Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. This offset is not designed to create hunger among children. I would point out to my colleague from Minnesota that if he were here earlier, he would have seen the drastic slashes that the President's budget proposes in the feeding program for women, infants, and children. This is a program devoted to providing vitally needed nutrition.

Mr. BOND. Since the Senator from----

Mr. BOND. This is the President's proposed spending on women, infants, and children. This drops off the cliff. We propose to continue to fund it.

Mr. BOND. I will be happy to yield. I relinquish my time, and I will be happy to yield the time on the other side.

Mr. BOND. I also would note that the American Legion, in a letter to me dated May 10, 1996, states: After reviewing President's Clinton's FY `97 budget proposal for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the American Legion is deeply disturbed with the outyear funding levels recommended. They conclude by saying: The American Legion strongly believes there are acceptable alternatives Congress should seriously consider before turning its back on American veterans and their families. Mr. President, that is simply what is at issue here. Are we going to turn our backs on veterans, or are we going to make some responsible choices and say it is time to get serious about welfare reform and make sure we put people to work and use some of the funds that we save to ensure that we care for our Nation's veterans, the elderly, the sick, the war-injured, the medically indigent who need our help and care.

Mr. BOND. I say to my friend, we are proposing in the reconciliation numbers, if you will look at the copy of the amendment, which is not very descriptive unless you have the whole document with you, and I assure him that these change the numbers for reconciliation so that in the reconciliation process----

Mr. BOND. The Finance Committee will have to make the changes to come up with the numbers which show the actual reforms made. We, on the Budget Committee, cannot make those reforms. The Finance Committee has to make those reforms. This will give them the same directions that the current Budget Committee report, now on the Senate floor, makes.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I thank and congratulate my colleague from Tennessee. Senator Frist has put his finger on the real problem in this budget. The President, in his budget, has glowing words, as several of my colleagues on the other side have, about the priorities that they think are important. The President has said that we must invest in education and training, the environment, science and technology, law enforcement, and other priorities. But, as I pointed out earlier today, when it comes to making these sets of numbers balance out, they have a meat ax, a paint-by-numbers meat ax that whacks 10 percent out of all of those budgets in 2001, and 18 percent in 2002. Now, are you for the priorities? If so, this is an opportunity to vote for some honesty in budgeting. The President has claimed he gets to balance. I think most of the people in this body say we want to get to balance. But do we really want to get to balance by taking the drastic cuts that my colleague from Tennessee has just talked about? I talked earlier this morning about the cuts in NIH, National Institutes of Health, FDA. Yesterday, I talked about the serious cuts that would happen to the Environmental Protection Agency if you apply this meat ax arbitrarily in 2001 and 2002, because the President's numbers do not add up, unless you have the meat ax. What the Senator from Tennessee is saying is, if you are serious about this budget, serious about reporting a responsible budget that gets to balance, let us take a look at what your budget, as now proposed, would actually do. It savages some of the very programs the President said he wants to promote and defend on the way to a balanced budget. Well, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, if you are serious about establishing priorities, if you really believe that numbers do not lie, if you believe that budgets should say what they mean and mean what they say, let us get rid of the arbitrary cuts in NIH, funding for the Women, Infants and Children Program, funding for child care, funding for the National Science Foundation, and NASA, and, yes, funding for the Veterans' Administration. My distinguished colleague who has had experience in working with the Veterans, Administration knows how compelling the needs of those veterans are. I have visited facilities and talked with people who are finding that the problems in those Veterans' Administration facilities cannot be dealt with. If we follow this meat ax budget approach, we would be closing more than one out of four veterans' facilities in the Nation. That means, as I said, California, with 11 hospitals, would lose 3, or probably 4. Our friends from California might want to tell us which of these four hospitals would be closed; and Florida, with six facilities, would probably lose at least one, maybe two; Illinois, with six, would also lose one or two; Massachusetts, at least one; Missouri, at least one; New York, at least three, and probably four; Pennsylvania, at least two, and probably three; Texas, at least two; Ohio, at least one. Do we arbitrarily want to close all of these facilities because we do not want to meet our obligations to the men and women who have defended this country who are either injured in war or who are now medically indigent? I cannot believe that is a serious budget proposal. If my colleagues really want to pursue the President's budget and defend his priority, then I urge them to vote for the Frist resolution so that they can go back and make some intelligent decisions rather than taking a meat ax to the very programs the President said he wants as his priorities. His program would slash environment, children, education, and health care for veterans. Mr. President, that is not acceptable. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment which I think is very well considered presented by the Senator from Tennessee. Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. If we can start afresh, let me thank my distinguished colleague from Washington and warn my good friend from Nebraska that I am going to agree with him. I know that maybe this will help the process move along. But we have before us the President's budget. This is a massive work that would cost about a hundred dollars if you want to buy it. It has the numbers in here that the President proposes. Mr. President, in one sense, the Senator from Washington is right. The numbers here do not balance. The numbers in the book do not come to balance. Now, the President has done something in this budget. You have to look at the supplement to see what he has done. He said, if it does not work, I have a trigger. On page 13, it says, ``In case the new assumptions produce a deficit in 2002, the President's budget proposes an immediate adjustment to the annual limit, or caps on discretionary spending, lowering them enough to reach balance in 2002.'' I agree with the Senator from Nebraska. When you impose those caps, the President's budget does come to balance in 2002. I am not going to call that automatic cut a gimmick, or that trigger a gimmick. Let us just take it for what it does. The President has presented a budget, and he said if it does not balance, you take a whack at it. Well, that whack is a $16 billion tax increase on families in the year 2002. It is a $67 billion cut in spending, 10 percent in 2001 and 18 percent in 2002. So when you take a look at all these numbers, remember that these numbers do not balance. You have to apply the