Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I wonder if the senior Senator from Delaware will allow me 2 minutes to ask the manager a question.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Parliamentary inquiry. Is this a point of order? Are we going to be voting on a motion to waive the point of order and will that require 60 votes, Mr. President?

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Do they qualify for what?

Mr. BUMPERS. A family with a man and a wife and three children making $25,000 a year do not pay any income tax. A man and wife with three children making $100,000 will pay $10,000 to $20,000. They get the full $1,500 refund. The people who need it, the man and wife with three children making $25,000 a year, do not get one red cent.

Mr. BUMPERS. You bet.

Mr. BUMPERS. I object.

Mr. BUMPERS. Because they have not paid income tax.

Mr. BUMPERS. They used to qualify for it. I do not know whether they are going to or not. That is another $32 billion. We are not just depriving people of an education. We are not just depriving people of school lunches. We are not just putting another million children in poverty under the welfare bill. We are not just savaging the Medicaid Program for the poorest children in America to have health care. We are also savaging a program that even Ronald Reagan said was the best thing that was ever invented to keep people off welfare. We said ``no.'' No. If you are working for $4.25 an hour and trying to keep body and soul together and stay off welfare, in the past we have said, if you will stay off welfare, we will give you a couple of grand at the end of the year. We are savaging that program. Mr. President, I agree with the Senator from Pennsylvania on one thing. I do not like taking pension funds. Do you know why we are taking pension funds? Because the Senator from Pennsylvania will not send a debt ceiling to the President that simply said we spent the money, let us pay for it. No. You want to put habeas corpus and regulatory reform on the debt ceiling, of all things. Of course the President vetoed it. I would never have voted for him again if he had not.

Mr. BUMPERS. Certainly. I hope so.

Mr. BUMPERS. Senator, I know you want to get this amendment disposed of. I do not want to be an impediment to it. I will take 8 minutes and remove my objection.

Mr. BUMPERS. Yes.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I saw an article this morning where the Speaker of the House was asked, ``What is sacred about 7 years?'' I thought that was a good question. I have been curious about that myself. And the Speaker said, ``Well, it was just intuition. All major decisions are based on intuition.'' I do not like the idea of one man's intuition determining the fate of the country. His intuition may not match mine. It may not match anybody's. Frankly, I think intuition is always a fine thing, if a man is getting ready to make an investment. I think his intuition is important in a lot of ways. But when it comes to putting in concrete the time in which the Congress will have to balance the budget, I do not want anybody's intuition. I would like to see some hard figures. [[Page S 17146]] In this particular case, this amendment deals with Social Security. Everybody says we are going to balance the budget by the year 2002. If everything went swimmingly, according to every projection, we would still, in the year 2002, have used $650 billion in Social Security trust funds. I am not quarreling with that. The Republicans can come back and say, ``You did it. This President has done it.'' That is all well and true. But it still means there is $650 billion that was used that has to be paid back, just as certainly as the national debt has to be paid back. I think I have to say the tax cut in this bill is the most repugnant part of it. What in the name of all that is good and holy are we doing cutting taxes $245 billion in the name of deficit reduction? We tried that in 1981. The Washington Post editorial this morning, which has been cited a number of times here today as though it came right out of the Holy Bible, talks about how the Democrats have been demagoging the Medicare issue, and that Medicare really is in trouble, and that the cost of Medicare continues to go up. That is true. I do not quarrel with the idea that the Medicare system is in considerable trouble and needs to be fixed. I think $270 billion in cuts out of Medicare over the next 7 years is unacceptable. The thing I find most unacceptable about it is that it is being used to provide a $245 billion tax cut. And for whom? The wealthiest people in America who have not asked for it. But the people who really need it do not get it. A Post editorial this morning obliquely suggested that the addition of $3 trillion worth of debt during Ronald Reagan and George Bush Presidencies was somehow or other Congress' fault, with no mention of the fact that neither one of them could ever find their veto pen when they were in the President's office. President Reagan never vetoed one single spending bill, Mr. President--not one. All he did was send out millions of letters saying, you know, ``I cannot spend a dime that Congress does not appropriate.'' Congress cannot appropriate anything unless they have 67 votes to overcome his veto. But he looked through his desk drawer time and again and could never find his veto pen. The U.S. Government now owes four times as much money as it did when he took office. It took 200 years to get to $1 trillion. It took 12 years to get to $4 trillion. The Nobel award-winning economist at MIT said it was the most irresponsible economic policy in the history of the world. On that tax cut, Mr. President, I made this point yesterday, but I am going to make it every day that I can get the floor. You hear this unctuous, solemn business about the tax credit for our children. There are 5 million households in this country that have 11 million children in them. With those 11 million children and those 5 million households, the parents--not the children--will get a partial or full $500 tax credit. There are 8 million households in this country with 11 million children that will not get one single thin dime.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, there are nine conversations going on on the floor right now.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I see Senator Shelby is not here, and I assumed we were not ready to start in on this bill. I thought I might make a few remarks pending his arrival.

