John Breaux

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I send to the desk amendment No. 494 and ask it be reported.

Mr. BREAUX. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, the committee has done a very good job in addressing a number of concerns dealing with terrorism, particularly in the area of counterterrorism, by creating a fund that is going to give to the Department of Homeland Security $1.135 billion for counterterrorism. I think the administration actually requested a little more money than that. Regarding the amendment I have, we think, No. 1, it should be more than that and, No. 2, we think Congress should be involved and the American people should be involved in where that money is going to be allocated, as to which department doing this type of work is going to get the additional funds. The amendment of the committee, about which I am concerned, says: Mr. President, here is $1.135 billion. Let's throw it up against the wall and hope it comes off the wall and falls down and does some good. We take $1.135 billion and throw it up in the air and somehow hope it comes down and settles in the areas where it can do the most good to protect the American people. I think that is not the way we should do business. We are taxing the American people for these moneys to be spent to protect the American public. We as a Congress should have a direct say-so, not just entrust it to an individual Secretary as to where the money should go. My amendment says in the area of counterterrorism funds, instead of $1.135 billion, we are going to have $2.65 billion, an increase for counterterrorism provisions in the bill. In addition to that, we are going to say where the moneys are going to be allocated. That is the role of the Congress. That is the appropriate role of the Congress. For instance, in the Coast Guard, our provision provides $200 million more for the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is being asked to do a lot more work domestically. Most of the money in the committee's bill is for Coast Guard utilization overseas. That is fine; they ought to be overseas doing this work, but they also should be protecting the ports of America, the ports of New York, and the gulf and the west coast and east coast ports. We also say the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection should have an increase of $366 million for the inspections they are going to be required to do. We have literally millions of containers, each carrying as much as 60,000 pounds of material, coming into the ports of the United States. We ought to be looking at these containers where they are loaded, in foreign ports. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection is going to need that additional money if, in fact, they are going to be able to get the job done. In addition to the Bureau of Customs, we are talking about $1 billion for transportation security. We are talking about making sure that at all the airports where we are telling them now you have to put in all this fancy equipment, not just to check luggage that is carried on the plane but check every single piece of luggage that is going to go into the cargo hold of the plane--how many of us have had to be delayed at airports because they are checking not only your carry-on luggage but also the stuff that is going to be checked into the hold of the plane. You see the long lines develop. They need the equipment to make sure that type of luggage is safe and not delaying passengers and the traveling public moving into the airports. We also say about the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, give them an additional $20 million for enhanced training. We are asking these organizations now to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week training these new employees to make sure they know what they are doing. They are going to need additional funds for that. I read the bill from the committee. It just says on page 36 of the bill: counterterrorism, give the Secretary the discretion to spend $1.135. That is what the bill says. That means throw it over to the Secretary; let him spend it anywhere he wants. I think the report language says here are some suggestions. That is fine; we all know what happens with report language. It is filed in some staff person's desk, and they don't pay any attention to it. That is not the law. They can totally ignore it. They can disregard it, pay no attention to it whatsoever. If you put it into law, it would state that these are the categories that are necessary in order to make sure this counterterrorism provision is run the way we would like to see it run. Mr. President, I want to yield time to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota. I think he said he would like to have 10 minutes. And if he could use less, we may get another speaker in here. But I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BREAUX. How much time remains on both sides?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes. I ask unanimous consent that Senators Schumer, Clinton, Stabenow, and Kennedy be added as cosponsors.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, the idea that Congress ought to be involved in how the money is spent is not a novel idea. If we are going to spend $1.135 billion, Congress ought to be involved in saying how it is going to be spent. The bill before the Senate now says that we are going to give $1.135 billion to the Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security, and whatever he wants to do with it, he pretty much has carte blanche to do whatever he thinks fit. I would hope he would make the right decisions, but I would like to have Congress involved in saying these are the priorities within that $1.135 billion as to what we think should be spent and how it should be spent. We do not do our job if we just appropriate money and do not indicate how the money should be spent, especially when you are talking about billions of dollars. Here is an example. The Senator from Mississippi says we have a report that makes suggestions. Folks, this is a suggestion. This could be filed in a desk drawer at the Department, thrown in the waste paper basket, and ignored, because it doesn't have the effect of law. It is nice that people worked on it and that it was printed, but how many people will read it? Not very many, and not many will read it over at the Department of Homeland Security either. If you want to say how money is going to be spent, it has to be part of the law. We are not saying spend whatever you want. We are giving him a specific amount. We should also say how that specific amount is going to be spent. That is what my amendment does. Let me give an example of what the problem is. For the Coast Guard-- and we know how much work they are going to have to be doing in the United States, in the ports of New York, Florida, New Orleans, Houston, and the west coast because of the problems we have--the supplemental appropriations bill puts in $580 million more for the Coast Guard. What they say is that $400 million of it is going overseas. We need it overseas. That is appropriate and proper. But we also have some homeland needs for counterterrorism. Under the supplemental bill pending before the Senate, we would have $180 million for the domestic Coast Guard needs, and then the remainder of $400 million would be going overseas. We are neglecting homeland security. We are talking about homeland security, which means here at home. So we are suggesting that we add an additional $200 million, which would be utilized in this country for the needs at all of the ports. They have to do a lot more, we are telling them, and the Coast Guard has to devise a security plan for every single port in the United States. They are not going to be able to do that for free, with all the work that needs to go into those ports. If we are going to spend $1.135 billion, the Congress should be involved in saying where it is going to be spent. We should not simply say: Here is the money; we hope it does some good; whatever you want to use it for, do it, as long as it fits the generic title of counterterrorism. Well, counterterrorism is more than a word; it is the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Customs, the Immigration Service, and it is money for airport modifications to detect the luggage going into the holds of the ship; it is mass transit security, railroad security, Federal law enforcement training, and it is better communications for the men and women who work in counterterrorism. That is what counterterrorism is. It is not just a term; it is a bunch of Agencies and Departments that have a lot of work to do. We ought to have the intelligence to be able to say where it is going to be spent, instead of just putting a term out there and saying we are going to give $1.135 billion for counterterrorism. What is counterterrorism? I suggest that counterterrorism is outlined in the descriptions we have in the amendment now pending before the Senate, which we ask our colleagues to consider supporting. It is nice that we have suggestions in a report, but we all know--if you have been here more than a week--a report is not binding, not law; it is merely a suggestion. We are here to write laws, to direct the Departments as to how their funds should be used. I am sure they are going to read the report, but they can also ignore the report. I think it is better to spell out what we are talking about when we talk about counterterrorism. It is not just a word; it encompasses a lot of different Departments.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, $2.65 billion is not zeroing out counterintelligence and counterterrorism. It is a large add-on, $2.65 billion. The only difference is we are suggesting in law where it ought to be spent, instead of saying you can do what you want and then come back to the committee and tell us why you did it that way. We should tell them where it should be spent before the fact, not after the fact. Our amendment adds money to counterterrorism. I think that is what we should be doing as a Senate.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, on rollcall vote No. 88, I was recorded as voting no. I intended to vote yes. I ask unanimous consent to change my vote, which would not change the outcome.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask that it be reported.