trigger. You have to shoot that budget down to get it to balance. I am going to show you what that does to some of these discretionary spending programs. I hope that my colleagues, before they vote on the President's budget, will understand the impact of these cuts triggered because the President claims he wants to get to a balanced budget. Now, that may sound kind of complicated. Let me reduce it to common, everyday terms. It is as if you went to the grocery store and you filled up your basket; you gathered all the things you needed and all the things you wanted. You took it to the checkout counter, and the clerk ran it up at the checkout counter, and all those bar scanner codes recorded the numbers. At the end, the bill comes out to be $100. You look in your wallet and you say, ``Whoops, I only have $80.'' You have $100 worth of wishes and wants, but you only have $80. So you are going to have to start putting some things back. So you put $20 worth of stuff back, and you pay your $80 and take the goods home. Well, when we talk about the budget that the President proposes, let us talk about that $80 that he is actually going to spend. Do not be misled if somebody talks about the $100 he wants. Do not be misled about the tax cuts because there is going to be a $16 billion increase for individuals and families. There will be a $16 billion tax increase for families in 2002 because, unless you do that, these numbers do not add up. Mr. President, the point I made yesterday and the day before is that numbers do not lie. Let us take a look at the numbers. Mr. President, I think it is important that we take a look at some of the vital impacts on health and children in this. I mentioned yesterday the Food and Drug Administration. The budget we have before us reported out of the Senate Budget Committee essentially keeps funding for the Food and Drug Administration on an even keel. The Food and Drug Administration is vitally important because its diverse responsibilities include licensing blood banks, monitoring clinical investigations, reviewing and approving prescription drugs, generic drugs, animal drugs, vaccines, biologicals, medical devices, and food additives. The FDA ensures the quality of a trillion dollars worth of products. This year it proposes to certify over 10,000 mammography facilities across the country--vital to the health and well-being of our country. What happens when the President applies that trigger, those caps, those cuts to the FDA? Look at this red line that shows the dramatic reduction in funding for the FDA from almost $900 million to under $700 million in 2001 only coming up above $700 million in 2002. This is a tremendous cut in the vitally important activities of the Food and Drug Administration. I mentioned yesterday the National Institutes of Health looking for new cures, new ways of dealing with the diseases. The President has a nice little blip up here. But when he gets over to get to balance and you apply the trigger, you take the cuts, you take the whacks, that funding drops off the map. It goes from almost $12.5 billion to below $11 billion, $1.5 billion cut year to year from 2,000 to 2002--$1.5 billion. Are we going to have all the answers to health and well-being? Are we going to still need the National Institutes of Health? I think so. We cannot afford the cuts that the President proposed. We are dealing with real numbers. This is what would happen, if you believed the President and if you believed this budget will get to balance. Child care and development block grant. I was very pleased to work with my colleague from Connecticut on the act for better child care. We turned it into a development block grant because we recognized the importance of assisting working families with care for their children. The President has a little upswing this year. This is an election year, of course. But then look what happens. From over $1 billion, about $1.5 billion, this thing drops off the cliff to about $800 million in the year 2002--almost a $250 million cut in child care because of the President's trigger. Do we really want to say to people who are trying to get off welfare, ``Hey. Get off welfare this year. We are going to assist you with your child care expenses. But sorry about the ensuing years. There is not going to be the money there.'' That is what the President's budget does. That is if you implement the mechanism the Senator from Nebraska rightly pointed out is in the President's budget. That is how it gets to a balance. WIC, funding for women, infants, and children. We both support this at least in the early years. The President's line goes up. The Republican line goes up. But, whoops. The President had said he wants to balance the budget. So you fire the gun, you put on the cap, you pull the trigger, and what happens to funding for women, infants, and children? It goes, in his budget, from over $4.2 billion down to about $3.7 billion. This is a significant cut. If you believe and advocate and want to stand up for the President's budget, you have to be willing to say, ``Hey. We are going to get to balance in the year 2002 by taking this much of a whack out of the feeding program for women, infants, and children.'' Mr. President, I do not believe that is going to happen. That is not a realistic budget. But the President is standing by that budget. Anybody who votes for it says, ``I am voting for it. I believe in it.'' If you vote for the President's budget, then, Mr. President, you have to be saying, ``I believe these numbers, and I will support these numbers.'' I have talked a good deal about the Veterans' Administration because that happens to be one of the vital functions that is funded in the appropriations subcommittee which I chair. The Veterans' Administration budget has been very contentious. Last year we had a floor amendment, an amendment sponsored by the Senator from West Virginia, Senator Rockefeller, and Senators Mikulski, Leahy, and Wellstone. They said, if we kept an even spending level, we would have to close four veterans hospitals. The Republican budget has even funding. This cuts almost $13 billion--25 percent. That means that one out of four facilities, or more, in the United States would have to be closed. Here are the States with veterans facilities. Florida has 6, Massachusetts has 5, New York has 13, and California has 11. One out of four--that means California is going to have three, four, or five closed. The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer] was complaining that we did not open a hospital last year. The question is, Which of these is going to be cut? Mr. President, the budget provided by the President is not workable. Those numbers do not lie.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a vote on or in relation to the Grassley amendment occur at 6:55, and the time between now and then be equally divided.