Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I wonder if the minority leader has a speaker here he wishes to recognize at this point?

Mr. BUMPERS. Yes.

Mr. BUMPERS. Majority leader. I am sorry; I have a hard time breaking the habit.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield the Senator from Florida 2 minutes.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. BUMPERS. How much time remains?

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. No. General Electric made $3.7 billion in 1983 and got a $700 million tax cut. That was all $3 trillion ago, $3 trillion from the promise of a balanced budget. In only 8 years, our $1 trillion debt went to $3 trillion. You talk about snake oil. So what are we doing here? Are we going to pass an amendment that says the tax cut cannot come out of the Social Security trust fund? If you want to balance the budget, forget the tax cut. CBO says that without the tax cut we can balance the budget in the year 2001, a year earlier than under this budget. How is the tax cut being paid for? Out of Medicare, out of school lunches, out of Social Security, out of student loans, out of the earned income tax credit, out of agricultural programs. It does not make any difference which spending cut you say is the source of the tax cut. It does not matter. What matters is that we are giving away $220 billion to $240 billion in taxes that ought to go on the deficit or, at a minimum, be placed back in those programs like school lunches and Head Start and student loans and things that give people at the bottom of the ladder a fighting chance to become somebody. I got that chance when I went to one of the best law schools in the country on the GI bill, and I have been trying to pay it back ever since by reaching from the top of the ladder down to people on the bottom rung and bringing them up, because I think that makes me better and it makes our country stronger. I consider this 2,000-page monstrosity of a bill, that must weigh at least 10 pounds, I consider it one of the worst disasters to befall this institution called Congress. You think of it--penalizing the elderly, penalizing poor children, penalizing the most vulnerable among us while we give away 76 percent of the capital gains tax cut to the wealthiest people in America. Meanwhile, we continue to sell lands for $100 an acre when the mineral rights are worth thousands of dollars an acre. So the StillWater Mining Co. in Montana will pay $200,000 for a plot of land worth $38 billion in platinum and palladium. We are giving away taxpayers' property while we penalize the most vulnerable among us. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, we have now been on this bill 6 hours-- let us see, I believe a little over 6 hours, 6 hours, 30 minutes, and we have yet to vote. We only have 20 hours on the entire bill. And my question is this: This bill, which everybody on the other side of the aisle is so proud of, why do you not want to let us offer the amendments and let you defend it? That is all we want. If you are so proud of that tax cut, let us offer an amendment to make that tax cut refundable for the people who really need it. You call it a middle-class tax cut. That does not even stand the giggle test. A family with four children, making $20,000 a year, probably pays no income tax. And they do not get the $500 per child tax credit. They get nothing. The $500 credit is only available if you pay $500 in income tax. Contrast that situation with this: A man and wife with one child, and they pay, we will say, $500 in taxes. Under the Republican budget, they will get that $500 back through the child tax credit. But if you happen to have a house full of kids, your dependent exemptions will probably result in you paying no income taxes, so you will not be eligible for the same credit wealthier families get. That is a middle-class tax cut? We all know now that 49.5 percent of the people in this country make less than $30,000 a year. What do they get out of this middle-class tax cut? They get a tax increase, 50 percent of the people in this country are going to wind up paying more. Now, I will never forget in 1981 when Ronald Reagan came to town on the promise he was going to balance the budget, and I was hot for him. I am one of three Senators in the U.S. Senate--I want to cleanse my skirts--who voted for every one of President Reagan's spending cuts, but I voted against that massive tax cut. If everybody had voted the way Fritz Hollings, Bill Bradley and Dale Bumpers voted, we would have had a balanced budget. But, no, we had to give the store away. General Electric made----

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. But the point is, certification is a certification. You look in the dictionary. It says: ``certifies: to be accurate.'' I could project a balanced budget. But certification and projection are two entirely different words. [[Page S 15327]] I wrote her a letter, and I think the Senator from North Dakota, my colleague, and several others of us sent a letter to her saying: When you send this letter over, you should be very careful to make sure that you are absolutely certain that all of this is going to lead to a balanced budget, because you have been instructed not to project but to certify.

Mr. BUMPERS. I would be happy to.

Mr. BUMPERS. The thing even more perplexing on the point which the Senator from North Dakota raises is this. This is the conference report of the budget bill. Let me read it. It says: Section 205 of the conference agreement requires the chairman of the Budget Committee to submit the committee's responses to the first reconciliation instruction to the Congressional Budget Office. So the committee has to send all of these things to the Congressional Budget Office. Next sentence, if the Congressional Budget Office ``certifies''--this is the operative word--if the Congressional Budget Office certifies that these legislative recommendations will reduce spending by an amount that will lead to a balanced budget by the year 2002, the second reconciliation instruction is triggered. If you read the letter from the Congressional Budget Office, she does not certify anything; she projects a balanced budget.

