Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. The majority leader will be proud in knowing that I actually picked Kansas to be in the final four in the office pool.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, last night the citizens of my State were deeply saddened by the loss of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks to a magnificent UCLA team in the NCAA finals. But No. 2 is not all bad. We finished ahead of several hundred other NCAA mens basketball teams. Sometimes, none of us performs to perfection or even to our maximum abilities. Last night was not a particularly good night for the Razorbacks, but that is not to diminish the magnificent game that UCLA played. The 1995 NCAA tournament was filled with hard-fought, competitive games with exciting finishes. Just 2 weeks ago UCLA barely squeezed by Missouri. We all remember watching Tyus Edney go the length of the court and lay one up just at the buzzer to win the game. youngster from Syracuse that allowed Arkansas to win in overtime. Such is the very nature of the game. But I can tell you that all Arkansans glory in the spunk of this great, magnificent Razorback team for coming back again and again. While they will lose several players who are seniors, I have confidence that the Razorbacks will be back playing for the championship once again next year. The University's coach, Nolan Richardson, is a very talented man. He was very gracious last night. He took full responsibility for the loss, as great men do. That resonated well with the American people, as it always does. Generosity will never lose anybody a vote. It is a mark of greatness. And Nolan Richardson was great in his comments last evening. Youngsters all over America want to play for him. So I fully expect that he and the Razorbacks will be back again next year. I rise just simply to say that this team, as did last year's championship team, has filled all Arkansans' hearts with pride and exhilaration. We are immensely grateful for the glory they bestowed on themselves and our beloved Arkansas. I yield the floor. Mr. PRYOR addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed for 2 minutes as if in morning business.

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

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask I be permitted to continue for 2 additional minutes without the time being charged on the 1-hour allocation?

Mr. BUMPERS. That is the Senator's understanding?

Mr. BUMPERS. But only temporarily?

Mr. BUMPERS. Can the Senator continue this on his time?

Mr. BUMPERS. Here is what the first sentence of the paragraph says: Sale preparation. The Secretary concerned shall make use of all available authority, including the employment of private contractors and the use of expedited fire contracting procedures, to prepare and advertise salvage timber sales under this section. Following that, page 71 of the bill, Senator, following that is the incomplete sentence. If that is not right, I still do not quite understand what it means, because it alludes to the $25,000 buyout.

Mr. BUMPERS. What does this sentence mean?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Washington for yielding to me. This is a very complex issue, and I understand both sides of it. I come down on the side of the junior Senator from Washington, because I think it is the correct side for the Nation. I think to go with the language of Senator Gorton sets a very dangerous precedent. Nobody argues with harvesting infested, burnt, salvaged timber. I am for that. Every Member of this Senate is. The language of the Gorton amendment says that the Forest Service will harvest the maximum extent practical. Then it goes ahead to say we are going to suspend all environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act. This is called sufficiency language saying, cut all you can possibly cut that is practicable, and do not worry about the environmental laws or any other law. And do that in 1995 and 1996. It is a dangerous precedent. If we go with that, we do not know where we are headed. The pressures from the industry on the Forest Service will be intense. That is the reason the fishermen in the Northwest are very upset and concerned about this. They are concerned that excessive logging will hurt the habitat of the salmon which is disappearing at an alarming rate. I know the Senator from Oregon wants to provide jobs in those mills, and I want to help him but not by suspending all environmental laws. I have a letter from the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, and they adamantly oppose sufficiency language. I would like to read an excerpt from their letter. We oppose the current Congressional effort to approve ``sufficiency language'' or to mandate minimum timber harvest levels in the Northwest. However well meaning, these are nevertheless bad ideas. Sufficiency language would simply override all current protections for salmon and other aquatic species. Mandatory timber harvest levels would essentially do the same. . . . The result would only be additional degradation of already severely damaged salmon spawning habitat. That ought to weigh heavily with somebody. It does with me. This is the biggest fishing organization in the West. Mr. President, finally, there is language in this bill, as I read it, that allows the Forest Service to reemploy people who have received a $25,000 buyout. Mr. President, 3,000 Forest Service employees, approximately, have taken their $25,000 under the Reinventing Government proposal and retired. Now, here is an incomplete sentence, but if I could have the attention of the Senator from Oregon for a moment, here is what the provision in the bill says--the provisions of section 3D1 of ``Separation incentive payment authorized by such Act and accepts employment pursuant to this paragraph''--now that is an incomplete sentence. I do not have a clue as to what this means. My impression of it is that the Forest Service can take these people who have just taken their $25,000 and retired and put them back to work in order to comply with this maximum extent practicable. Does the Senator from Washington agree with that?

