Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. But just how much do we mean this in the Chamber? I am not making little of the Senator's request. I would like to see a 10-minute vote. May I ask this question of the leader. I ask unanimous consent that I may speak for 1 minute on this reservation.

Mr. BYRD. I know he is serious.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be waived.

Mr. BYRD. I do that.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Vermont who is the majority manager of the bill. He is very gracious to accept the amendment. I also thank Mr. Kennedy who likewise was supportive of the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I send to the desk a modification to the amendment. Do I need to ask unanimous consent?

Mr. BYRD. I am very happy to have a voice vote if Senators are so inclined.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 564.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. Amendment No. 564 To Amendment No. 358 (Purpose: To encourage States to require each expelled or suspended student to perform community service for the period of the expulsion or suspension)

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside temporarily so that I might call up an amendment.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what is the pending question before the Senate?

Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished Senator from Nevada, the Democratic whip, be made a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, many young people in our schools today are suspended for bad behavior, somewhat unlike the days when I was in high school. They took care of the bad ones right there on the spot when I was there. But today a lot of them are suspended. A number of children in our schools are expelled for violent or dangerous behavior. And I am all for that. I am all for suspensions and expulsions where warranted, but what then? In today's home, all to often, both parents work. The suspended or expelled student may be left to his or her own devices. Many counties send expelled students to alternative schools, but alternative schools do not always follow the same procedure, the same schedule as regular public schools, again leaving children on their own for portions of the school day. And an idle mind is the devil's workshop. An idle young person with no supervision is a child who can easily get into trouble. A violent young person expelled for serious breaches of behavior could even be a menace to the community at large. Some children actually misbehave in school, I am told, in the hopes of being suspended or expelled with the notion that they will be able to enjoy a brief respite from their school classes. The amendment which I have offered and which has now been modified would encourage States to create a program that enrolls suspended and expelled youth in community service programs. You see, put them to work at something that encourages them to become builders, not wreckers, of buildings. The purpose of this amendment then is twofold. First, it would occupy young people who have been suspended or expelled. It would put those idle hands to work. Instead of hanging around on street corners or roaming around the shopping malls, these youths would participate in community service activities that give them structure, that promote a work ethic, and send the message that being suspended from school is not a vacation. Second, this program would give back to the community. Too often the young people of the ``me'' generation--the ``me" generation--do not consider that we are a society, and that each member of that society has a responsibility to the other people in that society. By performing community service, these young people would be making a contribution to their neighbors which would give them a sense of doing for others, perhaps even opening their eyes to the problems of those around them. My amendment would provide $50 million to allow States to coordinate and run a program which puts suspended and expelled students to work. Whether it is picking up litter, whacking weeds, painting fences, or mowing the grass, participating in public service activities will provide these young people with an alternative activity that helps to better their communities, and to better their lives. Wordsworth wrote, ``Small service is true service while it lasts.'' I urge my colleagues to support my amendment which authorizes this amount of money and helps to point troubled students toward true service to their communities, their country, and help them to become good, productive citizens. I yield the floor. Mr. President, if I may be recognized again.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I shall offer an amendment. The amendment is at the desk. It is amendment No. 402. I call up the amendment at this time.