Mr. BUMPERS. Is there a time agreement on the bill?

Mr. BUMPERS. Fine. I will wait until then or at some hiatus in the bill to speak, Mr. President. I thank the distinguished ranking member.

Mr. BUMPERS. You never know when I get wound up.

Mr. BUMPERS

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

Mr. BUMPERS. Will the Senator yield for 1 minute? Will the Senator yield for 1 minute prior to the quorum call?

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes. There is so much to be said on this subject and not very much time. I want to begin by following up on what my good friend from Nebraska, Senator Exon, said a moment ago. I do hope that we do not have any further abuse of the rules by trying to silence the minority and put in a quorum call and object to it being called off, because there are Senators on this side who want to speak. That is the kind of things they do in Third World nations, Mr. President. We are a body of Senators who are supposed to be deliberating. We cannot deliberate if we do not get the floor to speak, and we cannot speak when this place is in recess. We all know what is going on here. There is an obvious effort to silence people. I am not going to be silenced. I am like Patrick Henry--I'm willing to sit here all night to say what I am going to say. The other thing the Senator from Nebraska brought up is that no Democrat--not one--has been invited to participate in a conference on the so-called budget reconciliation bill. We are not even permitted in the room. The first time, probably, in history, that the minority has been completely shut out of conference. I have only been here 21 years, but it is the first time I have ever seen anything like it in my life. Normally, when the House and Senate pass different versions of a bill, they select conferees--and there are more Republicans when they are in control and more Democrats when we are in control. The conferees resolve the differences between the two bills and they send the conference report to both Houses. This body is going to be asked to vote on Friday on the budget reconciliation bill, on which not one Democrat has even been offered the opportunity to amend, or even offer an amendment. So when the President says, no, I am not going to accept the Republican so-called 7-year budget balancing act, it is not because he does not favor a balanced budget. I heard the Senator from Tennessee earlier tonight say that is what all of this is about. I say to all Senators, if that is all this were about, we would be recessed and home by now. The President wants a balanced budget. The House and the Senate want a balanced budget. The American people want a balanced budget. But the President is not going to sign a bill with garbage on it which has no place on it. And he is not going to sign a bill which commits him to a reconciliation bill that is absolutely devastating to the values of this country. What are we doing? Here is that sacred document called the Constitution. It is the reason we are still a free nation. What does it say about the Presidency? Just so you will not think I am making this up, I will read it. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal. The mother tongue is English. I just read, in English, the Constitution which says if the President approves, he will sign it. If he does not approve it, he will send it back. I will not take the time to read the rest of it, but then it says the bill shall go back to the House where it originated and that House shall vote to override the President's veto by a 67 percent vote. And if they do it, it will be sent to the other House. What are we doing here? The President vetoed the continuing resolution. There is no effort to override it. They have an AK-47 to the President's head, saying, ``You will accept a $20 billion cut in school lunches; you will accept a $40 billion cut in education; you will accept a $270 billion cut in Medicare; you will accept a $182 billion cut in Medicaid; you will accept a $32 billion cut in the earned-income tax credit; you will accept a $245 billion tax cut for the wealthy.'' People on this floor stand up and solemnly talk about a tax credit for our children. Let me tell you about the tax credit for our children. The people who work in this country who have children do not get it. If that is the House Speaker's idea of a revolution, deliver me from it. I hope the Speaker keeps using that term revolution. It scares people. It scares me. When I hear people talking about a revolution, I might also say there are a lot of people who have never received the full benefits from the first revolution. And an awful lot of them do not want the benefits of his revolution, including me. This is not about who wants a balanced budget. This is who believes in elemental values of fairness. What the reconciliation bill says is: Eight percent of the people cheat. Let us kill the whole program. Put another 1 million people in poverty by adopting the welfare reform bill. Educate 1 million fewer children in college by cutting student loans and student grants. So far as that child tax credit is concerned, Mr. President, listen to this. They act as though the parent of every child in America is going to get a $500 tax credit. Mr. President, there are 5 million households in this country, with 11 million children, that will receive part or all of the $500 tax credit. Listen to this. There are 8 million households with 15 million children who will not get one dime, not even a nickel. Who are they? Who are these 15 million children? I will tell you precisely who they are. They are the people who ought to get a tax cut because they are from the families who do not make enough money to even pay income