Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. While he was saying, ``I can't spend a penny that Congress doesn't appropriate,'' he was never vetoing any money bills. He signed everything we sent him, and the people should be grateful, because while he was President, Congress appropriated billions less than he asked for. But he vetoed a defense bill because it was not high enough, and we had to give him more money to get him to sign the bill. Mr. President, the American people last fall were angry about a host of things. There was no one single thing that people were angry about. There were a whole host of things they were angry about. It is an interesting thing, you take 1 percent of the vote last fall and shift 1 percent of the vote here, here and there, and we would not have anything bordering on an American revolution. As far as the bonded Contract With America, so far two things have passed both Houses and have been signed by the President, and both of them would probably have been passed without the so-called Contract With America. People were not voting for the Contract With America, because they did not know anything about it. They were voting because they were angry. They were angry about the deficit, they were angry about gays in the military, they were angry about some Members getting in trouble. It was a whole host of things. But I can tell you, Mr. President, the one thing they were not voting for was chaos. So far, that is all they have gotten out of it. The other day I mentioned James Baldwin, a great black author, who wrote a book called ``Go Tell It on the Mountain.'' In the book--it was sort of autobiographical, I guess--the person who was the central character in the book was obviously James Baldwin. He described the churches when he was a youngster and how people would have dinner on the grounds after church. Senator Heflin, and southerners like Senator Heflin and I know what that is like. He has been to a thousand dinners on the grounds after church on Sundays, just as I have. James Baldwin describes in the book listening to some of the black preachers talk about how many souls they had saved in the last revival, how many souls they had saved in the last year, and this youngster who wanted to be a preacher was offended by the way they talked about how many souls they had saved, not as individual people who were actually saved but macro numbers, and he took a vow that never would he take the gift of God so lightly. As you might guess, as you go on into the book, he becomes a minister, and the first thing you know, he is one of the big stars at the dinner on the grounds after the church services, and he is talking about how many souls you save, as he said originally, as though you were talking about ears of corn being lopped off the stalk. Yes, he fell into it, too. It was a magnificent novel. I recommend it to you. Here we talk about 250,000 employees, which is a big number. Do you know what they are? They are red-blooded human beings with families, with obligations. Some of them are losing their credit rating right now because they cannot pay their bills. They, each one, count. When people sometimes ask me how I would sum up our democracy and the Constitution of the United States--which is sacred to me--I always say the Constitution of the United States says one thing. Well, it does not say it, but it means one thing and, that is, each one of us counts. Our criminal justice system, our whole legal system, all of our freedoms in the Constitution say each one of us counts, and each one of these 250,000 people who are suffering count. I know how nice it is to go into a coffee shop. ``It has not hurt me any.'' ``I have not lost a thing.'' ``It looks to me like we can probably do without those 250,000 from now on.'' You let this go on another 2 weeks and see what they are saying in the coffee shops. So, Mr. President, these are human beings, and they are depending on Congress to do the right thing, to govern and not abuse their power. What is the cost of this? Why are the American people not up in arms about this? They say $45 million a day. I do not know who computed that, but add $12 million to that as of Sunday night. The 10-percent airline costs--do you want to take a guess what revenues that produces to the U.S. Government every year? Between $4 and $5 billion. We are losing $12 million a day. Add that to the $45 million, and then you take the loss of revenues of the communities who are dependent on Government, national parks, and so on. You are going to be at $100 million a day, while we continue to negotiate and bargain and bicker about sums much, much smaller than that. It is the height of irresponsibility to hold this country hostage in order to get your way. It is an outrageous abuse of power. I do not mind saying, in a partisan way, that I believe a lot of people are going to pay for this come next November. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, when I was a young man the Governor of Tennessee, the then-Governor of Tennessee, Frank Clement, delivered the keynote address at the Democratic national convention. As I matured and studied speeches like that, I decided it was not quite as great as I thought it was at the time. But the thrust of the speech was, ``How long, America?'' And he kept coming back to that recurring theme. ``How long, oh, how long, America?'' In other words, how long are we going to wait for solutions to these problems? That would be a good speech to give today, how long the American people are going to have to wait until some people in this body, but especially in the House, come to their senses. This morning we had a group of Social Security workers come into our Little Rock office. I was out at the time. My legislative director suggested that they call the Speaker of the House. He told them he would be happy to give them the names of the 73 freshmen Congressman over there, their telephone numbers, and reminded them that the Senate had voted to do precisely what should be done, thanks to the courage of the majority leader. The majority leader probably is not interested in having a Democrat compliment him for what he did because I am sure he is taking unbelievable flak