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this amendment authorizes to be appropriated $100 million to enable the Secretary to establish and implement a program to be known as ``Teaching American History Grant Program'' under which the Secretary shall award grants on a competitive basis to local educational agencies--to carry out activities that will promote the teaching of traditional American history in schools as a separate subject; and for the development, implementation, and strengthening of programs to teach American history as a separate subject, not as a component of social studies, within the school curricula, including the implementation of activities to improve the quality of instruction and to provide professional development and teacher education activities with respect to American history. A local educational agency that receives a grant under subsection (a) shall carry out activities under the grant in partnership with one or more of the following: (1) An institution of higher education. (2) A nonprofit history or humanities organization. (3) A library or museum. Mr. President, I started school in a two-room schoolhouse 79 years ago, in 1923. It was 1924 that John W. Davis of Clarksburg was nominated on the 103rd ballot for the office of President of the United States. He was defeated by Calvin Coolidge. My first teacher was a woman by the name of Carrico. Her husband had lost his arm as a brakeman on, I believe, the N&W railroad. Mrs. Carrico was my first teacher and she taught the lower grades. We started out in the Primer and the main character in that primer was Baby Ray. And there were two rooms, as I say. In the other room, a man by the name of Lawrence Jennings taught the upper grades. I went through the Primer in about 3 weeks. I promoted myself when it came to geography. Being in the same classroom with other students in the first, second, third, fourth grades--I believe the fourth grade was in the same room--I learned a lot by listening to the other students in the higher grades. There was a geography book. I can remember it as though it were yesterday; it was Fryes Geography. Well, I liked geography; I liked the maps and the pictures. So I went home one night and said to the man who raised me, a coal miner--he was my uncle by marriage--``I want a copy of Fryes Geography. I like that book.'' He said, ``Well, we will go to Matoaka,'' which was about 5 miles away. This was all in Mercer County, in southern West Virginia. ``We will go to Matoaka on Saturday, which is pay day, and we will get Fryes Geography.'' He took for granted that the teacher had asked me to ask him for this book. The teacher didn't ask me to do that. I just decided I wanted it. So we caught the train and went to Matoaka. There was no highway up to Algonquin. Algonquin was the coal camp. There was no highway up to Algonquin from Matoaka. The railroad ran across Clark's Gap Mountain, and we went by railroad, a passenger train, from Matoaka up to Algonquin. We went by Giatto and Weyanoke in Mercer County. That is the way we went from Matoaka to Algonquin. Mr. Byrd, the man who raised me, was a man who didn't have much education. He probably never went to the second grade. He could barely read. We had a Holy Bible in our house. That was about the only book at our house. I always called him my dad because I loved him and he loved me. I didn't know anybody else as a father. His wife was my aunt. She was my natural father's sister, and I had three brothers and a sister. But losing my mother when I was 1 year old, my biological father could not care for five children. That was back in the days when he probably earned only $3 or $4 a week working in a furniture shop. Upon the death of my mother during the influenza epidemic, he gave the children to his sisters. He kept the one daughter. I only saw her when I was in high school--about 15 or 16 years old. I saw my sister then for the first and only time. But there we were. These people who took me in to be raised loved me. They had one child prior to their taking me as their adopted child. That child had died of scarlet fever. So they had me as their adopted son. They loved me. I never knew about a mother's kiss. My aunt was tough, very religious, and strict. I never knew a mother's kiss, but she loved me. Anyhow, I went home one evening, and I said to my dad--as I say, I called him my dad because, as far as I knew at that time, he was my father. Now, I went home and I said I had to have a Fryes Geography. So on Saturday, we caught the passenger train, went down to Matoaka and bought Fryes Geography. I took it to school on Monday. The teacher Mrs. Carrico, said, ``I didn't tell you to get this.'' I said, ``Well, I have to have it and I want to study it.'' That teacher let me keep that book and let me study along with the class in which the book was being taught. Well, I came to love my teachers, and we had a category on that report card that was denominated ``Deportment.'' My old coal miner dad told me, ``If you get a whipping in school, I will give you another whipping when you get home.'' I wanted to please that coal miner dad, and I wanted to please those teachers. Back in those days, I say to Senator Kennedy, the history book was by Muzzie. It did not have a lot of pictures in it. It was full of narrative. I often ask the young pages who serve us--we have different pages from year to year to let me see their history book. I ask the students, the pages: Who is Nathan Hale? If an American history book does not tell us about Nathan Hale, I do not think it is much of a history book. Who was Nathan Hale? Nathan Hale was a young schoolteacher, 21 years of age. When George Washington asked for a volunteer to go behind the British lines and spy on the British fortifications and