Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

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

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, this amendment is being offered by Senators Daschle and Kerrey and myself. I hope that we might get the managers of this bill to accept this amendment. It is precisely the language that was in last year's telecommunications bill. I do not know what happened on the way to the forum this year. Somehow or another it did not make it. Since it is the same language that was in last year's bill, perhaps by the time we get around to finishing the debate the floor managers might see fit to accept it. Now, Mr. President, here is what this amendment is about: any company that owns 10 percent of a utility company is considered a utility holding company. In 1935, because some public utility holding companies were very big and very powerful, we passed the Public Utility Holding Company Act [PUHCA]. Holding companies that operate essentially on a multistate basis, 11 electric utility holding companies and three natural gas utility holding companies--are what we call registered public utility holding companies. They must act and conduct themselves in accordance with PUHCA. In my State, Arkansas Power & Light is owned by Entergy, a registered utility holding company. Entergy also owns utility subsidiaries in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The other public utility companies have a similar number of utility subsidiaries. These 14 registered public utility holding companies serve approximately 50 million households in the United States. The chart I have here contains a map of the affected States. All the States in dark blue, are served by registered utility holding companies. The States in light blue, including North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, will be served by registered holding companies following the completion of proposed mergers. [[Page S8236]] Under the telecommunications bill, PUHCA will be amended to permit these public utility holding companies to get into telecommunications activities. Unlike the baby Bells, they can enter into these businesses immediately after the President puts his signature on this bill. No questions asked. Here is what I am trying to address with this amendment. In 1971, a utility subsidiary of a registered public utility holding company, American Electric Power, the Ohio Power Co., which is an electric utility company, entered into a contract with a sister affiliate, called Southern Ohio Coal Co. In 1971, 24 years ago, Southern Ohio Coal Company agreed to sell coal to Ohio Power under a contract. They said, ``We will sell you coal at our cost.'' Think about that. One sister company is saying to another sister company ``We will sell you coal at our cost.'' The only agency with authority to scrutinize that contract as to whether it is a good contract or a bad contract for consumers is the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC], as is required by PUHCA. The SEC looked at the contract in 1971 and said ``this is just hunky- dory. Fine contract. Off you go.'' The coal company sold its coal to its sister company--both of them owned by the same parent--Ohio Power, which generated electricity and obviously passed the cost of the coal as a part of its costs to the ratepayers in Ohio. If you are sitting around at night in your house worrying about your electric bill and that air-conditioner is going full-time because it has been a hot day, you worry about the price of the power, but you assume that somebody, somewhere, is making sure what you are paying for that air-conditioning that day is a fair price. Electric rate regulation in this country is conducted at both the Federal and State levels. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC] is the only body that regulates the rates charged for power sold at the wholesale level. Everybody here knows what FERC is. FERC regulates wholesale sales of power. What is a wholesale sale of power? That is the sale of power to a utility which in turn will sell it to the people who buy its power. Only FERC can set those rates. Back to the guy sitting in his living room with the air-conditioning going. He does not realize that Southern Ohio Coal Company is selling coal to Ohio Power, who is generating electricity for his air- conditioner. He did not realize that the coal company was charging Ohio Power as much as twice as much as that coal could be bought for on the open market. That is right--100 percent more than their cost. So, the municipalities that bought power from Ohio Power Company got to thinking, ``We are getting ripped off.'' So they go to FERC and they say, ``Listen, FERC, we are paying a utility rate for electricity that has been generated with coal from Southern Ohio Coal Co. and Ohio Power is giving them as much as 100 percent profit.'' That is right. Ohio Power is paying the coal company 100 percent more than they can buy from anybody else in southern Ohio. They go to FERC and