from some quarters in his own party. That goes with the leadership. If you are not willing to stand up for what you believe, you do not deserve to be called a leader. If you do not stand up for responsible Government, you do not deserve to be here. We have a saying in Arkansas when something is really out of the ordinary. We say, ``I have been to two State fairs and a goat rope, and I never seen anything like this before.'' I can tell you, I have never seen anything like this before. I pray to God we never see anything like it again, because if the checks and balances of the Constitution can be circumscribed and circumvented by a simple hard-core majority who are willing to stick together, and most of whom distrust Government, strongly distrust Government, the next question you have to ask yourself is, if people are willing to abuse their power by circumventing the Constitution in a way that was never intended by Madison and the other Framers, how long can we continue to govern ourselves? That is a very legitimate question that you are going to hear asked more and more if this is not resolved shortly. The American people are divided to some extent. They do not understand it. But I can tell you, each day that goes on they become increasingly apprehensive about just what is going on, what is the meaning of it. They are not Federal employees, and so they are not very perturbed about it. But as they see their lives disrupted, as everybody's lives are going to be, if this goes on much longer, they are going to acclimate themselves and attune themselves to what is going on here. We should not for one moment forget what is the overriding issue here. There is a minor constitutional crisis that could loom very large in the future; there is, obviously, a tremendous political battle going on, and that is where the American people really do not understand why we would subject this country to this for political reasons. But we should not ever forget one simple fact: All we have to do is what the Senate did the night before last and pass a continuing resolution and get Government up and running. It has nothing to do--it has nothing to do--with the discussions going on at the White House. You can resolve every single issue that is at stake here without sending 250,000 workers home and others with half paychecks and scaring the pants off a lot of American citizens. The tax cut is one of the issues. That is not an unsurmountable problem. I cannot tell you how I detest the thought of that $245 billion tax cut, and every time I look at the statistics on who gets that $245 billion, I am literally stunned that every newspaper in the country is not editorializing on it every single day. Think about it. The people who make less than $30,000 a year get virtually not one dime of it, and if you make $300,000 a year, you are going to get over $8,000 a year in tax cuts. What kind of a nation passes tax bills like that? Let me go back. That is based on a CBO assumption that the budget will be balanced in the year 2002, and by doing so, interest rates will decline to the point that over a 7-year period, we will save $245 billion. I can tell you that is a massive assumption, one that I can almost guarantee you will never come about. In order for that to come true, every single projection of growth rate, interest rates, and unemployment which the Congressional Budget Office puts out would have to come true, literally true--every one of those things. It also means that next year and the next year and the next year, through 7 years, Congress will do precisely what was projected in this 1995 budget resolution. We will not even do what the budget resolution does in 1996. I can bet you we will not do it. We certainly are not going to do it every year between now and the year 2002. You are going to have tornadoes in my State, you are going to have floods in the Midwest, you are going to have hurricanes in Florida, you are going to have droughts throughout the Midwest, and we are going to pick up the tab for every bit of it. None of that is anticipated in the budget resolution. But for purposes of argument, because the President did, in fact, come out with his own tax cut, not nearly as massive as this one, but why not say to the Republicans: ``You're hot for a $245 billion tax cut. You want to spend all of $245 billion the Congressional Budget Office says you are going to save over the next 7 years. We do not believe that. Not only do we disagree strongly on who would get the tax benefits, we do not think those savings will ever materialize. But to prove our good faith, why don't we do this? Let's wait until the budget for 1998 comes up before we get into this tax-cutting business. If all CBO's projections have come true, interest rates are as low as they projected, all the other economic indices are the way they projected them and the savings are materializing, then say, `OK, we'll accept a $200 tax refund for all the children in America,' and if it goes according to Hoyle for 2 more years, up it to $400.'' Why would that not be a simple solution to it? After all, once you put that tax cut in place, if this place falls apart and the dome of the Capitol falls to the ground, you will not be able to take that tax cut away. You are going to be spending the money for a tax cut that you do not have, because we will never undo it. So why do it, unless you know the savings are going to be there? I heard the majority whip say this morning that this President is the first President that ever wanted more money. He never heard of anybody vetoing a bill because they wanted more money. I remind the Senator from Mississippi, Ronald Reagan used to go around saying, ``I'm being accused for these massive deficits, and you know I can't spend a penny that Congress doesn't appropriate.'' To the ordinary layman out there, that is fine, because the people always liked the President better than Congress. I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes, Mr. President.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Before doing that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of examples of reduced Government services that exist during this shutdown be printed in the Record.