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, my sincere thanks to the acting floor manager and to the Chair. A comment was made a few minutes ago when I was on the floor that maybe some of the newer Members of the Senate did not really understand how we have to balance the budget in the Federal Government. I am one who is not new around here, and I would like to say that I appreciate very much the interest and enthusiasm and commitment brought by the acting floor manager, the previous speaker, the Senator from Minnesota; the previous acting floor manager, the Senator from Tennessee; and the occupant of the chair, a junior colleague from Missouri, all of whom have shown great dedication to the need to balance the budget and to come to this body without any preconceived notions that the old ways are the only way we can do it. Frankly, we have broken new ground. I do a little bit of sowing of seeds, and I know how difficult it is to break new ground. If you have tried breaking up sod that has not been broken up before, you realize that is not an easy task. We have benefited a great deal by the fact that we brought in people and we have in this body new Members who represent their constituents and who believe, as our constituents overwhelmingly do, that there is no reason why the old way of spending more and more than the Federal Government takes in is good enough for the future. Mr. President, we have put $5 trillion of debt on the backs of our children. Each year's deficit, if it is running $100 or $200 billion, adds to that debt. The interest rates build up, and our children are going to be looking at a time when they are working to pay tax dollars that could go almost exclusively to pay interest on the debt that our generation has run up because we are unable to balance the budget. Today, we are involved in what I consider to be maybe not the most exciting but perhaps the most important series of discussions and debates we have had on this floor. How do we get our national budget back on track? How do we ensure that continuing deficits do not bankrupt the Federal Government, do not allow vital programs, like Medicare part A, to go broke and do not ruin the economy by bringing back high rates of inflation, stagflation, high unemployment, and stagnating wages? It is very important that we be clear and that our colleagues and the people we serve understand what we are talking about. My good friend from Nebraska, the ranking member on the Democratic side on the Budget Committee, has said that there is little difference between the numbers in the Senate committee-passed budget and the President's budget. He gave us the admonition, ``Let's be honest,'' and I agree with him. I do not agree on the numbers that he presents, but I agree with him on the need to be honest. We both agree on the need for the St. Louis Cardinals to improve their record, but that is for another day's discussion. We do have many things in common, just a different set of figures that we are using. What we are working from are two different sets of numbers. I came to this floor yesterday with the very simple proposition that numbers do not lie. Or do they? It is the numbers that count. We heard in the 1992 campaign, ``It's the economy, stupid,'' but when you are talking about the budget, it is the numbers that count. The President and his staff and the Office of Management and Budget have given us the numbers to work with. This is the budget supplement; this is the appendix. This has all the numbers the President is recommending. This puts forward the President's priorities. They are different from the priorities that have been included in the numbers in the budget passed by the Senate Budget Committee. Even though some may say they are close, I think there are very significant differences. That is why we have these debates. We do have an independent scorekeeper to keep us honest. I well remember President Clinton's stirring call in 1993 at the State of the Union Message that we needed to find a way that we could agree on what our proposals did, and he said we should use the Congressional Budget Office as the independent, objective professional scorekeeper, and that is what we have done. In the budget proposal passed out of the Budget Committee under the direction of Chairman Domenici, we have produced a budget that reaches balance, according to CBO, in the year 2002. The President sent us initially a budget which he obviously was not sure whether it was going to get to balance, because in his budget message, he included some fail-safe mechanisms. There is nothing wrong with fail-safe mechanisms, but when it comes to the point that you have to use these fail-safe mechanisms, it is important to recognize what they do. In this book, ``Budget Supplement: A Vision for the Future,'' page 13, it says: In case the new assumptions produce a deficit in 2002, the President's budget proposes an immediate adjustment to the annual limits or caps on discretionary spending, lowering them enough to reach balance in 2002. The President is committed not only to proposing a budget that reaches balance according to CBO, but reaching an agreement with Congress to enact such a budget. I think that is very forthright and that is good. The problem is that the numbers presented by the President to CBO do not really reach a balance in the year 2002. There are almost $77 billion in cuts or increases in revenue that have to be made in the final years to get to a balance. So the CBO, in scoring the President's budget, has assumed what the President put into his budget, and that is, he will put a tax increase for families in it, as well as a $53 billion cut in discretionary spending outlays in the years 2001 and 2002. Let us be very clear about it. The President's budget has said, if CBO does not score us as reaching balance, then here are the automatic steps that must be taken to get to balance. CBO found, in fact, the budget did not get to balance; therefore, CBO said, we will impose the cuts he proposed as an automatic offset to the deficit. That, Mr. President, is what we need to talk about. Some of my colleagues earlier today on the other side have presented budget charts showing the spending initially proposed by the President. It does not look like much difference. But those are not the charts that reflect what happens when the CBO performs its duty under the President's budget to cut spending to bring it to a deficit of zero in 2002. I remind my colleagues on this side and the other side that if we are talking about the President's budget, any time a colleague puts up a budget showing the President's number, if I am on the floor, I will ask if that budget reflects the CBO cuts as directed by the President in his budget message. For those of my colleagues who may be here, I invite them to do the same thing, because I think it is very, very important that we talk about apples and apples. If we are going to get to a balanced budget as the President says, then how we get there is the vitally important number that we have to consider as we go forth and vote on these competing proposals for the budget for the next 6 years. These are the numbers the President has proposed. These are the numbers in these books. Mr. President, unless and until he sends up to this body and to the House another set of books and releases them to the press to say that they have come up with a new budget, then this is the budget we have to work with. These are the figures that he has presented to us. Let me take my colleagues through a description of some of the things what the Clinton budget, as scored by CBO, would actually do and see how it measures up to some of the claims that are made for it in the text. In the description of the budget plan, a little book called, ``A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget,'' this book says, ``The President's 1997 budget would reach balance over the next 7 years by cutting unnecessary and lower priority spending.'' Remember that; ``lower priority spending'' is going to be cut. It goes on to say, at the bottom of page 31, or down in the lower part of it: The budget saves $297 billion in discretionary spending, cutting unnecessary and lower priority spending, but investing in education and training, the environment, science and technology, law enforcement and other priorities that will raise living standards and improve the quality of American life. Mr. President, I also serve as chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee dealing with a number of these important areas. I think it might be well to take a look at some of these more