, their budget cuts spending by $25 billion for spending in this area over the next 6 years. Look, we can argue about elementary and secondary education, we can argue about whether or not prayer in school will change it, or we can argue about whether or not spending more money in title I will change it, and we can argue about how bad off our education is. There is one thing there is no argument about. We have the best higher education system in the world--in the world. It is the only place we do not have to look at any little thing and say we rank 7th, 17th, 91st--we rank No. 1 in the world in higher education. So what are we doing? As more and more people from different countries are beating their brains out to get into our higher education system, we are--I suspect unintentionally--making it harder for Americans to get into educational institutions of higher learning. We are not arguing about the quality of that education. My Republican friends--in my State, at least--like to argue what Ronald Reagan argued: You know the best way to cure education is to spend less money on it. The one place nobody makes that argument is higher education. That is what I mean when I talk about guaranteed student loan programs. As for our country's commitment to our parents' generation, Mr. President, this budget's Medicare cuts will make health care more expensive than our proposal will. Its cuts in Medicare will make nursing home and long-term care a greater burden for families of those whose seniors depend on them. Whenever we talk about Medicare, we always talk in terms of the effect on seniors. That is not how I talk about it. Where I come from, I talk about it based on the values I was raised with. Can you imagine, I say to anybody listening here, if your mom or dad comes to you and says, ``You know, honey, under the changes taking place, I am no longer able to see Dr. Smith, and I have to do'' this, that or the other thing--can you imagine any decent child in a position to financially take care of them not saying, ``Do not worry, mom, I will pay for it.'' Who do you think is going to pay for this? Middle-class parents. The people who are 45 to 55, who have children coming up through school trying to get into higher education and have moms and dads with increasing medical bills or needs. I wonder how many Americans--men or women, husband or wife--are going to turn to their mother and father or mother-in-law and father-in-law and say, ``It is too bad that they changed the system that way. You have less money for health care, and I am not chipping in.'' This is going to increase the burden on my generation, which is getting squeezed. Now, again, I do not suggest that is why it is being done. I suggest that we have different priorities, because one of the things my friend said is that if we spend more money on education, we have to cut something else here. If we spend more money on Medicare, we have to cut something else down here. This is not a zero sum game. This is not one of these things where I can say if you buy into my proposal, you get everything. I am not saying that. This is different priorities. In my view, the place where we should be putting all of our energy is to deal with the shrinking middle class, which is getting their brains kicked in. We all acknowledge that. Mr. President, most troubling for me is the failure of this budget resolution to fully fund the most basic function of Government--that is the purpose of my being here today--which is to protect our citizens from violent crime. Mr. President, let me first review the facts that underscore just how we have come to face a budget resolution that cuts funding for the administration of justice account--that is a fancy Senate term for the money we spend on law enforcement--below what the President requested, below what the U.S. Senate has passed, and below what the House of Representatives has passed. Let me review what has gone on so far. The President requested a total of $23.5 billion for 1997, $5 billion of which is for the crime law trust fund--which I am proud to say I was the author of, along with several others--to fund the entire Justice Department, which includes the FBI, DEA, prisons, other Federal law enforcement, and the courts--they are all included. Then the House- passed budget resolution proposed by the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, by a narrow partisan vote--that sounds pejorative; I mean a narrow vote that was based on party lines--226-195; 221 Republicans voted for it, 4 against, and 190 Democrats voted against it, 5 for. What did that House budget resolution do? It cut the President's $23.5 billion request for law enforcement, and all the functions related to that, to $22.1 billion, a cut of $1.4 billion. Included in this was a $317 million cut for the crime law trust fund. That is the thing that funds all the cops--the State cops, local cops, the 100,000 cops--and that is the thing that funds prison money for States. That is the thing that funds that whole crime law. Then the Senate passed a budget resolution offered by Chairman Domenici. Unlike the House, to his credit, Chairman Domenici fully funded the $5 billion requested by the President for the crime law trust fund. But the Senate budget resolution cut the total from the administration of justice account--that is everything else--to $21.7 billion. That is a cut of $1.8 billion below what the President wants. Again, we are talking priorities here. We acknowledge that if we spend $1.8 billion more on crime