Mr. BUMPERS. I do not want to yield on my time. Mr. President, I will close by saying one of the things I think the country is concerned about, about what is going on right now--they wanted change. They wanted regulatory reform. But they do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I have seen that old expression: If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. If you think the environmental laws of this country are too tough--and sometimes they can be very frustrating, try living without them and see the kind of damage that will be inflicted on our environment. The Gorton amendment goes too far. I simply cannot support it and urge my colleagues to support the amendment by Senator Murray. I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I like to think I do not have two better friends than the senior Senator from Oregon and the senior Senator from Washington. They have helped me over the years on many issues of concern to my State. However, I cannot support them on this issue. I will remind my colleagues that the Senator from Idaho, who is on the floor right now, has introduced a forest health bill that was the subject of a hearing by the Energy and Natural Resource Committee. In fact the bill will probably be marked up in the next few weeks. We should let the authorizing committee do its job. I can assure you that I will do everything I can to make sure that a responsible bill emerges from that committee. I am not going to support something with sufficiency language in it. If a responsible forest health bill emerges from the Committee, I hope it will automatically supersede the Gorton amendment. What is the Senator from Washington's understanding of this matter? Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Fine. We just took up some time here.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Reserving the right to object, what was the request?

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Senator for yielding 1 minute. I do not want to open up the debate on the balanced budget amendment, but let me say to my good friend from New Mexico: Here is the opportunity to have the best of two worlds. Do not tinker with the Constitution, and balance the budget--both. I yield the floor. Vote on Amendment No. 423