interesting areas and also some of the areas funded in other budgets which are handled by other subcommittees on which I serve. Let us start off with the Food and Drug Administration. It is vitally important for ensuring safety in the food supply and drugs. This green line across the top shows what the Senate Budget Committee reported out. Essentially that is a flat line. That is tough. That is holding their feet to the fire. That is making them absorb inflationary increases, additional workload. That is tough, but that is doable. But take a look at what happens to this spending when CBO implements its cuts. It drops from over $850 million down to just below $700 million, just above $650 million, by the year 2000. This is, I would say, about a 30 percent cut in the Food and Drug Administration. That is 25 percent. This is in the body that is supposed to keep our food supply safe and make sure we get good quality, reliable, efficacious drugs. That is something I challenge. Can we afford to cut the FDA that much? I do not think so. Let us take another one. This one is very important. We are talking about the research that is done to deal with diseases and promoting cures for many of the diseases we have and the things that are of great concern to many people--the National Institutes of Health. The President starts off with a nice little increase, but you can see by the year 2000, that has to fall off the table. That is almost a $2 billion cut in the budget of NIH to reach balance by the year 2002. Overall it is a 14 percent cut. Are we not going to need the research done by the National Institutes of Health in the year 2001 and 2002? I think we will. I am optimistic that we are going to discover cures. But I do not think we are going to make all the progress we can possibly make and then be able to shut down research at NIH. So I question the priority of slashing the NIH budget. How about some of the other priorities? I have a responsibility for acting on, in our appropriations subcommittee, the budget for EPA. You all heard a great deal about the President and his support for EPA. Who would have believed just a few months ago that the President's budget would leave EPA with less money 6 years from now than it got from Congress last year, and well below the budget proposal we are presenting this year? As I have said many times over, numbers do not lie. This is what happens to funding under our Senate-passed budget resolution. We hold EPA at a flat line. We want to work to improve the way that EPA does its business. We think that there are new ideas that are being developed both within EPA and by groups supporting EPA that can give us tremendous progress as we shift more responsibilities to State and local governments and maintain a vitally important monitoring function at the national level and using more flexible means of achieving goals. The President said it well in his budget: ``If industry can come up with a better way, a cheaper way of doing it, let's do it the most effective way.'' We can live with it. But take a look at what happens to the President's budget under the numbers presented by the President and as scored by CBO. This EPA budget takes a very sharp drop from just above $7.2 billion to below $6.4 billion by the year 2002. This is a tremendous slash for the environment. He said, I thought, in his message in here that one of his priorities is making sure we take care of the environment. I do not think his budget does that. He says, ``We need to invest in education, training, the environment, science and technology.'' I think our budget does a lot better job of doing that than his does. Oh, yeah, by the way, science and technology. Our subcommittee also finances the National Science Foundation. We provide funding for it. Look what happens to the funding in the National Science Foundation. The Senate budget includes a slow but steady upward path. The President's budget gives us a little bump up here and then it drops off the table again because it has to. The President himself ordered that cuts be made to bring the budget in balance in the year 2002. Under CBO scoring that is the only way it is going to get to balance. Finally, I addressed yesterday the budget of the Veterans' Administration, the agency which provides care to the medically indigent veterans and those veterans who have been injured in the service of their country, a very, very important group of people who depend solely on the Veterans' Administration. These people would see the money devoted to their health care cut by almost 25 percent. The Clinton budget cuts $12.9 billion out of the VA budget by the year 2002. We maintain essentially level funding. That is a cut that the veterans of this country cannot live with, and we in good conscience cannot live with. I mentioned to this body yesterday that the President's people have said, ``Don't believe these numbers.'' The Secretary of the Veterans' Administration, Jesse Brown, when he testified before my subcommittee, said, ``The President has assured me that these will not be the numbers. He is going to negotiate with us.'' A representative of the White House Office of Management and Budget was quoted in the papers in our home State saying these numbers that are being presented, we are misrepresenting, because we took the numbers out of the book and out of the CBO. He said, ``Those are just rough general guidelines. Don't believe them.'' So it is the official policy of the administration not to believe the official policy. Until they send us up new numbers, send us a new budget, that is what we have to work with. That is what the priorities are: Cutting veterans, cutting national science, EPA, NIH. Mr. President, that is not the way to get to the balanced budget we need. We can do so by following the plan outlined by Chairman Domenici. I urge all my colleagues to look at the contrasting numbers and make up their mind. I hope they will support the budget supported by the Senate Budget Committee. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Small Business will hold a business meeting on Wednesday, May 22, 1996, beginning at 9:30 a.m., in room 428A of the Russell Senate Office Building to vote on the nomination of Ms. Ginger Ehn Lew to be Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration and to markup the ``Small Business Investment Company Improvement Act of 1996.'' For further information, please contact Paul Cooksey.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to pay a special tribute to Sister Mary Benita O'Connor, R.S.M. It is a great pleasure to recognize Sister Mary Benita for her 60th anniversary in the religious profession and for her life-long dedication to serving others. A former member of St. Munchin's Parish in Cameron, MO, Sister Mary Benita entered the Sisters of Mercy novitiate in Council Bluffs, IA, on August 6, 1933. She made her first vows in March, 1936, and in August of the same year was assigned to teach business education, English, and religion classes at St. Mary's High School in Independence, MO. Following teaching assignments at Glennon High School, Kansas City, and the College of St. Mary's in Omaha, NE, Sister Mary Benita was once again assigned to St. Mary's, Independence. After completing 40 years of teaching, Sister Mary Benita became active in St. Mary's Parish Council where she served as parish ministries coordinator. As director of social ministries for the parish, she coordinated St. Vincent de Paul's outreach to the poor, the Legion of Mary's evangelization efforts, youth service activities, the Over 50 Club and Marian ministry. She continues her ministry to the hospitalized and homebound. Sister Mary Benita has been an active member of the Neighborhood Council, a board member on Meals on Wheels, has participated in neighborhood education programs and has held a continued interest in St. Mary's High School Alumni activities. Currently, Sister Mary is sponsoring faith development groups and is the librarian for the parish library. It is an honor to congratulate Sister Mary Benita on her long-lasting faithfulness to the Church and the Independence community. I wish her the best of luck on May 19, 1996 at her celebratory Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Mary's, and also in all of her future pursuits.