bring back drawings of the British gun placements, and so on, this young man by the name of Nathan Hale, age 21, schoolteacher, volunteered to go. He went behind the British lines. He accomplished his mission. On the night before he was to return to the American lines, he was arrested as a spy, and, of course, the drawings and the papers were in his clothing. The next morning, September 22, 1776, he was brought before a gallows, and as he stood there with his hands tied behind him, he asked for a Bible. The request was refused. Nathan Hale stood there before the gallows, and only a few yards away was a wooden coffin--a wooden coffin. He knew that his body would soon be placed in that coffin. He was asked by the British captain, whose name was Cunningham: Have you anything to say? Nathan Hale said: I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. Nathan Hale died for his country. I often wonder why people cannot give one vote for their country--whether they are Republicans or Democrats, why they will not vote, why they will not give one vote for their country Nathan Hale gave the only life he had for his country. That history book taught me about Nathan Hale. As a lad, I memorized my history lessons. I memorized them by the light of an oil lamp. I memorized history. I liked history. I liked to read about Francis Marion the ``Swamp Fox,'' Nathanael Greene, Daniel Morgan, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison. They were my heroes. So I say today we need good history books and good teachers so that the boys and girls today will find their heroes among the early Americans who built this country. I came to appreciate the fact that the peoples of western Europe, eastern Europe, central Europe, southern Europe, northern Europe and elsewhere came to this country and helped to build it. My heroes were those men and women who were mentioned in the history books. The teaching of history is important. When I moved out of that area of West Virginia--moved out with a wagon team--we moved up a hollow called Wolf Creek Hollow. We were 3 miles up that hollow. I then attended another two-room school up on the mountain. I walked to that school with a man by the name of Archie Akers. He was one of the two teachers in the school. He would walk from 3 or 4 miles down the hollow up by my house, and I would get with him and walk on up to the top of that mountain to that school. I had two teachers there. One was named Mary Grace Lilly. I remember the first day I went there. She said: If you have a fence and you can't get over it, you can't get under it, what do you do? I held up my hand. She called on me. I was eager to be called on. I said: If you can't get over it, you can't get under it; you go around it. She patted me on the head and said: That's right. I memorized my lessons. Yes, memorized my lessons. I loved to do it. I loved to be called on by the teachers. I liked my teachers. I had good teachers. They did not get paid much. Very little did they get paid, but they were dedicated teachers. We did not have any electricity in the house. We did not have any running water. If we wanted to go to the toilet, we had to go outside to a privy behind the house. No radio. Never heard of television. You see, that was in the twenties. I will never forget those books. Those history books, to a degree, shaped me to what I am today. They shaped me, they shaped my attitude, they shaped my outlook, and I came to want to be like James Madison or Webster or Clay or some other historical figure. Oh, yes, I had my sports hero. That was Babe Ruth or Jack Dempsey-- these are some years later. But history, history had an impact on me, may I say to my friend, Senator Kennedy. It had a decided impact on me when I was just a boy, 8 years old, 9 years old, 10 years old, and was a root of my ambition to try to make something out of myself. Mr. Byrd, who raised me, wanted me to go to school and to learn and to get a better education than he had been given. As I say, if he went to the second grade, I do not know that. He did not want me to be a coal miner. He wanted me to get an education. And in those days, when I graduated from high school in 1934, it was something to have a high school education. I heard it said by my elders: If you don't get a high school education, you are not going to amount to much, you are going to have a hard time. You have to have a high school education. We had great teachers, good high school teachers. W.J.B. Cormany, William Jennings Bryan Cormany, was the principal of the high school. When we moved out of that hollow, Wolf Creek Hollow in Mercer County and moved to a coal camp, I enrolled at the Mark Twain School. The principal of that school, when he learned that I could recite whole chapters from the history book, took me up before the senior class and had me perform for the senior class. Well, that kind of enhanced my reputation around the school--to be able to go up before the senior class and recite history. So, I loved my teachers. We were talking about teachers a minute ago. I often worked to be the best student in the class in order to please my teacher. David Reemsnyder, a huge man, when I was in junior high school, taught mathematics, Algebra, and geometry. I wanted to please him.

Mr. BYRD. Fryes.

Mr. BYRD. Muzzie.

Mr. BYRD. Yes.