than the Republicans want, we have to find $1.8 billion somewhere not to spend it. We acknowledge that. The point I am making is the priorities here. We do not think we should cut it from there. Finally, the House and the Senate Republicans offered the Senate a conference report. For those listening, that is when the House passes their bill and the Senate passes their bill on the same subject, but they are different in detail. So we have a conference and literally meet in a room in the middle of the Capitol somewhere and work out the differences. Then we send back a compromised version, called a conference report, to the House and Senate, which has to be voted on again. Now, the House and Senate Republicans offered the Senate a conference report that makes even deeper cuts than were made by either the House or the Senate in the Senate-passed resolutions to the President's request for crime-fighting dollars. The conference cuts the President's $23.5 billion to $20.9 billion, a cut of $2.6 billion. So it has gone from $1.2 to $1.8 to $2.6 billion less being spent on crime fighting. In fact, this cut would put the administration of justice account, in 1997, below the 1996 level by $45 billion. We will spend less next year than this past year if this budget resolution were to become law, if we do what it proposes. Mr. President, by the way, what happened to all the tough-on-crime rhetoric that we have been hearing from all sides--Democrats and Republicans? Neither side is immune from being shameless in talking about how tough on crime they are. It seems that the President held up his end of the bargain. He requested the largest ever annual budget for the FBI, DEA, U.S. attorneys, and help for the State and local prisons and police. But a majority of the Congress has been AWOL--absent without law enforcement leave here. If the proposed cut of $317 million for the crime law trust fund is allowed to stand, there can only be one result: Fewer Federal dollars will be able to combat crime. As my colleagues know, the general numbers of the budget resolution do not specify which programs will be cut. But it is clear that some programs, when they get to the appropriators, will have to be cut below what the President and what I and others want. What specifically might this mean? Let us just review the law enforcement efforts funded by the crime law trust fund. We fund Federal prosecutors out of that fund in the amount of $55 million; the FBI, $40 million; the DEA, $200 million; border enforcement and deportation of aliens who break the law, $525 million. By the way, we spent weeks on the floor talking about why that is so important. The violence against women efforts including more police and prosecutors and more shelters for battered women, $254 million. A billion dollars for the construction of prisons and reimbursing States from imprisoning criminal aliens. And an additional $2.6 billion is to aid State and local law enforcement. We all know there is no free lunch. So if there is a cut in the total for the trust fund, at least some of what I just read will have to be cut. It is going to be less border patrol, less efforts to combat violence against women, fewer FBI agents, fewer DEA agents. There are going to be cuts. Again, I am not questioning the motivation. I am just saying there is an honest disagreement. I think we should cut other things rather than cops, or the FBI, or prison construction. Just because I was the author of the law that this funds, I have to acknowledge that. So I lay it out. I do have a bit of an interest in it in the sense that I spent 6 years trying to get it passed, but that is not the reason alone. I think it is the single highest domestic priority we have. To review the potential impact of the total cuts of $2.6 billion, let us look at how the President proposed to spend his $23.5 billion that he proposes for the administration of justice accounts. Again, we cannot be sure specifically what will be cut, but it is clear that there will have to be significant cuts of the President's request. He wants $2.5 billion for the FBI, $818 million for the DEA, $2.2 billion to build Federal prisons and maintain them, $949 million for Federal prosecutors, $372 million for interagency drug enforcement task forces which every State in the Nation is asking for help on, and $1.7 billion for immigration enforcement. None of us can say where the cuts will have to be made, but if this budget passes, the appropriators are going to have to go out and find that money--hundreds of millions of dollars to cut from each or all of those accounts. There is no way to avoid it. None. Granted, everyone can vote for this budget, and when the FBI says, ``You voted to cut our budget,'' they say ``No, no, I didn't vote to cut your budget. The President said $2.5 billion, and I want to spend it at $2.5 billion.'' Tell me where you are going to cut the $2.7, or whatever the number is when we finish here? None of us can say where the cuts will be made, but it is clear there will have to be some significant cuts in all of these key law enforcement initiatives. Is there anyone in this Senate, though, who thinks our Nation will be better served by a smaller FBI, by a smaller DEA or fewer Federal prosecutors? I would like for them to come forward and tell me that. Again, that is a little unfair. That implies, by the way, that I said that people really want to do this. I am not even sure, if we had all the money in the world-- economic assumptions are different--that we would have little