say, ``how about giving us a break on our rates? Check this out and see if it is right.'' So FERC sends a bunch of investigators out to find out if this is a true story. What do we get? It is. It is true. Ohio Power has been paying up to 100 percent more for coal than they could have bought it from anybody. And they have been putting it in their rates, and the poor guy sitting in his living room wondering how he will pay for his electricity bill that month suddenly realizes he has been taken. So FERC says, ``This is not right. This is not fair by any standard. Stop it. We are going to give you people a new rate. We will not sit by and tolerate something like this.'' What do you think Ohio Power did? Why, they did what any big fat-cat corporation would do that has all the money in the world--they appealed the FERC decision. Who did they appeal it to? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The court of appeals decided that FERC had no jurisdiction. They did not have a right to delve into this issue. The court said the only agency with authority to look at this issue is the Securities and Exchange Commission. They approved the original contract. They said, it was just fine. And 21 years have gone by and they never looked at it again. Incidentally, the poor little municipalities were continuing to get ripped off. They filed a petition with the SEC in 1989. Guess what the SEC has done in the last 6 years with their petition? You guessed it, Mr. President, nothing. Nothing. When they saw that SEC was not going to do anything, that is the reason they took it to FERC and said, ``FERC, why don't you help us? You have the jurisdiction to do it.'' FERC said, ``We do, and we will.'' The court of appeals said, ``No dice.'' Now, Mr. President, my amendment is simple, straightforward, and fair. There are a lot of people in this body who are apprehensive about this bill. Know why they are apprehensive? Because they are afraid that it will wind up being anticompetitive, instead of procompetitive. There is one thing in this bill that everyone should understand. The bill addresses public utility holding companies. It talks about public utility holding companies. It talks about FERC. And Senator D'Amato, to his credit, put a little proconsumer language in this bill. But his language will not ensure that poor old Joe Lunchbucket sitting in his living room worrying about his air- conditioning bill will be protected. Tom Daschle, Bob Kerrey and Dale Bumpers, we care about what his electric bill will be this month. We are offering this amendment to prohibit cross-subsidization between affiliates of a public utility holding company. We are saying, ``We are not going to allow these people to charge 100 percent more than their cost and charge it to this poor guy sitting in his living room watching television.'' This amendment is directly related to the telecommunications bill. These public utility holding companies, serving more than 50 million households, want to get involved in the telecommunications business. I am for them. I want them in the cable television business. I want competition in the cable television business. As I said in my opening statement, if the President signs this bill the public utility holding companies can immediately go into the telecommunications business--telephone, cable television, you name it. So what I am saying is I do not want one utility company that generates electricity ripping off their sister affiliates and charging it to poor old Joe Lunchbucket. I do not want sister affiliates inflating their costs from one company to another and passing it on to any ratepayers. Let me give an illustration. This chart explains precisely what I am talking about. Here is the registered holding company--let us assume this is American Electric Power. Here is a subsidiary which sells both fuel and telecommunications services. This subsidiary, we will say, is Southern Ohio Coal Co. They are mining coal and selling it to these utilities. But let us assume they are also in the telecommunications business, all of a sudden. They start shifting their costs from telecommunications to their coal operations, so they can compete better in the telecommunications market. They shift their costs over to the coal company, knowing that nobody is guarding the store, and that they can charge it to these utility companies and put it right back on old Joe Lunchbucket again. Not only are they going to charge them this exorbitant rate for coal and make him pay for it through his electric bill, now they are going to go to the telecommunications business and shift the cost from the telecommunications to coal, so their telecommunications cost will be so much less nobody can compete with them here in Washington, DC, or in Little Rock, AR. Here is another example. Here is the same registered utility holding company. They form a telecommunications subsidiary. In addition, the holding company already has a service company which performs certain functions for the utility subsidiaries. Let us