Mr. BUMPERS. If the majority whip wants to offer an amendment, I withhold.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, just for my own information, is there a parliamentary situation here that a limited CR is about to be voted on by voice vote?

Mr. BUMPERS. Yes.

Mr. BUMPERS. I hate to keep beating to death a dead horse, but I just want to say to my friends and colleagues on the other side, this morning the Senate did exactly what it is supposed to do, exactly what the Constitution says we should do. It says that when the President disapproves a bill and returns it to the Congress, we will either attempt to override his veto with a two-thirds constitutional majority, or maybe it is two-thirds of those present and voting, or we will not. In this particular case, we were talking about securities legislation, which I thought generally was a good idea, but I thought it was flawed in some ways. The point is the Congress has done exactly what the Founding Fathers intended us to do, and that is, if the President disagrees with us, we will either muster the votes, as the Republicans did this morning with the help of some Democrats to override the President's veto, or we will try to get with the President and work out our differences. What we have seen here for too long, 3 or 4 weeks now, is we will override the veto when we have the votes and we will say to the President, ``Any other time you veto a bill and we don't have the votes to override, we will shut the Government down until you sign.''

Mr. BUMPERS. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for 2 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, can the majority whip tell us what this amendment is?

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I was in my office a moment ago preparing some notes to speak on the START II Treaty. I have since found we will have more debate when we return, possibly next week, so I will forego until next week. I heard the Senator from Colorado and the senior Senator from Nevada discussing the so-called tea-tasting provision of the agricultural appropriations bill, and the Senator from Nevada, the senior Senator from Nevada, said he had taken this up with the senior Senator from Mississippi, chairman of the committee, and the senior Senator from Arkansas, namely me, as ranking member of the committee about how did the tea-tasting provision wind up in the bill. The answer to that is, if it is in the bill, I certainly did not have anything to do with it. I thought we had killed that sucker once and for all. But I just want to say I really resent the situation that somehow or other I was in on it, some conspiracy to put the tea-tasting provision back in the agricultural appropriations bill. I detest that provision as much as the Senator from Nevada or anybody else does. I came over here to say that people ought to be very careful about how they implicate other people and what happened to show up on a bill--as the Senator from Nevada knows, our side of the aisle is not in control of these things. I am not speaking for the Senator from Mississippi because he is capable of speaking for himself. When I get an opportunity, I will join the Senator from Nevada in trying to get rid of that provision once and for all. I want to make it clear to my colleagues when the Senator from Nevada mentioned this to me the other day, I was as shocked as he was. I can tell you I certainly had nothing to do with it and will do everything I can to take it out. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Senator for yielding. We can sit here I guess and engage in this colloquy all evening. I thank the Senator very much for allowing me to interject this.

Mr. BUMPERS. Will the Senator yield for an observation?

Mr. BUMPERS. It is an interesting thing about how we are cutting everybody under the shining Sun in the interest of a balanced budget but willing in the interest of some kind of unfathomable, absolutely incomprehensible to me ideology that says you cannot keep the Government going and talk about balancing the budget at the same time. It is a nondebate about whether we are going to balance the budget or not. That is a no-brainer. Everybody agrees on that point. What we are arguing about mostly is the tax cut. If the Republicans would forgo all or just a significant portion of the tax cut, this is a done deal. Everybody knows that we have to cut Medicare. Everybody knows that we are going to have to slow the escalation of Medicaid costs. But I am not for slowing the environment and I am not for slowing education, an observation that has been made on this floor time and time again and just seems so patently clear and obvious, and yet I pick up the paper and it never points it out except ``Congress Bogged Again,'' ``Congress Can't Gets Its Act Together,'' blah, blah, blah. And all you have to do is sit down and say let us crank the Government up, pass a continuing resolution. After all, a continuing resolution funds these agencies at a dramatic discount from what they have been getting.

Mr. BUMPERS. It has been mentioned once or twice, but I do not think the full impact of the shutdown of the Government has really been accurately described. If you were one of the 260,000 people sitting home and being paid for nothing, first of all, that is demeaning, to ordinary people. They would much rather be working, despite the fact they are sitting home and being paid to sit home. But the dimension that I am going to mention is here is the most joyous season of the year, Christmas, that everybody looks forward to and among the 260,000 workers at home, I promise you, a lot of them live from paycheck to paycheck, and a lot of them were depending on spending money for gifts for their children for Christmas. And you know, sometimes I think the Congress ought to be charged with child abuse because a lot of children are not going to have the Christmas they otherwise would have. I am not saying this is going to be massive, but obviously a lot of people are affected by the fact that they do not have a paycheck and therefore cannot spend any money unless they have a credit card that has a little bit left on the limit. But it is one of the most unfathomable things--I have been here 21 years. This is the most irresponsible, unfathomable, irrational things I have ever seen in my 21 years here. What on Earth are we doing?