disagreement about spending all of this money. Maybe a little, particularly by some of our friends on the House side who may think that all Federal agents are jack-booted thugs and who want to cut it out and who probably think the Freemen are doing the right thing, and so on. If they exist, they are overwhelmingly in the minority. I know of none in the Senate. But what we are doing here is, we are saying this is the place we should cut more than we should cut tax exemptions for individuals. This is the place we should cut for corporations. This is the place we should cut rather than cut money for the Defense Department. That is what we are saying. That is what I have difficulty agreeing with. If there are no additional resources, no more FBI agents, no more DEA agents, no more Border Patrol, no more prosecutors, no more State and local police added to our streets, no more drug testing of offenders, no more prisons built, all the new laws we can pass will not be worth the paper we write them on. If you are going to pass tough laws and say, ``Put them in prison,'' you have to have a prison to put them in. It costs money. It even costs money to shoot them. It even costs money to hang them. It even costs money to inject them lethally. It costs money. Mr. President, this budget resolution shortchanges, in my view, the national effort against crime. I submit that this Congress could pass a new terrorism bill, or any other criminal justice reform, every single week from now until the end of the session, but if it does not require more agents, nor more law enforcement officers, nor more Border Patrol, nor more prisons, nor more prosecutors, it ain't worth a darn. But this is not the only reason I urge my colleagues to vote against this budget resolution. America became a great economic power because we developed an educational system. Any hope we have to maintain our Nation as the world's most productive economy depends on our willingness to commit resources to our workers for the skills which they need. Ours is a great country because we respect the contributions of those who have gone before us--our parents' generation who made us into a leader of the free world. We committed to support them. We committed to support what they have done to guarantee them the health care they need and deserve. We made that commitment. We made the commitment not only because they are parents but for what they did to build this country. Americans everywhere want and deserve clean air and clean water and not backing off. All this stuff, by the way, about the environment, I just want to say again what I said several times before. I have not had a single, solitary Delawarian come to me and say, ``You know, Biden, you are spending too much money on determining whether or not my water is clean. I don't want you paying that much attention to it.'' I have not heard one single, solitary Delawarian come to me say, ``Biden, you are spending too much money on monitoring whether or not the water in my State is clean.'' It seems to say, to me, that is what the American people, the Delaware people, want their money spent on: clean air and clean water. We do not spend enough in this budget on those things. On each and every one of these fundamental priorities--fighting crime, educating our children, particularly higher education, caring for our elderly, and protecting the environment--I believe this well- intended resolution fails to take care of the most important priorities that have been made by us in past generations, and continue to be the priorities we all say we care about, priorities that help us meet the challenge of the future. Mr. President, education, crime, caring for our elderly, and protecting the environment are the priorities upon which we do not disagree on whether we should do them. I want to make it clear again. I am not suggesting that there is any Republican who does not want to protect the elderly, have clean air and water, have a good education system, and fight crime. I am suggesting that the tools they have given us to do those things in this budget are not sufficient, and they give more than is needed for other areas which should not be priorities. If, in fact, we had all the money in the world, we will not have to make these hard choices. But, ultimately, a budget is about deciding what you think is most important, and today we measure ``most important'' by what we do not cut as much as something else. I think their priorities are not the ones that I would like to see. And, therefore, I will urge my colleagues to vote against the budget resolution. I see the distinguished manager on the Democratic side is here. I yield the floor. I thank my colleagues. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, since 1987, when I first proposed an overhaul of the welfare system, I have argued that welfare recipients should be required to work. Nine years later, America is still in need of fundamental welfare reform. So, today, Mr. President, Senator Specter and I are introducing the Bipartisan Welfare Reform Act of 1996--the Senate companion to legislation introduced in April by Representatives Mike Castle and John Tanner and 30 moderate House Members from both parties. Let me briefly review how we got to this point and why we are taking this action. Last September, the Senate passed a bipartisan welfare reform bill by an overwhelming vote of 87-12. I voted for that bill, and President Clinton said he could sign it. Since then, however, polarizing partisanship and Presidential