assume that the telecommunications company is going to provide telecommunications services to the service company. They are going to charge them just like the coal company did, a 100 percent profit. And then what is going to happen? They are [[Page S8237]] going to pass it right down to the utility companies through the service company contracts and the utilities are going to pass it down to old Joe Lunchbucket again. Mr. President, this gets a little complicated for people who have not dealt with it for the past 3 years, as I have. As I say, I am still a little nonplused about why my amendment was in the bill last year and is not in the bill this year. I guess somebody just felt they had a little more clout this year. They might not have liked it last year. I am not rocking the boat, but a lot of people, as I say, are worried about how the consumer comes out in all of this. If my amendment is not adopted, I can tell you exactly how the consumer is going to come out if he buys any services from a registered public utility holding company. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BUMPERS. The problem with the Court of Appeals' decision in Ohio Power is that the court said that the SEC is the only regulatory body with authority to protect consumers. And the problem is, the SEC will not, and possibly can not, do it. They approved the original contract and for 24 years have refused to look at it. So what happens? The consumers are paying twice as much for coal as the coal can be bought from anyplace else. I am just simply saying cross-subsidization of these affiliate companies held by public utility holding companies is wrong. There is not a person within earshot of my voice today who believes it is right. Why would you not vote to stop that? Why would you not give poor old Joe Lunchbucket a little bit of a break out of this? If you do not, these same holding companies are going to go into telecommunications, and unlike Pacific Bell, Bell South, Southwestern Bell, they go in the day the President puts his signature on this bill. They can be in the cable business. They can go into anything they want to. They do not have to go to the FCC and the Justice Department. They can also orchestrate transactions between sister companies. Who is going to sell what to whom? One sister sells telecommunications products to another. And maybe that company also sells coal to a utility company. They pass it on. Even the telecommunications cost goes right down to the utility, right down to poor old Joe Lunchbucket. Nobody here believes that is right. Do you know who favors my amendment? Every State public service commission. The Consumer Federation of America, the industrial energy consumers, including General Motors and Dow Chemical are even for it. The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, the Ohio Wholesale Customers Group, and on and on. They all support the Bumpers amendment. Mr. President, I do not know of anything further that I can say. This is an opportunity to protect consumers. If you want competition, you cannot have it unless you support this amendment because, if you do not, these anticompetitive practices will continue. It is just that simple. I yield the floor. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, for the benefit of my colleagues who were not here for the earlier part of this debate, let me just say that my amendment is what I would call the do-right amendment. It was precipitated by an incorrect decision issued by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Ohio Power case. In 1992, a bunch of cities who bought power from a utility subsidiary of a registered utility holding company, named Ohio Power. They were buying power from Ohio Power and Ohio Power was buying coal to generate that power from a sister company called Southern Ohio Coal. The municipalities went to FERC, because FERC sets wholesale rates; that is power sold from a utility company to a city, for example. And they say, ``We think Ohio Power's rates are too high and the reason they are too high is because this coal company is charging its sister company an exorbitant rate for coal.'' FERC sends their investigators out and what do they find? They found Ohio Power is charging 100 percent more for coal than that coal can be bought from anybody else in southern Ohio. What is happening is Ohio Power is paying twice as much for coal and what are they doing? They are passing it right on down to the municipalities who, in turn, have to pass it right on down to Joe Lunchbucket, who is worried about how he is going to pay his air- conditioning bill this month. It is just that simple. That is all there is to this.

Mr. BUMPERS. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, this amendment is the precise language reported out of the Energy Committee, 14 to 5 last year. And it was incorporated in this bill precisely that way. There is nothing new about it.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Will this require a rollcall vote once we get consent?