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, just as a country lawyer who tried a few criminal cases over a period of 20 years--I never had a case involving attorney- client privilege, so I do not profess to be an expert on it--I would say based on listening to some of the scholars on some of the talk shows and what I have read, and I have a couple bright youngsters on my staff that I have discussed it with, I would say it is probably a 50-50 proposition if it went to court. But I am not here really to debate that. The thing that is mildly perplexing to me is, I was watching the news this afternoon, CNBC and CNN, and they kept saying the Senate Whitewater committee is seeking a subpoena to force the President to hand over the notes of young William Kennedy taken at this infamous meeting and in the President's attorney's office. As I understand it, that is not really the issue here. The issue here is whether or not we will agree to allow the President to hand over the notes, which he has agreed to do and to the chairman and the members of his party's side of the committee agreed to. The committee agreed to it. I thought it was a fine resolution of the matter. But I also think that the President was entirely within his rights to say, ``I will be happy to hand these notes over to you, but I do not want to waive the attorney-client privilege forever from now on on any other meeting.'' Is that a fair statement? Let me ask the Senator from Maryland, is that a fair statement?

Mr. BUMPERS. So all I am saying, Mr. President, is it seems it is not a constitutional crisis. This does not reach the level of some of those infamous battles of the Watergate hearings or even Iran-contra. But it just seems to me that in the interest of comity, in the interest of taking advantage of an offer by the President to say here they are, take them, but you know, let us let the House and the independent counsel both say, as well as the Senate, that we are not waiving, that the White House is not waiving. The President is personally not waiving the attorney-client privilege. I daresay there is not a Member of the U.S. Senate that would have made a more generous offer under the same conditions than the President of the United States has made in this case. So I yield back such time as I have to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, how much time does this side have remaining? Parliamentary inquiry, how much time is left on our side?

Mr. BUMPERS. It, to me, is like the best of all worlds, I say to the Senator. I would have hoped that instead of getting into this all-day debate in the Senate, that the chairman and ranking member of the Senate committee, their counterparts in the House, the independent counsel--I do not know that there is any great sense of urgency about these notes--and the three of them, that group sit down and agree to this. One additional minute.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, David Cole, the officer in charge of the Memphis office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service is soon to retire. Today I wish to pay tribute to this dedicated civil servant. For 34 years David Cole has labored in the vineyards at INS, and, along the way, he earned a law degree from Memphis State University. All who have come in contact with Dave have been impressed with his knowledge, his dedication, and his integrity. David Aaron Cole joined the agency as an immigration patrol inspector on August 15, 1961, at Laredo, TX, following his graduation from Mississippi State University in Starkville. Dave answered the call during the Berlin crisis and entered the military, assuming active duty status on December 23, 1961, where he served until August 27, 1962. He then returned to the U.S. Border Patrol in Laredo. On January 6, 1966, Dave was promoted and transferred from the Border Patrol to Boston as a records and information specialist. In August 1967, he was promoted and transferred to records and information specialist in New York City and became chief of records in 1970. On November 19, 1970, Dave was selected as officer in charge, Memphis, TN, where he has faithfully served since then. Mr. President, Federal employees are often the brunt of jokes, cartoons, and talk shows. There are thousands like David Cole who faithfully do their job without recognition or fanfare. I salute David Cole for his commitment to public service and for his dedication to the people he served. I wish him the very best as he retires from public service and begins a new career in the private sector.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee. Mr. President, it is an interesting paradox that I have noted since I have been here that the things that are really the most important and the most serious to our Nation and, indeed, to the world are the ones that seem to draw the least attention and are least understood. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is one of those things. It was entered into in 1974 between Brezhnev and President Nixon. The really salient language of that treaty is found in article I. Here it is on this chart. As they say, the mother tongue is English, and this is as clear in English as you can get. Article I: Each party shall be limited at any one time to a single area out of the two provided in Article III of the treaty for deployment of antiballistic missile systems or their components. Single means one. The ABM Treaty limits each party to one strategic anti-ballistic missile site. It was ratified in 1976, and it is a binding treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, now Russia. There is not any question that this bill intends to proceed with the deployment of a strategic antiballistic missile systems at multiple sites. The bill also says that we will decide whether a missile defense