politics have permeated this issue. And, the result has been paralysis. Nothing has been accomplished. In an attempt to break the gridlock, last February, the Nation's Governors--led by my Governor, Tom Carper--proposed a bipartisan welfare reform bill. In April, Representatives Castle and Tanner and a group of other moderates wrote what I believe is a first-rate bipartisan welfare reform plan. No such bipartisan plan to date has been introduced in the Senate. And, as this issue will be back before us again soon, Senator Specter and I decided that now is the time--and the Castle-Tanner proposal is the bill to move us forward. What this bill proposes, in and of itself, is not new. What is new is that it is being proposed all together in a bipartisan fashion. For that, Representative Castle and Senator Specter deserve great applause. They are reaching across the aisle to do what the American people sent us to Congress to do--work together to solve the problems facing this country. And, again, I think the bill we are introducing today is a first-rate bill. To highlight the basic principles: there would be a 5-year time limit on receiving welfare benefits. After 2 years, welfare recipients would be required to work--at least 25 hours per week. And, child care would be available, so that children are not left home alone while their mothers are working. The bill would make getting tough on the deadbeat dads who do not pay child support as high a priority as getting tough on the welfare moms. And, the bill takes steps to crack down on welfare--particularly food stamp--fraud. This will all sound familiar to those who have followed this debate. And, as I said a moment ago, it is. For the principles have never been in doubt--almost everyone agrees on them. You see, what has been lost in the shuffle and shouting of the last 10 months is that there is a great deal of common ground on welfare reform. So much so, that if you leave behind the politics and the partisanship, a tough, bipartisan welfare reform bill is easily within reach. I think this is that bill. But, if not, it is awfully darn close. Let me just mention a couple of examples of bipartisan compromise. For Republicans, the bill converts aid to families with dependent children--AFDC-- to a block grant to the States. For Democrats, it more adequately invests in child care. For Republicans, the bill freezes funding for cash welfare payments. For Democrats, it provides additional help to those States faced with economic downturns. For Republicans, the bill imposes a family cap. For Democrats, it gives States flexibility to opt out. Is this bill exactly how I would have written a bill on my own in the solitude of my office? The answer is no. But, if we are going to move forward, we must stop insisting that there be a perfect bill or no bill at all. It is time to say that we do not care who gets credit for reforming welfare. It is time to just do it--in a bipartisan fashion--for the sake of the American people and for the sake of the people on welfare. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor the Biden-Specter Bipartisan Welfare Reform Act, and I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the bill prepared by Representative Tanner be included in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, since 1987, when I first proposed an overhaul of the welfare system, I have argued that welfare recipients should be required to work. Nine years later, America is still in need of fundamental welfare reform. So, today, Mr. President, Senator Specter and I are introducing the Bipartisan Welfare Reform Act of 1996--the Senate companion to legislation introduced in April by Representatives Mike Castle and John Tanner and 30 moderate House Members from both parties. Let me briefly review how we got to this point and why we are taking this action. Last September, the Senate passed a bipartisan welfare reform bill by an overwhelming vote of 87-12. I voted for that bill, and President Clinton said he could sign it. Since then, however, polarizing partisanship and Presidential politics have permeated this issue. And, the result has been paralysis. Nothing has been accomplished. In an attempt to break the gridlock, last February, the Nation's Governors--led by my Governor, Tom Carper--proposed a bipartisan welfare reform bill. In April, Representatives Castle and Tanner and a group of other moderates wrote what I believe is a first-rate bipartisan welfare reform plan. No such bipartisan plan to date has been introduced in the Senate. And, as this issue will be back before us again soon, Senator Specter and I decided that now is the time--and the Castle-Tanner proposal is the bill to move us forward. What this bill proposes, in and of itself, is not new. What is new is that it is being proposed all together in a bipartisan fashion. For that, Representative Castle and Senator Specter deserve great applause. They are reaching across the aisle to do what the American people sent us to Congress to do--work together to solve the problems facing this country. And, again, I think the bill we are introducing today is a first-rate bill. To highlight the basic principles: there would be a 5-year time limit on receiving welfare benefits. After 2 years, welfare recipients would be required to work--at least 25 hours per week. And, child care would be available, so that children are not left home alone while their mothers are working. The bill would make getting tough on the deadbeat dads who do not pay child support as high a