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, it is my pleasure today to commend a bright young citizen of Arkansas, Justin Tyler Carroll. Last week Justin was crowned champion of the 68th annual National Spelling Bee. Justin, a student at Wynne Junior High School, bested 247 contestants at the competition at the Capitol Hilton. The bee consisted of 835 difficult words such as ``smaragdine,'' ``frugivorous,'' and ``syncretize.'' Justin successfully made it through the closing rounds and received his championship cup after spelling ``xanthosis,'' which means a yellow discoloration of the skin. Not only is Justin the winner of the National Spelling Bee, but he is the holder of several other outstanding awards as well. He is the recipient of the All-American Scholar Award, National Science Merit Award, National Leadership Merit Award, and National Mathematics Merit Award. At the young age of 14, this straight A student has already earned many prestigious titles that promise a bright future indeed. Being the winner of the National Spelling Bee is a tremendous achievement. I commend Justin's numerous accomplishments and praise his hard work. It is gratifying to those of us who were taught the importance of spelling to see that younger generations also take it seriously.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I must say, sitting around here all evening waiting to offer an amendment can be a very frustrating experience. I have concluded that this is no way to run a railroad. I have watched this process now for 5 days and I have listened to a lot of powerful speeches. There are plenty of opportunities for press releases back home proving that you are a budget deficit hawk. But as a result of that, there are a lot of good amendments that are not going to be debated because we are running out of time tomorrow. This process should permit those people who have honest-to-goodness, legitimate amendments to offer and debate them. We should have a lot less--in this case about 30 hours--of political speeches. When debate on the budget resolution is complete, there are going to be a lot of amendments, many of which that would have improved the budget resolution, that will fail because their proponents will not have had time to present their case to the Senate. Mr. President, I do not know of a single amendment that has been offered on this side of the aisle that would increase the budget $1. We have tried to rearrange some of the priorities, but we have not tried, and would not try, to torpedo the legitimate goal of trying to balance the budget by the year 2002. My own amendment, Mr. President, goes to a rule change that is proposed in the budget resolution that I think is disastrous. This proposed rule change involves the sale of assets that belong windfall. The rule change would permit revenues derived from the sale of these assets to be scored for Budget Act purposes. When I was Governor, we had revenue sharing. The Senator from Kentucky seated here was Governor of his State at the same time I was, and the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee was Governor of his State. Three Governors here on the floor tonight who served together. One morning I went to my office and there was a check on my desk for $21 million made out to Dale Bumpers. I told my aide, ``Call the airport, tell them we will be there in 15 minutes.'' And $21 million was the first revenue-sharing check we got. I sent it to the Arkansas Highway Department because I knew they would use it for things that would only be a one-time shot. To put that $21 million into the operating budget would have been irresponsible. I knew revenue sharing at some time was going to end and I would have had to raise taxes to continue the services that we were providing with that $21 million. I do not believe there is a single Governor in the United States that would take a one-shot windfall amount of money and put it into an operating budget. It is lunacy to do it. In 1987, the U.S. Congress, under Gramm-Rudman-Hollings II, adopted the proposition that revenue derived from asset sales would not be scored. In short, the rule was intended to prevent the use of asset sales for operations. Since 1986, every budget resolution that has come to the floor of the U.S. Senate and been adopted by both Houses of Congress said specifically that revenue derived from asset sales could not be used to offset the deficit. In other words, revenue from asset sales could not be scored. Yet here we have a proposed budget which changes this long-time sensible rule and assumes the sale of a whole host of Government assets, including the Presidio, an Army base in San Francisco; the strategic petroleum reserve, the Naval petroleum reserve; the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Now, Mr. President, my amendment would simply strike one section in the budget resolution in order to restore the old rule which prohibits revenue from asset sales to be scored. Mr. President, I have no objection to asset sales per se. We sell assets all the time. My amendment does not suggest that we cannot sell an asset. However, it suggests we cannot come in here with a big platter full of asset sales in order to balance the budget, where the Senate has not debated those items and simply say, ``Here's $4 billion in deficit reduction.'' The budget resolution assumes that we will sell thousands of barrels of oil we have in the strategic petroleum reserve. It anticipates the sale of the Presidio in San Francisco, and that will never fly because San Francisco has so many ordinances nobody would give anything for it because it will never be able to be developed. If the proposed change in these long-standing budget rules is permitted to take place, let me tell Members where we will be headed. First of all, every budget reconciliation bill that comes before this body is going to have a whole host of asset sales. We are going to have a national yard sale. National parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, highways, power marketing administrations, water projects--all up for sale in order to balance the budget. Many asset sales do not even make financial sense. Assume we get $1 billion for the sale of the power marketing administrations. We cut the deficit $1 billion in 1996. If you assume that these assets, if retained under Federal ownership, would produce $100 million a year in revenue, by the year 2020 we will have lost revenues of $2.5 billion in exchange for the one-shot deal in 1996. No businessman in his right mind would do such a thing. Mr. President how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, there is not a Governor in the United States, including the person sitting in the chair at this moment, who is a former Governor, in my opinion, that will take an asset sale or one-time windfall and put it into his operating budget. My amendment does not prohibit the sale of those bases. It just says, let's not change the budget rules to mask the deficit by scoring the revenues derived from these asset sales. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I wonder if the distinguished floor manager would be willing to also state that at the time the rollcalls occur on these amendments, that mine follow that amendment of the Senator from Maine, Senator Snowe.