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask if the Senator would be so kind to extend that for another 5 minutes so I may have 5 minutes when he concludes his 10-minute presentation.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise today to make the basic and simple point that numbers do not lie. I am chairman of the Veterans' Affairs/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee. I have been very much concerned about making sure that the people who serve this country in the military get the kind of care that has been promised by the Veterans' Administration. The VA deals, primarily, with those who have suffered war-related injuries, and who are medically indigent now. Yes, there are efficiencies that can be made and there are certain steps being taken within the VA to operate more soundly. But I was shocked when I saw the President's proposal for Veterans' Administration spending for the next 6 years. The President now says he wants to balance the budget. But how does he do it? Well, Mr. President, he takes it out of the vitally important medical care and health care services for the veterans. I joined with Chairman Pete Domenici to beat back efforts by our Democratic colleagues in the subcommittee to substitute the President's budget, which he claims gets us to balance. I thought it was so serious that I wanted to speak on the floor. I spoke this weekend back home in Missouri, talking about the tremendous decline that the Clinton budget proposes for Veterans' Administration spending over the next 6 years, which is almost 23 percent. Mr. President, the Veterans' Administration cannot live with that kind of cut. That is the kind of cut that the President proposes the VA will have to follow to get to a balanced budget for the entire Government in the year 2002. At least the President agrees that we need to get to a balanced budget. But does he really mean this budget? Well, Mr. President, it was very interesting to me to read in the newspaper on Saturday morning--in the St. Louis newspaper--a report by political correspondent, Jo Mannies, who called the White House after I presented this information and she says: ``A White House aide replied that Bond was misrepresenting the facts.'' Misrepresenting the facts? Mr. President, here are the facts. Under the Clinton budget, the Veterans' Administration have a budget authority that goes from $17.3 billion in 1997, to $15.9 billion in 1998, to $14.5 billion, to $13.0 billion, to $13.29 billion, to $13.8 billion. That comes out to be a $12.979 billion cut in Veterans' Administration funding in that 6-year period. Can the VA live with that? No. Secretary Jesse Brown said, when I asked him before the Appropriations Committee, ``Are you planning to live within this budget?'' He said, ``I am not planning to live with it. I am not planning to live with your budget to green line''--which at that time was a flat line--``nor am I planning to live with the President's line.'' Secretary Brown went on to say, ``I think his budget means something to me because he has given his word that he is going to negotiate with the veterans' community.'' Really? Does the President not mean what he said when he presented the balanced budget that shows these cuts? The interesting part of the story, the White House aide Jo Mannies referred to was Lawrence Haas of the White House Office of Management and Budget. He said the Republicans were misrepresenting their plans and the President when it comes to spending for veterans. President Clinton's 1997 budget plan contains an outline for reaching a balanced budget by 2002. ``The outline cites across-the-board spending cuts of equal percentages for most discretionary programs, including the VA,'' he said. ``The outline is not a hard and fast proposal for any of the programs,'' he said, ``because the President and the Congress review discretionary programs each year.'' He said that he expected changes for many of the specific programs. He said, ``If past practices continue, the VA would be treated well and wouldn't experience much, if any, of a cut.'' Mr. President, we have the President presenting a budget showing that he gets to balance by making a 23-percent cut in the Veterans Administration. Oh, incidentally, it is not an across-the-board cut because the President, at the same time, proposes a 28-percent increase in the spending on AmeriCorps, our national service. Mr. President, we are left with the amazing proposition that the White House official spokesperson said that it is the official policy of the Clinton administration that you should not believe the official policy of the Clinton administration. The Clinton administration sent up a budget that shows a 23-percent cut, a $12.9 billion cut over 6 years. Mr. President, that is how they get there--a budget that I think has misplaced priorities. It does not make the cuts needed in Medicaid and in welfare spending, so they have to slash things like Veterans' Administration. Either they mean this and they are going to get to a balanced budget and the veterans are going to be unhappy, but they have an Office of Management and Budget saying they do not mean it. They have told the Secretary of Veterans Affairs they do not mean it. So, Mr. President, we are left with this real question: Which numbers are lying--the numbers they presented in the budget, or the numbers they are telling the Veterans' Administration they are going to get? I intend to work with my colleagues to make sure that the Veterans' Administration is adequately funded. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I want to commend the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee. I would add, in addition to his answer to the President, what has been the record of this Congress. This Congress, despite news coverage and quarrelsome attacks from our opponents, has been able to change the pattern of Government spending. We just reduced discretionary spending $23 billion. Most people do not know that. We have put appropriations bills through that actually cut Government spending--unheard of in recent years. A little over a month ago we put through a very significant regulatory reform measure that is going to benefit small businesses, farmers, ranchers, and others who believe that Government regulation, while necessary, ought to be reasonable and sensible. We got that done. I am proud to say that we did that one in this body on a totally bipartisan basis. So we can make progress. But, Mr. President, I want to talk today just a few minutes and set the record straight on something called the TEAM Act. Our Small Business Committee recently held a hearing on the TEAM Act. We heard from small businessowners who achieved better productivity, quality, and safety by involving their employees in workplace decisions. Frankly, in the years when I was Governor, we tried to figure out how we could help small businesses improve their productivity. We talked to the best civil and manufacturing engineering and engineering talent from the University of Missouri at Columbia, and from the University of Missouri at Rolla, people who set up the Japanese management style, who said we could really improve productivity by