system is tactical or strategic; that is, whether it is designed to intercept tactical missiles or strategic missiles. The United States will decide. And if the Russians do not happen to like our decision, that is just tough, and we will abrogate the treaty. How does the bill justify these new policies? Here on this chart is what the 1995 Ballistic Missile Defense Act says. Here is the threat that is being used by those who want to deploy this National Missile Defense System. Here is what the Missile Defense Act says: North Korea may deploy an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching Alaska or beyond within 5 years. Within 5 years, the bill says. Second: Determined countries-- I do not know what a determined country is. I guess you have determined countries and undetermined countries. Determined countries can acquire intercontinental ballistic missiles in the near future and with little warning by means other than indigenous production. Senator Levin and I wondered where this information came from. So we took this language and wrote to John Deutch, the Director of the CIA, and said, ``What does the intelligence community have to say about this threat?'' Here is what he wrote back to us a little over 2 weeks ago; this is what the CIA said: The bill language overstates what we currently believe to be the future threat. The CIA goes on to say: A North Korean missile potentially capable of reaching portions of Alaska--but not beyond--may be in development, but the likelihood of it being operational within 5 years is very low. Third, the CIA says: The intelligence community-- On whose information we are supposed to be relying around here when we spend money-- The intelligence community believes it extremely unlikely any nations with ICBM's will be willing to sell them, and we are also confident that our warning capability is sufficient to provide notice many years in advance of indigenous development. So what is our response to the intelligence community? It is to spend $200 million more for the Navy's upper-tier system and $400 million more for the national missile defense system. So much for the $30 billion or so per year that we spend on intelligence. What is the national missile defense system required to do in this bill? It is required to cover all 50 States, including Hawaii and Alaska. How will it do that? The only way it can be done, by deploying interceptors at multiple sites. What do you do when you deploy multiple sites? You say to Russia, ``Adios, friend. If you don't like it, we'll pull out of the treaty,'' which we have a right to do. But the danger of abrogating the ABM Treaty and the Russians and the United States both having antimissile defense systems, strategic and to a lesser extent tactical, is the world becomes a much less safe place. Everyone knows that, if Russia and China think the United States has an ABM system that can shoot down their ICBM's, they will begin to deploy more ICBM's to compensate. Instead of arms cuts, we will have a new arms race. I do not know of a single person in the world, I do not know anybody who really studies this and keeps up with it who thinks what we are doing here is in our best interest. It is not. The bill says that the national missile defense system has to be deployed by the year 2003. That is 8 years from now. We may lock ourselves into a technology we do not even want. Do you know what the Russians have already said? ``We summarily reject this unilateral action you are taking.'' We summarily reject it, and if you do it, Russia will have no choice but to stop implementing the nuclear weapons cuts specified in the START Treaty. I do not have much time, so let me go on to a couple of other items. The bill repeals the prohibition on buying more B-2 bombers than the 20 we have already agreed to procure. We put $493 million in there for B-2 procurement. It is not clear whether that $493 million is to correct some of the flaws in the present B-2 or whether it is to buy long-lead items for more B-2's. If it is the latter, it is terribly misguided. I defy anybody in this body, as I did yesterday, to read the report, read the conference report and tell me how the $493 million is to be spent. Even Senator Nunn, who favors the B-2, says he cannot decipher it. What else is in the bill? Yet a new method of financing arms exports. The United States now has between 50 and 55 percent of all the arms exports in the world, and the Defense Department said we are headed for 60 percent of all the arms exports. In other words, we ship more arms in the international arms trafficking business than the rest of the world combined. We have four methods of financing arms right now, and this bill provides yet a fifth. Yes, we are the arms merchants of the world. What else does it do? I can remember back, I guess, in 1983, when some lobbyist downtown did not have anything better to do, so he came here and convinced the U.S. Congress to start bringing old battleships out of mothballs. I stood here and wailed like a banshee, saying this is an absolute abject, utter mistake. So what did we do? We did not bring one out; we brought four out. What did it cost? About $2 billion. What happened? After we did it, we put them back in mothballs. But some Navy contractors got a couple of billion dollars out of it. Now the Defense Department has removed the four battleships from the Naval Register. That means the Pentagon has no more use for the ships and it can dispose of them. So what does the bill do? It orders the Navy to return at least two of the battleships to Naval Register so they can be returned to duty someday. That does not cost anything, Mr. President. I am happy to report that is one thing in the bill that does not cost a thin dime--that is, to put two battleships back on the Naval Register. I only hope and pray that at some point we do not decide to start bringing those suckers out again. Because that will cost a small fortune. I remember the first one they brought out--I think it was the Iowa or the Missouri--I forget which--and it started firing those big 16-inch guns and found out that it totally threw all the new electronics on the ship off, and they had to go back through all the electronics and encompass them in rubber so the guns did not throw everything off. God forbid that those old battleships are ever put into service again. The good news is that the Appropriations Committee has already prohibited the Navy from spending any money for bringing out battleships. So while this bill would like to bring the battleships out again, there is no money appropriated for it.