Mr. BUMPERS. That is fine.

Mr. BUMPERS. If this amendment of Senator Stevens has been cleared, that is fine.

Mr. BUMPERS. I thought it would be better if rollcalls followed the sequence in which the amendments are offered.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me say to the Senator from Alaska, my amendment does not stop the leasing of ANWR. That is not what this amendment is all about. You can go ahead and lease ANWR. But do not score it in the budget. That has been the law of the land for 10 years. All of a sudden we get this budget resolution presented to us and they say we are going to change the rules. If you can get $2 billion for Presidio, count it, score it. You have $4 billion in here, and next year you may not have $4 billion in asset sales so you are going to have to find it elsewhere. Why, I say to the Senator, you might even have to pay royalties on hard rock mining next year.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield the floor and retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, is it in order now, before using all of my time, to ask for the yeas and nays?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, the Senator from Alaska misunderstands what this debate is about. It is not about what the President recommended. I could not disagree with the President more. I went down to the White House and told him, along with the Senator from Nebraska and a host of others. This is bad policy and I told the President that. He is my friend but that does not mean I have to agree with him on everything and he understands that better than anybody. The fact that the President has proposed asset sales in his budget does not make it good policy. It is bad policy. I do not care who recommended it. The Senator from Alaska says he is embarrassed. He is embarrassed by this amendment. What we are trying to do is to restore the law where it has been for 10 years. I never heard the Senator from Alaska in the last 10 years say under the budget rule not scoring assets was an embarrassment. Now it is an embarrassment. The Senator from Alaska is my friend. He has been trying to get ANWR opened up for oil drilling since, as we say, ``the memory of man runneth not.'' I am not for it, and I don't expect to be for it in the foreseeable future. This resolution assumes that we are going to charge the oil companies $1.4 billion over the next 7 years for the right to drill in ANWR. What do you do after the scoring period to make up for the lost oil after the first 7 years? You are going to cut discretionary spending again. The budget resolution assumes $1.4 billion from the sale of the power marketing administrations. That is a bad proposition from a business standpoint. No businessman in his right mind would decide whether to sell an asset by only considering the lost revenues associated with that asset for a period of 7 years. I will tell you something. If you are willing to sell the Presidio, the Grand Canyon cannot be very far behind. So, Mr. President, I plead with my colleagues not to buy into this idea that you can take these one-shot, one-time windfalls from the leasing of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the selling of the Presidio, the selling of these power marketing administrations. As I said in the opening of my remarks, my amendment does not preclude asset sales. It simply says deal with them in the usual course of business and do not score them for budgeting purposes. I am not only not embarrassed, I have never been prouder of an amendment.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I would like to add Senators Murray and Bradley as my chief cosponsors, the Senator from Nebraska, Senator Exon, Senator Wellstone, Senator Boxer, Senator Feinstein--all as cosponsors.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, the House had a budget task force which recently adopted a Heritage Foundation recommendation that we should keep only those national parks and wilderness areas of national significance. It may be that the senior Senator from Alaska seated on the floor and his junior colleague may decide that Denali is not of national significance and throw it in the budget reconciliation bill-- it would be gone. If we are only going to keep national parks and wilderness areas of national significance, who is going to decide that? Congress? It will be very tough if the budget is in dire need of revenue and no one wants to raise taxes. Here is where we could wind up. First of all, we could make the Grand Canyon available for sale. That could be the first to go. Then take Mount Rushmore. I have been out to Mount Rushmore. They have a thriving number of visitors out there. I think we can probably put a McDonald's and maybe a Marriott there at Mount Rushmore. There is no telling what that place would bring. After we get rid of Mount Rushmore and Grand Canyon, here is the jewel, we would sell the Statue of Liberty. Now, Mr. President, that all sound very humorous. There is absolutely no reason whatever under this budget resolution, which