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

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank both of my colleagues for their generous comments. I sat and marveled, with great admiration, at the recollections that were expressed by Senator Kennedy and at what he had to say today about some of the things that have happened in his great State as we try to contemplate the American Revolution, and then his comments concerning David McCullough; and his reference to John Adams. Some few years ago I read John Adams' ``Thoughts on Government.'' John Adams, I think, has been underestimated--or really has never been fully appreciated, as he should be. During the Constitutional Convention, he had had his ``Thoughts on Government'' printed and had passed this work around among the members of the convention. It had a great impact on the members and influenced them very much in their deliberations. I am glad that David McCullough, who is the right man for the job, is going to have this publication soon concerning John Adams, which leads me to say that knowing of David McCullough's interest in John Adams and knowing of John Adams' influence upon the Framers of the country, I have been interested in trying to get an appropriation for an appropriate monument to John Adams. I understand that David McCullough is also supporting and promoting that idea. I am very much for it. I thank Senator Kennedy for what he has said about John Quincy Adams. John Qunicy Adams suffered a stroke on February 23, 1848, as he spoke in Statuary Hall. He was a vigorous opponent of America's entry and participation in the Mexican war. He was making this very emotional speech, and he had a stroke. He was taken to the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and died 2 days later--John Quincy Adams. He was elected to nine terms in the House, after having served as President. Senator Kennedy, we are not supposed to address each other in the first person in this body, but I want to tell you, I really enjoyed what you had to say. I am glad that you have such an appreciation of American history and the great patriots who gave us the Constitution. Senator Kennedy is a student of history sui generis.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senate will soon vote on the conference report for the fiscal year 2002 budget resolution. I will vote against this conference report. This budget is a bad deal for America. It fails to address critical deficiencies in our Nation's schools, our Nation's highways, our Nation's drinking water and sewage systems, our Nation's law enforcement, and energy independence. The list goes on and on like Tennyson's brook--almost forever. Instead of addressing these deficiencies, instead of planning for the future, this is a budget resolution that places short-term, partisan political gratification ahead of the long-term needs of the Nation. This Nation faces daunting challenges--if you drove in just this morning to work, or yesterday morning, you can see what I am talking about, the daunting challenges that confront this country on the highways--in the next two decades. We will continue increasingly to face those daunting challenges. The baby boom generation will begin to retire around the year 2008. That is not far away. Because of the demands of that generation, both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are expected to be running in the red by 2016--15 years from now. Not a single dime--not one thin dime--is devoted to shoring up Social Security, and the resources allotted to Medicare and prescription drugs are totally inadequate. We know that 75 percent of our Nation's school buildings are inadequate to meet the needs of the Nation's children. But how many dollars are devoted to building and renovating school buildings? How many dollars are devoted to making classrooms smaller? Zero. Zilch. Zip. The American Society of Civil Engineers, earlier this spring, graded the Nation's infrastructure. How did we do? Abysmally. Roads, D+; aviation, D-; schools, D-; transit, D-; drinking water, D. Overall, in 10 different categories, the Nation's infrastructure received an average grade of D+. Now my old coal miner dad would have given me a good thrashing if I had brought home a report card with a D on it. I could have depended on that. Well, the dog must have eaten that report card on the way to the White House because this conference report ignores low grades on the Nation's infrastructure. Now the President--and I have great respect for the President--is fond of saying we ought to give the people their money back. I think we ought to give the people their money's worth. Instead of a massive tax cut today, we ought to look toward tomorrow and repair our outdated infrastructure. Instead of a massive tax cut today, we ought to help provide for safe highways and bridges, airports and transit systems that work, clean air, safe drinking water, safe schools. We ought to plan ahead to ensure that Social Security and Medicare will be available in the long term. The American people expect us to make smart choices. This conference report is not a smart choice. What is in this conference report? It contains a $1.35 trillion tax cut spread out over the next 11 years, based solely on an illusory surplus estimate that even the Congressional Budget Office considers highly unlikely. This budget also establishes discretionary spending levels that are totally inadequate and unrealistic. For the next fiscal year, the budget limits spending to a 4.2-percent increase. For nondefense programs, the level provided in the conference report