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed on the remaining time of Senator Kennedy, 5 minutes from the time allocated to the minority leader, Senator Daschle, and 2 minutes to correspond to the 2 minutes given to Senator Inhofe.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I am not on the Finance Committee. I am not on the Budget Committee. Through Democratic caucuses and studying the budget documents, I have been trying to follow this budget process. I have been an avid student of what is going on. I have been in the U.S. Senate 21 years. I am absolutely incredulous. I cannot believe what Congress is doing with charge, countercharge. Members of Congress are worrying about who is winning in the polls and who is losing in the polls. But I must say I am amazed that the Republicans absolutely refuse to provide a continuing resolution while we try to work this out. I cannot understand this steady objection to keeping the Government going while we fight about how we are going to balance the budget. How do you explain to the people back home that you are trying to balance the budget when you send 250,000 employees home and say, ``Not to worry, you are going to be paid anyway''? Can you believe that we told 250,000 Federal employees this morning not to show up for work and ``you will be paid anyway''? The only reason the people on my staff are going to be paid now, which they were not in the first Government shutdown, is because we passed and the President signed the legislative branch appropriations bill. Mr. President, we are also seeing what is almost tantamount to a constitutional amendment without voting on it. The Constitution says, essentially, that a bill passed by the Congress shall be presented to the President and if the President approves it, he shall sign it. And if he disapproves, he will not sign it or he will veto it. For 205 years in this country, the President has signed or vetoed bills that were sent to him by the Congress, and the Congress either overrode the veto or they did not. If they did not have the votes to override the veto, then Congress went back to the drawing board trying to meet the President's objections in order to get a bill to him that he would sign. That has been the procedure under the Constitution for over 200 years, and now we have a totally new procedure. And that procedure is that if the President vetoes a bill and there is a majority of one party in the Congress that takes exception to that veto, but not a big enough majority to override the President's veto, Congress shuts the Government down. Teach that President a lesson. How dare he veto a bill when the opposing party is in control of the Congress. President Clinton has correctly characterized this as a gun to his head. Republicans are not trying to override the veto. Nobody has brought the reconciliation bill back here for revision after the President vetoed it. We shut the Government down--twice. Twice within 2 months we bring the Government to a halt in such a needless, irresponsible way. The budget does not have to be approved tonight. It does not have to be approved between now and January 15, although it almost certainly would be approved by January 15. There are a lot of people across the land who are saying ``a pox on both your houses.'' Lord knows, I understand that. As I read this morning's account of this woman in Vermont who has a part-time job making $85 a month and trying to stay off welfare because she deplores it, but who, in the past, has received a little Federal help under what we call LIHEAP, low-income energy assistance program. This woman said she wore four sweaters to try to stay warm so she could keep the heat as low as possible, but I think she said she is going to run out of fuel next week and she does not have one farthing to buy new fuel. The fuel supplier--and I certainly understand his position--says, ``We cannot afford to extend credit to these people. We are not rich. We are just out there selling fuel trying to make a living.'' Would you believe that 10,000 people in the city of Chicago alone have been refused and shut off from any additional gas because they cannot pay their bills? That is 10,000 homes in the city of Chicago alone. Last year there was $1.3 billion in this program, Mr. President. The people of the Northern States are running out of money and fuel. Why? So we can preserve a $245 billion tax cut for the wealthiest people in America. It makes Marie Antoinette look positively compassionate. There is the great novel James Baldwin wrote entitled ``Go Tell It On The Mountain,'' a young black man growing up in the South during the Depression, and he talks about a big dinner on the ground. He said these preachers would get up after their stomachs were full and talk about how many people they had saved, and the central character in this book was saying they talked about saved souls in the way you would talk about ears of corn being lopped off the stalk. And he took a vow, because he wanted to be a minister, that he would never take the