tax. A husband and wife that make $20,000 a year and pay no tax won't benefit from the so-called family tax credit. If you pay no tax, you get no refund. What kind of value is that? I have never seen so much political chicanery in my life. It is scary. Some of the things that have gone around here have been absolutely shameless. I know exactly where we are headed. We are headed to the point where the people in this country are beginning to get nervous about the Speaker's revolution. They are uneasy. I tell you, the election a week ago yesterday was not that big a deal. We Democrats got some satisfaction out of it. To me, that election just simply said we are not sure this is what we voted for in 1994. We want a balanced budget but we did not know you were going to assault the elderly and the poor children by cutting school lunches, by cutting education funds, by cutting funds for the elderly, by a $182 billion cut in Medicaid which affects the health care of the poorest children in America. Mr. President, the Republican budget would impose a $2.6 billion Medicare cut on my little State of Arkansas. I promise you we will be lucky to even have a program worthy of the name Medicaid. We cannot do it if you cut $2.6 billion, and for what? For this miserable, for this awful $245 billion tax cut which the wealthy do not want and which the poor will not receive. So I can see it coming now. The polls are going to continue to show the President doing very well and the people getting terribly upset about what we have done here. So what will happen? We will bring up desecration of the flag. That will take their mind off of it. Everybody loves the flag. And everybody is for prayer in school, so we will bring up prayer in school. That will get their mind off of it. Is it not interesting? I have fought a line-item veto ever since I have been in the Senate, and this year I lost. We passed a line-item veto, and what happens? There happens to be a Democrat in the White House and we cannot get anything done. What about term limits? Everybody was for term limits as long as the Democrats were in charge. Now all of a sudden term limits are not such a hot idea. I wonder if that has anything to do with the Republicans gaining majorities in the House and Senate?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I thank the Senator for yielding. People across America are looking at this Government shutdown and saying, what on Earth are those people thinking? What is this all about? And why is it necessary to furlough 800,000 workers? The Baltimore Sun said today that people are no longer mad as hell. They are scared to death. I can tell you there are people around here who are getting anxious. Why are we doing this? I have been in the Senate 21 years. This is the most bizarre time I have ever witnessed. I assumed, just as in the past, that reasonable heads would prevail, the thing would be worked out last night, everybody would come to work today, and we would get on with our legitimate business. But that has not happened. One group of people say, ``Why doesn't the President sign that bill?'' What is wrong with that? And other people say, ``I am with the President. I hope he will hang tough.'' That is where I come down. It is not that big a deal in some ways. But it is essentially an intrusion on the President's authority. It is an intrusion on our turf, too, to attach something like regulatory reform to the debt extension bill. Not our version of regulatory reform, the House version, which could not see the light of day in the U.S. Senate. It would never pass the U.S. Senate. And where is it? On the debt ceiling bill. Why on Earth do we put regulatory reform and habeas corpus reform on the debt ceiling? The debt ceiling is designed to provide the full faith and credit of the United States to people who buy our bonds. Twenty-five percent of our national debt, Madam President, is owned by the Western Europeans and the Japanese, and they do not think this is fun and games. I heard a young Congressman on the ``Jim Lehrer Show'' say last night that this is ``where the rubber hits the road. This is fun.'' It is a lot of things, but fun is not one of them. What if the Japanese and Western Europeans decide to start pulling out of American securities, our bonds and our T bills. Where are we going to pick up 25 percent, or over $1 trillion of new investment? Are we going to get it from the American people? We do not have that kind of savings in this country. So what happens? Interest rates start skyrocketing. What happens then? It costs us billions and billions to finance the national debt at a time when we say our whole raison d'etre is to balance the budget. What else? To provide for a $245 billion tax cut. Do you want to balance the budget in 7 years? I do not know whether it should be 7 years or 8 years or some other period, nor does anybody in America. But I can tell you one thing. A $245 billion tax cut is not consistent with balancing the budget. Any tax cut--any tax cut--should be postponed until the budget is balanced. And who gets it? You know the rest of that story. The $500 per child tax credit would not be for everybody; not for the people who make less than $30,000 a year with two or three children. They get no part of the child tax credit. Instead, they get a cut in the earned income tax credit. That is a tax increase. Some 49.5 percent of the people in this country get nothing but a tax increase out of this budget bill. But if you happen to be wealthy and have three or four kids, you get $500 for each one. So this morning I read where the Republicans are trying to make this $500 per child credit retroactive to the year just gone by. They cannot pay for the full $500 per child for 1995, but they want to come up with $125 per child. Of course, the 1995 tax returns have already been printed, and there is no place for $125 credit on the return. So guess what? It will be payable with a green check from the U.S. Treasury next October 1, 30 days before the election. How cynical can you get to take $125 for all these children out of the Treasury 30 days before the election? Talk about buying an election. It is one of the most hypocritical things I have ever read in my life. Colleagues, why did you run for this office? Do you have any values? Do you care about the fact that children are not going to be educated? Do you care about the fact that my State is going to lose 40 percent of its Medicaid funds? We will not have a Medicaid program. Do you care about elderly people? Seventy-five percent of the people over 65 live on less than $25,000 a year. So what do you do? You savage them to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy. I am sorry I do not have more time. I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I have just come from the second conference committee meeting on Interior appropriations. As you recall, in the first conference committee report there was a provision to take the existing moratorium on mining patents away so that the Bureau of Land Management would start issuing patents again. Just for background information, the provision last year prevented the Interior Department from accepting new patent applications and prohibited Interior from processing existing applications except those 393 applications which had gotten relatively far in the process. Today, the conference committee effectively rejected the patent moratorium even though when the original conference committee submitted its report to the House of Representatives, the House voted almost two to one not to accept it and to send it back to the conference committee between the House and the Senate to rework the mining patent provision. Well, they reworked it. They reworked it with Saran Wrap. It is so transparent that it does not even pass the giggle test. What is so transparent about it? The new conference report says, we will continue the moratorium that we had last year until either: No. 1, the President signs a reconciliation bill that relates --think of it-- to patenting and royalties; or No. 2, both the House and the Senate pass another piece of legislation relating to royalties, patenting and reclamation, even if the President vetoes that bill. Mr. President, royalties, reclamation, and patenting are all in the reconciliation bill. They are scams, but they are in there. And so if the reconciliation bill is signed into law or if Congress includes the same sham provisions on another bill, the moratorium is off. The 233 patent applications that we have told BLM they cannot go forward with will be processed, will ultimately be granted, and the mining companies will receive thousands of acres of land containing billions of dollars worth of gold, silver, platinum and palladium, for which the U.S. Government will not receive one red cent. Let me strike that. They will receive a red cent. The reconciliation bill has a royalty provision. It will provide $18 million to the Treasury over the next 7 years. I will let you be the judges, Mr. President and colleagues, is this a scam on the American people or not? Under the reconciliation bill, if these provisions stay, the Government will receive $18 million in royalties on Federal lands that are mined over the next 7 years. How much do you think the mining companies are going to take off the land in the next 7 years--Federal lands, patented and unpatented? I will tell you what it is: tens of billions of dollars of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. And in exchange the taxpayers of this country will receive less than $5 million per year. In the 123-year period, since the mining law of 1872 was signed by Ulysses Grant, the mining companies have extracted in today's dollars, according to the Mineral Policy Center, $241 billion--not million, billion--worth of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and other hard rock minerals. What has poor old Uncle Sugar, Uncle Sucker gotten for that $240 billion worth of hard rock minerals? Zip, zero, nothing. The argument is made that the mining companies create jobs, and they do. So does General Motors; so does RCA; so does General Electric. But we do not build billion-dollar buildings for those people to manufacture in, conditioned on them hiring somebody. It is the most incredible thing. This is the seventh year I have fought this battle. In 1991, I came close. I came within one vote of stopping this. What do you think happened after that? The number of applicants for patents on lands skyrocketed. It scared the life out of the mining companies. I remember the Stillwater Mining Co., which was owned by a couple of paupers called Manville and Chevron. They applied for their patents on 2,000 acres of land in Montana 4 days after I came within one vote of winning this battle. What do you think there is under the 2,000 acres? There is $38 billion worth of platinum and palladium. That is their figure, not mine. They are the ones that say it is worth $38 billion. Two or three years ago representatives of Stillwater came to my office and said their situation was very dicy. ``We are just not sure we can open this up. It may not be profitable.'' So what happened? Last year Manville bought Chevron's interest in the mine and just recently Manville sold its interest to a group of public investors for $110 million plus a 5-percent royalty. They can deal with each other and retain overrides of 5 percent. But if you suggest