priority as getting tough on the welfare moms. And, the bill takes steps to crack down on welfare--particularly food stamp--fraud. This will all sound familiar to those who have followed this debate. And, as I said a moment ago, it is. For the principles have never been in doubt--almost everyone agrees on them. You see, what has been lost in the shuffle and shouting of the last 10 months is that there is a great deal of common ground on welfare reform. So much so, that if you leave behind the politics and the partisanship, a tough, bipartisan welfare reform bill is easily within reach. I think this is that bill. But, if not, it is awfully darn close. Let me just mention a couple of examples of bipartisan compromise. For Republicans, the bill converts aid to families with dependent children--AFDC-- to a block grant to the States. For Democrats, it more adequately invests in child care. For Republicans, the bill freezes funding for cash welfare payments. For Democrats, it provides additional help to those States faced with economic downturns. For Republicans, the bill imposes a family cap. For Democrats, it gives States flexibility to opt out. Is this bill exactly how I would have written a bill on my own in the solitude of my office? The answer is no. But, if we are going to move forward, we must stop insisting that there be a perfect bill or no bill at all. It is time to say that we do not care who gets credit for reforming welfare. It is time to just do it--in a bipartisan fashion--for the sake of the American people and for the sake of the people on welfare. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor the Biden-Specter Bipartisan Welfare Reform Act, and I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the bill prepared by Representative Tanner be included in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, more than a decade ago, when budget deficits were first becoming a way of life around here, I proposed a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. Since then I have voted for several other versions of a balanced budget amendment, including the one before us today. This is not a commitment I have undertaken lightly. This is the ultimate step we can take to safeguard future generations from irresponsible budget policies. On those grounds, I believe that making deficit finance a more difficult decision is an appropriate issue for consideration as part of our country's fundamental law. But the practical reasons for this amendment are also compelling. The threat to the future of our country, and the damage that accumulating deficits are doing right now, are sufficiently serious to warrant this ultimate step. The effects of mounting debt and deficits on the future of our country will be profound. Right now, the Federal debt held by the public--the accumulation of our annual deficits--totals more than $3.6 trillion. This year the interest we will pay on our accumulated borrowing will be $240 billion. By the year 2002, the target year for balancing the budget under the amendment before us, interest alone will total $311 billion, and will cost us more than we will spend on the total defense budget, more than we will spend on every domestic function of government, from fighting crime to building roads. Accumulating debt at this pace is simply unsustainable--it will radically reduce the choices that future Congresses, representing future generations of Americans, can make. By continuing to accumulate debt, we are forging chains that will bind those who follow us. We are buying a little extra time to avoid those hard choices by dumping them into the future. At the same time, because concern for the deficit is driving so much of our thinking right now, we are short-changing the kinds of programs that may provide long-term payoffs, that could make us all better off in the future, but that are increasingly squeezed out of the budget. Just look what is happening to our investments in education, in research, in cleaner air and water, in safer working conditions. These represent our legacy to the future; they will determine--for better or for worse--the kind of country we pass along to our children and grandchildren. But in the current budget climate, we are slighting these priorities in the race to find short-term savings. Mr. President, I have watched for years as accumulating deficits have changed the face of our budget process. I have watched the policies that provide essential support for those who need it the most. They include my parents' generation, who won a war for us, and built the greatest economy in the world. We have made moral commitments to them, commitments I came to Washington to keep. And our children--the future of our country--will be shortchanged by budget policies that cut investments in education, research, health care. Mr. President, there is much merit in the argument that we should return more authority and responsibility to State and local governments, that we should return the power to make decisions and the resources to carry them out to the neighborhoods and communities that know their problems best. But we cannot lose sight of the reasons that led our Founding Fathers to establish a national government--the kinds of issues that cut across city and county lines, that cut across State and regional boundaries, issues that affect us all as Americans. Unfortunately, it is also those priorities that are now under attack in our deficit-driven budget process. I am talking about the air and water pollution that drifts