is $5.5 billion below the level necessary to keep pace with inflation. Now I am wearing my Appropriations Committee hat today. I am the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Let me say to my colleagues, you will be coming to the waterhole--I think of the animals in the forest. Occasionally, they have to go to the waterhole. They can't avoid it. And so the people of this country have to go to the waterhole. The waterhole is the Appropriations Committees of the two Houses. And Senators and House Members who represent the people who elect them and send them here also have to go to that waterhole, the Appropriations Committee. Well, I am wearing my appropriations hat today. Let me say to my colleagues, if you vote for this budget conference report, don't come to the watering hole. It is not that I would not love to help you, but you are going to make it impossible. Those who vote for this conference report are going to make it impossible for me and for the Appropriations subcommittee ranking members to help you. Hear me: I would love to help you, but you are going to make it impossible when you vote for this conference report, because you are going to cut discretionary spending levels to the point that we cannot help you. Again, for nondefense programs, the level provided in the conference report is $5.5 billion below the level necessary to keep pace just with inflation. This level will leave no resources for increases that we all recognize are necessary for education, for infrastructure, for research and development, and for the promotion of our energy independence. We have an energy shortage in this country right now--rolling brownouts. You are going to hear more about them. But what are we doing about it? We are not doing anything positively in this budget conference report. I will tell you what we are doing. We are cutting the moneys for basic research--fossil fuel research--in the budget. The increases being debated on the floor for elementary and secondary education cannot be fully funded. The resolution provides for an increase of less than $13 billion above fiscal year 2001 for all nondefense programs. The elementary and secondary education bill now pending in the Senate assumes over $10 billion in increases for fiscal year 2002 just for elementary and secondary education programs alone. And all we have is less than $13 billion. Members should be under no illusions. The budget conference report is not the budget resolution that passed the Senate 65-35 last month. Several of our Democratic colleagues voted for that, and a great majority on the other side did so, too. But you are not voting today for that concurrent resolution on the budget that you voted for a couple of weeks ago on this Senate floor. For fiscal year 2002 alone, the conference report you will be voting for today is $27 billion below the resolution that passed the Senate a few days ago--$10 billion lower for defense and $17 billion lower for nondefense. Now the President has called this a ``people's budget.'' Imagine that. The President called this a ``people's budget.'' I would almost laugh out loud if it weren't so serious. Imagine that--the President calling this a ``people's budget.'' Well, that may be true if your definition of ``the people'' is limited to those lucky individuals who earn six-figure salaries. If you limit ``the people'' in your State to those who are spending their mornings sipping Starbucks coffee and perusing the Wall Street Journal to check on the status of their stocks and bonds, then you are talking about the people. It may be a people's budget if the people are limited to those lucky souls who spend their winters in the Bahamas and their summers on a Caribbean cruise. But this is not a people's budget for the coal miners, not for the locomotive engineers, not for the brakemen on the railroads, not for the cleaning ladies, not for the schoolteachers. It is not a people's budget for the folks flipping hamburgers for minimum wage. Ask them. They are the people, too, and they have been left out, o-u-t, and left behind in this whale of a deal for the well-to-do. President Bush, the President of all the people of the Nation, says: It's a good budget for the working people of America. He said it. I didn't say that. That may be true if your definition of ``working'' means calling your broker on your cell phone to tell him to put another million on titanium futures. That may be true if your definition of ``working people'' is the folks who hop in their Learjets to check out their business interests on three continents. In my State of West Virginia, we know who the working people are. The working people are the people who earn their living by the sweat of their brow. They are the people who get up early and stay up late trying to make ends meet. They are the working people. They are the people who get their hands dirty while trying to feed their families. Those are the working people. Working people are the teachers struggling on low pay in a hot classroom while trying to impart some wisdom to our Nation's children. The working people are the cops on the beat who risk their lives daily and nightly, who try to keep some order in these mean and dangerous streets and alleys. Working people are the coal miners who end up crippled, who end up sick after long, long years of digging coal from the rugged Earth to produce the electricity for this Senate Chamber, and to produce the electricity for this Nation. They are the people who get their hands dirty. They are the people who wash the grime, the coal dust out of their eyelashes, out of the