allows the scoring of revenue from the sale of national assets, to believe that some things just as precious as the Statue of Liberty will not be put on the auction block. Last year I was Chairman of the National Parks Committee. I went out to see the Presidio. I had never seen it except at a distance. It is one of the most remarkable pieces of property left in the United States and certainly the most remarkable piece of property left in an urban area. Here we have already put it up for sale. Who knows where we go after that? Mr. President, I have offered the Bumpers-Bradley-Murray amendment this evening not only because the proposed rule change in the budget resolution would permit the sale of our national treasures, but because it is also bad economic policy, bad social policy and bad culture policy. We ought not to do it. We have lived very well for 205 years without trying to balance the budget by selling assets. Finally, my amendment does not alter the bottom line of the budget resolution one bit. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee would still be required to find whatever amount of money the budget resolution instructs the Committee to find. I can tell you, Mr. President, again, you put this proposition to the people of this country, Do you think we ought to start selling off wilderness areas, national forests, some of our treasured national parks? I can just see it now. You cannot see all the Grand Canyon from the rim. We need a highway down through it so you can really enjoy it. We need a new Holiday Inn down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon so we can make more money. These things are disastrous. I hope a majority of the Senate tomorrow morning, when we vote on this, will agree that this is a terrible, terrible change in budgeting. It is a terrible change in national policy. I yield 5 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Washington, Senator Murray.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished floor manager. Let me say, first of all, capitalism is not a dirty word. Crazy budgeting is what is crazy. It is not dirty, but it is crazy. Everybody in this body is always saying, ``This is what the people want. They want term limits, and they want a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.'' Let me show you what 70 percent of the people in this country want. This chart shows a USA Today poll which asks, ``Do you prefer deficit reduction or tax cuts?'' Seventy percent say that if we are going to cut spending, we should apply it toward deficit reduction. That's almost three times the number of people who prefer tax cuts. So what are we doing here? We are thwarting the obvious will of the people. The amendment of the Senator from Texas reminds me of turning a child loose in a candy store. I cannot think of anything in this amendment that I would not love to vote for, except the very regressive part of the tax which rewards the rich and takes from the poor. The Senator's amendment has a new IRA, it has a deduction for caring for the elderly. It has all kinds of tax breaks that I would love to vote for. But Mr. President, we cannot afford this, and the people of this country do not believe it is possible to have these tax cuts and balance the budget, too. When I ride home on an airplane, I talk to the people around me, and they say, ``Senator, the thing that troubles me about you Democrats is you engage in class warfare.'' I hear that very often. I suppose Rush Limbaugh has talked about it, otherwise, so many people would not be talking about it. But who is really engaging in class warfare here? Look at what the amendment of the Senator from Texas does. It gives a whopping $124 a year to people who make zero to $30,000 a year. That is a pizza every third Friday night. And when you take away the earned income tax credit, they pay a lot more. They not only do not get the $124, they wind up losing a substantial amount every year. But what about people who make over $200,000 a year? What kind of tax cut would they get out of this amendment? They would get a cut of $11,266. Why, Robin Hood would be whirling in his grave--taking from the poor to give to the rich. They say, ``You Democrats talk too much about class warfare.'' If that is not class warfare, I do not know what is. Mr. President, the last time we had a balanced budget was when Lyndon Johnson dumped the Social Security trust fund into the budget. And since that time, we have had integrated budgets. Social Security has been counted. Otherwise, the deficit would have been much, much bigger. So what do we do under this budget? We are going to take $600 billion of Social Security funds over the next 7 years to pretend to the American people that we have achieved a balanced budget. And the Senator from Texas comes with an amendment that will only cost $350 billion--talk about deja vu. I heard all of this in 1981, $3.5 trillion ago, how we can cut taxes and balance the budget. Mr. President, I divinely hope our colleagues will not accept this amendment. I yield the floor.