and flows over State lines. I am talking about the safety of food and drugs sold by national and multinational corporations. I am talking about the safety and reliability of our rail and airline systems. All of these essential functions of our national Government have been under severe spending restrictions--virtually a spending freeze--since 1990. Under the current budgets of both the administration and the Republican majority in Congress, these priorities will continue under tight restraints. Now, Mr. President, over a decade ago I proposed, along with Senators Kassebaum and Grassley, a freeze on all spending programs, to provide some breathing space for us reconsider the course we were on. Well, of course we did not impose that freeze, and for almost a decade we did not undertake a fundamental change in our budgets--and the results are all too clear. But 3 years ago, Mr. President, we took the first steps toward restoring some balance to our national finances. We passed a $500 billion deficit reduction package that has produced 4 straight years of deficit reduction for the first time since the end of World War II. Unlike so many of the promises made here in Washington, Mr. President, the benefits of that plan were even greater than advertised. Because of the lower interest rates that serious deficit reduction permitted, the economy has grown fast enough to reduce the deficit to the tune of $846 billion less than it would have been. That's right, Mr. President, our national debt would be $846 billion higher if we had listened to those voices who tried to scare us out of taking the first real steps to bring the deficit under control. That experience might have been encouraging--we could accomplish real, significant deficit reduction and be rewarded with lower interest rates and stronger economic growth. But instead, the political response to that success has been a ceaseless stream of recriminations for those of us who voted for that historic budget plan. So in many ways we are worse off than before, Mr. President. The lesson many will take away from recent budget debates is that the tough choices to reduce the deficit will get you little credit and a lot of blame. And as is increasingly the case, we see that the goal of a balanced budget--years out there, over the horizon--seems dim and vague compared to promises to throw tens of billions of dollars on exotic weapons systems, or on continued corporate welfare, or tax breaks for a wealthy few. That is why I am still convinced that we must take the final step to close the door on the era of uncontrolled deficit spending. We must send the balanced budget amendment to the States--to the people of the United States--for their approval. Without this additional constraint on our budget process, I am afraid that we will find the old ways of doing business too easy, too attractive, to give up. It is my belief that only when we have asserted control over our budget once again will we be able to conduct a meaningful debate on our real national priorities. Until then, the short-term, bottom line calculations will continue to drive the budget process. Mr. President, that if we had taken control over the budget before, if we had found the discipline to make the tough choices, we would not have seen the erosion in support for those priorities that led me into public life. I want to restore balance to our Nation's finances, Mr. President, but just as importantly, I want to restore some balance to our priorities.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, it seems to be ``deja vu all over again'' to quote Yogi Berra--last year we had to fight an effort on the House side to slash funds for the crime law trust fund, and it looks like we are going to have to do the same this year. The amendment which I propose today gives the entire Senate the opportunity to express its support for full funding of the violent crime control trust fund enacted in the 1994 crime law. Let me point out that the Senate budget resolution offered by Chairman Domenici does the right thing on the trust fund--Chairman Domenici fully funds the President's $5 billion request for the trust fund for 1997. This recognizes that the $5 billion for the trust fund is already paid for by the reduction of the Federal work force by 272,000 employees. The problem is that the budget resolution proposed by the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives which passed just last week by a narrow, partisan vote of 226 to 195--221 Republicans voted for it, 4 against; 190 Democrats voted against, 5 voted for it--cut the President's $5 billion request for the trust fund by $300 million. This is less than the $900 million cut that had been proposed by the Republican leadership of the House--but this is still a significant cut that I must oppose. If the House proposed cut of $300 million is allowed to stand there can be only one result--fewer Federal dollars will be available to combat crime. As my colleagues know, the general numbers of the budget resolution do not specify which programs will be cut--but it is clear that some programs must be cut. What specifically might this mean? Let us just review the law enforcement efforts funded by the crime law trust fund: Federal prosecutors, $55 million; FBI, $40 million; DEA, $200 million; border enforcement and deporting aliens who break the law, $525 million; violence against women efforts including more police and prosecutors and more shelters for battered women, $254 million; $1 billion for constructing prisons