wrinkles in their faces, grown old too early. They are the working people. Mr. President, they are the working people, the coal miners, the welders in the shipyard, the produce salesmen in the country, the farmers who toil in the hot Sun of the June and July and August days. They are the working people, Mr. President. They are not the people Mr. Bush is talking about. The President lauds this budget. He says it contains ``reasonable levels of spending.'' That may be true if you think that costing the American driving public nearly $6 billion a year because one-third of this Nation's roads are in poor condition, is ``reasonable.'' Why don't we fix America's roads? If you think highway congestion is bad now, what will it be 5 years from now? Those of you who spent an hour and 10 minutes yesterday morning to drive ten miles to work in this Capitol, if you think congestion is bad now, think of what congestion will be 5 years from now. What will it be 10 years from now? The President calls the spending levels in this budget ``reasonable.'' In this Nation, we have so many unsafe or obsolete bridges that it will cost $10.6 billion every year for the next 20 years to fix them. We have 54,000 drinking water systems which will cost $11 billion to make them comply with Federal water regulations. We have more than 2,100 unsafe dams in this country. Do we recall Buffalo Creek Dam in southern West Virginia? It broke several years ago. Scores of lives were lost. And there are 2,100 unsafe dams in this country today which could cause loss of life. We have energy delivery systems which rely on old technology. We have outdated and crumbling schools which will require $3,800 per student to modernize. This budget provides little or no money to address any of these needs. It allows for current services adjusted for inflation for all discretionary programs, including defense. Do you know what that means? But for nondefense programs, the conference report is $5.5 billion below the amount necessary to keep pace with inflation. It means this Nation is essentially frozen in its ability to address backlogs or to anticipate needs. The backlogs are worsening, and the needs are going unaddressed because the funding levels endorsed by this White House are far too low. Anyone who calls these levels ``reasonable'' needs a reality check. Take off the rose-colored glasses, Mr. President; take them off, and once the warm cheery glow of tax cut fever has subsided, we will still have a nation that is very steadily sliding backwards. This huge tax cut will savage our nation's real and growing needs; it will siphon energy away from the engine that makes this economy run; it will benefit the jet set, but leave the rest of America's riding on rusty rails. There is nothing ``reasonable'' about such a policy. I am also very concerned that this conference report does nothing to address the growth of mandatory spending. The President claims that he wants to restrain the size of Government, but his budget focuses only on limiting the part of the budget that is subject to the annual appropriations process. That is only one-third of the budget, and growing smaller by the day. The rest of the budget is on auto pilot. I assure Senators that discretionary spending will not be the cause of any future deficits. It we return to deficits--and we very well could--it will be because of the massive tax cuts contained in this conference report and the growth of mandatory programs. Discretionary spending is currently only 6.3 percent of the gross domestic product, less than half of what it was in 1967. Under the Budget resolution, it would fall to 5 percent by 2011. Mandatory spending is currently 9.7 percent of GDP, more than double the level in 1966 and under the Budget conference report, mandatory spending will grow to 11 percent of GDP in 2011. Not only does this resolution not constrain mandatory spending, it includes seven new reserves that empower the House and Senate Budget Committee chairmen to increase spending for mandatory programs. I have a great deal of faith in our budget chairman, Mr. Domenici, and I have seen all the budget chairmen we have had in the Senate since the Budget Act became law, but I do not care if it is a Republican or Democrat chairman, I do not support giving that kind of power to any budget chairman, Democrat or Republican. I would not want it myself if I were a chairman. I am very concerned that these powers which are being given to the Budget Committee chairmen will be used in a partisan way. This budget resolution was produced in negotiations between White House officials and the Republican leadership. There was no involvement--none--of the Democratic Leadership or the ranking members of the House and Senate Budget Committees. To add insult to injury, this Budget Resolution would empower the Budget Committee chairmen to allocate funding to mandatory programs with no assurances that the minority will be consulted. This is just one more example of the one-sided nature of this Budget Resolution. But as Milton said in Paradise Lost ``who overcomes by force has overcome but half his foe.'' There is no balance in this budget. It is tipped too far to the tax cut side. As a see-saw, it lifts some people up with generous tax givebacks, but it leaves this nation's needs sitting firmly on the ground. It is a ``for show'' budget designed to please a select group, and it was gussied up and trotted out by one party from behind locked doors. Since January's inauguration, we have heard plenty of lip service being paid to bipartisanship. Lip service. We have all heard the mantra