gift of God so lightly. Do you know what happened in the book? As time went on, the central character became a preacher, very good at his trade, and the first thing you know he, too, was talking about saving souls like so many ears of corn being lopped off the stalk. There are two morals in that. One is that we all have a tendency to take ourselves too seriously and get to believing that somehow or other we have all the solutions. But the other moral is that people who are cold are like lost souls. They are real human beings. In this case, they are real human beings who are suffering. Why are they suffering? Because of us. All so we can have a $245 billion tax cut. That includes a capital gains tax cut, which would be good for me and just about every other Senator in this body, each of whom makes in excess of $133,000 a year. We will get a tax cut. People making less than $30,000 a year will see their taxes go up. The interesting thing is we are always standing on the floor of the Senate pontificating about what the American people want, especially when we think the American people want what we want. I heard people time and time again saying that people want a tax cut. The truth of the matter is, they do not. Look at this chart. This shows 10 polls asking whether Americans prefer tax cuts or deficit reduction: USA Today/CNN/ Gallup in December 1994; New York Times/CBS in January 1995; Wall Street Journal/NBC in January 1995; Washington Post/ABC in February 1995; Times/Mirror, February 1995; Wall Street Journal/NBC, March 1995; Los Angeles Times, March 1995; USA Today/CNN/Gallup, April 1995; the New York Times/CBS, April 1995; New York Times/CBS, October 1995. In every single one of them, a majority of people said, ``Do not cut taxes until you balance the budget.'' Congress is supposed to at least be mildly responsive to what the American people believe. Mr. President, let me add something interesting about this last New York Times/CBS poll taken in October 1995. I hope all my Republican friends are listening. The national polls showed that overall, 60 percent of those surveyed did not want a tax cut until after the budget was balanced, 35 percent did. But among Republicans surveyed, the figure was 68 to 30. Well over 2 to 1 of Republicans said do not cut taxes until you balance the budget. So how did this huge tax cut proposal come to be? Well, the Budget Committee asked CBO to make a study and say, if we get a balanced budget by the year 2002, how much will we save in interest costs and other dividends from a balanced budget? CBO said, ``$170 billion.'' So how did we decide to use that fiscal dividend? Use it to soften Medicare cuts? No. Medicaid, our health care system for the poorest of the poor, one-half of which are children? No. Education? No. Environment? No. Earned income tax credit? No. The Budget and Finance Committees said, ``Oh, $170 billion dividend for balancing the budget. Let's give that and another $75 billion to the richest people in America in the form of tax cuts.'' If you have not seen Kevin Phillips' recent article, I recommend it to everybody. He is no bleeding heart liberal. He points out what happened in 1981. If we followed the Reagan prescription of cutting taxes, we were told, we would generate so much economic activity we would balance the budget by 1984. So 1984 came around and the deficit was up to almost $200 billion. It was $58 billion his first year as President, and after we passed everything he asked for, the deficit in 1984 was not balanced, it was $200 billion out of balance. Then we went to Gramm-Rudman. Gramm-Rudman was going to balance the budget in 3 or 4 years. And the rest of the story is painfully known to everybody in America. The budget deficit soared once again. Then we had that fiasco at Andrews Air Force Base. We were going to balance the budget by 1993. What happened? The budget was headed for almost $300 billion in deficit. Forgo the tax cut, Mr. President, and take two-tenths of a percent off the Consumer Price Index, and we will be 90 percent of the way home toward a balanced budget. We will not have to tell the nursing home patients of this country that their children are going to have to start picking up the tab for their care in the nursing home. You do not have to tell the elderly when they go to bed at night they might be destitute the next morning because of a catastrophic illness. Mr. President, I came here to vent my frustration and, hopefully, make a little sense about what is going on and what is not going on. What is not going on is the people's business. I yield the floor. Mr. ROBB addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Even if I did, he would not because he disagrees with them. And that is his prerogative as President.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. On the defense authorization bill, I was very pleased to listen last week to a man whom I believe is probably the most respected man in the United States on defense issues. He and I have had very serious disagreements, particularly about the size of defense spending. But I have never really questioned his motives, his intellect, or his understanding of the defense issues. Yet he stood on the floor last Friday and said he fully intended to vote against this defense authorization bill. That was Sam Nunn, the distinguished Senator from Georgia. He gave a lot of reasons, not the least of which was this so-called national missile defense system. Somehow or other, the people in this body simply cannot give up on the Soviet Union. Our defense policies and our State Department policies for as long as the memory of man runneth not, has been keyed to that terrible evil empire of the Soviet Union. We have spent tens and hundreds of billions--trillions, really, because we were so frightened of the military might of