and reimbursing States for imprisoning criminal aliens; and an additional $2.6 billion to aid State and local law enforcement--whether it is through the 100,000 Cops Program I favor or the block grant favored by the other side, I do not believe that any Senator favors a smaller total for State and local law enforcement. We all know there is no free lunch--so if there is a cut in the total for the trust fund, at least some of the pieces of the trust fund must be cut. For that reason, I call upon the entire Senate to go on record as opposing the House cut to the President's $5 billion request for the crime law trust fund. But, let me also point out that even if we pass the resolution I am offering today, and even if the House Republican majority ultimately agrees to fully fund the President's request for the trust fund--even if all that happens, a massive shortfall in the President's request for crime fighting resources will still have been made by the budget resolutions adopted by the Republican majority. To quickly review the facts on the total ``administration of justice'' account--compare what the Senate and House budget resolutions offer for the non-trust fund portion of the ``administration of justice'' account that pays for the entire Justice Department--FBI, DEA, prisons, everything--and the courts: Billion President request.................................................$18.5 House budget resolution............................................17,4 Senate budget resolution...........................................16.7 These are massive cuts--the House proposes to slash the President's request for crime fighting dollars by $1.1 billion; the Senate proposes a cut $1.8 billion. What happened to all this ``tough on crime'' rhetoric we have been hearing from all sides? It seems that the President held up his end of the bargain--requesting the largest-ever annual budget for the FBI, DEA, U.S. attorneys, and help for State and local prisons and police. But, the Congress controlled by the other party has been ``AWOL--absent without law enforcement.'' Unless there is a major change to restore these funds when the House and Senate budget conferees meet--we can expect but one result when the appropriators develop their bills later this year. Massive cuts in Federal law enforcement because the appropriators will have no choice-- if we shrink the budget pie for law enforcement, there is no way to provide all the slices. It is just that simple. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment I am offering on behalf of myself, and Senators Leahy, Kohl, and Hatch.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I will be happy to.

Mr. BIDEN. I ask unanimous consent that I be able to proceed for up to 5 minutes on an amendment No. 3985.

Mr. BIDEN. Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, this is the amendment to which the Senator from Minnesota spoke relating to the tax deductibility for up to $10,000 for higher education payments. A number of us have introduced separate--and some together--bills and sense-of-the-Senate resolutions to accomplish just that. The President I believe in his State of the Union called for such treatment. I would just like to reiterate what my friend from Minnesota said. First of all, this is only a resolution. I wish it were an up-or-down vote on a legislative initiative to change the tax law to allow parents and/or students to deduct up to $10,000 of the costs of a college education. That is the cost which most people are focusing in on. But, it is not just 4-year colleges. It can be a 2-year college. It can be a postgraduate undertaking. I hear my friends--and I know that the Presiding Officer is younger than I am but we are not that very far off, the four of us on the floor here--I hear people of our generation say how they worked their way through college. I worked my way through college. I was able to get some financial help and some scholarship money as well as help from my parents. But I worked my way through college. But do you know what? The minimum wage was $1.25 cents, and the total cost to attend our State university, the University of Delaware, was $325 a semester for tuition. You could work your way through college if you were willing to work. It always fascinates me when I hear people my age--I am now 53--talk about, ``Why don't they do what we did--work our way through school?'' because now the minimum wage is under $4.50 an hour. And to go to that same great university, my alma mater, is going to cost them about $6,000 if they are an in-State student. If you are unfortunate enough to have children like many of us do here who decide--and are able--to go to an institution other than the State institution which I attended, you will find that their tuition and room and board is $25,000 a year, if they go to Georgetown University, which one of my sons attended, or to Yale where another son is. That is $25,000 a year. We do not all go there. Most of us, as in my case, could not get there. I am very proud of my State university, and proud of having gone there. But the truth of the matter is when my dad and mom were helping me get there, and I was working my way through, the median family required only something on the order of less than 3 to 4 percent of its income to send someone to college. Now we are talking about almost 9 to 10 percent. If they are going to go to a private institution, it can be well over 50 percent. So you cannot work your way through college any more in 4 years on a minimum-wage job. You cannot do it. So an awful lot of students, including even many of our children--and we are in relative terms more affluent than the average American--have loans. My colleague, the former professor, knows more about this than I do. I heard him quote the statistic that we have flipped. It used to be that most of the money people got to go to college were grants, and a minority were loans. Now they are almost all loans and a minority are grants. I realize, even if this resolution passes, it is not going to change the law. But maybe it will put us on record of doing something that is long overdue, just as we give businesses a tax break for investing in new machinery and new plant and equipment because it generates economic growth--I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 2 more minutes.