that the tone of Washington is being changed. You better believe--it is not being changed. We have seen the photo-ops of Democrats being courted at the White House. All 535 Members of the House and Senate were invited to the White House a few days ago. All 535 Members. What a sham. That was to be a photo op. Nothing more, nothing less. What a sham. What hypocrisy. This budget deal was crafted without input from the Democratic Leaders, or the Ranking Members of the House and Senate Budget Committees. When it was time for the rubber to meet the road, bipartisanship had a flat tire. Bipartisanship never was able to wiggle under the cracks in that door. Some Democrats may be willing to vote for this budget--they may be willing to sit at the President's table for this tax-cut feast. But, make no mistake, they were not in the kitchen when the meal was being cooked. They did not get to decide what went in the stew and what stayed out. The President, in his remarks congratulated the Republican Budget Committee chairmen of the House and the Senate. He congratulated the Republican Leaders of the Senate and the House. He lauds a few Democrats, but there is no mention in his remarks of the Democratic Leaders or the Ranking Members of the House and Senate Budget Committees. They were not privy to the budget pseudo-conference. There was no room for them at the inn. That is no accident. The plain unvarnished truth is that there has been barely a pinch of bipartisanship in the cooking of this final budget omelet, and the result certainly shows in the one-sided way the budget eggs were scrambled. There simply is not enough money to adequately fund the 13 appropriations bills, get that--there is not enough money to adequately fund the 13 appropriation bills, and so, once again, appropriators will have to scrimp and parse and cannibalize in order to do our work. For those Senators who vote for this budget deal, I say go ahead and write your press releases. Pat yourselves on the back. Tell your constituents how you voted to cut taxes. That is an easy vote. But don't forget to tell your constituents about the other side of that coin. Be sure and include that in your press release. Don't forget to tell your constituents that you voted to shortchange our schools, roads, and water systems; don't forget to include in your press release, that you voted for lower funding for health care and energy research; and be sure to include in your press releases that you turned a blind eye to the looming crises facing Social Security and Medicare. In 1981, we took what Majority Leader Howard Baker called a riverboat gamble with President Reagan's tax cut and we ended up with triple digit deficits for fifteen years. Now the Republican Leadership has forced upon us another bad deal. A deal that will reduce revenues, according to the Joint Tax Committee, by nearly $300 billion per year in 2011 and beyond at just the moment that the baby boom generation begins to retire. This conference report makes a mockery of the Budget Act because it undermines the purpose of the act. The Budget Act was intended to impose predictability and discipline. But the continual manipulation of the Budget Act to achieve political goals has made it a sham and a shame. Gimmicks and bad policy are the result--gimmicks and bad policy. The demands of a great nation have to be satisfied in spite of fantasy world budgets. The result will probably be that at the end of the process, yet another Budget Resolution will have been ignored because it had to be. It was never grounded in reality. In spite of the President's claims that he would change things in Washington, he has already succumbed to the same old partisan polo game, and the same old swap shop budget bingo we have seen for years. This conference report ought to be defeated. Mr. President, Senators who vote for this budget conference report, call your mother in advance of Mother's Day. If she is one of the baby boom generations, tell her you voted for this tax cut for the bigwigs. Tell her: ``Yes, mother, I voted for the Bush tax cut.'' But as to Social Security? There wasn't a dime in the bill for Social Security. Forget it. I close by this compliment from Milton from ``Paradise Lost,'' and I offer it to our budget ranking member, Kent Conrad. Well hast thou fought the better fight, whose single hast maintained against revolted multitudes the cause of truth.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, would the Chair kindly inform me when I have used 25 minutes of my time?

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I join the Senator from Indiana in welcoming to the Senate the Reverend Mr. Johnson. We are grateful for his presence and for his prayer. Tennyson said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. And the Bible tells us that blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord. Thank God for our forefathers who built this Nation on religious principles, who had faith in a higher power. If Providence had designs for this country and its people, may we never get away from the offering of prayer in the opening of the two bodies of the legislative branch of government. There are those in this country who would have us do away with that. May there always be men and women in this body and the other body who will stand for prayer, stand up for the Creator. I haven't seen Him, nor have I seen electricity. But I dare not put my finger in an open socket because I know it is there. I thank the Senator for having his minister in our midst this morning. May God add his blessings to the word that has been spoken for us.