the Soviet Union. Interestingly, 2 weeks ago we learned that a lot of our defense spending and a lot of our policies were based on misinformation given to us by spies for the Soviet Union who were feeding us disinformation about how powerful the Soviet Union was, and it played right into the hands of the defense industries and the hawks of this country, and we spent trillions of dollars. That is one of the reasons we are in the pickle we are in with a $5 trillion debt we are trying to do something about. Now we come back, because we still cannot give up on that anti-Soviet mentality, and we say we want a national ballistic missile defense system in place by the year 2003 that will protect all 50 States. There is not any doubt, and neither the chairman nor the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee would refute, that that is going to require multiple antiballistic missile sites. And when you start talking about multiple sites, you are talking about a direct abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, one of the very few treaties we still have in existence with the Soviet Union, now Russia. It says that neither country will deploy a strategic antiballistic missile system at more than one site in its own territory. I engaged Senator Nunn in a colloquy on this subject Friday afternoon, and asked him if this is not a legislative abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Senator Nunn very wisely answered in language that all lawyers understand. He said it constitutes an anticipatory breach. What that means is, once we deploy more than one site, we have in fact abrogated the treaty. Colleagues, let me ask you a question. How would we react if the Russians were to announce today, as we sit here debating this bill, that they are going to deploy a national missile defense system that will have many sites? I promise you that all 100 Senators would be on the floor squealing like a pig under a gate. And you would hear, ``There they go again. You cannot trust them.'' Yet, here we cavalierly get ready to spend billions on a national missile defense system which will abrogate a treaty that is in the interest of the Russians, the United States, and all the people of the world. I ask you this: To add to the question, what if the Russians were doing this, what would our response be? It would be to start deploying one as quickly as we could. And you tell me when the ABM Treaty is gone and the Russians and the United States both have national missile defense systems, who do you think is better off? I can tell you nobody is better off, and the world becomes again a very dangerous place living with a hair trigger. The Russians are right now in the process of complying with START I. And they are complying with it by dismantling nuclear weapons. They, like the United States, are prepared to consider the ratification of START II which will cut nuclear weapons still further. Do you think if we go ahead with this national missile defense system the Russians are going to ratify START II? Of course, they are not. If we are going to deploy a system that will shoot down their missiles, they are not going to keep dismantling missiles. They are not stupid. They know exactly what is going on. So I am going to vote against this bill because it costs too much money, because the national missile defense plan envisioned in it is dangerous in the extreme, and because we are putting $493 million more into the B-2 program. And I defy anybody in the U.S. Senate to read the committee report and tell me what we are going to do with the money for the B-2. Is it for advanced procurement for more bombers? Or is it to take care of the flaws in the present bombers? The committee report had one line that was the most curious line I have ever seen in a conference committee report. It said the Senate conferees believe so and so. Who cares what the Senate conferees believe? It is what the conference of the House and the Senate both believe that we are supposed to be voting on. It reminds me of a story about a little boy. The teacher said, ``What do you believe?'' The boy said, ``I believe what the Methodists believe.'' She says, ``And what do the Methodists believe?'' He says, ``They believe what I believe.'' ``And what do both you and the Methodists believe?'' ``We both believe in the same thing.'' Mr. President, I invite all of my colleagues to read the committee report and tell me where the $493 million is going. Finally, I can remember all the years I have been here and posing the question about things in our defense budget: Why are we doing this and why are we doing that? And the answer has been, well, the President wants it, the chiefs want it, and the Secretary of Defense wants it. So we went merrily on our way spending tens of billions of dollars because they wanted it. Now you ask the powers that be in the U.S. Senate. Why are we doing it when the Secretary does not want it, the President does not want it, and the chiefs do not want it? The answer is, what do they know? Mr. President, at a time when everybody is groaning and straining to deal with the balanced budget and trying to accomplish a balanced budget, we have a defense appropriations bill which the President has already signed. I disagreed with the President on that because, as I have said before, my good friend, the President, has a right to be wrong just like I have. There is $7 billion more in that bill than anybody asked for--ships being built that they did not ask for, and in places where there was no bidding. So, Mr. President, I do not know how much longer this bill will be debated, but I can truthfully say that I think it is a terrible mistake. I think the world will be less safe once we pass this conference report. I yield the floor. Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.