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I want to compliment the Senator from West as a sign of things to come. I see this as absolutely essential for keeping faith with the American people, who are counting on us to do something about the deficit. Everybody knows that we are going to be a severe disappointment to those people unless we give up the idea of this so-called middle-class tax cut and put this spending, which we are laboring mightily to cut, on deficit reduction. Just on a personal note, Mr. President, I have not received one single letter from a constituent saying, ``Please give me my middle- class tax cut.'' And I have received literally thousands of letters from people saying, ``Please put it all on the deficit.'' You cannot do both. And if you chose to do both, you would run into an unmitigated disaster. You would have to cut Social Security; you would have to cut Medicare; you would have to cut unbelievable programs, such as veterans, to achieve a balanced budget by the year 2002, or any other year. The proposal of the Senator from West Virginia is simple, straightforward, dynamic, and absolutely necessary if we are serious about deficit reduction. We tried cutting taxes and increasing spending back in 1981. That was $3.5 trillion ago. We just finished, Mr. President, a very volatile debate on the balanced budget amendment. I was on the unpopular side of that issue, because I regard the Constitution of the United States with a reverence reserved only for the Holy Bible. There were a lot of politics involved in that debate. But you and I both know we cannot balance the budget with political rhetoric. We cannot balance the budget with anything less than common sense and spine. I heard the Senator from West Virginia say a moment ago, when I was in my office listening to his remarks, that unless this amendment passes, which says this $6 billion in net spending cuts on this bill we are considering goes for deficit reduction, he will vote against the bill. And that makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of cuts in this bill which, if I had a choice about it, I would prefer to keep. There are dramatic cuts in housing. There are dramatic cuts in jobs. There are dramatic cuts in a lot of programs which I cherish, which I think go to the very heart and strength of the Nation. I do not want to go through this agony only to see it go out for what is called a middle-class tax cut that includes people who make $200,000 a year. I promise you that the workers of this country would get just about a 13-inch pizza--the equivalent of the tax cut would be about a 13-inch pizza on Friday night. If we balance the budget, as we say we are going to, I promise you, he would give up pizza for life in order to give his children some sense of a good destiny, so that they are living in a country that is worth living in and which has a great future. His house payment will not be as much. His car payment will not be as much. The dollar will again be king, and the people on Wall Street will be rhapsodic. But that pales compared to the way the American people would change their attitude about this institution we call Congress. Democracy always hangs by a mere thread. When we say to the American people, ``We cannot function anymore. We made you a promise, but we do not intend to keep it,'' we erode people's confidence in their Government. Every time you do that, you pay a little heavier price. I may vote for this bill simply because I saw the remarks of the distinguished budget chairman in the paper this morning. Senator, I want to say I was heartened. I was heartened by your comments in that story this morning. I am heartened when I see the chairman of the Finance Committee singing out of the same hymn book, the same page. Then my heart sinks when I look at what the leader in the House and the leader in the Senate are saying. Not singing from the same hymn book. They say we will have a tax cut. So I am really troubled about how I will vote on this. I do not want to vote for a tax cut. I wanted to vote for deficit reduction and keep faith with the American people. Mr. President, this vote is going to separate the people who want a political issue to talk about and those who really believe in deficit reduction. There has never been a more golden moment here where the U.S. Senate can stand up and say ``As much as I would like to give people a tax cut, we are not going to do it, because we have a higher responsibility.'' I am like the Senator from West Virginia. I have never made an enemy voting for a tax cut. There is a Senator in this body came up to me about 10 years ago and said, ``Senator, I just saw a poll that 92 percent of the people in this country do not want their taxes increased.'' Well, no kidding. I would assume that figure would be 99 percent. So, the choices cannot be easy, if we are serious. The choices must be tough. Here is a vote that will separate those who want the issue from those who want to keep faith with the American people. This amendment, carefully drafted, says ``You may not use this deficit reduction for taxes, or increased spending.'' Bear in mind, it is not just taxes here. It says two things: Do not increase spending on something else planning to use this $6 billion as an offset; and do not plan to use it for a tax cut. It is just that simple. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for yielding me this time. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I will be very brief in my remarks. I first want to rise in support of the Byrd amendment. As everyone here knows, the House Budget Committee last week proposed a change in the Budget Act that would permit reductions in discretionary spending to be used to offset lost revenues resulting from tax cuts, rather than to reduce the deficit. This is one of the most irresponsible proposals I have seen since coming to the U.S. Senate. Everyone in Congress speaks loudly and clearly about the need for spending cuts in order to reduce the deficit. However, one of the first things the new Republican majority in Congress has proposed is to, rather than reducing the deficit, cut spending on programs that help some of the neediest people in the country so that we can pay for tax cuts for some of the wealthiest people in America. I heard the distinguished Chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, argue that the Byrd amendment would replicate current law. While that might be technically true, given the House Budget Committee's actions last week, the Senate needs to go on record in opposition to using spending cuts to pay for tax cuts. These cuts must, and should, be used to reduce the deficit. I urge my colleagues to support the Byrd amendment. I also would like to spend a few minutes discussing the Dole line- item veto proposal that will be voted on tonight. I want to pay tribute to my esteemed colleague from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, who, in my opinion, is always on the side of the angels when it comes to assaults on the Constitution, always on the side of the angels in understanding what James Madison and John Jay and Alexander Hamilton meant when they talked about the separation