involving employees in decisions to improve productivity, getting them actively involved in teams, not the same as the TEAM Act today, but we used teams. Small businesses seized on that model, and they were successful and they did reduce their costs. They were able to achieve productivity increases, getting better wages, and keeping their jobs because of it. At the hearing that we held in the Small Business Committee, we were bringing in people to talk about it, and some of those people had great stories. Let me tell you that five other businessowners and their employees who had enthusiastically agreed to come and testify before our committee had to back out. They backed out because their lawyers said they were crazy, because, if they went in front of a Senate committee and admitted that they had involved their employees in improving productivity, they might be brought up by the NLRB for violating the National Labor Relations Act. They were proud of their accomplishments and proud of what employees had done, working together with their employers, to improve productivity and their job security for the future. Mr. President, I think employee involvement has special implications for American small business. By definition, small business employees have to be used in a variety of ways because the small business owner has many duties to delegate and the line between manager and employee is much less distinct than it might be in a larger business. The TEAM Act is also important because many small employers cannot afford to hire a labor law expert or consultant or lawyer each time they want to try something new or to talk with their employees. I can tell you from listening to small employers throughout America that they are scared to death of having another expensive confrontation with the Federal Government. They particularly are afraid of having the NLRB come down on them. No small businessowner wants to invest precious time and resources in an employee-involvement system to utilize the good ideas of their employees and then find out it has to be dismantled if the union, or the NLRB, gets wind of it. My distinguished colleague from Massachusetts, in arguing against this measure, has emphasized that employee involvement is used in many businesses now. That is probably true. But this does not change the fact that many of the employee-involvement teams in existence today may actually be in violation of the law as it is written. The argument, I gather, that is being made on the other side is that because some businesses and employees work together and do not get caught by the NLRB, they do not need a law. That sounds a little strange to me. Secretary Reich and President Clinton have said we need to encourage corporate citizenship and employment and employee involvement in decisionmaking if America is going to compete globally. It is not just a question of competing globally. For many small businesses in my State, it is a question of competing in the marketplace right now. They can do it. They can provide a better product or a better service for their customers. But they want to be able to rely on the good ideas of their employees. The reality of the modern workplace for businesses of all sizes is that workers are being given more power, and that is good. Management likes employee involvement because it increases productivity, improves safety, and creates skilled workers. Employees like to work in teams because it gives them a voice both in their working conditions and the quality of the goods or services they provide. The National Labor Relations Act apparently right now gives employers and managers two options: employee involvement through unions, or no involvement at all. This means that 90 percent of workers in America who do not belong to a union, or who have chosen explicitly not to belong to a union, are not allowed to have a substantive voice in what they are doing in the workplace. The TEAM Act offers employees who are not unionized a way to participate. Opponents of the TEAM Act have argued that employee teams are really sham unions that delude employees into thinking they have power. I must tell you sadly that I heard one news report this morning which said that the purpose of the TEAM Act was to permit companies to establish unions. That is just not true. That is absolutely false. I do not know who is spinning the story, but they really suckered a news broadcaster on that one. The TEAM Act amends the National Labor Relations Act, section 8(a)(2) to allow employees and managers at nonunion companies to resolve issues involving terms and conditions of employment. These include things such as scheduling, safety and health, even when they get coffee, and company softball teams, but it does not allow and it would not allow employee teams to act as exclusive representatives of employees or participate in collective bargaining. In other words, the teams of employees would not have the power of unions. Section 8(a)(2) would continue to prohibit the domination of unions by the employer. So employers that tried to set up teams of employees to bargain collectively would still be in violation of 8(a)(2) both because they are dominating and because of the collective bargaining aspect. It is important to note that any bad-faith actions on the part of the employer would also result in violations of other parts of the National Labor Relations Act, particularly section 8(a)(1). Mr. President, we have seen the National Labor Relations Board. I do not think there is any problem with their being vigilant to make sure that the statutes that will remain on the books are thoroughly enforced. I think it is time to give employees and employers a little credit for good sense. Workers are smart enough to know when they are getting a fair shake from management and to look elsewhere if they are not. Management knows that without meaningful employee involvement the improvements in efficiency, safety, and quality simply are not going to be there. Employees and employers must be given the right to choose what is right for them--unions if they want it, employee involvement if they want it, or maybe in some circumstances both or neither. We ought not to be saying that employees cannot work in teams with employers or employers cannot work with teams of workers when they are not bargaining collectively. Small business owners want to work closely with their employees. These employees have often been there from the inception of the small business. They are the ones who can make it grow. They are the ones who can ensure it prospers. They are the ones who can ensure that it will provide good job opportunities in the marketplace. President Clinton has said time and time again he is a friend of small business, but the fact that he has already issued the veto threat and called the TEAM Act a poison pill shows that simply is not true. He is marching to a different drummer. It is not the drumbeat of small businesses and their employees today who know how they can compete and provide a better product and get more satisfaction from their jobs. America's business needs the flexibility and the legal ability to involve employees in every facet of business in order to compete with large businesses, with other businesses and to compete globally. I sincerely hope that we can move to votes on this measure and adopt into law reform, incorporating the provisions of the TEAM Act which will let businesses and employees work together. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I and many others are very disappointed we cannot move forward on this legislation. I believe this legislation is very important to provide relief for Mr. Dale and six other members of the White House Travel Office. I think it is the right thing to do. To me, the bill is a decent gesture that Congress can make to seven individuals who have been forced to endure a tremendous injustice. These people were publicly, knowingly, and wrongly accused of severe improprieties. They had their careers put in jeopardy, their finances devastated and their reputations forever stained for what appears to be an effort for personal gain of insiders. Three years ago when Billy Dale and the other members of the Travel Office were fired, the statement released by the White House on the firings was a source of immediate concern. It said: Within the Travel Office, we found sort of gross mismanagement, if you will. There is basically very shoddy accounting practices, mismanagement and a number of other things. In order to correct those, we thought it advisable to take immediate action. My concern over those firings was certainly not eased when it was disclosed that the Travel Office staff was fired based on an audit that was neither complete nor available to anyone for review. The Travel Office staff was fired and accused of mismanagement without being given the opportunity for a hearing or a chance to clear their names. Finally, travel business that was handled by salaried employees of the Federal Government previously and done on a noncommissioned basis was turned over to a Little Rock travel group. At that time, I was ranking member on the Treasury, Postal Appropriations Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the funding for the White House. I sent a personal letter to the President requesting answers to the questions and the reasoning for selecting the Little Rock travel agency. Unfortunately, like so many things from the administration, we did not get straight answers. There were half-truths and misleading statements. What the White House should have done is have the courage to tell the public the individuals were fired so that business could be given to friends of the First Family. But instead, the White House made the decision to question publicly the integrity of seven career civil servants. Unfortunately for Mr. Dale and his colleagues, they also launched an investigation and a prosecution and hid behind the accusations. As one commentator stated: The administration tried to transform a prosaic personnel change into an act of moral heroism. The President immediately absolved himself saying: I had nothing to do with any decision except to save the taxpayers and the press money. The only thing I know is we made a decision to save taxpayers and the press money. That's all I know. The First Lady also denied any involvement. Then an embarrassing memo was released from David Watkins in the White House laying the responsibility for the firing squarely at the feet of the First Lady. Despite this memo, denials continued from the White House. She maintains that she just ``expressed concern'' regarding mismanagement. The White House remained unflinching in their refusal to admit that the firings had anything to do with anything other than financial mismanagement on behalf of the Travel Office staff. It was undoubtedly to continue that perception that the White House pushed the Department of Justice on to Mr. Dale. They had a very weak case, and they went forward nevertheless at a tremendous personal and financial cost to Mr. Dale. Despite the White House spin and the efforts to lay the blame at the feet of Mr. Dale and his colleagues, the facts have come out. These are not pretty. No. 1, a cousin of the President who had worked on travel during the campaign wanted to head the White House Travel Office. No. 2, a Hollywood friend of the President had an interest in an airline charter company that wanted to profit from the White House business, and he was not happy the Travel Office was not giving him any opportunities. No. 3, the relative of the President and the Hollywood friend concocted stories of corruption and people on the take. The President's cousin even took documents and files out of the Office to try to make a case against the Travel Office staff. No. 4, according to the memo from David Watkins, the First Lady said we would have hell to pay if we cannot comply with the First Lady's wishes to fire the staff. Finally, the White House made a public statement accusing the staff of gross misconduct. The White House, despite longstanding policy to the contrary, without checking with the Department of Justice, contacted and politicized the FBI to try to back up their efforts. Unfortunately, after much personal harassment and great disruption and embarrassment to all of the members of the White House travel staff, the punishment did not end there. Mr. Dale was indicted for allegedly embezzling funds. But, as all of us now know the jury found him not guilty in less than 2 hours. As the distinguished chairman of our Judiciary Committee has noted yesterday, that is usually the amount of time it takes most juries to get organized. Talk about an open-and- shut case. That one was clearly it. Mr. Dale said after his acquittal he was relieved and prepared to go on with his life. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Within weeks the Watkins memo surfaced--and it squarely contradicted the sworn testimony of the First Lady before GAO investigators--and the Clinton damage control team went into a full-court press. The White House spin doctors, Anne Lewis, the Clinton campaign, and high-priced Washington lawyers, including Mr. Bennett, and even the First Lady herself in interviews, continued to make allegations that had been thrown out in the criminal proceedings against Mr. Dale and the White House staff. I think enough is enough. The dedicated public servants who worked in the Travel Office have suffered enough. I think that this bill is a small gesture which would not only offer some consolation to these people, but help them get out of the financial hole this whole matter has caused them. It was with great disappointment that we learned that the other side has chosen to filibuster this. My only guess is that this is an effort to save the President the embarrassment of having to sign this bill. I urged last week that the majority leader bring this bill to the floor so we could hear arguments against it on the Senate floor. I am still waiting to hear any compelling argument. I appreciate the majority leader having called it up. I hope that one of these days very shortly we can get on with doing a very simple act of justice by providing compensation for some of the expenses and costs incurred. I yield the floor. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, just to follow up very briefly on what the majority leader said, the Wall Street Journal earlier this week pointed out that the tax increases in 1993 had the effect of costing jobs and economic growth in this country. Two economists, William Beach and Scott Hodge, at the Heritage Foundation, used the very reputable econometric model, the Washington University macro model, to try to figure out what happened as a result of that 1993 budget deal. They calculated it reduced private sector jobs by 1.2 million. We lost $208 billion in output, or the equivalent of $2,100 per family. What is worse, they found out the tax increases did not reduce the deficit as much as predicted because tax increases change behavior and not all the taxes were generated. Only about 56 cents of additional deficit reduction came for every $1 of new taxes. So that did not work very well. Now the majority leader has talked about how we need to get the budget in balance by cutting spending. I wanted to share very briefly today with my colleagues something that went on in our appropriations subcommittee for VA and HUD today. We had before us the Secretary of the