they pay Uncle Sucker 1 percent, the hue and cry goes up in this body as though you have just defamed the Holy Bible. When I said a moment ago that the provisions in the reconciliation bill were a scam, so transparent they would not even pass the giggle test, there is a provision in the reconciliation bill that is even worse, which says that the mining companies will pay ``fair market value.'' Now, does that not sound reasonable? You can go home and tell the Chamber of Commerce where they know nothing about this mining legislation, and somebody raises the issue: ``But, Senator, how can you vote to give billions of dollars worth of gold and silver away that belong to the taxpayers and not get a dime in return? The mining companies are happy to pay up to 24 percent to private owners, but not one thin dime to the Federal Government. How can you justify that?'' Mr. Politician says: ``I tell you how I justify it. I am going to make them pay and I have voted to make them pay fair market value.'' Mr. Chamber of Commerce questioner says: ``That sounds like a fair deal to me.'' That is the end of the story, except for one little thing. Fair market value is defined as the surface, not the minerals. So Stillwater Mining Co. which has 38 billion dollars' worth of platinum and palladium under their 2,000 acres will pay $10,000 under current law, and once the fair market value goes into effect they pay $200,000, or $100 per acre. Is that not something? Mr. President, $100 an acre for 2,000 acres of land, and the taxpayers of this country get the shaft again. When you say ``fair market value,'' I have a proposition for the mining companies: I would like to offer an amendment here for my colleagues to vote on, reversing fair market value. Define fair market value as the minerals, and we will give you the surface. They would knock that door down over there getting out of here. Do you think they do not know what they are doing? Do you think the Senators who come in here and offer these outrageous proposals do not know what they are doing? I invite anybody to ask any Senator to explain one simple question: Why is it, Senator, that the mining companies are willing to pay the States royalties to mine hard rock minerals on State lands, why is it they are willing to pay up to 24 percent royalties on private lands, but if you suggest a 1 percent royalty on Federal lands, they are all going to go broke, shut down, and throw all those poor innocent people out of a job? I invite any Senator to come to the floor and answer that question. Mr. President, 135 years is long enough. I thought maybe we could develop a little shame, so I raised the issue. How can you vote to cut $270 billion in Medicare for the elderly for their health care? Do not give me that wordsmith junk about how we are not cutting, we are just slowing the growth. Mr. President, 75 percent of the people on this country over 75 on Social Security live on less than $25,000 a year. They are scared to death they will have a toothache and have to have a root canal. They are terrified of a cancer diagnosis, which they know will break them even if they are covered by Medicare. Mr. President, 50 percent go to bed terrified at night even thinking about the possibility. So we routinely cut $270 billion from Medicare for the elderly. We cut Medicaid for the poorest of the poor. There were even proposals to cut out Medicare-Medicaid benefits for 13-year-old pregnant girls. Yes, I talked to a doctor Saturday afternoon who told me about witnessing the delivery of a baby of an 11-year-old. Go to any indigent hospitals and find out what is going on in the world. We will take care of that. We will teach them reliance, independence. We will make good citizens out of them. We are going to cut their school lunches. We are going to cut Medicaid. If you happen to want a college education, we are cutting education by 30 percent--the most massive cut in the history of the world in education. We are going to cut Head Start. We are going to cut school breakfasts when teachers tell me oftentimes that is the only decent meal the child gets during the day. What are we going to do for the mining companies? We are going to give them carte blanche to mine all the hard rock minerals they want to mine off of Federal lands that belong to the taxpayers. Is that called corporate welfare? How can you call it anything else? How can anybody with a straight face say we will balance the budget, and we are going to do it off the backs of the people who can least afford it, and we are going to give a $250 billion tax cut which is really a tax break for the wealthiest people in America. Many people who make less than $25,000 a year and have children will never get a dime. If you have a wife and two children and you are making $100,000 a year and paying $10,000 in taxes, you get the whole smear. If you have a wife and four children making $20,000 or $25,000 a year and you pay no income tax, you do not get a dime. What kind of tax equity, tax fairness is that? There is something seriously wrong in this Congress and there is something seriously wrong in this country when we routinely and almost cavalierly allow these giant mining companies all these hard rock minerals--billions of dollars worth every year--for nothing in exchange and penalize the most vulnerable people in America. I do not often agree with the senior Senator from Texas, Senator Gramm. However, when he says he wants everybody to start getting out of the wagon and help pull, I could not agree more. I say to these big corporate mining companies, many of which are foreign owned, get out of the back of the wagon and help the rest of us pull. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.