of powers. The first time I ever heard that expression I was in the ninth grade. The concept of separation of powers was refined for me somewhat when I read the Federalist Papers for the first time when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Arkansas. Then I constitutional law and almost a full course on the Federalist Papers. It is a tragedy that every high school student in this country does not have at least one semester on that sacred document called the U.S. Constitution. John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison created the concept of the separation of powers as a method of protecting the public. They put it in the Constitution because it was an important idea that should not get swept away with a momentary trendy, popular idea. So here we are with a very momentary, popular, trendy idea that could very well be an unmitigated disaster for the country--the Dole line item veto proposal. I remember when I was Governor of Arkansas 250 magnificent prints of a mockingbird showed up to be signed by the Governors of the five States that had the mockingbird as their State bird. When these prints arrived I spent all night long signing my name 250 times on those prints. And of the 250, I got 50, Preston Smith in Texas got 50, the other three Governors got 50. They all spent all night long signing their names, too. We are going to see similar signing ceremonies if the Dole proposal ever becomes law. Poor President Clinton. He does not sleep very much as it is. I have known him for years. He gets by on less sleep than anybody I have ever known, but he cannot get by with the 2 hours a night that will be left if he is forced to sign all those billettes sent up by Congress. Mr. President, I would not be surprised if within 2 years from this moment, the Dole proposal will have been found to be such a disaster, so unworkable, there would be a clamor to repeal it. Mr. President, I went to Wake Forest 3 or 4 weeks ago to speak at a convocation of their law school. The subject of my speech was on the ``Trivialization of the United States Constitution.'' While we are not dealing with a constitutional amendment today, we are dealing with an assault on the Constitution. I voted for Senator Hatch's amendment to try to retain some semblance of the constitutional balance or power. Can you imagine what FDR would have done when he called the Supreme Court those nine old men who kept striking down the laws that he was trying to get passed to get this country moving again--nine old men. He detested them. He wanted to pack the Court by putting six more members on the bench. At first, everybody thought that was pretty good idea. Just like at first everybody thinks the Dole proposal is a good idea. All of the sudden, the people of this country decided that was one thing they did not want FDR to have the authority to do. But can you imagine the President of the United States having a line- item veto on the Supreme Court? The Constitution would prohibit him from cutting their salaries, but he could sure turn the lights out. He can cut the heat off. James Madison would just be whirling in his grave if he knew this debate was going on. We, as Members of Congress are not perfect. There is plenty of pork to go around. Anybody who beats his chest on the floor of this body and says, ``I'm above that'' is not being entirely truthful. All you would have to do is ask that Senator how he or she voted on the space station. That is the biggest piece of pork in the history of the world. How did they vote on the super collider, the second biggest piece of pork in the history of world? How did they vote on that $400 million wind tunnel the other day, the third biggest piece of pork? No, it is that little $1 million lab down in some poor rural state that is pork. So, Mr. President, as I say, we are not perfect. But we have been doing some things right. Over the last several years we have taken a number of concrete steps in an effort to deal with the deficit. If we are serious about the deficit, we need to agree to work in a bipartisan manner and say to the American people, ``Yes, we are going to get the deficit under control and we are not going to squander the opportunity to get the deficit under control by putting out a politically inspired tax cut to people who do not want it.'' So we have a golden opportunity. And instead we are squandering it with another assault on the Constitution by shifting the power of the purse to the executive branch. We want the President to be king. The one thing the Founding Fathers in 1787 said in Philadelphia, ``We have had enough kings. We don't want any more kings. We are going to have a President.'' And until this moment, they have succeeded magnificently. We have had 42 Presidents and no kings. I wonder how much longer that is going to last. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Well, I will change it in the Record.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I am prepared to close the debate and get a vote on this amendment. Let me reiterate that this is corporate welfare, pure and simple. You heard the list of seven of the biggest corporations in America. They said they would put up 20 percent of the money for this. They have not committed one nickel--not a dime. If we cannot cut this $400 million, I shudder to think what is going to happen in this body the rest of this year. The American people have a right to demand that those people who said, ``I will be as careful with your money as I would if it were my own,'' will do just that. They have a legitimate nonnegotiable demand that you fulfill that promise. You cannot get it all out of welfare programs. You cannot get it out of food stamps. You can get some of it from those places. But now we are going to start on a $3 billion program to accommodate GE and Lockheed and Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, Pratt & Whitney, and Northrop. We are starting down the road with a $3 billion expenditure because they do not want to do it. The automobile industry did it. The aircraft industry could do it, too. If we start down that road of corporate welfare, I shudder to think where we are going to wind up with the deficit this year and next. So I plead with my colleagues, keep your commitment. Vote to cut spending. I yield the floor and yield back such time as I may have remaining. Mr. BOND addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be permitted to yield 4 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Missouri for such allocation as he chooses.

Mr. BUMPERS. How much time do I have remaining, Mr. President?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I am not familiar with the fact they strongly support it, and I am familiar with the fact they have asked for the study to be completed before they ask for any more funds for this project. But they are not committed and they are not proposing to be committed until the present study is completed and you will have plenty of time after that to decide and the Senate will, too. But for the time being, I am saying we ought to torpedo this misguided appropriation.

Mr. BUMPERS. Yes.

Mr. BUMPERS

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