Mr. BIDEN. It is sound policy to say to a business that, ``If you invest in this new piece of machinery, it will increase productivity, you will end up hiring more people, and it will generate income.'' That is going to increase the economic growth of the Nation. It makes sense to do that. Well, there is nothing that increases the economic growth of this Nation more than investing in the higher education of our children. It is getting increasingly difficult for young men and women like me who come from a middle-income household--I guess technically lower middle-income, but a middle-income household--to be able to go off to college. It is just getting very, very, very hard. If my father were making the money he made then now, he would be making about $34,000 a year, if I am not mistaken. He had four children he sent to college. How do you send four children to the State university--the State university--on $34,000 a year? My father, it seems to me, and my mother and their counterparts today--my dad is now 80--think that college education is the single most important legacy, other than our religion, other than our Catholicism, in my case. The single most important thing my parents wanted to leave with me was to have a college education, which they did not have. It is getting awfully hard for people to do it. I think this is a sound investment. I think it is just. I know it is almost oratory if it is only a resolution, but it increases the prospects that we will find the wherewithal to go on record and actually change the law. So I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I thank my friend from Minnesota for his leadership. I realize he says this is bipartisan. I heard this idea generated from my Republican colleagues as well as my Democratic colleagues. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank the manager. I was going to respond very, very briefly to the Senator from Michigan who just spoke about the violent crime trust fund. As the author of that trust fund, I am saying I am delighted to see so many Republicans coming aboard now, having voted against the establishment of that fund. I agree what the House did was outrageous and the proposals to cut the violent crime trust fund are equally outrageous. I want to point out, I want to remind everybody how we funded that. The Senator from Texas, Senator Gramm, was a cosponsor of the funding of that. We cut it by agreeing to do what none of the previous Presidents had done, cut the Federal work force by 272,000 people: No new taxes. No new taxes. We funded it for 6 years. Now I welcome the support for the trust fund and the recognition of the need for it, the recognition it may make sense to extend it beyond the 6 years for which we authorized it. The fact of the matter is, when I introduced that legislation and it was passed with six Republican votes--excuse my reference to partisanship here, but I find everybody is cutting the COPS program, they come and cut the prevention programs, there are fights on the floor here under the Republican leadership to cut the violence-against-women legislation--now I have Republican leadership talking about not only liking the trust fund but wanting to extend it another 2 years. I think that is a very worthwhile thing to do. I hope, if there is a genuine intent to do that, we will first make sure you all sign on and we are not going to cut the trust fund now. We did not fully fund the crime bill trust fund, which is now the crime law trust fund, last year to the extent that there was money in the trust fund in 1996. The House did not fully fund the trust fund this year. We did not and are not fully funding it. The money is there. We are not spending any money that had not had the nickel dropped in the box. You take a worker's paycheck who no longer works for the Federal Government and you put it in the box and you hire a cop, you build a prison cell, you go out and deal with a serious prevention program like the drug courts, you go out and make sure you build more boys clubs and girls clubs. So, I hope we are all singing from the same page here and that is that, A, by definition, the crime bill must be pretty good if we are extending the trust fund; B, if we are going to extend the trust fund another 2 years we should spend all that is in the trust fund for its stated purposes; and, C, I hope we are not going to decide we are going to keep kids out of crime, and trouble, and the drug stream by taking away the WIC program or taking away other programs to fund the COPS. There are better ways to do it. But I am anxious and willing and delighted that there is the support for the full funding of the trust fund and the extension of the trust fund. I yield the floor.