Mr. BUMPERS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I never will forget in 1981 how the wind swept through this Senate and accepted Ronald Reagan's promise that if we just pass this massive tax cut, it would generate so much economic activity and so many taxes that we would balance the budget in 3 years, no more than 4 years. That was $4 trillion ago. I am happy to report I was 1 of 11 Senators that did not buy that for one instant. And, Mr. President, we are getting the same snake oil with this bill. I applaud a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who have committed themselves to dealing with the problem the American people have said is No. 1. But there is a time to pass tax cuts, and the time to do it is after we balance the budget, not before. But having said that, Mr. President, let me add that I would not vote for this tax bill if we had a $300 billion surplus this year. I would not vote for this tax bill if you held a gun to my head, because it betrays every value I hold dear about this Nation. The budget resolution that we passed in June said CBO will certify, not project, certify a balanced budget by the year 2002. And that once they certify it, then the Finance Committee can report out a $245 billion tax cut. The problem with that is not only has CBO not certified, they have only projected, but once this tax bill passes--and it is going to pass, Mr. President, make no mistake about that--but once it passes, the money will be gone and unavailable to help meet unexpected obligations like recessions, wars, trade wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods. A flood 3 years ago cost somewhere between $10 and $20 billion. We are still paying for Hurricane Hugo, which also cost billions. But here is the reason I would not vote for the tax bill. Look what it does. It has a capital gains provision: 76.3 percent--think of that, 76.3 percent of the capital gains tax cut which costs almost $50 billion goes to people who make over $100,000 or more. That is about 7 percent of the American people, including every single Member of the U.S. Congress. You think I am going to vote for a bill that gives 6.4 percent to people who make less than $30,000 a year; 4.6 percent if you make $30,000 to $50,000; 6.1 percent if you make $75,000 to $100,000; and 76 percent to people who make over $100,000? I would not vote for that under any circumstances. Those people do not need a tax cut. I might also say, my friends in the business community in my State say, ``Senator, we don't need a tax cut, we need to get the deficit under control. Balance the budget and then talk about taxes.'' What is even worse--talk about betraying our values--CBO said this bill represents a tax increase on 51 percent of the American people. That is how [[Page S 15331]] many people in America make less than $30,000 a year--51 percent. They get a tax increase out of this when you consider the cuts in the EITC, student loans, and all the others. At the same time, the richest 1 percent of the people in the country get $20,000 in tax cuts. Think of that, 50 percent of the people on the lowest rung of the ladder get a tax increase, and people making $200,000 a year or more get $20,000. What has happened to the country? Why do we do things like that? It betrays everything I believe in. During the Depression when I was growing up in a family poor as Job's turkey, we looked to the Government to help us, not hurt us. It was the Government we turned to for sewer systems and water systems and paved streets and rural electrification. Today, we are saying, let them eat cake. Who wants the tax cut? Seventy percent of the people in this country, in a USA Today poll, said reduce the deficit. One-third as many, 24 percent, said give me a tax cut. There is no clamor for it. On the earned income tax credit, President Reagan, Majority Leader Dole, Senator Domenici, and many others on the Republican side of the aisle have said that is a wonderful program. So what are we going to do? We are going to cut it. Mr. President, it is not just the tax bill that is so horrendous about this thing. There are all kinds of things in there. We continue to give away western lands to the biggest corporations in America, the mining corporations. And there is $18 million, over a 7-year period, in here against the mining companies. They get off scot-free--essentially scot-free. And then there is ANWR. Open up ANWR up on the north slope. That is going to be a tough one, Mr. President. That is going to be debated heavily here, because that is the same thing as an asset sale. When you sell an asset--as any businessman will tell you--that is a one-time bonanza for you. If you put that one-time bonanza into your operating budget, you will be in big trouble the next year. Mr. President, we are selling our petroleum reserve in Elk Hills, our naval petroleum reserves. We are selling 40 million barrels of oil out of our strategic petroleum reserve. We are selling everything in the world we can lay our hands on, with no thought of what you do for an encore, once you sell those assets. Until a few months ago, Congress could not count the sale of an asset as a revenue raiser. Why? Because counting the revenue from an asset sale fails to show the loss of value of the asset. It was only this year that Congress changed the budget law to allow asset scoring and count it toward balancing the budget. Now that we have changed the scoring process, we are selling everything we can get our hands on and counting that against the deficit. Let me go back to the earned income tax credit for a moment. The EITC helps reduce the poverty rate. Look at this chart. In 1993, 15.1 percent of the people lived in poverty. By 1994, the poverty rate had dropped to 14.5 percent. And if you consider the actual number of persons living in poverty, it was down almost one million people. So what are we going to do? Cut the earned-income tax credit, even as the program is working. There is the proof. The other day at this Million Man March, the point was made over and over again that fewer and fewer black people are enrolling in college. So what are we going to do? We are going to cut education funds by 30 percent--the most massive cut in the history of the country in education. It is going to make it much more difficult to get a loan, and then more difficult to pay it off. We are torpedoing all the programs that are working. Mind you, there are some programs that we need to torpedo, but the EITC and educational loans are not among them. I stood on this floor and I fought the B-2 bomber, I fought the space station, and I fought the super collider. I fought so many fights trying to save money to get spending under control here, and I lost most of them. Do you know why? Because the companies who make those big-ticket items dominate. We are not going to solve our spending problems until we reform campaign financing. The space station is made in 36 States, and that guarantees that it will continue. It is the most horrendous, outrageous waste of money in the history of man, and you cannot stop it. But you can sure stop payments to old people, who depend on Medicare for their health care. You think of it. A $270 billion cut in Medicare. A $182 billion cut in Medicaid, health care for the poorest of the poor. I ask for 1 additional minute.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield the floor. Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. An amendment would not be in order to that amendment?

Mr. BUMPERS. Is that the Ashcroft amendment?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, what is the pending business now?

Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I would be grateful if Senator Brown would, for a moment, engage in a colloquy with me to discuss the intent of his amendment on bypass flows. This issue is very complicated. I would like to assure that we are clear on what facilities would be affected. Additionally, the Department of Agriculture is concerned that the amendment does not allow, among other things, its Office of General Counsel to defend litigation concerning administrative decisions of the USDA officials.

Mr. BUMPERS

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

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the amendment be temporarily laid aside that I be allowed up to 10 minutes to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Absolutely.