Mr. BREAUX. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, cutting taxes when you have a $5.6 trillion surplus in the Treasury is one thing. Cutting taxes by $1.3 trillion--which is where we are right now--when you do not have a surplus but in fact you have a $300 billion deficit, and, added to that, we are at war and we don't know how much it is going to cost, is not good public policy. The amendment at the desk reduces the reconciled tax cut to $350 billion. It takes $120 billion of the tax cut outside of reconciliation and creates a Social Security reserve account. That Social Security reserve account will be for reforming Social Security. If we don't get around to doing it, the money will go to reduce the deficit. This amendment has a $350 billion tax cut which is protected by budget reconciliation. The remaining funds will be used for a Social Security reserve fund. This amendment is an amendment that was previously considered by the Budget Committee, which did not pass it, and we are offering it on the floor now.

Mr. BREAUX. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify the amendment and send the modification to the desk.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, we have worked in a bipartisan fashion. This amendment is sponsored by myself, Senator Voinovich from Ohio, Senator Baucus, and also Senator Snowe. We have believed there ought to be a way of reaching an agreement on the size of the tax cut that is reasonable and more balanced than the $626 billion tax cut currently pending before the Senate. There are some who have suggested that we would like to have no tax cut whatsoever. That would probably be the better course of action, if we could find the votes to do that, because conditions are dramatically different from what they were the last time we considered a major tax cut. The last time we did a tax cut, we had a $5.6 trillion surplus. We do not have that surplus. In fact, we have a $300 billion deficit facing us. There is no pot of money to which we can go to have a large tax cut of that magnitude. In addition to that, we are at war. We are not at peace.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I make a point of order. I understood that the Budget chairman asked that we have 10 minutes on this because of the importance of the amendment.

Mr. BREAUX. I thank the distinguished chairman. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I will ask the cosponsors if they would like to make a comment. The point is that we are at war. Turn on the television. Our men and women are fighting in the deserts of Iraq right now. We are being asked to cut tax revenues by $626 billion to pay for those functions. It would be one thing if we had a surplus out of which to take it. We do not. We are taking it out of a deficit. We are cutting taxes at a time of uncertainty while we are in the middle of a war. If we do need a tax cut of that magnitude, I would suggest we do it after the conflict is over, after we know how much it has cost, after we know how much we need to spend on programs such as Medicare and prescription drugs which are not included in this budget whatsoever. The better course of action would be to adopt our amendment. It presents a $350 billion tax cut, which is half of what is pending right now, and it uses the remainder of those savings, which would be $275 billion, for deficit reduction. Some may say, ``That is not what I would like to do,'' but I think this is something that is politically possible to accomplish. We can always come back and increase the tax cut. That will be easy to do, if we know how much money we have to deal with. We simply do not know that now. The wiser course of action would be to do what this amendment would do. I ask for a favorable vote for the bipartisan amendment. I reserve any time I may have.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I will conclude my comments on this amendment by saying I think those who are concerned about fiscal discipline should be concerned about the state of the economy of this country. We are at war. We are not at peace. We do not have a surplus of $5.6 trillion as we had the last time we did a major tax cut. We have no surplus at all. We are in deficit and we are increasing the deficit by a huge amount of money at a time of war and uncertainty in this country. I think the conservative thing to do is be more careful with tax cuts. They are great things politically, but they are not free; we have to pay for them. We would be paying for it out of the deficit, and I think that is a serious mistake. We need to be responsible, and this amendment brings about a degree of responsibility that we all should be able to support.

Mr. BREAUX. I will not yield my time back. I have 2 other cosponsors who would like to be heard. I yield to the Senator from Maine.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Can I have 10 minutes?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I thank the ranking member. I thank him not only for yielding and his nice comments about what we are attempting to do, but I also congratulate him on the very difficult job of serving as ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee. This is a very difficult job. He has handled it with a great deal of finesse and maturity and understanding about the intricacies of the budget process.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk and ask it be reported.

Mr. BREAUX. I ask the amendment be set aside and ask the amendment at the desk be reported.

Mr. BREAUX. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.