agency, Secretary Brown. We showed him the budget projections. This chart shows what the Congress' budget projection was last year. This green line shows a flat line across here. Actually, we raised that to this level. Last year the Secretary said holding the Veterans' Administration budget flat through 2002 would be devastating; hospitals would be closed, veterans would not be served, there would be tremendous hardship, the system could not operate. He said the system could not operate with flat appropriations, even though the number of veterans is declining. So I asked him what would happen, because this is the Clinton projection. These are the Clinton administration numbers for the Veterans' Administration budget, going up here in 1997, one more year, and then just plummeting, plummeting by more than $3 billion a year out of just slightly over a $16 billion budget. This, coming down according to the CBO, this would be just around $13 billion or less for the Veterans' Administration. The Secretary said he could not live with, and the veterans could not be served by, that budget. So I asked him if he were going to send out the e-mail messages and statements in pay stubs that he had sent to the employees of the VA last year when we proposed this budget. He said no. I asked him why not. He said, because the President has personally assured him he will negotiate the budget with him and take care of the veterans. I asked him, I said, ``Are you concerned that the President is going to live with that budget number that shows the budget plummeting for VA?'' He indicated to me that he had no concern whatsoever that the Veterans' Administration budget would fall like that, because the President promised to negotiate with him. I had to ask the question, and I ask it again. Who is the President fooling? Is he fooling the taxpayers and Congress when he proposes a budget like that that purports to cut it and cut the budget for the Veterans' Administration a total of $13 billion in this period? Or is he fooling the veterans by telling them, do not worry, we will keep spending up however high it needs to go? Whichever way it goes, it has to call into question whether the President is serious about these budget negotiations. He said that he wants to balance the budget. We have the President on record and we have OMB on record as saying they want to balance the budget. How are they going to do it? Well, they have some very draconian cuts in their appropriated spending accounts. This red line shows how sharply those cuts are going to be made. This is the President's entire budget, and he hopes to get to a balance in 2002 by cutting it like that. Part of those cuts are reflected in this precipitous cut in the VA budget, showing this for the Veterans' Administration only. But he is telling the people, the constituents of the Veterans' Administration, or they believe he is saying, ``Don't worry, we'll negotiate with you a good budget and take care of you.'' We have the promise, on the one hand, of OMB that this is a meaningful budget that shows a reduction of appropriated spending sufficient to balance the budget in the year 2002 under President Clinton's plan. On the other hand, we have the assurance, the confidence of one of the agency administrators whose budget is going to be slashed that it will not be slashed. That is the best of both possible worlds. For the vast majority of American citizens who want to see a balanced budget, you have these numbers in a budget, but it is really a no pain- no gain situation, because you tell the people who will be directly affected, ``Don't worry because we don't mean this; don't worry, the budget's not going to come down like that.'' Mr. President, what they must be telling us is it is all for show. It sounds good to tell the American people we are going to balance the budget, but we can sure get out and get the word to all of the people who depend upon those particular agencies, ``Don't worry, your agency is not being cut; your agency is not going to suffer any reductions.'' Mr. President, I think the issue of credibility and character are going to be very important in this fall's election, and I think this budget flimflam tells a lot. I think it raises questions about the honesty of the plan that we are being presented on behalf of the Clinton administration by OMB. They would like us to think the budget is going to be balanced, but they assure the people in the area, plan for the cuts, that that $13 billion will not be cut out of the VA budget. Is it going to be cut someplace else? I doubt they will be willing to say someplace else will be cut even more. I thank the Chair. I note several colleagues wishing to speak. I yield the floor. Mr. COHEN addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I sent a letter to INS Commissioner Doris Meissner requesting her to advise me of the official position of the INS and any actions the agency may take to remedy the situation. Unfortunately the INS Commissioner must not have felt that the issue was of the importance for her to respond personally. I did receive a letter from the Office of Congressional Affairs stating that the rationale for the regulation is the well-established fact that the initial academic year of an undergraduate curriculum is focused around introductory curriculum rather than paid practical training outside the classroom. The agency representative said this position is consistent with congressional intent.

Mr. BOND. I say to my colleague that I remain unconvinced that this regulation is consistent with the intent of Congress. This situation concerns me because a liberal arts college in Missouri that offers a full-time undergraduate curriculum includes practical training. For a number of reasons, the foreign students are rotated along with the American students through the program and a number of students begin the internship training in their first year of school. This is an impressive program. The school ensures that all the foreign students are lawfully enrolled. Finally, the college values the enrollment and participation of the F-1 visa holders. It is important to the future and the success of the program to have the flexibility to rotate the students through the practical training as needed. Would my colleague agree that this is a matter that deserves the attention of the INS? Should the INS find that the program is a valid program and the students are lawfully admitted, I believe these students should be permitted to participate in the practical training in this manner.

Mr. BOND. The students in this program are lawfully enrolled, they complete their course of study and they receive a liberal arts degree. I have prepared an amendment to correct this situation, but I am going to withhold introducing the amendment at this time and attempt to work through this situation with the INS. However, should this situation not be addressed I will consider offering the amendment when the Senate considers the appropriate future legislation.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I would like to bring an important issue to the attention of my colleagues, INS regulations at 8 CFR sec. 214.2(f)(10) preclude practical training during the first 9-months of a full-time undergraduate student's enrollment in a Service-approved college or university. In other words, an F-1 visa holder lawfully enrolled as an undergraduate student in a college or university with an approved curriculum may not participate in practical training or an internship program without completing 9 full months of classroom time. This restriction applies to undergraduate students but does not apply to graduate students. I might add that there is no legislative history to support such a distinction.